Pam Webb

a writer's journey as a reader

Archive for the tag “libraries”

02 Jan 2013
3 Comments

Pass the Marple Syrup


Cover of "A Murder Is Announced (Winterbr...

Cover via Amazon

Although I do enjoy a mystery now and then I must ,with some embarrassment, confess I hadn’t read an Agatha Christie until most recently. Shocking, I know.  After all, Dame Christie is the Queen of Mystery.  That reason why I hadn’t read any of her books was my contentment to experience the film adaptations.

That is until I watched A Murder Is Announced.  

This particular series stars Geraldine McEwan as Miss Marple, and while I have no real complaint with her portrayal, I do have concerns over other liberties. For one, Miss Marple is well-known for her ditzy little old lady approach to solving crimes, which makes the juxtaposition all the more interesting, for who would think this sweet spinster who continually knits has a mind sharp enough to see past the obvious and solve what the detectives can’t?

Exactly.

When something is seasoned right, don’t add more spice.  Or in this case, let’s pass on making the Miss Marple sweeter for modern audiences.  For instance, Miss Marple is classified primarily as a cozy mystery, meaning the murders are more mystery than gory. Also, Miss Marple plots tend to be conservative, not straying too far in social issues. Then there is the main personality of  Miss Marple who is known for her prudent, if not prudish manner and values.   With all that said, it is perplexing why the McEwan series takes viewers on such a darker path than Christie ever did.  This series includes topics not overtly addressed in the books: incest, homosexuality, racism, feminism, religion.  The addition of these spicier elements does not improve the plot, and actually detracts from it.  There is also the suggestion Miss Marple had an affair with a married man in her younger days. All these extras did not entice me to continue with the series; it actually quelled my interest in continuing.  It’s as if the producers felt a good solid mystery wouldn’t be enough for modern audiences.

 

At this point you might be wondering how I know about what Christie had or didn’t have in her books if I hadn’t read them.  Easy–I consulted an expert.  ET, my local librarian and mystery aficionado, assured me Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple series did not focus on those previously mentioned topics, and she’s read them twice.  After watching A Murder Is Announced I read it for myself. Already knowing the identity of the murderer rather spoiled the read, but I was actually reading for comparison.   They should have stuck to the original plot.

While I might read more of Agatha Christie I will have to be careful not to read those which I’ve watched.  Nothing spoils a good whodunnit more than knowing whodiddit. Then there is the fact I very much prefer Hercules Poirot, especially David Suchet’s studied performance of the Belgium detective. The little grey cells find his plots decidedly delicious and there are extra sweeteners in Suchet’s series.

Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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Posted in Books, Movies, reviews and tagged , , , , ,
13 Nov 2012

Bibble, Bobble, Wibble, Wobble


Poor Vera–her state of mind and mood often is a reflection of mine.  After my push week of PTCs and then a weekend of flu my creative verve is very much swerving like a tipsy ballerina on a wet dance floor.  To elucidate, my words are slipping all over the place.

Out of the 2,406 words I posted today I really only like this snippet: Books can be the best friends in the world.  I can find them waiting for me on a shelf no matter where we move to.

You see, Vera, my NaNo protagonist has the misfortune of having a set of parents who tend to move often because her mother Sylvia likes a change of scenery.  This means a lot of adjusting and readjusting for Vera.  Which means making friends is not easy for her.  However, she finds solace in books.  Like me, Vera long ago discovered all kinds of friends are waiting to be made at the library.  They are there waiting patiently on the shelves, just waiting for someone to discover them.

So my Thirteenth NaNo post is a bit of a bobble, a slip of a wobble, yet the main dance move, the main step is in place and that is books are always there for you.

Happy Pages (and I’m 22,000+ invested in NaNo–drat, where’s the Haagen Daz when you need it?)

Posted in Blogging, Libraries, Reading, Writing and tagged , , , | Leave a comment
04 Oct 2012
3 Comments

Continium of Encouragement to Read: BB Week #6


As a librarian at heart and an English teacher for career, with a side of writer squeezed in, I positively adore books. My blog is primarily about books and I keep a running list of unabashed Book Boosters.  Here is a slew of posters, banners, and stickers that encourage reading.  BtW: celebrate Banned Book Week with a good read, or maybe a bad read–it’s all a matter of perspective, isn’t it?

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Posted in Literature, Reading, Uncategorized, Writing and tagged , , ,
01 Oct 2012
2 Comments

BB Week Hits the Big Three-Oh: BB Week #5


ALA Seal

ALA Seal (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

There is something about hitting 30 that makes one sit up and say, “Okay, let’s get serious about this.”  Birthdays, marriages, and events take on that seriously, folks, tone.  And so it is with Banned Books Week.  This year marks its thirtieth and with that triple decade mark here are three commemorative aspects of BB Week.

1.  Did your state participate?  The American Library Association‘s Office for Intellectual Freedom coordinated a “50 State Salute.”  Check out the video and the following details to see how your state participated. For more information:  www.ala.org/bbook

Banned Books Week Video Map: Click on a state to view the BB video

2.  Take a good look at the of the last thirty years to see what books were challenged, banned, or censored and for what reason.

BB Timeline

3.  For the second year in a row readers who know the value of being free to read [I call them Book Boosters (see the masthead link to sign up)] can promote the importance of reading by posting a two-minute video of yourself reading. These videos will be featured on a special  Banned Books Week Virtual Read-Out YouTube channel. For details on how to create your reading video, click here.

Banned Books Week: The Need to Read–it’s about choice and having the right to make it

Bookmans, a bookstore in Arizona makes this clear in their BB Week video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cb8mBGjsU5A&feature=relmfu

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26 Sep 2012

What’s Read, Black, and Blue? :BB Week #3


Cover of "Kindle Wireless Reading Device,...

Cover via Amazon

As a former librarian (who am I kidding-I’m forever a librarian at heart), I embrace books. Reading them, writing them, discussing them, critiquing them, promoting them, yet being beaten up, imprisoned, or possibly dying for them is as they say, “I don’ t remember this being in the job description.”
The following is a reblog which originally came to my attention by way of my fab librarian cohort in all things bookish (shout out to ET). Although Banned Book Week is focused on books, it is important to remember librarians are the ones who put the books on the shelves so we can get them in our hands, hearts, and minds. I salute those brave Cuban librarians, as well as all librarians who face adversity while trying to protect intellectual freedom.

Here is a partial of the Cuban librarian post and you can click on the link to read more:

Kindle Users Arrested

HAVANA, Aug. 24, 2012 (Roberto de Jesús Guerra Pérez/Hablemos Press) – On Friday the Cuban secret police pursued and arrested librarians who had attended a technology workshop at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana.

[Note by the Friends of Cuban Libraries: the Obama administration recently enacted a program to donate hi-tech equipment such as Kindle e-book readers to Cuba’s independent librarians and other activists. This move greatly expands Cubans’ access to banned materials and evades the occasional seizure of bulky printed materials carried in the luggage of volunteers arriving at Cuban airports.]

The arrests occurred in the streets adjacent to the Interests Section when the librarians, about 20 in number, were returning to their homes.

“The workshop in which we were participating was on how to use an Amazon Kindle,” commented Lázara Mijan, who was able to escape the police roundup, together with Magaly Norvis Otero and Julio Beltrán.

Among the detainees are Juan Antonio Madrazo Luna, Julio Rojas Portal and Mario Echevarría Driggs. Two Kindles were confiscated from each of the latter two persons, in addition to cameras, personal documents and user manuals for the Kindle DX….

“The police operation was big, very big. Many State Security agents were scattered in Ladas [Soviet-era cars] and motorcycles everywhere in the streets near the Interests Section; it was a miracle that some of the librarians were able to evade arrest,” said Driggs, after he was released from custody….

The Cuban regime classifies the independent librarians and dissidents as counterrevolutionaries at the service of the U.S. government. In 2003, more than 20 librarians were arrested and sentenced to prison terms of between 5 and 20 years, and their library collections were confiscated and burned.

Reblogged from PC Sweeney’s Blog:

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Posted in Books, creativity, Literature, Reading, technology, Uncategorized, Writing and tagged , , , , | Leave a comment
24 Jul 2012
8 Comments

#8: TBRs Awaiting In The Wings


I have three books by the nightstand, I just finished two audio novels, and two books are patiently tucked wating their turn in my library bag.  As the saying goes:

image: Highsmith.com

I can’t imagine not having a book ready and waiting for me.  And as the clock suggests, I feel time is fleeting in terms of getting around to all my TBR books.  I have had to stop writing down book suggestions from other bloggers since my list has grown longer than my left leg.  Contending with my prior list of must-get-tos is causing me to wonder what would happen if I stopped everything that wasn’t absolutely pertinent and simply read.  Rod Serling asked the same question back in 1959.

Witness Mr. Henry Bemis, a charter member in the fraternity of dreamers. A bookish little man whose passion is the printed page, but who is conspired against by a bank president and a wife and a world full of tongue-cluckers and the unrelenting hands of a clock. But in just a moment, Mr. Bemis will enter a world without bank presidents or wives or clocks or anything else. He’ll have a world all to himself…without anyone.

“Time Enough at Last” is  episode that deals with Henry Bemis who would much prefer reading to working as a bank teller or spending time with his wife. He gets his wish, only with a dark twist.  The episode has been much parodied over the years and it makes me ever so glad that I am near-sighted after all.

As for my TBR list, it’s daunting; I’ve divided it up into categories to help sort it out.  Maybe if I take one read from each category and move through the list I can get to the top of the list by the year’s end.  Sounds like I’m either trying to make a resolution or a concession.  Maybe I should get back to my reading.  Any of these on your TBR list?  How many are awaiting in the wings for you?

Classical Works:
The Iliad, Tartuffe, The Misanthrope

Realistic Works:
Crime and Punishment, Anna Karenian, A Doll’s House

Romanatic Works:
Don Quixote, Les Miserables, Faust

Impressionistic Works:
Heart of Darkness, The Awakening

Naturalistic Works:
Metamorphosis, Dubliners

This list comes courtesy from one of my AP resource books.  Looking it over I have decided I am fairly illiterate and must get busy.  To make myself feel a bit better I have read many of the suggested work, but I am still way behind.

Getting to these TBRs doesn’t give me too much opportunity to read the likes of a Hunger Game when it comes about.  Those count too, right?

Fortunately, I am not derided for being a “reader” as was Henry Bemis.  And I hope I won’t get my wish for more time in the manner of Henry.  Until then there is summer vacation, my hammock, and my understanding family.

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Posted in Books, education, Reading, Uncategorized and tagged , , , , , , ,
11 Apr 2012
11 Comments

National Library Week


National Library Week.  You gotta love the library.  I know I do.  I celebrate the library all year long, not just one week out of the year.  My hometown library is fabulous.  First off, our library is always busting out busy, yet there is always a place to park and I so appreciate how I can pull up and pop in my checkouts because the return box is conveniently placed near the building.  Secondly, we have a larger-than-life statue of Abraham Lincoln in the foyer. How cool is that?  Honest Abe, who we all know was a definite Book Booster is right there greeting each and every patron who enters the door.  Thirdly, the foyer always has a group of kids hanging out.  Being a teacher I certainly enjoy seeing my students, past and present (and maybe some future ones) relaxing  in a safe place that welcomes them. Our library has a wonderful kids program ranging from preschool to high school.  Kids are a valued aspect of our local library.  But the reason above all reasons I love my local library is they know me on a first name basis.  This cartoon is me going to the library.  No kidding.

I have librarians who email me new book read suggestions, and will actually buy my requests instead of just inter-library loan order them.  Love my library! Oh, yes indeed I do.  Check out this link if you love your library.

You belong on atyourlibrary.org this National Library Week | American Libraries Magazine.

For fun here is a tribute to libraries:

  

 

Oh, by the way…if you haven’t become a Book Booster yet, there is still room on the list.

Well, gotta run.  My library closes in fifteen minutes and I have a book on hold.

Blue Skies,

CricketMuse

Posted in Books, Reading and tagged , ,
05 Feb 2012
13 Comments

Are you a Book Booster?


Do you love books too?

Do you have favorites you read, recommend, and even re-read?

Are you a frequent flyer at the local library?

Are you an on-line regular of book sites, be they promoting to buy, review, or boast books?

Perchance you operate on a need to read basis–you have to have a book in hand, by the bed, stashed in the car, or have one nestled in the backpack.

You then, my friend, are a Book Booster.  And you are in good company.  Add your name to the list and welcome to the shelf of those who appreciate and advance the cause of books.

Click “like” and happy page turning!

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