Recap

I haven't been as good about keeping up with this blog as I would've liked.  There were so many times in the past month that I got inspired to write a post, but then got distracted and ended up not posting (the infographic on children's literacy is a good example of this).

I shall try to post at least once a week going forward, but I make no promises.

More Book Recommendations

I had a lot of fun writing yesterday's post about The Rotation, but it's not the only good book I've read so far this year.  One of my New Years Resolutions was to read every day and I've managed to do so thus far.  I'm pretty proud of that and of the 10 books I've finished.  Below is a selection of those books, listed in the order I read them.

• Death Comes to Pemberley by P. D. James - Pride & Prejudice is my favorite novel and I love the veritable cottage industry of sequels that has popped up recently.  I don't care what genre a novel is, if it's a Pride & Prejudice sequel I will read it (and probably like it if it's any good).  I'd heard good things about this sequel by acclaimed mystery author James and it didn't disappoint.  If anything, it made me want to re-read Pride & Prejudice for the sixth time.
• The Magician King by Lev Grossman - Thankfully I really enjoyed this even after the clusterfudge that was my attempt at borrowing it from my local library.  Of course, it would've been helpful if I had still remembered most of The Magicians when I read this.  Do you need to have read The Magicians to follow this story?  Not at all, but I kept getting annoyed at myself for not remembering things that I knew I should've.  These two books are often called "Harry Potter for grownups" and that's a valid description, but these books aren't as derivative as that makes them seem.
• The American Heiress by Daisy Goodwin - This is another book I'd heard a lot of good things about.  The novel takes place during the latter part of the Victorian era, at a time when it was incredibly common for rich American heiresses to marry into old English aristocratic families.  The English family got an influx of money and the American wife's often nouveau riche family got respectability.  The heroine is the richest heiress of her generation (and a Jane Austen fan, so I can't help but like her) and she is determined to make a love match, regardless of her mother's wishes.
• We Two: Victoria and Albert: Rulers, Partners, Rivals by Gillian Gill - I've been fascinated by Queen Victoria's relationship with Prince Albert since Victoria showed up as a character in an episode of Doctor Who.  Shortly after that episode aired I read a very positive review of this book, which I later asked for and received for my birthday.  Unfortunately, I didn't get around to reading this book for several years.  But the Crown Prince Bertie (eventually King Edward VII) was a character in The American Heiress, which somehow reminded me of this book that was still in a moving box.  I don't remember learning much about English history after the American colonies won their independence when I was in school, so I learned a lot from this book.  And the material is not presented in a dry, textbook sort of way, so that's another plus.

Other books I've really enjoyed this year include Stephenie Meyer's The Host, Shannon Hale's Austenland, and Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games.  (I read The Hunger Games in about seven hours at the beginning of Spring Break.  I can't wait for the semester to be over so I can read Catching Fire and Mockingjay.)

Book Recommendation: The Rotation

With all of my recent talk about reading, I figured it was high time I talked about the book I'm currently reading.  The Rotation, by Jim Salisbury and Todd Zolecki, is a behind-the-scenes look at the 2011 Phillies with a focus on the much vaunted pitching staff (the Legion of Arms, the Four Aces, R2C2, whatever you wanted to call them) and I highly recommend it.

The book came out on March 6, just as spring training games were starting, and I wasn't sure if I really wanted to read it.  As a Phillies fan, the end of the 2011 season was (and still is) a bad taste in my mouth.  Why would I want to torture myself by reading about all of the potential and the excitement and the ultimate disappointment?  Didn't I just live it?  But then I kept hearing (reading) good things about the book.  And I knew that I was a fan of both Zolecki and Salisbury, two longtime Phillies beat writers.

In the end, a combination of things convinced me to buy the book.  I suppose you'd call the first thing morbid curiosity.  The second was an overwhelming desire to read a baseball book because Opening Day was fast approaching (and I mean actual Opening Day, not that series in Japan that barely counts because most people don't know it happened).  Unfortunately, I didn't have any unread baseball books.  But then my college roommate randomly gave me an Amazon gift card, solving that problem.

Regardless of why I decided to buy the book, I'm glad I did.  It is fascinating.  The peeks into the clubhouse that fans can never hope to get without somehow becoming baseball writers.  The full story of the Cliff Lee deal that brought him back to the City of Brotherlee (yes, that's intentional) Love and set up the whole crazy 2011 season.  Honestly, the Cliff Lee story alone was worth the price of the book for me.  Like most Phillies fans, I can still vividly recall Cliff Lee Day, December 14, 2010; it was a very good day.  But even knowing that the story had a happy ending, I found myself getting stressed out when reading the full tale.  I'd had no idea just how many stops and starts there were in the negotiations.

It's also fun to be reminded of things I'd read last year.  Roy Oswalt accidentally electrocuting himself and, he believes, magically healing his shoulder.  How Vance Worley began to transform himself into the Vanimal by writing "f*** you" inside his cap.  Carlos Ruiz's excellent talent for mimicry.

The book is even proving a balm for my frazzling nerves.  It's funny now to read about the Phillies' anemic offense last April.  "Their 3.25 runs per game in that 16-game stretch [from April 10-27] ranked second-to-last in the National League" (Salisbury & Zolecki, 2012, p. 138).  Of course, last year's team still managed to win ballgames and stay over .500.  They were even in first place on April 27th.  This year's team is currently 3-5 (and being under .500 is a very strange thing in this Golden Age of Phillies Baseball).  The lesson, of course, is that it could be worse (I remember being so frustrated with last year's team).  And when we get Ryan Howard and (hopefully) Chase Utley back, things will only get better.

Like I said, I highly recommend The Rotation to all baseball fans in general and Phillies fans in particular. I think there's even something in it for people who couldn't care less about baseball.


Salisbury, J., & Zolecki, T. (2012). The rotation: A season with the Phillies and one of the greatest pitching staffs ever assembled. Philadelphia: Running Press.

Reading Books Can Save Your Life

I stumbled across this blog post by A.J. Jacobs, author of Drop Dead Healthy, today.  In the book, Jacobs tries "to become the healthiest person alive" (Jacobs, 2012, para. 1).  Part of his quest involved determining whether activity X was healthy.  According to Jacobs, meditating, napping, and petting dogs are all healthy activities.  Sitting, on the other hand, is "definitely not" (Jacobs, 2012, para. 2) healthy.

One activity not covered in his book is reading, so that was the focus of his blog post.

Is reading healthy?  Well, it isn't bad for your eyes, so there's that.  Jacobs also discusses Annie Murphy Paul's New York Times piece that I discussed here and points out that reading is good for your brain and makes us better human beings.  Unfortunately, there are piles of research that show that sitting is bad for you, "like a Paula Deen bacon doughnut bad" (Jacobs, 2012, para. 10).  Since most people sit while reading, that's a bad thing.  Jacobs advocates reading standing up (or even walking on a treadmill), but realizes that most people can't or won't follow that advice.  He recommends fidgeting while reading.

I have to wonder if Jacobs has spent any time with a fidgety person.  A friend and former coworker of mine is the most fidgety person I have ever met.  It's like he has daytime restless leg syndrome.  I love him to death, but his constantly moving legs are distracting and often annoying.  (Of course, he's also one of the skinniest people I know, so maybe there is something to this whole fidgeting thing.)  I can't imagine working in an office full of fidgeting people.  As for myself, it turns out that fidgeting doesn't come naturally to me.  While writing this post I've had to make a conscious effort to fidget in my chair.  I think the only hope for me is to listen to music while sitting, because I catch myself dancing in my chair all the time.  But I don't think librarianship will offer me the same sort of opportunities to spend entire workdays with earbuds in and iPod on that I had as an accountant.

The most interesting parts of the post to me, though, were the stories of reading saving lives.  Teddy Roosevelt suffered a flesh wound in 1912 after being shot in the chest at point-blank range.  How did he survive?  "The bullet was slowed by his reading glasses case and the manuscript of the speech itself" (Jacobs, 2012, para. 5).  Additionally, Ernest Shackleton took the entire Encyclopaedia Britannica on his trip to Antarctica and "ended up burning the volumes to keep from freezing" (Jacobs, 2012, para. 6).  Personally, I'd be much more interested in knowing why Shackleton took such a heavy and seemingly unnecessary thing as an entire encyclopedia to Antarctica.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Jacobs comes to the conclusion that books are good for your health.  I have to say that I agree.


Jacobs, A. J. (2012, April 12). A.J. Jacobs on why reading books can save your life [blog post]. Retrieved from http://www.omnivoracious.com/2012/04/aj-jacobs-on-why-reading-books-can-save-your-life.html

Children's Literacy

Apparently March was National "March into Literacy" Month.  My college roommate posted an infographic on Facebook during March that I had meant to include here, but I kept forgetting.  It may not be March anymore, but that doesn't mean children's literacy is any less important.  Actually, since Harry Potter is a large part of the graphic and JK Rowling's next book was announced today, it almost seems fitting to write about this today.

The infographic, below, celebrates the most loved children's books and was put together by the Master of Arts in Teaching program at the University of Southern California.

My friend shared this infographic because she thought it was pretty awesome.  I agree, but at the same time some of the facts really make me cringe (see, for example: 2008 - only 24% of 13-year-olds and 17-year-olds report reading on their own for fun).  When I mentioned that, her response was that it was up to the future librarians and reading specialists (in other words, us) to save the world :)  I get her point, but that's a little too much pressure to put on me (at least).  Maybe that's why I have no real interest in being a school librarian.

Regardless of what type of librarian one is, I think all librarians believe in the importance of literacy.  And some of the facts included below are good to have in one's back pocket to quantify just how important literacy really is.

 
Via MAT@USC: Become a Teacher

Your Brain on Fiction (article)

This morning I came across a link for an op-ed that appeared in Sunday's New York Times entitled "The Neuroscience of Your Brain on Fiction."  In the article, Annie Murphy Paul gathers the results of several recent neuroscience studies in which "brain scans are revealing what happens in our heads when we read a detailed description, an evocative metaphor or an emotional exchange between characters" (Murphy Paul, para. 2).  She cites several studies that have found that certain types of words activate more than just the language-processing areas of our brains.  For example, words with strong odor associations ("cinnamon") activate the primary olfactory cortex, metaphors involving texture ("the singer had a velvet voice") activate the sensory cortex, and words describing motion ("Pablo kicked the ball") activate the motor cortex.  Even more amazingly, with motion words "this activity was concentrated in one part of the motor cortex when the movement described was arm-related and in another part when the movement concerned the leg" (Murphy Paul, para. 5).

All of these findings from the neuroscience research are fascinating in and of themselves, but the real appeal of the article for me was the way Ms. Murphy Paul used the research to support reading fiction in general and novels in particular.  In fact, the article's pro-fiction stance was the reason I read the article in the first place and then sent the link to my college roommate (who is currently studying to become a reading specialist).

The article almost made me feel guilty for the fact that I'm currently reading a biography and not a novel :)  In my defense, though, it's a biography of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert and I have been fascinated by the two of them for years.  Plus, I (finally) just read The Hunger Games in a matter of hours, so it's not like I've been neglecting fiction.  On the contrary, I'm far more likely to read fiction than nonfiction.

The last pair of studies cited in the article found that "individuals who frequently read fiction seem to be better able to understand other people, empathize with them and see the world from their perspective" (Murphy Paul, para. 9).  Ms. Murphy Paul closed the article by noting that "these findings will affirm the experience of readers...who have found themselves comparing a plucky young woman to Elizabeth Bennet" (Murphy Paul, para. 11) and in doing so managed to combine my love of novels in general and Pride and Prejudice (and Lizzie Bennet) in particular with my fascination with the human brain.


Murphy Paul, A. (2012, March 17). The neuroscience of your brain on fiction. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/opinion/sunday/the-neuroscience-of-your-brain-on-fiction.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2

Ten Ways to Make Yourself Indispensable (article)

The title of the last article in the current issue of Information Outlook, "Ten Ways to Make Yourself Indispensable," caught my attention.  In fact, it almost brought me up short.  For the simple fact that I've read countless business articles that give the same advice: avoid becoming indispensable.

In the business world, the logic is that your boss won't promote you or support your quest for a new position if he or she considers you indispensable.  After all, who else could possibly perform your (current) job as well as you do?  I don't know how often that really happens.  I've been lucky to have bosses who supported my efforts to climb the corporate ladder (and believe you me, I was pretty much indispensable).  Now that I think about it, though, maybe that's the reason my former director (boss's boss) refused to promote me: she thought I was indispensable in Suspense.  (Yes, I know it sounds weird, but I promise you that suspense is an accounting thing.)  I even had a boss who kept trying to push me up the corporate ladder by encouraging me to apply for a job I really didn't want.  Instead, I quit and moved to Florida (go figure).

Whether the assertion that indispensable employees don't get promoted is true is beside the point.  I've read it quite a few times (all in the four years since I moved to Florida) and it stuck with me.  So you can see why I found an article that not only promoted becoming indispensable but also gave tips on how to do so surprising.  But then I thought about it in the context of libraries and the current economic downturn and I could see the logic behind making one's special library indispensable.

Except that wasn't Abram's point.  "Remember, this isn't about protecting the library, but about communicating your value as a librarian" (Abram, 2012, p. 30).  Several of his tips boil down to keep your skills current and, if possible, become a SME (subject matter expert) in something that will distinguish you from your coworkers.  He also suggests taking on new tasks as a way of networking within your company and "excel[ing] in an area in which your boss is weak" (Abram, 2012, p. 31).  I suppose I can see his reasoning for advocating that librarians become indispensable to their organizations.  But I'm having trouble seeing the difference between making oneself valuable as a librarian and making one's library valuable.  Especially since this article's audience was special librarians and many (if not most) special librarians work in one-person libraries.  I don't see how the powers that be at a company can separate a librarian from his or her one-person library.

Whether or not one is able to promote one's value independently of one's library's value, I think Abram's main point of becoming indispensable is a good one.  In an Information Age, it seems almost silly that a librarian has to prove his or her value, but that is the world we live in.  If we want libraries (especially small, corporate libraries) to continue, librarians have to become indispensable.


Abram, S. (2012, January/February). Ten ways to make yourself indispensable. Information Outlook, 16(1), 30-31.