Librarian's picks

[altivo]

One of my colleagues is making up a display of "Librarian's Picks" -- books that we personally enjoyed or recommend.

It was fun picking out a stack of favorites from the shelves for her. She asked for at least three (or more) each of fiction and non-fiction, and of course I couldn't limit myself to that. The selections are partly altered based on what was actually available on the shelf and looked nice enough for a display, so many older classics were disqualified (too worn out looking, alas.)

My Selections were as follows:

Poetry
Selected Poems of Robert Frost
Collected Poems of Robert W. Service
Selected Poems of Emily Dickinson
Selected Poems / Carl Sandburg
A Shropshire Lad / A. E. Housman
(I also wanted Thomas Hardy, but we apparently don't have him)

Adult Non-Fiction
The Pencil / Henry Petroski
The Nature of Horses / Stephen Budiansky
Sylvia's Farm / Sylvia Jorrin
Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain / Betty Edwards
(I also wanted Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder, but we don't have it)

Children's Fiction
Charlotte's Web / E. B. White
The Story of Dr. Dolittle / Hugh Lofting
A Wrinkle in Time / Madeleine L'Engle
The Wind in the Willows / Kenneth Grahame
Mattimeo / Brian Jacques (I wanted Redwall, but it's missing at the moment)

Adult Fiction
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell / Susanna Clarke
Moo / Jane Smiley
Possession / A. S. Byatt
WLT / Garrison Keillor
The Left Hand of Darkness / Ursula K. LeGuin
Going Postal / Terry Pratchett
The Great Gatsby / F. Scott Fitzgerald
Timothy, or Notes of an Abject Reptile / Verlyn Klinkenborg
(I wanted LeGuin's The Dispossessed, but we don't have it)

Comments

[keeganfox.livejournal.com]

Ooooh! Robert Frost sounds good, but I haven't read of any of the others... Is A Wrinkle in Time science fiction?

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I wanted to make a point of including poetry because I knew no one else would do that. Most people look like you just offered them a slice of moose turd pie when you suggest poetry. ;p

A Wrinkle in Time is more fantasy than science fiction, but sort of a mix between the two. It won a Newbery award, I'm pretty sure, and is the beginning of a trilogy that now actually has four books in it. Seems to be a fad, like Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide trilogy that has five books.

If you aren't the type that grows impatient with books written for teens or kids, you might well enjoy it. I warn you though that you'll end up having to read all three of the original books.

[typographer.livejournal.com]

When Mrs L'Engle wrote Wrinkle... (in 1959-60, published in '62), she didn't plan it as a trilogy. The first sequel, The Arm of the Starfish written in 1965 is often not even considered a part of it, since Meg and Calvin are grown up, married, and running a marine biology research facility at which the main character of the second book is an intern.

A Wind in the Door wasn't written until 1973. A Swiftly Tilting Planet, the so-called third book in the trilogy wasn't done until 1978. While Many Waters until 1986. Which gets us to five books in a series that was never conceived, by the author, as a trilogy...

...except I've skipped over A House Like a Lotus, An Acceptable Time, and Dragons in the Waters all featuring Polly, Meg & Calvin's eldest daughter, who is sort of the second lead of Arm of the Starfish.

Which also ignores the fact that in almost all of her fictions characters from other "series" pop up as supporting characters. So it's one gigantic universe.

Hardly a fad. :P

Oh, and yes, A Wrinkle In Time won the Newbury when it was first published.

(What? I only write essays on the history of literature of the fantastic, which I disguise as "editorials" in each issue of my furry fanzine... okay, okay, I'm also a big L'Engle fan.)

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I meant a "fad" in the sense that booksellers and publishers are referring to multiple series titles as "trilogies" regardless of the number of books. I did know that L'Engle never thought of these books in quite that way.

Arm of the Starfish and the others you mention are generally considered "adult" novels, while A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door, and A Swiftly Tilting Planet are considered "children's" works by most teachers and critics. Many Waters is often treated as the "young adult" story among all of them (actually it seemed quite an afterthought to me and I was rather disappointed after reading it.)

[songdogmi.livejournal.com]

Service, Frost, and Sandburg ... ah what a fine collection (and Dickinson's no slouch either).

Now I want to go home and read poetry, instead of stay at work and correct an index. (Then again, I think I'd rather have dental work done than correct this index. But poetry looks way more attractive than dental work.)

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I resisted the temptation to add Longfellow, Tennyson, Hopkins, and Shakespeare. ;p

When you suggest poetry to people, they usually look at you as if you just suggested that they go swimming in the sewer to cool off. It seems to be universally hated.

[songdogmi.livejournal.com]

It's easy, maybe facile, to say "they don't get it." But the severity of their allergic reaction makes one wonder why. It's not gonna bite!

I would've probably added cummings, but with the caveat that one must go beyond the most common examples of his work to see the true genius (because he's used so much in high school English classes it's almost a cliché).

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Actually I prefer William Carlos Williams to e. e. cummings.

I think part of the trouble with poetry is that people were forced to read it in school, by teachers who didn't really appreciate it either. They have the same reaction to Shakespeare's plays, and to classic authors like George Eliot and Jack London (hmm, I should add Call of the Wild to my stack.)

[songdogmi.livejournal.com]

The teaching has a lot to do with it. You're right about how similar the reactions are to poetry, Shakespeare, Dickens, and other classic authors. But students have to know there's more to literature than "The Lottery."

I don't know if the teaching of poetry has changed much from when I was in school. It seems that it would be helpful to the cause if they presented really good modern poetry -- even if they've all but discarded traditional forms, it can show a lot of what poetry is good for, and also prove that it's a living art that people today practice. Then go back and add in the classics for the necessary depth.

But it's probably like so many other things in school that kids and (maybe worse) parents say "When am I ever going to use THAT in real life?"

[altivo.livejournal.com]

It all comes down to having to think. People find thinking painful, and they avoid it just as assiduously as they avoid exercise. Poetry requires more thought and analysis in order to get "the good parts" out of it, and they'd rather just vegetate in front of the boob tube. No thought required.

[goldenstallion.livejournal.com]

Dear Rudder, er, Rider.

I have a few of these including "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" which I highly recommend for any artist/drawer, "The Nature of Horses" and "Charlotte's Web". I recognize few titles in the Adult Fiction category... and "The Wind in the Willows" is good as is one you did not list, "Watership Down".

Poetry-wise have some Robert Frost and Poe. I suggest Jack London is fun too, such as White Fang and his collected works, which I have.

No sci-fi shame on you. Foundation trilogy, Dune and sequels, anything basically by Asimov or Clarke.

No fantasy either. I suggest "Dragonlance Chronicles", "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, the "Dragon Riders of Pern" series and "Gaea". Of course some of these fit the sci-fi catagory at the same time.

Get twitterpated on art, bud, er, Rider. *wink*

Imp

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Well, I did mention that some books I would have included didn't make it because they were either checked out (Asimov) or so beaten up (Tolkien) that they wouldn't look "attractive" which is one of her criteria for the display.

I didn't think of Watership Down but it would be a good choice. I would include London but all our copies are missing or look like crap. Dragonlance and the Margaret Weis sort of thing mostly doesn't appeal to me. Violence, you know.

I also didn't want to be too heavily tilted toward fantasy and science fiction, because we are appealing to general readers here and most of them wouldn't touch something that was labeled as fantasy or scifi. However, the LeGuin, Pratchett, Clarke, and L'Engle are all fantasy or science fiction, depending on how you look at them. They are also (except possibly for Pratchett) crossovers in the sense that readers of ordinary fiction (the mysteries, thrillers, and domestic tales) can read them in most cases without thinking they are too weird.

[tinbender.livejournal.com]

Asking Librarians to give a list of three or more? I would think they'd make it something like twelve or less. I'm impressed that you limited yourself as much as you did. : )

I'm funny about poetry. For the most part, I don't like reading it, but I enjoy writing it.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Amusingly, my boss went out to make her selections this afternoon, after mine were already pulled from the shelf. She came back asking where a number of titles were, and most of them were already pulled because I had selected them.

Writing poetry is part of the exercise of understanding it. I'm surprised that you don't like reading it, or at least, reading writers who choose subjects of interest to you.

[tinbender.livejournal.com]

I suppose part of my dislike is because of reasons mentioned in your discussion with songdogmi above, but also part of it is the fact that a lot of it is supposed to be inspirational, and it never really has that effect on me. I dunno, maybe it's just me. I do tend to like the humorous and if it's done right, I like stories in verse as well, of course that would be what I tend to write.

I suppose my enjoyment of writing them comes from the fact that I look at it like working a puzzle. It's a challenge. I have to keep a cadence going and keep a rhyming pattern as well. There's just something about telling a story in such a manner, whether it's a limerick or ballad.

I also imagine the fact that I've had most of my writing success in poetry. I have a couple dozen limericks out there that are always being stolen, especially around St Patrick's Day. What strikes me the most odd about that is that all of them are transformation themed. I once even had one stolen and put on some writing group's web page as an example of how to write a limerick.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, I can see that writing poetry is kind of like solving a word puzzle.

Y'know, several of the furry oriented publications print poems regularly. Sofawolf uses them and I wouldn't be surprised if Bad Dog would consider them too if they were the kind that tell a story.

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

Jonathan Strange ay, what's that about?

Some of those sound interesting, and I must admit I'm a little prone to face fall on poetry. I know its terrible literary wise.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is an alternate history novel, set in England during the Napoleonic wars. At the beginning, it's acknowledged that England once had great wizards and magicians, but the knowledge has been lost. Norrell and Strange revive it, and use their powers to fight Napoleon. Unfortunately, magic has a steep price as they eventually learn.