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January 27, 2011

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Eating Animals, With a Side of Transliteracy

I know many of you have been gripping the edges of your seats in suspense, white-knuckled, wondering what has become of my quest to avoid meat! Well, I’ve taken your suggestions and browsed lots of excellent vegetarian cookbooks: World Vegetarian by Madhur Jaffrey, Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison, How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman. I’ve also gone against your explicit advice not to read Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer.

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I picked up Eating Animals. I’d really enjoyed Everything is Illuminated after hearing Foer read from it at a tiny bookstore in St. Paul in 2003. I associate his writing style with lush, almost giddy romanticism, and thought, “well, that plus vegetarianism, sounds warm and fuzzy.” Readers: Eating Animals is not warm and fuzzy.

What it is is two things mostly: a philosophical exercise, and an exposé on factory farming. I really loved it, and recommend it to anyone who’s morbidly curious about the gruesome underbelly of industrial-scale farming. Foer really crystallized my desire to stop eating meat, and freaked me out about eggs and dairy while he was at it! But I’m not here to proselytize, so I just want to briefly critique two aspects of the book as a whole — one thing that I didn’t like very much, and another that I absolutely loved. Continue reading →

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Rachel

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January 17, 2011

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Booklists & Reviews, Guest Posts

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Poetrying Your Way Through the Public Library

Many thanks to poet and birth doula V. Wetlaufer for penning this guest post on poetry & public libraries! V. is a Lambda Literary Fellow, the author of two chapbooks — Scent of Shatter and Bad Wife Spankings — and her poetry has appeared in Drunken Boat, Word Riot and Bloom. She also blogs regularly at The V-Spot.

I owe my start in poetry writing to my undergraduate college’s library. Crossett Library is small, but what they lack in numbers they make up for in the quality of their collection. I was in my regular library carrel, where I went to complete all my schoolwork senior year, writing a paper for a literature class, when I decided I needed a break. Off to the shelves I went to find a collection of poetry. I randomly selected a collection of Adrienne Rich’s poetry and opened the volume at random. So moved by her work was I that, having never written a poem before, I scribbled my very first poem inspired by a book plucked at random from the shelves.

I’m fortunate enough these days to live in a city with a fantastic public library, Salt Lake City, as well as a truly incredible university library I rely on for my PhD program. However, I am always saddened when I turn to a library to feed my poetry needs and the poetry collection is sadly lacking. I am especially sad when there is a dearth of contemporary poetry. I am a huge fan of poetry from Chaucer to Wordsworth, Whitman and Eliot and everyone in between, but I believe that the best way for the majority of people to encounter poetry for the first time is through contemporary work. Continue reading →

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Rachel

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January 14, 2011

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I Swear This Happened at the Public Library

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Reference Reciprocity

People are pretty weird! In public service — or in customer service of any sort — it’s easy to get swept up in our clientele’s bizarre quirks. And really, it wouldn’t be any fun without them. But on the other hand, nearly all of our library patrons — even the exceptionally bizarre — are very decent people. That’s what I love about my career in public service. So, in honor of the decency of library patrons everywhere, I’ve got a quick story for you tonight.

It’s usually pretty slow on Friday nights, but that’s also when I’m asked some of the most unusual reference questions. Tonight a patron came in to ask me how he could log-in to our website to see our Chilton’s auto repair manuals from home. First he told me he was a mechanic, then he told me he didn’t know how to read. I think he was expecting me — the librarian — to laugh or something, but instead I told him he could come around to my side of the desk and I’d show him where to go on the site. He admitted then that he could read a little, but very slowly, and then he winked and told me he was a really good mechanic. He loves the Chilton’s manuals because they have detailed visual diagrams, which are exactly the kind of information he needs to accomplish his work. I showed him how he could get to the diagrams from home on our website, and he was so ecstatic that, at the end of the whole thing, he wrote down the name and number of his business and told me to call for free diagnostic services whenever I want.

I’m a little unsure about the policies and ethics surrounding this exchange; as a civil servant, I’m not sure that it would be right for me to accept a gift from a patron in exchange for my work — what do you guys think? But what I loved about this exchange was that a) the patron’s information need was satisfied at the library, even though he’s not a big reader, b) we had a reciprocal exchange, viewing each other as peers who could contribute equally to the dialogue, and c) he was just really super nice.

Have a fantastic weekend, everyone, and I’ll see you back at the library soon!

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Rachel

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January 10, 2011

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Banana Suit Life

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New Year’s Resolution: Read More Pulp

Well, somehow it’s become the “book” channel over here lately! Hi guys, don’t mind me, just the book lady… But I wanted to chime in briefly tonight to tell you about a New Year’s Resolution I’ve made: I’m going to read more pulp.

Being a librarian, I often get asked about my reading preferences. As I’ve talked about here, and also here, this often makes for an awkward scenario. I was that girl who wanted to check off every single title of the Modern Library’s list of the Best 100 Novels when she was sixteen years old. I have an undergraduate degree in English Literature. I love Joyce, Woolf, and Faulkner. Believe it or not, this is kind of embarrassing when you work in a public library.

All this being said, I pride myself on having non-elitist tastes when it comes to lots of media! Since my awkward teenage years, I’ve gotten over most of my hang-ups with pop music, blockbusters, and reality TV; these days I prefer Jaws to Citizen Kane, Project Runway to The West Wing, and Wu-Tang to Puccini. What’s become most important to me is really, thoroughly enjoying the story — experiencing it without bias, and deciding from there whether I like it or not. Plain and simple. Academia has too much cultural baggage to decide these things on its own.

So why can’t I do that with books, too?

To be fair, I have branched out a little in my reading tastes. In the last couple years I’ve started dabbling in young adult fiction, graphic novels, and manga. I even read Twilight! Maybe the fact that these are niche genres helps; I see them as “other” enough not to encroach upon my beloved literature…

But all that’s going to change in 2011! This is the year of pulp, of thrillers and bestsellers, of Dan Brown and Nicholas Sparks. I will no longer shy away when library chit-chat turns to the latest mystery. And you never know — I might even like it. Wish me luck! What should I try first?

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Rachel

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January 3, 2011

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Booklists & Reviews

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Tolstoy’s Like a Bad Date Who Doesn’t Know When to Stop Talking About Himself

Almost exactly two years ago, I gave my mom and four siblings each a copy of War and Peace for Christmas. I’ve kind of been talking about it a lot lately.

The premise was to do a long-distance book group, at a nice and easy clip of 1200 pages in one year. That’s only 100 pages a month! But I’ve since concluded that book group etiquette asks a commitment of at most 300 pages from each person at a time, preferably less. Although most of my family said they really wanted to read it, the execution itself was a little more… challenging. A year is a long time. 1200 pages is a lot of pages.

2009 came and went, but still I’d read only half. Then, in November of last year, with 800 pages under my belt, I decided enough was enough. And I finally finished, on Dec. 27, squeaking in just under the two-year mark.

And? It’s brilliant! Obsessed with the microcosm, Tolstoy deconstructs major historic events through the eyes of half a dozen characters whom we watch grow-up from childhood. He’s a starry-eyed romantic, yet he’s also one of the most weirdly hilarious guys I’ve ever read. Drunken frat boys wrestling bears, crabby old men with sneezing problems, Tsars throwing biscuits from balconies, anagrams of Satan’s name… When Tolstoy wants it to, the story really soars, and he’s the best drama queen that ever was a drama queen. Continue reading →

Rachel Smalter Hall

Monthly Archives: January 2011

Eating Animals, With a Side of Transliteracy

Poetrying Your Way Through the Public Library

Reference Reciprocity

New Year’s Resolution: Read More Pulp

Tolstoy’s Like a Bad Date Who Doesn’t Know When to Stop Talking About Himself

Eating Animals, With a Side of Transliteracy

Everyone Let’s Get Social

Poetrying Your Way Through the Public Library

Reference Reciprocity

New Year’s Resolution: Read More Pulp

Tolstoy’s Like a Bad Date Who Doesn’t Know When to Stop Talking About Himself