Robert Scheer to speak Thursday, May 21

Come hear veteran journalist Robert Scheer take aim at America's defense policy and military budget Thursday, May 21, 7 pm.

Scheer argues that war cannot defeat terrorism. What's required is simple police work, dogged, boring and not terribly expensive, not trillion-dollar bombers, submarines and nuclear arsenal, expenditures he contends are unrelated to defeating terrorists and of little use in Iraq.

He soberly reminds readers that Americans have never objected to wasteful defense budgets, and antiwar elected officials fight as viciously as neoconservatives to bring money to their district's defense industries. Scheer's prose is as clear as his evidence; readers will be galvanized by his incendiary account.

Robert Scheer has built a reputation for strong social and political writing over his 30 years as a journalist. His columns appear in newspapers across the country, and his in-depth interviews have made headlines.

Between 1964 and 1969 he was Vietnam correspondent, managing editor and editor in chief of Ramparts magazine. From 1976 to 1993 he served as a national correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, writing on diverse topics such as the Soviet Union, arms control, national politics and the military. In 1993 he launched a nationally syndicated column based at the Los Angeles Times, where he was named a contributing editor. That column ran weekly for the next 12 years and is now based at the San Francisco Chronicle.

Robert Scheer is a Clinical Professor at the Annenberg School For Communication at USC. He was raised in the Bronx, where he attended public schools and graduated from City College of New York. He studied as a Maxwell fellow at Syracuse University and was a fellow at the Center for Chinese Studies at UC Berkeley, where he did graduate work in economics. Scheer has also been a Poynter fellow at Yale, and was a fellow in arms control at Stanford.

Thursday, May 21, 7 pm
Glendale Public Library Auditorium
222 East Harvard Street, Glendale
(818) 548-2042

This Week in Reading March 30 - April 5

It's finally April this week. College basketball wraps up and the baseball season begins. It is time many will let go of old disappointments and begin new hopes. But it is also a month for poets, librarians, writers, and readers to clean the dust off of the old and look upon it with new eyes. The authors born this week are mostly among the old. Only Al Gore and a children's author are relatively new, and that's just relatively . From Descartes and Hobbes to Milan Kundera and Donald Barthelme, the rest are names from the past. At least one has won the Nobel Prize, the Chilean poet and story writer, Gabriela Mistral.

If you haven't taken home a classic lately come into the library and find one; we'll help you choose. We have plenty. If you want to find a new author, browse our New Book shelves for a new genre or style of book you haven't tried before. It will be good for your brain fitness.

This Week's Question: April is also National Poetry Month in America. Who is your favorite poet? What is your favorite poem? Comment on the blog and tell us. We will post the results, if we get any, throughout the month. No prizes will be awarded, but sharing the joy of poetry with others will make you and the people you may turn on to your favorites very happy.

Answer to Last Week's question: It was Charlotte and Emily's younger sister, Anne Bronte, who, in 1848, wrote a reply to the romanticist critics who wanted everything written about to be nice rather than to reflect reality, in her introduction to the second edition of her second and last novel, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall: "To represent a bad thing in its least offensive light, is, doubtless, the most agreeable course for a writer of fiction to pursue; but is it the most honest, or the safest?" She went on to offer another phrase we often hear, and one which speaks for a good many things these days as well as nearly two hundred years ago: "Oh, reader! if there were less of this delicate concealment of facts - this whispering, 'Peace, peace,' when there is no peace, there would be less of sin and misery .." Sigh. It is ever thus in some circles of life, in love, in politics, and in war.

Ira Levin 1929 - 2007

Popular suspense novelist and playwright Ira Levin has died. Very popular with the reading public, Levin wrote only seven novels but most were made into very successful movies. His novels were filled with suspense and it was said that "he liked giving readers the creeps" as underlying evil came out to interfere with the mundane good one would normal encounter day to day.

His novels included Rosemary's Baby, The Stepford Wives, The Boys From Brazil, and A Kiss Before Dying. His most successful play was the comic mystery Deathtrap.

This Week in Reading June 17 - 23

The youngest author born this week surely sold more copies than any other writer born this week and the next youngest after that one put out works that sold in the millions, too. But several of the other authors who share the week had a much larger impact upon the world beyond reading, from theatre, film, and popular music to philosophy, religion and sociological research that affected many millions. Some the events affected many millions, too.

This Week's Question: One of this week's authors would have been a voluminous blogger of his day if the Internet had existed. He opined among his countless quotes "One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man." Who is it and what "message" is he associated with?

Answer to Last Week's Question: Sorry, this trick question tricked even me. None of last week's authors said it. I thought it was argued that Ben Jonson actually wrote it but it was penned by the little known Robert Greene, who wrote in 1592 "For there is an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that with a tiger's heart wrapped in a player's hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as is the best of you; and being an absolute Johannes fac totum is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country." Jonson, on the other hand, eulogized Shakepeare with "He was not of an age but for all time." I used Bartlett's Familiar Quotations to find these out.

This Week in Reading May 27 - June 2

This week's authors start with Dashiell Hammett, whose mysteries hinted at some of modern society's distrust of its own formulaic expectations, and end with Thomas Hardy, whose writings' veneer of middle class respectability in the post-Victorian era hid deep narratives that led the way into more modern writing, including the Twentieth Century stories of John Cheever and the novels of Walker Percy. There are wonderful discursions along the way as well, from T.H. White's King Arthur and G. K. Chesterton's Father Brown mysteries, Ian Fleming's James Bond adventures, and authors of other genres for other tastes. Enjoy.

This week's question: Who benefited from her close association with Hammett and gained the rights to his works--instead of his daughters by a first marriage?

Answer to Last Week's question: Whether you like it or not, when you come to the Central Library you're walking in John Wayne's footsteps. Like you, he was an avid reader. John Wayne lived at 404 North Isabel Street in Glendale in 1920 (according to the US Census), and attended his freshman and sophomore years at Glendale High's Harvard Street campus, where the Glendale Central Library is located now. Glendale High School opened at its present location on Broadway in time for his senior year. Read in the Glendale News Press how he came to be known as "Duke."

This Week in Reading May 20 - 26

Big doings around here this week. It is not only the birthdate of one of Glendale's most famous former residents but, just like the Glendale Public Library, it is the one hundreth anniversary of movie legend John Wayne's birthday.

And also born one hundred years ago on the very same day but a world apart was one of the most famous Shakepearean actors the world has known, Sir Laurence Olivier. According to the Internet Movie Database, the only times Olivier and Wayne ever appeared together were the 1959 and 1979 Academy Awards programs.

The Glendale Public Lilbrary is proud to offer you access to the works of either in videorecordings, online databases, and books about both of them. Among our authors this week is something for every taste as well, high to low, including the author who first wrote "It was a dark and stormy night."

Answer to Last Week's Question: The Information, Please Almanac merged with the Time Almanac in 2000.

This Week's Question: Where was Glendale High School located during the years John Wayne attended and what does it have to do with the library?

This Week in Reading May 6 - 12

This is a mild week, as weeks go. Perhaps something could be said of beginning with Freud who dealt with the unspoken, and ending with the outspoken George Carlin, but if Thomas Pynchon is too obscure to comprehend and Barbara Taylor Bradford too obvious this week, you could just loll about on Limerick Day and smell the rhymes.



There was and still is a wonderful day,
Which comes around each twelfth day of May;
You make up some lines,
To give all the signs,
That Nonsense himself has not gone away.



This week's question: Archibald MacLeish was Librarian of Congress for five years, appointed by Franklin D. Roosevelt, but opposed by the American Library Association because he was not a library administrator. How many Librarians of Congress have actually been professional librarians?



Answer to last week's question: Seemingly a trick question because most everyone knows that Gertrude Stein was the author of The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, but Toklas's own What is Remembered and The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook may comprise a fuller biography according to Anna Linzie, the author of The True Story of Alice B. Toklas.

This Week in Reading April 29 - May 5

What kind of society is it to be, not just this one, but any one? And how are we all going to get along as we figure that out? Are the answers sometimes absurd, reasonable, or poltically necessary? Those questions were on a few minds of this week's authors and event participants, from social philosophy to personal behavior, but at least there is some foolery, follies, and food, too.

Also occurring this week is an article in Huffington Post about the lessening number of stand alone book review sections in American newspapers. Be thankful you can read reviews here.

This week's question: Who wrote The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas?

Answer to last week's question: Harper Lee grew up to next door neighbor, Truman Capote. She accompanied him in his research and interviews with the killers of In Cold Blood.

This Week in Reading April 22 - 28

Shakespeare, Sue Grafton, O Henry, the Library of Congress, Earth Day, Michael Moore, Shirley McLaine, and one of the most disturbing events ever to occur. There's plenty of big name book choices in the library from the lists of events to read about and authors to read this week. We hope our new two column format makes it easier to scan. Click on the event description or author name to see what the library has and click on a book image to see where that book is in the library and then place a request to put it in your hands.

This week's question: Who was Harper Lee's next door neighbor as she grew up?

Answer to last week's question: Clarence Darrow the iconic legal defender of the powerless against the powerful, who with his adversary, William Jennings Bryan, were portrayed in the play and movie, Inherit the Wind, about the Scopes trial for teaching evolution.

This Week in Reading April 15 - 21

This is National Library Week and the reading is pleasing. We can celebrate the birthdays of the creators of some of the most conflicted women in literature, Jane Eyre and Isabel Archer. There are also remarkable women among the authors this week, along with a couple of important Midwestern voices who spoke to and for their peers.

This Week's Question: Which of this week's authors said, "As long as the world shall last there will be wrongs, and if no man objected and no man rebelled, those wrongs would last forever"?

Answer to Last Week's Question: The War of Jenkins' Ear lasted nine years between Britain and Spain, 1739 - 1748, and resulted in not much more than a horrific drain on the economy and manpower of both sides. The drumbeat for the war between the two sea powers received its loudest boom when Robert Jenkins, a sailor, exhibited in Parliament what he claimed to be his own ear which he said had been cut off by Spanish coast guarders seven years previous when they boarded his British ship. Like many such reasons for unnecessary wars, its legitimacy has been long disputed.

Los Angeles Times Festival of Books

Attention Book Lovers! Start planning now and get your tickets to the upcoming Los Angeles Times Festival of Books on April 28-29. The tickets are FREE but you must obtain them in advance.

What is it? The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books began in 1996 with a simple goal: to bring together the people who create books with the people who love to read them. The Festival was an immediate success and has become the largest and most prestigious book festival in the country, attracting more than 130,000 book lovers and quite a few authors each year. It is held on the UCLA campus.

Want to learn more?
Visit http://www.latimes.com/extras/festivalofbooks/

This Week in Reading April 8-14

We just had Passover last week and this week not only Easter is celebrated in both Christian and Orthodox societies but so is the birthday of Buddha. There are more events to read about this week than authors. Don't risk fate; stay home and read on Friday the Thirteenth.


This week's question: What, indeed, is the War of Jenkins' ear? Who fought it?

Answer to last week's question: For Poetry Month I asked for help:

If I began a poem this way,
You would finish it how?
Hoist way up on my own petard,
No one wrote to cause a wow.

But if I asked for more from you,
And tried again to give the cue,
Would you write a verse or two,
And keep it tasteful, fresh and new?

Or would you rather verse it free?

This Week in Reading April 1 - 7

April is national Poetry Month. Read a poem, or two, or three this month and keep reading poems as long as you can. If not, there are plenty of other types of reading to select from authors born this week, more so than from any other week yet.


This Week's Question: If I began a poem this way / You would finish it how? (keep under 10-12 lines to see it posted here.)

Answer to Last Week's Question: Maxim Gorky was the "most bitter" Russian founder of the socialist realism literary movement. His real name was Aleksei Maksimovich Peskhov.

Author Events - Civil War historian Ed Bearss

Smithsonian Magazine celebrated its 35th year in 2005 with an issue that profiled "35 Who Made A Difference." The Authors, Artists & Friends lecture series will feature a second member of those thirty-five illustrious difference makers. One of those people, John Dobson, the father of sidewalk astronomy and the designer of a portable mount that supports his large, inexpensive telescopes, and perhaps astronomy's greatest cheerleader, spoke at the Library in January. Our next lecture will feature historian Ed Bearss (pronounced bars) on Monday, April 16, to help kick off National Library Week.

After serving in the Marines and earning degrees at Georgetown and Indiana universities, Bearss joined the National Park Service (where he is now chief historian emeritus) and devoted himself to the study of the American past, particularly the struggle between the blue and the gray. When he compares contemporary America to the 1860s, his allegiance is clear, as he stated in Smithsonian Magazine (November 2005), "We're in an age of Teflon people now. People then were more original, more individual."

Yet when he has to, Bearss can stand squarely in the present, as he has proved rather often of late, enmeshed in one 21st-century battle after another—over the suburban development that has threatened to engulf Civil War battlefields.

At Gettysburg, for instance, an "idyllic vista is broken by a water tower that went up a few years ago, part of a new industrial park. Just to the right of it, investors want to build a casino with 3,000 slot machines. He remembers visiting Manassas in 1941, when it was a sleepy rural area; now, when he leads bus tours there, they often end up stalled in shopping center traffic. At Petersburg in the early 1960s, he saw where an 1864 fort was bulldozed to make way for a mall; now the mall itself is nearly derelict. 'The development is advancing more irresistibly than Grant's army did on Richmond," Bearss grumbles.'" (Smithsonian Magazine, November 2005)

For more information about authors at the Library see our website,
http://www.ci.glendale.ca.us/library/authors_artists_friends.asp