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 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.