Our New Boss Starts Work Next Week

The New Year is always a great time to set new goals and this year we will have a new boss! He starts next week and we are all looking forward to his arrival. Don't get me wrong--our acting director has done a fantastic job.

Our new director, Greg Heid, is leaving the sunny state of Georgia to return to the slushy, sleety, and snowy Midwest--in January, no less! At least he is a Minnesota native, so he surely knows about winter--and coffee!

In typical Scandinavian fashion, we are planning a little coffee, cookies, and conversation to welcome Greg on Friday, January 14 from 3:00 to 5:00 PM at the Central Library. We are hoping that folks will enjoy stopping in to meet Greg and to wish him well as we all begin 2011 at the DMPL!

We have already begun a list of goals to share with him! If you are in the downtown area next Friday, plan to stop by and share a cup of coffee with us! Everyone is VELKOMMEN!

AViD Author Marion Blumenthal Lazan Continues to Inspire

For the first time ever, a school in Germany has been named for a living Jewish woman Holocaust survivor. If you regularly attend the library's AViD Author Series, you may remember Marion's inspirational presentation at Hoyt Sherman Place Theater in April 2009.

Last week, Marion sent me a note saying that she would "love the world to know how one small German town, together with its citizens, has not look away from its past wrongs, but on the contrary, has worked to make the world a better place in which to live, through courage, love, tolerance and respect towards one another." Here is the You Tube link to a video about the naming of the Marion Blumenthal Hauptschule in Hoya.

If you are not familiar with Marion’s story, she has provided a brief synopsis, so that you will understand the importance of this honor.

Following Hitler`s rise to power, the Blumenthal family -- father, mother, Marion, and her brother, Albert -- were trapped in Nazi Germany. They managed eventually to get to Holland, but soon thereafter it was occupied by the Nazis. For the next six and a half years the Blumenthals were forced to live in refugee, transit, and prison camps that included Westerbork in Holland and the notorious Bergen-Belsen in Germany. All survived the camps, but Marion’s father succumbed to typhus just after liberation. It took three more years of struggle and waiting before Marion, Albert, and their mother at last obtained the necessary papers and boarded ship for the United States. Their story is one of horror and hardship, but it is also a story of courage, hope, and the will to survive Marion Blumenthal Lazan has for the past 20 years made it her mission to share the story of her family’s travail during the Holocaust. Upwards of one million students from over 1,000 school, and adults, have heard Marion share her story, and her important messages of love, respect, and tolerance towards one another, regardless of religious belief, color of the skin, or national origin. Now, 65 years after her incarceration in the Nazi Concentration Camp Bergen-Belsen, in recognition of the positive impact in teaching respect and tolerance to young adults, the new high school in her former “home” town of Hoya in Germany, the Marion Blumenthal Hauptschule, has been named in her honor.

Four Perfect Pebbles, Marion’s memoir, co-authored by Lila Perl and published by Greenwillow, tells the full story of Marion’s life during the Holocaust and can be found in our collection.

New Books for the New Year

Buried within the 250 messages awaiting my return from the holidays, were two offers for author programs! I haven't read their books yet, but I did want to send out the publicity right away as they both sound like great reads and promise interesting programs!

Ambassador Mary E. Kramer, native Iowan and former Iowa Senate president, will discuss her new book, More Than a Walk on the Beach: Confessions of an Unlikely Diplomat, in the Central Library Meeting Room on Wednesday, January 19 at 6:30 PM, highlighting her unlikely journey from Iowa to the U.S. Ambassador to Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean.

Her publicist tells me that the book is a "plainspoken and frank account of life as a U.S. Ambassador living abroad and gives insight to
the process a U.S. diplomat must go through, as well as Mary’s opinions on that lengthy—and sometimes frustrating—road to ambassadorship. Along the way, Mary relates her often humorous and entertaining experiences in dealing with dignitaries, foreign cultures, and the U.S. Government. More importantly, through her firsthand accounts of personal distress after witnessing the aftermath of Hurricane Ivan, to the delicate balancing act needed in order to maintain foreign relations, Mary shares her guiding wisdom, common sense and inspiration to a sometimes chaotic profession."

On February 7, local author Kimberly Stuart is coming to the Central Library to LAUNCH her newst book, Operation Bonnet.
Kimberly reports that her book, about a private investigator want-to-be who dons an Amish bonnet to go undercover, has already received a good review from Publisher's Weekly. She has even had an inquiry about possible movie rights. Kimberly will be the featured guest for the library's Writer's Workshop on February 7 which is open to the public. I'm sure she will have lots of advice to share--both with readers and with writers--as this is her fifth book to be published.

We will have books available for sale and signing at both events, so mark your calendars!

Need a Good Book?

Whether you are looking for suggestions on the next book to read, a good title for your book club, or perhaps a story that will appeal to a reluctant reader, our new Readers Advisory Wiki is just the ticket.

You will find all kinds of lists and links to helpful web sites. Looking for the next title in a series? Click on What's Next. Need a downloadable book? Click on Adult/Free Downloadable Audio and E-Books. How about a book with Iowa connections? Click on Iowa Interests/Contemporary Iowa Works.

Bestsellers, award-winners, thrillers - whatever you like to read! Visit the wiki often as our librarians will be updating the lists often and adding new recommendations. Please give this new wiki a try and let us know how you like it! We would love to hear from you if there's another list that you would like us to add.

How Many Rainbows Do You Know?

Whenever a publicist calls, I must admit that I feel a twinge of excitement, We have had some wonderful authors visit our library following such calls--Bill Geist, Lisa Scottoline, Jamie Ford, Joe Hill to name just a few.

Last week, I had a call from Rainbow Rowell's publicist. Have you ever known anyone named Rainbow? That was enough to pique my interest and then when I heard the premise of her debut novel, Attachments, I was really intrigued. It's about an I.T. guy who has been hired to monitor the internal emails at a small newspaper.

My reading time is somewhat limited right now because of all the holiday happenings, but I'm almost halfway through the book. It's full of delightful e-mail banter between two work friends that makes me wonder just how many employees spend their work time discussing their mundane daily lives via office email. (Is this the new watercooler chatter?) And how many employers actually hire folks to monitor those very emails.........

Rainbow Rowell, in real life, writes for the Omaha World Herald--so she's well suited to know the inside story of news rooms. And she's funny! And she wants to come visit us. She has a blog. (Note: She is a HUGE fan of Glee.)

Her book comes out in February. Take a look and let me know what you think.
And for the record, I actually do know another person named Rainbow, but I think she spells it without the w.

Plenty of Turkey (with a few books thrown in)

My family and I have been "well-turkeyed" this week. Enjoyed a Thanksgiving meal at my father-in-law's nursing home earlier in the week. Then had a full meal with all the trimmings with extended family at noon yesterday and delicious turkey sandwiches with my sister's family last night!

It's always fun to catch up with what's going on in the family--sometimes it's more drama than we prefer, but still, it's good to hear what's happening with everyone. One of my cousins has a friend named Deb who works at a book store and this year we re-connected. It starts out so innocently with a simple question like, "what's the best book you've read this year?" and before we know it, we are at a full gallop traveling across the range of fiction, nonfiction, and beyond!

Within minutes, she had grabbed a pen and a piece of paper to write down her favorites and we were googling via my mobile phone to look up a couple of titles we were having trouble remembering, immersed in our own little world of "book lust." Now before I lose the slip of paper she wrote on, I am going to enter her best reads list. After all, she works in a book store and she ought to know!

The Marriage Artist by Andrew Winer

Atlantic : Great Sea Battles, Heroic Discoveries, Titanic Storms, and a Vast Ocean of a Million Stories by Simon Winchester

Love Begins in Winter by Simon Van Booy

Parrot and Olivier in America by Peter Carey

All is Forgotten, Nothing is Lost by Lan Samantha Chang

Jarrettsville by Cornelia Nixon

Cleopatra : A Life by Stacy Schiff

And just in case you are wondering....my favorite book this past year, would have to be The Help, by Kathryn Stockett (which Deb hasn't read......but will!)

What Is a Book?

If you live in Iowa and you love to read, you really should check out this group of dedicated "bookies" who contribute their time and energy to something called the Iowa Center for the Book(ICB). The ICB is a program of the State Library of Iowa and an affiliate of the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress whose mission is "to stimulate public interest in books, reading, literacy and libraries."

I have the pleasure of representing the DMPL on the ICB's advisory board and recently attended a meeting. In addition to offering a wonderful web site devoted to reading and books, the ICB also collects the names of Iowa Authors--a task that is not as easy as one might assume at first glance. The ICB's list of Iowa Authors is a great resource for readers, librarians, teachers, and anyone else who might have an interest in finding an author. (The DMPL also has an Iowa Author list with slightly different criteria.)

The list currently includes the names and contact information for more than 230 authors--not bad for our small state when one considers that the criteria for being included on the list is:
Author is presently living and writing in Iowa.
Author is writing for the non-specialist reader.
Author writes books for adult, young adult, or juveniles.
Author's book is in physical format, printed and bound.
Author's book is owned by at least one library in Iowa that is open to the public.

That's where the discussion about "what is a book" gets interesting. Nowadays, with e-books and all the self-publishing opportunities, it's becoming harder and harder to define exactly what constitutes a book, hence an author. The committee is going to leave the current criteria in place for the time being, but we will continue, I'm sure, to re-examine it at future meetings.

No matter. The important thing is to continue our mission of encouraging the love of reading! So, check out the list and if you know of any authors that should be on there, tell them to submit their names.

Another cool thing that the ICB web site contains is a wonderful literary calendar of all kinds of book-related programs and events, including information about the annual All Iowa Reads selection and related events. Enjoy!