Ketchikan Public Library

Diet? What diet?

2012-01-17T12:06:00.000-09:00

From the heavy traffic up at the Rec Center, I can see that everybody is trying to lose those extra pounds they gained over the holidays (that's surely the reason I'm up there). But if you're feeling cavilier about your calorie intake - or you're one of those people who don't gain weight during the holidays - then check out these sweet new books:
Irresistible Macaroons, by Jose Marechal. I always thought of macaroons as being the simplest of desserts, but Marechal dresses them up by making them into little sandwich cookies with a wide variety of fillings. Oh, and he also uses food coloring to turn them into eye-popping shades of green, blue, red, purple and black. I'll be honest, I'm not a macaroon fan....and the liquorice and violet ones look a bit stomach-churning. But the other selections in this book are quite elegant, and the pineapple and saffron macaroons are very tempting.
The Whoopie Pie Book: 60 irresistible recipes for cake sandwiches classic and new, by Claire Ptak. Being a native of New England, this book is more up my aisle. If you've never had a whoopie pie, they are a layer of fluffy filling/frosting sandwiched between two cakey cookies. Fruit fillings, nuts, caramel sauces and liquors jazz up Ptak's recipes. I like the classic: chocolate cake with buttercream filling. Yum!

New poetry

2011-12-27T10:04:00.000-09:00

We have two new collections by American poets. The Back Chamber is the latest collection from Donald Hall, the former poet laureate and winner of the Frost Medal from the Poetry Society of America. Devin Johnston, former editor of the Chicago Review, is a younger poet who looks to Yeats as one of his major influences. His new collection is called Traveler, and it uses words like musical notes. These two poets have very different styles, and both books are worth checking out.

Free legal forms

2011-12-23T10:33:00.001-09:00

We have a new subscription to Gale Legal Forms, which gives you 24-hour access to forms for subjects such as divorce, landlord/tenant, wills, power of attorney, bills of sale and bankruptcy. For a quick overview of the service, we've put together a short film (it's silent....feel free to compose your own incidental music as a soundtrack).

Bear Down, Bear North

2011-12-21T09:59:00.002-09:00

We have just received the debut short story collection from Melinda Moustakis, a young writer who was born in Fairbanks to homesteader Alaskans. Although she moved out of the state when she was young, she returned frequently for visits and grew up hearing family stories of life out in the Bush. Her stories are grimly realistic, where the violence of nature in Alaska is overshadowed by human violence fueled by alcohol and desperation. Families hold together out of necessity, but the relationships still have the spark of love buried down deep.
The writing is beautiful, and the stories are very powerful. Although, between Moustakis and David Vann, it's a miracle anyone wants to move to Alaska.

Prepare for the movie....read the book!

2011-12-20T17:16:00.000-09:00

A new film starring Sandra Bullock and Tom Hanks is scheduled for release next month. "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" is based on the 2005 novel by Jonathan Safer Foer in which a young Manhattan boy deals with his father's death on 9/11. The book received mixed reviews at the time, with some critics feeling that Foer was using the backdrop of a national tragedy to sell books. With the passage of time, reaction to the setting of the book may have died down somewhat. You might want to bring a box of tissues to the movie theater, though.....

Ketchikan Holiday Events

2011-12-01T17:24:00.001-09:00

It seems like this time of year there are a million different fun things to do, and it's hard to keep track of the schedule. So, the staff of the Children's Library have put together a guide of all the holiday activities taking place here in Ketchikan for the rest of the month:

Friday December 2 5-6pm

How the Grinch Stole Christmas!

Ketchikan Public Library
Visit the library for Suessical Stories, Grinch displays, cider and treats!

Friday December 2 5-8pm

Winter Art Walk
Downtown
Local galleries and businesses stay open late for

new exhibits, displays, and holiday features

Friday December 2 7pm & Sunday December 4 7pm

Christmas Jazz Cafe
North Tongass Community Club
The First City Players present an evening of jazz, wine and delicious food. Call 225-4792 for more information.

Friday December 2 7:30pm & Saturday December 3 2pm

The Nutcracker
Kayhi Auditorium
Call Ketchikan Theatre Ballet for tickets 225-9311

Saturday December 3 6:30pm

Enchanted Forest
Ted Ferry Civic Center
The Ketchikan Chamber of Commerce hosts a dinner and decorated Christmas tree auction fundraiser. Call 225-3184 for tickets.

Saturday December 3 7:30pm Sunday December 4 3pm
Ketchikan Community Chorus Holiday Concert: Christmas Gospel
Presbyterian Church, 2711 Second Ave
Kids $2, Adults $15

Tuesday December 6 7pm

Sam Pitcher Memorial Concert
Kayhi Auditorium
"An evening of jazz, rock and blues" is an annual event to raise money for music scholarships for young local musicians.

Thursday December 8 10:30 am

Preschool Storycraft at the Library!

Ketchikan Public Library

Come for stories and make a “Red-Nosed Rudy Puppet!”

Friday December 10
Singing Christmas Tree

Clover Pass Community Church
Enjoy a choral performance and visual experience. Call 247-2360 for details.

Saturday December 11 3pm

Ketchikan Community Concert Band Holiday Performance
Kayhi Auditorium
18 & under free, adults $10

Tuesday December 13 9-11am

Breakfast with Santa
Rec Center
$15/child, parents free. Breakfast, gift bags, and pictures with Santa followed by a Christmas Craft!

Tuesday December 13
Kayhi Holiday Concert

Kayhi Auditorium

Thursday December 15 5:30 - 7pm
Family Night!

Ketchikan Public Library
Create holiday cards and ornament with Faye Hoffman. Free pizza for all and a free book for every child! Pick up your tickets at the library. 225-0370 for more info

Wednesday December 21 3pm
Kids Cook!

Ketchikan Public Library
Learn to make “Puppy Chow” and Chex Mix! All are welcome.

Friday December 16 6:30pm
A Sugar Rush Christmas!

Ketchikan Public Library
Enjoy a candy-filled movie and make some sweet art!
For ages 13-19, presented by the Teen Advisory Group

Saturday December 17 10am-2pm
Feed Santa’s Reindeer!

Alaska Rainforest Sanctuary 116 Wood Rd
Hot chocolate , cookies, and reindeer! Free to all

Saturday December 17
Ketchikan Children’s Choir Performance

Main Street Gallery
Call 225-2211 for more info

Thursday December 22 12-2pm
Holiday Skate

Rec Center
$2.50/person or $7/family

Friday December 23 10:30am
Preschool Christmas Party!

Ketchikan Public Library
Christmas stories and songs, refreshments and a VERY SPECIAL guest!
Bring your camera!

Tuesday December 27-Friday 30
Clarke Cochrane Christmas Classic

Kayhi Gymnasium
Join 2000+ fans for this annual basketball tournament at Kayhi!

December 31 10:30pm-12:30am
Roller skating New Year’s Eve party

Rec Center Roll in the New Year! Call 225-9579 for details

Come read some unwholesome books

2011-09-24T11:19:00.000-08:00

It's national Banned Books Week this week (Sept. 24-Oct. 1) and if you come to the public library, you will be able to see a lovely display in our entry featuring the kind of immoral, smutty, dangerous reading material that libraries are notorious for providing:

The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck
Brideshead Revisited, by Evelyn Waugh
Animal Farm, by George Orwell
The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
As I Lay Dying, by William Faulkner
To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
Ulysses, by James Joyce
The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien
Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston
The Lord of the Flies, by William Golding
Native Son, by Richard Wright

This might sound like the required reading list you remember from high school (perhaps not Ulysses... that's a bit of an undertaking for a 17-year-old). But in fact, each of these titles has been challenged somewhere in the United States by angry parents, taken off library shelves or even - in the case of The Lord of the Rings - been burned.
Librarians believe that your constitutional right to free speech also includes a right to information, and that the best way to protect that right is to exercise it. So this week, exercise your right to read!

Big, BIG news!

2011-09-22T16:26:00.000-08:00

We do Kindle! After months of watching people's faces turn crestfallen to discover that our free eBooks (available via ListenAlaska) weren't Kindle-compatible, we are overjoyed to announce that Kindle users can now enjoy over 2,200 FREE eBook titles using their Ketchikan Public Library card and ListenAlaska.
When you go to the ListenAlaska site- http://listenalaska.lib.overdrive.com/ - just click on the "Now Available" box on the left (with the picture of a Kindle), and you will get a list of all our Kindle titles. The MyHelp! feature will take you through the steps of using your Kindle with ListenAlaska.

The other great piece of news is that Digital Pipeline now features the interactive online language-learning tool Mango Languages. Once you've created your free account, you can access courses on speaking Spanish, French, Japanese, Tagalog....even Pirate! (That one is a hoot!) Mango Languages keeps track of your progress and allows you to easily pick up where you left off. You can even test your pronunciation with your web-mike.

Log on, download and enjoy!!

That's wild!

2011-09-08T16:30:00.000-08:00

Anytime someone comes out with a new Alaskan cookbook, it's pretty much a must-have for the library. Anytime someone publishes a seafood cookbook, it's a must-have. Put those two together, and you have library gold.
Wild Alaskan Seafood: celebrated recipes from America's top chefs by James O. Fraioli is a beautiful tribute to the wide variety of seafood that comes from Alaskan waters. 25 top chefs from around the United States were asked to contribute their favorite ways to prepare salmon, halibut, crab, clams, scallops, sole, cod, etc. Because they come from varied backgrounds (such as Italy, France, and Japan) and because they have created acclaimed restaurants in several regions of the country (such as Washington, California, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and D.C), these chefs have been able to present different perspectives on Alaskan seafood.
Whether you like classic European cooking, unique Asian flavors or the exciting fusion cuisine of the West Coast, there are recipes in here that will intrigue you. In addition, Wild Alaskan Seafood presents recipes for some of the less common ingredients: sea urchin, razor clams, octopus, sablefish and lingcod. (No recipes for dogfish, but we have a whole cookbook for that: The Dogfish Cookbook, by Russ Mohney)
One caveat: these are award-winning, professionally-trained chefs. Their idea of 'simple recipes' and our idea of 'simple recipes' might be a bit different. But if you're looking to be inspired and stretch yourself a little this winter as you work your way through a freezer full of oceanic goodies, this is the book for you.

Tagalog nobelang

2011-09-03T10:49:00.000-08:00

We've recently expanded our Tagalog language collection to include five new romance novels, perfect for reading on rainy days:

Ako Na Lang Sana, by Camilla
Dahil Mahal Kita, by Millie Calleja
Pisong Kembot, by Vanessa
Kahit Sa Panagibip, by Dawn Igloria
Fixing a Broken Heart, by Maricar Dizon

If you would like something less light-hearted, we have some classic Filipino literature:

Daluyong, by Lazaro Francisco (a novel from 1962)
Ang Katipunan, by Gabriel Beato Francisco (a play from 1899)
Florante at Laura, by Francisco Balagtas (an epic poem from 1921).

Basahin at masiyahan!

New Music Highlights

2011-08-25T09:42:00.000-08:00

We have a stack of new CDs out on the New Music Shelf, and there are a few titles that might be of particular interest:
Use Me (David Bromberg): bluesman Bromberg hasn't released an album in 17 years, and he gets assistance on this one from John Hiatt, Levon Helm, Keb' Mo', Los Lobos, Dr. John, Linda Ronstadt, Vince Gill, Tim O'Brien and Widespread Panic
Anything Goes (New Broadway Cast Recording): auditions for the First City Players' production of this classic Cole Porter musical are coming up...hear the songs with all their original lyrics
Join Us (They Might Be Giants): why should kids have all the fun? TMBG takes a hiatus from clever children albums to create a clever grown-up album. Welcome back, guys.
Equal Rights (Peter Tosh): the reissue of this 1977 reggae classic is packed with 30 tracks, some of which were previously unreleased.
How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (2011 Broadway cast recording): Harry Potter sings, dances, and looks like a total dork. What's not to enjoy?
Rave On (Buddy Holly): a tribute album to the rock-n-roll pioneer, featuring Paul McCartney, Justin Townes Earle, Nick Lowe, Kid Rock, Lou Reed, Graham Nash, Cee Lo Green, Fiona Apple, and Patti Smith - among others. An impressive list of admirers.
Mediterraneo (Milos Karadaglic): Montenegran classical guitarist Karadaglic has gotten rave reviews for this debut album.
Plug your headphones in and enjoy.....

Hell-O Jell-O!

2011-08-23T14:31:00.000-08:00

Sad to say, I have never felt that there's always room for Jell-O. It's OK once or twice a year, but I'm not a huge fan (and I won't even touch anything in aspic..eew!). But that was before I saw Jellymongers: glow-in-the dark jelly, titanic jelly, flaming jelly, by the world's foremost purveyors Bompas & Parr. Starting out with a general overview of jellymaking techniques - proper molds, calculating volumes and using sugar syrups for the fullest flavor - Bompas & Parr then gently take the reader into the wonderful world of technicolor desserts. Cherry jelly, lemon jelly, rhubarb & rosé jelly, even pineapple jelly (yes, it can be done!) are clearly explained. Then comes the fun.
1. Hollowed-out clementine oranges, filled with multiple thin layers of blancmange (white) and clementine jelly (orange), then cut into gorgeous sections.
2. Clear champagne jelly, with brightly-colored summer berries suspended in the shape
3. Vodka jelly that has been flavored and colored with Skittles®
4. Black cherry jelly pyramids topped with pure gold tips (apparently, gold leaf will just 'pass through')
5. Gin & tonic jellies that glow in the dark (under a black light)
6. An aphrodisiac jelly that you really have to see to appreciate....
You'll never look at a packet of plain gelatin in the same way.

Input, please

2011-06-25T13:18:00.001-08:00

As part of my preparation for submitting my yearly magazine order, I've been looking at our circulation statistics. And, as usual, the results have been absolutely fascinating (for me at least...I'm a bibliometrics geek). The top 5 magazines for 2010 (based on average circulations per issue):

National Geographic (17)
Military History (15.2)
Guns & Ammo (14.9)
Mother Earth News (12)
Discover (11.3)

Don't believe it when people tell you that guys don't read.
The big shocker for me though is how unpopular Sports Illustrated is: 1.75 checkouts per issue. That's a worse rate than Alaska Business Monthly! Why don't people read our copies of Sports Illustrated? Are they already subscribers? Does the magazine take too long to arrive here in the library's mail? Do people prefer to get their sports news from television or the Internet? Is there a better sports magazine?
I ask these questions because we have already cancelled subscriptions to The Sporting News and ESPN Magazine due to lack of patron interest...I would love to hear from blog readers why sports magazines seem to be so wildly unpopular. Please take a second to complete our little survey off to the right.
Thanks!

Cook-o-rama

2011-06-14T12:11:00.000-08:00

If you ever wondered just what types of cookbooks the library has on the shelves, our recent selection of NEW cookbooks will give you a pretty good overview of the cookery collection.
Ethnic: Authentic Cuban Cuisine, by Martha Cortina. Not gourmet, fusion cuisine...this is real family cooking from a Cuban expatriate.
Scandinavian Classic Baking by Patricia Sinclair. Traditional Scandinavian favorites, dressed up with lots of nuts and fruit.
Healthy: The Essential Diabetes Cookbook, by Antony Worrall Thompson. Pulls in flavors from around the world, for a new take on diabetic recipes.
Gluten-free cookies : from shortbreads to Snickerdoodles, brownies to biscotti : 50 recipes for cookies you crave, by Luane Kohnke. She provides a gluten-free flour recipe and helpful information for those new to gluten-free cooking.
Trendy: In the green kitchen : techniques to learn by heart, by Alice Waters. Chef Waters has been around so long I hate to call her 'trendy', but this cookbook is all about appreciating the new slow-food movement.
Specialty: Serve yourself : nightly adventures in cooking for one, by Joe Yonan. Just because you're single, that doesn't mean you have to eat Top Ramen while you're standing in front of the sink.
Easy: Almost Homemade, by Catherine Cassidy. Make interesting and elaborate meals using a base of convenience and processed foods.

Your Playaway fix

2011-06-07T17:22:00.000-08:00

Our latest quarterly shipment of Playaway audiobooks is here and on the shelf! For those of you who love these little grab-n-go gems, we have some of the biggest names in fiction to entertain you:

Jasper Fforde has added to his fantasy/mystery/time travel/humorous fiction series with One of Our Thursdays is Missing. There's trouble in BookWorld, but where is detective Thursday Next?
W.E.B. Griffin brings espionage adventure to the fore with The Outlaws, the latest Presidential Agent novel. Covert agent Charlie Castillo has to track down biological agents and avert a worldwide catastrophe.
Donna Leon's 20th Commissario Guido Brunetti mystery is Drawing Conclusions. Fans of Leon will love this latest installment, which focuses on the death of a widow who was sheltering abused women in her home.
Alexander McCall Smith finally celebrates the wedding of Grace Makutsi and Phuti Radiphuti in The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party, the 12th book in the Ladies No. 1 Detective Agency series.
Francine Pascal revisits her wildly popular Sweet Valley High series with Sweet Valley Confidential. The Wakefield twins are all grown up now, but the angst keeps coming.
Jodi Picoult blends themes of infertility, music, gay rights and evangelical Christianity into her latest novel, Sing You Home. Picoult wrote the lyrics to the songs included in this recording.
Stuart Woods is back with another Stone Barrington novel. Strategic Moves sees Stone receiving a million dollar bonus from his admiring bosses at the law firm, but his clients soon involve him in murder, embezzlement and CIA intrigue.

More sneaky food

2011-06-04T13:32:00.000-08:00

When I was a kid, the general parenting approach to unpopular foods was "I don't care if you like carrots, you're not leaving the table until you eat them!". Perhaps we're more nonconfrontational these days (or too lazy to enforce strict rules), but the new trend with parents is to sneak healthy ingredients into meals. I posted previously about Jessica Seinfeld's Deceptively Delicious. We have a new title in this underhanded cooking genre: Ice Pop Joy: organic, healthy, fresh, delicious, by Anni Daulter.
Not content with pureeing up spinach, carrots, kale and squash into a form unrecognizable to children, Daulter has added the extra sneaky step of mixing these vegetables up with pureed pineapple, mango, strawberries and bananas, spiking them with sweetener and creamy liquids (cream, milk, yogurt, or soy milk) and freezing them into popsicles.
A far cry from the fluorescent-colored sticks of high fructose corn syrup and artificial flavors, these homemade pops are packed with protein, calcium, vitamins and antioxidants. The recipes are frequently livened up with ingredients such as peanut butter, lavender, chamomile tea, flax seed, quinoa, wheat germ and tofu. The pops look delicious, the children are all smiling, and everything looks so easy. In fact, many of these recipes sound interesting enough to appeal to adults: pistachio tofu pop, spicy Italian pop, Rooibos red tea immunity pops and Mexican spiced fire pops. The recipe I'm most likely to try? The Green Machine pop, made with spinach, bananas, pineapple and flax seed.

Becoming a true Alaskan

2011-05-17T12:51:00.001-08:00

There are many material signs that you are a true denizen of Southeast Alaska - a pair of ExtraTufs, an Alaska Airlines Visa card on which you load every bill except your mortgage payment, a 10-year old bottle of sunscreen - but there is also a set of special skills and knowledge you should have. If someone hands you a wriggling sea creature, you should be able to dress it and cook it. If you've read our latest book - The Fishmonger's Apprentice; the expert's guide to selecting, preparing, and cooking a world of seafood, taught by the masters by Aliza Green - you are already in the club.
This excellent book, laden with photographs, will show you how to debone herring, fillet halibut, butterfly salmon, shuck oysters, dehead shrimp, clean geoduck, gut dungies, cut steaks from cod, and clean live sea urchin. And as if that weren't enough, there is a handy-dandy DVD that accompanies the book, featuring 12 tutorials and 32 recipes. The disc demonstrates basic seafood cooking techniques, such as steaming, stuffing, pickling and blackening. Learn how to properly cook clams, calamari and scallops. Make crabcakes and fish fumée (which is a fancy term for fish stock...I had to Google that one).
Once you've mastered this book, you'll be ready to tackle the many fine seafood cookbooks we have on the shelf (many of which assume you know how to gut a fish). Derby season's coming up, and what better way to impress the guys down at the harbor than to gut and fillet your massive catch yourself with a few quick flicks of the knife...

New Music Section

2011-05-03T12:24:00.000-08:00

We had a patron request that we create a New Music section, much like the sections we have for new books and new videos. We love to get great ideas, so we've created a shelf of new music above the stereo system. This will make it much easier to find the new CDs that we've added to the collection.
We've just stocked the New Music section with 22 albums spanning all genres:

Blessed - Williams, Lucinda.
The king is dead - Decemberists
Science & faith - Script
Waylon: the music inside : a collaboration dedicated to Waylon Jennings. Volume 1
Go-go boots - Drive-By Truckers
21 - Adele, 1988-
The party ain't over - Jackson, Wanda,
Rare bird alert - Martin, Steve
Mission bell - Lee, Amos.
Songs from a Zulu farm - Ladysmith Black Mambazo
WOW #1s: 30 #1 Christian hits! - Heath, Brandon.
Town line - Lewis, Aaron.
Low country blues - Allman, Gregg
--For the ghosts within - Wyatt, Robert.
The very best of the Rat Pack - Sinatra, Frank
Chamber music society - Spalding, Esperanza
Sidewalks - Matt & Kim
Edie Brickell - Brickell, Edie.
Dreams in America - Bloom, Luka.
Violin concertos - Beethoven, Ludwig van, and Janine Jansen
Three flights from alto nido - Laswell, Greg.
The Trinity session - Cowboy Junkies

Add our New Music section to your browsing routine, and you'll be sure to find some wonderful new albums.

Spot the thespian

2011-04-27T11:01:00.000-08:00

I watched the library's latest acquisition - The King's Speech - last night and loved it (from talking to friends and family, I realize everyone else on the planet has seen it already). In addition to being a funny, entrancing movie, The King's Speech also gave me the opportunity to play my favorite British film game: spot the thespian. Many of the fine actors in this movie can be found in other films on the library shelves.

Colin Firth (King George VI) - wearing a lamé jumpsuit and dancing & singing to ABBA songs in Mamma Mia!
Helena Bohman Carter (Queen Elizabeth) - the darling of Merchant & Ivory, catch her in the adaptation of Henry James' The Wings of the Dove.
Geoffrey Rush (Lionel Logue) - he may be an Oscar-winning actor, but he is truly fun in Pirates of the Caribbean: curse of the Black Pearl.
Jennifer Ehle (Mrs. Logue) - played Elizabeth Bennett to Colin Firth's Mr. Darcy in the best version ever of Pride and Prejudice
Michael Gambon (King George V) - was an completely unpleasant character in the wonderful mystery with the upstairs/downstairs twist, Gosford Park
Claire Bloom (Queen Mary) - was in the 1965 John le Carré film The Spy Who Came in From the Cold with Richard Burton
Guy Pearce (King Edward VIII) - was so good in Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, that I thought he was a professional drag queen
Derek Jacobi (Archbishop of Canterbury) - played the original stuttering ruler in the Masterpiece Theater series I, Claudius
Anthony Andrews (Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin) - was dreamy and dissipated in the classic PBS series Brideshead Revisited
Timothy Spall (Winston Churchill) - played the cringing toady Wormtail in the Harry Potter series. (Bonus points if you can spot the other 2 Harry Potter alums in The King's Speech)

Happy actor-spotting!!

Poetry Omnibus

2011-04-20T16:29:00.001-08:00

Eighty-one entries were received in Ketchikan’s first ever Poetry Omnibus Contest. A panel of three judges selected 20 entries for posting on the Ketchikan Gateway Borough buses this summer.

Outreach Librarian George Pasley, contest organizer, said entries were received from 10 adults and 44 children and youth. All of the submitted poems are printed and bound in a notebook which may be viewed at the Ketchikan Public Library.

Poems that were selected in the adult division were written by John Pearson, Agnes Royer, Kelly Chick, Julie Grimmer, Peggy Kennedy, Cara Murray, and Terry Heida Gucker.

Poems that were selected in the Children and Youth Division were written by Jordan Sader, Nico De Guzman, Cecelie Ekse, Malin Guthrie, Melissa Imboden, Geralyn Lovell, Gretchen Wilhelm, Jackson Kaye, and Jordan Geary.

There were three classes in the contest: Tweet poems (140 characters or less), Haiku (Americanized version), and Wish poems (10 lines or less containing the word ‘wish’).

Ketchikan Poetry Omnibus was sponsored by the Ketchikan Public Library and the Ketchikan Gateway Borough Transit Department. Congratulations to all the winners, and THANK YOU to everyone who entered!

ListenAlaska app for your iPhone or iPad

2011-04-15T10:39:00.000-08:00

I'm going to totally steal a wonderful thing from the Juneau Public Library: a video tutorial that shows you how to download eBooks and mp3 audiobooks directly onto your iPhone or iPad (a couple of days ago, I posted step-by-step instructions, but live action is SO much better).

iPad & iPhone tutorial

Thanks again to the Juneau Public Library!

New to Ketchikan?

2011-04-14T12:39:00.002-08:00

The cruise ship season starts in about 3 weeks, and we are starting to see our summer residents trickling into town. If you are planning on coming to Ketchikan to work for the season, or if you are just planning on a short visit, here's a brief tour of the library and all of the resources we have for our patrons. We offer library accounts for temporary residents...just ask at the front desk. We are open Mon-Wed, 10 am to 8 pm and Thurs-Sat, 10 am to 6 pm.

Using ListenAlaska eBooks

2011-04-13T16:15:00.002-08:00

Gross National Happiness

2011-04-05T12:38:00.000-08:00

If you were listening to "A World of Possibilities" on KRBD this last Sunday, you may remember that there was a segment on that show about the economic benefits of happiness. Filmmaker John De Graaf spoke about a collaboration between Seattle and Victoria, B.C. to survey the happiness levels of Seatillites. This was inspired by the tiny kingdom of Bhutan, which bills itself as 'the Happiest Kingdom on Earth'.
We just happen to have a brand new book about this idyllic country: Radio Shangri-La: what I learned in Bhutan, the happiest kingdom on Earth, by Lisa Napoli. Burned out with her frantic career as a radio journalist, Napoli jumps at the chance to downpace her life by moving to Bhutan, where personal happiness and contentment are highly valued. Napoli helps launch the first youth-oriented radio station in a country without a single traffic light, where television has only just been allowed to be broadcast.
As she gets involved with the people and the lifestyle in Bhutan, she begins to question whether her efforts at fostering modern media and communications might not just threaten the very special nature of that community.A very interesting book.

Sailing Southeast

2011-03-15T12:08:00.001-08:00

We have a new 'must-read' book about Southeast Alaska: Glaciers, Bears and Totems: sailing in search of the real Southeast Alaska by Elsie Hulsizer. Photographer and writer Hulsizer spent three summers (2006-2008) sailing throughout the Inside Passage with her husband on their sloop Osprey. They spent a lot of time exploring all the hidden nooks and beaches of Southeast, as well as walking around the many small towns and settlements that make up so much of our population: Hoonah, Kake, Meyers Chuck, Yes Bay, Angoon, Hydaburg, etc.
It's this 'off-the-beaten-path' aspect of Hulsizer's book that makes this such an invaluable resource for local residents as well as the more adventuresome tourists. Speaking as a librarian who fields many, many questions about the local area, we just don't have a lot of information - let alone photographs - about places like Meyers Chuck and Hydaburg. Hulsizer spends pages and pages on these little communities, recounting her interactions with the locals and how daily life proceeds out in the big woods. She even has a section on Old Kasaan.
Ketchikan residents will of course want to read the chapter on our fair city...it's not entirely flattering, and you will find the conversation she has with one of the summer workers down on Creek Street (pg. 52 - "Is Ketchikan real?") quite enlightening.

Snow, snow, snow

2011-02-26T11:08:00.000-09:00

It may be a little slushy right now, but it's supposed to get cold again, and we might get a teeny bit more snow. So - before it's too late - grab our latest book on outdoor fun: Snow Play: how to make forts & slides & winter campfires plus the coolest Loch Ness monster and 23 other brrriliant projects in the snow by Birgitta Ralston.
Glow cones, snow caves, sculptures, mazes and icy decorations are all here in this fun book that will give you and your kids plenty of ideas for playing outside. (You don't have to play with kids....there's no reason why adults can't have fun outside in the snow by themselves). We have another book - Make it wild! : 101 things to make and do outdoors, by Jo Schofield - that also has ideas for chilly outdoor activities and art projects.
If the sun's out, it's a good time for you to be out.

Inventory is over

2011-02-26T10:21:00.000-09:00

The library finished conducting it's annual inventory of the collection....thank you so much for bearing with us while we closed our doors for 3 days. We put computers on carts, stretched network cables and extension cords hither and yon around the library, and scanned the barcode of every single book, audiobook, CD, video, read-along, and reference item in the building. That's over 45,000 barcodes!
This was also our opportunity to put the books in perfect order, straighten the shelves, and refresh some of the displays. In fact, it looked so lovely and tidy this morning when I came to work that my little librarian heart just glowed with happiness and I filmed the entire Adult collection to save the memory for posterity.
That might seem a bit odd, but it's the simple pleasures in life that keep us all going....

New Alaska fiction

2011-02-08T12:59:00.000-09:00

We have two new novels from Southeast Alaska authors David Vann (Caribou Island) and Lynn D'Urso (Heartbroke Bay).
OK, so technically, David Vann is not a Southeast Alaska author - he's a professor at the University of San Francisco. But he was born in Alaska, he did spend part of his childhood living in Ketchikan, and many of the stories in his acclaimed 2010 collection Legend of a Suicide are set in the local area. So we'll just go ahead and claim him as one of our own. His new novel is set on the Kenai Penisula and tells a story that will resonate strongly with many Alaskans: a couple bucking the elements trying to build a cabin in the middle of nowhere as their marriage slowly disintegrates, their dreams and wants slowly diverging. Expect the same sort of bleak, compelling, emotionally charged atmosphere that Vann created so well in his previous work.
Lynn D'Urso is a Juneau-based writer (who has written some very interesting Alaskana books under his real name, Lynn Schooler). His first novel, Heartbroke Bay, is based on a fascinating incident from Alaska's gold rush history. An English maid working off her father's debts is bored with her life, and elopes with a prospector on his way to the gold fields in Alaska. Overwhelmed by the reality of Alaska (always a tough location for newbies), they team up with three other prospectors with interesting stories of their own and end up in Lituya Bay. From there, things go rapidly downhill. This is a page-turning story that has gotten good reviews from Publishers Weekly and Booklist.

It's art that you wear!

2011-01-28T15:56:00.000-09:00

The 25th Annual Wearable Art show is coming up next week, and we have a new book that showcases decades of textile-based art. Artwear: fashion and anti-fashion, by Melissa Leventon, features pieces from a 2005 exhibit at the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco. Leventon - who curated the exhibit - begins with an historical look at the merging of fashion and craft. From the Arts & Crafts movement of the late 1800's to the renewed emphasis on nature during the 1970's and on into the recent experimentation with digital techniques and industrial fibers, textile artists have pushed the boundaries of fashion and perception. Truly elegant painted silks, delicately beaded dresses, intricate smocking and elaborate construction techniques come together in amazingly creative ways. Pages and pages of color photos will inspire budding textile artists, and get you fired up for the show next weekend. (You might even think about getting a jump-start on Wearble XXVI)

New music

2011-01-25T12:20:00.000-09:00

We have some wonderful new CDs if you're looking for something creative and unusual:
AfroCubism is a collaboration between musicians from Mali and Cuba. In fact, this album was supposed to be created back in 1996, but when the musicians from Mali couldn't make it, the Cubans got together anyway and produced Buena Vista Social Club. Expect great things from this blend of African and Cuban rhythms.
African sounds prevail on Bela Fleck's new album Throw Down Your Heart: tales from the acoustic planet. Vol. 3, the Africa sessions. Fleck brings his banjo back to it's homeland, jamming with musicians from Uganda, Mali, Tanzania and Gambia.
Harlem River Blues is the latest album from Justin Townes Earle (son of musician Steve Earle). Part country, part indie rock, part folk, this CD features some haunting songwriting by Earle. Despite the hillbilly feel of the music, the songs themselves deal with life in New York City. It's an interesting juxtaposition.
Clarinetwork: Live at the Village Vanguard has a sound you might associate more readily with NYC. Anat Cohen, who has a nice light touch on the clarinet, pays tribute to the centennial of Benny Goodman's birth with a selection of his standards. She gives them a little harder, jazzier sound, but she maintains that same swinging, lilting sound.
Buddy Guy: Living Proof is the latest from a blues legend. At 74, Buddy Guy is still going strong. He has a couple of tracks with guest artists B.B. King and Carlos Santana, but the rest of the album is all Buddy's gravelly voice and smoking guitar.

Go on, take a bite

2011-01-19T11:43:00.000-09:00

If you're one of a handful of people in this country that aren't concerned about shedding a few post-holiday pounds, then we've got the cookbooks for you!
Classic Home Desserts by Richard Sax is a reprint of an award-winning bible for bakers. Two decades after it first came out, it is still a treasure trove of traditional (Raspberry Flummery), unique (Grape-Nuts Pudding) and contemporary (Cappucino Semifreddo) desserts. Although there aren't as many photos as I would like, the recipes are simple enough for the average home cook. My personal favorite: Grape-nuts pudding.
Rose's Heavenly Cakes by Rose Levy Beranbaum is full of beautiful pictures, presents measurements in volume and weight (both metric and imperial), and instructs the cook on what special equipment might be needed for each recipe and what ingredients might need to be prepared ahead. Recipes range from the homey (English Gingerbread) to the elegant (Grand Marnier Wedding Cake).
Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy melt-in-your-mouth cookies by Alice Medrich is an amazing collection of unusual and decadent cookies. Sorted by texture, the recipes include such interesting suggestions as Masala Macaroons, Spiced Fig Meneinas, Honey Hemp Bars and Pecan Polvorones with Muscovado Filling. There's also Snickerdoodles, Fudgy Brownies, Meringues and Lemon Bars, if you like your sweet nibbles a bit more familiar.
Meat: a kitchen education by James Peterson is a wonderful book for anyone who is daunted by the ever-changing names in the meat display at the local grocery store. The photographs show you what the cut actually looks like, how to prepare it for cooking (trimming, boning, butterflying, etc.) and what cooking techniques to use with that particular cut (braising, roasting, sauteing, grilling, etc.). Peterson even includes sections on game and sausages.
Heart of the Artichoke and other kitchen journeys by David Tanis is my personal favorite of the new crop of cookbooks. Chef at the renowned Chez Panisse restaurant, Tanis presents recipes grouped by season: both in the weight and tenor of their flavor, and in the accessibility of the ingredients. No strawberries in December for Tanis. His recipes are truly global, incorporating flavors from the Mediterranean, Latin America, the Far East and Europe. He presents 5 menus per season, with a varying degree of complexity. The Panfried Steak with Steak Sauce is easily done, the Terrine of Pork and Duck Liver....less so. Generally speaking, however, the recipes are simple and easy to make, with just a few ingredients and a pure flavor.

Another Guest Review

2010-12-30T11:02:00.002-09:00

THE TIGER: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival
By John Valliant

Review by George Pasley

This book is a true account of a tiger killing near the village of Sobolonye in the Russian Far East in December, 1997. As such it is a gripping narrative, describing how the Tiger seems to have stalked and killed a man who had earlier tried to kill the tiger, how the Tiger went on to kill one more man and to terrorize a village, and how authorities tracked down and killed the tiger at risk to their own lives.
But it is more than a true story, and that is the genius of the book. Each of the characters in the story came from somewhere else far away, for reasons other than choice, and stayed because for the most part they had no choice. Instead, they were compelled both to come and to stay for reasons of history, politics and economy. Valliant weaves those reasons into the narrative.
Even more, Valliant gives vivid description to the exceptionally unique ecology of the region known as Primorye, to the evolution of tigers, to the history of interaction between men and predatory beasts (including a vivid and chilling description of baboons hiding in caves by nighttime), the environmental predicaments posed by perestroika, the economic depravity in which the current residents of Primorye live, and finally, efforts to save the Siberian Tiger from extinction.
I found the book holding tight grip on my interest, and loved the way the author helped us to see both the larger environmental, economic and political pictures as well as the intimate picture of a life and death struggle in the winter forest, and yet held the larger picture and the intimate picture in balance.
The Tiger is educational reading and compelling narrative. I would read it again, and read anything else Valliant has written.

MARATHON: How One Battle Changed Western Civilization

2010-12-22T11:35:00.001-09:00

Marathon: How One Battle Changed Western Civilization, by Richard A Billows
Review by George Pasley
Marathon is a newly written history book that doesn’t get bogged down in details (as so many history books do). Billows, a professor of Greek and Roman History at Columbia, takes the reader through an accounting of the famous battle of Marathon between armies of the city-state of Athens and the Persian Empire in August, 490 B.C.E.. His account includes a summary of how it has been viewed through the centuries since, a summary of the progress of Greek culture up to that time, a brief history of the Persian Empire, a history of conflict between Persia and the cities of Greece, a history of Greek democracy, a closer look at Sparta, the history of the battle, and a chapter devoted to explaining an assortment of things likely to have been ‘lost’ to western culture if Athens had lost the battle.
Having said that the book does not bog the reader down in details, I do need to say that the unavoidable use of large numbers of Greek and Persian names is a difficulty. They don’t need to be pronounced, but their strangeness to American readers makes it difficult to remember and distinguish them form one another.
The aside on Sparta was very insightful. The Spartans had a very deserved reputation as soldiers, a reputation that survives to this day, and use of the word “Spartan” to describe meager rations and lifestyle has its roots in fact- the Spartans ate their evening meal at ‘mess” and it was not much more than beans. But enlightened modern readers will be dismayed to know that the entire Spartan military complex was devised as away of keeping slaves in check, so that Spartan citizens would never have to work. In terms of military matters, that meant Sparta was very reluctant to send their soldiers out of their immediate region, for fear of not being able to put down a slave revolt back home.
It is especially helpful to know the exact nature of Athenian Democracy, its origin in issues of property ownership, its principle authors (Solon and Kleisthenes), and its layered features. In light of current American politics, I found it fascinating to know that the Athenians did not trust elections. Instead, they chose office holders by lottery- and had a process for sending citizens into exile if they seemed to be gaining too much influence. Billows makes the argument that the way that Athens knit military service to citizenry made their citizen soldiers more willing to fight to the death, as they were fighting for THEIR freedom.
Billows explains the Athenian strategy that won the battle for Athens, and then makes his case as to why the battle affected the flow of history. Unlike many other events, he argues that we do know what would have happened had Persia won: the surviving citizens of Athens would have been led into exile on the Persian Gulf, meaning that they would not have remained free in Greece, later to create drama, perfectionist art, and philosophy. Most importantly, the victory of Athens meant the survival of democracy (less than two decades old at the time of the battle). But Athens won, democracy survived, and millions enjoy its privileges today.

Library Building Committee meeting tonight

2010-12-16T09:54:00.000-09:00

There will be a meeting of the Library Building Committee tonight at the Ted Ferry Civic Center at 4 pm. The public are welcome to attend the meeting. Hope to see you there!

New Christmas Books

2010-12-03T10:41:00.000-09:00

'Tis the season....for new holiday novels and craft books!
CRAFT BOOKS
How to Build a Gingerbread House: a step-by-step guide to sweet results by Christina Banner. One of the nicest things about this book is that in addition to patterns for different holiday houses (St. Patrick's day, Easter, Halloween, Christmas), she offers ideas for each aspect of a gingerbread house. You can pick and choose different elements and create an entirely new look.
Big Book of Thread Ornaments: over 100 crochet designs by Leisure Arts. Angels, snowflakes, bells and balls, all with a delicate lace-like texture. If you know how to crochet, you must make a snowflake ornament at least once in your life.
Fa La La La Felt: 45 handmade holiday decorations by Amanda Carestio. I'm a sucker for felt, and these pretty little projects all use felt fabric (quick and easy to sew), instead of felted wool (adorable, but very time-consuming). Stockings, garlands and ornaments in bright, happy colors.
A Very Beaded Christmas: 46 projects that glitter, twinkle and shine by Terry Taylor. Projects range from adding a little festive dash to gift wrapping to elaborate beaded ornaments. If you can sew, bend wire, crochet or even glue, you can find a project here.
NOVELS
Christmas Eve in Friday Harbor by Lisa Kleypas. A modern romance set in Washington, with an orphaned little girl, a lonely uncle and a grieving widow.
Christmas Mourning by Margaret Maron. The latest mystery featuring Judge Deborah Knott and her husband, Sheriff's Deputy Dwight Bryant.
A Christmas Odyssey by Anne Perry. It wouldn't be Christmas without a new holiday novel from acclaimed mystery author Perry. This is her eighth novel that mixes the Victorian Christmas season with crime and suspense.
A Christmas Journey by Donna VanLiere. This is a retelling of the Nativity story, complete with charming little watercolor illustrations by Michael Storrings.

Graphic adaptations

2010-11-30T16:00:00.000-09:00

Looking for a new take on old classics? Try one of these three graphic novels that we've just added to the collection:
The Odyssey by Gareth Hinds, based on the epic poem by Homer. Hinds took a little artistic liberty with some of the illustrations, opting for an overall fell of ancient Greece, rather than historically accurate costumes and weaponry. His watercolors are very nice, and get the point across well. He also combined the efforts of a variety of translators for the narration, but needed to adapt a great deal of the text to fit the graphic novel format. This is a good introduction to a classic story for those who don't feel up to diving into Robert Fagles' 541-page translation.
Dante's Divine Comedy adapted by Seymour Chwast, including Inferno, Purgatory and Paradise. Chwast's black-and-white illustrations look very Art Deco, reminiscent of magazine illustrations from the 1920's. Most of Dante's text is gone, leaving the bare bones of the afterlife he envisioned. This is actually Chwast's first graphic novel; he is famous as an award-winning graphic artist and designer of fonts. As much as I loved Robert Pinsky's translation, this new version is very entertaining.
Dawn Land by Will Davis and Joseph Bruchac. Bruchac is a prolific Abenaki children's author who has made his reputation as a storyteller incorporating Native American myths and oral traditions. His 1993 novel Dawn Land is a coming-of-age story set 10,000 years ago. Will Davis has taken this story and retold it with crisp black-and-white pencil sketches.

Who do you love?

2010-11-18T11:34:00.000-09:00

We frequently get asked by our patrons to recommend a new author. And, of course, we try to figure out what types of fiction the patron usually likes. There's no sense recommending Jane Austen to someone who likes hardboiled detective fiction, and a fan of Christian fiction is probably not going to like Chuck Palahniuk. But if you're looking for a real quick answer - you just want to grab a hot author and go - then here's a list of the 14 most popular authors in Ketchikan during this past year:

James Patterson - 112 checkouts
Janet Evanovich - 111 checkouts
Charlaine Harris - 98 checkouts
Robert Parker - 95 checkouts
Jennifer Chiaverini - 92 checkouts
Nicholas Sparks - 84 checkouts
Jim Butcher - 78 checkouts
Clive Cussler - 78 checkouts
Nora Roberts - 64 checkouts
Anne McCaffrey - 62 checkouts
Dana Stabenow - 62 checkouts
Bernard Cornwell - 59 checkouts
Patrick O'Brian - 59 checkouts
Michael Connelly - 58 checkouts

The boss of me

2010-10-28T12:17:00.000-08:00

I don't usually blog about children's books - partly because they don't come across my desk very often, and partly because they're usually aimed at a much younger audience than my blog. But I'm making an exception for a new picture book that I think every new parent (and every old parent) should read.
The Boss Baby by Marla Frazee perfectly depicts what it is like to have a baby in the house. Likening the new arrival to a Donald Trump-style tyrant, she summarizes the power shift in a few well-chosen words and some truly delightful illustrations. A cross between an infant and a short, balding executive, Frazee's little baby will be instantly recognized by anyone who has tried to quiet a crying baby at 2 in the morning. She does a wonderful job with the facial expressions, the sense of lightning-quick moves, and the overall metaphor of her story.
Even though this is a picture book, I think only adults will truly appreciate its worth. I read the story to both my kids (4 and 9), and although they picked up on the humor in the illustrations, neither one of them really understood what the book was about (not being familiar with terms such as 'executive gym'). Parents, however.....parents will totally get this book. And if you know someone who has just welcomed a new little boss into their life, you should get this book for them.

The Investor murders

2010-10-21T17:07:00.000-08:00

If you've lived in Southeast for very long, you've probably heard about the Investor murders. In September of 1982, eight people on the Washington-based fishing boat Investor were murdered while the boat sat anchored just outside Craig (Prince of Wales Island). When an attempt to scuttle the boat went awry, the murderer set fire to the vessel. Although a suspect was eventually arrested, both trials ended without a conviction- and the Investor case is still the largest unsolved murder in Alaska state history.
Addiction counselor Michael McGuire has written a book about the Investor murders, based on his conversations with Larry Demmert Jr., who was a key trial witness. Angels to Ashes: largest unsolved mass murder in Alaska history recounts some of the events leading up to the murder, and presents a fair amount of information that came up during the trials. If you remember this case - or if you're intrigued by Alaskan crime in general - you might find this an interesting book.
NOTE: I have not read this book, but I have gotten feedback from a couple of people who did read the book, including a journalist who is familiar with the background of the Investor case. Apparently, this is not a well-written book. It is chock full of typos and grammatical errors, it meanders around from subject to subject. Other than Larry Demmert, it's difficult to tell who McGuire actually interviewed for this book, and what sources he used. He doesn't pull any punches when it comes to his opinions, however, and he ends the book with a direct accusation of an Anchorage drug dealer.
Journalistically, this book is more National Enquirer than New York Times, but if you're willing to make do until something more substantial comes along, then have at it.....

Sedaris

2010-10-09T13:47:00.000-08:00

David Sedaris has just published his latest book of essays, Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk, and it's a little bit of a departure from his previous works. Instead of funny, questionably autobiographical recollections of his childhood with his bizarre family, this new book is a collection of fables. Like Aesop, Sedaris uses animal protagonists to reflect on human vices and virtues. All resemblance to Aesop's fables pretty much ends there.
For one thing, Sedaris' vices are a little more low-key but a lot more widespread: pomposity, self-absorption, smugness, bigotry and ignorance. These are the kinds of behaviors that are becoming more socially tolerated and therefore more proudly displayed. This pervasiveness makes these traits harder to ignore.
The other difference between Sedaris and Aesop is the characters themselves. They're foul-mouthed, coolly violent, devoid of empathy, and obnoxious. They are made even creepier by the wonderful illustrations of Ian Falconer (creator of the clever Olivia books, featuring a young pig with a grandiose imagination - like Eloise of the animal set). His pictures of the flayed mink, the dying lab rat, and the abused bear aren't necessarily graphic, but they get the point across.
I hope I haven't turned any Sedaris fans off this book, but it's not going to provoke tears of laughter. The stories are witty and well-written, with a macabre sense of humor. The lessons aren't that subtle, yet here's enough truth in them that you can automatically transform the animal characters into people you've seen on T.V., overheard in airports, or know from the gym. Who knows, you might even recognize yourself.....

Wow, what a week!

2010-10-06T10:24:00.000-08:00

It's high winds and driving rain outside, but it's all sunshine and smiles inside the library this week:
The Friends of the Library annual booksale brought in $8,296.59! (just to put this in context, the sale usually brings in about $5,200). We here at the public library would like to say a huge "Thank You" to Teresa Chenhall for chairing the book sale and getting everything organized. We would also like to thank all the people who volunteered their time to lug books, set up the tables, and staff the sale itself. Thank you to the management and merchants of the Plaza Mall for sharing their space with us for the weekend. And thanks to all the book-loving folks who spent their money!
The other wonderful news this week was the voter approval of municipal bonds for a new library!!! We are chugging ahead with the building process, and we are going to be ready for the 2011 legislative session. We would like to give a huge "Thank You" to Heidi Ekstrand, the President of the Friends, for her hours and hours and hours of time and effort getting this project moving forward and drumming up community awareness and support. Thanks also to all the voters who braved the terrible weather to go to the polling stations and exercise their voting rights.
And as an extra bonus this week, the torrential rainfall is scouring Ketchikan Creek clean of dead fish, and the library smells fresh as a daisy again!

New music

2010-09-01T11:00:00.000-08:00

The John Butler Trio is an Australian band which has made a name for itself with strong blues/roots music. Their latest CD - April Uprising - was just released a few months ago. We've just added one of their most critically-acclaimed and popular albums to our collection: Sunrise Over Sea. The band has been compared to the Dave Matthews Band, and has opened for them, as well as appearing at the South By Southwest music festival.
Los Lobos, the East L.A. band that shot to fame recording some Ritchie Valens covers for the movie La Bamba, has just released their 19th album - Tin Can Trust. A great mixture of blues, rock, Tex-Mex, country and Mexican sounds which will please listeners looking for a good, solid rock album.
Canadian indie band The New Pornographers have just released their 5th album. Together has been much better received than their previous release (Challengers), and lead vocalists Neko Case and A.C. Newman give the band a strong, energetic sound. They are back on form, and pleasing fans again.

Back on track!

2010-08-25T14:45:00.000-08:00

The votes were counted this morning, and the unofficial results are that Proposition #1 (authorizing the City Council to select a library site anywhere within city limits) garnered 816 Yes votes and 500 No, while Proposition #2 (restricting construction of a new library to city-owned property downtown) had 524 Yes votes and 795 No.
There are still about 100 absentee and question ballots to be counted, but it's clear that the voters have told the City Council to go ahead with the project. We will soon be on our way to meeting the deadline for State matching funds for the construction of a new, accessible, user-friendly library!
We want to thank everyone who devoted their time and attention to this issue, especially the Borough residents who - even though they weren't able to vote - wanted to give their support. The whole political upheaval has been a little surprising to us librarians, since we normally lead such uncontroversial lives. It's put the library project in the forefront of people's minds, however, and spurred some really interesting discussions.
If you want to know more about the library project, the history of the library, and the upcoming steps along the path to a new facility, please visit http://www.ournewketchikanlibrary.org/

Backpacks

2010-08-21T10:49:00.000-08:00

School starts next week, as you can tell from the aisles of school supplies at the local stores. My son is starting preschool this year (yea!) and to him, going to school means you have to have a backpack. He's spent the last couple of weeks packing and repacking his backpack and practicing wearing it around the house.
There are kids in Ketchikan who can't afford to buy new backpacks in addition to all the other school supplies they have to purchase. Dawn Rauwolf, of PATCHWorks, is collecting new or gently used backpacks to give to children in need. The Ketchikan Public Library is a drop-off site for these, and there is a short donor form that you can fill out so Dawn knows who to thank (if you want to remain anonymous, that's fine too).
This backpack drive is a wonderful idea, and we're very happy to be able to see the donations arriving. In fact, yesterday someone dropped off two new backpacks - 1 for a boy, 1 for a girl - that were not only brand new, they were stuffed with school supplies! Brand new pencils, erasers, tissues, calculator, ruler, pencil box, 3-ring binder....what a sweet gift for a child at a time of the year when people don't ordinarily think of donating to others (unlike traditional giving times such as Thanksgiving and Christmas).
Thank you so much to all the people who have dropped off donations so far, and a huge thank you to Dawn and PATCHWorks for coming up with this idea.

Cookbooks galore!

2010-08-20T11:22:00.000-08:00

There's quite a range of new cookbooks on the shelf this week here at the public library:
Stir-frying to the Sky's Edge: the ultimate guide to mastery, with authentic recipes and stories by Grace Young. Wok cooking is an art, and award-winning author Young starts her book off with a lengthy section about selecting, seasoning and heating a wok, as well as tips on how to prepare the garlic and ginger that are ubiquitous in Oriental cooking. Her recipes are varied in both taste and ease of preparation, and she includes some interesting side stories about the history of wok cooking. Try "Stir-fried salmon with wine sauce"....yum!
Just Five Ingredients: over 120 fast, fuss-free recipes by Ainsley Harriott, is a great book for cooks who are looking for simplicity and elegance. You're probably not going to have some of these ingredients lying around your kitchen (pancetta, smoked chicken breast, duck fat, buffalo mozzarella), but you can either splurge or substitute. No fresh swordfish? Use halibut. No Puy lentils? Use green. No harissa? Don't know what harissa is? (I didn't). It's a spicy paste of garlic, chilies, cumin, oil and coriander - easy to make. Add an exotic touch to your table with a minimum of fuss.
Quesadillas by Donna Kelly offers a huge variety of fillings grilled between tortillas. Shrimp & fontina, gorgonzola & spicy beans, provolone & prosciutto, or cherries, cream cheese & coconut streusel. If you have kids that love quesadillas (and I do), but you want to expand beyond taco meat and shredded cheddar, this is a good way to stretch their taste buds without pouting.
Recipes From the Root Cellar: 270 fresh ways to enjoy winter vegetables by Andrea Chesman is a fabulous book to get you through the winter. When inexpensive fresh produce becomes limited, the staples of potatoes, parsnips, rutabagas, carrots and squashes can help you eat well during cold months. Teamed up with slow-cooked meats or served by themselves with savory spices or nutty grains, these veggies epitomize Autumn .
River Cottage Preserves Handbook by Pam Corbin shows you how to save all those berries you picked and vegetables you grew and herbs you nursed all summer long. Pickles, jellies, sauces, jams, chutneys, cordials, vinegars.....this book is from the U.K., and may have some ingredients that you won't get here in Alaska, but you can always improvise!

The home stretch

2010-08-17T11:50:00.000-08:00

It's just a little over a week until school starts, and your kids have probably hit their boredom threshold. They're tired of riding bikes, playing with the other kids in the neighborhood, going to the playground, even (with the glorious weather we've had lately) tired of going to the beach. How to keep the little nippers entertained until the end of August?
Make it Wild! 101 things to make and do outdoors by Fiona Danks and Jo Schofield have plenty of ideas for idle hands. If you would still like to spend some more time at the beach, have them make elaborate pebble patterns, or rows of little stone towers (pg. 21). Make rafts out of driftwood, feathers and leaves and hold your own regatta (pgs. 56-57). A trip to Ward Lake can provide the opportunity to make leaf bowls (pgs 140-141), natural mobiles (pgs. 152-153) or leaf art (pgs 26-31).
Some of the projects are a little more elaborate - smoke decorated pots, tissue paper kites, twig furniture, felt making - but most of them just require a few suggestions and directions to fire up the kids' imagination and they can get immersed in the design themselves. I do not recommend the balloons that you set on fire, especially with the dry spell we've had lately. (The authors think that tethering the balloon down with string so it doesn't fly off into the trees sufficient enough caution, but I can't agree with that).
If you don't have time to do these fun activities this summer, don't worry. Some of the coolest ideas require ice and snow. The giant snow sculptures dotted with tea lights (you really have to see the photos) are fabulous, as are the ice lanterns and ice windows. This book is full of creative, artistic fun your kids can experience in the waning days of any school vacation.

Do you SLED?

2010-08-11T15:59:00.000-08:00

Have you ever used the Statewide Library Electronic Doorway (SLED) to find the website of a tribal agency, State office, or Alaska Region department of the federal government? Have you used SLED to find websites about tidal currents, meteor showers, volcano updates, or marine weather? Have you ever used SLED to find Alaska-related facts for your students, your homework, your family down South, tourists or a local trivia contest?

If you have used SLED and you value this Alaska State Library & UA libraries resource, please let us know. It takes money to maintain this site, and the Alaska State Legislature, the Rasmuson Foundation, the Institute of Museums and Library Services and the federal government have been very supportive in the past. However, it really helps if they know that this service is being used and being appreciated. A website hit counter can provide the numbers, but it's so much more interesting to hear real people relate their own experiences with SLED, so please let us know!

A must for Patrick O'Brian fans

2010-08-10T12:50:00.000-08:00

Do you know the difference between a stuns'l and a sprits'l? Can you explain "the weather gage"? Are you an ardent fan of Patrick O'Brian's nautical adventure series featuring Captain Jack Aubrey and Dr. Stephen Maturin? Then you would probably enjoy our new biography of the first American naval officer John Barry.
John Barry: an American hero in the age of sail, by Tim McGrath examines the life of someone who expressed many of the qualities that we've come to associate as 'American'. The son of an Irish farmer, Barry escaped to sea to avoid the barbaric penal laws of 18th century Britain. In the American colonies, he quickly worked his way up from an ordinary seaman to the skipper of a schooner, and by the time he was 30 he was the captain of the impressive new merchant ship The Black Prince. A powerfully-built, 6' 4" man with a strong temper and a good knowledge of seamanship, Barry earned a reputation for himself. While captain of The Black Prince, Barry set the record for the fastest day of sail in the 18th century.
But it was his exploits during the Revolutionary War that cemented his place in history. His was the first Continental vessel to capture an enemy warship, his 36-gun frigate Alliance defeated the British warships Atalanta and Trepassey simultaneously, and he fought (and won) the last battle of the American Revolution. When the infant republic founded an official Navy, Barry was selected by George Washington to be the First Captain of the United States Navy.
Beat that, Jack Aubrey.

A fitness book for real people

2010-08-07T11:19:00.000-08:00

A year after I had my daughter, I had an epiphany. I was sluggish, everything took an effort, and I was still wearing maternity clothes because I couldn't fit into any of my pre-pregnancy wardrobe. Not good. But when I started looking for a exercise book or video (we have an absolute slew of them here at the library), I came up against a problem. Perhaps you've had this problem too.
Most exercise guides seem to be aimed at people who are already fit. Frankly, if I could do 50 sit-ups in 10 minutes, I wouldn't need an exercise guide. When you're just starting out on the path to fitness, you need a guide that assumes you can't do any sit-ups, pushups or roundhouse kicks. A guide that accommodates your stiff joints, tight muscles and spare tire.
Big Yoga: a simple guide for bigger bodies by Meera Patricia Kerr does just this. She gives you a brief history of yoga, the simple equipment and clothing that will make things more comfortable, advice on how to get around the "stumbling blocks" and excuses people use to avoid exercise, and proper breathing techniques. But the meat of the book is the section on Hatha Yoga poses. Each pose is illustrated with a clear photograph, a description of the techniques and benefits, and - most importantly - considerations and adaptations. For instance, with the Easy Sitting Pose (#38) she advises that if you have a bra with an underwire, you'll want to adjust the position of your arms so you don't feel pinched. When you do the Triangle Pose (#33), you can rest your hand on your thigh if you can't reach all the way to the floor.
This book is informative, supporting, and reassuring for anyone who is new to exercise and looking for a way to gently ease into a healthier, fitter lifestyle that will alleviate aches, stiffness and fatigue.

Indiana Jones

2010-08-04T11:46:00.000-08:00

You may have heard the recent interview on KRBD (courtesy of Shady Grove Oliver from KCAW - a CoastAlaska station in Sitka) with Dr. Donald P. Ryan. This archaeologist talked about his work, and the excitement of finding the long-sought tomb KV 60 a mere half-hour after beginning the search. You may have been intrigued at the way in which the well-preserved mummy he found was matched to the known remains of the famous Hatshepsut, the fifth pharaoh of the eighteenth dynasty of Ancient Egypt. You may have been drawn in by his obvious enthusiasm for his life's work and the field of archaeology altogether. You may have said to yourself "by golly, that man should write a book about this".
Well, he has. Beneath the Sands of Egypt: adventures of an unconventional archaeologist was recently added to our new book shelves (as I was listening to the radio interview, I thought his account seemed very familiar - when I hopped on our online catalog, I realized why). Learn more about this real-life Indiana Jones and the combination of tedium and serendipity that make archaeology such an amazing career. And if you want to listen to Oliver's interview with Dr. Ryan, you may.

And the winners are....

2010-07-31T17:27:00.000-08:00

We held our Playaway drawing today, and the following people have won free lanyards for their Playaways. Congratulations!

Patricia Booth
Cindy Craig
Barbara Guenther
Chad Martin
Janet Mason
Renee Meacham
Megan Mix
Judy Peihl
Brooke Ratzat
Robert St. Clair

For your viewing pleasure

2010-07-31T09:40:00.000-08:00

I will start off with the disclaimer that I haven't seen this movie, and I haven't read the books. But I would have to have been working with a bag over my head to have not noticed that Stieg Larsson's Milennium trilogy isn't the hottest thing since sliced bread. For those of you who have eagerly devoured the final book - The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest - and are feeling bereft (the author died in 2004, before the publication of his wildly popular books) we have something to offer.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is now available on DVD, starring Michael Nyqvist as disgraced journalist Mikael Blomkvist and Noomi Rapace as the goth computer hacker Lisbeth Salander. This Swedish production was Europe's highest grossing film of 2009, and the critics have raved about the performances. If you have read the books, you know that the subject material is very dark and disturbing....this film does not pull any punches as far as unsettling content and images go, and it is rated R (read the label on the back for particulars).

Codeine Velvet Club

2010-07-30T13:02:00.000-08:00

It actually took me 3-4 rounds with the new CD from Codeine Velvet Club before I took to it's overproduced sound. It's not like I'm a big devotee of acoustic music, but there's a certain blurry feel to some of the tracks in this self-titled album. Once I got used to it, though, I really fell in love with the fun retro sound which has a late '60s British feel to it (no surprise, since the band comes from Glasgow). My favorite track - 'Little Sister' - has a rockin' grind to it, and an explosive sound that begs to be played in the car with the windows rolled down ('The Black Roses' has got a pounding beat also). 'Vanity Kills', which was the first single they released from the album, is a more laid-back, boozier sound.
All in all, this is an enjoyable album. Too bad the duo of Jon Fratelli and Lou Hickey is breaking up already. Grab this CD while you can.

Diplomacy? Fuhgeddaboudit!

2010-07-27T12:43:00.000-08:00

How many times have you heard news about the stalled Mideast peace process, failed talks in Northern Ireland, or increasing tensions and thought to yourself "If we could only get these mealy-mouthed diplomats out of the way and sit down and talk like real people!". Well, that's what Robert Egan thought, and in his new book Eating With the Enemy: how I waged peace with North Korea from my bbq shack in Hackensack, he explains how we went from being an ex-druggie high-school dropout to accompanying Senator Stewart Greenleaf (R-PA) on a trip to North Korea to negotiate for the recovery of the captured Navy ship the U.S.S. Pueblo.
Egan's initial interest was in finding MIAs and POWs still in Vietnam, and during the early 1980's he began inviting the Vietnamese delegation to the U.N. over to eat at his restaurant, '"Cubby's". He helped a Vietnamese official defect. He testified before a Senate Select Committee about missing POWs. The FBI began asking him questions. And in 1993, when North Korea wanted to establish a back-door diplomatic channel to the White House, the phone rang at Cubby's.
This book reads a little like Tony Soprano meets Kim Jong Il, only without anyone getting whacked in an Italian restaurant. On the one hand you can't help agreeing with Egan's idea that "why can't an ordinary guy have a solution to an extraordinary problem?". But you also can't help feeling that he is in way over his head, and you won't be a bit surprised to find out that the U.S.S. Pueblo is still docked in the Taedong River. This book is just crying out to be made into a movie, but as far as changing the way we deal with foreign countries? Fuhgeddaboudit.

Leggo my LEGO

2010-07-24T12:43:00.000-08:00

I never realized I was a LEGO geek (or an AFOL - Adult Fan Of LEGO) until I picked up Jonathan Bender's book LEGO: a love story. I'm not hard-core about it. I've never been to a LEGO convention or to LEGOLAND, and I don't have a separate room in my house where I build and store models.
But I never got rid of the sets I had as a kid, and I continued to keep buying small sets even before I had kids of my own (and therefore a socially acceptable excuse for buying plastic blocks). And after reading through Bender's book and his interviews with AFOLs, I realize that I share some of their basic tenents:

For a while, LEGO became much too focused on specialized sets whose blocks weren't useful for anything else.
The true beauty of LEGO lies in making your own creations, not following a rigid set of construction diagrams.
MEGA Blox suck.

So if you can remember spending hours of your childhood sitting on your bedroom floor with a multi-hued assortment of little plastic blocks spread out around you as you built houses, cars, planes, boats, cities and worlds.....then you will feel a fond glow as you read LEGO: a love story. And chances are, you'll probably feel compelled to go out and pick up a new set of blocks.

More from Heather Lende

2010-07-20T12:10:00.000-08:00

Haines author Heather Lende has just released a follow-up to her very successful book If You Lived Here, I'd Know Your Name: news from small-town Alaska. Just before the publication of that first book, just as she was about to launch her book tour, just as her daughter was about to graduate from college, she was hit by a truck and medevaced to Seattle.
Her second book - Take Good Care of the Garden and the Dogs: family, friendships and faith in small-town Alaska - deals with the aftermath of that tragedy. She looks back at all the ways that her friends and neighbors helped her through that difficult period and what it means to live in a small community where tragedies and success are not anonymous; events affect real people with names your know and faces you recognize.
We can understand that in Ketchikan, even though we're about 5x bigger than Lende's hometown of Haines. We see the donation cans in grocery stores and restaurants, helping out someone who's been diagnosed with cancer. We hold spaghetti feeds to raise money for people who have been burned out of their home. We donate money to kids whose father died in a boating accident.
It's one of the things I think about when tourists ask "Do you live here all year long?"

A grown-up romance

2010-07-16T10:26:00.000-08:00

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand, by Helen Simonson, is a lovely, sweet story. Widowed Major Pettigrew (retired) is still trying to absorb the news that his brother has just died when shopkeeper Mrs. Jasmina Ali - also widowed - comes by to pick up the newspaper money. The unlikely pair strike up a friendship bolstered by a mutual love of literature and a mutual sympathy about dealing with relatives. In the Major's case, it's a shallow son and a materialistic sister-in-law. In Mrs. Ali's case, it is the conservative members of her late husband's family and their assumption that she will hand over control of the shop to her nephew and go back to Pakistan.
As we watch the Major struggle with his instinct to hide his new friendship from the judgmental residents of Edgecombe St. Mary, Simonson lightens up the serious thread of racism and class prejudice with a lot of dry humor. The Major and Mrs. Ali are such sympathetic characters - even with their faults - that you can't help keeping your fingers crossed that they will be able to rise above the petty expectations of their families and neighbors.
In fact, many of the characters seem to be struggling against other people's expectations. An illegitimate child, a woman on the brink of spinsterhood, a career woman who wants a family, and a young man caught between piety and love; all these people flesh out the story and make Major Pettigrew's Last Stand a very enjoyable romantic tale about starting over.

True tales of the sea

2010-07-13T12:01:00.000-08:00

Nautical nonfiction is always popular in Ketchikan, and we have three new books about exciting true adventures on the waves.
Seaworthy: a swordboat captain returns to the sea is by Linda Greenlaw, who featured prominently in Sebastian Junger's fabulous book The Perfect Storm. Greenlaw has become a well-received author herself, with 2 novels, a cookbook and 3 nonfiction books about commercial fishing under her belt. Her latest tells about her experiences returning to swordboat fishing, her run-in with the Canadian coast guard and her subsequent prosecution for illegal fishing off the Grand Banks. Mostly, it's a tale familiar to all commercial fisherman: barely breaking even at the end of the day.
Seized: a sea captain's adventures battling scoundrels and pirates while recovering stolen ships in the world's most troubled waters is by Max Hardberger. If you like Clive Cussler's Dirk Pitt novels, you will really enjoy this account of real-life covert operations, bribery, smuggling, terrorists and hostile governments. Each time Hardberger goes on a mission to recover a seized ship, he faces the potential of injury, imprisonment or death. Beat that, Dirk
War Beneath the Waves: a true story of courage and leadership aboard a World War II submarine by Don Keith follows the struggles of the USS Billfish as it is subjected to a 15-hour Japanese depth charge attack off the coast of Borneo. With both the captain and two senior officers incapacitated, diving officer Charlie Rush takes command of the sub and helps to extricate the sub and crew from a perilous situation. Rush was eventually awarded the Navy Cross for his actions - read why.

You think that's tough?

2010-07-10T16:50:00.000-08:00

So, if someone were to say to you that they were going to take a bike trip around the world, you would probably be pretty impressed. That's a big trip, with rough conditions and remote locations. But what if they were going to do that trip without a GPS? Or a cell phone? Or a VISA card? What if they were riding a 40-pound, 1890's-era Singer Safety bike?
In 1892, cycling pioneer and amateur photographer Frank Lenz began a 20,000 mile journey around the world that he would chronicle for Outing magazine. Two years later, as he approached the 'home stretch' through Europe, he disappeared in Turkey. Outing sent William Sachtleben and Thomas Allen on his trail. In 344 days, they completed their historic trip around the globe, and helped bring to light Lenz's tragic fate.
David Herlihy recounts these amazing adventures and captures the excitement of the early years of cycling in his new book The Lost Cyclist: the epic tale of an American adventurer and his mysterious disappearance. And we thought cycling the Al-Can highway was a huge trek.

A darn good story

2010-07-06T17:53:00.000-08:00

I don't usually blog about Reference books, because you can't check them out and take them home, so why tempt you? But I'm making an exception here, since the book in question is so interesting and useful it's a shame not to let everyone know about it.
Exploring Alaska & British Columbia by Stephen E. Hilson is actually a reprint of a 1997 follow-up to his first historical reference atlas: Exploring Puget Sound & British Columbia (which we've had in the Reference collection since it's publication in 1975). These are NOT nautical atlases for navigation purposes, although Hilson did use actual 1970's-era NOAA and CHS charts as the 'backdrop' for his information. Instead, these pages are full of little historical tidbits: old gold mines, village sites, plane crashes, shipwrecks, canneries, etc.
Looking over this atlas is a little like sailing around Southeast with your old grandfather, as he points out things that used to be. 'On Oct. 26, 1947 a Pan Am DC-4 crashed on Tamgas Mt and all 18 people aboard died' . Or, 'There's a natural soda spring just at the head of Ella Creek that gets exposed at half tide'. Or 'Over there is where Scotty Johnstone had his fox farm. His boats all sank in the winter of '29, and he had to eat Christmas candy and fox food to survive until someone from Ketchikan came over to check on him'.
So if you're looking for a little historical information about the area, if you're in search of old mines or canneries, if you had a relative who had a fox farm but you're not sure where (apparently, our area was just awash in fox farms), or if you're just planning on taking the boat out to do a little exploring and you're looking for points of interest....then copy off a couple of pages and take them along on your trip.

Beautiful covers

2010-07-02T13:23:00.000-08:00

I really like cover albums, because it's one way to judge the quality of a song. Does it stand up to reinterpretation, new instruments, new tempo, a new generation? Stardust is a timeless song; I'm a Barbie Girl, not so much.
Of course, this test relies on the cover version being an actual reinterpretation and not some tired rehash of the same arrangement that ends up sounding almost exactly like the original. We have two new examples of really excellent cover albums: Dark Hope by opera star Renee Fleming and Interpretations: the British rock songbook by blues artist Bettye LaVette.
Fleming avoids the mistake of turning rock songs into arias. Her voice is rich and brilliant, but she doesn't overshadow the lyrics on songs from bands such as Muse, Death Cab for Cutie, Tears for Fears and Band of Horses. Her cover of Leonard Cohen's ubiquitous song Hallelujah is beautiful (although I still prefer Jeff Buckley's version). This is a very enjoyable album.
LaVette's album really demonstrates how much a song can be stretched, as she brings a bluesy feel to classic songs from The Beatles, The Moody Blues, Pink Floyd and Led Zepplin. This isn't that dramatic a concept, as the British Invasion got much of it's inspiration from American rock and blues of the 1950's.....but she still makes it sound fabulous. The first track alone - a totally funky rendition of The Word by The Beatles - sells this album. And unlike many CDs, I actually found the liner notes for this one quite interesting.

What the.....?

2010-06-29T12:38:00.000-08:00

I won't lie to you; I do not understand the current fascination with taking classic works of 19th century literature and "invigorating" them with supernatural gore. Have you missed this trend? Deliberately avoided it? Well, like any literary phenomenom (i.e. Harry Potter), there's a slew of authors out there that are willing to ride the coattails of a winning formula. Here's some examples:

Mummies and Mansfield Park by Vera Nazarian
Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters by Ben H. Winters
Jane Slayre by Sherri Browning Erwin
The Undead World of Oz by Ryan C. Thomas
Emma and the Werewolves by Adam Rann
Jane Bites Back by Michael Thomas Ford
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Zombie Jim by W. Bill Czolgosz
Vampire Darcy's Desire by Regina Jeffers
Robin Hood and Friar Tuck: Zombie killers by Paul A. Freeman
The War of the Worlds Plus Blood, Guts and Zombies by Eric S. Brown
Alice in Zombieland by Nickolas Cook

If you lean more toward a nonfiction take on the flesh-eating walking dead, perhaps you might prefer a biography:

Queen Victoria, Demon Hunter by A.E. Moorat
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith

Seth Grahame-Smith started this whole thing with his mash-up Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which proved so wildly successfully that it not only spawned this mass of imitators, it was made into a graphic novel (of course!). We've just added this to the collection, along with the prequel Dawn of the Dreadfuls by Steve Hockensmith. You know, if you're into that sort of thing.

Murder City

2010-06-26T10:06:00.000-08:00

Murder City: Ciudad Juarez and the global economy's new killing fields, by Charles Bowden, is not your standard investigative journalism piece about Mexican drug cartels and violence at the U.S.-Mexican border. Rather than a dry litany of dates, times and interviews with policy makers, Bowen's book is more narrative. It comes across almost like a novel: a litany of anecdotes tied together with the thread of violence. The fact that it is told in the present tense adds to the sense of immediacy, and allows the reader to follow through a year of escalating criminal activity as though you are there in Juarez.
In January of 2008, the murders begin with 5 policemen. By the end of the year there were 1,652 recorded murders and by the summer of 2009 the murder rate was over 300 victims a month. Policemen, drug peddlers, teachers, students, shopkeepers, housewives and addicts become statistics in a city where violence becomes the norm and dead bodies show up in every neighborhood.
The constant stream of stories overwhelms the reader by the end of the book and demonstrates how you can become numb to violence. Very powerful, very compelling, very depressing.

What do I do with all those fabric scraps?

2010-06-24T10:30:00.000-08:00

If you're a quilter or sewer, then you probably have bags of fabric scraps collecting in your closets: beautiful colors, patterns or textures that you hate to part with because you're sure you can find a use for them. Well, we have two new books at the public library that may help you display your fabric finds to their best advantage.
Keepsake Baby Quilts From Scraps presents 9 different baby quilt patters specially designed to use small amounts of fabric. Designer Julie Higgins focuses on simple repeating patterns that are great for beginning quilters (or even advanced quilters who are working 'under the gun' to prepare for a baby shower).
Inchies: create miniature works of art using textiles and mixed media techniques is a collection of great ideas for sewers, felters, painters, beaders and textile artists. Edited by Peggy Donda-Kobert, the projects in this book include silk, Tyvek, angelina fibers, and yarns but the basic building block for these concepts is a simple square of fabric cunningly detailed with beads, thread, paint and jewels. Your end result can be as elaborate or as minimalist as you want.

Graphic history

2010-06-22T16:44:00.000-08:00

We have a fascinating new book on the shelves that presents the waste and brutality of World War I in a graphic novel format. It was the war of the trenches is the work of French artist Jacques Tardi. Pulling in recollections from his grandfather (a WWI vet to whom this book is dedicated) and various books and films about the war (there is a nice bibliography in the back), Tardi leaves the 'facts' of the war to other writers and instead focuses on the 'feel' of war. This is a collection of memories, instances, and anecdotes that convey the reality of trench warfare. Although it is told from the perspective of the French footsoldier, Tardi points out in his introduction that the experience was universally brutal for all sides.
This is not our only graphic novel that deals with historical events. If you are moved by Tardi's work, try these other graphic novels:

The Vietnam War : a graphic history by Dwight Zimmerman, art by Wayne Vansant
Footnotes in Gaza by Joe Sacco
The Photographer by Emmanuel Guibert, Didier Lefèvre, & Frédéric Lemercier
Che: a graphic biography by Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colón
Nelson Mandela : the authorized comic book by the Nelson Mandela Foundation

Leonard Cohen

2010-04-17T13:09:00.000-08:00

Book of Longing by Leonard Cohen (2006). Cohen is a Montreal native who was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2008. As anyone who has listened to his albums can tell you, he has built his reputation on his songwriting skills, rather than his vocal abilities. In fact, Cohen began his career as a poet, publishing his first collection - Let Us Compare Mythologies - in 1956, while he was an undergraduate at McGill University. By the time he moved to New York in 1967 to pursue music, he had already established himself as a gifted poet in Canada.
Book of Longing is his most recent book of poetry, and it is the only poetry book to make it to the top of the bestseller list in Canada (as compiled by Maclean's magazine). The pieces in this collection cover a lot of territory, and they are interspersed with Cohen's own line drawings and quick sketches. Lyrics, free verse, epigrams, short poems and communications to the reader fill the pages.

John Ashbery

2010-04-16T09:32:00.000-08:00

A Worldly Country: new poems by John Ashbery (2007). The son of a farmer and a biology teacher, Ashbery was born and raised in upstate New York. He graduated from Harvard University in 1949 and received his Master's at Columbia University just a couple of years before publishing his first collection of poems, the chapbook Turandot and Other Poems.
He worked as a magazine editor and poet for years, continuing to publish his work with mixed success until 1975, when his book Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror won the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Pulitzer Prize.
In the succeeding decades, he has gone on to garner numerous awards, including the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the Poetry Society of America's Robert Frost Medal, the American Academy of Arts and Letters's Gold Medal for Poetry and many fellowships and awards.
Ashbery has published more than twenty collections of poems, and he is currently the Charles P. Stevenson, Jr. Professor of Languages and Literature at Bard College at Annandale-on Hudson, New York.

Kay Ryan

2010-04-15T15:01:00.000-08:00

The Best of It: new and selected poems by Kay Ryan. Ryan is currently in her second year as Poet Laureate of the United States. Born and raised in Southern California, she was educated at UCLA and she now teaches part-time at the College of Marin in Kentfield. This is her first retrospective collection of poetry, and she includes previously published work as well as new pieces. Her poems are very short and compressed, but there is a certain rhythm and rhyme to her poems that give them an air of musicality....almost like a chant.
In addition to her two-year tenure as Poet Laureate, Ryan has also been awarded the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the Maurice English Poetry Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Union League Poetry Prize, an Ingram Merrill Award, and a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Stephen Dunn

2010-04-14T12:42:00.000-08:00

Everything Else in the World by Stephen Dunn (2006). Dunn was born in New York City in 1939 (apparently, if you want to be a poet, it helps to be born in NYC). After graduating from Hofstra University, he spent a year as a professional basketball player with the Williamsport, Pennsylvania Billies. He's had considerably more success and longevity as a poet.
He has published 14 collections of poems, winning the Pulitzer Prize for his book Different Hours (2000) and the National Poetry Series award for Local Time (1986). He has also been awarded the James Wright Prize, the Academy Award for Literature, three fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Theodore Roethke Prize, the Levinson Prize, and the Oscar Blumenthal Prize.
He is currently the Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing at Richard Stockton College of New Jersey (I wonder how he fits that title on his business card).

Marge Piercy

2010-04-13T15:03:00.000-08:00

Colors Passing Through Us by Marge Piercy (2003). Piercy draws on a number of different influences in this book: the life of her maternal grandmother, who emigrated from a Lithuanian stetl; her love of gardening; her strong sense of political activism; her experiences with marriage and divorce; and her own sexuality.
Piercy, who has lived on Cape Cod for decades, was born and raised in Detroit during the Great Depression, and was the first member of her family to attend college. She rebelled against the traditional roles of the 1950's, however, becoming involved with both the civil rights movement and the feminist movement. She published her first book of poems - Breaking Camp - in 1968, after completing an M.A. at Northwestern University. She has since published 16 collections of poetry, the most recent being The Crooked Inheritance. Many of her prose and poetical works deal with feminism, Judaism, cats and gardening.

Charles Wright

2010-04-10T10:54:00.000-08:00

Buffalo Yoga by Charles Wright (2004). Tennessee-born Wright is currently the Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and teaches at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. A prolific poet who published his first volume of poems - The Grave of the Right Hand - in 1970, Wright has recently published his 19th book. Sestets is a collection of six-line poems that are "a masterpiece of formal rigor and a profound meditation on nature and mortality" - from the book description.
Charles Wright is a well-respected poet who has won the Pulitzer Prize (Black Zodiac), the National Book Award (Country Music) and the Griffin Poetry Prize (Scar Tissue). In 1979 he won the PEN Translation Prize for his work in translating the Italian poet Eugenio Montale (The Storm and Other Things). Being stationed in Italy while enlisted in the U.S. Army and his later experiences teaching in Italy surely helped him get a feel for Italian culture.

Louise Glück

2010-04-08T09:34:00.000-08:00

Writer-in-residence at Yale University, Louise Glück received the Pulitzer Prize for her collection of poems The Wild Iris in 1992. The poems in this collection alternate between conversations with God and communication between flowers and their gardener (who could be seen as the Supreme Being of the garden).
Born in New York City and educated at Sarah Lawrence College and Columbia University, Glück published her first collection of poems - Firstborn - in 1968. She was appointed Poet Laureate in 2003, and was a finalist for the National Book Award for Poetry in 2006 for her collection Averno. She has also received the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Bollingen Prize, and the Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets
Her eleventh collection - A Village Life - was published last year, and is a collection of poems set in the hills overlooking the Mediterranean. She received a great deal of critical praise for this book, although it was seen as a departure from her previous works.

They're here! They're here! Ebooks are here!

2010-04-07T11:31:00.000-08:00

Well, we've had many inquiries about the possibility of getting ebooks for our patrons here in Ketchikan, and I'm happy to say that - thanks to our ListenAlaska consortium - we can now offer over 700 different titles for your enjoyment. James Patterson, Charlaine Harris, Jim Butcher, Margaret Atwood and Barbara Kingsolver are some of the popular authors to choose from, as well as a variety of nonfiction titles like Knitting for Dummies, The Evolution of God.....even the FAA's Airplane Flying Handbook!!
When you go to our ListenAlaska site, you can browse through the newest ebook titles right there at the top of the page. Most of the ebook titles are in the reader-friendly Adobe ePub format, and they can all be read directly on your PC or Mac, or can be transferred to selected portable handheld readers. The system works with the Nook (from Barnes & Noble) and with Sony eReaders...but unfortunately is not compatible with Amazon Kindle or the new iPad.
To see a complete list of our ebook offerings, go to Advanced Search and select either ePub or PDF as your format. You can also narrow your search by genre, language, award-winners. Once you've checked out your title, you'll just need to download the Adobe Digital Editions file management software. The link is at the bottom of the ListenAlaska page, and there are step-by-step instructions for downloading and installing this software.
We will be continuing to add to the ebook selections in the future, so be sure to keep checking for new titles!

John Straley

2010-04-06T12:26:00.000-08:00

The Rising and the Rain by John Straley. Straley is a well-known name in Southeast Alaska (and among mystery fans everywhere) for his Cecil Younger mystery series. Setting his novels in Sitka, Juneau and Ketchikan, Straley is a completely authentic voice of Southeast. He gets us....he's one of us. This same innate empathy comes across in his poems. The damp cold, grey mist fingers working down into the trees, the detritus and rot, long periods of contemplation out alone in the woods or on the beach....it's all there with a good dollop of dry humor.
A long-time Sitka resident and criminal defense investigator for the Alaska Public Defender Agency, Straley was named Alaska's 12th Writer Laureate in 2006 (during his tenure, he came to Ketchikan to do a reading here at the public library). His first novel - The Woman Who Married a Bear - won a Shamus Award for Best First Mystery in 1993. The Rising and the Rain is Straley's first book of poetry.

Happy Easter!

2010-04-04T09:00:00.001-08:00

The library is closed on Sundays...feel free to rhyme amongst yourselves until we reopen on Monday, at 10 am

Billy Collins

2010-04-03T10:48:00.000-08:00

The Trouble with Poetry, and other poems by Billy Collins (2005). Writing about the previous occupants of his old farmhouse, the symbolism of statues, or the artificial friendship intimated by nametags on workers, Collins writes with poems with a vein of humor and a way of shifting perspective that forces the reader to look at the familiar in new ways. He has a wonderful spoken delivery, as well (check out Billy Collins Live on our ListenAlaska audiobook service).
Collins is a New York poet, born and bred, who has taught at Lehman College in the Bronx for decades. He was named U.S. Poet Laureate (2001-2003) as well as the New York State Poet Laureate (2004-2006). During his tenure as America's Poet Laureate, he introduced the program Poetry 180, which encouraged high schools to read one poem a day for the entire school year. The poems selected for this program where collected in Poetry 180: a turning back to poetry (2003), and a follow-up volume 180 more: extraordinary poems for every day (2005). The public library has both of these volumes, as well as other collections of Mr. Collins' work.

Philip Levine

2010-04-02T11:31:00.001-08:00

News of the World by Philip Levine is a slim collection of semi-autobiographical poems dealing with war, blue-collar workers, the gritty side of America and an extremely unflattering portrayal of a librarian ("Library Days", pg. 32). This is Levine's 16th collection of poetry.

Born in 1928, Detroit native Levine has been the poet-in-residence at New York University for the past 14 years, as well as the recepient of the National Book Award for his 1980 collection Ashes and the Pulitzer Prize in 1995 for The Simple Truth. The son of immigrants, Levine grew up doing a variety of industrial jobs, and eventually went to night school while working at an auto plant. He has a real understanding of working-class life and the fleeting nature of the American dream when one is living paycheck-to-paycheck.

One poet a day won't kill you

2010-04-01T11:05:00.001-08:00

It's April, which is National Poetry Month, and I'm going to totally steal a wonderful concept from KRBD : "One Poem a Day Won't Kill You". Twice a day, every day, during the month of April one of your friends and neighbors from Ketchikan reads a favorite poem. 30 days = 30 poems.
Since we're big on books here at the public library, we will be showcasing a volume of poems from a different poet each day, including a short bio of the poet. Let's start with the newest poetry book in the collection: Breakwater by Catharine Savage Brosman.
Brosman is emerita professor of French at Tulane University, honorary research professor at the University of Sheffield (England), and is currently the poetry editor for Chronicles: a magazine of American Culture. She published her first book of poetry in 1972 (Watering), and this latest book is her 7th collection of poems. A native of Colorado and currently a resident of Texas, she has a real feel for the beauty of the American West in her poetry.
Breakwater begins with an autobiographical tone, as the poems deal with rediscovered and reunited love (she recently remarried her first husband after decades of being apart). She goes on to write of the experiences of other women in their lives and loves, and the poems at the end of the collection focus on the nature and landscapes of the bayou and the southwest.

New films from the Philippines

2010-03-25T12:29:00.000-08:00

We have over 70 Tagalog films in the library (as well as Tagalog-language books and music CDs), but it's been a little while since we've added any new movies to this collection. Here are 3 brand-new feature films from the Philippines:
Dobol Trobol starring Vic Sotto and Dolphy. "Dobol Trobo is a hilarious comedy about a passionate cook named Mac (Dolphy) who strikes up a very unlikely and riotous friendship with his happy go lucky co-worker Arthur (Vic Sotto). As both hit the bumpy road of their misadventures, the side-splitting companionship they've found might be what matters the most." - from the publisher.
My Bestfriend's Girlfriend starring Richard Gutierrez and Marian Rivera. "After an awkward yet memorable encounter at a stag party, Evo (Richard Gutierrez) and Grace (Marian Rivera) thought they would never see each other again. Little did they know that Grace is actually the girlfriend of Evo's best friend, Mark (JC De Vera). As the arrogant player that he is, Evo takes advantage of what happened at the party to make Grace agree to his demands. He forces Grace to pretend as his girlfriend to make Isabel (Ehra Madrigal), his ex-girlfriend jealous. But as the game of love ensues, Evo and Grace find themselves trapped in their own love spell." - from the publisher.
When I Met U starring Richard Gutierrez and KC Concepcion. "Jenny (KC Concepcion), a mall promodizer (sic), hitches a ride on a seaplane with stuggling pilot, Benjie (Richard Gutierrez), to attend a wedding in Palawan. On the way to the wedding, Benjie and Jenny find themselves not getting along. But when the aircraft crashes into an isolated island, the two are forced to deal with each other... As their friendship deepens despite their romantic trappins (sic), the two are confronted with their growing love for each other." - from the publisher

The lost books of the Odyssey

2010-03-24T14:37:00.000-08:00

When reading Zachary Mason's debut novel The Lost Books of the Odyssey, don't try too hard; much like swimming in a strong current, it's best to just relax and let the words take you where they will. Don't look for a chronological story line or consistency from chapter to chapter, just enjoy the prose.
Mason has taken the bare skeleton of Homer's Odyssey - Odysseus, king of tiny Ithaca; overbearing Agamemnon; a pointless war; a wife and son left behind - and crafted dozens of fragmented stories that reimagine the way in which Troy fell, how Odysseus found his way back to Ithaca and what happened when he arrived.
The most interesting of these tales are the ones that play with the motivations and behavior of the characters: Penelope becomes a half-feral queen who drags the palace into licentiousness during Odysseus' absence; Paris is actually Death, and the goddess Athena contrives with Odysseus to destroy the kingdom of Death on earth; Odysseus is not a clever warrior, but is instead a wily coward who sneaks off the battlefield and disguises himself as a wandering bard who eventually creates the legend of Odysseus through his songs.
Each chapter is a little tale onto itself, and the language is almost hypnotic. Fortunately, we also have this as an audiobook, and the narrator - Simon Vance - has a wonderful, expressive voice (you may know him from the Patrick O'Brian series, or The Girl Who Played With Fire). This book can be nibbled at in small pieces, as each chapter gives you something to think about. And you don't even have to be a scholar of Homer to appreciate the stories....

You're the coolest parent ever!

2010-03-13T09:45:00.000-09:00

We're all about helping people at the library, and with our latest book we can help you:

1. Spend quality time with your child

2. Make a toy that is free of cadmium, lead and pthalates

3. Save a whole bunch of money

Build Your Own Paper Robots: 100s of mecha model designs on CD to print out and assemble, by Julius Perdana and Josh Buczynski, is like paper dolls on steroids. My sister used to collect paper dolls when she was young, and I remember helping her cut out tiny little purses, feathered hats and high-heel shoes. After about an hour, you would find yourself going cross-eyed. So my advice about this new book is: pace yourself.

That being said, Paper Robots is really cool. The simple way to build these robots is to pop the CD into your computer, pick a template and print out the pieces on a color printer. Cut them out, follow assembly instructions, and you've got a 3-D robot model.

If you're really creative (and you have Photoshop or Photoshop Elements), you can actually color the different pieces of the robots in your computer and print out a completely custom product. You can even paint your own camouflage robots! Some card-stock paper, a little white glue, some rubber bands and coffee stirrers, and you've got yourself a bot.

The authors have even included a file for a cyberport and a cool urban backdrop for your new toys. If you remember many happy days in your childhood putting together little airplane or battleship models, then you can pass that fun onto your kids and grandkids. You might need their young eyes and nimble fingers to put these things together, anyway.

More resources available through the Hobbies & Crafts database!

2010-03-09T12:39:00.002-09:00

In case you haven't had a chance to browse through our Hobbies & Crafts Reference Center, you might want to give it a try. There are hundreds of topics listed, with diagrams, full-colored pictures, and patterns. So if you're interested in knitting, quilting, fly-tying, beading, woodworking, cross-stitch or sewing, you can find lots of great ideas. The editors of this resource recently announced that they are adding a large number of books to the database. Looking over this list of titles will give you a really good picture of just how varied and useful this service is:

Advanced Fly Fishing: Freshwater & Saltwater Strategies
Art of Fly Tying: More Than 200 Classic & New Patterns
Baby Quilts: 15 Original Designs for Every Nursery Decor
BabyKnits Hats & Booties: 15 Matching Sets for Noggins & Tootsies
Bead Knitted Bags: 10 Projects for Beaders & Knitters
Bedrooms for Cool Kids
Bowhunter's Guide to Accurate Shooting
Button Jewelry & Accessories
Catching Panfish: Tactics for Sunfish, Crappies, Yellow Perch & White Bass
Complete Guide to Freshwater Fishing
Complete Photo Guide to Curtains & Draperies: Do-It-Yourself Window Treatments
Complete Photo Guide to Fly Fishing: 300 Strategies, Techniques & Insights
Complete Photo Guide to Fly Tying: 300 Tips, Techniques & Methods
Complete Photo Guide to Sewing
Complete Photo Guide to Slipcovers
Complete Photo Guide to Window Top Treatments
Complete Photo Guide to Window Treatments
Complete Step-by-Step Guide to Cake Decorating
Contemporary Papier Mache: Colorful Sculpture, Jewelry & Home Accessories
Craft the Perfect Frame
Crafting With Copper: 25 Creative Projects for Home & Garden
Crafting Wood Logic Puzzles: 18 Three-Dimensional Games for the Hands & Mind
Creating Crystal Jewelry with Swarovski: 65 Sparkling Designs with Crystal Beads & Stones
Creative Bows Made Easy: Perfect Bows for All Your Crafts & Giftwrap
Creative Costumes & Halloween Décor: 50 Projects to Sew & Craft
Creative Floral Arranging: How to Decorate with Fresh, Dried & Silk Flowers
Creative Window Treatments
Crochet Kid Stuff: 20 Fun Projects
Designer Bead Embroidery
Dog Training: Retrievers & Pointing Dogs
Easy Singer Style Pattern-Free Fashions & Accessories
Easy Singer Style Pattern-Free Home Accents
Easy Wood Furniture Projects
Embellished Applique for Artful Accessories
Embroidery to Embellish Everything: 30 New Hand-Stitched Designs
Exploring Textile Arts
Fabric Art Workshop: Exploring Techniques & Materials for Fabric Artists & Quilters
Fabulous Faux Florals: 50 Easy, Extraordinary Projects with Silk Flowers & Permanent Botanicals
Fashion T-Shirts: Easy-Sew Projects for Fun Fashion
Faux Florals for All Occasions: 35 Faux Floral Arrangements for Contemporary Living
Faux Florals for Your Wedding
Favors with Flair: 75 Easy Designs for Weddings, Parties & Events
Felt Inlays: Making Textured & Patterned Felt for 23 Creative Projects
Fishing North America
Fly Fishing for Beginners
Greeting Cards in Stitches
Handcrafted Pillows
Handcrafted Weddings
Handmade Photo Albums: Complete Instructions for Making 18 Fun & Creative Designs
Home Decor Sewing 101: A Beginner's Guide to Sewing for the Home
Hooked Bags: 20 Easy Crochet Projects
Hooked for Toddlers: 20 Easy Crochet Projects
Hooked Hats: 15 Easy Crochet Projects
Hooked Scarves: 20 Easy Crochet Projects
Hooked Throws: 20 Easy Crochet Projects
Hooking Mats & Rugs: 33 New Designs from an Old Tradition
How to Think Like a Survivor: A Guide for Wilderness Emergencies
Inshore Salt Water Fishing
Jewelry & Accessories from Everyday Objects
Kids Gone Campin': The Young Camper's Guide to Having More Fun Outdoors
Kids Gone Fishin'
Knits for Men: 20 Sweaters, Vests & Accessories
Knitting Cuff to Cuff: A Dozen Designs for Sideways-Knit Garments
Knitting Saddle Style: A Dozen Designs for Saddle-Shoulder Garments
Largemouth Bass
Little Bead Boxes: 12 Miniature Boxes Built with Beads
Making Mosaics
Memory Quilts: 20 Heartwarming Projects with Special Techniques
New Punchneedle Embroidery: Basics & Finishing Techniques Plus 20 Original Designs
New Quilting by Machine
New Sewing Essentials
New Step-by-Step Home Decorating Projects
No-Sew Fabric Decor: Transform Your Home without Sewing a Stitch
Offshore Salt Water Fishing
Orvis Beginner's Guide to Birdwatching
Outdoor Guide to Using Your GPS
Perfect Fit: The Classic Guide to Altering Patterns
Plus Size Crochet: Fashions That Fit & Flatter
Quick & Clever Fleece: 20 Easy-Sew Projects
Quick & Easy Sewing with Your Serger
Quick & Easy Window Treatments
Quilting Bible: The Complete Photo Guide to Machine Quilting
Quilts in Bloom: A Garden of Inspiring Quilts & Techniques with Floral Designs
Ready, Set, Bead: Learn to Bead with 20 Hot Projects
Ready, Set, Knit: Learn to Knit with 20 Hot Projects
Scarves & Shawls for Yarn Lovers: Knitting with Simple Patterns & Amazing Yarns
Sew Gifty: 25 Easy Projects for All Occasions
Sewing from Square One: Turn Simple Fabric Squares into 20 Projects
Singer Simple Decorative Machine Stitching
Singer Simple Home Decor Handbook: Essential Machine-Side Tips & Techniques
Singer Simple Mending & Repair: Essential Machine-Side Tips & Techniques
Singer Simple Sewing Guide: Essential Machine-Side Tips & Techniques
Singer Upholstery Basics Plus: Complete Step-by-Step Photo Guide
Small Loom & Freeform Weaving: Five Ways to Weave
Start to Quilt: All the Basics Plus Learn-to-Quilt Projects
Start to Sew: All the Basics Plus Learn-to-Sew Projects
Successful Walleye Fishing
Suddenly a Centerpiece: Assemble These Clever Table Designs in No Time at All
Tailoring: The Classic Guide to Sewing the Perfect Jacket
Ultralight Fishing
Veiled in Beauty: Creating Headpieces & Veils for the Bride
Waterfowl Hunting: Ducks & Geese of North America
When Quilt Designers Think Small: Innovative Quilt Projects to Wear, Give or Decorate Your Home
Whitetail Hunting
Wild & Wonderful Fleece Animals: With Full Size Patterns for 20 Cuddly Critters
Windows With Style: Do-It-Yourself Window Treatments
Wool Pets: Making 20 Figures with Wool Roving & a Barbed Needle
Wreaths & Wall Flowers

Happy B-day, Dr. Seuss!

2010-03-02T09:49:00.004-09:00

Today is the 106th birthday of the king of children's books: Dr. Seuss (Theodor Seuss Geisel). School libraries and Children's libraries all over the country are hosting giggling crowds of pajama-wearing kids for story times and meals of green eggs and ham.
The libraries for grown-ups don't usually get to join in the fun, but in honor of his birthday (and the fact that the only poetry I can recite from memory comes from Dr. Seuss books), I would like to draw your attention to The Seuss, the Whole Seuss, and Nothing but the Seuss: a visual biography of Theodor Seuss Geisel, by Charles D. Cohen.
Long before he penned his first children's book And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, Dr. Seuss worked as a cartoonist for popular magazines and advertising agencies. He had a long-standing relationship with the weekly magazine Judge, and his ad campaigns for Flit and Standard Oil made him well known.
Like any adult, however, there are aspects of his life that are somewhat controversial. His editorial cartoons frequently reflect the racial stereotypes of the time, with quite unflattering portrayals of blacks, Jews and Japanese-Americans. Did his attitudes change in later years? Did he redeem himself with his later books about bigotry (The Sneetches) and ecological consciousness (The Lorax)? You'll have to read the book to find out........

Ain't we swell.....

2010-02-25T10:16:00.002-09:00

Would you like to sell a lot of books? Well, here's a great strategy - write a book all about how wonderful librarians are, and how they are the last guardians of civilization, wisdom and intellectual freedom as we know it. According to the American Library Association, there are over 122,000 libraries in this country. So right away, you've sold 122,000 books to eager collection development librarians. And then, of course, there are Christmas and birthday gifts for the librarians in your life, as well as ardent bibliophiles.
But what to say in a book like that? Well, Marilyn Johnson found plenty to say in her new book This Book is Overdue: how librarians and cybrarians can save us all. She talks to librarian bloggers, who dish the real dirt on what it's like to work in a library (fortunately, I've never had to deal with patrons who deposit feces in the bookstacks). She looks at the repercussions of the Patriot Act, and the way librarians have tried to protect the privacy of their patrons while staying within the boundaries of the law. There are academic librarians whose new role is teaching students how to sift through a tidal wave of digital information, as well as assisting some students who have never used a computer before. Meet archivists who - literally - preserve and protect the intellectual history of mankind, as well as children's librarians who keep their tattoos covered during story hour.
Mostly, however, Johnson's book is a response to the oft-sounded death knell of librarians, the constant prediction that computers and ubiquitous digital information will eventually wipe libraries and librarians from the face of the Earth. Ever tried to do a Google search for information about vaccine safety? Or the name of an 18th-century Polish composer who is buried in Gdansk? Or a phone number for the VA office in Worcester, Mass.?
Yeah, I'm not worried.....

A fab new book

2010-02-19T10:34:00.002-09:00

Austin Powers jokes aside, there is something so fun about the whole Mod scene from the 1960's. The rockin' music coming from bands with pencil-thin ties and cute little suits...the geometric fashions of Mary Quant and Dougie Millings...the pixie faces of Twiggy and Jean Shrimpton. The British Invasion was so darn light-hearted that even though it all looks a little silly now, you can't help but wish things were still so carefree.
You can relive those times (or learn more about them, if you were born after the baby-boomers had all their fun) in our new book The British Invasion: the music, the times, the era by Barry Miles. Full of photos, quotes and fan magazine excerpts, this book is an enjoyable browse. Miles deals mostly with the music - the Beatles, of course - and their numerous imitators. He also tracks the change from happy pop tunes to the edgier, more electric music of Led Zeppelin, Cream and Pink Floyd. It was the fashion section, however, that brought a little cluster of coworkers to my desk to reminisce about the dresses and miniskirts they had in high school. And just in case you doubt the lasting influence of the time, just look around town at number of miniskirts and leather boots women are sporting (the guys, thankfully, have left off the ruffles and brocades of the Edwardian Look).
A fun book for any age, and sure to get people digging out their old photo albums to show their kids.

We are so far ahead of the curve!!

2010-02-11T09:12:00.002-09:00

Thanks to the wonderful generosity of one of our devoted library patrons, we now have a copy of the final volume in Stieg Larsson's Millennium series: The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest. Why is that a big deal? you ask.....
Because this book is not being released in the United States until May 25th! The copy we now have in our collection is from the U.K., and now you can get a jump on all your friends and relatives down South. Seattle Public Library may have 82 copies on order - and 203 people waiting on the holds list - but they don't have a shiny new copy sitting in their hands (unless they have a Kindle, or they've ordered it online from Amazon.uk, or bought it off E-Bay).
I prefer to take a more romantic view, picturing the book traveling across the Atlantic and the North American continent with some hardy traveler, being lovingly cared for along the thousands of miles until it arrived on our isolated little island, an out-of-place European expatriate amongst our boringly familiar American novels on the library shelves.
Apparently I need to get out more....

What about those e-books, huh?

2010-02-05T12:05:00.002-09:00

I was in Seattle last week for a wonderful vacation (just long enough for me to want to head back home), and the new Apple iPad was all over the news down there. Riding the light rail in from SeaTac, everyone had their iPhone (or one of it's ilk), their Kindle, their iPod, or their cell phone. The computers at the Seattle Public Library were packed. We're a very digital society, and though we might not be as high-tech as Seattle, there are plenty of people here in Ketchikan packing PDAs, mp3 players and e-book readers. Borrowing activity during January on our ListenAlaska downloadable audiobooks was quadruple what it was a year ago. And people have started asking about e-books.
So here's where you can help: next to this posting, just below the lovely image of Deer Mountain, is a 2-question poll. Please take a second to let us know if downloading e-books onto a reader is something you're interested in; and if you already have a reader, please tell us what kind you own.
We conducted a similar survey before we became involved with the ListenAlaska audiobook system, and we're keen to know if there's a drive in Ketchikan to move into a new format for enjoying new works by favorite authors. So thanks for your time, and your input!

Classics Illustrated??

2010-02-03T09:16:00.003-09:00

When I was in 5th grade, poking around my school library, I discovered a treasure trove: Classics Illustrated. These wonderful books took all that dry 18th & 19th century literature (from authors like Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry James) and boiled it down to the basic storyline, and added so-so drawings. Some of those redone classics were so compelling that in later years I voluntarily read the originals (Moby Dick was forced upon me, tho).
Artist R. Sikoryak has taken that Classics Illustrated condensation approach and added a funny, grown-up twist to it in Masterpiece Comics. He has taken his world-renowned authors, such as Emily Bronte, Voltaire, Dante and Dostoyevsky and he has married them to more modern names: Garfield, Dagwood, Superman and Mary Worth. Beavis & Butthead are waiting for Godot, Ziggy is reassured that this is the best of all possible worlds, and Little Lulu asks her mother why she wears a scarlet letter A on her chest. Wuthering Heights is a much more lurid tale when redone in Tales From the Crypt style, but my favorite would have to be Dante's rings of Hell spelled out in individual Bazooka Joe comics (complete with fortune and dime-store-trinket advertisement!)
Sikoryak has drawn a bead on over a dozen classic works of literature, but has wisely kept it brief enough to keep from getting tiring or stale. If you're an English Lit major, you'll enjoy the stories. If you're a fan of the Comics section of the newspaper, you'll love the illustrations. And if you're under the age of 80, you'll have to use Google to find out more about the little boy who retells Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray.

One last chance for holiday romance

2010-01-26T12:33:00.002-09:00

Believe it or not, we start hearing about upcoming Christmas novels starting in October, and we try to order them as soon as possible, so that we have time to get them out on the shelves for the holidays. Every year, however, there are always a few holiday-themed novels that show up long after everyone's Christmas tree has dried up. So before we bundle these latecomers off to our Offsite Storage to sit with all the other seasonal tales until next December, we're offering you one brief shot at them:
The Perfect Christmas by Debbie Macomber is another gentle romance from the hugely popular author of the Cedar Cove and Blossom Street series.
Home in Time for Christmas by Heather Graham involves a mysterious stranger with a head injury, who insists that he is a patriot soldier fighting against the King of England. Can love spring up between two people with centuries of difference between them?
The Christmas Cookie Club is by Ann Pearlman. A dozen short stories of love and relationships, shared by the members of the Christmas Cookie Club, and interspersed with recipes and interesting trivia about cookie staples (flour, sugar, ginger, vanilla, etc).
So even if you've finally packed away the last of the wrapping paper, taken down the Christmas lights, and mailed off the last of your thank-you notes, you can still hold onto a little of that magical holiday feeling.....

The weather gage

2010-01-19T16:29:00.002-09:00

We're a nautical sort of folk here in Ketchikan, and anything to do with ships and the sea is very popular here at the library. One sterling example of this would be the Patrick O'Brian series featuring Captain Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin. Originally begun in 1970 (the writing, not the story itself), this series of 20 books generally has 2-3 people at one time clipping their way through it. The companion volumes - A Sea of Words and Harbors and High Seas - are also quite popular. Therefore, I predict great interest in our newest book Fighting Techniques of Naval Warfare, 1190 BC ~ Present: strategy, weapons, commanders, and ships by Iain Dickie et al.
Paintings of famous naval engagements, nice line drawings of ships and equipment, and diagrams of ship placement and maneuvers all lend a good deal of visual interest to this book. Starting with the Battle of the Sea Peoples in 1190 BC (Ramses III prevents the invasion of Egypt by marauders from the Grecian and Mediterranean islands) and ending with the Battle of Midway in 1942, this book covers the evolution of ships and armaments. From galleys powered by slaves and armed by javelin-heaving marines to aircraft carriers and nuclear subs armed with missiles, we seem to have come a long way.
Interestingly, though, some of the basic components of naval warfare remained the same for centuries: the health of the men depended on how long they had been out of port, the speed of the vessel depended on how heavily fouled her bottom was, the weather gage was a major factor before the advent of steam power, and it's a hairbreadth's difference between crossing the T and breaking the line....
A must-read for fans of nautical fiction, naval tactics or military history.

Well-loved movies

2010-01-09T16:36:00.002-09:00

I've never worked in a video store, so I don't know what kind of statistics they ordinarily rack up, but here at the public library we have been tabulating which of our VHS films have seen the most use (we figure that the tapes themselves are now used enough to need replacing, and the titles popular enough to justify a permanent place in the collection). The results may surprise you:

1. Being There, starring Peter Sellers. 522 checkouts
2. Hearts of the West, starring Andy Griffith. 507 checkouts
3. A Boy and His Dog, starring Don Johnson. 456 checkouts
4. The Big Easy, starring Ellen Barkin. 452 checkouts
5. Strictly Ballroom, starring Tara Morice. 448 checkouts
6. The Treasure of Sierra Madre, starring Humphrey Bogart. 444 checkouts
7. Dr. Strangelove, starring Peter Sellers. 441 checkouts
8. Pathfinder, starring Mikkel Gaup. 435 checkouts
9. The Adventures of Robin Hood, starring Errol Flynn. 433 checkouts
10. Broadcast News, starring William Hurt. 430 checkouts

Alas, some of these titles (Pathfinder, for instance) are not currently available in DVD format. But some of these extremely popular films are now available for you to check out on DVD, so if your VHS player ended up at the landfill years ago, you can still enjoy a good flick.

Sita sings the blues

2010-01-08T11:22:00.003-09:00

Every once in a while we get a movie that is completely fascinating, but defies categorization. Sita Sings the Blues is an animated retelling of the classic Hindu epic, the Ramayana, with a soundtrack of 1920's jazz tunes.
It is a (kinda) love story between Rama and his wife Sita, who gets kidnapped by the evil Ramana. Rama turns out to be a weak, suspicious and unsupportive husband, despite Sita's enduring love for him. If you are interested in the ancient culture of India or Hindu legends, then this is a great film for you.
The story is retold through different layers of animation: Indonesian shadow puppets, modern comic-style characters (Rama and Sita look like something from a Cartoon Network show), digital animation reminiscent of video games, and images in the style of Mughal paintings. The visuals are a beautiful mash-up of ancient and modern, and if you are interested in art and animation this is a great film for you.
The soundtrack has some wonderful Indian hip-hop music, which gives the movie a slight Bollywood flavor (as do Sita's dance sequences), and it is also liberally sprinkled with 1920's jazz tunes from Annette Hanshaw. If you are a true music lover with diverse tastes and a good ear for a beat, this is a great film for you.
Layered over the entire story is a modern autobiographical parallel, in which a husband leaves his wife behind in San Francisco to work in India for a year, extends his stay in India, and when she leaves America to join him, sends her back home and terminates their marriage. If you like sad relationship films, this is a great film for you.
It's January in Ketchikan and everything is wet, cold and rotting. The TV networks are showing the same old reality garbage, Hollywood is churning out the same special-effects blockbusters, and this is the dullest time of the year. If you want an eye-popping dose of energy, beauty and color, this is a great film for you...

Not exactly a boon to productivity

2010-01-05T12:38:00.002-09:00

Are you looking for a way to goof off during the day, but your employer's Internet filters won't let you surf YouTube? Why not slack off in a more hands-on fashion? Check out Mini Weapons of Mass Destruction: build implements of spitball warfare by John Austin. Whether you're a budding engineer, an inverterate tinkerer, a 10-year old boy or someone who hates to throw anything out, this book will suck up hours of your time.
Start out easy, with a bow-and-arrow made from a bendable plastic ruler, a rubber band and the cartridge of a ball-point pen. Work your way up to a crossbow of #2 pencils and rubber bands, and finish up with a paper-clip trebuchet. Make darts from the ends of old shoelaces, use deflated balloons and toilet-paper tubes to make a coin shooter, or a water bomb using a simple piece of paper.
The fact that the book starts with a long list of safety precautions (ear protection for making the minibombs, and eyeware protection for everything) will clue you in that this is not a book you hand to your 9-year old and walk away. This is an excellent introduction to physics and engineering with adult supervision, and what a totally cool way to bond with a kid that can't seem to let go of the DS (if you don't know what a DS is, consider yourself lucky to have dodged that parental bullet).
This is also a great gift idea for Father's Day.

It's just a popularity contest

2009-12-29T17:21:00.002-09:00

As we wind up 2009 (we will be closed on Thursday and Friday, by the way), let us take a brief moment to see what items here at the public library caught your eye the most:
In the Adult Library Section -
Novel: The Shack by Wm. Paul Young
Graphic Novel: Watchmen by Alan Moore
Nonfiction: Spirit!: historic Ketchikan, Alaska by compiled by June Allen
Magazine: People Weekly
CD Audiobook: Plum Lucky by Janet Evanovich
Playaway: Bones to Ashes by Kathy Reichs
Movie: 24, Season Six
CD: Rubber Soul by the Beatles

In the Children's Library Section -
Picture Book: Bunny party by Rosemary Wells
Juvenile Novel: Diary of a wimpy kid: Rodrick rules by by Jeff Kinney
Young Adult Novel: Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
Graphic Novel: Dragon Ball Z by Akira Toriyama
Nonfiction: Guiness Book of World Records
Audiobook: Harry Potter and the deathly hallows by J.K. Rowling
Movie: Star Wars, the Clone Wars
Young Adult Music: Fearless by Taylor Swift

A last gasp for the holidays

2009-12-22T10:28:00.003-09:00

The Ketchikan Public Library will be closed on Christmas Eve and Christmas, but before we close our doors to enjoy the holiday with our families, there is still time to come in and stock up on DVDs, music, magazines and books for the long weekend. A couple of our holiday-themed items have just come in:

You Better Not Cry: stories for Christmas by Augusten Burroughs. This autobiographical (really?) collection of short stories is not your holiday typical heart-warming. It's much more along the lines of David Sedaris (Holidays on Ice), and if your humor runs towards the sarcastic and irreverent (as mine does), Burroughs will have you chuckling. By the same token, his memories of Christmas in an alcoholic fog, dealing with a loved one dying of AIDS, and his mentally-unstable mother give the book a bit of an edge.

Knit the Season: a Friday Night Knitting Club novel by Kate Jacobs is available in both book and audio format, and is the third Knitting Club story in our collection. A gentle story about friendship, family and growing up, it will appeal to anyone who likes stories about relationships and personality. And you don't even have to know how to knit!

Scandinavian cooking

2009-12-15T16:07:00.002-09:00

I was unable to get to the Lutheran church this year for the fishcakes at the Christmas bazaar, but thanks to one of our latest titles, The Scandanavian Cookbook, by Trina Hahnemann, I can make my own "fishcakes with herb remoulade and dill potatoes". Or perhaps some "Swedish Lucia breads" to celebrate the season.
If you've been particularly successful this hunting season, you might want to try the "Moose tournedos with kale salad and cowberry (cranberry) compote" or the "Venison with anise and pepper, potato-celery root gratin, and Brussels sprouts".
Once the weather turns a little warmer, there's "Rhubarb trifle" and "Baked trout with new potatoes and smoked-cheese cream". If you're looking for something different this Easter, try "Mint, apricot, and celery stuffed lamb with spinach and minted roast potatoes".
Until then, you can fall back on the goodies you have stashed in your freezer: "Salmon burgers", "Jumbo shrimp with herb mayonnaise", "Cod with mustard sauce" and "Gravlax with sweet mustard sauce".
Speaking for myself, however, I found my taste buds were most tantalised by the goodies: Glögg, Medaljer cookies, apple trifle, Kartoffelkage pastries and crisp vanilla Danish butter cookies (just like the ones that come in the blue tins, only better). Top the whole thing off with a steaming mug of hot chocolate, and I'm there!

Christmas novels

2009-12-04T14:08:00.003-09:00

As if the constant barrage of holiday shopping ads, Christmas carols, TV specials, Santa photo ops and twinkling light displays weren't enough, we are adding to the Christmas cacophony by putting out a slew of new holiday novels:
Matchless: an illumination of Hans Christian Andersen's classic 'the Little Match Girl' is Gregory Maguire's latest take on a traditional fairy tale. I've always found this to be the most depressing of the fairy tales, but Maguire introduces a new thread into the story and changes it from a tale of sorrow into one of continuity. Maguire's pen-and-ink illustrations are lovely, and he has a beautiful dedication at the beginning of the book. (For another short Christmas story sure to make you cry, try Frank McCourt's Angela and the Baby Jesus).
The Gift, by Cecelia Ahern, is a Christmas redemption story in which a career-driven executive is made to see the treasure he already has - his family - by a homeless man (guardian angel?).
Merry, Merry Ghost is a mystery by Carolyn Hart. A wealthy woman is murdered before she can alter her will in favor of a newly discovered grandson, and it's up to ghostly Bailey Ruth Raeburn (she really is a ghost, I'm not being metaphorical) to discover the identity of the killer.
Winter of secrets, by Vicki Delany, is the third Constable Molly Smith novel. Set at a British Columbia ski resort (I like to think Smithers, but it's probably more like Whistler), this story involves "sexual predators, recreational drugs, privilege and high-living". Ho, ho, ho.
The Body in the Sleigh by Katherine Hall Page is a new entry in her popular Faith Fairchild mystery series. (I'm not sure why the holiday season is so inspiring to mystery writers...are we all more prone to murderous rages at Christmas?)
Of course, we also have plenty of Christmas-time romance, if you prefer books that are less likely to make you cry or lock your doors. So take a break from shopping, baking and wrapping and settle down with a good holiday read and a hot cup of cocoa.

Gobble gobble

2009-11-24T15:58:00.002-09:00

Maybe because I'm writing this in the late afternoon, and it's cold and dark outside, but it's been a long time since I've opened a cookbook that's made me as hungry as The New Thanksgiving Table: an American celebration of family, friends and food by Diane Morgan. This is actually an update of a book we already have, but come November, you can't have too many turkey recipes. Not just turkey, either....soups, appetizers, stuffings, side dishes, and desserts appear in glorious color in page after page. Here's a possible menu:
Rogue River bleu cheese wafers with celery crudites, followed by roasted chestnut soup with pumpernickel croutons. Turkey roasted with lemon, garlic and sage butter accompanied by a rich giblet gravy, stuffed with New England bread stuffing with Bell's seasoning (I can picture the colorful turkey on the bright yellow box). A few side dishes of southern-style biscuits, framboise cranberry sauce, green beans with lemon-butter bread crumbs and butter-mashed Yukon Gold potatoes with Parmesan. Finish the meal off with an Indiana persimmon pudding, cranberry-cherry crisp, and a spiced pumpkin layer cake with cream cheese frosting.
The recipes are easy to follow, and Morgan even manages to make succotash sound good (but maybe I'm just hungry). An entire chapter on Leftover Favorites is really helpful, as are the "Do Ahead" and "Cook's Note" helpers at the end of each recipe.
Toothpick, anyone?

Convenience

2009-11-21T11:01:00.002-09:00

A couple of years ago - before we got our new software - we told our patrons about a free online service called Library Elf. This system would send you emails to let you know ahead of time when something was due and notify you concerning your current overdue fines. Sadly, this system was not compatible with our new software.
We are now offering that same convenient notification system to all our patrons. We will email you a courtesy reminder 3 days before your library items are due, and we will email you overdue notices at 7, 10 and 14 days past the due date. These courtesy reminders will cut down on your overdue fines, and the email overdue notices will save paper and postage. All you need to do is give us your email address.
Wow! Convenient, good for the environment, and economically responsible. You can't do better than that.
Wait a minute....maybe you can. Some of our patrons have expressed a wish for email notification about author visits, slide shows, craft events, family nights and film screenings. If you would like to be included on this separate email list, please let us know.
We do not disclose your email address, or any part of your account information, to other people according to state law (Alaska State Statutes Sec. 40.25.140).

Upcoming author visit

2009-11-18T12:53:00.003-09:00

What Sir David Attenborough did for jungles, caves and forests, Jacques Cousteau did for the sea. He brought the strange and wonderful denizens of the deep into our living rooms via the television and his famous submersible Calypso.
But what of Cousteau the man? Brad Matsen (Titanic's last secrets : the further adventures of shadow divers John Chatterton and Richie Kohler) has written a fascinating biography of a man with salt water in his veins. He delves into Cousteau's childhood in France and New York, his work with the French Resistance in World War II, and his development of the regulator device essential to the operation of scuba gear. His company, which manufactured the Aqua-Lung, provided the financial wherewithal that allowed him to pursue his passion for diving and the exploration of the undersea environment.
It was Cousteau's collaboration with the camera, however, that brought him true fame. From his early days working with a then-unknown Louis Malle to his multi-million-dollar contracts with ABC and PBS, Cousteau used film and television to spread his message of ecological preservation and to fund his further expeditions.
All this interesting background and more can be yours for the asking - just check out Jacques Cousteau: the sea king by Brad Matsen. And better yet, come meet Brad at the public library on Nov. 24 at 6:30 pm, when he will talk about his book and his contacts with the friends and family of Monsieur Cousteau. Aye, Calypso.