Category: Miscellany

Tom Turkington’s Before I Forget: A Boyhood of Little Drama

Posted on by K.C. DeWall

It is always a pleasure to catalog the works of local authors, and Tom Turkington’s Before I Forget: A Boyhood of Little Drama is no exception.  Recently interviewed by Ken Gartner for The Enterprise, Mr. Turkington points out that his book is not simply about growing up in Falmouth; he does, after all, portray life in mid-20th century America, a time in history when families watched television together and  kids ran around freely and played throughout the neighborhood until the dinner bell rang.  Indeed, Before I Forget portrays a time when the pace of life seemed to pass so much slower—perhaps even for noted local runners such as Turkington and Gartner!

However, for those who are interested in local history, Turkington’s chronicles reference many of the unique characteristics of bygone Falmouth: the Fire Station whistle and the raft at Surf Drive Beach, to name just two.  In fact, for those who did grow up in Falmouth years ago, reading Before I Forget will certainly be a nostalgic walk down Memory Lane, as well as Scranton Avenue and Mill Road.  To be sure, whether remembering such teachers as Miss Mullen with her red hair and purple outfits on the Village School playground or reminiscing about Mr. Kalperis (also known as “Kalpy”) and the Lawrence High School track team; Turkington’s memoir not only depicts what it was like growing up during the fifties and sixties, but it also offers a rare glimpse into what it was like growing up in Falmouth, glimpses that may not be included in local history books and therefore often do run the risk of being forgotten.

Bird Books on The Point

Posted on by Library User

Today was the monthly  WCAI book show with Mindy Todd on The Point. We hope you got to hear Dennis Minsky  and Jill Erickson talk about bird books. We had such big piles of bird books, we think we’ll be doing another bird book show in the fall! Sorry we were pre-recorded today, so you couldn’t call in with your favorites, but if you have a favorite bird book, please add a comment to our list! Miss the show? You can listen here!

 

Dennis’s Picks

“Ode to a Nightingale” by John Keats

“The Kookaburas” and “White Owl Flies Into and Out of the Field” from House of Light by Mary Oliver

Mind of the Raven by Bernd Heinrich

The Genius of Birds by Jennifer Ackerman

Birdscapes: birds in our imagination and experience by Jeremy Mynott

Wesley the Owl: the remarkable love story of an owl and his girl by Stacey O’Brien

The Peregrine by J. A. Baker

The Running Sky by Tim Dee

 

Jill’s Picks

The Eponym Dictionary of Birds by Bo Beolens, Michael Watkins, and Michael Grayson

Bright Wings: an illustrated anthology of poems about birds edited by Billy Collins with paintings by David Allen Sibley (Includes Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird by Wallace Stevens

The Birdman’s Wife by Melissa Ashley. Nominated for the Australian Book Industry Award for Fiction.

John Gould’s Birds, with a biographical introduction by Maureen Lambourne

A Convergence of Birds, edited & introduced by Joanthan Safran Foer

Joseph Cornell’s Manual of Marvels: how Joseph Cornell reinvented a French agricultural manual to create an American masterpiece

Mr. Cornell’s Dream Boxes by Jeanette Winter

Birds Art Life: a year of observation by Kyo Maclear

A Year of Falmouth Birds by Craig Gibson, photographer

 

 

 

Friday Reads: All the Old Knives

Posted on by Library User

This month the FPL Fiction Book Club read an espionage novel entitled All the Old Knives by Olen Steinhauer. This is the fifth espionage novel we have read in a six-month series that began with Joseph Conrad’s The Secret Agent and will end next month with Swimmer by Joakim Zander. One of the first questions, which I was not able to answer the day we discussed the book, was where does the title come from? We all knew about the idea of someone stabbing you in the back, but not about the old knives part. So, after a little investigation, I discovered that in fact this is a quotation by Phædrus from his Fables. It is translated as: “All the old knives that have rusted in my back, I drive in yours.” (By the way, Phædrus also gave us “to add insult to injury.”) Another quotation related question was what was “that old Stalin quote about tragedies and statistics” that is mentioned in the book. That quotation is attributed to Stalin and it is: “A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic.”

The most interesting thing to me, as the one person who attends both the Wednesday evening group and the Thursday morning group, was how radically different the two groups responded to the same book! The Wednesday evening group LOVED the book, and the Thursday morning group thought the author (who said it took him just a month to write the novel) should have done at least one more rewrite!

The plot is extraordinarily timely as it involves two CIA officers in Vienna, Henry Pelham and Celia Harrison, who were lovers at the time of a hostage crisis. Celia leaves the CIA and ends up in Carmel-by-the-Sea and Henry has tracked her down to see her one more time, to relive the past, maybe, or to put it behind him once and for all. Most of the novel takes place at a dinner at a restaurant in Carmel-by-the-Sea and the point of view switches between Henry and Celia. The author had the idea of setting this thriller at a restaurant after he watched the Masterpiece dramatization of Christopher Reid’s poem The Song of Lunch, which starred Alan Rickman and Emma Thompson. As he writes in the introduction to the book: “I wondered if I could write an espionage tale that took place entirely around a restaurant table.”

The people that loved the book, loved the pacing, and the story, and the fact that it was a quick read. The people who loathed the book thought there wasn’t enough story, the changing of point of view was too confusing, the character of Celia was unbelievable, and the prose wasn’t engaging enough. EVERYONE agreed that the ending was superb!! This novel is soon to be a major motion picture, so we are all waiting to see how the movie will differ from the novel.

The next meeting of the FPL Fiction Book Club will be March 15th at 7:00 PM or March 16th at 10:00 AM. The book we will be discussing is Swimmer by Joakim Zander, and you can pick up a copy at the Reference Desk.

Mindfulness, Gratefulness, and Happiness Books on The Point

Posted on by Library User

On today’s book show Mindy Todd, Jill Erickson, and Eric Linder of Yellow Umbrella Books in Chatham encouraged everyone to start the new year reading about and maybe even trying to practice a bit of mindfulness, gratefulness, and happiness. Below is our list of picks and listener picks as well, including a bonus list of books that didn’t make the air, but might interest you. Thanks for listening, and thanks for calling in with your suggestions. Happy New Year! And should you have missed the show on WCAI, you can listen online!

 

Mindy’s Pick

E. B. White on Dogs edited by Martha White

 

Eric’s Picks

Listening Below the Noise: a meditation on the practice of silence by Anne D. LeClaire

Gift From the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Chet & Bernie mysteries by Peter Abrahams

“The First Time Percy Came Back” in  Dog Songs: thirty-five dog songs and one essay by Mary Oliver

“The Snakes of September” and “Touch Me” in The Wild Braid: a poet reflects on a century in the garden by Stanley  Kunitz

The Outermost House: a year of life on the great beach of Cape Cod by Henry Beston

 

Jill’s Picks

The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf, drawings by Robert Lawson. Read more of the backstory of The Story of Ferdinand at Anita Silvey’s Children’s Book-A-Day Almanac.

An excerpt from War and Peace by  Leo Tolstoy, translated by Richard Pevear & Larissa Volokhonsky

Gratefulness, the Heart of Prayer: an approach to life in fullness by Brother David Steindl-Rast

99 Blessings: an invitation to life by Brother David Steindl-Rast. You might also want to take a look at his web page gratefulness.org and his TED talk.

Wherever You Go There You Are: mindfulness meditation in everyday life by Jon Kabat-Zinn

All the Odes by Pablo Neruda, particularly Ode to Happiness and Ode to the Tomato

The Power of Off: the mindful way to stay sane in a virtual world by Nancy Colier

52 Small Changes for the Mind by Brett Blumenthal

 

Titles For Which There Was No Time Left!

Five little books all by Thich Nhat Hanh, part of a Mindfulness Essentials collection published by Parallax Press:

How to Sit
How to Walk
How to Love
How to Eat
How to Relax

Dancing with Joy: 99 poems edited by Roger Housden

The Book of Joy: lasting happiness in a changing world by His Holiness the Dalai Lama & Archbishop Desmond Tutu with Douglas Abrams

The Lost Art of Reading: why books matter in a distracted time by David L. Ulin

Growing Up Mindful: essential practices to help children, teens, and families find balance, calm, and resilience by Christopher Willard

America the Anxious: how our pursuit of happiness is creating a nation of nervous wrecks by Ruth Whippman

10% Happier: how I tamed the voice in my head, reduced stress without losing my edge, and found self-help that actually works by Dan Harris

 

Listener Picks

How to Meditate by Eknath Easwaren

Last of the Saddle Tramps by Mesannie Wilkins with Mina Titus Sawyer

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: a year of food life by Barbara Kingsolver

The Fisherman and His Wife: a brand new version by Rosemary Wells (e-mailed to us after we went off the air)

 

Cats & Dogs on The Point

Posted on by Library User

This morning Peter Abrahams joined Mindy Todd & Jill Erickson to talk about books about cats and dogs on WCAI. Thanks for the many, many suggestions you made during the show! We now have a plethora of cat and dog books on our reading lists, and we think that Peter might have come to better understand cats. Here are the titles mentioned on air.

 

Mindy’s Pick

E. B. White on Dogs edited by Martha White

Peter’s Picks

The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss

Cat by B. Kliban

Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot

I Am a Cat by Natsume Soseki

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Carbonel: the King of the Cats by Barbara Sleigh

“The Black Cat” by Edgar Allan Poe in Murder Short & Sweet edited by Paul D. Staudohar

Cat Wars: the devastating consequences of a cuddly killer by Peter P. Marra and Chris Santella

A Street Cat Named Bob and How He Saved My Life by James Bowen

Dewey: the small-town library cat who touched the world by Vicki Myron with Bret Witter

 

Jill’s Picks

The Animals’ Who’s Who by Ruthven Tremain

Pets on the Couch by Nicholas Dodman

Flush: a biography by Virginia Woolf

Shaggy Muses by Maureen Adams

Dog Songs: Poems by Mary Oliver

The Rose Garden: short stories by Maeve Brennan

Following Atticus by Tom Ryan

The Big New Yorker Book of Dogs foreward by Malcolm Gladwell

The Big New Yorker Book of Cats foreward by Anthony Lane

 

Listener Suggestions

The Cat Who … mystery series by Lilian Jackson Braun

Cats of Martha’s Vineyard: 101 island tales by Lynn Christoffers

The Trainable Cat by John Bradshaw and Sarah Ellis

“A Man and His Dog” short story by Thomas Mann

The Fur Person by May Sarton

A Dog Walks Into a Nursing Home by Sue Halpern

Dirty Wow Wow and Other Love Stories by Cheryl & Jeffrey Katz

The Autobiography of Foudini M. Cat by Susan Fromberg Schaeffer

Dogist: photographic encounters with 1,000 dogs by Elias Weiss Friedman

Anna Karenina, Levin’s dog Laska

 

 

Mindful Movement & Meditation is FULL, but …

Posted on by Library User

We are delighted that the three workshops scheduled with Dr. Sang H. Kim in October on mindful movement and meditation are full, however, we know that many of you that wished to attend are now on a waiting list.  So, we wanted to give you some other ways to connect with Dr. Kim. One of the ways is to check out one of his books, either Power Breathing or Mindful Movement. Another option is to go to his web page, One Mind One Breath, which is packed full of advice on mindful movement and meditation, including videos and instructions!

President Obama’s Summer Reading List

Posted on by Library User

Every summer we are eager to see what summer reading books President Obama might have brought with him to the Vineyard. Way back in 2009 we actually sent the President and his family CLAMS library cards, along with a copy of Cape Cod and the Islands : where beauty and history meet by Kathryn Kleekamp and a history of the Falmouth Public Library.  We never heard back, but every summer we hope that he might actually visit one of the many lovely public libraries on the Vineyard.

His list this year is as follows:

Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life by William Finnegan

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

H Is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

Seveneves by Neal Stephenson

We can’t help but notice that one of these titles was mentioned on the book radio show that I do the last Wednesday of every month with Mindy Todd on WCAI!  Local author, Peter Abrahams just last month recommended Barbarian Days: a surfing life by William Finnegan. Do you think the President was listening?!

 

Jill

In Search of Falmouth Yearbooks

Posted on by Library User

The Falmouth Public Library is searching for two volumes of the Lawrencian, the yearbook for the Lawrence High School, to borrow so that we might have a complete set to digitize. The years we are completely missing are 1932 and 1971, but we are also interested in yearbooks from 1931 to 1937. If you have copies of any of these years, we would love to borrow them, so that we might include them in our digitization project of the Falmouth yearbooks. They would be returned to you as soon as we are done with the project. We know our Falmouth Enterprise digital project has been enormously helpful to people, and we think this project will be as well. You can email us at info@falmouthpubliclibrary.org if you have any questions about the project or have a yearbook we might borrow. Many thanks!

Great Books to Give on THE POINT

Posted on by Library User

Book titles from today’s BOOKS TO GIVE show on THE POINT. You can listen online!

Jill’s Picks

Soup for Syria: recipes to celebrate our shared humanity. Collected & Photographed by Barbara Abdeni Massaad

Selected Poems by John Updike, edited by Christopher Carduff with an introduction by Brad Leithauser. Poem read was “Not Cancelled Yet” on page 161. You can read The New Yorker review here.

The Theater of War: what ancient Greek tragedies can teach us today by Bryan Doerries. And if you would like to see what happened on the library lawn when Bryan was here, check out our Flickr page!

The Typewriter Revolution: a typist’s companion for the 21st Century by Richard Polt

Typewriter Art: a modern anthology by Barrie Tullett

The Typewriter: a graphic history of the beloved machine by Janine Vanpool.

The Typewriter (in the 21st century): a film about a machine and the people who love it, use it and repair it. Directed by Christopher Lockett

The Dogist: photographic encounters with 1,000 dogs by Elias Weiss Friedman

The Fairy Tale Girl by Susan Branch (& A Fine Romance: falling in love with the English countryside)

Dear Santa: children’s Christmas letters and wish lists, 1870 – 1920 Letters selected by Mary Harrell-Sesniak, Commentary by J. Harmon Flagstone

A Christmas Memory by Truman Capote

A Banquet of Consequences by Elizabeth George

Vicky’s Picks

Adult Fiction

The Japanese Lover by Isabel Allende

Felicity by Mary Oliver

100 Years of the Best American Short Stories edited by Lorrie Moore and Heidi Pitlor

Adult Nonfiction

The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt’s New World by Andrea Wulf

Natural World of Winnie the Pooh: A Walk through the forest that inspired the Hundred Acre Wood by Kathryn Aalto – Ashdown Forest in SE England

Norwegian Wood: Chopping, Stacking and Drying Wood the Scandinavian Way by Lars Mytting

The Living Bird: 100 Years of Listening to Nature – Foreword by Barbara Kingsolver

Thing Explainer by Randall Munroe

Lost Ocean: an Inky Adventure and Coloring Book by Johanna Basford

50 Greatest Players in New England Patriots Football History by Robert W. Cohen

50 Years, 50 Moments: The Most Unforgettable Plays in Super Bowl History by Jerry Rice

Rowdy by Christopher Madsen – story of a Herreshoff yacht – its restoration and history

Children’s Picture Books

Grandma’s House – Alice Melvin

Toys Meet Snow: Being the Wintertime Adventures of a Curious Stuffed Buffalo, a Sensitive Plush Stingray, and a Book-Loving Rubber Ball by Emily Jenkins

Mother Bruce by Ryan T. Higgins

The best books to give children are often the ones you loved yourself!! 

Listener Picks

Pat the Bunny by Dorothy Kunhardt

Being Mortal: medicine and what matters in the end by Atul Gawande

Poems from the Pond: 107 years of words and wisdom, the writing of Peggy Freydberg edited by Laurie David

The Man with the Golden Typewriter: Ian Fleming’s James Bond Letters by Fergus Fleming

My Kitchen Year: 136 recipes that saved my life by Ruth Reichl

The Writer’s Desk by Jill Kremenitz; introduction by John Updike (Very sadly, out of print.)

Boys in the Trees: a memoir by Carly Simon

Dog Medicine: how my dog saved me from myself by Julie Barton

Banned Books Week on The Point

Posted on by Library User

Today’s book show on The Point was a discussion on banned and censored books, as we celebrated Banned Books Week. Mindy was away today, so Sean Corcoran joined us as host, along with Peter Abrahams, and Jill Erickson. Below is the list of the titles we discussed, and if you missed the show you can always listen online at WCAI! And here is a link to the Maya Angelou poem Those Who Ban Books

Peter’s Picks

The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie

Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D. H. Lawrence

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

Jill’s Picks

Banned Books: Challenging Our Freedom to Read by Robert P. Doyle

Obscene in the Extreme: the burning and banning of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath by Rick Wartzman

120 Banned Books: censorship histories of world literature

Wild Strawberries by Angela Thirkell

A Universal History of the Destruction of Books: from Ancient Sumer to Modern Iraq by Fernando Báez

Fahrenheit 451, 60th Anniversary Edition by Ray Bradbury with a new introduction by Neil Gaiman

Note from one of our listeners, which we didn’t have time to read on air:

“Thank you for taking up this topic that touches us all more often than one might suppose! As a former librarian and a bookseller, I have found some parents anxious about the content of some books. And grandparents are ten times as anxious! And sometimes I felt a parent would feel deeply uncomfortable with the values put across in the book or series. For these matters, I developed two prescriptions: first, books are like hotpads. They let readers pick up hot topics without getting burned. Second, read the book as a chance to discuss the values with your child. Ask them what they think of the choices a character makes, or if they’ve ever been in a similar situation, or seen it happen. Finally, after years of making hourly choices about what books to stock and which titles to recommend to whom, I realized that tastes and needs are so varied that parents and grandparents need worry little. When it comes to books, kids only pick up what they can carry. Carol”