Matched
Holy fuck another potentially huge teen novel series by a Mormon author!
reviewdate:
May 7 2011
isn:
978-0-525-42364-5
How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less
Political progressive Sarah Glidden takes part in a Birthright Israel trip, riddled with doubt and concern, and after having researched Israel and Palestine extensively in the 40 days (heh) prior to her departure. Her graphic novel style memoir or the experience is nuanced, self-aware, self-critical, and brave. She arrives in Israel braced against being brainwashed and proving her Pakistani boyfriend’s father right that all American Jews eventually support Israel.
Quotations:
"Or maybe I don’t really feel this connection. Maybe it’s just impossible not to, after someone talks to you about holocaust refugees and teenaged soldiers!" p.104
Strip of a marker on floor of where Orthodox Jew Yigal Amir assassinated Yitzhak Rabin that says “murderer,” p. 106.
I haven’t been able to find an image of it online, but if there truly is such a marker on the site of the assassination, it’s indicative of the Israeli personality, to immortalize the actor of the aggression.
"Are those Palestinian boys yelling at us or just "playing?
I suddenly want to be back inside a homey Jerusalem cafe talking about the city’s culture clash instead of wandering around inside it.
[seeing a play] "I feel relaxed. The seats are comfortable; it’s dry and warm in here against the cold rain outside. But my ease in here goes beyond that.
"Almost everyone in this room is Jewish. Many of them are young. They like intellectual theater which means they probably like contemporary art and translated novels.
"They live in Israel, I don’t. They understand what is happening in this play, I don’t. But we probably have so much in common. I’m ashamed to admit to myself that I like this feeling of being in this room. I'm even more ashamed at how much I didn’t like being outside of it."
p. 191-92
reviewdate:
May 3 2011
isn:
978-1-4012-2233-8
author gender:
medium:
recommendation:
Syndetics Value-Added?
This is a guest post by Lauren Orso, who is working with me this semester in the Barnard Library Zine Collection. She responds to a mailing I received from Sandy Berman about Syndetics "value-added content."
Fred Woodwarth, publisher of The Match zine, heard from a Match reader that Secret Ceremonies, a memoir by Deborah Laake (a book reviewed in The Match), was referred to as a "silly account of life in the LDS church and with a couple of rigid Mormon men" in Baltimore library's catalog record. Fred, who doesn’t use computers, mailed this finding to fellow computer eschewer Sandy Berman, who forwarded Fred’s letter and his response, to several "computer savvy catalogers and reference librarians" to do some research.
Never Let Me Go
You find out what’s going on in this 1980s (date assumed because of a cassette tape as an item of importance) British dystopia, bit by bit, just as its subjects do, so I’m hesitant to write much about it. I do think you should read it, and without knowing too much going in.
reviewdate:
May 1 2011
isn:
978-0-7653-2689-8
author gender:
book type:
medium:
recommendation:
author demographic:
SBSH April, 2011
Sandy Berman recently copied me on a few of his suggestions to the Library of Congress Cataloging Policy & Support Office that I thought some of y'all might enjoy...
free:
Hidden Wives
It sucks to be a fundamentalist Mormon if you’re not a future God of your own universe (i.e. a man with multiple wives and children, preferably with some prominence in the community). It sucks especially bad if you’re a pretty girl about to be married off to the highest bidder. This angry and compelling, if not especially sophisticated, novel takes on the injustice and cruelty of polygamy as practiced by fundamentalist Mormons. You know what you’re in for with the dedication, “To all the victims of polygamy.”
reviewdate:
Apr 23 2011
isn:
978-0-7653-2689-8
author gender:
book type:
medium:
Grrrl
Marlie, a Toronto teen, starts keeping a journal in August 1990 and keeps it up through October 1992. In that time she obsesses over the the Pretenders, learns to play guitar, discovers riot grrrl, starts a band, makes and loses friends, falls in love with a girl, falls in love with a boy, sees a lot of shows, and basically embraces and releases her inner fierceness.
reviewdate:
Apr 21 2011
isn:
0-9753964-4-7
author demographic:
author gender:
medium:
recommendation:
LCSH Week 14: In which I grapple with the symbolic aspects of grafting
Discovery of Witches, A
Twilight meets The Historian. The protagonist is a witch, but vampires figure prominently. Diana Bishop is a renowned scholar on alchemy doing research at the Bodleian Library at Oxford. She pages an enchanted book and all hell breaks loose in the creature community (which includes daemons as well as witches and vampires). The research part is interesting, but the story devolves into the overprotective male vamp, gendered power struggle, and abstinence porn that drove some feminists crazy about the Twilight series.
reviewdate:
Apr 18 2011
isn:
978-0-670-02241-0
author gender:
book type:
medium:
Call for Workshops: Zine Librarians (un)Conference, ZL(u)C 2011
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
July 8-9, 2011
Calling all zine collectors, information activists, underground bibliographers and barefoot librarians! We’re seeking librarians of all stripes to lead a workshop or discussion at the 2nd bi-annual (un)conference of zine librarians!