It isn't often that we see brightly colored golf balls rolling through the mysteries, past the investment table, and down the stairs at a library, but that is just what we saw on Sunday at the Downers Grove Public Library. Bonnie and I were among the people who played an unusual and quite challengin...

What attracts me to Japanese art is getting a bird's-eye-view of everyday life in a foreign time and place. I enjoy scenes showing royal courts, artisan workshops, marketplaces, and travelers. Often there are distinctive pets, birds, trees, and mountains in the background. As I scan the scenes to se...

Before my daughter began attending the University of Iowa in Iowa City (in Iowa, of course), I had a vague notion of Iowa. I had driven though twice and noticed the pretty farmland. I thought of it as a comfortable, mostly untroubled place with good schools. Perhaps those schools have succeeded in t...

Last night seventeen people attended my presentation "How to Manage Your iPod," which we held in our community room at the Thomas Ford Memorial Library. I had asked attendees to bring their iPods and most did. One gentleman also brought his laptop and repeated for himself everything that I demonstra...

Dream City by Brendan Short was brought to my attention by the author's father. My library had purchased it back in the fall when it was mentioned in the Chicago Tribune, but I did not put it onto my reading list until the author's dad, who is justly proud of his son, asked me if I too had gone to t...

When many people think about Adolf Hitler, they think of pure evil. He and his Nazi henchmen did many awful things. It is so hard to understand how anyone could be so bad. Many people just shrug and say that evil men just exist. This seems naive and shortsighted. How will we ever build a better worl...

I am a librarian who likes cats, and I have a daughter in college in Iowa, so reading Dewey: The Small-Town Cat Who Touched the World by Vicki Myron seems natural for me. To make it even better, we bought the copy at Prairie Lights Book Store in Iowa City, who donated a portion of the sale to a loca...

Growing up in Iowa seems to be the stuff of good literature. Man Killed by Pheasant is not the only recent memoir set in the Hawkeye State. In Little Heathens: Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression, Mildred Armstrong Kalish also takes readers back to an Iowa childho...

At the end of the year, many publications issue their "best of the year" lists. Looking at the lists for 2008, you will see that biographies and memoirs claimed a lot of spots. You'll also notice that there is little agreement between lists, as most of the titles mentioned make only one list. There ...

It is that time again - the end of the year. All the major reviewing publications are issuing their best books lists, and bloggers are keeping pace with their more personalized lists. Here is what I really liked in 2008. Happy Holiday Reading! Recent Nonfiction At Large and At Small: Familiar Essays...