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Staff Picks and Suggestions

On This Day: January 21

On this day in history, the great author George Orwell died in London. Perhaps best known for his dystopian novel 1984, George Orwell was a proponent of social justice in his time. Today we read his books and take from them the lessons of equality, freedom, and justice that were being expressed in the 1940s. The library has a great collection of books, videos, e-books, and more that you can find here, or by searching for George Orwell on NUCat. Take some time out to read or re-read some of the 20th century’s finest literary works!

Welcome Back!

Hello Snippets Readers, Just wanted to welcome everyone back to campus! The library opened up on Monday, January 3rd and is following holiday hours this week. Regular hours will commence on Monday, January 10th for the first day of Spring Semester classes. See you around Snell 馃檪

Meet the Author Spring Lineup

The Library’s popular “Meet the Author” series continues this spring with an exciting and varied lineup of writers. Here’s a sneak peek at some of the authors we’ve booked to come to Snell Library this spring: Losing Graceland Micah Nathan opens the spring series on January 27, reading from Losing Graceland, a picaresque novel about a down-on-his-luck college student’s road trip to Memphis with an elderly man — who may or may not be Elvis! Your Creative Brain On March 9, psychologist Shelley Carson talks about Your Creative Brain, a book about how to strengthen your brain to develop your creative side, with an emphasis on understanding what kind of brain you have and what techniques work best for you. On March 16, Patrick Rothfuss brings us The Wise Man’s Fear, a fantasy novel that tells the story of the growth and development of a hero. It’s the eagerly-anticipated second in a projected trilogy (the Kingkiller Chronicles), following the immensely popular Name of the Wind. Hot Stuff If you’re young enough to have just missed the baby boom you probably have fond (or not so fond!) memories of the disco era. In which case, you’ll enjoy hearing Alice Echols discuss Hot Stuff: Disco and the Remaking of American Culture on March 30. If nothing else, she rehabilitates the great Saturday Night Fever to its rightful place in the American film pantheon. We’ll be making more announcements as we move closer to the dates. And we hope you’ll join us for this exciting series of authors!

Final Paper Writers Block? Read These

Some Friday afternoon journal-publishing humor: The Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis has published two research studies, about 30 years apart, on writer’s block. ⇒ From 1974, D. Upper, “The Unsuccessful Self-Treatment of a Case of ‘Writer’s Block’ “ (PDF) ⇒ From 2007, R. Didden et al., “A Multisite Cross-Cultural Replication of Upper’s (1974) Unsuccessful Self-Treatment of Writer’s Block” (PDF) You have to see these to believe them, but they were honest-to-goodness published in a peer-reviewed scholarly journal. Those wacky psychologists…