Read, Listen, Watch

Staff Picks and Suggestions

Harpist Ann Hobson Pilot retires from BSO

I heard a story yesterday on NPR about the retirement of Ann Hobson Pilot, harpist at the Boston Symphony Orchestra for the past 40 years. When she was recruited by Arthur Fiedler in 1969, she was one of only four women in the BSO, and for 20 years afterwards, she was the only African American! There’s a video of her at NPR, and if you’re an NU affiliate, you can log in and listen to a little of her playing as accompanist to the flutes in Gaubert’s Divertiseement grec on the Naxos Online album “Gaubert: Works for flute”.  (Need to see about why that’s not in NuCat yet–but I found it in Nexpress, luckily!) Last night at the BSO’s Opening Night, Hobson played a piece by John Williams commissioned for the occasion of her retirement, which I’m looking forward to hearing re-broadcast on WGBH this weekend.

Brick City

I wanted to quickly post on Brick City, a five-night documentary series that started last night on the Sundance channel.  (I caught the last twenty minutes of it). I had read glowing reviews of it over the weekend, and so I’m DVR-ing the remaining four nights.  And from what I’ve seen and read, I would really recommend it. It focuses on Newark, New Jersey, and its mayor, Cory Booker, as well as a number of citizens: Jayda and Creep, a couple who are also a Blood and a Crip respectively; Ras Baraka, principal of Newark’s Central High School; and Police Director Gary McCarthy. I also tried to search for some background materials in our Library that relate to the history of Newark.  You can find (among others) mystery novels, government documents, history books, and a 2008 New Yorker piece by Peter Boyer on Cory Booker (His piece is from February 4, 2008 and is titled “The Color of Politics”).

Japanese Children’s Stories

I grew up with Japanese fairy tales because my dad grew up with Japanese fairy tales. It had nothing to do with being Japanese (we aren’t) and everything to do with the stories being magical (they are). My dad told me that when he had kids, he hunted through the bookstore for books from a specific publishing company – Tuttle Press – because the pink fabric cover and stylized illustrations were so familiar to him. I recently found a 2003 copy of one of these Tuttle books in the Favat Children’s Section! This collection includes classics like Momotaro (Peach Boy) and the Grateful Jizo statues, as well as lesser known ones like the Bobtail Monkey and the Magic Teakettle.  I even remember watching cartoons of stories like Urashimotaro in elementary school. What is always so interesting to me is how similar a lot of the fairy tales are to western fairy tales, as if they all came from the same place, fragmenting somewhere along the way, and adding a glass slipper here, a red rose there; a rice cake here, a persimmon there.

Access Latino Literature Free Online for Hispanic Heritage Month

In celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month, September 15 through October 15, Alexander Street Press is offering free access to select full-text, online collections for libraries. Explore poetry, short stories, folk tales, novels, memoirs, non-fiction, and plays in both Spanish and English from Latino writers around the world. Use the links below to browse titles; when prompted, enter username: eviews and password: hispanicheritage . Enjoy, until mid-October!

Out with the old, in with the new (Vampire Edition)

It seems you can’t go anywhere without hearing about the Twilight saga. Or how about HBO’s True Blood series?

With the recent resurgence of vampires in popular culture, it’s easy to forget that this little slice of horror fiction was once a mainstay in the literary world (I know, Twilight fans, Stephanie Meyers’ books are literature… sort of). But I’m thinking more along the lines of Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla, Anne Rice’s Interview With the Vampire, even Salem’s Lot by Stephen King.

Yes, it seems that the classics have taken a back seat to their new, hipper counterparts. Recently, I came across Bram Stoker’s Dracula under the required reading list on a syllabus for one of my fall classes and couldn’t help but smile. But with the exception of a few of us stubborn readers, no one cares about those books anymore. So in this new age, what’s a classic book lover to do?

Absolutely nothing.

It sounds bleak, but the new fans to the genre don’t know anything about the books some of us can’t live without. However, that’s not a bad thing – they’re forging their own icons. And we can all appreciate the revival of the genre.

Perhaps it’s best to let the classic novels fade into obscurity. But it doesn’t hurt to pay homage every now and then; so the next time you stop by Snell, make sure to pick up one the classics – even if it’s just to skim the back cover. It’ll be good for you.