City of Ames, IA At Your Library, 24 Jul 2015

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Mary and guests give you some reading ideas to help you escape the ordinary this summer.

A

Hi I'm Mary Logsdon and once again here I am at your library.

A

If you remember last month at your library, I had several staff members from the adult services department join me to talk a little bit about some summer reading that you might want to explore as a part of our escape the ordinary summer reading program, there's still plenty of time to sign up for our summer reading program, and today, I have two new staff members with me here new since last month, and you know you're just going to really enjoy hearing a little bit more about what they recommend so that you can escape the ordinary this summer.

A

So, as I said that I do have a couple of staff members here this month, who were not here last month, I have both Justin, hey Justin and Samantha, okay, who have graciously agreed to spend some time to share some recommendations, as I just mentioned our summer. Reading theme is on going through august 31st and it is escape. The ordinary we've had a little fun with this theme.

A

Last month we talked about escaping the ordinary through books about travel, and this time we decided to go a slightly different direction and I think we'll just take turns and hear some recommendations from each of you Samantha. What did you decide to do with this escape the ordinary theme? Well,.

B

We were thinking about getting out of your rut. Okay and I find that I can quite frequently get out of my rut with reading by reading nonfiction.

C

B

Reading about history and culture and you escape to different places all the time then so. My first choice is actually I'm going to talk about this one first, because I like this one, the best this has the most meaning. For me, this is actually a book by the director of the British Museum mm-hmm. Is this guy Neil MacGregor and he's become incredibly famous and had incredible success with this series in particular, and it started off as podcasts and radio program, and it's been so successful.

B

He's had 40 million downloads on my of his series, so the book is called a history of the world in 100 objects.

B

So when his hairs history of the world, he means history of humankind, the human world, not the natural world, and it was actually a series of 100 programs, 15 minute programs on the radio and I just think it's the most fantastic take on history that we could possibly have I really wish that we could teach this to all kids throughout the world, because it's a really global idea of it's actually showing how we're all connected and it shows what's happening around the globe.

B

The whole time the whole world over so it starts two million years ago, up to the present day, so he's actually choosing objects from the British Museum okay to describe what happens over.

C

Over history, how.

A

Humankind developed.

B

A

That's fascinating are the podcast still available, I'm just curious. Is it something that a person could access on the internet today absolutely.

B

Okay, it's actually on the BBC website. You haven't find it. If you you can google history of the world in 100 objects and BBC you'll find it you can a problem and I have to say it took me a year and a half to listen to all the programs, because it's so much information, it's so much going on that. You might not want to read all the bits at once. You might. You might want to borrow it a hundred times and then okay just read little by little, because that way you really absorb the information.

B

A

Did you have some samples within the book that you wanted to share with us I? Do the.

B

Thing I find amazing, is Neil. Macgregor is an incredibly educated, articulate man, but he's also very human and a warm, and he just brings everything to life. It's amazing, I find that's why it's nice to listen to as well once you've read about the object. Okay, so, for example, you've got the most mundane, boring looking objects. This is completely unprepossessing, but it's actually an incredible piece of history. It's from two million years ago and its actual actually at all it.

C

B

By people mm-hmm, so this is the old of a stone tool and then you go to something like when I said tab here, something that's incredibly intricate and delicate. That was has been scientifically developed and this is an astrolabe that is meant to be like a compass and a watch, and it has so many things involved in it. So from the most complicated looking things to the most mundane, mm-hmm I have a personal favorite here on this one. This looks really interesting.

B

Actually, but it's actually a part of a massive pillar from India roam.

C

B

230 BC mm-hmm and the reason I like this one best is because it represents the emperor ashoka who was emperor of the whole of the Indian subcontinent at the time, and he spread tolerance and acceptance of others by having these pillars in the local language throughout his empire. Okay- and it's not ways common- that an emperor will let you speak your own language. Quite often, you want to impose your language and I think this is such a beautiful idea of whom this pillar of peace basically throw.

C

B

To show that he accepts everyone, he loves everyone in his empire. I think that's amazing. It's wonderful.

A

And this is so interesting because, as you say, you can read about it, you can explore more online and I. Don't know you make me want to take a trip to the British Museum. Please.

B

Do okay recommend it okay, so that again, the title of a book is a history of the wild in 100 objects. Okay, thanks so very very.

A

Much justin has got some books with him as well, and what what did you decide to do in order to escape the ordinary so.

C

I was in a reading rut, I.

A

C

Every pretty much everything by all my favorite authors and nothing seemed interesting, so I decided I would try something I've never done before. Okay, which was read graphic novels and I, never done that before. Okay.

A

C

I remember: I had a friend in college who read them quite a bit and he had one called Superman red Sun, which is a different take on the origin story of Superman.

C

Typically, the story goes that his father put him he's from an alien planet and it was about to blow up so his father puts him on a spaceship in the spaceship lands and Kansas. He grows up and becomes this great American hero and this one the planet blows up at a different time. Okay,.

A

C

Of landing in Kansas, he lands in communist russia. Oh.

A

C

He grows up being under under linen linens Russia and he becomes this hero for communist Russia. So it's really a different take on the Superman story and it's kind of a the whole gist of it is comparing the it's really a political book comparing communism with American democracy.

C

So it was really it's really a subversively political which I thought was interesting and it kind of reverses a lot of roles at first. You know you really don't like Superman, which is I, mean he is quintessential American hero, and this one you don't like him in fact, the hero for a lot. A good chunk of the book is Lex Luthor, which is his usually usually the nemesis. Okay,.

A

C

So I thought it was just a really interesting take and it was a and a really clever concept. I thought just you know what happens if he just landed a different part of the world, so I thought it was a really interesting and unique. Take on Superman's origin story, great.

A

Now how, since you said, you were in a rut- and this was something new did, what did you think of the format, have reading a story through text and pictures I liked.

C

It I liked it. It was something it was I mean there. Some of them are very long, but this one was a quick read: I was able to get kind of back into the the flow of reading again because I had it been probably a couple months since I'd read a book which is a long time from me, and this one really kind of got me started going again really and just kind of the quick you know store in like the the picture. The art is really incredible. Okay,.

A

C

So it was really a way to jumpstart getting back into reading great.

A

Okay, I'm glad that were able to help you get out.

C

A

Samantha you bring something else. A you'd like to share with us. I did again. Is it nonfiction as well? This one is also another thing: okay and.

B

This is a different kind of getting out of your rut, because I chose this one from downstairs in the youth section. Oh.

A

We can do that. We can check out books from all over the library he's.

B

Actually sorry I stretched my reading legs and.

C

B

Downstairs to have a look I find that actually having a look at the nonfiction stuff in in the youth section is, is really interesting and different, because it's not necessarily the same. Take on history that you would get in the adult section and I find that it's okay, it's usually more condensed more concise than what you would find up here, but it's not dumb down.

B

So it's not necessarily going to be simpler, just because it's for kids and I think nowadays as well that we're trying to be more honest with kids about things that happened about history and so on. So this book is 33 things. Every girl should know about women's history, but I should specify it specifically USA Women's History Terry. So it's not a global look, but since I didn't know quite so much about women's history in the US I thought it would be really interesting to read great, very.

A

Good there are some samples within this book that you wanted to highlight. Yeah.

B

Also hear something I like is that it's very visual and that's something you find more with youth books as well. I find that quite helpful. Actually, you have really nice graphics and it's actually 33 different authors. Oh they provide a different sample. So here, for example, we have story as their actual fiction, and this is my favorite element of the book I think because it intertwines three different women's history from the 19th century.

B

So it's a explain. The history of women in the West, exploring the West I.

A

C

B

Quite so much about I think so it's looking at a Cherokee girl and an african-american woman and also an Anglo American woman at their different stages across the 19th century and then at.

C

B

Next part and you'll see there's also, for example, this woman who has interpreted this as taking quotes by famous women or.

C

B

Quotes by women because she actually wrote into the Minneapolis newspaper some years ago. Why are there so few women quoted in your newspaper? They have a quote of the day and someone apparently wrote in response to her letter was because women never say anything interesting. Oh so she's decided. Okay! Well, here are some interesting things: women, it's a great and then you'll, see on the last bit. There's again it's different.

B

You have little snippets about the first woman to do such and such first woman astronaut here I found interesting is the first female banker from this was in 1905 and she actually happened to be an afro-american woman was the first female banker which I think is a really cool part of history and- and I really like the mix and the visual aspect of it great so.

A

There are 3333 things every girl should know about women's history, so are they are the 33 different subjects or basically.

B

Ok and each subject is taken is interpreted by the author, each author, different ok, so there, this poetry, there's fiction is history, this time lines, there's the quotes, it's all interpreted slightly differently, there's even some autobiography in there as well. Right and it's not I know it looks kind of like it might be a feminist book.

B

But it is not it's done in a very positive way about including the men that have helped women and how we've worked together in especially in recent times, but it's a really positive but I, think and I think it's really useful for everyone to read right, I! Think it a bit limiting to say maybe every girl I think every person should read great.

A

That's a great recommendation, I think what's interesting is also if it gives people different writing styles as well, then.

B

A

Can learn I mean when you pick up a work of nonfiction to then be exposed to many different literary styles within that within the one book is actually wonderful and for youth is as well as adults, so.

B

A

Some different styles as well as lots of information. Obviously so thanks so very much for sharing that and yes, we have a wonderful non fiction collection down in the youth area that people should also explore for sure it's.

B

Also a springboard to reading further into things. If you just want to quick, read about something you.

C

Don't necessarily want.

B

To read at home, yeah.

A

B

Can be your starting point? Maybe that's.

A

Great thanks so very much Thanks I know that Justin has read more than one. So you read the Superman look.

C

A

Then that prompted you to read further yeah.

C

And I didn't know even where to begin: okay, not graphic novels, not something I'm, really familiar with I, didn't didn't know what was considered classic or you know where I should start. So I just I went to the internet and I asked some friends to that: read allah, graphic novels and one that kept coming up. Was this one? It's a batman, a graphic novel called The Killing Joke by Alan Moore and its unique in that it takes a much as the other one was a different take on the Superman origin story.

C

This is a different take on the Joker's origin.

B

C

This one he is a kind of a struggling stand-up comic and he's just he's a normal guy with a wife and a family, and he has one incredibly bad day and he gets mixed up with a some criminals in order to make money for it for his a struggling family and he kind of snaps and goes off the deep end and becomes the Joker and it's a really the artwork is, and the writing were really interesting, because I've, never I, didn't know that tension could be created just through the use of really simple and spare graphics and really terse dialogue.

C

It was. It was really really well done and I couldn't wait to finish it because I had no. What was what was happening just bet the way they they built up the story or the way that author built up the story, so that was I did not expect that to me, graphic novels are just long. Comic books and I wasn't so wrong about that. It really is. It really is a novel that just happens to be told through pictures which I was not expecting. I was expecting.

C

You know kind of just you know simple superhero kind of story, but it was. It was fascinating really uh to see that this take on this, what's considered to be one of the worst criminals in the DC Universe, to see that maybe he did start out as a normal guy and maybe and his heat.

C

The Joker in the story posits that we all have bad days and that he just happened to snap at his and so, but that maybe we all have that in US, which I don't really agree with, but that was what they were trying to convey in in the story, and it has a really interesting ambiguous, ending that I think really made it worthwhile when you get to the end. Oh.

A

C

A

So you couldn't wait to get through it and then at the end, you're still left yeah.

C

Yours did what yeah. What's.

A

Next Superman.

C

Are that Superman Batman has a fairly strict, at least in this graphic novel, a code of not killing people mm-hmm, but the end you kind of has he been pushed too far by the Joker, is kind of what you might find at the end and it the way they leave it hanging you really have to interpret. You know how. How did Batman suffer through all this stuff and did he come out? Okay or.

A

C

Slip into becoming essentially that what the Joker said- and you know where we all snap and do things that we shouldn't do so it was I mean it was a really interesting social commentary told through this. That's.

A

Fascinating yeah.

C

A

I like to hear what you're saying about how effective the combination of the the words and the images and how that helped built to built attention and further the narrative which.

C

A

Really, what graphic novels are meant to do? I.

C

Think it's a song, you can have great music, but the words might not go with it. So it's not that great or you know the other way around, but this one, the the the the writing and the graphics just mesh very well together and it's it was pulled off very nicely. Oh.

A

That's that's great thanks, so much for sharing that. Thank you. I know that samantha has another format talking about moving beyond just print resources in the library. I'm glad that you brought another format as well. What have you got now.

B

I have chosen two dvds, okay and they're, both foreign films that I thought might be interesting. It is hard to know where to start with foreign film, sometimes unless you've heard of something being really famous or kind of really catching catching the eye in other countries. So just little hints about a couple of the foreign films that you might enjoy. One of my favorite films actually is Emily and is from 2001 and it's a French film. Although the the director is Belgian jean-pierre journey and it's just a really charming film is incredibly quirky.

B

It's not your typical romantic comedy, but it's kind of got romance and it's kind of got and it's definitely got comedy something. I really love about this film as well. Is that the dialogue so I like it is sparkling really. So it's really entertaining film very easy to watch very, very funny, very charming and that.

A

Would be in our foreign film section up in the front of the library where our DVDs are so great and what other film.

B

Did you bring and the other one is an italian film? I called the first beautiful thing and I think the cover is probably slightly misleading. It was a lot more. It was kind of a bit deeper than it seems on the front and I found it is.

B

It was a funny film, it was touching as well and it had its share of drama and comedy, and it's about this, this young mom who's growing up well, her kids are growing up from being little and she separates from her husband and it's they're trying to develop as a family and, and you see different stages of the the family. So you see them they flash and switch between the different ages.

B

So when the kids are little and the kids are teenagers and then when the kids are grown up and how the family interacts- and it's very moving and funny really and I, find it's kind of different to other Italian comedy films that I've seen that Italian comedy can be quite visual in slapstick, often whereas this is not this is this is more subtle and I really love the comedy they infuse into the dialogue, and even just the gestures. There are little gestures and the little kids that play in it are actually really brilliant. They really.

B

They really do a good job. Great.

A

So if you want to dip into foreign films and you're, not exactly sure where to start, these are two great recommendations to to get folks started. Thank you and I know just as one last graphic novel to round it out so.

C

I decided not to do any more superheroes.

A

C

Knew that graphic novels were unique in that they they tell you know, there's there's the big superhero contingent of stories, but there's also these kind of alternative.

B

C

And end to it and a lot of non fiction stories. I chose ghost world by Daniel Clowes. It is a superhero free. Basically it's about these two friends who these two girls, who are friends and it's that period of time after high school before college, and how confusing and some and unsure you are at that. At that point, at least I was so I related, and the relationship between the two girls is really interesting. There, they're friends, but they kind of don't like each other and their dialogue.

C

I felt somebody was falling around some of my friends from high school and just writing stuff down, because the dialogue is exactly how at least my friends and I talked at the time it was written in the 90s.

B

C

It's set in the 90s, and so it was really interesting to see what was almost reality captured in this in this graphic format, because it was very real and I felt like I knew. These people like these were people that I grew up with or friends that I had made, and the artwork was really interesting. It's lots of pastels and lots of lots of Blues lots of pinks and it kind of conveys this kind of sour mood than.

A

They have, throughout the entire.

C

Time everything is kind of everything that they do is kind of muted, nothing, there's I mean not to give anything away. Nothing exciting happens. Okay,.

A

C

Which is which is kind.

A

Of like true to life, and it's just trying.

C

To figure out what to do with yourself during.

A

C

How you navigate relationships at this weird stage in your life, and so that was a really unique exploration of that that time period in your life, that's really difficult to articulate sometimes, but Daniel Clowes did a really really excellent. Job like I said, I really think that he was just falling around teenagers with a with a tape recorder.

A

Isn't that and I just wrote.

C

Down their conversations, that's.

A

Great, that's great and I. Imagine maybe he's written more. We can certainly look to.

C

See, if he's a bluff, so this is his main. We actually have a massive deluxe version of.

A

C

Too- and it was, it was made into a movie.

A

C

Thora birch and Scarlett Johansson, that was back in the late 90s or early 2000s.

A

C

That's also worth checking out it's a pretty faithful representation of the graphic novel terrific. So it was. It was really interesting to read a graphic novel that wasn't your typical superhero kind of story, and it reminded me and some degrees of the office, the TV.

A

Show: okay, my.

C

Father-In-Law always said that he couldn't watch that show because it wasn't funny to him, because it was too close to reality and that's how I felt about this book is not that it wasn't funny, because it certainly is, but it's it's so close to reality that it's it's almost scary. Just how close it is. So it was very enjoyable. Well.

A

Great well I'm so interested to hear that you not only chose a new format for your reading. Even within the format you stretched and and went a couple of different directions, and likewise Samantha I'm, just so thrilled that you shared with us nonfiction from both the adult and youth area, yeah that really spans the globe in so many ways and then also introduced us to some films.

A

Both of you, of course, work in the adult services area, so our viewers can find Samantha and Justin when they're, not reading or viewing materials they can find them at our adult services desk here on the second floor, along with our other staff members, samantha, is, is busy these days also with library programming. She helps facilitate our conversations in english program mondays at eleven o'clock, and so, if you want to find out more about that, please do ask. Justin is very involved with lots of other things with our ebook collection and our services.

A

Related to to that. Our viewers may know have noticed that our Wilbur consortium has changed names. It's now called bridges. If you have any questions about ebooks, Justin, you're, available I.

C

Would be happy to answer okay.

A

Great, so thank you both so very much for being with me today, I'm fascinated by your choices and I'm eager to go forward and read and watch what you've recommended. Thank.

B

A

You and now you'll see some of the new items that we've recently add to the library collection.

A

A

A

It was so great to sit down with Justin and Samantha and to get some recommendations today of books and movies that you might want to check out at the library if you're also looking for new items that have come to the library and aren't quite sure what you're in the mood to read. Please do always stop at our new arrivals section right at the top of the stairs here. On the second floor, we keep new additions to the library on display in the new arrivals section for nine months. So you can see everything.

A

That's recently been purchased for the library for fiction and nonfiction right there at the top of the steps, and so it's a great spot to browse and just see what's recently been published and what possible reading materials you would enjoy next, so do stop at the adult services area. Second floor: new arrivals, section you'll also notice that at the top of the stairs we frequently change out a display of materials again just to catch your attention.

A

This month and through the summer, we're continuing to feature books that fit the theme escape the ordinary and so keep your eye on this display right at the top of the steps and your new arrivals, where you will see some other materials books as well as audio books print as well as audio to get you thinking about what next to check out here at your library. Once again, this is Mary Logsdon. Thank you. So very much for visiting your library.