Reading in times of distraction…

The Lost Art of Reading:
Why Books Matter in a Distracted Time
by David L. Ulin
ISBN-13: 978-1-57061-670-9 [Hardcover],
Sasquatch Books, 2010, 152 pages
Lantana Library Call No. 028.9 Uli

Good readers of Lantana! Do not disregard a desire to read books, yes books, even if you feel embarrassment or disquiet that you read books far less now than you did ten to twenty years ago.  David Ulin, LA Times book critic, may have some insights for you.

Picking up Ulin’s slight, hand-sized last month, I intended to speedily read it as if for sport.  Distractions of all other kinds won out, just as they did Ulin.  I picked it up again, though, and on arriving at page 9, found Ulin confessing that,

Sometime in the last few years—I don’t remember when, exactly—I noticed I was having trouble sitting down to read. That’s a problem if you read, as I do, for a living, but it’s an even bigger problem if you read as a way of life.

That resonated with me, as I’m a teacher, a librarian by educational background, and a reader for enjoyment, too.  I also like Ulin’s insight that reading is really a journey of discovery, an excavation of our inner world, even if it doesn’t seem to be ours (the readers’) at the beginning.  Ulin observes it’s important to “take the plunge” and to remember that the writing we read is a kind of interaction.  A sort of give and take, perhaps, a push-pull relationship, a lurking played out in silent intimacy?  Hmmm-hmm.

Ulin sets forth the sources of his distraction (much of which will be familiar to you as it is to me — internet, the 24 hour news steam, etc.).  Then he narrates, albeit meandering at times, a personal essay of how reading can be rediscovered.  He seeks to help his technology-savvy teenage son enjoy Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby.  His son in turn helps Ulin recognize a kind of interactivity and connectivity in the on-line chatting, lurking, browsing, and scanning of search engine results, websites, Facebook posts, e-mails, and e-readers.

Beyond that, though, Ulin is able to rediscover the pleasures of reckoning with time and slow, long form reading, for he claims that what we read inhabits us and we animate it in turn.  He also enlists the help of Fitzgerald, Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, and a host of other modern writers and thinkers to help him (and us) rediscover reading for pleasure.

Fall/Winter 2011-2012 Newly Arrived Bestsellers

Below is our new flyer announcing some Fall/Winter 2011-2012 newly arrived bestsellers at the Library.  Come and check them out and others available now.  Click on the image to enlarge it.

2011 Holiday Concert Update

Hi everyone.  The Annual Holiday Concert held here at the Library on Thurs. Dec. 15th, 2011, was enjoyed by everyone.

The concert commenced at 8pm, with Teresa Wilhelm, Friends Director and Mistress of Ceremonies, welcoming guests.  The Symphonic Band of the Palm Beach’s Woodwind Ensemble performing several pieces, ranging from classical to latino. (I liked the latino piece, with a tango beat.)

Ms. Dorothy Richter, master puppeteer and long-standing member of our community, delivered a wonderful speech with wise and humorous advice for all. (This year, her focus was on Genesis, Chapter 6 — Noah, the Ark, and the Flood.)

Mike Bayer and his colleagues of the Brass Ensemble then treated the audience to several arrangements, concluding with a medley of carols and audience members joining in the singing.

The food and refreshments were delicious and more than ample.  Thanks to the musicians and especially to Teresa Wilhelm for her organization and coordination of this event.

Meet Mr. A.C. Brooks, author of Foul Hooked: A Shagball and Tangles Adventure

The Friends of the Lantana Public Library invite you to meet
Mr. A.C. Brooks
Local writer and author of
FOUL HOOKED: A Shagball and Tangles Adventure

There will be also be a book signing of his newly released book.
When: January 26, 2012, at 7 pm.
(See the reviews on Amazon.com…)

On Russia: Robert Massie’s Catherine the Great

 

A Russian friend once told me she always thought of her country as a motherland.   I wonder if the historical roots for such a view lie in the beginning of modern Russia — in the Romanov rulers after Peter the Great, several of whom were women — including Catherine II (the Great, born Sophia Frederica Augusta of Anhalt-Zerbst).

I knew a bit about Catherine from high school history: that she was a German princess originally who came to Russia as a child bride of Peter III of Russia, that she transformed Russia into a great European power (both continental and maritime) in the second half of the 18th century, and that she famously took many lovers, including Gregory Potemkin.  There were many curious legends about her sexual prowess.

Robert Massie’s book, Catherine the Great: A Portrait of a Woman, reveals her as complex, intelligent, well-cultured, and enlightened ruler, but also that she was an autocrat who depended on the nobility for her power.  Her younger years were spent reading and studying the Enlightenment thinkers and awaiting marriage, as a pawn of other’s ambitions.  Her later years as a mature Empress transformed her into a wise, benevolent, yet also ruthless autocrat and ruler.  Catherine was truly one of the greatest of early modern European rulers, influencing the 18th century as her counterpart Elizabeth I of England had the Renaissance.

She was a woman never allowed to mother her own biological children (her son, Paul I, was raised as a ward of the state); she did, however, find love and possibly even marriage with Potemkin. She wrote an ambitious treatise inspired by Voltaire, Montesquieu, and Becarria to guide her subjects closer to democratic rule of law (the Nakaz), and she was a patron of many artists, scientists, and thinkers of the time.  She also founded the first university for women (the Smolny Institute), and she was the first modern ruler to preside over a widely succesful national innoculation campaign against smallpox.

Readers will be interested to learn more about serfdom in Russia, which wasn’t a holdover from the Middle Ages or medieval times (as I previously thought), but an institution formalized in the 16th century — the Renaissance.  Serfdom had many parallels with American Slavery, and yet it differed as well.  There is also a detailed account of the Pugachev Rebellion, centering around a pretender to the Russian Throne and a long, brutal civil war, which Catherine ruthlessly fought and won.

I picked up a copy of Massie’s book after attending a reading he gave at the Miami International Book Fair last month.   The book has been favorably reviewed by the New York Times on Sunday, Nov. 16, 2011.

Lantana Public Library currently has Massie’s Peter the Great: his life and world (Call No. B Pet).  This earned Massie the Pulitzer Prize in 1981.

 

Friends Annual Holiday Concert on December 15, 2011, at 7 p.m.

Annual Holiday Concert, December 15, 2011

 Have your social secretary mark your calendar for the Friends Annual Holiday Concert at the Library on Thursday, December 15 at 7 P.M.  Mike Bayer and his colleagues of the Brass Ensemble of the Symphonic Band of the Palm Beaches will be here to lead us in a medley of Carols.  The Friends will provide its famous spread of shrimp, dips, salads & cheeses.  We invite you to come and bring your friends for an evening of holiday cheer.  All are welcome.

Health News: Free and Low Cost Health Care in Palm Beach County

Hi Everyone!
As an middle aged, uninsured woman, I’m currently researching affordable health care resources available to me here locally.

I found a helpful article, Help for the Uninsured, by Phil Galewitz and Christine Stapleton, in the Palm Beach Post on March 9,2009.

Here’s a short list of places the uninsured can go for help either getting coverage or getting free or reduced cost care:

*Health Care District (HCD) of Palm Beach County
Apply for low-cost or free health coverage if you are a county resident.
(561) 659-1270

There is a local HCD of PB County Lantana-Lake Worth Center located here in Lantana:
1250 Southwinds Drive
Lantana, FL 33462
(561) 547-6800
Hours: 7:30 AM to 5:00 PM Monday through Friday
2nd Saturday of each month
9:00 AM – 1:00 PM
Website: http://www.pbchd.com/centers/center_lakeworth_lantana.html

Directions:
If going west on Lantana Road, turn right on Andrew Redding Road, at the Florida Highway Patrol Office/Dept. of Motor Vehicle Registrations.
If going east, turn left onto Andrew Redding Road.

*Palm Beach County Medical Society’s Project Access
A program of volunteer doctors who treat the uninsured.
(561) 433-3940

*Florida Department of children and Families’ ACCESS Florida
Apply for Medicaid.

Galewitz and Stapleton  also list a number of clinics in our area, and programs with sliding/varying fees:

Other Free Clinics

*Caridad Center
A free health clinic based in West Boynton Beach.
(561) 737-6336

*Community Health Center
A free health clinic on 2823 N. Australian Ave in West Palm Beach.
(561) 840-8681

*Carelink International
Free health clinic in Jupiter at 412 Center Street, located immediately east of Beacon Baptist Church.
(561) 818-4937

Sliding Fee Scale

*Palm Beach County Health Department
Provides primary and dental care on a sliding fee scale. Family planning and prenatal care also available, as are testing and treatment of communicable diseases such as tuberculosis, sexually transmitted diseases, HIV/AIDs, hepatitis C. Clinics are located at various locations within Palm Beach County, including Belle Glade, Delray Beach, Jupiter, Lantana/Lake Worth, Pahokee, Riviera Beach and West Palm Beach.
(561) 840-4500

*Florida Community Health Centers
Provides primary care on a sliding fee scale. Centers are located throughout Palm Beach County and the Treasure Coast, including Ft. Pierce, Pahokee, Port St. Lucie.
In Palm Beach County, there is a center located at
4450 South Tiffany Drive
West Palm Beach, Florida 33407
Phone: (561) 844-9443

*FAU Wellness Centers
Provides primary care services on a sliding fee scale. Locations in Delray Beach and West Palm Beach:

Delray Beach Full Service Center
(Satellite at Carver Estates)
S.W. 14 th Avenue
Delray Beach, FL 33444
Phone: (561) 243-1573
Fax: (561) 279-1765

West Gate Community Wellness Center
1650 Osceola Drive
West Palm Beach, FL 33409
Phone: (561) 616-4101
Fax: (561) 616-4179
Director: Susan Beidler, PhD, Mbe, ARNP, BC
 Specific Types of Health Care

*H.O.P.E. Project Mobile Mammography Van
To schedule a free mammogram, call (561) 659-4278

*Hanley Center
Hanley offers free substance abuse screening for adults and adolescents and a free program for children of addicts and alcoholics. (561) 841-1000 or 866-4HANLEY.
Call(561) 841-1000 or 866-4HANLEY.

*Pparx.com
Pparx.com, a partnership between doctors, pharmaceutical companies and other health care providers, patient advocacy organizations and community groups to help qualifying patients who lack prescription coverage get the medicines they need through the public or private program that’s right for them. Many will get them free or nearly free. 1-888-4PPA-NOW (1-888-477-2669).

There are also low cost/free health insurance programs listed in the article.   I’ll provide more information on some of these in another upcoming posting.

Take a look also at Lantana Public Library’s Help in Hard Times web page!

Health: Free Breast/Mammogram Screenings in Palm Beach County

Hi everyone!

Breast Cancer Awareness month is October.  Palm Beach County has a number of events this month and beyond to help fundraise, educate, and inform women about procedures, costs, and locations.

Had you heard of a program for uninsured and lower income women to obtain free breast/mammogram screenings?
If you are in need of a screening, are uninsured or underinsured, and can drive to Boca Raton, please call the following number (at Boca Raton Regional Hospital) for more information on scheduling an appointment and obtaining a Komen Grant:  ( 561)955-4294

My screening/mammogram is being made available through the Kathryn Krickstein Pressel MammoVan, which operates with Boca Raton Regional Hospital.

Boca Raton Regional Hospital is a current recipient of  grants awarded to non-profit health care agencies and service providers in our area via the County’s own chapter  of the Susan G. Komen Foundation/For the Cure®.

Komen Grants are available/renwable year after year.

Click here for a longer list of current health care agencies in our area that have received Komen grants.

Here are some helpful resources/books in our library on breast cancer:

*Living through breast cancer : what a Harvard doctor and survivor wants you to know about getting the best care while preserving your self-image by Carolyn M.Kaelin
(Lantana Library Call No. 616.994 Kae)

*The American breast cancer guide : a comprehensive resource directory.
(Lantana Library Call No. 616.994 Ame)

*The everything health guide to living with breast cancer : an accessible and comprehensive resource for women by Lucia Giuggio Carvalho.
(Lantana Library Call No. 616.994 Car)

*Straight talk about breast cancer : from diagnosis to recovery by Suzanne W. Braddock
(Lantana Library Call No. 616.994 Bra)

An update on some of wonderful things that will soon be in our future…

 The Physics of the Future: How Science will Shape Human Destiny
and Our Daily Lives by the year 2100.
By Michio Kaku
ISBN: 978—0385-53080-4
[Hardcover] New York: Doubleday
393 pages

Have you heard of any of the following inventions that are all likely to appear within this century, thanks to successful scientific advances in computing and micro chip technology, which have already created their prototypes?

Internet glasses and contact lenses;
driverless cars;
four wall screens;
real and virtual reality mixed;
universal  translators,
fMRI mind readers;
tricorders (like in Star Trek)  and portable brain scans;
and last but not least, photographing our dreams!?

Michio Kaku, the famous MIT physicist, author, and co-founder of String Field Theory, opens his new book with discussion of these incredible developments.  Subsequent chapters focus on different scientific efforts, including Artificial Intelligence/Robotics, the future of medicine, nanotechnology, the futures of energy and  space travel, and even of wealth.

Some of these areas seem to be advancing more quickly than others, I was surprised discover.  Artificial Intelligence and Robots, for example, are familiar to all of us, yet they are still not able to match the human brain in intelligence and consciousness.  Other areas, such as Nanotechnology, are rapidly growing. (Nanotechnology is the ability to manipulate subatomic/molecular particles for all kinds of purposes, such as transistors, computing, chemical coatings, and even nanocars and particles to fight diseases in our bodies.  See a picture of the world’s smallest nano guitar, created by Professor Dustin Carr).

What is compelling about these developments is Kaku’s uncanny observation – “that it is very dangerous to bet against the future.”   He correctly recognizes the historically we have consistently underestimated the power of scientific technology.  He also correctly notes that each time one of the four fundamental laws of nature was discovered, it forever changed human history – these are Newton’s laws of gravity, electricity (electromagnetic forces), atomic/nuclear fission, and quantum/subatomic physics.

However, Kaku also brings to our attention the issue of when such exponential developments and remarkable revolutions will  end, particularly in computing. Computing power is said to have doubled every 18 months over the last 50 years, according to Gordon Moore, one of the founders of the Intel Corporation.  Kaku argues ominously, however, that eventually Moore’s Law will fail; by mid century it will become increasingly difficult (if not physically impossible) to etch more miniaturized transistors onto silicon computer chips, which drive the computing revolution.   At some point, silicon-based computing will reach its limits.

I’m just getting  ready to read the section on our energy future, which promises to be the most interesting of all.

I admit that at this point I’m not as optimistic about the future as  I used to be.  However, this book is utterly fascinating to read and Kaku’s enthusiasm, tone, and intelligence, curiosity, and humaneness all make me reflect and remember that possibility remains with us.

Book Discussion Series 2011/2012 at Lantana Public Library

Hi everyone.

Teresa Willhelm, head of the Friends of the Library, has organized a book discussion series for 2011/2012, beginning Wednesday, October 19th.  Thereafter, book discussions will meet on the third Wednesday every month, except December.

Multiple copies of titles will be available at the library.  Come and enjoy some good tea, cookies, and stimulating discussion.

Click on the flyer below for more information.