Passing the Torch

Mary setting up at NBF2003
with a Junior League Volunteer

On Monday evening, May 5, 2003 the NH State Library hosted a reception to open the Center for the Book at the New Hampshire State Library. Among the honored guests at that event were John Cole, Director of the Center for the Book at the Library of Congress; Marie Harris, NH Poet Laureate at the time; and the NH authors Tomie dePaola, John Harrigan, and Rebecca Rule.  Katie McDonough was the Director of the NH Center for the Book at its founding. 

By the fall of 2003 we had kicked-off our first Ladybug Picture Book Award; organized our first year of Letters About Literature (a student writing competition that the Library of Congress unfortunately stopped supporting in 2019); and represented the Granite State at the first National Book Festival. 

By that time I had become the Director of the NH Center. In the 20+ years since then we have done a lot of great projects, I have attended more National Book Festivals than I care to count, and I have worked with an amazing group of writers, librarians, readers, and Directors from Centers for the Book throughout the country. It has been fun, educational, and occasionally exhausting. 

After all these years I decided, and former State Librarian Michael York agreed with me, that the time has come for someone new to take over running the NH Center. Luckily, Felicia Martin was ready and willing to become our 3rd Director. Mike appointed her Director before he retired.

Felicia has been Deputy Director of the NH Center since 2023; Chair of the Ladybug Picture Book Award since Ann Hoey's retirement in 2017; and a regular contributor to the Center's blog for many years prior to that. The Center is in very capable hands, and I will be here at the State Library serving as "Director Emeritus" of the Center which means I will be helping Felicia out in whatever ways she decides are helpful.

Thanks to everyone who has helped me with the Center for the Book all these years. I couldn't have done it without you!

State Librarian Michael York at NBF2003

NHLA Presentation

View from the Conference Room

The NH Center for the Book staff had the privilege of presenting at the 2023 NHLA Spring Conference last week. 

The slides from our presentation, which include several website links are now available (as a pdf document) on our website.

Felicia Martin, Deputy Director

Felicia Martin

 I am very pleased to announce that State Librarian Michael York has appointed Felicia Martin as Deputy Director of the Center for the Book at the NH State Library. Felicia brings creativity, wide knowledge of NH books, enthusiasm, and a fresh perspective to the work of the Center.

Many of you may know Felicia from her work as Chair of the Ladybug Picture Book committee and her book-of-the-week posts on Book Notes.  She is also the Acquisitions Librarian here at the State Library.

Over the next several months Felicia and I will be working together to bring her up to speed on the various projects of the Center. Please join me in congratulating her on this new role!

 

The End of WidgetBox

We are coming to the end of March and with that we are coming to the end of functionality for WidgetBox. When I announced this back in November I said that we would be looking for a replacement. Unfortunately, we were not able to find a suitable way to recreate the widgets that we have had available for putting the Book-of-the-Week feature, our blog feed, or our poetry projects on your own websites. If you have one of these on your site you will want to remove it by the end of the month because it will not work after that.
Our blog does have an RSS feed which can be used to include our content on your site (and we are happy to have you do so!)

Looking for a Book Group?

 If you would like to join a book group this year there are discussion groups of all sorts hosted by New Hampshire's public libraries. There are also several ongoing book groups hosted by independent booksellers in the state. Here is a selection:

• Main Street Book Ends of Warner hosts a book group on the last Sunday of each month at 3pm. Their upcoming discussion books include Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver (January), Drizzled with Death by Jessie Crockett (February), and Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout (March). 
• Bayswater Book Company hosts the Bayswater Book Group on the first Monday of each month (twice a month during the summer). Their upcoming books include Space Between Us by Thrity Umrigar (January), Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver (February), The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult (March).  
• Gibson's Book Club meets starting at 7pm on the first Monday of each month. In January they will be reading a selection of stories from Best American Short Stories 2013; in February there will be a discussion and a dramatic reading from Shakespeare's Richard III.
• Toadstool Bookshops have a variety of book discussion groups including the Science Fiction and Fantasy Discussion Group, The Classics Crowd, Book Buzz for Kids, and the Teen Galley Group.
• Water Street Books hosts Liz Whaley's Book Group on the third Sunday of each month from 2-3:15pm. In January they will discuss Midnight in Peking by Paul French followed by The Round House by Louise Erdrich (February); Sweet Tooth by Ian McEwen (March); and Rules of Civility by Amor Towles (April).

Widgetbox

Widgetbox, the service the NH Center for the Book uses to generate widgets for our book-of-the-week and our National Poetry Month projects is closing down as of March 28, 2014. We will be looking into alternative ways to create widgets for these things and will let everyone know as soon as we have a new widget.

I realize many of you have the book-of-the-week widget on your website (Thank you!) and want to let you know that Widgetbox is saying that all widgets will remain functional until the end of March.

From my inbox

A few interesting bits and pieces have turned up in my inbox recently:

• Nancy Cristiano, of the Family Resource Connection, sent me a recent article from Plymouth Magazine about Robert Frost.
• Back in December The Atlantic did an article on Writers and Their Books
• Gibson's Bookstore is having their annual February sale! Everything in the store (excluding previous special orders) will be 25% off this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, February 24-26, 2012.
• Jane Cleland is launching Dolled Up for Murder, the 7th book in the Josie Prescott series (set in NH) at the end of March.
• Manchester City Library will be having a $5 Bag Book Sale on 21 April 2012 (Saturday). 
• The Center for the Book at the New Hampshire State Library has been approved to continue as the official New Hampshire affiliate to the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress for 2012-2014.

It seems to happen every couple years

Time got away from me and I realized today that I missed posting a book of the week for the last 2 weeks. There is a book posted for this week (#46), but week #44 and week #45 had no books posted.  After a slow start in 2007 I missed 2 weeks in 2009. As it has happened again in 2011 I clearly need to be careful in 2013.

Tips for a Great Summer Reading List

There was an interesting post recently about Creating an Awesome Summer Reading List on LifeHacker. Links to various sites and resources to help you find books that match your reading interests were included. Personally, I find GoodReads a really helpful site for finding books and keeping track of what I want to read, but I agree that GoodReads is only as helpful as the people you are connected to on it.

Children's Book Week is May 2-8, 2011

Since 1919, Children's Book Week has been celebrated countrywide with author & illustrator appearances, parties, storytelling, and other book-related events in schools, libraries, bookstores, clubs -- anywhere where kids and books connect.

How can you celebrate Children's Book Week?

• Visit your local library -- story times, programs with special guests, games to play, movie showings, and LOTS of books and other great stuff you can check out are among the things kids (& their adults) will find at their public library.
• Visit your local bookstore -- or take a field trip to a store you haven't visited before. Check out our list of NH Booksellers for inspiration.
• Visit the Library of Congress's Read.gov Kids Page where you will find lots of info about books for kids and the latest installment of The Exquisite Corpse. Not a kid? Visit the Teens Page or the Adults Page instead.
• Monday, May 2 is the last day to vote in several NH book awards so if you haven't done so yet, get to the library and cast your vote for The Isinglass Award, The Flume Award, or the Great Stone Face Award (depending on your age).
• Pick up a book and read it with a child. Or have a child read a book to you. No children around? Really? Nieces, Nephews, Neighbors, Nobody? OK, read a children's book yourself and remember how much fun reading can be.

Clippings from the Blogosphere

• The 2011 Pulitzer Prize winners have been announced.
• What libraries are all about, according to Happiness by Theodore Zeldin
• Robert Darnton on Five Myths About 'The Information Age' from the Chronicle of Higher Education
• E-Books Rank as #1 Format among All Trade Categories for the Month according to the Association of American Publishers.  I'd be curious to know how many of the people who are "buying the full backlist of an author" are actually reading it. This article reminded me of the old Cathy cartoon about the thrill of getting organized ceasing the moment she ran out of things to buy. Perhaps I'm feeling overly cynical this afternoon.
• 
  Books Everyone Should Read as a tag cloud. Interesting presentation of the analysis this blogger did. New Hampshire readers are ahead of the curve as both of our state-wide Big Read titles are here.
• Help for the casual book hoarder from The New Yorker.
• American Booksellers Association has announced it's 2011 Award winners
• It was a book, now the U.S. Government Manual is online.
• Why do people collect first editions? 

Happy Birthday Douglas Adams!

Today is the 59th anniversary of the birth of author Douglas Adams.

"Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works. Anything that’s invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty- five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. Anything invented after you’re thirty-five is against the natural order of things." -- Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt

"The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at or repair." --Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

Several of Adams' books are available through New Hampshire Downloadable Books.

Book-of-the-Week Widget

The first book-of-the-week for 2011 was published today so it was time to update the Book of the Week widget. If you have the widget on your website or blog it should be all set automatically (the date at the top is now 2011).

If you don't have it on your site you can add it by visiting http://nhbookcenter.blogspot.com and clicking on the "get widget" link at the bottom of the widget itself (located at the bottom of the right hand panel of the blog).

Happy Birthday Andrew Carnegie!

Today marks the 175th anniversary of the birth of Andrew Carnegie. There are 10 Carnegie Libraries in NH.

"One of the most tangible examples of Andrew Carnegie's philanthropy is the founding of 2,509 libraries in the late 19th and early 20th centuries throughout the English speaking world, including the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. Of these libraries, 1,679 of them were built here in the United States. Carnegie spent over $55 million of his wealth on libraries alone and he is often referred to as the "Patron Saint of Libraries."
It is said that Carnegie had two main reasons for donating money to the founding of libraries. First, he believed that libraries added to the meritocratic nature of America. Anyone with the desire to learn could educate themselves and be successful in America like he had been. Second, Carnegie believed that immigrants like himself needed to acquire cultural knowledge of America which a library would enable immigrants to do." (from the Carnegie Corporation web site)

Weekend Book Events Sampler

There are a lot of book-related events planned for this weekend in New Hampshire. Here are a few for you to consider attending:

• On Friday, 10/8/10 at 6pm Water Street Bookstore will be hosting a reception for Elizabethe Plante, beloved manager of the bookstore, who is moving on to her next adventure. (Good Luck Elizabethe, I'll miss you!)
  
• MainStreet BookEnds of Warner will be hosting lots of events this weekend as part of the Warner Fall Foliage Festival. Things kick off at 11am on Saturday 10/9/10 with a reading by David Elliott and continue through the weekend.
  
• Jud Hale, of Yankee Magazine, will be at Toadstool Books, Peterborough at 11am on Saturday, 10/9/10 discussing Inside New England.
  
• Browsing Through the Leaves, the NH Statewide Library Book Sale Tour is this weekend
  
• Mary Catherine Bateson, author of Composing a Further Life, will be at Toadstool Books, Keene at 2pm on Saturday 10/9/10.
  
• Geraldine Brooks will accept the Sarah Josepha Hale Award in Newport at 8pm on 10/9/10 at the Newport Opera House on Main Street.
  
• The Village Book Store begins a month-long celebration of spooky New England with the presentation Spirits of the Granite State by bestselling author Roxie Zwicker who will take participants on a search of the legends and ghosts of New Hampshire. This free presentation will take place at the store on Sunday, 10/10/10 at 3 pm.
  
• Sunday, 10/10/10 beginning at 3pm the Frost Farm will host New Hampshire Dead Poets Rememberance Day.
  
• RiverRun will host a Local Authors Night with Kimberly Alexander, Jamie LaFleur, and Patricia Wall on Monday, 10/11/10 starting at 7pm.

Center for the Book Directors and Politicos Share a Meeting Place

There is a long-standing tradition among the Directors of the Centers for the Book. When we go to Washington, DC each spring for our Idea Exhange meeting there is a dinner the night before the official meeting at a Capitol Hill Chinese restaurant. Apparently it is a hot-spot for politicians as well: Mass. delegation comes together over Chinese - The Boston Globe

How Paperbacks Changed Literature

An interesting article from Smithsonian about a change in format that revolutionized reading.

Philipp Meyer Reading in NH

Philipp Meyer, author of American Rust will be at local bookstores to read, discuss, and sign copies of the book next week. This novel has appeared on several "best of 2009" lists.

• River Run on Wednesday, February 10 (7pm)
• Gibson's on Friday, February 12 (7pm)

"Set in a beautiful but economically devastated Pennsylvania steel town, American Rust is a novel of the lost American dream and the desperation--as well as the acts of friendship, loyalty, and love--that arise from its loss. From local bars to trainyards to prison, it is the story of two young men, bound to the town by family, responsibility, inertia, and the beauty around them, who dream of a future beyond the factories and abandoned homes. Left alone to care for his aging father after his mother commits suicide and his sister escapes to Yale, Isaac English longs for a life beyond his hometown. But when he finally sets out to leave for good, accompanied by his temperamental best friend, former high school football star Billy Poe, they are caught up in a terrible act of violence that changes their lives forever. Evoking John Steinbeck's novels of restless lives during the Great Depression, American Rust takes us into the contemporary American heartland at a moment of profound unrest and uncertainty about the future. It is a dark but lucid vision, a moving novel about the bleak realities that battle our desire for transcendence and the power of love and
friendship to redeem us." (from the publisher)

Notable Books from McDowell Fellows

The McDowell Colony's January e-newsletter included this:

For those seeking good books in the new year, a place to start might be the 100 Notable Books of 2009 chosen by The New York Times. Eight Fellows -- including Kate Walbert (A Short History of Women), Stacey D'Erasmo (The Sky Below), and Mary Karr (Lit: A Memoir) -- join two Medalists (John Updike and Alice Munro) on that list. Walbert and Karr's books also made the Times's 10 Best Books of 2009 list.

(I added the links.)

Book of the Week #2

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (NY: Grand Central Publishing, c1960)

The book of the week is typically a book that has come to my attention recently and seems (to me at least) connected to New Hampshire. This week was spent working on Big Read: New Hampshire Reads To Kill a Mockingbird so very little else has captured my attention.

During March 2010 there will be programs and events focusing on this classic novel throughout New Hampshire. There are 100 partners in the project including schools, libraries, bookstores, and other NH organizations.

Check out what we are planning at http://bigreadnh.org