Category Archives: Books-Libraries

Best of 2010

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For the fourth year in a row, I present my “Year in Review” in which I consider only the movies I watched and the books I read.  In terms of the numbers, I’ve  kept pace with previous years, in that I watched almost as many movies as I did in 2009 and read a few more books.

I saw 57 movies in 2010, about 70% of them on DVD and the rest in theaters.  Again, the genres ranged from animated to documentary; some were based on true stories or adapted from novels; there were comedies and classic dramas, fantasy and science fiction, a “rockumentary,” a slasher parody, and even a silent film. Here are my top 6, in alphabetical order:

  • Fantastic Mr Fox
  • Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
  • Kids Are All Right
  • King’s Speech
  • Social Network
  • Winter’s Bone

I read 47 books in 2010, of which 19 were fiction — detective and spy stories, an epic poem, a fable, fantasy and science fiction, Victorian and contemporary novels, as well as classics — and 28 non-fiction, with subjects ranging from political and social history, to biography and autobiography, to natural history, biology, physics, and geography. Here are my top 6, in alphabetical order:

  • Animal Vegetable Miracle – Barbara Kingsolver
  • Daniel Deronda – George Eliot
  • Disturbing the Universe – Freeman Dyson
  • Fortress of Solitude – Jonathan Lethem
  • Hotel Honolulu – Paul Theroux
  • Savage Detectives – Roberto Bolaño

I must say that this year I found it difficult to pick my top six in each category, and I’m not sure why.  I know that I wanted to expand the lists to at least ten entries each, but consistency with previous years overrode that desire.  Perhaps I started to think too hard about what criteria I used to single out these particular titles, and in fact, these choices are probably more arbitrary than not.  Did I pick the books and movies that I enjoyed the most, which made me laugh out loud?  Or the ones that were thought-provoking?  Or the ones that were stylistically innovative?  Or the ones that I think will become or remain classics and will be talked about a hundred years from now?  Thank goodness I’m not a professional critic, or I’d be out of a job.

Click here for the complete lists!

Many Hands Organic Farm

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I’m thrilled to announce that our town is the proud recipient of a $7,500 “On the Same Page” grant from the Federal Library Services and Technology Act, administered on the federal level by the Institute of Museum and Library Services and on the state level by the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners.  You may have heard this program called a “Town-Wide Read” because all residents of a particular town are encouraged to read and discuss the same book.  As my Reading Group blog page indicates, we’ve chosen as our book Barbara Kingsolver’s account of her family’s year-long attempt to eat locally.  Over the next two months, our library has scheduled a variety of activities which will integrate reading with local food, farms, and gardens.

The kick-off event for Read-Eat-Grow was a lecture at the library this evening, featuring the owners of Many Hands Organic Farm in nearby Barre.  An overflow crowd listened to Jack Kittredge and Julie Rawson describe their attempts to adopt a more sustainable lifestyle.  For nearly thirty years now, the couple has grown vegetables and fruits without using pesticides or herbicides and has raised livestock without feeding them antibiotics.  As both spoke, they showed slides of the farm and the crops they’ve grown.  They encouraged the audience to buy food locally and also to support organizations such as NOFA, the Northeast Organic Farming Association.

I was impressed with the couple’s determination to “walk the talk” and I must say that the home-made soup they brought us was delicious!  With this lecture, I think our project is off to a great start, and I look forward attending the upcoming events.  Please do bookmark the library website and consider helping us celebrate both reading and local food.