Category: Recommendations

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Recommendations

Make February a Month of Movie Mania: Oscar Homework with BPL

by Public Service Associate Juliana

Image from Adam Elliot’s Memoir of a Snail

I adore this time of year. The release of Oscar nominations makes it completely appropriate to stay home cuddled on the couch night after night watching movies. The 97th Academy Awards ceremony is scheduled for March 2, so for the month of February, I consider movies my homework.

I print a list of the nominees, then highlight what I’ve already seen and make note of what I’d like to see. Films up for Best Picture often receive nominations in multiple categories, so I focus on those first and then dabble around the other categories depending on availability. 

Part of the challenge is figuring out how/where to watch certain films. I research which movies are streaming, which can be potentially borrowed from the library, which are still in theaters, and which might need to be purchased or rented. I don’t end up seeing every film that has received a nomination, but I sure put some effort into it.

Drexel Theater Image credit Brad Feinknopf

My husband and I are both movie lovers, to the point that we try to schedule vacation days this time each year. Once our dates are set, we work to create an itinerary of movie theater show times. We’ve done this with weekend trips in New York and most recently in Pittsburgh, scheduling ourselves to see a movie or double feature each day.

Row House Cinema, Pittsburgh

This February, while in Pittsburgh, a cinema we love was showcasing Best Animated Feature nominees, Flow and Memoir of a Snail. I was enamored by Memoir of a Snail, a moody and melancholy stop-motion film filled with scenes of hoarding and betrayals and claymation characters’ eyes welling up with tears. It’s very sad. It’s also VERY funny. And the characters read a lot. And one of the snails is named Sylvia after Sylvia Plath. I loved it.

Another theater in Pittsburgh was showing The Brutalist and A Complete Unknown. Our long weekend trip made it much easier to block out the three and a half hours necessary to watch The Brutalist.  I have absolutely adored Adrien Brody since high school when I saw him in Tori Amos’ very strange music video and then also when he became the youngest actor to win an Academy Award for his performance in The Pianist. I was eager to watch him take on the role of László Tóth. It’s a true commitment to see the film in theaters because it basically becomes the only thing you do that day.  We saw it in the afternoon and spent the rest of the night (and the next few days) talking about it. 

To watch all the nominees for me isn’t about being able to predict winners as much as it is about structuring my life. I always loved being a student because I knew exactly what I was supposed to be doing and when. So, I give myself this movie homework assignment and love how clear and focused it feels. Filling out an Oscar predictions ballot is like taking a final. Let’s get studying.

Nominated Films to Reserve with Your Library Card:

  • Alien: Romulus| DVD
  • The Apprentice| DVD
  • Conclave| DVD
  • Dune Part 2| DVD
  • Gladiator II| DVD
  • Inside Out 2| DVD
  • Sing Sing| DVD
  • Soundtrack to a Coup D’etat| DVD
  • The Substance| DVD
  • Wicked| DVD
  • The Wild Robot| DVD

Page to Screen Reading and Fun Library Connections:

  • A Complete Unknown soundtrack| cd
  • Conclave by Robert Harris| book
  • Dylan Goes Electric!: Newport, Seeger, Dylan, and the Night that Split the Sixties by Elijah Wald| book
  • Magic Candies by Hui-na Paek| children’s picture book
  • The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead| book
  • Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire| book
Categories
Recommendations

Create a Reading Journal This January

by Public Service Associate Juliana

Photo by Juliana Farrington

January is a perfect time to set up new systems. Last year I decided to start a Reading Journal.

I was interested in more than keeping a list. I’ve kept a reading list for years, and it didn’t feel like enough anymore. I read lots of books and spend lots of my time reading, and in 2024 I noticed that while my year end totals were admirable, I wasn’t retaining much of what I read. I couldn’t spout out plots or tell you spoilers. I rarely ever remembered the endings. I wanted to be able to have something to say about a book a month or year after I’d read it or at least have the journal to refer back to. Ultimately, I wanted the time I invested in reading to count for more. 

“In the case of good books, the point is not to see how many of them you can get through, but rather how many can get through to you.”

–Mortimer J. Adler

Rather than plowing through books to set a new all time high reading count, I wanted to slow down and sink in. I knew a reading journal would help me do this. So I chose a notebook and got started. 

I sat down and asked myself what I wanted out of keeping a journal. I watched a couple of YouTube videos related to reading logs to help me figure it out. The videos helped me get into the right mindset and also see how other people have gone about documenting their reading journeys. I paid attention to how their journals were organized and what they included for each entry. From there I was able to shape my own general structure to follow. 

The videos helped me discover and narrow down what was and wasn’t important to me. Summaries, for example, weren’t important to me. I knew if I included that as a requirement for each entry I would feel the same anxiety I felt when I was asked to write summaries in school, and I’d be likely to avoid my journal altogether. If I needed a summary, the internet is a great resource for that. 

Instead, I focused on tracking things that were easy enough to keep me showing up. The journal needed to be structured but not intimidating, serious but not too serious. I wanted this to be something I could maintain for years, not a habit that fizzled out in a month or so.

For each book I read, I documented the following:

  • Title, author, year published, genre, date read
  • Rating: love, like, didn’t like and a sentence or two about why
  • A list of words, characters, phrases or themes associated with the book (whatever comes quickly and easily into my mind)
  • Quotes from the book
  • Additional resources related to the book (author interviews, podcasts, documentaries, biopics, feature films, memoirs, etc.)

These five bullet points helped me prioritize reading broadly — fiction and nonfiction, older and newer books, books by diverse authors, books I wanted to live inside, books that could teach me something, books read for sheer enjoyment. 

But my favorite part of my journal routine turned out to be searching for related resources. A great example was when I read Trout Fishing in America in July (an odd little book from 1967). After finishing it, I discovered Brautigan’s daughter had published a memoir, You Can’t Catch Death, about her relationship with her father and her grief over his suicide. It wasn’t until this month, January 2025, after I finished reading her book that I felt more of an impact and had a better understanding of Trout Fishing in America.

This helps to show how a reading journal can pull the thread of things you read through your life, to nudge you to go in directions you maybe wouldn’t have gone in otherwise and to make surprising and meaningful discoveries.

It bears mentioning again that reading journals are completely customizable. I know some people who keep a log of titles and authors and a star to denote whether they liked a book or not. And that’s enough. Maybe you’re not scarred by school memories and are a person who likes to write a summary with each title. Maybe you’re a digital person and use a platform such as Goodreads to keep track and write reviews of what you read.

Whatever type of journal you create, I hope you find a way to archive your reading life in a way that works for you and that you continue to adjust and adapt as needed. Wishing you a wonderful year full of reading!

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Recommendations Staff Book Reviews

Leah Recommends Award-Winning Young Adult Fiction

by Associate Librarian Leah Boyden

Earlier this year I took a course on engaging teens within libraries. As a lover and reader of young adult material and former middle school teacher, this task was right up my alley. A former student of mine encouraged me to write a blog post for the library and because of their encouragement I signed up!

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Recommendations

Haunted Novels for Fall

by Public Service Associate Juliana

Many Octobers I have steeped myself in scary movies, but this year I feel driven to read something scary. There’s no better place to start than with a classic from horror queen, Shirley Jackson. When I searched the fiction stacks I found The Haunting of Hill House. Orange and black cover, inky, black-edged pages and the title in gothic font, I was immediately obsessed.

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Booklists Recommendations

Fantastical Detectives in Magical Realms

by Public Service Associate Autumn

I love a good mystery novel, though I came to them much later than I should have. As a teen, when I had run out of my own books to read (for the week) and my family could not make it to the library, my grandfather gave me several Agatha Christie novels from his collection.1 But I didn’t read them that week. In fact, I didn’t read them until after I watched BBC’s wonderful adaptation, Poirot. But then, I was hooked: the twists and turns, the rooting out of each motive and link, fishing through all the red herrings, and perhaps most importantly, the satisfaction of knowing how all the pieces fit together in the end. It warms my order-loving soul.2 I immediately went back and read the Agatha Christie originals, then moved on to Arther Conan Doyle, Rex Stout, Stephen Spotswood and many more.

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Recommendations

Lifelong Learning: A (Quick) Study of Oysters

by Public Service Associate Juliana

image from Taylor Shellfish

 “Unless you’re vegetarian or vegan, you can’t go to Seattle and skip a platter of freshly shucked Pacific Northwest Oysters.”

— Lonely Planet Washington, Oregon & the Pacific Northwest

At the start of every travel journal, after flight details and a packing list, I create a checklist of things to do. Most recently, while planning a trip to Seattle, the list included Pike Place Market, the Space Needle, Seattle Central Library, coffee, and oysters.

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Recommendations

Five Ways to Browse Books in the Library

by Public Service Associate Juliana

Often, we come to the library looking for something specific – a book with a lot of buzz, something a friend recommended, one from our long TBR list, one we saw on #BookTok. What if we approached books in a different way? What if instead of a list of titles we browsed with a list of rules that encourage randomness? What if we weren’t attached to the outcome? What might we discover?

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Recommendations

Take a Look into Space: Weird and Fascinating Extrasolar Worlds

by Public Service Associate Autumn

Unless you have been living under a rock (or outside of North America), you probably noticed the eclipse that occurred on April 8, 2024. The media took to calling it “The Great American Eclipse”, as it covered only Mexico, the mainland United States and a small swath of Canada. Maybe you traveled to see the totality personally, maybe you just noticed the streetlights coming on at two in the afternoon and maybe you decided it wasn’t worth the hassle and stayed inside, away from the madness.

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BPL News & Information Recommendations

Preservation

by Public Service Associate & Creative Content Coordinator Hannah

Did you miss Preservation Week? Don’t worry, it will be here next year!

My bad jokes aside, preservation – an umbrella term for activities that reduce or prevent damage to extend the life of things – can easily slip one’s mind. But a recent trip to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History and the Library of Congress thoroughly renewed my appreciation for preservationists and collecting institutions. In this BPL blog post, I hope to get you to think about, thank them, and as always share some great books.

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Booklists Recommendations

Our Incredible Bodies and the Importance of Homeostasis

By Public Service Associate Autumn

Everyone knows that humans (unlike much cooler reptiles) are warm blooded, or homeothermic.1 Our bodies try very hard to keep us at one consistent temperature, normally about 98 degrees. Even a four degree change in body temperature in either direction can cause us irreparable harm and a spiral into death. Understandably, this means that humanity has a pretty universal “comfortable” living temperature, between about 68- and 77-degrees Fahrenheit,2 where maintaining your core temperature isn’t too metabolically taxing. Despite this, humans live in basically every ecological niche there is, from Siberia and Northern Canada to the Sahara. Some of this adaptability is technological,3 but a fair amount of it is our bodies’ astonishing ability to cool us off and heat us up. What’s most interesting, to me at least, is how the body does this and what happens when those adaptations fail.

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