Free books, free movies, freedom

It is a wonderful fall to be a library user because the Wyoming BIG READ project is providing a free book for a "catch, read, release" program at your county libraries. Willa Cather, the writer, the person, and her book MY ANTONIA will be featured for the next several weeks. Pick up your book today -- and share it with friends and family.

The next Borderline film will be this Sunday, Sept. 30 at 1:30 What are the boundaries in your life? What are the boundaries -- borders-- in the lives of the movie characters? The discussion will give you an opportunity to walk a mile in someone else's moccasins. Join us for a movie and talk. Refreshments are provided.

Today, Monday, Sept 24 is Family Day in Wyoming and a "Conversations to Go" kit is available at the library for you and your family. More than 90 questions are in the
fast food box -- ready for you to share a conversation at your dinner table. Take advantage of this give-away at your library.

Banned Book week is Sept. 29 - Oct. 6. It's a reminder that your library and America
provides unique opportunities to read, learn, seek opinions through the first amendment. Freedom of speech encourages opinions, and opinions are what you get in the wide variety of fiction and nonfiction books supplied by your library. Why are books banned ever? "Ahoy! Treasure your Freedom to Read and Get Hooked on a Banned
Book" this week.

Patty

Reading backwards

I've just discovered Martin Amis. I listened to TIME'S ARROW this week, and I'm really fascinated by this author. The novel was almost strange as it tells a story backwards--starting with the introduction of Tod O. Friendly, a dying American doctor whose death is being observed by an unknown entity -- probably one of the doctor's hidden psyches. The story is backwards. Literally. As I listened to the events and
conversations, even some of the sentences were repeated backwards. Still, I did not lose track of the story of Dr. Friendly who previously served as one of Hitler's doctors at a concentration camp.

So of course I've looked to see what else we have available by this British wrtier and
learned that this bizarre style is an Amis trademark -- not the backward story so much as the unusual narrator and the circumstances of good and evil.

Have you read Amis? Are you fascinated too? Gotta go -- gotta check out another book.

More Library quotes in modern fiction

Ah-ha -- there are more quotes--

"Libraries are the one American institution you shouldn't rip off"
Barabara Kingsolver, ANIMAL DREAMS
Kingsolver's point? Why steal what you can have for free? It's your building, your materials anyway, so you are stealing from yourself? Sharing information and recreational materials is part of the fun of libraries, stealing denies a whole lot of people that fun--even the thief. What do you think Kingsolver is telling us?

"A man's library is a sort of harem."
Ralph Waldo Emerson, THE CONDUCT OF LIFE, 1860.
You gotta love Emerson -- he has created an outstanding word picture. The fanciful harem dancing in book form? Or is it the heroine? Or is he dreaming of a room full of ideas, thoughts, poetry? A place where you can linger in pleasure indefinitely. Ah, Emerson, your description may be perfection.

And thank you, Richard, for sharing these quotes.