Courtesy

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines courtesy as "polite behavior that shows respect for other people; something that you do because it is polite, kind, etc.". September was National Courtesy Month - did you celebrate? If you did, let us know your random acts of kindness (or just politeness!) in the comments.  If, like us, you missed this monthly observance, have no fear!  The library catalog has several books you can peruse to make sure your manners are up to the modern standard, plus a couple of books detailing the history of etiquette's changing mores.  Here are some courtesy books that will enlighten and hopefully entertain:

An Uncommon History of Common Courtesy: How Manners Shaped the World by Bethanne Patrick

What Would Grace Do?: How to Live Life in Style like the Princess of Hollywood by Gina McKinnon

Miss Manners Minds Your Business by Judith Martin and Nicholas Ivor Martin

What Your Mother Should've Told You and Nobody Else Will by Natalie Reilly [eBook]

Miss Jane Austen's Guide to Modern Life's Dilemmas Answers to Your Most Burning Questions About Life, Love, Happiness (and What toWear) from the Great Jane Austen Herself by Rebecca Smith [eBook]

Would It Kill You to Stop Doing That?: A Modern Guide to Manners by Henry Alford

Real Life Downton Abbey: How Life Was Really Lived in Stately Homes a Century Ago by Jacky Hyams [eBook]

The Grumpy Girl's Guide to Good Manners by Rachel Aboukhair [eBook]

Social Q's: How to Survive the Quirks, Quandaries, and Quagmires of Today by Philip Galanes

The Art of the Visit: Being the Perfect Host, Becoming the Perfect Guest by Kathy Bertone

Armchair Travel: A Well-Grounded Sense of Place

Great travel writing consists of equal parts curiosity, vulnerability and vocabulary. It is not a terrain for know-it-alls or the indecisive. The best of the genre can simply be an elegant natural history essay, a nicely writ sports piece, or a well-turned profile of a bar band and its music. A well-grounded sense of place is the challenge for the writer. We observe, we calculate, we inquire, we look for a link between what we already know and what we're about to learn. The finest travel writing describes what's going on when nobody's looking.
~Tom Miller, "Under the Skin of a Locale: Tucson's Tom Miller Explains What Makes Great Travel Writing"

There's truly an art to writing about travel. The books listed below seek to be more than a guide book, but less than a scholarly treatise about a place; more fleshed out than a journal, more cohesive than a selection of essays (although there are some great travel essays out there). None of the books listed were recent blockbusters, but they all have literary merit. Many are windows, not only to another place, but back in time to another era. All have in common the author's immersion into local cultures. As the author Roxanne Reid says, "A traveller moves among real people in their own milieu and learns from them, soaking up their wisdom and philosophy, their way of being in the world. A tourist simply hops from one tourist highpoint to another, skimming across the surface, cramming in quantity rather than quality, and comes away with his soul and imagination unchanged, untouched by the wonder of a life lived differently." 

Travels with Charley: In Search of America by John Steinbeck

Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: A Journey Through Yugoslavia by Rebecca West

The Great Railway Bazaar: By Train Through Asia by Paul Theroux [eBook]

Nowhere is a Place: Travels in Patagonia by Bruce Chatwin and Paul Theroux

Notes From a Small Island by Bill Bryson

Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell

An Area of Darkness by V. S. Naipaul

As They Were by M.F.K. Fisher

The Emperor: Downfall of an Autocrat by Ryszard Kapuciski

Letters From Egypt: A Journey on the Nile, 1849-1850 by Florence Nightingale

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream by Hunter S. Thompson   

Great Plains by Ian Frazier

The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain

"The Muses are Heard", from Portraits and Observations: The Essays of Truman Capote

"Sea and Sardinia", from D.H. Lawrence and Italy by D.H. Lawrence

A Time of Gifts: On Foot to Constantinople - From the Hook of Holland to the Middle Danube by Patrick Leigh Fermor

An African in Greenland by Tété-Michel Kpomassie

West With the Night by Beryl Markham

Into Thin Air by Jon Krakaeur

The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon by David Grann

A Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit

Wrong About Japan: A Father's Journey with His Son by Peter Carey

Holy Cow: An Indian Adventure by Sarah Macdonald

My 'Dam Life: Three Years in Holland by Sean Condon

Marrying Anita: A Quest for Love in the New India by Anita Jain


List compiled with assistance from the article "35 Great Travel Books That Will Take You Around the World Without a Plane Ticket".

Pronunciator

"May's library card has always opened up a world of knowledge, but now it also opens up a world of language. May, meet Pronunciator, the world's largest language learning service, available for free at participating libraries."
~from the introductory video

 

ABC Library recently got a new language learning eResource called Pronunciator.  Using pronunciation analysis, virtual coaches, simulated conversations, scored quizzes, and downloadable audio lessons, Pronunciator can help you with pronunciation and to teach you to create communicate in 75 languages, from Amharic to Italian, Korean to Urdu, and including English as a Second Language (ESL).  Each language's course begins with a Welcome screen with a little background about the language - is it a Germanic language? Where are its roots?

The first section is Postcards, which takes you through some important introductory, or "powerful", phrases (each language starts with "Please").  Listen to the reader - at normal or slow speed - while looking at some pleasant pictures.  You can bookmark pages to go back to them.

The Postcards section has a review section, plus culture & business notes, telling you a little about cultural traditions and business practices in the country where each language is spoken.

The second section contains drills - listening, flash cards (essentially another review of vocabulary learned before), voice comparison, pronunciation analysis (you can record your voice!) - including a section that lets you correct your pitch by playing a voice alongside musical notes - and a written review to help you learn the correct spelling.

You will learn core vocabulary for a number of different topics and essential verbs, including apologize, buy, feel, invite, and write.  Core vocabulary subjects include business/finance, directions and positions, film genres, lodging, people/interpersonal relations, and more!  There are also vocabulary sections for kids, such as home/bathroom, numbers, and time/days of week.

The third section quizzes your vocabulary; spelling and writing; listening comprehension; and reading comprehension.  You have minimal control over the settings - you can change the number of times the speaker repeats a phrase.

As you learn languages, Pronunciator keeps track of your stats.  You can choose to look at your stats by course, by level, or view your stats for all courses. Areas for improvement in different categories (reading, writing, pronunciation) will be indicated  Most language courses allow you to stream or download audio lessons, but not all.  All language courses include a downloadable 32-page PDF phrasebook.

 

Give Pronunciator a try and let us know what you think! 

Magazine Articles that Became Something More

One of the books currently on the New York Times bestseller list is Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death at a Storm Ravaged Hospital by Sheri Fink, which tells the events that happened at Memorial Hospital in New Orleans in the days following Hurricane Katrina.  This book was expanded from an article by Sheri Fink that appeared in the New York Times Magazine in 2009 called, "Deadly Choices at Memorial." 

It may surprise you to know that several books and movies have been made based on articles published in national magazines and newspapers.  Here are a list of books and movies (and in some cases both!) that were published or produced after the success of a magazine article.  Most of these titles are available to check out.  


The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean
"Orchid Fever" was the title of the article Orlean wrote for The New Yorker, which was published in 1995.  The Orchid Thief was an expansion of the article, and was later adapted into a movie, Adaptation.

The Butler: A Witness to History by Wil Haygood
In 2008, just after the presidential election of Barack Obama, The Washington Post published an article called, "A Butler Well Served by this Election", by Wil Haygood.  Five years later a book and movie based on the article was released. 

The Bling Ring
This film, directed by Sofia Coppola is based on a Vanity Fair article by Nancy Jo Sales called "The Suspects Wore Louboutins".  It stars Emma Watson, and Leslie Mann.

Argo
The book this movie is inspired by is Argo: How the CIA and Hollywood Pulled Off the Most Audacious Rescue in History by Antonio J. Mendez and Matt Baglio, but before the book was published, an article by Joshuah Bearman called "How the CIA Used a Fake Sci-Fi Flick to Rescue Americans from Tehran" appeared in a 2007 issue of Wired.

Dog Day Afternoon
"The Boys in the Bank" by P.F. Kluge was an article that appeared in Life magazine in 1972.  It was the basis for the movie directed by Sidney Lumet.

Bernie
After the success of his article, "Bernie" which was published in Texas Monthly in 1998, writer Skip Hollandsworth co-wrote the screenplay of the movie, which stars Jack Black and Shirley MacLaine.

Saturday Night Fever
Suprisingly, this iconic film was based on a New York Magazine article written by Nik Cohn called "Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night", about the disco craze sweeping the nation.  Vincent, the main character of the article became the basis for John Travolta's character, Tony Manero.  In 1997 Nik Cohn admitted to making up the entire article, and the all the people who appeared in it. 


You can research newspaper and magazine articles by visiting ABC Library's research data bases.  Check out Newsbank, or Academic One File to get started.

What's For Dinner?

There are a lot of cookbooks out there, and even a large selection of cookbooks suggesting dinner menus specifically (What's For Dinner?: Delicious Recipes for a Busy Life by Curtis Stone; Whatever Happened to Sunday Dinner?: A Year of Italian Menus, With More Than 250 Recipes, That Celebrate Family by Lisa Caponigri; Dinner: A Love Story - It All Begins at the Family Table by Jenny Rosenstrach; Dinner Survival: Cooking for the Rushed by Sandi Richard; Dinner At Your Door: Tips and Recipes for Starting a Neighborhood Cooking Co-Op by Alex Davis, Diana Ellis, Andy Remeis, to name but a few).  Sometimes, though, the best thing to have for dinner is breakfast (pancakes are the perfect comfort food after a stressful day!) and, if you have had comfort food too many times this week and need something lighter (or just want something quick and easy to prepare), salads are also a nice option - so we were delighted when the following two cookbooks showed up in the library catalog!

Breakfast for Dinner

 

Offers recipes for typical breakfast dishes with an added twist to make them appropriate for dinner, including bacon fried rice, breakfast ravioli, egg and chorizo burritos, and cornmeal pancakes with beer-braised short ribs. [from the library catalog]

Salad for Dinner

 

A celebration of contrasts in colour, flavour, and texture--an artfully prepared saladis one of the most appealing dishes to eat, engaging all the senses. It is a basic culinary fact but often overlooked: a salad packs the most flavour because the dressing coats every bite. Includes:  A glossary of greens; Foraging for salad; Washing and storage; Growing greens; The salad pantry. [from the library catalog]

The Art of Writing About Art

"Whether you’re into Ocean’s 11-style art heist stories, tales of tortured artists, or fiction that takes its inspiration from works of art and the people who make lives and livings creating them, you’ve no doubt found yourself lost in a book – a written work of art – that is largely about other artistic media."
~Book Riot.com

One good artist deserves another, and so we come to a list of novels written about the art world, art, artists, and everything in between. If you love art - if you have have enjoyed films such as Basquiat, Frida, Girl with a Pearl Earring, Goya, The Rape of Europa, Pollock, Surviving Picasso, Exit Through the Gift Shop, The Art of the Steal, and Herb and Dorothy - if you read biographies of artists and check out art books from the catalog - perhaps you'd like to try something fictional but still firmly planted in the art world? We have compiled a list of likely contenders to stimulate your senses from the library catalog.

Do you have a favorite novel which features art?  Let us know in the comments!


The Forgery of Venus by Michael Gruber [art forgers, extortion]

The Passion of Artemisia by Susan Vreeland [Artemisia Gentileschi, 1593-1652 or 1653; painting]

The Art Forger by B.A. Shapiro [Edgar Degas; art forgers]

Sacré Bleu by Christopher Moore [blue in art; humor]

Cascade by Maryanne O’Hara (eBook) [artists; marriage; 1930s]

Theft by Peter Carey [Australia; painting]

The Floating Girl by Sujata Massey [Japan; manga; mystery]

Skinny Legs and All by Tom Robbins [postmodern art; sculpture]

The Recognitions by William Gaddis [art forgeries]

An Object of Beauty by Steve Martin [art auctions, humor]

The Horse’s Mouth by Joyce Cary [painters; psychological fiction]

The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Costova [painters; art appreciation]

Asylum by Patrick McGrath [sculpture; psychological fiction]

The Agony and the Ecstasy by Irving Stone [Michelangelo Buonarroti, 1475-1564; biographical fiction]

The Moon and Sixpence by W. Somerset Maugham [Paul Gauguin, 1848-1903; psychological fiction]

The Book of Evidence by John Banville [art theft; psychological suspense]

My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok [artists; young men; New York]

The Moor’s Last Sigh by Salman Rushdie ["the seductions and mysteries of art"]

The Disenchantments by Nina LaCour (YA) [artists; road trip; coming of age]

The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner [women artists; Futurism]

Murder as Fine Art by David Morrell [historical mystery; Thomas De Quincey, 1785-1859]

The Lady and the Unicorn by Tracy Chevalier [textile industry; Belgium & France; 15th century]

Bluebeard by Kurt Vonnegut [Abstract Expressionism; Armenian American artists]

Tell The Wolves I’m Home by Carol Rifka Brunt [painters; family; coming of age]

The Art of Murder by Jose Carlos Somoza [Modern Art; mystery]

I Am Madame X by Gioia Diliberto [John Singer Sargent, 1856-1925; historical fiction]

The Painted Girls by Cathy Marie Buchanan [Paris; 1870-1940; artists' models]

The Sarantine Mosaic (duology) by Guy Gavriel Kay [mosaicists; Byzantine Empire]

Memory and Dream by Charles de Lint [women artists; fantasy fiction]

The Fallen Angel by Daniel Silva [art restoration; spy fiction]

And Only to Deceive by Tasha Alexander [archaeological thefts; mystery]

What I Loved by Siri Hustvedt [art history; domestic fiction]

Hunting and Gathering by Anna Gavalda [women artists; men/women relations; Paris]

Cat’s Eye by Margaret Atwood [women painters; Toronto; female friendships]

Life Class by Pat Barker [physicians as artists; World War I]

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde [portraits; mystery]

The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant [women painters; Florence; 1421-1737]

The Matisse Stories by A.S. Byatt [stories inspired by art]

The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson [performance artists; family]


This list compiled from a list in the article "43 Novels Featuring Art" and the "Art & Artists in Fiction" list on Goodreads.

Your Literary Passport: Must Read Books in Translation

There’s an entire world of literature out there if you just look beyond what was written in your native tongue. Major works in other languages are being translated into English all the time, meaning that there’s no time like the present for you to enjoy books from places like Russia, Egypt, Mexico, and other nations around the globe. If you’re looking to get your literary passport stamped, here are [some] destinations to start you off — but, by all means, don’t let these be the only translated books you read.
~Jason Diamond, "50 Works of Fiction in Translation That Every English Speaker Should Read"
 

When you read a book in translation, you might forget that the original book was written in a different language - if the translation is a good one! Did you know the University of Rochester runs an annual Best Translated Book Award?  Judging a book by the quality of its translation is nothing to sneeze at. Writer Daniel Mendelsohn, in a column in The New York Times, says that "no translation can work without...accuracy...sensitivity to formal considerations...texture...[and] tone." The following list of recommended fiction is heavy on classic novels in translation, but there are plenty of other books out there, from children's books to mysteries for adults, as any keyword search of "translated by" or any subject search using the term "Translations" can show you.

Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (Edith Grossman, translator)

One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez (Gregory Rabassa, translator)

Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy (Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, translators)

Swann’s Way, Marcel Proust (Lydia Davis, translator)

The Trial, Franz Kafka (audiobook, Breon Mitchell, translator)

The Stranger, Albert Camus (Matthew Ward, translator)

Labyrinths, Jorge Luis Borges (various translators)

The Death of Artemio Cruz, Carlos Fuentes (Alfred MacAdam, translator)

The House of the Spirits, Isabel Allende (Magda Bogin, translator)

The Lover, Marguerite Duras (Barbara Bray, translator)

Austerlitz, W. G. Sebald. (Anthea Bell, Translator)

The Land of Green Plums, Herta Müller (Michael Hofmann, translator)

1Q84, Haruki Murakami (Jay Rubin and Philip Gabriel, translators)

My Name Is Red, Orhan Pamuk (Erdağ Göknar, translator)

The Nimrod Flipout, Etgar Keret (Miriam Shlesinger  Sondra Silverston, translators)

Day of the Oprichnik, Vladimir Sorokin (translated by Jamey Gambrell)

The Savage Detectives, Roberto Bolaño (Natasha Wimmer, translator)

The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine, Alina Bronsky (Tim Mohr, translator)

Suite Française, Irène Némirovsky (Sandra Smith, translator)

My Struggle: Books One and Two, Karl Ove Knausgård (Don Bartlett, translator)

Act of the Damned, António Lobo Antunes (Richard Zenith, translator)

Satan Tango, László Krasznahorkai (George Szirtes, translator)

Stone Upon Stone, Wieslaw Myliwski (Bill Johnston, translator)


Books about translation

The undeniable reality is that the work becomes the translator’s (while simultaneously and mysteriously somehow remaining the work of the original author) as we transmute it into a second language. Perhaps transmute is the wrong verb; what we do is not an act of magic, like altering base metals into precious ones, but the result of a series of creative decisions and imaginative acts of criticism. In the process of translating, we endeavor  to hear the first version of the work as profoundly and completely as possible, struggling to discover the linguistic charge, the structural rhythms, the subtle implications, the complexities of meaning and suggestion in vocabulary and phrasing, and the ambient, cultural inferences and conclusions these tonalities allow us to extrapolate. This is a kind of reading as deep as any encounter with a literary text can be.
~Edith Grossman, from "Why Translation Matters"

What is it like to be translator?  How does a literary translator do their job?  Here are a couple books from the library catalog that will hopefully illuminate the art of translation to the layman.

Found in Translation: How Language Shapes Our Lives and Transforms the World by Nataly Kelly and Jost Zetzsche

If This Be Treason: Translation and Its Dyscontents by Gregory Rabassa

Is That a Fish in Your Ear?: Translation and the Meaning of Everything by David Bellos

Reading Rilke: Reflections on the Problems of Translation by William H. Gass


Links

Popular translated books - a Goodreads list

The 20 Best Books in Translation You've Never Read

What Do You Look for in Modern Translation?