A Freudian Slip of the Strap?

Saturday Samplers, a Bernardsville Library book group, will discuss Strapless: John Singer Sargent and the Fall of Madame X by Deborah Davis on Saturday, November 6, at 3:30 p.m. in the library. 

Strapless tells the fascinating story behind John Singer Sargent's famous portrait of Mme. Gautreau. This life-size oil painting caused an absolute sensation at the Paris Salon of 1884.  Exhibited alongside hundreds of paintings by renowned and aspiring artists, Portrait de Mme ***, as Madame X  singularly attracted the disdain of both art critics and the Parisian public.

Why should this particular painting of a Belle Epoch socialite arouse such instantaneous revulsion and criticism?  After all, Mme. Gautreau was considered to be an exotically beautiful young woman known for her remarkable neckline and figure.  Why should John Singer Sargent's work be so reviled when he had successfully exhibited paintings at previous Salons? Could the artist's placement of her loose dress strap be enough to inflame the French or were there other factors behind their general disdain for what is now considered to be a masterpiece?  In Strapless, Sargent's career is examined in terms of the impact this portrait had on both the artist and the sitter, Madame X.
Review by Evelyn Fischel

Staff Pick: Anthony Doerr's Short Stories

If you are looking for highly inventive, finely executed writing,  give Anthony Doerr's books a try.  Doerr's first publication was a set of short stories, The Shell Collector, which came out to positive reviews in 2002.  Subsequent to that, he published the nonfiction work, Four Seasons in Rome, and a novel, About Grace. He continues to write for such magazines as McSweeney's, Orion, and Zoetrope: All-Story. and has just published a second collection of short fiction entitled Memory Wall: stories.  His writing has received numerous awards including the O. Henry Prize, the Rome Prize, and the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award.

Both The Shell Collector and Memory Wall: stories contain imaginative stories with characters whose foibles, talents, and travails are brought to life in unusual, but convincing ways.  For instance, "The Hunter's Wife, " in The Shell Collector, describes a marriage falling apart as a wife discovers her very special ability to feel the blissful life experiences of those recently deceased.  She does this with animals and later with several people. This diviner of the dead forces her husband to touch her hand as she holds the leg of a doe he has just killed, creating a connection to the doe's receding life force. "Already the doe's vision was surging through her (wife's) body - fifty deer wading a sparkling brook, their bellies in the current, craning their necks to pull leaves from overhanging alders, light pouring around their bodies, a buck raising its antlered head like a king. A silver bead of water hung from its muzzle, caught the sun, and fell."

In Memory Wall: stories characters contend with their memories and what it means to lose memory or self-identification.  This theme is symbolized in the story, "Village 113," by the Chinese town whose inhabitants are forced to give up their homes, community, and way of life so that the area can be submerged for a dam.  The first story in the collection, "Memory Wall," uses science fiction to tell the wonderful human interest story of a young South African boy, Luvo, whose brain has been adapted to "read" the memories of an elderly woman with dementia. Luvo is as much a victim of memory loss as the woman.  "Luvo believes he is somewhere around fifteen years old.  He has very few memories of his own: none of his parents, no sense of who might have installed four ports in his skull and set him adrift among the ten thousand orphans of Cape Town. No memories of how or why."  But Luvo still has intelligence and free will, and what he chooses to do with them makes for a powerful and beautiful story.

Review by Evelyn Fischel

She Would Have Preferred A Letter

Diana Athill starts Instead of a Letter with a reflection on her elderly grandmother's death, noting that this woman had created a family, "a world for us," but what of herself, asks the author, "a woman who had never had the chance, or had missed the chance, to create something like that?" So begins the author's memoir which was first published in 1962 and reissued in 2010.

Instead of a Letter recounts Diana Athill's youth, family life in the British countryside, and an ill-fated love affair begun at the age of 15 with an Oxford student and RAF member.  This passionate union was something momentous for young Diana. Apparently her lover felt otherwise because he left her with no explanation, marrying someone else before he died overseas.   Athill was unable to work through this tragedy, or at least to confront him about it. She writes, "The times when the pain was nearest to the physical - to that of a finger crushed in a door, or a tooth under a drill - were not those in which I thought 'He no longer loves me' but those in which I thought  'He will not even write to tell me that he no longer loves me.'

Memoirs and Coffee, a Bernardsville Public Library book group, will discuss this memoir on Tuesday, October 26th, at 10:30 a.m. The book group is open to new members and is facilitated by Pat Kennedy-Grant.  Please feel welcome to attend.

Bernardsville is a 5 Star-Rated Library

Bernardsville Public Library has just been accorded a Five Star rating by Library Journal .  Please refer to the Library Journal article for specifics about this rating and to see the very short list of  libraries nationwide that  earned five stars in our expenditure category, $400,000 to $999,999.  These ratings are based on data gathered in 2008 after the recession had started.  Bernardsville Public Library director, Karen Brodsky, is quoted in the article as noting that high usage levels were "partly because numerous people were using the library to find employment and to hone computer skills toward that effort."  The library's electronic databases, Career Center, free computer classes, and the many programs dedicated to helping job seekers all contributed to attracting a large number of visitors. In addition, we are fortunate to have a loyal community of library users who make a visit to Bernardsville Library part of their daily routine.

Interpreter of Maladies To Be Discussed

Bernardsville Library's book discussion group, Saturday Samplers, will meet Saturday, October 2 at 3:30 pm to discuss Interpreter of Maladies: Stories (1999) by Jhumpa Lahiri.

This debut collection of short stories published in 1999 won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2000 as well as the PEN/Hemingway Award and several other writing prizes.  Jhumpa Lahiri has continued to make a literary name for herself with subsequent publications of The Namesake (2003) and Unaccustomed Earth (2008.) Read more about Jhumpa Lahiri on the Saturday Samplers blog.

Led by Readers’ Services Assistant, Evelyn Fischel, Saturday Samplers is a book discussion group dedicated to sampling various kinds of literature, including short stories, nonfiction, new and old novels, and even teen fiction. Its goal is to search out interesting, noteworthy, and sometimes overlooked books. Readers can find information about the group and authors at http://saturdaysamplers.blogspot.com/. No sign-up is needed to join the discussion. 

Bernardsville Library Observes "Banned Books Week"

Every year the American Library Association celebrates our freedom to read by observing Banned Books Week.  This year's observation takes place Sept. 25-Oct. 2, and Bernardsville Public Library is marking the occasion with a special book display featuring a large quantity of books which have been banned or challenged at one time by certain schools, governments, and organizations, both in America and around the world.  To read more about the history of banned books, please refer to the ALA's information sheets.  Our current book display is located in the lobby as you enter, and we welcome you to salvage these books from the trash cans in which they are displayed.  See which classics of literature have been relegated to the trashheap at one time or another.  Preserve your right to read: read!

Lust in the Library

Nancy Pearl's your girl if you should find yourself overcome with lust in the library...lust for books, that is.  Ms. Pearl is one of the preeminent readers' advisory librarians in the United States and the author of a book suggestion series which includes the titles Book Lust, More Book Lust, and Book Crush. She blogs, tweets and speaks her lust for books at gatherings all over the country and appears regularly on NPR's "Morning Edition" to discuss book topics.

Bernardsville Public Library is currently featuring a display of Nancy Pearl's suggested books as well as copies of her Book Lust series.  Nancy covers all the genres and picks books you might not have heard about.  We've made it easy for you; simply step right up and take an appealing book off the display.  

Don't forget that the library has a dedicated area just for book suggestions and book clubs known as Book Find. 
Book Find is located to the right as you enter the lobby and these books are marked by orange spine labels.  You'll find Nancy Pearl's books there as well as targeted reading guides and helpful resources for book groups.  In addition, our own librarians have made original bookmarks for different genres and topics. These colorful bookmarks are available at the circulation desk.

From Russia With Love...To America

Bernardsville Public Library's book group, Memoirs and Coffee, will discuss Elena Gorokhova's book, A Mountain of Crumbs, at its next meeting on Tuesday, September 28th at 10:30 a.m.  Born in Russia in the second half of the 20th century, Elena recounts her family's life under Soviet rule. Nobel laureate J. M. Coetzee writes, "Elena Gorokhova conveys all the ugliness of daily life in Soviet Russia, as well as its humiliations, but is awake to its strangled, submerged poetry too." 

Elena's love of language and her affinity for English inspired her to leave her native land, marry an American, and eventually move to New Jersey where she now resides.  The opening lines of her memoir demonstrate the author's mastery of language and love of writing, "I wish my mother had come from Leningrad, from the world of Pushkin and the tsars, of granite embankments and lace ironwork, of pearly domes buttressing the low sky.  Leningrad's sophistication would have infected her the moment she drew her first breath, and all the curved facades and stately bridges, marinated for more than two centuries in the city's wet, salty air, would have left a permanent mark of refinement on her soul."

Memoirs and Coffee is an open invitation book group led by library staff member, Pat Kennedy-Grant.  New members are most welcome to attend, and copies of this book are available at the circulation desk.

Suggestions From Our Readers

One of the pleasures of working at the library's circulation desk is the opportunity to have great conversations with people.  As you would expect, we are often  asked for our recommendations, and we happily share interesting things we've read, listened to, or viewed.   In turn, we like to ask our patrons what they have enjoyed reading recently.  The four books pictured above have been mentioned as particular stand-outs among the new items in the library. Family dynamics in each of these stories lead the characters  to different consequences ranging from healing to disasterous.  Our readers said they couldn't put these books down. 

This Bo*k is a Ho*t

Prim readers are given fair warning to duck and cover!

The title of Justin Halpern's new book, Sh*t My Dad Says, well, it says it all.  Justin's dad says it over and over again, along with the F bomb in all its verb tenses,  so you get the idea of this short, pungent and funny memoir.

The book categorizes a lifetime of Sam Halpern's comments into brief chapters illustrating how he handled episodes in his son's life.  Chapters like Justin's cheating on a school science experiment, not wanting to share a bedroom with Grampa, and asking endless, stupid questions are all covered with a story and a series of pithy vulgarisms by dad.  For example, on the topic of young Justin asking dumb hypothetical questions, his dad responded, "No. There's no scenario where I'd eat a human being, so you can stop making them up and asking me, understood?  Jesus, is this how you spend your day, just coming up with this (expletive?)"  You might not expect that dad is actually a doctor of nuclear medicine, but Sam Halpern tells it like he sees it to his son, and it is often painfully funny and blunt.

It is interesting to note that what started out as Justin Halpern's daily Twitter feed about his father evolved into this, his first book.  In a similar fashion, books like Waiter Rant and A Homemade Life developed out of their authors' blogs.  This demonstrates to me that social media (blogging and tweeting) do not necessarily take readers away from books.   Rather, they seem to be providing publishers with a whole new treasure trove of material.

Review by Evelyn Fischel

Don't Mangle Foreign Languages - Mango Them!

Bernardsville Public Library is pleased to offer another new, exciting service for our patrons and community.  Linking remotely through our Web site, you may now access Mango, an online language learning program designed to accelerate your language speaking skills.  Mango's unique methodology copies the way people learn when immersed in a foreign culture - through practical conversation. Native speakers model phrases and bits of conversation which participants repeat, learning to combine them into meaningful dialogue.  Before you know it, you will be communicating effectively in a foreign language.

Mango is fun, easy, and it works!  Best of all,  it's free to Bernardsville Library card holders through our Web site. Try Mango today or any time at your convenience. If you don't have a card, come into the library to see if you qualify for membership or consider the option of a reasonably-priced paid membership which grants full library privileges.  Mango and the world of communication await you at Bernardsville Public Library.

Get a Free Pass

As a new service for our patrons, Bernardsville Public Library is now offering museum passes which may be checked out for a four-day loan period.  This idea was developed by the library staff and funded by the Friends of Bernardsville Public Library.  These passes permit free entrance for a family as well as selected discounts.  We are currently offering a pass to each of the following:  the Morris Museum, Montclair Art Museum, Guggenheim Museum, and the American Museum of Natural History. Conditions apply, so please call or visit us for more information about this popular new library feature.  

Michaele and Keiko Make a Splash at the Library

Bernardsville youth services librarian Michaele Casey and library volunteer Keiko Matsuura have done it again...yet another great display for the children's summer reading program!

This year's theme is "Make a Splash at Your Library" and the accompanying book display does just that.  Read more about this beautiful display by clicking here.


Keiko constructed the sea figures and young diver from paper, fabric and paint, and it took her very special imagination to assemble them all into a magical underwater scene.

Michaele borrowed a fabulous papier mache coral reef construction from the Bedwell School and made it the base of this floating world.  What a perfect match!  All  around the coral can be found interesting books for children to borrow.

The children have been very enthusiastic about the reading program at Bernardsville Public Library this summer, in part because of this gorgeous book display.

Staff Recommendation: Read One, Then The Other

I recently read two fascinating books which delve into the mysterious history of the Cape Ann settlement of Dogtown, now a part of Gloucester, Massachusetts.  The books are Dogtown: death and enchantment in a New England ghost town by Elyssa East and The Last Days of Dogtown by Anita Diamant.  Anita Diamant's  fictional account of the decline of this  impoverished settlement in the early 1800's uses historical characters in an imaginative and compelling way.  Elyssa East approaches the history of the same forlorn region from a modern departure point - the shocking murder there of a local woman in 1984.

East's 2009 narrative nonfiction book combines an investigation of this murder with parallel storylines involving art history detection and local intrigue.  The author initially intended to find the sources of inspiration for some of American artist Marsden Hartley's 1930's watercolors which featured the unusual topography of Dogtown, known for its boulders and strange rocky formations.  Thinking she might be able to see the actual locations which Hartley painted, she travelled to Gloucester, bought a map of Dogtown, and promptly got lost in its disorienting woods.  The area had long ago acquired a reputation for eerie happenings, a reputation  which was further  tarnished  by the savage and pointless murder of a young woman in these very woods.  Dogtown: death and enchantment in a New England ghost town will keep you engaged throughout, but it is regrettable that the author did not provide any prints of Hartley's Dogtown landscapes or any photos of the area.

Diamant's 2005 historical fiction book, The Last Days of Dogtown, fleshes together an interesting tale about the last survivors of the isolated and failing Dogtown Settlement at the beginning of the nineteenth century.   Only fragmentary records and oral histories remain of Dogtown's demise and of the people who inhabited this remote area of Cape Ann.  Many of  Dogtown's  inhabitants were shunned by Gloucester folk because they  clung to old ways and refused to move into town.  Some were suspected of  practicing witchcraft and prostitution.  Diamant expands the few historical vignettes about these people into a satisfying story of marginalized individuals living a desperate existence in a dying settlement. Some of these individuals are briefly mentioned in Elyssa East's book as well, but I was glad that Anita Diamant had given them fuller, though fictional  lives.  I do recommend both of these books.

 Review by Evelyn Fischel

Patrons Have Been Reading...

Here's a sampling of some of the books our patrons have been reading this summer.  Among the contributors are several members of the library's 50 Book Challenge.

Adrienne writes: "I've tortured myself reading The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera.  It's part philosophical, part political (about the effect the events of 1968 had on people), and part emotional - a love story.  The first 100 pages were tough, but I kept going and actually wound up liking the book."  On a lighter note, Adrienne also reports, "I'm reading a very interesting book by Ruth Reichl, Garlic and Sapphires, about her early days as food critic for the NY Times.  Reichl disguises herself, and falls into character, to avoid recognition by the restaurant owners so she can enjoy a meal and write a review about the food and service as an ordinary person.  Her characters will make you laugh and her dining experiences will make you hungry."

Tish listened to Sherman Alexie's YA novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, and writes:  "I highly recommend the recording.  Alexie reads it himself, and his sing-songy Indian-accent delivery is like performance art.  Hilarious and heartbreaking.  I have also listened to two funny books on CD that I can recommend: I Feel Bad About My Neck by Nora Ephron, and Why My Third Husband Will Be a Dog by Lisa Scottoline.  Both are collections of short essays, and both had me weeping with laughter."

Carol relates that she has listened to An Echo in the Bone by Diana Gabaldon which was narrated by Davina Porter.  Carol says "Ms. Porter has narrated the entire Outlander Series of which this is the seventh book.  With her British accent and Scottish brogue Davina creates the perfect atmosphere for a love story which takes place in two different centuries.  I have truly enjoyed this series and was disappointed to hear I will not see the next book until 2013!!!"

Finally, Ronald shared a link to comments he made regarding Richard A. Clarke's new book, Cyber War.