I’m in New York for a few days, visiting my mom and some friends. Today at a Whole Foods, my mother said to the cashier, “Don’t make the packages too…
I’ve been meaning to read Richard Ford for years – actually, for decades. Both the 1986 novel The Sportswriter and 1995’s follow-up Independence Day have been languishing on The List…
The Golden Compass, by Philip Pullman, has been on my to-read list since it was first published in the mid-1990s. Although I generally don’t read fantasy fiction, after reading an…
I’m still providing library services to teens, and I’m still loving my job. March Break is one of our big-ticket items. I’m expected to plan and provide a week-long lineup…
Isn’t it frustrating when you know you’re doing something that hurts you, that makes your life more difficult, yet you can’t seem to stop? Awareness is a necessary precursor to…
Hoarding is a hot topic these days, and often approached through a lurid, sensational lens – eccentric recluses and their hoards of junk are exposed for public entertainment. You’ll find…
This week I received email from my friend Alan, formerly known in this blog as Alan with one L, or AW1L. Subject line: Re: 34th Street/Penn Station Just Now Out-of-Towner…
When people are denied independence and told that they cannot govern themselves, it only makes them more determined to achieve their independence. This simple principle repeats itself in matters large…
Workers in the US have won a significant victory in their struggle for dignity and a living wage. This week Walmart announced that within one year, all current Walmart employees…
It’s always strange for me when the events that are consuming my time and my brain are not suitable for public consumption, not things I can blog about in any…
I’ve really been enjoying my Nexus 7 tablet. I dislike that tablets have become the norm, and in a perfect world I’d use a desktop, a netbook, and a tablet.…
Readers over a certain age may remember Pat Conroy as the author of “The Great Santini,” the novel and later, a movie for which he wrote the screenplay. The movie…
It’s been a very long time since I’ve posted a pupdate. The short version: Tala is doing great! You may recall that some years back, shortly after we adopted Diego,…
Last summer, I blogged about the very bad arrangement between publishers and public libraries regarding ebooks, and suggested that library users could help their libraries by not borrowing ebooks. I’ve…
In September, I blogged about watching “Bewitched” on Netflix as my “comedy before sleep” show. I’m still watching it, sometimes taking as many as three nights to get through one…
If you enjoy detective shows, murder mysteries, and legal dramas, you learn a lot of things that don’t necessarily reflect reality. Here are some things you may learn from these…
This week’s obituaries included the last living link to two landmark moments in the history of freedom of expression. Al Bendich was just two years out of law school when…
Poor neglected wmtc. In addition to having absolutely zero time and mental space to write, I have some kind of head-cold-thing. So instead of trying to string words together in…
It’s been an exciting year here in wmtc-Joy of Sox-land: me working full-time in my new career, completing a year as a youth-services librarian, Allan publishing a new book, which…
Despite the increased attention given to graphic novels in recent years, many readers don’t consider graphic novels when thinking about what to read next. In this “what i’m reading” post,…
