In Europe: Travels Through the Twentieth Century by Geert Mak

In Europe: Travels Through the Twentieth Century
Geert Mak
Translated by Sam Garrett
(Pantheon Books, New York City: 2007)

First published in the Netherlands as In Europa by Uitgeverij Atlas, Amsterdam, c. 2004 Geert Mak.

READ: April 2009

Heather Mallick, one of my favourite Viewpoint & Analysis columnists on the CBC website, reviewed this book about 6 months ago, and I was immediately intrigued. The book instantly went on my must-read list, though in the form of a request on a long hold list at the public library.

Well, Christmas - as I like to call it when I get an email about a long-forgotten book now being held for me at the library - arrived at the beginning of April. I sunk into this book with very little hesitation, and found it quite hard to get out.

Geert Mak, a journalist for a Dutch newspaper and an acclaimed Dutch author, spent the year 1999 travelling all across Europe in search of eyewitnesses and contemporary accounts of historical events from the past century. He takes us to so many places and introduces us to so many people. The 20th century was anything but dull for Europeans. But Mak's book is not a mere recitation of facts, dates, and events. He assumes his reader already knows the basic outlines of modern history, and so, while he does spend some time giving historical and political background, he mostly explores events through the people who experienced them.

20th century Europe was not always a happy place to be, depending on where you ended up. There was so much bloodshed, so much violence, so much turmoil. Mak does a very good job at putting a human face on much of this. On the one hand, that makes things like the rise of Nazism and Hitler in 1930s socialist Germany easier to understand; on the other, it also makes things like "the Troubles" in Ireland that much more horrifying, gut-wrenching, and disturbing. Mak makes recent European history personal.

Weighing in at just over 800 pages, this is a huge book! I had to read it far too quickly, and had to absorb a lot of information, drama, and emotion in each sitting. Sometimes it overwhelmed me for that reason. But mostly it just compelled me to keep reading (even if that compulsion was occasionally caused by a feeling of "if you keep reading, things must get better"). Mak's writing is lucid and clear, his eye for detail is keen, and he knows how to tell a story in such a way that the events become very personal.

The Academic Library and the Net Gen Student : Making the Connections by Susan Gibbons

The Academic Library and the Net Gen Student : Making the Connections
Susan Gibbons
(American Library Association, Chicago: 2007)

READ: February 2009

Libraries like to think that they are at the cutting edge of technology, but more often than not, they really aren't. Many in librarianship (the younger ones, anyway) likely played with various technologies while in library school[1], but once out in a real library, you are suddenly faced with layer upon layer of bureaucracy anytime you want to try another or get anything done.[2]

In this book, Susan Gibbons, the director of digital initiatives for the libraries at the University of Rochester, surveys the main Web 2.0 technologies being used by students today, and suggests ways in which libraries could use these in order to better meet the needs of students. The technologies she discusses include: social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook, RSS feeds, online gaming and MMORPGs like Second Life, wikis, blogs, collaborative sites like LibraryThing, social bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, and, of course, instant messaging.[3] She also stresses the importance of reaching students by making library services and websites available for cellphones and other mobile devices.

Some of these ideas work better than others. I see, for example, no need for my library to have a presence in something like Second Life (but maybe that's just because I don't really understand its purpose). I question the value of a Facebook page (though the idea of having "fans" is kinda neat). I've started playing around with RSS feeds (though I note the law library does not have one), though the jury is still out on whether it's saving me time or whether it's causing me to read more things than before (I lean slightly toward the latter; however, I am becoming more well-informed, at least where travel, book reviews, and alien abduction stories[4] are concerned). Library sites do need to become more accessible via cellphones, etc., and I certainly see applications like IM helping libraries gain more ground.

The book was written in 2006, so it's not (yet) too hopelessly out-of-date. While I didn't find it too helpful in terms of suggesting suggestions of things we could actually do here at my library (though that might be at least partly due to bureaucracy that stands between my ideas and actual change), it was good for giving an overview of what is out there and what some other libraries are doing with some of these tools.

[1] I know I personally loved my classes in multimedia (for which I made an electronic version of the Tolkien bestiary), electronic text design (wrote an e-paper on the (alleged) death of the book), and yes, even the dreaded systems analysis and design (my partner and I designed a database system for the law library - alas, never implemented - in which reference questions could be tracked and indexed for easy retrieval in the future).

[2] Statement not meant to imply anything about reviewer's current workplace. If anything, I have recently started finding some loopholes to work around the bureaucracy, and implement ideas that don't affect the bureaucracy. The real problem really has become finding the time to do so.

[3] I believe the book was written pre-Twitter, but that certainly has a role to play as well.

[4] That last one is (mostly) a joke.

The Next Gen Librarian's Survival Guide by Rachel Singer Gordon

The Next Gen Librarian's Survival Guide
Rachel Singer Gordon
(Information Today, Medford (NJ): 2006)

READ: January-February 2009

I believe I stumbled across this book when getting some other books on librarianship that I had recently read reviews for. The author, Rachel Singer Gordon, is a name I already knew - she is the editor of the Info Career Trends Newsletter to which I subscribe, amonst other things. She is one of those people who, in the world of librarianship at least, always seems to have something interesting to say. Plus I figured I am a NextGen librarian (I guess?) and so might learn something useful or two.

I probably had a larger need for this book a few years ago, but I still found it useful. Gordon provides advice and tips on many different issues in librarianship, from surviving library school*, to finding a first job, to perceptions of librarianship, to working with older colleagues who might perhaps be a bit more - ahem - traditional.

Another important aspect to note is that Gordon is focusing on the American library job market, which, from what I know, is significantly different from the Canadian one. It is really hard for many graduates of American library schools to snag that first job. Canadian library school graduates - and my evidence is largely anecdotal on this account, I admit - have a much easier time. Gordon gives some good general advice on job-hunting; for example, no matter how broke you might feel upon graduation, don't necessarily just snap up the first job that comes your way.

What I really found useful in this book is that Gordon also sent out surveys to both NextGen (under-40) and older librarians (over-40), in order to solicit feedback on the issues covered in her book. Some of the responses to these are very telling. Others are quick to point out that the under-40, over-40 divide is a bit of a false dichotomy, which Gordon (to her credit) acknowledges whenever possible. (You have to draw a line in the sand somewhere, right?)

The final chapter in the book tackles the subject from a completely different angle. It is written for current administrators and managers, rather than the NextGen librarians working for those administrators and managers. This gives an interesting perspective from "the other side of the fence", so to speak.

Well-written, and a quick, easy read, I would recommend this to people still in library school, or those recently graduated (within the last few years). Beyond that, you've probably figured out most of what's in the book - maybe the hard way! I would also recommend it to older librarians, administrators and managers, who might be having a hard time relating to or understanding their younger colleagues.

* Those of you who are not librarians will not necessarily know that while most librarians are very content and happy in their day-to-day jobs, library school itself is almost universally disliked.

2009 Booklist

1. Silent Spring by Rachel Carson


2. The Map that Changed the World by Simon Winchester


3. Payback by Margaret Atwood


4. The Next Gen Librarian's Survival Guide by Rachel Singer Gordon


5. The Academic Library and the Net Gen Student : Making the Connections by Susan Gibbons


6. 20,000 lieues sous la mer by Jules Verne


7. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley


8. Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons


9. Chartrand des Écorres by Cosette Marcoux-Boivin (incomplete)


10. Beijing Confidential: Tales of Comrades Lost and Found by Jan Wong


11. Happiness (TM) by Will Ferguson


12. The Hike It, Bike It, Walk It, Drive It Guide to Ottawa, the Gatineau, Kingston and Beyond by Ann Campbell


13. In Europe: Travels Through the Twentieth Century by Geert Mak


14. The Rough Guide to Paris


15. The Story of French by Jean-Benoît Nadeau and Julie Barlow


16. The Uses and Abuses of History by Margaret McMillan


17. The Inheritance: The World Obama Confronts And The Challenges To American Power by David E. Sanger


18. Neither Here Nor There: Travels Through Europe by Bill Bryson


19. Canadian Courts: Law, Politics, and Process by Lori Hausegger, Matthew Hennigar & Troy Riddell


20. The Jade Peony by Wayson Choi


21. Chaos: Making a New Science by James Gleick (incomplete)


22. The End of Lawyers? Rethinking the Nature of Legal Services by Richard Susskind (incomplete)


23. Nova Scotia Book of Everything by John MacIntyre & Martha Walls (intermittent)


24. The Nature of Economies by Jane Jacobs (incomplete)


25. The English Legal System: 2009-2010 by Gary Slapper & David Kelly


26. Wilderness Pleasures: A Practical Guide to Camping Bliss by Kevin Callan


27. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien


28. The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien


29. The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien


30. A Paddler's Guide to Weekend Wilderness Adventures in Southern Ontario by Kevin Callan


31. The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien


32. Bachelor Brothers' Bed & Breakfast by Bill Richardson (currently reading)


33. The Human, The Orchid and The Octopus: Exploring and Conserving Our Natural World by Jacques Cousteau and Susan Schiefelbein (currently reading)

The Library at Night by Alberto Manguel

The Library at Night
Alberto Manguel
(Alfred A. Knopf Canada, Toronto: 2006)

READ: June - July 2008

This is a delightful book and I was sad to finish it (though largely unable to stop from compulsively reading it) and sadder still to send it back to the library from whence it came.*

Alberto Manguel is not a librarian, though he would make a marvelous one. He is a bibliophile, and knows his way around books and the written word so incredibly deeply and thoroughly. I can only hope to ever have a tiny fraction of the bookish worlds in his head. This book should be required reading for every first-year library school student. It is a wonderful tour of library history with stops at many interesting, quirky places along the way.

Some slices of my favourite parts:

• Talking about how early Arab libraries often divided books by subject rather than alphabetically (as most early Western libraries tended to do), Manguel tells us about the doctor Abou Ali El-Hossein Ibn Sina ("Avicenna") who discovered a library at the home of one of his patients in what is today's Uzbekistan. While the doctor's account deals mostly with the expert classification of the books, I was struck in particular by the doctor's description of the resident librarian as "keeper of the live memory of the books". How apt.



• His discussion of how the digitization of materials may, in fact, not be the saviour of our times is an interesting look at the other side of the coin. While slanted a little heavily toward the printed word - "As any reader knows, a printed page creates its own reading space, its own physical landscape in which the texture of the paper, the colour of the ink, the view of the whole ensemble acquire in the reader's hands specific meanings that lend tone and context to the words" - it is certainly enlightening in terms of helping us to question the attitude of complete and total reliance that we have taken toward electronic materials. As one good example, in 1986, the BBC undertook a massive project to digitize the Domesday Book, a census of England from the 11th century. As of March 2002, the digital copies could no longer be accessed on a computer (even on the original computers for which the discs had been made). The original paper copy, however, is still available and perfectly useable (though, granted, you have to go to Kew in Britain to see it). At the very least, these sorts of examples could be used to good effect in a library school debate on the subject.



• Manguel's admittance that his library is larger than what he will perhaps be able to read in his lifetime made me laugh, for my library, while undoubtedly infinitely smaller and not as broad-based, is fast taking on the same unmanageable nature. "I know that my books have unlimited patience," he writes. "They will wait for me till the end of my days." I love that. In a similar vein, he then goes on to discuss the decidedly odd Samuel Johnson, the 18th-century compiler of the infamous Dictionary of the English Language, who "thought it 'strange advice' to urge someone to finish a book once started. 'You may as well resolve that whatever men you happen to get acquainted with, you are to keep to them for life.'" While I try in most cases to finish the books I have started, I am not as wedded to that ideal as I once was. With so many good books out there, why waste time reading something you don't enjoy? There are always other books waiting.

But don't get me wrong: You don't need to be a librarian to enjoy this book (though it will certainly help!). You do, however, need to love books. I for one will be keeping my eyes open and will pick up a copy of this as soon as I can find it at one of my favourite second-hand bookshops. Because, like a good friend, it would be nice to have around.

* Having written this review a few months ago and then having forgotten to upload it to this site, I am happy to add that I have since bought my own copy.

Not on the Label: What Really Goes into the Food on Your Plate by Felicity Lawrence

Not on the Label: What Really Goes into the Food on Your Plate
Felicity Lawrence
(Penguin Books, London: 2004)

READ: May-June 2004

I stumbled across this book in my library's catalogue whilst searching for something else food-related for a client. Intrigued, I requested it be sent to me, and it was quite a fascinating read.

Felicity Lawrence is an investigative reporter for The Guardian in London, England, and she has been writing on food-related topics (and other things, too, undoubtedly) for over 20 years. This book focuses on the food industry in Britain*, but I have no reason to believe that things are substantially different or better in Canada and the U.S. I'm willing to bet that while things may differ in the details, the larger brushstrokes of our food distribution chains are similar.

From the back cover (because sometimes they just say it better):

In a series of undercover investigations tracking some of the most popular foods we eat at home, Felicity Lawrence travels from farms and factories to packhouses and lorry depots around the world. She discovers why beef waste ends up in chicken, why a third of apples are thrown away, why bread is full of water and air. And she shows how obesity, the plight of migrant workers, motorways clogged with juggernauts, ravaged fields in Europe and starving farmers in Africa are all connected to a handful of retailers and food manufacturers who exert unprecedented control over what we eat and where we buy it.

This book is well-written and fascinating. Lawrence isn't preachy. She isn't trying to get us to switch to all-vegetarianism or all-organics or all-local. Rather, in a series of exposés (Chicken / Salad / Beans / Bread / Apples and Bananas / Coffee and Prawns / The Ready Meal), she is simply trying to make us more aware. She eats meat, and doesn't shun (all) processed food. She even sometimes buys bananas. However, she wants to make us more aware of where our food comes from, and what is done in the system to make food as cheap and abundant as it is today (at least in the Western world). Her general philosophy is: As much as possible, buy local, seasonal, and direct. Sounds like fine advice to me.

The book is an eye-opener. Sure, I've been hearing for years about the appalling conditions in which many animals destined for slaughter are raised (chickens in tiny cages where they can't even turn around, etc.). Lawrence mentions these things, but doesn't dwell on them. Rather, she walks us through the steps in production of some of the most basic things. Like salad: there are an unbelievable number of steps involved in getting today's ready-cut, pre-washed bags of salad to the grocery store. And if you want a mini-lesson on the effects of globalization, read her chapter on Coffee and Prawns. You'll suddenly have a much better understanding of why so many countries can't afford to feed their own people.

A rather timely read, as the headlines these days are full of dire predictions for the food supply in the not-so-far-off future, and we keep hearing about the rise of food prices despite any direct evidence of that here. This book helps me understand this rising debate, and I am looking forward to reading more on the subject.

* Perhaps in some ways it would be more accurate to say "the food industry not in Britain".

Vintage Ondaatje by Michael Ondaatje

Vintage Ondaatje
Michael Ondaatje
(Random House, Toronto: 2004)

Includes selections from The Collected Works of Billy the Kid and Coming Through Slaughter; "Travels in Ceylon", "Passions of Lalla", and "Photograph" from Running in the Family; the poems "Light", "Claude Glass", "The Cinnamon Peeler", "Elimination Dance", and "To a Sad Daughter" from The Cinnamon Peeler; "The Bridge" from In The Skin of a Lion; "Katharine" and "In Situ" from The English Patient; the poems "The Great Tree", "The Story", "Step", and "Last Ink" from Handwriting; and "Linus Corea" and "Anil" from Anil's Ghost.

READ: April 2008

I am a die-hard Ondaatje fan, and really, the only question remaining for me is whether I prefer his prose or his poetry. This book is a good chance to compare the two, but the question, alas, remains unresolved. I will say this, however: While there are other authors out there whose prose comes close to the quality of Ondaatje's, I have yet to discover a writer whose poetry falls so easily off my tongue (for poetry is best read savouring each word in your mouth), like water skimming across rocks in a shallow, fast-flowing stream, whose words are so natural yet so carefully-chosen to be always and exactly just right.

Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance by Noam Chomsky

Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance
Noam Chomsky
(Henry Holt & Co., New York City: 2003)

READ: April 2008

One of the more rational, clear-headed thinkers out there. Chomsky's book is well-thought out and, in my opinion, fairly uncontroversial - just because you might not agree with him doesn't make him wrong - everything he says is backed up with real evidence, and he's pretty good about showing the evidence in the other direction, too. A must-read.

Noam Chomsky was one of those authors who would show up from time to time on my undergraduate mass communications degree reading lists. Though a linguist and philosophy professor at MIT, he has written many works that also lie firmly in political science and media studies. At the time, however, I remember dreading the Chomsky readings. However, I have grown to truly appreciate much of his work, mostly because I have learned more since then and am now more ready to understand and engage with his work.*

In this book, Chomsky outlines the tactic of "full spectrum dominance" pursued by the American government in its international relations since at least the end of WWII. From the Bay of Pigs, through Nicaragua, Cuba, the Middle East, Afghanistan, and, most recently (at least at the time the book was written, in 2003), Iraq, the U.S. has followed policies and practices geared toward global control, a new kind of colonialism. At the same time, it has fairly consistently worked to undermine certain principles of international law, and refused to recognize many instruments of international justice, such as the World Court and the International Criminal Tribunal.

I'm going to leave the review at that, closing off with a blurb from author Arundhati Roy on the book, because she says it better than I could:

"If, for reasons of chance, or circumstance, (or sloth), you have to pick just one book on the subject of the American Empire, pick this one. It's the Full Monty. It's Chomsky at his best. Hegemony or Survival is necessary reading."

For more on this topic, see the American Empire Project.

* Sometimes I feel that university is wasted on 17-21 year old students. Better we all go at 32, no?

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat: And Other Clinical Tales by Oliver Sacks

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat: And Other Clinical Tales
Oliver Sacks
(Touchstone, New York: 1998)

Many of the case studies previously published in similar forms, starting in 1970 and through 1984 (when book was first published).

READ: April 2008

This was an interesting read, with some truly fascinating stories of people with various mental disorders. Dr. Sacks has been working with patients with neurological disorders for a very long time, so he has many stories to tell.

While I enjoyed the book on the whole, I found it a little unsatisfying, however - I wanted more in terms of neurological explanations and perhaps even a word or two about the philosophical side of neurological disorder (which Dr. Sacks kept alluding to but never going into more detail about). For the majority of the stories, Dr. Sacks just states the facts of the case, makes one or two observations, then moves on... I understand that it was not always possible to follow-up with the patients, to see perhaps how a particular type of treatment was working out, but it felt a little too much like I'd sat down with him in a bar and now he was telling me story after story without a chance for me to get a word (or question) in edgewise: "Here's an interesting story ... Here's another one ... What about this guy? ... It makes you wonder about what it really means to be human doesn't it? But enough about that already, how about this case here?"

So overall: Interesting, but if you were hoping to get some insight into how the human mind works or a bit of an understanding for why a certain disorder may or may not develop, you'll have to look elsewhere.

Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World by Mark Kurlansky

Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World
Mark Kurlansky
(Vintage Canada, Toronto: 1998)

READ: April 2008

Who knew that a history of the Atlantic codfishery could be so entertaining? Focusing largely - though not entirely - on the once-fabled Grand Banks off Newfoundland, Kurlansky starts with the Basques, a small group of peoples living near the Spanish border with France. Somewhat oddly, they were renowned seafarers, and as early as the 15th century, they were selling dried cod, fairly different in taste and texture from the North Sea cod that was already well-known to ports across Europe. The Basques never divulged the secret of where their cod came from, but now it seems the jig is up, so to speak: it was from the Grand Banks. They didn't want to tell anyone, because they didn't want others to share in the spoils. And so Columbus "discovered" America; and John Cabot, able to report back with news of the terrific splendor the Banks had to offer, where you could dip a bucket in the water and bring it back up brimming full of fish.

Kurlansky takes us through the heady days of exploration of the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries, showing how cod became a commodity not only in its own right, but also as a necessary resource in the business of waging war against the other colonial powers. (He who had the most cod could feed the most soldiers.) Through the 19th century, the codfish's allure continued, and well into the 20th. In fact, the Grand Banks are the main reason France continues to hold on to the tiny island colonies of St-Pierre and Miquelon in the Gulf of St. Lawrence: it allows them to retain some fishing rights. Finally, Kurlansky takes us to the last few decades, with the decline of the cod fisheries, both here on the Grand Banks and elsewhere (for example, off the coast of Cape Cod - ever wonder why it is called that? - and in the North Sea). He does a good job of showing the tight links between culture, politics, and cod. Iceland in particular proves to be an interesting case study in the ways to handle (or not handle, as the case may be) a domestic fishery.

Throughout the book, while clearly well-researched and exceptionally informative, the tone is kept light. Kurlansky personalizes the story by telling anecdotes, including photographs, and re-printing various recipes for cod, both very old and very new. My only complaint with this book, in fact, is that it is a little dated. It was written in 1997, only five years after the Canadian moratorium was announced. In the book, Kurlansky states that in 1994, the Canadian government estimated the moratorium would last till at least the end of the century. Some experts opined it would be about 15 years before the stocks would be viable again. Well, both those dates have passed. I'm not sure what the state of the cod fishery in Canada is nowadays (though, granted, it shouldn't be too hard to find out), but I almost wish that Kurlansky would do an update to the book, putting some of those figures into a more current context.