I had a relaxing week-end at the Lake with family and friends. In between the boat rides, the swimming, the great food and the laughs, the talk was often about what we were reading, what we had read or what we would read if we didn’t have day jobs.  When discussion turns to reading and books I’m generally in a good state of mind.

Ginger arrived Friday night with two magazines in hand. And what week-end at the Lake is complete without some magazines?  A magazine worthy of a stay at the Lake will inspire lots of conversation and that’s just what the issue of People with Elin (Now Nordegren) Woods on the cover did. Ginger also had the latest issue of Rolling Stone with the stars of the vampire show on HBO on the cover. Read more »

The other night I was enjoying the good company of 13 other women all sitting around a large, makeshift table having a discussion that never suffered a pregnant pause even though some of us barely knew each other and others of us were meeting for the first time. What would inspire such a gathering? A book of course. Read more »

I leave for Isle Royale National Park next week for a few days of island wilderness living in the splendor of Lake Superior. With an address of Michigan, the park is actually closer to Canada and Minnesota and is completely uninhabited except for moose, wolves, snowshoe hares and the few park rangers and employees of the one lodge that exists. Yellowstone Park sees more visitors in one day than Isle Royale sees in one year. The remoteness of the place makes getting there an adventure. The being there is just icing on the cake. In preparation for any trip I try to read as much as I can about the place I’m going to be visiting. There is not a whole lot of literature on Isle Royale but I’ve been able to find a few interesting books on the history and environment that will enhance my stay there. In my quest I always try to find a novel that takes place in the locale I’m visiting. So for this trip, that means two mysteries in Nevada Barr’s Anna Pigeon series. Read more »

It all started here, at the Library Congress in Washington, D.C., in 1898. After moving from the Capital to its new building, the Library needed a system for storing and retrieving its books. Alas, the Library of Congress Subject Headings or LCSH was born. Necessity is the mother of invention so the saying goes and the LC system of alphabetical subject headings would expand and eventually influence almost every library in the United States.(Along with the Dewey Decimal System) LCHS is still in use today, more than 110 years later. It has withstood the test of time, technology and modern culture. Obviously, it's a system that works, but it's not without its quirks. Many people and many, many, ok, countless hours of meetings have produced a dictionary of Subject Headings that uses words that just don't make sense to the men and women using libraries and, quite frankly, to a lot of the people working in them. One of the best examples of this is the word "Cookery". The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines Cookery as: the art or practice of cooking, so the use of the word directing people to books on cooking, including cookbooks, was technically correct. But how many people use this arcane word except in the occasional reference to a place, i.e. the cookery at a lumber camp? We don't go to a library and ask the friendly helpful staff "can you please help me find the books on cookery?" So, for years, when people have come to us in frustration because they can't find many books on cooking we've had to say to them with a straight face "you need to look under Cookery". You can imagine the looks we've received through the years. Read more »