There are many great things to say about short stories.
- Their length is appealing to those of us who always read something before going to sleep as well as those of you who read on your phones and other electronic gadgets.
- Often short stories are dense and rich with all the dialog and description that we appreciate in our favorite novels.
- As readers, we can be introduced to the work of an author without having to commit to something as long as a novel.
- Frequently, novel writers also write short stories which are less known than their novels.
I could go on – instead, I’ll provide you with a couple suggestions. Raymond Carver, Cathedral. Roald Dahl (did you know he wrote short stories?) Collected Stories. And a perennial favorite, JD Salinger’s Nine Stories.
If you’re interested in searching the Preston Library catalog to see what other short story collections we have, take a look here.
Who’s your favorite short story author?
Do you use the Oxford English Dictionary online? If you haven’t used it, check it out the next time you need a good definition, word history, or a thesaurus search. Those of you who have been using the OED will notice many of the same features and tools as well as some new ways to search and browse and a tool to help you cite the entry.
Check out the new OED, and if you have questions about it, Ask A Librarian!
In Preston Library’s Periodicals Room you’ll find a display in honor of Banned Books Week. This week marks the 29th year that Americans have been celebrating the freedom to read. Each year many books are challenged as being objectionable by individuals and groups who ask for them to be removed by public and school libraries everywhere. See the top 10 books challenged in 2009, as reported by the American Library Association Office for International Freedom here. When an individual or group makes a challenge, it’s more than stating a negative opinion about that book – it’s asking that others don’t have the freedom to choose to read that book.
All sorts of books are challenged for reasons ranging from content to language to age level. Of the top 100 novels of the 20th Century (as designated by the well-respected Radcliffe Publishing Course), 46 have been challenged or banned. Libraries are great supporters of the First Amendment, and further, the freedom to choose what to read. Stop in the Periodicals Room to learn more about Banned Books week and see some of Preston Library’s books that were once challenged or banned.
See other news about Banned Books Week here.
In March 2010, we are celebrating 30 years of recognition of women’s historic contributions to the growth and strength of our Nation in countless recorded and unrecorded ways. It was President Jimmy Carter who issued the first Presidential Proclamation declaring the week of March 8, 1980 as the first National Women’s History Week. Later the National Women’s History Project (NWHP) worked to lobby Congress to expand the week into a month. In 1987, a Congressional Proclamation designated March as the “Women’s History Month.”
The theme selected for this year’s celebration is “Writing Women Back into History.” You will find a display of library books, CDs and DVDs in the Periodical Reading Room by and about women who were artists, engineers, scientists, warriors and much more.
When you visit the display in the Periodicals Room, you can see materials representing the variety of experiences that comprise Women’s History, from the letter writers in Revolutionary War times in Women’s Letters through to Laura Brodie’s account of the admission of the first female cadets at VMI in 1997. In between are the biographies of suffragist Susan B. Anthony; America’s first female doctor, Elizabeth Blackwell; pilot Amelia Earhart; anthropologists Margaret Mead and Mary Leakey, and Maria Stewart, America’s First Black Woman Political Writer.
The National Women’s History Project website is here, and their facebook page is here.
The 
Friends of Preston Library in concert with the VMI Honors Program hosted a program Wednesday, 3 March 2010 at 5 p.m. in the Turman Room of Preston Library featuring James L. W. West, III. Dr. West is the Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of English at Pennsylvania State University. He discussed his book on William Styron, Letters to My Father. The letters were written by Styron to his father between 1943 and 1953. Each letter opens with “Dear Pop,” and provides a kind of autobiography of the young author’s activities and thoughts. In later years, Styron communicated increasingly by telephone so these letters are especially valuable in providing insight of the author’s formative ears.
A native of Newport News, author of Sophie’s Choice, The Confessions of Nat Turner, Lie Down in Darkness, A Tidewater Morning, and other celebrated works, William Styron will be remembered as one of the most important writers of the 20th century. Last month, Jim West’s book received a front page review by the Times Literary Supplement.
Copies of Letters to My Father were available for purchase at the program and for the author to sign. Dr. West provided an informative and engaging program that was enjoyed by cadets, faculty, and the public.
These are just two of the many books available in the Recreational Reading section, in the Periodicals Room. Stop by and browse the shelves for something fun to read before leaving Post for the Thanksgiving holiday.
Although a self-propelled crane boat made the first passage of the 50-mile waterway on January 7th, and the ocean steamer, SS Ancon, made the trip on August 3rd, today marks the 95th anniversary of the opening of the Panama Canal.
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How Wall Street Created a Nation by Ovidio Diaz Espino.
A native of Panama, Espino, describes the origins of the Panama Canal, detailing the decades of speculation, fraud, and conspiracy that continue to influence international relations in the region. The roles of Theodore Roosevelt, the French Panama Canal Company, and Wall Street are highlighted, with clear attention to their immediate motives–profit and power. |
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The Path Between the Seas by David G. McCullough
The Path Between the Seas tells the story of the men and women involved in the struggle to construct an aquatic passageway between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. It is a story of astonishing engineering feats, tremendous medical accomplishments, political power plays, heroic successes, and tragic failures. |
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The Sydney B. Williamson Papers.
Sydney Bacon Williamson, Class of 1884, served as Division Engineer for the Pacific Division of the Panama Canal from 1907 to 1914. The bulk of the collection documents Williamson’s engineering assignments in Panama, South America, and the United States, and his service on the Interoceanic Canal Board. On top of biographical information, project details and correspondences there’s also some fantastic photos. |
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Cadiz to Cathay by Miles P. DuVal
A detailed history of the diplomatic issues relating to the construction of the Panama Canal including the proposal and eventual rejection of locating the canal in Nicaragua. |
Information about the opening of the Panama Canal is from the 2009 edition of Chase’s Calendar of Events.
It’s the 65th Anniversary of the Allied Landing in Normandy. Preston Library has an extensive collection of resources related to D-Day, here are our favorites.
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From the Praeger Illustrated Military History Series comes four excellent volumes: Gold & Juno Beach, Omaha Beach, Sword Beach & The British Airborne Landings, and Utah Beach & The U.S. Airborne Landings. These slim volumes are packed with details, chronologies, maps and biographical sketches. |
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In one day the town of Bedford, Virginia lost 21 young men. Unlike other military history books Alex Kershaw’s The Bedford Boys follows the soldiers as well as their families and the hometown they left behind. |
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Not a detailed history of the Normandy Invasion, but rather a series of essays that explore topics as varied as the functioning of Allied High Command, German defensive measures and the contributions of air power. The D-Day Companion offers reader’s a big-picture view of the engagement. |
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A film so epic it needed three directors, The Longest Day, depicts both the Allied and German preparations, mistakes, and random events that shaped the outcome of one of the biggest battles in history. The star studded international cast features: John Wayne, Richard Burton, Henry Fonda, Robert Mitchum. Keep your eyes peeled for a pre-James Bond Sean Connery in the role of Pvt. Flanagan, he gets the best one-liners.
Based on the meticulously researched book of the same name by former war correspondent Cornelius Ryan, also available at Preston Library. |
Every year Preston Library celebrates our graduating Cadet Assistants by dedicating a book in their honor. The graduating Cadet Assistants chooses any book in the collection and we put the dedication inside the front cover and display them in the library lobby.
Check out what our cadets selected this year…
Have you ever had to read the same book over and over again?
I must have been assigned Hamlet at least 3 times before I graduated from college…not that it isn’t worth revisiting the classics. I just prefer new spins and variations on a theme.
Take for example Beowulf. I love it, really, I’m probably the only one who never complained about having to read it AGAIN. But isn’t it always a little more interesting to hear the story from another perspective? And a lot of times villains are much more interesting characters than heroes. John Gardner’s Grendel is not the dark, scary, one-note monster you remember. This Grendel (although still a monster) is a fully developed character with thoughts and reasons to fuel his actions. If you didn’t have to read it for school you should check it out.
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King Lear is one of Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies–it’s a good play and also ranks high on the tragedy-meter. There’s not much funny about a King dividing his kingdom based on which daughter loves him most and the ensuing calamity of the decision.
Or is there?
Enter Christopher Moore. Moore’s latest novel, Fool, retells King Lear using the same warped sense of humor you might remember from such novels as You Suck: A Love Story. In this version King Lear’s jester, Pocket, takes over the duty of narrator. Tragedy has never been this funny.
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| And of course the list goes on once you take into account new settings for old stories. |
| Jane Smiley’s Pultizer Prize winning A Thousand Acres is King Lear set on an Iowa Farm. |
| The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski is Hamlet set in Wisconsin, with a dog. |
And my personal favorite:
West Side Story is really Romeo & Juliet, only with better dance numbers. |
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