Nonfiction

  • An unlikely ballerina

    Do you have your Nutcracker tickets yet?  Have you ever wondered how a professional dancer develops the speed and agility to portray the moving magical toys that amaze Nutcracker audiences? The book Olga Preobrazhenskaya: a portrait (by Elvira Roné; tr. Fernau Hall) describes both the hard work and rewards in the life of a young… Continue reading

  • Lose your job, not your mind

    Laid off. Terminated. Made redundant. Let go. Separated. You may feel like burying your face into the nearest cat and sobbing uncontrollably while consuming an entire pint of cookie dough ice cream. (No? Just me?) Trust me, all that gets you is a wet cat and a midnight stomachache. Fear not, you’re not the only… Continue reading

  • Reading about writing

    Reading about writing

    Who would think that books about grammar would be so inviting? Sister Bernadette’s Barking Dog: the Quirky History and Lost Art of Diagramming Sentences is delightful because it fully engages the reader in the odd history of diagramming, from its birth in the mid 1800s to Gertrude Stein’s love of diagramming. People schooled in earlier times will… Continue reading

  • One giant leap for mankind

    What the country needs now is more heroes. Not the celebrities that the media fixates on, but the real deal. That’s what I thought after reading Rocket Men: the Epic Story of the First Men on the Moon by Craig Nelson. I picked it up after hearing about the winding down of NASA’s manned space… Continue reading

  • It’s going to get a bit brighter around the city …

    Several places light up in downtown Seattle this Friday —  at 5 p.m., to be exact. There’s the 22nd Annual Tree Lighting Celebration at Westlake Center, the Space Needle Tree Lighting Celebration of a 35 foot tree with 1,200 lights, and the Macy’s Star Lighting Ceremony of its 161 foot high, 4,300-bulb decoration along with fireworks. You… Continue reading

  • How to plan a wedding without losing your mind

    Sorry. Not possible. Next post. No, I’m kidding; you won’t lose your mind. Just everyone else’s who has to listen to you for the next several months. To mitigate that damage, here’s a few recommendations from someone who just wanted to elope but now finds herself planning not one but TWO ceremonies (one local, one… Continue reading

  • Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist at Work

    Edwidge Danticat, famous Haitian-American author, sees the stress of crisis as a force for artistic creation, and sees the role of the immigrant artist in the documentation of events. Speaking recently at Town Hall in support of her new book, Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist at Work, Danticat explored the theme of being an artist… Continue reading

  • Growing Neighborhood Gardens

    Gardening is in my blood – my mom is a Master Gardener, and I’ve enjoyed digging around in the dirt since I was little. However, as a Seattle renter, I haven’t had much space to garden until this year when I finally got my own plot in a P-Patch Community Garden. Run by the City’s… Continue reading

  • Mushroom Mania

    Autumn in Seattle means rain and lots of it. While many Seattle residents are indoors moaning about the miserable weather, a few of us are rubbing our hands with glee as the drops fall. We are the wild mushroom hunters, and this is our favorite time of year. On any given fall day after it rains,… Continue reading

  • The Sky’s the Limit: Young Women and Aviation

    There are two books in the Library’s collection with titles that sound exactly alike: Flyy Girl and Flygirl. But don’t get them mixed up. One is a gritty, realistic, coming of age urban fiction—that’s Flyy Girl by Omar Tyree. The other, Flygirl, is an action-packed, historical novel about flying during World War II written by… Continue reading

  • The Novel: Live! 36 authors to create a novel in six days

    Here’s your chance to read it as they write it: Tomorrow morning at 10 sharp, novelist Jennie Shortridge will write the opening lines of a new novel, something she’s certainly done before, but never in so public of a space. This time, Shortridge and 35 other local authors are writing on stage in The Novel: Live!  —… Continue reading

  • Seattle’s Bungalows

    On Saturday and Sunday, I had the pleasure of representing the Library at Historic Seattle’s Bungalow Fair, an annual gathering of enthusiasts of bungalows and the Arts and Crafts Movement. Continue reading

  • Compassion and empathy

    “May you live in interesting times.” This phrase is most often said as a curse, and I am of the opinion that we are now living in interesting times. Many people around us have lost their jobs. Some have lost their homes as well. In these times, it is often difficult to deal with the… Continue reading

  • Science Insight – Science Databases

    Gale Science in Context (formerly The Science Resource Center) is a one-stop science database for all your science-related research needs. This in-depth, curriculum-oriented, resource focuses on key concepts taught in school classrooms, including… Biology Chemistry Earth and Environmental Science Health and Medicine Math and Technology Physics and Astronomy In addition to these six major subjects,… Continue reading

  • Science Insight – Secrets of Human Success

    Our latest edition of Scientific American (August 2010) contains a special report titled “Origins” that details  “the untold story of our salvation,”  also known as ‘Secrets of Our Success.”  No, it’s not about key leadership success secrets, nor is it about succeeding in business.  It’s about how once humans almost went extinct, yet … we made… Continue reading

  • Dinosaur News

    For creatures that went extinct 65 million years ago, there has been a surprising amount of dinosaur news in the last few years.  In fact, it seems like pretty much everything I knew as a child about dinosaurs is wrong!  First, Brontosaurus turned out not to be a unique species, or at least that’s not… Continue reading

  • Solidarity Forever! Celebrating Seattle’s Workers and Labor History

    As we enjoy our Labor Day barbecues and picnics, it’s a good time to reflect on Seattle’s extraordinary labor history and honor the men and women whose struggles and hard work not only built this city, but won us cherished rights. The Seattle Public Library is a great place to start research before going to… Continue reading

  • Surfing in Washington state: Part 2

    Steevie pulled up at my place at 6:30 a.m. on a Friday. The conditions were simple: go surfing, and a ride to a softball tournament outside Vancouver, WA will be had. After picking up Teresa, another teammate in need of a ride, we set course for Westport: a two-and-a-half hour drive southwest of Seattle. Apprehension,… Continue reading