Nonfiction

  • Books on Basho and His Haiku at the Seattle Public Library

    Matsuo Basho (1644-1694) was the most famous poet of Japan’s Edo period (1603-1868). His great contribution to Japanese poetry was that he elevated the haiku to a level of art after it had been part of Japanese culture for hundreds of years. His concepts, insights, and understanding of the art form of haiku influenced generations… Continue reading

  • Life Stories: Biographies of Great Americans

    The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey by Candice Millard After a disastrous political defeat, the intrepid Roosevelt and his son undertake a treacherous Amazonian voyage, complete with cannibals.  Surmounting all obstacles, they survive to tell the tale. John Adams by David McCullough McCullough masterfully describes the complex life of one of the most… Continue reading

  • Get Lost (Part 5)

                             (Fifth in a series) Now I don’t know what I’ll find…           Just want to get in the car and drive… Been living too long this way…                                                It’s getting me down…                I know what I need…                                    What I need…             California sun…      It’s calling me… Next stop Calistoga and Napa: 1 day, 1 night… Continue reading

  • Historic Documents: A title worth remembering

    Students, scholars, librarians, or anyone else seriously interested in world affairs or politics in search of primary documents on major topics need look no further than Historic Documents, which has been published yearly since 1972 by Congressional Quarterly Press. This valuable series housed in the reference collection in the History, Travel & Maps Department of… Continue reading

  • Revolutionary Women

    I often judge a book by its cover, and usually it serves me well.  Case in point:  I was immediately drawn to Barbara Hamilton’s The Ninth Daughter because the quill pen and portrait of Abigail Adams on the cover quickly clued me in to the historical setting.  Also, there was a prominent blurb praising the… Continue reading

  • Battling Blindness: New and emerging treatments covered in Medical Lecture Series

    The idea of being able to see with one’s tongue may be too far-fetched even for the world of science fiction, but through recent developments in science, the tongue has become an important nerve center. Modifying a damaged optical nerve to the tongue, or instructing a robotic cell to embed itself into the location of… Continue reading

  • A Feast of Words

    Next month, you may have trouble finding Gourmet magazine on the library shelves. This time, though, it’s not just that somebody else is already flipping through page after deliciously glossy page.  After nearly 70 years of publication, Gourmet will release its final issue this November.  It’s collateral damage in publisher Condé Nast’s desperate bid to turn a… Continue reading

  • Learn about your ancestors at the Library

    Wondering about the roots of your family tree? The library has a wealth of resources, classes and expert staff to help you find out more. You can get started today with the Ancestry database, Library Edition. This video will show you how.                             ~David C. Central Library Continue reading

  • Halloween for Grown Ups

    I am one of those people who just loves to decorate my home with each new holiday and season.  Because of this, Autumn has become my favorite season of all –the changing leaves, colorful pumpkins, and plethora of holidays throughout is just too much for me to resist.  In order to get myself properly decorated… Continue reading

  • Early American Eating

    Back before eating locally was trendy, it was a necessity.  In Depression-era America, one of the WPA projects for out-of-work writers – including Eudora Welty, Saul Bellow and Zora Neale Hurston – was the documentation of regional food traditions.  The bombing of Pearl Harbor cut the project short, and the unedited manuscripts were sent to… Continue reading

  • What a crock!

    On a brilliant blue and blustery day it hit me….the sun may be shining, but autumn is definitely here.  Leaves are starting to litter the ground and the wind bites right through my lightweight summer sweater. I love the change in seasons except for the fact that my walk home from work will now have… Continue reading

  • Hmongs New Year Festival

    There is something about other ethnic groups and cultures in American that never fails to fascinate me!  As a child of immigrant parents, I’ve always had a keen interest in other people’s culture, and especially their “immigrant experience”.  A few months ago, I re-read The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman. This book… Continue reading

  • Cool Enough to Craft?

    In (yet another) desperate attempt to convince my fiancé that my crafting habit does not make me a grandma stuck in the body of a 24-year-old, I dragged him to the Urban Craft Uprising  a couple weekends back.  After several bouts of whining about my obsession with craft fairs and his thereby compromised masculinity, he shocked… Continue reading

  • Genealogy 101: How do I get started researching my family’s history?

    You may have heard your friends or co-workers talking about genealogy, or tried to do some searching on the Internet under your family name. Now you would like to do more research to see what you can learn about your family’s history. Seattle is a great place in which to begin working on your family… Continue reading

  • Staff Favorites from Magnolia, Ballard and Central librarians

    Paradise by A.L. Kennedy This is one brutal book. You’ll either love it or hate it. Hannah is in her mid-30s and works in corrugated box sales. She’s a hardcore alcoholic in love with Robert, also an alcoholic. From Scotland to Montreal their story unfolds like a train wreck. The writing is what makes this… Continue reading

  • Animal Intelligence: they’re smarter than we think

    “There’s something wrong with the telephone!” My mother is hard of hearing, so my dad installed a very loud ringer on our phone that she could hear even from upstairs. Unfortunately, the system seemed to have a defect. The phone rang, but sometimes there was only a dial tone on the other end of the… Continue reading

  • When journalists turn to crime . . .

    The other day a journalism student came to the Library wanting to try a novel by Edna Buchanan, one of her favorite reporters, and we began talking about why some of our favorite mystery/thriller writers (e.g., Connelly and Buchanan, among others) earned their chops on the crime beat or as investigative journalists.  Of course there’s… Continue reading

  • Historical Statistics of the United States: A portrait in very small strokes

      This amazing compendium must warm the heart of any reference librarian. Historical research generally creates portraits of events and eras  in very broad, sketchy strokes. The image is there, but depicted in terms of ‘trends’, or ‘patterns’ which wash away the minute differences that are reflected in peoples’ lives. This  historical approach is not… Continue reading