RenoVous

  On this day in 1920, F. Scott Fitzgerald had his first book published, This Side of Paradise. He started the novel while at Princeton.  After three years in college, he left to join the military.  While stationed in Alabama, he met Zelda Sayre, daughter of a Supreme Court justice.  At the time, she rejected him, afraid he wouldn't be able to support her.   He moved back to New York and finished his work, becoming the youngest author ever published by Scribner's.  Now with fame and fortune, he convinced Zelda to marry him. In 1922, he completed his second novel, The Beautiful and Damned. While in Europe (1925), he wrote The Great Gatsby, which was then followed by Tender is the Night .  During this time, Zelda's mental health deteriorated, a theme seen in the book.  It was published in 1934. Fitzgerald passed away in 1940, leaving behind a fifth unfinished novel, The Last Tycoon, which was released posthumously. He wrote 178 short stories in...

  Stieg Larsson, author of the Millennium Trilogy, died on this day in 2004. The collection includes The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl who Played with Fire, and The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest.  He had turned in the manuscripts just months before his passing. He therefore missed all the acclaim for his work - the novels as well as the adaptations in film and comics.  By 2019, the series had sold more than 100M copies worldwide. Born in Skelleftehamm in Northern Sweden, Stieg moved to Stockholm in the 60's with his parents, where he began working as a graphic designer for a news agency.  He later became an investigative journalist, exposing right-wing extremist groups. In the series, Mikael Blomkvist is a journalist as well, initially hired to prove the story he's being accused of libel over.  Lisbeth Salander is the gifted private investigator and a skilled computer hacker.  In the first, they take down a CEO who has been abusing and murdering...

 W.E.B. Du Bois was born on this day in 1868 in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. In 1884 he became the first African American graduate of the town's racially integrated high school, and went on to enroll at Harvard in 1888.  He received his BA in 1890, MA in 1891, and PhD in 1895. Influenced by history and philosophy, he devoted most of his life's work to studying Black Americans from a sociological point of view.  His doctoral thesis was titled, "The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America, 1638-1870," published in 1896. Du Bois was then invited to conduct a study of the Seventh Ward in Philadelphia, which produced The Philadelphia Negro  in 1899.  During his time there, he also delivered an address, "The Study of the Negro Problem."  He was advancing the purpose and methods for scholarly examination of the condition of black people, and he was passionate about the conservation of the African American culture and identity. Mo...

  This day aims to highlight the importance and value of literary education. Reno is following up this weekend with a Literary Crawl. On the agenda: Nevada P.S. I love you Postcard Project. UFOs and Ghost Stories Biggest Little Divorce Capital Oh, there's plenty more on the events calendar, but those are the main ones I want to catch. From a city that loves its pub crawls, I just love this idea of celebrating our home, our authors and poets, our bookstores and museums.   Link From our Poet Laureate, Gailmarie Pahmeier. Link So read, donate, volunteer, tutor - the UN considers literacy a key component of sustainable development.  "For countries to be developed in a sustainable manner, they must assure that their citizens are able to function on a literate level, for their own benefit as well as the world around them." Days of the Year

  I love the stacks - for the smell, and for the hidden treasures to be found. Timely enough, I finished my Agatha Christie and I've moved on to....John Grisham. Still on the crime beat. The first book ever written (that we know of) is The Epic of Gilgamesh , an ancient poem from Mesopotamia carved into stone tablets. It is considered a foundation of heroic sagas. And it was held in the first organized library - The Library of Ashurbanipal. Named after the last great king of the Assyrian empire, it was established in the 7th century and held thousands of clay tablets in various languages.  The Dream Tablet was recently returned to Iraq. The first book to have been written on paper is said to have come from China.  The pulp was created from mulberries, hemp, bark, and even fish.  A sheet of paper was then called a leaf, and once written or printed upon, it would be called a folio. Before Gutenberg's printing press, to print was to use wooden blocks. The Diamond Sutra ...

  March 25 marks the downfall of Sauron, and so we celebrate. I haven't actually read The Lord of the Rings  but I have The Fellowship of the Ring  on my bookshelf, and I have read The Hobbit . And I watched the movies, of course.   I was so in awe of Galadriel... Galadriel's Song I sang of leaves, of leaves of gold, and leaves of gold there grew: Of wind I sang, a wind there came and in the branches blew. Beyond the Sun, beyond the Moon, the foam was on the Sea, And by the strand of Ilmarin there grew a golden Tree. Beneath the stars of Ever-eve in Eldamar it shone, In Eldamar beside the walls of Elven Tirion. There long the golden leaves have grown upon the branching years, While here beyond the Sundering Seas now fall the Elven-tears. O Lórien! The Winter comes, the bare and leafless Day; The leaves are falling in the stream, the River flows away. O Lórien! Too long I have dwelt upon this Hither Shore And in a fading crown have twined the golden elanor. But i...

 In the spirit of Halloween this month, I have some horror history to share today. On November 13, 1974 Ronald DeFeo Jr entered an Amityville bar and told everyone his parents had been shot.  A number of people returned to the house with him, police were called.  Inside the home they found Ronald Sr, his wife Louise, and their children; Dawn, Allison, Marc, and John. On November 14, Jr confessed to the crimes, after claiming it had been a mob hit. On this day in 1975, his trial began.  His attorney argued for an insanity defense, but he was convicted on six counts of second-degree murder. The interesting thing is all six of the victims were killed in their sleep, with no sign of a struggle, and no neighbors reported hearing gunshots, even though the rifle did not have a silencer... In December 1975, the Lutzes moved into the home.  They had been advised of the murders, and got a nice deal.  They only stayed 28 days before leaving everything behind, claiming...

In honor of Dr. Seuss' birthday on March 2, this week is Read Across America. A teacher friend's door decoration for the week.  So fun! Many of us read Dr. Seuss growing up - he wrote over 60 children's books - and I still think fondly of my favorites.  Hop on Pop, Fox in Socks, and Oh, the Places You'll Go  just to name a few. But this isn't just about Dr. Seuss, it's about motivating children to read more.  I remember reading a lot as a kid, I even liked it in high school when we had to read and take tests for points. I've still been slacking so far this year, but I think once it's summer and we're camping more again, I'll get more reading in... What have you been reading??

I don't often make New Year's resolutions but this year I really want to read more.  After all, January is Hobby Month! I don't buy many books, but I love wandering book stores - libraries are my favorite though, especially our downtown one. One of my favorite quotes is from Simone de Beauvoir, and today is her birthday. "The fact that we are human beings is infinitely more important than all the peculiarities that distinguish human beings from one another." A French author and philosopher, she was an existentialist feminist.  In her work, The Second Sex, she asks, "What is woman?"  Released in 1949, it is considered the starting point of second-wave feminism (1960's), as it inspired Betty Friedan to write The Feminine Mystique.

Chuck Palahniuk Born 02/21/1962 in Burbank, WA. Palahniuk is a Ukranian name, and is pronounced as a combination of his paternal grandparents' first names - Paula and Nick. After high school he joined The Cacophony Society, which is said to be the inspiration for Project Mayhem in Fight Club.    He wrote his first fictional story in his 30's, Negative Reinforcement, which was released in 1990 in the journal, Modern Short Stories. Chuck then wrote If You Lived Here, You'd be Home Right Now  but it was rejected and never printed.  He was told he was writing too dark.  He wrote Manifesto  (which would later become Invisible Monsters ) but was again rejected. So much like a theme in Fight Club , Chuck turned his back on the mainstream, and he wrote his biggest work to date. After success of the book and the movie, Chuck was given free reign, and has written/released a book pretty much every year since. I've just finished I...