Library Ireland Week - More Events

Here are further events taking place during Library Ireland Week in County Galway Libraries

Clifden Library
Monday 3rd March for week – Display of local craftwork and Exhibition of photographs and postcards of Clifden
Friday 6th 12pm: "Active Wellness; wellbeing and nutrition for everyone" a talk by Ms Eileen O’Connor.

Headford Library
Wed 5th March: " O’Donovan’s Placenames – Headford area" a talk by Ms Anne Ridge, BA, MA
Wed 12th March: Local gardener Kay Guy will give a talk on Springtime in the Garden. She will also judge the Chidren’s Art Competition and prizes will be presented.

Gort Library
Mon 3rd: for week-- Exhibition of old photographs of Gort
Sat 29th March: The renowned Storyteller Eddie Lenihan will perform for the Gort Literary Festival organized by the Western Writers Centre.

Loughrea Library
Mon 3rd to 18th March: Exhibition "Mo Leabhar" by Gaelscoil Riabach
Tues 11th: Gaeilge Locha Riach will host a Lecture on Patsy Tuohy—Piper by Pat Mitchell
Thurs 13th: Scealaíocht le Seamus MacAnnaidh do Gaelscoil Riabhach.

Athenry Library
Wed 5th: 'Colour me Beautiful', Consultant Nichol Cannon will give a talk and demonstration

Library Ireland Week 2008

Here are some of the events taking place in Galway Public Libraries during Library Ireland Week.

Tuam Library
Monday 3rd March: Galway based artist Jim Kavanagh will do the first of a three part series of workshops for adults with learning difficulties. A group of ten people from Ability West will paint pictures for their own homes, which will then be framed and exhibited.

Tuesday 4th March: "Revolting Rhymes" drama workshops with Midi Corcoran, from the Tuam Arts Festival. Midi will bring along costumes and make up and the children will act out the stories from ‘Revolting Rhymes’.– 2 sessions.

Wednesday 5th March: Storyteller Matthew Noone will delight children with his tales from around the world. His style of storytelling uses African drums, Indian lutes and the odd touch of rocking guitar which creates a rich sensory experience of the myths and folk tales he weaves. – 2 sessions.

Ballinasloe Library
Tuesday 4th March: Historical Society lecture "Emigration and Return 1890-1920..south Roscommon" by Diane Dunnigan at 7.30pm

Wednesday 5th March: Poetry reading with Galway City Council’s writer in residence Michael O'Loughlin at 8.00pm.

Portumna Library
Mon. 3rd March @ 7.15pm: Book club meeting - Book for discussion this month - Bill Bryson's life and times of the thunderbolt kid.
and @ 8.00pm - Ann Heagney and Margaret Rudkins will give a talk on "The components in maintaining positive mental health"
Wed 5th March @ 7.30: Literary Readings from Portumna Pen Pushers and Maple Poetry group.
Thurs 6th March: - Local Art Exhibition launched at 7.30pm with cheese and wine reception.

2008 IMPAC Literary Award

The International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award is open to works of fiction written in, or translated into English and published within a specified period of time.The nomination process for the Award is unique as nominations are made by selected libraries in capital and major cities throughout the world. Participating libraries can nominate up to three books each year for the Award:
Galway Library staff should email their nominations to HQ, who will aggregate the information and forward to Impac. Nominations should reach us by the 18th of April. To refresh your mind see the nominated 2008 longlist here.

The books must meet the following criteria for eligibility.

• Only Novels are eligible.
  You may nominate up to three novels which must have been:
• first published in English between 2007 and 2007, both dates inclusive, or
• first published in a language other than English between 2003 and 2007 and first published in English in 2007
• Books nominated and eligible in previous years are NOT eligible for this year
• Your choice should be based soley on literary merit

Readers may be interested in the following books which have been added to stock at Galway City Library:

White King, by György Dragomán, Houghton Mifflin.
Eleven-year-old Djata makes sure he is always home on Sundays. It is the day the State Security came to take his father away, and he believes it will be a Sunday when his father is finally sent home again. This disturbing, compelling, beautifully translated novel is set in an unnamed totalitarian, communist regime, based on the nationalist, Stalinist, poverty-stricken Romania of the 1980s where Dragomán grew up. The most moving parts of the book are the quieter moments - how one morning he slips out of the flat to cut tulips for his mother.

Night Train to Lisbon, by Pascal Mercier, Grove Press
Raimund Gregorius, a Swiss professor of languages, is crossing a rainy bridge in Bern when a mysterious woman writes a phone number on his forehead and utters a single word in Portuguese. A number of unexplained and seemingly unrelated events conspire to tear Gregorius out of his solitary and unvarying existence and send him to Lisbon in search of both the woman and a book’s author. This novel caused a sensation in Europe and spent 140 weeks on the German best-sellers lists. The book becomes a moving meditation on the defining moments in our lives, the "silent explosions that change everything."

The Bad Girl, by Mario Vargas Llosa, Farrar, Straus and Giroux
"What was her name, her home, her life, her past?" wonders Flaubert’s Frédéric Moreau on seeing Mme Arnoux for the first time. "Even the desire for physical possession gave way to an aching curiosity which knew no bounds." Much the same feeling is stirred in the narrator of this novel by the woman to whom he consecrates his life. So indefatigably unreliable and elusive will she prove, that the narrator’s curiosity, far from being satisfied, is endlessly renewed. He will meet her again and again, over forty years, in several different cities, and fall in love with her anew each and every time. (TLS)

Library Ireland Week 2008

In order to promote the work of Librarians and Libraries, the Library Association of Ireland (LAI) co-ordinated, with the help of libraries and information units all over Ireland, the first Library Ireland Week during March 2005.

This was the first time that the LAI held a series of events nationally and locally to celebrate Librarians and Libraries. There was a huge response from members in all types of Libraries and information services all over Ireland. They marked this event by highlighting their work, holding events, drawing attention to the issues Librarians and Libraries face, celebrating our achievements.

Library Ireland Week 2008 takes place from 3rd – 9th March . Posters, bookmarkers, a logo and a website will all feature in this year’s publicity campaign.

Adventures in Reading

Readers may be interested in the following books which have been added to stock at Galway City Library:

Frank Zappa: A Biography, by Barry Miles. Atlantic
An engrossing portrait of the troubled musical genius who died in 1993 at age 52. Zappa endured a peripatetic youth and an early brush with the law that fueled his trademark anti-authoritarian strain; his musical brilliance eventually transformed him from class clown into one of rock's major icons. The book skillfully weaves together the major beats and minor notes of Zappa's remarkable life: he was a hard-rocking star, but also a meticulous, studious composer influenced by Varèse and Stravinsky. Well written and exceedingly well referenced, right down to the exhaustive discography.


The Poems of St. John of the Cross ; University of Chicago Press
St. John of the Cross, a 16th-century mystic, wrote a small body of poems, many of them while he was imprisoned. His poems often blur the line between romantic and religious love in the tradition of Song of Songs; it's often difficult not to interpret them as secular love poems. These are poems to read aloud to a lover, poems to read silently before God, poems that quiver before the world's beauty and thankfully seek to describe something beyond it--a God whose undeniable intimacy with humanity always edges toward the ineffable.

Nureyev: The Life, by Julie Kavanagh ; Pantheon
Rudolf Nureyev had it all: beauty, genius, charm, passion, and sex appeal. No other dancer of our time has generated the same excitement. This is a lovingly crafted biography of the dancer who leaped out of the Soviet Union in 1961 and settled into a spectacular if erratic orbit of the ballet world. Drawing on previously undisclosed letters, diaries, and interviews with Nureyev’s inner circle, Julie Kavanagh gives the most intimate, revealing, and dramatic picture we have ever had of this dazzling, complex figure. A brilliant work worthy of its mercurial subject.

NewsBank's Hot Topics

Galway Public Libraries continues to offer it's library users full access to NewsBank which is a full text newspaper database, providing online access to international news articles in both broadsheet and tabloid newspapers. News articles are complemented by additional sections including obituaries, literary criticism, people, editorial pieces and book/film/art reviews. New articles are added to NewsBank on a daily basis to ensure the collection is as current as possible.

To search NewsBank simply enter the Barcode No. from the back of your Library Membership Card here. To become a Galway Library member and use this service go here

Included below are some subject areas from their topical 'Hot Topics' service:

FINE ARTS AND ARCHITECTURE - Model for the Mona Lisa Topic: A researcher at the University of Heidelberg has recently uncovered evidence that confirms the identity of the woman portrayed in Leonardo Da Vinci's Mona Lisa. Who is the woman? What is the evidence that was used to identify this woman?
Search Terms: Mona Lisa AND art

CIVICS, GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS - Iraq's New Flag Topic: Iraq has passed a new law which changed the design of their national flag to eradicate any vestiges of the Saddam Hussein era. What will the new flag mean to Iraqis? Will this new design help in building peace between the different political factions?
Search Terms: Iraq AND flags

LITERATURE - Margaret Truman Topic: Novelist Margaret Truman was known for many reasons. What kind of novels did Ms.Truman write? Who was Ms. Truman's father? What career did Ms. Truman have before writing novels?
Search Terms: Margaret Truman

HISTORY - Japanese Immigration to Brazil Topic: Brazil is celebrating the 100th anniversary of Japanese immigration to their country. What are some of the contributions the immigrants have made to their new country? Is immigration good or bad for a country?
Search Terms: Brazil AND Japan AND immigration

LITERATURE - Best Sellers on Phones Topic: In Japan, cell phone novels are now considered a new literary genre and readers are spending 2 to 3 hours a day on their phones. Publishers are printing the more popular stories to keep up with the trend. Will this type of fiction delivery be good for building a new nation of readers? Do you believe the fiction will ever receive any major literary prizes?
Search Terms: cellular telephones AND fiction

HEALTH - Blood Type Change Topic: A young girl in Australia who received a liver transplant five years ago found her blood-type and immune system changing to match that of the donor. She no longer has to take the drugs that prevent her body from rejecting the new organ. Will this discovery lead to more transplants? Will organ donations increase to cover the demand?
Search Terms: Blood Types AND Transplants AND Australia

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY - Mercury is Shrinking Topic: The planet Mercury is shrinking in size. What is causing this? How have scientists been able to determine this?
Search Terms: Mercury AND planet

"long prepared and graced with courage"

John Lonergan, Governor of Mountjoy Prison, speaking at a recent library conference said that it was not books, it was not the internet, rather it was people who came into the library who were important.
He advised: "especially the people at the bottom....... listen to them, hear what they have to say." He said that we were not there to worry or to be concerned about what the Minister thought or what those in authority wanted. No….he said that "we need to make those at the bottom feel welcome in our libraries."
And he continued: "People who need warmth and love in their lives........ and who have missed out on these things in their lives....... dealing kindly and helpfully with these people will repay us a thousand fold, both personally and in terms of the library service."

His words brought to mind some of the lines of the Greek poet Constantine P. Cavafy who wrote; ....."let us be long prepared and graced with courage."

Here is a variation on that poem by Cavafy:
"As one long prepared, and graced with courage,
as is right for you who were given this honour of working in a library,
go firmly to engage your readers each day
and listen with deep emotion
listen to the voices
to the exquisite music of that strange procession
of people who regularly visit."

Cavafy's portrait by artist
Panagiotis Gravallos

Adventures in Reading

Readers may be interested in the following books which have been added to stock at Galway City Library:

Madame, by Antoni Libera; Canongate
Madame is an unexpected gem: a novel about Poland during the grim years of Soviet-controlled mediocrity, which nonetheless sparkles with light and warmth.
Our young narrator-hero is suffering through the regulated boredom of high school when he is transfixed by a new teacher --an elegant "older woman" who bewitches him with her glacial beauty and her strict intelligence. He resolves to learn everything he can about her and to win her heart. This deeply symbolic novel is full of tragedy and comedy, exuberance and suffocation.

The Turkish Lover, by Esmeralda Santiago; MERLOYD LAWRENCE Memoir in which the narrator tells of running off with a struggling Turkish filmmaker 17 years her senior. Their relationship was lopsided. Santiago is an immensely powerful storyteller, and The Turkish Lover is imbued with grace and passionate honesty. She unflinchingly examines what drew her to such a destructive relationship and why she stayed so long. When life becomes frustrating, she falls back on the theory that "there [will] always be another train." The voice of Santiago is fresh, exciting, and necessary.

Lying Awake, by Mark Salzman ; Vintage
The life of a modern nun is often misjudged, mysterious, and quizzical. When a nun is the recipient of mystical visions and ecstasies, and the fame that results from them, her life is all the more fascinating. Her visions have gained her and her community fame. But Sister John's visions are accompanied by powerful headaches, and when a doctor reveals that they may be dangerous, she faces a devastating choice. To make her decision, Sister John must re-examine her path to the cloistered life and test the strength of her most cherished beliefs. In this spare, affecting novel, Salzman creates a compelling portrait of faith and the interior life.

Matters of the Heart

Oranmore Library hosts the launch of a new book of poetry by Robert Allen Eastwood on Wednesday February 6th at 7.30pm. The book will be launched by Dr Kieran Daly. Entitled Affairs of the Heart, it is published by Croí and proceeds from it's sale will support the West of Ireland Cardiology Foundation.

Newbery and Caldecott Medal Awards 2008

The Newbery Medal
The Newbery Medal was named after eighteenth-century British bookseller John Newbery. It is awarded annually by the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association, to the author of the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children.
Medal Winner 2008

Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village by Laura Amy Schlitz (Candlewick Press)

Newbery Honor Books
Elijah of Buxton by Christopher Paul Curtis (Scholastic/Scholastic Press)
The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt (Clarion)
Feathers by Jacqueline Woodson (Putnam/GP Putnam's Sons)

Caldecott Medal
The Caldecott Medal was named in honor of nineteenth-century English illustrator Randolph Caldecott. It is awarded annually by the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association, to the artist of the most distinguished American picture book for children.
Medal Winner 2008

The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick (Scholastic)

Caldecott Honor Books
Henry's Freedom Box: A True Story from the Underground Railroad, illustrated by Kadir Nelson, written by Ellen Levine (Scholastic/Scholastic Press)
First the Egg by Laura Vaccaro Seeger (Roaring Brook/Neal Porter)
The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtin by Peter Sís (Farrar/Frances Foster)

Adventures in Reading

Readers may be interested in the following books which have been added to stock at Galway City Library:

Flower Confidential: The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful in the Business of Flowers, by Amy Stewart; Algonquin Books
People around the world buy more flowers a year than they do Big Macs, spending billions of dollars annually. We use them to mark our most important events, to express sentiments that might otherwise go unsaid. And we demand perfection. So it’s no surprise that there is a $40 billion global industry devoted to making flowers flawless. Stewart takes us inside the flower trade, bringing to light the complex life of flowers. Who knows? This book may compel us to return to something purer, more local.

A Hundred White Daffodils, by Jane Kenyon; Graywolf Press
Jane Kenyon died of leukaemia in 1995. Accessible, earnest, and devoid of urbane ironies, the essays here focus mostly on either her small (New England) country community or her garden, examining her growing spiritual life and what it is to live while things are going on inside without one's knowledge or consent. Also covered are notions of writing, and, in one of the interviews, a discussion of her struggle with depression. The book succeeds in illuminating a poet and woman of remarkable presence.

Another Beauty, by Adam Zagajewski; University of Georgia Press
Zagajewski is one of Poland's most important poets. Born as Poland was delivered from Nazism to Communism, Zagajewski became philosopher and poet in a society in which ideology always trumped reality and excellence was not always rewarded. This elegant scrapbook is full of pithy and compelling observations on art and society, of luminous descriptions of Krakow and Paris, where Zagajewski now lives. If not a book for everyone, it will be taken very close to heart by those who decide it is definitely for them.

Over The Edge Celebrates Fifth Birthday

The first ‘Over The Edge: Open Reading’ of 2008 takes place in Galway City Library on Thursday, January 24th, 6.30-8.00pm.

The Featured Readers are Peter Guy, Jenny McCudden & Pat Boran. The reading is sponsored by Poetry Ireland. This is a very special occasion as it is now exactly five years since Over The Edge was born in Galway City Library in January 2003.

Peter Guy is a senior researcher and fellow of the National Centre for Franco-Irish Studies based in ITT Dublin. He has been published in a number of Irish and international periodicals, including The Cúirt Annual, Iota, Poetry Nottingham, Comstock Review, Quarterly West, Indiana Review and others. He happily divides his time between west Dublin, east Limerick and his native Connemara.

Jenny McCudden is originally from Naas in county Kildare. She now lives in Galway and works as Western Correspondent for TV3 News. Jenny began her career as a journalist working for the Sunday World and the Westmeath Offaly Independent. She spent five years in the UK, working for the BBC, before returning to take up her current position with TV3. She has always enjoyed writing fiction and poetry.

Pat Boran was born in Portlaoise in 1963 and currently lives in Dublin, where he is Director of Dedalus Press. Prior to taking over the press in 2005, he published four collections of poetry with Dedalus: The Unwound Clock (1990), which won the Patrick Kavanagh Award, Familiar Things (1993), The Shape of Water (1996) and As the Hand, the Glove (2001). His New and Selected Poems (first published by Salt Publishing in 2005) was reissued recently, with minor revisions, by Dedalus. A regular reviewer of new poetry and fiction titles in a number of Irish national newspapers and journals, he also presents The Poetry Programme on RTÉ Radio 1.

As usual there will be an open-mic after the Featured Readers have finished. New readers are always particularly welcome. The MC for the evening will be Susan Millar DuMars. For further details phone 087-6431748.

The questions of life

Fernando Savater is one of Spain's most eminent philosophers. He believes that books make education a truly liberating experience. He has stated that reading is fundamental in one’s educational development. "Education concerns all citizens because it undergirds human relationships, participation and tolerance. In this regard, reflective reading—in its role as a basic tool in the learning process—is essential to sustaining the health and resilience of the social fabric.

'Without falling into elitist attitudes, we have to recognize that the ability to read a book has an educational and even moral dimension that cannot be ignored."

Adventures in Reading

Readers may be interested in the following books which have been added to stock at Galway City Library

Twilight of Love: Travels with Turgenev, by Robert Dessaix, Picador
A writer searches out the significant sites in the life of Ivan Turgenev and ponders love, obsession, creation and literary celebrity. This is an enchanting memoir of a search for the soul of Russian writer Turgenev. Feeling the urge to know his old friend better, Dessaix set out to visit Turgenev's various homes in Germany, France and Russia. Dessaix was perplexed by the writer's love life; his passion for married opera singer Pauline Viardot led him into a lifelong triangle with her and her husband. Simply, gracefully and wisely written, saturated with the sorrows and joys of years.

Emily Dickinson's Gardens: A Celebration of a Poet and Gardener, by Marta McDowell, McGraw Hill
Welcome to Emily Dickinson's gardening year. Following the seasons around the calendar--from the first buds of spring to winter's last days--this unique volume invites you to accompany the poet on her solitary wildflower excursions through the fields of old Amherst; and, best of all, take a stroll along the flagstone paths of her exquisite Victorian gardens. This is the "brighter garden" that Emily Dickinson created and nurtured at her home in Amherst, and it's all here for you to enjoy and re-create in your own backyard.

The Second Sex, by Simone de Beauvoir, Vintage
Last week marked the centenary of the birth of Simone de Beauvoir. An accomplished novelist, Beauvoir won the Prix Goncourt for The Mandarins in 1954. Yet on her 100th anniversary, it is to The Second Sex, her epochal essay from 1949 on the oppression of women, that we should return. Ever since it was published, The Second Sex has provoked intense responses. In the years before the women's movement, The Second Sex was a source of inspiration and insight for countless women. "It changed my life!" is a refrain one often hears. The Second Sex is a wonderfully energetic book. (Guardian).

To read or not to read, that is the question

Reading

Books are the most amazing beginning of freedom and brotherhood. They are a horizon of happiness of reflected light, which allows us to feel the salvation, the enlightenment that is the opposite of the trivial space of the already known thing.In the silence of the writing the lines speak to us, a new voice sounds, a regenerative one.Through literature we have the opportunity to discover a new world, a world that we never would have discovered without the power of words.
One of the most amazing prodigies of human life and of cultural life is that it is constituted by the possibility of living through other words, to feel other feelings and to have new thoughts and visions.
Literature is not just the principle and origin of intellectual freedom; it is a universe for a free world of imagination, a territory of infinite possibility.
Books are doors that nobody can close against us.
The most dangerous censorship would be if we censored ourselves and did not read anymore, because without reading, we would loose the passion of understanding the happiness of knowing.
If we get used to being nonconformist with words, we will end up by being nonconformist with the facts. Liberty does not admit any conformity.

'Literature is not just the principle and origin of intellectual freedom;
It is a universe of a free world of imagination,
A territory of infinite possibility'

Emilio Lledó

Translated and compiled by Vanessa Lafarga Kärnä
Galway Public Libraries

Adventures in Reading

Readers may be interested in the following books which have been added to stock at Galway City Library:

What I Loved, by Siri Hustvedt
The ardent exchange of ideas underlies all manner of passionate action in this dark tale of two intertwined New York families. After
buying an astonishing painting in a SoHo gallery, art historian Leo Hertzberg tracks down the artist, Bill Wechsler, and they launch a lifelong friendship with all the attendant joys and sorrows. Hustvedt is terrific at evoking the milieu of the haute bourgeoisie—the house in Vermont and the wine-drenched meals. A remarkable achievement of Siri Hustvedt's prose, with its attention to nuance and intricacy, is its demonstration that friendship is a powerful form of intelligence.


Albert Camus: A Life, by Olivier Todd, Da Capo Press
This is a rich description of Camus's life in colonial Algiers, wartime Paris, and his relationship with his immediate family, wives, and lovers. Todd's use of personal correspondence, interviews with family members, and previously unused public records reveals a complex man who was a philosopher, novelist, literary editor, and journalist at odds with fellow French intellectuals over his political beliefs. This is a fine portrait of a man whose ideas on freedom, nationalism, and violence are as necessary today as they were half a century ago.

The Questions of Life: An Invitation to Philosophy, by Fernando Savater, Polity
Savater is one of Spain's most eminent philosophers. He believes that books make education a truly liberating experience. He has stated that reading is fundamental in one’s educational development. "Education concerns all citizens because it undergirds human relationships, participation and tolerance. In this regard, reflective reading—in its role as a basic tool in the learning process—is essential to sustaining the health and resilience of the social fabric. Without falling into elitist attitudes, we have to recognize that the ability to read a book has an educational and even moral dimension that cannot be ignored."

Poetry by Deirdre Brennan from Arlen House

The poet Deirdre Brennan’s latest work is a twin-volume containing two distinct works, a book of poetry in English entitled Swimming with Pelicans and a book of poetry in Irish entitled Ag Eitilt fara Condair. The book was launched in Galway City Library on Thursday November 22nd.

One of the poems in the collection is entitled An Hibiscus, the Hibiscus being that tropical flower of such great and universally admired beauty. Deirdre Brennan’s poem discusses the invisibility of older people, especially older women.
We liked the poem very much and in preparation for the launch Petrina Mee, a member of library staff at Library Headquarters, translated the poem into English. We reproduce below a section of the translation, and we hope that it will encourage you to enjoy the full poem in it’s original form and that you will also seek out more of Deirdre Brennan’s fine poetry.

Deirdre Brennan’s book is published by Arlen House. It is full of poems of the kind of power and life and colour to be found in the lines below:

The change to city life was hard on her,
she who had lived all her life in a rural setting
the young starlings would have learned how to fly by now;
the hawk-moths sucking August sweetness from the petunias
and the owls calling in the night in her old garden

She felt herself taking on the form of a hibiscus, potted up in a hothouse,
her blooms as red as wild corn-poppies
in the morning, the trumpet of her petals opening,
falling to the windowsill by day’s end
some day they’d see her own petals closing one after the other
folding over on her stamen so compactly
that they would not be able to separate them from each other without tearing them.

Most popular books in 2007

According to our computerised records the most popular book issues in Galway Public Libraries for 2007 were as follows:

Adult Fiction

• Hosseini, Khaled: A thousand splendid suns
  
• Binchy, Maeve: Whitethorn Woods
  
• Keyes, Marian: Anybody out there?
  
• Edwards, Kim: The memory keeper's daughter
  
• Patterson, James: Judge and jury
  
• Ahern, Cecelia: Where rainbows end
  
• Ahern, Cecelia: If you could see me now
  
• Picoult, Jodi: My sister's keeper
  
• O'Flanagan, Sheila: Anyone but him
  
• Connelly, Michael: Echo Park
  
  

Adult Non-Fiction

• Bird, Charlie: This is Charlie Bird
  
• McGrath, Paul: Paul McGrath :the autobiography
  
• Robinson, Tim: Connemara :listening to the wind
  
• Purcell, Deirdre: Diamonds and holes in my shoes
  
• McGahern, John: Memoir
  
• Grisham, John:The innocent man
  
• Shields, Stan: Stan's Galway
  
• Henry, William: Galway and the Great War
  
• Bryson, Bill: The life and times of the Thunderbolt Kid :a memoir
  
• D'Arcy, Brian: A different journey
  
  

Juvenile Fiction

• Wilson, Jacqueline: Best friends
  
• Sharratt, Nick: Best friends
  
• Rowling, J. K.: Harry Potter and the half-blood prince
  
• Rowling, J. K.: Harry Potter and the deathly hallows
  
• Simon, Francesca: Horrid Henry's underpants
  
• Black, Holly:The field guide: Book 1 :Spiderwick chronicles
  
• Snicket, Lemony: The wide window :book the third
  
• Child, Lauren: Clarice Bean spells trouble
  
• Sharratt, Nick:The bed and breakfast star
  

Juvenile Non-Fiction

• Deary, Terry: Ireland
  
• Frank, Anne: The diary of a young girl
  
• Simon, Francesca: Horrid Henry's joke book:
  
• Deary, Terry: The awesome Egyptians
  
• Daynes, Katie: Titanic
  
• Deary, Terry:The frightful First World War
  
• Gibson, Ray: The Usborne book of art ideas
  
  
• Deary, Terry: Dark knights and dingy castles
  
• Deary, Terry: The cut-throat Celts
  
  
  

Adventures in Reading

Readers may be interested in the following books which have been added to stock at Galway City Library:

Tomás Rivera: The Complete Works; Arte Publico Press
Tomas Rivera presents us with the lives migratory farm workers in Texas during the decade of 1950 with all its joys and sorrows. Searching is a constant theme in his work: searching for work, searching for identity, and the quest for community. "How long, how long have we been searchers...from within came the passion to create a new life, a new dream every day. In the dump we discovered beautiful flowers among the cans and broken bottles. The sky was blue blue and even the birds looked at it and didn't disturb its beauty, a sacred blue pushing toward the earth."

The Charterhouse of Parma, by Stendhal; Modern Library
The narrative takes the reader by storm with its fervid pace, the pace at which Stendhal wrote it. This translation by the distinguished poet, Richard Howard, preserves the brio, gusto, élan, verve, and panache of the original. The novel's hero is always measuring his life against the poems and novels he has read. He keeps checking up on himself, as if trying to conform to some hidden master plan for being, or for loving -- a plan that, as the novel tragically demonstrates, he is never quite able to follow.

Three Stories and a Reflection, by Patrick Suskind; Bloomsbury Publishing
The topics are all plucked from the life - sometimes melancholy, sometimes mysterious or dark, and never monumental but they tie one from the first sentence. The protagonists are underdogs or losers, and come mostly from humble backgrounds. The art lies not in the content of the stories, it is in their words. In the opening story, about a young painter who after harmless criticism plunges into despair, Suskind writes about the frightening power of superficial criticism.

Database of Irish women's writing, 1800-2005

The University of Warwick and University College Dublin has constructed a bibliographical database of Irish women writers, who wrote in both Irish and English, between 1800 and 2005. The database includes a whole range of publications, such as novels, articles, poems, memoirs, travel writing, essays, cookery writing, plays, films, etc.

The database also provides biographical details, where available, such as birth dates, date of death, place of birth and death, places associated with a particular author, together with all known pseudonyms. Every known edition of a book, play, or film is listed, along with details of printers and publishers for each work. The project was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

The database is now freely available here

Enhancements to News Resources

NewsBank, inc. has been one of the world’s premier information providers for more than 35 years. They will soon release an enhanced interface that significantly improves search results across their unrivaled local, national and international newspaper content. These enhancements to our news products, including —Australia's Newspapers, Access UK and Ireland Newspapers, Access World News—will go live on January 7, 2008.
Researchers using news databases are frequently overwhelmed by excessive or unrelated search returns. The solution: intuitive tools that narrow or refine the focus of a search to quickly produce specific, useful results. These new features, developed with an advisory board of librarians from around the world, enable users to:

• more quickly and efficiently navigate through millions of articles
  tailor searches by specific source, one or multiple geographic locations, source types and more
  
• further refine search returns by title, date, source type or location with a single click
• explore timelines on specific topics or events to understand at a glance how coverage has changed over time
• compare different viewpoints and uncover differences in news coverage across locations and time periods
  

This service is available to Galway Public Library members through our website here. You will need to login using the barcode on your library membership card

Literature in Libraries

Since its foundation in 1995, 'Markings' has evolved into one of Scotland’s most popular literary magazines. Its content addresses poetry, fiction, contemporary art, criticism and reviews, including both commissioned and unsolicited material. Editorial policy is to feature writers and artists from southern Scotland, alongside their counterparts from around the world. A significant portion of each issue is dedicated to one writer and artist, enabling them to present a representative body of work.

Markings has teamed up with Bibliographic Data Services Ltd (BDS) to create the BDS Literature in Libraries scheme which involves searching for new talent in poetry and short story writing from writers who are in any way associated with libraries. Further information can be had by contacting the magazine here.

The current edition (Issue 25 October 2007), is available in Galway City Library. It includes contributions from performances made at this years Kiltimagh Literary Festival: Insight of Rafteri featuring Over the Edge poets Kevin Higgins and Susan Miller Du Mars.

Adventures in Reading

Readers may be interested in the following books which have been added to stock at Galway City Library:

Tonguecat, by Peter Verhelst-Farrar, Straus and Giroux
These days, the pursuit of perfection is all around us, a pursuit that is based on the notion that we can alter the world to suit us. But, according to recent theories, this view is untenable and perfect order always ultimately degenerates into chaos. In Tongue Cat, Peter Verhelst uses the various stories to describe how a city falls apart and comes to grief in chaos and violence. In the masterly final chapter, Verhelst lets the story, together with the city, burst apart at the seams. Tonguecat is a visionary novel about our society.

The Center of Everything, by Laura Moriarty - Hyperion Books
Evelyn is 10 when the novel opens, an observer of the silent struggle between Tina, her wayward young mother, and Eileen, her quiet, religious grandmother. Though Evelyn appears to be a mere observer of the tumultuous lives of her friends and family, it is she who will achieve her dreams with quiet determination. Evelyn is an intriguing, thoughtful narrator, and this novel is a truly exceptional coming-of-age story, perfect for readers of all ages. Moriarty deftly treads the line between adolescence and adulthood, and insecurity and self-assurance, offering a moving portrait of life.

My Christina, by Mercé Rodoreda - Graywolf Press
DEAR DOCTOR: Don't be surprised that I describe my condition in writing. Don't be surprised that the name I sign isn't mine. In a way I'm very shy and people frighten me. Maybe if you think about it calmly, you'll figure out who I am, but as for me, if there's no cure for my disease, I'd rather you didn't think about it and didn't figure it out. What’s been happening to me is so pent up inside: I'm turning into such a madwoman that I have to try and explain myself in writing. (Opening lines)

Doris Lessing...the war and the memory never finish

Doris Lessing is angry. In October of 2007 she won the Nobel Prize for Literature, on the following day she had her 88th birthday but she is still feeling angry. She has just finished a book about the war and her parents. Through her writing her memory has been envoked and now she feels full of rage and courage. In an interview with the Spanish newspaper "El país" she explains why.
We had the extraordinary opportunity to drink a cup of tea with Doris Lessing, the night before her birthday. She had a cold, she was worried about the bad mood of her cat and she explained to us that she had already finished a book about the war and her parents, "a book of rage and courage". Her house is an isolated area of peace; we are surrounded by books and now she reads a lot about the Spanish Civil War, an episode which filled her generation with anger an interest.

How are you feeling after all the bustle of the Nobel?
Are you asking me seriously?
Well… I cough all the time, I have a light diarrhea and cystitis.
Aside from all this I am feeling very well, thank you.
All my symptoms are because of stress, the stress of the Nobel.
The doorbell is ringing all day long, everyone wants to see me, the phone does not stop ringing, it is like this all day, everyday. And the cat is annoyed, don’t you see it?

Lessing lives this sudden interest with the indifference of someone observing their fame; she knows that this popularity is volatile.

You have always cautioned people about the perversions of the mass media: journalism, television and all that surrounds us everyday…
Yes, and I am still cautioning. Anyway the mass media and the journalist are two different topics. Furthermore, now we have the internet which has introduced a new type of culture, one which we accept without truly understanding.
And the television, just look at the television. Television has changed the way of thinking of everybody although we do not really know why.
I have seen the television come into a house where once all there was, was the radio, where the people used to sit together every night to talk, to eat, be together, etc…In those days our lifestyles were more simple, more healthy, more natural… and then came the television and interrupted all this culture and way of life.
That was the end of the conversation, of the joviality and of the coexistence…

And in which culture do we live now?
Family life has changed. As you know most of our women work and when they come home although they are exhausted, they still have their work at home to do… preparing meals, cleaning the house etc. .
We do not read to our children anymore because we are too tired … all this is new…

And how do you see England now?
People have now a lot of money … if you go to Leicester Square you will see that it is completely full. At midnight or even early in the morning there are still young people wanting to have fun. That is new in this country. I do not believe that this is going to last… Hmmmm, we will see.

How do you feel inside when you write about the war?
I am angry and somehow I can not take this anger out of me.

Is literature not helping?
The anger is still there and I do not know why. I feel the same as my father felt, rage, rage that something like that could happen. We had to fight the Second World War but the First was completely unnecessary…

When you were a child you ate oranges while you were reading. You were also a dreamer.
And I still am a dreamer but now I do not eat oranges anymore. I am too old to eat oranges now. That happens when we get old: I do not eat this, I do not eat that…. But I still read a lot and dream.

Do you remember your dreams?
Of course and as a writer it is normal that I use them.
Now you have a lot to celebrate, but about what are you especially happy?
I have a situation in my life about which I do not even speak. I have an invalid son of whom I have to take care. So my life is not really what I expected. I can not talk about it. My life is not my life anymore.

What are you going to do for your birthday?
Nothing. I will think about this kind of thing when I get to 90.
Oh my God! The telephone is ringing again!

El Pais, 21st October 2007. Interview by Juan Guz

Translated and compiled by Vanessa Lafarga Kärnä
Galway Public Libraries

Adventures in Reading

Readers may be interested in the following books which have been added to stock at Galway City Library:

The Collected Poems, By Stanley Kunitz: Norton & Co.
Kunitz, a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet of far-ranging style and influence, died last year aged 100. Over the years he learned to "strip the water out of my poems" and acknowledge the benefits of a simpler, more intense approach. "A poet cannot concern himself with being fair to the reader. Time will tell. All poems contain a degree of mystery, as poetry is a discovery of one's hidden self. . . . Poetry is not concerned with communication; it has roots in magic, incantation, and spell-casting."

Lies, by Enrique De Heriz: Random House
After a boating accident in a Guatemalan backwater, Isabel, a Spanish anthropologist finds that one of the victims has been misidentified as her. She is strangely reluctant to return to her grieving children and husband in Barcelona. This is a powerful, original and beautifully written book , which explores the substance of what we are. The vivid, deadpan pacing of this novel recalls the films of Pedro Almodóvar.


Silence in October, by Jens Christian Grondhal : Harcourt
Story of an art historian whose wife, Astrid, has inexplicably departed. Why did she leave? Will she return? These are the questions her husband ponders as he tracks her progress through Europe (via credit card use and bank withdrawals) to a place in Portugal that has special meaning for them. This is indeed an "October" novel, meditative and melancholic: a lucid and lyrical book from a gifted writer.

Digital Archive Service launched

• The AskaboutIreland.ie Irish Times Digital Archive Service was launched recently by Mr John Gormley, TD, Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government. The digital archive contains every page of The Irish Times published since the newspaper's foundation almost 150 years ago. The archive is available free of charge to Internet users within every public library and school via the http://www.askaboutireland.ie/ website. Currently Galway Public Library members can access it in the following branches :
  
• Ballinasloe Library
• Ballybane Library
• Galway City, Saint Augustine Street
• Leenane Library
• Loughrea Library
• Oranmore Library
• Tuam Library
• Westside Library
• Woodford Library

How to become a Galway Public Libraries borrower


The digitization project was co-funded by the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, and The Irish Times Trust.

Adventures in Reading

Readers may be interested in the following books which have been added to stock at Galway City Library:


The English Years, by Norbert Gstrein; Hirschfelder is an Austrian writer, a Jew, who was forced to emigrate to Britain in 1938. The narrator of the story is an Austrian doctor whose estranged husband, Max, is an enthusiastic admirer of Hirschfelder. Whilst on an extended holiday in England she meets Hirschfelder's widow, Margaret, his third wife, and, in addition his two previous wives, and Clara, now senile, his lover. The pictures the three wives give of him do not correspond, either with each other's or with the myth believed in by Max. An elegant tale of exile and betrayal.

Vita, by Melania G. Mazzucco;
Ellis Island, 1903, where 12-year-old Diamante Mazzucco and his cousin Vita, age nine, evolve into star-crossed lovers striving to fulfill their destinies. Working in squalid boarding-houses the two (along with other relatives) are more or less confined to Prince Street in Manhattan, where they are subject to a horrifying array of abuses and privations. Deeply in love with Vita by the time he is 16, Diamante signs on with a railroad building crew and unwittingly begins four years of involuntary servitude under conditions that Mazzucco describes in unsparing detail; this underrepresented corner of the East Coast immigrant experience feels as fresh here as it is brutal.


Sepharad, by Antonio Munoz Molina
Molina's beautiful novel begins with a poetic meditation on the bittersweet nostalgia that seizes those who live in exile. It becomes clear that the past the narrator and the author are truly grappling with encompasses the entire Sephardic diaspora and the unfathomable horror and mass insanity of Hitler's and Stalin's regimes. How, Munoz Molina seems to ask, can a writer possibly convey such apocalyptic shock, terror, and grief? Calling on such inspiring figures as Franz Kafka and Primo Levi for guidance, Munoz Molina creates astute, deeply felt, and exquisitely expressive testimony to love, suffering, and the astonishing fecundity of human consciousness.

National Winners Design a Bookmark Competition

Children's Books Ireland have announced the National Winners of this year's Children's Book Festival 'Design a Bookmark Competition' as follows...

Category Age 11 & over: Dennis Appleby (11)
from Ballinamore Branch Library in Co. Leitrim (left).

Category Age 10 & under: Claire Malone (10)
from Naas Branch Library in Co. Kildare (right).

Both of these designs were picked out by Illustrator Niamh Sharky as being particularly original and striking and will be used as next year's competition bookmarks..The overall standard was particularly high this year and choosing just two was by no means an easy task.

Congratulations to the winners and thank you all for taking part!

Over the Edge Reading in Galway City Library

The next ‘Over The Edge: Open Reading’ takes place in Galway City Library on Thursday, November 22nd, 6.30-8.00pm.

The Featured Readers are Kevin Lavelle, Danny Denton & Margaret Irish.

Kevin Lavelle lives in Barna, Co. Galway and works as a freelance film and television editor. He is the 2007 Over The Edge New Writer of The Year. His winning story, Bury Me In The Garden, is published in the current issue of Galway Arts Centre’s online literary magazine West 47. It is Kevin’s first published work.
Danny Denton completed his MA in Writing at NUI Galway in 2006. He is a short-story writer, originally from Cork but now living in Galway. He has published fiction in The Stinging Fly, Southword, and The Sharp Review, and continues to work on his first collection of stories.
Margaret Irish is a native of Co. Kilkenny and writes short fiction and plays. She has had stories published in Ireland, England and Canada and won the PJ O'Connor Award for radio drama in 2003. Five of her stories and two of her plays have been broadcast on RTE/BBC. After many years of wandering she is back living in Kilkenny again.

There will be an open-mic after the Featured Readers have finished. New readers are always welcome. The MC for the evening will be Susan Millar DuMars. For further details phone 087-6431748.Over The Edge acknowledges the financial support of Galway City Council and The Arts Council.

Buaiteoir Dhuais an Oireachtais 2007... New Irish Writing Awards 2007

Bronnadh €10,000 ar Dharach Ó Scolaí, scríbhneoir, ealaíontóir & drámadóir as Casla, Co. na Gaillimhe, ar son a úrscéal liteartha, 'An Cléireach’ (Leabhar Breac). Beidh an saothar seo á sheoladh ag Oireachtas na Samhna i gCathair na Mart i mí na Samhna. Seo é an chéad úrscéal óna pheann, scéal atá suite i ndeireadh na seachtó haoise déag.
I measc na scríbhneoirí eile a fuair duaiseanna tá Biddy Jenkinson, Joe Steve Ó Neachtain, Alan Desmond, Liam Ó Muirthile, Breandán Delap, Tadhg Ó hIfearnáin, Gabriel Rosenstock, Liam Mac Cóil, Ceaití Ní Bheildiúin, Orna Ní Choileáin, Maidhc Dainín Ó Sé, agus Pádraig Standún.
Tháinig os cionn scór scríbhneoir faoi bhun 18 mbliana d’aois ó cheann ceann na tíre le glacadh le duaiseanna i rannóga na ndaoine óga.Tá na Comórtais Liteartha mar chuid lárnach d'obair Oireachtas na Gaeilge ó bunaíodh é i 1897 agus é mar aidhm aige deiseanna a chur ar fáil do scríbhneoirí na Gaeilge agus scríbhneoirí nua a mhealladh.

Darach Ó Scolaí has scooped the top prize of €10,000 at the annual Oireachtas na Gaeilge Literary Competition. Ó Scolaí’s historical novel entitled ‘An Cléireach’ (Leabhar Breac). is the first published novel by the acclaimed artist & playwright from Conamara, Co Galway. A prize fund of €55,000 in total was awarded to both established and aspiring writers in the Irish language.
Winners were announced in categories including Light Fiction; Drama; Script Writing; Poetry & Irish for Adult Learners.Ó Scolaí’s historical novel entitled ‘An Cléireach’ is the first published novel by the acclaimed artist & playwright from Conamara, Co Galway.
The top Short Story prize went to Biddy Jenkinson while the Creative Prose award went to young writer Orna Ní Choileáin.

The Oireachtas na Gaeilge Literary Competition, in its’ 110th year, is the most prestigious Irish language literary competition in the country. Previous winners include some of Ireland’s most celebrated authors including Pádraig Mac Piarais, Máirtín Ó Cadhain & Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill.