Learning | The Right Word: Roget and His Thesaurus

How many of you have enjoyed flipping through Roget's Thesaurus, looking for random groups of synonyms?  I think most of us used it for schoolwork, when looking for the right word to describe something, or trying not to use the same word over and over again in an essay. But I loved picking up the book and learning more about words and their relationships to other words. 

A 2015 Caldecott Honor book presents a similar pleasure, in the form of a children's picture book about the life of Peter Mark Roget.  

The Right Word: Roget and His Thesaurus by Jen Bryant and Melissa Sweet is a visual treasure trove of lists, synonyms, and facts.  It tells the tale of a shy young boy who loved to make lists.  Some of those lists turned into a book that most of us remember from our school days, Roget's Thesaurus. 

The The Right Word's pages are illustrated with watercolor, collage, and mixed media. They effectively draw the reader in, to explore, discover, and become inspired. This is clearly a book that holds interest, even after repeated readings. I saw one review that compared reading The Right Word to looking through an old curio cabinet!

The publisher of this book, Eerdmans Books for Young Readers, has a delightful video trailer for The Right Word on its YouTube Channel.  

Learning | Mental Floss

I first heard of Mental Floss about ten years ago, through SSJCPL's subscription to Mental Floss magazine. This is a great publication to pick up, read a short while, and put down easily, if interrupted.  It's stuffed with interesting facts, and answers to questions you may never have had an inkling to ask--but wish you had.

Mental Floss also has a wonderful, entertaining website (a banner at the top of the web page features an amazing fact generator! It told me the name of the smallest U.S. president, and included his height and weight.)  This website has other snazzy features, including a Knowledge Feed, which is jam-packed with interesting articles and videos--would you like to see Neil Gaiman read "Green Eggs and Ham?" There are also Big Questions, in which Mental Floss reader's questions are answered; Lists (my favorites are the word lists, like the 11 Obscure Regional Phrases to Describe the Cold;) and Quizzes, asking the reader to choose answers to topics such as Jelly Belly Flavor, or Yankee Candle Scent?

Mental Floss: because sometimes you just need to give the noggin a good cleaning. 

Courtesy of Cayusa's photostream on Flickr.com. Some rights reserved.

For a quick overview of history (with a healthy helping of irony and sarcasm,) try the Mental Floss History of the World: An Irreverent Romp Through Civilization's Best Bits.  This focuses on the topic of world history, in a very condensed form. Readers of the magazine and website will appreciate the side notes, with topics such as "The Quotable Julius Caesar," and "D'Arc Triumphs," and "Name That War!"

Learning | What Would Be On Your Ideal Bookshelf?

I am a member of an informal online book club, consisting mostly of friends from my high school days.  We are all busy people, and we are literally scattered all over the world. We are unable to meet in a physical location, so we suggest books to read, and start discussing when we are ready--usually whenever each person who has said they will read that title has declared that they are finished reading. 

I can't remember who suggested Carlos Ruiz Zafón's Shadow of the Wind (original Spanish title: La Sombra del Viento.) It was such a hit with our group, that we continued reading some of his other books, The Angel's Game and The Prisoner of Heaven. These gothic novels are set in Barcelona. We were immediately drawn to Shadow of the Wind when we read its intriguing first sentence: "I still remember the day my father took me to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books for the first time."  

The Cemetery of Forgotten Books is in a secret location in Barcelona, in a building Ruiz Zafón describes as "the carcass of a palace, a place of echoes and shadows." In this place, books that are not remembered by anyone are guarded until they reach a new reader's hands. 

The father of the main character, Daniel, runs a bookstore called Sempere and Son. Daniel's father takes him to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, where the young boy chooses a book to protect; it is called The Shadow of the Wind by Julián Carax. His choice changes the course of his life in the coming years.

I would love to visit the Cemetery of Forgotten Books and the Sempere and Son bookstore.  These books make me want to visit Barcelona. If am ever lucky enough to find myself in that city, I imagine I will be looking for that fictitious bookstore and the Cemetery of Forgotten Books.

In recent months, SSJCPL has purchased some new books that made me recall the Cemetery of Forgotten Books.  In each of these non-fiction items, celebrities share their thoughts about favorite books and bookstores.  Just reading their answers to these questions will encourage the thoughtful reader to consider how they would answer them.

My Bookstore: Writers Celebrate Their Favorite Places to Browse, Read, and Shop
The title is self-explanatory.  It does not, however mention that 84 writers have contributed to this book, describing their favorites and including personal anecdotes. There are too many famous writers to mention here, but let's just choose a few:  Isabelle Allende, Ivan Doig, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., John Grisham, Ann Patchett and Lisa See.

My Ideal Bookshelf

This book title made me think of the old "What books would you bring with you, if you knew you were going to be stranded on a desert island?"question.  It really asked the celebrities to imagine a bookshelf full of the books that shaped who they are today, which might not be the same thing as the ones you would would take with you. The contributors include David Sedaris, Malcolm Gladwell, James Patterson, Stephenie Meyer, Dave Eggars and Alice Waters, to name only a few.

I would love to hear your thoughts on the ideal bookstore, or the books that have helped to create the person that you are today--or even which books you would bring with you to a desert island.  If you visited the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, which book would you choose to guard with your life?