Jenn Reads: Brave New World

June 19, 2014May 21, 2014 / Jenn / Leave a comment

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley was our April pick for the Cheshire Cats Classics Book Club.

Before there was The Hunger Games series, Maze Runner series, Legend series there was Brave New World. Huxley was one of the first authors to write a dystopian novel and all others that follow are using him as an example. He did it first and did it best. I marketed this book as the original dystopian novel, because of how popular that genre is right now. And if you want to know where these authors have likely gotten their inspiration, you need to read this book.

A few fast facts about Huxley: he taught French at Eton and George Orwell was one of his students. When Orwell published 1984, he sent a copy to his former teacher, who

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

basically called the book garbage. Huxley died on the same day as C. S. Lewis and JFK, and both of their deaths were overshadowed by the death of the president. And he was a friend to Igor Stravinsky.

Brave New World is a book that is so similar to our own, it is scary how real this book is.

Published in 1932, Brave New World takes place almost 600 years in the future. This is a world where your future is determined at the moment of your conception. Every single child born in this world is born of the test tube and is “raised” to be one of five classes- Alpha, being the best and highest class, or Epsilon, the lowest class. You have no mother, father, and are engineered for specific tasks. You will never grow old, you will never rise above your class, and you will have no apparent free will. Life will be full of pleasurable things however- sex, drugs, mass consumption, and more.

So what makes a dystopian novel different from an utopian novel? Dystopian novels are characterized by a horrible society headed towards oblivion, while utopian novels have an ideal society. Brave New World is a utopian novel on the surface, and to those living in that society, but it’s really dystopian. There is a huge reliance on technology, instant gratification, and lots of propaganda.

Huxley was disturbed at the path the world was taking: the world had been plunged into a great economic depression, fascism and communism were taking hold across Europe, and the Industrial Revolution was continuing to change the landscape of the world. What would happen to us as a people if all of this continued? Huxley feared that we would become a people slaved to technology, conditioned for pleasure and nothing else, and drugged to reality. If you’re thinking this sounds a lot like today’s society, you would not be that far off. However, lurking on the fringes were Savage Worlds with people who had lived a much different life.

If you read Brave New World today, there are many scenes that will likely make you think twice. One for me was the scene at what I’ll call the children’s center, where children are being conditioned for certain things. This particular set of children is taught to be afraid of loud noises. What is eerie is the level of manipulation that is going on- these children have no free will. Just like our own, the world of Brave New World is a throw-away society. Something breaks, is old, is damaged, is no longer wanted- throw it away!

Huxley had supposed it would take hundreds of years for the things he wrote about to come true, but if you look hard at the world we live in today, it is a lot like the one he envisioned. Hospice, cloning/DNA/biological engineering, helicopters, and e-books were just a few of the things he prophecized for the future.

Brave New World is easy reading, but do not be fooled by the simplicity of the language or writing. Huxley has a lot to say about how we live our lives with each other, with technology, and for the future.

Rating: 3 bookmarks out of 5

See you in the stacks,

Jenn

June is National Candy Month – Yum!

June 17, 2014June 4, 2014 / Linda / Leave a comment

Americans love their candy! On average, we eat 25 pounds of candy per person, per year. So, where did candy come from?

The word ‘candy’ comes from the Arabic “qandi”, meaning something made from sugar – and the principal ingredient in candy is sugar. Before sugar was readily available, honey was the main ingredient. Honey was used by the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans to coat fruits, flowers, and the seeds or stems of plants to preserve them as future ingredients. During the Middle Ages, sweets were used as a medical treatment for digestive troubles and to mask the bad taste of other medicines. Today’s cough drops and peppermint sticks are descended from this tradition.

The first candy came from Britain and France to the United States in the early eighteenth century. Only a few colonists were proficient in sugar work, so only the rich were able to enjoy this confection. By the 1830s, technology and the abundance of sugar opened up the candy market for all to enjoy. In 1847, the candy press was invented which allowed for mass production.

Candy was generally sold unwrapped from carts in the street, where it was exposed to dirt and insects. After the polio outbreak in 1916, candy was only sold in upscale candy stores in glass jars. By 1925, wax paper, foil and cellophane were imported from France by DuPont, allowing candy to be packaged without human touch.

If you’d like to make your own candy, the Cheshire Library has a nice assortment of books located downstairs in the Reference department in the 641.853 section. Some titles are:

The Sweet Book of Candy Making by Elizabeth LaBau

Handcrafted Candy Bars by Susie Norris

The Complete Step-by-Step guide to making sweets, candy and chocolates by Claire Ptak

Truffles, Candies and Confections by Carole Bloom

You can also enjoy some adult mysteries with a candy theme:

Candy Cane Murder by Joanne Fluke

Sucker Punch (A Candy Shop Mystery) by Sammi Carter

Goody Goody Gunshots (A Candy Shop Mystery) by Sammi Carter

Peppermint Twisted (A Candy Shop Mystery) by Sammi Carter

Chocolate Dipped Death (A Candy Shop Mystery) by Sammi Carter

And for the children who want to learn a little bit more about candy:

Sweet! The Delicious Story of Candy by Ann Love

The Hershey’s Milk Chocolate Fractions Book by Jerry Pallotta

Chocolate by Hershey by Betty Buford

Memoirs, Humor, and More About Fatherhood

June 15, 2014June 9, 2014 / Sharon Tyler / Leave a comment

In honor of Father’s Day, let’s take a look at some dad related humor, memoirs, and related collections of letters that can be great reads for dads new to the wonders of parenthood, those that are not quite as new to its wonders, and just about anyone.

Too Good to be True: a Memoir by Benjamin Anastas. When he was three, Anastas found himself in his mother’s fringe-therapy group in Massachusetts, a sign around his neck: Too Good to Be True. The phrase haunted him through his life. This is his deeply moving memoir of fathers and sons, crushing debt and infidelity– and the first, cautious steps taken toward piecing a life back together.

A Father First: How my Life Became Bigger than Basketball by Dwyane Wade.
NBA star Dwyane Wade discusses the rewarding responsibilities of being a single dad to his two sons, Zaire and Zion and highlights of his basketball career.

The Ticking is the Bomb: a Memoir by Nick Flynn. A dazzling, searing, and inventive memoir about becoming a father in the age of terror.

Fatherhood by Bill Cosby. A collection of ruminations, anecdotes, and vignettes based on Cosby’s experiences as a son and father.

Manhood for Amateurs by Michael Chabon. An entertaining omnibus of opinionated essays previously published mostly in Details magazine spotlights novelist Chabon’s (The Yiddish Policemen’s Union) model of being an attentive, honest father and a fairly observant Jew.

Lamentations of the Father by Ian Frazier. More serious than a “gag” writer and funnier than most essayists, Frazier has a classical originality. This collection, a companion to his previous humor collections “Dating Your Mom” and “Coyote v. Acme,” contains 33 pieces gathered from the last 13 years.

Don’t Make Me Stop this Car!: Adventures in Fatherhood by Al Roker. Al provides an unprecedented, intimate look into his experiences with infertility treatments, adoption, and the normal fears and wonders of an expecting parent. As Al manages the needs of his daughters from two marriages and the demands of a high-profile career, he is like millions of others who fantasize about the newest sport utility vehicle, struggle with a GapKids addiction, and bask in the golden moments of first steps and special Father’s Day meals. Along the way, Al comes to a deeper understanding of his parents’ love for him and a whole new appreciation of them as grandparents.

Raising Cubby: a Father and Son’s Adventures with Asperger’s, Trains, Tractors, and High Explosives John Elder Robison. The comic memoir of an Aspergian father raising his Aspergian son, by the bestselling author of Look Me in the Eye.

As usual, I found too many great books to stop, so if you are looking for even more you might want to check out; Dad is Fat by Jim Gaffigan, The Council of Dads: My Daughters, My Illness, and the Men Who Could be Me by Bruce S. Feiler, Sh*t My Dad Says by Justin Halpern, Wisdom of our Fathers: Lessons and Letters from Daughters and Sons by Tim Russer, No Wonder my Parents Drank: Tales from a Stand-up Dad by Jay Mohr, A Promise to Ourselves: a Journey Through Fatherhood and Divorce by Alec Baldwin, The Bastard on the Couch: 27 Men Try Really Hard to Explain their Feelings about Love, Loss, Fatherhood, and Freedom edited by Daniel Jones, and Big Russ and Me: Father and Son by Tim Russert.

Susan Reads: Nothing to Envy

June 14, 2014June 21, 2014 / Susan O. / Leave a comment

Rarely have I come across a book so haunting.

If you Google Earth for North Korea at night, you will see South Korea as brightly lit as a coast of the US. Above it is a great C0044096-Korea_at_night,_satellite_image-SPL big blackness. This is North Korea. It is not black because they block out satellites, or by treaty.

It’s because there is no electricity.

In an entire country.

Author Barbara Dimick’s book, Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea won the 2010 Samuel Booker prize, with good reason. Dimick has seen the “official” places of North Korea, but moreso spent years tracking down people who managed to escape the deadly iron fist of North Korea and interviewing them extensively. She follows several families, some of them die-hard party loyalists, through their unwavering patriotism, their questioning, their suffering, to their desperate do or die escape.

Dimick traces some of the history, from World War II, when things started to go flaky, through the Korean conflict, when things got really wacky, to the insane tyranny of Kim Jong Il, and now Kim Jong Un. North Korea, until the 1960’s, actually had a better standard of living than South Korea, but began to fall apart in the 70’s. But, unlike Russian Communism, instead of saving itself, North Korea became even more hard-nosed, more dictatorial, more insane. By the 90’s, there were no jobs, no wages, no food, no manufacturing. People began starving to death in great masses, with children so stunted by malnutrition they barely topped 4’7” as adults. Trees died, because people stripped the bark to eat. As many as three million people died, and there were many reports of cannibalism.

Imagine a place where radios and televisions are set by the government to one single official channel. Where the government doles out the very food you are allowed to eat, and the quantity, and the clothes you wear. Where everything is in black and white except the propaganda posters, which are in red, the only color people can look to with cheer. Where every home must display a photo of the dictator, and clean it daily with a special cloth, where the picture can be inspected at any time and you can be sent to the Gulag for disrespect. North Koreans are so isolated, so indoctrinated, so starved, so cowed, that they are not only utterly brainwashed against the outside world, but cannot imagine what the outside world is like. After three generations of this, they’ve never known anything else.

Perhaps the saddest, most poignant moment is when the once-loyal mother makes a desperate swim across the river into China, crawls to the first house she sees, starved, frozen, exhausted, desperate, pushes open the garden gate, and discovers a bowl of meat and rice and vegetables set outside waiting for her, and she is utterly amazed, not having seen meat or even rice in months. Then the family’s dog comes around the corner of the house, and the woman realizes that in China, even dogs eat better than North Koreans.

Read this. Really, read this book. It’s short. It will painlessly explain so much of the insanity, the politics, the danger that is North Korea, and will help you separate the Korean government from the Korean people, who have as much control over their situation as an ant has over an elephant. You will not forget it.

Museum Passes at CPL – New Britain Museum of American Art and Wadsworth Atheneum

June 12, 2014July 25, 2014 / cheshirelib / Leave a comment

Cheshire Library has a collection of museum & state park passes that are available on a first come, first served basis for Cheshire residents to check out. CPL Staff member Lisa continues our series about the museum passes we offer, along with related reading material. This month we will feature two of the Art Museums in C0nnecticut, The New Britain Museum of Art and The Wadsworth Atheneum.

Featured Museum Pass: New Britain Museum of American Art

This pass is good for free general admission for four people.

The New Britain Museum of American Art’s founding in 1903 entitles the institution to be designated the first museum of strictly American art in the country. With particular strengths in colonial portraiture, the Hudson River School, American Impressionism, and the Ash Can School, not to mention the important mural series The Arts of Life in America by Thomas Hart Benton, the museum relies heavily on its permanent collection for exhibitions and programming, yet also displays a significant number of borrowed shows and work by emerging artists. Located at 56 Lexington Street in New Britain, CT, the museum is open 7 day a week.

Featured Museum Pass: Wadsworth Atheneum

This pass is good for free general admission for two adults and two children.

The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, the oldest public art museum in the United States, was founded in 1842 by Daniel Wadsworth, one of the first important American patrons of the arts. Its collections of nearly 50,000 works of art span 5,000 years. The museum was the first in America to begin collecting contemporary American art – resulting in their world renowned Hudson River School collection. Some other featured collections include the Morgan collection of Greek and Roman antiquities and European decorative arts; world-renowned baroque and surrealist paintings, the Wallace Nutting collection of American colonial furniture and decorative arts; the Samuel Colt firearms collection, and much more. Located at 600 Main Street, Hartford, CT, see their website for hours and directions.

If you are interested in visiting the Wadsworth Atheneum and the New Britain Museum of American Art, you might also be interested in:

Art Museums Plus : Cultural Excursions in New England by Traute M. Marshall. Traute M. Marshall has written this smart and engagingly personal guidebook for curious travelers, bringing to light the wealth of small and large art museums in the six New England states, ranging from world-class encyclopedic collections to more modest and specialized venues. While providing the information found in a traditional guidebook—addresses, websites, opening times, directions, and so forth—Marshall also offers readers informed and intimate introductions to the museums and their histories, holdings, traditions, and architecture. This guide also explains exhibition practices, the presentation of the permanent collection versus the attraction of temporary shows, the different educational activities offered, and the special relationship between a town or city and its art museum.

New Britain Museum of American Art : Highlights of the Collection, introduction by Laurene Buckley ; editor, Pamela T. Barr. The finest paintings and sculpture from the museum’s collection are featured in full-color reproductions in this illustrated volume. Included are many outstanding paintings by the foremost representatives of American Impressionism such as Mary Cassatt and Childe Hassam, and the famous mural series Arts of Life in America by Thomas Hart Benton. Color reproductions of the artworks are accompanied by biographical sketches on the artists and comprehensive essays on each of the works.