Although not a library-friendly size or shape, Richard Suart and A.S.H. Smyth's They'd None of 'em Be Missed  (distributed in the U.S. by Trafalgar Square) would make a perfect Christmas gift for all your musical theater–nerd friends.

Suart has played the role of Ko-Ko, the Lord High Executioner, and performed his "little list" song (often titled with its opening lyric, "As someday it may happen") since 1988...Read More

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Remember when Tom Cruise jumped on Oprah’s couch and proclaimed he couldn’t contain himself? Did you think he was nuts, or were you like me and thought that the man could just be genuinely happy? I’m sitting in my cubicle on this cold November day and feeling a similar kind of joy (without the jumping part) about our newly-launched E-Reference Ratings feature. Here’s why: No other project I have ever worked on as LJ’s Reference Editor took more time to produce, involved more manpower, demanded more editorial scrutiny, or resulted in something w...Read More

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Is Dewey the library feline ready for his closeup?  Variety reports today that Oscar-winning actress Meryl Streep has signed on to star in the film adaptation of Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World. She will play author Vicki Myron, the retired Spencer, Iowa, librarian who discovered a tiny frozen kitten in the library's book drop....Read More

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In LJ's October 1st issue, I reviewed Stephen Hess's book, What Do We Do Now?: A Workbook For the President-Elect, new from the Brookings Institution Press. I appreciated his book in lots of ways, so now that the presidential transition is actually happening, I was glad to have the chance to catch up with him today.

MH: Your book packs a lot, very accessibly, into about 150p. great fun to read, and full of fascinating information. As much as the book will a...Read More

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LJ contributor/music aficionado Matthew Moyer, whose inaugural "Music for the Masses" column debuts in December’s issue, is now blogging for LJ, on the new AC/DC album one day and Sacred Harp music the next. Madness—but egads, what range! Read a while and tell me you don’t love him as much as we do.

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Looks like ten-year-old Malia and seven-year-old Sasha Obama will finally be getting the dog their father promised them at the start of his two-year presidential campaign. During last night's moving acceptance speech in Chicago's Grant Park, President-elect Barack Obama noted that his daughters "had earned" the puppy that was coming with them to the White House. 

What kind of puppy will the Obama girls choose? This summer the Los Angeles Times pet blog, LA Unlea...Read More

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Cheeta, a 75-year-old chimpanzee who appeared first in 1934's Tarzan and His Mate and other Tarzan movies and, finally, in 1967's Doctor Dolittle, has written a memoir during his retirement in Palm Springs. The British edition, released last month, was positively reviewed by Lynne Truss in the Times and was longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award. Me, Cheeta: My Life in Hollywood comes out here in February 2009 from Ecco: HarperCollins.

Including a filmography and an index and called by the publisher's promotional material &quo...Read More

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Dedicated followers of this blog will recall a post dated one year ago to the day in which I wrote of a 166-year-old literary mystery relating to Edgar Allan Poe. In an 1841 issue of Graham’s Magazine, under the pseudonym of W.B. Tyler, Poe published two ciphers and challenged readers to decrypt them. The ciphers remained unsolved until 1992, when the first was decrypted by a University of Illinois professor to reveal a line from Cato, a 1713 Joseph Addison play. Eight years later, a Toronto software engineer ...Read More

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I used to buy my Bounty Paper towels at my local 99 Cents Only Store on Second Avenue and 26th Sttreet..(Ironically, the store lost its lease and was replaced by a bank right before the financial markets collapsed this September.) But I was always a bit wary of the canned soups, vegetables,  fruit,  and other foodstuffs on sale. They looked rather sad and dusty and dented, as if they had been sitting in an underground bomb shelter for the past 50 years Were they safe to eat? Were they radioactive? Thoughts of botulism and other lovely food-related illnesses danced in my  head.

But chef Christine ...Read More

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As a beginning knitter, I suppose I have a unique, if rudimentary, perspective on knitting resources. Vickie Howell's Knit Aid was given to me by Sterling's Director of Library Marketing, and, based on that alone, I decided to take up the hobby. With that and YouTube—I personally found the vidoes affiliated with Expert Village helpful, which you can find with a search for "how to knit for beginners"—I've got the stitches down and a miniscarf under my belt and around my roommate's neck.

My current problem now is reading patterns, which Howell's small, knitting-bag-ready reference...Read More

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Sad news today. The New York Times ran mystery critic Marilyn Stasio's  lengthy obituary and appreciation of  Edgar Award-winning author Tony Hillerman, whose groundbreaking Southwestern mysteries introduced Anglo readers to the beauty and richness of Navajo culture and religion. While I feel his later books had grown tired and thin (not suprisingly as Hillerman was battling an array of serious health problems while still continuing to write), his early novels featuring Navajo cops Lt. Jim Chee and Officer Joe Leaphorn retain their power in their mixture of  fascinating Navajo lore, well-drawn, compellin...Read More

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There's a nice book that published at the end of the summer that I sought out after hearing the news that Obama is headed to Hawai'i this week to spend some time with his ailing grandmother, Madelyn Payne Dunham. It's called The Dream Begins: How Hawai'i Shaped Barack Obama and it's published by Watermark Publishing of Honolulu.  It sets Obama's story in the context that Michelle Obama considers crucial, according to the pull quote on the front of the book: "You can't really understand Barack until you understand Hawai'i."  

As Obama said earlier this year: "I was raised by a single mom and m...Read More

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