This summer I spent a lot of time in the air-conditioned library working on a project in the X room, the archives and special collections of the Douglass library. Behind this always-locked door in the basement, there are stacks of rare books. One side of the room, however, is home to a collection of materials related … Read More
After reading more than half of Absolutely on Music: Conversations with Seiji Ozawa, by Haruki Murakami, I realized that the title is a pun. In classical music, some pieces have extra musical associations, such as Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique, which musically embodies the accompanying narrative of a passionate lover gone mad. Pieces that don’t have … Read More
The Books We Read Blog is conducting a series of interviews with contributors and friends of the blog to get a snapshot of our reading habits: the things we like to read, the circumstances in which we read, and more. Lindsey Jones works as a Graduate Assistant at the reference desk in the Douglass Library … Read More
I recently attended an event celebrating the release of Douglas Stuart’s new novel, Young Mungo. The release was hyped up by a dear friend who introduced me to his work, and I came to realize that Stuart was receiving attention at large. First, Jeremy Denk included Stuart’s debut novel, Shuggie Bain in his reading list … Read More
Stressed? Swing by the Mabel Smith Douglass Room at Douglass library at 3PM on Wednesday, May 4th to hear a pop-up concert featuring violinist Vishnu Halikere and harpist Kisae Lee. The first portion of the concert will consist of a multi-movement sonata by the Armenian-American composer, Alan Hovanhess (1911-2000). This contemplative music has been described … Read More
When I was an undergraduate, my grandfather gave me a copy of Pogo: We Have Met the Enemy and He is Us. Walt Kelly’s comic collection from 1972 introduced me to graphic stories with a moral aim. The comics mock corporate greed, bureaucratic disconnect and the collective guilt of our society implicated in contributing to … Read More
I don’t think it is a moral slip to feel fatigued by the pandemic after two-plus years of masks and distancing. So why would it be enjoyable to read an off-duty book about this strange time? Is fiction not supposed to give us a break from reality? The quirky style of Our Country Friends makes … Read More
At this time of the semester, schedules begin to change in a strange way. It suddenly seems that meetings are thinning out and the calendar has more open spaces. Yet (curve ball!), the pressures of deadlines, of finality, of the holidays seem to squeeze those “extra” minutes dry. The vision of a vacation on the … Read More
Feeling stressed as finals approach? Sometimes music has the ability to slow the perception of time. Come by the Douglass Library for a moment of music to relax. There are two opportunities to catch a pop-up performance as part of the Stressbusters series at Rutgers – New Brunswick Libraries. On December 13th you can hear … Read More
I picked up Slaughterhouse Five to read a passage for the Rutgers Banned Books virtual event. Little did I know that this fun side-project would contribute to my academic papers this semester! Sometimes a good book seeps into the other areas of our lives. Much of the time, I pick up a book because it … Read More