Library Loot June 2020

Library Loot June 2020

The Public Library here in Longview, Washington has just begun accepting returns of items still in our possession at the time the shelter-in-place rules came into play locally in late March.  And they are accepting placement of holds and the checking out of up to five items for six weeks.  The catch is there is still no going inside.  Delivery of the items is via drive through and the arrangements need to be made ahead of time by email or phone so the items can be prepared for you on the day of your arrival.  Prepared includes checking them out to your account even though you are not there to present your card and placing them in a sack.  When you arrive in the parking lot you remain in your car and someone approaches to request your ID and then the bag prepared for you is brought.  In this case since I don't drive my sister was my designated retriever as arranged via email earlier in the week.

The four items:

• DVD of the movie RBG about Ruth Bader Ginsberg.
• Book on CD: The Power of Vulnerability by Brene Brown
• Tree book: Islam in the Modern  World : Challenged by the West, Threatened by Fundamentalism, Keeping Faith With Tradition by Seyyed Hossein Nasr,
• Tree book: The Catholic School by Edoardo Albinati

Islam in the Modern World was a surprise as it was not one of the items I placed on hold.  It was related closely by subject but yet very different.  The one still showing as on hold in my account is: My Isl@m : how fundamentalism stole my mind--and doubt freed my soul by Amir Ahmad Nasr. 

Ah, same last name. 

This one is a memoir of someone extricating themselves from a fundamentalist religion and I collect these stories to compare with my own experience.  I find that all the fundamentalisms have more in common with each other than with the mainstream or traditional practice and faith of their own religion.  Tho I'm disappointed in having to wait until next time for the memoir I'm quite interested in the overview of the same issue by the Islamic scholar.

The other tree book was the first item I put on hold as soon as news came of the plans for drive-thru checkout. I had The Catholic School checked out from late fall right up until about a week before the Library closed for the duration.  Tree books are very difficult for me to read and the bigger they are the harder it is to control the placement of the page in relation to the angle of the light and the distance to my one eye that can still see text with 3x magnification. 

This book is over 1200 pages.  It takes me five to seven minutes per page and my wrists and arms tire after half an hour.  So do the math.  It is still not available in audio at the Library of Congress talking books or BARD and the Kindle is going for $19.99.    Get real!  I've discovered via on-line searches that the ebook is available through the Overdrive/Liby systems that contract with local libraries but the Longview library has not acquired it for their Washington Anytime Library.

I'm really excited to get back to The Catholic School and am hoping I won't have to start over.  The book is translated from the Italian and is a coming of age story that is based on events in the authors own life that are centered around a horrifying national scandal that took place in the 1970s when several young men who had attended the same Catholic School as the author abducted, tortured, sexually assaulted and murdered multiple young women.  Albinati attempts to analyze all the cultural influences that contributed to the psyches of these young men.