Bookmarking literature of poetry and war

This blog has a motto: Blogging the Beautiful ~ Searching the Sustainable ~ Reaching out in Friendship.  In short, I keep any political sound-offs for a particular blog of mine, The Network.  You are welcome to drop by and experience its quirky mix of social and political commentary.  I have chosen to share this report, though political, on this site because it is about librarians and books and, as a former librarian, I am a Library Lover (as you will see from the sidebar) and I share a librarian's attitude to the power of words, ideas, books, poetry, plays.

So it is with quite a thrill, I read about this political protest involving the promotion of Palestinian literature. While there is grave conflict in Israel and Palestine, commemorations have begun for the centenary of The First World War.  Because of this I am including a very interesting site, The War Poetry Website, which contains an archive of poems and poets of to-day and The First World War.

ANZ LitLovers LitBlog - Germinal by Emile Zola - the book and the movie

 

I am a frequent reader of Lisa Hill’s ANZ LitLovers LitBlog. Perhaps you won't keep up by reading every book from every post - but at least you will have a good idea of what you should be reading. You will be in the know. 

I subscribe to the blog and get a missive in my email every day.  To-day's looks magnificent: Germinal by Emile Zola An epic tale. But, Gerard Depardieu fan that I am I think I will hunt down the movie after seeing the trailer below.

The Wheeler Centre: literary and functional

On Thursday and Friday, I was at the Public Interest Journalism and New Media Conference held as part of the Melbourne Writers Festival. It is otherwise known as New News 2010 and is sponsored by the Public Interest Journalism Foundation at Swinburne University.

The Conference was held at The Wheeler Centre which is in the precinct of the State Library of Victoria.  The establishment of The Wheeler Centre is in response to Melbourne's status as a UNESCO City of Literature.  Melbourne was the second city in the world - and the first in the southern hemisphere - to be honoured by UNESCO.  The first was Edinburgh. 

So for those of you who may not have visited Wheeler, I took some pictures... just to give you a feel of the place.

External signage above Little Lonsdale Street

The Foyer

 

 Copper door with copper architrave

 

 The Auditorium

The Green Room was used by the conference for informal conversations with guest speakers and "Unconferences" - you could put your unprogrammed offering on a white-board.

Green Room - Southern end

Green Room - Northern end

Green Room - Kitchen doors

and, finally, I thought this banquette was designer cute and smart

You sit carefully in/on this banquette - because it has no back support.  When you sit on the one or two upper curves (depending on size) the curves either side become arm rests.  So as well as eye-catching, it is quite functional.  I was able to sit quite comfortably (and I am a larger size) and have a conversation with the person sitting next to me. 

All in all, the Wheeler Centre provides

functional spaces for the City of Melbourne.

Show and Tell Friday - Home School of American Literature

Kelli, this Show and Tell is especially for you - because you home-school your kids.

This was an Ebay find. I forgot to check postage on this and it was quite a shock because the book is s-o-o thick and s-o-o heavy. A lesson learned. I am always particular about postage since this purchase. But I don't regret the purchase. It is a magnificent old book in wonderful condition.
While the book promotes American literature, it is not exclusively American as it contains the works of major English writers. In fact, the three portraits on the cover include Tennyson beside Longfellow and Hawthorne.
The words on the title page are as follows:

Home School of American Literature or Easy Steps to an Education or The Lives and Writings of our Best Authors embracing The great poets of England and America, famous novelists, distinguished essayists and historians, our humorists, noted journalists and magazine contributors, statesmen in literature, noted women in literature, popular writers for young people, great orators and public lecturers, etc./Compiled and edited by William Wilfred Bursall, A.B., Principal of Central School, Philadelphia; Rufus M Jones, A.M., Professor of Philosophy, Haverford College, and others/Embellished with nearly one hundred and fifty half-tone portraits and about 200 text illustrations by Charles Dana Gibson, Corwin K. Linson and Others/Published by Elliott Publishing Co., Philadelphia, PA.

The facing page to the title page has a photograph of "The New Congressional Library, Washington, D.C." On the obverse of the title page are the words:

Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1897, by W.E. Scull in the office of the Librarian of Congress, in Washington. All rights reserved/All persons are warned not to infringe upon our copyright by using either the matter or the pictures in this volume.

The book has a specific section for Recitation.

I purchased the book because I have a small collection of the works of Rufus Jones, a great Quaker writer. Some people think that if Quakers had saints then Rufus Jones would be one!

I find books such as these a delight - and some more might pop up in Show and Tell!

Blessings and bliss to you Kelli and to all Show-ers and Tell-ers