The Questioning Librarian

It is easy to get frustrated, and never more so when witnessing the absolute gullibility of humanity. We all know, of course, about the strange beliefs that some people hold, that aliens abduct and probe humans, that aliens built the pyramids, that planes disappear in the Bermuda Triangle and that Bigfoot is walking around somewhere in the undiscovered wilds. We may shake our heads at the fact that some people swallow an endless number of conspiracy theories, seeing the hidden hand of the Freemasons, the Illuminati, the Jews, or some other secretive power behind the workings of the world. We rightly mock and ridicule anyone who seriously believes that FEMA is setting up detention camps, just waiting for a crisis to allow them to impose a fascistic "New World Order" on the United States, or that the Sandy Hook school shooting was a false flag operation. These are easy targets, however, and only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to wrong and foolish things that we believe. ...

In pulling together the non-fiction order for my library, I was browsing a number of new titles when I came across one very intriguing book. After it arrived at our library, I took a closer look at what I judged would either be a fascinating work or an overblown bit of malarky. Fortunately for me, as well as a number of patrons who have checked it out after me, it was the former rather than the latter. The Collaboration: Hollywood's Pact with Hitler is a striking work of excellent scholarship charting the actions that a number of the major Hollywood movie studios took to ensure that their films would still be shown in Germany after the rise of the Nazis.  While "collaboration" might be too strong a word, the studios were certainly willing to accommodate the objections, and potential objections, that German censors made about certain films. Using material that survives in German archives, Ben Urwand traces the evolution of the relationship between the film executi...

A few days ago, a friend of mine posted a blog listing the twelve books he recommends for understanding the world. These are, in his words, essential reads. This post made me start thinking of what my own list would be. A list like this is going to be different for each reader, for we are all individuals and different books will impact us in different ways, based on our own tastes and where we are in life when we encounter a work. So what books would I recommend for understanding the world? I read so much, that narrowing it down was a tough call; this list will, I'm sure, certainly change as time goes by. At this point, however, these twelve books are ones that have helped me understand the world a little better in one way or another, books that moved me or enraged me, ones that have helped to transform how I see and think about the world. 1. The Children of Hurin by J.R. R. Tolkien Some of my friends might be surprised that I didn't choose The Hobbit  for this lis...