Book Review: Reading Novels During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Ben Davies, Christina Lupton, and Johanne Gormsen Schmidt, Reading Novels During the COVID-19 Pandemic. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2022. ISBN: 9780192857682.

Genre: literary studies, literacy, academic treatise, reading

Subgenre: COVID-19, pandemics 

Format: hardcover

Source: Interlibrary Loan (ILL) via Hutchins Library. It came from Fondren Library, Rice University, Houston, Texas.

 

Now that most people think the COVID-19 pandemic is over we're seeing all sorts of books and retrospectives of the pandemic time. This book would fall in that category, though the study it discusses was done during the pandemic. The book aims to provide a look at reading habits of folks during the pandemic, specifically reading fiction. Bottom line, for me at least, is this is a book by academics written for other academics. This is not exactly a book for light or pleasure reading. I picked it up to see what insights it might have offered to librarians and to see another side of the pandemic. 

The book is arranged into an introduction and nine chapters. The introduction describes the parameters of the study. The chapters look at different types of books people chose to read and reasons to do so. Among the selections were books about plagues, old books, and romances. The book includes a bibliography, which is extensive but it also features a lot of popular magazine articles. The book also features an appendix with the survey instrument. 

Note that the study sample readers in two countries: Denmark and the United States. Once we get past the introduction, the chapters look at different kinds of reading. Bring a typical academic book, the authors fill a lot of pages with literary and critical theory to support their findings. Between all the theory  you get selected quotes from the readers they interviewed. The reader quotes may be the most interesting part, but they get drowned by all the theory.

To be honest, if you strip out a lot of the theory, you end with what feels like material for popular magazine articles. The book's findings often read like headlines for a popular magazine article. Some examples of findings: 

• How people perceived time/made time to read during lockdown.
• Why Camus's book The Plague makes for popular pandemic reading.
• Unable to buy books, more people read what is already on their shelves. 
• You said you'd read that big, long, thick book some day. Well, the day is here, so start reading War and Peace. 

That is pretty much what the authors' research confirms, things that we sort of knew. I am sure plenty of librarians observed some of the reading patterns presented in the book. I will also notes the book looks at people who were mostly locked down at home and stuck there. I was deemed essential, so I worked at the library, albeit virtually with my office door closed. So my lockdown experience was very different. 

Overall, this is a dense academic book looking at a limited sample of readers. The themes do not seem to be particularly breaking news, and much of it seems like material for articles rather than a cohesive book. Research libraries interested in literacy and literary studies may want to acquire it. It may also be of interest to large LIS program libraries. I would consider it highly optional, and I would not acquire it for our library. 

1 out of 5 stars.

Book Review: Nonverts

Stephen Sebastian Bullivant, Nonverts: the Making of Ex-Christian America. New York: Oxford University Press, 2022. ISBN: 978019757447.

Genre: Religion, sociology

Subgenre: Interviews, studies, surveys

Format: hardcover

Source: Hutchins Library, Berea College

 

The author looks at the rise of "nonverts" in the United States. In a nutshell, a nonvert is someone who has left a religion to become non-religious or having no religion at all. In a way, think convert but in reverse. The author combines survey data with personal interviews to present his case. 

The book has nine chapters. Chapters alternate between looking at survey data and interpreting it and the case studies. The author's main data source is the biennial General Social Survey (GSS) out of the National Opinion Research Center, University of Chicago. The author also uses some data from Pew Research, Gallup, and Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI). The groups profiled are Mormons, Mainline Protestants, Evangelicals, or rather Exvangelicals, and Catholics, or rather "recovering" Catholics. 

The book as a whole is pretty interesting. The most interesting parts are the interviews and personal stories. The analysis chapters are good, but you have to get through statistical terms, explanations, a whole bunch of caveats, and a bit of uncertainty.

 At times it seems the author either wants to be charitable to the religions, even if they do not deserve it, or just does not want to commit. Still, he makes some good observations that are relevant to our time. 

Keep in mind that much of his work started prior to the pandemic. The narrative does take us past the pandemic, but much of the data is either pre-pandemic or just as the pandemic hit. 

I ordered this book for our library. I figured it would be useful for classes in religious studies, political science, and sociology. It may also be of interest to our general studies classes. The book provides a picture of a part of American society that many either ignore or demonize. The author argues the number of nonverts is growing, and while they are no danger to Christian America yet, they will bring changes down the road. In the end, I do not think he went far enough in his conclusion, but I leave that for readers to consider. 

I liked the book. It does offer some good insights, and it is worth reading if you are interested in the topic. If you are a nonvert or just non-religious in the United States, this book may be of interest too. 

3 out of 5 stars. 

 

Additional reading notes:  

Growth of the nones: 

"Nones account for roughly one in four American adults, or about 59 million people. And as you might already suspect, they are far more diverse than popular stereotypes might have you believe. Furthermore, barring some Great Millennial Revival, this proportion is set to grow and grow for the foreseeable future" (7). 

Nones are not one size fits all: 

"Put another way, the vast majority of nones do not fit easily into the popular one-size-fits-all image of a rationalist and materialist Atheist-with-a-capital-A. Not only are the majority of nones not atheists at all-- a consistent finding  going back to at least the 1960s-- but even many of those who actually are atheists are not that kind of atheist. Not believing in God, gods, or even a kindly 'Something' does not itself preclude believing in all kinds of other supernatural, spiritual, and/or professional phenomena" (69). 

Book Review: The Oxford Guide to Library Research, 4th edition

(Cross-posted from Notes from a Simple Librarian)

 

Thomas Mann, The Oxford Guide to Library Research, Fourth Edition. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015. ISBN: 978-0-19-993106-4.

 

Genre: nonfiction, guides

Subgenre: academic research, LIS

Format: trade paperback

Source: Hutchins Library, Berea College 

 

Our library recently acquired this for the reference collection as an update to the third edition that we had. I did notice this edition's publishing date is 2015, so it already may be falling behind in some details. When I investigated, I did not see a fifth edition forthcoming. Still this is a pretty good book overall.  

This book is a guide to help readers do research online and offline with an overview of various online and offline sources. Though it goes over online and offline sources, there is some bias or preference expressed in the book for print sources found in libraries, especially large research libraries. Naturally it also favors subscription based online resources, again found in libraries, especially large research libraries. The publisher describes this book as "the gold standard in the field," but it is so as long as you are using and accessing large research libraries. There is not much here about smaller academic libraries, like ours, and even less about public libraries. Though the strategies presented can apply for any researcher, the book is mainly for academic researchers at large research universities and institutions, for example, the Library of Congress, which is by the way where the author works. 

 

The book is arranged into 15 chapters. Some of the chapter topics include: specialized encyclopedias, use of subject headings in library catalogs and databases, citation searches, people sources, and hidden treasures (other not so visible at times sources like microforms and government documents). The book definitely strives to be as inclusive of various resources as possible. 

This is a guide mainly for academic researchers. The book is also commonly used as a textbook in library school programs (or "i-Schools" as they often call themselves now), and a lot of the material in the book is written more for librarians in training than actual non-librarian researchers. At times, some topics, such as cataloging and subject headings, may into more depth than most researchers may need, but that depth is necessary for librarians to understand how the systems work in order to better help their patrons. For other readers, some of the material may be way more technical than they want or need to know. 

For librarians in the field, like me, parts of this book may serve as a skills refresher. I did read it all to write this review, but for my brethren in the field I recommend you read what you need when you need. 

The book may not be too accessible for undergraduates. It does offer good research tips, but undergrads may need to dig through the more dense material first to find the good tips they can use. The book may be more geared to graduate students, research faculty, and especially librarians in training. Thus I would recommend the book for academic libraries, especially R-1 and similar institutions. For small academic libraries, I'd say this is optional. I am good with having it in our small collection, but having read it I can see it can be optional for us. 

In the end, I liked some parts better than others, and I think many academic readers can find some use in it. 

3 out of 5 stars. 

*****

Additional reading notes: 

The book is designed to answer three questions: 

 

"First, what is the extent of the significant research resources you will miss if you confine your research entirely, or even primarily, to sources available on the open Internet? Second, if you are trying to get a reasonably good overview of the literature on a particular topic, rather than just 'something quickly' on it, what are the methods of subject heading that are usually much more efficient for the purpose rather than typing keywords into a blank search box? And third-- a concern related to the first two-- how do you find the best search terms to use in the first place?" (xv).

A challenge is convincing researchers, especially students on tight schedules and deadlines who DO want it quickly and just good enough to do the assignment. Then again, a lot of what those students do is not "real" research. It's rather synthesis and compiling of sources on a decided topic, but that is a whole other conversation. 

This is a good point that many folks often miss or conveniently refuse to understand: 

"In the overall universe of information records, three considerations are inextricably tied together: (1) copyright protection; (2) free 'fair use' of the records by everyone; and (3) access limitations of what, who, and where. 

It is not possible to combine (1) and (2) without restricting at least one element of (3)" (xvii). 

Now things like copyright and access to research are debatable, but at the moment the above is the reality, unless you do as some faculty, researchers, and increasingly students do and find your sources in some shady parts of the Internet (and no further comment from me on that). 

A bad habit many librarians, especially the cool and hip ones like the "doers and stirrers," tend to have, which irks me a bit to be honest: 

"(The library field, unfortunately, has a habit of simply following Google rather than focusing on alternatives to it that work much better in the niche areas libraries must fill)" (115). 

That is also why so many libraries go to big default search boxes on their websites to "search everything" or do one "big search" without regard to trade offs of such decision in terms of focus, relevance, and useful results. It's a jump on the Google bandwagon of big search box and hoping the algorithm is on your side, except the algorithm is usually not on your side. Librarians jump on this for convenience, to make it "easier" for themselves and for impatient patrons instead of putting in the work and teaching students and/or patrons properly. Again, this can be a whole other conversation for another time. 

A growing problem in open Internet searching. I often mention this in library instruction, but few students seem to really appreciate it. Less savvy faculty often gloss over it: 

"(The growing proliferation of echo chambers and filter bubbles-- i.e. producing search results weighted and skewed by individuals' own idiosyncratic past search histories-- further diminishes the Web's capacity to provide inclusive overview perspectives)" (133). 

The author gives a nod to Reader's Advisory: 

"Bibliographies are also frequently more useful than databases when questions of 'reader's advisory' nature arise-- that is, when people just want recommendations of good books to read, in any subject area" (184). 

Top Nonfiction Read in 2020

Out of the various nonfiction books I read in 2020, these are ones I consider the top ones for the year. I made this list from books I rated either 4 or 5 stars. The list is in no particular order. Links go to my reviews of the books. 

A Brotherhood Betrayed: the Man Behind the Rise and Fall of Murder Inc. 

 

 

Sleeping Around in America: Revisiting the Roadside Motel

 

 

 Words Onscreen: the Fate of Reading in a Digital World

 

Surrender, White People! Our Unconditional Terms for Peace

 

 

Whiskey Women: the Untold Story of How Women Saved Bourbon, Scotch, and Irish Whiskey

 

 

 

Wise Guy: Life in a Mafia Family

 

 

 

 

Booknote: Words Onscreen

Naomi S. Baron, Words Onscreen: the Fate of Reading in a Digital World. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016. ISBN: 9780199315765.

 

Genre: nonfiction

Subgenre: reading, books, library science, literacy, technology, education

Format: hardcover

Source: Hutchins Library, Berea College. It was recommended by a colleague.

 

This book looks at research on reading and how digital texts and devices can and do affect reading ability and habits. The book is arranged as follows: 

• A preface.
• Ten chapters.
• Acknowledgements, notes, and references. 

 

Baron looks at topics such as: texts going digital, how writing is reshaped digitally, physicality of reading, and the future of reading in a digital world. Baron finds that yes, reading digitally is different than reading in print. In simple terms, Baron shows with research that those who read digitally read less deeply and in a less focused way. This has implications for education. One consideration is for higher education where many schools are embracing e-book textbooks to lower costs for students. At least, that is the claim. If you ask some of our students in our campus here, e-book textbooks can be as expensive as print, but that is another subject for another time.  This is where open textbooks are hailed as a cost effective alternative, but again, at what cost to reading skill and focus? Baron looks at this and other reading topics. 

The book covers a lot of ground while keeping the focus on the act of reading. The book looks at various research studies, including Baron's own work, along with stories from various readers. The book itself is interesting, and it is a pretty easy read. This is a book that librarians and educators should read and consider the findings presented. I really liked it and recommend it.

4 out of 5 stars. 

* * * * * 

Additional reading notes: 

What the book asks: 

"Words Onscreen asks if digital reading is reshaping our understanding of what it means to read. The question sounds amorphous, but it has tangible substance and equally real fallout. I will argue that digital reading is fine for many short pieces or for light content we don't intend to analyze or reread. However, if eReading is less well suited for many longer works on ever for short ones requiring serious thought, what happens to reading if we shift from print to screens? Will some of the uses of reading (and, for that matter, writing) fall by the wayside? If so, with what implications for education, culture, and ourselves?" (xii). 

On PowerPoint: 

PowerPoint has had a cumulative effect on how we read onscreen. Experience with the program is leading us to expect that text accessed on any digital device is ephemeral. But (you may be saying), if a person wants to preserve some of that online content in durable form, why not print it out? Too often my answer is, 'Lots of luck'" (99). 

As if you did not have enough reasons to hate Amazon, Kindle, and other eReader services. This is an issue that concerns me, but there is little I can do about it short of just not using ebooks at all, which neither personally not professionally is a realistic option for me: 

"If you are a Kindle reader (or, increasingly these days, a user of almost any eReader), your privacy is compromised at the corporate level. Someone can track every time you open an eBook, every time you turn one of its pages, every time you make an annotation. Here the social reading relationship is not one you asked for but part of the Faustian bargain for reading onscreen" (130). 

More on privacy concerns: 

"What privacy do today's readers have? Given the ubiquity of credit cards, few of us think twice when we swipe our plastic at the physical or virtual register. For print books, at least we retain the option of using cash in a face-to-face transaction (assuming we have the time and shoe leather to track down what we are looking for in a brick-and-mortar store). With eBooks, all privacy bets are off. Someone knows everything you have bought. Amazon and its competitors also have a pretty good sense of what you've read, since they can trace each page you access. And if you take advantage of such handy features as highlighting, underlining, and jotting notes, every make you make is likely in their database" (150). 

 

 

Main purpose of the book: 

 

"The main purpose of this book is to move beyond arguments of nostalgia and habit to figuring out what it is about print and digital platforms that leads us to read on them in particular ways. But another goal is to understand the potential consequences of driving reading from print to screens. As we have seen, one effect seems to be privileging the search for data or information over reading for continuity of argument and reflection.  In the process, we steer readers (and authors) away from long-form writing to shorter pieces. And we replace the notion of owned, tangible documents with ephemeral access" (153). 

Why we need students able to do complex reading: 

"If we want students to be responsible voting citizens, they must be able to grapple with the issues, not just press an electronic lever. If we want them to be active participants in society, they have to understand its cultural and historical underpinnings, including its nuances. And for that, you need to do serious, roll-up-your-sleeves, focus-on-what-you're-doing reading" (168). 

Some books from the references list for my TBR list: 

• Adler, Mortimer, How to read a book. 
• Carr, Nicholas, The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to our Brains.
• Chabris and Simons, The Invisible Gorilla: How our Institutions Deceive Us. 
• Jacobs, Alan, Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction. 
• McGuire and O'Leary, Book: a Futurist's Manifesto. 
• Miedema, John, Slow Reading. 
• Mikics, David, Slow Reading in a Hurried Age.
• Piper, Andrew, Book was There: Reading in Electronic Times. 
• Radway, Janice A.,  A Feeling for Books: the Book-of-the-Month Club, Literary Taste, and Middle Class Desire.
• Turkle, Sherry, Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other. 
• Ulin, David,  Lost Art of Reading.

 

* * * * * 

This book qualifies for the following 2020 Reading Challenge: 

 

 

Additional Reading Notes for The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism

For books that engage me and make me think deeply, I often take additional notes on points I wish to remember. I usually include those notes in my reviews. However, this book packed so much that I felt a need to write out a second post on it to put out the additional concepts and thoughts I wanted to remember and reflect upon. You may want to read my review of the book first before you keep reading here in order to get the full picture.

* * * * * 

The Tea Party is not really that "revolutionary":

"When we explore the passions of Tea Partiers in detail, we will see that they are new variants of long-standing conservative claims about government, social programs, and hot-button social issues" (11). 

The media, especially right wing media, basically inflames and helps keep the Tea Party alive, even with misinformation:

"From Fox News to right-wing radio jocks and bloggers, media impresarios have done a lot to create a sense of shared identity that let's otherwise scattered Tea Parties get together and feel part of something big and powerful. Media hosts also put out a steady diet of information and misinformation--including highly emotional claims-- that keep Tea Party people in a constant state of anger and fear about the direction of the country and the doings of government officials" (13). 

This is a book written by social scientists. It is written in accessible language, but it is still grounded in evidence. The evidence includes public records, news reports, national social surveys, and questionnaires to Tea Party members as well as extensive field interviews with tea partiers.

Traits of Tea Party members (the majority of them), according to the book:

• Middle aged or older, often seniors. 
• Better, well-off economically, but not "wealthy." 
• White.
• Many are regular church goers and more likely to be evangelicals. 
• At least some college education.
• Many are or were small business owners or other professional occupations. Many are retired. 
• Given that they are disproportionately older whites, they tend to have higher incomes than typical Americans. 

 And tea partiers could not really care less about reaching young people. They see themselves (arrogantly so, I might add) as "older and wiser."

"Despite occasional efforts at intergenerational outreach,  Tea Partiers do not seem anguished about their upward-tilted profile" (25). 

The Tea Party does often use violent rhetoric, and as a result has attracted some extremists into its midst, which the rarely if ever repudiate. This can include the presence of Oath Keepers and members of the John Birch Society. However, fiery rhetoric and extremists aside, most tea partiers are fairly ordinary other than using aggressive language and activism (let's label it of the gadfly variety for the sake of being charitable).

While a lot of tea partiers are evangelicals and social conservatives, a good number are libertarians. However, as secular as they claim to be:

"In our fieldwork experience, the many rank-and-file members who hold heartfelt Christian conservative views set the tone for the Tea Party as a whole. Libertarian members tend to accomodate the social conservative view, at least to some degree" (37).

So libertarians in the Tea Party, much like in real life, are pretty much useless and worthless. This accommodation, which if you think about it means sacrificing many of their "principles", does allow the Tea Party to survive a bit longer.

Now tea partiers hold reverence for the U.S. Constitution, but it is clear that for all they flaunt it, they have barely read it. Heck, they barely understand it and more often than not are ignorant of the document's history and context:

"Despite their fondness for the Founding Fathers, Tea Party members we met did not make any reference to the intellectual battles and political compromises out of which the Constitution and its subsequent amendments were forged, let alone to the fact that key Founders were Deists, far from any branch of evangelical fundamentalism. Nor did they realize the extent to which some of the positions Tea Partiers now espouse bear a close resemblance to those of the Anti-Federalists-- the folks the Founders were countering in their effort to establish sufficient federal authority to ensure a truly United States. The Tea Partiers we met did not show any awareness that they are echoing arguments by the Nullifiers and Secessionists before and during  the U.S. Civil War, or that their stress on 'states' rights' is eerily reminiscent of dead-ender white opposition to Civil Rights laws in the 1960s" (50).

This collective ignorance also goes along with their cherished idea that anyone can read and interpret the Constitution. The above evidence clearly points to the contrary. Add to this their anti-intellectualism and disdain of experts, and this makes a recipe for national disaster.

And for all their anti-government whining, there is this piece of irony:

"Ironically, many organizers and leaders of local Tea Parties are supported in part by Social Security or veterans' pensions, and also enjoy health benefits from Medicare or veterans' health care programs. U.S. taxpayers subsidize their incomes and well-being, and hence give them the time and capacity to organize protests and Tea Party groups" (93). 

This also goes along with their selfish mentality where they "earned" those benefits while everyone else is a "moocher." It is flat out selfish hypocrisy.

Bottom line, their tent can be so big at times to include all sorts of extremists and other right wing idea pushers because of hating on enemy:

"If an organization seems to be against Obama and liberals, Tea Partiers are trusting to the point of gullibility" (118). 

Clearly, critical thinking of any kind is not happening among tea partiers.

More bottom line:

"All in all, Tea Party citizen engagement in the democratic process-- a positive thing-- is married to a level of out-group intolerance and refusal to contemplate compromise and give and take that are surely worrisome for U.S. democracy" (201). 

This is where I do not agree with the authors. Tea partier engagement has not been a positive thing. Their bigotry and intolerance of diversity, outright ignorance, and often aggressive violent rhetoric are not positive things, and if anything, have added to the toxicity of the political environment in the United States. People who would readily take away the rights of those who they see as different are not worthy of applause just because they "engage in the democratic process." If anything, they pervert that process to the detriment of the nation as a whole. That is far from "a positive thing."

Booknote: The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism

Theda Skocpol and Vanessa Williamson, The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism. Oxford, NY: Oxford University Press, 2012. ISBN: 978-0-19-983263-7.

Genre: nonfiction
Subgenre: politics, history, United State politics, U.S. political parties, media
Format: hardcover
Source: My library has this book. 

A lot of what Skocpol and her coauthor write, reporting on their research, confirms what many of us already know about the Tea Party in terms of it being white, older, and extremely conservative. As I have often said, you've got to give the devil his due; the Tea Party members are very good at organizing politically and mobilizing, a lesson the Left seems to consistently ignore at its own peril. However, no matter how genteel the authors portray many of them, the fact that so many of them espouse extremist views and are outright bigots, due in large part to the strong social conservative presence in the party, simply cannot be ignored. Add to this a fairly strong and selfish libertarian presence, which is often at odds with the social conservatives, and the tea partiers do make a fairly toxic element in American politics. What the book does then is provide a mostly objective view of the Tea Party and its members. A strength of the book is that the authors let tea partiers speak for themselves. More often than not, these folks provide the best evidence of why we need a progressive sense of public good and caring for each other in the United States.

On a side note, the book The Elephant in the Room, which I read back in 2009, discusses the tense blend between libertarians and social conservatives in the GOP; some of the insights from that book are applicable here.  If you have read that book, much of what the authors of The Tea Party say on the topic will be familiar ground.

If nothing else, this is a book that serves to understand the rise of the Tea Party in American politics, the kind of people it attracts, and why it remains such a strong influence in the GOP. For progressives who may not be as well informed on the Tea Party, this book makes good basic reading. Skocpol and Williamson lay out where those people are coming from, why they enjoy varying degrees of appeal, and how they play a long term game for right wing power. Progressives who are clueless or complacent need to read this book, then get to work, or risk losing more of the progress we've fought so hard to gain.

Part of the book can be skimmed as the authors can get a bit repetitive on some points. While it does reveal some aspects of the Tea Party that are not commonly known or seen in the media, we also see their rhetoric is firm right wing conservatism in a newer package.

The chapter on billionaires and larger organizations was interesting in revealing the relationships of convenience between the PACs and lobbying groups, desperate to their right wing often extreme messages out, and local tea parties who do not want to be tainted and want to remain "independent" but are often starved for content and substance, even if that content is often inaccurate just as long as it fits their worldview. There is a serious cynicism going on as groups such as FreedomWorks know tea partiers would not readily accept their most radical ideas. Yet tea partiers accept them just as long as such groups keep concepts just vague enough so as not to be unpalatable. More often than not this is not innocence; it's selective understanding often sustained by a heavy degree of selfishness. They've earned their benefits, so everyone else who comes after them be damned. For instance, as long as they can keep their Social Security, which they "earned," they do not care much if those who come after them, "entitled" moochers in their eyes, get it as well. And this is exposed in their own words. The authors' extensive on the ground interviews and research reveal all this. It does so in a straightforward way. There is no need to spin here. The authors simply present the evidence, and the evidence of the Tea Party's toxicity on American politics becomes clear.

The book is also interesting to read in light of how things have turned out over time. For example, as powerful as Glenn Beck was in helping shape an image of the Tea Party for the media and influencing tea partiers, it has to be noted that he no longer works for Fox News. The authors cover Beck's dismissal from Fox News in the final chapter of the book. Howard Kurtz, previously CNN's media critic who pointed out how Fox News practically co-sponsored Tea Party events, took a rightward turn and went to work for Fox News. Events in these instances moved faster than the book's content, which illustrate how swiftly things can turn in media and politics.

Yet as loud as they can be, the authors also revel that they are not as big as the media make them out to be. However, given juggernauts like Fox News backing them, they do remain a dangerous influence. Yet, as the 2015 elections showed in places like Kentucky, the Tea Party can, along with other Right Wing ideologues, still pack a punch. The GOP is still stuck with the Tea Party. The key still remains whether progressives will turn out to vote in 2016 in contrast to their failure to do so in 2015.

The research in the book is documented by ample notes in the back of the book. The book is divided into six chapters that look at topics including who are the Tea Partiers and their beliefs, their relations with PACs and other political groups, the role of the media, and where they stand on American democracy.

Overall, the authors are pretty charitable at times, probably in the interest of politeness. Still, the book gives a pretty clear picture of what the Tea Party really is and stands for; disjointed as Tea Party groups can be, they do all share some core self-centered values in common. If nothing else, a big lesson is to not underestimate them.

For students of American politics and current U.S. politics, this book is essential. Academic libraries will want to acquire this one, especially for students writing on topics such as Obama's presidency, the contemporary Republican Party, and of course the Tea Party. It is not always riveting reading, but in this day, it is necessary reading.

3 out of 5 stars.

Note: Given this is a pretty lengthy post, and that the book just packs so much, I am putting my additional reading notes on a separate post (coming soon). If you are interested in learning more, read that as well.

Also, Skocpol, one of the authors, visited my college recently. You can read my notes from that event here.

Booknote: Part of Our Lives

Wayne A. Wiegand, Part of Our Lives: a People's History of the American Public Library. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015. ISBN: 9780190248000. 

Genre: nonfiction
Subgenre: library science, history, Americana
Format: e-book galley
Source: NetGalley

I will be honest and say that I had much higher expectations for this book. If you are a halfway well-informed librarian with some knowledge of library history, you probably know a lot of what this book presents already. The book can be very repetitive at times. At times, it does show some clear biases, and at other times I can't help but wonder what sources the author missed or chose not to include. I found myself making a lot of notes as I read, commenting and responding to much of what the author wrote, so for this booknote, I will focus on those notes instead of writing a more formal review.

For those of you who need a bottom line: The book was mostly OK. I would consider it an optional purchase for libraries. I do not see this book as one for general readers. It's the kind of book that library schools would buy for their libraries; some public libraries may wan it, but as I said, I see this as optional. I can tell you that I do not plan to purchase for my library unless some patron requests it.

2 out of 5 stars.

* * * * * 

Reading notes:


What the author claims the book does:

"This book is an attempt to bolster this soft data by tracing the American public library's history--not so much by analyzing the words of its founders and managers, but mostly by listening to the voices of its users" (11). 

On reading the next passage, I can't help but wonder what the author did not uncover, or did he really miss the many trolls and whiny right wingers that do protest libraries and its contents? I mean, just the various book challenges alone provide some proof. However, later on, the author does reveal some apparent bias against ALA (American Library Association to my non-librarian readers), which while I am no fan of ALA, it does have an Office for Intellectual Freedom that keeps track of that kind of thing (and they are not the only ones to do so):

"But another fact struck me as I mined these databases--there is a relative lack of complaints about and protests against these libraries. By its eloquent silence, that absence strongly supports the conviction Americans have always loved their public libraries" (12).

Why Americans love their public libraries (when they are not bitching about books they dislike or engaging in Internet porn hysterics):

"History shows that the reasons Americans have loved their public libraries fit into three broad categories-- for the useful information they made accessible; for the public spaces they provided; and for the power of reading stories they circulated that helped users make sense of phenomena in the world around them" (12).

I find that also interesting in the sense that today library space (especially ways to reshape that space) seems to be a hot topic in the profession, and yet, even back when libraries were starting out, there were various discussions and arguments on space and its use.

We like to think this is no longer the case, but there are still libraries that are very much reflective of their racist and prejudiced communities. I can recall a certain public library in a town I used to live in that had a very prominent and permanent shrine of Right Wing authors like Limbaugh, Coulter, and Hannity and with no opposing view anywhere in sight. Let's just say that one local public library was not exactly doing very well in "educating their patrons through collections and services" unless it was indoctrinate and promote a certain political viewpoint.

"Public libraries can certainly take credit for educating their patrons through collections and services, but because these collections and services largely reflected values of locally powerful groups, on many occasions, public libraries functioned as obstacles to cultural democracy by perpetuating the racism, sexism, classism, and homophobia their collections supported. At the same time, however, users heavily influenced the choices librarians made" (14). 

To show some things never really change, nor are they new, even in the early days we had the debate of give them what they want versus what is good for them:

"Where social libraries avoided stories depicting romance, murders, hangings, and scandals of popular interest that papers like the Boston Gazette regularly reported, circulating libraries embraced them" (18). 

And speaking of those social libraries in the late 1700s:

"Social libraries needed several conditions to prosper. They had to be in areas transitioning from frontier to populated settlements, gain a footing in the community during good times with adequate per capita income, build upon existing legislation, and offer lecture series and support lyceums" (22). 

Not unlike today where a library does better in an area that has better funding, funding often due to a good area with people making a good income.

On the power of reading, and reading fiction. Though this refers to the 1800s, it can certainly apply today:

"Readers used novels for multiple purposes: as filters for their experiences, to jointly experience similar emotions, to make sense of their daily lives, to develop and strengthen social networks, to form and maintain a sense of identity, to provide a subject of conversation that connected people face-to-face and in written correspondence, and to effect a sociability that the act of reading nurtured" (23). 

Yet all of the above sounds so genteel. I cannot help but wonder how much television, and specially today the Internet and social media have ruined so much of that.

A nice label given to critics to circulating libraries because they circulated fiction and novels:

"slop shops in literature" (24). 

If I ever make a new blog, or I get around to writing that pseudomemoir/novel of my experiences in librarianship, the title will be The Literary Slop Shop.

Could this be a formal start of study and reading rooms in libraries? What I find interesting about the early parts of the book is how many of today's library issues so many "rock star librarians" and "thought leaders" in our profession think are new or revolutionary, and they are nothing of the sort. Social spaces in libraries? Got that. Balancing quiet spaces? Debates over content? Got those as well.

"In 1810 the Boston Athenaeum not only allowed evening 'conversation' in the Reading Room, trustees even ordered that 'rooms be made convenient for that purpose'" (25).

This may be the real reason authority figures disliked and were even outright hostile to fiction and novels:

"By empowering white women, people of color, and the lower classes to rethink societal roles others assigned them, the implicit democratic messages carried by the early nineteenth century novel threatened traditional authorities, including white male church and state leaders" (26).

However, that does not mean libraries were always bastions of equality and democracy, if they ever were given how they often reflect local values, which as we know, are not always positive nor democratic. Point is that while libraries are a positive overall, they certainly are not always paragons of virtue contrary to what happy journalists and celebrity "rock star" librarians and library members may convey.

"Although these libraries nurtured the democratizing tendencies that reading cultivated, none were democratic; most were controlled by white Anglo-Saxon Protestant, and generally middle-class, adult males who preferred the society of their own kind" (28).

However, others did form their own libraries and literary societies:

"In the North, however, free blacks organized literary societies that sponsored reading rooms and debates and used them to challenge slavery and racism" (31). 

Now, on this, maybe we need to encourage this more in our campus convocations (thinking a bit locally here). I mean, besides the often contrived attempts to somehow relate a class to convocation speakers or performers, which in some cases it's outright forced:

"'To derive the greatest advantage' from a lecture, any listener 'must also read'" (32).

On parents in libraries:

"Just as parents do today, many late nineteenth century parents carefully monitored their children's reading; like today, many children protested. . .in their own ways" (51). 

I was amused by that passage. Really? Parents today are often notorious for one of two things; not monitoring at all, or monitoring to an extreme what their kids, and other kids not theirs, read like biddies.

After a while, the book does get repetitive. I mean, how many ways are there to say fiction was seen as inferior?

I think the next passage says a lot about today, and it's not all good:

"While the new information priesthood tended to look past library service priorities that patrons still used in convincing numbers, many librarian working the desks recognized that users benefitted in their own ways from the reading and the spaces the institutions provided" (237). 

More on what the book does according to the author:

"Part of Our Lives shows that over time American public libraries multiplied, survived and regularly prospered, in large part because they perpetuated practices or eventually embraced changes upon which their users insisted" (270). 

The next passage is where the author seems to flake a bit, seeing the Library Bill of Rights as sort of optional for the sake of compromise and survival. Yet, in real life, it is a Catch-22, but often it is also an indication in the profession of lacking a spine. Again, we also see the bias against ALA. As I have mentioned, I am not a fan of ALA, but I am certainly not a fan of intellectual censorship for the sake of appeasing locals.

"Do public librarians toe the party line and risk alienating large parts of the their community by insisting on LBR compliance, or do they mediate public culture disputes for the community's greater benefit?" (271). 

* * * * *

This book qualifies for the following 2015 Reading Challenges: