Fusenews: Can YOU Identify What Sally is Reading?

• Okay. First and foremost, citizens of the world I need your help.  Take a look at these photographs:

What you are looking at are two shots of what the character Sally Draper from Mad Men is reading in episode 5, season 4.  It is imperative that we figure out what this book might be.  You see, fellow NYPL employee Billy Parrott . . . I’m sorry.  I’m going to have to stop right there.  Yes, folks, I know a guy named Billy Parrott.  Years and years ago we worked in the same branch and I cannot describe to you the sheer glee expressed by my branch manager as he introduced us.  “Betsy Bird meet Billy Parrott.  Billy Parrott meet Betsy Bird.”  It went on for some time.  Can you blame the guy?  How often does an opportunity of this magnitude present itself?

Anyway, these days Billy does some really engaging blog posts for NYPL about what the characters on the television show Mad Men read.  And Sally Draper is just one of those folks.  You can read his Sally Draper Reading List of proposed titles here.  Trouble is, we need to solve the mystery of what this particular book might be.  Any ideas?

• In other news, bad news for Billy and me.  Apparently we’re powerless.  Yup.  So sayeth The Village Voice.  In the recent article 100 Most Powerless New Yorkers we come in at #13 with this explanation: “Gone are the days when a master’s degree in library science and a job in the nation’s largest public-library system meant that you would spend your days helping writers to research and mesmerizing people with your encyclopedic knowledge of the Dewey decimal system. Today’s NYPL librarian needs to be a social worker, a specialist at dealing with the homeless and the severely mentally ill, a computer-tech wiz at solving people’s Wi-Fi problems, and a job (and suicide-prevention) counselor helping people look for jobs that simply don’t exist.”  I’m not even going to touch the fact that we help writers and patrons with research and Dewey every day (nor the fact that the main branch’s reference section doesn’t actually use Dewey, but that’s neither here nor there).  Rather, I’m fascinated by the idea that if you help the homeless, the mentally ill, the computer illiterate, and the unemployed that you are, by definition, “powerless”.  Come again?  What kind of power are you talking about exactly?  Not to get all high and mighty on you, but the librarians who do those things have the power to change lives.  Whip-pah!  Thanks to Rocco Staino for the link.

• Mad about that piece?  Find comfort in the words of Isaac Asimov.  Circa 1971 at that.

• A wide variety of Tolkien book jackets from around the world along with some great commentary and links are on display at Flavorwire.  There are some real gems on display, like so:

• Well, just to prove that there is at least some justice in the world, Kate Beaton just topped the 2011 PW Comics World Critics Poll.  Darn tootin’.

• That night the nightmares.

• Daily Image:

I haven’t done a bookshelf related image in a while, right?  Then behold!  The power and glory of a bookshelf that uses everything including the kitchen sink:

Info on its use during a zombie apocalypse may be found here.  Thanks to Aunt Judy for the link.

Filed under: Fusenews