Posts from Hamilton Fish Park Library

Handling Death & Pandemic Loss: 25 Books To Help Tweens, Teens & Adults Cope With Grief

Novels and nonfiction books for all ages to help during the bereavement and grieving process.

Down the Rabbit Hole

Lewis Carroll’s creative masterpiece turns 150 this fall, and NYPL is celebrating with a major exhibition—and, of course, with book recommendations.

A List of Lists: May 2012

Visit NYPL's BiblioCommons for these lists and many more. You can also create your own and share them with us in the comments! See below for some interesting staff picks from the past month, on topics both timely and timeless:

Genre Fiction While You're Waiting for Fifty Shades of Grey, Try... Comic Books for Adults

Poetry Writing With Adult New Readers, Strategy 1: The List Poem

You have not crossed the bridges I have crossed. You have not listened to the music I have listened to. You have not been in the top of the World Trade Center the way I have been there. You have not seen the waves I have seen. You have not fallen from horses the way I have fallen. You have not felt the guns on your neck the way I have felt them. You have not been in the sea with a big storm in a little boat the way I have been.

—Excerpt from "Don’t Give Me Advice," by Luis Marin, Tompkins Square CRW

This month is

The Tree of Life & the Poem of Being

The Tree of Life opens May 27th in theaters; of course, having not yet seen the film there is little I can say about it (the studio released only a few plot details), but a discussion of his previous films may inform a deeper viewing more than simply assuming a passive stance. All too often, we are encouraged to receive films or books this way, in some vague popular idea that our minds are storage receptacles and that we simply experience a movie more or less in the fashion the filmmakers intended. I would like to counter this idea and 

Comedy! (insert witty subtitle phrase here)

It is my day off and I have some errands to do! However, that shouldn't keep me from what I really love: WRITING BLOG POSTS.

8:08am Queens: I start thinking about doing a piece on comedy while on the subway. I am wedged neatly between the door, a large Polish construction worker and what I think are three old Chinese women, possibly triplets, but I'm not sure because I can't see them. Someone knocked off my Todd Ford* glasses at the last stop and I dislocate one of my upper vertebrae to make room for a gaggle of rowdy junior high students. I then 

Precarity: A Reader's Guide

It is striking the United States has not developed a discourse of precarity. Today, the gap between rich and poor stands at its widest in history, and the unemployment rate hangs around at 8.9%; this statistic does not include the long-term unemployed, the underemployed (those working in part-time positions), and those simply not seeking work at all. There is no discourse or vocabulary for precarity, yet 

The Question of Science Fiction: Utopias

"All profound life is heavy with the impossible."                                                   —Georges Bataille

If you're anything like me, you'll be walking down the street thinking about science fiction and think to yourself, "Say, what is the 

Two, Three, Many Egypts

If you're anything like me, you've been glued to your computer screen for more than a week observing the will of an entire people force a reckoning with its despotic ruler, against all cynical logic that insurrections and revolutions somehow irretrievably belong to ages past. What is the context for this momentuous event that will undoubtedly have repercussions for years to come? 

Branded as "the January 25th Movement," the truth 

The Art of Browsing

I had not seen my friends S. or F. for quite some time.

We were standing outside the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building on 5th Avenue; traffic buzzed and halted around us. Sitting on the steps like the boys and girls in Rome who hang around the Spanish Steps, smoke cigarettes and behave like the images they see on television who are modelled after them, I think to myself, we are encumbered in one city by Ghostbusters, in fiction parading out before us, haunted in another at 

NaNoWriMo & NYPL: One Week to Go!

There's not much time left to make it to NYPL's many NaNoWriMo monthly write-ins! How is your novel coming along? What is your word count? Are you ahead of the curve or do you have some catching up to do?

Need some encouragement or inspiration? Here's another look at a NaNoWriMoer for 2010!

Please visit nanowrimo.org for more information.

What is your name or pseudonym?

Erin

What borough do you live in? And are you planning to attend 

NaNoWriMo & NYPL: Meet the Author!

Throughout the month, we'll be profiling some NYPL patrons who are participating in this year's National Novel Writing Month. Please visit nanowrimo.org for more information and inspiration, and get writing!

What is your name or pseudonym? My user name is Nellachronism, but I go by Nella in most other things. What borough do you live in? And are you planning to attend any of the NYPL Write-Ins? I live in Queens, and the plan (and sincere hope!) is that I'll be at the Library write-ins on Friday nights and Saturday