Beginning in January, the Free Library will continue its Year of Dickens 2012 with monthly literary salons, each featuring a different Dickens novel. The salons are free and open to all readers, whether it’s your first or 100th time to crack open Oliver Twist.

Taking place in the Elkins Room of the Rare Book Department at Parkway Central, the salons are held the third Thursday of every month at 6:30 p.m. The first book up for discussion, on January 19, is Dickens’s earliest novel, The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. The following months’ line-up includes:

• February 16 – Oliver Twist
• March 15 – The Mystery of Edwin Drood
• April 19 – The Old Curiosity Shop
• May 17 – David Copperfield
• June 21 – Great Expectations
• July 19 – A Tale of Two Cities
• August 16 – Barnaby Rudge
• September 20 – Nicholas Nickleby
• October 18 – Bleak House
• November 15 – Our Mutual Friend
• December 20 – A Christmas Carol

To register for any of the salons, visit freelibrary.org/dickens.

Along with the literary salons, special guest authors and writers will visit the Library during reading periods for the novels as a part of the Boz Bicentenary Speaker Series, named after Dickens’s self-stylized nickname. The schedule, which can also be found at freelibrary.org/dickens, includes Richard Bravo on The Pickwick Papers on January 11; Matthew Pearl on The Mystery of Edwin Drood on March 6; and Wesley Stace on David Copperfield on May 9.

We hope you continue to join us in our celebration of all things Dickens!
 

Tags: Year of Dickens

A vibrant and colorful exhibition at the Parkway Central Library highlights one of the most enduring legacies of Charles Dickens's genius: the unforgettable characters he brought to life. By some estimates there are 989 named characters in his works, with names like Toodle, Tappertit, and Tattycoram; Buzfuz, Bumble, and Bucket.

Each of Dickens’s novels is populated with a profusion of unique personalities who are animated by the extraordinary power the author had of seeing his characters and making us see them. Driven by a fascination with human behavior and fueled by his gift for precise recall, Dickens often remarked that his characters and stories “took possession” of him.

The writer G. K. Chesterton said that “The whole of Dickens’s genius consisted of taking hints and turning them into human beings.” In putting pen to paper Dickens interwove satire and sentimentalism to create some of the most bizarre and eccentric characters in fiction. Of Sairey Gamp, the befuddled, sadistic midwife of The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit, Dickens writes, “The face of Mrs. Gamp – the nose in particular – was somewhat red and swollen, and it was difficult to enjoy her society without becoming conscious of a smell of spirits.”  Of the immortal Samuel Pickwick he remarks: "To those who knew that the gigantic brain of Pickwick was working beneath that forehead, and that the beaming eyes of Pickwick were twinkling behind those glasses, the sight was indeed an interesting one.”

To aid his creativity Dickens made lists of odd names, gleaned from church registers, tombstones, and a resource called Bowditch's Surnames. According to biographer Peter Ackroyd, Dickens's characters did not exist until he had named them and "it is that, which like a spell, brings forth their appearance and behaviour in the world." Facsimiles of original and published illustrations, set against a backdrop of London Street scenes from the collections of the Rare Book Department, Theatre, and Print and Picture Collections bring these characters to life in a vivid and imaginative way.  

The exhibition will be on view in the West Gallery on the first floor until March 23rd, 2012 and can be seen during Parkway Central's normal hours of operation: 9:00 a.m. - 9:00 p.m., Monday through Thursday; 9:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m. Friday; 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. Saturday; 1:00 – 5:00 p.m. Sunday. For more information on the Free Library's Year of Dickens, including a full calendar of events, visit freelibrary.org/dickens.

Tags: Exhibitions, Rare Book Department, Year of Dickens

In chapter eight of Create Dangerously, “Another Country,” Edwidge Danticat writes about natural disaster and about how many residents of the developed world so frequently associate such disaster with the developing world. Of course, the developed world also sees its fair share of natural disasters, but those images of “the aftermath” we hold in our minds—devastated villages, suffering refugees—are almost always associated with “poorer” countries than ours. But then there’s Hurricane Katrina.

In watching television coverage of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Danticat—who is Haitian American—finds it troubling how so many journalists and news broadcasters talk about how foreign the suffering in New Orleans is, how “if you turned the sound down on your television, if you didn’t know where you were, you might think it was Haiti or maybe one of those African countries” (quote from CNN anchor Soledad O’Brien, p. 109). Danticat writes in response:

It’s hard for those of us who are from places like Freetown or Port-au-Prince, and those of us who are immigrants who still have relatives living in places like Freetown or Port-au-Prince, not to wonder why the so-called developed world needs so desperately to distance itself from us, especially at times when an unimaginable disaster shows exactly how much alike we are.

I find Danticat’s assertion that poorer people—no matter where they live—function as outcasts within their own country to be powerful in its honesty. I like to think that many people living in a city like Philadelphia or New Orleans may be a little more attuned to the imbalances of wealth—and to the crushing poverty in which so many people still live in our “developed” country—than the average viewer of Hurricane Katrina TV coverage who may not see or experience such issues in his or her daily life. But I do think that many living in the developed world still have the instinctual thought of: “That couldn’t happen here,” the instinctual association of poverty and tragedy and disaster with some far off country. Why do you think this is?

What did you take away from “Another Country”? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Tags: One Book One Philadelphia

The Free Library of Philadelphia is excited to be piloting a groundbreaking new program that offers adults 50 years of age and older the opportunity to learn how to use a variety of e-readers, including Kindles, iPads, and NOOKs. Participants can then check out a NOOK e-reader for two weeks and enjoy a variety of pre-loaded ebooks at their leisure!

If you are 50 years of age or older with a valid photo ID, a Free Library card in good standing, and are interested in participating in this excellent opportunity, here’s what you need to know:

• Novice e-reader users are welcome to complete a special one-hour training session in our Tech Lab, located on the ground floor of Parkway Central Library. E-reader training sessions are held Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 10:00 a.m. No appointment is necessary to attend!
• You can check out a NOOK e-reader from Central Senior Services at Parkway Central Library. Stop by in person Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The NOOK will be pre-loaded with a variety of books for you to enjoy.
• The borrowing period for an e-reader is two weeks, with no renewals. E-reader late fees are $1.00 per day. If the e-reader is more than 25 days late, it will be considered lost and you will be charged $150 for the full cost of the device.
• NEW: Select neighborhood libraries will soon be circulating e-readers as well! Currently, you can check out a NOOK e-reader at the Bustleton branch. Keep checking back for  additional participating Free Library locations!

For more information about the Free Library’s e-reader lending program, please call Central Senior Services at 215-686-5331.

The Free Library’s e-reader lending program is made possible with funding from the federal Library Services and Technology Act administered by the Office of Commonwealth Libraries and with support from the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

Last Friday, the literary world lost one of its most impassioned and opinionated contributors to the public discourse on religion and intellectualism--Christopher Hitchens. A self-styled radicalist, Hitchens was notorious for his strong opinions and conflicting views. His polemic against organized religion, God Is Not Great, was a no. 1 New York Times bestseller and a finalist for the National Book Award. Hitchens visited the Free Library's Author Events Series twice--in 2007 and in 2010. Listen to the podcasts from his visits here and here.