NBCC Award Winners

The National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) was founded in April 1974 and honors outstanding writing and fosters a national conversation about reading, criticism and literature.

On March 13, 2014, the NBCC announced its award winners for publishing year 2013:

• Fiction – Americanah / Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
• General Non-fiction – Five Days at Memorial / Sheri Fink
• Autobiography – Farewell, Fred Voodoo / Amy Wilentz
• Biography – Jonathan Swift: His Life and His World / Leo Damrosch
• Criticism – Distant Reading / Franco Moretti
• Poetry – Metaphysical Dog / Frank Bidart
• John Leonard Prize – A Constellation of Vital Phenomena / Anthony Marra
• Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award – Rolando Hinojosa-Smith
• Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing – Katherine A. Powers

 

 

eBook of the Week

Earth Day 2014 is on April 22.  You can get involved in caring for our planet by educating yourself about the problems and issues.  As Mary Ritter Beard said, Action without study is fatal. Study without action is futile.

Invisible Nature: Healing the Destructive Divide between People and the Environment by Kenneth Worthy

“Amidst all the wondrous luxuries of the modern world — smartphones, fast intercontinental travel, Internet movies, fully stocked refrigerators — lies an unnerving fact that may be even more disturbing than all the environmental and social costs of our lifestyles. The fragmentations of our modern lives, our disconnections from nature and from the consequences of our actions, make it difficult to follow our own values and ethics, so we can no longer be truly ethical beings … Environmental scholar Kenneth Worthy traces the broken pathways between consumers and clean-room worker illnesses, superfund sites in Silicon Valley, and massively contaminated landscapes in rural Asian villages. His groundbreaking, psychologically based explanation confirms that our disconnections make us more destructive and that we must bear witness to nature and our consequences. Invisible Nature shows the way forward: how we can create more involvement in our own food production, more education about how goods are produced and waste is disposed, more direct and deliberative democracy, and greater contact with the nature that sustains us.”

Check it out! Beyond Library Walls Digital Collection

CPERS – Cooperative Purchasing and Electronic Resources Services

Cooperation … it’s a good thing!

The BSC Library works with CPERS at Minitex.

Spring Break Hours

The Library will observe these hours for Spring Break:                                                                                          

• Saturday, March 15 – CLOSED
• Sunday, March 16 – CLOSED
• Monday, March 17 – 7:30 a.m. – 4 p.m.
• Tuesday, March 18 – 7:30 – 10:15 a.m. & 2:30 – 4 p.m.
  • NOTE: Closed 10:15 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday, March 18, for Staff Day.
• Wednesday, March 19 – 7:30 a.m. – 4 p.m.
• Thursday, March 20 – 7:30 a.m. – 4 p.m.
• Friday, March 21 – 7:30 a.m. – 4 p.m.
• Saturday, March 22 – CLOSED
• Sunday, March 23 – CLOSED

Regular hours will resume on Monday, March 24.

Even when the Library is closed, the ODIN catalog and Library databases are available 24/7.

Have a fun, relaxing, and safe break!

eBook of the Week

Did you let yourself go over the winter? Now is the time to make a change … exercise and eating right are part of the magic formula. Get the whole family on board with this book:

Biggest Loser Families: Change Your Lives Together by Clare Collins

“… Inside you’ll find a fitness program to help you lose weight at a healthy pace, plus more than 70 healthy recipes with full-colour photography. Jam-packed with advice from nutritionists and trainers who work on The Biggest Loser TV show, this book will help transform your body and your life. There is advice for the entire family, from children to adults, and tailored eating and exercise plans …” 

Check it out! Beyond Library Walls Digital Collection

The Public Domain Review

“All works eventually fall out of copyright – from classic works of art to absentminded doodles – and in doing so they enter the public domain, a vast commons of material that everyone is free to enjoy, share and build upon without restriction.”  

The Public Domain Review was created in 2011 by the Open Knowledge Foundation.  It aims “to help our readers explore this rich terrain – like a small exhibition gallery at the entrance to an immense network of archives and storage rooms that lie beyond.”

The collections are the heart of the site.  You will find images, texts, and audiovisual materials from around the world.

Check it out!

Novel First Lines

 Here’s something interesting to follow …

“Twitter user Dylan Smith has started a new Twitter account called Novel First Lines, on which he will tweet the first line of a novel every day for a year.

 The Twitter handle got started on March 1st and will tweet through February 28, 2015. So far tweets have included the first sentences of Post Office by Charles Bukowski, The Go-Between by L.P. Hartley, and Still Life With Woodpecker by Tom Robbins.”

Read the story from GalleyCat.

 

 

Author & BSC Alum Visiting Campus Next Week

 Mark your calendars!  Larry Watson, a well-known author and BSC alum, will be on campus March 11-12.  In addition to visiting BSC classes during the day, Watson will do a reading and book signing on Tuesday, March 11, at 7:30 p.m. in the Bavendick Stateroom at the National Energy Center of Excellence.  This event is free and open to all.

Watson is coming to campus for the spring installment of Campus Read.  His book, American Boy, is one of the 2014 Campus Read selections.  Watson’s book, Montana 1948, was also a selection for the very first BSC Campus Read in 2004.

The BSC Library has copies of all of Watson’s books.  Check them out!

Julie Gard Is Back!

We’re excited that Julie Gard, a BSC English faculty member from 2003-2007, is back as part of BSC’s Visiting Writers Series! Julie is in residence from March 2-4, and tonight (Monday, March 3), she will give a public reading from her work in the Basin Electric Auditorium (Room 304) at BSC’s National Energy Center of Excellence.

Julie has a Masters of Fine Arts in creative writing from the University of Minnesota and spent a year in Russia as a Fulbright Graduate Fellow. She now lives in Duluth, Minnesota, and is an assistant professor of writing at the Unviersity of Wisconsin-Superior. Her prose poems and stories have appeared in more than 30 literary magazines and anthologies.

For a sampling of Julie’s writing, check out Obscura: the Daguerreotype Series: Prose Poems from the BSC Library collection. 

You can also find Julie Gard online at juliegard.com.