Read With MLC: Listen to an Award-Winning Audiobook

Welcome to November, and the eleventh month of the 2024 Read with MLC reading challenge! This month's prompt is to listen to an award-winning audiobook.

People listen to audiobooks for a lot of very different yet valid reasons. Some people can't see to read the words on the page, like those with blindness or visual impairments. Others, like those with dyslexia, have trouble processing the printed word. Still others, like people with arthritis or broken limbs, can't hold a book to read. Seriously, Marcel Proust's Remembrance of Things Past, the world's longest novel, clocks in at thousands and thousands of pages. (Incidentally, if you fall into one of these categories, you're eligible for MLC's Talking Book Services. You can learn more here.) Some people don't have time to sit and read a book, while others enjoy the experience of having someone read to them. Other people like to rest their eyes after a day staring at screens, and others find that the audiobook experience can be downright more enjoyable than a book that's slow or unwieldy. Truth be told, a lot of MLC staff love to listen to books! While not all of our suggestions below are "official" audiobook award winners, they are, in our hearts, exceptional audios.

A Stack, an Omnibus, A Veritable Repository

What do you call a group of librarians? While there's no official name, a large congress of librarians descended on the town of Natchez last week for the annual Mississippi Library Association (MLA) conference. MLA was officially organized 115 years ago on October 29, 1909 and is even older than the Mississippi Library Commission (MLC). (FYI: MLC was created 17 years later in 1926.) You may be wondering what a collection of librarians does at a librarian conference. Shelve your thoughts of rooms of quiet readers shushing one another and let me share the highlights of last week's memorable meeting.

Read with MLC: Retelling of a Classic

Welcome to October, and the tenth month of the 2024 Read With MLC reading challenge! This month's reading prompt is to read a retelling of a classic. Once a tale has been released into the public domain, the sky's the limit when it comes to storytellers and their ability to put their own stamp on an older work. (Want to learn more about when works hit the public domain? Check out one of our earlier posts here.)  Meg Donohue, author of the Wuthering Heights retelling You, Me, and the Sea says that, "Reimaginings present a unique delight to readers because they manage to combine the pleasure of surprising twists with the comfort of a familiar story." Whether you long to hear the "Wicked" Witch's side of the story (Wicked by Gregory Maguire) or you want to see Anne of Green Gables succeed in the modern world (Anne of Manhattan by Brina Starler), there's a retelling of a classic out there you're going to love.

More Than Meets the Eye: Why You NEED a Library Card

When's the last time you visited a public library? Libraries across Mississippi have oodles and oodles of fantastically fun resources for you, the patron, to use. There are 53 library systems with 234 libraries in Mississippi ready and waiting to serve you and, as September is Library Card Sign-up Month, now is the perfect time to step foot inside one of these local community hubs. Why should you visit a library? Well, there's more to them than meets the eye!

Read with MLC: Book in Translation

Welcome to September, and the ninth month of the 2024 Read With MLC reading challenge! This month's reading prompt is to read a book in translation. Why should we read books originally written in languages other than English? Georgi Gospodinov, winner of 2023's International Booker Prize for his book Time Shelter, says, 

When we have ears and eyes (and a translation) for the story of the Other, when we hear and read it, they become a person like us. Storytelling generates empathy. It saves the world. Especially a world like the one we live in today. We write to postpone the end of the world. And the end of the world is a very personal thing. It happens in different languages. Translation gives us the sense that we are working towards this postponement together.

Still, when some people think of translated fiction, their thoughts may immediately turn to dry, ponderous tomes that have no connection to their lives or interests. Luckily, the staff at the Mississippi Library Commission have shared some of their favorite works in translation below.

Support Your Library with a Snapshot!

Have you ever wondered what goes on at your local public library? Do you wish you could support them more, but just can't seem to find the time? Snapshot Day, a yearly celebration of the power of Mississippi libraries, is the perfect opportunity for you to explore.

Read with MLC: Historical Fiction

Welcome to August, and the eighth month of the 2024 Read With MLC reading challenge. This month's reading prompt is to read a work of historical fiction. What drives so many of us to explore the past instead of the present or the future? When Time Magazine(1) asked historical fiction great E.L. Doctorow what the difference was between a historian writing history and a novelist, he responded, "The historian will tell you what happened. The novelist will tell you what it felt like." Experiencing a semblance of what our Cro-Magnon ancestors thought about, living through the American Civil War, dodging accusations during the Salem Witch Trials... These are the great experiences historical fiction offers us.

Read With MLC: The Year You Were Born

Congratulations, y'all! We've made it halfway through 2024 and this year's Read With MLC reading challenge. We dedicated the month of July to reading a book published the year you were born. Sure, reading the latest bestseller can be really satisfying, but reading older books can be a rewarding experience as well. While doing research for a project in 2018, Emily Temple, the managing editor of Literary Hub, noticed that, just like today, the books that were the most popular weren't necessarily the ones that made the biggest impression on society, and therefore, aren't remembered as well. She collected the top ten best-selling booklists from 1918 forward and added in a sprinkling of "classics" from each year. The result is a kaleidoscope of titles of all genres and for all tastes. If you're interested in Temple's findings, here is her list of the most popular fiction and nonfiction books of the past century.

We asked our staff if they've read anything from the year they were born. Check out their thoughts below!

Book Clubs Transform Us All

Book clubs are social gatherings for the literary-minded, providing a space to discuss literature, share insights, and enjoy discussion with fellow readers. However, within the confines of a correctional facility, a book club can be much more than just a leisure activity. Book clubs can serve as a bridge between inmates and the outside world. They become a transformative tool that fosters rehabilitation, education, and emotional well-being among inmates. It also promotes critical thinking and reflection, builds communication skills, and fosters a sense of purpose and belonging. Books often reflect real-world issues and challenges, allowing inmates to stay connected to societal developments and current cultural topics. Furthermore, book clubs often involve external volunteers or facilitators fostering positive interactions with members of the community and breaking down the barriers of stigma and exclusion.

Adventure Begins At Your Library

Welcome to a summer of fun at your local Mississippi public library! Mississippi participates in the annual Collaborative Summer Library Program, a national program that allows our libraries to pool their resources on a joint theme. It makes planning and implementing a summer of reading fun just that much easier. 2024's theme is "Adventure Begins at Your Library" and even though it's not officially summer yet (two days left!), this library celebration has already begun. Here are just a few of the amazing things going on at libraries across the state this summer, because if you haven't visited lately, you really oughtta.

A Splash of Red for Juneteenth

The Emancipation Proclamation was signed in 1863; however, slaves in Texas were not informed of their newfound freedom until two years later, on June 19, 1865. This is why Juneteenth is also known as Emancipation Day or Freedom Day. The year Juneteenth became a federal holiday, in 2021, is the first that I first that I heard of this holiday, but upon learning its origins, I made sure to celebrate it every year. Other than the sweet cacophony of song and dance, my favorite Juneteenth tradition is eating and imbibing red foods and beverages, such as watermelon, red velvet cake, strawberry soda, and red rose sausages. As interesting as this tradition is, I realize that I never questioned the sentiment of consuming red foods on this holiday. What is the significance of the color red to Juneteenth? 

Read With MLC: Colorful Titles

Welcome to June, and the sixth reading prompt for our 2024 Read With MLC reading challenge: read a book with a color in the title. The idea behind our reading challenge is to inspire you to explore books year-round. There are tons of popular books available with a color in the title: just think about popular classics like Anna Sewell's Black Beauty or Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye. According to the American Academy of Ophthalmology, human beings can identify approximately ten million colors. That's a lot of book possibilities!

Memorial Day

Every Memorial Day, we gather as a nation to mourn our collective fallen servicemen and servicewomen. It is actually written into the United States Code, or the Federal Code of Regulations, that the president issue a proclamation each year "calling on the people of the United States to observe Memorial Day by praying, according to their individual religious faith, for permanent peace". Some interesting facts about Memorial Day, which has been observed since the close of the American Civil War, can be found below.

Talking Book Services Resources Roundup

The National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled (NLS) is "a free braille and talking book library service for people with temporary or permanent low vision, blindness, or a physical, perceptual, or reading disability that prevents them from using regular print materials." The Mississippi Library Commission's (MLC) Talking Book Services (TBS) is the local network NLS library in Mississippi. That means that MLC staff are here to help set you up with NLS, troubleshooting your BARD and equipment problems, and assisting with finding books you want to read. That's not all they do, though! Here are just a few of the extra services we provide.

Beyond the Encyclopedia

Have you ever wondered where on earth your local librarian found the answer to that extremely specific question you asked? You may assume that they are just better at Googling than you, but that is not the case! Well, sometimes it’s the case. But they also use a variety of sources that may not fit your idea of traditional reference materials and that you might not have access to at home. 

Read With MLC: Short Stories

Welcome to May, and the fifth reading prompt for our 2024 Read With MLC reading challenge: read a short story collection. May is actually Short Story Month and reading one is a great way to celebrate this brief but tantalizing literary form. Lauren Groff, guest judge at last year's O. Henry Prize for Short Fiction said of short stories, "They are quick, breathtaking windows into other humans’ souls, which is where the infinite resides, in my personal credo. The story form is infinitely malleable, gorgeously economical, and endlessly surprising." Don't know where to start finding one, or some, to read? We have some ideas below!

Mississippi's Arab-Americans

Happy Arab-American Heritage Month! Did you know that members of the Arab ethnic group began immigrating to Mississippi in the 1870s? These people were mainly Christians from Lebanon and Syria and settled in Jackson, Meridian, railroad towns, and along the Mississippi River. According to the US Census, nearly 2,000 Arabs and people of Arab descent lived in Mississippi by the year 1930. Yalla Vote, a part of the Arab American Institute, estimates that over 11,000 Arab-Americans currently live in our state.

Reach Out and Dial Someone (@ Your Library)

Happy Telephone Day! Given the ubiquity of telephones in today's society, it can be hard to believe we ever survived without them. Amazingly, it's been less than 150 years since Alexander Graham Bell patented his telephone invention. While others also lay claim to the birth of this revolutionary device, the telephone, even as Bell knew it, has gone through innumerable changes since it first appeared in 1876. It's doubtful that he ever imagined a device that could call, send messages and letters, store tons of files, photos, and other information, and still fit in a pocket or a purse. While all those bells and whistles are fun and revolutionary, libraries have found unique ways to harness the power of a simple phone call in the service of literacy and information. 

It's a Poetry Party!

April is National Poetry Month, which makes it an ideal time to go to your bookshelves and pick out your favorite verse, sonnet, ballad, haiku, or limerick. Predating modern history, poetry stands as one of the earliest forms of artistic expression with the Epic of Gilgamesh being one of the oldest recorded poems dating to circa 2100 BCE. With poetry being so essential to our history, it’s of no surprise that no matter where you go you can find rich, poetic traditions in any place or culture, including Mississippi. With such an abundant and rich literary history, Mississippi no less offers its own voices to the poetic craft, including works from the likes of Eudora Welty, Richard Wright, William Faulkner, and Tennessee Williams, as well as other unique voices such as Etheridge Knight, Charles Henri Ford, and Aimee Nezhukumatathil. You'll find some suggestions of local Mississippi poets below, as well as a breakdown of poetry styles.

Read With MLC: Celebrity Memoirs

Welcome to April, and the fourth reading prompt for our 2024 Read With MLC reading challenge: read a celebrity memoir. Is there anything more delicious than escaping your own life to peer into the intricacies of someone else's? Affairs, addiction, divorce, abuse... seeing how others deal with adversity somehow makes our own more manageable. Add in the shiny gloss of reading a tell-all book about someone famous? You can see why celebrity memoirs are a booming business. 

If you look at the past five years, the top US sales slots go to famous people from a variety of backgrounds. In 2020, Barack Obama's A Promised Land sold 17 million copies. He was closely followed by Prince Harry's Spare, with 16 million copies, Michelle Obama's Becoming, with 14 million copies, and Britney Spears's The Woman in Me, with 11 million copies. And these are figures for just the first week of sales! If you're wondering which memoirs your local librarian liked as opposed to national sales figures, you need look no further than below this graphic!

Total Eclipse of the Sun

Hear ye, hear ye! There is a total solar eclipse happening on April 8th, 2024, the last total eclipse for 20 years. According to timeanddate.com, Jackson, Mississippi, will experience approximately 90% totality at 1:52 p.m. In celebration of this momentous occasion, I wanted to share what MLC has done to help public libraries, and therefore all Mississippians, enjoy this event. 

The WPA Files: Fewer Aliens, More Gossip

Have you ever wanted to learn more about your town? Do you like gossip and facts about trees? You need to check out the WPA files! WPA stands for Works Progress Administration, which was organized as part of the New Deal to provide jobs for unemployed Americans during the Great Depression. One of the projects of the WPA was to gather local histories by going into each county, interviewing the residents, and compiling research. MLC has files for all of Mississippi’s counties except for Sharkey and Wilkinson. The source material for these files can be found at the Mississippi Department of Archives and History. 

I Am Woman, Hear Me Write

It's Women's History Month. Quick! Name your favorite female Mississippi author!

There are a slew of wonderfully talented authoresses hailing from our great state and they have written (and continue to write!) in a number of genres: romance, mystery, biography, and more. Whatever your preferred reading style is, these women have covered it. Sometimes, though, it feels like they're overshadowed by the Faulkners and Grishams in the state. According to an article published by the website Quartz, only 18% of published authors in the 1960s were women. Fast-forward sixty years to 2020--a new study proclaims that women have surpassed men in book field, now publishing more than 50% of the written word. Whether or not this study was sound methodologically, it points to the fact that women writers in Mississippi and world-wide have come a long, long way.

Read with MLC: Graphic Nonfiction

Welcome to March and the third reading prompt of our 2024 Read with MLC challenge: read a work of graphic nonfiction. Nonfiction comics have been around for longer than you might think. Thomas Nast, who created political cartoons, started drawing as a teen in 1856. The Republican elephant was one of the artistic brainchildren of his decades-long career. He brought other popular figures to the forefront of American consciousness, figures just as beloved and enduring as, say, Superman, like the Democratic donkey, Uncle Sam, and Santa Claus. Robert Ripley and his Ripley's Believe It or Not franchise started in 1918 as a single panel comic and grew to encompass a wealth of researchers to back up his claims. There are many more examples, here in America and across the world. While fiction comics dominate the reading landscape, there is a wide world of graphic nonfiction available that has literally exploded onto our reading shelves. If you have a thirst for knowledge and a love of art, this may be the perfect type of book for you.

So... Just what is available out there? I scanned our shelves for some of our top graphic reads and found some in an array of subject areas that are sure to tickle your nonfiction reading taste buds.

Clay-ke It to the Limit

MLC’s Craft Club had its sixth meeting in February. We tested MLC’s polymer clay kit and let out our inner sculptors. Attendees had the option to create earrings or design their own sculptures. The earrings didn’t work quite as planned: MLC’s main meeting room was in the middle of a technology makeover and we couldn't use the projection equipment. It is much easier to have people create something with an example, so most of the attendees chose to make their own sculptures. They turned out great!

That All May Social Media

That All May Read. That's the slogan of the National Library Services for the Blind and Print Disabled. I think about those words a lot. In 2018, the National Health Interview Survey found that over 32 million American adults experienced vision loss--that's loss of vision that can't be corrected, even with glasses or contacts. A different source, the American Printing House, estimates that over 55,000 children under the age of 21 had the same diagnosis. In a world that has become increasingly visual -- with eye-popping memes and long, drawn-out hashtags, marketing floods our consciousness from early in the morning to late every night, day after day after day. When we aren't intentional about reaching everyone, we omit huge chunks of the population. You can make your social media more accessible for others using the tools and ideas below.

Finding Your Nonfiction Niche

We all know fiction genres: romance, science fiction, fantasy… all types of books that have their own shelves in bookstores everywhere. But what about nonfiction? Most people know what nonfiction is: books about real world concepts, people, or events. You might not know it, but there are different types of nonfiction. Much like fiction genres, there aren’t any hard and fast rules for nonfiction genres—if you ask ten different people about these genres, you’ll get ten different answers. But if you want to dig deeper, here are some categories you might start with. 

Reading Black Mississippi

February is Black History Month, which makes it a great time to visit the bookshelves and refocus your reading on some of the great Black authors out there. There are a ton of Black Mississippi authors--historical and modern--just waiting for you to discover them. Their perspectives on Mississippi life and culture are must-reads, but you might not know where to start if you're not familiar with the local writing scene. These suggestions cover a multitude of writing styles and genres, so you ought to be able to find something in your favorite areas to get yourself started. 

Read with MLC: Reread a Book You Love

Welcome to February and the second reading prompt of our 2024 Read with MLC challenge: reread a book you love. There's something incredibly special about a book you enjoy so much that you want to reread it. Setting aside a wedge of time to experience something again is a unique act, but especially when it's something as time consuming as reading a book. I don't do a lot of rereading--there are so many books out there I want to get to--so I was curious about what drives other readers to reread. Here is what a few of my fellow library workers had to say about their favorite rereads.

Squeaking Into the Public Domain

American copyright is a strange beast. The law can be a bit complex, but to sum it up, a creator (or the creator’s estate) can hold exclusive copyright to a work for 70 years after the author’s death or 95 years after publication. After that time, the works are released to the public domain. When a work is in the public domain, it can be rebroadcast, reworked, streamed, performed, and so on and so forth free of charge! This can spur a massive amount of creativity and help bring to light some older classics.

Works entering the public domain this year include: 

• Millions of Cats by Wanda Gag (the oldest American picture book still in print)
• House at Pooh Corner by A.A. Milne (Tigger’s first appearance) 
• The Passion of Joan of Arc (a silent French film, often considered a landmark of cinema and known for its unique cinematography) 
• Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence (a book at the center of multiple famous obscenity trials) 
• Animal Crackers (a film by the Marx Brothers. The songs written for the film, such as “Hello I Must Be Going” and “Hooray for Captain Spaulding!” also enter the public domain). 
• The Man Who Laughs (an influential German Expressionist film, best known for its influence on Universal horror movies and the Batman villain the Joker)

All About That Braille

Braille: it's the bumpy bits that Blind people use to read, right? Invented by Frenchman Louis Braille (1809-1852) in 1824, this writing system is known worldwide as an aid for those without vision. It can be found nearly everywhere, from elevators to the tops of fast food drink lids, but that might be all you know about braille. There are some pretty cool facts about the little bumps that connect the visually impaired to both the written word and a world designed around those who have sight. Let me share a few of my favorite nuggets about how braille came to be and why we love it so much, because here at MLC? We're all about that braille.

Dr. King in Mississippi

Dr. Martin Luther King was a lasting inspiration for our country. Born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia, his leadership helped millions of Americans achieve civil rights and changed the country for the better. His name has become synonymous with the idea of perseverance against adversity. He is celebrated across the United States and the world with bridges, schools, churches, and libraries that carry his name. According to Wikipedia, in Mississippi alone there are at least 22 towns with a Martin Luther King road, street, or boulevard. While he himself spent less time campaigning for change directly in Mississippi, Dr. King still held her people close to his heart. During his speech at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963, King specifically calls out Mississippi as a place he hoped to see "transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice." King did visit our state several times during his short life and was present for some significant points in our history. Check our our brief timeline of some of the events below.

Looking For a Few Good Readers

Talking Book Services (TBS) is one of the best kept secrets in Mississippi, and, truth be told, in the entire nation. Thing is, TBS is something everyone should know about. It provides thousands upon thousands of books and magazines directly to people who want to read them, so that every American, regardless of disability or reading ability can access the reading material they want. But when did this amazing program come about, just who is eligible, and what do they even get? Well, let me tell you...

Read with MLC: Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

There's something about clearing out the holiday decorations and putting up a new calendar that makes anything and everything seem possible. Start exercising? You got this. Eat healthier? You can do it. Learn a new language? Research your roots? Read more? Turns out there's probably a book for that, and we've got you covered at the library.

Alongside those New Year resolutions, we challenge you to join our 2024 Reading Challenge. January's prompt is to read a book that has the word "New" or "Year" (or both!) in the title. There are quite a few books that qualify in our library catalog (surprise, surprise), but here are a couple of wide-ranging suggestions: