A Pretty Good Adjectival Book

Fans of Peter Matthiessen’s Shadow Country, which I assume would be pretty much anyone who read it all the way through, (note that I say that not because it is universally likable, but rather that it is a long, long, looooooooong book- excellent, but looooooooong nonetheless) should make a note to try Peter Carey’s History of the Kelly Gang if they have not done so already.  It is similar, and also excellent, but not nearly as looooooooong.

An added benefit of reading the book is that it treats swearing in print as our forebears did, which is to say all of the swear words are replaced with either something like b_ _ _ _ _ d, or else simply the word “adjectival,” as in “that b _ _ _ _ _ d can cook his own adjectival kangaroo”.

Saying “adjectival” is not only 80% as fun and satisfying as actually swearing, it will also keep you out of trouble with the daycare center when your three-year-old starts repeating it.

-Norm De Plume

Huh.

What’s that in our vitrine?  Oh, you know.  Just some beautiful old Native American artifacts.  No big deal.

They’re ambiance for the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks talk the Ohio Historical Society and the Friends of the Ancient Ohio Earthworks are putting on here tonight.

-Norm De Plume

Congrats to the City’s Junior Library!

The Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County has earned a well-deserved National Medal for Museum and Library Service.  PLCHC’s Main Library was recently the busiest library in America.  In celebration, PLCHC is offering Fine Amnesty Day, tomorrow, May 15th.  Having served on a committee or two with Public Library folks and, most recently, watched in amazement as they have multiplied their services and digital offerings, while navigating the troubled waters that afflict libraries here  and elsewhere, it’s clear they’re some of the hardest working librarians in show business.

-Ed Scripsi

Weekend Reading & Bicycle Behaviour

We’ve been fans of Bernard Cornwell as long as he’s been writing, although we cannot swear to having read every one of his dozens of mostly historical novels since he cranks them out at a prodigious rate.  We do not wish to imply that by cranking he is turning out an inferior product any more than a Heidelberg Schnellpresse turns out bad printing.  It’s all first-rate stuff where the superb research never gets in the way of the hair-raising thrills.  What we took home Friday was 1356, which inserts Cornwell’s mighty longbowman Sir Thomas of Hookston into the Battle of Poitiers about which we knew nothing and about which we can now carry on for hours.  Less rewarding, alas, was Hush Money, Chuck Greaves’s first legal thriller, set in LA, which is good, featuring fancy riding, which is not so good, and which tries rather too hard for breeziness.  Breeziness is not something one tries for.  If it happens, it happens.

We took it on the chin from an important reader for our post on bicycle helmets.  We offer this link to post from The Atlantic Cities by way of atonement.  Not that we’re about to agree to helmet laws, of course.  But we absolutely support cycling in accordance with the local laws, for very good reasons, even when the laws are – as is often the case – stupid.  They are still the laws.

-Nemo Wolfe

Viral Book-shop Sign

According to, Galleycat, this sign is “going viral”.  So in keeping with the good news that a book shop is opening off Fountain Square, we are acting as a vector.  -ed scripsi

Michael Steinberger just won a James Beard award

James Beard Foundation Journalism Awards are to food writers what National Asphalt Paving Association’s NAPA awards are to asphalt professionals: public recognition that one is performing at the very pinnacle of one’s craft, whether one’s craft is laying down a thick layer of solid asphalt, or laying down a thick layer of solid journalistic excellence.

While we have yet to land a NAPA award winner (although I believe John Updike was nominated several times), I’m pleased to announce that upcoming speaker Michael Steinberger has just won a James Beard Foundation Journalism Award for a Vanity Fair piece about “the largest case of fine-wine fraud in history.“

There’s still time to reserve your spot for Steinberger’s lecture on May 22nd, and/or a wine tasting, featuring wines selected by Kevin Hart of WineCraft, on May 29.  Library members can reserve a spot at both nights for $25 ($30 for non-members) or an individual evening for $15 ($20 for non-members). You can read more about it here.  You’ll need a reservation, though.  Get yours by phone (513.621.0717) or by email.

You can find Michael Steinberger’s wine writing on Slate here and here, and you can follow his Wine Diarist blog here.

-Norm De Plume

… And Speaking of Bike Month

Our readers need to know that we are sharply divided on the use of bicycle helmets here at the more bicycle friendly of the town’s two leading libraries.  Certain members of the staff, shameless proponents of the Nanny State, clearly lean towards imposition of a helmet requirement for cyclists.  The Library’s helmet-heads, speed demons to a person, unwittingly ally themselves with the absurdly large share of the population who perceive bicycling to be innately dangerous rather than innately helpful and uneventful.  It is sad.  The more thoughtful contingent continue to assert their rights to travel at a moderate pace, eschewing the spandex ‘n’ smurf fashion statement so prized by the country’s film producers and orthopedic surgeons.  Stacked readers need to look into the bicycle safety records of the Netherlands and Denmark where moderate-speed, helmet free bicycling reigns supreme and think about attitudes in America, a country so given to health hysteria that it sentences half its boy children to Ritalin and spawns new food allergies hourly.

-Nemo Wolfe

It’s Bike Month Ya’ll . . .

. . . and there are plenty of bike-related activities to be enjoyed in Cincinnati.  Tonight, you are encouraged to bike to Music Hall where you will be given a free instrument and sent to make Gateway Quarter residents wish they had shelled out for the extra soundproofing on their gentrificondos.  This year, many of the so-called “commuter stations” are actually being held at fine purveyors of booze like Fries Cafe and The Brew House (where anyone with a helmet and a can of mace gets a free appetizer until 7).  Other activities on Queen City Bikes’ handy dandy bike month calendar include the promising-sounding “Bikes+Brews”.  Our pick?  Because we’re a literary center, we like the “Ride for Reading” kick-off potluck at Hofner Park in Northside, which combines our three main interests: literature, food, and bicycling.  So pump up those tires, administer oil to that drive train, and get out there.  Bike Month comes but once a year.  -Ed Scripsi

THIS JUST IN

A new bookstore is going to open downtown in the old Brooks Brothers space.

They’re also going to sell crepes (which rhymes with “steps,” as my old French professor would insist I remind you), coffee (which can easily be spiked with brandy, as my old French professor used to do during finals), and other standard bookstore/cafe fare (e.g. quiche, for some reason).

Since the Venn diagram of readers, crepe lovers, and coffee enthusiasts pretty much looks like one solid circle, I’m guardedly optimistic.

-Norm De Plume

Weekend Reading: The Third Coast

Stacked followers know that we like to grab a novel on the way out Friday and blog about it Monday, but this weekend there was no way out on which to grab.  We never left.  It was Hackathon Weekend here at the Small Library Time Forgot, and we were required to see that the hackers were happy, well fed, and well informed about the place since it was their assignment to find efficient new ways to put the Library’s name on 2.5million lips.  Make that 4 million lips, as everyone in Cincinnatimetroland has at least two.  One of our favorite concepts?  Speaking of our neighborhood as “the Mercantile district.”  Does that not have a lovely ring?

We did get a little reading in while coding and conceptualizing were taking place.  Thomas Dyja’s The Third Coast had come in, and since we are a Chicago product, we dipped into the work, one of three scoffed at last week by a perfectly silly NYT reviewer.  We were shocked to learn that Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was a de facto bigamist.  What is it with world famous architects?  What actually is the deal?

-Nemo Wolfe