‘Tis the Season!

The season of literary prizes is upon us. And that favorite end-of-the-year activity - Top 10 Book Lists. We should all have lots to be thankful for: good books to read, and great gifts to buy.

The Nobel prize in literature was announced in October, and did not fail to astonish many with its choice, Herta Mueller. Following quickly on its heels was the Man Booker Prize in England, always a much-anticipated award. This year’s winner?  Hilary Mantel’s historical novel- Wolf Hall. The Booker shortlist is always a good source for a good read.

In this country, the National Book awards will be announced this Wednesday, November 18. The short lists for fiction, nonfiction, poetry and drama are impressive.

What about books in foreign languages? In France, the Prix Goncourt and the Prix Renaudot are the 2 biggies. This year’s winners: Marie NDiaye (Trois femmes puissants) for the Goncourt, and Frédéric Beigbeder (Un roman français, on order ) for the Renaudot. In Germany, the Buchner prize is tops. And in Spain, it’s the Cervantes, which will be announced in the coming weeks. Italy’s top literary dog wins the Premio Strega this year - Tiziano Scarpa, for his novel Stabat mater (also on order).

Stay tuned for those end-of-the year lists!

Claude Levi-Strauss dies at 100

Claude Lévi-Strauss, one of the last icons of 20th century French intellectual life, died over the weekend at the age of 100. He was considered and will be remembered as the father of modern anthropology. He was most acclaimed for his study of primitive mythology and for founding the theoretical school known as structural anthropology. In his structuralist approach to understand human mind and society, Lévi-Strauss sought to discover the common denominator of human thought and mental structure across different types of cultures and societies. His rich and multifaceted anthropological research had profound impact in diverse fields such as linguistics, psychology, religion, and history.

During his long and prolific career, Lévi-Strauss authored many literary and anthropological classics including Tristes Tropiques, Structural Anthropology, Totemism and The Savage Mind.  His study of the Brazilian Indians was published in Tristes Tropiques, which is both a memoir of his early life in Brazil and an iconic ethnography of the indigenous Amazonian tribes. His massive Mythologiques appeared in four volumes: The Raw and the Cooked (1964), From Honey to Ashes (1966), The Origin of Table Manners (1978), and The Naked Man (1981). The Johns Hopkins University libraries have all of the above titles: please feel free to check them out and enjoy some of the greatest books of the 20th century!

(Photo Source: AccuNet/AP Multimedia Archive)

History at Your Fingertips

Looking for an authoritative introduction to a country, era or historical event?  Need to know more about the history of literature, politics, religion or philosophy?  Look no further than Cambridge Histories Online.  This resource contains over 650 volumes covering 15 subjects, and offers comprehensive and authoritative scholarly content.

Cambridge Histories Online tell you more than just who, what, when, where and why.  They also introduce you to aspects of your topic that you’ve never dreamed of.  Working on a paper on Chicago’s Columbian Exposition of 1893?  Searching the phrase “Columbian Exposition” leads you to chapters on the role it played in American literature, theatre, foreign policy, music and food.   It’s a great way to further narrow and define your topic.

Everything Nobel

Congratulations to JHU’s Dr. Carol Greider for her Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. If you’re curious, you can easily see who else associated with JHU has been awarded a Nobel Prize.

If you’re more interested about the Nobel Prizes themselves, all you have to do is go to their website. The Nobel Foundation has an awesome website that offers information about Alfred Nobel, laureates by year or award, prize awarders, text of banquet speeches, and educational games.

Need some quick stats?

The United States Government collects an extraordinary amount of data and publishes statistics on a wide range of topics.  Need to know how many traffic fatalities there are in a given state?  Or perhaps how many women-owned businesses there are in the U.S.?  You could try a Google search to find this information, but you’d be far better served going directly to Fedstats.gov.  Use the Topics A-Z list to browse for your topic or use the cross-agency search feature.

Featured: Black Drama, 1850 to Present

Black Drama contains the full text of 1,200 plays written from the mid-1800s to the present by more than 100 playwrights from North America, English-speaking Africa, the Caribbean, and other African diaspora countries. Many of the works are rare, hard to find, or out of print. Each play is extensively and deeply indexed, allowing both keyword and multi-fielded searching.

The plays are accompanied by reference materials, significant ancillary information, a rich performance database, and images. The plays deal with the social and political ills stemming from colonialism, slavery, and apartheid; the struggle for independence; African history; and neo-colonialism.

New: Statesman’s Yearbook Online

Statesman’s Yearbook Online provides reliable and timely information on every country in the world, covering key historical events, population, city profiles, social statistics, climate, recent elections, current leaders, defence, international relations, economy, energy and natural resources, industry, international trade, religion, culture, and diplomatic representatives, as well as fact sheets and much more.

It also provides extensive further reading lists and web links for research. All the data and information in the database are regularly updated. As an essential reference tool for researchers in international affairs, The Statesman’s Yearbook offers the first point of reference for anyone needing reliable, concise information on any country in the world.

International Women’s Periodicals

Are you intrigued by periodical titles such as Anti-Polygamy Standard, The Anti-Suffragist, Judy: A Magazine, and Woman’s Work in Heathen Lands (my personal favorite)? If so, then take a look at our newest collection, International Women’s Periodicals. The collection includes 45 full-text periodicals from the United States, France, Germany, Iceland, and the United Kingdom, published between the late eighteenth and early twentieth centuries. 

Researchers can search across the entire collection or browse individual issues, viewing pages as they were originally published as well as seeing a transcription of the text. This is a fascinating resource for scholars in history, history of science, women’s studies, political science, and more. Please note that due to licensing restrictions this collection is only available to members of the JHU community.

Look no further - Hopkins has writers

Need something to read? (I’m always asking this question!) Look no further than your own back yard. Johns Hopkins is home to one of the premier writing programs in the country, and it has produced some major writers, such as John Barth. And the faculty of the Writing Seminars are no slackers either! Check out some of their published works from the library.

Poetry, fiction, nonfiction, plays - all writing starts out “small.” So make it a habit to look at the recent issues of literary reviews. The Eisenhower Library subscribes to many, many reviews; from the big names like The Paris Review to local publications like Poetry Northwest; British big names like Granta to Baltimore’s (and JHU’s) own Hopkins Review.  Browse the AP call number range in Current Periodicals, as well as the PN range. Lots of space to sit and read on M Level, in air-conditioned comfort.

Three e-books for #musicmonday

If you use Twitter, you may have noticed the regular Monday appearance of the hashtag #musicmonday, used to suggest music to people at the beginning of the workweek. To feed our @mselibrary account with our spin on the trend, I’ve collected a few links below to music-related e-books available through Safari Books Online.

Taking your iPod touch to the Max: Get started with your iPod touch, and get more out of it with undocumented tips, tricks, and suggestions for tinkerers.

Creating Music and Sound for Games: An insider’s look into how sound designers fit into game production, including tools, techniques, and getting into the field.

Music Theory for Computer Musicians: Learn the fundamentals of musical syntax and composition to take your music to the next level.