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It Tastes So Good: Books and Food

By Mary Kelly

 

Think about your favorite movie, book or television show. Chances are eating and drinking is essential to the plot, character, or setting. Everything from the eating cheesecake with the Golden Girls to Game of Thrones (both the book and the television show) food is almost another character. Food and drink are symbolic in every culture: making a toast with a drink, the new bride and groom eating wedding cake, bringing a casserole to someone in mourning. Sharing food and drink is our way of connecting to each other, our ancestors, and our culture. It is essentially, unspoken communication and is less about the actual food and more about what it is trying to communicate.

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Cold Enough For You?

By Mary Kelly and Holly Hibner
Posted on January 11, 2016 

Winter is one of my favorite seasons to do reader advisory. Yes, you read that correctly. Bad weather, especially snow and ice, are good for reader advisory. I can sell any book or video when the weather is bad. Weather is my go-to subject for ice breakers. This, at least, gets the conversation started and can lead a librarian right toward the patron’s information need. For those of us in the northern parts of the Midwest, we share with our patrons the long suffering experience of long, grey winters, and all the problems that can bring. Even if you love winter, by February things are looking pretty sad. Winter, where I live, can sometimes stretch right into May. It’s not the cold temperatures; it is the seemingly endless days of dark and grey. By late January, most of my customers coming into the library look like they are on a casting call for The Walking Dead, and misery loves company.

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