Unfriended!

Just five hours after a horrendous dental procedure and three hours after the loss of my beloved 2015 diary, I sought solace in a bit of Facebook therapy and I noticed that I was one friend down. I had been unfriended.

Say what you will, but it is not many people who lose a tooth (OK, a part of a tooth), a diary and a friend all in the space of a mere five hours. I did what any teenager would do: I trawled the list of remaining die-hards (still bravely hanging in there in my hour of need, thanks guys), in order to work out who had dumped me. My adolescent self and my aging self forged new bonds. It was not pretty.

I needed help, but would there be books on topics as diverse as social networking, teeth and lost diaries? Amazingly enough, the answer is Yes and right now I will share this bounty with you (and my remaining 126 Facebook friends!)

Being unfriended, if it’s done nothing else, has got me to read my first ever Young Adult book, Unfriended by Rachel Vail. I have resisted YA fiction despite the recommendations of some truly lovely colleagues who swear that it is better than adult fiction. Let’s just say I started reading it as an unbeliever and ended up, after 282 silly pages, yearning to be beaten over the head by a superficiality of adolescents armed with selfie sticks. I think we can safely say that the YA boat has sailed for me. Lesson learned.

If it is true that every bad day has a silver lining then The Story of My Teeth was my bookish equivalent. It is a joyful romp of a read by Mexican writer Valeria Luiselli (named as one of the 20 best Mexican writers under 40), in which Gustavo Sanchez extracts and sells all his teeth at auctions, spinning improbable stories about them. This is a scam that requires talents like this:

He can imitate Janis Joplin after two rums, he can interpret Chinese fortune cookies, he can stand an egg upright on a table, and he can float on his back.

I feel better already!

Still I yearned for my lost diary. Was there a suitable read to help me with my loss? The Red Leather Diary: Reclaiming a Life Through the Pages of a Lost Journal looked promising to me. The discovery of a long lost journal rescued from a dumpster in New York brings to life the story of the writer, Florence Wolfson: an extraordinary woman from a glamorous, forgotten time. I fantasise that my beloved diary will share a similar fate and the full fascination of the life of a Network Library Assistant will finally be revealed in all its glory!

All in all these three reads were therapeutic. Next time you are a hit by a string of seemingly unrelated crises, have faith. There will a book or three for you!

Facebooks

The discarded bride

In with a chance to become the fourth Queen of England, Anne of Cleves could have saved herself a whole heap of bother had Facebook  existed in her day.

For starters she could have cut out the middleman artist, posted her own selfie and just sat back and waited for King Henry VIII to take one of three possible actions: click like, make a comment such as “LOL”, or unfriend her on the spot (today’s equivalent of beheading).

But no, in the 16th century you had to go and get your portrait painted. Pity the poor artist, Hans Holbein the Younger, caught between his plain subject, an out of control King and a punishing time frame.

But Henry was quite taken with the portrait. It was Anne of Cleves herself whom he loathed on sight. Referring to her as ‘that Flanders mare’, he is reputed to have claimed she did not look English enough. And if you want to know what that means, read The English Face – which Oscar Wilde dismissed in just  four words (the face that is, not the book):

Once seen, never remembered

The Royal marriage was never consummated and was finally annulled. But the portrait lives on, as portraits tend to do.

Your own self portrait may not look as good as this!

There is so much human drama in this little bit of history and whichever part of it piques your interest, the library has the book for you: books on portraits, King Henry VIII and social networking.

You may even be tempted to paint a self portrait. Be warned though that nothing will drive you to substance abuse faster than attempting to make a painting of  yourself, cutting as it does to the core of the disparity between how you think you look and what the rest of the world may actually be seeing.

But my absolute favourite book of faces is a book on moko tattoos called The Blue Privilege – The Last Tattooed Maori Women : Te Kuia Moko  by Harry Sangl. This art book is rare for me, in that I devoured all the paintings with my eyes and read every word with my heart. It truly is a taonga.

And were it ever to crop up on facebook, I’d go the whole hog: like, comment and share.

Enter the world of geekcraft this winter

I recently got together with some friends to start an informal weekly craft group, or “stitch and  bitch” as one participant calls it. The cosy surroundings and good chat lends itself well to trying new things and meeting new people.

While these kind of groups are about socialising, some work does get done. It’s interesting to see what crafts people are into and at what level of skill they’re at.

So if you’re a  knitter, crocheter, jewellery maker – or are into other handcrafts – you may like some of our books on crafts. Our Internet Gateway recommends some great craft websites too.

CINCH, our community directory, lists local craft groups that you could attend.

Often we are looking for time out from our busy lives to do something just for ourselves. Consider starting your own craft group with your friends. No experience necessary.

The Meta-blog

The prefix meta- is generally used to describe something that is self-referential, or about itself.  Metadata is data about data.  A metamovie might be a movie about movies and so it’s only right that there should be a blog about blogs or blogging.

Until relatively recently having your own web presence required a reasonable amount of IT geekery and was not free.  With the advent of blogging anyone with basic computing skills can carve out their own niche in cyberspace.  For more information on how to set up your own blog check out our Creating your own online space page from the library website.