In which we learn St. George's Day has nothing to do with grits...

Your loyal blogger wishes you a very, very happy St. George's Day! Amongst your rose-wearing, Jerusalem-singing, and dragon-slaying today, why not consider some ticket-buying? Today marks the 448th birthday of William Shakespeare, and to celebrate, the Library Society is hosting a big birthday party for the bard on this Thursday. The Charleston Renaissance Ensemble - Piccolo Spoleto favourites and the premiere Early Music group in the area - will be singing tunes from Shakespeare's time. And as a very, very special guest, bestselling author, sometimes actor, and perpetual raconteur Bernard Cornwell will be joining in, favouring us with dramatic readings from Shakespeare.

Tickets are $15, and children are allowed in for free.

Get them online here, by calling 1.888.718.4253, or at the front desk of the Library Society.

It's Literary Festival Eve Eve!

Once again, it's Piccolo Spoleto Literary Festival time here at the Library Society! While we're used to hosting some pretty impressive speakers for this thing - Anne Rivers Siddons, Bret Lott, Sue Monk Kidd, Jack Hitt, and John McCardell, to name a very few - the 2011 Festival might be the first time we'll have an author here at the CLS in the same week as they've been reviewed in The New York Times Book Review.

Joshua C. Kendall, freelance journalist and author of The Man Who Made Lists, will be discussing his brand-new The Forgotten Founding Father: Noah Webster's Obsession and the Creation of an American Culture. Your loyal blogger couldn't be more excited for this lecture, for Mr. Kendall's new book goes someplace Webster's biographies have rarely dared: he calls out Webster for being a jerk.

Pugnacious and penurious, Webster had little trouble offending friends or making enemies. He was a follower of Rousseau, and used his Dictionary and the "Blue Backed Speller" - really, he used every outlet he could- to promote a jingoistic American nationalism for the new republic. He despised Southerners. He rewrote the Bible to take out the naughty bits. 

He badmouthed Shakespeare on grammar issues.

But for all the bad things... Noah Webster was brilliant at the things he's famous for. The "Blue Backed Speller" taught generations of young Americans to read. His cutting-edge Dictionary did (eventually) succeed moulding "American english" to its strictures. He started the first daily newspaper in New York. He even founded Amherst College (alma mater of president Calvin Coolidge, librarian Melvil Dewey, frozen-food inventor Clarence Birdseye, and that guy who writes Get Fuzzy).

Pictured: Amherst College, second from right

In short, Noah Webster was a very interesting, very colourful guy, and this Saturday's LitFest lecture with Joshua Kendall should be equally entertaining. If you haven't got your tickets for it yet, get 'em here, or call 866.811.4111. And don't forget the rest of the schedule - Lockhorns cartoonist Bunny Hoest, author Jay Parini, WSJ theatre critic Ed Wilson, WSJ economics editor Alfred Malabre, and author/raconteur Pat Conroy.

Blog of Hope and Glory

In 1987, the college-radio/alternative rock/children's music duo They Might Be Giants achieved critical praise (if not commercial success) with their eponymous first album.  That album burrowed one line of one song deep into your loyal blogger's brain, ready to return every time I sit down to type a blog post.  Buried between tracks "Don't Lets Start" (perhaps the band's single most beloved song) and "Put Your Hand Inside the Puppet Head" (the supreme example of how to play the Casiotone MT-100 keyboard) is the song "Number Three".  And as Number Three's writer laments of his own songwriting: "I don't know where I got the inspiration, or how I wrote the words... I've got just two songs in me, and I just wrote the third."

Preach on, Giants, preach on.

Going in, I have no clue how to string together enough nonsense to pass for a blog post.  And because I'm always grasping at material to write these posts (like the entire first paragraph), I frequently fear I'll cover the same topic twice.  I'm especially afraid of covering the same topic twice and being worse the second time around.  And so, while poking about through past posts today, I realized I have written about hoodoo magic, Jacques Derrida, Billy Beer, and Fournier gangrene, yet still totally missed Country Life magazine.

Country Life, for those who don't know, is the journal of the British countryside.  So utterly thorough in its Britishness, in fact, that I can't describe it.  So I'll share a small sample of recent cover blurbs:

Marmalade: a perfect antidote to winter

The bluffer's guide to Chopin

Knot in the club?  What your tie says about you

The Archers: why we're still addicted after 60 years

The Archbishop of Canterbury's favourite painting

1,600 years on: what have the Romans done for us?

Roman Britain 1600 years later: if nothing else, it makes a pretty great Dr. Who finale.

 

All that plus forty pages of property listings in the front; classified advertisements for thatchers, oil painters, bespoke gunsmiths, etc. in the back; and in the middle, all the depth and erudition you'd expect from something like Foreign Policy or The Week.  Except it's about handcrafted West Country cheeses and the eternal glory of the red postbox.

In short, it's people of wealth (or at least wealth's appearance) hunting, sailing, traipsing from the city to the farm, propping up giant ancestral homes, maintaining early 1990's Range Rovers and Jags, and fighting to maintain a unique regional identity against an increasingly homogenized culture.

Basically... it's a mashup of Charleston Magazine with The Village Green Preservation Society.

Subscription costs around $400 a year, and it's worth every penny.  It is by far our highest-circulating periodical, and dozens of members line up for a crack at back issues come discard day.  Heaven alone knows how many patrons would drop their memberships in disgust were we ever to discontinue it.  The Library Society was founded by folks to pool their money in order to procure the latest books and periodicals from London: perhaps Country Life's contemporary popularity can best be seen as a statement on the endurance and strength of that vision.

Either that, or Charlestonians really love their handcrafted West Country cheeses.


EVENT UPDATE: Join us next Wednesday, December 22nd, 7PM-8:30PM for the Charleston Symphony Orchestra's Holiday Strings Quintet and Holiday Brass Quintet.  Enjoy your favourite holiday songs in the beauty of the Library Society, with CSO concertmaster Yuriy Bekker leading the performance.

Also, Norwich F.C. has soccer's oldest fight song. Pretty cool.

Patrick McMillan's here Thursday night with a Speakers Series lecture entitled Nature On the Move: Reclaiming Our Place In the World.  Patrick is host of the ETV series Expeditions with Patrick McMillan, a terrific naturalist, and the director of the Campbell Museum at Clemson University.  We hope you'll be able to make it to this event, co-sponsored by the Coastal Conservation League.  Thursday October 21st, 7PM.  Free.

Mid-day Thursday we'll have the fourth installment of our Wide Angle Lunches as Geoffrey Van Orden, MBE MEP, joins us for a lunchtime lecture.  Van Orden is a member of European Parliament, a member of the EU-Turkey Joint Parliamentary Committee, a former British Army Brigadier-General, and likely the first Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Painter-Stainers to lecture before the Library Society.  The View From Europe: Turkey and Its Relationship With the West is this Thursday, 12:15-1:30 PM (lecture starts at 12:30), $10 for members, $14 for non.

And from the hills of Clemson, to the East of England and the Middle East, we move on to one more exotic* locale: Palermo, Sicily.  Home to Italy's largest opera house, di Lampeduesa's magnificent The Leopard, and the city from which your loyal blogger's patrilineal predecessors set forth for America. 

On November 8th, we'll host a lecture concerning one of Palermo's most notable sons, the Duke Fulco di Verdura.  Born in Palermo in 1898, Verdura moved to America as a young man.  When he wasn't hanging out with buddies like Cole Porter, he was making exotic jewelry for the likes of Coco Chanel, Greta Garbo, Wallace Simpson.  Ward Landrigan of Verdura jewelers will be visiting the Library Society to give a presentation about the Duke and his company that will include rare pieces and original designs from the collection.  Verdura and Women of Style is November 8th at 7PM.  Admission is free, but please RSVP (843.723.9912 or rsvp@charlestonlibrarysociety.org)

*Okay, the "hills of Clemson" aren't all that exotic.  And neither, for that matter, is the East of England.  Though the Magic Roundabout is there.  And Stephen Fry spent some time in Norfolk growing up.  So they've got that going for them.

And once upon a time, this chick was in charge... awesome.  [Though I prefer more blue paint and red hair.]

Chapter Two in an emerging tradition...

Fry up your stubble-goose and bake up some bannockbread: it's Michaelmas! Term starts at Oxbridge and the Inns of Court, accounts are settled, reeves are elected for the shire, and (just like last year) the Library Society announces it's big Christmas season event! If you were at last year's Cocktail Party with Pat Conroy, you know what a wonderful night we had. So for chapter two, we announce,

A Special Evening with Bernard Cornwell, OBE.

Bernard's now a part-time Charleston resident; you might have had the privilege of hearing him at this year's Annual Meeting of the Library Society. If you did, then I'm sure you're skipping this part to get straight to the date/time/ticket info. If you missed him, then you missed a lecture at once erudite and compelling, but also witty and lively and just exceptionally, utterly enjoyable. And he's got a new book out, too, just his second on the American Revolution. Bernard+lecture+cocktails+Library Society at Christmas... It's going to be a great evening.

The Details: It's going to be 7PM on December 9th. Tickets will go on sale in late October. Prices and exact date of sale TBA. Look for it here first.

GIS for "Michaelmas". Seriously, England? Snape Kills Dumbledore,
Harry marries the hot chick, Universal builds a theme park... it's over.

Only a few more months 'till we get Bernard back...

For those of you who missed his excellent speech at this year's Annual Meeting of the Library Society, here's part-time Charleston resident, full time friend of the Library Society, and all-around awesome guy Bernard Cornwell, delivering the commencement speech for Emerson College. Not many commencement speakers manage to keep their audience awake... Bernard got them on their feet, earning a standing ovation by the end of his address. If you've got ten minutes, spend it watching this:

It's not lupus. It's NEVER lupus.

Confirmed News: Lisa Sanders, faculty of Yale School of Medicine, NY Times Magazine columnist, inspiration for and technical advisor to the television show House, and author of Every Patient Tells a Story : Medical Mysteries and the Art of Diagnosis, will be talking at the Library Society on November 1st. This lecture should be informative and entertaining in equal measure, and the CLS is quite privileged to host it. More information-will be available soon.  The event starts at 5:00 PM and there is no admission charge.



Unconfirmed news: Hugh Laurie will also be along, singing novelty songs from A Bit of Fry and Laurie, and doing readings from Blackadder.

Okay, I just made the Hugh Laurie bit up. He's not coming. Though we would love to have him: I'm sure the man who claimed "[P.G.] Wodehouse Saved My Life" would be right at home here at a library where Jeeves and Wooster novels still fly off the shelf, sixty years after their publication.


ALSO: In much the same way that Generalissimo Francisco Franco remains dead, The Pat Conroy event is still sold out. Call or email, and we'll be happy to put you on the waiting list should tickets become available...

Your Michaelmas present: Pat Conroy's coming!

Happy Michaelmas, the third most painfully English of holidays (just behind St. George's Day and Guy Fawkes Night, but slightly ahead of Plough Sunday and Remembrance Day)! We can't cook you a goose or bring bannock bread, so this'll have to do:

Pat Conroy is coming to the Library Society.

To mercilessly crib John Keats; we wish a more exciting word than excited, a more thrilling word than thrilled, to express our regard for so wonderful a writer. Our pleasure in hosting this event cannot be contained.

So, yeah, we're a little hyped up over it. And y'all are too: twenty-four hours after the Post and Courier wrote about the coming fundraiser- more than two weeks before tickets will be on sale- the Society was receiving phone calls about the event. Personally, I've received about a dozen calls and emails looking for tickets, and thereby learned that hanging out with Pat Conroy is a great way to get reacquainted with old friends and distant relations (and then disappoint them terribly).

Tickets will be available after October 15th: priority reservations will be available to Society members, and tickets will be limited. Hard details- exact times and prices- will not be released until sometime next week... so be patient.

While on the topic of events, I would be remiss to neglect the fantastic one we hosted last week. Bret Lott, bestselling author of Jewel and The Hunt Club and about a half-dozen other books delivered a terrific lecture to a very large crowd of members and guests. It was a great kickoff for our Fall events season, season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, close bosom-friend of the maturing sun... sorry, sorry, more Keats. Anyhow, Bret not only gave a great talk; he supplied the A's in an insightful Q and A session (that could have lasted all evening, had it been allowed); and stuck around for an hour on top of that, talking to attendees personally and fielding lord-only-knows how many more questions. As folks who know him- even those who met him just last Thursday- know, Bret is as wonderful a person as he is a writer, and the Society is always pleased to have him here.

Papalaka-papalaka-papalaka-boo! Digariga-digariga-digariga-doo!

Today, August the fourth, is Saint Sithney's Day- the obscure Breton saint of mad dogs (if you ever contract rabies, he's your man). And, as Noel Coward taught us, only Mad Dogs and Englishmen are out on a day like today, when the heat index is at 98 degrees.

"In tropical climes there are certain times of day,
When all the citizens retire,
to tear their clothes off and perspire.
It's one of those rules that the biggest fools obey,
Because the sun is much too sultry and one must avoid
its ultry-violet ray..."
- Sir Noël Coward

So the synthesis of our little ecclesiastical and musical history lesson and weather report is this: if you're coming into the Library Society today, look out for rabid canines. (The Englishmen should be fairly harmless unless they are soccer hooligans, or they try to convince you that British food is suitable for human consumption. It is not.)

The driveway is still blocked off due to streetscaping: visitors may park in the 93 Queen Street garage for free if their ticket is validated at the front desk. We'll let you know when (if?) the situation improves.

ALSO COMING SOON: Fall book sale: October 17th and 18th November! Mark your calendar. Now.

I'm just sad 'cause there's still six months of baseball left...

XJSes roll around town with their tops down, polychrome sails push scores of dinghies back and forth across the harbor, tourists form an unplanned human chain Meeting and Market Streets in a kind of casual protest against all politeness. Yes, its springtime in Charleston. Which at the Library Society can only mean one thing... the Spring Book Sale!

Which was last weekend, so, you missed it. Way to go. For the record, it was excellent, which is a polite way of saying we made a little money with it. Thanks to all the members, Bridge Runners, tourists, and sundry passers-by who stopped in; an even bigger thanks to the volunteers who kept the sale sailing along.

So with the Book Sale out of the way, springtime at the library must mean it's time for something else... and that something is murder! On Thursday, April 16th, at 7:00 PM, we will host Writing Murder Mysteries of the Carolinas, a lecture and book signing with authors Carolyn Hart and Margaret Maron. These two nationally-recognized authors will be providing insights into their creative process. It's sure to be an exciting night- doubly so if they disclose their "creative process" for penning murder mysteries (over fifty between the two!) to be autobiographical. RSVP now.

Don't forget, the Edgar Allan Poe exhibit is still here: if you can't make it to the Murder Mysteries event, you can still get in a little vernal morbidity- if you come before the 20th of April.

ACTUAL LIBRARY NEWS: the Library Society will be closed this Friday the 10th and Saturday the 11th. We will return to normal hours Easter Monday because we're the only country in the Western world that doesn't get the day off...