Answering questions at Boston College O’Neill Library
I tend to prefer subtlety to raw power, so I’m in general an Odyssesus fan, but there is something to be said for Ajax’s reliability. Also, don’t sleep on Diomedes as a second-tier Greek hero. Check out my friend the Oxford Classical Dictionary for a quick summary of what each of them get up to in the myths that grew up around the Iliad.
It’s a moving, powerful account of the holocaust. I wonder if “like” is the right word. Deep, deep respect. I’m glad I’ve read it.
Assuming you have already read Shakespeare to your heart’s content here are a few recs! If you like the Hamlet of it all, there’s “The Dead Fathers Club” by Matt Haig. If you like reading plays, “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” and if you like laugh out loud funny, there’s “Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy” by Douglas Adams.
84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff. There is no action in this book, at all, although history passes by in the background. Just friendship and discussion of books and life in a charming epistolary novel.
When he’s done. He _really_ wants you to stop asking. Apparently. bit.ly/StopPesteringGRRM
Nah, philosophy is hard, no worries. A couple thoughts. 1) Sometimes a different translation helps. We have several. 2) Books like Kierkegaard: A Very Short Introduction, and the Cambridge Companion to Kierkegaard are designed to help you make sense of what you’re reading. Search for them at library.bc.edu.
The short answer is no, you’re not going to meet many librarians (or library walls) in favor of banning books under almost any circumstances. The baseline for the profession is the American Library Association’s Library Bill of Rights. Librarians try to build collections that serve all of a community, and you can’t do that without collecting material that will be controversial to some. The few shouldn’t get to dictate to the many what they can read.
Not many stories fit on a post-it. Here’s one of the most famous shortest stories of all time, supposedly written by Hemingway: For sale: baby shoes, never worn. | For finding books similar to one you’ve just read, I highly recommend LibraryThing, a community of dedicated readers who share their book lists. Here’s the entry on The Hunger Games: https://www.librarything.com/work/4979986
While I am a library wall, it would be unethical for me to answer your homework questions for you. The Outsiders is a classic and worth the read — give it another try and I’m sure you’ll figure it out!
Goodreads is a useful place to look for similar books; try some of these suggestions: bit.ly/Similar2Pullman and bit.ly/similar2kingkiller.
Here’s a recommendation in podcast form: The Incomparable network hosts podcasts with smart funny nerds talking about the movies, books, and TV they love, and one of their annual traditions is reading all the books nominated for the major sci-fi and fantasy awards and talking about them: bit.ly/bc-incomparable
I’m not sure what your genre preferences are, but one of my helpers says Slay by Brittany Morris in our POP! collection is a good one. It’s about a young black game developer who creates a hugely popular VR game. I recommend a visit to librarything.com, where you can type in a title or author you like and see related recommendations, based on thousands of participant’s personal collections.
Alas, not. Staff are busy shifting library collections so those empty shelves will not remain available for long. If you do need a place to store your books, check-in with staff at the 3rd Floor Circulation Desk and ask about registering for a locker. We still have a small number up for grabs.
We do have some and are collecting more titles in ag due to the growth of the Environmental Studies Program. I recommend searching our catalog (library.bc.edu). You can also browse the stacks in the SD section (3rd floor O’Neill, way over to the right), but many of the more current items are online. Connect with the Environmental Studies Librarian, Enid Karr (karre@bc.edu) for more ideas, like getting items from other libraries.
Yes! We will add it to the library collection. If you would like to recommend a book in the future, use our suggest a purchase form here: library.bc.edu/purchaserequest
Some of this depends on your definition of “book”. The oldest printed book is in Burns Library. It is Jean Gerson’s De Spiritualib[us] Nupciis (On Spiritual Marriage) from about 1470. Lots more info about it, and a link to the digital version, here: bit.ly/ReallyOldBook. We also have a manuscript (handwritten book) from ~1300: http://burnsantiphoner.bc.edu. That is essentially an old church song book. I’m not sure about smallest. Do you mean height/width or thickness? Or smallest total volume? Either way, I might not be able to find a good answer.
Thanks very much for the suggestion. Sounds like something we should acquire! I have forwarded it to our librarian for Slavic and Eastern Languages and Literatures, Nina Bogdanovsky, who immediately ordered it.
We’re a little better situated for classics like Raymond Chandler (The Big Sleep), Agatha Christie (Murder on the Orient Express), and Sherlock Holmes. If you’re looking for the latest stuff you can try our Pop collection in the lobby. Another approach would be to take a book like this Crime Fiction Handbook and see which of their recommendations sounds good to you–we pretty much have everything on the list. bit.ly/bc-cfh. I found it, and a lot of mystery titles, by doing this search on the library homepage: bit.ly/bc-detective. But you’re asking me, so I’ll say: read The Big Sleep.
I’m not sure what you mean: the oldest book currently checked out?
If you mean oldest publication date, my library assistants attempted to glean this information by wrestling with the information system, and it turns out to be a much more complicated process than anticipated. IOW: we don’t know. If you mean longest checked out, theoretically, that would be 4 years because faculty and staff can check items out for a year and renew 3 times. If a book hasn’t been returned after its last possible due date, it’s marked “missing,” after a month and is no longer checked out, so the checked-out clock stops. IOW, again, we don’t know. My assistants might not always have all the answers, but at least they’re honest about it!
Update 4 years later (July 2023) : a patron recently returned a book they found in their attic, which they’d checked out over 20 years before while working on their master’s thesis.
The oldest book in the BC Libraries is in Burns Library. It is Jean Gerson’s De Spiritualib[us] Nupciis (On Spiritual Marriage) from about 1470. Lots more info about it, and a link to the digital version, here: bit.ly/ReallyOldBook.
