Just about the last thing I want to do in the summer is fire up the oven, but in cooler weather soup sounds better to me than salad.  There’s always my thrifty Surprise Soup – want the recipe?  Look in the refrigerator, see what’s left over, add chicken broth and if it’s good, surprise! Occasionally I want to make soup that’s a little more, ah, planned. Looking in our catalog for ideas, I found:

Love Soup: 160 all-new vegetarian recipes from the author of The Vegetarian Epicure

A collection of soup recipes, many vegan, from a renowned vegetarian cook. According to the reviews, it includes a pickle soup recipe. I’m not sure I want to eat that but I do want to read the recipe.

An exaltation of soups: the soul-satisfying story of soup, as told in more than 100 recipes

This book comes from a fascinating blog (formerly a website) called SoupSong. Patricia Solley has been writing about soup online for more than 10 years, mixing soup history and local culture in with the recipes. Want to make a soup that’s a little out of the ordinary? Try Yemen’s saltah or a Turkish balik corbasi.

Closer to home, you could head to Buckhead to eat at Souper Jenny, recently featured in the AJC . The article includes some of Jenny Levison’s recipes and we’ve got her cookbook at the Library.

And while you stir, you can sing:

Odd-numbered years bring us off-year elections for mayors, city councils and school boards. These local races address issues closer to a citizen’s daily life than a presidential election (no matter how historic), yet it can be harder to find information about the people running for office. Below is a list of candidates in contested DeKalb County 2009 elections. Candidates with websites are linked.  Biographical information on incumbents can often be found on the respective government website and I’ve linked to those where available. The League of Women Voters Georgia Voters Guide is a great resource for local elections. Sample ballots are at the DeKalb County Voter Registration and Elections website. As always, every vote counts – but maybe even more so in an off-year election.

State Representative in the Georgia General Assembly – District 58

Simone Bell

Asha F. Jackson This is a link to Ms. Jackson’s profile on her law firm’s website.

Kevin Johnson

J. Lewis, IV

Michael McPherson

Read the rest of this entry »

I have always been intrigued by the way people lived back in the “olden” days since I read the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. In fact, when I go away for vacation, often it is to an area in the Southeast that offers a look into the “pioneer days”.

If you were around in the 1970’s, you might remember the Foxfire books. There have been twelve volumes that detail all kinds of things that people used to do to survive or live in the past, specifically in the Appalachian range. The books cover subjects from making lye soap to ghost stories, to making jams and jellies.  As a youngster, I remember reading these books. I was fascinated with how they used to do things. (I even talked my mom into making candles and lye soap one time.)  The library has quite a few of these volumes as well as other books about the Appalachian lifestyle.

If  you would like to see live demonstrations on how people in the Southern Appalachian lived, you do not have to drive far to visit a demonstration museum. The Foxfire organization has a demonstration museum located in Rabun County. For more information about the museum and heritage center visit their website.

On a side note, I recently discovered that they have made the Little House on the Prairie books into a musical. It is a traveling show but, unfortunately, the closest it is coming to Atlanta is to Nashville at the end of October.

  Melvil Dewey, author of the Dewey Decimal Classification System, tried to popularize several other unusual organizational schemes (he was an advocate of simplified spelling and spelled his last name ‘Dui’ for a time),  but I don’t think he would have approved of shelving books by color. Of course, Mr. Dewey is not the boss of you (unless you are a librarian) and many people apparently prefer their shelves to look like rainbows. I’ve never tried this myself, but it’s better than the people who secretly hate books (usually decorators) and wrap them all in white. They look like the ghosts of books. Every time I see this, I think “Why do you even own a book? Why not skip the books and go straight to the wallpaper?”

Decatur’s own Blue Elephant Book Shop always has a soothing display of blue books in their front window, which to me shows an admirable and daring disregard for bestsellers.  My current shelving scheme at home is ‘books that are too precious to me to go in the attic’ and ‘books that I put in the attic but miss and fret about’.  How do you shelve your books?

The DeKalb County Public Library system is participating in the Metro Atlanta Solar System (MASS) project. Chris Dupree, a professor of astronomy and director of the Bradley Observatory at Agnes Scott College, created this project.

The MASS project is a scale model of the solar system. The sun is located at the Bradley Observatory plaza at Agnes Scott. The Decatur Library represents the earth. The project uses the same scale for both the planetary size and their distances from the Sun. The scale of the model is approximately 1:150,000,000. Want to know where the other locations are and more about the project? Check out this link to Agnes Scott’s web page.

Interested in learning more about the solar system?

The library has several books about the solar system. We even have the Complete Idiot’s Guide to Astronomy written by Chris Dupree.

Here are a few more you might want to check out.

Lives of the Planets: A natural history of the solar system by R.M. Corfield

The Planets by Dava Sobel

Infinite Worlds: an illustrated voyage to planets beyond our sun. by Ray Villard

Know a child who loves to read? Give them a library book for their birthday by donating to the DeKalb Library Foundation. You can mark a special occasion by having a book plate with their name on it placed in a book purchased for their favorite library. The book plates can also celebrate anniversaries, retirements, weddings or a new baby.  A plate can be in honor of or in memory of a special person. An acknowledgement card is sent to the honoree, noting the occasion and your name.

The first bookplates were also pasted into donated books. In 1480, Brother Hildebrand of Biberach donated his books, accompanied by bookplates, to his monastery. Old bookplates are sought after by collectors and scholars for the beauty of their designs and the information they provide as to the provenance of a book.

What’s provenance? It means knowing the history or origin of an object. Future readers will check your book out from the library and know who made their reading possible. It’s a great gift for any bookworms you might know and a great way to support the Library!

Donation forms are available at your local library or on our website.

The literary world lost a great talent on Thursday July 23rd when E. Lynn Harris suddenly passed away on a train to Los Angeles.  Details of his death are not yet known. The part-time Atlanta resident and best selling author had been on a West coast tour in support of his new novel Basketball Jones.  All ten of his previous novels have hit the New York Times bestseller list.

As a gay man with a tumultuous childhood, Harris often wrote about African-American men who publicly identify themselves as heterosexual but privately sleep with men. In an AJC blog post, Philip Rafshoon, Owner of Outwrite Books in Midtown, recalled  Harris’ early literary career in Atlanta, including him spending $25,000 of his own money to self-publish his debut novel Invisible Life in the early 90s.

Harris was born in Little Rock, AR and called many cities his home during his lifetime, but most recently had been dividing his time between Atlanta and Fayetteville, AR.  In addition, he has often read his works at our library.  You can hear a podcast recording of his last Georgia Center for the Book reading at the Decatur Library by clicking here.

With just a smidgeon of summer remaining, there is still plenty of fun to be had.  One event on the horizon is the 20th Annual National Black Arts Festival that begins today, July 29 through August 2. Among the notable performers, speakers and guests on the roster are actor/filmmaker/producer Robert Townsend (check out his independent film classic Hollywood Shuffle),author Nelson George and a tribute to one of my favorite singers Nina Simone by great vocalists such as Dianne Reeves and Lizz Wright. This promises to be a truly special event in celebration of African cultural heritage in through film, theatre, dance, literature, music and art. Check out the festival’s website for more information . Don’t you wanna go?

Back in February the Library hosted a quilt exhibition by members of the Brown Sugar Stitchers Quilt Guild. The exhibition was such a hit that we wanted to let you know about another exhibition by the Ebony Stitchers Quilt Guild, a group related to Brown Sugar Stitchers.  The Ebony Stitchers Quilt Guild has partnered with the National Black Arts Festival to host an exhibition at the Porter Sanford III Performing Arts and Community Center. The exhibition, entitled “Award Winning,” will feature quilts by Aisha Lumumba that celebrate African American Academy Award winners in the areas of motion picture and music. There will be several activities such as quilting classes, workshops and lectures for adults and children to participate in throughout the weekend. The Opening Night Reception is Thursday, July 23 at 6:30 p.m. The exhibition will run from July 24 — 26 at the Porter Sanford III Performing Arts and Community Center and from July 29 — August 1 at the Woodruff Arts Center. Hours for both locations will be 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. For more information click here.

Now that the drought in Georgia is officially over, residents may have a few questions concerning post-drought water usage. Is there still a schedule for specific days during which we can water our lawns? What about washing our cars outside? Can our kids break out their slip n’ slides yet? Well, do not fret – there are answers to all those questions and your good friends at the DeKalb County Public Library have compiled a short list of resources to help. (The answer to those three questions, by the way, is now yes, but please read on).

• The Georgia Department of Natural Resources Environmental Protection Division provides a site that includes water usage rules for both drought and non-drought periods. It also features a link to drought studies conducted by The University of Georgia’s College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.
• Coping with Georgia’s drought is the name of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s wonderful page offering gardening and water-saving tips, as well as plenty of links on articles relating to the former drought. The aerial photos of Lake Lanier from October 2007-April 2009 are particularly interesting to see.
• If you are looking tips on water saving products such as high-efficiency shower heads or toilets, Conserve Water Georgia provides a site full of valuable consumer information. There are also handy tips on water conservation for teachers, home owners, and corporations.

And don’t forget:  Leonard Anderson of the DeKalb County Extension Service will give tips on how to conserve water at the Doraville Library on Wednesday, July 29th at 6:30pm.  More info here.