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Meet the Staff: Amy Schuster

3/28/2023

If you are ever at the library any day between Tuesday-Saturday, chances are you might have seen Amy Schuster around the building. She can be seen in different areas throughout the day including up at the front desk, in the kids branch, between shelves OR hiding in the back offices. Whatever she is doing, she is always on a roll to make sure that the library is functioning, books are being checked in and maintained, and assisting patrons. Read on to learn more about Amy, one of our patron services associates!

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Marcelo, por Guillermo Fesser (Madrid, 1960)

3/20/2023

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Esta obra de Guillermo Fesser, publicada en el año 2022 y que se encuentra en la Biblioteca de Basalt, está basada en la vida real de Marcelo Hernandez, también bajo el nombre de Marcelo en la novela, un inmigrante ecuatoriano, que dedicó su vida al oficio de barman, especializado en servir tragos en un restaurante icónico en la Estación Central de Nueva York. Tiene bastante de una novela biográfica y algo de novela de ficción.

Me había imaginado, que la novela trataría, por un lado de los esfuerzos que hace un inmigrante latino al llegar a tierras Americanas con las peripecias que uno suele pasar, y por otro lado de alcanzar a conocer un poco más la vida de los clientes del restaurante, vistos bajo los lentes de Marcelo, el camarero especializado en servir cocteles. Mientras avanzaba con la lectura, me di con la grata sorpresa de encontrar una prosa rica llena de dichos, refranes, proverbios que traen consigo consejos y moralejas -celeste al que le cueste- por ejemplo; también una serie de expresiones del folclore urbano latinoamericano -taita- por ejemplo, o expresiones colombianas como -masca chicle y no hagas bomba–de otro personaje de la novela oriundo de Colombia; pero algo que me hizo gracia, fue encontrar un abanico de palabras que algunos latinos como yo, solemos o solíamos pronunciar erróneamente -Niuyork- es una de ellas o expresiones en paralelo, contrastando la cultura latinoamericana y la cultura Americana -Los horarios se cumplen a rajatabla vs Abrimos cuando llegamos, cerramos cuando partimos.

Algo que me sorprendió y que no lo esperaba, fue la adición de un nuevo personaje en la mitad de la novela, que resulta ser un aprendiz y que Marcelo le transmite todo el arte de su oficio, los secretos que ha adquirido durante sus años de barman encargado de los cócteles, y que por ende nos llega a los lectores. Algo que me hizo reír a carcajadas y también por supuesto de alivio fue poder dejar de sentirme un bicho raro, es decir -cuando tengo que decir en los restaurantes del Valle: por favor, poco hielo-, Marcelo nos enseña que a los clientes de New York, Marcelo les sirve los cocteles con hielo hasta el borde del vaso, mientras que a los clientes Europeos no más de tres cubos de hielo, y a los clientes Asiáticos nada de hielo.

Es verdad que con cada lectura uno puede transportarse a diferentes escenarios y aprender algo nuevo, para hacernos la vida más amena, en mi caso, ya se que la próxima vez que vaya a un restaurante del Valle, pediré tres cubos de hielo y no me sentiré mal.

Marcelo, by Guillermo Fesser (Madrid, 1960)

This work by Guillermo Fesser, published in the year 2022 and found in the Basalt Regional Library, is based on the real life of Marcelo Hernandez, an Ecuadorian immigrant, who dedicated his life to the trade of a bartender, specializing in serving drinks at an iconic restaurant in New York's Central Station. It has quite a bit of a biographical novel and something of a fictional novel.

I had imagined that the novel would deal, on the one hand, with the efforts that a Latino immigrant makes when arriving on American lands with the adventures that one usually goes through, and on the other hand, getting to know a little more about American clients seen under Marcelo's glasses. As I progressed with the reading, I was pleasantly surprised to find a rich prose full of sayings, proverbs, that bring with them advice and morals -celestial to whom it costs- for example; also a series of expressions from Latin American urban folklore -taita- for example, or Colombian expressions such as -chew gum and don't make a bomb– of another character from the novel from Colombia; but something that amused me was finding a range of words that some Latinos like me tend or used to mispronounce -Niuyork- is one of them or expressions in parallel, contrasting Latin American culture and American culture -The schedules are strictly adhered to vs We open when we arrive, we close when we leave.

Something that surprised me and that I did not expect, was the addition of a new character in the middle of the novel, who turns out to be an apprentice and Marcelo passes on all the art of his trade, the secrets he has acquired during his years of bartender, and therefore reaches us readers. Something that made me laugh out loud and also of course relieved was being able to stop feeling bad, that is -when I have to say in the restaurants of the Valley: -Please, little ice-, Marcelo teaches us that American clients from New York, like the cocktails with ice up to the edge of the glass, while for European clients no more than three ice cubes, and for Asian clients no ice.

It is true that with each reading one can be transported to different scenarios and learn something new, to make life more enjoyable. In my case, I know that the next time I will go to a restaurant in the Valley, I will ask for three ice cubes, and I won't feel bad.

Blog by Gaby Lagos

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10 Essential Women’s History Month Reads for Everyone

3/14/2023

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March is a time to honor women and learn more about the feminist perspective. Here are some new(er) essential reads to check out in honor of Women’s History Month, for every kind of person.

For the Bibliophile:
Still Mad: American Women Writers and the Feminist Imagination by Sandra M. Gilbert & Susan Gubar
Forty years after their first groundbreaking work of feminist literary theory, The Madwoman in the Attic, award-winning collaborators Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar map the literary history of feminism’s second wave. From its stirrings in the midcentury―when Sylvia Plath, Betty Friedan, and Joan Didion found their voices and Diane di Prima, Lorraine Hansberry, and Audre Lorde discovered community in rebellion―to a resurgence in the new millennium in the writings of Alison Bechdel, Claudia Rankine, and N. K. Jemisin.

For the Explorer:
Wanderers: A History of Women Walking by Kerri Andrews
Wanderers traces their footsteps, from eighteenth-century parson’s daughter Elizabeth Carter—who desired nothing more than to be taken for a vagabond in the wilds of southern England—to modern walker-writers such as Nan Shepherd and Cheryl Strayed. For each, walking was integral, whether it was rambling for miles across the Highlands, like Sarah Stoddart Hazlitt, or pacing novels into being, as Virginia Woolf did around Bloomsbury. Offering a beguiling view of the history of walking, Wanderers guides us through the different ways of seeing—of being—articulated by these ten pathfinding women.

For the History Buff:
Woman: The American History of an Idea by Lillian Faderman
Award-winning gender and sexuality scholar Lillian Faderman, traces the evolution of the meaning from Puritan ideas of God’s plan for women to the sexual revolution of the 1960s and its reversals to the impact of more recent events like #metoo, the appointment of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court and the election of Kamala Harris as vice president. This wide-ranging 400-year history chronicles conflicts, retreats, defeats, and hard-won victories in both the private and the public sectors and shines a light on the often-overlooked battles of enslaved women and women leaders in tribal nations.

For the Renegade:
Bad Fat Black Girl: Notes from a Trap Feminist by Sesali Bowen
Growing up on the south side of Chicago, Sesali Bowen learned early on how to hustle, stay on her toes, and champion other Black women and femmes as she navigated Blackness, queerness, fatness, friendship, poverty, sex work, and self-love. Her love of trap music led her to the top of hip-hop journalism, profiling game-changing artists like Megan Thee Stallion, Lizzo, and Janelle Monae. But despite all the beauty, complexity, and general badassery she saw, Bowen found none of that nuance represented in mainstream feminism. Thus, she coined Trap Feminism, a contemporary framework that interrogates where feminism meets today's hip-hop. Bad Fat Black Girl offers a new, inclusive feminism for the modern world.

For the Romantic:
The Soul of A Woman: On Impatient Love, Long Life, and Good Witches by Isabel Allende
“When I say that I was a feminist in kindergarten, I am not exaggerating,” begins Isabel Allende. As a child, she watched her mother, abandoned by her husband, provide for her three small children without “resources or voice.” Isabel became a fierce and defiant little girl, determined to fight for the life her mother couldn’t have. As a young woman coming of age in the late 1960s, she rode the second wave of feminism. Among a tribe of like-minded female journalists, Allende for the first time felt comfortable in her own skin, as they wrote about women’s issues. She has seen what the movement has accomplished in the course of her lifetime. And over the course of three passionate marriages, she has learned how to grow as a woman while having a partner, when to step away, and the rewards of embracing one’s sexuality.

For the Techie:
Broad Band: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet by Claire L. Evans
The history of technology you probably know is one of men and machines, garages and riches, alpha nerds and brogrammers--but from Ada Lovelace, who wrote the first computer program in the Victorian Age, to the cyberpunk Web designers of the 1990s, female visionaries have always been at the vanguard of technology and innovation. In fact, women turn up at the very beginning of every important wave in technology. They may have been hidden in plain sight, their inventions and contributions touching our lives in ways we don't even realize, but they have always been part of the story.

For the Movie Lover:
The Queens of Animation: The Untold Story of the Women Who Transformed the World of Disney and Made Cinematic History by Nathalia Holt
Few fans know that behind Disney’s groundbreaking films were an incredibly influential group of women who fought for respect in an often ruthless male-dominated industry and who have slipped under the radar for decades. Bestselling author, Nathalia Holt, tells their dramatic stories for the first time, showing how these women infiltrated the boys' club of Disney's story and animation departments and used early technologies to create the rich artwork and unforgettable narratives that have become part of the American canon.

For the Healer:
Women in White Coats: How the First Women Doctors Changed the World of Medicine by Olivia Campbell
Motivated by personal loss and frustration over inadequate medical care, Elizabeth Blackwell, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson and Sophia Jex-Blake fought for a woman’s place in the male-dominated medical field. For the first time ever, Women in White Coats tells the complete history of these three pioneering women who, despite countless obstacles, earned medical degrees and paved the way for other women to do the same. Though very different in personality and circumstance, together these women built women-run hospitals and teaching colleges—creating for the first time medical care for women by women.

For the Music Lover:
Shine Bright: A Very Personal History of Black Women in Pop by Danyel Smith
A weave of biography, criticism, and memoir, Shine Bright is Danyel Smith’s intimate history of Black women’s music as the foundational story of American pop. Smith’s detailed narrative begins with Phillis Wheatley, an enslaved woman who sang her poems, and continues through the stories of Mahalia Jackson, Dionne Warwick, Aretha Franklin, Gladys Knight, and Mariah Carey, as well as the under-considered careers of Marilyn McCoo, Deniece Williams, and Jody Watley. Shine Bright is an overdue paean to musical masters whose true stories and genius have been hidden in plain sight—and the book Danyel Smith was born to write.

For the Activist:
Badly Behaved Women: The History of Modern Feminism by Anna-Maria Crowhurst
The illustrated story of the women's movement, Badly Behaved Women is a compelling and entertaining journey through the four waves of feminism and beyond. Featuring rare photographs and paraphernalia, reading lists, playlists and timelines, Anna-Marie Crowhurst's new history of an ongoing battle captures the pop culture and politics that have shaped modern feminism, and where the fight for equal rights will take us next.

Compiled by Jess Hardin

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Meet the Staff: Amy Schuster

Marcelo, por Guillermo Fesser (Madrid, 1960)

10 Essential Women’s History Month Reads for Everyone

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