Mr. Langshaw's Square Piano

Some readers love huge, open-ended novels whose meaning can be debated with their book group, historical fiction in which history and invention are entangled together. I'm not that adventurous. What I'm really loving now is Mr. Langshaw's Square Piano by Madeline Goold. This is a short nonfiction book that tells the story of a Broadwood "square piano" (one of the early piano fortes) which Goold discovered in a severely neglected state at an auction.


While her piano is being restored, Goold traces its history in the Broadwood family archives back to Mr. Langshaw, a music teacher in the north of England. Pianos were becoming accessible to all social classes in the early 1800s; Broadwood ledgers show pianos being sent to marchionesses, military men and women with suspiciously fake names like Mrs. Go to bed (brothel owners, perhaps? Goold doesn't say.) I haven't quite gotten to the story of Mr. Langshaw yet. He studied in London with Charles Wesley, the younger brother of the founder of the Methodist religious movement. There is also a good bit on the history of the Broadwood family.

The book's website has sound clips of music of the time being played on Mr. Langshaw's newly restored piano. You can also look at photographs, portraits and primary documents like one of Mrs. Langshaw's grocery lists.

Questions of the Day

Q: My friend and I have a bet about who ran the fastest mile in 1948 or 1949. My friend says it's Roger Bannister and I can't remember the name of the guy who I think it was. His nickname was the Flying Preacher and he was from Kansas.

A: The name this person was looking for was Glenn Cunningham, a.k.a. the Kansas Flyer (although we still have no idea if he ran the fastest mile in 1948). Cunningham's legs were burned in a fire at age 8. His parents refused amputation and it took Glenn two years to even try to walk again.

How I found this:
I had no luck with almanacs or googling "Flying Preacher", so I looked at the Wikipedia page Mile Run World Record Progression and scanned for Americans in the 30s, 40s and 50s. Glenn Cunningham was the 1934 record holder. I clicked on his name and his nickname, the Kansas Flyer, jumped out at me. (Roger Bannister is the first person to run a mile in less than 4 minutes, if you're wondering).

Q: I have friend requests on Facebook from high school classmates who definitely weren't my friends back then. Did they really friend me or is this computer-generated based on mutual friends?

A: They really do want to be your friend now. Or your Facebook friend, at least.

Q: When did it snow here in January?

A: Last Thursday, January 28. You can go to weather.com and type in your zip code, then click on Month. Then click on previous month to get weather reports for January. If you need to go back further in time, check the site of the Office of the New Jersey State Climatologist. Click on Snow Event Totals. And be careful driving during the next Snow Event.

The Stolen Child by Keith Donohue

On Friday the library's morning book group is discussing The Stolen Child by Keith Donohue. The book follows the lives of Aniday (a boy who was stolen by a band of hobgoblins and then lives in the woods as one of them) and Henry Day (the changeling who takes his name and place in the world). Henry Day is on a search for his real self, trying to remember a century earlier before he was kidnapped by the hobgoblins from his German-speaking parents. Donohue, whose Ph.D. is in modern Irish literature, was inspired by William Yeats' poem The Stolen Child,

Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

This sounds all very Harry Potterish, but it's only fantasy in its premise. It's more literary fiction, as we watch Henry grow up in America during the 50s, 60s and 70s.

In Donohue's interesting interview with Bookbrowse, he noted that the changeling myth probably originated with parents of children with birth defects who were in denial that the child could really be their own.

Discussion questions for The Stolen Child can be found on the Random House website.

Keith Donohue's website has a synopsis and reviews of The Stolen Child.

Anne wrote a blog post recommending The Stolen Child a while back.

The Diagnosis of the Acute Abdomen in Rhyme

Using mnemonics as an aid for learning vast quantities of information is often employed in medical education. Taking it a step further, the author of the textbook Cope's Early Diagnosis of the Acute Abdomen, later turned his book into 88 pages of doggerel which explains how to diagnose and treat patients with belly pain: The Diagnosis of the Acute Abdomen in Rhyme by 'Zeta,' (aka: Sir Zachary Cope.) This small volume has been sitting on my bookshelves at home for many years and what made me think about it is it turns up in Abraham Verghese's Cutting for Stone which I am currently reading. Zeta's little book is quoted by the fictional Dr. Ghosh and listed in Verghese's bibliography. Is it hard to imagine gut pain being funny? Consider this advice to the physician:

'The abdomen is like a stage

Enclosed within a fleshy cage,

The symptoms are the actors who

Act often with consumate art

The major or the minor part;

Nor do they usually say

Who is the author of the play.

That is for you to try and guess,

A problem which, I must confess

Is made less easy from the fact

You seldom see the opening act,

And by the time that you arrive

The victim my be just alive.'

'The leading or principal symptoms are four,...

Distension, rigidity, vomiting, pain.'

(as seen in the illustration by Peter Collingwood)

OK, not ROTFL, but maybe easier to remember than a regular textbook.

50 Days Till Spring

If mail order catalogs filled with model families wearing short sleeves and flip flops are making you long for mild spring breezes & green grass, perhaps some library books will get you through the last of the cold? Click on the collage if you'd like to read the titles of the books more clearly.

Arctic Chill by Arnaldur Indridason

This is not the first time I've posted about my favorite mystery series, but there's something I just love about a detective who goes home at night and reads true cases of people who disappeared out on the Icelandic moors during a blizzard. Each book in Arnaldur Indridason's series gives us a bit more of the story of the disappearance of Erlendur's own brother when they were children. The narration is fantastic: impersonal and succinct, but recording every important detail, as if the books were films meant to be played in your head.

Arctic Chill revolves around the stabbing of a half-Thai, half-Icelandic child, and you don't read the book so much as to see who did it (obviously it's got to be someone horrible) as to watch the portraits of human nature as Erlendur and his police team work through all the leads and breaks in the case.


I'm going to go out on a limb here and venture a guess that the mysterious Marion Briem character (who reappears throughout the series with nary a "she said" or "he said") is a man, despite the fact that most people named Marion are women (at least according to some Google-based algorithm). It's unusual for the last name not to reveal gender, because Icelandic last names are patronymic, the father's last name (or occasionally the mother's) + "son" or "daughter". (If that weren't the stuff of genealogist's dreams, Iceland has a nationwide genealogy database.) But read the book and let me know your theory about Marion.

Author Visit: Robert Daniher

BHPL: Today author Robert Daniher visits the BHPL Book Blog to talk with us about what it's like to launch a writing career. Bob, tell us about your writing. Do you have a specialty at this point?
Bob:I write primarily short stories in the mystery genre, although I've also written some poetry and a bit of non-fiction. In 2007, my short story "Deadline" was published in "The 2007 Deadly Ink Short Story Collection" published by Parsippany, N.J. mystery publisher Deadly Ink Press.
I had my second story "Ball-Point" published the following year in the 2008 Collection.
BHPL: Why mysteries and tell us some of your favorite mystery authors.
Bob: I began writing through my love to create and tell stories, and mysteries were always my favorite books to read. There are so many I could mention, but Agatha Christie and Ian Fleming were the first two authors I began reading regularly. That’s when my love of the mystery/thriller novel began. They were also wonderful short story authors as well. I also love Chandler and Hammett. Some contemporary authors I enjoy are Laura Lippmann, Joyce Carol Oats, Christa Faust, Megan Abbott and the late great Edward D. Hoch. As well as being great novelists, they have amazing talent with the short story, especially Ed Hoch who passed away in 2008. He was incredibly prolific and a true master of the short form.
BHPL: I'm assuming that as a writer starting out in your career that you have had to work at various jobs to pay the bills. Can you tell us about those experiences?
Bob: Since finishing college I've worked as a janitor, radio producer, school cafeteria worker, television broadcast technician, freelance video editor, filmmaker and a crime fiction writer.
My main career (day job) over the past 12 years has been as Master Control Operator for a cable network.
BHPL: Have any of these jobs provided ideas for stories?
Bob: All of them have provided ideas for stories. In fact, ideas come from everywhere. A conversation overheard in a coffee shop, something you witness in line at the grocery store, what you read in the newspaper, as well as what you might do for a living.

BHPL: Speaking of eavesdropping... I met you at an author book-signing at the Berkeley Heights Public Library and based on your conversation afterwards with Jeff Markowitz, the visiting author, which I couldn't help overhear, it seemed like you go to a lot of author events and belong to various professional writers' groups. Is that a helpful approach and I would guess an antidote to the solitary nature of writing?
Bob: Writing can be a very solitary occupation. But Garrison Keillor has said that writers also need to go out and be with others. Experience life so they can actually have something to write about and feel passionate about. I am currently an affiliate member of the NY chapter of Mystery Writers of America, a national organization of established and aspiring mystery writers. I also belong to a writers group that meets once a month at the Morris County Library as well as an online organization called “The Short Mystery Fiction Society”. The SMFS is free to join and a great way to learn about the business of publishing and how to market your short stories via their free Yahoo newsgroup. All of those organizations offer a wealth of information and are extremely helpful.

BHPL: OK, the dreaded "R" word. How do you deal with rejection letters from publishers which I assume are a part of every writer's life?
Bob: I've had a couple of stories published in the past few years, but this is only the beginning of a long and winding road toward further publication and establishing myself as a writer. Writing is a never ending learning process full of joys and disappointments. But the thrill of an acceptance letter greatly outweighs the many rejection slips that come before.

BHPL: So you take the long view or are essentially a "glass half-full" kind of person?
Bob: I think I am both really. The glass is always half-full because I write. And to just write in the first place is an accomplishment that should be celebrated. Published or not. But I also take a long view because I always hope to better myself and learn more about the craft. I’ve been writing as a hobby since I was in eighth grade (which was in the 80’s) but I’m still new to this thing.

BHPL: Thanks,Bob, for stopping by the BHPL Book Blog. Now that we've met you, we hope you will stop by again to tell us about what you are working on and other tales from the writer's life.
To our readers: please post any questions you have to the comments section of this post (or email or call us), and we'll send the best and most frequently asked questions on to the author to be answered here on the blog when Bob stops by next time for a blog visit. As always, click on the links in the text to find relevant websites, including the writers' organizations that Bob mentioned.

Author Robert Daniher to Visit the BHPL Blog

This blog has featured author visits for mystery writers Susan Wittig Albert and former Berkeley Heights resident Roberta Isleib. Their blog visits were popular with the authors’ fans and with our regular blog readers. Given that widespread interest in the writing process and authors’ lives, we have asked New Jersey author Robert Daniher to give us the inside view of the writer’s life. Coming to this blog next week, Mr.Daniher, will post about his experiences as an author. We will check in from time to time as he goes through the process of writing, submitting manuscripts, staying connected to the writing community through professional activities and seeking support and advice from other authors.
Check back with us next week (week of January 25, 2010) and email any questions you have for the author to reference@bhplnj.org or write them in the comment section of this blog post.

A Morning at the Reference Desk: Questions, We Got Questions

This morning has been what I still think of as a "typical" shift on the Reference Desk, When I started out in a big-city library, the Reference Desk had 3 incoming phone lines, lines of people around the desk waiting for help, and librarians took one hour shifts on the desk, one hour off to recharge. It was like working at a fast-food joint, but handing out answers instead of burgers. Now, libraries are busy, but in a different way, with questions coming in by email, blog comments, faxes and sometimes Twitter. We don't take text messages yet, but it could happen.
This morning's questions:
A late-breaking (8:55 pm Tuesday says the call slip) research question about commodity prices.
A Girl Scout leader asking about the best way to publicize G.S. programs and distribute flyers.
A colleague at another library asking about what databases we have and which might be discontinued due to lack of state funding.
Emails with incoming blog comments in Chinese to approve or reject. We don't accept comments that are selling things.
A public internet computer froze twice on the same patron and needed to be fixed.
I started to try out a new database using a trial subscription, but immediately ran into techical problems with it.
Questions about our downloadable audiobooks and how to renew them.
A man wanted recommendations of mysteries for his wife, but not "spy stuff."
A caller wanted the music and lyrics to a song by Irving Berlin.
Many interlibrary loan requests piled up on my CPU.
Request for the phone number of the Better Business Bureau.
Caller asked for book with funny title, something about "Guernsey potatoes."
Request for a book that went out yesterday for a local book club.
Do we have a copy of the 9/11 Report? (yes)
That's it so far at noon, 9 hours to go.

Call Me Ishmael

Having progressed passed the pages of epigraphs at the beginning of Moby-Dick, I couldn't even get past that epic first line, "Call me Ishmael," before I had to find out what that meant. Shmoop.com has an interesting article on why this is the first sign that Ishmael is not going to be the most forthcoming narrator. But how can you not love someone who says things like,

Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet... then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.

or describes a painting hanging in the inn in New Bedford while he waits for the ship to Nantucket this way:

A boggy, soggy, squitchy picture truly, enough to drive a nervous man distracted. Yet was there a sort of indefinite, half-attained, unimaginable sublimity about it that fairly froze you to it, till you involuntarily took an oath with yourself to find out what that marvellous painting meant.

or who agrees to spend the night in the same bed as a "harpooneer" when the inn is full?

Moby Dick fun fact: Moby the artist/DJ was nicknamed that because he is supposedly a descendant of Melville (and that's his middle name).