Made With Love

Every year I have grand plans for all the homemade holiday gifts I plan on giving everyone, and often by the time December rolls around I’m in the midst of a full-on holiday freakout.  (It isn’t unusual for my family members to receive polaroids of half-knitted socks). If you find yourself in a similar situation, here [...]

Among the butterflies

I spent an afternoon at Phipps Conservatory recently, and was delighted to discover the butterfly room, something that I would definitely add to the growing list on Renee’s recent post.  Among the plants, butterflies fly around and linger on flowers and on the glass windows.  I could have spent hours in front of the cases [...]

Dumb Luck

Like most Pittsburghers, I’ve been following the news about the recent opening of the Rivers Casino on the North Side.  If the first day profits are any indication, many of you went on opening day too– $14 million was wagered on the first day, with a gross profit of $1.29 million!  For a lot of [...]

Merce Cunningham

On Sunday we lost a legend in the dance world, Merce Cunningham.  In honor of Merce Cunningham’s life and work, here are a few books, CDs, and videos that celebrate his career and collaborations:

Chance and Circumstance: Twenty Years With Cage and Cunningham, by Carolyn Brown: The partnership between Merce Cunningham and John Cage was both [...]

Scary Summer Reading

Vampires and post-apocalyptic fiction are figuring heavily in my reading list lately.  I’ve been revisiting some of the classics, as well as exploring some of the newer books in the genre, like:

Dracula, by Bram Stoker: I only recently got around to reading the classic of all vampire novels, and was delighted to find that it’s [...]

Math Anxiety

Of all the indignities one has to suffer through as a teenager, I think math class was the thing I dreaded most about those years. Ask me a math question to this day and I’m likely to break out in a cold sweat. Given the number of books on how to overcome math anxiety, I’m [...]

A Quick Guide to Field Guides

I love spotting plants or birds that I’m not familiar with and using a field guide to identify them.  If you’ve never used a field guide before, though, it can be a little like opening up a Japanese dictionary and expecting it to make sense when you’ve never learned the language. Each guide has its own way [...]

Marilyn French: Feminist Icon

I was sad to hear that the feminist author Marilyn French passed away on Saturday. French is probably most well known for her 1977 novel The Women’s Room, in which a housewife gradually finds empowerment after she divorces and becomes a part of the burgeoning feminist movement.  The novel was harshly criticized for what some saw as [...]

Technology Playground

Leigh Anne mentioned this recently, but I couldn’t resist adding my own little reminder about the library’s Technology Playground event that’s happening this Saturday, April 25.  It’s an all-ages “tour” of some of the different technology-based things that CLP has to offer.  At different stations throughout the library you can try out the Wii, learn about chat reference, [...]

Dear John

Love letters get lots of attention, but those of us who find them a little saccharine and overwrought know that the really juicy bits are saved for the breakup letter.  Hell Hath No Fury: Women’s Letters from the End of the Affair is a compilation of breakup letters from antiquity to the present, written by celebrities [...]