Hubb – H – U – B – B … or Helping Ukrainian Books and Booksellers
Donations of rare books, artworks, manuscripts, photographs and ephemera are being sought for an auction aimed at raising funds for Ukrainian booksellers and publishers affected by the Russia-Ukraine war.
Authors are also being invited to donate signed first-edition copies of their books. The proceeds of the auction will go to Helping Ukrainian Books and Booksellers (Hubb), a group formed shortly after the war began, when thousands of publishing professionals suddenly found themselves out of work.
The libraries are on the frontline. The Russians targeted them from the beginning. In the initial invasion, Russian forces demolished the state archives in Chernihiv, a target containing sensitive NKVD and KGB information about Soviet-era repressions that the Russians wanted erased from the historical record. They ransacked the archives in Bucha just as they looted every cultural institution they conquered. They gutted the archival department in Ivankiv for no good reason. “Those who burn books will eventually burn people,” the German poet Heinrich Heine said. But in the Ukrainian war, the Russians burn books and people together.
The call for submissions is open until 10 October. Those interested in contributing to the sale are asked to send images of up to 10 items to hubb@catalog-sale.com.
‘Libraries are on the front line’: Oksana Bruy, president of the Ukrainian Library Association. Photograph: Serhii Korovayny/The Observer
not my type of book … not sure what my type of book would be anymore
To go over a thumbnail sketch of my career once more, I started working in libraries at Riverside Junior High School.
If I didn’t have a key I had access to a key and I would open the library in the morning and get the lights on before school started as well has have first crack at any new books.
My first job was in a bookstore and I stayed on there as a bookseller, assistant manager and manager.
After that place, I went to work for BOTH the Grand Rapids Public Library and the Kent County District Library.
They were both stellar libraries but at the City of Grand Rapids Library, the staff unionized and went to arbitration over their contract and the ruling came down that Library staff should be paid at the same level as other City Department heads and managers.
That resulted in GRPL people being paid at a higher level than the County Library system which generated some angst and I worked for both … at the same time.
I would get introduced at some meetings and get hissed.
I had a great time.
Co workers at the GRPL would search for books for patrons on our computer system and the book would turn up at one of County Libraries.
They would tell patrons at GRAND RAPDIS MAIN that the book showed up on the shelf at say the Plainfield Branch of the KDL but they could not reserve it for them.
Then they would point at me and say, ‘But he could.’
The two Libraries shared catalog systems and I could be in Grand Rapids and login with my KDL name and password and reserve the book.
Other GRPL staff could not.
They tried to launch an inter-library forum for team building but it turned into a bitch board.
Then two employees, one from each system, got into this argument over the Lord of the Rings that got a lot of people all worked up until the head of IT figured out it was me arguing with myself and the forum got shut down.
I can still see his face when he asked about my GRPL login name and said, ‘That’s me.”
Then he asked who if I knew who the KDL login name belonged to who was arguing my with GRPL name in the forum and I said, ‘That’s me too!’
He just stared at me for a bit and then walked away.
He had the look a lot my school teachers had.
From the libraries I went to work for a publisher and from there I went into online news for 20 years.
I have always worked with words and with books.
And I have always worked with book people.
Book people who recommended books to me.
Book people who had a title I just had to read.
Book people who read a book and thought of me and knew I would love it!
All recommendations were made sincerely, from the heart, with a real interest in the thought that I might enjoy the book.
I had a stock answer for these people.
I would say thank you and then I would say, ‘I will put it on my list.’
Sometimes I would write the title down.
To my knowledge, this list of recommended titles is still active and today has about 7,324 books on it.
Not one book has ever moved off the list.
I am not proud of this but point it out as a matter of odd fact.
Mark Twain said something along the lines of if you want to hide a book from someone, put in the center shelf. If you want to make a body want to read a certain book, hide it in the uppermost corner of the library.
I guess I just always wanted to find my own books.
When I was in elementary school, each grade had it’s own book case and if you were in 4th grade you could only take books from the 4th grade book case.
I was always being sent to the library for all sorts of reasons, mostly to get me away from my teacher and while I was in there alone I would move books from other grades shelves to the area for my grade and when we had library time, I would make a big production of ‘finding’ my books on the right shelf so I could check them out.
That Librarian never did figure out what I was doing but she only came once a week and I was in there everyday.
So here we are at today.
I have more books at my finger tips than ever before and that includes the time I was in college with a library system famed for its 5.5 million books.
I have two kindles, a handheld and a tablet device all logged into different online book resources.
And I can’t find anything to I want to read.
I have more history books than I can name.
On the one hand, with history, I seem to have read most everything.
I remember reading about Chief Justice Rehnquist and he had that problem of having read most everything.
He would comment on a recent biography of someone and say, nothing new but the author arranged the content in a nice way.
And I feel that way.
Presentation of material can be critical.
Sometimes an author makes a mess of the content and I just don’t have any patience with that.
If you go to the trouble of writing a book on Pearl Harbor and you get the battleships names mixed up, well, geeee whiz.
Then on the other hand with history, I am getting old and some of the books are about things I remember and what I remember has so little to do with what is recorded in history books.
Then there is fiction.
I am so hopeful when I see some titles.
Take me into your world.
Get me to suspend my disbelief.
And I try to get through the first page.
Or maybe the first paragraph.
Or maybe the first sentence.
Or maybe the first few words.
And they lose me at ‘It was a dark and stormy …’
Once a Professor told me she could always tell when a TIME magazine story was written by a friend of hers as her friend refused to start an article with the word THE.
Some times I will dismiss a new book because it starts with the word THE.
It’s just … it’s just … it’s just not my type of book.
And I am not sure what is my type of book anymore.
PICKY PICKY PICKY I know but I got only a few years left and I can’t waste it reading poorly written material.
My problem is maybe I am getting too picky as I will spend my reading time searching for a new book.
Remember spending more time in Blockbuster looking for a movie than you spent watching the movie.
So that’s where I am.
All things considered, like not enough parking at a church, not knowing what to read next, is a great problem to have.
on the lonely shore where none intrudes, by the sea music in its roar
There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society, where none intrudes, By the deep sea, and music in its roar: I love not man the less, but nature more.
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (1812–18) canto 4, st. 178 by George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron FRS (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824
and if I laugh at any mortal thing, it is that I may not weep
The actual line from the poem Don Juan by George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron FRS (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824) is:
And if I laugh at any mortal thing, ‘Tis that I may not weep.
(Don Juan (1819–24) canto 4, st. 4 – btw FRS means Fellow of the Royal Society)
I had to change ’tis to ‘it is’ to fit what I call Haiku.
My blog my rules.
You can read the “What is …” section for further discussion on this point.
It is said that Abraham Lincoln read a lot of Byron.
Mr. Lincoln read a lot of Byron and then used it as inspiration but with an understanding of his audience.
Where Lord Byron writes:
And if I laugh at any mortal thing, ‘Tis that I may not weep.
Mr. Lincoln said that he felt … “Somewhat like the boy in Kentucky who stubbed his toe while running to see his sweetheart. The boy said he was too big to cry, and far too badly hurt to laugh.“
Mr. Rosen takes the point that writing is great for dealing with bothers.
I first thought he said brothers and I have 7 of them so this caught my eye.
Mr. Rosen writes:
Whatever word or phrase comes into your head, write it down. Don’t worry about whether it fills the whole line (part of the tyranny of the sentence!). Don’t worry if it sounds unfinished.
Now wait.
Whatever next thought comes into your mind, write it down underneath that previous line. I call this “unfolding”. Now repeat this unfolding for as short or as long a time as you want. Remember that you can nick anything you.
Now, a moment to think about what you’ve done. You’ve taken something out of your mind – a feeling, a thought, an idea – found some words for it, and put it outside yourself. You can now look at it, as if it is separate from you, even though it is connected to you. Now what? You can consider whether you’ve “got it right”. Have you been true to yourself, to that feeling? If not, you can change it. You can reflect on it in any way you like: is that really where I’m at?
I might have to give this a try.
Find those bothers in my day and go and write down something that’s bothering me.
No Haiku For You 