Blogs

Welcome to the thirteenth entry of our blog series 'Lost in the Stacks' - with recommendations by Dublin City Libraries staff.

Now that you have seen almost every movie and TV show ever made you have probably realised that it is no coincidence that great books, in the right hands, often make great movies and television.From Normal People, and Game of Thrones, to The Lord of the Rings and The Godfather, now is a great time to read the original book versions.

As a nation we are obsessed with our pets (in a good way of course) which explains why we love to talk about them. The cat is a domestic species of small carnivorous mammal. It is the only domesticated species in the family Felidae and is often referred to as the domestic cat to distinguish it from the wild members of the family. The scientist is most famous for calculated gravity, but it’s also believed that Isaac Newton invented the cat door. How Stuff Works writes that when Newton was working on his experiments at the University of Cambridge he was constantly interrupted by his cats scratching at the door. So he called the Cambridge carpenter to saw two holes in the door, one for the mother cat and one for her kittens! Apparently these holes can still be seen at the university today.You’ve heard of monkeys and dogs in space, but did you know that a cat braved the great unknown too? On October 18th 1963 Felicette, also known as ‘Astrocat’ was the first and only cat to go to space.Domestic cats are usually considered to be quite small and dainty creatures. But did you know the world’s longest cat was a Maine Coon called Stewie, and was measured at 48.5 inches? Whereas, the record for the tallest cat belonged to Arcturus at a whopping 19.05 inches tall.A house cat can reach speeds of up to 30mph. If you thought cats spent a lot of their lives sleeping, you’d be right. According to Veterinary Hub, Cats actually spend 70% of their lives sleeping, which works out to around 13-16 hours a day. It’s a cat’s life!The richest cat in the world according to Guinness World Records is Blackie. When his millionaire owner passed away he refused to recognise his family in his will and instead gave his 7-million-pound fortune to Blackie!This interesting fact about cats is guaranteed to wow. It was originally thought that Egyptians domesticated the cat but in 2004, French archaeologists discovered a 9,500 year old cat grave in Cyprus. This makes this the oldest known pet cat and it predates Egyptian art about cats by over 4,000 years!According to Encyclopaedia Britannica, Herodotus wrote in 440BC that when a pet cat died in Ancient Egyptian times the family members would shave off their eyebrows in mourning.This cat fact will really blow your mind. A study discovered that our little house cats share 95.6% of their genetic makeup with tigers! They also share a lot of the same behaviours such as scent and urine marking, prey stalking and pouncing.Read the article, 'How smart is your cat',  in Pets magazine.Register for RB Digital magazines or via the Rbdigital app:  Google Play - Android | iTunes - iOS | Kindle Fire. Watch our how to video for more information. 

Is “Spark Joy, an Illustrated Guide to the Japanese Art of Tidying” really a life changer or just another fashion trend? Is the ‘queen of tidying’ deserving of her title? Marie Kondo’s chuck it if it doesn’t spark joy method of tidying is a great way to tackle the often tumultuous job of tidying providing a guide to the decision making necessary in choosing the things you really want to bring with you into the future.Kondo has made tidying her life’s work. She did a thesis on tidying in college and went on to become a successful author and business woman with her own American TV series. The KonMari method of tidying is based on a simple philosophy of love it or chuck it but she has never said it was easy. Taking a journey with Kondo involves commitment, visualisation and discarding along with master classes in folding, sorting and storing.  Tidying by category and sticking with the work order and the criterion promises to bring about a new order not just in the home but across life. The book is beautifully illustrated with simple but effective childlike drawings.By following the KonMari method of tidying a value system is developed that simply cannot exist with accumulating clutter and therefore becomes a plan for life. Kondo helps people hone into their feelings to identify the items that ‘spark joy’ breeding confidence in deciding what they should keep and what to let go. She believes that for successful tidying a transfer of concentration from what you want to get rid of to what you want to keep is necessary. The result is a positive mindset and a perspective which when applied regularly in the home transfers across to all life allowing a new setting and a joyful future.As a self professed tidying freak Kondo found that restoring order in the home was a way to relieve anxiety. In these Covid times as we are spending more time then ever in the home and garden we have an opportunity to look around us and take care of our possessions. Many have taken to tidying with gusto but it can be overwhelming. Kondo explains tidying as the act of self confrontation achieved by facing the mess we have created head on allowing for the restoration of order. As mess and clutter are often indicators of unhappiness, practising the KonMari method of tidying can result in a change in outlook.Kondo, always respectful of the individual, insists that a person should never be forced to tidy if they don’t wish to.There is a deeply spiritual dimension to Kondo’s simple philosophy on tidying. She approaches her work with a grace and reverence rarely seen in the western world. Her driving force is her wish to share her message and bring joy into peoples lives, a laudable ambition. There is a history in Japanese culture of treating things with special care. Kondo often startles people when she goes on her knees to thank the house before embarking on a tidying spree. She recommends thanking each item individually for service rendered before discarding referring to the Japanese tradition of treating things with reverence acknowledging “the pathos of things.”She believes that by taking the time to sense an entity’s essence and it’s transience we can connect and be touched by nature, art and the lives of others. Reconnecting with the world is empowering and stimulates empathy enabling us to be kinder to ourselves and each other. In the western world we live in a consumer based society which often ceases to recognise our basic needs as social beings for a happy life resulting in high anxiety, a growing phenomena of our age. Perhaps if we put our houses in order we’ll arrive at a place where we can care for the things and the people who serve us well not only in this time of pandemic but in the everyday.Marie Kondo has earned her title of ‘the queen of tidying’ and her claim that adherence to the KonMari system of tidying as life changing is true. Submitted by Liz, Pearse Street Library.Access eBooks/eAudiobooks on your phone, tablet or reader. Once you have installed the app, search for Dublin in the ‘Library’ field provided and then sign in using your library membership card number and PIN. Watch our how to video on Borrowbox. Members of other library authorities will need to log in using a different link.

Did you know that as a member of Dublin City Libraries, you can access the Touch-type Read & Spell (TTRS) course for free? What is TTRS and who can use it? TTRS is a multisensory, structured, online typing course which assists students to learn at their own pace.In addition to developing typing skills, TTRS is designed to benefit students of all ages who experience spelling, reading or writing difficulties. Learners with dyslexia or literacy issues have found it helpful. Many of our patrons, both adults and children, some as young as 8, have already availed of this free service at Dublin City Libraries. While a large number of these patrons have found the course helpful for Dyslexia, many others have also found it beneficial.For example:    learners with Dyspraxia    learners with Dysgraphia    students studying English as a second language    those who wish to upskill and improve their general typing skills    those who wish to improve their literacy skills or those having literacy difficulties    those who wish to improve their memory skills or who are experiencing memory problemsThe feedback we have got from our current learners and parents has been very positive, with many reporting how they have benefitted from the course. How does TTRS with Dublin City Libraries work? If you are a member of Dublin City Libraries and if you have internet access at home, then you can use TTRS. All you need is a username and password. The course has a user-friendly interface and, from the very start of the course, students are prompted and talked through what to do, for example: where to place their fingers on the keyboard etc.There are many different levels and modules which learners can work through and improve on, and at the end of each level you can get a Certificate of Completion to represent all the hard work you have done!In addition to the main TTRS course, there is also a TTRS subjects section. This is only recommended after learners have completed at least 3 levels of the main course. Subjects include maths, grammar and science.How to get access to TTRS? If you would like access, please email: [email protected] and include your name and Library card membership number. We will send you a username and password along with the login instructions. You can also email us if you have any other questions about accessing TTRS. For further useful information on TTRS check out their website.Submitted by Fiona from Central Library. 

Charles Dickens, one of the most popular and accessible novelists died 150 years ago in June 1870. His novels are still popular and they have been adapted for television and cinema. They have been turned into popular musicals on stage and screen. Many novelists have acknowledged his influence and expressed admiration for his novels.At the age of twelve he was sent to work in a blacking factory by his affectionate but feckless parents. From these unpromising beginnings, he rose to scale all the social and literary heights, entirely through his own efforts. When he died, the world mourned, and he was buried - against his wishes - in Westminster Abbey. Yet the brilliance concealed a divided character: a republican, he disliked America; sentimental about the family in his writings, he took up passionately with a young actress; usually generous, he cut off his impecunious children.Dickens created an array of memorable characters - Miss Havisham dressed in her wedding finery every day since she was jilted at the altar in Great Expectations. The contrasting characters Mr. Micawber and Uriah Heep in David Copperfield. In David Copperfield, the novel he described as his favorite child, Dickens drew revealingly on his own experiences to create one of his most exuberant and enduringly popular works, filled with tragedy and comedy in equal measure. One of the most swiftly moving and unified of Charles Dickens’s great novels, Oliver Twist is also famous for its re-creation through the splendidly realized figures of Fagin, Nancy, the Artful Dodger, and the evil Bill Sikes of the vast London underworld of pickpockets, thieves, prostitutes, and abandoned children. Victorian critics took Dickens to task for rendering this world in such a compelling, believable way, but readers over the last 150 years have delivered an alternative judgment by making this story of the orphaned Oliver Twist one of its author’s most loved works.His novels were originally published in instalments in weekly or monthly magazines. This is the reason there are some dramatic “cliffhanger” scenes which made the reader want to know what happened in the next instalment. This helps to make them “pageturners” for modern readers. (It also allowed Dickens to get feedback from his readers about what they thought of his stories and characters before he had finished his novel!)There are 24 ebook and eaudiobook copies of Dickens’ novels available on Borrowbox and you will also find there an excellent biography of the author by Claire Tomalin.Claire Tomalin is the award-winning author of eight highly acclaimed biographies, including: The Life and Death of Mary Wollstonecraft; Shelley and His World; Katherine Mansfield: A Secret Life; The Invisible Woman: The Story of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens; Mrs Jordan's Profession; Jane Austen: A Life; Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self; Thomas Hardy: The Time-Torn Man and, most recently, Charles Dickens: A Life. A former literary editor of the New Statesman and the Sunday Times, she is married to the playwright and novelist Michael Frayn.Submitted by Philip in Finglas Library.Access eBooks/eAudiobooks on your phone, tablet or reader. Once you have installed the app, search for Dublin in the ‘Library’ field provided and then sign in using your library membership card number and PIN. Watch our how to video on Borrowbox. Members of other library authorities will need to log in using a different link.

In this episode of the DCLA podcast, Michelle Read reads the first three stories featured in The Long Gaze Back. Michelle Read, is an actor and voice artist and an advocate of reading aloud for adults. She reads ‘The Purple Jar’ by Maria Edgeworth; ‘Frank's Resolve’ by Charlotte Riddell; ‘Poisson d'Avril’ by Somerville and Ross.

In this episode of the DCLA podcast, Jessica Fahy examines the choices made in the portrayal of significant Irish women by leading artists of the day.

I’ve picked a few books to help us understand the dogs that share our lives and living spaces, how we didn’t actually domesticate dogs, they chose to befriend us. How they prefer their owners' company to that of other dogs, and how they are naturally cooperative and instinctively drawn to generous people.

In this episode of the DCLA podcast, Nuala O’Connor and Lia Mills read from their short stories ‘Shut your mouth Hélène’ and ‘The Crossing’ before discussing flash fiction, the historical short story, the tyranny of plot, and how editing styles differ on each side of the Atlantic.