Birmingham Public Library Blog

Peeps visits the Birmingham Public Library to research his family history in Genealogy or Looking For One's Own Peeps.

On April 11, 2007 at noon in Central's auditorium , Alabama Shakespeare Festival scholar, Dr. William Hutchings, will take us on a journey of intrigue, family feuds, lies and deceit in the “Wars of the Roses” plays written by William Shakespeare. Despite his bias in favor of the House of Tudor and the liberty he has taken with the Wars’ chronology of events, Shakespeare’s masterful historical plays have become accepted as history. A drawing for a weekend for two in Montgomery will be held during the program. The weekend will include tickets to three plays at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival , dinner and lodging. You may also register online for the drawing .

If it sometimes seems as if the world of technology is just too much then you’ll identify with the “ Balancing Act ”! How can one computer cause so much trouble? Come find out as the Seasoned Performers present their newest one-act comedy play, The Balancing Act, at Five Points West on Wednesday, April 25, 2007 from 11 a.m.-1 p.m. Please call the Five Points West Information Department at 226-4015 to register in advance. A light lunch will be served along with the play. Find out about other events offered at the library here . .

Urban fiction. Hip hop fiction. Gangsta literature. Ghetto lit. Street lit. What once had no formal definition now has many names. Urban fiction is defined by its location of the urban environment and its subject matter of poverty, racism, gangs, drugs and prostitution. The characters are African American or sometimes Latino who speak in the tough vernacular of street speak. Thus Mary Monroe and Terry McMillan do not write urban fiction; Terri Woods and Iceberg Slim do write urban fiction. Urban fiction was never really considered legitimate literature and was not taken seriously by publishers. This changed when Terri Woods began selling copies of her book True to the Game (1994) out of the trunk of her car, and word of mouth helped the book sell more than 200,000 copies. Since then urban fiction has been flying off the shelves. Provocative covers and exciting plot lines attract scores of readers. I've worked in the Fiction Department for eight years and have seen its popular...

I must admit that the only thing keeping me out of the Birmingham News in yet another road rage story are the audio books I download or check out from the library. Listening to audio books while fighting rush hour traffic on 1-65 is my equivalent of counting to ten. Anyone remember the actress Blair Brown from The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd , circa 1987? Ah, my dependable Saturday night date. What a sweetheart. Anyway, I just finished listenting to the audio book Digging to America and I must say that Blair Brown’s rich voice reading Anne Tyler’s exquisite phrasing are a match made in heaven. Digging to America tells the story of two couples, one American and the other Iranian, who meet at the Baltimore airport as they await the arrival of their adopted Korean baby girls. From this day forward their lives intertwine in a clumsy but satisfying way as their children grow and they reach out to embrace each other’s cultures. Who knew Blair could do so many voices? Bitsy’s aggressive ...

The Birmingham Public Library introduces a new service with the ability to search once for all relevant citations, eliminating the need to repeat the same search in each separate database. Research Pro, a federated-search product, uses sophisticated technologies to search across most of the Birmingham Public Library’s databases and the library catalog. Patrons can search all of the 52 databases at once or choose from seven subject categories for a more specific list of magazine articles, encyclopedia entries, books, images and much more. It is also possible to search an individual database such as HeritageQuest, the Birmingham News, the Oxford English Dictionary, Grove Art Online and Health Source Plus. Please try it out .

Birmingham Public Library and The Literacy Council have partnered together to present a new program for adults (ages 18 and over) who want to improve their reading skills. The program Ready to Read takes place at Five Points West Regional Library on Tuesdays from 6:00-7:30 p.m. and on Thursdays from 10:00-11:30 a.m. For more information contact The Literacy Council at (205) 326-1925.

As you’re enjoying your Irish beer this St. Patrick’s day, drink a toast to Ireland’s writers. The small country of Ireland has produced more than its fair share of the world’s great literature. Long before Jonathan Swift and James Joyce , there were the oral storytellers and their tales of heroes and kings, and battles lost and won. Irish literature is infused with the hardships of the Irish people and the wit and humor by which they have survived since the first inhabitants settled the land around 7000 B.C. The list of Irish writers is long, and while there is much to admire about the literary greatness of such classic writers as Samuel Beckett , Frank O'Connor and Bram Stoker , there is a new generation of Irish literature to be read and enjoyed. Below is a list of contemporary Irish writers: Jo Bannister * Maeve Binchy * Eavan Boland * Clare Boylan Seamus Deane * Roddy Doyle * Josephine Hart * Seamus Heaney Thomas Kinsella * Dennis Lehane * Patrick McCabe * Colum Mc...