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Post by Kristin S.

After what seemed like a long January, February is here and Punxsutawney Phil has declared six more weeks of winter, so we might as well settle in with a brand new book or DVD! Follow the links for each format to find any of these new releases or best sellers at your neighborhood Aurora Public Library. 

Recent New York Times Bestsellers:

New Fiction

		The Woman in the Window by A. J. Finn Borrow: [Print] [eAudiobook] A recluse who drinks heavily and takes prescription drugs may have witnessed a crime across from her Harlem townhouse.
		The Wife Between Us by Greer Hendricks Borrow: [Print] [eBook] [eAudiobook] The connections linking a hedge fund manager, his ex-wife and his fiancée are explored from several points of view.
		Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward Borrow: [Print] [Audiobook] [eBook] [eAudiobook] A 13-year-old boy comes of age in Mississippi while his black mother takes him and his toddler sister to pick up their white father, who is getting released from the state penitentiary.
		The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin Borrow: [Print] [eBook] [eAudiobook] Four adolescents learn the dates of their deaths from a psychic and their lives go on different courses.
		Blood Fury by J. R. Ward Borrow: [Print] The third book in the Black Dagger Legacy series.
		Robicheaux by James Lee Burke Borrow: [Normal Print] [Large Print] [eBook] [eAudiobook] A bereaved detective confronts his past and works to clear his name when he becomes a suspect during an investigation into the murder of the man who killed his wife.
		Unbound by Stuart Woods Borrow: [Normal Print] [Large Print] [eBook] [eAudiobook] The 44th book in the Stone Barrington series.
		The Wanted by Robert Crais Borrow: [Normal Print] [Large Print] [eBook] A single mother hires Elvis Cole to investigate her teenage son who is on the run after a deadly crime spree.
		Operator Down by Brad Taylor Borrow: [Print] [eBook] [eAudiobook] Pike Logan's team uncovers a plot to bring down a country in Africa when they track an American arms dealer.
		Promise Not to Tell by Jayne Ann Krentz Borrow: [Normal Print] [Large Print] [eBook] A Seattle gallery owner and a private investigator, both of whom spent time in a cult during childhood, team up when an artist takes her own life.
		Twisted by Helen Hardt Borrow: [Print] The eighth book in the Steel Brothers Saga series.
		The Alice Network by Kate Quinn Borrow: [Print] [eBook] A pregnant American college student and a French spy join together on a mission in London in 1947.
		The Good Daughter by Karin Slaughter Borrow: [Normal Print] [Large Print] [eBook] [eAudiobook] The lawyer Charlotte Quinn is challenged when violence returns to her hometown of Pikesville.

New Nonfiction

		Fire and Fury by Michael Wolff Borrow: [Print] [eBook] [eAudiobook] A journalist offers an inside account of the first year of the Trump White House.
		When by Daniel H. Pink Borrow: [Print] Research from several fields reveals the ideal time to make small decisions and big life changes.
		Tell Me More by Kelly Corrigan Borrow: [Print] [eBook] A dozen essays based on short phrases that have defined some of the memoir writer's close relationships.
		Women & Power by Mary Beard Borrow: [Print] [eBook] A look at the roots of misogyny and its manifestations today.
		Single State of Mind by Andi Dorfman Borrow: [Print] [eBook] Real-life tales of dating and other mishaps by the former assistant district attorney from Georgia and star of "The Bachelorette."
		Thanks, Obama by David Litt Borrow: [Print] [eBook] A comic memoir from a young presidential speechwriter who served in the Obama White House.
		Home Sweet Murder by James Patterson Borrow: [Print] A true-crime story involving a lawyer, his wife and a man claiming to be a Securities and Exchange Commission agent.
		Murder, Interrupted by James Patterson Borrow: [Print] The real-life story of the fight between two men after one botches the murder of the other's wife.

 DVD New Releases (Dec-Jan):

		Wonder Borrow: [DVD] A boy with a facial deformity, who enters a middle school after being homeschooled for his whole life, struggles to fit in and get accepted by his classmates.
		Blade of the Immortal Borrow: [DVD] Samurai Manji has taken a lot of lives, both innocent and guilty, and now lives life in feudal Japan as a criminal. After being cursed with immortality until he kills enough evil men, Manji meets a young girl who enlists him to be her body-guard. Swearing loyalty, protection and vengeance against the group of sword fighters who slaughtered her family, the unlikely duo set on a remarkable quest to make right against those who did them wrong.
		The Florida Project Borrow: [DVD] The Florida Project tells the story of a precocious six year-old and her ragtag group of friends whose summer break is filled with childhood wonder, possibility and a sense of adventure while the adults around them struggle with hard times.
		Professor Marston & the Wonder Women Borrow: [DVD] Details the unconventional life of Dr. William Marston, the Harvard psychologist and inventor who helped invent the modern lie detector test and created Wonder Woman in 1941. Marston was in a polyamorous relationship with his wife Elizabeth, a psychologist and inventor in her own right, and Olive Byrne, a former student who became an academic.
		The Last Flag Flying Borrow: [DVD] A Vietnam veteran visits two of his fellow Marines to ask them with help in bringing the body of his son, a fallen soldier in Iraq, to Arlington. As they learn the truth about his death, they bond over the sore memories of their own troubled pasts.
		Only the Brave Borrow: [DVD] Based on the true story of the Granite Mountain Hotshots, a team of local firefighters train together to become one of the most elite firefighting teams in the nation and are tested when an historic wildfire threatens their town.
		Geostorm Borrow: [DVD] Something's wrong with the satellites that control climate and prevent devastating natural disasters. It's a race to uncover the threat before a worldwide geostorm engulfs the planet.
		Jigsaw Borrow: [DVD] When several people die in ways that resemble those of the Jigsaw Killer, detectives struggle with the possibility that he has come back from the dead to continue his killing spree.
		The Killing of a Sacred Deer Borrow: [DVD] Colin Farrell and Nicole Kidman star in this heart-stopping thriller about a surgeon whose family is terrorized by a depraved teenager determined to take revenge on the doctor for a fatal past mistake.
		Goodbye Christopher Robin Borrow: [DVD] Get a rare glimpse into the relationship between author A.A. Milne, creator of the beloved Winnie-the-Pooh stories, and his son, in this moving story about success and family.
		Suburbicon Borrow: [DVD] Suburbicon is the perfect place to raise a family, and in 1959, Gardner Lodge (Matt Damon) is doing just that. But the tranquil surface masks a disturbing reality, as Gardner must navigate the town's dark underbelly of betrayal, deceit and violence.
		Thank You for Your Service Borrow: [DVD] Soldiers returning from Iraq struggle to integrate back into family and civilian life while living with the memory of war that threatens to destroy them long after.
		My Entire High School Sinking into the Sea Borrow: [DVD] From cartoonist Dash Shaw comes an audacious, critically acclaimed comedy debut that blends disaster movies, teen dramas and blockbuster clichés into a dazzling tale about how high school shapes who we become, even in the most unusual of circumstance.
		Chasing the Dragon Borrow: [DVD] Donnie Yen stars as infamous real-life drug kingpin Crippled Ho, who came to Hong Kong an illegal immigrant in 1963 and ruthlessly carved an empire from the chaotic underworld of drug dealers and corrupt police that ruled the city under notorious detective Lee Rock (Andy Lau).
		Earth: One Amazing Day Borrow: [DVD] Narrated by Robert Redford Earth: One Amazing Day is an astonishing journey into the awesome power of the natural world.
		Blade Runner 2049 Borrow: [DVD] When a young blade runner discovers a shocking secret, he sets out to find former blade runner, Rick Deckard, who disappeared thirty years ago.
		Happy Death Day Borrow: [DVD] A college student relives the day of her murder with both its unexceptional details and terrifying end until she discovers her killer's identity.
		The Snowman Borrow: [DVD] When an elite crime squad's lead detective investigates the disappearance of a victim on the first snow of winter, he fears an elusive serial killer may be active again. With the help of a brilliant recruit, the cop must connect decades-old cold cases to the brutal new one if he hopes to outwit this unthinkable evil before the next snowfall.
		I, Daniel Blake Borrow: [DVD] When a carpenter has a heart attack and goes on state welfare, he is joined by a single mother who is in a similar situation.
		Loving Vincent Borrow: [DVD] The life and controversial death of Vincent Van Gogh told by his paintings and by the characters that inhabit them. The intrigue unfolds through dramatic reconstructions of the events leading up to his death.
		All I See is You Borrow: [DVD] When a blind woman suddenly regains her eyesight, she and her husband discover disturbing details about each other.
		9/11 Borrow: [DVD] When five people find themselves trapped in an elevator after a plane hits the World Trade Center, they work together to try to survive.
		Beyond Skyline Borrow: [DVD] When the population of Los Angeles is sucked off the face of the earth, Detective Mark Corley (Frank Grillo) storms his way onto an alien ship to rescue his estranged son. After the ship crashes in Southeast Asia, Mark must forge an alliance with a band of survivors to discover the key to saving his son and taking back the planet once and for all.
		My Little Pony: The Movie Borrow: [DVD] A dark force threatens Ponyville, and the Mane six embark on an unforgettable journey beyond Equestria where they meet new friends and exciting challenges on a quest to use the magic of friendship to save their home.

We hope you enjoy our newest and most popular selections! Stop on in to your Aurora Public Library for more great recommendations or materials.

Sources: The New York Times, Rotten Tomatoes, Amazon, Goodreads, EarlyWord, Novelist

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 Post by Tessy W.

A sudden throbbing at your temples. Shivering until your bones seemed to jolt and creak beneath your skin, even as your fever spikes. The sweating starts. Sweating first through clothes and then blankets. And within a day, sometimes even hours,¹ death.

The English sweating sickness killed between 30 to 50 percent² of all who contracted it at the turn of the 16^th century.  Appearing and retreating in five epidemics², it sent the English upper class into hysterics as it struck not only the poor, but also ravaged the young, healthy, and more importantly, the rich.¹

What caused the virulent ailment? Where did it go? The sweating sickness is an epidemiological mystery that leaves even modern experts guessing.

That's why my reading list is littered with medical non-fiction. From gripping tales of disease running rampart, to in-depth histories detailing medical breakthroughs, the world of medicine is as fascinating as it is terrifying.

Death rates from infectious diseases in the United States have plummeted from around 800 deaths per 100,000 people in 1900 to just 46 deaths per 100,000 people in 2014.³  Thus transforming the specter of violent and imminent death by disease into vague plans to schedule that annual physical, at least for patricular areas of the world like the United States.

However, the phantom of disease still has the power to inspire prickles of nervous fear, and in some cases, outright panic. During the 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, the four cases⁴ that were diagnosed in the United States sent the country into a frenzy, making it impossible to turn around without catching another Ebola news headline.

In fact, "The Hot Zone" by Richard Preston was one of the first books of the genre I ever read. A classic New York Times bestseller,Preston plotted the emergence of the Ebola virus from the jungles of Central Africa and described the virus' hyperbolic lethality in gruesome detail. More is known about the terrifying virus since the book's publication date, but the air of terror around the then mysterious virus is near tangible in this fast-paced, scientific thriller and it is still well worth the read.

Furthermore, if you're the sort to grumble about your annual flu shot, you might want to give "The Great Influenza" by John Barry a glance. Barry narrates the vicious onset and devastation of the 1918 flu pandemic in plentiful detail. Not only does he track the ravaging virus, but Barry, in exploring the question of why the virus was so monstrous, scrutinizes the history around the Spanish flu. From the setting of World War I to the emerging adeptness of the American medical community, the book chronicles one of the deadliest pandemics in human history with amazing scope and detail. Blinking up from its pages, you might be a little less reluctant next October when your doctor asks you whether you would like a flu shot.

Presently, the average American doesn't have to worry about a sweeping epidemic of Ebola or the flu. Instead, our illnesses come quietly, creeping forward through our bones, blood and flesh with ruthless intent. The leading cause of death in the United States is heart disease, but right on its heels, menacing on the edge of sight, is cancer.⁵

Dubbed "The Emperor of All Maladies" by Siddhartha Mukherjee in his book thus titled, cancer is disease at its worse. “Indeed, cancer’s emergence in the world is the product of a double negative: it becomes common only when all other killers themselves have been killed," according to Murkherjee.⁶ His sweeping epic of humanity's fight against cancer is an interweaving of narrative and lucid prose.  Explaining the devastation of how our own bodies can turn against us and the successive ways we have attempted to battle against cancer, he illuminates an illness that up until modern times, we'd been afraid to even speak of.

With a dramatic cast of characters, the genre of medical nonfiction can narrate like your standard novel, with the heroes garbed in white lab coats or hazmat suits. Until recently, we'd appeared to be marching past the climax in our perpetual struggle between sickness and health into a neat, healthful resolution. But perhaps disease is a timeless villain after all.

According to the World Health Organization, "antibiotic resistance is one of the biggest threats to global health, food security, and development today".⁷ Illnesses previously controlled by antibiotics such as bacterial pneumonia and tuberculosis, are now contributing to an estimated 23,000 deaths per year in the United States⁸; a surging tide of lethality caused by the misuse of one of humanity's greatest epiphanies.

Antibiotics are overused and inapplicably applied. Instead of prescribing antibiotics for legitimate bacterial infections, they are prescribed for illnesses such the flu, which are caused by viruses not bacteria, or given as a health supplement to livestock instead of strictly to sick animals. This confluence of misuse has driven the evolution of bacterial strains that are resistant to most of the antibiotics we have, and the discovery of new antibiotics is a slow process due to poor investment and regulations.⁹

Unfortunately, antibiotic resistance is only one of many looming threats of the medical variety. If you're in the market for a doomsday directory, you might want to give "The Coming Plague" by Laurie Garrett a thorough read. Published in 1994, it has since proven its predictive power; the Ebola outbreak a few years ago being one of its many dire portents that has since become reality. In addition to foreshadowing 21^st century health crises, Garrett also takes the time to detail the emergence and history behind many of the modern world's more villainous diseases such as HIV/AIDS. A hefty book packed with a decade of research, each chapter is crafted to keep you up at night.

Ultimately, the genre of medical nonfiction recounts an enduring battle of wits against humanity's greatest nemeses - and who can resist a plot like that? 

Interested in more medical nonfiction?

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

The Demon Under the Microscope: From Battlefield Hospitals to Nazi Labs, One Doctor's Heroic Search for the World's First Miracle Drug by Thomas Hager

Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach

Rabid: A Cultural History of the World's Most Diabolical Virus by Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures by Anne Fadiman

When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales by Oliver Sacks

The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic - and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World by Steven Johnson

References

1. The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica. Sweating sickness. Encyclopædia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/science/sweating-sickness. Published July 5, 2017. Accessed December 12, 2017.

2. Heyman P, Simons L, Cochez C. Were the English Sweating Sickness and the Picardy Sweat Caused by Hantaviruses? Viruses. 2014;6(1):151-171. doi:10.3390/v6010151.

3. Rettner, R. (2017). 100 Years of Infectious Disease Deaths in US: Study Shows What's Changed. [online] Live Science. Available at: https://www.livescience.com/56968-infectious-disease-deaths-united-states-100-years.html [Accessed 12 Dec. 2017].

4. World Health Organization. (2017). Ebola virus disease. [online] Available at: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs103/en/ [Accessed 12 Dec. 2017].

5. Cdc.gov. (2017). Leading Causes of Death. [online] Available at: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm [Accessed 12 Dec. 2017].

6. Mukherjee, S. (2012). Emperor of all maladies. Thorndike Press.

7. World Health Organization. (2017). Antibiotic resistance. [online] Available at: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/antibiotic-resistance/en/ [Accessed 12 Dec. 2017].

8. Antibiotic / Antimicrobial Resistance. About Antimicrobial Resistance. https://www.cdc.gov/drugresistance/about.html. Published September 19, 2017. Accessed December 13, 2017.

9. Ventola CL. The Antibiotic Resistance Crisis: Part 1: Causes and Threats. Pharmacy and Therapeutics. 2015;40(4):277-283.

Post by Chris G. 

For me, 2017 will go down as the year I discovered Steve Erickson.

 I have this habit where when I come across an author I really like, I'll read a ton (if not all) of their work in a very short span of time. Last year it was Jesse Ball. The year before that it was Murakami. Before that it was Lorrie Moore, and George Saunders, and Zadie Smith, and David Foster Wallace. In college it was Vonnegut, and in high school it was Salinger. This year it was Erickson.

Several of the Erickson novels that I've read can rightfully be labeled as masterpieces. My favorite among these is “Zeroville”. “Zeroville” is a book written for cinephiles and puts Erickson's encyclopedic knowledge of the film industry on full display. It is filled with references that reward students of cinematic history and serves as a discovery tool for aspirational movie buffs. It is hilarious and heartbreaking and mind-blowing. If you're going to read one Steve Erickson book in your lifetime, you should absolutely make it this one.

But I want to talk about a different book, Erickson's latest, released on Valentine's Day of 2017, called “Shadowbahn”. “Shadowbahn” is the sixth Erickson book I read this year. That's how good “Zeroville” is.

“Shadowbahn” is actually a sequel to 2012's “These Dreams of You”. I realize that, before even really getting into the meat of this, that I've given you quite a bit of homework, but as a general rule you don't read the sequel first, and “These Dreams of You” is another of Erickson's so-called masterpieces. Describing the plot of an Erickson novel is a futile task. They are all experimental works of postmodern fiction, where you have to experience them for yourself to even begin to get a feel for what's going on in them. But I'll give it a shot.

“These Dreams of You” tells the story of the Nordhoc family – writer and pirate radio DJ Zan, his wife and photographer Viv, and their 13 year-old son Parker and their 4 year-old daughter Zema, who they adopted from Ethiopia when she was 2. It follows the Nordhocs from Los Angeles to London to Berlin to Addis Ababa and back, throughout which a woman named Molly mysteriously appears and entwines herself in their lives. There are elements of realism, like the election of America's first black president at the onset of a recession or Molly's involvement with vaguely described politicians and musicians in the late 60s, but they are interwoven with postmodern concepts, like Zan's novel-within-a-novel or that Zema seems to have her own radio frequency.

Something has happened to the Nordhoc family between “These Dreams of You” and “Shadowbahn”. In “Shadowbahn”, Parker and Zema, now 23 and 15, are driving across the country from Los Angeles to Michigan to visit Viv. They're listening to playlists made by their late father Zan. Erickson offers no explanation as to why Viv relocated or how Zan died. They are just facts of life.

In the midst of their trip, Parker and Zema hear that the twin towers have reappeared in the Badlands of South Dakota, so naturally they make a detour to go check it out. When they get there, music seems to cease to exist from everywhere except their car. Zan's playlists become the sole soundtrack to the world. It begins to make sense (sort of) when you realize that Parker and Zema are listening to the twin playlists Zan made the day after 9/11. Also, the songs aren't coming from the car's stereo but from Zema's radio frequency, or as Erickson puts it, "the receiver of her body and the stereo of her eyes."

“Shadowbahn” is a sister piece to “Zeroville” in that it also showcases Erickson's wealth of cultural knowledge, this time zeroing in (so to speak) on music. While “Zeroville” progresses something like a movie mixtape, “Shadowbahn” embeds a book soundtrack. Throughout the novel, one of Zan's playlists, called Day 0 Millenniux (9/12/01): Almanac in Song, or an Autobiographical Soundtrack, is cryptically described.

With these two books, Erickson has done something different. He's used words to suggest multimedia experiences, and left it to the reader to see that they are realized.

---

Citation:

Erickson, S. (2017). Shadowbahn. New York: Blue Rider Press.

Post by: Julie Stephens

Grab some Floo Powder, get your broom ready or head to Platform 9 ¾. On Feb. 3 the Tallyn’s Reach Library will be presenting their fourth annual Harry Potter Book Night. This event is open to muggles and wizards of all ages. The evening begins at 6:30 p.m. and ends at 8:30 p.m. Dress robes are encouraged, but certainly not required.

Harry Potter is a cultural phenomenon that began with the world’s most perfect sentence, “Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.” Since then the books have been translated into 68 languages and have sold more than 400 million copies worldwide. The Harry Potter brand is worth well over 15 billion, yes BILLION, dollars. There are currently nine films with the tenth coming out in November 2018 and a theme park in Florida, The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Not to mention the countless fan websites and fan fiction. Harry Potter is no longer seen as just a children’s book series, but rather much more than that.

Harry Potter has always been more than a fandom or collection of stories to those who love it. People have thanked J.K. Rowling and Harry Potter for helping them battle depression or helping them heal after a devastating loss. Harry Potter and its message of love and friendship has found a way to mend broken hearts. J.K. Rowling herself suffered from depression after the loss of her mother. She found herself a single mother scraping to get by while writing Harry Potter whenever she had time. The Dementors in the series, creatures that will make you see your worst memories and if given the chance will suck out your soul, are based on Rowling’s battle with depression. Harry saved her just as he saved the wizarding world and so many of us. Albus Dumbledore’s famous quote “Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light,” has become more than just words.

As fans, we immerse ourselves into this magical world. Knowing what Hogwarts House you belong to has become a way for an entire generation to define themselves. I am an extremely proud Hufflepuff and you will never convince me there is a better house. We know what animal is our patronus (mine is a badger). Not to mention our favorite magical subject (History of Magic), magical creature (Niffler), Quidditch position (spectator), favorite character (Luna Lovegood) plus a million other things. We must all remember that the wand chooses the wizard. The wand that chose me was ebony wood, phoenix feather core and 10 ¾" in length -that's surprisingly "swishy." If all of this sounds crazy to you just remember it all started with The Boy Who Lived. For us, it’s real. Always!

This year's amazing event is hosted by the Tallyn’s Reach Teen Advisory Group (TAG) with the help of the Mission Viejo TAG and library staff. These teens choose what activities will take place at the event and oversee all details down to what food is served in the Great Hall. They help to run every activity the night of the event in costume. The TAG group and others have been hard at work for months to ensure the night is full of magic for everyone. 

As the TAG adviser for the Tallyn’s Reach Branch I cannot fully express how proud I am of all of our teens. Each and every year they put in hours of their own time to make the event perfect. I have the pleasure of working with the best TAG group in the world. It’s not every day that you meet a teenager who would rather spend time giving back to their community at their local library than hang out at the mall. The Tallyn’s Reach Teen Advisory Group is made up of an exceptionally wonderful group of teens, and I am honored to work with them. 

If you want to know what to expect this year, the following is an abbreviated preview. We will be hosting many similar activities from previous years, including shopping in Diagon Alley, being sorted into your Hogwarts House, attending classes, dining in the Great Hall, competing for the House Cup plus new surprises. The class list this year includes Astronomy, Care of Magical Creatures, Charms, Defense Against the Dark Arts, Divination, Flying Lessons, History of Magic, and Potions. This will be the first year that the event will take place throughout the entire library and be completely after hours. We have some magical additions that we can’t wait to share with everyone!

Please join us for an evening filled with magic (both literally and emotionally)!

Sources:

• Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by J.K. Rowling
• Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, by J.K. Rowling
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling
• https://harrypotter.bloomsbury.com/uk/harry-potter-book-night/
• http://harrypotter.scholastic.com/series_information/ 
• https://medium.com/@lauren_victoria/depression-and-dementors-the-wonder-of-harry-potter-and-grief-40295fc7cbf7 
• https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/06/18/what-is-jk-rowlings-net-worth.aspx

Post by Brittni E. 

It wasn’t until I climbed my first 14er that I truly felt like a real Coloradoan.

Don’t let guide books fool you-or your very fit friend, hiking a 14er is hard. Granted, I am not in peak physical shape but I do enjoy hiking. A 14er always felt like the peak physical challenge-something that I knew I had to do for myself but something that I didn’t think I could physically do. One Saturday in August though I did. I climbed and climbed and jumped over a creek to reach the top. When we got to the top, it was snowing-cold and blustering wind that made my breath all the more hard to catch. While we stood at the top I started to cry. I couldn’t believe I had done it and just when I was about to turn around and head down those rocks at the very top of Mt. Bierstadt, a rainbow appeared. It went across the whole sky and its colors seemed to be the most vibrant sight I had ever seen.

As we made our descent down, I thought of how much I had discovered about myself since moving to Colorado from Pennsylvania. I was no longer a girl, taking a chance on a new life in Colorado with nothing more than a car load of things, a cat and my boyfriend in tow. I was a strong and confident woman, who climbed mountains and discovered the root of my happiness was out in the mountains of Colorado. Since climbing my first 14er, traveling and adventuring throughout Colorado and the American West has fueled the root of my happiness. And all it took to find, was a very hard climb up a mountain.

As you start your 2018, I hope that you find time to discover your roots. Your roots of cultural heritage, your roots that fuel a new adventure, or even the root of your happiness. At Aurora Public Library, our 2018 Winter Learning Program aims to help you discover your roots via reading, fun and engaging activities and of course prizes. If you ever find yourself on top of a mountain when a rainbow appears-I hope you snap a picture and share it with me but most importantly, I hope you discover your roots. Sign up today here:

Post by Steven K.

This month we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and for good reason. Dr. King was the greatest champion of the Civil Rights Movement and is one of the most influential Americans to have ever lived. He was an activist and a leader, a husband and a father, a role model and a martyr. Others have written extensively about his life and legacy, far more gracefully than any blog post could accomplish. (We have many of these works in our collection. Check out the call number 323.092 in the stacks, for starters.) So rather than gild the lily, I want to give you a glimpse into an often overlooked aspect of Dr. King’s identity, a secret hiding in plain sight.

Undeniably, Dr. King was a master of the sentence.

Master of the sentence. There’s a headline that won’t stop the presses. It’s not even surprising, considering his reputation as one of history’s great orators. But in an age where words are carelessly dashed off in 280-character Tweets and mangled in website comments sections, it’s worth taking the time to appreciate the skill of a true wordsmith.

I also want to make this clear: I’m not the prophet here. I’m more like the prophet’s third cousin’s baker’s apprentice who’s just heard the good news. The real prophet, the source of my secondhand revelation, is the legendary English professor Stanley Fish. But gospel is gospel, and as such needs to be shared.

In his delightful book How to Write a Sentence (2011), Fish devotes several pages of analysis to one of Dr. King’s great sentences from “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” (1963). Rightfully so, Fish declares the sentence to be “a tremendous rhetorical achievement, a sentence for the ages” (p. 55).

Behold:

"Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, “Wait.” But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick, brutalize and even kill your black brothers and sisters with impunity; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park that has just advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her little eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see the depressing clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing a bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son asking in agonizing pathos: “Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?”; when you take a cross-country drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading “white” and “colored”; when your first name becomes “n-----,” your middle name becomes “boy” (however old you are) and your last name becomes “John,” and your wife and mother are never given the respected title “Mrs.”; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of “nobodiness”; then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait.”

Now that’s powerful. It’s a behemoth of a sentence, weighing in at a whopping 314 words. It’s the kind of sentence that your high school English teacher warned you not to write, lest you dissolve into an incoherent mess or pull a muscle. And yet, Dr. King pulls it off flawlessly, leaving his audience captivated, dazed, ashamed, righteously indignant, awed.

So, how did he do it? What makes it a “sentence for the ages?”

Fundamentally, this sentence has a body and a soul and the source of its power rests in the harmony between the two.

Its body is its grammatical structure. Technically speaking, Dr. King’s sentence is an extended chain of incomplete dependent “when” clauses linked by semicolons, which is finally completed with a short independent clause. It’s a sentence of tremendous, unbalanced tension. For over 300 words the reader is left waiting for completion—an unnaturally long time to wait, given the typical sentence length we’re used to. In a sense, it’s almost like Dr. King is slowly pulling back the bowstring of a vast longbow, with each clause his words growing increasingly tauter in our minds; yet, just when our reading muscles are ready to snap, he gently slips his fingers from the string and we’re struck—not with a heavy iron bolt, obliterating us. But with a feather. A breath, merely 11 words long.

As compelling as its structure is on its own, Dr. King’s sentence is nothing but artifice without its soul. If its body is its structure, then its soul is its content, its message. Dr. King’s message was vital to the eventual success of the Civil Rights Movement and this sentence potently captures its spirit.

In terms of content, his “sentence for the ages” was a response to critics of his campaign of civil disobedience, critics who saw his tactics as excessive, rabble-rousing, and impatient. These critics who told him to wait—identified as his “fellow clergymen” in his letter’s salutation—are the specific target of Dr. King’s tour de force response. And as we’ve already seen, he lays waste to their objections.

Once again, Stanley Fish perhaps says it best, writing that Dr. King’s response to his fellow clergymen “is at once withheld and given” (54). In writing his lengthy sentence front-stacked with dependent clauses, Dr. King flips the standard argumentative structure on its head. Instead of making his claim first, he leads with his reasons. And those reasons are weighty, myriad, and beyond reproach.

Each reason—each “when” clause—is itself justification enough to take action rather than wait. Dr. King starts with how blacks have been assaulted and murdered by both lynch mobs and the justice system alike, “at will” and “at whim” and “with impunity,” without punishment. It’s the ultimate affront to human morality and he could have left it at that, case closed. But still he persists, piling up grievance upon grievance, pulling that bowstring tighter and tighter. The shackles of poverty, his images recalling the monstrous conditions on the slave ships endured by their ancestors; the daily psychological abuses heaped upon children as young as five and six, polluting their minds with “clouds of inferiority”; verbal abuse ranging from ugly dehumanizing racial slurs to simply being denied polite titles like “Mrs.” and “Sir,” which cuts all the same, even if not as deeply; and all of these transgressions culminating in the impending erasure of black personhood. “Nobodiness,” as he put it.

On top of it all, Dr. King cleverly manipulates narrative perspective in all the horrific imagery, daring his audience to see themselves in the shoes of black Americans: “when you,” “when your,” “when you...” He wants his readers to confront those atrocities as if they had happened to them, rather than something that happened to others. It’s a shocking exercise in empathy, a head-first dive into the frigid waters of discrimination. By the end of the dependent clause chain, when the truly empathetic reader feels as if the tension is unbearable; when even the coolest, calmest and most collected observer would howl in rage and demand swift justice, even violence; then Dr. King gives us the feather: “then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait.” Not, “then you will understand why we demand vengeance.” He ends not with a blow, but with an invitation for us to understand.

That pivot in tone—from brutal and pain-ridden to gentle, even humble—is a breathtaking display of linguistic skill. Some might even be tempted to characterize it as ironic, but of a constructive sort instead of a cynical one. We should expect the rage of Achilles, but instead receive the calm resolve of Christ, the patience of the Buddha, the wisdom of Socrates. It’s almost a sacred text unto itself. As such, that final clause is the perfect distillation of Dr. King’s nonviolent movement, as good a maxim for the Civil Rights Movement as any.

One massive sentence, its body and soul in perfect harmony, a monument crafted from words rather than stone. This month, let’s remember Martin Luther King Jr. for all that he accomplished and for all that he continues to inspire. Let us remember him as a liberator of people and a master of the sentence. There’s plenty more work of his for you to discover, so get to reading!

References
Stanley Fish. (2017, December 12). Retrieved December 15, 2017, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Fish
Fish, Stanley. (2011). How to Write a Sentence. New York, NY: Harper Collins.
King, M. L., Jr. (1963). Letter from a Birmingham jail. Retrieved December 15, 2017, from https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html