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In recognition of National Poetry Month in April, a few staff and members met during lunch mid-month to play some the surrealist poetry-related party games Exquisite Cadaver and Opposites. Here are the results:

Exquisite Cadaver

Poem 1
The disturbed tree obiliterated her frantic spittoon,
A vicious elephant responded to our brilliant studio,
Many a cruel pantechnicon shimmered proud of the extraordinary children.
--Mary Andrea Peters

It's Saturday and 75-degrees in San Francisco.

Being at work and only able to admire the sunlight from afar, Donna and I decided to whip together a display highlighting urban/indoor gardening, recipes for those fresh veggies, and general information on the slow food movement. The display will be on the third floor all month for those with Spring in mind, but here are a few of the titles. You can also view a list of all the materials online.

Urban Gardening

Available in [Print] from the Library

The Library's online catalog (search.milibrary.org) will be down for a few hours on Sunday morning, February 26, to undergo server maintenance. During this time you will be unable to search for materials or log in to your library account to view your items out, renew items, or manage holds. Access to eBook checkout and download will also be unavailable.

Everything should be back up and running in the afternoon. Thank you for your patience.

Daybreak (741.5 R163)
Brian Ralph

A good read for fans of the zombie genre, Daybreak is a first-person graphic novel seen through the eyes of a silent observer tackling the day-to-day task of surviving in a post-apocalyptic land filled with zombies and other threats.

At the end of the year there are always numerous Best Books of _____ lists that show up. Recently, the SF Chronicle compiled what they deem the best 100 books of 2011, but if you're like me and a 100 books seems rather daunting, the New York Times gives you the best 10 books of the year.

The library will be closed for two three-day weekends for the upcoming holidays:

• Saturday, December 24 - Monday, December 26
• Saturday, December 31 - Monday, January 2

Regular hours resume on the Tuesdays following the above weekends.

The building will be closed on:

• Saturday, December 24 - Sunday, December 25
• Sunday, January 1

A two-hour Cal Train ride yesterday made it easy for me wrap up reading a second National Book Award fiction finalist selection, The Sojourn by Andrew Krivak (available in Print and eBook). While not at poetically beautiful as fellow finalist The Buddha in the Attic, this book left me with much to mull over.

I read Julie Otsuka’s The Buddha in the Attic (available in Print or eBook) prior to it being named a finalist for this year’s National Book Award fiction prize which unintentionally puts me one step closer to my goal of reading all of the finalists prior to the announcement of the winner on November 16. (Side note: I’m beginning to doubt my success in this project).

The National Book Award finalists have been announced. Here are the nominees in the categories of fiction and nonfiction along with descriptions from the publisher and links to where you can find them in the library.

Fiction