Staff Picks

After creating cultural touchstones like The West Wing and A Few Good Men (and cult favorites like Sports Night) Aaron Sorkin focused his attention on book-to-film adaptations. Specifically, books that seemed difficult or impossible to adapt into motion pictures. After defying the odds, and winning accolades, with his adaptations of both Moneyball, The Social Network, and Steve Jobs, Sorkin tried his hand at another book adaptation, Molly’s Game: From Hollywood’s Elite to Wall Street’s Billionaire Boy’s Club, My High-Stakes Adventure In The World of Underground Poker.

The resulting adaptation, which Sorkin also directed, serves as both an expose of the grey-market world of big-money poker games, as well as a fascinating character study of the woman at the center of the film, Molly Bloom. Sorkin loves telling stories about a mind at work and Bloom is no exception. Whatever expectations you may have regarding her or underground poker, prepare to have them upended. That Bloom not only survived her adventures but also wrote them down in a compelling memoir is revealing, but by no means does that spoil this story.

I’m a Sorkin fan, so take what I write with an industrial-sized grain of salt, but I think this, his directorial debut, is well worth a watch. Best of all: we have a DVD available in our collection to check out for free!

-Mike

Do you have a favorite first line of a book? Many of us know “Call me Ishmael” from Melville’s Moby Dick. Great first lines help pull a reader into a story. With millions of books published every year, how do the books you read land in your hands? Do you only read from the best sellers list? Maybe you rely on your neighbors’ recommendations; or maybe the local librarian or book store employee. How often do you try to find your “own” next great read?

I took classes with a great creative writer professor during my undergrad days. She laid out some simple structures for writing; “show, don’t tell,” and “grab them with a great first line”. Since then, I use the first sentence as a guide when choosing a book. Sometimes the first sentence is the last sentence I read in a book. Other times, great times, I finish the book to find a great last line.

As I started thinking on this, I wondered, what are some great first lines of a book that you still remember? Could you name the title of a book based on its first line? Maybe you need the first and last line. For fun, I’ll be posting to the Library’s Facebook the first and last lines of random books. Specifically, random books from the adult fiction section of Merrill Memorial Library. Some of the books may come from the New Fiction display, some may come from the bottom shelf in the Adult Fiction room. Follow along once a week and see if you can figure out the title of the book from the first and last lines. Maybe you will find your next great read.

-Andi

I often find myself thinking about bias in the media we consume. This ends up being a thorny topic because when you really delve into things you have to grapple with the fact that all media and information is constructed by humans. Even the most well intentioned human has their own biases whether they recognize it or not. You and I are not immune from this fact either. For example, I believe the Beatles are the best band in Pop/Rock music history. Because of that believe, it is really hard for me to accept information trying to teach me otherwise.

The ideal that many of us strive for is to consume information that is free from bias. If everything has a bias though, what do we do? Having come to the conclusion that everything has some level of bias makes me less concerned with the question of “does it have a bias?” and more “what does it do to keep its own bias in check?” There are many tactics you as the reader can use to assess this, but I promised one simple way.

Here is one tip to add to your information assessment quiver: Ask yourself if the author’s goal is to explain a topic or convince you of something that they believe.

If they do appear to be trying to convince you of something, this is where I take pause and start to read more skeptically. It doesn’t necessarily mean stop reading, but it does mean you should put on your thinking cap and start thinking critically about the information. It is then up to you the reader to decide to keep reading or begin to ask more questions about the author and what their bias might be here.

Just one tip of many!

-Ben

PS – Here is a bonus quick tip. Ask what your own biases are. We often fall into the trap of being less critical of information that doesn’t conflict with our own held beliefs.