Sunday November 6th, 2011 Sweet Little Treats

Good things come in small packages. As far as I can tell, nothing embodies this concept better than a book. Within the pages of books there are all manner of surprises, gifts and inspiration. With the fall season upon us and the descent of winter slowly creeping up, why not take a moment to mellow in the sweet little treats that life (and the Library) has to offer.

Over the last couple of years there has been a trend in cookbooks towards smaller sweets and baking such as cookies, cupcakes and mini-cakes. This year’s cookbook trend appears to be mini pies. As a girl who can’t say no to pie any day of the week, this revelation made me all sorts of happy. Two new books on this delectable topic are MINI PIES by Christy Beaver and HANDHELD PIES by Rachel Wharten. Here’s hoping that a change in the way we enjoy a slice of pie will finally lie to rest the debate of pie versus cake (because pie is clearly the superior dessert of choice).

Other areas of the food industry have scaled back in recent years as well. If you live alone or find yourself cooking for one on occasion, take a look at THE PLEASURES OF COOKING FOR ONE by Judith Jones. An editor for the culinary legend that was Julia Child, Jones has adapted many recipes found in MASTERING THE ART OF FRENCH COOKING to suit the solo chef. She offers practical advice on the key tools to have on hand in the kitchen when cooking for yourself and even gives recipes that will help reinvent your leftovers the next day.

For those interested in “putting up” preserves from this year’s fruit and vegetable harvest, but not interested in spending an entire weekend doing so, try something like WELL PRESERVED: RECIPES AND TECHNIQUES FOR PUTTING UP SMALL BATCHES OF SEASONAL FOODS by Eugenia Bone. This summer I discovered a new favourite recipe for small batch preserves – pluot jam. Found online by a friend, this jam is sweet and savory (with real vanilla, lemon thyme, rosemary, and lots of juicy pluots) and is perfect on pork tenderloin or a grilled cheese sandwich. For those interested in growing your own crops in a small garden or plot of land, the Library carries a wide variety of books on small scale gardening and farming.

Now is also the time to start thinking about Christmas. Whether your aim is to make easy gifts or just plain small gifts, the Library has books on knitting, crochet, toy-making, quilting, jewelry, woodworking and more. The knitters and crochet enthusiasts of Thunder Bay will already know that “small” projects like socks, mittens, and other winter accessories make perfect Christmas presents. What you may not realize is that the Library has enough patterns in its collection to accessorize an army.

For all the little things that make life grand, take some time out of your day to fully enjoy them. Maybe you want to consider sharing them with a friend as well. Remember that the Share the Library campaign is still going on and the draw will take place on December 16 at noon (just another added treat courtesy of your Thunder Bay Public Library).

Jesse Roberts

Sunday October 30th, 2011 Don’t turn out the lights: Horror at the Library

Tomorrow is Halloween, the perfect night for a horror story. Visit one of your Thunder Bay Public Library branches and pick up some terrifying reads. If you are not sure what to start with try one of these scary, scream out loud suggestions.

Let’s start with one of the most chilling stories, The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty, published in 1971. No one can explain 11 year old Regan’s strange illness. When the little girl begins to psychologically change and develop frightening physical features, two Jesuit priests are called upon to save Regan’s life from what they believe is a demonic possession. If the book doesn’t scare you enough, try watching the movie which was produced shortly after the book was released. Both are available at the Library.

If the possessed little girl in Blatty’s novel didn’t frighten you then meet Damien, a little boy believed to be the Antichrist. The Omen by David Seltzer is the horrifying story of Robert and Katherine Thorn, their son Damien and the mysterious, deadly events that seem to follow them. This novel will definitely scare you but the suspense will make you want read on and find out what happens to Damien and his parents.

Why not spend the evening with Thomas Harris’ haunting character Dr. Hannibal Lecter; a psychiatrist, a killer and a cannibal. Harris introduces Dr. Lecter in his first book Red Dragon (1981) and continues the story in the Silence of the Lambs (1988), Hannibal (1999), and the prequel, Hannibal Rising (2006). The Hannibal Lecter series were made into films, which are also available at the library along with the novels.

Imagine being secluded in a haunted hotel that has the power to control both the living and the dead. This is the setting of Stephen King’s The Shining. When the Torrance family, Jack, Wendy and their special son Danny, decide to spend the winter as caretakers for the Overlook Hotel, their lives are put in danger when the hotel’s evil forces start to take over. Read more spine-chilling stories by Stephen King such as Carrie, It, and Pet Sematary.

Another frightening setting is the possessed house in The Amityville Horror by Jay Anson. The book is based on the Lutz family’s short time living in an old house in Amityville where paranormal activity terrorizes the family, causing them to flee. Even though there has been controversy over whether the events that took place are true, the book will still give you the creeps.

If you’re a fan of zombies and have not seen the new tv series Walking Dead (the complete first season is available at the Library), then start by reading the graphic novels by Robert Kirkman. Walking Dead is the story of one survivor trying to find his family in a world taken over by human-eating zombies.

A similar story is Richard Matheson’s novel I am Legend written in 1954. The sole survivor, Robert Neville is caught in a world where disease has turned people into vampires. You may be more familiar with the recent movie starring Will Smith where he plays a lone survivor of an incurable virus that has turned humanity into mutants. Outnumbered by the living dead, will any of these characters survive?

So get a little scared this Halloween by reading, or watching, a horror story. You may be so frightened that you will want to sleep with the lights on.

Lindsey Long

Sunday October 23rd, 2011 Witches and Families

Why do we celebrate Halloween? One reason is that it’s a Celtic pagan holdover of celebrating the change in seasons. Raymond Buckland (The Witch Book: the Encyclopedia of Witchcraft, Wicca and Neo-Paganism, 2002) writes, “Samhain...is the name for the Witchcraft Greater Sabbat that falls on November Eve. It is popularly known by non-Witches as Hallowe’en.” According to Buckland this is “the start of the winter season when, long ago, humankind had to go back to hunting animals for food.”

More importantly, and the reason why we associate ghosts and goblins with Halloween is because “Samhain is a time when Witches believe that the veil between the worlds is thin.” That is, our world and the spirit world drew closer.

To strengthen this connection witchcraft in 17th century Europe involved imps; better known as familiars. The familiar was a link between the witch and the devil after a pact was made. It was a devil in disguise. It could appear in the form of mice, dogs, cats, chickens, rabbits, turkeys, snakes, rats, toads, pole-cats or as composite monsters “...like a black rat with a swine’s face and a boar’s tusks...like a mouse with a man’s face and a long beard.” (Witches and Witch-hunts: a History of Persecution by Milton Meltzer, 1999; The Bewitching of Anne Gunter by James Sharpe, 2000).


The suggestion of the mere presence of such an animal could have been enough to start a witch-hunt, and that would likely end badly for the accused witch. Indeed unfair social practices precipitated the need for the belief in a process such as witchcraft to level the playing field.

James Sharpe writes that witchcraft accusations would erupt between feuding people or families, whether over money or unrequited love. As he puts it, “Witchcraft involved power, and one way of understanding it at the level of the local community is to see it as a way in which the relatively powerless were thought to be able to gain access to power.” In other words, instead of revenge or justice through physical violence or litigation, witchcraft could be used to harm others, protect self, or kill crops and livestock.

But is witchcraft even real? Can humans consort with impish familiars to kill livestock and bewitch neighbours to madness or death? Or is belief in magic simply delusional thinking? Such questions were being asked in the mid-1600s, likely even earlier. (Sometimes answers were even given in medical rather than supernatural terms).

Belief in witchcraft has caused its mention in written law since the time of Hammurabi around 3000 B.C. Thousands of years later, in 1604, England passed laws forbidding the use of witchcraft. And even in the modern Canadian Criminal Code, section 365 has provisions against anyone who “fraudulently pretends to exercise or to use any kind of witchcraft, sorcery, enchantment or conjuration”. The key word is fraudulently.

But what if witchcraft is real? When you consider that Sir Isaac Newton, one of the fathers of modern science was himself an alchemist, a practice in which conjuration was not un-common, perhaps there is something to it (Isaac Newton: the Last Sorcerer by Michael White, 1997).

Likewise, modern quantum scientists like Amit Goswami (God is Not Dead, 2008) and Dean Radin (Entangled Minds, 2006) talk extensively about the observer effect and quantum interference devices both of which hint at the possibility of mind over matter. Truly there is something worth investigating.

The question then becomes, are there imps, and how can they make my magic stronger?

Chris Waite

Sunday October 16th, 2011 Clutter

I hate clutter – it’s chaotic and it makes me feel claustrophobic and downright irritable. Trouble is, I’m also not too keen on cleaning it up. And no, it is not because I am lazy. It’s just that cleaning and tidying is the original never-ending story: you clean, it gets messy; you clean, it gets messy, you clean, it ... well, you get the idea. I shudder when I think of the amount of precious time that I have wasted cleaning out closets filled with useless paraphernalia and shoulder-padded suits that could resurrect the ‘80’s. But, whether I like it or not, Fall is here and it’s time to organize for the winter.

Of course, if you’re anything like my husband, your solution is A GARAGE SALE! Unfortunately, this has been his remedy for the last five autumns and although it solves the problem in the short term (and generates a bit of cash) the rest of the year that he spends accumulating treasures from other garage, yard and rummage sales seems to defeat the original purpose. A point which I have endeavoured to explain many times using simple, one-syllable words in the nicest possible manner.

Judging from the number of books, articles and television programs devoted to sorting and organizing one’s house, I am not alone in my quest for the definitive clutter cure. And, since I work at the Thunder Bay Public Library, it occurs to me that I have easy access to many of the best ideas. Come to think of it, so do you!

CLUTTER REHAB: 101 TIPS AND TRICKS TO BECOME AN ORGANIZATION JUNKIE AND LOVE IT! by Laura Wittmann. c2011

There’s hope. You CAN win the chore wars and calm the chaos! Wittmann offers 101 quick and easy projects to conquer clutter and organize your home once and for all. Orderly bliss is within reach. And afterwards you can take time to enjoy your life.

THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO CLEARING YOUR CLUTTER by Mary Lambert. c2010

We all suffer from an accumulation of clutter in our homes but it is how we manage to control it that is important. Hoarding too many old possessions imprisons us in the past and preventsus from moving on. This ULTIMATE GUIDE will help you disc ard what you don’t need in your home to create a positive environment that will inspire your confidence, creativity and health!

CLUTTER JUNKIE NO MORE by Barb Rogers. c2007

If you are tired of being surrounded by so much stuff that you don’t know what you have and you sincerely want to change how you are living, then this is the twelve-step approach for you. It is not another how-to-get-organized book. Instead, it seriously addresses the clutter addiction and offers ways to change our emotional and psychological motivations for cluttering.

DOES THIS CLUTTER MAKE MY BUTT LOOK FAT? By Peter Walsh. c2008

Peter Walsh believes that your home, your head, your heart and your hips are intimately connected. Here, he explores the relationship between weight in your home and the weight on your hips. His philosophy on clearing clutter (household fat) is to focus on living the life you deserve in the body you want and, to this end, he offers tips on how to cleanup and clear out the spaces where you cook, eat and live.

So... now you are organized and clutter-free. Sit back, put your feet up, grab a cup of something and survey your domain with self-satisfaction and pride. Savour the orderliness, the calm. Think about what you will do with all your spare time. Think about the places you will go, the shopping you will do and the library books you will read. DO NOT, under any circumstances, think about what your husband will drag home from the neighbour’s next yard sale.

Jill Otto