How good is your hoax-radar? Try this April Fool's Day Quiz, which presents sixteen claims that have been made in the media: eight genuine news stories, and eight April Fool's jokes. (Guesswork and hunches earned me 12 out of 16.)

And if you like reading about hoaxes and forgeries, visit the library and check out the following:

Fakes and Forgeries: The True Crime Stories of History's Greatest Deceptions, by Brian Innes. Details the world's most renowned fakes, and explains why it took so long to detect some of them.

Great Forgers and Famous Fakes, by Charles Hamilton. Hundreds of magnified examples of handwriting forgeries.

Counterfeit, Mis-struck, and Unofficial U.S. Coins, by Don Taxay. A critically acclaimed guide to detecting counterfeits and altered coins.

A Treasury of Deception: Liars, Misleaders, Hoodwinkers, and the Extraordinary True Stories of History's Greatest Hoaxes, Fakes, and Frauds, by Michael Farquhar. The greatest deceptions of all time, grouped by con artists, the press, military trickery, scientific fraud, imposters, and more.

Attributing Authorship, by Harold Love. The best comprehensive study of authorship in literary writing. The chapter on literary forgeries is superb.

The Gospel Hoax: Morton Smith's Invention of Secret Mark, by Stephen Carlson. Find out how a biblical scholar fooled academia for almost 50 years with "The Secret Gospel of Mark", in which Jesus is portrayed homoerotically.

Where have the Nashua history books disappeared to? Don't worry, they haven't gone far.

In the Hunt Room local history collection, the Nashua history books are now in the right rear bookcase as you walk into the room. For some time, we have had the New England books in this spot, along with a set of gray document cases housing newspaper clippings about Nashua. The change puts the Nashua history books in the same bookcase as the Nashua history clippings. Now, when you enter the Hunt Room, you'll see from left to right: the Nashua High School(s) yearbooks, then the city directories, then the Nashua history books and clippings.

The New England books are now where the Nashua books used to be: on the left as you walk in, next to the door.

Why? First, to put all of the Nashua materials in one spot. The cases of Nashua clippings will only fit on their current shelf (all the other bookcases have glass doors limiting the front-to-rear space available). Second, to give the New England materials a bookcase of their own, allowing room for all of the New England books to be shelved properly.

We have also moved the New England Historic and Genealogical Register books and the Daughters of the American Revolution lineage books to storage, to allow more room for our genealogical reference materials. The DAR and NEHGR indexes remain on the shelves in the Hunt Room, so you can still look up your ancestors. Once you know which volume you need, just let the reference staff know, and we can grab it from storage for you.

Feel free to stop by the reference desk if you have any questions, or leave us a comment below!

April is JAM (Jazz Appreciation Month). Regarded as “America’s Music,” jazz is a complex melding of the African and European traditions steeped in the rich American experience to form a musical tradition uniquely us. A key characteristic of jazz is improvisation. True jazz is never fully orchestrated but rather re-created by individual players who improvise upon what has been played before within a tightly choreographed ensemble. In short, jazz is always cooking, but never done!

In its almost 100-year history, the jazz canon now includes many fine recordings. The Nashua Public Library works hard to develop our jazz collections, and we carry almost 600 jazz recordings on CD ranging from Jelly Roll Morton to Diana Krall with everything in between. While many great performances were captured live and in the studio, many jazz lovers believe the best way to enjoy jazz is to hear it performed live. Take the fan who believed that Sonny Rollins just sounds better live, so he secretly recorded the saxophonist’s September 15, 2001 concert at Boston’s Berklee Performance Center. I’ll spare you the legal entanglements, but a couple of years later Sonny released the recording on a CD called “Without a Song: The 9/11 Concert.” The sound may not be studio quality but the performance is great!

There’s nothing quite like live jazz. You can hear the big names at Scullers in Boston or Cambridge's Regattabar, or you can savor fine jazz much closer to home. Here are few local venues to check out:

In Nashua

Crowne Plaza Nashua
2 Somerset Parkway
Nashua, NH 03063
603-886-1200
Live Jazz Music every Thursday 5-9

Manhattan on Pearl
70 E Pearl St.
Nashua, NH 03060
(603) 578-5557
Occasional jazz – check for dates and times

Michael Timothy’s Wine & Jazz Bar
212 Main Street
Nashua, NH 03060
JAZZ HOTLINE: (603) 595-9334
Jazz Friday & Saturday, 8:00 to Midnight

In Bedford

C.R. Sparks
18 Kilton Road
Bedford NH
603-647-7275
Jazz Thursday

In Hollis

The DreamFarm
64 Dow Road
Hollis, NH 03049
Email: info@thedreamfarm.org
Contact for jazz events

In Manchester

Hilton Garden Inn Manchester Downtown – The Patio
101 South Commercial Street
Manchester, NH 03101
603-669-2222
Seasonal jazz outdoors

Strange Brew Tavern
88 Market Street
Manchester, NH 03101
(603) 666-4292
Occasional jazz – check for dates and times

Unwined
865 Second St.
Mallard Pond Plaza
Manchester, NH 03102
603-625-9463
Jazz Wednesday nights and weekends

In Merrimack

Silos Steakhouse
641 Daniel Webster Highway
Merrimack, NH 03054-2713
603-429-2210
Jazz Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays

In Portsmouth

The Press Room
77 Daniel Street
Portsmouth, NH 03801
603-431-5186
Jazz almost every night! Call for details.

...and just across the border in Massachusetts

Acton Jazz Café
452 Great Road (Rte 2A)
Acton, MA 01720
978-263- 6161
Open 6 p.m.-midnight Wednesday through Saturday and from 11 a.m. on Sundays.

Jocko’s Jazz at the Sahara Club
Sahara Club
34 Bates St.
Methuen, MA 01844
978-683-9200

Ricardo’s Café Trattoria
110 Gorham St
Lowell, MA 01852
978-453-2777
“A taste of Italy and a side of jazz”

Let me know if I've missed your favorite venue. And don't forget to catch our up-and-coming musicians at Nashua North & South High and other schools. The local jazz scene is very much alive and fluid, so check the Hippo and the Telegraph's Encore for the latest information. Above all, please patronize our local musicians and do your part to keep America's music alive!

I have a love-hate relationship with spring. I love green grass and new leaves and, especially, flowers. I hate raking and planting and weeding and... The warm day which we had this week reminded me that the time is coming to get my yard in order. I live in the woods and a variety of things can interfere with my yardwork. Most years that means squirrels running around digging up what they buried last fall, chipmunks eating bulbs that should have been blooming, and snow on the ground until at least May 1. In the last couple of years, something different - a family of moles digging tunnels all over the yard and six motherless baby skunks living under the shed where I keep all of my yard tools. The best thing was that the skunks decided my husband was their mother. Every time he set foot in the yard, his whole skunk family came running. That was very entertaining!

My lawn work consists of raking. I leave seeding and fertilizing to my husband. If you want to be a serious contender for the best lawn in the neighborhood, try these two books. The Lawn Bible covers everything from specific uses for different grass types to soil testing and preparation for seeding. My favorite book is Ortho's all about lawns which has a whole troubleshooting section with colored photos of common weeds, insects, and diseases which can ruin a beautiful lawn.

Flowers are my special passion. As soon as spring plants appear in the grocery store, I buy one and as soon as the flowers on that one go by, I go out and buy another one! If you are more ambitious than I am, the library has a book, Forcing, etc on forcing bulbs and plants and branches to bloom. Another good book, when you are ready to stop forcing and start planting, is the Zone Garden 5.6.7 . Coming from the seacoast area of Maine, the rule of thumb which we gardened by was " Don't plant anything before Memorial Day that you don't want to lose." Knowing what zone you live in and getting advice to help deal with climate and weather conditions is a very big help.

When I started looking for books to help with gardening, I found there were more helpful books than I could possibly mention in my blog. The library has books on container gardening, shade gardening, wildflower gardens, gardens for small spaces and many other gardening issues. I picked out a few to mention here, most on the topic of flowers. Living in the middle of farm stand heaven, I don't waste my time growing vegetables. Here are some suggestions for helpful books:
Better Homes and Gardens complete guide to flower gardening
The welcoming garden: designing your own front garden
Home Depot's Flower gardening 1-2-3
The weather resilient garden: a defensive approach to planning & landscaping
Ortho's all about pruning

All set to go to work? Don't forget - bug spray, hat, sunglasses, sunscreen, rubber boots, work gloves..... There must be more!

We recently made a few changes near the entrance of the library that I think you'll be interested in. The ongoing book sale sponsored by the Friends of the Nashua Public Library has been such a success it's expanding. You can now browse and purchase books on your way in or out of the library. The entire unit of shelving at the center of the lobby now holds books for purchase.

To accommodate this expansion, the Hot Copies collection has been relocated to a shelving area on the right hand wall of the lobby just before the exit. Right next to this display you'll also find the community resource brochures.

Finally, you'll find customer comments are now posted on a bulletin board on your left just before the exit door. This is the same place you'll find forms to leave us your thoughts.

So this is my last blog entry in the famed "From the Reference Desk Blog". The blog has been a fun project, (at least it's been fun for me,) and one worth doing IMHO. It's helped me to learn a lot about the library, its collections, and its staff. So thank you to everyone who has participated in this experiment which I thrust upon you!

In my final post, I'd like to share with you some of the top-circulating business books I bought while working at the library (since December 2004.) Here are the top 11 circulating business titles that I ordered:

1. Jim Cramer's real money : sane investing in an insane world (51 circulations)
2. Rich dad, poor dad : what the rich teach their kids about money that the poor and middle class do not (43 circulations)
3. Confessions of an economic hit man / John Perkins (28 circulations)
4. Winning / Jack Welch (26 circulations)
5. Secrets of the millionaire mind : mastering the inner game of wealth (23 circulations)
6. The ABC's of real estate investing (23 circulations)
7. Accounting demystified : a self-teaching guide (22 circulations)
8. The little book that beats the market / Joel Greenblat (22 circulations)
9. Unconventional success : a fundamental approach to personal investment / David Swensen (22 circulations)
10. The age of turbulence : adventures in a new world / Alan Greenspan (20 circulations)
11. The art of possibility / Rosamund Stone Zander, Benjamin Zander (20 circulations)

Here are just a few comments about these books:
Confessions of an Economic Hitman : After buying this book for the library and later reading it, I was so impressed, I went to hear the author speak at the Harvard Coop. Little did I know the book would be so popular with Nashua residents.

Unconventional success : a fundamental approach to personal investment: This book was recommended to me by one of my favorite library customers. He is a big fan of Wall Street and investing, and he shared an article with me in which the author of this book was interviewed. Based on the interview, I bought the book, and it went on to make my Top Circulating Business Book list. Thanks Don!

Celebrate National Library Week, April 13-19, at the Nashua Public Library. Nashua joins this nationwide observance of the pleasures and importance of reading and invites you to use and support your library--this week and every week (Sunday, April 13). The week promotes this year's theme, "Join the Circle of Knowledge @ Your Library". National Library Week was first sponsored in 1958 by the American Library Association and libraries across the country to recognize the contributions of our nation's libraries and promote library use and support. This year Julie Andrews is Honorary Chair of National Library Week. Her recent autobiography, Home: A Memoir of My Early Years, will be available at out library soon. You may wish to take a look at other books about her or some of her movies.

The Friends of the Library Spring Book Sale will be held this weekend Saturday, April 12, 9 am to 4 pm, and Sunday, April 13, 1 pm to 4 pm, on the Library Plaza (weather permitting!) and in the East Wing. Most books are priced at 50 cents to $2. Videos, CDs, and DVDs are also available. Expand your home library while supporting your public library! See more about the Friends of the Library.

National Library Workers Day, celebrated the Tuesday of National Library Week (April 15, 2008), is a day for library staff, users, administrators and Friends groups to recognize the valuable contributions made by all library workers.

If you're a procrastinator, you might be busy the next 2 days. Tuesday, April 15 is tax day. That means you need to get your taxes done by the end of the day tomorrow. As long as your package is postmarked by April 15, your taxes are considered filed on time. The library still has a number of tax forms available. If you need a form that we don't have, we can print it for you for $.10 per page, or you can go to the IRS website and print the forms yourself. If you're uncomfortable doing your taxes on your own, AARP volunteers will offer assistance at the library today from 10:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. Help is on a first-come first-serve basis, so be sure to get here early. Good luck!

The large print collection continues to expand its range. Look for a blue dove on the spine for Christian Fiction titles, including The Elevator, by Angela Hunt. Also highly recommended is the Ted Dekker fantasy/thriller Circle Trilogy: Black, Red, and White.

New acquisitions include Christine Falls, by Benjamin Black, a mystery set in 1950s Dublin and Boston; another Alex Delaware mystery by Jonathan Kellerman, Compulsion; The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted: Stories, by Elizabeth Berg; The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life, a biography by Alice Schroeder; a romance, Can't Take My Eyes Off of You, by Judith McNaught; and finally an historical fiction by Christopher Bohjalian Skeletons at the Feast.

If you have been watching the excellent PBS series of Jane Austen stories, the large print collection now includes: Sanditon (by Austen and "another lady"), Pride and Prejudice, and Mansfield Park.

In terms of the political landscape, there are several titles about or by the three major candidates: The Audacity of Hope, by Barack Obama; Woman in Charge by Carl Bernstein; Worth the Fighting For, by John McCain; and Citizen McCain, by Elizabeth Drew.

For the Nashua Reads program there are several books to choose from available in large print: The Omnivore's Dilemma, by Michael Pollan; Marley & Me, by John Grogan; and When the Emperor was Divine by Julia Otsuka. These books are recent titles in a competition to become the selected title for the season's city-wide reading club.

We have some exciting new additions to the local history collection. Several of Nashua's Catholic parishes have released records of the baptisms, marriages, and burials performed at their churches. Our new arrivals include:

Marriages
St. Francis, July 1885 to October 2002. The material from 1977 to 2002 is new to our collection; we also have an older edition that covers 1885 to 1977.
St. Patrick's, 1855 to 1996.

Baptisms
St. Francis, January 1885 to February 2003.
St. Louis de Gonzague, June 1871 to March 2001.

Burials
St. Francis, July 1885 to March 2003.
St. Louis de Gonzague, February 1873 to March 2001.

Those of you who are history buffs might also be interested in another new Hunt Room acquisition, "Strawbery Banke: a seaport museum 400 years in the making."

Happy researching!

I received an email the other day from my son. In it was a link to an article published in the New York Times Dining & Wine section on April 9, 2008. The article was a discussion of college dining hall food - what's wrong with that picture? Apparently students today base part of their school choice decision on what is being served in the dining halls. In the New York Times article, the list of foods being served in college dining halls would fit right in on the menu of a five star restaurant.

At the risk of sounding my age, my college dining hall's idea of haute cuisine was liver and fried onions night. A good night was being able to skip the liver, skip the onions, and get a plate full of bacon. When I went on college tours with my kids, I was more excited than they were to discover a soft-serve ice cream machine in the dining hall.

Today's student has perhaps been exposed to a much wider range of foods in childhood, and so has greater expectations for variety in the dining hall as well as for food quality. Also, more parents seem to be bringing children to restaurants at much younger ages. This may be why students are looking for restaurant-style atmosphere in their dining halls. Food and eating are a big part of a student's social life now. Dining halls have much longer hours and meal tickets can be used in campus restaurants and coffee bars.

The deciding factor, however, may still be money. Expensive colleges with expensive meal plans are not for everyone. Many students will be heading for state universities with tuitions and meal plans which they can afford. With college costs rising and low-cost loans drying up, isn't a good affordable education worth more than a five-star dining hall meal anyway?

The library is a good source of information about food and nutrition for teens and parents. This list includes only some of the books at the library which would be good reading for teens and parents who want to learn more about healthy eating and cooking.

Feed Your Family Right!
Eating on the Run
Diet Information for Teens
Teens Cook
Vegetarianism and Teens
Being a Vegetarian
Foods and Recipes of the World

You may have read about a reader's advisory database we subscribe to called Novelist from an earlier entry. What you might not be aware of is an update I discovered today that now makes this one of my favorite databases as a librarian and a "must use" for avid fiction readers.

As I was browsing for a book discussion guide today I noticed that each book now has a "search the library catalog" link towards the bottom of its listing. So you may be wondering what the big deal is. Well, keep reading and you'll find out. This database is great for deciding what to read next. If you like a certain author or genre of books it will suggest similar books you may like based on what you've read. If you like an authors writing style or subject matter, it will provide you with additional authors you may want to check out. It's also great for figuring out how many books are in a series, or what the order of the titles are.

In the past, if you found a title you wanted to read in this database it was kind of a pain because you then had to perform an additional search in our catalog to see if the Nashua Public Library owned the book. Now, this database and our catalog are linked together. If you find a title you think looks interesting all you have to do is click on the "search the library catalog" link and it will bring you right into our catalog and show you where to find it.

Well, it is almost upon us. It creeps up every year so quietly and unassumingly as to almost go unnoticed and then WHAM...April School Vacation Week is here!! We can be so preoccupied with all things spring that vacation week seems far off in the future but for Nashua and the surrounding area towns, vacation week is April 28-May 2 this year. If it is a beautiful week weatherwise, families and children will be happy to enjoy the warm, fresh air and the library will be one of the last places on their minds as a place to go. BUT, if the weather turns cloudy and fierce and rain is the order of the day then the library as a destination will be for certain. Click on this link http://www.nashualibrary.org/documents/spring08vac.pdf for a look at some of the fun things planned here at NPL for kids, rain or shine. And then visit us anyway because what better way to spend a beautiful spring day than with a book.

“Clutter-busters: from closets, to cabinets, to garages, America’s clutter is piling up like never before.” This assertion by Nichole L. Torres I found in an on-line excerpt on Goliath, Business Knowledge on Demand. Her article is about the new businesses being spawned to help people with their over-stuffed closets, disorganized offices, and kitchens and living rooms convulsing with clutter. You can find out how you can be your own boss and clean up in this industry. You can even join the National Association of Professional Organizers.
Or, like me, you can wonder how everything got this way. Some say it’s the result of unprecedented material wealth. I do remember doing a lot of shopping during the Clinton administration. Since then, I have tried to stay out of the stores unless I am doing the food shopping. But I remember seeing more and more storage boxes, everywhere I went. They may have been attractive decorator solutions or utilitarian plastic flat bins to roll under your bed. Sometimes, the bed isn’t high enough and you have to buy cones to raise the bed up to get your storage thing under it. We have the bags you vacuum the air out of. I bought one chest-like box to keep fabric in that is so big, that it is a challenge to move or to find a place for. I guess I should have gotten one that would look elegant serving as a coffee table. I could probably get a top for it and make a cover for it using the fabric inside. I knew when I saw all the storage containers in all the stores, that everyone had gone over the top and bought too much and that I was not alone. The next thing I noticed was the humongous houses going up. That made sense given the size of some of the storage boxes. In my case it’s more a case of not wanting to get rid of family items from fabric to furniture. I have learned from the organization books that this not good from a feng-shui point of view. It means I’m living in the past and that I should move on, throw-out and don’t look back.
There are a lot of books, even a DVD, on how to de-clutter. Some the library has purchased are listed below. One by Peter Walsh I took so personally, I felt wounded by the title. Does this clutter make my butt look fat? It’s an easy plan for losing weight and living more. Come on, Peter! Give us a break! We feel bad as it is. You know it doesn’t stop there because you have seen the shows on television. The Associated Press spent a month with one family trying to break its clutter habit.

When this library got a new director in 2002, he told us that the library needed to weed our collections. Everyone who ordered books was encouraged to start getting rid of the books that don’t go out at all. Mr. Dionne told us about Charles Robinson, director of The Baltimore Public Libraries in the 1990’s, who increased the gate count and circulation of the libraries with an easy formula. Robinson himself says, “Baltimore County staff made a fine art out of … increasing weeding and buying multiple copies of high demand titles, all of which increased circulation significantly. Not all that difficult, but it's amazing how many libraries don't take those easy steps to increase customer use and satisfaction.” It seems that more customers will be apt to take more books out if there are fewer very popular titles. It’s a visual thing.
Six years later we are still deselecting books. It isn’t easy for anyone who loves books to get rid of books. Sometimes we get rid of a book that looks awful because of overuse and buy a new copy. Other times, it’s sad when you have selected a book and find that no one ever took it out. We started doing business with a firm called Better World Books in the last year or two. We send them books and they sell some, give some away to charities and we share in the proceeds along with a charity we select. They have had to change their ways recently and now we can only send titles that we scan and they say they accept. So, rather than put all of our weeded books into the landfill, we send some to Better World and some to Got Books. Got Books is in Reading Massachusetts but they come to Nashua once monthly to pick up boxes of books. These books are sold in booksales that benefit charities. You can visit them on the Web at http://www.gotbooks.com/ where you can type in your zip code and get the location of Convenient Drop-Off Containers!
If it’s all too much and you want to organize, you may read some of these books. You may decide to make peace with the things in your life and keep your possessions from overwhelming you. On the other hand, mind over clutter reminds me of Alan Watts who said about “Mind over matter", "If you don’t mind it doesn’t matter.” and “What’s the matter? Never mind!”

Does this clutter make my butt look big? : an easy plan for losing weight and living more By Peter Walsh

It’s all too much : an easy plan for living a richer life with less stuff by Peter Walsh

One thing at a time : 100 simple ways to live clutter-free every day by Cindy Glovinsky

Organizing from the inside out : the foolproof system for organizing your home, your office, and your life by Julie Morgenstern

Mission organization : strategies and solutions to clear your clutter

For packrats only : how to clean up, clear out, and live clutter-free forever! By Don Aslett

Making peace with the things in your life by Cindy Glovinsky

Sink reflections by Marla Ciley – the FlyLady

Organizing from the inside out {videorecording] produced by Twin sities Public Television, Inc.

“

Sooner or later, as one approaches a certain "age", wealth or responsibility, one needs to think about one's will. After doing some research, I found out a few odd facts about some wills and their peculiarities. First of all, some wills are famous for their length. Nelson Rockefeller's will was 64 pages long. Other wills are famously short. The shortest known legal will in history is that of Bimla Rishi of Delhi, India. His will, written in Hindi, translates as "all to son" and consists of just four characters.

Other wills are famous for the items bequethed, as in the case of Napoleon Bonaparte who left his articles of personal hygiene to his family. Last year, Leona Helmsley left 12 million dollars to her dogs but nothing to her grandchildren. Luis Carlos de Noronha Cabral da Câmara was a noble Portuguese who, in the presence of a notary, grabbed a Lisbon telephone directory and gave away his fortune to 70 people he called randomly.

One of the oldest wills was found in an Egyptian tomb and was written around the year 17 B.C. In this will, a man named Uah divided his property among his family and slaves and asked to be buried with his wife. The Romans were the first ones to write wills as legal documents, but it was not until the Middle Ages that wills became important.

According to Consumer Reports, 66% of Americans do not have a will. If after reading this blog entry you wish to begin to write one, here are some materials that might help you:

Nolo's simple will book by by Denis Clifford.

Your will and estate plan by Harvey Platt.

How to make your own will: with forms by Mark Warda.

Planning for the future: providing a meaningful life for a child with a disability after your death by L. Mark Russell and Arnold E. Grant - A handbook of information for parents as they plan for their child's life after their own deaths. Describes step-by-step all of the elements that parents must consider to provide a happy and fulfilling life for their child with a disability.

The complete book of wills, estates & trusts by Alexander A. Bove, Jr.

And look here for some additional materials!

Most expecting parents look at baby name books to find names they would like to name their children. A new book at the library, Bad Baby Names: The Worst True Names Parents Saddled Their Kids With--and You Can Too!, does just the opposite. It offers lists of bad baby names. The authors, Michael Sherrod and Matthew Rayback, work at Ancestry Publishing, and every name they included in the book was listed in the US Census between 1790 and 1930. It's a funny read, and a nice break from the books that list 100,000 names. (Believe me, I know!)

If you're a fan of The Simpsons, you will appreciate that 10 of the names Bart uses when he calls Moe's Tavern are in the book. Yes, there was an Al Caholic. Some of the names are funny because of the combination of the first and last names: Golden Graham, Young Love, and Major League. Other names, such as Devil, Satan, and Lucifer, are a bit frightening. Then, there are names that make you wonder if you're registering for kitchenware, such as Spoon, Knife, Bowl, Skillet, and Pot. Believe it or not, only one state had not been used as a first name by 1930. The book isn't very long, but I could go on and on...

If you need a laugh, a conversation starter, or want to know the state that had not been a first name, take a look at Bad Baby Names. And, if you know of a name that should be in the book, leave a comment below.

Two years ago the online magazine The Edge asked scientists and other specialists to state their "most dangerous idea", an idea "that is dangerous not because it is assumed to be false, but because it might be true" -- in other words, an idea which might well be true even if many people would rather it not be. It's worth going through all 119 ideas listed at the site, but the following four are a sample:

1. There is no such thing as blame or responsibility. (Richard Dawkins)

"Doesn't a truly scientific, mechanistic view of the nervous system make nonsense of the very idea of responsibility, whether diminished or not? Any crime, however heinous, is in principle to be blamed on antecedent conditions acting through the accused's physiology, heredity and environment. Don't judicial hearings to decide questions of blame or diminished responsibility make as little sense for a faulty man as for a Fawlty car?

"Why is it that we humans find it almost impossible to accept such conclusions? Why do we vent such visceral hatred on child murderers, or on thuggish vandals, when we should simply regard them as faulty units that need fixing or replacing? Presumably because mental constructs like blame and responsibility, indeed evil and good, are built into our brains by millennia of Darwinian evolution. Assigning blame and responsibility is an aspect of the useful fiction of intentional agents that we construct in our brains as a means of short-cutting a truer analysis of what is going on in the world in which we have to live. My dangerous idea is that we shall eventually grow out of all this and even learn to laugh at it, just as we laugh at Basil Fawlty when he beats his car. But I fear it is unlikely that I shall ever reach that level of enlightenment."

2. Zero parental influence. (Judith Rich Harris)

"Is it dangerous to claim that parents have no power at all (other than genetic) to shape their child's personality, intelligence, or the way he or she behaves outside the family home? More to the point, is this claim false? Was I wrong when I proposed that parents' power to do these things by environmental means is zero, nada, zilch?... The establishment's failure to shoot me down has been nothing short of astonishing. One developmental psychologist even admitted, one year ago on this very website, that researchers hadn't yet found proof that 'parents do shape their children,' but she was still convinced that they will eventually find it, if they just keep searching long enough."

3. Groups of people may differ genetically in their average talents and temperaments. (Steven Pinker)

"Whether or not these hypotheses hold up (the evidence for gender differences is reasonably good, for ethnic and racial differences much less so), they are widely perceived to be dangerous. [Advocates have been] subjected to months of vilification, and proponents of ethnic and racial differences in the past have been targets of censorship, violence, and comparisons to Nazis. Large swaths of the intellectual landscape have been reengineered to try to rule these hypotheses out a priori (race does not exist, intelligence does not exist, the mind is a blank slate inscribed by parents)."

4. Science encourages religion in the long run (and vice versa). (Scott Atran)

"Science treats humans and intentions only as incidental elements in the universe, whereas for religion they are central. Science is not particularly well-suited to deal with people's existential anxieties, including death, deception, sudden catastrophe, loneliness or longing for love or justice. It cannot tell us what we ought to do, only what we can do. Religion thrives because it addresses people's deepest emotional yearnings and society's foundational moral needs, perhaps even more so in complex and mobile societies that are increasingly divorced from nurturing family settings and long familiar environments... Religion is the hope that science is missing."

It may not be high on most people's list of favorite holidays, but tomorrow is May Day. According to World Book encyclopedia, May Day "is celebrated as a spring festival in many countries. It marks the revival of life in early spring after winter. May Day celebrations may go back to the spring festivals of ancient Egypt and India."

And who can argue with a holiday that celebrates the arrival of warm weather?

Since it's not a hot topic, I didn't expect to see much in the library's catalog, but we actually do have several books. I did a general keyword search for "May Day" (with the quotes, so it searched for the two words as a single phrase). The catalog came up with ten titles. Now, a general keyword search will search subject, title, author, and all additional text in a book's catalog record, including the table of contents. The computer doesn't know that I mean the holiday--it just looks for the words, and it finds any record with that phrase in it. So, I found a Louisa May Alcott book because it contains a story called "Mabel's May day." But I also found:

Paula Deen celebrates! : best dishes and best wishes for the best times of your life
This one has chapters on how to celebrate special occasions--including, you guessed it, May Day.

There's also an oldie but goodie, "The Days we Celebrate"

For children, there's:

"Summer's Coming In" by Natalia Benting, which is a verse description of various summer and spring festivals.

May Day, by Dorothy Les Tina.

So, pick up a good book and celebrate May Day--curl up on one of the chairs in front of the library and enjoy the weather!