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• Title: The Uncommon Reader: A Novella
• Author: Alan Bennett
• Publisher: Picador
• Year of Publication: 2007
• Pages: 120

The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett

One of my favorite movies of 2006 was The History Boys, based on the play written by Alan Bennett (and he wrote the screenplay, too). When I saw this novella on the LibraryThing Early Reviewer request list, I hoped for a story as fascinating and touching as The History Boys was.

I wasn’t disappointed. The Uncommon Reader is a fictional story of the real life Queen of England and her recent foray into the world of literature. Bennett is able to capture the essence of reading, once again, and establish characters so close one can touch them. It is funny I should say that because Hector in The History Boys says:

The best moments in reading are when you come across something—a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things—which you had thought special and particular to you. Now here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out and taken yours.

Bennett is not dead, given, but his novella certainly struck a chord in my bookworm heart. Many chords, in fact.

I am no queen, but I can definitely relate to this:

The appeal of reading, she thought, lay in its indifference: there was something undeferring about literature. Books did not care who was reading them or whether one read them or not. All readers were equal, herself included. Literature, she thought, is a commonwealth; letters a republic. (30)

The novella gives the reader a sense of the life of English royalty: hectic, pampered, and much removed from the ordinary. Every hobby or habit is questioned, and normality and humanity seem far off. This fictitious version of Queen Elizabeth II finds solace in reading, and finds her humanity. Through the literature she reads, she is able to sympathize and learn, to live through the lives of the ordinary people she has been so distant from. She is able to grow and think for herself in a totally new way.

And none of this happens without causing friction.

I found this work to be a great read in parts, but sometimes it got a bit slow. For 120 pages, it took me an awful long time to read. Of course, I am glad that I did, and I would recommend this to anyone who likes to think about why they read and what it does for them… and anyone who is interested in the royal family, too. Fictitious though it is, The Uncommon Reader sure is believable. 3.5/5

Thank you to LibraryThing Early Reviewers and Picador for this free copy of The Uncommon Reader!

I’m a little delayed in my celebration, but at least I’m not too late. September 27th to October 4th is Banned Books Week, a celebration of the freedom to read.

In observance of Banned Books Week and my favorite amendment, I’m going to finally read The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman, one of the “10 Most Challenged Books of 2007.”

How will you celebrate?

Welcome to the new and improved Librarychan blog, formerly known as Library_chan on Blogspot!

I finally converted to WordPress because:

1. it is easier to customize than Blogspot, and
2. I like the interface more.

Who knew I would pick something over Google?

In other news, life after graduation has been interesting so far. It’s mid-July already and I’m still job-hunting (career-hunting?), but my future doesn’t look too bleak. I’ve been staying busy by cooking from the various cookbooks I’ve recently acquired (such as French Laundry, Bouchon, and the Zuni Café Cookbook) and reluctantly reading Quiet, Please by Scott Douglas. I’m also redesigning my website, slowly but surely.

Expect book (and cookbook?) reviews, software and game reviews, thoughts on administration, and other library-related posts in the future. I promise I’ll deliver.

I just finished reading a lovely case study called “Ripples of Impact,” written by Maria Souden and Sarah Wooden, from How Libraries and Librarians Help (2005). The focus of this case study was on the Washtenaw Literacy Program supported by the Ypsilanti District Public Library in Michigan.

Souden and Wooden illustrate the many impacts the program has on the people involved: the adult learners and the tutors. All of the impacts are so touching and so important. I suppose the impacts that are most striking to me are the ones that go beyond the direct and personal changes, the “extended impacts.” Literacy tutelage gives learners the confidence to become voters, to participate in government, in unions, in the library. It not only helps everyday aspects of their lives, but helps them feel empowered enough to become citizens with a voice.

I love that idea: that we, as librarians, can help make such an amazing impact on other peoples’ lives. I love that librarians can and do achieve such things.

According to the authors of Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done (2002), there are three building blocks to execution. The first is “the leader’s seven essential behaviors;” the second is “creating the framework for cultural change;” and the third is “having the right people in the right place.”

Of course, you can’t have the last one without the first two, but I think the last is the most important “building block” of execution.

The reason for this is that all these building blocks (would) exist between or within individuals. If the individuals are not open to these ideas or share a common energy, the aforementioned blocks are doomed to never be stacked. Bossidy and Charan (2002) explain, “over time, choosing the right people is what creates that elusive competitive advantage” (p. 110).

Part of the reason many public and academic libraries seem so behind on the user experience seems to be the fact that they do not have that competitive advantage of having the right people. Could this be because the leadership is not as passionate about the success of the library as, say, a businessman might be about a profit-yielding company? I think that might have something to do with it.

If libraries are to compete with for-profit companies like bookstores and search engines, how are they to have any hope of proving their relevance while they seem to keep having the wrong people in the wrong places (or the right people in undefined places)?

It’s hard to find the right people for the libraries that need to justify their value because those “right people” are more likely to work at for-profits than at unproven libraries. Perhaps the institution of the library needs to look into advertising (read glamorizing) for the right people (read competitive employees).