On August 27, 1871, Theodore Dreiser was born. Dreiser was a very interesting writer. His stories had a realism that was not just based on having good morals (or not having them), sometimes money or fame drives people. He also had a feminist approach that a women tries to make her own way. His first novel was his most popular-even banned in a few states. I thoroughly enjoyed reading his works, and would absolutely recommend “Sister Carrie”. That story will stay with you a long time.
I have from the Library of America, two volumes of Dreiser’s works ” Sister Carrie, Jennie Gerhardt, and Twelve Men” and “An American Tragedy”.
On August 27th 1955, The first Guinness Book of World Records was published. I don’t have a copy of the original, nor do I have any of the yearly editions. But I do have the first edition of another similar annual record book that first came out in 2005 (it was printed in 2004). That would be “Ripley’s Believe It or Not!”
This is a wonderful oversized book with stories, quotes, and great pictures of all sorts of oddities and records. Robert Ripley had a newspaper art comic strip panel in newspapers beginning in 1918. It became insanely popular during the depression. He had movie shorts, and later TV shows, along with various museums. He was famous for showcasing oddities; and like Guinness Records, he was rather meticulous in verifing facts.
This is also still my forty-two year old son’s favorite book. If I just show him the cover, he will drop whatever he is doing to thumb through and reminisce. While he is not a big reader (other than perhaps hunting and fishing how-to books), I am happy that I was able to find something that he likes from the library, a book he enjoys and remembers. While I may have some expensive books in the library, when I am gone and the books get divided up, that book will be one of the first he takes. And that is a good thing. A big part of a good library is that you have what your audience likes. I am glad he enjoys that book. I do too. I just spent a half hour flipping through it, instead of writing.
One of the many, many facts in this first annual was about Krakatoa volcano. On August 27, 1883, the largest explosion destroyed most of the island of Krakatoa. I talked some about volcanoes in my August 24th blog entry. The books I mentioned that day, also had stories about this volcanic eruption. One quote from “In the Shadow of Death, Martinique and World’s Greatest Disasters” said about Krakatoa, that from the night of August 26th throughout the morning of August 27th, the constant explosions kept people from sleeping ninety-six miles away-it sounded like cannons in their back yard. The last explosion was heard over 3000 miles away. Dust and ash was blown up over fifty thousand feet into the air, a dust storm traveled around the world.
From a gritty realistic story of an eighteen year old country girl trying to live on her own, however she could, in turn of the century Chicago, to an actual volcano that caused four tsunamis, several over 130 feet tall, and destroyed more than a few islands (along with killing over 36,000 people) with pumice, ash and lava-cooling the entire planet for a month, a few things seemed to have happened on this day in history; and then documented in my library.
Thanks for taking some time to read about it.
Librarytomes 