In my last post, I mentioned crying while watching my new favourite documentary “...and this is my garden”. And now, the tears are going mobile; I’m crying on the train! I don’t know what it is about the work of Cheryl Strayed that so touches me, but each time I read snippets of her advice column, I feel my eyes welling up. There’s something so powerful about her voice. She’s sympathetic and acknowledges others’ problems without ever judging them, and she sees life through a wide angle lens.

tiny beautiful things: Advice on love and life from Dear Sugar is full of the advice that your I’ve-already-seen-it-all grandmother might give you if she were a totally unbiased blogger (and occasionally used the F word). My colleague made a good point, too: the advice in Dear Sugar is usually prefaced by, or at least mentions, experiences from Sugar’s own life. This isn’t ol’ anonymous Ann Landers. Not at all. The author is totally exposed.

There are a few underlying themes that recur in almost every letter: have the courage to live your own life, regardless of your own fears or the reactions of other people; grow up and start being honest about who you are and what you need; accept that there aren’t going to be easy answers to the problems and relationships that vex you. And so on.

tiny beautiful things makes for the perfect summer read. Each column is only a few pages, so you can jump in and out, as your beach or BBQ schedule permits.

Check it out for tender and uplifting advice that you probably don't think you need to hear. But you do.

I love documentaries. And I'm suggesting that if you see only one documentary this summer, you make it “...and this is my garden”. It’s not new. It’s not big budget (how many documentaries are, though?). But it’s fantastic, fantastic, fantastic!

Actually, I cried as I watched it. It’s not a sad story at all - on the contrary, it’s about an entire community that benefits when its children are taught to tend their own gardens. This is a film about the earth, community, wisdom sharing, food, and self sufficiency, but I can’t describe how uplifting it truly is. After seeing it, I was energized and hopeful and really overwhelmed by the beauty of what can be accomplished with nothing more than water, sunlight, and care.

You must check it out for yourself! We've got it in our catalogue, and here's the film's website.

We would like to congratulate two of our library volunteers, Sarena Dharshi and Alisha Ebrahim!

Sarena was the recipient of the City of Calgary’s prestigious 2012 Calgary Awards in the youth category. Volunteer Resources nominated Sarena for her outstanding commitment to the community and her contributions to the Calgary Public Library’s youth volunteer programs. Sarena is a long-time library volunteer, having been with us since 2008, and has volunteered for five different programs as well as serving as co-chair to our Youth Advisory Council. To see all of the City of Calgary’s Calgary Awards recipients click here.

Alisha entered the Imperial Oil Foundation Famous 5 Middle School Contest and was one of five lucky recipients of an Apple Macbook laptop! Alisha has only been a Calgary Public Library volunteer for 7 months but has already contributed a great deal to our programs and we are very grateful to have her as part of our team of youth volunteers! To learn more about the Famous 5 Foundation’s youth awards program click here.

Congratulations Sarena and Alisha!

A while ago, I read and quite enjoyed How To Be Black, by Baratunde Thurston. Its deft and humourous examination of blackness in America really got me thinking about race and race politics. So, when I saw No matter what...they’ll call this book racist: how our fear of talking honestly about race hurts us all, by Harry Stein, I grabbed it. I can’t wait to read more about this topic.

Two other titles that I’m interested in reading are Here Come the Brides! Reflections on Lesbian Love and Marriage, edited by Audrey Bilger & Michele Kort and Debating Same Sex Marriage, by John Corvino and Maggie Gallagher. The latter is from Oxford University Press, which is typically an indication that great quality brain food is only a flip of a page away.

The Calgary Public Library gets new books daily! Browse our New and Notable shelves, ask a librarian for a suggestion, use our databases to find books that suit your preferences, or subscribe to our electronic newsletters. We’ve got everything you’re into!

If you’re a documentary fan, then check out Thin, an amazing little film from HBO. Thin explores the progression of several women who are residents in an eating disorder recovery centre in the United States. One resident is a wayward teen and another is a university educated psychiatric nurse; it quickly becomes apparent that anorexia doesn’t discriminate based on age or education. But, I wonder – given that nearly every one of the residents was Caucasian – if there are some patterns related to ethnicity...? But, I digress...

The women in the centre are each close to or under(!) a hundred pounds and still believe that they have weight to lose. They obsess over every morsel ingested, and then try their damndest to eliminate those morsels by either vomiting or using diuretics, or squeezing the food out of their feeding tubes (yuck!). Sometimes they hide food rather than eating it at all. It’s an enormous struggle – and a tearful event – when one woman is obliged to eat a whole cupcake. With psyches this complex, it’s no wonder that the women have to receive treatment from a whole team of practitioners: counselors, doctors, dieticians, and others.

The film is really well made. It definitely shows the women in an unvarnished light, and the viewer will at times feel both repulsed and sympathetic. But ultimately, this is not a film about anorexia. It does not explain how anorexia comes about or can be prevented; it does not speculate about why or how these particular women fell victim to such skewed views of body and food. Rather, this is a film about women; about feelings; about obsession. And like a lot of other HBO productions, there is no happy ending offered. Indeed, the fates that befall some of the women who are forced to leave the centre are quite saddening. But this isn’t suggary scripted TV; it’s real life. Er - I guess I should say: It’s not TV. It’s HBO. So be prepared for a bit of grit.

Browse some of our documentaries today! And if docs aren’t your thing, then check out HBO’s dramatic shows. Six Feet Under, The Sopranos and Rome are all fabulous!

Who is your best friend? I’m willing to guess that whoever he or she may be, you met each other more than a couple of years ago, not recently. In fact, it can be pretty hard to go from “newlymets” to best friends; building friendship takes time – an increasingly rare commodity in this busy, busy world of ours. And where to go, when searching for a new best friend? It’s not like you can date around, the way you would if you were looking for a significant other. Or can you?

I’m reading a great new book (with an unfortunately lame title) MWF seeking BFF: My Yearlong Search for a New Best Friend, by Rachel Bertsche, which is both an examination of what friendship is, and the chronicling of Bertsche’s social experiment: 52 friend dates in one year.

As I read through it, I’m discovering that Rachel sounds like a girl I’d like to have as a BFF. She loves books and brunch and good bad TV. She’s not yet ready for kids, but feels too old for some of the Gen Y’s she meets. She wants to be a full time writer. She even has curly hair, like me! How cute we’d be, brunching and book clubbing and writing together…

I’ll admit that keeping track of the litany of friends' names can get a bit tedious (see the appendix for a full listing!) but what I really appreciate about Bertsche's writing is that it is so frank and honest. Admitting that you would like to find a new or another best friend might make you feel insecure – after all, what kind of total loser would find herself in the friendship “market”, anyway? But that’s just your inner bully talking. The fact is that it’s easy for former friends to drift apart, and for a void in our social lives to appear. Why not learn how we can find and sustain new friendships, and then actively put those strategies into practice?

I’m not all the way through the book just yet, but I’m enjoying it so far. Check it out in print or electronic format!