Friday, January 11, 2008

It's like having all of Amazon for free! Using the Public Library System

The past few months I have been reading a few books every week, after the discovery of the public libraries in our area. The libraries in our area are linked, and so you can request almost any book and at least one book in the system will have it. I can try books I may not like, and thus find a lot of books I really do like, because my horizons are expanding.

South Africa has relatively poor access to a lot of books, and in my experience the collection may not change very much over time, so this experience in Boston is amazing. In addition to books, libraries in the area also have dvds, and books on cds. They also have free internet access. You can learn almost anything for free, even if you're not from the area in which the library is located. You can get free museum passes from your local library.

Tsotsi



I finally watched Tsotsi, thanks to the library. I'd been avoiding it, afraid I wouldn't like it. But what an amazing movie. Although it did not delve in race and some of the underlying reasons for violence, I felt like the picture of violence it provided was powerful. Violence and devaluation of life sit together.

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