5 healthy food gifts for the holidays  Tea blends, herbs and spices, soup jars, oil and vinegar sets, and kitchen tools are suggested by Christey Brissette at https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/wellness/5-healthy-food-gifts-for-the-holidays/2017/11/27/cba9edba-c8a8-11e7-8321-481fd63f174d_story.html?utm_term=.ba9079b61c06

Chicarina soup by Valerie Bertinelli  https://www.splendidtable.org/recipes/chickarina-soup?utm_campaign=TST_WNK_20171115&utm_medium=email&utm_source=sfmc_Newsletter&utm_content=Weeknight%20Kitchen:%20Chickarina%20Soup

I have just finished reading Collected Stories of Franz Kafka.  I borrowed it from my local library--and if your library doesn't own it--you can probably have them borrow it on interlibraryloan.  A few of the more memorable stories are:  The Metamorphosis (Gregor woke to find himself transformed into a gigantic insect); A Report to the Academy (an ape addresses a distinguished audience recounting how he dragged himself out of his simian condition); Blumfeld, an Elderly Bachelor (two small celluliod balls jump up and down side by side and pursue Blumfeld; A Crossbreed [A Sport] (there is a curious animal, half kitten, half lamb); and The Problem of Our Laws (it is an extremely painful thing to be ruled by laws that one does not know).  See Kafka the Comedian by Paul Bentley at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/3638000/Kafka-the-comedian.html and Metamorphosing Franz Kafka through comics, graphic novels and music by David Zane Mairowitz at http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/radiotonic/metamorphosing-kafka/5620316

One of five children, David Hockney was born in 1937 into a working-class family in Yorkshire, northern England, in the industrial city of Bradford.  His father, a conscientious objector during the Second World War, "had a kind heart" remembers Hockney.  While adopting his father's anti-war stance, Hockney remained resistant to ideologies and hierarchies.  At 16, Hockney was admitted to the acclaimed Bradford School of Art, where he studied traditional painting and life drawing alongside Norman Stevens, David Oxtoby, and John Loker.  Unlike most of his peers Hockney was working class, and he worked tirelessly, especially in his life drawing classes, recalling:  "I was there from nine in the morning till nine at night."  In 1957 he was called up for National Service, but as a conscientious objector he served out his time as a hospital orderly.  In 1959, Hockney went on to study at the Royal College of Art in London and was taught by several well-known artists, including Roger de Grey and Ceri Richards.  In 2011 a poll of British art students rated Hockney as the most influential artist of all time.  His work has played a crucial role in reviving the practice of figurative painting.  Chuck Close, Cecily Brown, and film director Martin Scorsese (especially the aesthetics of Taxi Driver (1976)) are among the artists inspired by Hockney.  Hockney, still prolific, continues to reinvent himself, embracing contemporary technology.  His most recent series of works was produced on an iPad.  http://www.theartstory.org/artist-hockney-david.htm

July 9, 2017  To celebrate the 80th birthday of British artist David Hockney, we’ve rounded up our favorite works created by the bespectacled legend.  Institutions worldwide are fêting the artist, who has had a banner year:  The retrospective put on by the Tate Britain was the most popular ever at that museum.  The show is now on view at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and will finish its run next year at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.  In Hockney’s hometown of Bradford, a new gallery was dedicated to the artist on July 7.  Caroline Goldstein  See 14 works of David Hockney at https://news.artnet.com/art-world/david-hockney-80th-birthday-1017002

Hundreds of years ago people believed that “abracadabra” was a magical spell.  The exact origin of the word is up for debate, but perhaps one of the oldest records we have of “Abracadabra” being used is a snippet from a Roman sage named Serenus Sammonicus in the 2^nd century AD from his Liber Medicinalis.  It’s unlikely that Sammonicus came up with the word on his own and it is thought to have been in use before then.  There are a couple of theories as to where it might have ultimately come from.  First, it could have been derived from the equally magical word “abraxas” whose letters, in Greek numerology, add up to 365—the number of days in the year.  It could be that early sages thought this was a powerful word and somehow created “abracadabra” out of it and turned it into a “cure.”  Alternatively, the word might be derived from the Hebrew words for “father, son, and holy spirit”:  “ab, ben, and ruach hakodesh” respectively.  Perhaps more intuitively, it could be derived from and Aramaic phrase “avra kadavra.”  Emily Upton  http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2013/11/origin-word-abracadabra/

In the summer of 2011, during the quieter days that followed hurricane Irene, the writer Phyllis Rose headed to the New York Society Library on the Upper East Side of the city in search of a 1936 novel by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall.  Hurricane had been recommended by a friend who knew of her enthusiasm for the pair's earlier adventure story, Mutiny on the Bounty, and with the newspapers still carrying reports of the destruction caused by Irene, what better time to read it? Once it was in her hand, however, her enthusiasm for it began to trickle away.  She had had enough of storms.  The novel was duly returned to its space on the shelf.  The question was:  what should she read instead?  It goes without saying that she was spoilt for choice.  The New York Society Library, founded in 1754 by a group of young men who believed its existence would help the city prosper, is a gloriously well-stocked institution (its reference room is open to all, but only members may take books home).  George Washington borrowed books from it and so, later, did Truman Capote and Willa Cather.  Its current home was built in 1917, with the result that it comes with more than a hint of gilded-age splendour.  Rose considers this place of marble, murals and mahogany to be the cheapest luxury in New York.  Beside her in the stacks was a shelf of other books by Nordhoff and Hall, rather a long shelf, in fact, and looking around, she noticed lots of similarly extensive runs of volumes by just one author.  She began to formulate a plan.  What if she was to pick, at random, a fiction shelf and read her way through its contents?  As she pondered this idea, she felt a tug of excitement.  In their obscurity, these books might be dull, bad or even unreadable; they might, in fact, be a total waste of her time.  But she also felt certain that, should she embark on such a scheme, she would find herself on the readerly equivalent of virgin snow, for who else would have read this precise sequence of novels?  This thought was intriguing.  Such an adventure might even be worth writing about.  (Rose, the author of the brilliant Parallel Lives, which tells the story of five Victorian literary marriages, had not published a book for more than a decade.)  Choosing a shelf, though, was tricky.  How to avoid ending up with a row of books by a single, prolific author?  Her shelf, she decided, would have to represent several writers, only one of whom could have more than five books to his or her name (and she would commit herself to reading just three).  It would need to contain a mixture of contemporary and older works and one book had to be a classic she had always wanted to read but had never got round to.  Rachel Cooke  Read extensive article at https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/aug/16/phyllis-rose-the-shelf-library-book

The Illustrated Dust Jacket, 1920-1970 is the first study of book jacket design through the prism of illustration.  As the 'beautiful book' comes back into vogue, Martin Salisbury delves into the history of the illustrated book jacket, tracing its development across the 20th century through some of the most iconic, as well as many too long forgotten, designs of the era.  From the 1920s, as the potential for the book's protective wrapping to be used for promotion and enticement became clear, artists and illustrators on both side of the Atlantic rose to the challenges posed by format and subject matter and applied their talents to this particular art form.  Martin Salisbury has selected over 50 artists and illustrators who were active in the period 1920-1970 in the UK and USA, including John Piper, Edward Bawden, John Minton, Ben Shahn, Edward Arddizonne, Milton Glaser and Mervyn Peake, as well as others such as Tove Jansson and Celestino Piatti, and discusses their life and work.  Katy Cowan  See graphics at https://www.creativeboom.com/resources/the-illustrated-dust-jacket-celebrates-the-history-of-the-book-jacket-design/

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1805  November 29, 2017  On this date in 1877, Thomas Edison demonstrated his phonograph for the first time.  On this date in 1989, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s premiered a “Utah Symphony” by the American composer John Duffy at Avery Fisher Hall in New York City.  Thought for Today  If I can do no more, let my name stand among those who are willing to bear ridicule and reproach for the truth's sake, and so earn some right to rejoice when the victory is won. - Louisa May Alcott, writer and reformist (29 Nov 1832-1888)