Community active in library’s first Adult Summer Reading Program

This year, the Delaware County Dis­trict Library launched its first ever Adult Sum­mer Read­ing Pro­gram, and the com­mu­nity responded far beyond our expec­ta­tions. Nearly 950 of you par­tic­i­pated in the pro­gram, read­ing a grand total of 2,354 books — quite impres­sive sta­tis­tics for our inau­gural pro­gram. Par­tic­i­pants in the pro­grams received small incen­tives through­out the sum­mer, includ­ing a book light, a water bot­tle and a mes­sen­ger bag.

As a part of the Adult Sum­mer Read­ing Pro­gram, we are delighted to present local and nation­ally known author Dr. Leslie Noyes Mass, who will be dis­cussing her new book, Back to Pak­istan: A Fifty-Year Jour­ney, to be released in September.

Author, edu­ca­tor and Peace Corps vol­un­teer, Dr. Mass will talk about her expe­ri­ence vis­it­ing a small vil­lage in Pak­istan that she could not for­get and that did not for­get her. The pre­sen­ta­tion will include a talk and a photo jour­ney of her travels.

The pro­gram will be offered on Wednes­day, Aug. 17 at the Library’s Orange Branch, 7171 Good­ing Blvd., and again on Thurs­day, Aug. 18, at the Delaware (Main) Library, 84 E. Win­ter St. Both pro­grams will begin at 7 p.m.

Dr. Mass has also writ­ten She Walks in Beauty: Hik­ing the Appalachian Trail at 60 and is a res­i­dent of Delaware County.

I hope you plan to attend either (or both!) of these pro­grams to hear about Dr. Mass’ life-changing experience.

Is there a real Gen­eral Tso (as in Gen­eral Tso’s Chicken)?

Zuo Zong­tang (some­times writ­ten as ZuÇ’ Zōngtáng or Tso Tsung-t’ang; Nov. 10, 1812 — Sept. 5, 1885) was one of the great­est mil­i­tary lead­ers of China’s long his­tory. He rose quickly through the ranks of the army; quelled rebel­lions; served with dis­tinc­tion in a civil war; founded a mod­ern arse­nal and dock­yard; estab­lished new, effi­cient logis­tics sys­tems within his armies; forced Russ­ian forces from China; and went on to serve in sev­eral posi­tions in the national gov­ern­ment. In the West, par­tic­u­larly the U.S. and Canada, we know him sim­ply as Gen­eral Tso, name­sake of a Chi­nese take­out chicken dish. The Food Lover’s Com­pan­ion pro­vided this information.

Who devised the QWERTY lay­out for a type­writer and why?

Accord­ing to The Great­est Inven­tions of the Past 2000 Years, Christo­pher Sholes was pri­mar­ily respon­si­ble for QWERTY, and it has been in use since the 1870s. Oddly enough, the lay­out was used to slow down typ­ists, at least accord­ing to most his­to­ri­ans. On ear­lier arrange­ments of the keys, ones where the most com­monly used let­ters were more sen­si­bly placed on the home row, the keys got jammed when typ­ists were typ­ing quickly, and the typ­ist had to stop to unjam them. Slow­ing the typ­ist by dis­pers­ing the most com­monly used let­ters through­out the key­board was prefer­able to wast­ing time because of jammed keys.

Is she-crab soup made from only female crabs?

South­ern Liv­ing Mag­a­zine gave this expla­na­tion: She-crab soup is a rich soup made of milk or heavy cream, crab or fish stock, Atlantic blue crab meat and crab roe, with a small amount of dry sherry added as it is plated. The soup is a regional spe­cialty from the South Car­olina Low­coun­try and the Geor­gia, and is fea­tured on many menus through­out the region. The soup is named for the female gravid crab, as the orange crab roe com­prise a chief ingre­di­ent in tra­di­tional she-crab soup. As with tur­tle soup, other ingre­di­ents may be added to the soup or sub­sti­tuted for oth­ers, although crab meat is found in all versions.

If you have a ques­tion that you would like to see answered in this col­umn, mail it to Mary Jane San­tos, Delaware County Dis­trict Library, 84 E. Win­ter St., Delaware, OH 43015, or call us at 740–362-3861. You can also email your ques­tions by vis­it­ing the library’s web­site at delawarelibrary.org or directly to Mary Jane at mjsantos@delawarelibrary.org. No mat­ter how you con­tact us, we’re always glad you asked.