Books: Open for discussion

Libraries + books +peo­ple who love to read = book dis­cus­sion groups. I would guess that peo­ple have been get­ting together to dis­cuss books for as long as books have been around, and mil­lions of dis­cus­sion groups meet each year even now.

The Delaware County Dis­trict Library has spon­sored book dis­cus­sion groups for decades, and cur­rently there are four active adult groups meet­ing each month at each of the library’s facil­i­ties. Recently, dis­cus­sion groups for chil­dren, teens and par­ents and chil­dren have been added to the library’s pro­gram line-up, too. You can learn more about when these groups meet and what they are read­ing by check­ing delawarelibrary.org, by call­ing 740–362-3861 or by pick­ing up a quar­terly cal­en­dar at any library location.

As you can imag­ine, over the many years that the library has been hold­ing dis­cus­sion groups, we have accu­mu­lated hun­dreds of titles of books with many copies of each. While we have often rec­om­mended these books to cus­tomers ask­ing for sug­ges­tions of books to dis­cuss, it occurred to us that we should include these titles in our cat­a­log so that any­one can find them.

We have embarked on a project to make all of the books that we have set aside as book dis­cus­sion group books eas­ily dis­cov­er­able in the library’s cat­a­log. When the project is com­pleted, you will be able to find the titles of the books as well as the num­ber of avail­able copies of each, and match the wide vari­ety of those books with the needs of your par­tic­u­lar book group. We hope to have the project fin­ished quite soon, but in the mean­time, please don’t hes­i­tate to ask us about dis­cus­sion books owned by the Library. Just like you, we love to read and we love talk­ing about books!

Did the Her­sheys who founded the candy com­pany die on the Titanic?

In 1894, Mil­ton Snavely Her­shey founded the Her­shey Com­pany, and by 1907, it had so many employ­ees that an entire town was needed to house them all. The result, Her­shey Park, included a swim­ming pool, a ball­room and even rides. In 1911, Her­shey put a $300 deposit down on a lux­u­ri­ous trip on the maiden voy­age of the Titanic. As luck would have it, though, Her­shey found it nec­es­sary to return to the United States ear­lier than planned, and he and Mrs. Her­shey sailed on a Ger­man lux­ury liner called Amerika instead. In a strange coin­ci­dence, as the Amerika made its way across the ocean, it sent a mes­sage to the Titanic, warn­ing of large obstruc­tions in the area where the ship even­tu­ally went down. The Last Days of the Titanic tells sim­i­lar sto­ries of many other passengers.

Who played Char­lie in the orig­i­nal “Willy Wonka and the Choco­late Fac­tory” and what is he doing now?

The actor who played Char­lie in “Willy Wonka and the Choco­late Fac­tory” is named Peter Ostrum, and it was his only movie. He turned down the oppor­tu­nity to reprise the role in the sec­ond book in the Char­lie Bucket saga (and a third, which was never writ­ten). Accord­ing to Cur­rent Biog­ra­phy, later in life, Ostrum became a large ani­mal vet­eri­nar­ian, a pro­fes­sion he still prac­tices today.

What is diphtheria?

The Mayo Clinic Fam­ily Health Book notes that diph­the­ria is an air­borne bac­te­r­ial dis­ease, usu­ally pre­sent­ing itself first in the nose and throat, but could also sur­face as skin lesions. A gray, fibrous mate­r­ial grows over air­ways, caus­ing dif­fi­culty breath­ing and some­times uncon­trol­lable drool­ing, as well as a deep cough and chills. Diph­the­ria was most com­mon dur­ing the win­ter months. Rou­tine child­hood immu­niza­tions have nearly erased diph­the­ria in the United States. Accord­ing to the U.S. National Library of Med­i­cine, there are less than five cases a year. Though it is still a prob­lem in crowded nations with poor hygiene, diph­the­ria is now rarely fatal.

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 web site at www.delawarelibrary.org or directly to Mary Jane at mjsantos@delawarelibrary.org . No mat­ter how you con­tact us, we’re always glad you asked!