One Book, One Village Resources

One Book, One Village Explore

The Collected Regrets of Clover by Mikki Brammer explores a myriad of interesting themes, ideas and cultural experiences. Are you curious to learn more? Here are some resource guides on some of the subjects in our OBOV selection for you to explore.

Connection

Group talking, one person off to side aloneLoneliness and a desire to connect is something that we all experience in life. In 2023, the Surgeon General issued a report on loneliness and shared resources to help build connections. 

Surgeon General Report on Loneliness

6 Steps to Address Loneliness

Social Connection Fact Cards

Connection Challenge

 

 

Here are some resources for emotional support and community building: 

  • AHML Community and Social Services resource page
  • Emotions Anonymous International (EAI) facilitates the Emotions Anonymous (EA) 12-Step Program by providing a central location for support group meeting information. EAI offers EA-approved materials and other resources to help individuals improve their mental health and well-being. EAI's mission is to support individuals with emotional difficulties in their efforts to live more manageable lives.
  • Koko Cares offers free peer support via Facebook/Instagram Messenger or the Telegram App.
  • Connect2Affect provides resources and tools to help you if you're an older adult and lonely.
  • Co-Dependents Anonymous offers a 12-step recovery program for people seeking healthy relationships. Provides face-to-face, online and phone meetings in the U.S. and internationally.
  • Vibrant offers free tools and resources for emotional support, including calming exercises, peer support apps and stories of hope and recovery.
  • America’s VetDogs provides free training and service dogs to program-eligible veterans, first-responders and active-duty service members living with PTSD or other disabilities.
  • Emotional Support Animal Registry of America offers a webpage that answers most frequently asked questions regarding emotional support animals including how to know if you may need an Emotional Support Animal.
  • HeyPeers is a directory of free or low-cost virtual support groups for people with various mental health conditions.
  • Mental Health America (MHA) maintains a Support Group Locator to direct you to a variety of organizations that offer support groups for individuals, their family members and friends. Some support groups are peer-led, while others are led by a mental health professional.
  • Pro2Pro Listserv provides a free, anonymous online “professional to professional” peer support communication platform where professionals with mental health conditions can give and receive support from their peers.
  • SupportGroups.com is a website featuring 200+ online support groups which include support groups for mental health conditions, medical conditions and traumatic experiences, including gun violence. 
  • The Tribe Wellness Community has free, online peer support groups, forums and chat rooms offering members a safe place to connect about mental health challenges related to addiction, anxiety, depression, OCD and a dedicated group for teens.
  • The American Psychological Association offers guidance on building your resilience and adapting to difficult or challenging life circumstances.

Additional reading on loneliness and connection

End-of-Life Doulas

Clover's profession is certainly unique, but she is not alone in her line of work. End-of-life doulas, or EOLDs, also called death doulas or death midwives, minimize the trauma and emotional discomfort of dying for patients, family members and friends. Doulas also strengthen the relationship between medical (the doctors, nurses, social workers) and non-medical support (the family or caretakers) as seasoned advocates.

While there are no federal standards for death doulas, certification programs are available and growing in recognition. The End-of-Life Doula Council of the The National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO) outlines the duties of certified doulas as: 

  • Advance Health Care Planning
  • Practical Training for Family Caregivers
  • Creating a Plan for Support at the Patient’s Time of Death
  • Help with Planning Funeral and Memorial Services
  • Companionship to Patients
  • Needed Relief for Family Caregivers
  • Grief Support
  • Vigil presence for Actively Dying Patients

End-of-life doulas provide compassionate companionship and support, guiding individuals with dignity and grace through the challenging aspects of dying. 

Here are some of the associations of end-of-life doulas in the United States:

Here are some recent articles about death doulas:

This End of Life Doulas and Palliative Care booklist contains some books to learn more about end-of-life doulas and palliative care.

Mahjong

MahjongWhile there were similar games to mahjong throughout China’s history, historians trace the origins of the game we recognize as mahjong today to mid-to late nineteenth century China, near the end of the Qing Dynasty. Some historians have suggested that mahjong evolved from a combination of the card game madiao with other tile games, such as pai. The game morphed during that time and grew popular with the Chinese citizens who lived in urban areas. It was so popular that scholars and government officials considered it dangerous for the new Republic of China. 

The game gained popularity in America during the 1920s and the National Mah-jongg League was formed in 1937.  The National Mah Jongg League continues to this day and is considered the authoritative source for American Mah-Jongg rules of play. 

 

 

To learn more about the history of Mahjong and its popularity in America, try these articles:

The library has many good books and eBooks on the history of mahjong and how to play. Here’s a small sampling:

Ready to play?  You can borrow a Mahjong set from our Library of Things collection.

You can also register for the Mahjong: History and How to Play program on September 10 and Mahjong Game Night on September 24. 

For seniors, the Arlington Heights Senior Center has drop-in Mahjong on Mondays and Thursdays and the Arlington Heights Park District holds Beginning Mahjong classes. 

Journaling and Memoirs

Journal GraphicAfter a client's death, Clover journals about them in one of her journals (regrets, confessions and advice). Journaling about them helps Clover to process their deaths and remember her clients.

Overall, journaling has been shown to have positive effects on one's mental health and stress as it offers a private space for processing feelings, expressing gratitude and daily reflections.  

There are many different ways to journal. These books and eBooks give you different entry points so you can start journaling.

 

Not big on writing? No worries, try one of these creative journaling methods. 

Or make your own journal:

Your journal could become the starting point to writing your memoir. Try one of these books that can help you plan and write your memoir.

Journals can be electronic or on paper. Women's Health lists what they think are the 15 Best Journaling apps. iPhone users can also use the new Journal app (a feature of the iOS 17 update) to record their thoughts. For those who want to handwrite their journal, Wirecutter gives their advice for the Best Notebooks and Notepads and the Strategist weights in with their favorite notebooks. A good pen can make all the difference in your life and in your journal. The Strategist ranks their favorite pens based on their smoothness, smudging, bleed-through, feel and looks. 

Already a writer? Our Writer's Ink program is a writers group for adult writers to share and discuss their work. The group meets the second Wednesday evening each month . 

Personal Effects and Heirlooms

The belongings of Clover's clients represent so much about their lives and memories. Belongings can represent a wide range of things, from loving memories to traumatic baggage. For a deeper dive into understanding personal effects, we wanted to provide some resources on personal effects, heirlooms, decluttering and other physical object concerns. 

Personal Effects

"Personal effects" is a legal term to define bodily personal property, usually items of particular significance that are carried or worn. In other words, they are belongings that go with you through your everyday life due to significance or use. They include:

  • Jewelry
  • Clothing
  • Toiletries
  • Culturally or religiously significant items
  • Items required due to a disability or illness
  • Pets
  • Items related to personal interest and education

Personal effects are often examined in cases of injury, arrest, death or sometimes in cases of unique celebrity. They can tell a story of normalcy before disaster such as in the personal effects of victims of the World Trade Center attacks in 2001 or those of the survivors of the wreck of the Titanic in 1912 They can reflect the unique personalities of those who carried them, such as the sumptuous daily carry items of Marie Antoinette. They have been used in fiction to represent the importance of an item to its circumstances like in Hatchet by Gary Paulsen, Accordion Crimes by Annie Proulx, or The Gun by C.S. Forester. They can be used in fiction for comic relief and plot, such as Jake Blues receiving his personal effects at Joliet Prison in The Blues Brothers.  Personal effects make a statement about the person that carries them and the world into which they are carried. Choose yours wisely. 

Heirlooms

Heirlooms are items of value or significance that are passed through families for multiple generations. They differ from belongings or keepsake because they have been gifted more than once through family custom. If a parent gives a child something of significance either during their lifetime or in their will, it does not become an heirloom until it is handed down to a successive generation again. An alternative use of the word includes the planting of seeds from successive cultivation; choosing the best tomatoes for a few crops in a row to become the seeds for a whole new crop. Heirlooms are rare since items of value are often sold during difficult times and items of significance lose their impact through successive generations. 

Most common heirlooms include:

  • Jewelry
  • Musical Instruments
  • Clocks
  • Recipes
  • Photos
  • Letters and Diaries
  • Weapons
  • Quilts
  • Furniture
  • Religious Books 

Heirlooms have to have significance to the family, their experiences and the times they lived through in order to survive being handed down through generations. Some famous heirlooms include Marilyn Monroe's baby grand piano which belonged to her grandmother and was later passed down through her dance instructor's family, Lord Byron's dueling pistols handed down through the family of Greek poet Dionysius Solomós, and the secret recipe for Irn-Bru which is still handed down through generations of the Barr family in Scotland. 

If you wish to establish a keepsake or belonging as an heirloom, you must either choose something that has already been given to you from a precedent generation of family or friends, or instruct the recipient to hand it down to their successive generation. To ensure the success of this process, we recommend researching and writing out the historical and family significance of the item. Our genealogy department here at the library would be happy to help you: https://www.ahml.info/research/genealogy 

Family heirlooms and the impact of these physical objects on subsequent generations play an important part in these fictional books.  

Unsure of what to keep, what to pass on down to the next generation and what to trash?  These nonfiction Books about Heirlooms and Personal Effects can help you with those decisions. 

Women Photographers and Photojournalists

Hands holding cameraClaudia's past career as a photographer echoes the pioneering careers of these real life women photographers, photojournalists and journalists.

  • Berenice Abbott- In the 1930s, Abbott was best known for taking pictures of New York architecture and society as well as documenting Changing New York. In the 1950s and 1960s, her work centered on scientific photos, like this gorgeous photo of the Behavior of Waves. 
  • Joan E. Biren (JEB) - A self-taught photographer, JEB's interest in photography came from a desire to see images of herself and other lesbians during a time, the 1970s, when authentic images of lesbians were few and far between. Eschewing galleries, JEB formed a traveling show so that many women across the country could view her groundbreaking work. This show became a book, Eye to Eye: Portraits of Lesbians, which combined photographs from the show with personal essays from the women featured. 
  • Margaret Bourke-White - A pioneering photojournalist for Time, Fortune, and Life magazines, Bourke-White first gained fame for her photos of the Otis Steel Company. MoMa has a digital collection of some of her work in this gallery 
  • Charlotte Brooks- A full-time staff photographer at Look magazine, Brooks contributed more than 450 features during her 20 year tenure at Look (1951-1971). She covered presidents, celebrities and much of her work focused on social changes. She documented the life of a young divorcee and the first same-sex couple to be legally wed in the U.S. The collection of her photographs can be found in the The Look Magazine Photograph Collection at the Library of Congress. 
  • Esther Bubley- Bubley took slice of life candid photographs of ordinary Americans through the 1940s-1960s. Her work was featured in Life  and Ladies' Home Journal.  Bubley won numerous awards during her career and, when television lessen the popularity of photo magazines, Bubley published books on animals and plants. 
  • Marion Carpenter- One of the first female White House photographers, Carpenter won awards for her photographs of Harry Truman and was part of the press that traveled with him. Reportedly, she threw a bowl of soup at a male columnist who stated that she flirted her way into taking a Senator's picture. Sadly, personal issues ended Carpenter's White House career early and she left D.C. in 1951. 
  • Dickey Chapelle- Chapelle's career spanned from WWII to Vietnam, and she deeply embedded herself with the soldiers and people she was writing about. Sadly, she was the first female journalist killed while reporting about combat. Read more about her adventurous life in  First to the Front: The Untold Story of Dickey Chapelle, Trailblazing Female War Correspondent or watch a PBS documentary about her life Behind the Pearl Earrings: The Story of Dickey Chapelle, Combat Photojournalist. The Wisconsin Historical Society has Dickey Chapelle's papers and photographs. 
  • Gloria Emerson- Reporter Emerson was a foreign correspondent for the New York Times in Vietnam. Her reporting showed the impact war had on the ordinary soldiers and Vietnamese citizens. Emerson won the National Book Award in 1978 for her book Winners & Losers: Battles, Retreats, Gains, Losses, and Ruins from the Vietnam War.
  • Martha Gellhorn  - Author, journalist and war correspondent, Martha was known for her fearlessness and desire to tell the stories of those on the ground. Her landmark reporting from the beaches of Normandy right after D-Day showed the suffering and bravery of the soldiers. In the late 1960s, she reported from conflicts in Vietnam and Israel. In addition to her reporting, Gellhorn wrote several fiction books based on her wartime experiences. Clover reads her memoir Travels with Myself and Another while she sits with her client Abigail in the hospital.
  • Marguerite Higgins - WWII and Korean War correspondent Higgins was a longtime reporter for the New York Herald Tribune and won a Pulitzer for her Korean War coverage. She was the first woman to win a Pulitzer for Foreign Correspondence. A recent biography, Fierce Ambition: The Life and Legend of War Correspondent Maggie Higgins by Jennet Conant, showcases her remarkable career and life. Additionally, the children's graphic novel Cold War Correspondent covers Higgins time in Korea.   
  • Dorothea Lange- Best known for her haunting portraits of migrants during the Dust Bowl and Great Depression, Lange’s illustrious career spanned decades and showed her to be one of the 20th century best photographers. Lange’s powerful lens can be seen in her pictures of Japanese-American internment camps and the Americans held in them during WWII. The book, Impounded: Dorothea Lange and the Censored Images of Japanese American Internment, shows these haunting images that were censored by the US government for decades. To learn more even about Lange’s life, check out these items: 
  • Catherine Leroy - Just 21 when she went to Vietnam to cover the conflict there, Leroy was on the ground with soldiers and her photographs showed the grim reality of the war. For her efforts, Leroy won the George Polk Award, a prestigious journalism award. Read more about Leroy's time covering the Vietnam conflict in Close Up On War by Mary Cronk Farrell 
  • Frances and Kathryn McLaughlin- These identical twin photographers were groundbreaking fashion and magazine photographers in the 1930s and 1940s. Read more about their amazing lives in Double Click:Twin Photographers in the Golden Age of Magazines by Carol Kino.  
  • Susan Meiselas:  Known for her photographs from the insurrection in Nicaragua, Meiselas documented human rights issues there as well as around the world. She is also known for her photographs of women others would ignore. President since 2007 of the Magnum Foundation, Meiselas is also the author of several books. 
  • Lee Miller  - Described as a “woman of many lives” Lee Miller career ranged from fashion model to pioneering photographer to combat photojournalist to an award winner gourmet cook. In September, Lee, a movie staring Kate Winslet, will premiere. The movie follows Miller through the turbulent war years of 1938-1948. 
  • Dixie Tighe - Like her contemporaries  Martha Gellhorn and Lee Miller, Tighe was a war correspondent during WWII. She also covered  Asia for the New York Post. She was known for her no nonsense language and courage. Sadly, she died of a cerebral hemorrhage at the young age of 41. 
  • Mary Welsh- Far more than the fourth wife and widow of Ernest Hemingway, Mary Welsh was a celebrated war journalist and photographer. You can watch the documentaries Women at War (Mary Welsh, writer) and Rationing in Britain (Mary Welsh, writer and narrator) at the Imperial War Museums film archive. 
  • In addition to featuring Martha Gellhorn and Lee Miller, The Correspondents: Six Women Writers Who Went to War by Judith Mackrell highlights the great work of Sigrid Schultz, Virginia Cowles, Clare Hollingworth and Helen Kirkpatrick. While most of the book covers their careers during WWII, the author also writes about their postwar careers.

These women and more can also be found at Trailerblazers of Light. This website is dedicating to showcasing pioneering women of photojournalism. 

Still wanting to learn more? Register for the Women in Photojournalism Post-WWII Zoom presentation on September 11 given by art historian Jeff Mishur.

Inspired by one of these pioneering women and want to take up photography? You can borrow Cameras & Accessories from our Library of Things collection to help you get started as well as a robust collection of photography books.