It is hard to tell who was more crazy me or everyone else …
"Books are many things: lullabies for the weary, ointment for the wounded, armour for the fearful and nests for those in need of a home."
- Glenda Millard.
Books don't just go with you. They take you where you've never been…
Not just books - how renting a sewing machine from the library can improve democracy
Record breaking heat in Bohemia
America vs Europe: Two Ways to Build a City
Václav Havel Library
Via I am pointed to Jules Eisenchteter's piece at expats.cz explaining Why Prague’s Václav Havel Library is on the verge of collapse.
It sounds like quite the mess, and is of course unfortunate; the library has done good work and obviously there's great potential here. (Still, anything personality-focused, such as this obviously is around Havel, is, of course, problematic.)
Current (and relatively new) director Tomáš Sedláček apparently has ... ideas:
Sedláček, a vocal critic of the “Prague café” scene he felt had monopolized the legacy of the playwright-statesman, had vowed to shake things up at the library by using AI tools to streamline operations and run the institution with a leaner staff, as well as launching a public, “Eurovision-style” competition for artists to design a new symbol of freedom.One hopes they figure things out.
Kundera in Brno
The ashes of Milan Kundera (The Curtain, etc.) and his wife have been laid to rest in a tomb in Brno -- taking: "the last vacant spot in the circle of honor at Brno’s Central Cemetery" --; see, for example, Jack Stephens' report at Brno Daily, Milan Kundera and His Wife Laid To Rest In Brno's Central Cemetery or the official Brno city press release.
Lots of pictures in the official photo gallery, including of the top of the "levitating" lid of the tomb designed by Johannes Paar being lowered -- as well as the two urns in place before they were covered up
Slavenka Drakulić (1949-2026)
Croatian author Slavenka Drakulić has passed away; see, for example, the report at Vijesti.
Quite a few of her works have been translated into English; see, for example, her author page at Penguin Random House, or the Harper Perennial publicity page for How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed.
Human brains were not designed to deal with an endless supply of bad news. “We are the same species as we were thousands of years ago. What’s changed is the size of the world it’s asked to scan for threats.”