The Library will be closed Sunday, October 12 and Monday, October 13 for Columbus Day, giving everyone a chance to catch up on their reading about the world-shifting mariner.

You won't be surprised to hear that the Library owns more than forty books specifically about Christopher Columbus and his voyages. They range from the admiring—Martin Dugard's The Last Voyage of Columbus: Being the Epic Tale of the Great Captain's Fourth Expedition, Including Accounts of Swordfight, Mutiny, Shipwreck, Gold, War, Hurricane, and Discovery (Little, Brown and Company, 2005)—to the damning—David E. Stannard's American Holocaust: Columbus and the Conquest of the New World (Oxford University Press, 1992).

Our collection also features the obscure: Chauncey M. Depew's Address at the Unveiling of the Statue of Christopher Columbus in Central Park...May 12, 1894; the surprising: Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal's Sails of Hope: The Secret Mission of Christopher Columbus (Macmillan, 1973); and the bestselling (and excellent): Laurence Bergreen's Columbus: The Four Voyages (Viking, 2011). You can also watch or listen to Mr. Bergreen's 2011 Members' Room event.

Our stacks bulge with novels about or involving Columbus, from authors as varied as James Fenimore Cooper, Jay Parini, and, of course, master of the swashbuckler Rafael Sabatini. There's even Barbara Park's Junie B., First Grader: Shipwrecked (Random House, 2004), in which Junie B. Jones lands the coveted role of the Pinta in the school play.

I personally can never talk about Columbus without thinking of Bartolomé de Las Casas (1474-1566), the "Apostle of the Indies." Las Casas was a Dominican friar who moved with Spanish settlers to Hispaniola in 1502. Twelve years later, after witnessing the exploitation and killing of indigenous people all over the colonies, Las Casas became the first major voice arguing for the humanity and rights of the 'Indians.' He spent the rest of his life traveling between the New and Old Worlds as an advocate and writing books such as The Devastation of the Indies. Though he was tragically unsuccessful in his lifetime, Las Casas is honored among the fathers of human rights theory.

The good padre might suggest that we learn something about the people who met Columbus on his arrival. I was fortunate to do so myself on a trip to the Dominican Republic, where we boated through caves full of Taino art.

And, just for fun, there's that other guy. Or even these other guys.

But while you could spend much more than a weekend reading about 1492 and its consequences, we all understand that Columbus Day celebrates partly the accomplishments of Cristoforo Colombo, and partly the company, culture, and creations of Italian Americans. For some good food and music, try Simone Cinotto's The Italian-American Table: Food, Family, and Community in New York City (University of Illinois Press, 2013) or Mark Rotella's Amore: The Story of Italian American Song (FSG, 2010).

Or perhaps you like to ponder what it means to be of Italian descent in these United States, with Thomas J. Ferraro's Feeling Italian: The Art of Ethnicity in America (NYU Press, 2005) or The Italian American Heritage: A Companion to Literature and Arts (Pellegrino D'Acierno, ed., Garland Pub., 1999).

So let us raise a glass and open a book to Columbus. If he hadn't sailed the ocean blue, we wouldn't be where we are today. Happy holiday weekend.