The designer library consultant

This article about using books as a design element in L.A. homes also features an interesting new trend in affluent Southern California - a paid "library consultant", who will come into your home, catalog your library collection, organize it, and create bibliographies based on your reading passion. Hmmm, southern California, rich people, beaches? Who wouldn't want that job!

L.A. Times Book Prize nominees announced - Los Angeles Times

Last Friday, the L.A. Times Book Prize nominees were announced. Maxine Hong Kingston won the Kirsch award, which, "...honors a living author with a connection to the American West whose works have made a substantial contribution to American letters."

My gal Harriet

Going through Bloglines today (over 3000 unread posts in my Books folder alone!!), I discovered this post on Kate's Book Blog about the children's book Harriet the Spy.
There is a link to an NPR audio "tribute" to the character of Harriet M. Welsch, child spy.
God, I loved Harriet when I was a kid! She was sarcastic, curious, and aspired to be a writer. So much fun spying on other people. This was one of my favorite books, I remember thinking about New York City and how much I, too, wanted to be a writer when I grew up. Harriet wasn't afraid to be herself, that is also what I remember liking about her character.

How did I miss this?

So I'm trying to catch up on my blog reading and come across the Boston Globe's article about this year's National Book Awards winners. Except...it is last year's winners! How did I miss this? Sherman Alexie won the award for Best Young for The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian -- good Lord!

Free version of a readers' advisory tool

Public librarians use and rely on What Do I Read Next?, a genre tool that aids librarians and patrons in making reading selections. It is organized by fiction genres (science fiction, romance, westerns, etc.) and is enormously popular at reference where the librarian may or may not have extensive knowledge of authors and genres. Use it to find similar authors to those you love and books that meet a certain criteria (vampire romances, anyone?).
This usually comes with a cost, of course. Libraries either purchase a print copy of What Do I Read Next? or purchase an online electronic subscription to the database, so interested patrons had to go to their local library (if they had a copy) or to their library's website and login (if they purchased the electronic version).
Not anymore -- Cengage Learning (owner and manager of the content) has recently introduced a "curtailed" version of the What Do I Read Next? database called Books & Authors. It will give patrons a chance to search for much of the same information on their own, with the ability to locate a local library which subscribes to the full, value-added content.
Leave them wanting more...

Writers Rejoice!

Red Room

Want to join a writing community but don't know where to find one? Red Room is just what you have been looking for! This website is too cool -- a resource for writers, aspiring writers and anyone interested in books and authors. Videos, podcasts, author interviews, blogs -- you name it, they got it.

Book stats

In my zealous quest to catalog all my books (please see post from yesterday) I have tallied up my reading stats from the past several years and give you some selected figures to dwell on (drumroll please):

33 books in 2007 -- I gave birth to my first child and didn't seem to have a lick of time to myself. 'Nuff said.

65 books in 2006 -- This is probably an inflated figure because so many of the titles were graphic novels. But they still count!

22 books in 2004 -- Lowest amount read during the thirteen years I have tallied the books I read. Surprising on the face of it, since I was newly divorced and all, but it is also the year I met Jeff, so there you go...

108 books read in 1998 -- Whew! I looked through my list and had to count again - 108 books in one year?? Wow, impressive. I was also unhappy in my marriage, on a major readers' advisory committee at work where we were selecting all the best books of the year, and lonely in a city where my then-husband and I knew practically no one.

I yearn for the days when I could read 100 books in a year...but wouldn't give up my present life on a bet!

LibraryThing addiction

Yes, its true. I have become addicted to LibraryThing. The social cataloging application is slowly ruining my tastes for other social networking sites and causing me to steadily lose interest in almost anything else besides cataloging my enormous home book collection. My husband bought me a $25 gift card so I could have a lifetime membership - basically its either that or pay $10 a year to have an unlimited number of books cataloged. Its an interesting production; I'm learning quite a bit about myself along the way. It is also forcing me to realize that I have waaaay too many books and need to assess my collection (should I keep all those M.C. Beaton paperbacks my mother-in-law gave me - 35, yikes! - or ditch them since, if I am honest with myself, I will NEVER end up reading them all?).
Sigh, so much to do, so little time to do it. Especially now that I am busily cataloging...

Fantagraphics Books - Linda Medley Comics

My all-time favorite comic book series -- Castle Waiting by Linda Medley -- has a new issue out! This series about an abandoned castle with very weird inhabitants is a not-so fairy tale with very feminist themes. Great story for teen girls interested in comics. Check it out...
Fantagraphics Books - Linda Medley Comics

The Big Read

The Big Read is a National Endowment for the Arts program which is:

"...designed to restore reading to the center of American culture. The NEA presents The Big Read in partnership with the Institute of Museum and Library Services and in cooperation with Arts Midwest. The Big Read brings together partners across the country to encourage reading for pleasure and enlightenment.."

The NEA gives out grants to interested libraries and communities to produce programming and book discussions surrounding the selected books. The next round of grant applications are due February 12, 2008 for programming from September 2008-January 2009.

Oprah's Book Club

Oprah's Book Club has been around for so long that is part of the vernacular in the book world. Oprah's latest book is The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett, a historical novel set in the Middle Ages.

What our bookshelves say about us...

What do our books and our reading habits say about us? There is a saying about what you eat, maybe it should also say You are what you read...

"...in terms of the “snooping” factor, books on a nightstand are just about at the bottom of the list in terms of potential discoveries. These days most people don’t wait to get inside someone’s apartment to start snooping. Instead, they start doing online research on their potential partners as soon as they possibly can. Indeed, Google is the new digital apartment inside which we all live, with Facebook and Myspace pages being the new bookshelf or nightstand into and onto which we all peek. This is where first impressions and opinions are being made; this where more people are getting turned on or off. True, someone might see the boxset of Man Without Qualities sitting on a bookshelf, and decide that its owner has qualities, but Musil is no match for a Myspace page filled with drunken photos and a Limp Bizkit soundtrack..."

Yikes! Scary business...

Susan Faludi's new book

New book by Susan Faludi on how 9/11 and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are changing (and, she claims, not for the better) women's roles. What is especially interesting is Faludi's premise that it is affecting not just women in the military, but all of American women.

clipped from www.nysun.com It is worth asking, then, what effect our current wars are having on the condition of women. Has the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan marked another milestone on the road to equality? Or is the war on terror, which remains a metaphor rather than an all-out mobilization, too different from past wars to make much difference in American society? Few writers are better entitled to answer these questions than Susan Faludi, the author of "Backlash" and "Stiffed," and one of the strongest feminist voices of her generation.

Bedtime stories a problem for many parents

From the UK's The Guardian, a sad but true story: bedtime stories a problem for many parents.
My mother-in-law is a professor of literacy and remarked that many children's picture books are actually too "wordy". Picture books and read-aloud need to keep it simple to attract parents as well as kids. I understand the necessity of children hearing as many different words as possible their first year of life, but keeping them simple with beautiful illustrations is the way to keep both parents and children happy.

Book lust

Hmmm...lust seems an inappropriate feeling to have for these beautiful libraries (for the most part theological libraries!), but they are so lovely and exquisite I can't help myself.

Its National Book Festival time again

8 days, 2 hours, 12 minutes...er, make that 11 minutes...until the 2007 National Book Festival is here! I have conned Jeff into taking me and Griffin this year; it falls on my birthday weekend and since we get what we want on our birthday weekends...

This year we are meeting his parents on the way down to D.C. and then staying outside of the city somewhere in Fairfax County, VA (i'm sure I have the details written down somewhere...) and taking the Metro on Saturday morning. I can't wait; over 70 authors in one place, on one day! Mercer Mayer, Rosemary Wells, Jodi Picoult, Stephen White, Ken Burns, Joyce Carol Oates -- a bibliophile's dream. Make that 8 days, 2 hours, 7 minutes...

Swann

Swann, by Carol Shields, was a difficult novel to start (and not the least of which was my difficulty concentrating on a novel while also taking care of my six month old son!). The novel is about the mysterious Mary Swann, a Manitoba housewife who is murdered before the story even begins. Swann is a poet and her works are "discovered" by a feminist scholar, Sarah Maloney, who is manipulative and ambitious, plus much too in love with herself. The irony of Sarah, of course, is her much-too-much attention to her looks and ultimate marriage to Stephen. The novel is about a symposium devoted to scholarship of this unknown poet. The story is narrated by four different characters who are influenced and affected by Mary Swann and her legacy. The aforementioned Sarah Maloney discovered the poet when visiting a remote cabin and on the run from a lover. The second narrator, Morton Jimroy, is an esteemed literary biographer writing about Swann's life, but reduced to stealing a fountain pen from the poet's daughter when interviewing her for his book. The third narrator is spinster librarian (what a cliche!) Rose Hindmarch who supposedly knew the poet best, but actually knows nothing at all. And, finally, narrator four is Frederic Cruzzi, erstwhile newspaper editor and poetry publisher who meets Mary Swann on the day she is murdered and has a secret of his own about her poems.

At the same time each of these characters are narrating the story of their relationship with Mary Swann, pieces of Swann's life are mysteriously disappearing, as if traces of Mary herself are gone. The novel is ambitious and the last section is a humorous send-up of academic symposia, but the whole of the novel tries to convey the nature of Mary's loss -- her murder as well as the loss of any legacy she left behind. It succeeds at conveying the bumbling nature of the four people who supposedly "knew" her the best and the irony of what they did not know.

Book sharing the social software way

Its amazing how much you find through sharing and exploring the web through del.icio.us links! I have bookmarked sites, my friends add me to their network of bookmarked sites, I find other people's networks and their bookmarked sites...it goes on and on, but you can find some fascinating websites and applications. One of my fellow librarians has bookmarked some cool sites and this one called Shelfari is similar to LibraryThing, where you add books (catalog), make recommendations, write reviews, and talk about books with others. Shelfari is a bit more limiting than LibraryThing -- it doesn't have the capability of finding an exact ISBN match to a title (which, by the way, drives me crazy as a librarian!!) so the books on my "shelf" in Shelfari may not be the editions I actually own at home in the "real" world. These applications do have the capability of creating real communities on the web, much the way chat rooms and discussion forums did in the first generation of websites.
Besides, didn't every kid want to catalog their books and play "library"? Or was that just geeky me???

Late summer reading

Still have time to do some summer reading? Catch up with this handy list from the Worcester Telegram & Gazette News. The list includes such kid favorites as Jack Prelutsky and Douglas Florian.

Reading challenges

These reading challenges always get me. I would love to compete (I think in the past I could have quite easily been in medal contention) but don't have the time -- babies tend to get fussy if their moms ignore them for too long while they read. The one above from Kate's Blog sounds interesting, but what kind of challenge should I give myself?

Here's a thought: try to read all the books by a favorite author in a row. I.e. finish all Carol Shields, one after the other. Move on to A.M. Homes, then finish up the month with all the books Barbara Kingsolver has ever written. And don't let the preceding sentence fool you -- I would never manage to get through all these books in a month! That was foolish. More like the rest of the year...

The Kid Stackz

This piece by Jessica Kane is interesting: she proposes that public libraries create areas in their buildings for childcare. Parents drop off their kids for a couple of hours while they read. The library could charge for the service and help fund their collections with the money they receive from the childcare center. What a (ahem) novel idea!

I would certainly sign up for it -- I never feel like I have enough time to read now that Griffin is here. If I could drop him off at a childcare facility just for the express purpose of reading (as opposed to dropping him off at workout gym-sponsored childcare area), I would certainly feel freed up to do my daily quota of reading...

Author Rushdie and wife to divorce

Its amazing that Salman Rushdie is generating this much buzz for something other than pissing off relgious fundamentalists...

Author Rushdie and TV host Lakshmi to divorce - omg

Gotta love subtitles...

So admittedly, it was the picture of actor Ed Norton holding a pink bar of soap with Pajiba written on it (a la Fight Club), but the subtitle of this blog did me in: "...scathing reviews for bitchy people..." Thats me!

The Generation's Best Books - Scathing Reviews for Bitchy People

Jane Smiley and women writers

Here is the Jane Smiley post about women and national book awards that precipitated Erica Jong's "open letter"...

What's Erica Jong's problem with Jane Smiley?

Erica Jong has a problem with Jane Smiley -- read about it here...

Lloyd Alexander dies at 83

Author Lloyd Alexander died at age 83; listen to the NPR audio obituary. Author of such classics as The Black Cauldron and The Chronicles of Prydain series, Alexander was a beloved children's fantasy writer who won a Newberry Medal in 1969.

British bookshop lists 25 up-and-coming writers

British bookstore chain Waterstone's lists 25 up-and-coming young writers from such varied genres as cooking and science fiction.

Ian Rankin's writing space

Neat photo of writer Ian Rankin's workspace. The environment where Detective Inspector Rebus was conceived and lives...

Cartoonist ponders Mother's Day

Berke Breathed, cartoonist, ponders the ultimate sacrifice of parenthood -- would he die for his child? In Breathed's new children's book, Mars Needs Moms!, a little boy wonders why anyone needs a mom, but discovers that moms are pretty special when Martians come to Earth and want to take his mom away to their planet.

Now that he's a parent, a cartoonist ponders the ultimate sacrifice

Mothers' fiction

Since I am a first-time mother, it is only fitting that I want to read novels or non-fiction accounts of motherhood. I just finished The Stone Diaries and the novel's account of one woman's journey through a life unfulfilled really affected me. I'm also working on Rachel's Cusk's memoir of her experiences as a first-time mother, A Life's Work: On becoming a mother, which is both funny and sad in turn. Controversial too, since Cusk doesn't mince words and is honest about her conflicting feelings of being a mother, woman and writer at the same time.
I'm thinking about some other titles that might go into a "mother fiction" category on my bookshelf -- some funny, some sad, some downright disturbing (Re: Loverboy by Victoria Redel and her mother character's desperate obsession with her own son). Motherkind by Jayne Anne Phillips is a great novel about the mother-child relationships, both mother-daughter and the daughter's relationship with her newborn son. What other titles would YOU recommend?

The Stone Diaries

What's up with the Canadian literature kick I've been on? First, The Blind Assassin and now Carol Shields. This novel was deeply affecting and is probably one of the best I've read so far this year. Winning the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, Shields' novel is an exploration of one woman's life -- from witnessing her own birth in 1905 through her death sometime in the 1990s. What is so affecting about the story is the telling of a life that did not seem to make an impression on others, how women can be marginalized and how one woman didn't take her life and live it to the fullest. Amazing...

The Blind Assassin

Just finished Margaret Atwood's Booker Prize-winning The Blind Assassin . Phenomenal book -- I was not expecting it to be so good. In fact, I was surprised I even attempted to read this book with a two-month old baby in the house to distract me (it did take almost a month to finish it, natch!).
The last Atwood book I attempted was Cat's Eye and I hated it. I believe I only got through the first few pages. I read The Handmaid's Tale in college and love it. In fact, it is one of my favorite novels.

Case Histories

Kate Atkinson is decidedly humorous...British-"y" humorous. Meaning that many Americans may not like her humor. Her mothers are very unsentimental and often unlikeable. One of the mothers in this novel is a murderer, for crying out loud. Case Histories is a detective novel/thriller and is a departure from Atkinson's more literary previous endeavors, like Emotionally Weird or her Whitbread Award-winning novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum.

I love book lists!

Wow -- someone with a lot of time on their hands compiled this list:
Listology: "1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die"

Time on my hands...

So getting prepared for the birth of your first child should make you anxiously clean house, straighten cupboards, organize shelves, right? Well...sort of.

I've done some of that, but mostly I've been reading! My due date having come and gone, I'm hoping to get through at least another one or two novels before baby arrives. I just finished reading Resurrection Men by Ian Rankin: another superb outing in the Inspector John Rebus novels. This novel takes Rebus back to school, reform school that is. Rebus is sent to Tuliallan College, where the force sends their rough cops to straighten out and is mixed in with the resurrection men of the novel's title. What ensues is a police procedural of old cases, old enemies, new murders and new characters. Rankin is superior at describing the rank and decay of old Edinburgh alleys and dusky pubs while giving the reader a rousing good police story, with crusty DI's thrown in (thats "Detective Inspector" to you British procedural newbies!). This was one of the better stories and part of this comes from the time that has been investing in reading each entry in this series. It really does help to read the Rebus novels in order, many old characters do pop up in the newer entries.

British public not "clever or lofty" readers...

According to an article in today's British paper, The Guardian, latest figures show that the popular reading tastes of Britain's library-going public lends itself to the likes of Danielle Steel, Catherine Cookson and Josephine Cox: a certifiable triumvirate of romance and suspense. Is this really a surprise? Read the Guardian article here...

Opinions on the Caldecott & Newberry winners

Some commentary this week on the recent award winners of the prestigious Caldecott & Newberry Awards, given annually to the best illustrated and written (respectively) books for children over at the blog, Book Blog | BlogCentral.TheReporter.com

Go the ALA website for more information on the Caldecott & Newberry Award winners...

New Mystery Hardcover Titles for January 2007

Just in time to beat those winter blues -- new mystery novels! Included is the 13th installment of Janet Evanovich' hilarious Stephanie Plum series: Plum Lovin' ...

Mystery Books: Mystery Books: New Hardcover Titles for January 2007

Need something to do in April?

Look no further than The Library of Congress' listings of book fairs, literary festivals and other "readable moments" across the US and the world...
BOOK FAIRS AND OTHER LITERARY EVENTS (Center for the Book: Library of Congress)

The Dawkins Illusion

In the midst of reading Richard Dawkins' latest non-fiction bestseller, The God Delusion, I came across the following article: The Dawkins Illusion - New English Review

I must disagree with one particular aspect of the reviewer's article. The author, Colin Bower, states that Dawkins is covering the same ground as other academics such as Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett and shouldn't be bothered. Unfortunately, atheism is not a well-received lifestyle choice and this book by Dawkins goes a long way to making the ideas and "memes" of atheism palatable to a wider audience. The book is so accessible! And it is not intended to be a scholarly discourse on the history of atheism -- Dawkins even states in his first chapters that he is trying to create a "consciousness-raising" for those who may not know much about evolution or atheism. In this regard, he succeeds admirably.

Mystery Books from 2006

A look at some of the best mystery books from 2006...
Mystery Books: Mysterious Reviews: A Look Back at 2006

A Year in Reading: Recap

Great compilation of reviews and blog posts on the best of 2006 from around the blogosphere...


The Millions (A Blog About Books): A Year in Reading: Recap

The 10 best books of 2006

...subject to interpretation, of course. This year-end list comes to you from the The Times of London.
The 10 best books of 2006 - Books - Times Online

More picks for 2006 from Salon

This time, the editors at Salon.com pick the winners of 2006...
Editor's picks 2006: Books | Salon Books

Readers' favorite books from Salon.com

Find out what Salon readers picked as their favorites of 2006...
Your favorite books | Salon Books

Atonement, by Ian McEwan

I bought a copy of Ian McEwan's award-winning book about 6 months ago, and it sat on my bookshelf, gathering dust, until I read an article in The New York Times in early December. The article was a column in the "Week in Review" section of the December 3rd paper, written by Charles Isherwood. McEwan has been accused of plagiarizing sections of the acclaimed novel, using 'experiences' based on romance novelist Lucilla Andrews' own life as a nurse in a London hospital during World War II. Isherwood's tongue-in-cheek column lashes out at those "plagiarism furies" that were unleashed on McEwan, who has been defended by the likes of Thomas Pynchon and Zadie Smith. I picked up the book as a curiosity, to see what all the "fury" was about -- and was astonished by the beautiful writing. McEwan is a writer I have been meaning to read for years (Enduring Love has been sitting on my bookshelf for at least 6 or 7 years!) and now I wish I had read him before. Atonement begins in 1935, set in the English countryside on the Tallis family estate. Briony Tallis, 13 years old, helplessly imaginative and creative, is beginning rehearsals for her play, The Trials of Arabella, in honor of her older brother, Leon, and his visit home. Meanwhile, older sister Cecelia is engaged in an innocent flirtation with Robbie Turner, the charlady's son and protege of Cecelia's father. When Briony witnesses this seduction, what ensues is a novel of misinterpretation, calculated deceit and a crime which changes all of the characters' lives forever. The novel is a metafictional narrative and the characters are so vividly drawn, you can't help but be engaged and captured from the moment you first encounter them.

100 Notable Books of the Year

100 Notable Books of the Year - The New York Times Book Review - New York Times
Another list!! This time, the top 100 of the year...

Another list...

The 10 Best Books of 2006 - New York Times
A year-end list this time from the granddaddy of all newspapers, The New York Times...

Judging a Book by Its Cover: The Best of 2006

Bookslut | Judging a Book by Its Cover: The Best of 2006
I am always a sucker for these end-of-the-year "Best Of..." compilations!
This one from Bookslut is no different...

L. A Confidential Sequel in the Works

Mystery Books: News: L. A Confidential Sequel in the Works
Awesome! LA Confidential is one of the best films of the nineties, based on an excellent noir novel. Can't wait to see the sequel...

William Styron dies at 81

Styron: A shining author with a 'dark view of life' - USATODAY.com
The author of Sophie's Choice and The Confessions of Nat Turner has passed away...

Desai wins 2006 Man Booker Prize

Independent Online Edition > News
The 35-year-old Indian writer Kiran Desai is the latest recipient of the coveted Man Booker Prize...

Finalists named for Governor General's Awards for literature

CBC.ca Arts - Finalists named for Governor General's Awards for literature
Canada's most prestigious book award announced the finalists for the $15,000 prize in seven categories...

Great bookmod: encyclopedia into scrapbook

Boing Boing: Great bookmod: encyclopedia into scrapbook
What a gorgeous idea! Take your falling apart books and make a scrapbook for that family album you've always wanted to create...

Turkish Novelist Orhan Pamuk Wins Nobel

Turkish Novelist Orhan Pamuk Wins Nobel
Controversy isn't new to this novelist, but Orhan Pamuk has caused a stir in his homeland by becoming the latest recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature...

Fall's release of short story collections

USATODAY.com - Roundup: Short stories
Collections by Margaret Atwood and Mary Gordon headline a plethora of wonderful short story collections this fall, including the perennial favorite, Best American Short Stories 2006.

Books on the American civil rights movement (kottke.org)

Books on the American civil rights movement (kottke.org)
Jason Kottke solicited contributions to his list of books on the American Civil Rights movement. Lots of worthy titles to read here. I highly recommend Pillar of Fire by Taylor Branch. Its the second of his MLK jr. trilogy and it is an absorbing and fascinating book -- go get it.

The Scotiabank Giller Prize

The Scotiabank Giller Prize
Canada's prestigious literary award announced its 2006 shortlist today...

Some "more" on Alan Moore's controversial new work

Independent Online Edition > Features

Marjane Satrapi, author of Persepolis

Independent Online Edition > Features
Graphic novelist Marjane Satrapi is interviewed by the U.K.'s The Independent...

The New York Review of Books: Books@Google

The New York Review of Books: Books@Google
A plethora of Google books are, or have been, published...

Richard Ford review

Independent Online Edition > Reviews
Any reviewer talking about Richard Ford and Richard Yates has got my attention...

Book blues

This cassette tape image generator I found over on Boing Boing today is cool! Generate any hit band and album name you want...

A Moment With ... Jack Prelutsky, America's first children's poet laureate

A Moment With ... Jack Prelutsky, America's first children's poet laureate
Prelutsky is THE pre-eminent wacky children's poet, now that Shel Silverstein has passed on. His book, A Pizza the Size of the Sun, is one of my favorite children's book.

Murakami wins the world's richest short story prize

Guardian Unlimited Books | News | Murakami wins the world's richest short story prize

Poet Adrienne Rich gets book award

USATODAY.com - Poet Adrienne Rich gets book award

Richard Dawkins on the God Delusion

Boing Boing: Richard Dawkins on the God Delusion
Ditto the Boing Boing reviewer -- I can't wait to read this book!

Here's another review in Saturday's Guardian Unlimited...

Young Writers shortlisted for Dylan Thomas Prize

Independent Online Edition > News
The Under-30 crowd has a new prize -- the Dylan Thomas Prize, set-up to encourage cultural life in an international context. The winner will be announced on October 27th...

Graphic Novel Review: True Story, Swear To God by Tom Beland

Blogcritics.org: Graphic Novel Review: True Story, Swear To God by Tom Beland

Love of Reading

Love of Reading
Cool! Love of Reading is hosting an Online Book Fair, October 3-5, 2006, with hourly raffles and giveaways galore!

Audio book club

The October audio book club selection. By Andy Bowers - Slate Magazine
Neat! A podcasting book club for those on the go...

David Crystal: books on language

Guardian Unlimited Books | Top 10s | David Crystal: books on language
Linguist David Crystal offers his Top Ten list of books on the English language...

Unfinished Tolkien work to be published

USATODAY.com - Unfinished Tolkien work to be published
For all you Frodo fans out there -- J.R.R. Tolkien's son, Christopher, is about to complete a book begun by his father in 1918...

Seeing by Jose Saramago: Reviews

Seeing by Jose Saramago: Reviews
For those who read and loved Saramago's Blindness comes the sequel, set fours year later after national elections go fatalistically wrong -- all the ballots are blank!
Intriguing, I know...

Blogcritics.org: Manga Review: Beautiful People by Mitsukazu Mihara

Blogcritics.org: Manga Review: Beautiful People by Mitsukazu Mihara
I liked the blurb, "...manga for those who think differently from the rest of the world...".

NPR : How Sept. 11 Invaded Her Novel

NPR : How Sept. 11 Invaded Her Novel
Claire Messud's novel, The Emperor's Children, is getting good press everywhere. She's on NPR, she's in the Powell's Books Review-a-Day, she's in the Guardian Unlimited Books section -- she's everywhere!

John Updike short stories get Rea Award

USATODAY.com - John Updike short stories get Rea Award

Metacritic review site

Special Topics In Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl: Reviews
This post isn't so much about this new book, Special Topics in Calamity Physics, but about the website, Metacritic.com, which lists reviews of books, films, dvds, music, games, books, etc. Its pretty neat and easy to use. Gives a score out of a 100 for the book and lists the publications and a quick peek at the overall mood of the book review, whether positive or negative. Cool site...

Sure signs of a budding artist: anxiety, anguish, and self-doubt

Sure signs of a budding artist: anxiety, anguish, and self-doubt - The Boston Globe
Jonathan Franzen wrote the bestselling novel, The Corrections, but is probably best known for dissing Oprah Winfrey and her Book Club when he refused to go on her show to talk about the book. What an ingrate -- but, still -- a heck of a writer!

The Man Booker Prize 2006 :: the 2006 Prize Shortlist

The Man Booker Prize 2006 :: the 2005 Prize Shortlist
The Man Booker shortlist was announced today -- Sarah Waters' new book is on the list -- yippee! If you have never read any of Waters' fiction, run, NOT WALK, to your nearest library and pick up a copy of Fingersmith, her Dickensian novel about a street thief and a rich aristocrat in England. Wonderful writer...

A sweetener to help you give up Sugar

Telegraph | Entertainment | A sweetener to help you give up Sugar

sweet!

Hodgman's book ad is a Plimpton homage

Boing Boing: Hodgman's book ad is a Plimpton homage
I love John Hodgman! This Daily Show regular and Apple's PC impersonator is a hoot -- Areas of Expertise should be a fun read if it is half as good as Hodgman in those Mac ads...

Cool reads for cooler nights

Cool reads for cooler nights - The Boston Globe
Recommendations for your upcoming fall reading. I intend to burrow myself away one of these beautiful fall Saturdays with some of these books...

You Really Should Not Read Bill Bryson in Public Places

Blogcritics.org: You Really Should Not Read Bill Bryson in Public Places
An intriguing recommendation for reading Bill Bryson...

What art has helped you make sense of 9/11? - Slate Magazine

What art has helped you make sense of 9/11? - Slate Magazine
Artists, novelists and thinkers were asked what book or piece of literature has helped them make sense of the world after 9/11...

Little Children - Todd Field - Movies - New York Times

Little Children - Todd Field - Movies - New York Times

Based on Tom Perrotta's satirical 2004 novel, Little Children...

Alan Moore's Alice/Wendy/Dorothy graphic novel

Boing Boing: Alan Moore's pornographic Alice/Wendy/Dorothy graphic novel


Why is it that if graphic novels treat sex they are considered "pornographic"? Or maybe its because the novel is about 3 famous "girls" of fiction?

Boing Boing: Top 25 stories ignored by media in past year

Boing Boing: Top 25 stories ignored by media in past year

Project Censored compiles this list and publishes into a fantastic book at the end of the year. Chock full of more stories ignored by the media, websites, references, links to alternative press and media sources, this is a must read for indy thinkers...

My workplace...

Here is my workplace:
Although I don't get to work with books every day, I am surrounded by them! Although I wish I had more time for reading, I'm glad I have a job that is challenging and busy -- no time to read on this job, I'm afraid.
Not the idea of librarian most people picture. I teach classes and work with the computer all day -- I DON'T check out books or stamp cards!

The Last King of Scotland

Giles Fodden wrote a book back in 1998 called The Last King of Scotland about a young Scottish doctor who fantastically becomes the personal physician of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin and thus, part of his inner circle, witness to the many barbarities and atrocities of this evil man. A movie starring Forrest Whitaker and Nicholas Garrigan is set to release on September 27th. It looks amazing...

Snuggle up with a not-so-popular mystery

USA Today has recommendations for mystery novels not on the bestseller charts. I was pleased to see two Janet Evanovich novels on the list.

Naguib Mahfouz dies at 94

Egyptian writer Naguib Mafouz died at age 94 on August 30th. Mafouz won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1988, being the first Arab writer to do so.

Sweet short stories

This USA Today article emphasizes what a lot of readers have known for a long time -- that short stories are to be savored: rich, delectable nuggets which showcase a writer's gift. Short stories are difficult -- often writers who are wonderful novelists have a hard time writing a short story. Its a craft few master and many imitate.

The endless pile of books

Joe Queenan has a hilarious essay in last week's New York Times Book Review about the bibliophile's nasty habit: starting and reading multiple books at one time...

Books you can't wait for!

Kirkus Reviews just released their Fall/Winter 2006 preview issue online. Jonathan Franzen has a new non-fiction work coming out in September, humorist/travel writer Bill Bryson is releasing a new collection in October, and Neil Gaiman has a new collection of "hard-to-pin-down-in-any-genre" short stories arriving on bookshelves in September. For those crisp, cool fall days when all you want to do is curl up in front of a fire with a good book...

Epileptic, by David B

"Hailed by The Comics Journal as one of Europe's most important and innovative comics artists, David B. has created a masterpiece in Epileptic, his stunning and emotionally resonant autobiography about growing up with an epileptic brother. Epileptic gathers together and makes available in English for the first time all six volumes of the internationally acclaimed graphic work." Powell's Daily Dose reviews David B.'s Epileptic, an autobiographical graphic novel about the author's life growing up with his epileptic younger brother. Add this to the growing list of graphic novels on my "To Read" list before the fall semester starts...

Need to share the love?

Are you looking for yet another way to share your book love? I Love Books is a forum where you can share your book love with others. Topics recently posted include: Fictional Characters as Fictional Characters in Other Books, william faulkner wrote a book of mystery stories and i am surprised no one told me this. , and my personal favorite, Should I get rid of my books? (which my husband seems to think the answer is, Yes).

comics news

Here's some information you normally don't see when you are reading about comic book publishers:
"...But it’s a surprise to find that all this success has emerged as an interesting catalyst for Vertigo, which finds itself going through yet another evolution. Berger and her team of editors have recently begun expanding the brand’s literary reach with more stand-alone books far closer to novels than comics, developed by some of the best creators in the business..."
Its the second sentence that caught my eye, "..have recently begun expanding upon the brand's literary reach..." -- this seems at first glance to be a contradiction given comics' rave popularity as popular reading for the masses, not necessarily for those with a bent for literary fiction. I, for one, am glad for it, considering that most comics ARE literature, albeit a different way of telling a story.

New Poet Laureate

The Library of Congress has announced the new National Poet Laureate -- Donald Hall. Mr. Hall will read at the National Book Festival, to be held on the Mall in Washington, D.C., September 30th this year...

too long

Its been too long since I last posted! My only excuse is work -- too much of it...
Speaking of which, NPR has an audio broadcast of a story about Harper Lee's comeback to the literary world -- in O, the Oprah Magazine of all places!