11 posts tagged “books”

So my friend the Devil Librarian came up with a fairly brilliant idea about a thematic online Book A Month. 

Outlander

Diana Gabaldon

This one was fortuitous because I had just finished Outlander by Diana Galbaldon.  This is the story of Claire and Jamie, two people forced into marriage after knowing each other about a month.  It's the story of their romance and their love and their passion set against the backdrop of the Jacobite Rising of 1745.  It's also the story of how Claire, who stepped through a stone circle while collecting flowers in the Scottish Highlands after World War II, has to come to terms with the time shift and how very different life is from the 1940s to the 1740s.  She has to reconcile her understanding of genealogy (Frank, her husband in "her time", is very into his family history) with the reality of meeting people who were, to her, names on a chart, especially when one looks very much like Frank. 
It's very much a story about time - historical fiction and romance, fantasy, realistic fiction.  The series - well, at least the first 3, they go downhill after that - are very good reads with wonderful descriptions of all the time periods they cover.  Brain candy, yes, but also stuffed with the occasional gem of a line.

Worth reading.

Where do you get recommendations for new books to read?

Lesseee...LJ, AL, Choice, Kirkus, UNABASHED LIBRARIAN, SLJ, IL, Amazon, B&N, Borders, colleagues, staff, patrons, family, friends, students, email groups, NYTBR, just to name the ones off the top of my head.

Basically, wherever I can.

For the first time in as long as I can remember, I'm doing nothing today.  Brian is in Orlando with his family, so I don't even have to deal with anyone else (as much I enjoy housemating with him, alone time is in short supply).  I'm rereading Neuromancer and watching movies (My Best Friend's Wedding is on right now, but there's also been Save the Last Dance and something else earlier this morning).  I've dozed in my chair and played a bit with the dogs and Peanut.  I've fucked around with my myspace page.  It's really been a lovely day. 
Which is good, because I've needed it.  I can't remember doing nothing by choice for a long time. 

1. What type of work do you do?
   I am a librarian.  My official title is "Assistant Circulation Manager"  which means I'm responsible for supervising 14 people as well as doing a metric assload of day to day circ stuff.  But I do like it most days.
   
2. What would be your dream job?
   Courtesan.
   
3. Have you ever volunteered, or done work for a charity?
   Yes, from time to time.
   
4. Do you like what you do?
   most days.
   
5. Show us something that is work related.
   The view from my desk.
   
   

   Deskview
   
   

Reference Librarianship

I'm working on a presentation for FLA in 2 weeks and have run across this fabu book that every public librarian should read,  Reference Librarianship:  Notes From the Trenches by Charles Anderson and Peter Sprenkle (aka RefGrunt). 
Honestly, if you've ever felt that you're the only one who feels the way you do about what you do and how you do it, Anderson and Sprenkle will show you that you're not alone. 
The RefGrunt blog is also outstanding for this.  It looks like he's updating occasionally again too after a brief hiatus.

Check it out!  (oh and if you buy, let me know.  Charles is a friend of mine & he'll be pleased to know people are reading his stuff.)

At MPOW, I needed a quick and dirty display.  So I hijacked an idea from one of the email groups I'm on (wish I could say this had been my idea, but alas, it was not), and put out a
Think Pink this Valentine's Day book display.  The only criteria:  that the books have pink covers.  So I have Pratchett, Jackson Braun, Steel, and other authors that have little in common on the same display.  And they're flying off the table.  Yay.

Think Pink! Book Display

What are five books that changed your life? 
Inspired by Ms. Genevieve.

Hmmm...5 really?
In no particular order:

The Grapes of Wrath (Centennial Edition)

The first time I taught this book was the first time I read this book.  How one can give up everything and move, just because they thought it was better someplace else - because they hoped it was better someplace else - made me realize that it's not where you are but what you do that makes you happy.

The Witching Hour (Lives of the Mayfair Witches)

This is one of those books that I keep coming back to.  The framing of the history of the Mayfair family, and the tightly written dialog and plot, not to mention the epic story of family from the 17th century to the present is astounding.  It's by far her best work.

"In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
     Down to a sunless sea."
Ok, so it's not a book.  But "Kubla Khan" changed my life.  I wrote my thesis on it, and was almost published.  I keep threatening to go back to it, do the minor polishing that the literary mag wanted and try to publish it again.  But somehow, I've never gotten around to it.

Where the Sidewalk Ends: Poems and Drawings

This one taught me that poetry could be fun.  And when I used to teach, I used it with my high school kids to show them the same thing.  Much better onomatopoeia and alliteration than most poets out there.  Not to mention the fact that he's approachable. 

They Call Me Naughty Lola: Personal Ads from the London Review of Books

There's a new book, They Call Me Naughty Lola, out.  It's a collection of singles ads from the London Review of Books.  Some of the best that made this article are:

• 'I like my women the way I like my kebab. Found by surprise after a drunken night out and covered in too much tahini. Before long I'll have discarded you on the pavement of life, but until then you're the perfect complement to a perfect evening. Man, 32, rarely produces winning metaphors.'
• 'Stroganoff. Boysenberry. Frangipani. Words with their origins in people's names. If your name has produced its own entry in the OED then I'll make love to you. If it hasn't, I probably will anyway, but I'll only want you for your body. Man of too few distractions, 32.'
• 'Mature gentleman, 62, aged well, noble grey looks, fit and active, sound mind and unfazed by the fickle demands of modern society seeks...damn it, I have to pee again.'

I haven't done a reading post in awhile.  Right now, I'm in the middle of 3, but only 2 are worth sharing.

Good Omens

I've never been able to get into Pratchett, but a friend recommended Good Omens to me and I'm enjoying it immensely.  I should finish it by the end of this week.

Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

This is why I love both tennis and David Foster Wallace.

This present article is more about a spectator’s experience of Federer, and its context. The specific thesis here is that if you’ve never seen the young man play live, and then do, in person, on the sacred grass of Wimbledon, through the literally withering heat and then wind and rain of the ’06 fortnight, then you are apt to have what one of the tournament’s press bus drivers describes as a “bloody near-religious experience.” It may be tempting, at first, to hear a phrase like this as just one more of the overheated tropes that people resort to to describe the feeling of Federer Moments. But the driver’s phrase turns out to be true — literally, for an instant ecstatically — though it takes some time and serious watching to see this truth emerge.

Federer is a thing of beauty.  But so is Wallace's writing.  If you haven't read Infinite Jest, go pick it up and get through it. It might take you one or two tries, but is so very very worth it.