Random Musings

2010 Reads

2010-03-02T12:25:00.002-05:00

JANUARY
Cory Doctorow, Makers (YA)
About 1/3 of this book is absolutely brilliant, full of interesting ideas about technology and the furture. About 1/3 of this book is soap opera - A likes B, but B likes C, etc. About 1/3 is OK. For me, tht is an infuriating mixture and a disappointing read, especially after the thrill ride of Little Brother.

Justine Larbalestier, Liar (YA)
The first half of this book is interesting and suspenseful. Then, it takes a left turn and it never recovers. I didn't believe the second half of the book - I just didn't buy it. And it wasn't interesting. Frustrating.

Mary E. Pearson, The Adoration of Jenna Fox (YA)
I don't usually give books a letter grade, but this book was a solid B. Above average, but not excellent. However, Jenna is a great character, and her journey is believable and real. Good, but not great.

Kristin Cashore, Graceling (YA)
Here is the book I've been waiting for - the book that I can't put down, the book I can't wait to read again, the book that completely captures my imagination and won't let go. Unbelievably great. Can't wait to read Fire. Superlative. Awesome. Everyone should read this book. Highly recommended.

Steve Hamilton, The Lock Artist (M)
Completely lives up to its hype, which says a lot. Really interesting, really well-written, compelling. Totally different from anything else of his. Highly recommended.

Inger Ash Wolfe, The Calling (M)
Readable. The cops were more interesting than the killer, and I was not invested with the characters, but I still read the whole thing, which this month is saying a lot. Deeply OK.

Charlie Huston, Sleepless (SF?)
Well-written, but still somewhat of a struggle. Some emotional element was missing that would have made me invest with the characters more. Thought provoking, but not his best.

DNF
Steve Lopez, The Soloist (NF)
David Elllis, The Hidden Man (M)
Attica Locke, Black Water Rising (M)

FEBRUARY
Nancy Farmer, The Islands of the Blessed (YA)
My least favorite of the trilogy. Crap ending. Still, I'm glad I read the series. I hate a weak ending - do you hear me, Matrix 3?

Anders Roslund and Borge Hellstrom, Box 21 (M)
Very well-written with a great ending. Great characters. My favorite Scandinavian crime book since Smila's Sense of Snow. Highly recommended.

Kristin Cashore, Fire (YA)
So, so great. Not a sequel - more of a companion to Graceling. Set in a different time but with some overlap. I hope she writes more and more of these. I dreamed about the book all night. I read it in one day. What else can I say? Highly recommended.

Nigel McCrery, Silent Witness (M)
The TV show is SO MUCH BETTER. Dreary fem-jep crap.

Jane Haddam, Living Witness (M)
Gregor Demarkian series.
I enjoyed this book, but anytime the mystery is the dullest part of a mystery book, something is wrong.

Richard Rotenberg, Old City Hall (M)
Solid, with interesting characters. The resolution of the mystery was a little much, but the procedural stuff was on the right track. I would read another by Rotenberg, but if it didn't grow and improve it would be my last.

Louise Erdrich, Shadow Tag
Sigh. Deliver me from the "literary" novel. At least it was short.

Elmore Leonard, Freaky Deaky (M)
My first Leonard, and it was kind of dull. Nothing much happened. The characters - overall - were uninteresting and the ending was a wet rag. Disappointing.

Carrie Ryan, In the Forest of Hands and Teeth (YA)
Hysterical teenage girls are tedious in books, just like they are in real life. This must be the first book in a series - so much was left unanswered - but I'm done.

Connie Willis, Blackout (SF)
SO GOOD!! I can't believe I have to wait months - months! - to read All Clear (fall of 2010). World War II, Time Travel, and Great Writing. Go read it now!! Highly recommended.

Julie Powell, Cleaving (NF)
I read some, skimmed more. What a sprawling mess of a book - and an author. Kind of sad and way TMI.

DNF
Maggie Stefvater, Shiver (YA)
Richard Doetsch, The 13th Hour (M)

I Covet

2009-12-02T00:12:00.002-05:00

This is the Roku Digital Video Player. It streams Netflix movies to your TV, which is hot. And even lazier than normal Netflix. Which is also hot.

I Covet

2009-12-02T00:08:00.002-05:00

Dylan just got this book, and it is Billy Bad-Ass. Covet is the only word for my emotions.

Image courtesty of www.zaniahz.com.

I Coveted - bought them for my birthday!

2009-11-14T00:35:00.004-05:00

British books I need immediately. Order them from The Book Depository; you'll be glad you did.

I Coveted - I read them through Interlibrary Loan.

2009-11-14T00:30:00.003-05:00

American books I need IMMEDIATELY.

I Covet

2009-10-31T00:25:00.003-04:00

I miss my Bucky so. My mom bought it for me a long time ago, but I buried it with Lois since we shared it so much. My neck hasn't been right since. Bucky, Bucky, wherefore art thou?

Image courtesty of bucky.com.

I Covet

2009-10-31T00:18:00.002-04:00

It makes me so sad to know this album exists, and I don't own it.

Image courtesy of Lost Highway Records.

Ponderables

2009-10-29T15:11:00.002-04:00

I wonder if I am becoming feral. Wild things and wild places pull me more strongly than they did a few years ago, and domesticity, dusting, and cookery interest me not at all.

Sometimes I wonder where we older women fit into the social scheme of things once nest building has lost its charm. A generation ago Margaret Mead, who had a good enough personal answer to this question, wondered the same thing, and pointed out that in other times and other cultures we have had a role.

There are so many of us that it is tempting to think of us as a class. We are past our reproductive years. Men don't want us; they prefer younger women. It makes good biological sense for males to be attracted to females who are at an earlier point in their breeding years and who still want to build nests, and if that leaves us no longer able to lose ourselves in the pleasure and closeness of pairing, well, we have gained our Selves. We have another valueable thing, too. We have Time, or at least the awareness of it. We have lived long enough and seen enough to understand in a more than intellectual way that we will die, and so we have learned to live as though we are mortal, making our decisions with care adn thought because we will not be able to make them again. Time for us will have an end; it is precious, and we have learned its value.

Yes, there are many of us, but we are all so different that I am uncomfortable with a sociobiological analysis, and I suspect that, as with Margaret Mead, the solution is a personal and individual one. Because our culture has assigned us no real role, we can make up our own. It is a good time to be a grown-up woman with individuality, strength, and crotchets.

Sue Hubbell, A Country Year: Living the Questions

Look at all these choices!

2009-10-28T22:39:00.000-04:00

Climbing Roses at Regan Nursery.

Questions I Can't Answer

2009-10-28T22:32:00.003-04:00

What would you do right now if you knew you couldn't fail?

Who would you be mad at if you had everything you wanted?

If you could wave a magic wand, what life would you live right now?

What changes do you need to make to go after the life you just described?

What help or tools do you need to have this life?

Are you willing to fight for yourself to have this life?

Questions by Daneen Skube in the Interpersonal Edge column from Sunday's Wilmington Star News

I Covet

2009-10-28T22:28:00.002-04:00

Look at this beautiful Orange Crush Climber Rose. I read about it at Edmunds' Roses, but the image is courtesy of Regan Nursery. This would be so lovely climbing up my porch. I feel I should covet an older rose, such as the New Dawn Climbing Rose (which is also lovely), but I love those hot modern colors!

Reading Habits

2009-10-28T16:40:00.002-04:00

Meme from The Rap Sheet.

Do you snack while you read?
Sometimes, but I take care to never get crumbs in a book. That drive me mad. There isn't much I haven't done while reading.

Do you tend to mark your books as you read, or does the idea of writing in books horrify you?
Count me as horrified. I have been known to write on the end pages, but those times are few and far between. I did highlight some books while I was in college, but I didn't enjoy it.

How do you keep your place while reading a book? Bookmark? Dog-ears? Laying the book flat open?
Bookmark. I tend to use whatever is handy - index cards, scraps of paper, dollar bills. I don't have any fancy bookmarks. I have been know to lay a book flat, but that is rare.

Fiction, non-fiction, or both?
I'm bi, but I prefer fiction. Non-fiction wise, I tend to stick to nature writing, garden writing, travelogues, and memoirs. Fiction wise, I'm usually a crime girl, but I also read a lot of YA these days.

Hard copy or audiobooks?
I hate to be read to. I just can't pay attention that way very well, and I never really get interested in the story.

Are you a person who tends to read to the end of the chapters, or are you able to put a book down at any point?
I can put a book down at any point. I tend to read until I fall asleep or have to go do something else, so I'm always stopping at odd places. If I am stopping of my own volition, I need to read to a break in the action - which often times is not the end of a chapter.

If you come across an unfamiliar word, do you stop to look it up right away?
I never look words up. I am far too lazy.

Are you the type of person who only reads one book at a time, or can you read more than one at a time?
Monogamous.

What are you currently reading? Cirme fiction:
I am currently giving up on Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger, because I just do not care. I am almost through with a book about nature, which I have read off and on for the past few weeks, a glaring exception to my monogamity (that's right - I made it up). I don't know what is next; I'll have to see what's laying around the house.

What is the last book you bought?
The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass, by Phillip Pullman. And I read them too. I don't get to buy books as much as I would like, which would be all the time. It's a pretty rare experience these days. And I never get books for gifts, either. Sad.

Do you have a favorite time of day and/or place to read?
Anytime, anywhere. This is one thing I am not picky about.

Do you prefer series books or standalone books?
Series. I like an extended world.

Is there a specific book or author that you find yourself recommending over and over ?
Most of the books I recommend these days are YA - most of my reading conversations happen with children. Talking to adults about reading bores me.

How do you organize your books? By genre, title, author's last name, etc?
Fiction and non-fiction. Non-fiction into categories. Fiction into mass market paperback and everything else, because of space. But I have, over the past few years, downsized a LOT. I have a very small section of books I've read but want to keep. 90% of my books have not yet been read, and once they are read they are out the door. To friends or to the bookstore or to a free shelf at work. But never to the library sale: I would be so pissed to re-buy one of my own books that I avoid that possibility like the plague.

Sites I love

2009-10-27T22:35:00.002-04:00

Just one quick trip to Google Images for the post below has led to a new level of coveting - coneflower.com. "Irristible", "Strawberry Shortcake" - are you kidding me? Must have more yard. Must have more coneflowers.

I Covet

2009-10-27T22:31:00.004-04:00

I love all the coneflowers, but this one cries out to me. "Buy me, plant me, love me. You know you need more red in your garden." Hey, Christmas is right around the corner, and my birthday is perfectly situated for spring planting.

Image courtesy of the incredibly drool-worthy White Flower Farm.

2009 Reads

2009-03-22T14:00:00.002-04:00

Fault Line
by Barry Eisler
Disappointing. I love love love the Rain books, but this one just didn't measure up. The plot was predictible, the characters cardboard cutouts, and it was so repetitive.

Starvation Lake
by Bryan Gruley
This is a very well written book. I thought the ending was a little disappointing, but the stylish writing makes up for all its flaws. I look forward to the next installment.

Cheapskates
by Charlie Stella
I wasn't very interested in this story, but I read it anyway. I thought it started off in a very interesting place, but quickly moved to some place much less interesting.

Nineteen Seventy Four
by David Peace
Very British, which I love. I'll definitely be buying the next in the series.

Under the Snow
by Kerstin Ekman

2009 Reads

2009-03-12T11:28:00.002-04:00

Blood in Paradise
by David Corbett
This book was OK, but disappointing after his first two books. They rock. I feel deeply neutral about this one, but don't miss The Devil's Redhead.

Made from Scratch
by Jenna Woginrich
A slim little book about living one of my fantasies - homesteading. I really do want chickens. And to learn to knit. And to have a big garden. And maybe some rabbits.

Exit Music
by Ian Rankin
Excellent as always, and extra bittersweet for Rebus's swan song.

Death of a Thousand Cuts
by Barbara D'Amato
For years I have been hearing about this author, and this book in particular. About how great it is. And I have to say, it could not have sucked more if it had sat down and tried. I hated this book.

Robbie's Wife
by Russell Hill
Not bad, but really not much there. My socks didn't budge.

A Beautiful Place to Die
by Malla Nunn
Finally, a book I can recommend whole-heartedly. Good story, great writing, great characters. Set at the beginning of aparthied in South Africa. Hopefully the beginning of a series. Highly recommended.

2009 Reads

2009-02-23T11:57:00.002-05:00

Val McDermid, The Darker Domain
Started out so interesting, but by the end I was almost ready to launch it against a wall. I do not think I am a fan of the "seemingly completely separate stories that end up being improbably intertwined" way of plotting books.

Cody McFadyen, The Face of Death
Why did I read this book? It was there. There really isn't any other reason. I really didn't like it, especially the "book" within the book.

Larry Beinhart, Salvation Boulevard
This book began in such a creepy, uber-Christian right wing place that it made my mind feel dirty to read it. But I also couldn't stop. I cannot say this book was all that good, but it was original, which is no small thing.

Nick Stone, The King of Swords
It took me forever to get into this book, but I finally did. Many times this book seemed to be heading someplace completely predictible, but then didn't go there. OK.

Kenny Shopsin and Carolyn Carreno, Eat Me: The Food and Philosophy of Kenny Shopsin
One of the best books I have ever read, and one of the two cooksbooks that I have ever read cover to cover in ratpurous delight. Everyone should own this book. I am in love.

Louis Bayard, The Black Tower
I normally avoid historical mysteries as if they caused itching, but the beautiful writing kept me enthralled. Highly recommended.

Academy Award Nominations

2009-02-23T11:10:00.003-05:00

Performance by an actor in a leading role
Richard Jenkins, The Visitor
Frank Langella, Frost/Nixon
Sean Penn, Milk
Brad Pitt, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler

Performance by an actor in a supporting role
Josh Brolin, Milk
Robert Downey, Jr., Tropic Thunder
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Doubt
Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
Michael Shannon, Revolutionary Road

Performance by an actress in a leading role
Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married
Angelina Jolie, Changeling
Melissa Leo, Frozen River
Meryl Streep, Doubt
Kate Winselt, The Reader

Performance by an actress in a supporting role
Amy Adams, Doubt
Penelope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Viola Davis, Doubt
Taraji P. Henson, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Marisa Tomei, The Wrestler

Best animated feature film of the year
Bolt
Kung Fu Panda
WALL-E

Achievement in art direction
Changeling: Art Direction by James J. Murakami, Set Decoration by Gary Fettis
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: Art Direction by Donald Graham Burt, Set Decoration
by Victor J. Zolfo
The Dark Knight: Art Direction by Nathan Crowley, Set Decoration by Peter Lando
The Duchess: Art Direction by Michael Carlin, Set Decoration by Rebecca Alleway
Revolutionary Road: Art Direction by Kristi Zea, Set Decoration by Debra Schutt

Achievement in cinematography
Changeling: Tom Stern
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: Claudio Miranda
The Dark Knight: Wally Pfister
The Reader: Chris Menges and Roger Deakins
Slumdog Millionaire: Anthony Dod Mantle

Achievement in costume design
Australia: Catherine Martin
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: Jacqueline West
The Duchess: Michael O’Connor
Milk: Danny Glicker
Revolutionary Road: Albert Wolsky

Achievement in directing
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, David Fincher
Frost/Nixon, Ron Howard
Milk, Gus Van Sant
The Reader, Stephen Daldry
Slumdog Millionaire, Danny Boyle

Best documentary feature
The Betrayal, Ellen Kuras and Thavisouk Phrasavath (The life of Laotian immigrant Thavisouk Phrasavath serves as
a metaphor for the far-reaching repercussions that are still felt from America's involvement in the Vietnam War. When
his family suffered persecution following the U.S. withdrawal from Southeast Asia as a result of his father's work for the
CIA, Phrasavath's mother fled with eight of her ten children to a life of poverty in Brooklyn.)
Encounters at the End of the World, Werner Herzog and Henry Kaiser (In the extreme conditions that
define existence in Antarctica, filmmaker Werner Herzog explores the range of personalities who have been drawn to spend
their working lives in one of the world's harshest environments. From research scientists to blue collar workers, Herzog's
subjects demonstrate a self-reliance and intrepid sense of adventure that both equip them for their frigid surroundings
and place them outside the mainstream of society.)
The Garden, Scott Hamilton Kennedy (In the wake of the 1992 Los Angeles riots, a fourteen-acre expanse of city-
owned land in a South Central neighborhood was developed by local residents into one of the country's largest
community gardens. In 2003, the tract was sold back to its original owner, whose plans to develop it prompted area
residents to organize in an attempt to stop efforts to oust them from the land.)
Man on Wire, James Marsh and Simon Chinn (In 1974, French performance artist Philippe Petit hid with several
friends after hours in the World Trade Center, strung a high wire between its Twin Towers...and walked between them
for the better part of an hour, to the amazement of New Yorkers on the streets below. How Petit planned and executed
his spectacle is detailed in extensive interviews with Petit and those who helped him achieve his dream.)
Trouble the Water, Tia Lessin and Carl Dean (As the drama of Hurricane Katrina unfolded, New Orleans resident
Kimberly Roberts recorded the chaos and devastation of her own experience on videotape. Her footage forms the heart
of this portrait of Roberts's long journey with her husband, from the early days of the storm to their subsequent
evacuation, resettlement in Memphis, and eventual return to the decimated city.)

Best documentary short subject
The Conscience of Nhem En, Steven Okazaki (In the wake of Cambodia's takeover by the Khmer Rouge in 1975, a
sixteen-year-old soldier named Nhem En was instructed to photograph the tens of thousands of citizens who passed
through a processing center on the way to their execution.)
The Final Inch, Irene Taylor Brodsky and Tom Grant (Contributing to the global efforts to eradicate polio worldwide,
dedicated individuals in India travel throughout the country urging parents to vaccinate their children against the
disease.)
Smile Pinki, Megan Mylan (Pinki, a girl in rural India whose cleft lip has made her a social outcast, has a chance for a new
life when she meets a dedicated social worker.)
The Witness – From the Balcony of Room 306, Adam Pertofsky and Margaret Hyde (The Reverend
Samuel "Billy" Kyles, a witness to Martin Luther King's assassination, reflects on King's life and legacy as he recalls the events
surrounding his murder.)

Achievement in film editing
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall
The Dark Knight, Lee Smith
Frost/Nixon, Mike Hill and Dan Hanley
Milk, Elliot Graham
Slumdog Millionaire, Chris Dickens

Achievement in makeup
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Greg Cannom
The Dark Knight, John Caglione, Jr. and Conor O’Sullivan
Hellboy II: The Golden Army, Mike Elizalde and Thom Floutz

Best foreign language film of the year
The Baader Meinhof Complex, Germany (The roots of the infamous German terrorist group, the Red Army Faction, are
traced to the turbulent events of the late 1960s. When a political riot leaves a protester dead and an assassination
attempt is made on a left-wing leader, student radicals Andreas Baader and Gudrun Ensslin join forces with journalist
Ulrike Meinhof to form a violent faction that turns to bombings, kidnappings, and murder to achieve its goals.)
The Class, France (This portrait of a year in the life of a class of Parisian middle school students focuses on the ethnically
diverse children who comprise the group and their dedicated teacher, François Marin. Unfolding almost entirely within
the classroom itself, the story explores the diversity of personality and background among the students that makes
Marin's work both challenging and rewarding.)
Departures, Japan (When cellist Daigo Kobayashi finds himself unemployed, he returns with his wife to his hometown and
answers an ad he believes has been placed by a travel agency. The available position, however, turns out to be with a
company that prepares corpses for cremation--an elaborate ritual for which the stunned Daigo proves to have a
surprising aptitude.)
Revanche, Austria (A crime results in a web of guilt and revenge that knits together the lives of two very different couples.
Ex-con Alex plans to help his girlfriend, Tamara, escape from her life in a brothel by robbing a bank in his grandfather's
small town. When the plan goes awry, Alex is drawn into a complex relationship with Robert, a local policeman, and his
kindhearted wife, Suzanne.)
Waltz with Bashir, Israel (Filmmaker Ari Folman's animated feature explores his own participation as part of the Israeli
army in the 1982 Lebanon War. Unable to recall key parts of his actions during the war, Folman interviews other former
soldiers and begins to piece together both his own past and the repercussions of a troubling period in modern history.)

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original score)
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Alexandre Desplat
Defiance, James Newton Howard
Milk, Danny Elfman
Slumdog Millionaire, A. R. Rahman
WALL-E, Thomas Newman

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original song)
“Down to Earth”, WALL-E: Music by Peter Gabriel and Thomas Newman; Lyrics by Peter
Gabriel
“Jai Ho”, Slumdog Millionaire: Music by A. R. Rahman, Lyrics by Galzar
“O Saya”, Slumdog Millionaire: Music and Lyric by A. R. Rahman and Maya Arulpragasam

Best motion picture of the year
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Frost/Nixon
Milk
The Reader
Slumdog Millionaire

Best animated short film
La Maison en Petits Cubes, Kunio Kato (In a world gradually flooding with water, an old man adapts to changing
circumstances and looks back on his life.)
Lavatory- Lovestory, Konstantin Bronzit (A lonely lavatory attendant finds a bouquet of flowers in her tip jar.)
Oktapodi, Emud Mokhberi and Thierry Marchand (An octopus fights to keep his beloved out of the cooking pot.)
Presto, Doug Sweetland (A carrot triggers a war of wits between a magician and his hungry bunny.)
This Way Up, Alan Smith and Adam Foulkes (A series of misfortunes befalls a pair of undertakers on their way to the
cemetery.)

Best live action short film
Auf der Strecke (On the Line), Reto Caffi (A department store security guard who is drawn to one of his co-workers
makes a fateful decision.)
Manon on the Asphalt, Elizabeth Marre and Olivier Pont (The proximity of death brings a young woman a new
perspective on life. )
New Boy, Steph Green and Tamara Anghie (A nine-year-old African boy begins his first day of school in Ireland.)
The Pig, Tivi Magnusson and Dorte Hogh (A man facing surgery finds comfort in the painting of a pig hanging in his hospital room. )
Spielzeugland (Toyland), Jochen Alexander Freydank (In 1942, a German boy believes that his Jewish neighbors
are going to Toyland.)

Achievement in sound editing
The Dark Knight, Richard King
Iron Man, Frank Eulner and Christopher Boyes
Slumdog Millionaire, Tom Sayers
WALL-E, Ben Burtt and Matthew Wood
Wanted, Wylie Stateman

Achievement in sound mixing
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, David Parker, Michael Semanick, Ren Klyce, and Mark
Weingarten
The Dark Knight, Lora Hirschberg, Gary Rizzo, and Ed Novick
Slumdog Millionaire, Ian Tapp, Richard Pryke, and Resul Pookutty
WALL-E, Tom Myers, Michael Semanick, and Ben Burtt
Wanted, Chris Jenkins, Frank A. Montano, and Petr Forejt

Achievement in visual effects
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Eric Barba, Steve Preeg, Burt Dalton, and Craig Barron
The Dark Knight, Nick Davis, Chris Corbould, Tim Webber, and Paul Franklin
Iron Man, John Nelson, Ben Snow, Dan Sudick, and Shane Mahan

Adapted screenplay
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: Screenplay by Eric Roth, Screen story by Eric Roth
and Robin Swicord
Doubt: Written by John Patrick Shanley
Frost/Nixon: Screenplay by Peter Morgan
The Reader: Screenplay by David Hare
Slumdog Millionaire: Screenplay by Simon Beaufoy

Original screenplay
Frozen River: Written by Courtney Hunt
Happy-Go-Lucky: Written by Mike Leigh
In Bruges: Written by martin McDonagh
Milk: Written by Dustin Lance Black
WALL-E: Screenplay by Andrew Stanton and Jim Reardon, Original Story by Andrew Stanton and Pete Docter

2009 reads

2009-02-09T15:04:00.002-05:00

My life has been fucked up for the past three weeks or so - way more fucked up than normal - so all my 2009 resolve about posting went to the wayside.

But I'm back - again.

I finished the Percy Jackson series by reading book 3, The Titan's Curse, and book 4, The Battle of the Labyrinth. I read the first two books in the series (The Lightning Thief and The Sea of Monsters) in 2008. I highly recommend this series for kids and adults alike. Well-written, clever, and full of action - what more can you want? Besides, little in this world is better than talking books with enthusiastic kids. Book 5 comes out in May.

I also read Charlie Huston's latest, The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death. Great. Simply great. Of course, eveything Huston writes is great. I thought The Shotgun Rule was his crappiest book, and it's still better than 85% of the crap I read. He has a trilogy, a vampire series, and two standalones; the list is here. If you haven't read Charlie Huston, what are waiting for?

The many advantages of buying books for the kids in your life is that you can then borrow them. That is how I got to read Jonathan Stroud's great Bartimaeus Trilogy. I can honestly say this is the only time I have ever loved footnotes. The books in the trilogy are The Amulet of Samarkand, The Golem’s Eye, and Ptolemy’s Gate. Highly recommended for kids and adults.

This weekend I blazed through Cody McFadyen's The Darker Side, book three in his Smokey Barret series. I haven't read the first two, but I was in desperate need late Friday afternoon in the library and didn't have time to be anal. It was fast and entertaining, but not much more than that. I didn't find Smokey's voice and/or inner life to be realistic or enthralling, and I don't have a lot of motivation to hunt down the first two books. I probably will, though, just to be thorough. Sad, I know. However, I feel I know the plots of those first two books already - they are covered in the third installment. A side note: it was distracting to read about Smokey's intense love of giving blowjobs. The only other book I have read this in was Sophie's Choice by William Styron, where it is gross, pornographic, and very disturbing. I'm not saying women don't love to give bjs, but only men seem to want to write it (over and over) for their female characters. Yuck.

2009 Read

2009-01-05T13:41:00.002-05:00

A Common Ordinary Murder
by Donald Pfarrer

Even though I'm trying not to be as cranky as normal, I really hated this book.

I've been trying all day to figure out why I finished reading this book. I must not have hated it in the beginning. I seem to vaguely remember being interested early on. But it all fell apart.

As the book progressed, there was less and less plot and more and more uninteresting, repetitive inner dialogue that I could not have cared less about.

Not recommended.
Grade: D

Independent Spirit Awards

2009-01-05T12:42:00.003-05:00

Best Feature
Ballast
Frozen River
Rachel Getting Married
Wendy and Lucy
The Wrestler

Best Director
Ramin Bahrani, Chop Shop
Jonathan Demme, Rachel Getting Married
Lance Hammer, Ballast
Courtney Hunt, Frozen River
Tom McCarthy, The Visitor

Best First Feature
Afterschool
Medicine for Melancholy
Sangre De Mi Dangre
Sleep Dealer
Synecdoche, New York

John Cassavetes Award
In Search of a Midnight Kiss
Prince of Broadway
The Signal
Take Out
Turn the River

Best Screenplay
Woody Allen, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, Sugar
Charlie Kaufman, Synecdoche, New York
Howard A. Rodman, Savage Grace
Christopher Zalla, Sangre De Mi Sangre

Best First Screenplay
Dustin Lance Black, Milk
Lance Hammer, Ballast
Courtney Hunt, Frozen River
Jonathan Levine, The Wackness
Jenny Lumet, Rachel Getting Married

Best Female Lead
Summer Bashill, Towelhead
Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married
Melissa Leo, Frozen River
Tarra Riggs, Ballast
Michelle Williams, Wendy and Lucy

Best Male Lead
Javier Bardem, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Richard Jenkins, The Visitor
Sean Penn, Milk
Jeremy Renner, The Hurt Locker
Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler

Best Supporting Female
Penelope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Rosemarie DeWitt, Rachel Getting Married
Rosie Perez, The Take
Misty Upham, Frozen River
Debra Winger, Rachel Getting Married

Best Supporting Male
James Franco, Milk
Anthony Mackie, The Hurt Locker
Charlie McDermott, Frozen River
JimMyron Ross, Ballast
Haaz Sleiman, The Visitor

Best Foreign Film
The Class
Gomorra
Hunger
Secret of the Grain
Silent Light

Best Documentary
The Betrayal
Encounters at the End of the World
Man on Wire
The Order of Myths
Up the Yangtze

Best Cinematography
Maryse Alberti, The Wrestler
Loi Crawley, Ballast
James Laxton, Medicine for Melancholy
Harris Savides, Milk
Michael Simmonds, Chop Shop

Golden Globe Nominations

2009-01-05T12:27:00.002-05:00

2009 Golden Globe Awards
Sunday, January 11, 2009 – 8:00 pm, NBC

BEST MOTION PICTURE – DRAMA
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Frost/Nixon
The Reader
Revolutionary Road
Slumdog Millionaire

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MOTION PICTURE – DRAMA
Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married
Angelina Jolie, Changeling
Meryl Streep, Doubt
Kristin Scott Thomas, I’ve Loved You So Long
Kate Winslet, Revolutionary Road

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A MOTION PICTURE – DRAMA
Lenardo DiCaprio, Revolutionary Road
Frank Langella, Frost/Nixon
Sean Penn, Milk
Brad Pitt, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler

BEST MOTION PICTURE – COMEDY OR MUSICAL
Burn After Reading
Happy-Go-Lucky
In Bruges
Mamma Mia!
Vicky Cristina Barcelona

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MOTION PICTURE – COMEDY OR MUSICAL
Rebecca Hall, Vicky Cristina Barecelona
Sally Hawkins, Happy-Go-Lucky
Frances McDormand, Burn After Reading
Meryl Streep, Mamma Mia!
Emma Thompson, Last Chance Harvey

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A MOTION PICTURE – COMEDY OR MUSICAL
Javier Bardem, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Colin Farrell, In Bruges
James Franco, Pineapple Express
Brendan Gleeson, In Bruges
Dustin Hoffman, Last Chance Harvey

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
Bolt
Kung Fu Panda
Wall-E

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
The Baader Meinhof Complex, GermanyEverlasting Moments, Sweden and Denmark
Gomorrah, Italy
I’ve Loved you So Long, France
Waltz with Bashir, Israel

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A MOTION PICTURE
Amy Adams, Doubt
Penelope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Viola Davis, Doubt
Marisa Tomei, The Wrestler
Kate Winslet, The Reader

BEST PERFORMANCES BY AN ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A MOTION PICTURE
Tom Cruise, Tropic Thunder
Robert Downey Jr., Tropic Thunder
Ralph Fiennes, The Duchess
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Doubt
Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight

BEST DIRECTOR – MOTION PICTURE
Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire
Stephen Daldry, The Reader
David Fincher, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Ron Howard, Frost/Nixon
Sam Mendes, Revolutionary Road

BEST SCREENPLAY – MOTION PICTURE
Eric Roth, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
John Patrick Shanley, Doubt
Peter Morgan, Frost/Nixon
David Hare, The Reader
Simon Beaufoy, Slumdog Millionaire

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE – MOTION PICTURE
Alexandre Desplat, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Clint Eastwood, Changeling
James Newton Howard, Defiance
A. R. Rahman, Slumdog Millionaire
Hans Zimmer, Frost/Nixon

BEST ORIGINAL SONG – MOTION PICTURE
“Down to Earth”, Wall-E Music by Peter Gabriel and Thomas Newman, Lyrics by Peter Gabriel
“Gran Torino”, Gran Torino Music by Jamie Cullum, Clint Eastwood, Kyle Eastwood, and Michael Stevens; Lyrics by Jamie Cullum
“I Thought I Lost You”, Bolt Music and Lyrics by Miley Cyrus and Jeffrey Steele
“Once in a Lifetime”, Cadillac Records Music and Lyrics by Beyonce Knowles, Amanda Ghost, Scott McFarmon, Ian Dench, James Dring, and Jody Street
“The Wrestler”, The Wrestler Music and Lyrics by Bruce Springsteen

BEST TELEVISION SERIES – DRAMA
Dexter
House
In Treatment
Mad Men
True Blood

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A TELEVISION SERIES – DRAMA
Sally Field, Brothers & Sisters
Mariska Hargitay, Law & Order: SVU
January Jones, Mad Men
Anna Paquin, True Blood
Kyra Sedgwick, The Closer

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A TELEVISION SERIES – DRAMA
Gabriel Byrne, In Treatment
Michael C. Hall, Dexter
Jon Hamm, Mad Men
Hugh Laurie, House
Jonathan Rhys Meyers, The Tudors

BEST TELEVISION SERIES – COMEDY OR MUSICAL
30 Rock
Californication
Entourage
The Office
Weeds

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A TELEVISION SERIES – COMEDY OR MUSICAL
Christina Applegate, Samantha Who?
America Ferrera, Ugly Betty
Tina Fey, 30 Rock
Debra Messing, The Starter Wife
Mary-Louise Parker, Weeds

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A TELEVISION SERIES – COMEDY OR MUSICAL
Alec Baldwin, 30 Rock
Steve Carell, The Office
Kevin Connolly, Entourage
David Duchovny, Californication
Tony Shalhoub, Monk

BEST MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION
A Raisin in the Sun, ABC
Bernard and Doris, HBO
Cranford, PBS
John Adams, HBO
Recount, HBO

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION
Judi Dench, Cranford
Catherine Keener, An American Crime
Laura Linney, John Adams
Shirley MacLaine, Coco Chanel
Susan Sarandon, Bernard and Doris

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION
Ralph Fiennes, Bernard and Doris
Paul Giamatti, John Adams
Kevin Spacey, Recount
Kiefer Sutherland, 24
Tom Wilkinson, Recount

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS INA SUPPORTING ROLE IN A SERIES, MINI-SERIES, OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION
Eileen Atkins, Cranford
Laura Dern, Recount
Melissa George, In Treatment
Rachel Griffiths, Brothers & Sisters
Dianne Wiest, In Treatment

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A SERIES, MINI-SERIES, OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION
Neil Patrick Harris, How I Met Your Mother
Denis Leary, Recount
Jeremy Piven, Entourage
Blair Underwood, In Treatment
Tom Wilkinson, John Adams

Guess who's back

2009-01-05T12:23:00.002-05:00

Really, who else could it be?

I took a major break from the blog and from many other forms of compulsion in my life, but now I've decided to plunge back in.

I took an even longer break from writing down and reviewing my monthly reads. It was making me cranky (OK, crankier than normal) and hyper-critical of everything I read. But not reviewing didn't make what I was reading any better, so I might as well start keeping records again.

Also, award season is upon us, so that got me motivated as well.

So buckle your seatbelts.

My entire existence has now been justified.

2008-06-20T12:43:00.001-04:00

Sarcasm Seen as Evolutionary Survival Skill

Librarians' Internet Index

2008-02-15T15:32:00.000-05:00

Read This Online : http://lii.org/cs/lii/print/news/136
Subscribe to our RSS Feed : http://lii.org/pub/htdocs/understandingrss.htm
Manage Your Email Subscription : http://lii.org/pub/htdocs/subscribe.htm
Browse the New This Week Archive : http://lii.org/cs/lii/query/q/54

AltWeeklies.com
2008 Presidential CampaignCompilation of news stories and commentary concerning the 2008 U.S. presidential election, from more than 100 alternative U.S. and Canadian newsweeklies. Entries include headline, brief story summary, author, publication, and option to email the stories. Also includes links to the full stories. Listed chronologically. From the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies.
URL TRUNCATED, SEE LII ITEM
LII Item: http://lii.org/cs/lii/view/item/25408

Copyright 2007 by Librarians' Internet Index.

Neat and New

2008-02-15T15:18:00.000-05:00

Neat New Stuff I Found This Week
http://marylaine.com/neatnew.html
Copyright, Marylaine Block, 1999-2008.

Academy Award-Winning Cartoons/Short Subjects on YouTube
http://m-matos.blogspot.com/2008/02/academy-award-winners-for-cartoonshort.html
These are among the awards that we're least likely to have seen, so it's handy to have this cheat sheet to the ones that have been mounted on YouTube.

BirdCentral
http://birdcentral.net/index.htm
A good place for birdlovers, with photos and natural history of birds from the conmtinental United States, a glossary, ideas and lesson plans for grades 5-12, pictorial essays on birdwatching trips, and more.

Hairstylesdesign.com
http://www.hairstylesdesign.com/
The hairstyle galleries may help you find young men and women find a great hairdo before a visit to the stylist. Choose from men's or women's, short, medium, or long, formal or celebrity styles. Also check out galleries from Oscar and MTV award shows. There's not much here for older customers, though.

Top 25 Web 2.0 Search Engines
http://oedb.org/library/features/top-25-web20-search-engines
Engines that use Web 2.0 technologies to improve relevance. "Some offer functionality that's slowly making its way into traditional search engines. Others further the attempt to traverse the invisible Web and index other previously unsearchable research sources."

Alternate Grammys: The Best CDs of 2007

2008-02-12T16:05:00.000-05:00

Posted to the Entertainment blog of The Huffington Post
by Michael Giltz

Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, 100 Days 100 Nights (classic soul)
Various Artists, The Great Debaters Soundtrack (juke joint music)
Patty Griffin, Children Running Through (career-capping Americana)
Radiohead, In Rainbows (the world-conqueringg pop they were born to make)
Tinariwen, Aman Iman: Water Is Life (desert rock)
Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, Raising Sand (adult pop)
The White Stripes, Icky Thump (bluesy, stomping rock n roll)
Terence Blanchard, A Tale of God's Will (a requiem for Katrina, melancholic jazz)
Jonny Greenwood, There Will Be Blood (spooky, spinetingling score)
Steve Earle, Washington Square Serenade (country and folk pop)
Suzanne Vega, Beauty & Crimes (country and folk pop)
Jamie T, Panic Prevention (Brit rap)
Livesavas, Gutterfly (70s funk fantasia)
Amy Winehouse, Back to Black (bruised retro soul)
Arcade Fire, Neon Bible (art rock a la Talking Heads)
Andy Bey, Ain't Necessarily So (searching jazz vocals)
Fountains of Wayne, Traffic and Weather (pure pop)
Rox Sexsmith, Time Being (purer pop)
Tabu Ley Rochereau, The Voice of Lightness (flating, Al Green-like world music)
The Feeling, Twelve Stops and Home (70s AM radio)
The Fratellis, Costello Music (raucous rock)
Teddy Thompson, Upfront & Down Low (dignified country classics)
Richard Thompson, Sweet Warrior (sterling rock)
Linda Thompson, Versatile Heart (delicate folk pop)
Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni ba, Segu Blue (irrestible world music for people mourning Ali Farka)
Herbie Hancock, River: The Joni Letters (Mitchell done proud via jazz)
Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, Ray Price, Last of the Breed (country summit)
Levon Helm, Dirt Farmer (Lazarus-like revival)
Porter Wagoner, Wagonmaster (classy send-off)
Arctic Monkeys, Favourite Worst Nightmare (jagged Brit pop)
Kaiser Chiefs, Yours Truly, Angry Mob (spiky but smooth Brit pop)
Various Artists, The Roots of Chica - Psychedlic Cumbias from Peru (garage rock via South America)
Common, Finding Forever (rap for adults)
Stephen Fretwell, Man on the Roof (unheralded UK folk-pop)
Betty LaVette, The Scene of the Crime (steeped in wisdom soul)
Mary Weiss, Dangerous Games (old school pop, happily)
Josh Ritter, The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter (literate folk pop with smile)
Andy Palacio & The Garifuna Collective, Watina (beautiful, vanishing tradition)
Puerto Plata, Mujer de Cabaret (beautiful, vanishing tradition)
The Hives, The Black and White Album (confident, swaggering rock)
David Bromberg, Try Me One More Time (grizzled old white man blues)
John Hammond, Push Comes to Shove (grizzled old white man blues)
Watermelon Slim & The Workers, The Wheel Men (the blues, you fool)
Robert Wyatt, Comicopera (eccentric pop-jazz thingamajig)
The Real Tuesday Weld, The London Book of the Dead (sneakily ambitious retro pop)
Joan Armatrading, Into the Blues (do call it a comeback)
The Magic Numbers, Those the Brokes (disappointing but good)
Darren Hayes, This Delicate Thing We've Made (good but disappointing)
Bruce Springsteen with the Sessions Band, Live in Dublin (party in the barn music)
Nicole Atkins, Neptune City (brooding, Oribison-like pop)
Sergio & Odair Assad, Jardim Abandonado (telepathic classical guitar)
Raul Malo, After Hours (countrypolitan with velvet vocals)
Various Artists, Company Original Broadway Cast 2007 (Sondheim, passionately)
Kelly Willis, Translated from Love (country, smartly)
Panda Bear, Person Pitch (Brian Wilson on LSD, if that's not redundant)
Over the Rhine, Snow Angels (Christmas rock for NPR listeners)
Jens Lekman, Night Falls over Kortedala (Magnetic Fields via Sweden)
Ian Hunter, Shrunken Heads (cock rock)
Beirut, The Flying Cup Club
Juanes, La Vida (fist-shaking rock)
The Holmes Brothers, State of Grace (master class in the blues)
Glen Hansard and Markets Irglvoa, The Sweel Season (you know - those great songs from Once)
Ryan Adams and the Cardinals, Follow the Lights (Americana, again)
John Corigilano, Music for String Quartets (American classical)
Dee Dee Bridgewater, Red EAth: A Malian Journey (jazz meets Mali)
Abbey Lincoln, Abbey Sings Abbey (astringent jazz)
The Donnas, Bitchin' (dumb, fun as hell 80s rock)

Five books to help you become a chef

2008-02-12T15:59:00.000-05:00

Posted on Salon on December 4, 2007
by Alex Koppelman

James Peterson, Cooking: 600 Recipes, 1500 Photographs, One Kitchen Education
Peter Hertzmann, Knife Skills Illustrated
Mark Bittman, How to Cook Everything Vegetarian: Simple Meatless Recipes for Great Food
Cecilia Chiang with Lisa Weiss, The Seventh Daughter: My Culinary Journey from Beijing to San Francisco
David Remnick, Secret Ingredients: The New Yorker Book of Food and Drink

Academy Award Nominations

2008-02-12T11:28:00.000-05:00

Performance by an actor in a leading role
George Clooney, Michael Clayton
Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood
Johnny Depp, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Tommy Lee Jones, In the Valley of Elah
Viggo Mortensen, Eastern Promises

Performance by an actor in a supporting role
Casey Affleck, The Assissination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Javier Bardem, No Country for Old Men
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Charlie Wilson's War
Hal Holbrook, Into the Wild
Tom Wilkinson, Michael Clayton

Performance by an actress in a leading role
Cate Blanchett, Elizabeth: The Golden Age
Julie Christie, Away from Her
Marion Cotillard, La Vie en Rose
Laura Linney, The Savages
Ellen Page, Juno

Performance by an actress in a supporting role
Cate Blanchett, I'm Not There
Ruby Dee, American Gangster
Saoirse Ronan, Atonement
Amy Ryan, Gone Baby Gone
Tilda Swinton, Michael Clayton

Best animated feature film of the year
Persepolis
Ratatouille
Surf's Up

Achievement in art direction
American Gangster, Arthur Max, Art Direction; Beth A. Rubino, Set Decoration
Atonement, Sarah Greenwood, Art Direction; Katie Spencer, Set Decoration
The Golden Compass, Dennis Gassner, Art Direction; Anna Pinnock, Set Decoration
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Dante Ferretti, Art Direction; Francesca Lo Schiavo, Set Decoration
There Will Be Blood, Jack Fisk, Art Direction; Jim Erickson, Set Decoration

Achievement in cinematography
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Roger Deakins
Atonement, Seamus McGarvey
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Janusz Kaminski
No Country for Old Men, Roger Deakins
There Will Be Blood, Robert Elswit

Achievement in costume design
Across the Universe, Albert Wolsky
Atonement, Jacqueline Durran
Elizabeth: The Golden Age, Alexandra Byrne
La Vie en Rose, Marit Allen
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Colleen Atwood

Achievement in directing
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Julian Schnabel
Juno, Jason Reitman
Michael Clayton, Tony Gilroy
No Country for Old Men, Joel Coen and Ethan Coen
There Will Be Blood, Paul Thomas Anderson

Best documentary feature
No End in Sight, Charles Ferguson and Audrey Marrs (Analyst and scholar Charles Ferguson examines the process behind the Bush Administration's decision to invade Iraq in 2003. Evidence of errors in judgment, ignored intelligence information, and a lack of any follow-up plan on the part of those in the government who orchestrated the invasion are presented within the context of the history of U.S./Iraq relations.)
Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience, Richard E. Robbins (The experiences of Iraq War veterans are seen through their writings, accompanied by news footage and photographs. Eleven men and women who have served in the conflict chronicle the war and its effect on their lives in their letters and journals, and through works of fiction and poetry, while interviews with veterans of other wars express the common themes of all soldier's lives.)
Sicko, Michael Moore and Meghan O'Hara (Michael Moore's look at American health care explores the reasons behind the adoption of a for-profit system and profiles individuals whose lack of proper care and battles with insurance companies have drastically affected their lives. Moore compares the U.S. system unfavorably with the free, government-sponsored systems in other countries as he takes a group of Americans to Cuba to seek treatments they were unable to obtain at home.)
Taxi to the Dark Side, Alex Gibney and Eva Orner (The case of an Afghan taxi driver beaten to death in 2002 while in U.S. military custody forms the heart of this examination of the abuses committed during the detainment and interrogation of political prisoners. When New York Times reporter Carlotta Gall investigates the death of cab driver Dilawar--officially declared by the military to be from natural causes--she uncovers incontrovertible evidence to the contrary.)
War/Dance, Andrea Nix Fine and Sean Fine (Chief among the victims of the ongoing warfare in northern Ugandan are the country's children. Three students in the Patongo refugee camp, all victims of terrible violence and losses, nevertheless prepare to enter a music competition that offers them a lifeline of hope. For Nancy, Rose, and Dominic, a former child soldier, the contest provides a welcome respite from the desperate circumstances of their daily lives.)

Best documentary short subject
Freeheld, Cynthia Wade and Vanessa Roth (Facing death from cancer, Detective Lieutenant Laurel Hester of the New Jersey Police Department spends the final year of her life fighting a policy that will not allow her to transfer her pension to her domestic partner, Stacie Andree.)
La Corona (The Crown), Amanda Micheli and Isabel Vega (In a women's prison in Bogotá, Colombia, the inmates compete in an annual beauty pageant. Four prisoners are profiled as they prepare for the contest; an unusual manifestation of a national obsession.)
Salim Baba, Tim Sternberg and Francisco Bello (Using a hand-cranked 1897 projector, Salim Muhammad offers his neighbors in the slums of Kolkata, India, a chance to view scraps of films. Although collectors have sought to buy his rare projector, Salim refuses to part with it, as his street shows are often the only films the local residents can afford to see.)
Sari's Mother, James Longley (On a farm in central Iraq, a mother struggles to care for her ten-year-old son, Sari, who is dying of AIDS. As the boy's condition worsens, his mother must deal with a health care system that has fallen into chaos under the American occupation.)

Achievement in film editing
The Bourne Ultimatum, Christopher Rouse
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Juliette Welfing
Into the Wild, Jay Cassidy
No Country for Old Men, Roderick Jaynes
There Will Be Blood, Dylan Tichenor

Best foreign language film of the year
Beaufort, Isreal (In the days leading up to Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000, the soldiers stationed at the mountaintop outpost of Beaufort live under a barrage of constant attacks. Frustrated by the knowledge that they are risking--and often losing--their lives in defense of a fortress that will soon be abandoned, the men struggle to do their duty while grieving for their dead comrades and preparing for the evacuation.)
The Counterfeiters, Austria (In the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, a group of prisoners with skills ranging from finance to forgery are put to work under the direction of a master counterfeiter manufacturing perfect replicas of foreign bank notes. As the Nazis plot to cause the collapse of the U.S. and British economies by flooding their markets with false bills, some of the prisoners use delaying tactics to forestall the plan.)
Katyn, Poland (This account of the events surrounding the 1940 massacre of captured Polish army officers in the Katyn Forest focuses on the story of a captain and his wife, who refuses to believe he is dead. A gesture of friendship within the harsh confines of the prison camp where Andrzej and his fellow officers are held will result in the mistaken identification that helps keep his wife's hopes alive.)
Mongol, Kazakhstan (In twelfth-century Mongolia, nine-year-old Temudgin, who will grow up to become the warrior known as Genghis Khan, must flee his home shortly after choosing the spirited Borte as his bride when his father is murdered and a rival seizes power. With the help of his blood brother, tribal prince Jamukha, the adult Temudgin battles his rivals and works to unite the region's warring clans under his authority.)
12, Russia (Twelve Russian jurors deciding the fate of a young Chechen accused of murdering his adoptive Russian father go over the details of the case in the school gymnasium that is serving as their jury room. As they argue with each other while struggling to reach a verdict, illustrating their views with stories from their own lives, the case itself becomes a metaphor for the problems plaguing modern Russian society.)

Achievement in makeup
La Vie en Rose, Didier Lavergne and Jan Archibald
Norbit, Rick Baker and Kazuhiro Tsuji
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, Ve Neill and Martin Samuel

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original score)
Atonement, Dario Marianelli
The Kite Runner, Alberto Iglesias
Michael Clayton, James Newton Howard
Ratatouille, Michael Giacchino
3:10 to Yuma, Marco Beltrami

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original song)
"Falling Slowly", Once - Music and Lyric by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova
"Happy Working Song", Enchanted - Music by Alan Menken, Lyric by Stephen Schwartz
"Raise It Up", August Rush - Music and Lyric by Jamal Joseph, Charles Mack, and Tevin Thomas
"So Close", Enchanted - Music by Alan Menken, Lyric by Stephen Schwartz
"That's How You Know", Enchanted - Music by Alan Menken, Lyric by Stephen Schwartz

Best motion picture of the year
Atonement
Juno
Michael Clayton
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood

Best animated short film
I Met the Walrus, Josh Raskin (In 1969, fourteen-year-old Jerry Levitan snuck into John Lennon's hotel room with his tape recorder and persuaded him to do an interview.)
Madame Tutli-Putli, Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski (A timid woman boards a mysterious night train and has a series of frightening experiences.)
Meme les Pigeons Vont au Paradis (Even Pigeons Go to Heaven), Samuel Tourneux and Simon Vanesse (A priest tries to sell an old man a machine that he promises will transport him to heaven.)
My Love (Moya Lyubov), Alexander Petrov (In nineteenth-century Russia, a teenage boy in search of love is drawn to two very different women.)
Peter & the Wolf, Suzie Templeton and Hugh Welchn (A young boy and his animal friends face a hungry wolf in Prokofiev's classic musical piece.)

Best live action short film
At Night, Christian E. Christansen and Louise Vesth (Three young women share their problems while spending the holidays in a hospital cancer ward.)
Il Suppiente (The Substitute), Andrea Jublin (The arrival of an unusual newcomer galvanizes the students in a high school classroom.)
Le Mozart des Pickpockets (The Mozart of Pickpockets), Philippe Pollet-Villard (A pair of unlucky thieves find their fortunes have changed when they take in a deaf homeless boy.)
Tanghi Argentini, Guido Thys and Anja Daelemans (A man who must learn to dance the tango in two weeks asks an office colleague for help.)
The Tonto Woman, Daniel Barber and Matthew Brown (A cattle rustler meets a woman who is living in isolation after being held prisoner for eleven years by the Mojave Indians.)

Achievement in sound editing
The Bourne Ultimatum, Karen Baker Landers and Per Hallberg
No Country for Old Men, Skip Lievsay
Ratatouille, Randy Thom and Michael Silvers
There Will Be Blood, Matthew Wood
Transformers, Ethan Van der Ryan and Mike Hopkins

Achievement in sound
The Bourne Ultimatum, David Parker and Kirk Francis
No Country for Old Men, Skip Lievsay, Craig Berkey, Greg Orlogg, and Peter Kurland
Ratatouille, Michael Semanick and Doc Kane
3:10 to Yuma, Paul Massey, David Giammarco, and Jim Stuebe
Transformers, Kevin O'Connell, Greg P. Russell, and Peter J. Devlin

Achievement in visual effects
The Golden Compass, Michael Fink, Bill Westenhofer, Ben Morris, and Trevor Wood
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, John Knoll, Hal Hickel, Charles Gibson, and John Frazier
Transformers, Scott Farrar, Scott Benza, Russell Earl, and John Frazier

Adapted screenplay
Atonement, Christopher Hampton
Away from Her, Sarah Polley
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Ronald Harwood
No Country for Old Men, Joel Coen and Ethan Coen
There Will Be Blood, Paul Thomas Anderson

Original screenplay
Juno, Diablo Cody
Lars and the Real Girl, Nancy Oliver
Michael Clayton, Tony Gilroy
Ratatouille, Screenplay by Brad Bird; Story by Jan Pinkava, Jim Capobianco, and Brad Bird
The Savages, Tamara Jenkins

Items of interest

2008-02-11T16:04:00.000-05:00

Music: Southern Culture on the Skids, Countrypolitan Favorites
Music: Bettye Lavette, Scene of the Crime
Music: Mavis Staples, We'll Never Turn Back
Music: Galactic, From the Corner to the Block

Jan Yolen, The Wizard's Map
Bill Bryan, Keep It Real
Petra Hammesfahr, Sinner
Alex Carr, An Accidental American
Gregg Hurwitz, The Crime Writer
John Shannon, The Dark Streets
Ray Banks, Donkey Punch
Michael Marshall, The Intruders
Michael Dirda, Classics for Pleasure
Michael Pryor, Heart of Gold
Ron van der Meer, How Many? Spectacular Paper Sculptures
David A. Carter, 600 Black Spots
Karin Fossum, The Indian Bride
Chris Mooney, The Missing
Anthony Horowitz, Stormbreaker (Alex Rider Adventure Series)
Catherine Jinks, Evil Genius
Shane Gericke, Cut to the Bone
Gerald Seymour, Rat Run
Kevin Wignall, For the Dogs
Tom Piccirilli, The Fever Kill
Steve Mosby, The 50/50 Killer
Susan Hill, The Various Haunts of Men
Richard Scrimger, From Charlie's Point of View
Kaui Hart Hemmings, The Descendants
Jane Smiley, Ten Days in the Hills
Per Petterson, Out Stealing Horses
Christian Jungersen, The Exception
Liz Williams, Snake Agent
Scott Thorpe, How to Think Like Einstein
Steven Pressfield, War of Art (Winning the Inner Creative Battle)
Tim Maleeny, Stealing the Dragon
Margaret Yorke, The Price of Guilt
Margo Rabb, Cures for Heartbreak
Laurie Colwin, A Big Storm Knocked It Over
Peter Walsh, It's All too Much
Bertrand R. Brinley, The Mad Scientists' Club
Trudi Canavan, The High Lord
Robert Eversz, Zero to the BoneLynn Flewelling, The Bone Doll's Twin
Robin McKinley, The Blue Sword, The Hero and the Crown
Kathe Koja, The Blue Mirror
Laurie Haise Anderson, Speak
Kristopher Reisz, Tripping to Somewhere, Unleashed
Loree Griffin Burns, Tracking Trash
Caro Ramsay, Absolution

website: Jen Robinson's book page

Richard Kunzmann, Salamander Cotton
Peter May, The Firemaker
Jakob Arjouni, Kismet
Simon Lewis, Bad Traffic
Stieg Larsson, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
David Lubar, Hidden Talents
Sherril Jaffe, Ground Rules: What I Learned My Daughter's Fifteenth Year
Chuck Thompson, Smile When You're Lying: Confessions of a Rogue Travel Writer
Eric Weiner, The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World
Beth Lisick, Helping Me Help Myself
Lynda LaPlante, Clean Cut (Third book in Anna Travis Series; Above Suspicion, The Red Dahlia)
Charlie Stella, Shakedown
Elizabeth Hand, Generation Loss
Eoin Colfer, Half-Moon Investigations
William Stafford, Every War Has Two Losers: William Stafford on Peace and War
Xiaolu Guo, A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers
T. R. Pearson, Off for the Sweet Hereafter, Cry Me a River
Cory Mitchell, Strangler
Jonathan Hayes, Precious Blood
Dr. Judith Beck, The Beck Diet Solution: Train Your Brain to Think Like a Thin Person
Cory Doctorow, Little Brother
F. Paul Wilson, Jack: Secret Histories
Sophie Hannah, The Point of Rescue
Jo Nesbo, The Redbreast
Jessica Mann, The Mystery Writer
J. J. Marric, Gideon's Fire
James L. Swanson, Manhunt: The Twelve-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer
Steve Martin, Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life
Jorg Fauser, The Snowman
Michael Morpurgo, I Believe in Unicorns
John Shannon, The Devils of Bakersfield
George MacDonald Fraser, Flashman and the Tiger
Dawn Powell, Dance Night, Come Back to Sorrento
Manda Scott, The Crystal Skull

TV: Intelligence, by Chris Haddock

Alex Carr, The Accidental American, The Prince of Bagram Prison
Felicia Pearson and David Ritz, Grace after Midnight: A Memoir
Brian Selznick, The Invention of Hugo Cabret
John Sandford, Phantom Prey
Sean Chercover, Trigger City
Lee Child, Nothing to Lose
Geraldine McCaughrean, The White Darkness
John Rickards, The Darkness Inside
Castle Freeman, Go With Me
Maureen Carter, Hard Time
Frode Grytten, The Shadow in the River
Barbara Seuling, Cows Sweat Through Their Noses: And Other Freaky Facts about Animal Habits, Characteristics, and Homes
Richard Yates, Revolutionary Road
Rachel Pastan, Lady of the Snakes
Ted Bishop, Riding with Rilke
Jim Fusilli, Marly Z and the Bloodstained Violin

*Available at the New Hanvoer County Public Library

Neat and New

2008-02-11T14:50:00.000-05:00

Neat New Stuff I Found This Week
http://marylaine.com/neatnew.html
Copyright, Marylaine Block, 1999-2008.
To subscribe, fill out the form at http://marylaine.com/subscrib.html

25 Things You Should Never Put on a Resume - HR World http://www.hrworld.com/features/25-things-not-to-put-on-resume-121807/
Good advice for jobseekers, from human resource experts.

Inside Iraq - Blog
http://washingtonbureau.typepad.com/iraq/
Anyone who wonders what daily life in Iraq is like these days should take a look at the firsthand accounts of McClatchy Newspapers' Iraqi journalists, based in Baghdad and outlying provinces.

Music News Toolkit: 50+ Links for Discovering New Music http://mashable.com/2007/09/20/music-news/
Includes sites that specialize in specific types of music, and sites that try to match your tastes based on your favorite artists, songs, and playlists.

Big Think
http://www.bigthink.com/
A searchable archive of "hundreds of hours of direct, unfiltered interviews with today's leading thinkers, movers and shakers." Browsable by the experts' names, and by categories like science & technology, truth & justice, faith & beliefs, media & the press, etc. Mashable calls it "YouTube for smartypants."

BrainBashers: Puzzles and Brain Teasers
http://www.brainbashers.com/
Keep your brain entertained and agile with puzzles, games, optical illusions, fun facts, and odd words (I know a number of people to whom "Ipsedixitism - the practice of dogmatic assertion" - applies.)

LISJobs Forum
http://lisjobs.com/forum/
Rachel Singer Gordon has added message boards to enable people to share tips and knowledge about the jobhunting process, individual libraries, job postings, professional development, salaries, LIS programs, etc.

Rules of Thumb
http://rulesofthumb.org/
Aims to "gather every rule of thumb on earth into one gargantuan, easily searchable online reference database that will be accessible from anywhere in the world and continue to grow forever." Searchable and browsable by 151 categories. You can vote rules out of the collection. Librarians, what do you think of this one: "a bookstore needs to stock a minimum of 10,000 books to have any hope of having what people ask for."

Greener Buildings Resource Center
http://www.greenerbuildings.com/
Anyone planning a green building, addition, or adaptive reuse of an existing building, can start here for backgrounders on all the issues involved (building materials, energy and water use, waste management, etc.), case studies, tools and resources, news, and more.

Librarians' Internet Index

2008-02-11T14:33:00.000-05:00

Read This Online : http://lii.org/cs/lii/print/news/131
Subscribe to our RSS Feed : http://lii.org/pub/htdocs/understandingrss.htm
Manage Your Email Subscription : http://lii.org/pub/htdocs/subscribe.htm
Browse the New This Week Archive : http://lii.org/cs/lii/query/q/54

Catalog Choice
This is "a free service that lets you decline paper catalogs you no longer wish to receive." Register and select catalogs to opt out of receiving, rather than sending or calling individual merchants. Includes a place to report merchants who do not honor mailing list removal services, a FAQ and privacy statement, quick facts about the impact of paper catalogs, a blog, and information for merchants. A project of the Ecology Center.
URL: http://www.catalogchoice.org/
LII Item: http://lii.org/cs/lii/view/item/25211

Green Guide
"Dubbed the 'green living source for today's conscious consumer,' the Green Guide makes living in an environmentally-aware way easy, understandable, and practical." The site features product reviews (for items such as shoes, appliances, bedding, cosmetics, household cleaning supplies, personal care items, and pest control techniques), lists of ingredients to avoid, articles (such as on what happens to donated clothes), videos, blogs, and more. Also includes information about the associated print publication. From National Geographic.
URL: http://www.thegreenguide.com/
LII Item: http://lii.org/cs/lii/view/item/25250

Simply Soups: The Ultimate Comfort Food
"There's something extremely satisfying about a hot, bubbling pot of soup on the stove on a cold winter's night." Use this site to find dozens of recipes for broths and stocks, chilis, chowders, cream and cheese soups, onion soups, and vegetable and meat soups. Also includes recipes for dessert soups, fruit soups, and a listing of cold soups.
URL: http://www.simplysoups.com/
LII Item: http://lii.org/cs/lii/view/item/25242

American Library Association: ALA Wikis
Compilation of wikis (collaboratively produced and edited content) from American Library Association (ALA) sections and groups (such as the Association for Library Services to Children and the International Relations Round Table). Also includes wikis from ALA conferences and symposiums, exhibitions, and specific programs, and reference and background material. An RSS feed is available for recent changes to most of the wikis. From the ALA.
URL: http://wikis.ala.org/readwriteconnect/index.php/ALA_wikis
LII Item: http://lii.org/cs/lii/view/item/25131

Plug Into eCycling: Recycle Your Cell Phone
Background and details about this U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) initiative, launched in early 2008, to encourage cell phone recycling. "[D]espite the large number of programs, most consumers still do not know where or how they can recycle their cell phones. Consequently, less than 20 percent of unwanted cell phones are recycled each year." Includes a fact sheet and podcast, places to drop off and mail in cell phones, and related material. From the EPA.
URL: http://www.epa.gov/cellphone/
LII Item: http://lii.org/cs/lii/view/item/25245

Get Lost: Artists Map Downtown New York
"Get Lost is a collective portrait of downtown New York. Twenty-one international artists were invited to create a personal view of the city and draw a map of downtown New York, uncovering a territory that is both real and imaginary. ... Get Lost brings together fictional landscapes, utopian visions, private memories, and obsessive instructions to explore Manhattan, its past, present, and future." Browse by artist. From the New Museum, New York.
URL: http://www.newmuseum.org/assets/general/getlost/
LII Item: http://lii.org/cs/lii/view/item/25262

Inscribing Meaning: Writing + Graphic Systems in African Art
This exhibition "explores the relationships between African art and the communicative powers of language, graphic systems and the written word." Exhibit sections cover body art, sacred aspects of graphic inscription, political writing, artists' books, and related topics. Includes learning activities and suggested reading. Developed by the National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, in association with the Fowler Museum at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
URL: http://africa.si.edu/exhibits/inscribing/index2.html
LII Item: http://lii.org/cs/lii/view/item/24236

Thousand Kisses: Love Letters From the Archives of American Art
"This selection of affectionate communiqués to and from American artists [such as Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, Joan Mitchell, and Michael Goldberg] gives us insight into the lives of painters, sculptors, illustrators, and others -- their relationships, perceptions, and creative energies -- from the mid-19th century to the late 20th." A companion to a 2008 physical exhibit at the Smithsonian Archives of American Art.
URL TRUNCATED, SEE LII ITEM
LII Item: http://lii.org/cs/lii/view/item/25362

Copyright 2007 by Librarians' Internet Index.

January reads

2008-02-01T14:17:00.000-05:00

Stephen Sondheim: A Life
by Meryle Secrest
I got this book for research for work, intending to only read the parts on Company. Instead, I read the entire book. A fascinating look at a true genius – with a screwed up childhood to boot.

The Year of the Goat: 40,000 Miles and the Quest for the Perfect Cheese
by Margaret Hathaway
The story of a New York couple who decided to move to the country and raise dairy goats. They took a year off before starting their farm and did research all across America, and this is the story of their travels. I learned a lot about goats and cheese, and I’m ready to start milking goats right now!

Jar City
by Arnadur Indridason
What a great book. Iceland really comes alive, as does the lead character. Every time I opened this book, I felt like I was falling into it more than reading it.

Voices
by Arnadur Indridason
Another great entry in the series. Highly recommended.

The Chameleon’s Shadow
by Minette Walters
Not as good as her best work, but still a very fast-paced, enjoyable read.

The Crazy School
by Cornelia Read
Not good. I did not enjoy this sloppy, thrown-together book. It’s hard to believe it’s the same author from Field of Darkness. And, in all my southern life, I’ve literally never heard one person refer to another as honey lamb. Barf.

Silence of the Grave
by Arnadur Indridason
My favorite of the three. I really enjoy this series. I hope the death of the translator doesn’t ruin it, because the translation is really great. It’s hard to believe it wasn’t written in English.

Best and Worst Reads of 2007

2008-01-07T11:30:00.000-05:00

Tops:
1) Diana Abu-Jaber, Origin
2) Nicola Griffith, Always
3) Barry Eisler, Requiem for an Assassin
4) Leonard Chang, Over the Shoulder
5) Sean Chercover, Big City, Bad Blood
6) Jim Butcher, Proven Guilty
7) Matt Ruff, Bad Monkeys
8) Mitchell Smith, Stone City
9) Richard K. Morgan, Altered Carbon
10) Peter Temple, The Broken Shore
11) Patricia Carlon, The Whispering Wall
12) Lee Child, Bad Luck and Trouble

Best Series (cannot pick a best book for top ten, but a great series of reads):
1) J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter
2) Leonard Chang, Allen Choice
3) K. J. A. Wishnia, Filomena Buscarsela
4) Paul Johnston, Quintilian Dalrymple
5) Ken Bruen, The White Trilogy (Brant)

Non-Mystery Tops:
1) Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies
2) Jennifer Weiner, In Her Shoes
3) Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential & A Cook’s Tour
4) Martha Beck, Finding Your Own North Star
5) Ned Vizzini, It’s Kind of a Funny Story

Bottoms:
1) Thomas Zigal, The White League
2) Paul Johnston, The Death List
3) Natasha Cooper, Evil is Done
4) Gordon Campbell, Missing Witness
5) Ruth Rendell, The Water is Lovely
6) Linwood Barclay, No Time for Goodbye
7) John Harvey, Flesh and Blood

Neat and New

2008-01-03T13:59:00.000-05:00

Neat New Stuff I Found This Week
http://marylaine.com/neatnew.html
Copyright, Marylaine Block, 1999-2007.
To subscribe, fill out the form at http://marylaine.com/subscrib.html

100+ Ways To Organize Your Life
http://mashable.com/2007/10/26/100-ways-to-organize-life/
If your new year's resolution is to finally get organized, here's a nice collection of sites to help you do that.

Africa Hit Music TV
http://www.africahit.com/
If you know nothing about African popular music, here's the place to start learning. It offers music, videos, and news.

A Big List of Sites That Teach You How To Do Stuff http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/tutorial_sites.php
And if your new year's resolution was to learn to do something, the sites here are full of videos and expert advice on a wide variety of topics.

Theatre Resources from Artslynx
http://www.artslynx.org/theatre/
Loads of resources here on every topic you can think of and some that might not have occurred to you, including children's theatre, costume design, "fight direction and stage combat," make up, props, and lots more.

World Question Center 2008 Annual Question .
http://www.edge.org/q2008/q08_index.html
The World Question Center asks, and noted thinkers answer, "What have you changed your mind about, and why?" Good question for librarians, too - what service or technology you once rejected have you now embraced? What service or technology you once embraced are you now having reservations about?

Librarians' Internet Index

2008-01-03T13:39:00.000-05:00

Read This Online : http://lii.org/cs/lii/print/news/128
Subscribe to our RSS Feed : http://lii.org/pub/htdocs/understandingrss.htm
Manage Your Email Subscription : http://lii.org/pub/htdocs/subscribe.htm
Browse the New This Week Archive : http://lii.org/cs/lii/query/q/54

Consumer Reports: Best Cell Phone Deals
This consumer article provides suggestions for choosing cell phone providers, following the 2007 national annual survey that "found that fewer than half of respondents were completely or very satisfied" with their cell phone service. Explanations and possible solutions are provided for problems such as poor coverage, unsatisfactory customer service, early termination fees, and mandatory extensions. Note: related articles only available to subscribers. From Consumer Reports.
URL TRUNCATED, SEE LII ITEM
LII Item: http://lii.org/cs/lii/view/item/25053

The United States Mint 50 State Quarters Program
From 1999 to 2008, the U.S. Mint will release a series of specially designed quarters to celebrate the 50 states. Each year, five new coins will be issued in the order of each state's admission to the Union. See the designs, learn about the selection process, and peruse the ten-year schedule of issuance of these historic quarter dollars.
URL TRUNCATED, SEE LII ITEM
LII Item: http://lii.org/cs/lii/view/item/523

job-hunt
The purpose of this website is "to provide the most comprehensive listing of useful Internet-accessible job-search resources and services on the Web." Browse annotated listing of job resources by location and industry or profession, networking resources, and other job and career websites. Includes job-hunting basics and advice. From human resources and career planning professionals.
URL: http://www.job-hunt.org/
LII Item: http://lii.org/cs/lii/view/item/24880

America's Walking: Pedometers
This article provides an overview of the use of a pedometer for fitness walking activities. It discusses how to calibrate a pedometer and use it to record the number of steps walked, with the goal of walking 10,000 steps or more a day for health benefits. Includes a link to more detailed information about the 10,000-step concept. From "America's Walking," a television series and website about walking.
URL: http://www.pbs.org/americaswalking/gear/gearpedometers.html
LII Item: http://lii.org/cs/lii/view/item/25097

Copyright 2007 by Librarians' Internet Index.

November and December reads

2008-01-02T13:32:00.000-05:00

NOVEMBER
A Cook’s Tour
by Anthony Bourdain
My dark love grows and grows. Bourdain’s snarky yet sincere and touched vibe hits me just right. I am such a FAN!

It’s Kind of a Funny Story
by Ned Vizzini
I loved loved loved this YA book. The main character wrestles with real life issues in a very honest way. Unbelievably good. Read it now.

Star Trek: First Contact
by J. M. Dillard
Not as good as the movie – of course – but an engaging way to pass a lazy Sunday afternoon. Plus, the making of the movie chapter at the end was fascinating. Only for fans.

Ha’penny
by Jo Walton
I did not enjoy this as much as the first in the series. It was very similar to the first, in many ways basically a rewrite. There was less history and politics, and more weepy females. Not an improvement.

Finding Your Own North Star
by Martha Beck
Wonderfully written, inspirational, and motivational. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. If I could afford it, I would buy ten copies and pass them out.

Inside
by Kenneth J. Harvey
OK, but not great. An interesting story, written in an interesting style, but it still lacked that special something that makes me want to rave about a book. Still, recommended and original.

Last Rituals
by Yrsa Sigurdardottir
I love foreign settings, and Iceland is no exception. The main character was a little bit of a ninny, but not to bad, and the story and background were fascinating.

Poltergeist
by Kat Richardson
I thought this book was stronger than the first in the series, but my socks still remain on my feet.

DECEMBER
The Quiet Girl
by Peter Hoeg
This is strange; I really enjoyed reading this book, but I had to admit at the end that I really had no idea what was going on. What happened in this book? Why did it happen? Why doesn’t it bother me more that I don’t know the answers to these questions?

Second Shot
by Zoe Sharp
A huge improvement over the first book of hers I read. Fast paced, enjoyable. The romance is irritating, but not too much a part of the action. Highly readable.

The Water is Lovely
by Ruth Rendell
I hated this book. I didn’t start off hating it, which is why I continued to read it, but I really hated it by the end. It’s so annoying when one of the main characters just really needs to be slapped, but because she’s fictional I can’t do it.

Down into Darkness
by David Lawrence
I’m a Stella Mooney fan, and this latest episode is just as delightful as the rest in the series.

The Concrete Maze
by Steven Torres
This book definitely suffered in comparison to the high expectations I had going into it. Yes, some sad stuff happened, but that’s not the same as DARK in my opinion. Very disappointing.

The Chemistry of Death
by Simon Beckett
This book is the reason there is a word like twee.

No Time for Goodbye
by Linwood Barclay
Another profoundly disappointing book with a crappy ending.

The Devil’s Whisper
by Miyuki Miyabe
I love reading about Japan. I love reading about murder in Japan. I loved this strange little book.

Water Like a Stone
by Deborah Crombie
Also a bit twee, but less annoyingly so. Plus Crombie is so much better at creating a whole fascinating world populated with sort-of real people.

D.V.
by Diana Vreeland
Research for work. Diana Vreeland was the editor of both Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue, and we are doing the play about her, Full Gallop. This book is like the unabridged version of the play, and I really enjoyed it. She has a very distinctive voice and is very opinionated.

2008 Golden Globe Nominations

2007-12-13T15:22:00.000-05:00

Best Motion Picture - Drama
American Gangster
Atonement
Eastern Promises
The Great Debaters
Michael Clayton
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood

Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama
Cate Blanchett, Elizabeth: The Golden Age
Julie Christie, Away from Her
Jodie Foster, The Brave One
Angelina Jolie, A Mighty Heart
Keira Knightley, Atonement

Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama
George Clooney, Michael Clayton
Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood
James McAvoy, Atonement
Viggo Mortensen, Eastern Promises
Denzel Washington, American Gangster

Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy
Across the Universe
Charlie Wilson's War
Hairspray
Juno
Sweeney Todd

Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy
Amy Adams, Enchanted
Nikki Blonsky, Hairspray
Helena Bonham Carter, Sweeney Todd
Marion Cotillard, La Vie En Rose
Ellen Page, Juno

Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy
Johnny Depp, Sweeney Todd
Ryan Gosling, Lars and the Real Girl
Tom Hanks, Charlie Wilson's War
Philip Seymour Hoffman, The Savages
John C. Reilly, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture
Cate Blanchett, I'm Not There
Julia Roberts, Charlie Wilson's War
Saoirse Ronan, Atonement
Amy Ryan, Gone Baby Gone
Tilda Swinton, Michael Clayton

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture
Casey Affleck, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Javier Bardem, No Country for Old Men
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Charlie Wilson's War
John Travolta, Hairspray
Tom Wilkinson, Michael Clayton

Best Animated Feature Film
Bee Movie
Ratatouille
The Simpsons Movie

Best Foreign Language Film
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, Romania
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, France & United States
The Kite Runner, United States
Lust, Caution, Taiwan
Persepolis, France

Best Director - Motion Pictures
Tim Burton, Sweeney Todd
Ethan Coen and Joel Coen, No Country for Old Men
Julian Schnabel, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Ridley Scott, American Gangster
Joe Wright, Atonement

Best Screenplay - Motion Picture
Christopher Hampton, Atonement
Aaron Sorkin, Charlie Wilson's War
Ronald Harwood, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Diablo Cody, Juno
Ethan Coen and Joel Coen, No Country for Old Men

Best Original Score - Motion Picture
Clint Eastwood, Grace is Gone
Albert Iglesias, The Kite Runner
Dario Marianelli, Atonement
Howard Shore, Eastern Promises
Eddie Vedder, Michael Vedder, and Kaki Vedder, Into the Wild

Best Original Song - Motion Picture
"Despedida", Love in the Time of Cholera - Music by Shakira and Antonio Pinto, Lyrics by Shakira
"Grace is Gone", Grace is Gone - Music by Clint Eastwood, Lyrics by Carole Bayer Sager
"Guaranteed", Into the Wild - Music and Lyrics by Eddie Vedder
"That's How You Know", Enchanted - Music by Alan Menken, Lyrics by Stephen Schwartz
"Walk Hard", Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story - Music and Lyrics by Judd Apatow, Kasdan, John C. Reilly, and Marshall Crenshaw

Best Television Series - Drama
Big Love
Damages
Grey's Anatomy
House
Mad Men
The Tudors

Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series - Drama
Patricia Arquette, Medium
Glenn Close, Damages
Minnie Driver, The Riches
Edie Falco, The Sopranos
Sally Field, Brothers & Sisters
Holly Hunter, Saving Grace
Kyra Sedgwick, The Closer

Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series - Drama
Michael C. Hall, Dexter
Jon Hamm, Mad Men
Hugh Laurie, House
Bill Paxton, Big Love
Jonahtan Rhys Meyers, The Tudors

Best Television Series - Musical or Comedy
30 Rock
Californication
Entourage
Extras
Pushing Daisies

Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series - Musical or Comedy
Christina Applegate, Samantha Who?
America Ferrera, Ugly Betty
Tina Fey, 30 Rock
Anna Friel, Pushing Daisies
Mary-Louise Parker, Weeds

Best Performances by an Actor in a Television Series - Musical or Comedy
Alec Baldwin, 30 Rock
Steve Carell, The Office
David Duchovny, Californication
Ricky Gervais, Extras
Lee Pace, Pushing Daisies

Best Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
The Company
Five Days
Longford
The State Within

Best Performance by an Actress in a Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television
Bryce Dallas Howard, As You Like It
Queen Latifah, Life Support
Debra Messing, The Starter Wife
Sissy Spacek, Pictures of Hollis Woods
Ruth Wilson, Jane Eyre

Best Performance by an Actor in a Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television
Adam Beach, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
Ernest Borgnine, A Grandpa for Christmas
Jim Broadbent, Longford
Jason Isaacs, The State Within
James Nesbitt, Jekyll

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series, or Motion Picture Made for Television
Rose Byrne, Damages
Rachel Griffiths, Brothers & Sisters
Samantha Morton, Longford
Anna Paquin, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
Jaime Pressly, My Name is Earl

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series, or Motion Picture Made for Television
Ted Danson, Damages
Kevin Dillon, Entourage
Jeremy Piven, Entourage
Andy Serkis, Longford
William Shatner, Boston Legal
Donald Sutherland, Dirty Sexy Money

2008 Independent Spirit Awards - nominations

2007-12-13T15:07:00.000-05:00

Best Feature
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
I'm Not There
Juno
A Mighty Heart
Paranoid Park

Best Director
Todd Haynes, I'm Not There
Tamara Jenkins, The Savages
Jason Reitman, Juno
Julian Schnabel, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Gus Van Sant, Paranoid Park

Best First Feature
2 Days in Paris
Great World of Sound
The Lookout
Rocket Science
Vanaja

John Cassavettes Award (Best Feature made for under $500,000)
August Evening
Owl and the Sparrow
The Pool
Quiet City
Shotgun Stories

Best Screenplay
Ronald Harwood, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Tamara Jenkins, The Savages
Fred Parnes and Andrew Wagner, Starting Out in the Evening
Adrienne Shelly, Waitress
Mike White, Year of the Dog

Best First Screenplay
Jeffrey Blitz, Rocket Science
Zoe Cassavetes, Broken English
Diablo Cody, Judo
Kelly Masterston, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
John Orloff, A Mighty Heart

Best Female Lead
Angelina Jolie, A Mighty Heart
Sienna Miller, Interview
Ellen Page, Juno
Parker Posey, Broken English
Tang Wei, Lust, Caution

Best Male Lead
Pedro Castaneda, August Evening
Don Cheadle, Talk to Me
Philip Seymour Hoffman, The Savages
Frank Langella, Starting Out in the Evening
Tony Leung, Lust, Caution

Best Supporting Female
Cate Blanchett, I'm Not There
Anna Kendrick, Rocket Science
Jennifer Jason Leigh, Margot at the Wedding
Tamara Podemski, Four Sheets to the Wind
Marisa Tomei, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead

Best Supporting Male
Chiwetel Ejiofor, Talk to Me
Marcus Carl Franklin, I'm Not There
Kene Holliday, Great World of Sound
Irrfan Khan, The Namesake
Steve Zahn, Rescue Dawn

Best Cinematography
Mott Hupfel, The Savages
Janusz Kaminski, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Milton Kam, Vanaja
Mihai Malaimare, Jr., Youth Without Youth
Rodrigo Prieto, Lust, Caution

Best Documentary
Crazy Love
Lake of Fire
Manufactured Landscapes
The Monastery
The Prisoner Or: How I Planned to Kill Tony Blair

Best Foreign Film
4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days, Romania
The Band's Visit, Israel
Lady Chatterley, France
Once, Ireland
Persepolis, France

Robert Altman Award (Given to one film's director, casting director, and ensemble
I'm Not There

Items of interest

2007-12-13T14:36:00.000-05:00

Celia Fremlin, The Hours Before Dawn
Carolyn Jessop, Escape
David Michaelis, Schulz and Peanuts
Pat Shipman, To the Heart of the Nile
Sam Ita, Moby-Dick: A Pop-Up Book
Iris Chang, The Rape of Nanking

Carl Jung: "Neuroses are the avoidance of legitimate suffering."

Michael Norman, The Commission
Anthony Lee, Martin Quinn
Kata Flora, Finding Amy
Pat Murphy, Wild Girls
Autumn Cornwell, Carpe Diem
Ralph Fletcher, The One O'Clock Chop
Richard Scrimger, Into the Ravine
Charles de Lint, Promises to Keep
Shauna Cross, Derby Girl
Kingfisher, The Periodic Table: Elements with Style!
Susan Hill, The Various Haunts of Men
Simon Beckett, The Chemistry of Death
Clive Barker, Abarat
L. A. Meyer, Bloody Jack: Being an Account of the Curious Adventures of Mary "Jacky" Faber, Ship's Boy
Patrick Carman, Atherton: The House of Power
Nancy Redd, Body Drama
Richard Kunzmann, Salamander Cotton
James Church, Hidden Moon
David Peace, Tokyo Year Zero
Christopher Cook, Robbers
Robert Townsend, Up the Organization
Steven Torres, Concrete Maze
Michelle Ritchie, It's Not Over Til the Fat Lady Sings
Andrew Wilson, Beautiful Shadow
Laurie Viera Rigler, Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict
Archer Mayor, Chat
Kate Morton, The Shifting Fog
Declan Burke, The Big O
Lillian Stewart Carl, Lucifer's Crown
Sophie Hannah, Little Face
Margaret Hathaway, The Year of the Goat: 40,000 Miles and the Quest for the Perfect Cheese
Tom Parker Bowles, The Year of Eating Dangerously: A Global Adventure in Search of Culinary Extremes
Adrian Hyland, Diamond Dove, apa Moonlight Downs
Jill Bialosky, The Life Room
Nigel Marven, Dinosaurs
David Schwartz and Yael Schy, Where in the Wild?
Jan Mark, The Museum Book: A Guide to Strange and Wonderful Collections
Click
Kirsten Miller, Kiki Strike: Inside the Shadow City, The Empress's Tomb
Justin Richards, The Chaos Code
John Farndon, Do Not Open
"Sir Henry Hardcastle", Explorer: A Daring Guide for Young Adventurers

*Available at the New Hanover County Public Library

Items of interest

2007-12-13T14:06:00.000-05:00

Mari Jungstedt, Unspoken
David Yeadon, Seasons on Harris: A Year in Scotland's Outer Hebrides
Robert Lewis, Swansea Terminal
Michael Powell, A Life in Movies, Million-Dollar Movie

Film: Peeping Tom

Christopher Barzak, One for Sorrow
Mark Svendsen, Circus Carnivore
Richard Zoglin, Comedy at the Edge
Emma Bull, War for the Oaks
Charlotte Armstrong, A Dram of Poison

John F. Kennedy, "I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute - where no Catholic prelate would tell the President (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would teel his parishioners for whom to vote, where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the president who might appoint him or the people might elect him. I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish - where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source, where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all."

Peter Corris, Masters Mates
Kevin Davis, Defending the Damned

Series: Aline Templeton, Cold in the Earth, The Darkness of the Deep, Lying Dead

Gianrico Carofiglio, Reasonable Doubts
Mike Carey, The Devil You Know,
Charles de Lint, Dreams Underfoot, Memory and Dream
Neil Gaiman, Neverwhere
China Mieville, Un Lun Dun
Tom Piccirilli, The Fever Kill
Craig McDonald, Head Games
Matt Marinovich, Strange Skies
Chuck Palahniuk, Fugitives and Refugees: A Walk in Portland, Oregon
Joshua Henkin, Matrimony
Mark Harris, Grave Matters
Gerald Butler, Kiss the Blood off My Hands

Top 20 Irish Crime Novels
Seamus Smyth, Quinn
Ken Bruen, The Guards
Adrian McKinty, Dead I Well May Be
Ingrid Black, The Dead
John Connolly, Every Dead Thing
John Kelly, The Polling of the Dead
Gene Kerrigan, Little Criminals
Colin Bateman, Divorcing Jack
Julie Parsons, The Guilty Heart
Patrick McGinley, Bogmail
Vincent Banville, Death the Pale Rider
Patrick McCabe, The Butcher Boy
Flann O'Brien, The Third Policeman
Edna O'Brien, In the Forest
Brian Moore, The Colour of Blood
K. T. McCaffrey, Revenge
Liam O'Flaherty, The Assassin
Eoin McNamee, Resurrection Man
T. S. O'Rourke, Death Call
John Brady, A Carra King

Philip Pullman, A Tiger in the Well

George Orwell, in response to Auden's line about "necessary murder": "It could only be written by a person to whom murder is at most a word. Personally I would not speak so lightly of murder. It so happens that I have seen the bodies of numbers of murdered men....therefore, I have some conception of what murder means...the terror, the hatred, the howling relatives, the post-mortems, the blood, the smells. To me, murder is something to be avoided. So it is to any ordinary person...Mr. Auden's brand of amoralism in only possible, if you are the kind of person who is always somewhere else when the trigger is pulled. So much of left-wing thought is the kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot."

Edwidge Danticat, Brother, I'm Dying
The Kingdom of Bones
Kenneth J. Harvey, Inside
Phoebe Damrosch, Service Included: Four-Star Secrets of an Eavesdropping Waiter
Michael Gates Gill, How Starbucks Saved My Life: A Son of Privilege Learns to Live Like Everyone Else
Elyse Schein, Indentical Strangers: A Memoir of Twins Separated and Reunited
Kevin Wignall, Who is Conrad Hirst?
Sarah Langan, The Keeper, The Missing
Rough Guides, Make the Most of Your Time on Earth
Peter Corris, Master Mates
Stieg Larsson, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Minette Walters, The Chameleon's Shadow
Brett Battles, The Cleaner
Jane Goodall, The Calling
Kevin Davis, Defending the Damed
Laws of Magic series - Blaze of Glory, Heart of Gold
Garth Nix, Old Kingdom trilogy - Sabriel, Lirael, Abhorsen
Jonathan Stroud, Bartimaeus trilogy
Elena Forbes, Die with Me
George A. Walker, Graphic Witness
James Patrick Hunt, The Betrayers
Miyuki Mayabe, The Devil's Whisper

*Available at the New Hanover County Public Library

Items of interest

2007-12-13T13:32:00.000-05:00

Peter T. Deutermann, Cat Dancers, Spider Mountain
Michael Scott, The Alychemyst
George Saunders, The Braindead Megaphone
Aline Templeton, Shades of Death
Steve Hamilton, Night Work
Michael Marshall, The Intruders
Banker to the Poor
Melinda and Robert Blanchard, Cook What You Love
Esther Perel, Mating in Captivity: Reconciling the Erotic and the Domestic

Music: Josh Ritter, Animal Years, The Historical Conquests
Music: Andy Palacio and the Garfuna Collective
Music: Paolo Conte

Film: After the Wedding

Music: Gloria Estefan, 90 MIllas

Rory Stewart, The Places in Between
Dave White, When One Man Dies
J. T. Ellison, All the Pretty Girls
Rachael King, The Sound of Butterflies
Eileen Goudge, Woman in Red
William G. Tapply, Past Tense
Henry Green, Pack My Bag
Keith Ferrazzi, Never Eat Alone
Mary Gordon, Circling My Mother
Chris Womersley, The Low Road
Mark Gimenez, The Abduction
Suzanne Collins, Gregor the Overlander

librarybooklists.org

Ellen Raskin, The Tattooed Potato, Figgs & Phantoms, The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon (I Mean Noel), The Westing Game
Harriet the Spy
Peter Dickinson, Emma Tupper's Diary

YALSA (a library association for teens)

Elizabeth Bear, Whisky and Water - 2nd book in Promethean Age series
Charles de Lint, Trader
Tanya Huff, Smoke and Shadows
Cornelia Funke, Ghosthunters
Irene Spencer, Shattered Dreams: My Life as a Polygamist's Wife
Josh Swiller, The Unheard: A Memoir of Deafness and Africa
Adrian McKinty, The Lighthouse War - 2nd in Lighthouse Trilogy
Mark Gimenez, The Color of Law
Michelle Gagnon, The Tunnels
David L. Post, Nothing to See Here
Minister Faust, From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain
Andrew Meier, Black Earth: A Journey through Russia after the Fall
Ryszard Kapuscinski, Imperium

Documentary: Alix Lambert, The Mark of Cain

Connie Willis, The Winds of Marble
Jennifer Lee Carrell, Interred with Their Bones
Scarlett Thomas, The End of Mr. Y
John Hart, Down River
Lynda La Plante, The Red Dahlia
Saskia Noort, The Dinner Club
Jenny Downham, Before I Die
Linda Spalding, Who Named the Knife
John Elder Robison, Look Me in the Eye
Rudolph Delson, Maynard & Jessica

Music: Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, 100 Days, 100 Nights
Music: Iron and Wine, The Shepard's Dog

Jancee Dunn, But Enough About Me
Craig Davidson, The Fighter
Jesse Ball, Samedi the Deafness
Richard Gwyn, The Color of a Dog Running Away
Jo Walton, Farthing
Margaret Millar, Beast in View
Toni Bentley, The Surrender
David Denby, American Sucker

Music: Steve Earle, Washington Square Serenade

Millard Kaufman, Bowl of Cherries
Adrienne Martini, Hillbilly Gothic: A Memoir of Madness and Motherhood
Kat Richardson, Poltergeist
Liz Williams, Snake Agent
Michael Harvey, The Chicago Way
Tom Schreck, On the Ropes
Sam Reaves, Homicide 69
Steven Erikson, The Malazan Book of the Fallen
Neil Gaimen, American Gods
Scott Lynch, Locke Lamora series
China Mieville, Bas-Lag series
Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind
George R. R. Martin, A Song of Ice and Fire series
Chris Womersley, The Low Road
Sebastien Japrisot, The 10.30 from Marseille
Alice Waters, The Art of Simple Food
Giles Foden, The Last King of Scotland
Ronald Tierney, Asphalt Moon - Deets Shanahan series

John Stuart Mill: "I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it."

Lauren Weedman, A Woman Trapped in a Woman's Body: Tales from a Life of Cringe
Joanne Harris, Gentlemen & Players
Frank Schaeffer, Crazy for God
Stephen Colbert, I Am America (And So Can You)
Jack Cafferty
Wallace Stegner, The Angle of Repose
Larry Nemecek, Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion
Star Trek: Klingon Dictionary
Tom Bissell, The Father of All Things: A Marine, His Son, and the Legacy of Vietnam

*Available at the New Hanover County Public Library

Librarians' Internet Index

2007-12-13T11:58:00.000-05:00

Read This Online : http://lii.org/cs/lii/print/news/124
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Overview of Careers for Stage Technicians
Material about jobs for those who work behind the scenes in live theater performances. Topics include education and certification, earnings, and areas of specialization (management, props, lighting, sound, and costumes). Also includes links to profiles of lighting and wardrobe technicians, and to other related sites. From a career site sponsored by the Office of Career and Technical Education, Virginia Department of Education.
URL TRUNCATED, SEE LII ITEM
LII Item: http://lii.org/cs/lii/view/item/24899

Prosper: The eBay of Loans?
This 2006 article describes a new online financial service that "matches people who need small loans, but can't get them from traditional banks, with willing lenders." These person-to-person loans do not just "provide a new way for individuals to get small loans. It could also turn anyone with a little money into a banker." Discusses how Prosper works, payment processing, and potential problems with defaults. From Business Week.
URL TRUNCATED, SEE LII ITEM
LII Item: http://lii.org/cs/lii/view/item/24862

Stagehand Primer
Description of the activities of unionized theater stagehands. Includes a listing of the technical crew hierarchy, safety information, explanation of different types of theater spaces (such as proscenium and trust stages), and discussions of types of stagehand activities in stage carpentry, scene shop, electrics, sound, video properties, and wardrobe. From IATSE Local 470, the local section of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) labor union in Wisconsin.
URL: http://www.ia470.com/primer/intro.htm
LII Item: http://lii.org/cs/lii/view/item/24897

FamilyFun: Have a Happy Green Holiday
Collection of children's craft activities for Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and New Year's Eve that "give a gift to Mother Earth ... [by turning] holiday and household surplus into festive decorations and eco-friendly packaging." Includes instructions for a bubble packaging advent calendar, new uses for old greeting cards, fabric wrapping (inspired by Japanese furoshiki), and more. From FamilyFun magazine.
URL TRUNCATED, SEE LII ITEM
LII Item: http://lii.org/cs/lii/view/item/24919

Copyright 2007 by Librarians' Internet Index.

Neat and New

2007-12-13T11:47:00.000-05:00

Neat New Stuff I Found This Week
http://marylaine.com/neatnew.html
Copyright, Marylaine Block, 1999-2007.
To subscribe, fill out the form at http://marylaine.com/subscrib.html

150+ Monty Python Sketches
http://onemansblog.com/2006/12/01/a-compendium-of-150-monty-python-sketches/
How nice to have a consolidated list of videos of your favorite Monty Python sketches - Confuse-a-Cat, Ltd., the Ministry of Silly Walks, the Dead Parrot, Upperclass Twit of the Year, and so much more.

Beyond the Basics: Interesting Features on Library Web Sites http://marylaine.com/libsite.html
This presentation, updated for my talk at the Arizona Library Association last week, is the result of examining hundreds of library web sites as I researched my book, The Thriving Library.

Christmas Traditions Around the World
http://www.caslt.org/research/christmas4.htm
An annotated guide to numerous sites detailing international Christmas traditions. Teachers and librarians may especially be inspired by an elementary school's internet scavenger hunts.

List of Films Based on Poems - Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_based_on_poems
And far more of them than you would ever guess. It's not just Beowulf and Dr. Seuss books that have inspired moviemakers, but also Gunga Din, The Raven, Jabberwocky, The Cremation of Sam McGee and many others.

Logical Fallacies - The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe http://www.theskepticsguide.org/logicalfallacies.asp
Print this out, and you'll be able to play Logical Fallacy Bingo during the political debates.

Top 100 Mac Apps - Chris Pirillo
http://chris.pirillo.com/2007/11/06/top-100-mac-apps/
I'm not a Mac person, but I'll trust tech guru Pirillo, whose fans have been begging for this. You're welcome to copy and distribute this listing for non-commercial purposes as long as you credit me and provide the link to NeatNew.

The Knitted Garden
http://www.bhkc.co.uk/data/the_knitted_garden.htm
You can use the patterns here to knit your own garden, complete with birds, flowers, spiderwebs, frogs, and ornamental paving stones - or just admire the artistry on display here.

List Universe
http://listverse.com/
"the greatest resource online for top 10 lists and more!" on virtually any subject you can think of, not to mention some fairly bizarre topics that wouldn't occur to most of us. I always recommend lists to librarians as a great starting point for discussions, exhibits, and events, and even as a community service (see "Top 10 Post-Thanksgiving Recipes").

Wish Lists: Gadgets and Gear for the Holidays - Wired http://www.wired.com/gadgets/gadgetreviews/magazine/15-12/wishlist
Who would know better than the professional geeks at Wired what gifts your own favorite geeks are longing for?

Do Something
http://www.dosomething.org/
Site creators believe that "young people have the power to make a difference." This site gives them tools to do so: ideas, message boards, info on grants, a zipcode-searchable database of volunteer opportunities, and more.

Oriland - What Origami Can Be
http://www.oriland.com/index.asp
Where you can learn origami, admire entire kingdoms made of paper fantasies, try out the diagrammed models yourself, and more.

Six Techniques to Get More from the Web than Google Will Tell You http://www.cio.com/article/print/156900
This article from CIO magazine draws on the good advice of librarians Ann Cullen and Jessamyn West.

TV Theme Music
http://www.televisiontunes.com/browse.html
The themes from over 3,300 favorite TV shows will instantly recall all kinds of good memories. Listening to the Fraggle Rock theme was a wonderfully cheery way to start my day.

Top 100 Mystery Novels of all time http://www.mysterywriters.org/pages/resources/Top100.pdf
See if you agree with the members of the Mystery Writers of America.

Librarians' Internet Index

2007-11-08T13:58:00.000-05:00

Read This Online : http://lii.org/cs/lii/print/news/123
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Georgia O'Keeffe Museum
Website for this Santa Fe, New Mexico, museum "dedicated to the art of Georgia O'Keeffe and to the study of American Modernism (1890-present)." Features a short O'Keeffe biography and chronology, selected images from the permanent collection (such as of O'Keeffe's paintings of flowers and mesas), and a list of temporary exhibits. The "Research Center" includes a bibliography of recommended readings on O'Keeffe.
URL: http://www.okeeffemuseum.org/
LII Item: http://lii.org/cs/lii/view/item/24804

Business News: The Strike Zone: The Latest on the WGA Strike
Collection of news articles and analysis about the 2007 strike by the Writers Guild of America (WGA). Features a description of the contested issues (such as about "residuals for shows and movies streamed over the Web and on cellphones"), a FAQ, and a blog. Also includes a table showing the status of television programming if the strike persists, and material about 1988 and 2001 writer strikes. Registration (free) required. From the Los Angeles Times.
URL TRUNCATED, SEE LII ITEM
LII Item: http://lii.org/cs/lii/view/item/24855

Writers Guild of America: Contract 2007
Background and news about the 2007 negotiation for a new contract for television and movie writers and the strike arising from the negotiations. Includes a list of writer proposals, producer proposals, a narrative about the negotiations (including about writer demands "to win contractual residuals that grant ... compensation for the reuse of ... work"), strike rules, a list of picketing locations, and related material. From the Writers Guild of America, West (WGA).
URL: http://www.wga.org/subpage_member.aspx?id=2204
LII Item: http://lii.org/cs/lii/view/item/24853

I Can't Believe It's Vegan
Listings of brand name food items that do not contain animal products, including breakfast cereals, beverages, snacks, condiments, baked goods, refrigerated and frozen foods, baking mixes and ingredients, and pantry staples. From People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).
URL: http://www.peta.org/accidentallyVegan/
LII Item: http://lii.org/cs/lii/view/item/24819

Copyright 2007 by Librarians' Internet Index.

Neat and New

2007-11-08T13:51:00.000-05:00

Neat New Stuff I Found This Week
http://marylaine.com/neatnew.html
Copyright, Marylaine Block, 1999-2007.
To subscribe, fill out the form at http://marylaine.com/subscrib.html

Cool Tools for Webmasters: IL2007
http://librarianinblack.typepad.com/librarianinblack/2007/10/il2007-cool-too.html
Sarah Houghton-Jan blogged this Internet Librarian presentation and has links for all the tools mentioned.

MedStory
http://medstory.com/
Bills itself as "intelligent search for health and medicine," this site helps users focus broad queries by presenting them with the most relevant qualifiers for their searches. For example, a search on Vacular Dementia suggests relevant drug therapies, procedures, complementary medicine strategies, names of researchers, and related conditions; it also allows users to restrict results to research articles, clinical trials, or stories from the news media.

Obscure Store & Reading Room
http://www.obscurestore.com/
The Poynter Institute's Jim Romanesko finds, cherishes, and shares the weirdest news stories he comes across. If you're interested in serious news about journalism, follow the link to his other blog, Poynter Media News.

Parent Hacks - Real world parenting tips from real parents
http://www.parenthacks.com/
"Here's everything that was left out of the instruction manual. Oh yeah. There is no instruction manual." The searchable archive of parent-submitted tips includes categories like "Sleep (yours and theirs)," "getting organized," "travel/going out," "fun/toys," and lots more. It's one of PC Magazine's 100 favorite blogs.

30+ Charity & Fund Raising Tools
http://mashable.com/2007/11/05/30-charity-fund-raising-tools/
'Tis about to be the season that inspires charitable thoughts and thoughts of tax deductions, so check out Mashable's links to resources for both fund raisers and would-be donors.

Brijit - Great Content in 100 Words or Less
http://www.brijit.com/
Aims to make it easy for readers to find the best media content quickly. Its editorial team examines about 85 print, broadcast and internet resources (some liberal, some conservative, some devoted to topics like science, business, etc.), links the articles, rates them, from "not a priority" through "must-read," and abstracts them. The archive is searchable.

Neatorama
http://www.neatorama.com/
One of PC Magazine's favorite 100 blogs. If you're a fan of BoingBoing, you should like this, which PC Magazine calls, "your go-to destination for everything quirky, weird, and extraordinary."

Librarians' Internet Index

2007-11-01T14:15:00.000-04:00

Read This Online : http://lii.org/cs/lii/print/news/122
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Conservation Register: How to Care for ...
These fact sheets "give general advice on the care and conservation of a range of different materials or objects. Each fact sheet gives an overview of the materials involved, what can go wrong and why, [and] what owners and custodians can do to prevent and alleviate deterioration." Topics include archaeological materials, books, carpets, furniture, fashion accessories, oil paintings, prints and watercolors, and silver. From the British Institute of Conservation.
URL TRUNCATED, SEE LII ITEM
LII Item: http://lii.org/cs/lii/view/item/24796

Copyright 2007 by Librarians' Internet Index.

October Reads

2007-11-01T14:12:00.000-04:00

The Midnight Choir
by Gene Kerrigan
Really interesting, really well written. This book suffered from my reading schedule; by the end, I had forgotten some of the beginning. Highly recommended.

In Her Shoes
by Jennifer Weiner
I loved, loved this book. I really like the movie, but the book is SO MUCH BETTER. What a pleasant surprise. Absolutely delightful.

But Enough About Me : A Jersey Girl's Unlikely Adventures Among the Absurdly Famous
by Jancee Dunn
Light and entertaining, this memoir is full of interesting anecdotes. Recommended.

Missing Witness
by Gordon Campbell
The first half of this book was pretty good, fairly intriguing. The last half of the book was a slow, torturous descent into drivel. Boo.

Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly
by Anthony Bourdain
My dark love for Tony Bourdain grows every day. Besides being obsessed with his TV show, No Reservations, I must now read every word of every book he has written.

Farthing
by Jo Walton
This book is full of things I normally hate – alternate history, English countrysides, precious females – but it all works in this well written novel. I’m off to read the second book as soon as I can.

Flesh and Blood
by John Harvey
I was disappointed in this predictable and kind of boring book. I expected more after all I’ve heard about Harvey. Oh well.

The Devil, the Lovers, and Me
by Kimberlee Auberbach
A breezy read with an interesting structure for a memoir. More style than substance, however.

The Hummingbird Wizard
by Meredith Blevins
I loved this book and could not put it down. I will definitely be reading the next book, but I worry that the premise may not hold up as a series. Here’s hoping I’m wrong!

Items of interest - O Magazine edition

2007-10-26T15:36:00.000-04:00

"I must learn to love the fool in me - the one who feels too much, talks to much, takes too many chances, wins sometimes and loses often, lacks self-control, loves and hates, hurts and gets hur, promises and breaks promises, laughs and cries. It alone protects me against that utterly self-controlled masterful tyrant whom I also harbor and who would rob me of human aliveness, humility, and dignity but for my fool." - Theodore I. Rubin, M.D.

Music - Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings - 100 Days, 100 Nights
Music - Bettye LeVette

"Every happy man should have someone with a little hammer at his door to knock and remind him that there are unhappy people, and that, however happy he may be, life will sooner or later show its claws." - Anton Chekhov

Nikolai Gogol, Dead Souls
Anton Chekhov, The Portable Chehov
Doris Langley Moore, The Technique of a Love Affair
Liesl Schillinger, A General Theory of Love

More later - I'm off to pick up my car!!!!

Librarians' Internet Index

2007-10-26T12:14:00.000-04:00

Read This Online : http://lii.org/cs/lii/print/news/121
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Urban Lit: Tough Tales From the Streets
Briefly annotated bibliography of nonfiction and fiction works in the urban lit genre. Items include "an autobiography of a Puerto Rican teen fighting to stay alive in Harlem's mean streets," "an intimate, detailed look at gang life as a Crip from the '70s to the '90s," and novels about a hit-man seeking vengeance on a pimp, and Oakland, California, street gangs. Most titles are designed for young adult readers. From the Beaverton City Library (Oregon).
URL: http://www.beavertonlibrary.org/teens/urbanlit.html
LII Item: http://lii.org/cs/lii/view/item/24696

Living With Mosses
This website has the goal of enhancing "public awareness of the effects and benefits of mosses in our everyday environment." In addition to basic moss biology, the site discusses moss on sidewalks and rooftops, mosses in lawns and gardens, pros and cons of mosses in these environments, physical and chemical moss control methods, and encouraging mosses. Prepared by students and faculty at Oregon State University.
URL: http://bryophytes.science.oregonstate.edu/mosses.htm
LII Item: http://lii.org/cs/lii/view/item/24712

Mad About Moss: The Simple Art of Moss Gardening
This article describes one gardener's experience replacing a lawn with a moss carpet. Describes conditions for moss growth, starting and maintaining a moss garden, and related topics. From the newsletter of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.
URL: http://www.bbg.org/gar2/topics/design/2004sp_moss.html
LII Item: http://lii.org/cs/lii/view/item/24711

Copyright 2007 by Librarians' Internet Index.

Neat and New

2007-10-26T12:09:00.000-04:00

Neat New Stuff I Found This Week
http://marylaine.com/neatnew.html
Copyright, Marylaine Block, 1999-2007.
To subscribe, fill out the form at http://marylaine.com/subscrib.html

2007 Breakthrough Awards - Appropriate Technology, Third World Solutions http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/industry/4225945.html?series=37
With these awards, Popular Mechanics honors solutions to global problems that are simple to use, reliable, and inexpensive. Among the winners: a responsive prosthetic arm, a DIY water cleaner, a non-turbine wind alternative, and more.

Ask Oxford: Ask the Experts
http://www.askoxford.com/asktheexperts/?view=get
"a database of some of the questions sent in to the Oxford Word and Language Service team," including frequently asked questions like "What is the longest English word?" and "How many words are there in the English language?" Also included is a "Jargon Buster" that "gives clear and concise definitions for grammar and literary terms."

Committee to Reduce Infectious Deaths: 15 Steps You Can Take To Protect Yourself http://www.hospitalinfection.org/protectyourself.shtml
Anybody who's planning a hospital stay will be interested in this advice on how to avoid picking up deadly bacteria there.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Official Website
http://www.thedailyshow.com/
Jon Stewart fans rejoice. The searchable archive of Daily Show video clips here goes back to 1999.

Our Favorite 100 Blogs - PC Magazine http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2704,2192210,00.asp
It led me to several useful and entertaining blogs I'd not seen before, so I bet it will do the same for you.

Librarians' Internet Index

2007-10-18T14:23:00.000-04:00

Read This Online : http://lii.org/cs/lii/print/news/120
Subscribe to our RSS Feed : http://lii.org/pub/htdocs/understandingrss.htm
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Edible Gardens: Making a Scarecrow
Collection of tips for making a scarecrow, with ideas for a frame, head and face, hands and feet, hair, and clothing and accessories. Includes suggestions for assembling the scarecrow, and other ideas such as making scarecrow animals. From the website for the Victoria (Australia) government's "campaign to get Victorians physically active and eating healthily."
URL TRUNCATED, SEE LII ITEM
LII Item: http://lii.org/cs/lii/view/item/24578

Youth Gardening Activities
This collection of gardening activities includes flower drying, gourd birdhouses, leaf rubbings, scarecrows, seed saving, a scavenger hunt, pizza and salsa gardens, egg coloring, and more. Also provides a book list and a "zoo garden" (elephant garlic, lamb's ear, etc.) plant list. From the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Extension in Lancaster County.
URL: http://lancaster.unl.edu/hort/youth/
LII Item: http://lii.org/cs/lii/view/item/24577

Copyright 2007 by Librarians' Internet Index.

Neat and New

2007-10-18T14:05:00.000-04:00

Neat New Stuff I Found This Week
http://marylaine.com/neatnew.html
Copyright, Marylaine Block, 1999-2007.
To subscribe, fill out the form at http://marylaine.com/subscrib.html

Dr. Toy's 100 Best Products 2007
http://www.drtoy.com/awards/2007_3_list.php
Stevanne Auerbach, an author and expert on educational and skill building toys offers parents a useful guide to some of the year's best products. For each item, she gives a brief evaluation, the intended age level, image, price, and the manufacturer's website.

Eat Local Challenge
http://www.eatlocalchallenge.com/
A blog by people "committed to challenging themselves to eat mainly local food during a specific period of time during the year." It's full of news and stories about the challenges and benefits of the increasingly popular idea of eating locally grown foods. Search, or browse by categories like farmer's markets, dining out, growing your own food, canning and freezing, etc.

In the Bookroom -- Blog on LibraryJournal.com http://www.libraryjournal.com/blog/770000077.html
Pretty much everybody at LJ pitches in to comment on the book business in general and on the books these lucky people get first crack at (they receive about 1,000 per week).

LessLawn.com
http://www.lesslawn.com/
Whether you want less lawn out of ecological concerns or drought-induced necessity, this site provides advice on low-maintenance alternatives and landscaping.

2007 MacArthur Fellows http://www.macfound.org/site/c.lkLXJ8MQKrH/b.2913817/k.3EC5/2007_Overview.htm
Read all about the 2007 winners of the so-called "genius" grants, including a forensic anthropologist, an environmental geographer, an inventor, a painter/installation artist, a neuroboticist, a medieval historian, a blues musician, and more.

Candidate Match Game - USA Today http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/candidate-match-game.htm
Answer these questions about your own stance on a variety of issues, and the program will tell you which Republican or Democratic candidate best matches your views.

Cornell University Food and Brand Lab
http://foodpsychology.cornell.edu/index.htm
This lab specializes in research on the psychology of eating and overeating. Much of its research on the cues that lead us to overconsumption (which has been distilled in Brian Wansink's intriguing book Mindless Eating) is available here, in summary form and full text documents.

September Reads

2007-10-01T10:54:00.000-04:00

Bangkok Haunts
by John Burdett
I’m a huge fan of this series. It is a credit to the authors that I read two books back to back, both set in Bangkok, with somewhat similar stories, and I loved them both. They felt like fellow travelers, revealing different aspects of the same place.

Songs of Innocence
by Richard Aleas
This was a huge improvement over the first, and the ending was fucked. Dark. Darkness take my hand, dark.

Traveling Mercies
by Anne Lamott
This book was a cold glass of water when I didn’t even know I was thirsty. So beautifully written, so heartfelt. I was very worried it was going to be all Christianed out and try and convert me, but it wasn’t that at all. (And her comments on the Left Behind series almost made me pee myself.) I read this all in one sitting, and I profoundly enjoyed it. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

The Shotgun Rule
by Charlie Houston
This book suffered from my inability to stay awake more than two pages at a time, but once I really got down to reading it I enjoyed it. It is my least favorite Houston book so far, but it is still very good.

The Tin Roof Blow Down
by James Lee Burke
I am disappointed. I think obviously this book suffered from overhype (for me), but also the speech patterns in this book wear on me. I have no problem with the way Dave talks – but now everyone in the entire book speaks exactly the same way. How do they ever know what cryptic message anyone is trying to get across? Do people in your life consistently just hang up the phone without saying goodbye? Also, I wanted this book to have more to do with Katrina. And the subplot about the priest – WTF? Not his best, not even close.

Patriot Acts
by Greg Rucka
This is the second time I have had this experience, but it was no less startling. I’m reading along, and all of a sudden the characters in the book are packing their bags and heading to Wilmington, North Carolina! Crazy talk. I enjoyed this book more than I thought I would. This series has changed so drastically, but it’s hard for me to say that is a bad thing, especially after reading the Burke book.

Origin
by Diana Abu-Jaber
WOW. I loved this book. I loved the narrator, I loved the setting, I loved the unusual tone of the book, I loved the story – I loved everything about it. Highly, highly recommended. Seriously, go read it now.

The Follower
by Jason Starr
For me, this is the most successful Starr book, since I made it all the way through. He’s a good writer, but there just isn’t a lot of plot or character development here. I feel profoundly neutral about this book.

Bloodshot
by Stuart MacBride
Another solid entry in a solid series. If you don’t like dreary Scottish weather and moody cops, stay away; if, like me, that thrills you down to your very toes, run and start this series now.

Neat and New

2007-09-27T12:35:00.000-04:00

Neat New Stuff I Found This Week
http://marylaine.com/neatnew.html
Copyright, Marylaine Block, 1999-2007.
To subscribe, fill out the form at http://marylaine.com/subscrib.html

The Craftiest Craft Forum and Blogs
getcrafty.com http://getcrafty.com/
This sociable site provides forums on a wide variety of topics, as well as How-To tips, columns, "cool things" user-submitted photo galleries, and more.

Gotta Read Them All
http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/7866
Interesting discussion on the Mental Floss blog about what authors inspired you to read their entire body of work. It would make a good exhibit and discussion at your library.

Thinks.com: Games, Puzzles, Pastimes and Family Leisure
http://thinks.com/
Minds stretched here, with codebreakers, jigsaw puzzles, Trivia games, wordsearch puzzles, sudoko, kids games (including an online Mr. Potatohead), and more.

Librarians' Internet Index

2007-09-27T12:31:00.000-04:00

Read This Online : http://lii.org/cs/lii/print/news/117
Subscribe to our RSS Feed : http://lii.org/pub/htdocs/understandingrss.htm
Manage Your Email Subscription : http://lii.org/pub/htdocs/subscribe.htm
Browse the New This Week Archive : http://lii.org/cs/lii/query/q/54

Legal Lad: Quick and Dirty Tips for a More Lawful Life
"Legal Lad offers concise, useful information from a practicing [California] attorney to help you decipher the laws that govern your daily life. Cover[s] areas of constitutional law, employment law, privacy rights, liability, criminal law, international rights, family law and wills and estates." Includes podcasts and transcripts on topics such as plea withdrawal, arbitration clauses, store security and shoplifting, drug screening, minimum wage, power of attorney, and nudity on public places. From a publishing company.
URL: http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/LegalLad/
LII Item: http://lii.org/cs/lii/view/item/24570

Copyright 2007 by Librarians' Internet Index.

Neat and New

2007-09-20T13:48:00.000-04:00

Neat New Stuff I Found This Week
http://marylaine.com/neatnew.html
Copyright, Marylaine Block, 1999-2007.
To subscribe, fill out the form at http://marylaine.com/subscrib.html

Games for the Brain
http://www.gamesforthebrain.com/
Neuroscientists have discovered that the brain is a use-it-or-lose- it proposition - which is all the excuse you need to spend some time here playing memory, logic, and strategy games like Reversi, Crime Scene, Sudoku, What Was There, etc.

InfoGreen - King County Library System
http://www.kcls.org/research/infogreen/
While this guide to Green Information in the KCLS collection is specific to its own collection of books, videos, and periodicals, it includes a very thorough set of links to web resources.

Information Visualization
http://akbani.blogspot.com/
This blog by Mohamed Taher "attempts to capture, catalog and share resources relating to visual perception of information. The kinds of topics covered here include mindmapping, visual perception, web design, web analytics, etc. Taher's other blogs, including one for Library Technicians <http://lit2542006.blogspot.com/> may also be of interest.

Politifact
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/
"a project of the St. Petersburg Times and Congressional Quarterly. In the months ahead, the news staffs of both organizations will examine major claims by presidential candidates and rule on their veracity. Our Truth-O-Meter will help voters sort fact from fiction in the campaign." The Attack File also analyzes the truth behind attacks on candidates and provides supporting links. The site is browsable by candidates and issues.

35+ Ways To Find and Plan Events Online
http://mashable.com/2007/09/12/events-toolbox/, and
50+ Sites for Book Lovers,
http://mashable.com/2007/09/08/books-toolbox/
These two recent "toolboxes," which are a regular site feature, illustrate why Mashable.com is worth visiting regularly or subscribing to. It is a pity that they overlooked my own BookBytes site, though <http://marylaine.com/bookbyte/index.html>.

The Children's Nursery and Its Traditions
http://www.childrensnursery.org.uk/
Links to complete texts of nursery classics: Mother Goose, the Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales, Lewis Carroll, Edward Lear, etc.

FutureMe.org
http://www.futureme.org/
"Create an e-mail to send to the future." Could be a good way to remind yourself of everything from appointments and anniversaries to life goals.

Intelways
http://intelways.com/
If you're too much in the habit for settling for Google search, you might try this tool. Choose the kind of results you're looking for (general, images, news, academic, reference, shopping, etc.), and a variety of appropriate search engines and databases appears. Type in your search and select one of those engines. If you don't specify one of those engines, the default appears to be a Google search. A little bonus: the front page links to headlines from several of those search services. School and college librarians in particular should point out that academic search option (which includes Librarians' Internet Index!) to their users.

Librarians' Internet Index

2007-09-20T13:37:00.000-04:00

Read This Online : http://lii.org/cs/lii/print/news/116
Subscribe to our RSS Feed : http://lii.org/pub/htdocs/understandingrss.htm
Manage Your Email Subscription : http://lii.org/pub/htdocs/subscribe.htm
Browse the New This Week Archive : http://lii.org/cs/lii/query/q/54

Rave Reviews: Bestselling Fiction in America
Companion to an exhibition that provides "an index of American interests and reading tastes over the last two and a half centuries" and considers the impact of popular fiction on American society. Features illustrated discussions of bestsellers and movies, and types of bestsellers (such as regional, genre, and war fiction, social criticism, and scandalous books), and a link to bestseller lists (1900-1999). From the Albert H. and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia.
URL: http://www.lib.virginia.edu/small/exhibits/rave_reviews/
LII Item: http://lii.org/cs/lii/view/item/24453

Madeleine L'Engle: 1918-2007
Official website of writer Madeleine L'Engle, best known for her 1962 Newbery Award-winning novel, "A Wrinkle in Time." Features a brief biography, the text of her Newbery Award acceptance speech, a bibliography of her numerous publications (some with cover art and introductions), photos, and links to articles and interviews with the author.
URL: http://www.madeleinelengle.com/
LII Item: http://lii.org/cs/lii/view/item/24468

Censored: Wielding the Red Pen
"This exhibition [about censorship] hopes not so much to judge censors and censorship but instead to provoke questions." Some of the topics and case studies covered in the exhibit include reference and religious works, Margaret Sanger and birth control, John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath," the objectivity of science, Internet censorship, and censored films and television. From the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia.
URL: http://www.lib.virginia.edu/small/exhibits/censored/
LII Item: http://lii.org/cs/lii/view/item/24421

Acorn Housing
This nonprofit with offices throughout the U.S. provides "free housing counseling to low and moderate income homebuyers." Its site features information about obtaining credit for buying a home, predatory lending practices, and options when you are behind on your mortgage. Includes a list of local offices.
URL: http://acornhousing.org/
LII Item: http://lii.org/cs/lii/view/item/24524

Clean Burning Wood Stoves and Fireplaces
"This site offers information to help you choose an EPA certified stove ... or another cleaner burning hearth appliance (e.g., gas or pellet stove) and use it efficiently and safely." Discusses stove and fireplace types, safe installation and wood-burning practices, impacts of wood smoke on human health and the environment, cleaner burning fireplace options, and related topics. Also includes a guide for implementing a wood stove change-out campaign. From the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
URL: http://www.epa.gov/woodstoves/
LII Item: http://lii.org/cs/lii/view/item/24491

Copyright 2007 by Librarians' Internet Index.

Items of interest

2007-09-07T14:58:00.000-04:00

Sue Walker, The Dead Pool
*Garry Disher, Chain of Evidence
*Richard Flanagan, The Unknown Terrorist
Andrew Wilson, The Lying Tongue
Eric Stone, Grave Imports
Jacques Barzun, Simple & Direct
*William K. Zinsser, On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction
John Lantigua, The Lady from Buenos Aires
Leah Giarratano, Vodka Doesn't Freeze
James Reasoner, Dust Devils
Douglas Anne Munson (penname Mercedes Lambert), Dogtown, El Nino (aka Hostile Witness), Soul Town, Ghosttown

Music: Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Raul Malo

Cherie Priest, Not Flesh Nor Feathers
*Emma Bull, Territory
*Nicholas Christopher, The Bestiary
*Alice Sebold, The Almost Moon
*Robin McKinley, Sunshine
Gianrico Carofiglio, Reasonable Doubts
*Jason Pinter, The Mark
*Kimberlee Auerbach, The Devil, The Lovers, and Me: My Life in Tarot
*Diana Abu-Jaber, Origin
Mary Stewart, Madame, Will You Talk?
*Alafair Burke, Dead Connection
Kevin Wignall, Who Is Conrad Hirst?
*Steven Torres, The Concrete Maze
*Rupert Thomson, Death of a Murderer
*Charles Cumming, A Spy By Nature
*Stella Rimington, Secret Asset
*Michael Robotham, Night Ferry
*Peter Godwin, When a Crocodile Eats the Sun: A Memoir of Africa
*Heather Lende, If You Lived Here, I'd Know Your Name: News from Small-town Alaska
Declan Burke, The Big O
Helen Tursten, The Glass Devil
Neal Wyatt, The Readers' Advisory Guide to Nonfiction
Michael Koryta, A Welcome Grave
Deon Meye, Devil's Peak
*Richard Aleas, Songs of Innocence
Caro Ramsey, Absolution
John Lloyd and John Mitchinson, The Book of General Ignorance
Minette Walters, The Chameleon's Shadow
Catherine Sampson, The Pool of Unease
David Hewson, The Promised Land
Dreda Say Mitchell, Killler Tune
*Gordon Campbell, Missing Witness
Joanna Hines, The Murder Bird
*Celeste deBlasis, Wild Swan
*Jason Starr, The Follower
Troy Cook, The One Minute Assassin
*Chelsea Cain, Heartsick
*Kate Christensen, The Great Man
Ray Banks, Saturday's Child
Joe R. Lansdale, Lost Echoes

Joe L. Hensley, Don Robak series

Mark Watson, A Light Hearted Look at Murder
*Robert Kurson, Crashing Through
Marta Stephens, Silenced Cry
*Scott Lynch, The Lies of Locke Lamora
Denise Mina, The Last Breath
*Harlan Coben, The Woods
Andrew Holmes, Rain Dogs and Love Cats
John Ajvide Lindqvist, Let the Right One In
*Jan Costin Wagner, Ice Moon
Hillary Rettig, The Lifelong Activist
The Best American Crime Reporting 2007
*Gerald Seymour, Rat Run
*Jenni Ferrari-Adler, Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant: Confessions of Cooking For One and Dining Alone

*Available at the New Hanover County Public Library

Items of Interest

2007-09-07T14:35:00.000-04:00

Thomas Thompson, Blood and Money
*Judith Guest, The Tarnished Eye
David Goodis, The Wounded and the Slain
Hillary Waugh, Last Seen Wearing
*Cody McFadyen, The Face of Death
Mark Frauenfelder, Rule the Web: How to Do Anything and Everything on the Internet - Better, Faster, Easier
Simmone Howell, Notes from the Teenage Underground
*Mark Peter Houghes, Lemonade Mouth
The 1000 Journals Project
*M. T. Anderson, Feed
*Octavia E. Butler, Fledgling
Camilla Trinchieri, The Price of Silence
Sarah Susanka, The Not So Big Life
Victoria Zackheim, The Other Woman
*Cornell Woolrich, Fright
*Michael Gates Gill, How Starbucks Saved My Life: A Son of Privilege Learns to Live Like Everyone Else

Calvin Coolidge: "Nothing in the wolrd can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan "Press On" has solved and will always solve the problems of the human race."

*Alex Kava, Whitewash
*Kelley Armstrong, No Humans Involved
*Pamela Dean, Tam Lin
Nicola Griffith, And Now We Are Going to Have a Party
Autumn Cornwell, Carpe Diem

Michael Gilleland, Lauator Tempris Acti:
"In case you haven't noticed, this blog is my private file cabinet, and Google is its index...I would continue to blog for myself even with no readers."

Jonathan Maberry, Patient Zero
*Linwood Barclay, No Time for Goodbye
Justin Peacock, A Cure for Night
*Jason Pinter, The Mark
Robert Lewis, The Last Llanelli Train

Robert Rosenberg, Avram Cohen series:
*Crimes of the City, *The Cutting Room, *House of Guilt, and *An Accidental Murder

*Diana Wyne Jones, Dark Lord of Derkholm
Bill Cameron, Lost Dog

YA: Stephenie Meyer, Scott Westerfeld, Libba Bray, Rick Riordan, Walter Dean Myers, Patricia McCormick, Pete Hautman, Rachel Cohn

C. S. Lewis, On Three Ways of Writing for Children
"When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up."

*How to Cheat a Dragon's Curse: The Heroic Misadventures of Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III - as told to Cressida Cowell
*Lloyd Alexander, The Book of Three
*Joseph Delaney, Revenge of the Witch
*Eva Ibbotson, The Secret of Platform 13
*Diana Wynne Jones, Charmed Life
*Lloyd Jones, Mister Pip
Michael Gerard Bauer, Don't Call Me Ishmael
*Stef Penney, The Tenderness of Wolves
Izzo, Total Chaos
* Larry Doyle, I Love You Beth Cooper
*Haven Kimmel, She Got up off the Couch
Liza Marklund, Annika Bengtzon series
Joel Townsley Rogers, The Right Red Hand
*Timothy Hallinan, A Nail through the Heart
Alicia Gimenez-Bartlett, Prime Time Suspect
*Rick Riordan, Southtown
*Greg Rucka, Patriot Acts
Viana La Place, My Italian Garden
Nigel McCrery, In Still Waters
Allyson Beatrice, Will the Vampire People Please Leave the Lobby? And Other True Advenutes from a Life Online
Priscilla Masters, Wings over the Watcher
Eliot Fintushel, Breakfast with the Ones You Love
*Diana Wynne Jones, The Game
Nina Kirki Hoffman, Spirits That Walk in Shadow, A Stir of Bones, *A Red Heart of Memories, Past the Size of Dreaming
*Warren Ellis, Crooked Little Vein
*Kevin J. Anderson, Slan Hunter (sequel to A.E. Van Vogt's *Slan)
Ball, Samedi the Deafness
Lucia Perillo, I've Heard the Vultures Singing: Field Notes on Poetry, Illness, and Nature
*Mike Doogan, Lost Angel
Dave Zeltserman, Bad Thoughts

*Available at the New Hanover County Public Library

Traveling Mercies

2007-09-07T12:12:00.000-04:00

From Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott

p.97 "It must have been too annoying for everyone to be trying to manipulate her into being a better sport than she was capable of being. I always thought that was heroic of her, that it spoke of such integrity to refuse to pretend that you're doing well just to help other people deal with the fact that sometimes we face an impossible loss."

p.112 Eugene O'Neill: "Man is born broken. He lives by mending. The grace of God is glue."

p.142-3 "And my fear of failure has been lifelong and deep. If you are what you do - and I think my parents may have accidentally given me this idea - and you do poorly, what then? It's over; you're wiped out. All those prophecies you heard in the dark have come true, and people can see the real you, see what a schmendrick you are, what a fraud....Grace is having a commitment to - or at least acceptance of - being ineffective and foolish....But by then I'd figured out the gift of failure, which is that it breaks though all that held breath and isometric tension about needing to look good; it's the gift of feeling floppier."

p.196 "I felt a strange loneliness at first, but then came upon a great line in one of Geneen Roth's books on eating, which said that awareness was about learning to keep yourself company."

p.213 "Who was it who said that forgiveness is giving up all hope of having had a different past?"

p.225 "It's so different having a living father who loves you, even someone complex and imperfect. After your father dies, defeat becomes pretty defeating. When he's still alive, there are setbacks and heartbreak, but you're still the apple of someone's eye."

p.264 "Against the sparkly black screen behind my eyes, all these people appeared, like people in a come-as-you-are fashion show, strangers to each other but beloved by me. There were all the sick little kids we know, and all the friends who had died - Mimi, and Ken Nelson, and Mary Williams - and the old people in my family and church who had grown so suddenly frail, and the man with whome I used to be in love and who used to be in love with me. And I thought to myself, 'Well, no wonder you're this sad.'"

Neat and New

2007-09-07T12:08:00.000-04:00

Neat New Stuff I Found This Week
http://marylaine.com/neatnew.html
Copyright, Marylaine Block, 1999-2007.
To subscribe, fill out the form at http://marylaine.com/subscrib.html

The Case for National Service - Time Magazine http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1657256_1657317_1657570,00.html
You don't have to buy into the argument made here to find this article, along with its related features, a useful guide to volunteer programs that are working.

FactBites - Where results make sense
http://www.factbites.com/
"What do you get if you cross a search engine with an encyclopedia? Factbites," where the search results page itself includes key sentences from each of the sources retrieved. Uber-researcher Mary Ellen Bates, in her BatesInfoTip Newsletter <http://www.batesinfo.com/august-2007-infotip.html> recommends this as a "useful filter on search results that may help you find in-depth answers quickly."

Sci-Fi Lists: Top 100 Sci-Fi Books http://home.austarnet.com.au/petersykes/topscifi/lists_books_rank1.html
Another great discussion-starter and library display topic. You could invite your staff and library users to add their own favorites, and start a discussion on your blog.

Statetris
http://www.mapmsg.com/games/statetris/usa/
Test your geography skills and manual dexterity by playing Tetris with US states instead of blocks.

Librarians' Internet Index

2007-09-07T12:02:00.000-04:00

Read This Online : http://lii.org/cs/lii/print/news/113
Subscribe to our RSS Feed : http://lii.org/pub/htdocs/understandingrss.htm
Manage Your Email Subscription : http://lii.org/pub/htdocs/subscribe.htm
Browse the New This Week Archive : http://lii.org/cs/lii/query/q/54

State Fair Recipes Website
"dedicated to one of America's longest-running traditions -- State Fair Recipe Contests! Learn how the contests were won, and maybe become a champion yourself." Includes brief state fair history and trivial related to state fair foods, and a small selection of award-winning recipes. Sponsored by a group of national food companies.
URL: http://www.statefairrecipes.com/
LII Item: http://lii.org/cs/lii/view/item/24373

World Shibori Network
Website for this international group interested in shibori, "the collective term in Japanese for tie-dye, stitch-dye, fold-dye, pole wrap-dye, etc." Features examples of shibori traditions in different parts of the world, an essay on shibori techniques (from a 2000 exhibit at the San Francisco International Airport), a bibliography, images, and information about the group's activities.
URL: http://www.shibori.org/
LII Item: http://lii.org/cs/lii/view/item/24385

Top 100 Undiscovered Websites
PC Magazine "picks for the top new or under-the-radar sites of 2007." Includes annotated links to sites in areas of reference, health and food, lifestyle and entertainment, money and career, music, news, reading, shopping and travel, technology, and video. From PC Magazine.
URL: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2174685,00.asp
LII Item: http://lii.org/cs/lii/view/item/24400

Copyright 2007 by Librarians' Internet Index.

August reads

2007-09-05T11:22:00.000-04:00

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
by J. K. Rowling
I feel like I actually may be finished with these for a while now. The second read may have seemed silly, but it was what my heart demanded. Reading them together was a great experience, and my books are waiting patiently on the shelf for the next time.

Little Girl Lost
by Richard Aleas
I am so disappointed. This isn’t a bad book, but it isn’t a great book.

Bad Monkeys
by Matt Ruff
No disappointment here. I loved everything about this book, including the size, the shape, the cover, the paper – and the story! What an original thrill ride. Go read it now.

Mr. Clarinet
by Nick Stone
I was loving this book, and then things fell apart about 2/3 of the way through. I hate that more than anything, since by that point I’m already invested and know I’m going to read the rest of it anyway, no matter how stupid it gets.

The Broken Shore
by Peter Temple
I have been waiting and waiting for this book, and it was well worth the wait. So beautifully written, such a clear voice, such lovely characters. The writing elevates this book to the stratosphere. I will definitely be reading more from Temple – if I can find them!

A Nail Through the Heart
Timothy Hallinan
This book was very, very enjoyable. I love the Bangkok setting, the characters, and the story was well done. Hopefully this is the beginning of a new series; if so, I’m on board.

Neat and New

2007-08-29T13:51:00.000-04:00

Neat New Stuff I Found This Week
http://marylaine.com/neatnew.html
Copyright, Marylaine Block, 1999-2007.
To subscribe, fill out the form at http://marylaine.com/subscrib.html

Academic Plagiarism
http://www.ucalgary.ca/~hexham/study/plag.html
Many students lack a clear concept of what plagiarism is, and why it matters, so this site will be useful for both teachers and librarians trying to train them in academic honesty. It not only illustrates various forms of plagiarism, but in each instance shows how to use the misappropriated material responsibly.

Librarians' Internet Index

2007-08-29T13:43:00.000-04:00

Read This Online : http://lii.org/cs/lii/print/news/112
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Paper Cuts: A Blog About Books
This blog is "about books and other forms of printed matter, written by Dwight Garner, senior editor of The [New York Times] Book Review. Look here for book news and opinion, interviews with writers, regular raids on the Book Review's archives, and other special features." Includes posts on topics such as the 50th anniversary of Jack Kerouac's "On the Road" in 2007 and playlists of songs from writers. From The New York Times.
URL: http://papercuts.blogs.nytimes.com/
LII Item: http://lii.org/cs/lii/view/item/24327

Copyright 2007 by Librarians' Internet Index.

Neat and New

2007-08-16T13:52:00.000-04:00

Neat New Stuff I Found This Week
http://marylaine.com/neatnew.html
Copyright, Marylaine Block, 1999-2007.
To subscribe, fill out the form at http://marylaine.com/subscrib.html

An Anthropologist in the Library
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v53/i50/50a02601.htm
We all make assumptions about how the students we work with do research, but the University of Rochester Library hired an anthropologist to do a field study and find out how they REALLY do research. This is a must-read article [subscription-only] for any librarian working with students.

Book TV on C-SPAN2
http://www.booktv.org/
C-SPAN2 offers extensive programming on the best nonfiction every weekend, including extended author interviews and even more extended examinations of chosen authors' entire body of work. You can watch selected programs from the past week here, and search for previous episodes which are available for purchase. Also available: program schedules for the coming week.

How the World Really Shapes Up - The Daily Mail
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=439315&in_page_id=1811
What the world would look like if we viewed it not by the size of each country's land mass but by the size of each country's alcohol consumption, wealth, HIV prevalence, etc. Another proof of how visualization helps people understand raw data.

Minding the Planet
http://novaspivack.typepad.com/
"Minding" in both senses: taking care of, and thinking. This is "Nova Spivack's journal of unusual news and ideas, straight from the global mind to your brain." Tech entrepreneur Spivack calls himself a "support system for memes," and those memes are drawn from an incredibly wide variety of topics and disciplines: AI, collective intelligence, cool products, interspecies communication, semantic blogs and wikis, etc.

Music from your Favorite TV Shows
http://heardontv.com/
You know how, when you're watching TV, there'll be music playing in the background and you can't quite remember what the song was, or who performed it? For a lot of network and cable shows, answers, and even the songs themselves, are available here. Browse by the title of the TV show, or by the artist you think performed the piece.

Librarians' Internet Index

2007-08-16T13:47:00.000-04:00

Read This Online : http://lii.org/cs/lii/print/news/111
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Blogging for a Good Book
This blog provides a book review every weekday, from librarians at the Williamsburg Regional Library (Virginia). Browse past reviews by reviewer and by subjects and genres such as literary fiction, nonfiction, science fiction, fantasy, historical fiction, mysteries, young adult, and thrillers.
URL: http://bfgb.wordpress.com/
LII Item: http://lii.org/cs/lii/view/item/24105

Rebecca's Pocket: Summer 2007 [Reading Lists]
Extensive compilation of links to summer reading lists, from universities, newspapers and magazines, blogs, libraries, organizations, and other sources. Some of the themes are popular fiction, business, cookbooks, religion, politics, and history. From the author of a book on creating and maintaining a blog.
URL TRUNCATED, SEE LII ITEM
LII Item: http://lii.org/cs/lii/view/item/24289

MPs Reveal Summer Holiday Reading
2007 survey of the summer reading choices of British MPs (Members of Parliament). Features samples of some of the book choices, which include biographies, classics, historical and political titles, Harry Potter, and more. From BBC News.
URL: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/6932841.stm
LII Item: http://lii.org/cs/lii/view/item/24287

Copyright 2007 by Librarians' Internet Index.

2007-08-14T14:21:00.000-04:00

Neat New Stuff I Found This Week
http://marylaine.com/neatnew.html
Copyright, Marylaine Block, 1999-2007.
To subscribe, fill out the form at http://marylaine.com/subscrib.html

The Best Time To Buy Everything - SmartMoney.com
http://www.smartmoney.com/dealoftheday/index.cfm?story=20060905&pgnum=1
Deals on all kinds of things - gas, baby clothes, airplane tickets, computers, wedding dresses, and more - are available if you only understand the sellers' schedules and inventory problems. Which Smart Money helpfully explains.

The Globalist
http://www.theglobalist.com/
"The daily online magazine on the global economy, politics, and culture." Search or browse their features and research by country, region, and topics like Children, Environment, Media, Religion, Finance, Security, etc. The site also offers a Guide to Globalization, and material for Teaching Globalization.

National Sleep Foundation
http://www.sleepfoundation.org/
A good place to start exploring any kind of sleep disorder - sleepwalking, drowsy driving, snoring, specific medical conditions and medications affecting sleep patterns, and more.

New Scientist
http://www.newscientist.com/home.ns
The magazine's web site offers breaking science news, several topical blogs, and a searchable archive of 15 years worth of the magazine (brief excerpts available free, full content available to personal and institutional subscribers). Also available for free: continually updated special reports on a variety of topics offer backgrounders, FAQs, timelines, book and weblink recommendations, and more.

Librarians' Internet Index

2007-08-14T14:10:00.000-04:00

Read This Online : http://lii.org/cs/lii/print/news/110
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National Bridge Inspection Standards (NBIS)
Documents related to the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) bridge inspection program regulations, which were "developed as a result of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1968," and were revised with the National Bridge Inspection Standards (NBIS; took effect in January 2005). Includes the full text of the NBIS regulation, a FAQ, documents related to the National Bridge Inventory (NBI), and related material. From the Federal Highway Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation.
URL: http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/bridge/nbis.htm
LII Item: http://lii.org/cs/lii/view/item/24248

Grocery Savings and Coupon Zone
"Resources for helping you save on food. Find information on double coupons, grocery store contact links and contact information, tips on saving on groceries, free menu lists, and shopping lists and other valuable information for saving on groceries." Also includes discussions about how grocery stores get you to spend more, starting a small coupon exchange club, and the pros and cons of grocery store loyalty programs. From About.com.
URL TRUNCATED, SEE LII ITEM
LII Item: http://lii.org/cs/lii/view/item/24259

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)
The website for a "nonpartisan, nonprofit organization founded in 1981 to monitor abuses against the press and promote press freedom around the world." Find news and reports, including "Attacks Against Journalists in the West Bank and Gaza since September 2000" and "Ten Worst Enemies of the Press for 2001." Portions of the site are also available in Spanish.
URL: http://www.cpj.org/
LII Item: http://lii.org/cs/lii/view/item/11571

International News Safety Institute (INSI)
"INSI is a global network or coalition of news organisations, press freedom groups, unions, humanitarian campaigners and individual journalists dedicated to the safety of journalists and news media staff. It is a not-for profit charity based in Brussels, run by news professionals." Its site features news, a safety code, and casualty list back to 1990, which includes all causes of death, whether deliberate, accidental, or health-related. Translations of selected documents available in several languages.
URL: http://www.newssafety.com/
LII Item: http://lii.org/cs/lii/view/item/24252

How Bridges Work
This site describes the engineering of bridges in general and looks at the beam, arch, and suspension bridge, illustrating different types of bridges, factors such as "how each bridge type deals with two important forces, compression and tension," and related details. Includes links to other engineering articles. From HowStuffWorks.
URL: http://science.howstuffworks.com/bridge.htm
LII Item: http://lii.org/cs/lii/view/item/24243

Copyright 2007 by Librarians' Internet Index.

Librarians' Internet Index

2007-08-06T12:50:00.000-04:00

Read This Online : http://lii.org/cs/lii/print/news/109
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Harry Potter
This site lists the seven Harry Potter books, suggests other books for children and young adults who enjoyed reading them, and includes links to official and fan Harry Potter sites. From the Baltimore County Public Library.
URL: http://www.bcplonline.org/kidspage/kids_harrypotter.html
LII Item: http://lii.org/cs/lii/view/item/24216

JK Rowling and Harry Potter
Collection of dozens of news articles and analysis about the Harry Potter books and their author, J.K. Rowling. Includes material back to 2000, such as reviews, sales and profits figures, and articles about new books Rowling is working on. From the website for the Scotsman newspaper.
URL: http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=3&page=1
LII Item: http://lii.org/cs/lii/view/item/24214

Press TV
"Press TV is the first international Iran-based news network to broadcast in English on a round-the-clock schedule." It "offers broad news coverage, specifically focusing on the Middle East," and aims to "tackle the controversial global news agenda and broadcasts cutting-edge documentaries with political, social and economic contents." The site features news articles and the opportunity to watch live coverage.
URL: http://www.presstv.com
LII Item: http://lii.org/cs/lii/view/item/24134

Copyright 2007 by Librarians' Internet Index.

Neat and New

2007-08-06T12:44:00.000-04:00

Neat New Stuff I Found This Week
http://marylaine.com/neatnew.html
Copyright, Marylaine Block, 1999-2007.
To subscribe, fill out the form at http://marylaine.com/subscrib.html

CyberJournalist - jblogs
http://wiki.cyberjournalist.net/jblogs
Now in the form of a wiki in the interests of continuous updating what Nieman Reports calls "The most comprehensive list of blogs produced by journalists"

National Bridge Inventory
http://nationalbridges.com/
In light of the horrific bridge collapse in the Twin Cities - a bridge which had been labeled structurally deficient in the National Bridge Inventory - you might want to look up your own local bridges here.

Other Women's Voices: Translations of Women's Writing before 1700 http://home.infionline.net/~ddisse/
This wonderful directory - a webliography, bibliography, and documentary resource rolled into one - guides us to, and excerpts from, the translated words of women of Europe and Asia from 2000 BCE to 1700, and provides biographical information about each woman. Many of those words are still relevant: check out Kassia, for instance, on stupidity, and on silence ("I hate silence when it is a time for speaking").

Summer Activities - ReadWriteThink http://www.readwritethink.org/beyondtheclassroom/summer/
Activities arranged by grade level to keep kids reading, writing, and following their curiosity - and there's no need to limit that to summertime.

Vegetarian Lunchbox
http://www.vegetarianlunchbox.com/index.html
Whether or not you're a vegetarian, you'll be able to go beyond your usual boring lunchbox fare with the nifty ideas and recipes here for lunches that are healthy as well as tasty - vegetable and fruit kebabs, hearty soups, sweet corn pitas, etc. Anyone for mozzarella with sun dried tomatoes and basil pesto on sun dried tomato bread?

July reads

2007-07-31T11:36:00.000-04:00

I've been a little obsessed this month...

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
by J. K. Rowling
And I thought I read through these books fast the first time! There was no stopping me this time; I couldn’t put any of these books down. And it is taking more self control that I normally let near by reading not to keep on barreling through five and six right now. But I will wait a week, until I see the movie for Order of the Phoenix. I just hate reading the book right before I see the movie – I much prefer it the other way around.

Full Dark House
The Water Room
Ten Second Staircase
by Christopher Fowler
This series is quite different than what I expected, but it also quite different from an average mystery.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
by J. K. Rowling
I think I enjoyed these even more this time than the first time. I loved loved loved the new movie, and I started rereading the minute I got home Wednesday night. I am so excited about Saturday at midnight that I could crawl right out of my skin.

The Death List
by Paul Johnston
Horrifyingly bad. Extra-super atrocious. Apocalyptically awful. Unreadable, but very throwable. Mercifully I stopped reading halfway through and flipped to the very predictable end. I can’t believe this is the same guy who wrote the Dalrymple series. Avoid this book as if it were contagious. I have to go clean my palate.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
by J. K. Rowling
I loved it. I went whole hog and had the entire experience – I spent six hours in the bookstore on Friday, starting reading the book at 1am, and had finished by 3:30 Saturday (yes, I did sleep). I was emotionally hungover all day Saturday and incapable of reading anything else – many hours of staring mindlessly at the TV followed. Then on Sunday I did the only thing I could think of to do – I started the series over from the beginning.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
by J. K. Rowling
Even better this time around.

Neat and New

2007-07-26T14:24:00.000-04:00

Neat New Stuff I Found This Week
http://marylaine.com/neatnew.html
Copyright, Marylaine Block, 1999-2007.
To subscribe, fill out the form at http://marylaine.com/subscrib.html

Fictional Countries in Pop Culture
http://www.mentalfloss.com/quiz/quiz.php?q=93
Here's a nice little test of your pop culture knowledge: see if you can identify the book, TV show or movie that that the fictional countries described here came from.

Fun Travel Games To Relieve Kids' Boredom
http://familyfun.go.com/family-travel/road-trips/feature/famf48cargames/
As the youngest child of a man who commuted between Michigan and New Jersey, I spent my youth playing games like this. I can vouch for it being the surest way to keep four kids from killing each other while having fun and getting to know each other better. See also Road Trip Games <http://www.kidzworld.com/article/4707-road-trip-games-and-activities>.

International Directory of Sculpture Parks and Gardens
http://www.artnut.com/intl.html
If you're a fan of sculpture parks, this site makes it easy to include them in your travel plans.

The Learn List
http://www.thelearnlist.com/
"a super simple resource that aims to gather the best tutorial and book links from all over the web" on the topics of Flash, Photoshop, PHP, CSS, XML, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, Actionscript, and Fireworks. None of the links or books are annotated, so you'll just need to click and sample.

Make your photos into coloring pages
http://lifehacker.com/software/photoshop/make-your-photos-into-coloring-pages-280989.php
A tutorial on how to use Photoshop to turn your family photos into a coloring book your kids will have fun with - paint mommy green with purple hair!

Librarians' Internet Index

2007-07-26T13:39:00.000-04:00

Read This Online : http://lii.org/cs/lii/print/news/106
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America and the Holocaust
Companion to a PBS American Experience documentary about what "social and political factors shaped America's response to the Holocaust," including the temporary "'paper wall,' a bureaucratic maze that prevented all but a few Jewish refugees from entering the country." Includes details about one man's struggle against the bureaucracy, a guide to people and events of the Holocaust (such as Raoul Wallenberg, the Bermuda Conference, and the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising), interview transcripts, and primary sources.
URL: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/holocaust/
LII Item: http://lii.org/cs/lii/view/item/24162

Ian's Shoelace Site
"How many possible ways are there to lace an average shoe?" The author presents nearly two dozen methods he considers "worthy of devoting the time required to create instructions." Includes illustrations, and information about shoelace knots, aiglet ("the plastic or metal sleeves at the ends of shoelaces") repair, and shoelace length formulas.
URL: http://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/
LII Item: http://lii.org/cs/lii/view/item/11330

Copyright 2007 by Librarians' Internet Index.

Neat and New

2007-07-20T11:27:00.000-04:00

Neat New Stuff I Found This Week
http://marylaine.com/neatnew.html
Copyright, Marylaine Block, 1999-2007.
To subscribe, fill out the form at http://marylaine.com/subscrib.html

Book Tour: Where Authors and Audiences Meet
http://booktour.com/
Authors can sign up to have their upcoming tours listed, fans to be notified of author events in their area, and wouldbe-hosts to connect with authors. Searchable by author, book or city.

The How-To Geek
http://www.howtogeek.com/
Drawing on his own experiences and questions from readers, the geek offers and archives how-to advice on many software and programming problems. The site also includes several blogs. RSS feed is available.

Library Journal Reviews The Thriving Library http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6457098.html
Excuse a little self-promotion here: LJ says all libraries should buy my book, and I would certainly be happy if you did so.

A Periodic Tables Sampler - Mental Floss
http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/6807
It turns out that periodic tables are a neat way to classify any number of subjects - mathematicians, the internet, poetry, and more - (and if you put one on a shower curtain you can study it in the shower).