Free Book

Random House is giving away free PDFs of Beautiful Children, the much-talked-about bestseller by Charles Brock, at least through midnight on Friday and here is the download address or An Amazon page works fine—scroll down for the download link.

The Oscars - Repost from myspace blog

This weekend was movie weekend...well, except for Friday night when I won free tickets to the Mystery Train Dinner Theater. Fun, free and tasty...All that and Janet for company! How much better can an evening get?

On Saturday, bunches of people flocked to AMC theaters to watch all of the Oscar Best Picture nominees. And yes, that is a whopping 12 hours of movie watching. My least favorite movie was a tie between Michael Clayton and If There Be Blood. They were "egh" movies, not horrible, but not fabulous. I liked Atonement, especially the cinematography. There were some incredibly beautiful shots and a truly great sex scene, oddly enough with no nudity.

Juno was my happy movie and boy, did I need it after those three movies. I loved it and would sit through it again. The last was No Country For Old Men. Wow! It really had one of the best psycho hit-men I can remember seeing in a while. When I was driving home from the theater I kept looking at the people in other cars to see if there were any psycho hit-men/killers driving by. The ending was a tad weak but I really liked this move and NEVER want to see it again. It creeped me out big time! If it weren't for the fact that I was then traumatized by reading gonemild's blog entry when I got home that night, it would have been a perfect day.

Sunday was tiara day...ok, it was actually my Oscar/Kaite's Birthday month party but much tiara wearing occurred. See...

I even had a few brave boys venture out with their ladies to attend. Well, it may not have just been the thrill of being with Ms Spyder but the lure of free books that got Kanga to a tiara wearing party. We trashed gowns, kept my friend Sheryl (from the librarian friend pool) busy making every flavor of martini known to man AND we had birthday cake. I didn't do very well guessing which movies would win but I had to many martinis to care. Ahhh, martinis and movies...does life get any better than this?

Another bookstore

I am not buying too many books these days but for those of you that are here is a interesting new online vendor to try that doesn’t charge shipping for US addresses.

BetterWorld.com (http://www.BetterWorld.com/). They seem to have a good selection of books—used and new and both youth and adult. Their proceeds apparently go to fund literacy efforts.

Almost Back to the Reading

We have just compiled our first list of Notable Books Council suggestions for the upcoming year. Because I am the vice-chair of the committee this year I have the added responsibility of trying to make sure that "significant" titles do not get overlooked. Therefore, my suggestion list for February had 18 titles on it. I sincerely hope every month doesn't look like that or I will have no life this year (as opposed to the last two years when I would have brief glimpses of life from time-to-time).

Instead of starting on my self-imposed reading assignments I have instead been working my way through the Jim Butcher Dresden series. The Dresden series is set in Chicago and features wizard Harry Dresden and has been turned into a TV series on the Sci-Fi Channel. For once, I am not merely procrastinating but instead have a valid, work-related reason for reading his books. We (and by that I mean the Public Affairs department) are talking with him about visiting Kansas City and appearing at my branch to kick off our Mystery Author series, not to mention his newest novel. Of course, with a publicist and agent involved, negotiations are still in progress but I am optimistic enough that I have ordered his complete set of mysteries for the branch and am now working my way through them.

Seven Things About Me meme

Average Jane has tagged me for a Seven Things About You meme and I'm finally well enough to lift my laptop out of the case and turn it on.

1. Wine or beer - Wine - actually I like both but today feels like a wine day.
2. Dog or cat - Cat
3. Mountains or ocean - Ocean
4. Coffee or tea - Tea
5. NYC or LA - NOLA - Yes I am aware that is not one of the choices but I don't care.
6. Summer or Winter - Summer
7. PJs or nothing - nothing

Average Jane tagged me today

Average Jane tagged me today but it will have to wait. I have now caught the plague (because I have to do what all the other bloggers are doing)

Phyllis A. Whitney Dies At Age 104

Phyllis A. Whitney, one of the queens of romance and mystery fiction, passed away this week at the age of 104—perhaps confirming that doing what one loves can lead to a long life. Whitney herself said that she stayed young by writing, and published her last book in 1997 when she was in her early 90s! In her early years, she worked at the Chicago Public Library and several different Chicago bookstores while writing on the side. She divorced her first husband in part because he was not supportive of her writing. She said that she was successful in writing because of persistence and faith in her own abilities—even in the face of ridicule. (Take heart, all you romance writers.) For more, click here for the New York Times story.

She and Victoria Holt were two of my favorites when I was a teen.

Friday Fun

Which Discworld Character are you like (with pics) created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Carrot Ironfounderson You are Captain Carrot Ironfounderson of the City Watch in the greatest city on the Disc – Ankh-Morprok! A truly good natured, honest guy, who knows everyone, and is liked by all. Technically a dwarf, but only by adoption. You’d rather not be reminded that you are the true heir to the throne, but that does explain why people naturally follow your orders… Carrot Ironfounderson 81% Gytha (Nanny) Ogg 75% Commander Samuel Vimes 56% The Librarian 50% Lord Havelock Vetinari 44% Death 44% Cohen The Barbarian 38% Rincewind 31% Greebo 25% Esmerelda (Granny) Weatherwax 13%

Librarians

Asylum's Top 10 Occupations Inaccurately Associated With Sexiness

What to guess who appears on the list? My question is, how did they collect this data. Did they approach each and every librarian with a suitably hot guy and see how they reacted or are they just guessing? Just wondering because I cannot ever recall choosing a date based on his understanding of the Dewey Decimal system.

Calling all book group members!

Librarians know you like to talk about books, but we want you to talk to us about your book group. Please help us get a picture of book groups across the country by participating in a short informal survey from the Readers’ Advisory Committee of the American Library Association.

To visit the survey, go to http://www.readersadvisory.org
Click on the link on the left that says “Book Group Survey”

Preliminary data will be presented at the ALA Annual Conference in Anaheim, CA at the program "Reading Group Therapy: How to Repair, Revamp and Revitalize Your Book Group". This program will be presented by book group expert Nancy Peal, and is being held Sunday, June 29th, 2008, from 10:30 a.m.-12 p.m.

As librarians are trying to get as broad a picture as possible of the book groups in America, please pass the link to the survey along to other book group members and book group support organizations in your community.

McSweeneys

If you like "literary" cutting edge new literature you may want to check out McSweeneys to find out about new authors. I purchased the periodical for the library so you can stop by and read a couple of issues anytime.

You can also subscribe to the feed to get literature delivered to electronically. http://feeds.feedburner.com/mcsweeneys Don't you just love technology?

Added 2/6 @ 4:23 pm - http://www.mcsweeneys.net/2008/2/6klee.html - my favorite so far (at least for today)

More cool stuff that kinda, sorta has to do with books.

Philosophers and Theorists: Videos and video clips of lectures, sessions, and interviews at European Graduate School EGS, Media and Communication Studies Department, Saas-Fee, Switzerland, Europe. This includes talks by some very important theorists/philosophers of the past generation.

FORA.tv: FORA.tv is a web service that hosts videos featuring important thinkers grappling with contemporary cultural, social and political questions. And they have author presentations as well so that ties in to my book theme nicely!

Voting

Alright everyone, I got up at 4 am this morning to come and open up the library for the elections. The least you can do is stop in and vote.

Book Meme

Rules:

1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pgs.)
2. Open the book to page 123
3. Find the fifth sentence
4. Post the next three sentences
5. Tag five people


As luck would have it, the nearest book to me is The Book of Dave by Will Self which has the longest sentences I have seen in a while. In the interest of keeping this readable I grabbed the book that was 2nd closest to me, Black Swan Green by David Mitchell. Sentences six, seven, and eight on page 123 are as follows:

Collette Turbot went and found it was just her and Dunwoody.
He told her to pose topless in his darkroom so he could photograph her.
Collette Turbot said, I don't think so , sir.

If others want to do it, it always fun to see what people are reading.

New committee members appointed

Next year's list of book award committee members has been announced and Nancy Pearl (the closest thing librarians have to a celebrity) is one of the newly appointed committee members. Until I was cautioned that I "shouldn't feel intimidated by her" it hadn't occurred to me to be intimidated. Anyway, for those of you non-librarian readers (which would be most of you), Nancy Pearl has written several books and more importantly, is the model for the librarian action figure. Yes, there is a librarian action figure and yes, I own one.

I just wish that the shushing action didn't make the action figure look quite so much like she was picking her nose.

Saying No

I am working at my part-time university reference librarian job tonight and am finding it very depressing everytime an international student comes up to the desk. Every one of them asks me the same question "Do you have _____(fill in the blank) textbook."

In India and China (from what I have been told), academic libraries carry enough copies of textbooks so the entire class can check them out to use for the semester, unlike the U.S., where we make everyone buy copies of textbooks that cost hundreds of dollars and then can't be sold back at the end of the semester because a newer version is coming out.

So every time someone comes up to the information desk my heart sinks because I get to say to each of them, "No, the library doesn't usually carry textbooks." Oh, I do a search to make sure that one lone copy hasn't been donated by the professor but usually I have to say no. Believe it or not, I didn't become a librarian so that I could NOT help people find the information/book they need.

I hate this time of year:(

pangram

pangram
Originally uploaded by A Librarian.

I was tagged by Bea, so I've quickly thrown together a photograph taken with my cell phone. I can't seem to find my real camera anywhere so you will all just have to suffer.

1. Choose a pangram of your liking.
2. Write it on a piece of paper and sign it with your blog name or online handle.
3. Take a picture and post it to the flickr group, your blog, myspace, facebook or all of them.
4. Link back or trackback to Logtar’s post.
5. Tag five people.
You will notice that no one is tagged. That is because I procrastinated and everyone picked their teams before I could. Anyone reading this who has not been tagged...you're it.

Chapter-A-Day Book Club

My uncle's funeral was this weekend so I didn't get a chance to get any reading done but there are two almost finished books on the stack that I will be talking about soon. Since I didn't have a book review for you today I thought I would share a fun book link with you.

Chapter-A-Day Book Club - "Sign up for any of the email book clubs and every day you will be sent a 5-minute sample from a book. By the end of the week, you'll have read 2-3 chapters." Then, if you loved it, visit your local library to check out the book. This has everything from Classics to Romance so there is a little something for everyone.

Author Visit - M.T. Anderson

Author M.T. Anderson discusses his latest book for young adults, The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, on Monday, January 28, at 7 p.m. at the Plaza Branch, 4801 Main St.

Set against the disquiet of Revolutionary Boston, The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing takes place at a time when American patriots rioted and battled to win liberty while African slaves were entreated to risk their lives for a freedom they never would claim.

Anderson says the idea for the book came while he was watching a Revolutionary War reenactment at the Battle of Old North Bridge, near his childhood home. He began to wonder what it would have been like to be forced to choose a side without knowing which side would be victorious.

Octavian Nothing won the 2006 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature. Anderson’s first young adult novel, Feed, won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize.

Anderson’s appearance is cosponsored by Reading Reptile and the Kansas City Public Library. Copies of Anderson’s books will be available courtesy of Reading Reptile, and the author will sign copies purchased during the event.

A 6:30 p.m. reception precedes the event. Admission is free, but reservations are recommended. Call 816.701.3407 or RSVP online.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

I have been reading lots of "fun" books during my little break from the ALA Notable Book Council book award committee. Next on the list is a book that a friend of mine has been raving about.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie is a Young Adult novel based on the author's own experiences and according to the reviews, is a heart-breaking, funny and beautifully written novel. It was also on the Best Books for Young Adults award list this year. (If you aren't a librarian, you might not know this but this award is a VERY big deal in Young Adult book award circles). I attended a dinner last year in which he was a guest author. He was absolutely charming and his newest novel is sitting on my shelf at home, nicely signed and even decorated with some author artwork.

If you haven't read any Young Adult literature in a while, ask your friendly librarian for a recommendation. There are some wonderful YA novels out there.