My dear @booksNyarn and I were recently interviewed for the Circulating Ideas podcast as part of the Best Books of 2012 episode!
At Collection Reflection, I wrote a post on how to start weeding your reference collection. The post was recently, to my astonishment, linked to by American Libraries Direct.
I also made a list as one of the 125 librarians to follow on Twitter!
Over on Tumblr, I posted some thoughts about how (and when) I buy books.
I've reviewed quite a few books over at the Lesbrary since I last made this sort of update:
I Can't Think Straight, by Shamim Sharif
Strange Bedfellows, by Q. Kelly
Getting There, by Lyn Denison
But She is My Student, by Kiki Archer; LoveLife, by Rachel Spangler
96 Hours, by Georgia Beers
Switch, by Q. Kelly
Keepers of the Cave, by Gerri Hill
Silhouette of a Sparrow, by Molly Beth Griffin [my favorite of this bunch]
The Campaign, by Tracey Richardson
Girl Friends Complete Collection v. 1, by Milk Morinaga
Double Pleasure, Double Pain, by Nikki Rashan
And of course I've been posting with frightening regularity on Twitter. I recommend that you search the hashtag #librarylife to see some of what librarians are up to every day.
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Monday, January 28, 2013
Reading Roulette: Second Pick
As of this next spin of the wheel, there are 373 books on my To Be Read list (I can't seem to stop adding them). The next three picks, after consulting the random.org number generator:
323. Cut to the Quick, by Kate Ross (Julian Kestrel mysteries #1). This will make my friend Margaret happy, as the copy she loaned me has been sitting on my dresser for the last two years.
Description: To the ranks of great sleuths of ages past, add a new candidate - Julian Kestrel - a detective as historically authentic as Brother Cadfael and as dashing as Lord Peter Wimsey. Kestrel is the reigning dandy of London in the 1820s, famous for his elegant clothes and his unflappable sangfroid. One night he rescues a young aristocrat named Hugh Fontclair from a gambling house, and in gratitude Hugh invites him to be best man at his wedding. But when Kestrel goes to stay with the Fontclairs at their sumptuous country house, he is caught in the crossfire of the bride's and groom's warring families. Soon, discord erupts into murder. In a world without fingerprinting, chemical analysis, or even police, murder poses a baffling challenge. Undaunted, Kestrel sets out to solve the crime. With the help of his Cockney manservant, Dipper a (mostly) reformed pickpocket, Kestrel delves beneath the Fontclairs' respectable surface. What he finds is a trail of crime, deception, and forbidden lust that leads him at last to the killer. The combination of a new author, a charming new sleuth, and a strikingly original setting adds up to a smashing mystery that moves with force and intelligence - and expert suspense - from beginning to end.
326. Freedom and Necessity, by Steven Brust and Emma Bull. My sister gave me this book, and it is also in the pile on my dresser.
Description: It is 1849. Across Europe, the high tide of revolution has crested, leaving recrimination and betrayal in its wake. From the high councils of Prussia to the corridors of Parliament, the powers-that-be breathe sighs of relief. But the powers-that-be are hardly unified among themselves. Far from it...
On the south coast of England, London man-about-town James Cobham comes to himself in a country inn, with no idea how he got there. Corresponding with his cousin, he discovers himself to have been presumed drowned in a boating accident. Together they decide that he should stay put for the moment, while they investigate what may have transpired. For James Cobham is a wanted man--wanted by conspiring factions of the government and the Chartists alike, and also the target of a magical conspiracy inside his own family.
And so the adventure begins...leading the reader through every corner of mid-nineteenth-century Britain, from the parlors of the elite to the dens of the underclass. Not since Wilkie Collins or Conan Doyle has there been such a profusion of guns, swordfights, family intrigues, women disguised as men, occult societies, philosophical discussions, and, of course, passionate romance.
Nor could any writing team but Steven Brust and Emma Bull make it quite so much fun...
351. Rusalka, by C.J. Cherryh (Russian Stories #1). Recommended by my friend Jessica. I used to own a copy of this book, but never managed to read it. Maybe this time will be different!
Description: This is Hugo-Award-winning author C.J. Cherryh's Del Rey debut—the story of Rusalka, the ghost of a murdered girl still seeking to exist by drawing the energy of life from all nearby living things, and the attempt to bring her back to life by her father Ulamets, and Pyetr, the young man who loved her.
None of these picks are available in audio format, which makes them more difficult to finish quickly. However, I will give all of them a chance. I'm not really sure what I'm in the mood to read right now. Feel free to help me choose.
Why am I doing this?
323. Cut to the Quick, by Kate Ross (Julian Kestrel mysteries #1). This will make my friend Margaret happy, as the copy she loaned me has been sitting on my dresser for the last two years.
Description: To the ranks of great sleuths of ages past, add a new candidate - Julian Kestrel - a detective as historically authentic as Brother Cadfael and as dashing as Lord Peter Wimsey. Kestrel is the reigning dandy of London in the 1820s, famous for his elegant clothes and his unflappable sangfroid. One night he rescues a young aristocrat named Hugh Fontclair from a gambling house, and in gratitude Hugh invites him to be best man at his wedding. But when Kestrel goes to stay with the Fontclairs at their sumptuous country house, he is caught in the crossfire of the bride's and groom's warring families. Soon, discord erupts into murder. In a world without fingerprinting, chemical analysis, or even police, murder poses a baffling challenge. Undaunted, Kestrel sets out to solve the crime. With the help of his Cockney manservant, Dipper a (mostly) reformed pickpocket, Kestrel delves beneath the Fontclairs' respectable surface. What he finds is a trail of crime, deception, and forbidden lust that leads him at last to the killer. The combination of a new author, a charming new sleuth, and a strikingly original setting adds up to a smashing mystery that moves with force and intelligence - and expert suspense - from beginning to end.
326. Freedom and Necessity, by Steven Brust and Emma Bull. My sister gave me this book, and it is also in the pile on my dresser.
Description: It is 1849. Across Europe, the high tide of revolution has crested, leaving recrimination and betrayal in its wake. From the high councils of Prussia to the corridors of Parliament, the powers-that-be breathe sighs of relief. But the powers-that-be are hardly unified among themselves. Far from it...
On the south coast of England, London man-about-town James Cobham comes to himself in a country inn, with no idea how he got there. Corresponding with his cousin, he discovers himself to have been presumed drowned in a boating accident. Together they decide that he should stay put for the moment, while they investigate what may have transpired. For James Cobham is a wanted man--wanted by conspiring factions of the government and the Chartists alike, and also the target of a magical conspiracy inside his own family.
And so the adventure begins...leading the reader through every corner of mid-nineteenth-century Britain, from the parlors of the elite to the dens of the underclass. Not since Wilkie Collins or Conan Doyle has there been such a profusion of guns, swordfights, family intrigues, women disguised as men, occult societies, philosophical discussions, and, of course, passionate romance.
Nor could any writing team but Steven Brust and Emma Bull make it quite so much fun...
351. Rusalka, by C.J. Cherryh (Russian Stories #1). Recommended by my friend Jessica. I used to own a copy of this book, but never managed to read it. Maybe this time will be different!
Description: This is Hugo-Award-winning author C.J. Cherryh's Del Rey debut—the story of Rusalka, the ghost of a murdered girl still seeking to exist by drawing the energy of life from all nearby living things, and the attempt to bring her back to life by her father Ulamets, and Pyetr, the young man who loved her.
None of these picks are available in audio format, which makes them more difficult to finish quickly. However, I will give all of them a chance. I'm not really sure what I'm in the mood to read right now. Feel free to help me choose.
Why am I doing this?
Saturday, January 26, 2013
Reading Roulette: Why I'm Not Finishing The Passage
Justin Cronin's sci-fi/vampire book The Passage was one of the three books that came up in my first Reading Roulette pick, and several friends and colleagues recommended it. I duly requested the audiobook through the library, and found the paperback on the shelves at work. I was pleased to find that the narrator of the audiobook was Edward Herrmann (aka Richard Gilmore from The Gilmore Girls), but I was startled to discover when I switched from the audio version to the print version that there was significantly more to the paper book.
It turns out that the audio version I requested was the abridged version, which clocks in at 12 discs (14.5 hours). The unabridged version consists of 29 discs (37+ hours) and is narrated by Scott Brick instead of Edward Herrmann. Per Nancy Pearl, I read past page 50, but by that point I knew that I didn't want to make myself read/listen to the entire 894-page book. My (grumpy editor) feeling is that if the book can stand to have more than half of its content removed and be marketed as a complete book, it probably needed a lot more revision before publication. I knew my feelings of resentment--about having to stop and start over, and switching narrators from one I loved to one I didn't know, and my unhappiness with the entire concept of abridgment--were going to make it very difficult for me to read with the kind of excitement and energy a book deserves. So I am putting it down (it will go back on my To Be Read list) and returning the library copies.
And I'll be a little more cautious about checking to see whether an audiobook is unabridged before I request it.
It turns out that the audio version I requested was the abridged version, which clocks in at 12 discs (14.5 hours). The unabridged version consists of 29 discs (37+ hours) and is narrated by Scott Brick instead of Edward Herrmann. Per Nancy Pearl, I read past page 50, but by that point I knew that I didn't want to make myself read/listen to the entire 894-page book. My (grumpy editor) feeling is that if the book can stand to have more than half of its content removed and be marketed as a complete book, it probably needed a lot more revision before publication. I knew my feelings of resentment--about having to stop and start over, and switching narrators from one I loved to one I didn't know, and my unhappiness with the entire concept of abridgment--were going to make it very difficult for me to read with the kind of excitement and energy a book deserves. So I am putting it down (it will go back on my To Be Read list) and returning the library copies.
And I'll be a little more cautious about checking to see whether an audiobook is unabridged before I request it.
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