January 3rd, 2008 Brian Herzog
This post is somewhat in the New Year's spirit of "out with the old, in with the new..."
Although I've worked around books for a long time, two things happened last week that have never happened to me before:
Books, Coming:
I was chosen to be a LibraryThing Early Reviewer! I've been trying ever since they started, but this is the first time I've gotten to participate.
A copy of Tim Dorsey's Atomic Lobster showed up on my doorstep right after Christmas '07, even though it's not being published until 1/22/08. I've never read anything by him, let alone the preceding books in this series, but I'm always open to reading new things.
Thank you, LibraryThing and HarperCollins. I'll read and review it as soon as I finish one of my Christmas presents, Water for Elephants.
Books, Going:
Faithful readers may remember me mentioning the idea of an Airport Public Library, and then using BookCrossing to kick it off.
Since then, every time I've flown somewhere, I leave books in airports. My trip to Ohio for Christmas resulted in the APL's first circulation - someone "captured" and registered one of my books on the site.
What a good week for books.
airport public library, apl, book, bookcrossing, books, early reviewer, early reviewers, library, librarything, lt, thing
Tags: airport public library, apl, book, bookcrossing, Books, early reviewer, early reviewers, Library, librarything, lt, Random, thing
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November 13th, 2007 Brian Herzog
I recently finished reading Special Topics in Calamity Physics, by Marisha Pessl, and there's a library reference I wanted to point out.
The main character, Blue van Meer, is a high school student. During her study hall period in the library, she describes how she spies on her fellow classmates:
...[I] slipped into row 500 and then the densest section of row 900, Biography, where I repositioned some of the larger books from row 600 to the holes between the shelves, in order to avoid detection. (Librarian Hambone, if you're reading this, I apologize for the biweekly repositioning of H. Gibbons' bulky African Wildlife [1989] from its proper place in the 650s to just above Mommie Dearest [Crawford, 1978] and Notorious: My Years with Cary Grant [Drake, 1989]. You weren't going mad.)
What caught my eye was her saying the proper place for a book called African Wildlife is in Dewey 650s. Presuming this book is actually about African wildlife, the 650s isn't even close (by Dewey standards). It should be more like 591.96, which is in stark contrast to said 650s.
The reason this stood out is that Calamity Physics is loaded with literary references - everything from the classics to technical manuals to contemporary romance fiction to journal articles. This author must have spent Much Time in a library researching this book, as shown by her excellent use of these references to aptly describe characters and situations (unless, of course, every single one of them was just made up).
For example, when describing being honest with her father:
I had to confront him. Otherwise, the lie could wear me away (see "Acid Rain on Gargoyles," Conditions, Eliot, 1999, p. 513).
When describing a classmate named Jade:
Jade was the terrifying beauty (see "Tawney Eagle," Magnificent Birds of Prey, George, 1993).
And describing another student's bedroom:
We walked by what had to be Bethany Louise's room, painted gum pink, a pile of clothes on the floor (see "Mount McKinley," Almanac of Major Landmarks, 2000 ed.).
There were about one of these references every other page, which means this 500 page book had a lot of references. So I'm surprised that the Dewey numbers were so far off (although, maybe the author naming the librarian "Hambone" belies a disdain of libraries?).
And since I'm talking about, here's my overall impression of the book: I enjoyed pages 1-100 and 300-500, but the two hundred pages in between kind of dragged. Lots of high schooly angst and controversy, whereas the rest of the book held interesting plot and character interactions - not to mention an underground conspiracy organization. I ended up liking it, but had to force my way through at some points.
book, books, libraries, library, library quotations, library references, marisha pessl, special topics in calamity physics
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November 8th, 2007 Brian Herzog
This is kind of funny - one of those "it was bound to happen" situations that eventually happened.
There's a series of children's books called the Magic Attic series. In the back of each, there's a tear-out postcard for kids to join the Magic Attic Club. On the postcard there's also a toll-free number.
The company (based in Portland, ME - hooray) that ran the Magic Attic Club apparently went out of business, and their phone number was sold to someone else - someone who is now using it for a phone sex line.
Needless to say, my Children's Librarian went through our collection and tore out all of those postcards.
Feeling daring? "Join the club:" 800-221-6972
Read more of this story at Orlando's WKMG Local 6.
book, books, childrens books, libraries, library, magic attic, magic attic series, phone sex
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November 6th, 2007 Brian Herzog
This is interesting: a flickr set of photographs of drawings and writings found in books in jails in Wisconsin.
I've never found such artwork in my library's books, but I have been keeping all the scraps of paper and other miscellaneous debris I find around the library. I've wanted to display them all somehow, because they are interesting, but I just haven't figured out how to do it. A flickr set might be the best way - look for that in an upcoming (but not immediate future) post.
This was found via BoingBoing.
altered books, art, artwork, book, books, flickr, graffiti, jail, jails, libraries, library, prison, prisons, vandalism
Tags: altered books, art, artwork, book, Books, flickr, graffiti, jail, jails, libraries, Library, prison, prisons, Random, vandalism
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August 9th, 2007 Brian Herzog
book, book review, book review search, book reviews, books, google, google custom search, library, public libraries, public library, reader advisory, readers advisory, review, reviews
Tags: book, book review, book review search, book reviews, Books, google, google custom search, Library, public libraries, public library, reader advisory, readers advisory, review, reviews, Technology
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August 2nd, 2007 Brian Herzog
For those in the Portland, ME area, here's an art display worth checking out:
Aaron T Stephan/The Problem with Ladders
July 25th through September 8, 2007
Artist Reception, Friday, August 3, 5-8 PM
Whitney Art Works
492 Congress Street
Portland, ME 04101
Usually, altered book art involves somehow changing the appearance of individual books. In this show, the artist used books to build things - most impressively, a huge structure. The photographs are the gallery's website are pretty impressive.
Thanks for passing this along, Kristin.
altered book, altered book art, altered books, art, book, book art, books, used books, what to do with used books
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