Unfinished

I'm within striking distance of my yearly reading projection (remember that post? yes, I'm still keeping track) but haven't gotten through much this week. Between work deadlines and getting ready for people coming in to town for the holidays, my reading has been limited to (truncated) lunches and the 10 or 20 minutes I can keep my eyes open in bed most nights.

The Demon Under the Microscope: From Battlefield Hospitals to Nazi Labs, One Doctor's Heroic Search for the World's First Miracle Drug, by Thomas Hager; read by Stephen Hoye. What's up with the super-long title? Anyway...
This is an audiobook on Playaway. I enjoyed it, but I couldn't listen to it; I don't know why. I did like the reader.

Beyond Heaving Bosoms: The Smart Bitches' Guide to Romance Novels, by Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan. This book is awesome! It's absolutely hilarious. I started reading this way back when I did my Red Hot Days of Romance program. I'm putting it down *temporarily* because I have slightly more pressing matters.
The writers attack the stereotypes of the genre, listing, defining, and mocking every cliched plot device, categorizing the types of heroes and heroinces, pointing out the overlooked historical and medical inaccuracies clung to by the genre, and, in general, using charts, graphs, haiku, and casual foul language to illustrate how awful these books frequently are.
(I just spent the last 10% of my mass-market paperback budget on those red harlequin and green steeple hill romances, because I know they will check out and what are paperbacks for except for increasing circulation? And I do read the occasional romance, and if you like to read romances, good for you! But let's not ignore the obvious here.)

Embroidery Techniques and Patterns, by Marie-Noelle Bayard; photography by Charlie Abad; translation by Kim M. Allen Gleed. This isn't a read-it-through book, so I'm not counting it in my running total, but I think I looked at every page. I started teaching myself embroider a few months ago, because I am overseeing the library's Novel Yarn program, which meets on the first Monday of every month, but I am absolutely hopeless at both knitting and crocheting. I absolutely cannot do them. But I felt silly sitting around doing nothing, so I poked around in our 700s, looking for another handicraft I could maybe try. I finished my first project yesterday, and I am quite impressed with myself!
About the book: the stitches are organized into families, but the family groupings don't always make sense to me. Also, the stitches aren't organized by difficulty within the families; in fact, there is no organization that I can detect, of stitches within families or how the family groups are arranged within the book. If you can find what you are looking for, though, the instructions are good, the pictures clear and clearly labeled, with tips included for some of the stitches.
With the help of this book, I've mastered 5 stitches (in order of love, but not order of usefulness): the Star Stitch, the German knot, the French knot, the Self-Padded Sating stitch, and the stem stitch.
I don't have any serious complaints about this book, and it seems to have a lot of stitches in it; I just want to explore the other books we have for my next project.

Meh.

What Was I Thinking? 58 Bad Boyfriend Stories, edited by Barbara Davilman and Liz Dubelman. Huh. This could have been better. The short stories were solicited from various writers (print, screenplay, etc.), so they lack a "real people" quality: the bad boyfriends are frequently musicians or actors, or the stories start out "So I met this guy (in film school/through my agent/on a set)..." Sometimes it's fun to read about the misfortunes of others, to put your own suckitude into perspective; this book fails epically.
Also, I'd definitely read 2 of these stories before (don't ask me where, though), and a few more sounded familiar, so the materials is definitely not all new.
While some are fairly well-written, but most are kind of not; they feel kind of thrown-together, like the editors offered the individual writers some money and the writers spit something out.

Panic in Level 4: Cannibals, Killer Viruses, and Other Journeys to the Edge of Science, by Richard Preston; read by James Lurie. I enjoyed the storytelling in this (I listened to the audiobook version, and the reader was good, in addition to the writer having a good storytelling voice). The writer did tend to repeat himself alot, though, which I find mildly annoying. I can, generally, remember a few things at a time.
The thing I didn't really like about this was that this book was really 3 different long-ish stories. The author wrote articles, I believe, on each of these topics at different points in his career. These stories don't really go together at all; they are just together because not any one of them was something the author apparently wanted to make into a full book-length work. It seems kind of lazy.

Redacted

I have been asked by the Mom's Choice Awards people to remove my three posts about the books I read for them. Apparently, I am forbidden by the Code of Ethics for Reviewers and Judges, specifically, number 8, to share:
"Reviewer pledges not to divulge any information about participants to individuals and parties outside
the awards program. All information received from participants will be deemed private, sensitive material
to be treated in the strictest confidence."
Perhaps I'm just a bit thick, but I did read through the rules and all before signing up, and I didn't interpret this to mean that I couldn't talk about the books. In the Code, "participant" is never defined. Furthermore, it escapes me why I would have to consider a published book, freely available at libraries and bookstores, to be "private, sensitive material". If I checked out my library's copy and read it again, could I then post my thoughts? I kind of feel like my intellectual freedom is being impeded: a book, which is readily available through traditional sources (yes, I checked Amazon), which was sent to me for free but which I do not intend to keep, and which I am not getting paid to review, does not, to me, present a conflict of interest or an invasion of privacy to post on this blog.
I liked the idea of reviewing books, even if not for pay, for a non-religious group, but I find myself unable to agree with this policy, as it makes no sense to me. I'll finish my commitment for the year, but then I'll be done.

Truth and Media

On the Night You Were Born, by Nancy Tillman. My coworker recommended this picture book to me as one of her favorites. I found it too sappy for my taste, but I think young children will enjoy the message.
The artwork didn't stand out for me either.

Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth About Violent Video Games (And What Parents Can Do), by Lawrence Kutner and Cheryl K. Olson. I read a portion of this book in preparation for a program I was doing to educate parents (or introduce them to educating themselves) on video games. I found this book extremely interesting, but I don't have time to finish it.
I put a lot of time into researching my program, but no one came. If you'd like a PowerPoint and speaking notes for a 20-35 minute presentation on video game systems and ESRB ratings, comment at me with your email address and I'd be happy to share.

The Blue Death: The Intriguing Past and Present Danger of the Water You Drink, by Dr. Robert D. Morris. This book wasn't perfect, but the writing really drew me in. The author could probably have doubled the total number of commas he used and still missed some. It affected readability, but the writing is otherwise great.
I am a little confused about what the author was trying to do with this book-- the first portion of the book is a detailed history of John Snow and cholera in London. We then skip over any similar histories or diseases like typhus, etc., and go into waste water in 19th century America. All the information was interesting, but it didn't seem to really go together.
I am forced to doubt, at least a little, how carefully this book was reviewed, and how to consider how desperate the author may have been. On the back of the book, one of the blurbs is from the review from the Washington Post Book World, and it says, "I switched from tap to bottled water while reading this book." You'd have to be living under a rock to escape the fact that most bottled water, grocery-store brand and others, aren't anything special. But the author even says, "Bottled water is less closely regulated than tap water and is not required to meet stricter standards for purity. In fact, a major portion of bottled water in the United States is nothing more than tap water in an expensive bottle" (p. 289). Errors like this make me doubt the whole thing, the whole process that got this book onto my library's shelf.

True Blood, based on the novels by Charlaine Harris; Alan Ball and Brian Buckner, co-executive producers. I think I've only reviewed media once or twice before. It isn't normally my thing, but I have read all of the books in this series, so I though I'd give the show a go. It seems like everyone is a big fan, so I put the first season on my Blockbuster mail-it-to-me-at-home list. I'm now about half way through the season.
I watched the first episode and said, "wow, that sucked. [ha, ha] I'm not wasting my time on these." But the next day I was stuck at home, so I watched the second episode. I said, "these really are terrible, but they've already mailed me the next 3 episodes so..." Now I can't stop. They really are terrible-- it's an HBO series, so of course it's filled with cursing and soft-core scenes, which I could really do without. Most of the acting is pretty awful, too: they obviously picked actors for their looks, not their acting abilities.
So why can't I stop watching it? Someone had a great idea with this series. The story works really well in visual. Some of the characters are a bit different-- Sookie comes off as a weird mix of political liberal but hard core bible thumper, which I didn't see in the book, and of course each character is younger, hotter, and blonder than originally described-- but so far we're sticking pretty close to the story, which I have to consider a plus.
I am a big fan of Sam in nearly every way.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Wii), by Nintendo. In addition to my other duties, I'm now overseeing a group of Middle Schoolers every Wednesday. I set up the library's game system (we have both a Wii and an Xbox 360), and monitor them for 2 hours while they play. So far this has been pretty well-attended and, in my book, quite the success: it doesn't cost the library much, as the systems had already been purchased; it's just my time, the game discs which are already part of the collection (so by checking them out I increase circulation: woohoo!), and a bag of chips a week.
This game is rated T, for cartoon violence and crude humor. The ESRB's definition of "crude humor" is kind of unspecific, so I can't really comment on that. The entire purpose of the game is to fight, but it's not a realistic kind of violence. I let the 12-year-olds play because I feel the rating is too high. This won't hurt them.
This was one of the most-requested games, and everybody seemed to enjoy it. It's kind of a given nowadays that the graphics will be pretty spectacular, and this is no exception. This isn't the sort of game that I would enjoy playing, but it's a must-have for library game collections serving tweens and early teens.

This stuff is Ancient

I've been working on this post for like 3 weeks, but I've been so busy that I haven't been able to actually finish a thought, I feel like. My mom always said, "better late than never," so here ya go.

And Tango Makes Three, by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell; illustrated by Henry Cole. The topic of this book is certainly very political, but I don't think all the hullabaloo takes away from what is at heart, a beautiful little story. The illustrations are in that beautiful place between being obviously sketches, but not venturing over into cartoon-land. Despite the fact that the book is about black and white penguins who live in a gray and white world, the book is actually full of color.
I also liked the language: the sentences are short and sweet. I find I like picture books with concise, active sentences the best.
No, this book doesn't put a negative spin on homosexuality, and if that isn't your personal view, well, don't read this book. But if you don't have a problem with it, or are looking for a touching story about adoption, then give the book a go.

The Fabulous Feud of Gilbert and Sullivan, by Jonah Winter; illustrated by Richard Egielski. I checked this out for my husband, the musician, and it made him do his girly giggle. I like the illustrations, but I can't really describe them. I need an art class to broaden my vocabulary, or something. I found the story line a little overly simplified, and I'm not really sure who this book is for: the language and bold colors certainly make it appropriate for young children, but I'm not sure they will care about it, as there isn't much action or large animals or giant trucks or princesses. It could be used as a good story to illustrate that, even if you don't get along all the time, you can still work together and be friends.

Alyzon Whitestarr, by Isobelle Carmody. I really liked the beginning part of this book. I found the concept very interesting. A little over a third of the way through, however, it seemed like the author became unsure of what she was trying to do. Like maybe she found it too difficult to explain, or couldn't come up with an explanation that didn't sound preposterous, or was just bored with the whole idea, so she left out specifics. It felt like a real lack of effort.
My major complaint is that, except for in the very beginning when Alyzon is first getting used to her new ability, the author largely ignores it. Alyzon has just had her way of the looking at the world turned up-side down. Her new ability should influence everything she does, be the first thing she notices in any situation; instead, the author really let it fall by the story's wayside.
A great idea, but a real let-down in practice.

The Wet Nurse's Tale, by Erica Eisdorfer. I liked this story. I like historical fiction realistic working class stories. To be honest, it's been a while since I finished this, and, other than the plot, obviously, I don't remember a lot of the specifics. The writing was very speech-y; the main character narrated from first person, so there was a large number of purposeful errors to try to give the feel of how she may have talked. I didn't love that part, but it wasn't bad.

Unseen Academicals, by Terry Pratchett. I'm glad this author is still able to write. I love him so much. I'm thinking about going back and reading all the Discworld books in order.
There needs to be more Sam. Sam is never a bad thing.

Werewolf, by Jeff Zornow. This was a graphic novel on DVD-format, which the lovely ABDO people sent to me for free. I have no information on the artists or readers.
The story is great-- simple but intense. Kids will eat it up.
The concept is great, perfect for high-low readers or young readers looking to start reading comics. You can play it on any computer-- it doesn't require special software. If you aren't familiar, there are 2 ways to read this GNonDVD: you can read it yourself, and there is a 2-page spread. You can turn the page using an arrow button on the screen, and it's just like a print version. The cool thing is the read-to-me option. You still get 2 pages at a time, but everything lights up in order. The panels light up (they are just black space) as the reader gets to them. The text boxes within each cell appear in order, and pop forward as they are being read.
The execution left a lot to be desired. The readers obviously prepared, but they were both younger people but narrating for old characters, so that was the first thing against them. They read slowly, probably to give readers a chance to keep up, but that made it pretty boring. The female reader especially did a very poor job of injecting any sort of appropriate emotion into her lines. They could both have done a much better job at sounding scary. The sound effects that accompany the read-to-me were pretty good, and the basic animations didn't totally suck.
This will certainly be something to look for in the future-- the concept is fantastic and it would be totally useful. I am going to wait and see if the product improves over the next little while, though.

Mary Jane: The Loyalty Thing, by Sean McKeever; pencils by Takeshi Miyazawa, inks by Norman Lee, colors by Christina Strain, letters by Randy Gentile. Another freebie from the ABDO people. I had heard about this series and I have to agree with the negative bits. The story almost completely disregards the established Spider Man facts.
The drawings are good (and consistent) and the story doesn't suck. I think it's supposed to be reaching out to girl readers. If you've got girls who don't care about ignoring the "real" story, give this to them.
The binding is fantastic, though. I'll be looking at this company for my YA comic books for next year. I don't think you could tear this thing a part if you tried.
This is book 2 in what I believe to (currently) be a series of four. I've put it into our collection, and I will check on its circulation in a few months.

ILF

I've spent the last 3 days in Fort Wayne, attending the Indiana Library Federation's annual conference. Some notes:
We started on Sunday night with a gala and tour of the Allen County Public Library's main branch (see photo, left). The building is huge; especially amazing was the size of their genealogy department. I'd heard it was big, but wow! You could probably fit all our libraries, branches included, in that one section. The volume of compact shelving was amazing.
The rest of the building left me slightly less than impressed. The "Great Hall" (I think I heard somebody call it that) (see photo, below right). It was certainly of an impressive size, but felt very sterile. My friend, who had been to the library before, was interested in my impressions of the building as I was visiting it for the first time. The description that came to mind first was "like an airport." The quotes running along the upper part of the wall were mostly nice, but I wasn't sure what the motivation was for choosing some of them; they seemed at best... unrelated to libraries and libraries' missions.
Near one end of the building, where I entered, was the periodical area. The selection available looked good, but there was zero seating in that area. I know that homeless or other people with no where else to go can be a problem in libraries, and for some reason they seem to like periodical sections, but this lack of seating seems like a barrier to service to the rest of the population. What about people who can't walk a long way to seating in the regular stacks? What about people who use the reference areas but who never use the periodicals simply because they've never seen them, hidden away in a corner?
On the ground floor are "Reader's Services," the Children's Department, and an art gallery. What is "Reader's Services" supposed to be? Would patrons find it pretentious? scary(/ier than usual)? Turns out that area is all the adult fiction and most of the adult nonfiction (but not all of it). The name change struck me like libraries who call their librarians "information professionals." Let's just be honest about who and what we are: we are librarians; we work in libraries; our departments have dorky library-ish names, including Reference. Portions of this department, as well as the genealogy area and the Business, Science, and Technology reference area, had a definite academic library feel.
The Children's Department was very cool. They had this giant thing (see photo, left) that the kids can read in. I tried both the downstairs (red) bubble and went up and tried one of the blue bubbles. I found the blue much more comfortable, because the seats are angled into the bubble and I didn't feel I was about to fall out, and I would so love to spend my evenings curled up reading in there. This thing is called simply the Children's Reading Tower. The handout I was given says it is the "newest focal point of the Children's Services," but, when I revisited the library during the day on Monday to see it in action, the Children's Department was largely deserted, and there was no one using this structure, which must have cost more than my library will see next year.
Directly above the Children's Department is Teen Services. Their space is quite huge (see photo, right), but their collection is quite small, especially considering the size of their building, the space devoted to the department, and the number of books in other sections. I thought maybe noise would be a problem, since it is such a huge open space, but when I visited during the day, this section also had very low use, even though it was after-school time, and noise was not a problem. (I don't know who those librarians are; they wandered into the picture. Hi, ladies!)
Also upstairs is the Business, Science, and Technology area, which has its own reference desk, a bank of computers, and all the nonfiction books for those areas. When I visited in the afternoon, the space was being mostly used by children and teens on the computers, even though there were computers in the teen area not being used. Other adults were using laptops and library computers in that area as well. Their reference section is impressive.
AV is also upstairs. Their collection is quite large, and the set up felt quite like a BN or Best Buy (see photo, left). Behind the reference desk, I could see some stacks with books on them, but I did not go back to investigate.
Some closing observations: there were a large number of quiet study rooms around in all the departments, but none of them had white boards. Although the reference desks were easy to see, I never saw any circulation desks except the one in the AV department. Overall, the building was very stark. There were many displays, but they only made it seem like the library was confused and maybe was trying to be a museum. Murals or wall hangings would have gone a long way in making the library feel less airport-ish and also cut down on sound: the hard floors and large open spaces made it very echo-y.

Some other thoughts and highlights from the days: the Keynote speech from the morning of the first day was the YA author John Green, who spoke about how Libraries are going to save the world. Consider (paraphrased unless quotes):
We choose what to think about, and when we don't consciously and carefully choose, we do a phenomenally poor job of it.
We are the brain; there is not some separate master of our thoughts.
"Libraries call us to be our better selves."
"The fact of walking into a library is a very good thing."
"My life is more fulfilling when I think about things that matter."
If you ever get the chance to listen to John Green, do: he's hilarious and smart and thought-provoking. Search for his vlog (with his brother) on youtube and introduce it to your teens. I've got some ideas percolating on that topic.

From the speech by Todd Whitaker, a funny guy (though I'm not sure how they thought he'd be a good fit for librarians):
Ineffective people [are ineffective because they] have no idea how they come across to other people.
The problem is, when you're friendly and nice, you create more work for yourself.

I did get through 2 books while away:
(redacted; please see post.)

Persona Non Grata, by Ruth Downie. This is the 3rd book in the Medicus series (after Terra Incognita). It took a while, but it seems like the book finally knows what it is trying to do: this is definitely a historical mystery, emphasis on mystery, not so much on history. And while there is still a love interest, romance is not a part of the story.
I really like the main character, especially since he is now a bit more secure in his purpose to further the plot. The author's website doesn't list any more novels coming out (and Fantastic Fiction doesn't even list this installment, much less future books-- they are usually much better about that): that leaves me torn. On the one hand, we all know how I feel about series that get out of hand. On the other hand, I do like this character, and the author's writing style is nice too. Hmm.

Nothing of importance.

A special treat for you: You, like me, (if you are a librarian, anyway) probably receive pleas from authors to buy their books. Frequently this is a form letter with a book mark or two, sent to the generic "Librarian" or sometimes "Acquisitions" at your library. I get these. I frequently don't order the books listed, oftentimes because they are self-published works that have received no reviews. The other day, I received an advertisement, directed to me, the "dear Librarian," and I found it so silly I had to share. The buy-my-book plea begins thusly: "Money is tight, but libraries are crucial. I do everything I can to support all libraries, and I hope you will consider ordering my literary thriller...." I won't tell you the name of the thriller nor the author, although I will say that I did order the book, because it is the sequel to a book that has had reasonable circulation these last 2 years. This non-sequiter-filled opening did not convince me to buy this book. If this book were a stand-along novel, I would have passed it by specifically *because* of this terrible argument. Yes, I can agree that libraries are important and of course I understand how tight money is. I'm glad the author feels he does everything he can to help libraries, but, since I've never seen him here volunteering in my library, nor seen any checks come past my desk with his signature, I'd maybe like a list of how he thinks he's helping. Writing a few thrillers of dubious quality and mundane subject hardly makes my list of "helping" libraries-- just something else we'll have to spend money on, find shelf space for, then weed in a few years when no one can even remember how to spell this guy's name.