Daily Thoughts 9/21/2010 (Coraline, Pattern Recognition)

Why books are always better than movies? Paranormal levitation made with the free software Gimp, 27, September 27, 2009, Massimo Barbieri, Gnu Free Documentation License 1.2http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Why_books_are_always_better_than_movies.jpg


 
Daily Thoughts 9/21/2010 

I read some more of Pattern Recognition this morning.  I also put Spook Country on hold which I will reread once I am done reading Pattern Recognition. Pattern Recognition reminds us that the world changes so fast now, that it is hard to recognize things in a short time period.  I read a bit more Pattern Recognition on the train home.  Somehow, William Gibson manages to fuse fashion, thriller, and near future technology into a unique mish mash in all three books.

I also read some more of Self Esteem by Matthew McKay, Ph.D.  I read the book, but did not finish completing the exercises spread throughout the book.  I have already done severald exercises on shoulds, wants, self assessment, and cognitive distortions.  They are quite interesting.  I still have to do some visualization, meditation, and self-hypnosis exercises.  The book has a lot of material in it.

I got invited to a book signing on October 17, 2010 by a local poet for the book "Blood Beats In Four Square Miles" An Anthology of Poetry. Hopefully, it should create an opportunity to work on doing a poetry reading series at the library.

We did a display for the book, Play Me a Song by Barbara Jo-Lucchine Kruczek.  She sent us photographs of big band musicians and some articles from the local paper, The Daily Argus on her father, Philip Lucchine, who was a composer for big band music.  All of it will go to the local history room when the display is over.

The business resources list is up on the library website now.  I am waiting for them to put up the new library website soon.

I also confirmed that I am going to the Ebooks meetup this Friday.  I think it will be an interesting and useful experience.

Tonight, I finished watching Coraline. I like most all of Neil Gaiman's writing.  This is a short piece on him talking about Coraline.



Web Bits
An animated Neil Gaiman is going to star in the children's show Arthur doing a book signing. http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2010/09/an-animated-neil-gaiman-to-guest-star-on-arthur/

Daily Thoughts 6/25/2010

English writer Neil Gaiman. Photograph taken at the 2007 Scream Awards. Source is Neil Gaiman. Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 from Wikimedia.

Daily Thoughts 6/24/2010

Neil Gaiman on closing libraries being a terrible mistake. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturenews/7852404/Neil-Gaiman-says-closing-libraries-would-be-a-terrible-mistake.html He is a wonderful author and has done a lot to support libraries and intellectual freedom. My favorite of his books is Neverwhere and my favorite of his graphic novels is Stardust. The Graveyard Book is also an excellent read.

Ebooks Libraries at the Tipping is $20 for early bird registration it is on September 29 http://ebook-summit.com/ Hopefully, I should be able to attend this. It should be very interesting.

Today has been quiet. I spent some time updating the displays and looking at items that need to be processed to be added.

I also read some more of Much Fall of Blood by Mercedes Lackey, Eric Flint, and Dave Freer. I am enjoying the mix of history, fantasy, and magic.

Daily Thoughts 12/15/2009

Textile vendor in Pakistan reading the newspaper. Photo: Steve Evans "babasteve", Creative Commons Attribution 2.0

Daily Thoughts 12/15/2009

This is a list of the top 100 authors of the decade from the United Kingdom. This is a list of the top 100 authors of the decade.http://thebookseller.msgfocus.com/files/amf_bookseller/project_140/Bookseller_decade_roundup.pdf

On the way to work, I finished reading Daniel Goleman, Social Intelligence. It is a very interesting book.

I spent some time checking for books on psychology. I looked through the Psychology Today book column today. It lists three titles every other month. Choice magazine also has reviews for psychology and philosophy titles.

I also looked through Kirkus Reviews for December 1, 2009 and Deceomber 15, 2009. These are the last issues of Kirkus Reviews in print. One of the issues had the best young adult books of the year and the other had the best books of the year. There is a certain ambivalence reading these magazines because these are the last issues. Kirkus Reviews has always been one of the best review journals. Unfortunately, I don't think it did that well with promoting online reviews.

Today we have the first Graphic Novels Club. We are going to hold it in the fiction room. I have some light refreshments and we have tables and chairs set up. I've also got a number of Neil Gaiman's works. The Story of Miss Finch, Coraline, and Sandman. I could probably also get a couple of his novels, American Gods, Neverwhere, and Anansi Boys. Neil Gaiman is the honorary chair of National Library Week on April 11-17, 2010. http://www.ala.org/ala/newspresscenter/news/pressreleases2009/october2009/nlwgaiman_pio.cfm

We did the first meeting of the Graphic Novels club and discussed Sandman and various manga comics like Vampire Hunter D and Bleach. I also brought out copies of Theodor Seuss Geisel: The Early Works Volume 1 & 2 which are quite interesting to look at. Dr. Seuss did a lot of advertising comics before he wrote books for children.

On the way home, I read some of Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Diving into the Wreck which is about a woman who salvages space ships. I like the concept of taking dangerous risks to search for salvage in wrecked spaceships.

Daily Thoughts 12/14/2009

Photo of Isabel Jay as Mabel in The Pirates of Penance 1897. The image was interesting.

Daily Thoughts 12/14/2009

Today has been a day to help different people with their orders. I have been looking at nonfiction dvds, books on sermons, christian fiction, and reference books and reading various review magazines to prepare for next months orders. Mostly it has been about making sure everything is put in place. I designated some of my budget to make sure that the costs for rebinding some of the damaged books was covered.

Everything seems to be going pretty smoothly today. They are working on moving the fiction books in the mezzanine and shifting the books on the main floor to relocate the fiction books. Lots of books are being moved around right now.

We have a new sign put up for our new arrivals section.

Some of the art books which were ordered as part of our grant money have come in. I am looking at Louvre 400 Masterpieces, a Musee De Louvre Editions book published by Abrams. It is a very beautiful book with color photographs.

Tomorrow we are doing the first Graphic Novels club. It will be on Neil Gaiman, Sandman. Right now, I am looking at The Sandman Library, Seasons of Mists, Volume 4. P. Craig Russell is one of the artists. It is very interesting.

Sports Illustrated Tablet. It is an interesting mix of media and video, very different than a book. http://9to5mac.com/sports-illustrated-tablet-time-349644