December 2011
45 posts
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best fiction I read in 2011
I kind of gulped books this year around the edges of a busy work schedule. So, by “best,” I mean something like “most fun” or “most refreshing” or “most compelling.” Not necessarily Great Literature.
But that’s OK. Sometimes we need that.
Contenders for most thought-provoking or Closest to Great Literature are:
Home, Marilynne Robinson...
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“It’s about being in an adolescent’s head—a head of hyperbole in which “ruin my...”
– This whole essay is killer.
I have my beef with present tense novels — I’m just old and get tangled up in action sometimes — but Baker makes some really good points about the genesis of the trend and what it says about us as a culture (and teens).
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“‘It’s a fight for equality, literature and keeping the doors to the world...”
– “Protestors Arrested at Library Sit-In” (The Michigan Citizen)
These people are intense. Flattering aims, for sure, but they do make me a little nervous. (This may be, in part, my dread at having to pitch patrons out at closing time talking.) I hadn’t heard about this; had you?
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12 YA Novels We Can't Wait to Read in 2012 →
I’m with them on Pandemonium, Isla and the Happily After (those titles!!) and Matched #3, of which they write:
Ally couldn’t tell us much about the finale to her “Matched” series when we talked to her recently. But she did promise that the title would end in “ed.” So there you go.
I’ll be able to say whether I’m pining for Insurgent after I...
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new movies at HPL glogster →
And today, as the library is getting moved and we don’t have much to do, I experimented with creating a Glogster featuring the trailers of newly acquired movies. I figure we can post it to our new Facebook page and link to it on the main page of our library website, and I can make a new one of each month.
Well, anyway, it’s better than following around the movers mournfully, right?
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Readalikes for A Child Called It →
A truly gruesome book that is perennially popular at our library, particularly among teens who don’t consider themselves readers. This list is particularly helpful because our copies of A Child Called It are forever getting stolen. (Yay?)
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“The worst film adaptation I’ve seen is “Anne of Green Gables: The Continuing...”
– Y.S. Lee in “And the Next Tin-Tin Is…”, a survey of YA authors on the best and worst film adaptations of YA books
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most miserable book I actually finished in 2011
I’m not afraid to stop reading a book I’m not enjoying, unless it’s assigned or comes highly recommended. Here are a few I struggled through nonetheless.
Nominees:
Ship Breaker, Paolo Bacigalupi (2010), which was just super upsetting.
The Little Women Letters, Gabrielle Donnelly (2011), which was more ridiculously cheerful than the original, which is saying something. I...
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a brief sampling of books I couldn't finish in...
Hey, it could still happen.
A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller (made it 150 pages). Weird. Slow. And the story picks up and changes almost entirely, Once and Future King-style, midway through.
The Phantom Tollbooth, Norman Juster (made it 150 pages). I hate stories in the mode of Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz where the character is trapped in a strange land and just wanders...
whatifiwanttobeapurse asked: I loved the list of books you read in 2011! I'm compiling mine now! I'm waiting for my copy of Sisterhood Everlasting to come in the mail now and I'm excited about reading it after I read your own review. I'm interested to see who the characters are now. Your tumblr is so awesome!
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2011 rereads
I’m an unashamed rereader. This year, though, the majority of my rereads were audio books with J, some of which he’d read before and some of which were new. We listened to the first four of the Tomorrow series on the way to and from Florida this summer, and then spent the long hours of interminable Virginia making survival lists: who we’d take with us into the mountains (our...
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The Dead and the Gone (The Last Survivors)
(The Dead and the Gone, Susan Beth Pfeffer, 2008)
See also: Life as We Knew It
Scenario: Seventeen-year-old Alex Morales is left to care for his two sisters in a New York City gone made when a meteor knocks the moon out of orbit and his world begins to fray.
Pros:
the moral element to survival. Alex, a Catholic, really struggles with what to do. The book could be all action, but it’s...
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Possessed
Possessed, Kate Cann (2009)
Scenario: Rayne feels trapped in her inner-city London life. As soon as she can, she lights out for the serenity of Morton’s Keep, an ancient house pulsing with power.
Pros:
brooding atmosphere. Bookshelves of Doom makes an apt comparison to The Dark Is Rising; I also thought of The China Garden and its pale imitation, The Forgotten Garden.
English...
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books I read in 2011
In Summary Fewer than the 74 in 2010 but about the same as in 2009, when I spent a great deal of time sitting on our bungalow’s couch in Uganda. And this year I worked half the year full-time, so not too shabby, overall.
Trends YA, in general. Specifically, dystopian and post-apocalyptic stuff, which I’ve always loved and now can find in heaps, and Dessen-esque romantic comedy. This...
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How I Live Now to be a movie! →
Huzzah, huzzah! I read this book earlier this year, and it was weird and wonderful. Bigger and stranger in scope than I expected, and a little like a lot of other things, but a lot like only itself. I’m interested to see how they bring it to life as a film.
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ongoing techie quest
In my ongoing obligation-ridden quest to actually learn how to be a decent IT person, I signed up for this workshop next week:
Whether you have 4 or 40 PCs in your Library, learn how to standardize and simplify the management of your computers (even when they are all different!) This short class will take you through the steps of standardizing and upgrading any and all PCs and laptops via easily...
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City of Bones (The Mortal Instruments, Book 1)
{City of Bones, Cassandra Clare. 2007.}
Scenario (borrowed from my paranormal romance pathfinder for work): Clary is drawn into a world of demons only she can see when her mother disappears.
Pros:
It feels really teenagery, which is good, though not always good reading.
“It was Magnus’s turn to interrupt, his lips curled back angrily to show sharp white teeth. ‘Every...
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five question Friday: Susan the Children's...
1. Can you tell us about your current position? I am a children’s librarian in a largeish public library in the suburbs of Chicago. A little about my library: we have 3 buildings and my building’s Children’s Services department is made up of 11 people. Children’s Services only go up to 5th grade here and after that we send them upstairs to Teen services so I focus my...
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fashion designers sketch katniss's fire dress →
Most of these are pretty dreadful, like the designers didn’t read the relevant passages at all, but whatev.
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work/life balance in library school (via...
I’ve been thinking about how I’ve handled this in my nearly-two years in library school. Here’s what I’ve come up with:
My marriage is a given. I was married before I started library school, and I look at that as my vocation, and being a librarian as how I’ll help the world and pay my bills. That informs everything for me.
Going slow. Back when I was working one...
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courses I wish they'd offered in library school →
Thoughtful piece on how library school could take what we learn, then teach us how to sell it to our patrons.
Last week, I found myself wishing my library school offered a class on How to Fix the Library Website Homepage After You’ve Done Something Terrible to It While Making a Minor Change. Then I remembered they do (Web Development and Information Architecture), so I guess I now know what...
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moving a library (part 1)
So, the other day, thelifeguardlibrarian asked,
What do you think of the changes they’re planning to make on the building?
The short answer is AWESOME.
It almost doesn’t matter what they change about our library. Right now, our historic building is so full of quirks that just learning the ropes requires its own orientation. For instance, in our current digs:
Yes, there is a public...
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“I’m afraid today everybody thinks the sexiest, smartest thing to do is write for...”
– Judy Blume (via NPR)
In a nutshell, why I want to be a youth librarian
(via karijetaime)
Maybe y’all can help me, as this is somewhat related: what adventure books would you recommend to a man reading at a sixth-grade reading level?
Today’s question may have been the toughest reading...
mauthor asked: Hi. Love your tumblr. I wasn't able to click your twitter. Could you send a link or your twitter address to me. Also are you on goodreads?
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five question Friday #4: Kate the Learning Center...
Kate the shelving queen recognizes that books to put away means books got read.
1. Can you tell us about your current position?
I coordinate the Learning Center at a residential treatment facility for youth in Chicago. The Learning Center effectively functions like a small media center might in a school—I coordinate the resources kids need to do their homework (books, computers, etc.), and...
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academic library as ultimate place to be
libraryjournal:
From Gawker, Scene Outside College Library Looks Like Walmart on Black Friday:
For students at the College of William & Mary in Virginia, trying to secure a prime study spot in the library during the “reading days” before Finals Week has become as harrowing and dangerous as trying to purchase $2 waffle iron on Black Friday. Trampling! Pepper spray! These are now part of...
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Falling Together, Marisa de los Santos
Let’s just say, I shouldn’t have read it so soon after Sisterhood Everlasting, which left me with this deep sense of foreboding. It’s another story about friends looking for their missing friend after a long time apart, with third-person narration shared by all but not all of the friends, and an exotic locale, but there the similarities end.
I have this sort of strained...
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casting for Ender's Game movie moves forward →
I didn’t know this was a thing.
(Incidentally, does anyone else feel like Orson Scott Card books always sound better on the jacket than they ever actually are?)
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yesterday, at the library
I:
proofread a resume for a patron.
tried to help a patron get his resume off a floppy disk (!) and submitted online. It may have been the first time I was actually grateful for our circa-2002 computer lab.
helped find and request books on technology addiction for a high school kid.
searched the NPR archives with a third patron for a book about string theory, mentioned on NPR, the previous day...
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five question Friday #3: Caro the Academic...
Caro Pinto, the Libarchivist.
1. Can you tell us about your current position?
Currently, I am the librarian for social science and emerging technologies at Hampshire College. I oversee collection development, instruction, and outreach for the School of Critical Social Inquiry. I am also involved in a variety of Five College Consortium working groups and committees including the Government...
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A debate on Archives and Archival Education
awesomearchives:
You Ought to be Ashamed is a blog dedicated to archival students and the market we will be dealing with. They just came out with a series of posts on the value of an MLIS.
How to become an archivist in ten short years: take one.
In defense of the MLS (Sort of)
I suggest the whole blog, though it is a little depressing.
For my archival brethren, from FQF #1, Shelby.
