Thoughts For Today 7/29/2009

Henry James by John Singer Sargent, 1913

Daily Thoughts 7/29/2009

Today has been another quiet day. I weeded some in the large print and the 700s. I also looked at the new books to genrify some sections. I am thinking of four genre categories; mysteries, African American, romance, and science fiction.

I did a little ordering for the new books focusing on recent books in the media.

Right now I'm reading Xenopath by Eric Brown. It is a science fiction novel featuring a telepathic detective. It is the second novel featuring Jeff Vaughn as the main character. The first novel was Necropath. The setting Bengal station is rather interesting. It is an East Asian space station with lots of Thai and Indian cultural elements.

I also finished reading How The Mighty Fall And Why Some Companies Never Give In by Jim Collins last night. I really haven't had a chance to review it yet.

I feel a little bit scattered today. We also have a section for oversize books, 26 centimeter or taller is the measure we use for quarto books. One of the new ones sitting on my desk is The Art of Harvey Kurtzman The Mad Genius of Comics by Denis Kitchen and Paul Buhle. Denis Kitchen is the founder of Kitchen Sink Press one of the early underground comics publishers. This particular edition is published by Abrams Comicsarts. Harvey Kurtzman is best known for creating Mad Magazine. They have one of my favorite of Harvey Kurtzman's comics, Super Duperman in this book. They also have a picture of Robert Crumb at a very young age which is kind of interesting to look at.

I'm starting to accumulate books again. There are a couple more which came in for me, How You Make The Sale by Frank McNair, Montmorency and the Assassins and Montmorency On The Rocks by Eleanor Updale. I think that libraries are very much like bookstores, they have a product to sell; that product is books and other media. One of the main activities in bookstores is called "handselling" where you sell a specific book to a customer based on what they want. In some ways it is not that different from "readers advisory" in libraries. There is quite a bit of crossover between the two skills.

Daily Thoughts 7/24/2009 (Golden Rules For Managers )

Tatyana from Evgeni Onegin, by Elena Samokysh-Sudovskaya. 1900-1904

Daily Thoughts 7/24/2009

I had some time to do some weeding in the oversize books and the sports section. I still have quite a bit to do. They are still shifting the 700s as well.

I took some time to look for award books. I looked at the Edgar Award for mysteries, the RITA award for romance, and also looked at the Horror Writers of America association. I picked out the 2008 Pulitzer prize for poetry book, The Shadow of Sirius by W.S. Merwin.

One of my favorite young adult adventure series of novels is the Montmorency series by Eleanor Updale. It just reminds me so much of Arthur Conan Doyle and Robert Louis Stevenson. The writing is truly intriguing. It is a tale of a gentleman thief with a very dark side.

I have been reading Golden Rules for Managers 119 Incredible Lessons For Leadership Success by Frank McNair. It reads like a management book for people who like to read motivational business titles. The book reminds me a little bit of Who Moved My Cheese. We have a few people who come in regularly for authors like Norman Vincent Peale or Og Mandino.

The book has lots of acronyms, business fables, anecdotes, maxims, and sayings. It would be excellent for a salesperson or gregarious customer service person to pull pithy quotes from. Unlike many other motivational titles it also includes a number of recognizable business terms like SMART targets, participatory management, and performance appraisals which are listed in the index. Frank McNair rolled many loose business ideas into one coherent book. This book is a 2009 reprint of the 2000 edition. The book itself is very presentable. The typeface is very clean and the page layout is vey readable.

Frank McNair has an MBA from Wake Forest University and a certificate in Presbyterian theology. He also runs a well respected consultancy, http://www.mcnairandmcnair.com/ He does not make any direct religious statements though except for the Golden Rule . It is the kind of book a company might bulk order for their whole sales department as part of a motivational seminar.