Daily Thoughts 06/02/2012

The Young Student, Ozias Leduc, 1894


Daily Thoughts 06/02/2012

While I was at NY Cultural Tech, I talked briefly about Codecademy, Skillshare, and Generalassemb.ly  which are educational startups.  I also learned that lynda.com is free from Metro with an individual membership from MyMetro.  Several other sources of free education were suggested.  The first was http://www.khanacademy.org/ which is a free online video training site with lots of content.  There was also http://www.udacity.org/ which offered free college level courses, http://www.coursera.org/ which also is college oriented and http://mitx.mit.edu/  These all offer fairly complex college level courses that are computer oriented.  There is also a free learning site which is called P2P U  https://p2pu.org/en/ which was interesting.

At NY Cultural Tech it was also suggested that I might want to read Object Oriented Thought Process, 3rd Edition by Matt A. Weisfeld which is a primer on object oriented programming, the basis of C, Javascript, and a variety of other programs.  I requested the item through interlibrary loan.  It is in the New York Public Library sytem.

This morning, I updated the Facebook and Twitter page for the library.  I also checked the displays
and gift books.  I also spent a few minutes looking through the website.  Two books came in for me to read; The Great Divergence America's Growing Inequality Crisis and What We Can Do About It by Timothy Noah and The Drowned Cities A Novel by Paolo Bacigalupi.  The Drowned Cities is a young adult book.

I also had a chance to check some cd audiobooks that were donated.  There were a few worth adding.

The Drowned Cities by Paolo Bacigalupi

On the way home, I read some of The Drowned Cities by Paolo Bacigalupi.  It is in the same future dystopian world as his Printz award winning novel, Ship Breaker.  In this novel, one of his previous minor characters, Tool takes a more central role.  Tool is a chimaera, a combination of dog, human, hyena, and other creatures and bred for war.  Unlike his brethren, he has broken free from dog like devotion to a master.  The setting is in a jungle area overrun by warring factions which fight over the remnants of coastal America.

The story takes Mahlia, a teenage girl into The Drowned Cities of the coastline where people fight over scrap metal and territory.  It is a damaged world where global warming has raised the sea levels to cover many coastal areas.  Mahlia follows Tool into a warzone in the hopes of rescuing her friend Mouse.  The story is gritty, with lots of action, philosophy about peace and war, and insights about what it means to fight for a cause.

Paolo Bacigalupi's writing is fantastic.  His adult novel, The Windup Girl in 2009 won the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, Compton Crook, and John W. Campbell Memorial Award.  It was both fantastic and different.  His young adult novels are just as good.  He often works with Tobias Buckell which I find very satisfying.  He also has a blog at http://windupstories.com



Starting on June 4, 2012 with Day of Dialog between Librarians and Publishers I am about to buried in an endless stream of books.  These are a few of the books at the Day of Dialog conference.

Hot New Titles Books You'll Discover at Day of Dialogs Editors Picks Panel
http://reviews.libraryjournal.com/2012/06/prepub/what-else-is-hot/hot-new-titles-books-youll-discover-at-day-of-dialogs-editors-picks-panel/

These are some books, places, and other things I am Interested In on the show floor for Book Expo America-- I pulled them from various places:

2148 Librarians Lounge

2332-- Baker Publishing Group

Baker Illustrated Bible Commentary Baker Publishing Group

Angels Are For Real Judith McNutt  Baker Publishing Group

2740-- Chicago Review Press

Dancing Barefoot The Patty Smith Story Dave Thompson, Chicago Review Press

Deadly Valentines The Story of Capone’s Machine Gun Jack McGurn  Chicago Review Press

2828 Copia Interactive

3058—Lonely Planet

Food Lovers Guide to the World Lonely Planet

3140—American Library Association

3153—Publishers Weekly

Show guide.

3239—McGraw Hill

Comic Con and the Business of Popular Culture by Rob Salkowitz

3349-3340 Harper Collins

The Prisoner of Heaven by Carlos Ruiz Zafón (Harper).

3358—St. Martin’s

The Beautiful Mystery by Louise Penny

3364—MacMillan

The Gift of Fire/On the Head of a Pin Walter Mosley

The Antidote:  Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking Oliver Burkeman  MacMillan Faber and Faber

Weird A Compendium of Dark and Strange Stories MacMillan

The Rapture of the Nerds by Cory Doctorow and Charles Stross September MacMillan/Tor

Pity the Billionaire Thomas Frank Macmillan

Posters from Holt: Paul Auster’s Winter Journal

Robin Sloan’s Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore Farrar Strauss Giraux

Yang Jisheng’s Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine 1958–1962

John Scalzi (Redshirt)

3390-3340 Harper Collins

Louise Erdrich’s Round House

3422 3522-- Norton

3422—Fantagraphics

Thames and Hudson

Jewelry by Chanel

3439—Scholastic

Captain Underpants and the Terrifying Return of Tippy Tinkletrousers by Dav Pilkey (Scholastic)

3447—Houghton Mifflin/Harcourt

In Sunlight and Shadow Mark Helprin

3466—NBM Publishing, Papercutz

Stan Mack A Comic History of the American Revolution

Nancy Drew Graphic Novels

3531—Yale University Press

Of Africa by Wole Soyinka

3576-- Diamond Book Distributors

3604-- Perseus

Joe Sacco,

Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt (finished book)

When I Left Home: My Story (book), Buddy Guy

Adam Lazarus’s Best of Rivals: Joe Montana, Steve Young, and the Inside Story Behind the NFL’s Greatest Quarterback Controversy

We Are What We Pretend to Be Kurt Vonnegut Perseus PGW

Rick Steve’s France 2013 Perseus/PGW

The Dawn of Innovation :  The First American Industrial Revolution Charles R. Morris Perseus

3621-3622

Hachette

Dan Rather’s Rather Outspoken: My Life in the News

I Declare Joel Osteen Hachette

Change Your Words Change Your Life Joyce Meyer Hachette

3627-- Little Brown

Free Tote Bags

Zoo by James Patterson

3645-3646—Barrons Educational

3657-3658  Free Press

Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susan Cahalan

Vaddey Ratner’s In the Shadow of the Banyan

3673-- Tuttle

Easy Indian Cooking Tuttle Publishing

Chinese For Beginners Yi Ren, Tuttle Publishing

Korea:The Impossible Country  Daniel Tudor  Tuttle Publishing

3721-- Quayside

One Drawing A Day A 6-Week Course Exploring Creativity with Illustration and Mixed Media

Veronica Lawlor Quayside Quarry

Iron Maiden The Ultimate Unauthorized History of the Beast Quayside Publishing

Complete Photo Guide to Art Quilting Quayside Publishing

Best of Business Card Design 9 Quayside Publishing

Beginners Illustrated Guide to Gardening Katie Elzer-Peters Quayside

3722-3822-- Wiley

Lisa Sabine-Wilson’s WordPress for Dummies,

Deborah Ng, Online Community Management for Dummies;

Harlequin

3739-3740

Brenda Jackson (Feeling the Heat)

Rochelle Alers (Sweet Southern Nights)

3784—Romance Writers of America

3869-- O’Reilly Media  (They have been very considerate to me before.) 

3904 -- Akashic

3904a – Cinco Punto Press

One Thousand Mustaches Cinco Punto Press

3906—Coffee House Press

Read This Handpicked Favorites From America’s Indie Booksellers

3932 --Dorling Kindersley

Universe Martin Rees DK

3940 --Random House

Jo Nesbo Phantom

Chris Bohjalian Sandcastle Girls

Joseph Anton by Salman Rushdie

Elsewhere Richard Russo

Thomas Jefferson by John Meacham

3948-- Kobo (They are one of the organizers for http://www.book2camp.org/ ) and an e-reader company.

3952—North Atlantic Books

The Open Source Everything Manifesto: Transparency, Truth, and Trust  Robert David Steele and Howard Bloom North Atlantic Books

4028—Penguin Group, USA

Digital Photography Through the Year Tom Ang Penguin

One Last Thing Before I Go by Jonathan Tropper (Dutton)

4062, 4064-- Nolo

4139-- Grove Atlantic

G. Willow Wilson’s Alif the Unseen

Sherman Alexie—Blasphemy

4108 Hal Leonard

Jimi Hendrix: The Ultimate Lyric Book, edited by Janie L. Hendrix

4158-4258

Workman

Matti Friedman, The Aleppo Code: True Story of Obsession, Faith, and the Pursuit of an Ancient Bible;

Jacques Pepin New Complete Techniques  Black Dog and Leventhal

4230—Douglas and McIntyre

A Whale for the Killing Farley Mowat  D&M Publishers Douglas & McIntyre

4252—Insight Editions

Exploring Titanic: The Expeditions of James Cameron

4270—Abrams

The Art of Jules Feiffer Poster

4339-- Overdrive

4346 – Midpoint Trade Books

Digital Mindset Carol Ingley Midpoint trade Books

Sweet Dreams How To Establish and Maintain Good Sleep Habits for Your Baby

Midpoint Trade Carroll and Brown

4449—Horror Writers Association

4451—Mystery Writers of America

4464—Recorded Books

4469-- Zolabooks.com

4583—Prestige Media

Free Bags and Bookmarks

4622—Better World Books

Digital Zone.  It should be interesting.

Digital Zone

DZ2034 Sony Electronics, Inc. (Our library got a donation of 3 PRS-350 E-readers)

DZ2117 Overdrive

DZ2122 Bluefire

DZ2128 Aquafadas

DZ2206 Jouve

DZ2305 Impelsys/ iPublish Central

DZ2309  O'Reilly Books (Email Invitation)

DZ 2311 Wavecloud

DZ2312 Libredigital

DZ2315 (Enovate Media sent out a general invite to the Ebooks, Ereaders, and Digital Publishing Group on Linkedin.

DZ2415 Gutenberg Technology

Ship Breaker a Novel By Paolo Bacigalupi

Ship Breaker a Novel By Paolo Bacigalupi

Paolo Bacigalupi just won the Nebula award for his novel, The Windup Girl. This is his second novel. He also wrote an excellent collection of short stories, Pump Six and Other Stories. This novel is a young adult novel, but after reading it, I think it will appeal to all ages.

The writing is extremly fast paced and suspenseful. I was glued to the book and finished it in a single sitting. There is a lot of swearing, violence, and some drug references. However, these do not detract from the story. The violence is not sensationalized, it is portrayed as being a necessity to survive, or as a form of hardness.

The setting is fascinating. It is a near future where the age of oil has ended. Empty oil tankers line the coastlines, there are massive hurricanes, and New Orleans is a drowned city. In this setting is Nailer, a teenage scavenger of shipwrecks who makes his living collecting copper wire, tin, and other light metals.

Nailer contrasts well with Nita a rich girl who he rescues from a shipwreck. This brings a life changing adventure. We travel by bullet train and solar clipper ship to escape the bad guys.

I like the technology, it is completely believable. Paolo Bacigalupi even makes reference to a Buckell cannon designed to shoot sails into the upper atmosphere where they will catch strong winds to pull a ship quickly. At the end of the book, he acknowledges Tobias Buckell, another one of my favorite science fiction writers for technical help.

This is a superb, fast paced, adventure novel set in a dystopic near future. Read it, enjoy it, tell others about it.

Daily Thoughts 5/16/2010

pen and ink drawing of the royal library in Königsberg, circa 1815

Daily Thoughts 5/16/2010

Last night, I read some more of War At The Wall Street Journal. It is different than most business books I have read. The focus is on deal making, who talked to whom, when they met, who are the parties discussing business transactions, and why they would meet. There is no dry theory. It is about phone calls, exchanging papers, talking to lawyers, being obsequious, fawning, or demanding, and sizing up the competition.

Television and Books

I have a television, but it is hooked up to a dvd and video player. The only way to get regular reception where I am is to buy cable. This means I watch television once a week at the laundromat while I am folding clothes. It is hard to read and fold clothes at the same time.

A lot of the television shows are now on computer. I watched the Roughnecks Starship Troopers on Youtube as well as a variety of clips from the news. A lot of the news websites will have video clips as well. It is easy enough to get any video coverage you might want to see of events on television on a computer these days. It is also very easy to read the news on Yahoo news, so you see and hear the same news everyone else is getting even if you are not watching television.

Also, I sometimes check out entire series of television shows from my library. I checked out the first season of Star Trek out, I Claudius from the BBC, and a variety of different PBS dvds. This is less bothersome than watching the shows each day. It allows me to watch what I want, when I want to.

This does not mean that television is not connected to the book world. There is even a Book TV, I have never watched it, but it is there. http://www.booktv.org/ Also, many library websites have Books on the Air which http://library.booksite.com/5936/nl/?list=NLAIR which contains a listing of when various authors are presenting each week. You sometimes question whether Youtube is really a separate thing from regular television these days. Almost all television shows are now born digital like books are increasingly becoming born digital.

It is important to think of a book as a package. For example, I read Star Trek novels, but I also watch the shows, and read the comic books. I haven't played the video games. I also have not played the video games for Halo. However, I recently purchased Halo Helljumper written by Peter David which is a graphic novel, as well as the book, Halo: The Cole Protocol by Tobias Buckell. Halo will eventually come out as a movie and after the movie, I can easily imagine it as a Saturday morning cartoon. I read it because I like Peter David's and Tobias Buckell's writing.

This is true for more than just fiction. Ken Burns Civil War is a PBS documentary and a book. So is the Julia Child cookbook. If they can turn a cookbook into a movie starring Meryl Streep, Julie & Julia, they can find out how to package most books.

Think of media packages being born digital as a document, maybe something like an ebook. First they get turned into an ebook, then a physical book, then other products are spun off from them; audiobooks, films, music, posters, website skins, and other things. This can be true of anything from books on horses to horror novels. It does not have to happen this way. Sometimes the movie will be produced first, or the music, or even art work. What matters is that everything is now open to multiple formats of our choice.

This choice will lead to options when we purchase items, we will have a choice, ebook, book, audiobook, and then maybe related films, television, and music.

The line is also becoming blurred between what exactly is a television show, if it is a show you can watch on television or a computer, is it a television show. I don't see programs like authors @ google, http://www.google.com/talks/authors/index.html being that different from watching television. Nor do I see online conference videos like the TED conference being that differenct from watching television http://www.ted.com/ . The lines between the different types of media are blurring.

Other Thoughts

I put Steamed by Katie Macalister on hold, it is a steampunk romance novel. I also put Ship Breaker on hold by Paolo Bacigalupi. This is a young adult novel. Paolo Bacigalupi just won the Nebula Award for The Windup Girl, yesterday. He is a fantastic writer. I was pleasantly surprised, Paulo Bacigalupi's novels are very inclusive and international in flavor and have a strong environmental and political message.

I read some more of War at the Wall Street Journal. The author is describing the merger between News Corp owned by Rupert Murdoch and Dow Jones owned by the Bancroft family. Dow Jones owns the Wall Street Journal which is one of the two most influential newspapers in the United States, the other being the New York Times. Rupert Murdoch is often criticized for his biased reporting to the right, much like Arthur Sulzberger Jr. is criticized for his reporting to the left with the New York Times. Rupert Murdoch's takeover of the Wall Street Journal essentially polarized news reporting in the remaining newspapers.

I also started reading a bit of Readers Advisory Service in the Public Library. The author describes how to do book lists, bookmarks, and other readers advisory tools in this book. I am hoping the book will give me some ideas on how to improve our bibliographies and bookmarks. I just subscribed to Fiction_L which is a readers advisory listserv listed in this book. http://www.webrary.org/rs/flmenu.html

Daily Thoughts 12/12/2009

Roman study Showing scrolls or books in a "scrinium", also lamp, writing tablets, etc. Source: Illustrated History of Furniture From the Earliest to the Present Time By Frederick Litchfield Available from www.gutenberg.org Published: 1893

Daily Thoughts 12/12/2009

I watched the new Star Trek film today. Although, it was an enjoyable film, I did not like the changes they made. Destroying the planet Vulcan and changing the time line was not that appealing. The person who played Captain Kirk did not seem strong or decisive enough for the role.

Also, the villain, the Romulan miner Nero was not very convincing. I was hoping for a stronger villain. The movie was a disappointment. I am hoping that they do not continue the new Star Trek with this story line. I liked the old story line much better.

I had a chance to walk up to my local library today, but I did not check anything out or use the computers. It looks like they have had a considerable reduction in funds to buy new material.

Right now, I am reading more of Social Intelligence by Daniel Goleman. The author was discussing the concept of I-It (treating people as objects to reach a goal) versus I-You (trying to create relevant social connections between people. He is describing how it is important to talk about the other person early in conversations.). The book is quite substantial. I can finish a chapter or two a day. Much of the writing is worth pondering.

This is why I like Paolo Bacigalupi so much. It is a link to the short story, The Gambler. http://pyrsamples.blogspot.com/2008/11/fast-forward-2-paolo-bacigalupis.html

The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi

The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi

Paolo Bacigalupi is a Locus award winning author. He was also nominated for the Hugo award for his short story, The Calorie Man. This novel is set in the same setting as the short story, The Calorie Man. He has also writen another book which I reviewed earlier on this blog, Pump Six and Other Stories.

The setting is a dystopian future. The world has run out of oil and global warming has devastated the environment. Giant agricultural companies use crop plagues to control the food supplies. The setting is in Thailand one of the few places that is not under the thumb of the agribusiness giants.

I like the characters; they are very diverse. Andersons Lake works for the calorie companies, Emiko is a genetically engineered servant, and Hock Seng is a Chinese refugee and business man. The characters are portrayed differently than most science fiction stories I have read. They are more fleshed out and human.

There are plenty of interesting ideas; mastodons used to power electrical equipment, coal powered tanks, and environmental troops used to protect the borders. The descriptions of the future technology are completely believable. The book is in a near future setting.

I hope that Paolo Bacigalupi continues to provide other interesting novels. If you want science fiction in the new style very much tied in to now he fits in with Charles Stross, Cory Doctorow, and Bruce Sterling. The book is published by Nightshade Books. Paolo Bacigalupi's web site is called Windup Stories http://www.windupstories.com

Daily Thoughts 10/3/2009

From New York Public Library Digital Gallery

Daily Thoughts 10/3/2009

Today I am at my local library. I returned three books and did not see anything which I wanted to check out. Right now, I am sitting at the public computers.

I also picked up a few bookmarks. One is on green jobs and another is on jobs based on the stimulus package. They look like something which we might want to redesign for our library. I like picking up material from other libraries occassionally for ideas. It is a practical thing to do.

I am reading The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi. This is a different kind of science fiction with strong social commentary. It is a dark future where giant agribusiness companies control the food supply with crop plagues and genetically tailored seeds. Smaller countries try to keep control of their seeds and food. The sea levels are rising, and money is measured in calories. The setting is in Thailand which makes it even more interesting.

Pump Six And Other Stories-- Paolo Bacigalupi-- Review

Pump Six and Other Stories by Paolo Bacigalupi is a short story collection. It is mainly science fiction. The short story, The Calorie Man, won the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award. This collection comes from a relatively new press, http://www.nightshadebooks.com It looks like they have an excellent selection of new science fiction and fantasy titles. This book is c2008.

The style of writing is very dark. They address the destructive side of human nature. Contemporary issues like water pollution, agricultural seed control, water supplies, and mans relation to nature are addressed. I would think of this science ficiton as being focused on biological, environmental, and psychological issues. The stories at times are quite cruel.

There is quite a bit of irony used in the stories. For example in The People of Sand and Slag, a group of cyborgs finds a dog in a wasteland, they keep it as a pet until it ceases being satisfying to them, then they eat it.

The Story The Calorie Man and The Yellow Card Man seem to be set in the same future dystopia. It is a future of agricultural plagues and giant companies controlling the genetically modified grains which are used for both the food supply and energy supply. To be at the bottom is to be under the thumb of the environmental police.

In The Pasho, the author philosophizes on the differences between soft power; power coming from technology, culture, and philosopy, and hard power; power coming from war. A Pasho is a kind of pirest of knowledge bent on rebuilding civilization after a long collapse.

There are a total of eleven stories in the collection. I really look forward to when the author finishes writing his novel. The writing itself has surprising imagery in it. There are cheshire chameleon cats, fields of soyPRO and HiGro. The characters have varied names and backgrounds, Soldier Wang, Lao Xia, Lolo, Raphel Ka'Korem, Lalji, and others. This is a writer worth following closely.