Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay

Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay

Under Heaven is a historical fantasy based on the 8th century Tang dynasty in China. Shen Tai, the hero of the story calls his country Kitai. Kitai is the Russian word for China. This story draws from asian and eurasian history. Sardia where Shen Tai receives a gift of Sardian horses is a medieval historical country along the Silk Road.

The historical elements make this novel beautiful to read. Guy Gavriel Kay uses traditional eight line Chinese verse throughout the book. He acknowledges Li Po, the Chinese poet as his inspiration. One of the secondary characters, Sima Zian is called an Immortal because of the beautiful poetry he writes.

The story itself has a diverse variety of elements. It is much more than just sword fighting and magical battles. In fact, the magic described here is different, the bogu tribesmen have shamans who communicate with animals, there is forbidden astrology called the "School of Night", warrior monks practice martial arts, and the Emperor of Kitai drinks alchemical potions to increase his potency.

There are beautiful descriptions of bejeweled courtesans playing the Pipa, dancing, and wiling away the evenings. There is decpetion, intrigue, wine (peach, pepper, grape, and spiced), sex, assassination attempts, battles, and history. The setting is in the countryside of Kitai, at the imperial court, and beyond The Long Wall, and in the grasslands of the Bogu. The characters are soldiers, poets, noblemen, noblewomen, warrior monks, tribesmen, imperial bureaucrats, and concubines.

The hero, Shen Tai is propelled through the story by forces greater than himself. He starts with a great action, burying the dead on a battlefield as part of mourning the death of his father, the General Shen. He survives many intrigues and battles and does not seek what is given to him. The characters make terrible mistakes which lead to tragedies and civil war. This makes the story compelling.

This is an interesting fantasy written in a literary style with both an epilogue and acknowledgements for the historical and literary research put into writing this book. Guy Gavriel Kay is a Canadian writer who won the World Fantasy Award in 2008 for his book Ysabel. His official website is Bright Weavings. http://www.brightweavings.com/

Selinhos e promoção

Olá meninas,
Precisava passar por aqui pra tirar poeira do bloguinho, coitadinho, tão abandonado esses dias...
Estou em falta com duas amigas queridas, que me presentearam com selinhos já faz um tempinho. Então, deixa eu voltar colocando a vida em dia:

Ganhei estes selinhos da Sônia Facion, do Nana's Patch:





E como regra, tenho que repassar a 10 amigas.

Ganhei este selinho da Carolina R., do Walking to the Rainbow:




E as regras:
1) Dizer 2 coisas que te fazem sorrir:
- Passeando pela blogosfera me deparar com um post bem humorado ou com uma imagem de algo lindo que eu possa fazer.
- Ver um post cheio de comentários.
2) Dizer 1 coisa que te faz sorrir no blog do qual recebeu o selo:
A forma despreocupada como ela escreve, simplesmente publica o que lhe vem à mente.
3) Indicar o selo para 20 blogs.

Eu sei que estou fugindo um pouquinho à regra, mas dedico estes 3 selinhos a todas as amigas que me visitam, seguidoras ou não.


E tem promoção rolando no blog da Rê, o Rerossini:



Obrigada Sônia e Carol, e sucesso pra Rê com a promoção!
Beijos

Daily Thoughts 5/31/2010

Baroness Emma Orczy de Orczi (1865–1947), a British novelist, playwright and artist of Hungarian noble origin.Taken 10 June 1920 by Alexander Bassano. The Baroness of Orczy is famous for writing The Scarlett Pimpernel.

Daily Thoughts 5/31/2010

Happy Memorial Day. There is a parade outside with the local politicians, the veterans, scouts, and automobile club. It is very nice outside. Pleasant enough to take a nice long walk.

My to be read list is in front of me. I am planning to read Daniel H. Pink, Drive The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, Tobias Buckell mentioned it on Facebook, Seth Godin, Linchpin Are You Indispensable mentioned by Ron Hogan during his speech at the Book Blogger Convention, Laurence Cosse, A Novel Bookstore an advanced reading copy I got at Book Expo America, Gail Carriger, Changeless, I just like her books and Rex Riders by J.P. Carlson, another advanced reading copy I got at Book Expo America.

Barbara Genco who is the Editor for Collection Development for Library Journal twittered this, it is a set of summer picks for books from NPR. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127212916

Occassionally, I prune my side bar when book blogs become inactive and replace them with other book blogs that are linking to me. I usually wait until a blog has been inactive for one to two months. People stop blogging after a while and try something else. Alabama Bookworm is active again http://albookworm.blogspot.com/ , I am not sure about Book Bound, they mainly review paranormal romance and young adult which is interesting, but not quite in the same category as the books which I review or read. http://b00kbound.blogspot.com/ , TNBBC's The Next Best Book Blog http://thenextbestbookblog.blogspot.com/ which was represented at the Book Bloggers Convention has a link to my site. Sometimes, a blog will stop posting for a while, but still visit other blogs. If I'm still getting visits, but no posts, I'll hope they'll post at a later date.

I am adding Neil Gaiman's Journal to the authors that I read. I read this on occassion. http://journal.neilgaiman.com/ I am also adding Jonathan Carroll's Website. I think Jonathan Carroll's site is one of the most beautifully designed author websites I have ever seen. http://www.jonathancarroll.com/index.php . It includes an introduction by Neil Gaiman. Their writing style is very sympathetic with each other.

I also like Linnea Sinclair who writes science fiction romance; more specifically, science fiction space opera in my opinion. http://www.linneasinclair.com/

this is central station

http://community.thisiscentralstation.com/lucageorge11

Daily Thoughts 5/30/2010

Victor Hugo, c1875, taken by Comte Stanisław Julian Ostroróg dit WALERY (1830-1890), French Ministry of Culture, from Wikimedia

Daily Thoughts 5/30/2010

Have been reading the uncomfortable dead (what's missing is missing) a novel by four hands. The chapters are written alternately, first Subcomandate Marcos will write one chapter, then Paco Ignacio Taibo II will write the next chapter. This creates a slowly interweaving setting where the characters in the book move closer and closer together.

There is a lot of politics in this book, an odd mix of left wing libertarianism and anarchism that often has an absurd and ridiculous quality to it mixed with ironic humor. The main characters are detectives in that they are trying to solve a crime, but it is often hard to tell what the crime is exactly, and it is often more of a conversation about the vagaries of life in the mixed up setting of a corrupt, greedy Mexico city. I am enjoying the book because of its unique iconoclastic style.

The characters are interesting personalities; a progressive politician with a pet dog with a broken leg, a gay revolutionary, an inspector for the Zapatistas, a Chinese revolutionary in Mexico city, a Mexican porn star who looks like Bin Laden, a corrupt business man, a sweet old grandmother who hacks computers, and others.

The characters all chain smoke, drink, often swear, and tell jokes. The book is not that clean, it might make some people uncomfortable. However, there is very little gratuitious sex or violence, the characters mainly talk about it. The book is very well written and was recommended by Library Journal and the Los Angeles Times. Paco Ignacio Taibo II has won numerous awards for his writing; he is a professor of history at Metropolitan University of Mexico City. It is odd reading a mystery cowritten by a revolutionary, Subcomandante Marcos, but then Marcos has also written a childrens book, The Story of the Colors. There is even a short interview with Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Robert Pombo, and Subcomandante Marcos called The Punchcard and The Hourglass at the back of this edition of the book.

I am about half way through reading the book. This was a free copy given out by Akashic books at Book Expo America. It is not an advanced reading copy, so I will definitely add it to the library collection. We have several other books by Paco Ignacio Taibo II featuring the detective Hector Belascaron Shayne.

Right now I am a bit tired. It was a very long week at the convention.

Thoughts On Reviews

There is a very different goal for librarians reading reviews than many people think. We can't read every book, but we need to know about many books out there in case people ask about them. This means there is no such thing as spoilers for us in reviews. If we read a review, it is nice to know the genre, plot, characters, style, setting, and framework of the book. A review that is longer than what is in a review magazine, about a page and a half is ideal for me.

I want to know how you feel about a book, your personal opinions matter. Reviewers in the literary criticism often can't give their personal feelings or emotions in their reviews. Your personal style counts a lot. Stars don't mean a lot to me. Specifics about what you like and dislike are what matters. Please tell me what is bad about a book. You may not know this but a bad book review can increase sales. People become aware of an item if it generates controversy. http://marketing.wharton.upenn.edu/documents/research/Negative_Publicity.pdf

I like it when I see both good and bad reviews on books. This indicates that the author had a specific opinion and was writing for a specific audience. There are a lot of books which will not appeal to many people or have content that has a strong, often offensive set of opinions that is not for every audience.

I have to consider books with a full spectrum of religious, philosophical, and political viewpoints. We don't have to agree with Ann Coulter or Al Franken, but we do need to know if the material is well written, entertaining, and has some degree of accuracy.

Tell me when you don't like a book, you don't have to write a full review, but saying I put this book down because it bored me or it was confusing helps me make decisions about books.

I want to see your personal style in your writing of a review. This may help me gauge whether it is right for another person. Knowing a little bit about you helps as well. Let me know in your blog if you review christian fiction, books about serial killers, fantasy, urban fantasy, science fiction, world literature, chick lit, travel writing, or whatever else you might like.

Include things which we don't normally see in a book review. Describe the layout of the text, talk about the illustrator or photographer in a nonfiction book, compare it to several other books. There are no constraints in a blog. There is no stylesheet for a personal blog like in a magazine.

Friendship Lasting Through The Decades

Cynthia and I have been friends since our days in a baby buggy (I'm on the right). As you can see, I was happier about our "friendship" than Cynthia.


We were friends all through school, then went our separate ways. I got married and began raising a family and Cynthia went on to nursing school. Not surprising since she'd said from the time she was about six that she wanted to be a nurse.

We lost touch for about 20 years or so, until hurricanes and a job relocation brought us from Fort Myers, FL, to the Atlanta area. Cynthia and I are now less an hour from each other. Ironic considering we were both born and raised in Southern Indiana.

The first time we got together after our move, we talked non-stop for the entire evening. Our husbands just looked at us, smiled, shrugged and talked among themselves.

As you might have guessed, Cynthia is the Cynthia of attic fame. The series, Cynthia's Attic is based on my childhood playing in her attic.

I believe it was fate that brought us back together, but a the solid base on which our friendship was built all those years ago (No, I'm not going to say how many!), is what keeps our friendship going strong.

I'm the author of the 'Tween time-travel series, Cynthia's Attic.

Mary Cunningham Books
Amazon
Kindle
Fictionwise
Quake/Echelon Press

Friends

Someone once said, "A real friend will help you move." In my mystery writer circles they say, "A real friend will help you move the body."
I love to go to mystery conferences where the panels teach us how to identify the time of death, look for clues, track down leads, and learn about poisons and weapons.
Magna cum Murder takes place every year on Halloween weekend in Muncie, IN. They decorate the banquet tables with skulls and cobwebs. The servers wear fangs. It's fun to meet the people who read and write mysteries. All four of my books are mysteries. The most recent is a fantasy/mystery, The Secret of Bailey's Chase. I can't imagine reading or writing a book that didn't have a mystery in it. Harriet the Spy is a great book for middle-grade readers as is Among the Hidden, The Giver, Belle Prater's Boy, and Snowbound. The Sammy Keyes mysteries are fun for the tween crowd and everyone loves Hank the Cowdog. If you need a good book, get to the library and check out some of these for summer reading.
Don't forget Crispin by Avi!

Daily Thoughts 5/29/2010

New York Sunday Journal, May 3, 1896. Why did I post this on Saturday, to protest the idea of having to collect all my thoughts on Sunday and post them all at once as a Salon post.

Daily Thoughts 5/29/2010

Anyways, the big book convention is over. I had a chance to go through and look at the blog list of the Book Bloggers Convention. I never did put up a button for them. These are a few of the blogs which I liked from the list. I visited all of them to see what they looked like. Sometimes, it is a chance to just see what people are doing. http://bookbloggerconvention.com/attendees I probably should have gone through this before I went to the reception. But, then I am not very good at should have.

I really like the Rasco from RIF (Reading Is Fundamental) blog. It has a very clear design and excellent message. http://www.rascofromrif.org/ Reading Is Fundamental is part of the Summer Reading programs at most public libraries in the United States. I also liked Jeff's, The Reading Ape Blog http://thereadingape.blogspot.com/. His summary of Book Expo America is quite good. I joined the Book Bloggers Hop on Crazy For Books, I am #175, http://www.crazy-for-books.com/. I sometimes twitter with Marie from The Boston Bibliophile which is a quite nice blog. She is also a librarian blogger. http://www.bostonbibliophile.com/ . Maw Books by Natasha is of course wonderful, she was the primary arranger of the Book Blogger Convention. http://blog.mawbooks.com/ . There is also The Book Publicity Blog which I find fascinating.http://yodiwan.wordpress.com/. I have never seen so many book publicists in one place...

I also looked through the industry bloggers. The AMACom Blog looks quite interesting, it is often hard to find decent reviews for business books. I think I will get Investing In A Sustainable World Why Green Is The New Color of Money On Wall Street by Matthew J. Kiernan, Ph.D. http://amacombooks.wordpress.com/ . Another industry blog which looks very nice is Online Publicist. http://onlinepublicist.blogspot.com/. I liked the design of Authors on the Web, they left us a gift in the goody bag yesterday, a reading light. http://authorsontheweb.com/. I was surprised to have missed Quirk Books, http://irreference.com/ They are famous for Seth Grahame-Smith, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. We also purchased Queen Victoria Demon Hunter from them as well as Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter for our library. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies was recently turned into a graphic novel.

Some Final Thoughts on Book Expo and the Book Blogging Convention.

One of the underlying conversations at the Book Expo was about reviewing. Although, it was not said out loud, the publishers were giving out a lot less review copies to attendees. Some were also limiting their copies to "reviewers." They were also trying to switch away from physical copies to either codes which allowed downloads to books or egalleys. This was a way to lower costs and improve distribution. While I was following the Ning Book Blog group there were questions about how international readers could get galleys. I would imagine that shipping a physical galley overseas via airmail would be cost prohibitive.

During Ron Hogan's talk he said that blogs had won out against review sites. He told us that places like the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and others were creating their own blogs to review books. The specific blog that Ron Hogan mentioned was Jacket Copy of the Los Angeles Times. Ron Hogan made a statement that Bloggers have won. I read the Books section of the New York Times on occassion looking at Paper Cuts one of the New York Times blogs.

I am not 100% sure about this, but I can tell you that blogs do have some advantages. They do not have to follow a formula or editorial policies created in review periodicals. They can innovate in their style. I often find myself when reading library review material wondering if they copied the dust jacket copy practically word for word to create the review. I think this is one of the reasons that Kirkus Reviews survived; they were willing to include more negative reviews and more florid language.

Bloggers can put an original voice and style into reviews. They can also add new conventions to describing books like adding descriptions of layout, style, and photography in books. There are no rules right now. Also, with nonstandard language it is much easier to prove you have read a book. A blogger can use much more original language. Hopefully, reviewers at the professional journals will adapt some of the better conventions from blogs as they are tried.

While I was at the Book Bloggers Convention, there was another group conversation about bloggers and reviewers. Bloggers do not have to write negative reviews. If someone gives you a book and you write a negative review, you might not get another free galley from them. It is often difficult to write a negative review. A blogger is not getting paid to write a review. Often, they are reading for pleasure. There is no requirement for them to finish reading a book which they do not like. A reviewer is being paid. The blogger can simply stop reading. I still think it is best to have at least a mention that they stopped reading a book and why.

There is an unacknowledged tension between the style of "readers advisory" and "literary criticism." The style of literary criticism appears to be fading a bit for popular titles. During the Librarians 2nd Annual Shout and Share, which is a book talking panel by collection development librarians, at around 3:45 p.m. Miriam Tuliao cofounder of Earlyword.com http://www.earlyword.com/ mentioned a new trifecta for bestsellers. If a book is prominently featured in USA Today, People, and Entertainment Weekly it will most likely appear on the bestseller lists. I hope, I will not have to read these magazines to measure some of the popular titles to get.

This is a bit stunning. I like many of the print publications like the New York Review of Books which is on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/NYRB.Classics and hope they are quick and adaptable in meeting the challenges facing them. My hope is that purely popular institutions will not have too much impact on our reading habits.

The final question which I faced directly, is "Is a blogger a reviewer?" Many people both write literary reviews and blogs. How do you approach a company and ask them for books who want their books reviewed, but are a little shy of giving a blogger a book. Luckily, because I work around a constant flow of books, I don't have to hunt for new books to read and review. Others do. I still really want certain titles on occassion. At the Book Blogger Convention, we were given contact sheets for Harper Collins to request review copies if we wanted them for blogs.

Daily Thoughts 5/28/2010 (Book Bloggers Convention at Book Expo America)

Stack of books in Gould's Book Arcade, Newtown, New South Wales (NSW), Australia, 21 October 2009, taken by Toby Hudson, Creative Commons Attribution- Share Alike 3.0 Unported, Wikimedia. This came from the Quality Images for Household Items section of Wikimedia.

Daily Thoughts 5/28/2010 (Book Bloggers Convention at Book Expo America)

I am going to the Book Bloggers Convention in a little while. I don't think I'll make the breakfast, but I will get to the other parts of the convention.

I slept in a little bit and got the Book Bloggers Convention at 9:00 a.m.. The keynote speaker was Maureen Johnson who writes young adult novels. I had never read her blog, but she was quite entertaining to hear speak. In the goody bags which came with the blogs, Brilliance Audio included a cd audiobook of Sweet Scarlett her new novel.

She had some interesting things to say. She blogs every single day, ending up with about 2,000 words. She also encourages people to comment on her blog. She also reminds us to blog about what we like. Sometimes, I am not quite sure what I like, so I just write about what I am experiencing.

Maureen Johnson talked about how she liked an unnamed blogger and reminded us that there are really no ground rules for twitter or blogger, you can do whatever you want. It is up to us to decide how much privacy we want. I won't go into every detail of what she said, but I can say she smiled a lot and made us laugh and was an original speaker.

The next person to speak was Ron Hogan. I remember when he wrote for Galleycat of Media Bistro. He hasn't been doing this for a while. I didn't even know he left. He outlined some of his ideas from Seth Godin's book, Linchpin Are You Indispensable. I liked Purple Cow a lot also by Seth Godin. The speech inspired me to read Seth Godin's books more than anything else.

The question about how do you get your books puzzled me a little bit. I get them from the library where I work, because I or my colleagues have ordered the book. We haven't specifically been requesting galleys or review copies lately. We could do this, but I am not really sure about this. One of my colleagues orders forthcoming titles. If I can't get what I want immediately, I may turn to Netgalley, but have not been reading many galleys. Galleys are not supposed to be added to libraries, they are not the complete corrected copies. We can't sell them in the book sale. The library county I work at is a cooperative so each library has its own budget and we share resources. There is no central ordering, so galleys often don't make sense for us because we are not doing large scale ordering of multiple copies. Galleys make sense for individual reviewers.

In this blog, I have relationships with Amazon Associates unlike Ron Hogan who has relationships with Powells for his blog. I don't think about it a huge amount because there is not a lot of money involved. I do it mainly for the little pictures of the books.

I asked Ron Hogan about getting comped as a journalist. On the badge issued to the Book Bloggers Convention, there is the word Press. I used it to sit down in the press room on the convention floor on Thursday and write a bit on this blog. Also, when I was on the floor of the convention, when I was at one of the booths, I was asked if I was a reviewer, only a reviewer could have the galley I wanted. I would have had to contact the publicist.

The goodie bag which came with the convention was excellent. I was surprised at the number of gifts, a book light, a secret decoder pen, a notebook from Harper One, a little mirror, a t-shirt, a stamp which said fail, a button whch said Zombies vs. Unicorns, a pen with the words Book Blogger Convention and various bookmarks. It was nice swag, better than the swag on the convention floor.

The books were also nice. They were mainly aimed at women. A few of the titles were The Perfect 10 Diet by Michael Aziz, M.D., Summer at Tiffany A Memoir by Marjorie Hart (this book included review questions for book clubs), Deb Caletti, The Nature of Jade which was a teen romance novel, and Jill Dawson, The Great Lover which was recommended by one of the attendees as an excellent book. Jill Dawson is a British writer.

We had lunch which was rather tasty, a wrap, chips, and soda. I talked with two people at one table, John Grace from Brilliance Audio who worked with science fiction and fantasy audiobooks, and Joy Strazza who was a publicist for Joan Schulhafer Publishing and Media Consulting. This is the first time I have spent time around publicists. Most of my experience has been around writers, booksellers, librarians, and editors so talking to publicists and book marketers was a new experience for me. Netgalley which makes egalleys was talked about briefly, http://www.netgalley.com/

After the main presenters, there were several panels. I had trouble remembering who was who because there were so many presenters at once. Each presenter had their own blog. It was a bit confusing. Maybe, I was just a bit tired from first going to Day of Dialog, then walking the floor, then doing more panels on Thursday.

Like so many panels, I find it easier if I pick only a few things to think about when I am listening to a panel. Paying attention to everything is a little too diffuse. I am mainly going to comment on one or two people from each panel.

There were a few blogs and people which caught my attention. I rather liked the idea of the Book Publicity Blog http://yodiwan.wordpress.com/ , it has a different layout and feel to it than many other blogs I have looked at. Again, I am not that familiar with book publicity.

I was surprised at the number of bloggers who were librarians. I was thinking, Vampire Librarian, that is kind of interesting for a blog, http://vampirelibrarian.com/ . Also, there were some interesting comments about the difference between reviewing for Kirkus Reviews and reviewing on a blog.

When you have not seen the blog before someone comes to speak, it makes it hard to picture what people were talking about. I really should have looked at each blog individually so I could place what the speakers were talking about. Because I had previously seen, The Booksmuggler Blog http://thebooksmugglers.com/ I could understand what Thea was talking about when she talked about statistics and traffic. I had recognized the blog from http://bookblogs.ning.com/

Also, because of the reception, I got a sense of Stacked, so I could understand what Christina was talking about. Christina had talked about blogging Space Camp at the reception before she spoke on the podium about it. Her pitch and message were very clear.

I wish the reception was a little bit earlier. I was looking to see if there were any book bloggers when I came in on Tuesday morning for the Library Journal Day of Dialog at Book Expo America. I asked at the check in desk. The only blogger I directly recognized was Ellen Datlow on the floor, who has a live journal page and was at the Horror Writers of America booth.

Some of the panels were quite interesting. I am used to hearing about technology around books. I read Joe Wikert's Publishing 2020 Blog. You might call it a kind of book blog. I also recognized Maw Books who has an excellent book blog.

I had never really thought that much about social responsibility when they did the panel on Blogging With Social Responsibility. It was interesting hearing about whitewashing in book covers from Zetta of the Fledgling blog, also it was interesting hearing about blogging gay books from Stephen Bottum of Band of Thebes.

The talk on the Impact of the Relationship between Author and Blogger felt like it was from the perspective of a publicist or marketer, not an editor. I find it fairly easy to talk to editors and writers. I often don't think of interviewing writers, because it somehow crosses into territory which limits how much you can review a book. When talking to editors there seems to be less worry about whether or not you should correct someone; it is their job to criticize works. When you talk to a reviewer or marketer, it seems to be much less acceptable to be critical, there is more of an emphasis on selling the book.

I liked how Amy of the blog, My Friend Amy talked about her relationship with authors. I also liked the decision which was made by Bethanne of the Book Studio to insist on either interviewing an author or writing a book review on their book, but not both.

I like messaging authors on Facebook, but not really interviewing them. Interviewing requires you to review things being said if they are written down, to make sure your writing did not misinterpret something. I'm probably not following the reminder to not talk about yourself too much in a blog, but focus on your interests. Hopefully, what I am writing is correct. Let me know if it is not.

I am not sure that I have the same kind of relationship with authors. It has been such a long time since I have gone to author events. I am not sure that author events are really like blog interviews. Most of the authors which I message are on Facebook; Tobias Buckell, John Ordover, and Ellen Datlow mainly. Occassionally, Jeff Vandermeer.

The event was very well done. I felt a little out of place, but people were very nice. They also made sure that people got a chance to ask questions to the panelists. This was the first time The Book Blogger Convention was held. It was very well executed and well attended for a first time event. I think there were over 200 people in attendance. I don't have the full statistics. It will be something worth attending again. The price for admission was included in attendance to Book Expo America.

I liked talking to Kelly Leonard, Executive Director of Marketing for Online Marketing for Hachette. Hachette has a very large presence on the Ning Book Bloggers Network. It was very gracious.

To get a sense of the attendees. This is a list of blogs with the first name next to them. http://bookbloggerconvention.com/attendees/ In addition to the regular attendees, there were a number of publicists, marketers, and people from publishing companies like Hachette, Random House, Harper Collins, Orbit, Brilliance Audio, and others.

Followers

I am thinking about some things about followers. I currently have 77 Google Followers, 109 RSS (Realtime Simple Syndication) Feed Followers, and about 60 hits a day. This is not a lot of hits. However, something I have noticed is that people who visit usually don't come every day. They may come once a week and read for several minutes go to a link, then come back.

There are other indicators than the main site about who is reading my writing. I also post on Ning Bookblogs. Ning is going to start charging for this service. It would be a nice to see a sponsor to keep the section going. http://bookblogs.ning.com/forum .

I also have 2435 twitter followers http://twitter.com/bookcalendar. I guess this indicates I am good at making short, pithy statements in 140 characters or less. In addition, most of these followers are focused into the book, librarian, and publishing world, hopefully.

I am running a thread on Blogcatalog called What are you reading now? It is up to the 507th post. Sometimes, it is an interesting to try and create long running threads. http://www.blogcatalog.com/group/book-readers/discuss/entry/which-book-are-you-reading-right-now

There are other indicators which are not about reading. I have been in the top spot for books on Fuelmyblog on many occassions. http://www.fuelmyblog.com/index.jsp?f=25. I am on the front page of the books section in Blogcatalog http://www.blogcatalog.com/directory/entertainment/books/

I also have a Goldview Award from the View From Here Magazine http://www.viewfromheremagazine-aboutus.com/

Maybe, I am self promoting too much. I still do not get a huge amount of traffic. Traffic is not everything.

Daily Thoughts 5/27/2010 (Book Expo America)

Burgundian scribe (portrait of Jean Miélot, secretary, copyist and translator to Duke Philip the Good of Burgundy, from a copy of his compilation of the Miracles de Notre Dame, 15th Century

Daily Thoughts 5/27/2010 (Book Expo America)

I took a short break in the morning and finished reading Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay. It is an excellent fantasy novel set in ancient China. I'll probably write a review later this week.

I found out to my amusement that I have been comped as a journalist because I write this blog. This is the second time that I have been comped as a journalist with a byline. The first time was at O'Reilly Tools of Change for Publishing in 2009. It is a very different experience. Right now, I am sitting in the Press Office writing on this blog. I did not expect this. I have two badges, one as a librarian, and one as a journalist because of this blog. I paid for the librarian badge. Right now, I am carrying both.

The Bookcalender badge will be of use for tomorrow for the Book Bloggers Convention at the Jacob Javits Center in room 1E15. It is the kind of thing which I have to just "go with the flow."

I spent a little time walking the floor of the convention. I did find Fantagraphics at a booth. I didn't think they were at the convention earlier. They had an interesting portion of a galley of a short story prose collection, What Is This All? Uncollected Stories by Peter Dixon. This was surprising because Fantagraphics is known mainly for its graphic novels. However, I have seen other novels being published recently by comic book publishers. DC published Peter and Max, A Fable by Bill Willingham.

Dalkey Archive was right next to Fantagraphics. Dalkey Archive is one of my favorite presses. I am familiar with them because at one time, I used to visit Small Press Distributors in Berkeley, California, http://spdbooks.org/ . They have a new line of english translations of literature from Catalan, Slovenian, and Hebrew. Dalkey Archive prints very high quality literary works. http://www.dalkeyarchive.com/

I also picked up a practical book for our Job Information Center, Military Education Benefits for College by David A. Renza, M.A. and Edmund J. Lizotte, Lt. Col. Ret. published by Savas Beatie.

While I was walking around, I saw that Housing Works was at the convention. They have a very nice used bookstore in Manhattan which supports providing shelter for homeless people who are HIV positive or have AIDS. They are a social enterprise. http://www.housingworks.org/social-enterprise/bookstore-cafe/

After finishing walking around, I went the Fall Hot Graphic Novels For Libraries in the conference area from 2:00- 3:30 p.m. I especially liked the title Archie Marries... which has two stories, one where he marries Bettie, and one where he marries Veronica. The other graphic novel which intrigued me which they talked about was Ghostopolis by Doug Ten Napel. I plan on giving the list to our young adult librarian to look over. There are also a few childrens graphic novels.

The final librarian session was the 2nd Annual Librarians Shout and Share from 3:30-5:00 p.m. in room 1E16. It was a panel of eight collection development librarians sharing their picks from the show. They basically showed forthcoming books which they had collected. It was interesting hearing which books they liked. Certain books were repeated several times. The titles which I remember that more one collection development librarian mentioned were The Passage by Justin Cronin, Cleopatra: A Biography by Stacy Schiff, Packing for Mars by Mary Roach, The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Nora Rawlinson, The Sleepwalkers by Paul Grossman, and The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Bailey.

It was quite interesting hearing the librarians book talk their choices in very short presentations. Barbara Genco announced that they would have a complete list of all the books mentioned published in Library Journal. I look forward to seeing this.

After the collection development book talk, I went to the opening reception for the Book Bloggers convention. They served cookies and coffee and met in a large meeting room. There were over a hundred people in the room. I recognized Natasha of Maw Books who has a very nicely designed book blog. http://blog.mawbooks.com/ Also, I had a chance to chat with a couple different different people. Christopher Herz told me about his book, Last Block In Harlem. He is an interesting website on the book http://herzwords.wordpress.com/the_last_block_in_harlem/ It is being picked up by Amazon Encore which is the new publishing house attached to Amazon.

I thought one of the attendees was the librarians blog Stacked http://stackedbooks.blogspot.com/, but it turned out to be a different blog, Stacked Attractively Well Read http://stackedbooks.blogspot.com/ run by Christina R. Oppold. It has a different style.

I had a brief conversation with a gentleman named Simon Van Booy from Harper Collins. It was interesting.

The day was a very productive day. I did get a similar question thrown at me to the one about bloggers being journalists. Am I a reviewer? I am really not sure how to answer this in a traditional sense. I do review books regularly and recommend books, however I am not being paid to do it for a magazine like Library Journal or Choice. This would beg the question of are bloggers really reviewers. Do I need to be a reviewer to ask for a review copy. I know that librarians regularly get review copies as selectors of materials. In a way this makes me both a reviewer and a selector of materials.

It adds to another question. Are bloggers writers? Do I get paid for this. Maybe, I don't get paid in dollars, but I get some social capital (look up whuffie if you want to be a bit science fiction oriented) or if you are old fashioned brownie points, as well as free stuff, or comps to events occassionally. I enjoy it anyways. I still haven't figured out quite where it will lead, good or bad. What seems to be the best thing to do is if someone decides I am a reviewer is to go with the flow. Maybe I don't need to decide that I am a journalist, reviewer, or writer, someone else will just say yes. What I do know is that I am a librarian and a blogger.

Cadernos de Receitas

Voltando a coisas bonitas, porque esse blog é para coisas boas e a última coisa que eu quero é me lamoriar (onde é que eu fui buscar essa palavra?).
Desde que me entendo por gente amo cadernos de receitas. Acho que minha relação com eles tem um pouco a ver com a minha relação com minha avó. Ela amava o caderno de receitas dela e morria de ciúmes dele. Só ela podia mexer nele. Até que eu aprendi a escrever, porque a partir daí as letras se misturaram. E revendo aquele grosso caderno posso ver também a evolução da minha caligrafia e um pouco de mim mesma, da minha história. Lá estão a letra dela e a minha, porque só a neta assumidamente preferida teve esse privilégio.
Durante a minha vida tive vários cadernos, alguns ainda tenho, outros passei a limpo e joguei fora os antigos (coisa que me arrependo amargamente).
Os últimos são esses, que separei para as receitas tiradas de blogs amigos.
Para os salgados:

E para os doces:




Ainda quero fazer um caderno de scrap, top da minha atual lista de desejos!
Beijos

Daily Thoughts 5/26/2010 (Book Expo America)

Emile Friant, Self Portrait, Oil on Panel, 1885

Daily Thoughts 5/26/2010 Book Expo America.

I am going to concentrate on walking the show floor of Book Expo America today. It should be interesting. I already printed up a list of booths which I plan on looking at. I also will probably stop by the Librarians Lounge and get coffee. I think I am ready for today.

I walked the show floor today. There were less publishers than the last time I went. In a way, this was better because the childrens books were on the main floor, and it was easier to talk to them. I also noticed that many of the publishers were not exhibiting they were doing business in private meeting rooms. Disney, Rodale, Macmillan and a few others had meeting rooms like this.

The printers and distributors had a very strong presence this year. There was also a very large booth for Overdrive which is the leading supplier for ebooks to libraries. In addition, ebook makers and electronic books were featured during the show. Diamond Comic Distributors was at the convention as well as BWI (Book Wholesalers Inc.), Baker and Taylor and Ingram. There were a lot less small presses on the exhibition floor than the last time I went.

There was a very nice comic book section with Marvel, Diamond Comic Book Distributors, Image, and other publishers. I picked up a lot of Marvel bookmarks for the Graphic Novels club for my library. There were still the big publishers out in force, Penguin, Harper Collins, Random House, Hachette Book Group and others. They were giving a lot of galleys out as well as original books.

I ended up shipping 72 pounds of books back to my library. This did not include galleys. I put a number of galleys aside and wrote down some of the titles. Yale University Press has a very nice biography on Joe Louis by Randy Roberts. There were a lot of university presses at the show. I also saw a lot of christian publishers, and politically oriented publishers.

I picked up a copy of Muhammad Yunus, Building Social Business The New Kind of Capitalism That Serves Humanities Most Pressing Needs published by Public Affairs. The Cato Institute which is a libertarian press was giving out a free booklet which contained the United States Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. They also had an interesting title called Terrorizing Ourselves Why U.S. Counterterrorism Policy is Failing and How To Fix It by Benjamin H. Friedman, Ed. For those of an even more conservative bent, there is a book published by Strang Communications, The Faith and Values of Sarah Palin, What She Believes and What It Means for America by Stephen Mansfield and David A. Holland

There was a lot of very interesting material. A title called The Bearded Gentleman The Style Guide to Shaving Face by Allan Peterkin & Nick Burns caught my attention. There are very few titles on this subject. There was also a title called Shamrock Alley by Ronald Damien Malfi about infiltrating the Westies, an Irish gang in New York.

Europa which is an international publisher recommended a book called A Novel Bookstore by Laurence Cosse. They compared it to The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery which was a bestseller. Another literary book which might be of interest is Dear Sandy Hello Letters from Ted to Sandy Berrigan by Ted Berrigan. This book is edited by Sandy Berrigan and Ron Padgett and published by Coffee House Press. Black Sparrow Press recommended a poetry book called Well Then There Now by Julia Spahr which is coming in Fall 2010. They had a chapbook of a poem in the book called Gentle Now, Don't Add Heartache.

Akashic Books is publishing a series of noir books based in specific cities. These are very popular at our library; Mexico City Noir, Indian Country Noir, San Francisco Noir, Orange County Noir, and Los Angeles Noir are some of the title in the series. In November, they are releasing Haiti Noir. Akashic books had a very interesting mystery written by Subcommandante Marcos of the Zapatistas and Paco Ignacio Taibo II who is a famous Mexican mystery writer titled The Uncomfortable Dead (What's Missing Is Missing) a novel by four hands.

Juan Gomez-Jurado a writer from Spain is coming out with a thriller called The Moses Expedition which looks quite good in August. He did a reading and book signing at New York Public Library on May 26, at 6:00 p.m.

The amount of novels being given out was tremendous. The Romance Writers of America had a very nice selection of titles that they were giving away which they had collected from their membership. Also, The Mystery Writers of America had lots of people signing books. Ellen Datlow was at the Horror Writers of America booth.

2000 A.D., the English comic book writers who do Judge Dredd are coming back. There is a new Judge Dredd movie coming out done by the same people who did the film District 9. The film is being shot in South Africa. It appears that 2000 A.D. is going to have an American publisher other than DC or Marvel which understands their work. I also picked up a "weird western", called Rex Riders by J.P. Carlson, illustrated by J. Calafiore. There are not very many people who write this kind of book. I like the name of the publisher, Monstrosities Books. It is their first book. There was very little manga at this years show which surprised me.

The people at the show were very nice. Playaway has redesigned its cases for its electronic audiobooks. They are much more attractive. They also have a whole new set of marketing material to use with their audiobooks. They are calling it Circulation Station http://www.playawaylibrary.com/marketingtoolkit/

There were not a lot of pens or giveaways floating around the show. I saw some bookmarks. Also many more vendors were keeping their books as display copies or selling them at a discount rather than giving away copies. I did like the free bookmark given to me by Bookamajigs, LLC. It was quite pretty. http://www.bookamajigs.com/

Another thing which I liked was the American Girls Crafts booth. They had a lot of crafts designed to tie in directly with the American Girls books series which is a series of historical young adult novels based on different characters in American history. It is a very clean, well done popular series. I can see librarians using the crafts as part of a program with the books. http://www.americangirlcrafts.com/

Learning Express was at the conference. They run a database for civil service tests which our library subscribes to as well as print a number of titles for civil service exams. I hope they expand their coverage of civil service books. Their database is excellent and is used a lot. Also, Nolo Books which does self help legal titles was there. Their books are excellent.

On the way out, I picked up the book for the 6th annual new title showcase. I won't get a chance to look at it until tomorrow. I did not get to go to any conference sessions today. It was a quite busy day. Lots and lots of walking. I only took a few minutes to sit in the Librarians Lounge at the end of the day. It was relaxing and empty.

There was so much at the show, it is quite hard to even describe a fraction of it. Tomorrow, I am going to focus on going to a few panels and talking to a couple more publishers this time without the purpose of collecting books.

This is a summation of the Editors Pick panel from Day of Dialog between Librarians Publishers which I went to from Library Journal Online. http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6729118.html

Daily Thoughts 5/25/2010 (Day of Dialog Between Publishers and LIbrarians)

Luc Lafnet, Still Life, 1927, Oil On Canvas

Daily Thoughts 5/25/2010 (Day of Dialog Between Librarians and Publishers at Book Expo America)

Ready to go to the Jacob Javits Center this morning. I have a folder for all my papers, pens, business cards, a notebook, so I think I should be ready. It should be excellent.

I was surprised to only find conference sessions on the first day of Book Expo America. I went to the Library Journal Day of Dialog at the Jacob Javits Center, directly across from us was the School Library Journal Day of Dialog. It was nice to see some of my old colleagues among the attendees as well as a few people that I recognized. I had a very interesting talk with one of my colleagues about purchasing foreign language materials.

I also picked up a lot of free books and audiobooks. I was surprised at the amount of free audiobooks. I am going to list a few free books and audiobooks that stood out; Churchill A History of the English Speaking Peoples as a cd audiobook put out by BBC Audio, Niall Ferguson The Ascent of Money by Tantor Audio. There were also a number of cards which had the cover of a book and a free code to download an audiobook; My Spirtual Journey by The Dalai Lama and Sena Jeter Naslund, Adam & Eve A Novel were two downloads that were free on postcards.

I also had a chance to slip across the hall to pick up some books from School Library Journal. They were giving away some Kimani Tru titles which are African American romance titles aimed at teenagers. The imprint is very popular at our library.

The first session was Editors Picks. Among the books which were recommended that most stood out were The Burn by Nevada Barr coming in August, Barrier Dead by Louise Penny which is a mystery coming in September, and Stephen Hawking's new book The Grand Design. There were a lot of excellent suggestions of titles.

The next session was on ebooks. It was about two new ebook platforms, Blio and Copia. It is hard to describe what these are without looking at them. http://thecopia.com/ is a social network platform for reading, it allows a variety of features including annotation, video, audio, sharing reading, and other functions. Blio was an ereading platform designed to include a variety of media formats worked on by Baker and Taylor. It was also interesting to look at. http://www.blioreader.com/

This was followed by another session on ebooks. Mostly this was about the coming changes we should expect in how ebooks and other media are going to be introduced to the library. Overdrive was the most interesting presenter. They talked about the process of how we we have to tell industry what we want. There was a statement that ebooks would be 22-30% of the market five years from now. Electronic books and media are growing extremely fast. I find this to be a little exuberant.

There was an interesting point that many of the changes in the introduction of electronic material to libraries had already been tested out in academic libraries. It seemed a little bit too up front. Academic libraries and public libraries are very different in their mission and content.

Some of the statements very much surprised me. They talked about how there were going to be no hardcover books, more paperbacks, mass market and ebooks. This was a bit strange. I am seeing a dropoff in mainstream publishers hardcover books, but not in specialty hardcover titles from small presses. There has been growth in presses like Subterranean, Nightshade Books, Pyr and other specialty hardcover presses for science fiction. I see more titles with higher prices and more limited runs coming out from these presses. I also see many more oversize hardcover books that are heavily illustrated coming out at more affordable prices.

They talked about how content is going to integrate with your catalog. This reminds me of Bookletters which we recently got to show recommendation lists, widgets, newsletters, and events for our library system. It is additional content to market books integrated with the library catalog. Bookletters is a product of Ingram. Baker and Taylor said their product Blio is designed to integrate with library catalogs. Baker and Taylor says they have already done this with academic libraries with the system called Content Cafe.

The sessions were quite interesting. Some of it took on the older idea of the "library without walls." This is the idea that the library will eventually extend beyond the physical building to manage all the content which is sent outside the building electronically.

There is very much the flavor of the old internet boom days where lots of people were making very wild predictions about what would be happening. There is a constant emphasis on better, faster, cheaper while the backend systems have not changed that much. There are still writers, agents, and publishers. This has not changed that much.

There was a gadget gallery with a variety of devices, the Nook, the Kindle, the Ipad, the Sony Ereader, Blackberry, Android smart phone, and other devices. I got to play with the Ipad and read a bit of the original Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne as an Ipad book. I found the Ipad quite pleasing and easy to read. The pictures were clear, the text was very well defined and easy to manipulate. In comparison, the Kindle was not so easy to read, nor was the Sony Ereader. If it was not so expensive, it would be something that I could easily see having.

I decided to skip the session on international thrillers. I then took some time to wander around through the different conference areas. I found a session called Leading Latino Authors are Representative of a Vibrant Market in room 1B 01 from 3:15-4:15 p.m. , I went there at about three o'clock and I heard a panel of bestselling latin authors; Camillo Cruz, Ph.D., Dr. Ana Nogales, Juan Gomez-Jurado, Matt De La Pena, and Daisy Maria Martinez. It was a refreshing break from library stories. One book that looked quite good was a cookbook, Daisy's Fiesta by Daisy Maria Martinez which is coming out in November.

The final hour was looking around and gabbing with wine, cheese, and appetizers. It was a nice way to spend a late afternoon.

There was enough happening in that one day to decide to skip going to the evening events. I also asked registration about the Book Blogging convention. I have to check on it tomorrow. I am going to relax for the long walk around the exhibitor convention floor tomorrow. Jacob Javits convention floor is bigger than a football field. There will be thousands of books.

This time, I have permission to ship back boxes of books which I find on the convention floor. I have also been asked to take a look at the childrens and young adult books too. I plan on picking up a lot of material to send back.

I handed out a few business cards and did get to pick up one thing for myself. Sterling publishers was giving away free blank journals made from 100% recycled materials. They have a nice feel to them. http://www.ecosystemlife.com/

MUDANÇAS !

Um dia ser bonzinho demais me fez mal. Isso já não mantinha mais as pessoas ao meu redor. Um dia aconteceu algo que mudou meu modo de ver as pessoas e de encarar a vida.
Desde que eu sou pequeno meus pais me preparam para o mundo. Me dão valiosas dicas de como eu deveria me comportar. Nunca satisfeito, sempre muito exigente. A escola era sempre uma disputa, a minha nota tinha que ser a maior. Tinha que superar todos, ser melhor que todos, saber mais do que só a matéria. Na época do vestibular, por mais que estudasse, nunca era suficiente. E tanto me foi exigido, que eu acabei ficando exigente. Não ficaria satisfeito se não conseguisse o melhor: a faculdade que eu queria de primeira, sem cursinho, sem segunda chamada, se não fosse o melhor, se minha nota não fosse a maior...

Se não fosse o melhor em tudo que fizesse, desde um desenho à mão livre até conseguir qualquer coisa que eu quisesse. Qualquer coisa.
Esse excesso de cobrança e exigência me fizeram assim, exigente demais comigo mesmo. Passei a adotar pra mim sempre limites maiores e objetivos mais difíceis. Quando os alcançava, já criava um outro maior e mais difícil ainda. O que eu queria, eu iria ter. O que eu quisesse ser, eu seria. Quem eu quisesse, eu conquistaria.

Passei a ser exigente demais com as pessoas e com as namoradas que eu tinha. Se não atendessem a um pré-requisito meu - alto, sempre alto - não serviam para mim.
Quando entrei para o mercado de trabalho, essa ideia de excelência me acompanhou. Desde o bom dia prá recepcionista até entregar o trabalho pronto, eu tinha que ser perfeito. Nesse meio, encontrei gente que me disse que identificou em mim um diamante bruto que precisava ser lapidado. Para melhorar? Claro que aceito! Aprendi como a classe alta se comporta, como comem, como se vestem, como conversam entre si. Aquelas minhas piadas e as brincadeirinhas de antes não tinham mais espaço. Era um mundo sério e recatado. E pensar que eu mesmo escolhi isso pra mim...

Falhei miseravalmente em ser um lord inglês. Das aulas que tive, muito pouco sobrou. Mas não pense que isso seja ruim, acabou saindo bom pra mim. Continuei com meu jeito, e por vezes incomodava algumas pessoas. Muitas vezes as mesmas pessoas que tentaram me lapidar. Sempre que isso acontece, lembro do que meu pai fala: ninguém chuta cachorro morto, e de uma lição que uma amiga me ensinou muitos anos atrás: agora que eu estou incomodando vou parar? Ok, ok, não serei sempre assim. Sei que preciso melhorar.

Um dia, quando resolvi mudar, uma amiga me disse: deixe de ser sistemático. Nunca tinha pensado como essa palavra me define tão bem. Realmente, sistemático. Mas isso nem sempre foi meu. Isso me foi passado. Por sempre ser exigido e cobrado, virei exigente e cobrador. Por sempre estar sozinho, aprendi a resolver todos meus problemas sozinho. Isso de ser exigente primeiramente comigo, me fez querer sempre resolver tudo sozinho, sem precisar pedir ajuda. Uma disputa comigo mesmo.

Essa combinação me fez sistemático. Sei que é errado isso, sei que muitas vezes preciso demais das outras pessoas. Sei que sozinho não vou muito longe, mas isso de sistemático me impede de pedir desculpas, ouvir que estou errado ou acreditar nas pessoas a menos que me conheçam muito ou que atendam uma exigência mínima para que valham alguma coisa pra mim.
Uma vez, alguém de quem eu precisava muito, não precisava mais de mim. Então me vi sozinho. Sozinho e com alguém, que pra mim era um dos melhores tesouros que encontrei, me falando que eu não era tudo aquilo. Mexeu com meu ego, mexeu com minha própria exigência. A partir desse dia, tudo ficou pior.

Passei a ser exigente demais com as pessoas. Aumentei o nível, sem saber se o meu nível tinha subido. Agora, invés de lamentar despedidas, eu corto da minha vida as pessoas que eu acho que estão me atrasando, que eu acho que não vão acrescentar nada pra mim. Falo verdades na cara sem medo das consequências - e chamo isso de selecionar amizades, pois quem gostar mesmo de mim não vai se importar com isso e vai continuar do meu lado. E não levo desaforo pra casa.
Passei a recusar críticas de uma forma geral mas, dessas poucas pessoas que respeito, depois de um tempo refletia a respeito e acabava aceitando. Passei a exigir que me convencessem das coisas, e não só me falassem o que queriam, o que pensavam, ou por que eu estava errado ou por que deveria fazer alguma coisa de outro jeito que não do meu.

Passei a esperar que as pessoas que me conhecem bem soubessem o quê e como eu espero as coisas delas sem eu precisar falar.
Há anos venho cortando gente sem me importar com as perdas, escolho palavras e planejo acontecimentos. Isso satisfaz meu ego e minhas exigências. Só que um dia a fantasia termina, e meu coração, exigente, exige que eu volte a ser o que era. Eu quero ser o melhor do que já fui, mas agora estou tão distante do que já fui, que não sei mais como voltar...

Fictional Friends

There's a quote floating around that about sums up how I feel about friendship, which goes something like this: "A good friend will bail you out of jail, but a true friend will be sitting beside you saying, 'Wow, that was fun.'"

Friends are both rescuers and accomplices, or at least the best ones are. How could Novalee Nation have survived, homeless and with a new baby, without Sister Husband and Lexie Coop in Where the Heart Is? And would Dru have been able to summon the strength to go on after her father's death, without Graves' help in Strange Angels?

Of course, the bonds of friendship often turn to something more, as with Dru and Graves, and Clary and Simon in the Mortal Instruments series. However, I think the most famous example to date of attraction overtaking a friendship would have to be the strangely-fated relationship of Jacob Black and Bella Swan.

And then there are the threesomes, the Musketeers, like Buffy, Willow and Xander from Buffy the Vampire Slayer (yes, I'm aware it's a television show and not a book, but I do occasionally catch glimpses of alternate media). If you know me at all, though, you'll know my favorite triangulated amigos, though; Harry, Ron and Hermione, from the Harry Potter series. Need I say more?

Who are your favorite fictional friends?

Jacquelyn Sylvan is the author of Surviving Serendipity, a YA fantasy novel where damsels in distress are so last season. Click the link to buy on Amazon!

Daily Thoughts 5/24/2010

High life java & mocha coffee. ([1895-1917])

Daily Thoughts 5/24/2010

Sometimes you find the little things; Linked In Group Ebooks, Ebook Readers, Digital Books and Digital Content (Has over 6100 members.). Some of us are getting together for drinks on Tuesday (May 25th) night from 5:30-about 7pm at the Landmark Tavern which is located fairly close to Javits (about 8 blocks). Here’s the address: 626 11th Avenue (on 46th Street) New York, NY 10036 I might go, this is the real purpose of social media; to make contacts.

I have been reading some more of Under Heaven. There is plenty of intrigue. I like how Guy Gavriel Kay describes the inns, red light districts, and concubines of the imperial palace. There is more than just sex; he also includes the intrigues of the court, poetry, assassins, and plenty of intricate language.

Busy Mom's Who Love To Read Blog is hosting the 44th Book Review Blog Carnival where blogs share their reviews to a specific host blog. http://busymomswholovetoread.blogspot.com/2010/05/book-review-blog-carnival-is-making.html

I am looking over the Day of Dialog schedule tomorrow. It should be quite entertaining. http://www.libraryjournal.com/info/CA6720797.html

Genre Schmenre

As for me, I don’t pick genres. Not anymore.


A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, when I was trying to be the next Stephen King, I always had lots of story ideas, but never pursued the ones which weren’t of the horror genre. Even if I had a great idea for a humorous story or adventure tale, I’d choose to write horror, even if my idea for that story wasn’t as good. I wanted to be known as a horror writer.

Though I managed to publish a few, most of them weren’t any good, and horror became less enjoyable to try and write. I have to enjoy the process of writing, even if that means getting rid of the notion I need to write in a specific genre. After all, the books I read aren’t exclusively of one genre, so why should my own stories be?

That’s how I came to write what would be my first published novel. Other than the target audience (young adults), I didn’t write Killer Cows to try and fit into any particular genre. It ended up being a big mixed-bag of realistic fiction, humor, B-movies and sci-fi. But most importantly, I liked it. And if you can’t love your own work, how can you expect someone else to?

And even though it was my first sale, I didn’t try to duplicate it with my second novel. Though aimed at the same age, it’s an entirely different genre. My third book (a work in progress) is different from both of those.

The important thing for me, just like for any reader, is the story comes first. Who cares what genre it falls under?

D.M. Anderson
http://dmanderson.blogspot.com/
http://twitter.com/frandavea
Killer Cows available at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Killer-Cows-ebook/dp/B003CT33LY/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2
and Fictionwise: http://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/b107106/Killer-Cows/DM-Anderson/?

Daily Thoughts 5/23/2010

A magnificent reading room in the Vilnius University Library.5, October 2007, taken by Thomas Guignard, Lausanne, Switzerland, Creative Commons Share Alike Attribution 2.0 From Wikimedia.

Daily Thoughts 5/23/2010

The American Library Association has a new Awards, Grants, and Scholarships page, released on May 22, 2010. http://www.ala.org/template.cfm?template=/CFApps/awards_info/browse.cfm&FilePublishTitle=Awards,%20Grants%20and%20Scholarships&rtype=ALL

Sent out two postcards for the Postcard Campaign to save New York City libraries. http://reforma-northeast.org/postcardcampaign.html

A satirical article from the Huffington Post, Is Print Dead? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ja-konrath/is-print-dead_b_583959.html?ref=fb&src=sp

I am reading Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay. There are some very interesting things about the novel. The main character, Shen Tai, calls his kingdom Kitai which is the Russian word for China. He also describes Sardian horses. Sardia was a kingdom along the Silk Route. This is a very different style of fantasy drawing from a mix of Eurasian and Chinese history.

There is a feeling that the author has been drawing from readings of both imperial China, and the more eastern tribal peoples. There are pieces of the book that remind me of the Book of Dede Korkut. The story is not just heroic, there is court intrigue, poetry, wine, and love. It is an intriguing read so far.

I just found out that the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund of which I am a member is having a fundraiser at Book Expo America sponsored by Image and DC comics. It should be very interesting.

Daily Thoughts 5/22/2010

Portrait of Edmund Maitre, Frédéric Bazille, 1869

Daily Thoughts 5/22/2010

I have started reading Steamed by Kate MacAlister. It is a steampunk romance. The writing is very lighthearted. There seems to be a touch of romance in many of the steampunk novels lately. Many of the newer steampunk novels seem to draw from both historical romance and science fiction.

Lena Horne died recently. We updated the jazz display to include a few books on her and movies she starred in. Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay came in for me to read. I also put Much Fall of Blood by Mercedes Lackey, Eric Flint, and Dave Freer on request. Baen Books does a good job of creating novels with more than one author.

I spent some time getting myself ready for the Book Expo America conference next week. I have all my registration and confirmation for events together, plus a list of all the events I am attending.

On the way home, I stopped reading Steamed. I found it became a little too silly for my tastes. I put it down and tried out Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay. The story is much more to my taste. Guy Gavriel Kay in 2008 won the World Fantasy Award for his novel Ysabel.

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.

Roxanne in Watercolour

A great big thank you to all of your for your get better messages!  I am much better, but missed the Important Rugby Game last week!  Oh well - watched it on television and we won!  So there is a semi-final today and I'm definitely going even though I have to climb up thirty thousand steps - ok, maybe not that many, but there are a lot.

And the last time I did a watercolour, dear Dean of Deano's Den, an artist I so admire, said I mustn't be so hard on myself.  So Dean, I am really quite proud of this one!  I did it in stages allowing it to actually dry, and I think my patience paid off.  Her name is Roxanne and she's the granddaughter of a painting friend of mine.  All that gorgeous wavy red hair!  Hope you like it.

Daily Thoughts 5/21/2010

A photograph of a daguerreotype of Edgar Allan Poe 1848, first published 1880. Taken by W.S. Hartshorn, Providence, Rhode Island, on November 9th, 1848 Photograph taken in 1904 by C.T. Tatman.

Daily Thoughts 5/21/2010

Today, I finished reading Readers Advisory Service in the Public Library, 3rd Edition by Joyce G. Saricks. The author focused on the concept of appeal with books. Appeal is different than interpretation, it is the things which hold the readers attention, plot, frame, style, pacing, storyline, and characterization. It is not the same as academic criticism. It is the points that are used to catch the readers attention and sell the book by the author which the bookseller or librarian can capitalize on.

There were a number of ideas which caught my attention; the read alike bookmark, the annotated book list, and the idea of sure bets in different genres of books. This book focused advising on casual fiction and nonfiction. Casual fiction would include genres like romance, historical fiction, science fiction, mystery, noire and other leisure reading. Casual nonfiction would include travel stories, survival stories, contemporary issues, crime, popular culture, humor, popular science, memoirs, and other leisurely reading.

I am very much looking forward to taking the Readers Advisory 101 course that goes with this book.

I worked on my ordering this morning and read a bit more of Booklist. I also am working on getting the on order status up in the catalog properly for books on order at our library.

I had a chance to do a little desk clean up before I go to Book Expo America next week. I also cut some scrap and cleared out my to do box. Check the gifts for books to add. Remind people about activities like putting up the Bookletters page, shifting books in the mezzanine, and making sure the events flyer for the poetry club is up on the website. Checking for business cards to bring to the conference. The little rituals you do before you go on vacation or to a conference.

I am enjoying reading Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi. It is a very fast paced adventure story set in the near future. I like the setting a lot; the coastlines littered with the wrecks of oil tankers and the drowned city of New Orleans are quite intriguing. Paolo Bacigalupi just won the Nebula Award for The Windup Girl. I think the writing in Ship Breaker is even better.

War At The Wall Street Journal Inside the Struggle to Control An American Business Empire by Sarah Ellison

War At The Wall Street Journal Inside the Struggle to Control An American Business Empire by Sarah Ellison

Sarah Ellison used to work for the Wall Street Journal before News Corp's takeover of the journal. She wrote this book using a compilation of interviews and newspaper stories. The book feels like you are at many of the reconstructed conversations and deals inside the book. It also describes the people very well; the Bancroft family, the Hill Family, Rupert Murdoch, Peter Kann, Marty Lipton, and others.

This book is a story of deal making and business politics. Sarah Ellison is describing conversations in board rooms, corporate jets, on cell phones, in restaurants, and in private conference rooms. There are no complex charts, managerial theories, or financial figures. We get to read the good and bad characteristics of the people involved; hatreds, rivalries, obsequiousness, personal habits, and fallibilities of some of the most powerful people in the news business.

Sarah Ellison describes the internal workings of the merger between Newscorp and Dow Jones. The focus is on the changes in editorial control and style in the Wall Street Journal. We get to read about how Rupert Murdoch fires and hires people to remake the paper into a different kind of newspaper. Rupert Murdoch's goal is to counter the New York Times by remaking the paper from a conservative business paper into a more national right wing paper which covers politics and culture in addition to business.

She also tells the story of a family in conflict, the Bancroft family who had owned the Dow Jones company for 105 years. It describes how the rise of Google and Yahoo and other new media companies drove down the price of newspaper stocks and caused consolidation in the industry. Rupert Murdoch basically offered more than any other company to take control of Dow Jones.

The story is intriguing. If you want to understand how the news is becoming more polarized between left and right, this book shows how Rupert Murdoch works. It describes a very antagonistic style of news and politics. I found the focus on people and deal making to be different than most business books. There is a very extensive index and notes at the end of the book. The implications of this story are still unfolding.