"Infinite Jest" was just one of six books Linda Holmes took home on her first public library visit.
In a post for NPR’s Monkey See blog, Linda Holmes discusses the recent discovery of her local library. The writer and pop culture lover had passed by the building for years, but never ventured in until last week, and was surprised at the treasure trove housed within those unassuming walls. “[T]hey had let me walk out with six books and three DVDs for nothing and I felt like I’d committed a heist…Why, when there’s such bitter frustration over pricing of all the things people actually buy, is library borrowing often only faintly heard about…?”
Holmes addresses some of the biases today’s technophiles might have against public libraries. Modern libraries are different from what some may remember from their school days, and offer a large selection of books, reference materials and periodicals on a wide range of topics. People can also check out a variety of media such as CDs, DVDs and audio books, with some branches even allowing patrons to download audio books online. While it’s true that some of the books are well worn, the writer found this oddly comforting. Read more…
Glennor Shirley discusses her experiences as prison Library Coordinator on her blog Prison Librarian.
After immigrating to Maryland in the ’80′s, Jamaican born librarian Glennor Shirley took on a night job at a prison library to supplement the menial public library jobs she worked at during the day. Decades later, Miss Shirley, as she is called by all prison library patrons, is now the Library Coordinator for Maryland Correctional Education Libraries and oversees 17 prison libraries. Many of the inmates that frequent her libraries are serious felons, some convicted of murder. But, this does not deter the affable Shirley from her goal of helping to educate the prisoners in order to reduce recidivism and help those who get released to build a better life. “I am basically a person who believes in justice and what is right,” she states in an interview with the Washington Post. “I saw these needs behind bars.” Read more…
Before there was Bella and Edward, tweens of the ’80′s were captivated by the exploits of twins Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield, the main characters in Francine Pascal’s Sweet Valley High series. Young girls around the world delighted in the drama that surrounded the duo with flowing blond hair, sparkling aquamarine eyes and perfect bodies. Those avid fans are all grown up now, and Pascal has written her new book, Sweet Valley Confidential (St. Martin’s Press, 304pgs), with these women in mind. The book revisits the idyll of Sweet Valley, California ten years after the original series ended, with the beautiful Wakefield twins now 27 years old. Read more…
Panoramic view of Philosophical Hall in Prague's Strahov Monastery library.
In February of this year, photographer Jeffrey Martin took on the daunting task of photographing every square inch of Philosophical Hall, the lavishly decorated Baroque reading room located in Prague’s Strahov Monastery library. As reported on the Wired website, Martin’s goal was to compile thousands of still images into a high resolution panoramic photo that shows the entire hall in 360-degrees. Part of a library that is nearly nine centuries old, Philosophical Hall holds 42,000 rare books, including some owned by Napoleon. The library contains many of the most influential books of Central Europe during the 18th century. Read more…
©2011 Simon & Schuster.
Stephen King set his fandom abuzz earlier this month with the announcement that his new novel 11/22/63 will be released on November 8th. The plot of the 1,000 page epic follows Jake Epping, a high school English teacher, through a portal in his friend Al’s storeroom into the year 1958. Al sends Jake on a mission to change history by preventing the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. As he settles into a culture of sock hops and Elvis under the name George Amberson, he falls for Sadie Dunhill, a lovely librarian, and encounters disturbed loner Lee Harvey Oswald. The premise of time travel in a novel is not new, but some fans question whether or not King can approach this device in an interesting, yet believable, way. “Time travel, though – even when it’s done brilliantly by Kim Stanley Robinson in Galileo’s Dream, even when it’s done humorously by Tim Powers in The Anubis Gates – sends me a bit mad. It Just Doesn’t Add Up and it messes with my mind,” writes Alison Flood in a post for The Guardian‘s Blog. Read more…
March 15, 2011: A Japanese search and rescue team searches the rubble near a high-rise building in Wakuya, Japan.
Today, Jacket Copy, the Los Angeles Times Book Blog, highlighted the March 28 issue of The New Yorker which will mainly focus on the devastating earthquake in Japan on March 11, the resulting deadly tsunami, and the current troubles at the Fukushima nuclear power plants. Articles in the issue will discuss the economic impact these brutal acts of nature will have on Japan’s future, and illustrate what the country will look like post-disaster. Nobel Prize-winning author Kenzaburo Oe also contributes a short essay on earthquakes and nuclear power in Japan. In a supplemental post on the The New Yorker website, Macy Halford comments on the deluge of images showing battered library stacks posted on the popular Japanese social network site Togetter.com. “Why libraries?, I wondered, as I scrolled through the images. I think it has to do with what is not shown in the pictures more than with what is. Books shaken to the floor provide a good visual measurement of the power of the quake…” she writes. Read more…
©2011 Lionsgate
Slick defense attorney Mickey Haller makes his screen debut today as the film adaptation of Michael Connelly’s bestselling thriller The Lincoln Lawyer arrives in theaters. Though the mystery writer has created numerous bestselling novels, this is only the second time his work has been translated into a movie. The first was the Clint Eastwood helmed Blood Work, a production in which Connelly had virtually no input, according to an article in The Seattle Times. The final product was disappointing to the author and his fans, as the altered story line lacked the spark that made the book so engrossing. But The Lincoln Lawyer production is a whole different beast, and this time the writer was allowed to participate in its creation. Connelly provided feedback on various drafts of the script, made several visits to the set, and discussed the Haller character with star, Matthew McConaughey, before filming began. Read more…
Seasoned art director Charlotte Strick struggled to find right visual balance when designing "Poser" book cover.
In an article for The Atlantic, Charlotte Strick, a seasoned art director for publishing house Farrar, Straus and Giroux, discusses the evolution of a book cover design from initial ideas to final concept. During her 11 years working for the publisher, the designer has grown adept at taking general or amorphous direction from editors and creating innovative solutions. But when she was tasked with designing the jacket for Claire Dederer’s book Poser: My Life in Twenty-Three Yoga Poses, she faced a unique challenge. Strick’s personal interest in yoga fuel her excitement about the project, but her initial idea of photographing propped up silhouettes of people in yoga poses spelling out P-O-S-E-R did not turn out as anticipated. “In my mind’s eye the concept looked brilliant, but in reality it was all too fussy and totally unreadable. What was clear early on was that the photographs of the posing women were too literal and that illustration would not only add a playfulness (in keeping with the author’s tone) but also allow for increased (if not somewhat superhuman) flexibility in the letterforms,” she writes. Read more…
Freelance journalist Jonathan Bloom is on a mission. With his book American Wasteland: How America Throws Away Nearly Half of Its Food (and What We Can Do About It), he hopes to educate people and open their eyes to the way the average American household carelessly manages food waste. In a world where innumerable people go hungry, even millions here in the U.S., it is a travesty that almost half of American crops end up in landfills. The tons of rotting food release methane gas into the atmosphere, thus harming the environment by contributing to the greenhouse effect. Through meticulous research and field-work, Bloom follows the food cycle from farms to the kitchen trash can, and documents the waste that goes on at all levels. A review in The Seattle Times calls the journalist “a fanatic against food waste”, and it is this fanaticism that drives him to study the economic and moral issues of how we as a nation treat our food, and come up with innovative solutions to the problem. Read more…
"Wimpy Kid" creator Jeff Kinney launches new content on Poptropica.com, where he serves as creative director.
The Wimpy Kid series has become a media blockbuster, spawning five bestselling books, a Diary of a Wimpy Kid movie released in 2010 and a second movie Diary of a Wimpy Kid 2: Rodrick Rules scheduled to hit theaters on March 25. Yet, through all this success, Wimpy Kid creator Jeff Kinney has maintained a low-key life. He even kept his day job. Though, Kinney isn’t exactly stuck in cubicle-ville, his day job is pretty cool. He currently works as the executive producer and creative director for Poptropica.com, a high-traffic website geared toward pre-teens, where they can learn, play games and explore virtual islands. On March 14, Kinney will introduce Wimpy Kid content to the site with the launch of a new Wimpy Wonderland island. “It’s the other great love of my life,” the author tells AP. “It’s very difficult to walk away from an audience of 10 million kids a month. To know that you can make a positive impact on what they’re learning and what they’re experiencing online is sort of addictive.” Read more…
