The Thin Red Line

Chas Newkey-Burden’s Great Email Disasters is a UK trade paperback book about e-mails that have come embarrassingly to light, leaving their senders to look like real schmucks.   While reading titillating e-mails is fun I suppose,  the fact that I really didn’t Know who most any of these people Were detracted for the experience for me.    This one is mildly Recommended to folks in the UK.   (And maybe they can tell me what all the fuss was about

Share This

I have to say right off, going in, that I really wanted to like Clifford A Wright’s Bake Until Bubbly– The Ultimate Casserole Cookbook.   But Wright in several ways made that very hard for me to do.    The first time in the early pages he decried using canned cream of whatever soups in favor of freshly prepared bechmael sauces.  All of what I would call the easy steps in casserole-preparation have been replaced with extremely labor-intensive recipes which seem as though designed to show just how much hard work is normally replaced by the use of canned soup in casseroles that by the end of the 450 page plus new 2008 release I was mainly seized by an imperative urge to hurl the bloody book across the room.   This one is Not Recommended.

(more…)

Share This

Pack your bags and get ready for the ride of your life.  The Space Tourist’s Handbook  tells you all you need to know about vacationing in space.  Written by Eric Anderson, CEO of Space Adventures, this $16 book is part brochure for the range of trips offered by Space Adventures, part introduction to various aspects of space travel and 100% All out of this world.

(more…)

Share This

My regular readers who’ve been with me awhile already know that I really hate memes, though like Turnip of Power wrote in this post I generally try to be a good sport about them albeit most always with a twist of my own. (See The Einstein’s Brain God Does Not Exist Meme or The Why We Want To Kill You For Not Understanding Iraq Meme.) So none of my friends should be too surprised that having been tagged by my friend JD over at Techfun with Geek Mom Mashup’s Seven Weird Things About Me meme I am NOT in fact going to paste in and follow the instructions. Instead I decided to post about seven books, each of which while not exactly "weird" is a bit unusual or at the very least a bit interesting. (Saavy readers will realize that I am using this as yet another excuse to clear my stack of a bunch of books that I’m just not going to get around to reading. SHHH!!!. Please don’t call the Meme Police on me.)

(more…)

Share This

If you are trying to watch your weight and eat healthier, it can be easy at times to be overwhelmed by all the conflicting information out there.   And if  you are sometimes unable to avoid eating out it can be very difficult to weigh the available choices and make good selections.   David Zinczenko, editor or Mens Health magazine has written a very user friendly book to help you out.   Much of the book consists of two page spreads with recommended options (Eat This) on the left and less healthful options (Not That) on the right.    There are pages for many fast and slow food restaurant chains as well as for various supermarket aisles and photographs of all items are provided so it is very clear what menu items and products are in each category.

(more…)

Share This

I have to confess, right off, that there is no theme, no connection no rhyme or reason behind today’s book selections.   These are five that just caught my eye and found their way home with me and each is just so unusual and interesting that I just had to share it.    Ranging from a huge 10 inches tall by 14 inches wide to a squat and chunky 6 inches square, from the Duba plains in Botswana (Africa) to the foot, err feet  of Texas, from the islands of the South Pacific to the crayon factory, these five books are just All over the map.

(more…)

Share This

Ouch!   I tripped and fell on the sidewalk taking some clothes to the laundry room today and scraped my hand up pretty bad.  Tough to type with big bandages on my right hand fingers.   So just a short post today  to share a  book with one of my favorite bloggers.  This book isn’t new but it remains popular at the library and is still worth checking out.

For ender,  who is always building amazing Lego models I picked up a copy of The Ultiamte Lego Book.   The official authorized biography of the little building bricks that could.    I was sorry that my Legos were something I had to leave behind the last time I moved  and thoroughly enjoyed reading about and seeing  pictures of the Lego manufacturing process and the building of the huge models for the three Legoland theme parks.   For Lego fans this one is Recommended

Share This

In October of 2001 my later partner, Joel, and I took a long planned ‘once in a lifetime’ trip to Hawaii.   It was somewhat surreal traveling in the immediate aftermath of 9/11.   There were rifle-toting National Guardsmen all over every airport but apart from their conspicuous presence, airport security was still pretty low key and ‘customer service’ oriented  (if the security rules that had been in place on 9/11 had actually been FOLLOWED, none of the hijackers would have been allowed to board).   Passenger screening  had Not yet been "Halliburtoned" into a passenger funded federal agency that has turned checking in for a flight to Phoenix into an experience only slightly less intrusive and de-humanizing than be booked into a typical county jail.  

(more…)

Share This

April Fools!

Awhile back I did a post about Gary Trudeau’s latest Doonesbury collection and Frank Rich’s The Greatest Story Ever Sold and remarked that while both were excellent books I find I no longer have the stomach to read about our inept and corrupt politicians.   After reading an article in Newsweek  I recently posted to my politics blog (for the first time in ages) to plead my case that opposing Hillary Clinton does NOT constitute misogyny or sexism.   But the four books I am featuring today,  all of which have been in my stack for well over a month and some of which are Past Due at the library,  and  none of which I have been able to bring myself to read strongly suggest that I really am burned out on reading about political stuff.

(more…)

Share This

I don’t have regular recurring features tied to specific days of the week, like the very popular Wordless Wednesday that many of my blog friends unfailingly participate in.   I do, however, have a number of regularly recurring features, but you never know what day of the week they’ll pop up on. 

My partner, Ron, has very different tastes in books and reading and I am truly grateful for his occasional "Ron Reviews" wherein Ron writes about books of his own choosing, giving the blog a wider variety of books and a nice change of perspective from time to time.   Today’s book is not one I would ever have selected myself.    I hope you will enjoy reading Ron’s review of A Short History of the American Stomach.

(more…)

Share This

Happy Friday!    Back when I was in the eight grade one of our teachers made our course grade dependent upon a special project in which we would strictly limit the amount of television we watched and keep a journal and report on what things we did when not watching television.

I’m pleased to say that this junior high school experiment largely saved me from being a slave to the boob tube the way so many of my generation are.  So I was initially quite sympathetic in my approach to Living Outside The Box—TV-Free Families Share Their Secrets.  Surprisingly author Barbara Brock managed to quite lose me, in spite of my general and long time support of turn off the tv and DO SOMETHING with your life initatives.

(more…)

Share This

I’ve tried for some time now to keep to a regular Monday–Friday posting schedule on this blog,  though lately my off-line life has been quite eventful and even hectic and I genuinely regret falling behind and not updating consistently.    I hope you have noticed that this week I am back to my regular posting schedule.   I am trying out some new ways of producing my posts and managing my time and hope to enjoy the satisfaction of having my blog regularly updated with quality content while being freed from all that anxiety over my blog not being updated in days and days.

(more…)

Share This

Some books are really specialized.    If you need them they are hugely important and if you don’t you’ll probably never notice them.   At the library I see them all and when one of them applies to me or my family I snatch up the right books so we can learn more.

It is Ron, my partner, rather than me who is going to be having bypass surgery sometime in the next two months or so.   This concise and very readable guide will enable anyone who will be undergoing this operation and their family to understand just what is going to happen and why.  It’s a book that I honestly hope you willl never need to read.   But if, sad to say you find yourself of a loved one in this situation, So You’re Having Heart Bypass Surgery is Highly Recommended.

Share This

I have to confess that I have been a fan of The Price Is Right since   a small child.   I remember when there used to be "four numbers in the price of the car".   (I feel SO old.)  When I recently came across a copy of Come On Down!  I knew immediately I would have to bring it home and write it up.   Sad to Stan Blits is a better game show producer than he is a book author.   Moderately to Very Interested fans of the show will appreciate the first third or so of the book when Blits shares information about the shows history and reveals some of the details of just how it is produced.    The latter two thirds of the book come across as filler not worth the relatively high grade of paper its printed on.    Not Recommended.

I’ve recently been tagged by bookcalendar with the Six Word Memoir meme.  You can read the meme instructions here.

My Six Word Memoir:

Library Guy That Writes About Books

Since this is a writng meme I feel I have to tag  Tiffany, Dawn, Jamie, Claire and Vienne.

Thanks again to bookcalendar for the tag.

Share This

Happy Friday!   Just a Short Take Today on a very funny book  that is sure to brighten your day.   Leo Cullum is a cartoonist for the New Yorker magazine and this 2003 collection of his dog cartoons is a real treat.   Cullum’s dogs engaged in very human conversations are both genuinely witty and laugh out loud funny.    Go ahead and click the cover image and request it from your library.   A guaranteed day brightener,  Highly Recommended to dog lovers and fans of witty cartooning.

LAST CHANCE!    The Chain Drop contest for 3,000 Entrecard credits ends at midnight Pacific time tonight.    Since this blog is actually hosted and time-stamps in Eastern time,   all entries timestamped before 3:01 am on March 1, 2009  will be counted.    The winner will be announced on Chain Drop next week.    All you have to do is leave a comment here with a few sentences about how you use social networking.     If you haven’t already, click  here and leave your comment before time runs out.

Share This

I try to keep to a Monday–Friday posting schedule and for a time had been doing well with that, even if some posts were post-dated or pre-written to achieve that schedule.   The past few weeks my life off-line has been Very hectic and I have just not had the time and intellectual energy to update regularly. 

While the off-line crisis has not passed, I have found a bit of a extended time to get back to blogging about books and will try to keep up with posting each weekday going forward and as time permits, filling in the missed days with back-dated posts.   There will be lots of book reviews and new and interesting titles, so please check back frequently.

Today I decided to share with you a few of the books that did not make the cut.    Each title pictured represents a book I checked out and brought home, but decided Not to read and blog about.    How To Catch A Fairies  is a delicately illustrated compendium of myths surrounding various types of fairies.   The title certainly caught my eye but I am busy finishing Untapped–The Scramble For Africa’s Oil and am about 150 pages into Rhett Butler’s People and just am not going to get to this one.

I brought home How to Change Anybody but did not read it when my spouse helpfully pointed out I am already very good an manipulation and need no further training in that direction.

The Afterword caught my attention while shelving in Adult Fiction because it is such an oddly tiny hardcover book.   It is also a short and very odd little novel by Mike Bryan that takes the form of an "Afterword" and appendix written by the author of a mega-best selling novel that explains his process of  writing the novel.    It hooked me for about  50 Pages before I lost interest and could not continue.

Johann Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press sparked an information revolution by making books widely avaialable as they previously had never been.    This biography caught my eye while shelving but I will not get around to reading it I’m afraid.

At Large and At Small is a book of "familiar essays" by Anne Fadiman.    I honestly can’t recall why I picked it up and didn’t read a single word of it.

And finally, the novel The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon caught my eye for it’s striking cover which is designed to look like an antique photo pasted to an old, leather bound book.   As with the essays,  I never cracked it at all.    As always,   the book covers are linked to Worldcat, which will guide you to getting a copy from your library if any of these catch your eye or strike your fancy.

Just a reminder– It’s Not Too Late to Enter to Win 3,000 Entrecard credits in the Chain Drop Writing Contest.   3,000 EC just for leaving a comment on the post.   But hurry,  contest ends at midnight, Pacific Time on 2/29/2008.

Share This

I’ve mentioned before that since going to work for a large library system, I’ve pretty much stopped buying books, having as I do such a huge selection of books ever at hand, and like most library employees I make great use of my library card.  But I have to confess that Rod L Evans’  The Gilded Tongue–Overly Eloquent Words For Everyday Things is a book I would dearly love to own.   The rich purple velvet cover with the title and design embossed in thick gilding would look perfect on my eclectically filled bookshelf.   And who wouldn’t want to own a volume featuring words such as jackanapes (a conceited or impudent person), monomochy (a duel) or whiffler (one who clears the way for a procession)?     Highly Recommended.

Share This

This one is for all of my bibliophile friends, regardless of their taste in genres and subjects.  Alan Powers has written a guide for those of us who want to get the maximum enjoyment out of Living With Books.  Filled with spectacular photographs and incisive advise, Living  With Books covers everything from selecting and acquiring a collection to many beautiful and unique designs that incorporate book shelves and other book storage into beautifully decorated rooms, book plates and advice for book collectors to the practicalities of caring for fine books and the rudiments of constructing a variety of book cases DIY.   If you desire to live stylishly surrounded,  Powers’ Living With Books is Highly Recommended.

Share This

I’ve previously written about Tilt,  a book about the famous leaning tower of Pisa, Italy that is cut on an angle so that the spine of the book slants back towards the rear of the shelf rather than standing up straight.    And when I recently came across The Slant Book by Peter Newell, which has the same angled spine, I knew immediately I would have to blog about it.    Originally published in 1910 when novelty books of this sort were a popular amusement, it was re-published in the 1960’s by Tuttle Publishing Company and as of the edition owned by my library was in its fifteenth printing.   The story of an old fashioned baby carriage that slips away from the baby’s nurse on a steep slope and slides all over town has charming illustrations evocative of its period and the slant of book cleverly contributes to the illusion of the pram rolling downhill out of control.    Recommended both as a children’s book and for those interested in novelty books and popular art from the early 1900’s.

Share This

Time was, I  was a huge fan of Gary Trudeau’s Doonesbury, which I largely credit with enabling me to survive the Raygun Years with my sanity and ability to laugh relatively intact.   (Who knew Presidential advisers of a sort that would some years hence make Nancy’s astrologer seem relatively professional and qualified would be our lot under Bush 43?!?)      And when the Raygun Years gave way to the Clinton Era,  I was thrilled to learn that Trudeau could skewer and lambaste Bill and Hill as hilariously and effectively as he had Nancy and Ron.  

And then came Bush America.   It was, at first, a veritable feast for political humorists like Trudeau, but after 8 years of breath-taking ignorance and arrogance and enough humorous copy about Junior’s storied ineptitude and insensitivity,  I opened this book length collection of the latest Doonesbury comics,   read three very funny, very on-target jokes about  the current Administration,   sighed deeply and put the book down having found I can no longer laugh at this tragedy.

By much the same token,  New York Times columnist Frank Rich’s eloquent and highly readable account of how the second Bush Administration has played fast and loose with the truth, co-opting the formerly free press and manipulating the public’s access to information for its own nefarious ends is an excellent book and one I can honestly Recommend,  IF by some miracle you still have the heart and the stomach to read Stilll More about the already well documented criminal malfeasance of our current government.    I find I am burned out on the whole thing and just can’t bring myself to read books like this anymore.

Share This