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

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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.

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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.

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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

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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.  

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Yes, I know that we are fully half a year away from Independence Day when a book celebrating the United States flag might be most appropriate, but I came across this lavishly illustrated, Very Over-Sized coffee table book the other day and just Had to share it. Long May She Wave is a history of Old Glory that is loaded with pictures of every depicition of the flag imagineable from actual flags to knitted and crotcheted rugs and matts to products like a cell phone and an airplance, completely wrapped in stars and stripes. At a USD 60.00 cover price I can’t really recommend buying it, but it is sure worth a visit to 929.9209 at the library to check it out. Recommended.

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Recently Tiffany created a Blog Catalog discussion decrying the over-use of terms like "censorship" to the point they become meaningless and useless (in a ‘boy who cried wolf’-sort-of-way) and I was inclined to agree. I suspect taht Peter Phillips and the folks at Project Censored would agree as well. If you, too, think that terms like censorship should apply to things like a well written book detailing the 25 most important stories affecting our planet and its peoples that you are Not hearing about on the news or on the nets, head to the 900’s* and check out Censored 2007: The Top 25 Censored Stories. Recommended.

*at my library this book can be found at 909.83

Jenn’s blog, The Thriftshop Romantic is a treasure trove of wonderful vintage "stuff" that Jenn finds and rescues from thrift shops. I don’t specifically recall Jenn doing a piece on old magazine advertisements, but this very visual identification and price guide for Old Magazine Advertisements, somehow made me think of Jenn’s blog immediately. Many of the featured ads reminded me a great deal of the tin advertising signs Joel used to collect. Recommended.

Even though Google backed away from the change that removed the ability to leave backlinks in blog comment signatures on blogspot, I continue to see a numbe of my old Blogger buddies migrate to Word Press. For those who are not as fortunate as I am in having a host who is also a friend and an IT hotshot who nurses along all my techno-dweebishness, may I suggest Maria Langer and Jordan Miraz’s Visual Quickstart Guide to WordPress 2. If you’re not a techie and just need a book that shows you where the controls are and how to use them, this one will fit the bill just fine. Recommended.

And finally today a huge Thank You to Will who recommended the offline composter program Blog Desk. My DSL again today went down just as I finished composing and was ready to publish this entry, but with Blog Desk my work was not lost and I was able to simply wait and publish when the DSL conneciton came back up.

 

 

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The powers that be are conspiring to prevent me from posting today.    I spent over an hour on a long post about Herb Boyd’s We Shall Overcome and Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar’s favorite words.   My DSL failed at the moment I pressed publish and the post disppaered  into the ether.

The DSL came back up after a bit and I wrote a new post about my problem with the disappearing post and how hard it is to write an article a second time when you have no access to your first draft.    It wasn’t Really a book review but I did include all the links.    Then I clicked publish, the connection failed and the computer ate my post.   Again.

Clearly the powers that be do NOT want me to promote these two books today.    Want to join me in thwarting them?  Go over to Worldcat and order these books from your library, even though I have included NO links.    Or type the titles in the Powell’s search box and buy the new Carle cuz it’s so cool and to show those powers that be that didn’t let me put a link for your to do so in this space.

The gods willing, The Thin Red Line will return to regular publication tomorrow.

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This one is for Chelle, who lives where it’s cold and snowy, the sort of weather that makes a steaming mug of cocoa seem like the perfect idea.   Michael Turback has penned a delicious collection of recipes for a number of gourmet versions of  Hot Chocolate and a variety of cookies and sweets that go well with a cup of rich cocoa.    The Midnight Cowboy, made from Mexican chocolate, milk, Meyers Dark Rum, Kahlua and Jack Daniels  (a Very adult version) caught my eye and I swooned when reading the recipe for Black Bottom Hot Chocolate,  which first calls for making fudge and pouring it in mugs then pouring a rich hot chocolate over the fudge.   If you are a chocolate lover or live in a cold, snowy climate, Hot Chocolate is Highly Recommended.

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Happy New Year!   Now that the holidays are over, and having indulged in an orgy of spending and consumption to commemorate the birth of a long ago moral philosopher,  most folks who don’t have WWJD bumperstickers on their cars will feel free to forget about that philosopher and the morality he preached for another year or at least until Easter rolls around, and focus on important things like the Presidential election campaign.   So I decided today to feature a couple of books that might otherwise fall through the crack between faith and politics.

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I don’t usually post about books that are not in English but this Spanish language children’s book I came across today is so unusual and a lot of fun even if you do not comprehend Spanish at all.   Animalario Universal  is spiral bound at the top rather than on the side and except for a few introductory and concluding pages, each page is cut in two places, creating three ‘mini pages’ or frames which can each be flipped independently.   The first image shown is an elephant.   As you flip each of the three segments over one by one the elephant becomes a pig, then the pig becomes an armadillo and so on until finally after the last three flips a camel becomes a fish.   The Spanish words for each animal are displayed beneath the pictures and as best I can tell the book is intended as a fun vocabulary/animal names lesson for the Easy books crowd.   Though it will certainly also appeal to anyone who admires clever and artistic books.  Even it they no hablo Espanol.

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This one is for everyone who laughs at funny cat pictures.  Mario Garza, proprietor of the website stuffonmycat.com has put together a unique collection of pictures of, well, stuff on cats.   Most of the photos were submitted by visitors to the web site, though some are of Garza’s own cat.    The kitty sleeping peacefully beneath a plate of sausage, eggs and potatoes is quite striking as is the cover image of the red-eyed cat with whipped cream on top.   The kitty kicking back with a can of Bud and the tv remote is a hoot as is the cat who prefers the game controller and a bottle of Stoli.   And the cat beneath the bumper of the bus who appears to be straining to hold the whole thing up is priceless. Stuff On My Cat    Recommended.

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