Links of the Week

The big brouhaha today is over Amazon's newest idiotic move... pulling all books from publisher Macmillan from its direct sales (you can still buy them from third-party sellers). Interesting commentary is available from John Scalzi and Cory Doctorow. Add this to the already long list of reasons I won't be leasing e-books anytime soon.

In case you need some awesome books to read, the Williamsburg Regional Library has put together a ridiculously extensive list of best books of 2009.

From the "news articles that are totally about me" file, here's one about social reading, my favorite thing! (via LISNews)

Now, I've never seen Jersey Shore, but I know some of you guys have, so here's something to delight you: a winter reading list for the show's cast, "if they actually read." (via The Book Bench)

This Confessions of a Book Pirate article is pretty interesting, especially this line: "Just because someone downloads a file, it does not mean they would have bought the product." I certainly would not have read 131 books last year if I had had to buy all of them (thank you, library!), and nearly all of the books that I buy these days are ones that I've read first, then decided to buy, not the other way around. (via The Guardian)

The Hidden Staircase, by Carolyn Keene

Oh, I am so excited about listening to the rest of these Nancy Drew books on audiobook. They are just the perfect length and easy reading level for me to enjoy them in the car and while I work out. Sweet!

The story: Shortly after the Secret of the Old Clock case, Nancy finds herself itching for a new mystery. (Un)luckily for her, she gets two: the first in the form of a haunted house, the second in the form of a threat against her father. That second one is not so delightful. However, Carson convinces Nancy that he's a grown man and can take care of herself, so Nancy goes off with her friend Helen to Helen's family's apparently haunted house. While there, Nancy meets up with the same person who warned her about Carson being in danger, and soon after Carson is totally kidnapped! It, of course, turns out that the two mysteries are actually one big mystery, and Nancy saves the day with her attractiveness and persuasiveness.

I don't know if I noticed it more because I was listening, or if it's just more in this book, but it seemed like there were a lot more references to Nancy's attractiveness in this book. It didn't affect her mystery-solving ability, though, so I guess that's okay?

Another thing that's more in this book is the extreme helpfulness of the police, who offer up an officer to watch the haunted house among many other services they provide for Nancy. I don't think an eighteen-year-old would get away with that these days. "What's that you say? That crazy old lady's 'haunted' house might just have a thief sneaking into it from some hidden passageway? Well, in that case, let's just send out an officer to earn quadruple overtime all night!" Yeah, no, not really.

Nancy is also slightly more amazing with her persuasiveness in this book; after the police have questioned a couple of people without getting any answers, Nancy just tells them that they should do the right thing and that they won't get in too much trouble (like she can promise that?) and the people are just like, "Oh, right then. Confession time!" As though the police didn't try that? I guess that's where the "attractive teen" bit comes in, yes?

Whatever, I still want Nancy on my team when there's a mystery to solve!

Rating: 7/10
(Nancy Drew Challenge, Support Your Local Library Challenge, A to Z Challenge)

See also:
[your link here]

Pass me yours, if you've got 'em.

Booking Through Thursday — Twist Endings

Today's Booking Through Thursday question is in two parts: "1. Do YOU like books with complicated plots and unexpected endings? 2. What book with a surprise ending is your favorite? Or your least favorite?"

I have certainly been known to enjoy a convoluted plot with a delightful twist! But unfortunately, many books that strive to be "twisty" miss horribly and end up at "terribly complicated plot that doesn't make any sense, with a 'twist' ending that I a) saw coming miles away or b) don't even care about anymore or even c) won't read because I've given up on the book already."

Ahem.

Examples! The best example I have of a bad sort of this book is, of course, Castle. The plot was sufficiently convoluted to keep me interested, but then the twist ending was so twisted that it really didn't seem to have anything to do with the rest of the book.

In super awesome twist endings, I would submit for consideration Shutter Island, the whole book of which was fantastic and even though I sort of saw the ending coming, I was still surprised by the details.

What about you guys?

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, by Roald Dahl

For all the reading I've ever done, the only Roald Dahl book I've read before this one is Matilda. Isn't that weird? I've seen pretty much every related movie to Dahl's books, but I have got to get on reading them proper!

So, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the 70's movie version of which is one of my favorite Gene Wilder films. Oh, Gene Wilder. Anyway, if you've seen that movie, or the more recent one, even, you've pretty much read the book. Charlie Bucket, a poor, starving child (I guess that part's not so much in the movie versions), hits it supremely lucky and finds one of five golden tickets that permit him entrance to Willy Wonka's chocolate factory, a very secretive place. Charlie goes along with four other kids, all of whom are a little less than perfect: Augustus Gloop is a chocolate (and everything else) glutton, Veruca Salt is intensely greedy, Violet Beauregarde chews gum all day long for no apparent reason, and Mike Teavee, well, watches TV. One by one the children succumb to their faults and are removed from the factory (but live, I promise!), except for Charlie, who, as the last child standing, wins! Yay winning!

I was talking the book over with my husband last night after I finished and comparing it to my beloved Gene Wilder movie. The plot is entirely the same, of course, but there are some interesting differences in the story. The biggest difference is in how Charlie wins the crazy game that Wonka's playing; in the movie he is removed from the running after not following directions in the factory, but then gives back a piece of candy and is deemed trustworthy in Wonka's eyes, or something. In the book, however, Charlie is simply the last child standing and so wins — had he, in the book, gone after the fizzy lifting drinks (he does not), Mike Teavee could have been the winner. I think I like the movie ending better as a good story to tell your kids, but Roald Dahl does make a good case in the book for throwing out your television and installing bookcases, so that's a good moral, too!

Now to read another Dahl book; what do you all suggest?

Rating: 8/10
(A to Z Challenge)

See also:
Maw Books Blog

Pass me yours, if you've got 'em.

Musing Mondays — Borrowed Books

Today's Musing Mondays question is... "Where do you keep any books borrowed from friends or the library? Do they live with your own collection, or do you keep them separate? Do you monitor them in anyway."

I've actually briefly mentioned this before in the communal bookshelves Musing Mondays post; my only non-communal "bookshelf" is the one that holds my library books. :)

I would never mix in borrowed books with my own books, because I want to get books back to people as much as I want them back!

Here is a delightfully terrible picture of my "shelf", which lives under my desk and is therefore difficult to photograph:


The books inside the green box are library books I've borrowed, the one on top is finished and meant to be returned, and the books you can't recognize next to the box are the ones I've borrowed from friends (or, really, had thrust upon me). I should really get on reading those...

Links of the Week

Links for you, as I try to learn how to use Microsoft Access through a set of tedious tutorials. When I am through, I will be an EXPERT. Maybe.

I love Candide, and so, apparently, does the New York Public Library — they are having a whole exhibit about it! I love that they've made some of it available online for non-City-dwellers like me. (via ResourceShelf)

This whole classic-literature-meets-ridiculousness thing is getting out of hand. Android Karenina? I can't even get through the originals... (via The Book Bench)

This whole Twilight thing is getting out of hand. A graphic novel? Oy. It is, however, a must for the completist, as it apparently contains some scenes that were never in the book, as newly written by Meyer herself. (via Omnivoracious)

The title says it all: Poe's mysterious stranger misses annual grave visit.

Schrödinger's Ball, by Adam Felber

One of those things that is both a benefit and disadvantage of volunteering in a library three hours a week is that during those three hours, I see a lot of books. And often take them all home with me. This is one of them — I was sent to scour the stacks for short books with which people could kick off the Fifty Book Challenge (if you live anywhere near the TPL you should totes sign up!) and while doing so I found this bright green book with the weird name just waiting for me to take it home! I was even nice and put it in the short books display in case someone else felt it calling, but at 3 p.m. it was mine.

And it is a freakin' weird book. It doesn't really have a straightforward plot, so I will attempt to list the various things that happen early on in the book:
• We meet the President of Montana.
• We briefly meet a kid called Johnny as he is accidentally killing himself while cleaning his gun.
• We meet Dr. Schrödinger, who is magically alive many years after his death and who is explaining his cat theory to some people.
• We meet a girl having an orgasm. (Luckily, this orgasm thing is not really important after the first few pages.)
• We meet Johnny again as he's hanging out in a bar, and find out the point of the novel: "This was several hours after he accidentally shot and killed himself. But he hadn't been found yet, so he wasn't actually dead — he was both alive and dead, and neither alive nor dead, and he was drinking a beer."

Right. So, basically, reading the whole book is like taking some sort of hallucinogenic drug laced with physics and it's really weird but also really awesome if you like physics. And if you don't like physics, here are some things you might like about the book:
• There is a cast of characters at the beginning.
• Every once in a while there is a list.
• One character is voiced entirely in diary entries about made-up history.
• About a third of the way in, the book gets stuck in an infinite loop and crashes.
• A few pages later the narrative is briefly written as a screenplay.
• Another character is voiced entirely in made-up Bible verse.
• Toward the end the narrative is written for a while as a Shakespearean play, with excellent iambic pentameter and puns and all.

The only thing that would make this book better would be footnotes. How were there not footnotes??

Rating: 7/10
(Countdown Challenge: 2006, A to Z Challenge, Support Your Local Library Challenge)

See also:
[your link here]

Pass me yours, if you've got 'em.