I had been following the Daily Beast off and on throughout this program. I'm still super-enamored with the Cheat Sheet sidebar, with its mix of publishing news with national/world news. Their "This Week's Hot Reads" is also useful, even if I have yet to really find any books on there that really catch my own interest. In general, I like that the Daily Beast is a big news aggregator, even with a book publishing bent.
The NPR Books site has been very interesting. I found out there is another Bridget Jones book coming soonish (after, what, 14 years?) and just today I was reading a hilarious retrospective on Superman comics and the BA-NA-NAS storylines they engaged in back in the 60s.
I took a look through Flavorpill's 30 Most Anticipated Books of 2013, and came across Coetzee's The Childhood of Jesus. Reading further into it, it's one of those reflective, coming-of-age kinds of stories that has a unique twist in that a man and a boy have their lives "reset" - new names, and starting in a new country. The boy is without a mother, so the man vows to reunite the child with his mother. Just the blurb for this book is compelling enough for me to want to read it.
Friday, May 31, 2013
Thursday, May 23, 2013
Week 4 : Goodreads
I had signed up for Goodreads in The Distant Past, when I was starry-eyed young thing. I had added maybe two dozen books, a couple of coworkers as friends, connected it to Facebook, and promptly forgot about it after that point. It wasn't until I was promoted to Librarian did I look into the service again.
I like the Listopia feature, but I don't like-like it. It's not a very well curated area, in the sense that a lot of the lists suffer from just swarms of people piling on books each time. Some items that appear on these lists are only tangentially-related to the lists's topic. On the other hand, it came in handy when I had a customer asking about historical fiction - Goodreads' userbase had constructed a pretty comprehensive list, and most of the titles on it were ones we owned as a system.
I feel the whole UI needs to be redone, however. The whole thing just seems janky and uncoordinated. It would likely intimidate the less computer-savvy users of the world, and thus they would opt to avoid a service that may otherwise be quite useful to them.
Annoying quirk - unless you are REALLY paying attention, you could be leaving yourself logged in on that site. It can create an amusing comedy of errors at work, but its a stupid thing to default to when logging in to the site. Users should be in control of their access, not have to be made to opt-out.
I commented on Rich S.'s review of a book, "Night of the Living Trekkies" by Kevin David Anderson.
I like the Listopia feature, but I don't like-like it. It's not a very well curated area, in the sense that a lot of the lists suffer from just swarms of people piling on books each time. Some items that appear on these lists are only tangentially-related to the lists's topic. On the other hand, it came in handy when I had a customer asking about historical fiction - Goodreads' userbase had constructed a pretty comprehensive list, and most of the titles on it were ones we owned as a system.
I feel the whole UI needs to be redone, however. The whole thing just seems janky and uncoordinated. It would likely intimidate the less computer-savvy users of the world, and thus they would opt to avoid a service that may otherwise be quite useful to them.
Annoying quirk - unless you are REALLY paying attention, you could be leaving yourself logged in on that site. It can create an amusing comedy of errors at work, but its a stupid thing to default to when logging in to the site. Users should be in control of their access, not have to be made to opt-out.
I commented on Rich S.'s review of a book, "Night of the Living Trekkies" by Kevin David Anderson.
Thursday, May 9, 2013
Week 3 - RS Conversations
Below are my responses and recommendations for the conversations listed in the Be More Bookish blog. For readability's sake, I am including all my responses after the "jump" in this post.
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
Week 2 - Appeal Factors (#2)
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
A sci-fi novel set in a dystopian future, where poverty and disease are a way of life. Most of the remaining population are connected to OASIS - an aptly-named virtual reality world where users can log in to go on quests to escape their surroundings. The eccentric creator of the game left behind a series of puzzles and easter eggs that, should they be unlocked, would reward a user with vast fortunes and control of the game. One young player dreams of escaping his awful living conditions by seeking out the keys to virtual kingdom. With the stakes being so high, its no surprise that there are many people who are willing to go to great, violent lengths to take control of OASIS.
A fast-paced read, filled with amusing 80s references and offbeat humor and action, this book would be great for readers who enjoy science fiction in a quasi-contemporary setting. Come for the sly video game and movie references, stay for the action.
Recommendations posted to Doug B.'s blog.
A sci-fi novel set in a dystopian future, where poverty and disease are a way of life. Most of the remaining population are connected to OASIS - an aptly-named virtual reality world where users can log in to go on quests to escape their surroundings. The eccentric creator of the game left behind a series of puzzles and easter eggs that, should they be unlocked, would reward a user with vast fortunes and control of the game. One young player dreams of escaping his awful living conditions by seeking out the keys to virtual kingdom. With the stakes being so high, its no surprise that there are many people who are willing to go to great, violent lengths to take control of OASIS.
A fast-paced read, filled with amusing 80s references and offbeat humor and action, this book would be great for readers who enjoy science fiction in a quasi-contemporary setting. Come for the sly video game and movie references, stay for the action.
Recommendations posted to Doug B.'s blog.
Week 2 - Appeal Factors (#1)
Every Soul a Star by Wendy Mass
A contemporary story told from the perspective of three relateable middle school-aged teens. One is a girl who has spent most of her young life living with her family as caretakers of a campground, another is a girl who has dreams of becoming a fashion model, and the third is a quiet, thoughtful boy with a creative mind that would prefer to blend in with the background.
Their lives are changed when a rare celestial event - a total solar eclipse - throws these teens together. A methodical pacing to the story shows the three teens developing at their own pace, coming to terms with the changes that are coming (or has come) into their lives.
A contemporary story told from the perspective of three relateable middle school-aged teens. One is a girl who has spent most of her young life living with her family as caretakers of a campground, another is a girl who has dreams of becoming a fashion model, and the third is a quiet, thoughtful boy with a creative mind that would prefer to blend in with the background.
Their lives are changed when a rare celestial event - a total solar eclipse - throws these teens together. A methodical pacing to the story shows the three teens developing at their own pace, coming to terms with the changes that are coming (or has come) into their lives.
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