Sunday, September 30, 2012

Battle of Blood and Ink

Battle of Blood and Ink by Jared Axelrod and Steve Walker.
Adult Graphic Novels – Main Level - BAT

The author’s note for this book says that the two guys were talking together about the craziest story they could come up with, and what they came up with was a floating city. The Floating City is a steampunky place, with distinct neighborhoods for different classes of people. Ashe, however, journalist and publisher of the insanely popular newspaper The Lurker’s Guide to the Floating City, goes wherever she wants. As the story opens, she has her friend and co-conspirator Tolban fly their little glider up close enough to catch the radio waves coming from a ship in distress. Not until the captain promises that he and his crew will go into slavery to the City are they allowed asylum. Once published, this secret is the one that finally determines the Provost of the City to stop the Lurker’s Guide. But Ashe is not without friends – she is not-so-secretly admired by Cardor, son of one of the richest citizens of the city. And for Ashe, being a target is only a reason to find more dark secrets to reveal and more ways to irritate those in power. The art is spare and angular black-and-white ink, which give it a modern feel despite the setting. The dark secrets were a little too dark to make this altogether light reading, and certainly make it most appropriate for adults or older teens, but this is a fun graphic adventure in a pseudo-Victorian, high-tech world.



Saturday, September 29, 2012

Where'd You Go, Bernadette


Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple
Adult New Book Display – Main Level - SEMPLE

Simply put, I loved this book. I found myself laughing out loud while reading it and also being moved by the family relationships it explores. It is the story of a reclusive architect, Bernadette Fox, who lives in Seattle with her husband, Elgin, and 15 year old daughter, Bee. Bernadette is considered a genius in the architecture world, yet she hasn't designed anything in years. Instead, she spends her days getting into squabbles with other parents and neighbors and having a virtual assistant on the other side of the world take care of everything for her. She is also preparing for a family trip to Antarctica. However, right before the trip, Bernadette disappears. Bee tries to figure out what has happened to her mother and the novel is told through a series of emails, letters, notes, and other correspondence between characters, with commentary from Bee. Overall, Where'd You Go, Bernadette is an excellent and unique read.

Quiet



Quiet: the power of introverts in a world that can't stop talking
by Susan Cain
New Book Shelves - Upper Level - 155.232 C


I am an introvert. I would not say that I'm shy, exactly, but definitely introspective. I need a lot of alone time, and generally think before I speak. I feel most confident when I know my subject well, and prefer to write than speak. That said, I can deliver an engaging presentation to a room of 300 people (and have!), but running a meeting of 5 or 10 people is absolutely torturous.

This book is about how undervalued introverts are. We're seen as quiet, shy, and even non-participants by those who believe in what Cain calls "The Extrovert Ideal." As Cain's research reveals, though, introverts are responsible for some of the greatest innovations and inventions of our time, as well as masterpieces of art and music. We are team players and often excellent listeners - which lends itself to good leadership.

This book is for everyone, whether introvert or extrovert. It teaches us how to understand and appreciate each other; especially the particular intricacies of introverts.

Friday, September 21, 2012

Bitterblue

Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore
Teen Zone New Fiction – Main Level – Cashore

In Cashore’s first book, Graceling, our heroes defeated the sadistic King Leck, whose Grace allowed him to force people to hurt themselves or others and believe that nothing bad was happening. They rescued his ten-year-old daughter, Bitterblue, and set her on the throne with a team of advisors. Now Bitterblue is 18 and trying to repair the damage her father did to the kingdom. We’re talking kidnapping girls from every village in the kingdom just as a start, so this is no small matter. Her advisors are for the most part men who served her father, as well. They have decided that what the kingdom needs is forwardthinkingness, so that nothing from Leck’s reign will be discussed or brought up for trial. All crimes committed during the reign are forgiven, because Leck could have forced any crime. But Bitterblue feels that she needs to know what her father did and what’s going on with the kingdom now if she is to do her job. She starts sneaking out at night, finding the hidden pubs where people tell stories, often obliquely related to what happened during Leck’s reign. The very first night she is out, she befriends two young trouble-makers, Saf and Teddy, giving her name as Sparks to protect her anonymity. Thus her trying to find out the truth starts out with lies, which always complicate matters. Katsa and Po make brief visits from time to time, but they are busy trying to topple evil kings in other nearby kingdoms, and so cannot stay. The more Bitterblue learns, the more she realizes that the problems in the kingdom are deep. They did not die along with Leck, and she must find out who among her advisors she can trust and who is perpetuating the problems. Bitterblue journeys through darkness trying to understand her father, comparing remembering and forgetting as paths to healing. There’s a lot of dealing with ciphers, as Bitterblue’s mother taught her the theories of ciphers in secret, and both her parents used ciphers to keep their secrets. And while Bitterblue’s darkness is dark indeed, there’s still light to balance it, from the beauty of art and the joy of friendship, with a bit of early romance. It was very satisfying to see Bitterblue find her way towards a more open justice. It’s not for reading when one needs unicorns and rainbows (one does, sometimes), but it is a hopeful treatment of a dark subject.



Thursday, September 13, 2012

#DigitalVertigo



Digital Vertigo : how today's online social revolution is dividing, diminishing, and disorienting us by Andrew Keen
New Book Shelves - Upper Level - 302.231 K


Are you a member of a social network? If you're like me, you belong to several. Between Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, LinkedIn, Groupon, and any number of other online communities, it is easier than ever to connect to other like-minded people. Sounds great, right?

@ajkeen (the author, Andrew Keen's Twitter handle) disagrees. In this book, he makes the argument that the more connected we are, the lonelier and less powerful we become. He acknowledges that the social media revolution is the most significant since the Industrial Revolution, but at a cost. It is so easy to voice our opinions and share our ideas and our whereabouts that we often alienate others. People may say things online that they wouldn't necessarily say out loud, which can offend or just plain annoy our online connections. Also, the more we share online, the less weight our words carry. Our points of view become just a part of the stream.

Keen also points out that as we join more networks and make more connections, we share more information about ourselves in more places. We want to participate in our networks and share with our "friends." Meanwhile, we complain about online security and privacy and want to keep our online information to ourselves. There's a catch-22 between wanting to share more and wanting that information to be private.

Finally, Keen says that we become lonelier as the very term "friend" becomes more and more shallow. Our networks, whether made up of "followers" or "friends" or some other term, are often surface connections. People collect connections, but do not often seek out relationships with those people. Why do we want to be so connected to people we care so little for?

This is a great book to make social networkers think about the information they share and who they share it with. We should re-evaluate our goals in using social networks. This book is a real eye-opener!

Friday, September 7, 2012

Oh No, George!


OH NO, GEORGE! by Chris Haughton
Youth New Book Shelves – Lower Level – HAU


When the owners are away, the dogs (or at least George) will play! When George’s owner Harry leaves for the day, George promises to be good. But, as George finds himself faced by a number of temptations, including cake on the kitchen table and a cat that is just begging to be chased, he realizes that being good is a lot harder than he ever expected.

With its retro illustrations and simple humor, Oh No, George! is sure to be a hit in any household. Children will love looking at the different comical expressions on George’s face and repeating the phrase 'Oh No, George!' with you as you read this book aloud. Released this year, Oh No, George! has all the right stuff to become a classic picture book.



Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Why Don't Penguins Feet Freeze?


Why Don't Penguins Feet Freeze? by New Scientist
Adult Non-Fiction-Upper Level 500 N


Life is filled with little questions that we sometimes do not even think about until they are spoken out loud. Why does skin become wrinkled after being in water? Why do birds not fall off their perches after falling asleep? What makes a boomerang come back to the thrower? And of course the age old question, why don’t penguins’ feet freeze? New Scientist magazine answers these types of questions and more in Why Don’t Penguins’ Feet Freeze which is a collection of questions written by the public to the magazine. Anyone who has had a random question such as these and cannot get to a librarian for answers would find much to enjoy in this book. The book is a quirky composite of scientific fact, trivia, humor, and also anecdotes from the experts in the various fields the questions come from and is sure to amuse all types of readers. Also pay attention to the penguin illustration on the far right of each page while flipping through the book to get a funny cartoon effect.

Saturday, September 1, 2012

Six Feet Under: The Complete First Season



Six Feet Under: The Complete First Season
DVD Collection-TV SIX


Six Feet Under is a show about saying goodbye. With rare exception, each episode begins with the death of a person whose body will pass through Fisher & Sons Funeral Home. The deaths range from devastatingly sad to darkly humorous and involve everything from interactions with machinery gone awry to visions of the Rapture. You see the Fisher family talk with the deceased person’s loved ones (or, in some cases, the person who is stuck tying up the loose ends for someone they only knew in passing…or for an ex-spouse). Sometimes, you even see the Fishers talk with the deceased themselves. Such interactions are similar to when Dexter Morgan interfaces with his dead father on Dexter. The words and actions of the deceased are dictated by whatever issue is currently vexing the living, making the visions less like hallucinations and more like projections.

Among those who are laid to rest by the Fisher family is patriarch Nathanial Fisher Sr. (Richard Jenkins, The Visitor), whose death kicks off the pilot episode when he is hit by a bus on Christmas Eve. He reappears throughout the series, interacting with wife Ruth (Frances Conroy, American Horror Story), adult sons Nate Jr. (Peter Krause, Parenthood) and David (Michael C. Hall, Dexter) and teenage daughter Claire (Lauren Ambrose, Can't Hardly Wait) in some of the show’s most poignant moments.

Part of what makes Six Feet Under so memorable is the complexity of its characters. You see each of the Fishers and their acquaintances in their best and worst moments. As a result, you’ll love and loathe each in turn. For better or for worse, you’ll also wonder about the interior lives of everyone you know or meet in real life.

When creator Alan Ball (American Beauty, True Blood) announced in 2005 that the show’s fifth season would be its last, I remember thinking, “surely this is a mistake.” There were still so many stories that could have been told and so many aspects of each character that could be explored. However, as anyone who has watched the show’s powerhouse finale knows, it wasn’t an error but rather the decision of someone who knew how to say goodbye with grace.