The Machine is Us/ing

While this video, The Machine is Us/ing, isn't directly book related, I thought it worth posting. It's a clever, provocative summary of how digital technology is not only changing how we share information, but how we live our lives.

Shakespeare Tube Map

The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) has devised an ingenious map that shows the relationships between Shakespeare's characters. And to make it super easy to use, they based the design on London's iconic tube map.

The lines include lovers (red), mothers (pink), fathers and daughters (green), villains (light blue), heroes (dark blue), strong and difficult women (turquoise), warriors (black) and fools (orange). Interesting intersections include Henry V who meets on the warrior and hero line, and Lady Macbeth on the strong and difficult women and warrior line. (Quote from the British Theatre Guide.)

You can buy copies of the map at the Royal Shakespeare Company's online shop as well as totes, coffee mugs, tea towels, etc. with the map printed right on them. What a great Christmas gift for the Shakespearean scholar in your life!

Thanks to the BookDaddy blog for this item.

National Book Award Finalists Annuonced

The finalists for the 2007 National Book Award were announced today. The only nominated title I've read is Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris, which I loved for its cynical humor and slightly spooky, but spot on narrative voice. In fact, I was going to suggest it for our Summer or Fall 2008 reading list since it should be out in paperback by then.

Christopher Hitchen's book God is Not Great is one of the non-fiction nominees, which is sure to provoke controversy and garner some publicity for the awards.

Finally, according to a librarian at UCLA, "...there are some California writers on the list of 2007 National Book Award finalists and special medal recipients.

Robert Hass, ex-Poet Laureate of the United States, nominated for Time and Materials
Arnold Rampersad, Stanford professor, honored for his biography of Ralph Ellison
Kathleen Duey, YA author of Skin Hunger: A Resurrection of Magic, Book One
And of course we count Joan Didion as a Californian!"

Release of "The Kite Runner" Delayed

As discussed in last Saturday's Readers Roundtable, the release date of the movie The Kite Runner has been moved to December. Apparently, the family of the boy who stars in the film and lives in Kabul is afraid that fellow Afghans will be offended by a rape scene and retaliate against him. It's widely believed in Afghan culture that such things should not be shared in a public forum.

The New York Times ran an article on this situation, as did the San Jose Mercury News which included interviews with members of our local Afghan community.

Thanks Ron sharing this news with the Roundtable.

Movie Trailer: Atonement

The movie version of Ian McEwan's novel Atonement is scheduled to be in limited release December 7. Judging from the preview, the movie looks like a beautiful, but tragic romance. Here's a preview with fairly good picture resolution from YouTube. BTW: Early reviews are excellent.

Patrons' Picks & Pans

The library has launched a new online newsletter called Patrons' Picks & Pans. It's a random selection of book comments from patrons who participated in this past summer's adult reading program. It's a kick seeing what your fellow patrons are reading and what they think about what they're reading, so check it out.

Patrons' Picks & Pans: http://www.booksite.com/texis/scripts/bookletter/showlist.html?sid=6131&list=CNL2

BTW: there are hundreds of comments to share, so we'll be publishing the newsletter once or twice a month. Sign up for email delivery so you don't miss a single issue! http://www.booksite.com/texis/scripts/bookletter/addnluser.html?sid=6131

NYTimes: Stephen King on the Short Story

These days my reading time is limited and frequently interrupted, so I have trouble remembering who's who and what's what when I'm reading a novel. As a result, I've come to prefer reading essays and short stories.

And every Fall I've reason to rejoice because Harper Perennial releases new editions of its "The Best of American" series. This is a terrific series and it has a number of different titles. My favorites are the The Best of American Crime Reporting and The Best of American Mystery Stories (while The Best of American Travel Writing and The Best American Science Writing jostle for third place). However, all the titles usually contain good to excellent pieces, and I try to get through most of them before the next set of comes out the following Fall.

This year Stephen King is the editor for The Best of American Short Stories 2007, and I'm eager to read the stories he's selected. While the Lit Police may sneer at a bestselling author of horror novels editing the 2007 collection, I'm betting that King can be trusted to pick stories that are literary page-turners: i.e. They're fun to read and good for you too.

Anyway, in The Sunday New York Times Book Review King talks about his year of reading American short stories.

What Ails the Short Story

By STEPHEN KING

Published: September 30, 2007

Why do so many short stories feel show-offy, written for editors and teachers rather than for readers?

The American short story is alive and well.

Do you like the sound of that? Me too. I only wish it were actually true. The art form is still alive — that I can testify to. As editor of “The Best American Short Stories 2007,” I read hundreds of them, and a great many were good stories. Some were very good. And some seemed to touch greatness. But “well”? That’s a different story. Link to article.

Endpapers

The paper that lines the front and back covers of a book are called endpapers. Today, they are mostly left blank, but they were once festooned with patterns or illustrated with pictures. There's now a website that has a gallery of charming endpapers from childrens books. Take a look.

The end paper above is from A House of Pomegranates,
Written by Oscar Wilde Illustrated by Ben Kutcher 1925

Thanks to boingboing.net for item.

Next Book Discussion: The Road

Just a reminder that we'll be meeting this Saturday, October 6 at 2 p.m. to talk about Cormac McCarthy's book The Road.

Below are some websites about the book in case you want to do any preliminary research.

Oprah's Book Club
Oprah chose The Road for her book club several months back (transforming the book into an instant bestseller). Besides analyses, background information, and discussion, Oprah's website also features her television interview with the publicity shy author, Cormac McCarthy.

New York Times
Janet Maslin's book review says, "The Road would be pure misery if not for its stunning, savage beauty."

Author William Kennedy wryly observes in his review that, "McCarthy has said that death is the major issue in the world and that writers who don’t address it are not serious. Death reaches very near totality in this novel."

Image: Viktor Koen, New York Times.

Washington Post
Ron Charles' review points out that, "The fear of dying, so prevalent in McCarthy's previous novels, is balanced here by the fear of surviving.


Newsweek
Malcom Jones book review says, "...the question that the novel implicitly poses—how much can you subtract from human existence before it ceases to be human?—takes on heartbreaking force."

SF Chronicle
In his review, librarian David Hellman interprets McCarthy's message as "...in the end, we have only what we can hold onto right now, in this place and at this moment."

For more in depth literary analyses, search on these two databases: Novelist and Literature Resource Center. You can find them on library's Online Resources webpage. (You'll need you library's barcode number to access them.)

DailyLit

Kelly, another librarian here at SLPL, forwarded me this item about DailyLit (see below). She said that she now begins her mornings by reading a brief installment from Dracula (my all-time favorite horror novel). WelI, I guess that's one way to wake up your brain and get your blood pumping.

DailyLit

"DailyLit sends books in installments via e-mail. DailyLit currently offers over 400 classic public domain titles that can be subscribed to and read in their entirety for free." Includes some in French, Italian, and Spanish. Search, or browse by title, author, or category. The entry for each work includes a preview of the first installment and the number of installments (such as 675 for "War and Peace" and 149 for "Pride and Prejudice").
URL: http://www.dailylit.com/

Annotation from Librarians' Index to the Internet, lii.org.

BTW: Kelly said that each daily installment is about a 5 minute read.