Uncle Lew has been perservering at the blog and has chastized me severly for letting mine lapse....well she has a point...for one thing I am still -about 17 books short of the 23 and recently I found a worthy candidate.
http://tsspivet.com/ it even has a spiffy website.
The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet by Reif Larsen got mixed reviews - New York Times panned it, and I haven't got to the point where some critics felt disappointed. But I suspect Nick Bantock fans would love it.
About Me
Showing posts with label infatuating books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label infatuating books. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Friday, May 13, 2011
blush - winner who me? I-Pad 2
I was off on vacation Wednesday afternoon and Thursday for a rehearsal and to sing with the Raging Grannies at the BBQ for Station 20 West so I got the news after I got home from the BBQ yesterday. Pat phoned and left a message. What a wonderful surprise! I also have one very excited geek of a husband now.:-)
Quantum the invisible NSL Library Cat is also very excited about this I-paw thing - I just hope she doesn't decide to take it apart to see how it works - she spends so much time napping in the Computer Science collection.
Thanks again for all the work the team put into the 23 things. It was a lot of fun and sometimes a tiny bit of frustration and I really enjoyed reading everyone's blogs and learning more about other people on staff. Proud to be working with such a diversely talented group of people
...um I hope this doesn't mean I have to return that cool little memory stick!
As for the book du jour - get ready - coming to an eager Happy Leopard Representative real soon - Book of Days
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Another great book
Today's book is Green Glory by Richard St. Barbe Baker - I was reminded of St. Barbe Baker recently when I started looking for material to support a display for International Year the Forests - he is a hero in the world of tree planting - an environmentalist before the term was coined - he was among the first hundred students to enrole at U of S and is buried in Woodlawn Cemetary. But in the years between - he travelled the world planting trees and encouraging people to plant trees on a massive scale. One of his great ideas was to employ armies to start reclaiming the Sahara by planting trees. To find out more check out this website
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
This week's book & this morning's news item
Sunday afternoon we were out and about and Murray suggested dropping by McNally Robinson. Near the entrance, a vaguely familiar looking man* was pitching a book and politely asked us if he could tell us about it. I glanced at the cover and title "South Asian Adventures with the Active Poor" and knew it was the kind of thing we like to read, admire etc. So we chatted. It was about his family working - with women and children in Bangladesh to set up schools for the poorest neighbourhoods. Star Phoenx Story
Profits from the book support the charity (wow just like Happy Leopard Chapbooks) We bought copies.
It's a great read - you can go buy your own copy here If you liked Three Cups of Tea, you will like this one too.
*Gem Munro was a columnist in Saskatoon at one time - wrote some great stuff about Riversdale - that's why he looked familiar.
Reading a book set in Bangladesh made me very conscious of how luxurious my lifestyle is and how different from the people in the book. Like how many shelves of books are there in my house ? I just take being able to read them for granted. ... and then there are those little expensive devices - which leads to the news item:
Tech addiction symptoms rife among students
This story on CBC caught my attention this morning - I know there is a connection between consumerism, and sweat shops, the poverty of Bangladesh and the affluenza of Saskatoon. I just wonder who the real victims are?
Profits from the book support the charity (wow just like Happy Leopard Chapbooks) We bought copies.
It's a great read - you can go buy your own copy here If you liked Three Cups of Tea, you will like this one too.
*Gem Munro was a columnist in Saskatoon at one time - wrote some great stuff about Riversdale - that's why he looked familiar.
Reading a book set in Bangladesh made me very conscious of how luxurious my lifestyle is and how different from the people in the book. Like how many shelves of books are there in my house ? I just take being able to read them for granted. ... and then there are those little expensive devices - which leads to the news item:
Tech addiction symptoms rife among students
This story on CBC caught my attention this morning - I know there is a connection between consumerism, and sweat shops, the poverty of Bangladesh and the affluenza of Saskatoon. I just wonder who the real victims are?
Friday, April 1, 2011
And an appropriate book
On Photography by the late Susan Sontag is a very thought provoking treatise on the uses of pictures. When I think how exponentially the number of photo images has increased since this book was written - it sort of boggles my mind.
Friday, March 18, 2011
and another book
Okay I spotted this book while rough-shelving on my circ shift - finding books with cool and enticing titles - an occupational hazard yes? Dung Beetle Ecology edited by Ilkka Hanski and Yves Cambefort was published by Prinseton U. Press 20 years ago. I guess it caught my eye because, clenching my insufficiently gloved hands walking to work this AM (it was a mitten morning - should have checked) I was thinking about my post winter, ready to almost overflow composters and how I better really deal with them this spring. So the benefites of rot are high on my radar today.
Just a quick glance at the preface tells me Dung Beetles are good parents - building nests like birds and nurturing their young - some birds and Dung Beetles produce only one offspring per breeding season. So clearly they have to take good care of them, invest in college funds, the best summer camps, get braces on their teeth...dung beetles as helicopter parents - who knew?*
Yes I am going to check it out - not exactly lunch time reading but still more interesting than Dan Brown.
*some of the facts in this paragraph are from the preface some from my overly colourful imagination
Just a quick glance at the preface tells me Dung Beetles are good parents - building nests like birds and nurturing their young - some birds and Dung Beetles produce only one offspring per breeding season. So clearly they have to take good care of them, invest in college funds, the best summer camps, get braces on their teeth...dung beetles as helicopter parents - who knew?*
Yes I am going to check it out - not exactly lunch time reading but still more interesting than Dan Brown.
*some of the facts in this paragraph are from the preface some from my overly colourful imagination
Monday, March 14, 2011
Podcasting and another book
Two birds with one Post. The Best Laid Plans by Terry Fallis has been recommended to me by two people and I picked it up on the weekend. Like other readers I couldn't put it down except under great pressure.
So this winner of Canada Reads this year has an interesting history. It was podcast chapter by chapter, and then self published before it won the Leacock Medal. So that was the podcast I headed for. I managed to subscribe to in on my I-google page but I find I am rather clumsy at doing more than directly downloading to the computer.
I love listening to recorded books when I am weaving or sewing etc. so this is an option which is easier than borrowing cd's from the public library and with none of the annoying skips one often encounters on library cd novels. I guess Terry Fallis could also be the poster boy for successful self publishing.
So this winner of Canada Reads this year has an interesting history. It was podcast chapter by chapter, and then self published before it won the Leacock Medal. So that was the podcast I headed for. I managed to subscribe to in on my I-google page but I find I am rather clumsy at doing more than directly downloading to the computer.
I love listening to recorded books when I am weaving or sewing etc. so this is an option which is easier than borrowing cd's from the public library and with none of the annoying skips one often encounters on library cd novels. I guess Terry Fallis could also be the poster boy for successful self publishing.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Keeping up with the books
This week's book was a recording read by the author and very well produced. And well it should be - it is a great story has won a Newberry, a Hugo, and various other awards.
Neil Gaiman is a very creative writer and The Graveyard book is a terrific read. I think my favorite thing about the recorded version was the use of a very nice version of Danse Macabre as the theme music. Nice touch!
In other threads (bad pun) I have been posting, on the weekend I finished the peapod. But I had to curtail knitting almost completely for this week because my wrists are making nasty little comments about such obsessive knitting, mousing on the computer and threatening an rsi if I am not more mindful. So this week has been dedicated to more "wrist-friendly" activities.
Neil Gaiman is a very creative writer and The Graveyard book is a terrific read. I think my favorite thing about the recorded version was the use of a very nice version of Danse Macabre as the theme music. Nice touch!
In other threads (bad pun) I have been posting, on the weekend I finished the peapod. But I had to curtail knitting almost completely for this week because my wrists are making nasty little comments about such obsessive knitting, mousing on the computer and threatening an rsi if I am not more mindful. So this week has been dedicated to more "wrist-friendly" activities.
but i HAD to finish the peapod before taking a break. Obsessions are like that.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Another book (book 5)
Castle Waiting by Linda Medley is a graphic novel which is now enjoying popular success after a difficult effort at self publishing. Read all about it on this blog.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Time for another book
Who knew the periodic table could be so fascinating? The Disappearing Spoon is a romp of colourful characters, interesting adventures, and very well explained science.
Full title: The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements by Sam Kean Please don't recall our copy - I have it in the Chemistry display.
Full title: The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements by Sam Kean Please don't recall our copy - I have it in the Chemistry display.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
The madness continues
Friday, February 18, 2011
Book 3
The Archimedes Codex: revealing the secrets of the world's greatest palimpsest by Reviel Netz and William Noel.
When you work in a library, stumbling across fascinating books is a bit of an occupational hazard. I have been reading this one during my lunch breaks for a while. It's part of our Popular Science Collection.
"At 2pm on October 29th, 1998, at Christie’s auction house in New York, a very special old book was sold to an anonymous collector for $2,000,000. This collector deposited the manuscript at The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore in order to conserve it, image it, and study it. The book is special because it contains seven treatises by the ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes. Two of these treatises, The Stomachion and The Method exist nowhere else in the world."
So part of it reads like the script for an action thriller - who is this anonymous collector? Part of it takes you back to the scholarship of Archimedes - ancient communications - I just read a lovely bit about how scrolls of papyrus which were made in Egypt, shipped to Syracuse and Archimedes carefully wrote down his findings in the form of a letter to Eratosthenes in Alexandria. - so that scroll made it's way back to Egypt. That we know about it is mere happenstance and it provides a great example of how remarkable the codex find is in itself. Medieval repurposing the original treatises into a prayer book and the late 20th century imaging technology to read the original manuscript and how it all comes together - a true story that makes Dan Brown's fictional concoctions pale in comparison without any of Brown's gratuitous sex and violence.
When you work in a library, stumbling across fascinating books is a bit of an occupational hazard. I have been reading this one during my lunch breaks for a while. It's part of our Popular Science Collection.
"At 2pm on October 29th, 1998, at Christie’s auction house in New York, a very special old book was sold to an anonymous collector for $2,000,000. This collector deposited the manuscript at The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore in order to conserve it, image it, and study it. The book is special because it contains seven treatises by the ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes. Two of these treatises, The Stomachion and The Method exist nowhere else in the world."
So part of it reads like the script for an action thriller - who is this anonymous collector? Part of it takes you back to the scholarship of Archimedes - ancient communications - I just read a lovely bit about how scrolls of papyrus which were made in Egypt, shipped to Syracuse and Archimedes carefully wrote down his findings in the form of a letter to Eratosthenes in Alexandria. - so that scroll made it's way back to Egypt. That we know about it is mere happenstance and it provides a great example of how remarkable the codex find is in itself. Medieval repurposing the original treatises into a prayer book and the late 20th century imaging technology to read the original manuscript and how it all comes together - a true story that makes Dan Brown's fictional concoctions pale in comparison without any of Brown's gratuitous sex and violence.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
more stuff related to yesterday's book
http://www.yarnharlot.ca/blog/ Stephanie Pearl-McPhee has published some fine books of that select genre "knitting humour" her blog is fun too.
AND my copy of the book arrived yesterday! and the eggplant is growing well.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
today's book
Amigurumi Knits
by Hansi Singh
No I don't know how to pronounce it but I think it is highly addictive. Last week it I saw it on my friend Lynne's coffee table - it was a public library book, she was leaving on a trip, she gave it to me. Yesterday when I renewed it in my name at the Francis Morrison Branch, it took a little fiddling because it was from another branch, the Library Assistant looked at it and said "we should have a copy of this one - do you mind if I show it to the person who does the ordering. By the time she was back there were now 3 library staff admiring it. I am two thirds of the way through the egg plant. With any luck my very own copy will be between the doors when I get home.
picture courtesy of Amazon - you need to follow the title link to actually look inside.
No I don't know how to pronounce it but I think it is highly addictive. Last week it I saw it on my friend Lynne's coffee table - it was a public library book, she was leaving on a trip, she gave it to me. Yesterday when I renewed it in my name at the Francis Morrison Branch, it took a little fiddling because it was from another branch, the Library Assistant looked at it and said "we should have a copy of this one - do you mind if I show it to the person who does the ordering. By the time she was back there were now 3 library staff admiring it. I am two thirds of the way through the egg plant. With any luck my very own copy will be between the doors when I get home.
picture courtesy of Amazon - you need to follow the title link to actually look inside.
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