Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay

Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay

Under Heaven is a historical fantasy based on the 8th century Tang dynasty in China. Shen Tai, the hero of the story calls his country Kitai. Kitai is the Russian word for China. This story draws from asian and eurasian history. Sardia where Shen Tai receives a gift of Sardian horses is a medieval historical country along the Silk Road.

The historical elements make this novel beautiful to read. Guy Gavriel Kay uses traditional eight line Chinese verse throughout the book. He acknowledges Li Po, the Chinese poet as his inspiration. One of the secondary characters, Sima Zian is called an Immortal because of the beautiful poetry he writes.

The story itself has a diverse variety of elements. It is much more than just sword fighting and magical battles. In fact, the magic described here is different, the bogu tribesmen have shamans who communicate with animals, there is forbidden astrology called the "School of Night", warrior monks practice martial arts, and the Emperor of Kitai drinks alchemical potions to increase his potency.

There are beautiful descriptions of bejeweled courtesans playing the Pipa, dancing, and wiling away the evenings. There is decpetion, intrigue, wine (peach, pepper, grape, and spiced), sex, assassination attempts, battles, and history. The setting is in the countryside of Kitai, at the imperial court, and beyond The Long Wall, and in the grasslands of the Bogu. The characters are soldiers, poets, noblemen, noblewomen, warrior monks, tribesmen, imperial bureaucrats, and concubines.

The hero, Shen Tai is propelled through the story by forces greater than himself. He starts with a great action, burying the dead on a battlefield as part of mourning the death of his father, the General Shen. He survives many intrigues and battles and does not seek what is given to him. The characters make terrible mistakes which lead to tragedies and civil war. This makes the story compelling.

This is an interesting fantasy written in a literary style with both an epilogue and acknowledgements for the historical and literary research put into writing this book. Guy Gavriel Kay is a Canadian writer who won the World Fantasy Award in 2008 for his book Ysabel. His official website is Bright Weavings. http://www.brightweavings.com/

Daily Thoughts 5/31/2010

Baroness Emma Orczy de Orczi (1865–1947), a British novelist, playwright and artist of Hungarian noble origin.Taken 10 June 1920 by Alexander Bassano. The Baroness of Orczy is famous for writing The Scarlett Pimpernel.

Daily Thoughts 5/31/2010

Happy Memorial Day. There is a parade outside with the local politicians, the veterans, scouts, and automobile club. It is very nice outside. Pleasant enough to take a nice long walk.

My to be read list is in front of me. I am planning to read Daniel H. Pink, Drive The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, Tobias Buckell mentioned it on Facebook, Seth Godin, Linchpin Are You Indispensable mentioned by Ron Hogan during his speech at the Book Blogger Convention, Laurence Cosse, A Novel Bookstore an advanced reading copy I got at Book Expo America, Gail Carriger, Changeless, I just like her books and Rex Riders by J.P. Carlson, another advanced reading copy I got at Book Expo America.

Barbara Genco who is the Editor for Collection Development for Library Journal twittered this, it is a set of summer picks for books from NPR. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127212916

Occassionally, I prune my side bar when book blogs become inactive and replace them with other book blogs that are linking to me. I usually wait until a blog has been inactive for one to two months. People stop blogging after a while and try something else. Alabama Bookworm is active again http://albookworm.blogspot.com/ , I am not sure about Book Bound, they mainly review paranormal romance and young adult which is interesting, but not quite in the same category as the books which I review or read. http://b00kbound.blogspot.com/ , TNBBC's The Next Best Book Blog http://thenextbestbookblog.blogspot.com/ which was represented at the Book Bloggers Convention has a link to my site. Sometimes, a blog will stop posting for a while, but still visit other blogs. If I'm still getting visits, but no posts, I'll hope they'll post at a later date.

I am adding Neil Gaiman's Journal to the authors that I read. I read this on occassion. http://journal.neilgaiman.com/ I am also adding Jonathan Carroll's Website. I think Jonathan Carroll's site is one of the most beautifully designed author websites I have ever seen. http://www.jonathancarroll.com/index.php . It includes an introduction by Neil Gaiman. Their writing style is very sympathetic with each other.

I also like Linnea Sinclair who writes science fiction romance; more specifically, science fiction space opera in my opinion. http://www.linneasinclair.com/

Prototype

Prototype is an action adventure game that was developed by Radical Entertainment and published by Activision in 2009. I have played the pc version.

The game takes place in present time New York City, on the island of Manhattan to be specific, where a horrific virus is spreading through the streets. The entire island has been put under quarantine by the US Marine Corps to prevent the spread of the virus.

You play as Alex mercer, person with no memory of his past and with the ability to change his body parts into various weapons and defenses, and the ability to consume other persons and take their identity, memories and their entire body.

When starting a new game you are taught how to move, attack and change your body. In this stage the virus is at its peak. After completing this level you flashback to the beginning of the outbreak. By completing the primary missions you progress in the game. After completing a certain amount of those missions, you get a flash-forward and a part of the story is revealed. This Is however not entirely right. To uncover the history and facts around the game, you can consume targets for your Web of Intrigue. When you consume a target you get a small video which gives a few hints about what happened during and what happened before the events that take place in the game. Back to the primary missions. After the fast-forward, you get another flashback. when that happens the days change and a percentage is given to show you how many people are infected in the city. You work your way from day one up to day eighteen.

Next to the primary missions you also have side missions. These can vary from consuming targets, killing a certain amount of infected or marines or running and jumping through a course.

With completing missions, consuming and killing enemies or innocent people you get Evolution Points. These points can be spent on increasing your survivability or making you more deadly in combat by unlocking special moves and new powers.

Alex has an arsenal of deadly weapons that he can use. Some have to be unlocked first with EP. An example of one of those weapons are the claws. This is my favorite weapon. Every weapon has a basic attack and a special attack. The reason why I love this weapon is because with this attack you can rise up spikes of biomass from underneath the ground and impale anyone unfortunate enough to be caught in the radial area of damage. So yeah, I love it. But the most devastating powers in the game are the Devastator attacks. These attacks are the superweapons in his arsenal. But I will not be a spoiler and will let you discover what these things can do.

But the fun doesn’t end there. After a while, Alex is able to pilot certain military vehicles. At first there are only Black Hawk and Bradleys, but as the situation in the city escalates, more and more heavy equipment is brought in, so you’ll end up driving Abrams and Apaches.

You can speak of two factions in Prototype. The first group is the US Marine Corp, who are commanded by the black operation, Blackwatch. The marines orders are to contain the virus, but are really used as shock troopers, soldiers who do the heavy damage and take the full blow i.e. casualties. Now Blackwatch is a nasty organization, they do the clean up after the work is done and are the real badguys that want to take you down by any means necessary.

The other faction are the infected. You have the population that has gone berserk, trying to kill every non-infected, and you have the abominations. The result of the virus transforming their host into something else. You have some minor abominations, as I would call them, that are not that powerful. But the other ones, called Hunters, are the ones that can really ruin your day. These creatures from hell are twice the size of a normal human and with a lot more muscles.

The game looks pretty good. In combat you will see bodyparts and blood flying freely through the air. The city itself might feel a bit empty, and I mean that most of it looks the same with a few subtle differences. But on the streets its chaos when the virus finally goes crazy. You will see soldiers firing at infected, civilians running for their lives, infected people and Hunters.

Though I have some complaints about the game. You will find yourself doing the same things over and over, but you will be too busy to really care about that. Moving around the city, especially in combat, can be quite chaotic. This really comes to light when driving ground vehicles, they drive towards where you are pointing at. And that’s where the controls get weird, but you really have to experience that yourself. And my final complaint is that combat can be incredibly annoying. Sometimes you are chased from one end of the map to the other end, but also that some special moves of the Hunters can’t be countered or stopped.

So my conclusion of Prototype, I really good game. It has it flaws but that’s common in every game. A nice storyline and awesome moves make this game awesome.

One down, five to go :D

I just came to realize that it’s exactly one week since we moved into this barrack. That means that it’s only five more weeks before we can move back into our apartment again! (We are renovating our apartment; therefore we can’t live there for six weeks.) Awesome! :D

However, I must say that I have started to become very accustomed to the new routines here. By that I mean that it’s not THAT bad to live here, although the couch is hard as a rock, the extreme darkness (due to the lack of big windows), bad isolation, and the most horrible fact - that the hot water can run out! No wait, the most, most awful thing is that there is only one mirror - and it’s not even a full length one! Oh my, I just realized how spoiled I sounded - “because those problems are obviously the biggest problems there are out there right now, right?” ^^

Now I’m going to tuck myself into bed and watch an episode of Gossip Girl. One of my favorite series. So…

Xoxo Sandra Girl :P

Tonight's bedtime outfit: mum's old I love NY tee, that I've stolen from her, and my sexy Dior specs. Tihi ^^

Dinner at Thai Village

As sis and I had plans to take mami out for some Thai food, we ended up at the really cozy Thai Village. The food was very good, but as always when I eat Asian food here in Sweden, I was dying of thirst afterwards. I don’t understand why they have to put so much salt in the food. :O

Anyway, mami seemed to enjoy the dinner and that was the most significant part of even going out tonight. Here are a pair of pictures from the evening.

Mami and me

Sis and me

this is central station

http://community.thisiscentralstation.com/lucageorge11

Daily Thoughts 5/30/2010

Victor Hugo, c1875, taken by Comte Stanisław Julian Ostroróg dit WALERY (1830-1890), French Ministry of Culture, from Wikimedia

Daily Thoughts 5/30/2010

Have been reading the uncomfortable dead (what's missing is missing) a novel by four hands. The chapters are written alternately, first Subcomandate Marcos will write one chapter, then Paco Ignacio Taibo II will write the next chapter. This creates a slowly interweaving setting where the characters in the book move closer and closer together.

There is a lot of politics in this book, an odd mix of left wing libertarianism and anarchism that often has an absurd and ridiculous quality to it mixed with ironic humor. The main characters are detectives in that they are trying to solve a crime, but it is often hard to tell what the crime is exactly, and it is often more of a conversation about the vagaries of life in the mixed up setting of a corrupt, greedy Mexico city. I am enjoying the book because of its unique iconoclastic style.

The characters are interesting personalities; a progressive politician with a pet dog with a broken leg, a gay revolutionary, an inspector for the Zapatistas, a Chinese revolutionary in Mexico city, a Mexican porn star who looks like Bin Laden, a corrupt business man, a sweet old grandmother who hacks computers, and others.

The characters all chain smoke, drink, often swear, and tell jokes. The book is not that clean, it might make some people uncomfortable. However, there is very little gratuitious sex or violence, the characters mainly talk about it. The book is very well written and was recommended by Library Journal and the Los Angeles Times. Paco Ignacio Taibo II has won numerous awards for his writing; he is a professor of history at Metropolitan University of Mexico City. It is odd reading a mystery cowritten by a revolutionary, Subcomandante Marcos, but then Marcos has also written a childrens book, The Story of the Colors. There is even a short interview with Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Robert Pombo, and Subcomandante Marcos called The Punchcard and The Hourglass at the back of this edition of the book.

I am about half way through reading the book. This was a free copy given out by Akashic books at Book Expo America. It is not an advanced reading copy, so I will definitely add it to the library collection. We have several other books by Paco Ignacio Taibo II featuring the detective Hector Belascaron Shayne.

Right now I am a bit tired. It was a very long week at the convention.

Thoughts On Reviews

There is a very different goal for librarians reading reviews than many people think. We can't read every book, but we need to know about many books out there in case people ask about them. This means there is no such thing as spoilers for us in reviews. If we read a review, it is nice to know the genre, plot, characters, style, setting, and framework of the book. A review that is longer than what is in a review magazine, about a page and a half is ideal for me.

I want to know how you feel about a book, your personal opinions matter. Reviewers in the literary criticism often can't give their personal feelings or emotions in their reviews. Your personal style counts a lot. Stars don't mean a lot to me. Specifics about what you like and dislike are what matters. Please tell me what is bad about a book. You may not know this but a bad book review can increase sales. People become aware of an item if it generates controversy. http://marketing.wharton.upenn.edu/documents/research/Negative_Publicity.pdf

I like it when I see both good and bad reviews on books. This indicates that the author had a specific opinion and was writing for a specific audience. There are a lot of books which will not appeal to many people or have content that has a strong, often offensive set of opinions that is not for every audience.

I have to consider books with a full spectrum of religious, philosophical, and political viewpoints. We don't have to agree with Ann Coulter or Al Franken, but we do need to know if the material is well written, entertaining, and has some degree of accuracy.

Tell me when you don't like a book, you don't have to write a full review, but saying I put this book down because it bored me or it was confusing helps me make decisions about books.

I want to see your personal style in your writing of a review. This may help me gauge whether it is right for another person. Knowing a little bit about you helps as well. Let me know in your blog if you review christian fiction, books about serial killers, fantasy, urban fantasy, science fiction, world literature, chick lit, travel writing, or whatever else you might like.

Include things which we don't normally see in a book review. Describe the layout of the text, talk about the illustrator or photographer in a nonfiction book, compare it to several other books. There are no constraints in a blog. There is no stylesheet for a personal blog like in a magazine.

Friendship Lasting Through The Decades

Cynthia and I have been friends since our days in a baby buggy (I'm on the right). As you can see, I was happier about our "friendship" than Cynthia.


We were friends all through school, then went our separate ways. I got married and began raising a family and Cynthia went on to nursing school. Not surprising since she'd said from the time she was about six that she wanted to be a nurse.

We lost touch for about 20 years or so, until hurricanes and a job relocation brought us from Fort Myers, FL, to the Atlanta area. Cynthia and I are now less an hour from each other. Ironic considering we were both born and raised in Southern Indiana.

The first time we got together after our move, we talked non-stop for the entire evening. Our husbands just looked at us, smiled, shrugged and talked among themselves.

As you might have guessed, Cynthia is the Cynthia of attic fame. The series, Cynthia's Attic is based on my childhood playing in her attic.

I believe it was fate that brought us back together, but a the solid base on which our friendship was built all those years ago (No, I'm not going to say how many!), is what keeps our friendship going strong.

I'm the author of the 'Tween time-travel series, Cynthia's Attic.

Mary Cunningham Books
Amazon
Kindle
Fictionwise
Quake/Echelon Press

Mother's day

The sun is shining and Mother’s day started with a hot cup of Milo and freshly baked baguettes (which Vicki was sweet enough to go and buy just this morning) with smögenröra on top of them. A very fatty breakfast indeed. But after all, Mother’s day is once a year and the most important part is of course to have mum enjoy her day - so a delicious breakfast is a must have. ^^

Later Vicki and I are taking mami out for dinner. But until then, it’s about time for me to stop ignoring my studies and actually get to work so that I can complete some of the tasks I have left before summer break. Unfortunately, all the other assignments and homework didn’t end when test week did, but it’s only 9 more days of school, so I will survive. ;P

Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose MOTIVATE... thinkers...

Does more money motivate higher performance? - Daniel Pink

There are so many reasons that you all should watch this movie over and over again..and then put it into practice.

• Motivation and leadership are not simple and may not be teachable, but there are principles we should follow.
• Money isn't everything as long as you have enough of it... Regardless it just doesn't motivate people the way most people think...

Dune 2000

Dune 2000 is a RTS developed by Westwood Studios and Intelligent Games and was released in 1998 on Windows and later ported on the Playstation. The game is based on Frank Herbert's Dune universe.

Emperor Corrino has issued a challenge that the House which can produce the most spice will control its source, the desert planet Dune, with no rules as to how the Houses can achieve the goal. However, when you're playing with the Harkonnen (the evil House), the Emperor will eventually team up with the Atreides and tries to destroy you, how ironic. Meanwhile, Lady Elara of the Bene Gesserit and bound concubine to the Emperor, secretly takes the commander (you) into one of the Heighliners, a person whose bloodline and future the Sisterhood had checked. According to Elara, they saw many visions of the commander dying many times and only in one vision does the commander live and even rise to control massive armies and bring peace to Arrakis.

I will explain the three Houses below, as taken from the intro.

House Atreides- Hailing from the water-planet of Caladan, the Atreides have a strict loyalty to their Duke and follow him with zeal. The Duke's famous Mentat, Noree Moneo, advises and resides over the Duke's forces on Arrakis. The House's fleets of ornithopters ensure their superior air power. The Duke also wishes to develop an alliance with the Fremen, the native warriors of Dune.

House Harkonnen- The Harkonnen are ruled by the wicked Baron and come from the volcanic waste-planet of Giedi Prime. According to Lady Elara, the only thing human about the Harkonnen is their genetic makeup, as all humanity was abandoned long ago in favor of brutality and maliciousness. The Baron's Mentat, Hayt De Vries, was born from the flesh of a dead man in the Tleilaxu Flesh Vats.

House Ordos- The Ordos originate from a frigid, ice covered planet unnamed in Dune 2000 but later called Sigma Draconis IV in Emperor: Battle for Dune. As they import their goods from nearby star systems, House Ordos relies on their skills as merchants to make their profits; however, their wealth has made them increasingly paranoid. According to the manual, House Ordos buys all of its units instead of constructing them themselves. Unlike the other two houses, House Ordos is not mentioned in any of Frank Herbert's Dune novels.

There are also four non-playable subfactions: House Corrino, the Fremen, the Mercenaries and the Smugglers.

Spice is the main resource in the game, which you have to collect with harvesters. It is advised to regularly check where your harvesters are, because there are always giant worms around, and those worms sometimes consume your harvester. You'll know that a worm is there when you see sparks coming out of the ground. With spice you can purchase everything ranging from infantry to building upgrades. Before placing a building you'll have to place concrete, because otherwise it's health is not at 100% but will decrease to a certain point over time. You'll also need to build energy sources, Wind Traps. If you don't have enough energy the training and building process is slowed down and your missile turrets and your radar won't operate. Your most valuable building is the Construction Site. If you lose this building you won't be able to construct other buildings, unless you're able to build or order a Mobile Construction Verhicle from a Starport. When playing the singleplayer campaign I recommend you to seek and destroy your enemy's Construction Site before destroying the other buildings, because otherwise they'll just rebuild the buildings they've lost.

Although each house has many common units, such as infantry, Wind Traps, and Mobile Construction Vehicles, each House also has its own set of units, such as the Atreides Sonic Tank, the Ordos Deviator and the Harkonnen Devastator. Houses Harkonnen and Atreides share the Trike, while House Ordos has an upgraded version, the Raider. Like many games of the Westwood franchise, a player can gain access to other Houses' special units by capturing an enemy building and manufacturing the desired units.

The graphics of this game aren't that special, but I think they're good enough for a game from 1998. There isn't really much to say about the level design, because you play on a desert planet and everything looks the same. This game received a lot of criticism from the hoax called GameSpot, because they thought the game's production value was 'drab' for 1998 standards. Whatever they thought, I, on the contrary, had a lot of fun with this game. I spend many hours playing this game, it can be very challenging at times.

Friends

Someone once said, "A real friend will help you move." In my mystery writer circles they say, "A real friend will help you move the body."
I love to go to mystery conferences where the panels teach us how to identify the time of death, look for clues, track down leads, and learn about poisons and weapons.
Magna cum Murder takes place every year on Halloween weekend in Muncie, IN. They decorate the banquet tables with skulls and cobwebs. The servers wear fangs. It's fun to meet the people who read and write mysteries. All four of my books are mysteries. The most recent is a fantasy/mystery, The Secret of Bailey's Chase. I can't imagine reading or writing a book that didn't have a mystery in it. Harriet the Spy is a great book for middle-grade readers as is Among the Hidden, The Giver, Belle Prater's Boy, and Snowbound. The Sammy Keyes mysteries are fun for the tween crowd and everyone loves Hank the Cowdog. If you need a good book, get to the library and check out some of these for summer reading.
Don't forget Crispin by Avi!

Rain, rain, rain

Ever since this morning it has been raining back and forth, and I’m so sick and tired of it. Hopefully, the grey sky will turn baby blue tomorrow, so that mami will enjoy her day to the fullest. It’s not my mum’s birthday if you’re wondering, but as all Swedes reading this should know by now (even though I didn’t realize it until last week myself) is that it is Mother’s day tomorrow, and therefore you all should treat your mothers like queens (if you ain’t already - which I hope ^^).

I’m pre-preparing for being extra nice already, so if you excuse me, I’m going to go help my precious mum with the laundry now.

Mami and me - Malaysia 2008

Daily Thoughts 5/29/2010

New York Sunday Journal, May 3, 1896. Why did I post this on Saturday, to protest the idea of having to collect all my thoughts on Sunday and post them all at once as a Salon post.

Daily Thoughts 5/29/2010

Anyways, the big book convention is over. I had a chance to go through and look at the blog list of the Book Bloggers Convention. I never did put up a button for them. These are a few of the blogs which I liked from the list. I visited all of them to see what they looked like. Sometimes, it is a chance to just see what people are doing. http://bookbloggerconvention.com/attendees I probably should have gone through this before I went to the reception. But, then I am not very good at should have.

I really like the Rasco from RIF (Reading Is Fundamental) blog. It has a very clear design and excellent message. http://www.rascofromrif.org/ Reading Is Fundamental is part of the Summer Reading programs at most public libraries in the United States. I also liked Jeff's, The Reading Ape Blog http://thereadingape.blogspot.com/. His summary of Book Expo America is quite good. I joined the Book Bloggers Hop on Crazy For Books, I am #175, http://www.crazy-for-books.com/. I sometimes twitter with Marie from The Boston Bibliophile which is a quite nice blog. She is also a librarian blogger. http://www.bostonbibliophile.com/ . Maw Books by Natasha is of course wonderful, she was the primary arranger of the Book Blogger Convention. http://blog.mawbooks.com/ . There is also The Book Publicity Blog which I find fascinating.http://yodiwan.wordpress.com/. I have never seen so many book publicists in one place...

I also looked through the industry bloggers. The AMACom Blog looks quite interesting, it is often hard to find decent reviews for business books. I think I will get Investing In A Sustainable World Why Green Is The New Color of Money On Wall Street by Matthew J. Kiernan, Ph.D. http://amacombooks.wordpress.com/ . Another industry blog which looks very nice is Online Publicist. http://onlinepublicist.blogspot.com/. I liked the design of Authors on the Web, they left us a gift in the goody bag yesterday, a reading light. http://authorsontheweb.com/. I was surprised to have missed Quirk Books, http://irreference.com/ They are famous for Seth Grahame-Smith, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. We also purchased Queen Victoria Demon Hunter from them as well as Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter for our library. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies was recently turned into a graphic novel.

Some Final Thoughts on Book Expo and the Book Blogging Convention.

One of the underlying conversations at the Book Expo was about reviewing. Although, it was not said out loud, the publishers were giving out a lot less review copies to attendees. Some were also limiting their copies to "reviewers." They were also trying to switch away from physical copies to either codes which allowed downloads to books or egalleys. This was a way to lower costs and improve distribution. While I was following the Ning Book Blog group there were questions about how international readers could get galleys. I would imagine that shipping a physical galley overseas via airmail would be cost prohibitive.

During Ron Hogan's talk he said that blogs had won out against review sites. He told us that places like the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and others were creating their own blogs to review books. The specific blog that Ron Hogan mentioned was Jacket Copy of the Los Angeles Times. Ron Hogan made a statement that Bloggers have won. I read the Books section of the New York Times on occassion looking at Paper Cuts one of the New York Times blogs.

I am not 100% sure about this, but I can tell you that blogs do have some advantages. They do not have to follow a formula or editorial policies created in review periodicals. They can innovate in their style. I often find myself when reading library review material wondering if they copied the dust jacket copy practically word for word to create the review. I think this is one of the reasons that Kirkus Reviews survived; they were willing to include more negative reviews and more florid language.

Bloggers can put an original voice and style into reviews. They can also add new conventions to describing books like adding descriptions of layout, style, and photography in books. There are no rules right now. Also, with nonstandard language it is much easier to prove you have read a book. A blogger can use much more original language. Hopefully, reviewers at the professional journals will adapt some of the better conventions from blogs as they are tried.

While I was at the Book Bloggers Convention, there was another group conversation about bloggers and reviewers. Bloggers do not have to write negative reviews. If someone gives you a book and you write a negative review, you might not get another free galley from them. It is often difficult to write a negative review. A blogger is not getting paid to write a review. Often, they are reading for pleasure. There is no requirement for them to finish reading a book which they do not like. A reviewer is being paid. The blogger can simply stop reading. I still think it is best to have at least a mention that they stopped reading a book and why.

There is an unacknowledged tension between the style of "readers advisory" and "literary criticism." The style of literary criticism appears to be fading a bit for popular titles. During the Librarians 2nd Annual Shout and Share, which is a book talking panel by collection development librarians, at around 3:45 p.m. Miriam Tuliao cofounder of Earlyword.com http://www.earlyword.com/ mentioned a new trifecta for bestsellers. If a book is prominently featured in USA Today, People, and Entertainment Weekly it will most likely appear on the bestseller lists. I hope, I will not have to read these magazines to measure some of the popular titles to get.

This is a bit stunning. I like many of the print publications like the New York Review of Books which is on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/NYRB.Classics and hope they are quick and adaptable in meeting the challenges facing them. My hope is that purely popular institutions will not have too much impact on our reading habits.

The final question which I faced directly, is "Is a blogger a reviewer?" Many people both write literary reviews and blogs. How do you approach a company and ask them for books who want their books reviewed, but are a little shy of giving a blogger a book. Luckily, because I work around a constant flow of books, I don't have to hunt for new books to read and review. Others do. I still really want certain titles on occassion. At the Book Blogger Convention, we were given contact sheets for Harper Collins to request review copies if we wanted them for blogs.

Gary Coleman has died

Former child star, Gary Coleman died today after suffering a intracranial hemorrhage. He was only 42.
A coworker asked what he died from and someone replied  "I think it was a stroke"...To which the co-worker replied....was it a "Diff'rent Stroke"? lol

Sorry, but I had to tell that story...RIP, Gary!
Bob Out

The Friday Flashback

One word...

CHER

"If I Could Turn Back Time"

I just thought a little Cher was in order to kick off our long weekend.

Check out this pic...She can still rock that outfit..

Hope you guys have a great Memorial day weekend
Bob Out

Daily Thoughts 5/28/2010 (Book Bloggers Convention at Book Expo America)

Stack of books in Gould's Book Arcade, Newtown, New South Wales (NSW), Australia, 21 October 2009, taken by Toby Hudson, Creative Commons Attribution- Share Alike 3.0 Unported, Wikimedia. This came from the Quality Images for Household Items section of Wikimedia.

Daily Thoughts 5/28/2010 (Book Bloggers Convention at Book Expo America)

I am going to the Book Bloggers Convention in a little while. I don't think I'll make the breakfast, but I will get to the other parts of the convention.

I slept in a little bit and got the Book Bloggers Convention at 9:00 a.m.. The keynote speaker was Maureen Johnson who writes young adult novels. I had never read her blog, but she was quite entertaining to hear speak. In the goody bags which came with the blogs, Brilliance Audio included a cd audiobook of Sweet Scarlett her new novel.

She had some interesting things to say. She blogs every single day, ending up with about 2,000 words. She also encourages people to comment on her blog. She also reminds us to blog about what we like. Sometimes, I am not quite sure what I like, so I just write about what I am experiencing.

Maureen Johnson talked about how she liked an unnamed blogger and reminded us that there are really no ground rules for twitter or blogger, you can do whatever you want. It is up to us to decide how much privacy we want. I won't go into every detail of what she said, but I can say she smiled a lot and made us laugh and was an original speaker.

The next person to speak was Ron Hogan. I remember when he wrote for Galleycat of Media Bistro. He hasn't been doing this for a while. I didn't even know he left. He outlined some of his ideas from Seth Godin's book, Linchpin Are You Indispensable. I liked Purple Cow a lot also by Seth Godin. The speech inspired me to read Seth Godin's books more than anything else.

The question about how do you get your books puzzled me a little bit. I get them from the library where I work, because I or my colleagues have ordered the book. We haven't specifically been requesting galleys or review copies lately. We could do this, but I am not really sure about this. One of my colleagues orders forthcoming titles. If I can't get what I want immediately, I may turn to Netgalley, but have not been reading many galleys. Galleys are not supposed to be added to libraries, they are not the complete corrected copies. We can't sell them in the book sale. The library county I work at is a cooperative so each library has its own budget and we share resources. There is no central ordering, so galleys often don't make sense for us because we are not doing large scale ordering of multiple copies. Galleys make sense for individual reviewers.

In this blog, I have relationships with Amazon Associates unlike Ron Hogan who has relationships with Powells for his blog. I don't think about it a huge amount because there is not a lot of money involved. I do it mainly for the little pictures of the books.

I asked Ron Hogan about getting comped as a journalist. On the badge issued to the Book Bloggers Convention, there is the word Press. I used it to sit down in the press room on the convention floor on Thursday and write a bit on this blog. Also, when I was on the floor of the convention, when I was at one of the booths, I was asked if I was a reviewer, only a reviewer could have the galley I wanted. I would have had to contact the publicist.

The goodie bag which came with the convention was excellent. I was surprised at the number of gifts, a book light, a secret decoder pen, a notebook from Harper One, a little mirror, a t-shirt, a stamp which said fail, a button whch said Zombies vs. Unicorns, a pen with the words Book Blogger Convention and various bookmarks. It was nice swag, better than the swag on the convention floor.

The books were also nice. They were mainly aimed at women. A few of the titles were The Perfect 10 Diet by Michael Aziz, M.D., Summer at Tiffany A Memoir by Marjorie Hart (this book included review questions for book clubs), Deb Caletti, The Nature of Jade which was a teen romance novel, and Jill Dawson, The Great Lover which was recommended by one of the attendees as an excellent book. Jill Dawson is a British writer.

We had lunch which was rather tasty, a wrap, chips, and soda. I talked with two people at one table, John Grace from Brilliance Audio who worked with science fiction and fantasy audiobooks, and Joy Strazza who was a publicist for Joan Schulhafer Publishing and Media Consulting. This is the first time I have spent time around publicists. Most of my experience has been around writers, booksellers, librarians, and editors so talking to publicists and book marketers was a new experience for me. Netgalley which makes egalleys was talked about briefly, http://www.netgalley.com/

After the main presenters, there were several panels. I had trouble remembering who was who because there were so many presenters at once. Each presenter had their own blog. It was a bit confusing. Maybe, I was just a bit tired from first going to Day of Dialog, then walking the floor, then doing more panels on Thursday.

Like so many panels, I find it easier if I pick only a few things to think about when I am listening to a panel. Paying attention to everything is a little too diffuse. I am mainly going to comment on one or two people from each panel.

There were a few blogs and people which caught my attention. I rather liked the idea of the Book Publicity Blog http://yodiwan.wordpress.com/ , it has a different layout and feel to it than many other blogs I have looked at. Again, I am not that familiar with book publicity.

I was surprised at the number of bloggers who were librarians. I was thinking, Vampire Librarian, that is kind of interesting for a blog, http://vampirelibrarian.com/ . Also, there were some interesting comments about the difference between reviewing for Kirkus Reviews and reviewing on a blog.

When you have not seen the blog before someone comes to speak, it makes it hard to picture what people were talking about. I really should have looked at each blog individually so I could place what the speakers were talking about. Because I had previously seen, The Booksmuggler Blog http://thebooksmugglers.com/ I could understand what Thea was talking about when she talked about statistics and traffic. I had recognized the blog from http://bookblogs.ning.com/

Also, because of the reception, I got a sense of Stacked, so I could understand what Christina was talking about. Christina had talked about blogging Space Camp at the reception before she spoke on the podium about it. Her pitch and message were very clear.

I wish the reception was a little bit earlier. I was looking to see if there were any book bloggers when I came in on Tuesday morning for the Library Journal Day of Dialog at Book Expo America. I asked at the check in desk. The only blogger I directly recognized was Ellen Datlow on the floor, who has a live journal page and was at the Horror Writers of America booth.

Some of the panels were quite interesting. I am used to hearing about technology around books. I read Joe Wikert's Publishing 2020 Blog. You might call it a kind of book blog. I also recognized Maw Books who has an excellent book blog.

I had never really thought that much about social responsibility when they did the panel on Blogging With Social Responsibility. It was interesting hearing about whitewashing in book covers from Zetta of the Fledgling blog, also it was interesting hearing about blogging gay books from Stephen Bottum of Band of Thebes.

The talk on the Impact of the Relationship between Author and Blogger felt like it was from the perspective of a publicist or marketer, not an editor. I find it fairly easy to talk to editors and writers. I often don't think of interviewing writers, because it somehow crosses into territory which limits how much you can review a book. When talking to editors there seems to be less worry about whether or not you should correct someone; it is their job to criticize works. When you talk to a reviewer or marketer, it seems to be much less acceptable to be critical, there is more of an emphasis on selling the book.

I liked how Amy of the blog, My Friend Amy talked about her relationship with authors. I also liked the decision which was made by Bethanne of the Book Studio to insist on either interviewing an author or writing a book review on their book, but not both.

I like messaging authors on Facebook, but not really interviewing them. Interviewing requires you to review things being said if they are written down, to make sure your writing did not misinterpret something. I'm probably not following the reminder to not talk about yourself too much in a blog, but focus on your interests. Hopefully, what I am writing is correct. Let me know if it is not.

I am not sure that I have the same kind of relationship with authors. It has been such a long time since I have gone to author events. I am not sure that author events are really like blog interviews. Most of the authors which I message are on Facebook; Tobias Buckell, John Ordover, and Ellen Datlow mainly. Occassionally, Jeff Vandermeer.

The event was very well done. I felt a little out of place, but people were very nice. They also made sure that people got a chance to ask questions to the panelists. This was the first time The Book Blogger Convention was held. It was very well executed and well attended for a first time event. I think there were over 200 people in attendance. I don't have the full statistics. It will be something worth attending again. The price for admission was included in attendance to Book Expo America.

I liked talking to Kelly Leonard, Executive Director of Marketing for Online Marketing for Hachette. Hachette has a very large presence on the Ning Book Bloggers Network. It was very gracious.

To get a sense of the attendees. This is a list of blogs with the first name next to them. http://bookbloggerconvention.com/attendees/ In addition to the regular attendees, there were a number of publicists, marketers, and people from publishing companies like Hachette, Random House, Harper Collins, Orbit, Brilliance Audio, and others.

Followers

I am thinking about some things about followers. I currently have 77 Google Followers, 109 RSS (Realtime Simple Syndication) Feed Followers, and about 60 hits a day. This is not a lot of hits. However, something I have noticed is that people who visit usually don't come every day. They may come once a week and read for several minutes go to a link, then come back.

There are other indicators than the main site about who is reading my writing. I also post on Ning Bookblogs. Ning is going to start charging for this service. It would be a nice to see a sponsor to keep the section going. http://bookblogs.ning.com/forum .

I also have 2435 twitter followers http://twitter.com/bookcalendar. I guess this indicates I am good at making short, pithy statements in 140 characters or less. In addition, most of these followers are focused into the book, librarian, and publishing world, hopefully.

I am running a thread on Blogcatalog called What are you reading now? It is up to the 507th post. Sometimes, it is an interesting to try and create long running threads. http://www.blogcatalog.com/group/book-readers/discuss/entry/which-book-are-you-reading-right-now

There are other indicators which are not about reading. I have been in the top spot for books on Fuelmyblog on many occassions. http://www.fuelmyblog.com/index.jsp?f=25. I am on the front page of the books section in Blogcatalog http://www.blogcatalog.com/directory/entertainment/books/

I also have a Goldview Award from the View From Here Magazine http://www.viewfromheremagazine-aboutus.com/

Maybe, I am self promoting too much. I still do not get a huge amount of traffic. Traffic is not everything.

Memorial Day

Please watch this friends.. it is 12 minutes worth spending to think and remember. I watched the entire video, I prayed, I cried, and I felt literally as though my heart might come out of my chest as the procession continued through towns and streets which seem so very familiar though I've never traveled them. 


These were honorable Americans paying tribute as they could... The time was unique to me...reminding me of my place in this world, in this country and the debt that I owe to our soldiers, both living and fallen! 


I am indeed so proud to be an American!

Golden China and shopping

At last I have no exams left on test week, and even though it didn’t go very well today, I am still happy about it all being over. This happiness resulted in a family lunch at the new restaurant Golden China, which is also known as one of Uppsala’s most “Chinese” Chinese restaurant by the food reviewers. Quite funny, huh? ^^ -But the thing is that here in Sweden, the restaurants tend to “Swedicize” all of their food, while Golden China hasn’t. So in other words, they have yummilicious food, with lots of flavor and chili, and besides this, they even have one of my favorite things to eat - bao!

After we had eaten till our stomachs were about to burst, we went shopping. And I must say, the three of us haven’t been shopping together in town like this since I can’t even remember, so it was so cozy. I love my family. ♥

And the things I bought. ^^

Golden China at Kungsängsgatan 23 in Uppsala is to be recommended by me.

Two shorts from H&M and a pair of killer heels from Tiamo, Scorett. LOVE is the correct word.

It's time for a little sex

It's here...FINALLY! Sex and the City 2 opens today. I have already ordered my tickets online. SO EXCITED!!!!!! I am meeting my sister and another friend at my house. I am making us some Cosmo's before heading out to the see the film. It's getting bad critic reviews but favorable fan response. Screw the critics! I'm ready...let's go get CARRIEd away. Just a few more hours of work...

Did you guys see pics from opening night in NYC? Check out Sarah Jessica Parker...

Gosh, she looked amazing in this dress. All the girls looked fabulous...

Are you girls into it? If so, when are you going? and do you have special plans for seeing it?

Bob Out

Daily Thoughts 5/27/2010 (Book Expo America)

Burgundian scribe (portrait of Jean Miélot, secretary, copyist and translator to Duke Philip the Good of Burgundy, from a copy of his compilation of the Miracles de Notre Dame, 15th Century

Daily Thoughts 5/27/2010 (Book Expo America)

I took a short break in the morning and finished reading Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay. It is an excellent fantasy novel set in ancient China. I'll probably write a review later this week.

I found out to my amusement that I have been comped as a journalist because I write this blog. This is the second time that I have been comped as a journalist with a byline. The first time was at O'Reilly Tools of Change for Publishing in 2009. It is a very different experience. Right now, I am sitting in the Press Office writing on this blog. I did not expect this. I have two badges, one as a librarian, and one as a journalist because of this blog. I paid for the librarian badge. Right now, I am carrying both.

The Bookcalender badge will be of use for tomorrow for the Book Bloggers Convention at the Jacob Javits Center in room 1E15. It is the kind of thing which I have to just "go with the flow."

I spent a little time walking the floor of the convention. I did find Fantagraphics at a booth. I didn't think they were at the convention earlier. They had an interesting portion of a galley of a short story prose collection, What Is This All? Uncollected Stories by Peter Dixon. This was surprising because Fantagraphics is known mainly for its graphic novels. However, I have seen other novels being published recently by comic book publishers. DC published Peter and Max, A Fable by Bill Willingham.

Dalkey Archive was right next to Fantagraphics. Dalkey Archive is one of my favorite presses. I am familiar with them because at one time, I used to visit Small Press Distributors in Berkeley, California, http://spdbooks.org/ . They have a new line of english translations of literature from Catalan, Slovenian, and Hebrew. Dalkey Archive prints very high quality literary works. http://www.dalkeyarchive.com/

I also picked up a practical book for our Job Information Center, Military Education Benefits for College by David A. Renza, M.A. and Edmund J. Lizotte, Lt. Col. Ret. published by Savas Beatie.

While I was walking around, I saw that Housing Works was at the convention. They have a very nice used bookstore in Manhattan which supports providing shelter for homeless people who are HIV positive or have AIDS. They are a social enterprise. http://www.housingworks.org/social-enterprise/bookstore-cafe/

After finishing walking around, I went the Fall Hot Graphic Novels For Libraries in the conference area from 2:00- 3:30 p.m. I especially liked the title Archie Marries... which has two stories, one where he marries Bettie, and one where he marries Veronica. The other graphic novel which intrigued me which they talked about was Ghostopolis by Doug Ten Napel. I plan on giving the list to our young adult librarian to look over. There are also a few childrens graphic novels.

The final librarian session was the 2nd Annual Librarians Shout and Share from 3:30-5:00 p.m. in room 1E16. It was a panel of eight collection development librarians sharing their picks from the show. They basically showed forthcoming books which they had collected. It was interesting hearing which books they liked. Certain books were repeated several times. The titles which I remember that more one collection development librarian mentioned were The Passage by Justin Cronin, Cleopatra: A Biography by Stacy Schiff, Packing for Mars by Mary Roach, The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Nora Rawlinson, The Sleepwalkers by Paul Grossman, and The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Bailey.

It was quite interesting hearing the librarians book talk their choices in very short presentations. Barbara Genco announced that they would have a complete list of all the books mentioned published in Library Journal. I look forward to seeing this.

After the collection development book talk, I went to the opening reception for the Book Bloggers convention. They served cookies and coffee and met in a large meeting room. There were over a hundred people in the room. I recognized Natasha of Maw Books who has a very nicely designed book blog. http://blog.mawbooks.com/ Also, I had a chance to chat with a couple different different people. Christopher Herz told me about his book, Last Block In Harlem. He is an interesting website on the book http://herzwords.wordpress.com/the_last_block_in_harlem/ It is being picked up by Amazon Encore which is the new publishing house attached to Amazon.

I thought one of the attendees was the librarians blog Stacked http://stackedbooks.blogspot.com/, but it turned out to be a different blog, Stacked Attractively Well Read http://stackedbooks.blogspot.com/ run by Christina R. Oppold. It has a different style.

I had a brief conversation with a gentleman named Simon Van Booy from Harper Collins. It was interesting.

The day was a very productive day. I did get a similar question thrown at me to the one about bloggers being journalists. Am I a reviewer? I am really not sure how to answer this in a traditional sense. I do review books regularly and recommend books, however I am not being paid to do it for a magazine like Library Journal or Choice. This would beg the question of are bloggers really reviewers. Do I need to be a reviewer to ask for a review copy. I know that librarians regularly get review copies as selectors of materials. In a way this makes me both a reviewer and a selector of materials.

It adds to another question. Are bloggers writers? Do I get paid for this. Maybe, I don't get paid in dollars, but I get some social capital (look up whuffie if you want to be a bit science fiction oriented) or if you are old fashioned brownie points, as well as free stuff, or comps to events occassionally. I enjoy it anyways. I still haven't figured out quite where it will lead, good or bad. What seems to be the best thing to do is if someone decides I am a reviewer is to go with the flow. Maybe I don't need to decide that I am a journalist, reviewer, or writer, someone else will just say yes. What I do know is that I am a librarian and a blogger.

Lee DeWyze wins American Idol season 9

Congrats, Lee DeWyze on winning season nine of American Idol. You could just tell he has a good heart and was totally overwhelmed with emotion. Here's the winning moment...

Bob Out

One more day

I have my ESS (Environmental Systems and Societies) examinations left for tomorrow morning, but after that, test week is finally over for my part. However, that “finally over” still seems a bit too far away for me at this point as I have 101 definitions (yes, I have counted!) in the subject to go through tonight…Lovely way to spend the night, huh?

After a rough week there is nothing better than rewarding yourself, so tonight I made a yummi fruit cocktail with vanilla custard. :)

Hump Day Hunk(Jake Gyllenhaal)

His new film, "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time" opens this weekend. I swear he gets hotter every time I see him.  Those eyes...Those lips...That body...That smile...DELICIOUS!

Jake Gyllenhaal

You're welcome :)'

Bob Out

Daily Thoughts 5/26/2010 (Book Expo America)

Emile Friant, Self Portrait, Oil on Panel, 1885

Daily Thoughts 5/26/2010 Book Expo America.

I am going to concentrate on walking the show floor of Book Expo America today. It should be interesting. I already printed up a list of booths which I plan on looking at. I also will probably stop by the Librarians Lounge and get coffee. I think I am ready for today.

I walked the show floor today. There were less publishers than the last time I went. In a way, this was better because the childrens books were on the main floor, and it was easier to talk to them. I also noticed that many of the publishers were not exhibiting they were doing business in private meeting rooms. Disney, Rodale, Macmillan and a few others had meeting rooms like this.

The printers and distributors had a very strong presence this year. There was also a very large booth for Overdrive which is the leading supplier for ebooks to libraries. In addition, ebook makers and electronic books were featured during the show. Diamond Comic Distributors was at the convention as well as BWI (Book Wholesalers Inc.), Baker and Taylor and Ingram. There were a lot less small presses on the exhibition floor than the last time I went.

There was a very nice comic book section with Marvel, Diamond Comic Book Distributors, Image, and other publishers. I picked up a lot of Marvel bookmarks for the Graphic Novels club for my library. There were still the big publishers out in force, Penguin, Harper Collins, Random House, Hachette Book Group and others. They were giving a lot of galleys out as well as original books.

I ended up shipping 72 pounds of books back to my library. This did not include galleys. I put a number of galleys aside and wrote down some of the titles. Yale University Press has a very nice biography on Joe Louis by Randy Roberts. There were a lot of university presses at the show. I also saw a lot of christian publishers, and politically oriented publishers.

I picked up a copy of Muhammad Yunus, Building Social Business The New Kind of Capitalism That Serves Humanities Most Pressing Needs published by Public Affairs. The Cato Institute which is a libertarian press was giving out a free booklet which contained the United States Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. They also had an interesting title called Terrorizing Ourselves Why U.S. Counterterrorism Policy is Failing and How To Fix It by Benjamin H. Friedman, Ed. For those of an even more conservative bent, there is a book published by Strang Communications, The Faith and Values of Sarah Palin, What She Believes and What It Means for America by Stephen Mansfield and David A. Holland

There was a lot of very interesting material. A title called The Bearded Gentleman The Style Guide to Shaving Face by Allan Peterkin & Nick Burns caught my attention. There are very few titles on this subject. There was also a title called Shamrock Alley by Ronald Damien Malfi about infiltrating the Westies, an Irish gang in New York.

Europa which is an international publisher recommended a book called A Novel Bookstore by Laurence Cosse. They compared it to The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery which was a bestseller. Another literary book which might be of interest is Dear Sandy Hello Letters from Ted to Sandy Berrigan by Ted Berrigan. This book is edited by Sandy Berrigan and Ron Padgett and published by Coffee House Press. Black Sparrow Press recommended a poetry book called Well Then There Now by Julia Spahr which is coming in Fall 2010. They had a chapbook of a poem in the book called Gentle Now, Don't Add Heartache.

Akashic Books is publishing a series of noir books based in specific cities. These are very popular at our library; Mexico City Noir, Indian Country Noir, San Francisco Noir, Orange County Noir, and Los Angeles Noir are some of the title in the series. In November, they are releasing Haiti Noir. Akashic books had a very interesting mystery written by Subcommandante Marcos of the Zapatistas and Paco Ignacio Taibo II who is a famous Mexican mystery writer titled The Uncomfortable Dead (What's Missing Is Missing) a novel by four hands.

Juan Gomez-Jurado a writer from Spain is coming out with a thriller called The Moses Expedition which looks quite good in August. He did a reading and book signing at New York Public Library on May 26, at 6:00 p.m.

The amount of novels being given out was tremendous. The Romance Writers of America had a very nice selection of titles that they were giving away which they had collected from their membership. Also, The Mystery Writers of America had lots of people signing books. Ellen Datlow was at the Horror Writers of America booth.

2000 A.D., the English comic book writers who do Judge Dredd are coming back. There is a new Judge Dredd movie coming out done by the same people who did the film District 9. The film is being shot in South Africa. It appears that 2000 A.D. is going to have an American publisher other than DC or Marvel which understands their work. I also picked up a "weird western", called Rex Riders by J.P. Carlson, illustrated by J. Calafiore. There are not very many people who write this kind of book. I like the name of the publisher, Monstrosities Books. It is their first book. There was very little manga at this years show which surprised me.

The people at the show were very nice. Playaway has redesigned its cases for its electronic audiobooks. They are much more attractive. They also have a whole new set of marketing material to use with their audiobooks. They are calling it Circulation Station http://www.playawaylibrary.com/marketingtoolkit/

There were not a lot of pens or giveaways floating around the show. I saw some bookmarks. Also many more vendors were keeping their books as display copies or selling them at a discount rather than giving away copies. I did like the free bookmark given to me by Bookamajigs, LLC. It was quite pretty. http://www.bookamajigs.com/

Another thing which I liked was the American Girls Crafts booth. They had a lot of crafts designed to tie in directly with the American Girls books series which is a series of historical young adult novels based on different characters in American history. It is a very clean, well done popular series. I can see librarians using the crafts as part of a program with the books. http://www.americangirlcrafts.com/

Learning Express was at the conference. They run a database for civil service tests which our library subscribes to as well as print a number of titles for civil service exams. I hope they expand their coverage of civil service books. Their database is excellent and is used a lot. Also, Nolo Books which does self help legal titles was there. Their books are excellent.

On the way out, I picked up the book for the 6th annual new title showcase. I won't get a chance to look at it until tomorrow. I did not get to go to any conference sessions today. It was a quite busy day. Lots and lots of walking. I only took a few minutes to sit in the Librarians Lounge at the end of the day. It was relaxing and empty.

There was so much at the show, it is quite hard to even describe a fraction of it. Tomorrow, I am going to focus on going to a few panels and talking to a couple more publishers this time without the purpose of collecting books.

This is a summation of the Editors Pick panel from Day of Dialog between Librarians Publishers which I went to from Library Journal Online. http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6729118.html

Daily Thoughts 5/25/2010 (Day of Dialog Between Publishers and LIbrarians)

Luc Lafnet, Still Life, 1927, Oil On Canvas

Daily Thoughts 5/25/2010 (Day of Dialog Between Librarians and Publishers at Book Expo America)

Ready to go to the Jacob Javits Center this morning. I have a folder for all my papers, pens, business cards, a notebook, so I think I should be ready. It should be excellent.

I was surprised to only find conference sessions on the first day of Book Expo America. I went to the Library Journal Day of Dialog at the Jacob Javits Center, directly across from us was the School Library Journal Day of Dialog. It was nice to see some of my old colleagues among the attendees as well as a few people that I recognized. I had a very interesting talk with one of my colleagues about purchasing foreign language materials.

I also picked up a lot of free books and audiobooks. I was surprised at the amount of free audiobooks. I am going to list a few free books and audiobooks that stood out; Churchill A History of the English Speaking Peoples as a cd audiobook put out by BBC Audio, Niall Ferguson The Ascent of Money by Tantor Audio. There were also a number of cards which had the cover of a book and a free code to download an audiobook; My Spirtual Journey by The Dalai Lama and Sena Jeter Naslund, Adam & Eve A Novel were two downloads that were free on postcards.

I also had a chance to slip across the hall to pick up some books from School Library Journal. They were giving away some Kimani Tru titles which are African American romance titles aimed at teenagers. The imprint is very popular at our library.

The first session was Editors Picks. Among the books which were recommended that most stood out were The Burn by Nevada Barr coming in August, Barrier Dead by Louise Penny which is a mystery coming in September, and Stephen Hawking's new book The Grand Design. There were a lot of excellent suggestions of titles.

The next session was on ebooks. It was about two new ebook platforms, Blio and Copia. It is hard to describe what these are without looking at them. http://thecopia.com/ is a social network platform for reading, it allows a variety of features including annotation, video, audio, sharing reading, and other functions. Blio was an ereading platform designed to include a variety of media formats worked on by Baker and Taylor. It was also interesting to look at. http://www.blioreader.com/

This was followed by another session on ebooks. Mostly this was about the coming changes we should expect in how ebooks and other media are going to be introduced to the library. Overdrive was the most interesting presenter. They talked about the process of how we we have to tell industry what we want. There was a statement that ebooks would be 22-30% of the market five years from now. Electronic books and media are growing extremely fast. I find this to be a little exuberant.

There was an interesting point that many of the changes in the introduction of electronic material to libraries had already been tested out in academic libraries. It seemed a little bit too up front. Academic libraries and public libraries are very different in their mission and content.

Some of the statements very much surprised me. They talked about how there were going to be no hardcover books, more paperbacks, mass market and ebooks. This was a bit strange. I am seeing a dropoff in mainstream publishers hardcover books, but not in specialty hardcover titles from small presses. There has been growth in presses like Subterranean, Nightshade Books, Pyr and other specialty hardcover presses for science fiction. I see more titles with higher prices and more limited runs coming out from these presses. I also see many more oversize hardcover books that are heavily illustrated coming out at more affordable prices.

They talked about how content is going to integrate with your catalog. This reminds me of Bookletters which we recently got to show recommendation lists, widgets, newsletters, and events for our library system. It is additional content to market books integrated with the library catalog. Bookletters is a product of Ingram. Baker and Taylor said their product Blio is designed to integrate with library catalogs. Baker and Taylor says they have already done this with academic libraries with the system called Content Cafe.

The sessions were quite interesting. Some of it took on the older idea of the "library without walls." This is the idea that the library will eventually extend beyond the physical building to manage all the content which is sent outside the building electronically.

There is very much the flavor of the old internet boom days where lots of people were making very wild predictions about what would be happening. There is a constant emphasis on better, faster, cheaper while the backend systems have not changed that much. There are still writers, agents, and publishers. This has not changed that much.

There was a gadget gallery with a variety of devices, the Nook, the Kindle, the Ipad, the Sony Ereader, Blackberry, Android smart phone, and other devices. I got to play with the Ipad and read a bit of the original Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne as an Ipad book. I found the Ipad quite pleasing and easy to read. The pictures were clear, the text was very well defined and easy to manipulate. In comparison, the Kindle was not so easy to read, nor was the Sony Ereader. If it was not so expensive, it would be something that I could easily see having.

I decided to skip the session on international thrillers. I then took some time to wander around through the different conference areas. I found a session called Leading Latino Authors are Representative of a Vibrant Market in room 1B 01 from 3:15-4:15 p.m. , I went there at about three o'clock and I heard a panel of bestselling latin authors; Camillo Cruz, Ph.D., Dr. Ana Nogales, Juan Gomez-Jurado, Matt De La Pena, and Daisy Maria Martinez. It was a refreshing break from library stories. One book that looked quite good was a cookbook, Daisy's Fiesta by Daisy Maria Martinez which is coming out in November.

The final hour was looking around and gabbing with wine, cheese, and appetizers. It was a nice way to spend a late afternoon.

There was enough happening in that one day to decide to skip going to the evening events. I also asked registration about the Book Blogging convention. I have to check on it tomorrow. I am going to relax for the long walk around the exhibitor convention floor tomorrow. Jacob Javits convention floor is bigger than a football field. There will be thousands of books.

This time, I have permission to ship back boxes of books which I find on the convention floor. I have also been asked to take a look at the childrens and young adult books too. I plan on picking up a lot of material to send back.

I handed out a few business cards and did get to pick up one thing for myself. Sterling publishers was giving away free blank journals made from 100% recycled materials. They have a nice feel to them. http://www.ecosystemlife.com/

Fictional Friends

There's a quote floating around that about sums up how I feel about friendship, which goes something like this: "A good friend will bail you out of jail, but a true friend will be sitting beside you saying, 'Wow, that was fun.'"

Friends are both rescuers and accomplices, or at least the best ones are. How could Novalee Nation have survived, homeless and with a new baby, without Sister Husband and Lexie Coop in Where the Heart Is? And would Dru have been able to summon the strength to go on after her father's death, without Graves' help in Strange Angels?

Of course, the bonds of friendship often turn to something more, as with Dru and Graves, and Clary and Simon in the Mortal Instruments series. However, I think the most famous example to date of attraction overtaking a friendship would have to be the strangely-fated relationship of Jacob Black and Bella Swan.

And then there are the threesomes, the Musketeers, like Buffy, Willow and Xander from Buffy the Vampire Slayer (yes, I'm aware it's a television show and not a book, but I do occasionally catch glimpses of alternate media). If you know me at all, though, you'll know my favorite triangulated amigos, though; Harry, Ron and Hermione, from the Harry Potter series. Need I say more?

Who are your favorite fictional friends?

Jacquelyn Sylvan is the author of Surviving Serendipity, a YA fantasy novel where damsels in distress are so last season. Click the link to buy on Amazon!