Nicole Reads A Lot

so many books, so little time

Sep 12

Say it ain’t so, Philly

by Nicole

I really like Philadelphia. Despite its obnoxious baseball team (who the Mets beat today in dramatic fashion [finally]), it has a lot of good things to recommend it. It’s walkable, pretty, and since the murder rate is so high (but now falling!), it’s nice that the cabs are plentiful and relatively cheap. Plus, I have good friends who live nearby, which clearly adds to the awesomeness that is Philly. At one point, I’d even considered moving there and getting a job at one of the city’s library branches. Which is why the news that the entire city/regional Free Library of Philadelphia system will close on October 2, unless the state legislature approves funding, is both so shocking and frightening.  I’ve heard of branches closing or hours being cut back, but I’ve never heard about such a large library system considering closing down altogether. This is both nuts and scary. In this time of increased economic hardship, libraries are playing a vital role in their communities.

Should this happen, I wish the best of luck to all who lose their jobs because of this, and the worst of it to the politicians responsible.

Book Ratings Libraries

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Jul 28

Words I Hate

by Nicole

I love words and language, which is why I never say one word where three would do. Still, I reserve the right to hate some words, because they’re just stupid.

  • Webinar
  • Widget

As in: I am currently mired in a webinar where the leader won’t stop saying the word “widget.” Save me!

Update: The phone system just stopped working and there has been a (temporary?) break in the torture. Thank you, universe!

Book Ratings

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Jul 23

Again?

by Nicole

I never tire of asking what is wrong with people, and as usual, the dawning of a new day just brings me new people to despise and pity. The culprits this time? Some stupid yahoos in West Bend, Wisconsin, who think that censorship, law suits, and book-burning (literally) are perfectly cromulent responses to books in the Young Adult section that they find inappropriate. No rational person is going to argue that every book in a library is appropriate for every person who who may walk into that library. And I’m all for parents having a say over what media their children consume (until those kids are over 18 or paying their own way in life). But instead of these people just telling their own children not to read certain books, which would be well within their rights as parents, they want to label and move books and prevent other people’s children from having access to them, too.

Instead of being ashamed of themselves for being so fearful and hiding their intolerance from the world, such people wear it proudly like a badge and want to get more people to join their crusade. Ginny Maziarka is one of the spokespeople for the efforts to censor the library’s materials and amend its policies for labeling young adult material. She seems to be the leader of those in West Bend who are trying to prevent other people’s children from reading things that their own parents may not find objectionable, and runs the West Bend Citizens for Safe Libraries web site.

NotThisShitAgain

This is what I don’t get about so many issues that people object to; if you don’t like it, don’t do it/watch it/listen to it/eat it, etc. Why should I have to live according to what you believe? And who gets to say what is appropriate anyway? I mean, I find those Purity Ball things highly suspect, but I would never force grown men to stop encouraging their daughters to wear prom dresses, don pseudo-wedding bands, and pledge their virginity to their fathers. Because that’s not creepy at all.

Thankfully, Ms. Maziarka does not speak for the entire town, and there is a reasonable response to that site, in the form of Sleepless in West Bend. The library is for everybody (even weirdos)! There are a lot of things in the library that I kind of give people the side-eye for even wanting to look at, but that doesn’t lessen my support for those items to stay in the library. I’m not sure how I missed out on hearing about this sooner, since Gawker covered it over a month ago.

Book Ratings Libraries

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Jul 19

That was unexpected

by Nicole

Thursday was a friend’s birthday, and so last night I treated him to dinner and a movie. I told him that he could pick whatever movie he wanted to see, and I wouldn’t make any sort of jokes about it or be a bad sport at all, but despite having been given carte blanche, his first choice, 500 Days of Summer, was something that I would really have enjoyed seeing. Unfortunately, it isn’t playing anywhere in NJ, so he had to pick another movie. He said he wanted to see I Love You Beth Cooper, but that he couldn’t do that to me. Since I still don’t really have any idea what that is, I was sort of like, “Whatever, thanks,” but it really can’t be worse than some of the other movies he’s gotten me to see, such as Hot Rod. Two years later, and I still shudder when I think of that horrible excuse for a film.

He decided that he wanted to see Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I’ve never read the books, but I have seen the whole or parts of the previous movies in this series, and have have never really minded the experience. I wasn’t expecting much, but I quite enjoyed the movie. I haven’t seen the previous movies recently, but this was much, much better. The was believable teen-romance angst, and a level of violence that I had not anticipated at all. The only thing that kept bugging me was how easily Harry & Co. gave up searching for the identity of the Half-Blood Prince or the meaning of his name. I think that I am eventually going to read the books, so I’ll check to see if this part of the story plays out the same way in the novels. To revive an old tradition of mine, here’s an excerpt from a couple of reviews that most closely mirror my thoughts on this film.

The strangest thing about the new Harry Potter movie is not that it’s unusually good, which it is, but that it unequivocally illustrates just how poorly we’ve been served by the previous five instalments in the franchise. — Kevin Maher, The Times Online

Harry Potter is getting darker, angrier, distinctly more wicked. It has an edge. Scary Potter?  — Gary Wolcott, Tri-City Herald

Awesome Book Ratings Movie reviews Movies

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Jul 18

And THIS is why I don’t have a Kindle

by Nicole

As you are probably coming to understand, I read all the time. All. The. Time. I am always reading something, be it in the form of a physical book, or more and more frequently lately, on my computer through the New York Public Library‘s ebooks division. I know that a lot of people prefer the heft and smell of physical books, or just can’t stare at a screen for long, but that doesn’t bother me. I’ve flirted with the idea of getting a kindle, but it just seems to be too expensive. Amazon recently dropped the price from $360 to $299, so that’s nice, but each book still runs an average of $10 each. If NYPL or BCCLS, the other library system that I belong to, would work out an arrangement with Kindle that would allow users to borrow and return books, then the initial outlay would be immediately justifiable for me and I’d snap up a Kindle without delay. This seems unlikely though, so I will stick with my free physical and digital library books.

Another thing that gives me pause is the “What ifs” associated with moving to an all-digital book format. This technology isn’t very old, and I think people and companies are still grappling with its possibilities and limitations. Kindle owners rave about how they can download their books wirelessly, but recently they learned the hard way that their beloved wireless transfer system works both ways. So a Kindle content provider maybe-sorta sold editions of 1984 and Animal Farm that it didn’t actually hold the rights for. And when Amazon was alerted to this by the companies that actually do own the rights to those books, they maybe-sorta just yanked them back off of people’s Kindles and issued refunds, without any sort of heads-up. Was that wrong? Should they not have done that? While bypassing the apology all together, Amazon did say that, in the future. books it is found to have sold in error will not be removed remotely from people’s Kindles. The person I felt worst for when reading this article was this kid:

Justin Gawronski, a 17-year-old from the Detroit area, was reading “1984” on his Kindle for a summer assignment and lost all his notes and annotations when the file vanished. “They didn’t just take a book back, they stole my work,” he said.

I guess I’m also waiting for an e-reader that will do color well and not be so clunky. I love actual books, so I can wait.

Book Ratings Technology

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