Archive for the ‘Reading’ Category

GAH!

Monday, April 13th, 2009

This is what I get.
I try and post a nice long message after four months and my computer has a brain fart and deletes the message. Typical.

I am now a reviewer! Yippee!

Thursday, August 24th, 2006

Somehow the Art Director from Gemstone Comics happened upon my blog of graphic novel reviews. Then he emailed me and asked me to be an official reviewer! Unfortunately, no money will pass hands, but at least I get free comic books! Plus they’re all Disney comics, so Jeff will love them too! He and I share different views on the merits of manga, so he never reads them, but enjoys scoffing when I read them.

I actually applied to be a reviewer for Tokyopop manga, but I don’t think I had enough experience (or writing skills) for them. Oh well, I guess its all about babysteps.

Maybe someday I could be a full-time reviewer and have time to actually write books, which is my dream someday (the writing part)… yeah right. I love being a librarian too much, who am I kidding.

At least I get to read cute Scrooge McDuck comics now. Reviews will definately be posted!

Operating Instructions

Thursday, November 10th, 2005

I’m in the middle of reading Operating Instructions by Anne Lamott. I cannot speak more highly of this book. She thinks the way I think. She is a very liberal woman, who is also very religious. I try to be as religious as I can, but sometimes the skeptic in me comes out. As you can see from my religion test I took a while ago, I connect closely to religions that accept a lot of interpretation. Anyway, I wanted to talk about the book, not religion.

I love this book. While Anne seemed to have a harder time than I have been, I feel like I’m out of my mind. I also look at Jack and am utterly amazed. I cannot believe that this little guy is someone that I had inside me at one point. I made this little imp! I find that it is getting harder and harder to let go of him every morning. I love my job, but sometimes, I think that I might like to quit and stay at home to play with Jack.

Anne talks about writing, and I’ve started getting the writing bug. I really want to write a novel now. Specifically, a teen novel. Okay, get scared now. I want to write a teen novel about oral *gasp* sex. There’s been a lot of talk among YA librarians about this book entitled Rainbow Party by Paul Ruditis, and what a load of crap it is. However, some librarians think that maybe their library should carry it, because its the only one on the subject. Well, thanks to Operating Instuctions, I plan on changing that. Of course that means that I need to find time to write the great American novel. Gawd, like that will ever happen.

Oh well. I love this book, and I will savor every single word.

The Witches by Roald Dahl

Wednesday, September 28th, 2005

I read Roald Dahl books when I was younger, but I didn’t realize how much I loved this man until I became an adult. I loved the BFG, and of course Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and James and the Giant Peach. Upon looking at the list of the most often challenged/banned books in America from 1990-2000, I saw that #27 was The Witches. Okay, so the book is called “Witches”, but the witches themselves aren’t even really human. At the very beinning of the book, Dahl differentiates them from people by saying that they don’t have toes. Dahl also makes witches bad creatures that need to be disposed of. You really don’t feel any sympathy for the witches, in fact you really hope that the main characters do defeat the witches. Of course, if you don’t like the idea of magic, good or bad, you still won’t be pleased with this book. Since this is my personal blog, I will say that I don’t think that there’s anything so horrible as using your imagination in order to allow you to be a more creative individual. Well at least in my humble opinion.

Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison

Monday, September 26th, 2005

In all honesty, I can’t remember much about the book. I read it when I was in college at Geneseo, when I was an English Lit major and reading a lot of books at the same time. I do remember that I loved it, especially at the end when I distinctly remember crying quite a bit. I felt that the book was excellent, and fully intend on rereading it as soon as I can.

According to the American Library Association’s website:

85 Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
Reason for challenges: racism, sexually explicit, offensive language

It seems weird that a black author could charged offensive by writing “racist” language. I mean, sure I know its possible for a black person to be racist, just like its possible for a white person to be racist. However, considering that almost all the characters in the book are black, it seems strange that Morrison would be considered racist against black people, which is where I assume they are trying to go with it. I’m also getting really bored with the “sexually explicit” claim. People have sex. Sex is life. That’s all there is to it. Granted, the main character, Milkman is in a relationship with his cousin, but that doesn’t stop it from being real life. Also the “offensive” bit. I’m going to assume that the “n” word is probably used quite a bit, since the book is not supposed to take place in the present. But even if it did, young black people still say the word, you can hear it in the music etc.

I am of the opinion that people need a reason to complain. They can’t handle it when a book that takes them out of their own comfort levels is really, really good. So they complain and try to wipe the existence of the book off the face of the planet. All I have to say is, shame on you. Shame shame shame.

I will remember to read this book again, because at the time of reading it in college, it was really good. Take that book burners!

Walter the Farting Dog

Saturday, September 24th, 2005

Yup. Walter the Farting Dog. He was banned (or challenged) this year. Poor Walter. He can’t help his flatulence. But somebody out there didn’t like the idea of a farting dog. Or probably a farting anything. But kids love farts and they love dogs! Who could imagine a more perfect combination. Granted the family in the book doesn’t really care for his flatulence, but they learn to appreciate it when the gas saves their lives from some evil robbers. There’s really not much more to say, except everyone in the world should read Walter and I’m really bad at book talking… which is why I will quite soon need the help of Ms. Uber-librarian herself, Adrienne from Webster Public Library.

Good night!

Banned Books Week

Saturday, September 24th, 2005

Today started banned books week, and I thought that each day, I would talk about a different banned book that I have read… I just came up with that a second ago and I love it! I had some of the pages and one of the clerks go through the list of banned books from 2004 and find the ones that we had in the library for a display I wanted to put up. My director and I decided that we would put all the books in some sort of cage or chain them up somehow. We wouldn’t let anyone check them out, to give them a small taste of what it would be like to be told you couldn’t read certain books. Unfortunately, while we were looking for the books we couldn’t find quite a few. They were supposed to to be there but no one could find them. People looked about five times, but no one found them. Personally, I think it was because people didn’t want us to find the books, which included: Doing It, It’s Perfectly Normal, and Holly’s Secret. SEX, SEX, SEX. People want to “protect” their children from everything. Teenage sex, their own sexual organs and homosexual sex. Anything to do with sex is out of bounds for these teens, and their parents are going to make sure that no one else gets to see them either. Or else its just some crazy teens who were too embarrassed or wanted to keep the books for their own collections. Needless to say, I’m pretty ticked off. I thought I would go back through the list of banned books and make a list of all the books that are “supposed” to be their, but aren’t. I thought it would be a good way to show everyone that a few people had to ruin everything for everyone else and now no one can read it. BTW, if you haven’t guessed by now, I’m pretty ticked off. I am all about parents monitoring what their kids read, and if they don’t think its appropriate, not letting their kids read certain books. However I am NOT for a small group of people deciding what everyone reads. That’s why when I purchase books for the library, I buy christian fiction, science fiction, mysteries, war fiction, romances and lots of other kinds of books. I try to take into account that there are lots of different people with lots of different tastes and I need to respect everyone’s opinions. Whew! Now that I’ve got that off my back, I can go on with my life!

We spent most of the day today at the Riverside Convention Center watching Battlebots! My tushy hurt after a while, because the seats were REALLY uncomfortable, but the robots were pretty awesome. There were a few good fights, but quite a few fights ended really quickly. At about 1 pm we took a lunch break and went to Bennigan’s Restaurant. Our food arrived, and after the waitress put my salad on the table, Jeff’s hamburger somehow flipped over off the tray and fell on my jeans and my nice new soft sweater. The rest of the day I walked around with hamburger greasy clothes. Yuck. They didn’t even give us a discount or free desert or anything. It took us almost an hour and a half to get out of the restaurant. Beh. Oh well. Jeff and I had a lot of fun watching robots kill each other. Oh and one of the teens from my library was there too, so we got to chat for a little while too. Fun, fun!

People do the weirdest things!

Tuesday, July 19th, 2005

I was reading Publisher’s Weekly from May 16… yes I know this is like two months old, but anyway. They had a review of the book Everything I Ate: A Year in the Life of My Mouth, this book is exactly what it sounds like. The guy photographed everything he ate and made it into a book! This must be like ultimate reality tv, but in book form. I cannot even imagine doing this and expecting that other people would care what I ate, although its usually not that interesting.

Breakfast: egg and cheese in a bagel with orange juice
Snack: craisins, chocolate and nut trail mix
Lunch: Frappucchino and tossed salad
snack: piece of cheese and chocolate soy milk
snack: yogurt
snack: granola bar

Anyway, it seems pretty boring, but all the dairy will be interesting later on!
Needless to say, I checked the catalog and no one owns the book. Big suprise. However not to my suprise, I found a web site where someone did the same thing!

Gross gross gross

Tuesday, July 19th, 2005

I’m not yet done with this, but I wish I was. This piece of gross contemporary american literature is Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk. What’s worse is that I’m listening to it on cd. Somehow it seems worse when you are listening to people talk about cutting off toes, fingers, hands and penises (well only one so far). I think I’m pretty good about handling my gore, but this is pretty nasty and unnecessary. Some of the stories (the book is a collection of short stories told during a “writer’s workshop”. I only have about 1/2 a cd left, and I’m still pretty amazed that I managed to get through it without crashing my car into a tree. Its neat that there are quite a few different speakers throughout the book to tell the characters’ stories, but that doesn’t make it any better when you listen to the description of the character pulling off fingernails. I almost decided that enough was enough when I found out that one of the women, who was pregnant, has her baby at this “retreat” and she is later fed special soup. Soup that I will never ever eat, and let me tell you, as a mother of a three month old, I almost threw the cds out the car window (not caring that it belonged to the library). I would tell you about each of the individual characters’ stories, but as they finished their tale, I tried to block it out of my mind.
I haven’t read Guts which is supposed to be by far more disturbing; making people vomit and pass out, but I’m not sure that I can handle it. I’m sure curiosity will get the better of me, and I’ll listen to it, but probably not for a while.

Less than an hour…

Friday, July 15th, 2005

In less than an hour the new Harry Potter book will be “legally” available, except for all of you sneaky people who have already gotten your hands on it. I’ve only read the first three Harry Potter books, so I’m not in any rush to read it yet. As I’ve said in a previous message I don’t really care for the series that much, but I’m really glad that it gets kids to read, and they keep talking about the books. In the news right now I’m watching the line at the Pittsford Barnes and Noble as people wait for the newest book. Sheesh.

Oh well, I guess it’s good to see people go crazy about a book instead of a movie or a video game.