I'm obsessed..all my geekiest dreams have come true!  It's LibraryThing.  You can catalog all of your books just by typing a few words and Library Thing, with the help of Amazon and the Library of Congress, does the rest.  There are loads of people there who want to talk about books, and you can read other people's reviews....this is really exciting.

I have a link to my library over on the Bookweavers web site...use the link in the column. 

Posted by bookweaver at 10:19 PM EST

Updated: Tuesday, 7 November 2006 10:21 PM EST

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Jessica Crispin recently found out that Ian McKellan has recorded an an audiobook version of The Odyssey, which is, as she also points out, from the oral tradition.  

 I know my daughter has to read it this year, and I may invest...or at least look for it at the library.  Who knows, I may get into it myself.

Posted by bookweaver at 10:02 PM EST

Updated: Tuesday, 7 November 2006 10:05 PM EST

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Does anyone still keep those grammar boards?  I used to work with a teacher who kept a camera in her car to take pictures of ungrammatical signs she saw...and this was before digital cameras.  They made great bulletin boards.  Anyway, I just finished reading a book in which the narrator (and it was a nonfiction book!) "literally skipped across the world."  Ugh.  So I particularly enjoyed this from Althouse:

I normally resist the routine pedantry of pointing out the misusage of the word "literally." But this one's a lulu:

Anyone who had been diligently paying down a mortgage and others who had just sat back and watched their home appreciate in value were able to refinance and take out the difference between the value of the home and what was still owed, known as equity. Not only did they remove the increased equity in the home as cash, most people were paying lower monthly payments.

“People have literally picked up their house at the foundations and shook it upside down like a piggy bank,” said Ed Smith, chief executive of the Plaza Financial Group, a mortgage brokerage firm in La Mesa, Calif., near San Diego.

Posted by bookweaver at 9:54 PM EST

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Yesterday I ran across the 2006 Young Adults' Choices from the International Reading Association.  There seems to be the usual angst and extreme topics...the funniest one...based on the titles...being One of Those Hideous Books where the Mother Dies...because there are at least two other books in the list where someone significant does die.  In contrast, I saw this article, Bold Books for Teenagers: Trusting Texts That Trust Students in November's English Journal (you must be subscriber to read it here; a print copy should be available soon in almost any college library) featuring some pretty intense-sounding books for teenagers.  Male prostitution?  Sex with a teacher?  I don't know.  I've thought this trend toward this type of topic has been an interesting one in young adult fiction, but every time I start reading one of these books, the writing, or story, or something is just too painfully bad.  But I keep reading.

Last week, Jessica Crispin wrote an article for the Book Standard about Pop! , a YA novel Borders is declining to carry because of its sexual content.  Hey, we all managed to find Forever.  Since I have been disappointed by the books of this type I have read, I'm not too upset about it.  But I will give the book a try and see.  I'm not crazy about the idea of books being kept off the shelves, but I also think that Borders has a right to stock their store the way that they feel will be most beneficial to them.  I personally filed a complaint at Barnes & Noble several years ago because they had the young adult section right next to the stage they use for story time.  Since then, they have rightly (for both the little kids and the teens) moved the YA section out of the kids' section completely.

At any rate, I'm probably going to be using few, if any of these books in a classroom anytime soon.  The only possibility is Day of Tears, mentioned in the EJ article. 

Posted by bookweaver at 4:39 PM EST

Updated: Tuesday, 7 November 2006 2:37 PM EST

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