Stephen King's Top 10 Books of 2009

It’s that time again – time for the various top lists of 2009.

Here’s one from one of my favorite authors: Stephen King: My Top 10 Books of 2009.

[via EarlyWord]

Detroit News' Caterpillar Reads on Laptop, Not Print, for Parade

Another sign that the times are changing:

The caterpillar in the Detroit News' float in America's Thanksgiving Parade (held in Detroit for the past 83 years) was reading detnews.com on a laptop this year:


Happy Holiday!

Read a Short Story This Summer

Looking to get in some summer reading, but don't want to read a novel? Or, do you just read novels and haven't read any short stories recently? Book publisher Harper Perennial has created Fifty-Two Stories, a blog that posts a complete short story each week. Most are new. However several classics will also be posted. Authors include Dennis Cooper, Alex Burrett, Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde and more.

If you haven't read a short story recently, it is worth a look.

[via Pop Candy]

Great Michigan Read 2009-2010 Announced

Stealing Buddha’s Dinner by Bich Minh Nguyen was selected for the second Great Michigan Read. The announcement was made by Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm who proclaimed May 19 as “The Great Michigan Read Day.” The announcement was made at the Cascade Meijer store and broadcast over the Internet. Meijer and the National Endowment for the Humanities are leading sponsors of the The Great Michigan Read.

With a statewide focus on a single book, the Michigan Humanities Council’s Great Michigan Read encourages Michiganians to learn more about their state, their history, and their society. The Council’s free supporting programming will focus on three themes: immigration stories, cultural understanding, and contemporary history.

Stealing Buddha’s Dinner is a memoir chronicling author Bich Minh Nguyen’s migration from Vietnam in 1975 and her coming of age in Grand Rapids in the 1980s. Along the way, she struggles to construct her own cultural identity from a menagerie of uniquely American influences.

The book was selected by a group of nearly 50 librarians, teachers, students, professors, authors and others from all over the state. More than 75 Michigan-related titles were considered for the program. Representatives from communities across the state were invited to participate in the selection process.

[via Grand Rapids Public Library blog]

Judging a Person By Her Kindle?

Another view on what the Kindle 2 will do to the practice reading, this one – interestingly enough – from the Fashion & Style section of The New York Times: With Kindle, Can You Tell It’s Proust? The author wonders:

The practice of judging people by the covers of their books is old and time-honored. And the Kindle, which looks kind of like a giant white calculator, is the technology equivalent of a plain brown wrapper. If people jettison their book collections or stop buying new volumes, it will grow increasingly hard to form snap opinions about them by wandering casually into their living rooms.”

Spectacular Second Novels, Cursed Second Novels, and One-hit Literary Wonders

Here, from the timesonline, are lists of ten spectacular second novels, ten cursed second novels, and ten literary one-hit wonders.

[via boingboing]

Check Mittenlit for Books about Michigan and Michigan Authors

Interested in books about Michigan? You might want to try Mittenlit.com.

Mittenlit gives you up-to-date information about new books by Michigan authors, books about Michigan, and news of authors touring in Michigan. It includes author interviews, upcoming literary events at bookstores and libraries, and more.

Mittenlit is written by Bill Castanier, a literary journalist for Lansing City Pulse, and Ben Castanier, an on-line bookseller and reviewer from Ann Arbor.

Magazines: Hard Copy or Electronic Copy?

The debate about whether you like to read your magazines in their original hard copy form or in their electronic form is becoming a moot point as more and more magazines are closing shop.

Effective in March, Country Home, the popular country-style magazine, will permanently shut down. In addition, the magazine's website will also go dark. The Meredith Corporation made the announcement in January. Meredith blames the economy for Country Home’s demise.

Last year, Hearst’s O at Home, Condé Nast’s House & Garden, and Time Inc.’s Cottage Living all stopped producing issues and shut down their websites, victims of the poor economy.

Book Lovers: Here's 10 for You

Attention book lovers: Here, from iLibrarian, are 10 websites that you might not have heard about.

Amazon Announces Kindle 2

Amazon has announced the release of Kindle 2, a new, updated version of its popular e-book reader. To celebrate the new reader, the company also announced that author Stephen King has written a Kindle-only novella – Ur – specifically for Amazon.

The Kindle 2 is slimmer (.36”), lighter (10.2 ounces), and sleeker, and has a longer battery life than the original. It can hold more than 1,500 books, and can convert any text to audio, so it can "read" books to you.

However, the Kindle 2 still cannot use e-book formats other than Amazon's.

The Kindle 2 will start shipping February 24.

To read more, see Wired.com’s Amazon's Kindle 2 Slims Down, Adds Audio.

The Benefits of Print Media?

Recently, The Tech Desk has been covering the switch from print to digital format in the news business. It seems more and more media are reducing or eliminating print and moving to all online, electronic publications. One publication that seems to want to keep a foot in both worlds is Entertainment Weekly. This ad recently appeared on the magazine's website, touting the benefits of print media.

Other ads on the site encourage readers to use the hard copy magazine as a keepsake to remember significant events (the passing of Paul Newman, the release of the Twilight movie).

Personally, I utilize both forms of the magazine. I read my hardcopy of the magazine during my daughter's dance class, but I also read the ew.com website for original content, such as recaps of popular TV shows and literary theories regarding the labyrinth that is Lost.

Weigh in on the debate. Do you prefer to read newspapers and magazines in their original paper format, or do you curl up in front of a computer screen to read your favorite periodical?

Lists of the Best Books of 2008

Looking for the best books of 2008, according to The New York Times or the Boston Globe? How about author Stephen King's or comic Amy Sedaris' favorite reads of last year? Or maybe the best mysteries, best teen titles, or best cookbooks published over the past 12 months?

You might want to take a look at The Reader's Advisor Online Cumulative List of Lists of the Year’s Best Books. The List of Lists has a best books list no matter your reading taste.

People of the Screen?

Maybe the question shouldn't be "Are we killing books?" but "Are we killing reading?"

This wonderfully in-depth column on implications of our new media and its impact on the mundane task of reading is thought-provoking. We've been debating a bit here in the Tech Center about the differences in reading online versus the printed page and I think this column makes a very persuasive case that we're underestimating the risk of something very basic as we plunge ahead in our love affair with technology with a seemingly tacit acceptance that any change is good change. Things change. People evolve. Get used to it. I find this attitude, especially in a library, to be rather odd and this really gets to the heart of my side of the argument.

From the column:

How strategic and targeted are we when we read on the screen? In a commissioned report published by the British Library in January 2008 (the cover of which features a rather alarming picture of a young boy with a maniacal expression staring at a screen image of Darth Vader), researchers found that everyone, teachers and students alike, “exhibits a bouncing/flicking behavior, which sees them searching horizontally rather than vertically....Users are promiscuous, diverse, and volatile.” As for the kind of reading the study participants were doing online, it was qualitatively different from traditional literacy. “It is clear that users are not reading online in the traditional sense, indeed there are signs that new forms of ‛reading’ are emerging as users ‛power browse’ horizontally through titles, contents pages, and abstracts going for quick wins.” As the report’s authors concluded, with a baffling ingenuousness, “It almost seems that they go online to avoid reading in the traditional sense.”

I think there is a legitimate point here. Now I wouldn't argue that reading online (if that's what we can call it) is bad, just very different. And hopefully in some ways it's better. But I would argue that clearly, in some very specific ways, it's worse. Much worse.

Take the time read the full column. Hopefully it will create a good debate.

The Kindles Are Coming, The Kindles Are Coming!

While I remain highly skeptical of how technology will deliver a death blow to the printed newspaper (not to say it won't force dramatic evolutionary changes), news such as this adds fuel to the other side's argument.

Of course at about $359 a pop, the Kindle remains a luxury for most. For interesting commentary make sure to read the posted comments under the article. Don't miss numbers 10, 11 and 16 for thoughtful additions.

BookPage Offers Free Book Reviews On-line

Are you an avid reader, looking for reviews of the best books published? Then you might want to check out BookPage.

Since 1988, BookPage has been publishing a monthly, print edition, available in many bookstores and libraries, including here at Troy. Now, BookPage is available as a free, on-line publication at bookpage.com.

Each month, bookpage.com recommends the best books for readers of all types, whether you're interested in literary fiction or romance, history or science fiction, cookbooks or children's books. It focuses on new releases and tailors reviews for the general reader -- the true booklover always on the lookout for recommendations on what to read next.

And now, you can receive twice-monthly BookPage news and reviews delivered to you via email. Click here to sign up.

Year-Round Adult Reading Program

Great news for readers: Due to the popularity of our Summer Reading Program we've created a year-round reading program for adult patrons (ages 18 and up).

To participate, go to the TPL website and click on Year-Round Reading Programs. This link will take you to the TPL Reading Programs website. From there you can register, and begin logging books.

For those of you familiar with our Summer Reading program, this is the same process. Read books, log your books on the website, and win prizes. The prizes for this program include gift certificates to the Somerset Collection, the TPL Friends Gift Shop, and the TPL Friends Book Shop. The more books you review, the more chances you have to win.

For more information email h.pytiak@troymi.gov or call the Tech Desk at 248.524.3542.