I recently checked out Michael W. Smith’s latest album, A new hallelujah, or musical compilation as some would say.  For those of you who are not familiar with Michael W. Smith, he is considered one of the most influential artists of contemporary Christian music. I have been following and appreciating his music and writing abilities since the beginning of his career in the early eighties.

I have switched, like so many of us, to downloading my music online and loading it on to either my computer, MP3 or iPod player. The library is a great way to preview many of the albums that you might want to buy. That is what I was doing with Michael W. Smith’s latest. This album however, reminded me of why I believe compact discs still have a place  in today’s market place.

A new hallelujah although not hailed as a live album, is performed before a live audience in Houston, Texas. The flow of the songs because they are performed live, in my opinion, need to be played in order. While listening to the CD, I began appreciating the CD format. I was able to feel like I was right there with Michael W. Smith. Many of the  songs on the album have been performed by other artists such as Chris Tomlin and Hillsong United. They have been rearranged as only Smitty (as he affectionately is called) can do. The album highlights Smitty’s piano talent and ability to elicit audience participation.

The library has a large collection of music available for you to explore a variety of musical genres. If you haven’t explored the Christian music genre, I highly recommend checking out the Michael W. Smith collection that we have.  If you want a quick listen to what I think is one of the best songs on this album, check out this video of the song, Deep in Love withYou.

Happy new year, and welcome to 2010!  In addition to making resolutions that I’m unlikely to keep, there is another new year’s tradition I’ve been observing the past few years; creating and updating a reading list.

Working in libraries, something I hear regularly from patrons is that they have trouble recalling whether or not they have read a certain title.  This problem is particularly common with patrons who enjoy reading the output of prolific authors such as James Patterson or Nora Roberts (for instance, Nora Roberts has just short of 200 published full-length works under her belt). I advise these patrons to do what I do, and start a list of works read, perhaps with a brief summary and review of the book so that they can recall not only having read the book, but whether they enjoyed it or not (if you are really motivated, you might even include information such as genre, author’s gender, and any other variables you might like to keep track of and compare later). This process is rewarding not only in the sense that it acts to bolster your memory of books completed, but also in the way it gives you a tangible view of the amount of reading you have accomplished throughout the year. I typically set a goal for myself of 52 books per year (that is, one book completed per week, on average), an objective I have yet to achieve but enjoy striving for. Once you have collected more than one year’s worth of data, you can begin manipulating the numbers to get a very detailed picture of your reading habits and proclivities.

For an example of the sort of information that can be generated from such a list, take a gander at the breakdown from the reading list of Jessamyn West of Librarian.net. Just at a glance, we can see that she read more at the beginning of the year than at the end, that she read slightly more fiction than non-fiction, that the majority of books she read were produced by male authors, and that, for the most part, she enjoys the books she picks (if you are interested in following Jessamyn as she logs and reviews her book conquests, visit her booklist here). The more information you include when recording the completed book in your log, the more data you will have to work with when doing future analysis of your reading patterns.

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83 years ago today the world was introduced to the whimsical world of author A.A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh. Milne only created two books centered around the Bear of Very Little Brain, Winnie-the-Pooh and The House At Pooh Corner, but Pooh and friends continue to have many an adventure as Disney has owned the rights to Winnie the Pooh, sans hyphens, since 1961. While Pooh, Christopher Robin, Piglet, Eeyore, Rabbit and the rest have since become a sad travesty (in my opinion) of what Milne and illustrator Ernest H. Shepard had created, one just has to open a book to be reminded of how enchanting the original characters of the Hundred Acre Wood were.

Now, for the first time ever, the estate of Milne and Shepard has authorized a sequel to The House At Pooh Corner titled Return to the Hundred Acre Wood. The book has been met with mixed reviews, both good and bad, but it is clear that author David Benedictus and illustrator Mark Burgess are talented and worked hard to keep with the Milne/Shepard style. Unfortunately, since the book was only published last week, the Library does not yet own any copies, but you can read an extract here. I picked up a copy at the bookstore and while I appreciate the negative reviews, I couldn’t help but be pleased with this imaginative addition to the Winnie-the-Pooh collection. But I hate to see what Disney will do with it.

Have you ever wondered how modern society has become so mean-spirited, jaded and hurtful? Have you ever been trolling an Internet message board and felt a twinge of sympathy for, say, Jennifer Love Hewitt or any other celebrity who’d been excoriated on the Web for having cellulite or a muffin-top?

I’ve just finished reading the book Snark by David Denby and I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed it. I love the way that it examines the culture of snark from its classical Greek roots with Juvenal and Hipponax to its more modern incarnation with the advent of the Internet and snarky gossip mavens like Perez Hilton.

One of the aims of this book is to explore the nature, the functions and the hazards of snark. The seven chapters of this snappy yet insightful read are called “fits”–the inspiration for which is drawn from Lewis Carroll’s “The Hunting of The Snark” a poem in eight cantos or “fits”–and the Fifth Fit intrigues me the most. In this chapter Denby distinguishes between the art of ribald and witty verbal sparring versus the low-art of snark. There are many names for a hearty bout of verbal fisticuffs: “flyting” when practiced by 16th century Scottish poets, “trash talking” when it takes place on any sporting field, “battling” when opposing hip-hop artists duke it out on a stage, “joning” when you’re a grade school kid in the late 80s who has to defend against a “Yo Mama” diss. The art of the face-to-face battle of wits is as old as written history (if not older).

Snark, unlike any of the aforementioned, relies on anonymity and shuns hand-to-hand or wit-to-wit combat. According to Denby, snark seeks to “get into [its victim's] face without presenting a face of its own”. It’s like posting an ugly message board comment about your least favorite reality show star anonymously. It’s easy and sometimes irresistible but, as the cover of this book exclaims, it’s also “mean, it’s personal and it’s ruining our conversation”.

This book struck a chord with me because lately I’ve been growing deeply concerned with US Weekly’s obsession with The Gosselin Family, the unfettered nastiness of your average Internet message board and other instances of snarkiness in today’s society. Is there a cure? I’m not so hopeful but at the very least Snark is a relief and, for me, kind of a revelation to read.

If you haven’t noticed yet, the library now has a podcasting page, where you can listen, download, and subscribe to our Musical Bookings podcasts and our Author Talk podcasts.  Podcasts, as you may or may not know, are basically audio (sometimes video) “shows” that are available on the internet.  Think of it like a radio show, except you listen to it on either your computer or portable MP3 device.  In fact, many radio shows are available as podcasts, including NPR’s This American Life, Car Talk, and Fresh Air.

But because anybody with a mic and a computer can make a podcast, you don’t have to be Terry Gross to have a  show on the internet.  This has resulted in podcasts that focus in on many special niche interests that would never survive on normal radio, shows like Imprint (a show dedicated to the Twilight series), GolfBetter (dedicated to golf), and Manic Mommies (about motherhood).

I’m ashamed to admit that before last week, I had barely listened to any podcasts.  I imagined badly produced shows featuring 14 year old hosts talking about World of Warcraft (no offense).  But because I was in charge of helping coordinate the library’s podcasts, I decided to look around and see what was out there already.  Now I’m totally hooked!  There are many good podcasts.  After the jump, I’ll highlight three that I absolutely love.  Then I’ll give you a few technical tips on how to get started.

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I’m no history buff, but recently I thought it would be interesting to read something about one of our overlooked founding fathers, John Adams. Unfortunately, the book (John Adams by David McCullough) is 752 pages long—too long for a passing interest, especially with 5 other books on my bedside table. So, with J’nai’s post about how to talk about books you haven’t read in mind, I will now talk about how much I loved this book. How do I know?  Simple: the book has been made into an HBO miniseries.

I half-expected it to be boring, as historical recreations often are. But I was pleasantly surprised by how good it was! So far, I’ve finished the first disc and I can’t wait for discs two and three (I’m #22 and #17 in the respective queues (and yes, library staff have to wait for holds just like everybody else!)).

The series covers Adams’s life from his days as a lawyer in Boston after the Boston Massacre up to the years after his presidency, including his death. Paul Giamatti gives a great performance as John Adams, but what really makes it work is the whole cast. The founding fathers come to life with David Morse as George Washington, Stephen Dillane as Thomas Jefferson, and Tom Wilkinson as Benjamin Franklin. You can really taste the dynamic in congress as these men and their radically different personalities clash and come together towards a common goal.

I’ve not mentioned Abigail Adams (played by Laura Linney) yet. Though she was not an official politician, the series gives us a glimpse into how influential she was for John. I got the sense that she grounded him, and kept him honest. Her intellect and wisdom was a good complement for John’s passion and integrity.

You should really check out this series. I found it highly entertaining and educational as well. History doesn’t have to be boring!

Readers Advisory is one of the more fun, but rare services we are called upon to provide but its not always easy. Sometimes you don’t know what you want, I don’t know what you want, or I have never read books on Hungarian basket-weaving so its kinda hard to recommend one.

Other than searching the DCPL catalog by subjects, keywords, or genres, or using Novelist (on Galileo); what else is out there to tempt readers?

Nancy Pearl (now with shushing action!) authored Book Lust and More Book Lust; books about books never sounded so…titillating.

Due to snappy looking cover, I start leafing through one of our new reference books: Read on– fantasy fiction : reading lists for every taste by Neil Hollands. With the main headings of Story, Character, Setting, Mood and Language; this book is further broken down into a list of suggestions for almost any kind of fantasy book you can think of listing both old and new books. Cute chapter titles like: “Never mind the acne; I’m here to save the world: coming-of-age stories”, make for a fun read in itself.

BookSpot.com is a great directory of links to award winners, movie adaptations, reviews, and best of lists. Another huge award winners listing can be found on BookWire, with links to plenty of obscure and popular awards.

An interesting site for readers of the classics is the Great Books Lists site which compiles information from various bibliographies citing great works of the Western and Eastern canons. For books of the modern/contemporary canons check out the somewhat controversial Modern Library 100 list.

Hard to please? If you like horror you could head over to the MonsterLibrarian’s Domain. Perhaps some Banned Books will attract a certain crowd?  Romance on the menu?- Check out All About Romance or the Romance Reader. For some of the best fantasy and fairy-tale reading lists, check out the Journal of Mythic Arts lists for books for adults, young adults, and non-fiction studies of fantasy and myth.

With “China Road: a journey into the future of a rising power”, NPR correspondent Rob Gifford journeys through the literal and cultural heart of modern China. An easily accessible work for those interested in post-Mao China and its increasingly important place in the world but don’t want to wade through a gigantic history book spanning China’s centuries old civilization. Following Route 312 from Shanghai to the ends of China at Korgaz in the N.W. Xinjiang province, Gifford travels through what seems like both past and future China as route 312 changes from the busy 10-lane superhighways in Shanghai to single-lane desert roads following the Old Silk Route further West. The road itself paints a vivid picture of the divergences in Chinese landscape and culture that few Westerners seem to know about: from corrupt local officials, Han Chinese tourists taking in ‘traditional’ Tibetan culture, polluted farms and rivers, to ancient historical wonders, rapidly growing urban oases, and Shanghai Hooters. Talking to everyone along the way from hermits with cellphones to Amway sales reps, Gifford taps into iconic imagery we are all too familiar with: route 312 is eerily similar to route 66 with all the wonder and contradictions of the opening of China’s West. The U.S. media is dominated by stories of superpower China’s economic boom and rapid modernization, Gifford attempts to find out what exactly that means to China itself by taking his 3000 mile trip moving east to west – from urban China to rural and minority China, the exact opposite of the route many Chinese often have to take to find work and a future.

Listen to the seven part NPR series “On the Road in China” based on Gifford’s book.

Recommended Reading:

The snow lion and the dragon: China, Tibet, and the Dalai Lama- Melvyn Goldstein

River town: two years on the Yangtze – Peter Hessler

China shakes the world: a titan’s rise and troubled future and the challenge for America- James Kynge

Chinese lessons: five classmates and the story of the new China-  John Pomfret

I grew up in a cooking family.  We had home-cooked meals every night at my house and  ate them all together as a family.  Eating out, even fast food, was a once-in-a-while luxury, and we only occasionally resorted to frozen dinners.  My mother was the family cook, and she taught me the basics of cooking, and by the time I went to college, I was comfortable cooking spaghetti with meat sauce or my crowd-pleasing black bean burritos.  Aside from these occasional home-cooked meals, my repertoire was quite narrow, and I most often resorted to the single-guy-in-his-twenties fare of boxed macaroni and cheese.

My parents gave my brother and me copies of Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything: Simple Recipes for Great Food one year for Christmas.  I have since worked my way through many of its recipes, and have found that the title is appropriate.  Bittman’s method is to teach the basic techniques for a given type of cooking, then to show all the variations you can make after mastering the technique.  Packed full of instructive illustrations, useful techniques, and most of all, many recipes, this encyclopedic tome is a must have for the serious home cook.  My wife and I actually used it so much that we had to buy a new copy!

As I was checking in a cart of new books recently, I came across The Big Book of Irony by Jon Winokur.  The volume is ironically small in size, but crammed full of information (possibly more than one might ever need) on the subject of irony.  The book includes definitions and examples, and explains many different types of irony one might encounter: 

• Verbal irony: when you say one thing but mean the opposite, with the intent of being understood as meaning the opposite
• Visual irony: when images contradict themselves
• Ambient irony: when irony is everywhere!
• Auto-irony: when celebrities try to humanize themselves

as well as:

• Morissettian irony: when there’s no irony at all (based on the ironically unironic 1996 hit song by Alannis Morissette entitled “Ironic”).

Confused?

Not to worry.  Winokur’s book provides numerous–and often humorous–past and present examples of irony, as well as those things that are often mistaken for irony, including coincidence, sarcasm, hypocrisy, and inconvenience. 

If you’re interested in finding other fun books about language use and grammar, check out these titles:

• Get Thee to a Punnery, Anguished English, and other titles by Richard Lederer
• Eats, Shoots, & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss
• Grammar Snobs are Great Big Meanies: a Guide to Language for Fun and Spite by June Casagrande
• Lapsing Into a Comma : A Curmudgeon’s Guide to the Many Things That Can Go Wrong in Print–and How to Avoid Them by Bill Walsh
• Woe Is I: The Grammarphobe’s Guide to Better English in Plain English by Patricia T. O’Conner
• The Right Word in the Right Place at the Right Time: Wit and Wisdom from the Popular Language Column in the New York Times Magazine by William Safire