Les Misbarak

Banning books

I don't ban books, but as a librarian I am constantly selecting books for my library. When I choose to not purchase a book for the library, is that akin to banning it? I don't think so.

Here's an interesting post from a bookseller that discusses the act of selection and it's relation to banning.

Best baby halloween costume ever!

Delicious lobster baby!

200!

As of today I have completed 200 books this calendar year. 26 more and I'll beat last year's total, and that's even with a month where I only read about 6 books due to traveling.

Book 200:



You can always track my reading online and see how I'm doing.

Neil Gaiman!

Last night I went to see Neil Gaiman read and speak at the Gershman Y. For those who don't know, Gaiman is one of my favourite authors (along with Terry Pratchett, Lindsay Davis, Robin McKinley, and a few others). Gaiman is on a tour across the US reading a chapter of his new book "The Graveyard Book" at each stop. Last night was Chapter 2 - The New Friend. He read the chapter in it's entirety (took about 45 minutes) and the audience was engrossed all the way through. He's a fabulous reader and storyteller (and this is coming from a girl who falls asleep within the first 5 minutes of an audiobook no matter how interesting). He makes each character sound different without using silly voices (although his portrayal of the Sleer was actually chilling) and he has a fabulous way of engaging the audience and bringing the test to life. Yes I'm a fangirl, but I swear it's the truth.

Here's a blurry photo of him reading:



After the chapter we watched a trailer for the movie version of Coraline and then Gaiman came back out to answer questions that had been handed in by the audience earlier.

All in all it was a fabulous night, and Gaiman ranks right up there in terms of public speaking with Pratchett (who I introduced at the library a few years ago). I've never heard someone who was so good at public reading before.

If you want to follow along on the tour, the Mouse Circus website is posting a video of each chapter read along the tour by Gaiman. By the end of the tour you will be able to see him read the whole book

Oh, good lord, no.

I laugh so I don't cry...

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

10 Great Countercultural Children's Books

Occasionally I head over to Woot to see what they have say. This is today's post. I was meh at the beginning, but laughing out loud by the end.

10 Great Countercultural Children's Books

1. William S. Burroughs’ The Little Engine That Shot Its Wife
2. Green Eggs And Ham On Rye by Charles Bukowski
3. A Clockwork Orange: My First Book Of Colors And Time by Anthony Burgess
4. Are You There, God? It’s Me, Esther by Sylvia Plath
5. Justine And The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by the Marquis De Sade
6. Franz Kafka’s Metamorphs #1: Insectified
7. Henry Miller’s The Cheerful Little Tugboat Crosses The Equator
8. The Horse And His Boy by Peter Shaffer
9. D.H. Lawrence’s I’ll Love You Forever
10. How The Grinch Stole The Best Minds of My Generation by Allen Ginsberg

What to do when your book gets slammed

The most brilliant use of negative reviews I've seen in a good long while.

Drink the Neil Gaiman kool-aid

Neil Gaiman is one of my favourite authors, and Neverwhere was the first book of his that I read. For a limited time only, Harper Collins is offering the complete novel for free to read online or download. Check it out.

Things that make me smile

I get a lot of publisher catalogues at work. This year the most eye-catching catalog covers come from Independent Publisher's Group. Actually, IPG usually has the best covers, this year I've just managed to remember to scan them in. Don't these covers make you WANT to see what's inside?

This one makes me giggle and crave a croissant at the same time


And this one is disturbing and brilliant as well

Let's Dance!

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

Fortune cookies in China

A few months ago I read Jennifer 8 Lee's book The Fortune Cookie Chronicles, which traces the history of Chinese restaurants in the United States. It was then that I learned that fortune cookies are not Chinese at all - they were invented in America by Japanese bakers. Anyway, Lee took the opportunity while traveling in China to hand out fortune cookies to people there and recorded their reactions.

Richard Dawkins loves his anti-fans!

I just saw this video of Ricard Dawkins reading out some of the hatemail that's been emailed to him. Surprisingly hilarious!



p.s. interesting fact I just found out: Dawkins is married to Lalla Ward, who played Romana in Doctor Who.

Jane's Addiction

This one is for sebethis, who is somewhere between Philly and Chicago right now, preparing for her big move to London. I'm sorry I lent you Spaced and you ended up watching that all night instead of a repeat viewing of Pride and Prejudice. Actually, I'm not sorry at all because Spaced rocks. Anyhow, here's something to have with you when the Jane Austen marathon picks up again



This is from Mostly Water Theatre Company, as heard on The Irrelevant Show

BBQ Madness

Now that I have a patio, I have also acquired a BBQ grill. And now that I have a grill, I think I need a swashbuckling BBQ sword!



Yes, the mask is included :)

Happy Birthday to me!

I love birthdays. I love them so much I spend about a month celebrating mine. We started back on the 12th with a birthday picnic and things really kicked into high gear today. Yes, today is my actual birthday. Yippee!

I spent the day doing fun things like going to Klondike Days (now called the Capital Ex) with my sister and wandering the midway, zoning out with a good book and a slurpee, and doing Taste of Edmonton with the family and stuffing my face (4 different ice creams!).

One of the reasons I love my birthday so much is that this is the time of year I fly out to Edmonton and visit the old stomping grounds and touch base with all my friends back home. I got here yesterday and I'm spending the next week hanging out, eating my face off, shopping, and generally having a great time.

Life is good.
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Dr. Horrible!

Free 'til Tuesday - check it out!

New comic obsession

I was at ALA this past weekend in sunny Anaheim. Aside from getting my grubby little hands on the new Terry Pratchett book (and 70 more pounds of books), I stumbled across a web comic called Sheldon. The guy was right next to my standby Unshelved booth, and I picked up a page with sample comics on it and thought they were adorable. I don't think it's really a library cartoon per se, but it is in the middle of an adorable summer reading storyline. Go to the site, the strips start on June 25, 2008. Here's some of my favourites so far:

The president's daughter

Last year at ALA I picked up an advance copy of Long May She Reign by Ellen Emerson White from the magnificent folks at Feiwel and Friends. It's taken me a year to get around to it in my quest to finally read all the books I actually own, but I've been saving the best for last. Long May She Reign is the long awaited (so long that I thought there were only three and maybe the author had died or stopped writing back in the 80's or something) fourth book in a series about a teen girl who's mom runs for and wins the presidency of the United States.

I remember reading the first book back when I was about ten or eleven and then devouring the series as it came out. It's not a fluffy girl book either - Meg, the president's daughter, deals with a whole bunch of shit, especially in the later books - including her mom's attempted assassination and her own kidnapping and torture. But she's a believable girl dealing with extreme (yet believable) situations and I'd love to have her for a friend.

This fourth book picks up right where the third left off, which Meg and her family dealing with the physical and psychological effects of her kidnapping. I'm only about 150 pages in so far, but I've been sucked right back into her world.

If you've never read the series before (and you don't have to be a teenager to love them), Fiewel and Friends is re-releasing them with nifty new covers on July 22.

It's the High School Tonys!

High School Tony Awards Honor Nation's Biggest Drama Club Nerds