What Does Your Bookshelf Say About You?

Why is it that we store books in such a public fashion? Of course, we don't line up a row of shelves on our front lawn to show off that copy of The Riverside Shakespeare, but our bookshelves do seem to convey something to anyone who enters our home. Plenty of bibliophiles I know tend to showcase the books they're "proudest" of in the living room, and the others with less prestige (though still enjoyed) are housed on a separate, more private shelf.

I do the same thing at my house. I'll display even my most treasured genre books above those that I'm not necessarily as proud to own. Why is that? What is it about a book collection that lends itself to such public display? Why not store them?

It's an intriguing question to ask, and an article on the BBC site delves headlong into the phenomenon:

And yet, more than 500 years after the invention of the printing press, the importance and value of keeping books is showing no sign of waning. The internet was supposed to spell the end of the printed word - instead one of its earliest success stories was an online book shop, Amazon.

It's hard to escape the theory that there is an exhibitionist side to our bookcase obsession - it's about showing off how much you have read, or plan to read, or pretend to have read. You are subtly suggesting that you are the sort of person who keeps Finnegans Wake handy, for example, just in case you ever fancy dipping in for a quick, albeit incomprehensible, catch-up.

I am somewhat of a book exhibitionist, with not one, but six, fully stocked bookshelves in my living room alone. I would rather have them out in plain sight than in a box somewhere collecting dust. Part of it is that I see little value in storing what I do not use on a consistent basis, but also because I am, indeed, proud of my little collection of bound adventures. Somehow, I feel as though they are, like pictures from a vacation, proof of my enduring adventures, evidence of where I have been and who I am because of the books I have read. It may be a little off, but what isn't?

Billy Bookcases on IKEA.com
[IMG Source=Stewart Butterfield]

An ATM for Books

The two Google Guys are standing in front of what they call the Espresso Book Machine, which is designed to print and bind books from Google's wide collection of public domain works, so that the average person doesn't have to read it all on a computer screen.

According to the manufacturer:

This is what we call an ATM for books. It can make a library quality paperback book within minutes for under a penny a page. Imagine a reader going out onto a web site, clicking on one of the Google public domain titles, and within minutes the book is printed out.

PC World has more to say on the subject:

On Demand's deal with Google puts approximately two million public domain books from Google's digitized book collection--Google Books--into Espresso Book Machines, which you could then print off at your local library, bookstore, or coffee shop.

There's no official word on how much a single book will cost, but the Associated Press is reporting the average price will be about $8. Google and On Demand Books will each take a dollar from every transaction, and donate the rest of the proceeds to charity, the AP says.

What this is going to end up hurting is places like Barnes and Noble and Borders, which sell copies of, say, 'Pride and Prejudice' for 9.95 a pop from their respective company-owned publishers. The advance in technology may end up hurting big-chain bookstores, but I am interested to see where this kind of idea takes us, and what the future might yield.

Google Bringing Rare Books to Paperback
Google Books: Classic Books Available via the Espresso Book Machine

Iguanas of the Galapagos Islands

The Richard Dawkins Foundation YouTube page has been uploading a series of videos featuring Richard Dawkins from around the world, explaining various examples of evidence for evolution. They are quite possibly in an effort to promote his new book, The Greatest Show on Earth, but it could also have been filmed as a result of research for the book itself.

Each video is only 2-3 minutes long and doesn't go into much depth, as far as evolutionary processes go, but the videos are wondrous in that they show species of animals that many of us will not see in our lifetimes.

Previous Related Posts:

• Richard Dawkins's Wonderful Show
  
• 'Creation' Trailer - Watch if You Dare, Americans!
  
• Where Did Morality Originate
  

Libraries...With NO Books?

I am a self-professed Bibliophile ("book lover"), and one of the things I like most about books is holding them in my hands. It's as much the cover design and the smell and the way they look on shelves as it is the information contained within. There may be something a little off about that, but in lieu of recent technological advancements, it may become a thing of the past.

Archiving books online digitally has changed the way we think about books, and about libraries, and a recent article on Boston.com has put a fine point on what the future of libraries might actually be:

This year, after having amassed a collection of more than 20,000 books, officials at the pristine campus [of Cushing Academy] about 90 minutes west of Boston have decided the 144-year-old school no longer needs a traditional library. The academy’s administrators have decided to discard all their books and have given away half of what stocked their sprawling stacks - the classics, novels, poetry, biographies, tomes on every subject from the humanities to the sciences. The future, they believe, is digital.

“When I look at books, I see an outdated technology, like scrolls before books,’’ said James Tracy, headmaster of Cushing and chief promoter of the bookless campus. “This isn’t ‘Fahrenheit 451’ [the 1953 Ray Bradbury novel in which books are banned]. We’re not discouraging students from reading. We see this as a natural way to shape emerging trends and optimize technology.’’

I have no illusions that books will go entirely out of style - not in my lifetime - but we are seeing a trend toward the digital, and its implications are huge. It will change the way we read as much as the way books are published, and it may not be too terribly long before the book is, indeed, an outmoded technology, as the headmaster at Cushing suggests.

“When I look at books, I see an outdated technology, like scrolls before books,’’ said James Tracy, headmaster of Cushing and chief promoter of the bookless campus. “This isn’t ‘Fahrenheit 451’ [the 1953 Ray Bradbury novel in which books are banned]. We’re not discouraging students from reading. We see this as a natural way to shape emerging trends and optimize technology.’’

[Source: Boston.com

In addition, here is a list of the top 25 E-Book Sites.

100 Sites for Bibliophiles

Plenty of people are blaming the internet for the death of reading, but it's important to remember that people are reading a great deal more than they probably have in history - it's just probably not the kind of reading most people consider "Reading".

The internet has given us all the ability to link up and become closer than we ever have, and for those of us who still read bound books (or those found on the ever portable Kindle can find a way to find those rare kindred spirits online. Online College has created a list of the 100 best sites for bookworms.

Here are a few of my favorites:

• Goodreads.com Goodreads is a site I already use on a weekly basis. You can share what you're reading, what you've read, and what you intend to read. Excellent site.
  
• Bookrabbit. Instead of uploading virtuatl bookshelves, you take a picture of your actual bookshelf and upload it to the site.
  
• Bookcrossing. Bookcrossing is a great idea. You can ostensibly release "a book into the wild" with a description of where you've dropped it off. People registered on the site can go find it, or you can leave a code on the inside cover for people to register the book online, so you can see how far the book travels. Unfortunately, not many people in my area - Georgia - play along
  
• Salon's Table Talks. I just found out about this site today. Apparently, Salon sponsors book talks for members to engage in, which un-registered viewers can only read. Sounds cool.
  

There are plenty of sites to traverse here, so it's pointless to list them all. Unfortunately for you, the more time you spend on the internet, the less time you spend READING, thus falling into the same trap as the Facebook crowd!

'Generation Dead' - Daniel Waters

Normally I don't comment on books until I'm done with them, but I'm bored and don't feel like writing 'fiction', so here goes. Furthermore, I'm only a measly seventy pages from finishing the book, so I feel justified in talking about [some of] it.

Generation Dead has a charming readability to it that I'll credit to Daniel Waters's prose style, which is fluid and somewhat witty, and it does tackle its main theme - social acceptance - quite deftly, so for that it gets a round of applause from me.

I cannot fault the preachiness it exudes, either, because it is YA fiction, and the entire medium has had a history of making everything so bloody melodramatic. I feel British today. The entire novel revolves around how silly people can be in not accepting others as 'human', even if those people are dead and not necessarily 'human'. Okay, let me clarify that thought. The entire conceit of the book seems, to me, to be that, if it seems sort of silly to discredit the undead solely based on whether they breathe or not, then isn't it silly to discredit others for other lifestyles? I can already hear how it would be taught in eighth grade classrooms everywhere.

If you took the words for undead - zombie, differently biotic, etc. - and changed the people from zombies to, let's say, gays, blacks, or middle easterners, then the message remains the same. Which, I guess, doesn't speak well of how the book is constructed. I can say, however, that there are some good zombie-ish moments in there, even if the book isn't drenched in gore and Romero mythology. Overall, it does present some very good points about humanity as a whole and what things actually divide us into our little cabals.

The problem is that it gets too muddled in what I'll call its 'Twilightishness'. SPOILER ALERT: [One of] The main characters falls halfway in love with a zombie, but their love/like situation isn't as transformational or transcendent as it is in Stephanie Meyer's books. It is marred by a type of discouraging real-ness not often found in these kinds of novels, and the main character, Phoebe, rides the fence through the latter third of the book, at a point when she should have either been totally in love or her passive prejudice should have shone through a little more clearly. Instead, we get a half-and-half working of Phoebe and Tommy Williams' relationship...and that's about as far as I've gotten.

Now, Generation Dead is more brain than brawn/lust, so approach with caution. There are a few "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" moments in there, so be prepared to see the soapbox come out and be prominent onstage. Other than that, it's a fairly quick, engaging read. And it has zomb, er, differently biotic people.

Plot Synopsis for S. King's 'Under the Dome'

The official plot synopsis for Stephen King's upcoming release, Under the Dome, can be found on his web site.

From what I've heard, it's going to be a long novel and that the original conception of the story dates back as far as - I think - the Seventies.

The Kite Runner & Afghanistan

Sometimes I feel like I use my "five paragraph essay" voice when I talk about quote-endquote important issues, so forgive me.

Anyway, I'm about ninety percent done with Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner and have an overarching feeling of dismay about the whole thing. Don't get me wrong, it's a wonderful novel, and I have thoroughly enjoyed reading it.

But the line between fiction that so often gives me comfort in and escape from the REAL WORLD has been shattered by this book, which details the life of a child who grows up in Afghanistan in the Seventies, moves to America, and then returns [for an important plot thread] after the country has been taken over by the Taliban.

So, anyway, that's the novel in a nutshell, and since I have painted the story with such a broad brush, please don't disregard the book based on such a silly little paragraph. There is too much to be explored plot-wise in the story, but the literal, surface meaning is not what I mean to talk about. The political undercurrent is, and it is that which interests me. It is so alive with the modern state of the country and pessimism about its future that I couldn't help but be fundamentally shaken by its implications.

When war is waged on a country, it is difficult for people to understand the daily struggles of those people and whether or not the beliefs of the everyman align with those who have (ostensibly) caused the war. In Afghanistan, the fundamental - again, no pun intended - question is: do most people in the country align themselves with the Taliban?

The answer, I would say, is a resounding NO. I can't extrapolate all of Afghanistan out by the comments of one book, of course, but I do think it is important to note that perspective can be derived from sympathetic texts. And, while I criticized escalation of forces in Iraq, I have to say that I agree with Mr. Obama in sending more troops to Afghanistan to help the country get under control.

Khaled Hosseini himself has something to say about the presence of the US:

But this much we do know: Without a genuine and sustained, long-term commitment on the part of the U.S. and its allies, Afghanistan is doomed. Though Afghans are an independent people and take pride in their sovereignty, polls have repeatedly shown that, despite growing skepticism and disillusionment, the majority of Afghans still view the foreign presence in their country favorably. They know that a weakened western resolve will mean that positive gains that have been made so painstakingly will vanish swiftly and the country will slide back.

So, if I haven't depressed you too much, I encourage you to give The Kite Runner a chance. It's a damn fine book, and one that may help you get something that almost never hurts: a perspective other than your own.

What I Want My Library to Look LIke

This is internet mogul Jay Walker's library. You can read the source article about it over at Wired.Com

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