Category: books
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Banned Books Podcast
The podcast for the Banned Books panel we held last fall if finally up on the GSLISCast website. Ellen Giroud, Robie Harris, Penelope Johnson and Anne L. Moore, authors and librarians, spoke about their experiences with book challenges, the history of book challenges, and what you can do if you’re faced with a challenge in…
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Feminist Books for Kids
The Feminist Task Force of the Social Responsibilities Round Table of the ALA (wow, we librarians sure now how to complicate things) comes up every year with the Amelia Bloomer List, a list of great feminist books for kids. The 2009 list has been released! These books all showcase girls and women who go against…
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Brief segue into politics, and some stuff about books to make you happy
I used to blog about politics all the time. But after the 2004 election, I lost my taste for it. Campaigns seemed to be existing in this bubble of spin and dishonesty, far removed from facts, from the information people needed to make informed choices. It seemed that what candidates talked about had no meaning.…
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Have you read more than six of these books?
I found this list on a friend’s blog: It is a list created by the National Endowment for the Arts, and she writes that they claim most American adults have read only six of these hundred books. SIX! That is almost nothing. I tried to find evidence for this claim on the internets, but my…
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The Baby-Sitters Club
I stopped at a thrift store today, and started perusing the books, as I am wont to do. And much to my delighted surprise, I found a copy old copies of Baby-sitters Club books. The series was my absolute favorite when I was a kid, and when I found out a few years ago they…
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Everything is Miscellaneous
I picked up Everything is Miscellaneous to read while on vacation, and was promptly made fun of by my library school colleagues, because, apparently, it’s an assigned text in one of the cataloging classes. Well, I commend the person who’s assigning this book, because it’s really excellent. David Weinberger does a great job talking about…
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The Phantom Tollbooth
Ok, so this has nothing to do with libraries and the massive amount of finals work I’m doing now, but I just discovered that The Phantom Tollbooth, one of the greatest movies ever made (no, I don’t love hyperbole at all), is NOT available on DVD. This is a travesty, people. Thankfully, someone else agrees…
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Yes, yes, time to talk about Harry Potter
Oh man, I have been totally crap about updating this site. June, you say? No, no, I didn’t go an entire month without an update, did I? Well, I certainly didn’t go an entire month without reading. And I’m sure you’re not surprised to hear about the crazy Harry Potter obsession that was happening in…
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Would this be an annotated bibliography?
Last night Eunice asked me to come up with a list of books I think she should read, with brief synopses. I was instantly excited–this is exactly the kind of project I need to keep me busy this summer, as my job starts to wind down and I get ready to go back to school.…
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Summer by Edith Wharton
When I finished Edith Wharton’s Summer, I slammed the book shut and turned to the boy in a huff: “This ending sucks!” I’m not one of those types who always wants a happy ending, but this heroine seemed to deserve so much better. Wharton created a truly unique character, one who so perfectly reflects the…