The Librarian's Lounge

Coupland on YouTube

Douglas Coupland has some book trailers on YouTube for his book, The Gum Thief. Here's one of my favorites in the series:

Augusten Burroughs

I just saw Augusten Burroughs' Running with Scissors today. I read the book when it first came out and am happy and somewhat surprised at how true the film stayed to the memoir. When I first saw the trailer, it looked as if they'd turned his story into a comedy, much the way T.C. Boyle's Road to Wellville was. That was not the case here, thankfully. What stands out in the film, to me, are the same things that stood out when I read the book - the close but painful relationship he had with his mother, Deirdre Burroughs and the hellish situation in which he grew up, thanks to the very manipulative and eccentric psychiatrist who treated her. I found myself having a deeper empathy for the mother through the film than I did in the book. She so clearly was going through trauma of her own, although you're left wondering how much of it was embellished if not manufactured by the good doctor.

Joseph Cross and Annette Bening were amazing.

Web Roundup

What do you get when you mash together a book and Google Maps?

Learn how to make your own invisible bookshelf.

In Finland, a novel comprised entirely of text messages is published.

A list of the top 100 alternative search engines.

I'm infatuated with The Monster Librarian. Check out his page for all your horror readers advisory information for all ages! One of the greatest features of this website is the "coming soon" information. I love the Genre Reader's Bill of Rights!

Longing to go back to school but don't have the dough? Check out this huge list of free classes available online - here's your chance to attend MIT, Berkeley, and Notre Dame simultaneously, if desired!

Something about author John Green's Brotherhood 2.0 just tickles me. I'm hooked. I especially like the bookfights.

Coming Soon

I'm pretty psyched to find out that not only does Marjane Satrapi have a new book on the way, but also that Persepolis will soon be coming to the big screen.

An Interview with Pema Chodron

Pema Chodron, my favorite Shambhala Buddhist author and teacher, was recently featured on Bill Moyer's On Faith and Reason. PBS has the archived show freely available. In it, she talks about how she became a nun, her thoughts on groundlessness, how we keep ourselves from happiness, and interpretations of Shantideva's works.

If you are interested in hearing more of the dharma from Pema but don't have time for a retreat, consider checking out this store for lots of cds and cassettes of past teachings. It is affiliated with Gampo Abbey, her monastery in Nova Scotia.

This 'n That

For those of you who haven't heard, Worldcat is now open to the public at large, making it easy for anyone to see what libraries near their homes carry a particular title. In my system, this is soon going to become an added feature to our catalog, which will certainly help us info-folk save some time logging into FirstSearch to answer a fairly straight-forward question.

It was nice to find out that Movie Licensing USA has added New Line Cinema to its list of authorized movie studios. Now, libraries everywhere that subscribe to the service have an even wider selection of films to share with their patrons inside the building.

For those who like to think outside of the box in terms of library building design, check out this bookstore in Beijing known as Kids Republic. I couldn't find the actual site for the store itself - all links lead back to The Cool Hunter at this time.

The Burlington Free Press has run a story about Alison Bechdel, author of Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic and the comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For. I picked this up recently and really enjoyed it. From the article:      

"As a result of her family's discomfort with the her candor and very public story-telling, Bechdel    said she hasn't been able to fully enjoy the success of the book. She's almost become ambivalent about the notoriety she's achieved because of the book, and it seems more baneful than anything. She acknowledged that while she had to get her story out, perhaps as a way to make peace with it all, the process wasn't easy and the aftermath of the book has completely disrupted her life."

Want to help a library or perhaps yourself get some new reading material? Check out Bookmooch, a new service run by people who believe that "the worst thing that can happen to a book is for no-one to be able to read it."  I'm thinking this service, if it becomes big, could be a great thing for people who are moving, don't want to lug their books with them, and are willing to potentially part with them forever. Just send out the books to the world and once re-situated, cash in your points for a whole new private collection!

And lastly, just for fun or mild perplexity, check out the Flickr set devoted to Engrish.

Dispatches from a Public Librarian

McSweeney's rocks in many ways. If you haven't been there, I suggest you go immediately and start reading some of the open letters to people or entities who are unlikely to respond. I just happened upon the latest entry by Scott Douglas - it's a FAQ for library-related questions you always wanted to ask but never had the nerve.

Newly-discovered author blog

Malcolm Gladwell, author of Blink and The Tipping Point, has a blog. These have both been very popular books at my library. I loved The Tipping Point but have not yet had a chance to read his latest book. I blame that on grad school.