MISC.

‘Nuf Said

December 14, 2007

“To Read or Not To Read confirms—without any serious qualification—the central importance of reading for a prosperous, free society. The data here demonstrate that reading is an irreplaceable activity in developing productive and active adults as well as healthy communities. Whatever the benefits of newer electronic media, they provide no measurable substitute for the intellectual and personal development initiated and sustained by frequent reading.”

– Dana Gioia,Chairman, National Endowment for the Arts (2007)

And a tiny url for your sharing pleasure: http://tinyurl.com/7afvlw6

LibraryThing. Now With KungFu Grip

October 10, 2007

My favourite *free* online library toy, LibraryThing, has added new features! Common Knowledge allows anyone to add book awards, character names, biographical details on authors, book descriptions, etc, wiki-style. That means the info you add is in constant flux, changeable by anyone at any time. The blog-worthy part is that, “Everything is free under a Creative Commons license, so you can take it, change it and do anything else you want without asking,” Abby Blachly says in her mass email.

So, if you don’t have a library already or if you have one somewhere else, come on over and check LibraryThing out. It may not be pretty but it sure is a bucketload of fun…for some of us anyway.

And a tiny url for your sharing pleasure: http://tinyurl.com/6vmjpsn

Ah, the Rich Rewards of a Well-Read Society

August 30, 2007


According to a little bit of info on my Facebook homepage:

Top Books in the Los Angeles, CA network.

  1. Harry Potter
  2. The Bible
  3. Catcher in the Rye
  4. 1984
  5. The Great Gatsby
  6. Da Vinci Code
  7. Angels and Demons
  8. To Kill a Mockingbird
  9. The Alchemist

To recap: there’s a novel written for children, a religious text, books one is forced to read in high school, movie tie-ins, and a lone bit of literary fiction. Funny how there isn’t a single non-fiction or CNF book in the lot. Gee, Paulo Coehlo should feel pretty good right about now.

*sigh*

And a tiny url for your sharing pleasure: http://tinyurl.com/dxsg4aj

Giving New Meaning to Keeping Literature Alive

July 30, 2007

Actors Jenna and Bodhi Elfman have named their newborn son, Story.

Hopefully there’s more to it than a love of M. Night Shyamalan and his bedtime tales. Here’s to all those parents out there who aren’t afraid to bestow upon their children names filled with lyricism and personal meaning. Oooh, I wonder if he has a middle name and what that might be.

Congratulations new mommy and daddy and welcome to the world, little Story.

(How I come across this stuff, I’ll never know.)
And a tiny url for your sharing pleasure: http://tinyurl.com/c8ywwbq