Best books of 2007

Today On Point did an hour on the best books of 2007. Here's the show. The guests were:
Dwight Garner, senior editor at The New York Times Book Review
Oscar Villalon, book editor for the San Francisco Chronicle
Kathy Langer, top book buyer for The Tattered Cover Bookstore in Denver

I don't know why these end-of-year editions, picks of books, will-they-make-it-won't-they, cattle call of books makes me so horny. I guess it goes with the job. What I should do is look at the past 15 years and see how the picks have held up.

So, what made it?


Fiction:
Oscar Wao, in my reading queue
Tree of Smoke (Denis Johnson seems too macho for me, give me my Chabon anyday)
The Shadow catcher, looks good
The Reluctant Fundamentalist
Abstinence Teacher

Nonfiction
How Doctors Think
Foreskin's Lament
How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read (a personal favorite on title alone, although to be fair, I haven't read it).
The Nine (Please tell me none of the, ahem, moderates are dragging ass into work!).

As a crazy bibliophile I am always curious about people and their reading habits. How do people read? What do they read? Are they reading? Why aren't they reading more? Why aren't people more excited to talk to me about what I'm reading and to tell me what they're reading... So, I find this whole new wave of ebooks, namely the Amazon Kindle thing really interesting. On the one hand, I would love to carry many books without carrying many books. On the other hand the idea seems insidious, a great gap in the digital divide and another vehicle for advertising. Also the name 'Kindle' is sort of evocative of Farenheit 451.

Here's Steven Levy's Newsweek article on it: http://www.newsweek.com/id/70983

and 'On Point' did a show about the Kindle with Steven Levy and some sweet old bibliophile dude: http://www.onpointradio.org/shows/2007/11/20071120_b_main.asp

I'd love to know if people are considering Kindles for their libraries and what they think of them. Are you drooling for one, or vaguely disgusted.

Look Me in the Eye—John Elder Robison—

This was a pretty good book. Nothing terribly exciting, but on the other hand, it wasn’t too poorly written. It was a quick read. However, I must admit this new thread of ‘tell-all’ memoirs about adults with Asperger’s syndrome are becoming a bit redundant. And in reading this one, I carefully looked for the battery of neurological/psychological testing that the author took to determine the diagnosis of Asperger’s Syndrome and found none. Mr. Robison was told by a social friend that he exhibited some of the traits of Asperger’s Syndrome. And the author read a lot of literature about the subject, but it seems that he was not diagnosed by a professional. This was disturbing to me. The parts about KISS concerts were fun.

Born Standing Up—Steve Martin—

I got an advanced readers copy at the Book Expo last June. It was a nice book. Quick read, not very funny. I do hope they did another bout of editing before the actual publication.

The Spiderwick debacle

Oops. Bad Libarian, no big cookie! It would seem that Max and I started the second Spiderwick series (Beyond the Spiderwick chronicles) before reading the first. Color me ashamed. So, we've corrected this, bought some of the earlier ones and even listened to all of the first series on a car trip to NY. For anyone who is interested the series is:

1. The Field Guide, 2. The Seeing Stone, 3. Lucinda's Secret, 4. The Ironwood Tree, 5. The Wrath of Mulgrath

The audiobooks are read by Mark Hamill of Star Wars fame. Very enjoyable!

The Spiderwick Chronicles

We just started reading The Spiderwick Chronicles last eve. It's a slow start, but I'm already into it. I think Max is too. The real test is if he wants to continue it today. Keeping my fingers crossed.

I hate it when I get really into a book and Max loses interest. It happened with Ursala LeGuin's Catwings, and I was truly bummed out. But, if he doesn't want to read it, we don't. I think I'll finish these on my own though!

Opting out of consumer stuff...

The Levheim's are having a crisis.

Max had a birthday last week and got LOTS of cool new stuff. However, he still feels unsatisfied and is asking for even more stuff. Part of this need for stuff can be chalked up to his obsessive personality, part because he is going through an unhappy time (poor little guy). I also place part of the blame on our 'if it hurts, buy more stuff' society. Whatever the reason, it is distressing to have a little person who always wants more and believes the next greatest toy/thing will make him a happy person.

So, we are trying to teach him about how having too much stuff won't necessarily make you happy, a realistic concept of how much stuff he has in comparison to most people, and some notion of working for social justice and how this is all tied together. Whew-- big concepts for a little guy!

As of today, we are taking a 'fast', and not buying new consumer goods for a month. Obviously we can buy food, toilet paper, etc. but nothing else. Wish us luck! We're learning about alternative consumption by viewing a blog about 'the compact': http://groups.yahoo.com/group/thecompact/

We're looking for other suggestions.

Satire in context...

I heard a piece on npr's 'Talk of the Nation' the other day about The Onion, the "fake news" newspaper. Greg Beato, columnist of Reason magazine, wrote a column called: Amusing Ourselves to Death, (a nod to Neil Postman) about the rise in popularity of The Onion while all other major newspapers are losing readership at an alarming rate. Beato said: "The Onion recently achieved a 60 percent increase in print circulation and attracts more than two million online readers per week."

Here is a link to interview with Beato on NPR: Satirical 'Onion' Attracts Readers Online, in Print.

Having quite a bit of contact with students at a four year college in Massachusetts, I am fascinated by this trend. I find that my students sometimes find articles in The Onion funny, but often they don't have the facts or the context to truly understand the underlying piece of news. This is the same with The Daily Show and Stephen Colbert. If the readership does not have the background to understand the Iraq war, or the debate and eventual veto of the SChip program, then the humor often clouds the issue. For example, one recent article in The Onion was: Reaganomics Finally Trickles Down To Area Man. This is clearly only funny if you know about trickle-down economics, and/or if you knew about the policies instituted during the Reagan presidency. Otherwise it just sounds like it should be funny.

Michael Chabon...

is a total literary stud. His writing is sublime and very cool. I just finished Yiddish Policemen's Union and I was in awe. His book is so full of yiddish idioms, and using Yiddish words in an unusual manner to replace words in the everyday lexicon. For example, he used the word 'shoyfer' to mean 'cell phone'. A shofar, as most Jews will know is an announcing tool made from a rams horn to 'call' people. However, I can't imagine most people who aren't Jewish knowing this, or being able to extrapolate this knowledge to mean slang for 'cell phone'. Chabon's novel is peppered throughout with this type of 'yiddish-ism'. I love it, it feels like being in on a really cool private joke. However, the Jewish population being what it is, probably less than 2% of the world population, I can't imagine that many people are going to be 'in' on the joke. That said, this was a great novel, and I was thrilled to have read it.

American Pastoral

I am a book queue fanatic. I pile books next to my bed, on the front of the bookshelf, on the table in the upstairs hallway. These are books I AM GOING TO READ! Sometimes I think they can act as a bunker to protect me from unwelcome intruders, ward off infection, etc. I have been thinking about starting a podcast where I interview people about what's in their book queue. Here's a link to a photo of my current book queue on flickr:
So, why am I telling you this. Because no matter how much I plan, pile and desire-- I do not actually read that much each day, maybe 20 minutes. So, I started this wonderful piece of American literature, one of the 20 best of the 20th century, and have yet to finish it. It does rock though.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

So, I haven't posted for a while and I can only hope that I remember everything I've read over the summer/autumn. I will try to post in chronological order.

So, the last Harry Potter. Here are my scattered thoughts. It was... good. Lot's of loose ends were tied. I loved (SPOILER ALERT)the way they brought Percy back into the fold. Hermione's tent/evening bag was wonderful candy for the imagination.

Harry's a really dark character, isn't he? I hope after the whole Voldemort thing he was able to lighten up a bit and get a sense of humor.

I also read the first one (to my son, out loud). Reading it out loud was fun, but I got a bit tired of explaining why at age 5 he wasn't ready for books 2-7. Truthfully I didn't think he was ready for the first one, but you pick your battles.

So, all that explanation to say: I loved the continuity with Griphook in book one. I also read book six because I couldn't remember what the heck a horcrux was, and why it was so important. So, all in all it was quite a Harry Potter summer!

The Secret of Things Lost

By Sheridan Hay.

This book is a thinly veiled piece of fiction where the most vivid character is The Strand Bookstore in Lower Manhattan. A young, very naive, woman, after losing her mother (and only family) moves from Tasmania to NYC and gets a job at a bookstore called, The Arcade. Anyone who knows The Strand will recognize it in this novel. The plot deals with a mystery surrounding the discovery of an unknown manuscript of Hermann Melville. But the plot is really just a convenient way to enable the author her descriptions of this quirky haven for crazed bibliophiles. How do I know this? Because I worked at The Strand in my early 20s and it is unmistakable, right down to the miserly strange owner. When I worked there, in 1994, employees were paid in cash in these ubiquitous, tiny, manila envelopes. Every Friday was pay day and (coincidentally) employee book buying day. The book buying day meant that employees would get 50% off of their purchases. I saw many an itchy bibliophile (which describes almost all of the employees) mumbling to themselves about rent and "Oh, I should pay my utilities, but..." as they turned over large portions of the contents of those little manila folders back to the store.

This book is wonderful. The character sketches, the descriptions of the store, and even the thriller about Melville will thrill the literature-obsessed in all Readers (and you know who you are).

National Book Awards

I forgot to write this yesterday, but Richard Powers won the National Book Award for Fiction. Why is this so exciting? Because I believe that my mom discovered him. I know that sounds ridiculous, but my mom has an uncanny ability to sniff out and recommend the most phenomenal works of fiction. Two years ago she recommended Richard Powers' novel, The Time of Our Singing, and it was one of the best books I've read in a decade. It begins in 1939 when a Germen Jewish emigre physicist goes to the Marian Anderson concert on the mall in Washington D.C. and meets a young African American woman studying to be a singer. They marry and have three children who they vow to raise beyond time, beyond race and steeped only in song. The epic follows the family through the civil rights era and to the present day. Powers won for his latest novel called The Echo Maker. I can't wait to read it!

So, kudos to mom (and Richard Powers) for her impeccable taste in contemporary fiction (and to Richard Powers for his beautiful writing).

Second Life and Asperger's Syndrome

Rebecca Nesson made a point of importance (to me, because my son has Asperger's) -- and that is that Second Life is being used as a testing ground for people with Asperger's to practice social interaction without the pressure of face-to-face meetings. Here is a blog about this called Brigadoon.

Here are some other discussions about using Second Life for this purpose.

A second shot at life.

News.blog: 'Second Life' helps Asperger's

My question about this is that many of the problems with communication for people with Asperger's have with face-to-face interactions is about reading emotional queues on the faces of others, and learning how to interact with people in group settings. Second Life will not help with these problems.

Hmmm... not totally convinced about it's importance, but I'm open.

Teaching and Learning in a Virtual World

Rebecca Nesson is teaching a class called "Cyberone: Law in the court of Public Opinion" at Harvard University. This course is offered in Second Life.

I'm not sure I understand why this class is being offered in Second Life vs. actual life or in a more conventional online setting. On the one hand I suppose it is a good experiment to see what the limits of Second Life are. But on the on the other hand I feel like we will look back on this in a few years and feel very silly about the clunkiness of the virtual experience. I sometimes wonder about these more 'meet-up' type social software experience whether we're just doing it because we can.

April 164 (a nom de librar for a person sitting next to me who shall not be named) wonders if in 100 years we'll be interacting like this in all areas of our life. Will we go to work like this? Will we see each other in real time at all?

As for me, I really like people, real people and I like to see them face-to-face and not in some virtual world. It feels too stilted and uncomfortable. I also don't like how the avatars in SL don't look like the people the represent (my own included).

Ok, now we're talking about building a virtual dance floor-- Queue BloodHound Gang-- "Da roof, da roof, da roof is on fire! We don't need no water let the M________________ Burn!.

How distracting is all this asynchronous goings on?

NerCOMP conference notes

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Social Software in the Classroom: Happy Marriage or Clash of Cultures?
Eric Gordon-- Assistant Professor of New Media

Students rely more on personal stories and anecdotal evidence. students demand that course material be directly relevant to their lives.
Napster slogan: Own Nothing; Have Everything.
The allure of access...

Aggregation, consolidation, convenience, manipulating and sharing content.

In sites like myspace and facebook students assume they are in private. The desire to interact in the 'chat' level. "look what I did!" "cool." It feels like young people are being doofuses on more levels than before and we're trying to use the same tools to engage young people and look cool while doing it. It reminds me of Amy Poehler's character in Mean Girls. she's totally into being a friend to her daughter instead of a parent and makes a fool of herself. She makes virgin margarita's for the girls and when asked if they're alcoholic she says: 'oh god no! Why do you want some?

Like I've said before, we should not be going to keggers to offer refernce services anymore than we should hang out on MySpace or Facebook.

A participant in the conference said: We (as academics) are entering their culture and asking them to particpate in ways that we would like them to participate. And they're saying: "No, you're in our culture and you must participate within our cultural framework."

I think this is a good point. We can't enter their culture and expect them to participate with our social norms.

My thought is that we should leave the MySpace and FaceBook to the kids and, if we use public social networks at all (the alternative being a WebCT closed network type of interaction) we might want to choose something more intellectual like LibraryThing or Del.icio.us.

"Truthiness"

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What is truthiness? Here's a entry in wikipedia about "truthiness" and wikipedia is referenced in the definition of truthiness. But my favorite example of "truthiness in action is this npr interview with Karl Rove, aka Bush's Brain.

How can we combat "truthiness"?

Cynacism, smarts and democracy

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First of all: "WOO HOO!!!". The dems won the house, most probably the senate (that is if George Allen will just concede already like a normal person and if Joe Liberman actually remains a democrat in name if not in deed).

But today I am thinking about how information works, both in a democracy and on the internet.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all about web 2.0 apps.

I love Flickr;

I have a Second Life avitar who is considerably more attractive than I am in my first life;

I am addicted to my bloglines account, watch youtube, and love wikipedia.

BUT I was just reading this article by Nicholas Lemann from the New Yorker called Amateur Hour.

And while the New Yorker is soooo old school media and the article is so three months ago I am trying to work on ideas for a class that I am teaching today about how to evaluate information on the web.

So, in addition to the million thoughts that came to my mind, you see I am such a quick thinker (insert sarcastic emoticon here), and I'm so hip (ibid) I even have my own blog... I did a little experiment.

I checked the front pages of three well known news outlets/aggregators and here is what I came up with:

The New York Times
Oh My News
AND
Digg.com

Now we know about the NY Times. Stuffy journalists, old school media, The Gray Lady

Ok, so who or what is Oh My News? Well according to it's Oh My News About Us page there's a President and CEO, a Senior Editor, a U.S. editor and untold numbers of citizen reports who work by a code of ethics.

So they're similar to actual reporters or journalists except they don't get paid and they may or may not be trained journalists.

So this is democracy, you don't have to go to school for it or get paid for it. But you still have to submit to "editorial authority". And unlike
an actual reporter you have no recourse to challenge the editorial authority. Pretty democratic.

Finally, let's take a look at www.digg.com. This is how digg.com describes itself: "Digg is all about user powered content. Every article on digg is submitted and voted on by the digg community. Share, discover, bookmark, and promote the news that's important to you!"

What's on digg.com today? The day after a major election, a change of power in our government and the dumping of the defense secretary... Well, let's see. Hmmm... South Park - Cartman continues his quest for the Nintendo Wii. The future of gaming. Interesting...

But the thing that makes me most uncomfortable is that when I first looked this morning the first article I found referring to the elections was a link to a video from youtube satirizing mid-term elections from Jon Stewart. Which, don't get me wrong, is funny. However, slightly inaccurate considering the mid term elections this time were incredibly important, hotly contested and swept out many, many incumbents. So, if you were to get your news only from digg.com what conclusions would you draw about what's going on in the world?

Seeing as we're getting our information from so many different sources, how can we make informed decisions about what we read?

Here are two ideas:

1. Get your news from a few different trusted news sources. Given the number of news sources, this can be overwhelming so I use a news reader or aggrigator to put it all in one place. See: my bloglines account

and

2. Apply consistent criteria to all information. How do we do this? Well I'm gonna show you...

So, what's my conclusion about all of this? Sure there's great new media-- I'm all jigg-y (insert old person using new slang emoticon here) with great new media-- slashdot and youtube, and great old media (I love the NYTimes book review section no matter how pretentious! And there is also old crap and newer crap. The only thing that can help you filter all of this information is by using your smarts, keeping an open mind and applying consistent standards to all information no matter how you ingest it!

My next post-- truthiness.

I do hope Cartman gets his wii....

Election Day!

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It's election day. We get a chance to change the future. Max, Lisa and I will be going to vote together, The Levheim voting block! Even thought Max is only 5, he has come with either Lisa or I to vote in every election since his birth. When Lisa took him to vote in the primary in September he wanted to set up a voting booth of his own when he got home. He got a ballot and voted for everyone so that none of the circles would be blank, we tried to explain that this strategy might be problematic in an actual voting situation, but he'd rather be symmetrical than vote strategically. Who can blame him, he's 5! Happy voting.

del.icio.us conference

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To see some of the cool things that I learned about, check out my del.icio.us bookmarks about this conference

Dartmouth October Conference-- Cool Tools and New Technologies

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I am sitting at the Dartmouth biomedical library Cool Tools and New Technologies conference. It's very fun, and I love talking about del.icio.us, Second Life, blogging, RSS, podcasting, etc. BUT Roy Tennant is talking about using Second Life for meeting our users where they are. I'm not sure if it makes sense to follow our users everywhere just because we can. I mean we know they go to keg parties, but we're not going to follow them there to offer reference services. Are we?

Other thoughts-- Meredith Farkas idea: Using wiki as an internal tool for communication, use: bad behavior plugin—looks at the behavior of the poster and decides if it’s a spambot or a person.

Batteries running low, more later. But just a thought-- if RSS feeds are supposed to make our lives so simple, why do people read so many of them?!