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Blogs about: Books

As any book lover knows, there’s nothing quite so amazing as reading a book you simply can’t put down. For many of us, the love affair starts early, a la one fish, two fish. Then we get older, perhaps going through a vampires-and-romance phase (sure, today’s teens have Twilight, but teens of the 90s had Interview with the Vampire). And don’t forget the power of the magical wizard epic or an addictive biography. Fantasy or reality, reading is an indulgence that’s very good for you — the United Nations credits literacy with all sorts of important things, including ”ensuring sustainable development, peace and democracy.”

Today's Featured Posts
Thursday, Sep 2, 2010
More from this author
Seoul Search
BuYousef.net 2 days ago

Some of my readers were expecting photos of the Lake District (Cumbria) by now, but my holiday was deferred a week and I ended up in London instead.  The reason was an unplanned business trip for an urgent negotiation in Seoul.  Work-wise the trip didn’t go as well as we had hoped; but I was glad to use the opportunity to see the place. I only spent two days there, and they were enough to leave with a very positive impression of Seoul. I arrived early evening.  My first surprise was how developed the city is.  The impressively organised airport, the fantastic roads, and the above view from my hotel room.  I knew Korea is developed, but my ignorance of how developed it really is evaporated within the first hour.  I didn’t have much time, but having read the Lonely Planet guide on the flight over, I couldn’t wait to step out of the hotel for a stroll. It was too late to see anything else, and I had an early morning meeting the next day.  This was a great start to the tr

Review: The Facebook Effect
Sarcastic Mister Know It All 6 days ago More from this author

I tend to write about Facebook quite often on this blog. Part of the reason is that you can’t avoid mentioning Facebook in one way or another these days given its ubiquity. Another part of the reason is that, honestly, I’m a big fan of Facebook and what it’s been able to accomplish. I thought I should disclose the latter before my review of David Kirkpatrick’s The Facebook Effect, which was released earlier this year and touted as the “official” book on Facebook (Kirkpatrick had direct access to many involved in Facebook’s early history, while 2009 book The Accidental Billionaires was written without Facebook cooperation and is now the basis for the much maligned upcoming movie, The Social Network). The first thing I’ll say about the book is that I agree with many of the criticisms NYT columnist David Pogue made in his review of the book a couple of months ago. Namely, although Kirkpatrick attempts to portray Facebook’s story as obj

Today’s Posts in Books
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Flat On My Back...
abra ebner

I feel old today… http://tinylittlesandra.blogspot.com/2008/12/so-i-guess-its-about-time.html I feel old because I hurt my back doing something, who knows what, maybe golf, gardening, sitting and editing too much. Either way now I’m on my back in bed with a cat that kicks me in his sleep and a back brace. I guess it’s called Sciatica and with this kind of pain, giving birth without an epidural is starting to sound good in comparison. Anyhow, this really BITES.

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My London Library: No 2 - London's Bridges
The Great Wen

Title London’s Bridges by Peter Matthews (2008, Shire). Cost Free. Bought from Author. Genre Straight history. The endearingly honest opening line says all you need to know about this historical overview of London’s crossing points. ‘In 1938,’ Matthews reports, ‘an article in the Times observed that: ‘The people of London have a reputation for taking no interest in their bridges’.’ I bet the publisher loved reading that. It’s a lovely book though, wordy but not too long, nicely illustrated and ruthlessly factual. Bonus points for including non-road bridges such as Grosvenor Railway Bridge. There’s some great trivia to be found: ‘In 1873, the Royal Humane Society set up a 24-hour ‘receiving host’ by the northern end of Waterloo Bridge, manned by a doctor who would attempt to revive any suicide victims brought to him, and in 1875 alone 21 people were saved by this method’. The author, Peter Matthews is a

Mysterious and Lovely
The Pot and How to Use It
Keeping It Real Food
Californian view: Dr. Frank goes YA
Mina Witteman - a view from a writer's residence
Darkly Dreaming Dexter
South Ayrshire Libraries Blog
The Cause for Go-Pants
Dr.SexBot's
103. Gone and Forgotten
Things That Are Rectangles
Mommy, will you read me a story?
Bajira!

wondermark, stop spying on us and recording our lives in comic form! click to embiggen From my great-grandfather on down, I come from a long line of bibliophibians.  Growing up, I frequented the local library and then, when I had my own cash, the bookstores – well, bookstore singular; I don’t recall there being more than one at the Green Tree Mall.  It seems my genetically-encoded reading tendencies have been passed along to the next generation.  ZP can already read (small words and big) and AP is well on her way (at least when she pretends to read, she has the cadence down pat).  We’ve already donated several shelves on the various bookcases around the house to their books.  Some books are hand-me-downs from their various cousins and faux-cousins.  Some can be read in the bath.  Some were gifts by people who know us and our tastes well and carefully choose books with more thought behind the selection than “this is in the kid’s section so it should be good

The Thunderbolt Kid
RamblingRuolngul

I was introduced to Bill Bryson by my daughter when she brought home “The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid” from her school library. It was/is probably the most hilarious memoir I have read. I have since bought and gone on to read quite a few of his other books, each one as good, or even better, than the last. From ‘A Walk in the Woods’, ‘Neither Here Nor There’, ‘Down Under’, ‘A Short History of Nearly Everything’ and ‘Notes From A Big Country’ to ‘Notes From A Small Island’, which I am currently reading, Bryson’s particular brand of irreverent-but-at-the-same-time-serious writing/humour has had me in splits for many an hour. Since I’ve not updated my blog for quite a few months, I thought I might as well share a few lines from the latest Bryson I am reading. These are lines from ‘Notes From A Small Island’ which, in 2003, in conjunction with World Book Day, was chosen by voters in UK as the book that best sums up British identity and the state of the nation. The lines I am shari

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Malaysia Everyday On Sales's

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Reading in August
Wholesome Womanhood

I read several good books in August…not as many as I read in July but still a fairly decent number. I read five books…two mysteries and three biographies. 1. Still Growing by Kirk Cameron – This was an excellent book and one I would definitely recommend. Cameron’s writing style is funny and very easy to read. He is also an example of being willing to stand up for God-honoring principles during his acting career (after he was saved). Cameron is also very honest about his own short-comings. As I mentioned before, Cameron is a very funny person. He had me laughing out loud on an occasion or two. 2. Nomad by Ayaan Hirsi Ali – Again, an excellent biography but not one I would recommend across the board. Ali is an atheist; the appeal to her books however is that she grew up Muslim and then escaped to a life in the West when her father arranged a marriage for her. Ali writes compellingly about the dangers in Islam. Because of her openness and clear, level-headed

Where did the summer go?
Reflections on Daily Life

You can tell it’s fall because what used to be a five-minute commute from home to campus now takes twenty to thirty minutes, since 31,000 University students descended on our fair city. These days if you arrive at the office past 7:45 a.m., you must park on the roof of the garage because all the spaces on the first four levels are taken. If you decide later to take a walk during your morning break, you must make your way through crowds of sorority pledges who stroll four abreast on the sidewalks, wearing their look-alike dresses and non-sensible shoes.  And you must dodge the students who careen along the sidewalks on their bicycles, as well as the slow-moving students who text while walking between classes. At lunch time, when you go to meet your friends at Shakespeare’s Pizza, expect to spend most of the hour standing in line waiting for veggie pizza slices to come out of the oven. On the plus side, most of the construction on the steam tunnel that runs underground between the power

Digital Kids
Geraldboy's Blog

I like this book, it only cost RM3. 00.  it’s talking about science and different scientific tools; every new chapter come with new stories.

For the love of books!
You are here.

If I were ever to write a book like Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love, it would probably be called Read, Read, Read, which I admit doesn’t sound as exciting, but I think it would be, but that’s the bookworm in me speaking. This morning, I managed to do a little in-bed reading while everyone else slept. I got started on Proust and the Squid (2007) by Maryanne Wolf – a scientific take on reading for the everyman. Reading is something we take for granted but is actually the result of over 2,000 years of cultural evolution. Reading, more than any other invention, changed the world forever. I’ve read Jared Diamond’s, Guns, Germs and Steels (1997) and so obviously other factors have played a part in how society looks today. Reading and writing are closely linked. Both Diamond and Wolf go into detail about the parallel development of several writing systems. I still have to read Wolf’s chapter on writing systems to refresh my memory. Wolf quoted a p

Harry told me, Work is Personal
David S. Cohen - Left Brain, Right Brain
Perspective
Wading Through Words

I don’t know how much truth there is in the saying that you grow wiser as you grow older, but I definitely know of one thing that never stops changing (no, by that I don’t mean your nose which never stops growing – ack!!) as long as you live. It is your perspective; your viewpoint. It keeps changing along with you whether you want it to or not. For better or for worse. A few months ago, for kicks and out of curiosity, I went to some trouble and finally got hold of DVDs of a couple of movies that I used to watch again and again as a teen. I was fully prepared to not really drown in the magic of those movies the same way I did way back then, but I thought that I’d at least be able to enjoy a few carefree hours of strolling down memory lane. Little did I know that I’d end up very close to tears. No, not the joyful, oh-how-much-I-missed-you tears, but fat, hot man-am-I-bored-or-what tears. No, I’m not demeaning the feelings or the emotions I’d experienced as a pre-adult . It’s just that I’