Thug Notes

Ohhhhh a double post today. I'm on a roll. Hopefully a ciabata roll.

Yo check this shit out.

THUG NOTES

I found this on BookRiot earlier today and I have been trying to pimp it out everwhere.

Thug Notes is ganster style Cliff Notes for classic literature. The site was just launched in May and it needs a little bit more support to go main stream.

The above link is to the website and from there you can go to YouTube and FaceBook for links and more information.

Watch the videos and laugh your ass off.

Then take a reluctant reader and have them watch a video and then put the actual book in their hands and see what happens.

I am down with whatever it takes to get people to read.

Inferno by Dan Brown

Yes if course I read it.
 I even pre-ordered it. It arrived the Tuesday before I left on my European vacation. I took it with me and carted it all over England and Paris and I didn't crack it open once. Some vacations are not made for reading.

I picked it up after I got back and read the whole thing in about 3 days. It's a Dan Brown novel. Even if it isn't the best story it does have great pacing and action making it a page turner.

I liked this one, but it's still no Da Vinci Code. This one investigates Dante's Inferno and how a madman has hidden clues over the city relating to the book and his horrible plague he is planning on realeasing into the public. It did seem a little bit forced. If he really is a madman why would he advertise what he is going to do and make everyone run around on a treasure hunt? It just seemed a little far fetched. Other than that it was very educational. I learned a lot about Italy and about Dante and art. We expect that from a Dan Brown novel and this one didn't disappoint on the educational front. The chases and close calls were very Jerry Bruckheimer and redundant.

What I loved most about this story was the end when the plague is actually released. (Sorry for the spoiler) The place that was chosen was perfect and it really made me think and want to visit the real location. What really blew my mind was the type of plague that was released. I never would have guessed and then that is what stuck with me after I had read the book. The aftermath of the plague would be way more fascinating than this book was. It needs a 900 page book along the lines of The Stand or The Passage.

So if the criteria of a good book is one that makes you think, than this is a winner. It was worth the reading of all the boring chase scenes to get to the juicy science fiction stuff at the end.

Down the Great Unknown

I live about 70 miles south of the Grand Canyon. It is a part of our lives. My kids take field trips up there every year. We all give directions to lost tourists on how to get to the Canyon. There are river runners among us, and guides and tourists and preservationists, and geologists. The Grand Canyon may as well be a part of Flagstaff, it's that intertwined with our daily lives.

Sure I've been there. It's cool the first time you go, but the more visits and the more relatives you schlep up there the more the place just starts to look like just a big hole. You go up there, you look over the edge, you drive home.

The last time I was up there in February I bought a couple of books that looked interesting. I figured if I am going to live so close to this natural wonder I should know something about it. I got this book shown above, Down the Great Unknown by Edward Dolnick and also the Penguin edition of John Wesley Powell's own biographical description of his trip. I tried the first hand account, but it was not for me. There was little set up and context to the journey and it was, as I learned later, a very one-sided somewhat fanciful account of the trip that Powell had not in fact written during the expedition, but written several years later from his memory. His journal at the time of the trip consisted mainly of one sentence summaries of the mileage for the day and the number of rapids crossed.

Edward Dolnick's summary of the expedition was more comprehensive. It took information and stories from the journals of 3 men on the trip, not just Powell's. It gave background history on white water rafting, debating the way the 10 men actually went down the entire river in boats that were not made for the task. There was lots of history and context but there was also danger and literal cliffhangers to liven up the dry history.
I loved the book and I wasn't expecting to at all. I needed to know more about the place where I live and I thought this would be a great source. What I got was a greater appreciation for the great big hole that I live near. It's scary. We all know that. I see the articles in the newspaper every week. People die up there all the time. It's almost boring to hear that another person died at the canyon. My dad's cousin even fell in in the 90's and died. It's a big hole, but it's also a force of nature to be reckoned with.
This book gave me some insight on why a man, Powell, or any man in fact would want  to try and explore the biggest hole in the earth.

I highly recommend this book. It's fascinating. It teaches the history of the old west, and the history of the Grand Canyon in a way that is very accessible and understandable. History really does come alive in this book.

Perhaps the coolest thing about this book is that it made me want to explore. Yesterday I took the whole family up to put our feet in the mighty Colorado River and see a part of  John Wesley Powell's journey ourselves. It made the book come full circle for me. I am truly enlightened.

See here for the details of my trip to Lee's Ferry and the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.

The 4th in Flagstaff

Photo Courtesy of AZ Daily Sun

 

 

Tomorrow is  my very favorite holiday. There are no presents involved, no familial obligations and no religious overtones. It's all about community and BBQ.

 

I love my town. We've almost lived here for 10 years in November and it is an awesome town for the 4th of July. The parade is huge. The whole community comes out and a lot of Phoenix people come up for the ability to sit outside for more than 10 minutes. Everybody who is anybody has a float in the parade. The entire town walks by in 2 hours. I love, love, love it. It's all about getting the best spot on the parade route and then waving to all the folks you know while dressed in your very best red, white, and blue. I live for this day.

 

Tomorrow my daughter will get to walk in the parade for the very first time with her gymnastics class. She is over the moon about it. Photos soon to follow. We'll probably pick up some donuts in the am and then hang out until the parade starts at 9:00 and then cheer everyone on as they walk the parade route. Ohh I'm getting goosebumps already.

 

 

Afterwards we will be heading to a light lunch and then a showing of The Lone Ranger with the whole family. Then we head to my parents house for an afternoon BBQ.

 

Finally we'll top the day off with some illegal fireworks smuggled in from last summer in Nebraska (don't worry they are only sparklers, we don't want to spark the forest on fire), followed by beer and champagne on the back porch.

 

That is some good all American livin. I love being an American. You can have all your politics and internation issues, but to me I celebrate America by simply celebrating community, parades, BBQ and beer.

 

Book Collectorz

So I re-bought and updated my book Collectorz software. I've used this stuff before to try and catalog my vast collection of books, but I just couldn't get my stuff together to do all the books.

Here's why: I didn't have a scanner or for that fact a reliable laptop.

I've had my MacBook for a couple of years now and don't think I could ever live without it. I also have a big HP desktop for all my business stuff, but for personal perusal of the interwebs the Mac is the bees knees. I can write anywhere and now I can catalog anywhere.

I bought some cheap $30 scanner from Amazon. The Collectors software doesn't officially recognize he scanner, but it works perfectly. I can single scan, or batch scan, but when batch searching there will be some titles that Collectorz does not recognize and then you have to stop and figure out book has a wack barcode. It's more  tedious to single scan, but more accurate.

So far I've only done about 250 titles in my office and those are just the loose ones not on shelves in my "ToBeRead" pile. I'm anxious to get it all done, but it is a lot of work. After I've scanned them in I have to go back and catagorize the books by genre. The software will select the subjects, but you have to choose the genre. It's actually more fun that way. I can split all my books into just 3 genres or 30 and it will still keep the subject headings regardless of what genre I choose.

 It will definitley take a while to get everything just as a want it, but hopefully this will keep me from buying books multiple times. It seems whenever I'm looking for a classic book I run out and buy a copy and then find I already have 2 copies in various parts of the house. It's a summer long project and I only have a couple of more weeks to go.

I'll spend a little bit more time exploring Book Collectorz and the ins-and-outs of the software and really get a great listing of my entire library. Ohhh it just gives me goosebumps to think about it... lists and lists of perfectly catagorized books that I already own! Oh the joys of being a librarian.

Here is the link to Book Collectorz .

July 1 2013 Aquisitions

Toady I took a little me time to visit the local used bookstore, Bookmans. I needed a break from the kids and the household chores (today I washed all the couch coushins) and the bookstore seemed like the perfect escape.
Whenever my Amazon cart gets a little too full I check out the library, of course, but then also Bookmans. I don't like the pressure of library books sometimes. I would rather keep the book forever and read at my leisure.

The Bonfire of the Vanities - Tom Wolfe  (1987)
I'm hoping this is the ultimate 80's period book. I want to be immersed in the excess that I missed out on since I was only a kid.

Harvard Yard - William Martin  (2003)
This was an impulse buy. I love Boston and this book promises to combine history, architecture, and libraries in the search for a lost Shakesperean play.

The Golden Notebook - Doris Lessing  (1962)
I recently read that this was one of the 100 best novels of all time and I had never heard of it, so of course it went into my Amazon cart. It seems like something I might like, combining something vaguely about women and mental illness. I could be wrong, but I'll have to read it to find out.

I was disappointed to find that there were no copies of American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis or Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne.

I headed over to the history section and picked up some awesome biographies. My recent trip to England has me reading up on English history, so:

The Wives of Henry VIII   by Antonia Fraser
The Life of Elizabeth I   by Alison Weir
Queen Victoria   by Christopher Hibbert

Will I have tiem to read these this summer? Probably not. I've got about 14 books ahead of these that are in my MUST read pile.

Theodore Boone: The Activist

This is the 4th in the series of Theodore Boone and I've read every one. Theo is a cool kid who gets involved in almost everything in his town. Every big event in town seems to involve Theo or his parents law firm is some way. In this story Theo gets involved in a real estate development situation that will take one of his best friend's family farm to build a bypass around their town. His parents want him to stay out of politics, but Theo wants to fight for what he feels is right. Overall Theo's a good kid, but he snoops and has squirrely was of finding out information that he needs that will help save a friend or advance his cause. There are a lot of moral issues involved, which makes these books great for kids. It helps them distinguish right from wrong and how to act in extraordinary circumstances. Sometimes they can seem a bit dry before all the bits of the story come together, but it's worth it in the end to stick with it.
They seem a bit much for most of my 5th graders. I have the first two in the series  at the library and they rarely get checked out even though I recommend them heavily. When I mention the word 'lawyer' kids seem to stop being interested. It could be they are just too young for the series yet. If I could just get one kid to finish one book in the series I think word of mouth will take over and make these popular some day. I just need to find the right kid.
All the books in the series have issues that are serious, but still understandable and age appropriate for kids. I think they will make kids think about issues that they might not be aware of. I will keep reading them as long as John Grisham keeps writing them.