Thursday, February 26, 2009

Books, Readers and Beyond: #54 Social Networking Through Books

Exercise One: I have never been a member of a book club. I think I would rather join a book club in person rather than online.

Exercise Two: My first book club topic would be cookbooks. I went to the website Reading Group Choices and found a book titled Wine by the Book! by Laurie Foster or The Sipping Point: A Crash Course in Wine by the same author. Topics would include food pairings, general tips and awkward wine moments. On the same website I saw another book titled Music by the Book by Tom Moon and thought this would make a interesting book discussion. He also wrote 1000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die. It would be great fun to read the book and listen to all of the recordings and discuss the music.

Exercise Three: I searched for Robert Ludlum's Bourne Identity in Shelfari and in Goodreads. The ratings were the same but one person in Goodreads only gave it two stars rather than the five in the other two social networking sights. What I find surprising is that these sights exist at all. This is not the way I search for something to read.

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Books, Readers and Beyond: #53 Finding Books Online

Exercise One: There were four bookstores that I found online close to our branch in Tomball. None of them had a website. Three of them sold just textbooks. The three were: Pritchards Textbooks in Magnolia, In & Out Textbooks right across the highway from the campus and The Book Attic in Tomball which deals in antique books. It is located on the main street in Tomball.
Exercise Two: I found a paperback version of Varjak Paw by S. F. Said for $6.99 on the Barnes and Noble website. Barnes and Noble did not have any audio books of the four childrens books I mentioned in the previous post. I searched HCPL for an ebook. I found none of these titles as an ebook. The only author that had ebooks was R. L. Stine and The Headless Ghost was not one of them.
Exercise Three: I attempted to download a book on my computer at work but I was not able to. Since training is a work requirement, I thought this might be possible. I attempted to download a book at home and was unable to install the software on my home PC. I would rather not download the additional software on my home computer anyway. I have read articles on the computer and prefer print. I like the idea of holding a book not a kindle.

Friday, February 6, 2009

Books,Readers and Beyond: # 52 What to Read

1. I searched Novelist Plus for a read alike to Robert Ludlum. Novelist Plus recommended several authors:Jack Higgins,Web Griffin,Vince Flynn,Ken Follett and Kyle Mills to name a few. Who Should I Read Next listed Jeff Harding, Allistar Maclain, Will Cuppy, Lawerence Block,Frederick Forsyth,Ian Fleming,Larry Bond,Ted Bell and Craig Thomas . I preferred Novelist Plus to Who Should I Read Next. I could not pull up a read alike at all on Library Booklists and Bibliographies. Fiction L Booklists came up with Richard Condon and John LeCarre. Some of these authors I have read but still none compare to Robert Ludlum who sadly died in 2001 but I am glad to say left several outlines for new ideas.
2. The two books I found for the fourth grade animal lover are:
Varjak Paw by author S.F. Said about a purebred pampered cat who leaves home guided by his legendary Mesopotomian ancestry, Jaal. Varkak Paw sets out to save his family from an evil gentile man who took their Contessa away.
Standing Up to Mr. O by author Claudia Mills tells about twelve year old Maggie comes to dread biology class because her favorite teacher insists she dissect a worm. This assignment awakens her to the issue of animal rights.
Two ghost story books for her thirteen year old brother are:
The Headless Ghost by R. L. Stine: Loving Hill House an enormous tourist attraction that is reputed to be haunted by the ghost of a 13 year old headless boy. Duane and Stephanie decide to search for the ghost's head and get the biggest scare of their lives.
Ghost Town: Seven Ghostly Stories by Joan Lowery Nixon: a collection of stories about eerie encounters in various ghost towns across the United States. Each story is accompanied by an afterword about the actual town on which the story is based.
3. To find read alikes for Dean Koontz I went first to Novelist Plus. Greg Bear's Darwin's Radio was recommended as the same suspense/horror genre and Dan Simmon's Summer of Night, both were said to have sympathetic characters in horrific situations. Who Should I Read next recommended Richard Layman's One Rainy Night and Charles Grant's The Millennium Quartet continuing the religious theme of good verses evil.
4.Novelist Plus lists the series title as Sons of the Lioness. The series titles are:
#1 Alanna:the First Adventure, #2 In the Hand of the Godess, #3 The Woman Who Rides like a Man and #4 Lioness Rampant. All continue Alanna the female warrior's journey of saving her country from disscention and hostile magic.