So...I read almost 75 books this year, although a lot of them were in the Young Reader or Young Adult categories, meaning I could read more in less time. I am just partway through The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, and loving it so much that I felt I had to create a Top Ten list for the year in order to show how good it is. Then, I went to my LibraryThing tag "2008" to choose the rest of the list. Magically, it came out to exactly ten books - no padding, nothing left out. Without further ado, here they are, divided into fiction and non-fiction, in alphabetical order by author:
Best Fiction read in 2008: (None of which were published in 2008!)
Andrea Camilleri
Il colore del sole: romanzo (2007)
I loved this for the fun of the idea and the language, and because I love art and I love Caravaggio, and I love Camilleri's other books.
Michael Chabon
The Yiddish Policeman's Union: a novel (2007)
I loved this because it was so funny that I laughed out loud, and I love the ideas of alternate reality and five minutes in the future, and I love a smart-ass, which would be not only most of the characters, but Chabon himself.
Kate DiCamillo
The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane (2003)
This book I loved because the language was beautiful, and that is rare enough in books intended for grown-ups, let alone those intended for children. I cried with my child's teacher over some turns the story takes.
Barbara Kingsolver
The Poisonwood Bible: a novel (1998)
I am really late coming to the Kingsolver party, but this is an absolutely exquisite book that deserves its reputation.
Markus Zusak
The Book Thief (2005)
This is the book that I loved so much it inspired me to rank the best reads of the year. A well-documented subject covered in an odd and moving way. Funnily, not really a book about books.
Best Non-fiction read in 2008
Pierre Bayard
How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read (2007)
Awesome! Knowing what the book means in our culture is more than half of knowing the book. Nobody reads it all. How freeing. How fun!
Daoud Hari
The Translator: A Tribesman's Memoir of Darfur (2008)
So sad and so simply written, the author's voice is that of a child unable to dissemble. An incredible one-two punch to read in the same year as Kingsolver's Poisonwood Bible.
Chip Heath and Dan Heath
Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die (2007)
Such an interesting analysis of marketing, which is a front-of-mind topic with me, always. Lots of cool ideas.
Daniel Pink
A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future (2006)
I am glad I read this before the shifting in the world economy turned into a scary roller-coaster. The changes are fundamental, and still evolving. This book gives a kind of paradigm through which to understand how it will be going.
Friday, December 26, 2008
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Opera Manga - Awesome updates
Well...here's a cool thing. The Vancouver Opera publishes on-line manga mini-versions of their opera season! I was so thrilled to see La Boheme in their line-up because my kids watched the Metropolitan Opera HD broadcast version last spring. I can't wait to put it in their hands, but not before I read it over.
The mangas can be found on the delightful Vancouver Opera blog: the link is at the top of my music links list. Go to "read" and look at the bottom of the roll-out links. The blog itself is fun and loose with lots of manga and other pop culture references. Where opera absolutely can and must go to stay with us in our time. The blogger sent me a note to say that they will soon be publishing their opera mangas in a collection, and I am already lining up to get it.
From the Vancouver Opera blog I was led to the Opera Chic blog, which pretty much says it all. (It's the next item on the music links list.) There is a current way to talk about opera, and to position it. It's just that very few opera companies are very agile with it. Not to mention that everything costs money. The Catch-22 is that you have raise money to develop these media to generate revenue to attract people in order raise money and pay for the media you are developing to attract people...
I gave up searching bookstores for P Craig Russell's The Magic Flute and finally ordered it. It is way cool, too. Not only is interesting to me, but my kids pick it up and riffle through the pages looking for the parts that they recognize. They don't really know that opera is meant to be old-fashioned and uncool. They know it to be contemporary and fun.
It's amazingly satisfying to have a place to muse and wonder and have answers generated through the ether in such a direct way.
The marigold wonders nervously:
Is it actually magic?
The mangas can be found on the delightful Vancouver Opera blog: the link is at the top of my music links list. Go to "read" and look at the bottom of the roll-out links. The blog itself is fun and loose with lots of manga and other pop culture references. Where opera absolutely can and must go to stay with us in our time. The blogger sent me a note to say that they will soon be publishing their opera mangas in a collection, and I am already lining up to get it.
From the Vancouver Opera blog I was led to the Opera Chic blog, which pretty much says it all. (It's the next item on the music links list.) There is a current way to talk about opera, and to position it. It's just that very few opera companies are very agile with it. Not to mention that everything costs money. The Catch-22 is that you have raise money to develop these media to generate revenue to attract people in order raise money and pay for the media you are developing to attract people...
I gave up searching bookstores for P Craig Russell's The Magic Flute and finally ordered it. It is way cool, too. Not only is interesting to me, but my kids pick it up and riffle through the pages looking for the parts that they recognize. They don't really know that opera is meant to be old-fashioned and uncool. They know it to be contemporary and fun.
It's amazingly satisfying to have a place to muse and wonder and have answers generated through the ether in such a direct way.
The marigold wonders nervously:
Is it actually magic?
Saturday, November 8, 2008
I LOVE TAGGING
I am always looking for a clear and rational explanation of why tagging works and what makes it different from cataloging. I finally have a good link to offer with a great essay about the advantages and disadvantages of tagging. (See link to THE HIVE MIND under FUN, COOL, FUNNY.)
I feel the tagging possibilities expanding around me, and I want to go with it.
Now I want to tag in private: I want to tag my photos, instead of filing them in multiple places, but in iphoto, not on a public site like flickr. I want to do a journal, with tags, so I can look up when I did something or what was great at dinner, or blah, blah, blah..."Put it in your blog" says my 10-yr-old. Good idea, except I don't want to bore the world with journalling.
I want to tag in private.
I want to tag in public, too. I love LibraryThing - book thoughts are shareable; I love last.fm - I love to see other people's music ideas and groupings. I don't want to see other people's photos, or their personal journals, anymore than I want to show mine.
I want to tag in private. (I even want other people to tag in private, but that's a whole other thing.)
The marigold wonders nervously:
And what else is good for tagging? I feel like getting these great ideas should be easy, but it is like pulling teeth.
I feel the tagging possibilities expanding around me, and I want to go with it.
Now I want to tag in private: I want to tag my photos, instead of filing them in multiple places, but in iphoto, not on a public site like flickr. I want to do a journal, with tags, so I can look up when I did something or what was great at dinner, or blah, blah, blah..."Put it in your blog" says my 10-yr-old. Good idea, except I don't want to bore the world with journalling.
I want to tag in private.
I want to tag in public, too. I love LibraryThing - book thoughts are shareable; I love last.fm - I love to see other people's music ideas and groupings. I don't want to see other people's photos, or their personal journals, anymore than I want to show mine.
I want to tag in private. (I even want other people to tag in private, but that's a whole other thing.)
The marigold wonders nervously:
And what else is good for tagging? I feel like getting these great ideas should be easy, but it is like pulling teeth.
LibraryThing Early Review
Tales from Outer Suburbia
by Shaun Tan
This is an incredibly enticing book. My kids started reading the stories immediately, and I have been glancing though it looking at the illustrations. Can't wait to start the stories.
Twenty-four hours later, I too, have read this delightful book. It is whimsical and surreal and slightly melancholy. It is absolutely OK for kids, yet absolutely more subtle and sophisticated than almost anything I have ever seen offered to children.
I feel the need to check out Tan's other books in order to find out if this is his "look" or if he learned ephemera from Nick Bantock's book URGENT 2ND CLASS.
The question is: why did it require funding to get it published in his native Australia, and even more, why did it require so many levels of funding to be published in Canada, since he is not Canadian and the book was printed in China. Surely this is a book that could and will sell purely on merit, with enormous shelf appeal.
In any case, my suggestion is get a copy and spend an hour with it. It will take you to a unique and wonderful headspace: another score of the offbeat from the LT Early Reveiwer's program.
by Shaun Tan
This is an incredibly enticing book. My kids started reading the stories immediately, and I have been glancing though it looking at the illustrations. Can't wait to start the stories.
Twenty-four hours later, I too, have read this delightful book. It is whimsical and surreal and slightly melancholy. It is absolutely OK for kids, yet absolutely more subtle and sophisticated than almost anything I have ever seen offered to children.
I feel the need to check out Tan's other books in order to find out if this is his "look" or if he learned ephemera from Nick Bantock's book URGENT 2ND CLASS.
The question is: why did it require funding to get it published in his native Australia, and even more, why did it require so many levels of funding to be published in Canada, since he is not Canadian and the book was printed in China. Surely this is a book that could and will sell purely on merit, with enormous shelf appeal.
In any case, my suggestion is get a copy and spend an hour with it. It will take you to a unique and wonderful headspace: another score of the offbeat from the LT Early Reveiwer's program.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
A Grade 5 book club: is it possible?
I have been working on an idea: can Gr 5 kids have meaningful book club discussions about books?
I have been reading along with my kid, now in Gr 5, for fun, for a couple of years. Now that I am thinking about this, I am trying to read with a different kind of attention.
The issues are these:
1) the books put into their hands are just about all pre-approved for content and values;
2) the books are largely plot- and character-driven, which does not leave much room for "literary discussion";
3) there is a bit of a herd mentality in their critical thought - everyone tends to like the book or the character, and they are still so righteous at this age that all wrong-doing is easily disapproved of.
Then, I would kind of want to avoid the "middle school" trend, which is funny but not really mostly literary, and I would want to avoid "issue" books, which are represented in the curriculum.
Then, as my sister, the school librarian, says "You are asking them to do extra work!" No. I think they do the work already, but without articulating it to themselves. I would like to turn their attention to the devices that have lead them to their conclusions. Wouldn't that be cool?
Finally, it would be most interesting to introduce books that most if not all have not yet read. (The hardest challenge in a group of keen readers, I think.)
So...how can one find books that are suitable in content yet of enough literary interest to offer food for discussion? Books that would lead kids to the discovery of imagery, allusion, ambiguity.
My thoughts on possible books are these:
1) a manga Shakespeare?
2) a Blue Balliet novel, with it's leit-motifs, and references to other arts, in addition to plot and character
3) Heck by Dale Basye, for the concept of allusions, and the pointer to Dante (despite its middle school orientation)
4) The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo, as a retelling of The Velveteen Rabbit - a nod at the continuity of artistic ideas
5) The Hundred Dresses by Elizabeth Estes - a vivid book about standing by a person in need without helping
6) Tales from Outer Suburbia by Shaun Tan - a new book that offers a taste of the subtle and surreal
I am wondering about Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome (mentioned in a Kit Pearson book).
What I would really like to find are some books that really use imagery and poetic construction, but I have not yet thought of any good possibilities.
Please send your suggestions.
The marigold wonders nervously:
Would it be fun? Would it be FUN?
I have been reading along with my kid, now in Gr 5, for fun, for a couple of years. Now that I am thinking about this, I am trying to read with a different kind of attention.
The issues are these:
1) the books put into their hands are just about all pre-approved for content and values;
2) the books are largely plot- and character-driven, which does not leave much room for "literary discussion";
3) there is a bit of a herd mentality in their critical thought - everyone tends to like the book or the character, and they are still so righteous at this age that all wrong-doing is easily disapproved of.
Then, I would kind of want to avoid the "middle school" trend, which is funny but not really mostly literary, and I would want to avoid "issue" books, which are represented in the curriculum.
Then, as my sister, the school librarian, says "You are asking them to do extra work!" No. I think they do the work already, but without articulating it to themselves. I would like to turn their attention to the devices that have lead them to their conclusions. Wouldn't that be cool?
Finally, it would be most interesting to introduce books that most if not all have not yet read. (The hardest challenge in a group of keen readers, I think.)
So...how can one find books that are suitable in content yet of enough literary interest to offer food for discussion? Books that would lead kids to the discovery of imagery, allusion, ambiguity.
My thoughts on possible books are these:
1) a manga Shakespeare?
2) a Blue Balliet novel, with it's leit-motifs, and references to other arts, in addition to plot and character
3) Heck by Dale Basye, for the concept of allusions, and the pointer to Dante (despite its middle school orientation)
4) The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo, as a retelling of The Velveteen Rabbit - a nod at the continuity of artistic ideas
5) The Hundred Dresses by Elizabeth Estes - a vivid book about standing by a person in need without helping
6) Tales from Outer Suburbia by Shaun Tan - a new book that offers a taste of the subtle and surreal
I am wondering about Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome (mentioned in a Kit Pearson book).
What I would really like to find are some books that really use imagery and poetic construction, but I have not yet thought of any good possibilities.
Please send your suggestions.
The marigold wonders nervously:
Would it be fun? Would it be FUN?
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