PhD in LIS
Lower East Side librarian - Sun, 10/27/2013 - 6:48pm
author: Lingel, Jessa
Last year the note on Jessa's copy of my Winter Solstice Shout Out zine asked if she was going to make a dissertation procrastination zine. On the first page of Jessa's new zine she answers me, "Yes, Jenna. Yes, I am."
reviewdate: Aug 13 2013
Lower East Side librarian - Sun, 10/27/2013 - 12:26pm
author: Rowell, Rainbow
Rowell's first book is an adult romance novel. Yeah, a romance novel (set in Iowa), but for a geek set. Since I don't read many romance novels, outside of paranormal fiction, I don't know what they're like, but can they possibly be as smart and funny as this?
reviewdate: Oct 24 2013 isn: 978-0-525-95198-8
I Am My Own Stereotype: the My Small Diary Collection
Lower East Side librarian - Fri, 10/25/2013 - 8:58pm
author: Green, Delaine Derry
I was DEE-lighted to receive Delaine's book in the mail, a signed donation from the author to the Barnard Library. Somehow I had never read her zines, but I'd seen her always-adorable comics in A.j. Michel's compilations and maybe others. I always meant to… Well, her My Small Diary zines seem to be out of print, but you can still buy Not My Small Diary. Back to being delighted, the MSD collection is comprised of nearly a hundred one-page comics, similar to a daily comic. What's different, aside from the fact that the comics aren't dated to a single day (they're generally labeled with a season and year), is that the four to six images on each page aren't linear or even necessarily connected. They're more like a handful of illustrated Facebook status updates. (Forgive me for saying that.)
Note that the image above pictures page 45. If you're up on your memes know that the first sentence on that page describes your sex life. "What will YOUR fortune fish say?"
reviewdate: Oct 21 2013
LCSH & SACO Month 9: In which LC stakes out Cake pops, Linked data and Police lineups
Highlights from the September 2013 SACO editorial meeting and LCSH monthly list.
Cooked Seed
Lower East Side librarian - Mon, 10/21/2013 - 9:10am
author: Min, Anchee
You may recall that I was enthusiastic about Min's first memoir, Red Azalea and her novel Wild Ginger. I expected to like Cooked Seed twice as hard. It starts more or less where Azalea leaves off--at Min's emigration to the US. Somehow, even after the stories of Cultural Revolution privations, cruelties and humiliations in the first part, Seed is harder to take. I guess because you can blame Min's problems on her, or maybe because you have to blame some of her problems on the United States.
reviewdate: Oct 19 2013 isn: 978-1-60819-424-7
Identical twin Cather (sister's name is Wren--get it?) writes popular slash fiction in the world of a Harry Potter like series where the lovers are the Harry-like character Simon Snow and his enemy, a Draco Malfoy stand-in Baz (who is also a vampire). Cath is also an introverted college freshman and virgin from Omaha at college in Lincoln. Her twin sister/best friend is blowing her off, their estranged mother is poking her head into their lives, and their dad is fragile. Plus there are some boy issues, what might be an anxiety disorder and a little schoolwork to worry about.
author: Fowler, Karen Joy
Fowler's first-person narration is like a lucid dream. The protagonist, Rosemary Cooke, is caught up, but self-aware and conscious of various versions of the past and present. This is kind of a spoiler, but if you read the book jacket you'll find out the same thing--that Rose spent the first five years of her life with a chimp for a sister. The two (two months apart in age) were raised together until the chimp, Fern, was sent away.
Quotations:
Fair warning, as it turned out--kindergarten is all about learning which parts of you are welcome at school and which are not.
I can't believe that being called Fredericka my whole life wouldn't have taken a toll. I can't believe it wouldn't have mind-bent me like a spoon. (Not that I haven't been mind-bent.)
"When I get married," I say, "I want the wedding to be in a car in a car wash."
When I run the world, librarians will be exempt from tragedy. Even their smaller sorrows will last only for as long as you can take out a book.
Paper Life, a
author: O'Neal, Tatum
I love all of Tatum O'Neal's child-star movies and her in them--especially Paper Moon (well, yeah, the book was better, but what can you do?), The Bad News Bears and Little Darlings. O'Neal's autobio fills us in on the horror behind her success. The nine-year-old youngest-ever winner of an Academy Award went to the ceremony sans her selfish, druggie parents. If this tell-all is even half-true, O'Neal's parents, stepmother Farrah Fawcett and husband John McEnroe were serious douches to her.
reviewdate: Oct 8 2013 isn: 0-06-054097-4
LCSH & SACO Month 8: In which Racially mixed youth are embraced, but Racially mixed college students are given the boot
HAPPY 80th BIRTHDAY SANDY BERMAN! This goofy series wouldn't exist if you didn't exist.
Highlights from the August 2013 SACO editorial meeting and new LCSH from August 2013.
Astronaut Wives Club: a True Story, the
author: Koppel, Lily
I'm in a bad mood and don't have a descriptive review in me. Basically, Lily (I can call her Lily because she interviewed me for a story once) provides a bio-history of the 1960s and early 70s space program from the point of view of the women married to the astronauts. The wives always had to be perfect and patriotic, and any display of insecurity or anger could threaten a husband's job and what assignments he might get. Indeed one astronaut did get fired after he left his wife for a Susie. (Susie was a popular name for Cape Cookies, it seems.)
reviewdate: Oct 6 2013 isn: 978-1-4555-0325-4
author: Norris, Elizabeth
In the follow up to Unraveling, teenager Janelle Tenner is once again called upon to race a clock to prevent deaths. I was less into this version and annoyed by the romance angle, which felt thin and inorganic. Upside: Janelle is a powerful badass, taking out adult men with her weapons and even her bare hands.
reviewdate: Oct 1 2013 isn: 978-0-06-210376-5
Full-Blooded
author: Carlson, Amanda
When the first-ever female werewolf is born, the boys are not excited to share their toys with her. There's even some legend about a female wolf causing the destruction of werekind. Dudes can be so lame!
reviewdate: Sep 28 2013 isn: 978-0-316-20566-5
A San Diego teen gets hit by a car and killed. Then she is brought back to life and learns she has about three weeks to stop the world from being destroyed. Yes. I've hit the point in the academic year, when I can really only handle YA dystopias and novels about werewolves.
reviewdate: Sep 24 2013 isn: 978-0-06-210373-4
About Yvonne
author: Masini, Donna
You know you're in for something from the very first sentence, "I have been stalking my husband's lover." You can tell that a poet wrote this book. The images she chooses are downright provocative. She describes the lover Yvonne's toothbrush, "I didn't come up with much but at least now I know what kind of toothpaste she uses. I bought it. And a toothbrush the same color as hers. Green with those little silver sparkles. The kind that tapers at the tip to fit easily into your mouth. I like it better than the kind I've been using. The square kind." That sets up this crazy opposition and emulation, and in a playful, sexual way. Also: this book reeks of sex.
reviewdate: Sep 19 2013 isn: 0-393-04091-7
Sorry it took so long, but I finally got around to uploading our photos from our trip. Check them out! Related posts:Graphics and Photos from U.S. Government Vietnam wrap-up Eating and wandering through Korea Related posts:
Graphics and Photos from U.S. Government
Eating and wandering through Korea
It's been a busy few days full of trains, buses, walking, eating (especially eating!), meeting relatives (brothers, cousins, aunts, nieces and nephews). After spending last week in Daegu with Shinjoung's parents, we headed up to Seoul and its surroundings to visit myriad relatives — I know some names, but mostly I remember them as relations [...] Related posts:
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Expect Resistance - Tue, 07/06/2010 - 11:06am
Well we're off tomorrow for Korea. It's been a great (but IMMENSELY HOT & HUMID!) 4 days in Hanoi. We ate tons of street food — Bun Cha, Pho (pronounced like "fur"), Banh Mi, Banh Goi, Chao Ga, and a bunch of things we don't know the names of but are listed on the wikipedia [...] Related posts:
Shinjoung's Yalta
As our Vietnam trip comes to an end, I have to admit that we haven't completely abolished the guide book but have come to a detente. It's hard to kick old habits ☺. We've had fun, lots of laughs and continuous debates – did you expect anything less from me?! One of the most exciting [...] Related posts:
Expect Resistance - Sat, 07/03/2010 - 10:52am
Shinjoung and I took the overnight sleeper train from Hue to Hanoi. Originally we tried to get our own ticket at the station but were defeated because a) we didn't have enough Vietnamese Dong on us (thought wrongly that at least the train station would have the ability to use a visa card); and b) [...] Related posts: