Return to Usual Programming
Well that's a bit slack I must say: racing to the 100th post and then running out of puff. On Thursday I finshed a book by Aldous Huxley (After Many a Summer) I don't think anyone should be interested in except other Huxley obsessives. It was almost as dull as The Island and the funny bits (about the excesses of Americans with far far too much money, no taste and a horror of death) were so similar to my dim recollections of Evelyn Waugh's The Loved One that I suspect unconscious plagiarism.
Anyway Ampersand Duckhas been distracted by the LibraryThing, an online booksharing space. I can see why this might be fun because as one of the newspapers said:
"Some of us just can't help ourselves. At every book shelf, we cock our heads and scan the titles. Now, with LibraryThing.com, we can peek at thousands of libraries."
Jan Gardner, The Boston Globe
"Net gain for readers" (July 9 2006)
But, you know, how do we know anyone's going to tell the truth? I think I'd be a teensy weensy bit selective about what I said was on my shelf, all Nobel Prize winners and History of Times and far fewer pulp science fiction and dodgy thrillers than are really there. Or maybe it's self correcting: you're only hurting yourself with such snobbery because you'd never find books you'd like that are similar to the ones you really do like instead of pretending to like. Then again, I must say that Amazon's book recommendations haven't ever convinced me in the past.
Anyway, cute idea but I'm worried that there be dragons out there.
Anyway Ampersand Duckhas been distracted by the LibraryThing, an online booksharing space. I can see why this might be fun because as one of the newspapers said:
"Some of us just can't help ourselves. At every book shelf, we cock our heads and scan the titles. Now, with LibraryThing.com, we can peek at thousands of libraries."
Jan Gardner, The Boston Globe
"Net gain for readers" (July 9 2006)
But, you know, how do we know anyone's going to tell the truth? I think I'd be a teensy weensy bit selective about what I said was on my shelf, all Nobel Prize winners and History of Times and far fewer pulp science fiction and dodgy thrillers than are really there. Or maybe it's self correcting: you're only hurting yourself with such snobbery because you'd never find books you'd like that are similar to the ones you really do like instead of pretending to like. Then again, I must say that Amazon's book recommendations haven't ever convinced me in the past.
Anyway, cute idea but I'm worried that there be dragons out there.
posted by Mary Bennet | 11:07 am
4 Comments:
Oh dear, I hadn't even thought of self-censoring my library thing for people who might be put off by my slightly weird affinity for YA novels. (It's a carryover from my teaching days.) Maybe I should consider editing...
There's nothing wrong with YA novels! They're some of my favourite books. It's when you put Harry Potter next to Italo Calvino that you might raise some eyebrows.
I'm know I'm overthinking this because I'm daunted about the prospect of adding all the weird and out of print books I have. Plus, why should owning the book be the most important thing? I've read and adored heaps of books I've borrowed. Do I include them too?
Who/what is YA?
"Young Adult". One of the great injustices of our primary school library was that we weren't allowed to borrow books from the YA section until something like Grade 5 - probably because they dealt with certain ahem coming of age issues we weren't s'posed to learn about in Queensland state schools. Luckily public libraries weren't so discriminatory against precocious readers.
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