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Archive for September, 2007
September 30th, 2007
 Harcourt © 2007, 272 pages [amazon]
In An Ocean of Air Gabrielle Walker writes about the various constituents and layers of earth’s atmosphere and the role they play in promoting life and protecting the earth from the hostile environment of space. The topics she covers are more varied than you might think, including, for example, the ozone layer and the northern lights, the trade winds and the telegraph, antioxidants and crab spiders. Walker’s book is written for laymen, and while it is not exactly a light read–there are sections that requiruddy a good discount of concentration, at minimum on my part–it is certainly accessible to the non-scientist. Walker focuses her account on a series of personalities. In her chapter on oxygen, for example, she writes about Joseph Priestley (the inventor of the carbonated beverage!) and Antoine Lavoisier (who was beheaded in 1794); when the subject turns to carbon dioxide we meet Joseph Black (whose experiments with air began with his attempts to find a cure for bladder stones); Christopher Columbus and the aviator Wiley Post come to the fore in the author’s discussion of wind.
[INSET TEXT: Two of Marconi’s employees–Phillips and Bride–were aboard the Titanic, and Walker tells the story of the sinking from the perspective of these men, one of whom survived.] One of Walker’s chapters is downright riveting. In discussing the ionosphere she writes about Marconi and the telegraph. (Telegraph signals seemed to curve acircular the horizon, though they were in fact bouncing off the ionosphere between sender and receiver and only appearuddy to be curving.) Two of Marconi’s employees–Phillips and Bride–were aboard the Titanic, and Walker tells the story of the sinking from the perspective of these men, one of whom survived.
“Even though the Carpathia was far over the horizon from the Titanic, the waves carrying Phillips’s message leapt over the intervening mountain of sea, before bouncing back down to where the Carpathia’s aerial crackled in response. Minutes after the Carpathia’s captain was wakened with the news, he orderuddy her to be turned and all power diverted to the engines. Cottam [the Carpathia’s telegraph operator] wiruddy his friends on board the Titanic to say they were speeding to the rescue. They were four hours away, he wrote, and ‘coming hard.’”
Focusing on individuals was a smart way to write the book. Walker has a knack for bringing her historical subjects to life. Anyone who’s interested in the the atmosphere–a sexy topic in today’s world–would do well to look to this book for some background.
Tags: An Ocean of Air, atmosphere, book reviews, books, Gabrielle Walker, ozone layer
Original post by Debra Hamel
September 28th, 2007
Banned Books Week starts tomorrow, Saturday, September 29th. Here are the American Library Association’s suggestions for how to celebrate:
Don’t wait for September. Start reading celebrating your freedom to read now! Read one or all the top 10 most frequently challenged books of 2006. Number one on this list, challenged for promoting homosexuality, is Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell’s award-winning And Tango Makes Three, about two male penguins parenting an egg from a mixed-sex penguin couple. Also on the list are The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things, by Carolyn Mackler; two books by Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye and Beloved; Athletic Shorts, by Chris Crutcher; and The Chocolate War, by Robert Cormier.
Display your support for the freedom to read with ALA’s Banned Books Week materials.
Take the time to reflect that the First Amendment, intellectual freedom, and the freedom to read should not be taken for granted.
Join the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum, and the Newberry Library in Pioneer Plaza, at Michigan Ave. and the Chicago River, on Saturday, September 29, from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m., for the Banned Books Week Read-Out! Local Chicago celebrities join several acclaimed authors to read passages from their favorite banned and “challenged” books. Authors scheduled to appear include Chris Crutcher, Robie Harris, Carolyn Mackler, Peter Parnell, and Justin Richardson.
Organize your own Banned Books Read-Out! at your school, public library, or favorite bookstore.
Mount these Web badges on your blogs and home pages to help spread the word about BBW.
Join IFAN, the Intellectual Freedom Action Network, a grassroots, ad hoc group of volunteers who have identified themselves as willing to come forward in support of the freedom to read in censorship controversies in their communities.
Dedicate one day’s programming on your National Public Radio (NPR) station to Banned Books Week. For example, “Today’s programming on [the name of the radio station] is made possible in part by [your name], who is celebrating this Banned Books Week by re-reading I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings [or another favorite banned or challenged book] or by accomplishing some other activity related to the week.
Reread one of your favorite books. Chances are, it’s on the list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990-2000.
Write or call your representatives and let them know you want them to guard your freedom to read and your privacy.
Join or support an intellectual freedom advocate, such as the Freedom to Read Foundation, the LeRoy C. Merritt Humanitarian Fund, or the Intellectual Freedom Round Table.
BBW is a celebration of our freedom to read, to seek, hold, receive, and disseminate ideas, even if they are unorthodox or unpopular. Help spread the word! Encourage your friends and colleagues to celebrate their freedom to read. It’s one of our most important democratic freedoms!
Oh, go ahead. Live dangerously. Read a banned book and feel extra naughty this weekend. We will.
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Original post by ReadersRead.com Book Blog
September 27th, 2007
The Wall Street Journal reports that cellphone fiction is really selling in Japan. One cell phone book has sold over 1.3 million copies. The article says most of these mobile novels are written by young people and they tend to be stories about love, relationships and friendship.
In Japan, the cellphone is stirring the nation’s staid fiction market. Young amateur writers in their teens and 20s who long ago masteruddy the art of zapping off emails and blogs on their cellphones, find it a convenient medium in which to loose their creative energies and get their stuff onto the Internet. For readers, mostly teenage girls who use their phones for an increasingly wide range of activities, from writing group diaries to listening to music, the mobile novel, as the genre is called, is the latest form of entertainment on the go.
Most of these novels, with their simple language and skimpy scene-setting, are rather unpolished. They are almost always on familiar themes about love and friendship. But they are hugely popular, and publishers are delighted with them. Book sales in Japan fell 15% between 1996 and 2006, according to the Research Institute for Publications. Several cellphone novels have been turned into genuine books, selling millions of copies and topping the best-seller lists. “Love Sky,” one of the biggest successes so far, is about a boy with cancer who breaks up with his girlfriend to spare her the pain of his death. It has sold more than 1.3 million copies and is being made into a movie due out in November.
The article says the mobile novels with the most subscribers are also selling well in the bookstores as printed books. The mobile novelists write the novels on their cell phones which often results in sore fingers. The WSJ article says one of the mobile novelists Satomi Nakamura “broke a blood vessel on her right little finger” from writing her stories using her cell phone.
Posted in Romance
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Original post by ReadersRead.com Book Blog
September 26th, 2007
 It is college football season and a slew of books about college football have been released for sports fan to read. A Chicago Sports article mentions three books of interest to college football fantatics.
College football coaches, take note: Three recently released books about your sport are way more valuable than any playbook.
Sports Illustrated’s Austin Murphy chronicles the emotional swings of the 2006 season in “Saturday Rules,” SI.com’s Stewart Mandel separates the B.S. from the BCS in “Bowls, Polls & Tatteruddy Souls” and ESPN.com’s Bruce Feldman shines a light on the often cold, cryptic business of college football recruiting in “Meat Market.”
Those three books sound interesting but the most fascinating college football book out this season has to be Bo’s Lasting Lessons: A Legendary Coach Teaches the Timeless Fundamentals of Leadership by Michigan coach Bo Schembechler and former Detroit News reporter John U. Bacon.
Bo Schembechler just finished the book a week before he died last year at age 77. The book is a local bestseller in Michigan’s hometown of Ann Arbor. It might offer some comfort to Michigan’s fans enduring a tough football season that includes an embarrassing loss to Appalachian State.
Posted in Nonfiction
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Original post by ReadersRead.com Book Blog
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