Here, have a tour of different awesome things to read on the internet. Links and how to wear them!
From Tamara: The NY Times and others are reporting that several libraries in the US, including one in California that wasn’t in too bad of shape, have been taken over by a private company. The outcry is vaguely reported, and the article makes it seem like the major cripping factor is the pensions of the library employees. How much would that suck, by the way? One day you’re a state or city employee with a pension and retirement fund, and the next you’re a potential employee of a private company offering a (401)k and no pension? Ouch.
Do you live in one of the towns with a privately-managed library system? What do you think?
Moving on to other private enterprises: Danielle Steel has fallen out of love with romance novels. That’s nice. She didn’t write them to begin with.
“They’re not really about romance … I really write more about the human condition,” she said. “[Romance] is an element in life but I think of romance novels as more of a category and I write about the situations we all deal with – loss and war and illness and jobs and careers, good things, bad things, crimes, whatever.”
Steel is the point of reference for so many people outside the genre when they ask me about romance novels. Fact is, most people think she’s romance. So it’s actually rather useful for her to declaim the romance connection because my response to the “Oh, like Danielle Steel?” comment is usually, “Oh, no, she doesn’t write romance. Romance is actually better than Steel, and uses far fewer ellipses.”
Thanks to Rebecca for the link.
Speaking of breaking yourself to avoid the romance cooties, Maureen Johnson’s recent essay is so entirely awesome, particularly in her discussion of genre type and gender. Thanks to JD and Christine and many others for the link.
And finally, Kathy sent this article that totally has me running for the shelf of Romance That Shalt Not Be Touched: the 99 page test is, according to this person’s report, is a better evaluative technique for a book than reading the first page. This has worked for me with a few of Nora Roberts’ books, but I haven’t tried it on the rest of the library yet. Does this test work for you? What’s your 99th page test result?
Re: books for 9 year old boys. I think we make a real mistake if we think that “reading” only means “reading fiction.” I am currently teaching a course (to high school seniors) called “writing non-fiction” and a lot of it is about breaking down the fallacy that writing in science or history is somehow not “creative.” It’s hugely creative, and presenting material well and giving new interpretations of facts (or bringing new facts to light) is as creative as making up stories about people who never existed. That said, if Joy can bear one more set of suggestions, I’d plug the “Horrible Histories” series (sadly more easily available in the UK than in the US, but you might try Amazon), which involve wonderful factoids about various periods in history, and include a good deal about the science and technology of the time studied. They’re also heavily illustrated. The one that stands out in my minds from the Really Dark Ages Horrible History is that the first code of chivalry dictated the days that battles could be fought, and said that a “legal” battle could only be held between Monday and Thursday, which I think is the first working definition of a weekend! (I suppose that with Friday being off limits for Muslims, and Sunday for Christians, Saturday became a natural bridge.)
As a transition from “the folks who brought you the weekend” (as the union bumper stickers used to say), to private libraries: I’m sort of relieved to see all the reservations expressed on this thread, and the correct suspicion of the propaganda about “union members keeping their cushy jobs” (propaganda from people at hedge funds, no less). May I take this opportunity to humbly remind the reading community that this is essentially the same battle that is held over charter vs. public schools, and that schools seem to have far fewer defenders? If and when the opportunity arises, please speak up for public education as well as public libraries. This teacher (and many others like her) will be grateful.
I used to live in a county in California which had outsourced its county library operation to the same company mentioned in this article. It was not a good situation. There was no central county library building or collection any more, and the collections in the branch libraries did not seem to keep up with the kind of current titles they used to have. A librarian friend of mine who had worked in the library system quit and her replacement was hired in at a much lower salary and much worse benefits.
Considering the disaster that privatizing prisons has turned out to be I cannot imagine why anyone would think privatizing libraries would be any better.
Books for boys: If your son likes science-adventure, you might try the Rick Brant books. They’re no longer in print, but there are at least 8 of them online as ebooks here. They’re a cut above The Hardy Boys, and they’ve got exotic locations as well as late 1950s-early 1960s science going for them. I just re-read one, and it held up pretty well. The science is amusing and may provoke a “what happened to that idea” thought.
I owned the first 15 or so when I was in high school and loved them. They still turn up on e-bay quite often.
I just have to chime in with The Encyclopedia Brown series by Donald Sobol. I loved them as a kid because they were a quick read, but they also were interactive. Cy would have to solve about 10 cases a book, and the readers would figure it out along with him and his girl Friday, Sally (who is awesome and also his bodyguard). In fact, all those type of solving it yourself mysteries are fun reads.
About DS, I hate almost all her books (though I have a fondness for the TV version of Manhattan) except Silent Honor. I think it’s because she actually does a pretty decent job describing what a Japanese internment camp was like during the War. Poor Hiroko deals with a lot of terribleness, but does get a HEA. Also, her stilted dialogue actually works because Hiroko is not American-born and is not supposed to know English very well, anyway.
In response to Joy, I love the book recommendations for kids. I have a boy who likes to read but defaults to comic books given a choice.
For a mix of fun & fact, my kid adores The Secret Science Alliance, which is a graphic novel. He also really enjoyed Howtoons from Make Magazine, including building some of the things in the book.
I’m trying to get him started on the next stage, reading things a bit more complicated than Magic Tree House (which was a fabulous series, by the way). If your son loves space, you can probably get him started on some of the Heinlein juveniles (science fiction). We are hoping to start Have Spacesuit, Will Travel shortly.
Joy: My “nonreader” just got his PhD in Literature. Keep books in the house, talk about what you’re reading or what you’ve read – look things up that interest him. You never know what will spark his interest.