Morning Thoughts

I have started reading MBA In A Day by Steven Stralser, Ph.D.. It really can't teach you how to be an MBA in a day. I've figured this out. It appears to be an outline of all the different mangement functions which an MBA might do in an organization. The descriptions are brief and to the point. I have been able to follow the writing pretty closely.

I sometimes like to read the Avon Romance Blog. I think Avon Romance as a company is quite innovative. They are on Entrecard. There is no other publisher trying out Entrecard. I think they can often be more savvy than other publishers concerning what people want to read. They are also doing a much better job with the concept of social networking than many other publishers if you look at their blog closely. Romance is after all the most popular fiction genre.

I was looking at a title on their blog, One Foot In The Grave, it looks quite interesting. http://avonromanceblog.blogspot.com/2008/05/one-foot-in-grave.html I think they are doing a really good design with the way they present their blog. The blog also feeds into the authors website which is just as interesting to look at. http://www.jeanienefrost.com/ I may suggest the title for purchase.

On another note, I have been having some trouble with Technorati. About six days ago, I lost all my fans. I also could not add or look at my favorites. They gave me back my fans. I have twenty seven of them right now. However, they have not restarted the favorite function for me. It has been six days. They claim that it is due to technical difficulties. I have been thinking about whether or not to end my service with them or switch to another service. My rating is still going up. I am not worried if they ask me to leave, my service has been effectively terminated.
http://support.technorati.com/discussions/topic/3590?replies=11 Can someone recommend a similar service.

Thoughts for The Day.

Stan Lee's Soapbox. This is from playcole. The voice is Stan Lee's. It is kind of interesting to listen to.


I spent a little bit of time looking through the Comic Values Annual 2007. I like to look through the price guides before I visit a comic book stores. The prices are often not what I am looking for. The titles are what I am looking for. I make a list of titles I have not read or seen so I can look at them when I visit the shop.

For example, when I next visit a comic book shop, I will probably take a look at Aliens, Earth War, Usagi Yojimbo (one of my favorite comics), Cosmic Heros, Prince Valiant Monthly, and Spirit The Origin Years.

There are so many different comics which the Comics Value Annual reminded me about. Some of my favorite comic artists are Richard Corben, who created Den from Heavy Metal, Vaughn Bode creator of Junkwaffel, Alan Moore creator of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Stan Sakai creator of Usagi Yojimbo, The Brothers Hernandez creators of Love and Rockets, and Larry Gonick creator of the Cartoon History of the Universe. All of them had comics listed in the Comics Values Annual.

Also, I found some of the newer science fiction titles that are still affordable, Alien Worlds from 1982, Alien Encoutners printed between 1985-1987.

It was fun looking at the Comics Value Annual to see if there was anything which I might be interested in looking at. They even had a few humorous titles which I like Milk and Cheese, and Reid Fleming World's Toughest Milkman.

It was a nice day out so I didn't spend my whole day inside. I took a walk earlier for several blocks to stretch out my legs and also went to the produce market to buy some watermelon.

I went for another walk. It was a very nice day out. There was a parade through the neighborhood by the Catholic Church, today is Corpus Christi a day celebrated by the Italians in the neighborhood. It was a bit surprising to see a police car slowly wending through the neighborhood in front of the procession to clear the streets. I also saw one of the tiny little smart cars zipping through the neighborhood with a bald guy driving behind the wheel.

Tomorrow we will have the big parade on the main thoroughfare. The mayor was here on the last Memorial Day parade. It is kind of interesting watching the marching bands.

I spent a little bit of time fooling around with social networking. I am playing around with Twitter today. I am currently following six people on my twitter account. This is my account: http://www.twitter.com/bookcalendar . Apparently there is a search engine which searches members on twitter and adds a bunch of functionality to twitter, http://www.twhirl.org/ . I don't like having to download programs to my desktop so I am taking a pass. Sometimes, people go overboard with these things. A few minutes ago, I looked at a website called The Wall Tweet Journal, a blog about twitter. Apparently someone is turning on and off their lights using twitter... http://www.walltweetjournal.com/

Grow Your Money 101 Easy Tips To Plan, Save, and Invest-- Jonathan D. Pond, Review

Grow Your Money 101 Easy Tips to Plan, Save, and Invest by Jonathan D. Pond is an easy to follow investment advice book. The tips are understandable and seem to be common sense. I find myself agreeing with many of his statements.

For example, he says cars cost a lot of money and eat into a persons finances. One of the best ways to buy a car is to buy a vehicle that is four years old and keep it for at least four years. The only reason to buy a brand new car is if you plan to maintain it well and keep it for a very long time.

He claims that your number one investment is your career or business. If you have an hour to study investing in stocks or an hour to invest in improving your career, invest in your career, you will ultimately have more money to invest and save. He insists that you should take the time for any free courses you can get from your employer that create contacts and will allow you to move ahead.

I wish I could follow his advice on fixing minor leaks in a financial boat: bring your own coffee and muffin, bring your own lunch, eat at cheaper restaurants, don't buy lottery tickets, take public transit or carpool, and buy generic from your supermarket or drugstore. These make little differences that add up in the long run. I don't buy lottery tickets, buy generic, and take mass transit to work, so I am half way there.

I like the idea that "Getting Rich Is Rather Boring". Jonathan Pond insists you save and invest, and live below your means. This is the reverse process to keeping up with the Joneses.

He covers a lot of different financial situations that can arise, receiving a windfall, how to invest in retirement plans, what kind of debt is the best debt, and other topics. Financial instruments like stocks, bonds, certificates of deposit, treasury notes, real estates, and mutual funds are described in clear distinctive often witty ways. Jonathan Pond focuses mainly on how to diversify your investments across a wide variety of sources safely.

This book is a steady, practical, easy to understand book with apparently solid advice. If you are interested in better basic financial management, this book is well worth reading. I have always found it easier to invest in stocks than save. Hopefully, I will take some advice myself and buy a few certificates of deposit.

I think the book grew out of the Channel 13 program in New York. This is a link to several short videos from the program. http://www.thirteen.org/jonathanpond/index.html

Daily Thoughts

Betsy Ross, 13 Colonies Flag

It is memorial day weekend this morning. We are supposed to remember our fallen. One of my grandfathers taught mathematics to bomber pilots on the home front during World War II, the other was a merchant marine and went to fight in the Lincoln Brigade on the side of syndicalists in the Spanish civil war.

Anyways, I am looking at Grow Your Money, 101 Easy Tips To Plan, Save, and Invest by Jonathan D. Pond. The reason I picked up this book is that I saw Jonathan Pond on a pledge drive for the PBS Public Broadcasting Service. They were offering a free financial help book if you donated money to public television. I saw this while I was folding laundry at the laundromat. He looks and seems to be a practical man without a lot of fluff. I hope that his writing is as good as his speaking.

I went to my local library this morning. The computers were down. There was no internet access. I could not sign up to use the machines for an hour. We occassionally have the computers go down at our branch. The worst time for it to happen is in the afternoon when there are a lot of people. This is quite inconvenient. I walked around and looked at the books.

I checked out MBA In A Day Learn What You Would Learn At Top Tier Business Schools by Stevem Stralser, Ph.D.. I think it is a kind of funny title, because I could probably read the book in a single day, then review it in the next. I also checked out Viewpoints Critical Selected Stories by L.E. Modesitt, Jr.. I rather like L.E. Modesitt, Jr.'s writing, especially his ecologically oriented science fiction.

Finally, I picked up Comics Values Annual 2007 by Alex G. Malloy. I don't think it is too accurate, but I occassionally find out about a few science fiction and fantasy titles which I never heard about or read when I look through the listings. I usually don't pay attention to the prices at all. At our library we have the Official Overstreet Comic Price Guide 2008 edition. Overstreet is the guide used in most comic book stores.

At Roger's Time Machine in Manhattan, New York when I used to go there, they priced a lot of the comics at half the Official Overstreet Comic Price Guide except for some of the Golden Age, or Silver Age comics which were often guide price and some of the very popular titles. Most of the underground comics were priced differently than guide. There is no current price guide for underground, ground level, and independent comics. They are irregularly covered in the Overstreet and Comics Value guide, but they do not have much depth.

The prices are all over the place for this kind of material. A lot of the material is rare or not understood. This is one of the reasons I collect ground level comics. I can often get very interesting material at very reasonable prices. People often keep this kind of material on the shelves of stores for a long time. Some people call them alternative comics. Basically it is smaller presses that bring their material in at "the ground level". Usually it is not underground, counterculture, or drug focused comics that I am interested in.

I often like unique titles like Alien Worlds, Alien Encounters, Berni Wrightson Master of the Macabre, Ms. Tree, Death Rattle, Vaughn Bode, Fantagor, and Usagi Yojimbo. Everyone has their own tastes.

I just finished watching the old fashioned cartoon version of Horton Hears A Who by Dr. Seuss (Theodore Geisel) and Chuck Jones. I really like the storytelling even if it is very nonsensical.

I also watched the Butter Battle Book produced by Ralph Bakshi and written by Dr. Seuss. At the time this cartoon was done, it was considered quite controversial. It is about escalation and mutual destruction. It was also done during the height of the cold war.

If you think Dr. Seuss only wrote children's books, you are wrong. There is an excellent book called Dr. Seuss goes to war : the World War II editorial cartoons of Theodor Geisel edited by Richard H. Minear. It is really interesting to look at.

Ralph Bakshi was also famous for doing one of my favorite films, Wizards. He also did the animated version of The Lord of the Rings. He was also famous for creating the first animated film to get an x rating, Fritz the Cat, based on the character created by Robert Crumb. A lot of his work is very controversial.

I thought I would add a quote I found while reading Grow Your Money by Jonathan Pond,

"There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge"-- Bertrand Russell

Steampunk Edited By Ann And Jeff Vandermeer

Part of a Babbage Engine from 1832, a form of mechanical computer that was never fully developed. Bruce Sterling posits a different future based on a secret society which developed this in his book, The Difference Engine.

Steampunk, Edited by Ann and Jeff Vandermeer is a collection of Victorian style science fiction. It includes a few excerpts from larger novels including a chapter from The Warlord of the Air by Michael Moorcock.

Some of the short stories are quite entertaining. One of my favorites is The Selene Gardening Society about a group of Victorian ladies shooting garbage to the moon. Another story I found fascinating was the 72 Letters about a society that used golems for industrial purposes. The main character designed and built golems. The story, The Martian Agent by Michael Chabon was about a pair of the sons of a confederate soldier escaping to England on a zeppelin.

The author selection was quite good including; James, Blaylock, Michael Moorcock, Rachel Pollack and others.

I could find little objectionable in the stories, except for the story Victoria about Queen Victoria acting as a courtesan for a while to further her education. It was a bit baudy and filled with an offbeat sense of humor.

There are two essays at the end of the book; The Steam Driven Time Machine: A Pop Culture Survey lists a variety of steampunk movies, novels, and television shows and the essay The Essential Sequential Steampunk A Modest Survey of the Genre within the Comic Book Medium lists a variety of graphic novels that are steampunk.

This was a satisfying collection. I found the last two essays to be quite interesting. The editing in this collection was quite clean. I have to congratulate Tachyone Publications on producing a very interesting collection. http://www.tachyonpublications.com/

There is a brief biographical summary of each author in the collection at the back of the book.

Morning Thoughts

I was looking on Facebook and I came across something rather interesting. It is a newswire for librarians. It is basically a large collection of press releases from libraries and library companies. I think it is fairly new. http://www.liswire.com/ . I rather like the idea of it. It still needs a lot more coverage.

My day should be interesting today. Yesterday, I got to the subway and it was so packed that I could not get a seat. I had to stand all the way in. It is quite hard to read standing up. Hopefully, if I leave a few minutes earlier, I will get a seat today and be able to read on the subway. It was like being in a can of sardines. So many more people are taking the subway as gas prices are climbing much higher.

I work an hour earlier on Fridays. Today, it was a much nicer ride on the subway, peaceful compared to yesterday. I got to read some more of Steampunk. I enjoyed reading a kind of odd story by Joe Lansdale, The Steam Man of the Prairie and The Dark Rider which combines steampunk with westerns. It has all sorts of odd things in it, morlocks, a vampire, a steam man, and a few other odd surprises. Joe Lansdale is an author who I really enjoy reading. He writes, western horror, mysteries, steampunk, and graphic novels.
He has a myspace fanpage which lists his films and books. It is kind of entertaning.
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=240828807

I looked through the New York Times Bestseller list which we have as part of our library catalog and placed Bad money : reckless finance, failed politics, and the global crisis of American capitalism by Kevin Phillips on hold.

It is the afternoon. This morning, I went around checking for books with minor damage, torn covers, peeling spine labels, and other minor damage to be repaired in the reference area. The reference books are fairly clean right now. The shelving is in good order and looks neat.

Thinking back to steampunk, one of my favorite graphic novels is The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Kevin O'Neill. I think the storytelling is fantastic. It is set in alternate British Victoria populated with many of the genre favorites of old, Captain Nemo, Mina Harker, The Invisible Man, Allan Qatermain and others. The first volume deals with formation of the league and a battle between Fu Manchu and Professor Moriarty in London. The second volume in the series is even more outrageous. The league fights the invading martians who are like the martians from War of the Worlds. There is brief appearance by John Carter and Gulliver Jones on an alternate mars.

There is supposed to be a third volume in the series which hasn't come out yet. They did an interim story, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Black Dossier but none of our libraries purchased it. I am not going to shell out my own money to buy this. Maybe, I will get it eventually, I am not in a hurry.

I was looking at various blogs when I came across an interesting story at the OUP Blog about a gentleman living in a tiny apartment in Manhattan and plastering the floors and walls with pages from a dictionary. It looked interesting enough for me to mention it in my blog. I really enjoyed the story. http://blog.oup.com/2008/05/words-out-of-context/

Common Wealth Economics For Crowded Planet-- Jeffrey D. Sachs, Review

Common Wealth Economics For A Crowded Planet by Jeffrey D. Sachs is about how to address pressing common human global problems: global environmental issues, population planning, sustainable development, and persistent poverty. It is written in very clear, understandable language. There is no academic jargon here. These issues will affect everyone rich and poor alike.

If we do not address these issues at the source, our security is threatened. For example, the crisis in Ethopia and Sudan can be traced back to lack of water, arable land, and overpopulation. This pushes people into warfare and conflict over very limited resources.

Human beings are now the major cause for environmental change: desertification, global warming, species loss, and industrial pollution are caused by human beings. Jeffrey Sachs sets down a set of specific goals on how to reach these ends.

The problem here is that he couches the goals in the language of the left and the language of the United Nations which can be disconcerting at times. Jeffrey Sachs has worked with United Nations Millenium Project. His language is very much focused on international peace and diplomacy. He wants to considerably reduce global armaments and put the money into peaceful development.

This is quite idealistic. One of the advantages of this approach is that it is a soft power approach, based on diplomacy, development, culture, and superior technical knowledge something which the United States has not followed at all in recent years. He claims that if we do not address these issues we will have more terrorists, more wars, more underdevelopment, and more conflict.

The problem is one of how to balance the need to change underlying problems and still at the same time deal with the issues of terrorism and security.

There is going to be quite a bit of opposition to his ideas from the right as well. He pushes for a combination of family planning and pre-natal care. This is to reduce population pressure and encourage people to have less children. This will be hard to fund because many lobbyists do work against birth control.

I happen to think that his ideas on development are quite interesting. He puts forth the idea that government, society, and business are inseperable. In order for business to move forward infrastructure like roads, schools, and telecommunications need to be built. It is as important to make sure there is an adquate food supply as there are free market reforms.

At the end of many of the chapters, he gives examples on how to address specific problems that are fairly practical. For example in the section on climate change he endorses carbon sequestration and hybrid cars. For persistent poverty, he claims that people should drill wells in communities, open schools, introduce school lunch programs provided by indigenous farmers, distribute new seed stocks, distribute new breeds of livestock, and remove any leftover ordnance from old wars in the countryside.

If you strip away a lot of the political talk, this book gives quite a few good examples on how to address common human problems. I think it is worth reading for the solutions described, not the politics.

Jeffrey D. Sachs is the Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and Special Advisor to the U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon on the Millenium Development Goals.

This book is well written and easy to follow. It has notes, a bibliography, and an index. There are eight pages of full color illustrations. I would have liked more illustrations in this book.

Readers Advisory

One of the things which I am supposed to do is advise people on what to read. For me, it is easy to recommend science fiction and fantasy, as well as some novels and books on the alternative energy. I also take the time to sometimes read things I don't like. I am not a fan of urban fiction, yet I tried to read Eric Jerome Dickey (I didn't like it), and Omar Tyree (I liked it).

When I started at my first job in Brooklyn, one of my first jobs was to read and discuss a list of books with other librarians. This was a sample of the most popular books including the classics, trashy novels, true crime, romance, and mysteries. It was an enlightening experience. I did not like reading much of the material, but I did it anyways. I would have never read In Cold Blood by Truman Capote if it hadn't been a book I was told to read.

I also admit, because of this, I have read romance novels (Elizabeth Lowell is one of my favorite authors), Westerns ( Louis L'Amour is my favorite western writer), and a variety of genres which I would have never read.

One of the things I do all the time is watch what people are checking out. This is a way to not have to read everything. People tend to read a specific genre, even if I haven't read the books, after a while, I begin to recognize the popular titles in a genre. For example, in urban fiction, I recognize Zane, Noire, Relentless Aaron, Michael Baisden, Terri Woods, even if I haven't read any of them. People ask for the same style of books over and over again.

In a similar manner, I also look at the new books when they come in. It gives me an idea of what is available immediately for people to check out. I check every other day to see what is on the shelf. Occassionally, I will also look at the books which have just been returned for the same reason.

In addition to keep up with what people are reading, I look at the New York Times Bestseller List and the Publishers Weekly Bestseller list. This is important. A lot of people are constantly looking for the latest bestsellers. Sometimes, I can even preempt the bestseller list figuring out which books might appear on the bestseller lists.

Books are advertised everywhere. There are numerous advertisements on the subways and buses if you go on mass transit. I have even seen a few billboards on the highways with book titles.

Another tool which we keep for readers advisory are bookmarks and sheets recommending specific genres. We have bookmarks for art books, mysteries, reference books, business books, and urban fiction. We also a full page list of African American authors. This way we can give readers a standard selection of items to look at.

Each type of genre fiction also has a trade publication attached to it if you want to keep up with a specific type of book. Romantic Times is the trade magazine for romance books, Locus Magazine is the trade magazine for Science Fiction and Fantasy. Also some ethnic or racially oriented magazines have bestseller lists. There is an Ebony bestseller list for African American books.

In addition, some publishers have imprints which are quite popular. There are the BET black romances, Arabesque Romances, Harlequin Romances, and The Hardcase Crime Series. Being aware of which imprints a person likes makes it much easier to find books. Usually there is a small symbol attached to the publishers imprint. Baens symbol is a rocket ship on the spine with the word Baen across the rocketship.

Also some publishers focus on a specific subject. For example, if I want a good travel series, I might look at Lonely Planet, or Frommers. If I wanted military science fiction, I would probably look at Baen Books.

In addition to imprints there are series which people will read, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Star Wars, Star Trek, Nancy Drew, R.L. Stine is practically his own imprint, Goosebumps, and others. The latest series which looks like it will be popular is the CSI (Crime Science Investigation) television series has come out with a series of paperbacks.

Paying attention to what people want to read is a decent part of my job and any librarians job. A few inexpensive trade paperbacks which include short annotated recommendations for genre fiction are The 100 Best Graphic Novels, Horror: Another 100 Best Books, Science Fiction The 100 Best Novels, Fantasy The 100 Best Novels, and The Crown Crime Companion, The Top 100 Mystery Novels of All Time. They may not be the most recent books, but they should contain at least a few book recommendations worth reading.

Thoughts For The Day

A Victorian era Penny Dreadful. Precursor to the idea for modern steampunk.

Today has been quite slow. I have been more revising of the reference area. I went into the storage stacks and did some checking of the old reference books for items to discard. I also took someone's reference desk shifts because they called out with some personal thing or other.

I am almost done reading Common Wealth, Economics for a Crowded Planet. It will take me a while to put together a review for the book. There is a lot to comment on.

Steampunk edited by Ann & Jeff Vandermeer is finished processing so I can take it out. There are a lot of really good science fiction short story authors, Neal Stephenson, Joe R. Lansdale, Michael Moorcock, and Mary Gentle are among the authors contributing short stories. There are even a few bibliographies of recommended works.

I can say my favorite steampunk story is not a book, but a rather interesting graphic novel called The Adventures of Luther Arkwright written by Bryan Talbot. It is an apocalyptic science fiction stories written in a parallel universe in the New Wave style. The story even has its own Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Luther_Arkwright
This is a wild adventure story written in a style reminiscent of Michael Moorcock at his best.

Goblin Quest and Goblin Hero by Jim C. Hines came in and were added to the young adult fantasy collection.

Todays Thoughts

I started reading Common Wealth Economics For A Crowded Planet. So far it focuses on four major issues, sustainable global economic development, common worldwide environmental problems like carbon emissions, drylands conflicts, and overfishing, population issues, and worldwide poverty traps. It is an interesting book focused on a left of center view of international issues. The author provides a lot of statistics and quotes a lot of science. It is not just a book that is purely political statements.

The labeling of books on the atlas stand was finished this morning. I also have started looking at books in the reference storage stacks to see if any of them can be discarded.

We are opening an account with Bookazine to order material. Previously we were only focused on Baker & Taylor for ordering. When I worked in Brooklyn, we used to order a lot of our mass market paperbacks from Bookazine. I think Bookazine does a slightly better job for mass market paperbacks than Baker & Taylor.

I was reading the Daily News, May 20 newspaper at the local greasy spoon diner. I had a turkey burger, a cup of minestrone soup, and a glass of water for lunch.

This time the paper surprised me. There was an article on the Tesla roadster, the all electric sportscar that can go up 125 miles per hour and has a range of 225 miles. This was on page BW 34. Also, there was an article on the Hunts Point green market. Apparently 25% to 50% of the pollution comes from idling big rig diesel trucks in the area. They are requesting business proposals to put in biodiesel or ethanol pumps. This was on page BW 4. For me, this is encouraging. I am a fan of renewable energy and transportation. It is nice to see these kind of articles in a major local paper.

The new books came in. I like looking at the unprocessed books. It annoys the technical service person sometimes. A bunch of GED books and a few ASVAB books came in which I had ordered. These still need to have security stickers, labels, and covers put on. Also, the book, Steampunk, Edited by Ann & Jeff Vandermeer came in. I am hoping to read it soon.

I rather like steampunk because it allows the writer to pastiche many of the characters from the classic science fiction books, John Carter, Captain Nemo, Mina, Queequeeg (not a science character) into their stories.

Sometimes when you are wandering in the land of social networking you find images and pictures which are quite entertaining. This is a link to a gallery of images called the Most Interesting Bookstores in the World. The images are quite striking. http://www.miragebookmark.ch/most-interesting-bookstores.htm