Thursday, April 12, 2007

Wow! Book swapping sites to feed your book collection on the cheap!

Hello readers! While going through the Real Simple magazine March 2007, I found a recommendation for two book swapping sites that will help you trade your books for very little money. The first is PaperBackSwap.com and lets you trade your paperback books for paperback books from other people. You create your free account online, then list the paperback books you are willing to give to other people (you will not see them again, so don't give away your treasures). When a person requests a book from your list (which can happen in a very short time --sometimes minutes), you mail the book to the person (and request Book Rate from the postmaster). You are paying the postage and supplying the envelope you mail it in--on paperbacks, it is only around $1.60 per book + envelope cost. When the person receives the book, you get a credit to choose a book of your own, which you'll get totally free! The other similar service is TitleTrader. Title trader works the same way, but you can list DVDs, CDs, and hardbacks. Remember the shipping costs for a hardback can reach $4.00. I am picturing this as a way to trade and get classroom reading assignment books for a great price!!!

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Thank you, Oprah!

In one of the issues of Oprah Magazine my mom gets, she cut out this list of sites that are great for book-lovers. I've recently gotten addicted to www.shelfari.com, where you get to develop your bookshelf with any books you want (want to read, have read, etc.). Other members can look at your shelf, and there are places where people can ask questions or start discussions about certain books. If the book selected is on your shelf, you'll receive notification when a question/discussion is started about it. I only have a few books right now, but i have every intention of broadening that list very soon!!

It's also not blocked at school! Which is fun. :-D Just don't get in trouble with it, or you'll get it blocked, and I'll get angry.

~Amber M.

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Terrific quotes from books!

The New York Times has a place on their website where readers are posting their favorite quotes from fairly recent books! Reading these quotes is like feeding your mind! To read them, go to :
http://news.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/03/27/what-is-your-favorite-quote-from-a-recent-book/

There are even quotes submitted by one reader from two Diana Gabaldon books--a favorite series for some of our faculty members!

Enjoy!

Over spring break, I am going to try to read a couple of Margaret Maron mysteries--I am behind a bit, and need to catch up. They are great fun!

Hope everyone takes some time to read over spring break!

Thursday, March 22, 2007

Someone has the same name as you, LG!!

I stumbled upon this site, http://librarygoddess.blogspot.com .

I really like it--some lady has been reviewing Young Adult novels since July of 2004, and she gives them ratings and why she feels that way. She has a lot of titles that seem really interesting, and i even found out that some of those books we already have! but we don't have a lot. But a lot of those books seemed really interesting, and i know some of you will enjoy at least a few of them!!

~Amber

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

New books, new books, yippee!! New books!




We made two hits on Barnes and Noble last week--one on Wednesday night, and one on Friday. We even had some students with us on Friday--they got to pick out some books for our library collection as well!! A lot of titles are flying off the shelves--so some of the following may no longer be in--but you can put a hold on any book! Here are just a few of the titles we have added--more will follow in the next few days. New Manga has been added as well--you'll just have to check all the Manga shelves, and see what is new! Consider it our own little version of an Easter Egg Hunt!

006.5 KEL The iPod Book : Doing Cool Stuff with the iPOD
155.9 VIN Grief girl : my true story
158.1 BYR The secret
220.5 GOD Extreme Teen Bible : NCV.
363.25 ERZ Forensics : Ttue Ctime Scene Investigation.
363.25 INN Body in question : exploring the cutting edge in forensic science .
428.1 EIS Vicious vocabulary
616.8 BRA Brains that work a little bit differently
629.22 CHE American Cars
629.227 MIT Choppers : And Custom Motorcycles.
629.227 RAF Harley-Davidson : the ultimate machine
646 BLA 99 ways to cut, sew & deck out your denim
741.5 ELV How To Draw Dragons : And Other Mythical Creatures
746 ARO The Cute Book.
771 BUS Creative digital photography
808 STE Real A+ college term papers
920.72 NEE Wild west women
944 LIT France : The Timeline History of France.
F AND The secrets of peaches : a novel Anderson, Jodi
F BAK No place for magic Baker, E. D.
F BAR A girl like moi : the fashion-forward adventure .
F BUT A good scent from a strange mountain
F CAL The nature of Jade
F CHA This is all : the pillow book of Cordelia Kenn
F COL Ruby Parker hits the small time
F COR Ordinary Ghosts Corrigan, Eirea
F DOG Waves Dogar, Sharon.
F GAI Neverwhere : a novel Gaiman, Neil.
F HEI Starship troopers Heinlein, Rober
F HIT Tales of terror Hitchcock, Alfred
F HUG Lemonade Mouth Hughes, Mark
F JAB Silent echoes Jablonski, Carl
F JAC The Friday night knitting club Jacobs, Kate
F MIC Lethal Justice Michaels, Fern.
F MIT Now you see her Mitchard, Jacque
F MOR The riddles of Epsilon
F ONO The twelve kingdoms Ono, Fuyumi
F PEE Tamar Peet, Mal.
F PIC Nineteen minutes : a novel Picoult, Jodi,
F RAB Cures for heartbreak Rabb, M. E.
F RUD Drama! : The Four Dorothys. Ruditis, Paul.
F SHA Sons of destiny Shan, Darren.
F SIG Kino no tabi : the beautiful world Shigusawa, Keii
F STO Bleed Stolarz, Laurie
F WES The last days : a novel Westerfeld, Scott




I'd especially like to mention these two:


The Secrets of Peaches by Jodi Anderson and Forever in Blue by Ann Brashares






There are many more titles added as well--just stop by and check out the new book display!!

Thursday, March 15, 2007

What is wrong with me?!?!

Maaaaaaaaaaaaaybe it would've been helpful if I had put the URL along with that last post. XD

Sorry!!!!!!!!!!! Here it is!

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/olivertwist/index.html

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Fun Fun Oliver Site!!

Mrs. Simmons found this site for Oliver Twist, and it's a lot of fun!! You can get images of the characters (from the movie, mind you, but it creates a nice visual). There's also a map that can take you around to all the places Oliver goes in his travels, as well as an interactive timeline of Dickens' life. I think the fun part (maybe that's just me) is going to be "A Victorian Twister", which is basically a 'quiz' thing...Buuuut yeah!! It helps if you haven't finished the book yet, and seems like it'd be fun for those who have (i want to read and then see if my images of the characters match up!).

play around, have fun!!

See ya next Friday!

Thursday, March 1, 2007

Fun Planned for Oliver Twist readers

I hope that many of you bloggers are reading along in Oliver Twist. I, too, am enjoying it, but I want to smack the beejeebers out of somebody for so abusing the kid! Anyway, here are our plans for fun:

On March 8 at 3:20 or so in the media center we'll have a nice English tea, with nice English snacks such as scones and crumpets, perhaps some cucumber sandwiches. At this point, we'll talk about around half the book, depending on where we all are. At this point, I'll get a headcount for the Friday, March 23rd festivities. If you cannot attend this meeting contact the Library Goddess and let her know so we can count you in. But please try to come to this meeting--especially students!

On March 23, we will leave school around 3:30 and head to Spice of India restaurant for a nice meal and discussion of Oliver. FREE to students IF you've read the book. How's that for bribery? Then, we'll return and watch the play "Oliver."

If we want, we can do a follow up meeting (maybe with more tea) later to compare the book and play.

If this turns out to be fun--and it seems like it will--perhaps we can do more "fun with the classics" events. OK?

Monday, February 26, 2007

Oliver Twist and NASCAR


What do Oliver Twist and NASCAR have in common? Absolutely nothing, except that I am currently reading Oliver Twist, and a book on the history of NASCAR, Driving with the Devil: Southern Moonshine, Detroit Wheels, and the Birth of NASCAR. I am enjoying the heck out of both of them! I really didn't think I would like Oliver Twist, as I have a fear of Dickens that remains from my high school English class, but I am really getting in to the humor. Poor Oliver! What hideous adults surround Oliver! Driving with the Devil is great fun--I love reading about the wild roots of NASCAR! It is well-written and fast-paced (no pun intended).

Thursday, February 15, 2007

The Fear and Hope Paradox in SciFi

It seems to me that one of the key distinguishing characteristics of science fiction literature is its strange and sometimes paradoxical mixture of fear and hope. Let's talk about those ideas in the literature circle books: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Jurassic Park, Stranger in a Strange Land, The Martian Chronicles, and I Robot. Anyone may comment, of course. I'll start. In Androids I see a deep-down fear that there is really no difference at all between man and machine. When you come right down to it, says the author, it's impossible to tell them apart. Even given super advanced technology, is there a point at which machine development can stop. (Remember, what looked like science fiction 50 years ago is now reality.) What do you think makes a human human? How hopeful are you for mankind's continued existence? Let's hear some chatter out there, scifi class (and others, of course).