Skip to content

Universal Books?

Last night, while thinking about the vast publishing industry and the fact that you could never read even a fraction of the books published each year, even in a lifetime of reading,  I wondered “Are there any books that you could be sure that almost every single person who is a reader has read?” 

I think children's books are a good place to start – most of us have exposure to the same classics when we're young – Cat in the Hat, Charlotte's Web and into our adolescence with things like the The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew.

For that reason, that might be a good way to approach the list of books that every adult has read – except I suspect that there isn't probably a single “classic” in literature that everybody has read, the same way that there might be for children's and YA books.  In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if, given any list of 100 Great Books, there's probably a few gaps on that list for anybody (I usually feel like I've barely read half the books on any of these lists – and I've got an English degree!)

Maybe that's another way to approach it – education.  There must be some books that everybody reads in the course of their schooling.  Is Hamlet the universal book we have to read in school?  Not necessarily – I think we studied Merchant of Venice in grade ten then Romeo and Juliet in grade eleven then MacBeth in grade twelve in my high school.  I didn't see Hamlet until university (but then I saw it in about three different classes!) 

How about coming at it from the opposite direction – the books no teacher would ever recommend?  Mass market paperbacks like Stephen King, Tom Clancy, John Grisham – all of whom have been referred to as the best-selling novelist of all-time.

Is there anybody out there who has not read at least one Stephen King book?  But then again, he's got such a large back catalogue, is there a single book out of his dozens that you could say everybody has read? 

The Bible is another book that is a strong contender – it's known as the best-selling single book of all-time according to Guinness.  But I would be fairly certain that “best-selling” doesn't not equate to “most read” by a long shot!  (“David begat John begat Paul begat Mark begat Mary…” makes for some pretty dry reading!)

Any other ideas?  I think I'm going to go with Hamlet as my pick for a “universal book”.  I don't think you can be a reader of any level of finesse and get away with not having read it.

Speaking of reading habits, I had another idea driving home from RPL yesterday.  Below is a list of the books I grabbed on a fairly typical visit to the public library.  There was no filtering – either to pick “good” books or avoid “bad” ones since I didn't come up with the idea for this list until coming home so here, completely and honestly, is a list of books and other items I borrowed.  (Not that I think there's anything particularly embarrassing in this batch but just want to state for the record that I'm not “forgetting” that biography of Posh Spice that I had on hold for a month.)

The Undercover Economist
This was a hold that brought me to the library on this day.  I'd seen the book at Chapters and in typical librarian fashion (?), made note of the title so I could borrow it from the library and save myself $40.  It's supposed to be sort of similar to Freakonomics which I really enjoyed.  I started it last night and it seems like this will be a good one too! 

Atheism: A Very Short Introduction
– I usually start my browsing at the start of the non-fiction shelves so usually end up grabbing 1-2 computer/book on books/philosophy-religion titles when I visit the library.

A Devil's Chaplain – Richard Dawkins
– while waiting for “The God Delusion” to come through on hold, another Dawkins book caught my eye while browsing – this a collection of various essays.  The Selfish Gene is a great book and the origin of the word “meme” if you didn't know.

The Weblog Handbook
– browsing at Superstore the other day, I saw a new book called the Rough Guide To Blogging.  RPL doesn't have it yet but this one from 2001 seemed similar but yet, should be good
for a laugh at the same time. 

Butter Down The Well – Robert Collins
A classic about growing up on the prairies in the 1930's, I've been meaning to read this one forever.

Neil Young Nation – Kevin Chong
Someone suggested this Vancouver author's first book for our FTRW “Book of the Year” in Calgary so I was aware of him as an author.  Then I heard his new book would be a non-fiction travelogue where he compares his life to Neil Young's (plus I have about a dozen guitar picks emblazoned with the title of this book from a promotional event I attended in Moose Jaw a couple years ago.  So I figured the least I could do is read the book.)

Touched By Tommy – Ed & Pemrose Whalen
A collection of anecdotes about people's encounters with Tommy Douglas.

Stripes (DVD)
– perhaps the funniest opening scene until “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective”

Animal House: Special Edition (DVD)
– I've seen this a few times but wanted to check out the extras.

Jesus de Montreal (DVD)
– great Canadian film with an awesome ending.

(All DVD's are ones I've seen before but I like to have a familiar film playing in the background when I'm on the computer or doing other stuff so I can tune in and tune out without feeling like I'm missing anything.)

Last fall, I had a debate with one of my readers about whether 40 items was too high of a limit for a public library (she said it was, I said it wasn't even close!)  I admitted at that time that I never read all the books I take out but do like the convenience of having a “mini-library” with a range of borrowed books in it so that I can find something to read no matter what mood strikes me.  (Let's not get into the hundreds of neglected books on my own bookshelf!)  Anyhow, every book I took out yesterday is a book I *want* to read, whether it is a book I *will* read is another question. 

Oh, another realization – I'm really into non-fiction these days and rarely read fiction anymore.  Which in turn inspires an idea for a post for another day – the hierarchy of genres within the book world.  But that'll have to wait.

[Edit – I posted this question to the hivemind at AskMF for their thoughts.]

Posted 13 March 2007 § Library § List § Main Page § PopCulture ‡ Comments (18) ° Tagged:

Petition to Stop Climate Change

I don’t post every petition I come across
on here but this one is from a solid organization and it looks
like it has some potential to at least get a legitimate hearing from
top decision makers. So why not add your name to support this message?

—
Dear friend,

This
Thursday, the environment ministers from the G8, the world’s biggest
contributors to climate change, will be meeting in Germany. The outcome
of this meeting is crucial to world’s response to global warming.

Avaaz.org
has been invited to attend this meeting to present our climate change
petition. A strong voice for action could help set the agenda for the
G8. To help seize this opportunity, click below:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/climate_action_germany

The G8 is a summit of world leaders from the “Group of 8?
largest economies. Together, these countries account for 50% of global
greenhouse gas emissions–the gasses that cause climate change. The full
G8 summit is coming in June, but the agenda and outcome of this type of
high-profile event is usually set far in advance–at meetings like the
one this Thursday.

This year, the president of the G8 is
German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Her environment minister, Sigmar
Gabriel, is in charge of the ministers meeting Thursday. And at 4 pm on
March 15th, we have a personal meeting with Mr. Gabriel to present our
petition for binding emissions targets to stop catastrophic climate
change.

Merkel has indicated an interest in making climate
change a top priority. With a significant global petition, we can make
the case that the world is ready for aggressive leadership on climate
change–and pave the way for truly historic commitments at the G8 summit
this June.

It’s a rare opportunity to have a global impact. Add your voice to the petition now:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/climate_action_germany

50,000
people from 131 countries have already demanded action. Our goal is to
reach 100,000. Please sign the petition, forward this email to friends
and family, and post the link on your blog–we only have a few days to
make this statement count.

If we add our voices together, now, 2007 can become the year we took the first step to save the world.

With hope,

Ricken, David, Iain, Lee-Sean, Galit, Graziela, and the rest of the Avaaz.org team

Posted 12 March 2007 § Main Page § Politics ‡ Comments (0) °

Stephen Lewis To Speak at U of R

I've heard from multiple people that the free David Suzuki lecture a couple weeks ago at U of R was awesome.  I missed that but I'm not going to miss this one – I saw Stephen Lewis speak at CLA in Ottawa last summer and it was amazing. 

Here's the official blurb:

As you may or may not already know, on Thursday March 15, Stephen Lewis
is speaking at the University of Regina in the Education Auditorium
starting at 7:00 p.m. The talk is hosted by the U of R's Engineers
without Borders.



Stephen Lewis was the former UN special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa and
will speak about his remarkable work with the United Nations, which
spans more than two decades. He has garnered respect and attention
internationally for the strength and eloquence with which he presents
his convictions about HIV/AIDs, lobalization and the international
responsibility to address these problems.



It is free for students and $5 for non-students. Tickets are available
now at the U of R Student Union desk, and will also be available that
night (assuming they do not sell out). Contact the Student Union for
more info. 

Posted 12 March 2007 § Main Page § Politics § Saskatchewan ‡ Comments (0) °

The Impact of Having a Librarian Doing Your Reader's Advisory…

Bush's wife is a librarian for anybody who doesn't know.  (Now if she could just teach him to pronounce “eclectic”…)



Oh, and I'm tagging this with “humour” but really, it's about as far from funny as it gets.  I think it was better when Bush admitted that all he read was Sports Illustrated and summaries of the Washington Post provided by his staff. 

Posted 12 March 2007 § Humour § Main Page § Politics § PopCulture § Video ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: ,

Myths of the Developing World

“With the drama and urgency of a sportscaster, Hans Rosling debunks a few myths about the “developing” world.
Rosling is professor of international health at Sweden’s world-renowned
Karolinska Institute, and founder of Gapminder, a non-profit that
brings vital global data to life. (Recorded February 2006 in Monterey,
CA. Duration: 20:35) – More TEDTalks at http://www.ted.com”

My only comment?  Watch this video.  Amazing.  (Plus on a purely practical level, what an awesome presenter.)

(via Citadel of the Blogs, cross-posted at LibrarianActivist.org)


Posted 12 March 2007 § Humour § Internet § Main Page § Politics § Video ‡ Comments (0) °

Five More Easy Ways To Improve Facebook

I'm writing an article on Facebook for Feliciter and have spent quite a bit of time on the site recently (er, even more than usual ) so I thought I'd update my list of easy ways to improve Facebook.

1. Let users see the list of friend requests that have been sent but not accepted yet or denied.  There's a whole strange etiquette, different for everyone, about whether you accept all “add” requests or how you turn someone down (it's an either/or proposition which seems harsh – and which is maybe why they don't provide this information.  But my earlier idea about letting you set-up levels of contacts – close friend, acquaintance, idiot from high school who still won't stop bugging me) would allow you to add everyone then internally manage them within your profile.

2.  This isn't an issue for me but I wonder if women can enter their maiden name?  This would be really useful for finding those elementary and high school friends who have since changed their name (assuming they weren't married in high school of course!)  It's not just a gender thing either – people of both sexes change their names because of adoption or for other reasons so this could help you track down that funny looking musical guy from grade six who now goes by “Prince” (not a good example – I know “Prince” really was Prince's real name.) 

3.  I mentioned this is the comments of my other post but will add it here formally.  Facebook could expand the range of options for how you know people, how you met people.  For example, I'm getting added by a lot of people from Saskatchewan because I started a group called “Saskatchewan Mafia”.  But there's no way to signify that I know these people by common geography and nothing else.  “Met Randomly” is partway there but it would be nice to record exactly how you met randomly.  Online?  At a bus stop?  Through a Facebook group (and if so, which one.)  At a conference?  And so on.

4. Did I mention that I think the groups could be made a lot more useful by feeding their activity into the NewsFeeds?  Well, I'm mentioning it again because I think that's a huge step to making the site better.  Right now, groups tend to be little more than an extra way to define yourself – I'll join one for a band I like, one for the college I went to and to further show my whimsical sense of humour, one funny one about “If this group gets 10 000 members, Bob will fight a bear” or whatever.

5. The best way to make Facebook better?  If you joined!  Yes, you.  Reading this.  I know the number of people reading this blog versus the number of people who I've added in Facebook has a great discrepancy. 

I'm calling the article I'm writing for Feliciter “E-mail for the 21st Century” and really, that's what social networking sites like Facebook are becoming.  Put aside any stereotypes you have about social networking sites being full of scantily-clad, twenty year old college kids posting pictures of themselves drinking beer (that's MySpace, not Facebook) and just try it out.  Signing up is free, you'll likely have an instant network of dozens of people if you're a UWO student/grad/prof, and then just treat it like e-mail – check it daily, every couple days, whatever, and there you go.

If it is a bit of ageism keeping you from signing up (“Oh, that's for kids.  I'm too old for that.”), why not look up an article called: Why I Registered on Facebook.,  By: Lemeul, John, Chronicle of Higher Education, 00095982, 9/1/2006, Vol. 53, Issue 2

It's by a professor who did take the leap and join Facebook.  Here's the opening lines of the article:

“Yeah, I did it. I registered for an account on Facebook.com.
I'm sure I protest too much when I say it went against my instincts and
better judgment to do so. Nothing's more embarrassing than a grown-up
trying to be one of the kids. But we can't let the students have all
the fun, now, can we?

A few of my graduate-school colleagues, now
working at other campuses where I rarely hear from them, had already
signed up and pestered me to get in the loop. They had misgivings about
it, too, they assured me, but quickly found that joining led to easy
networking and positive interactions with students.

And for what it's worth, I've had more contact with those far-flung former colleagues through Facebook these last few months than I'd had in years before via e-mail and phone.”

Posted 11 March 2007 § Internet § List § Main Page ‡ Comments (8) °

FTRW 2007 – A Couple Last Notes on Freedom to Read Week

When I uploaded my FTRW interview to YouSendIt a couple days ago, I didn't realise they now required you to set-up an account before downloading files (boo!) 

Quinn has very generously agreed to host the file for those of who who may have found this a barrier for whatever reason. 

To save the file to your hard drive, right click on that “host this file” link and select “Save Link As” to save it to your hard drive.  Or click the link to listen to directly – no password or account needed.

I also had one correction from the show (so far .)  I said that Little Sister's went to court because they were importing material depicting underage sex.  That's not true.  I mixed up their Supreme Court case with another similar but different one that happened a couple years ago which was to determine if child pornography in the form of “works of the imagination” (ie. fictional stories or illustrations instead of photos) was illegal like “real” child pornography.  (If I'm reading that article right, it turns out that the Supreme Court found that it isn't.)

Okay, one and a half corrections.  I mentioned that I thought Little Sister's was going out of business.  Their web site is still up so this doesn't appear to be the case but there were rumours they might cease operations since they lost their case and were therefore subject to massive legal bills. 

Okay, two corrections.  I guessed that FTRW had been around for 25 years.  (It's 24 – not bad for a wild stab in the dark though!)

Oh, why not?  Three corrections.  I said that ALA's Banned Books week is in November.  It's in September. 

(How can you tell I'm used to the written medium where your words stay there forever to be contemplated and corrected as needed rather than the transitory nature of radio communications?  But if I'm putting up the radio broadcast in this format where anyone can download or listen repeatedly, I might as well 'fess up to my misstatements.) 

What else? I read from “Behold The Man” on the show and Wikipedia has a nice summary of the book although they give away the big “plot twist” (but so does the back cover of the edition I own – why do publishers do that?  They're getting as bad as film studios with their trailers, I swear!)

The story of how I came to know and then own this book is fun.  I was a big SF fan when I was younger and found the book while browsing at RPL one day.  The back cover (which thankfully didn't give away the plot) grabbed my attention so I took it home and devoured it.  At the time, I remember thinking it may just be the best book I'd ever read.  It was one of those books where everything fits together magically and there are no loose ends.  Plus the themes being explored – faith, mythology, religion, modern society, angst – had a big impact on me in a variety of ways. 

I kept the book in the back of my mind but never re-discovered it until I organized a Freedom to Read Week event a few months after I started at the Writers Guild of Alberta.  I asked local bookstore Pages (excellent independent bookstore if you're ever in Calgary!) to sell books at the event and during one of the readings intermission, I went over to check out their wares.

I saw the book on the table and blurted, “Sold!”  Brad, the Pages employee working the table, goes “You know that book?  Wow, I only brought it so I'd have something to flip through instead of Harry Potter when the table wasn't busy!” 

I bought it and a couple others I'd been meaning to add to my library and that book has come to define FTRW for me – I talked about it non-stop while serving on the Calgary Freedom to Read Week committee, I read from it during our FTRW reading last year at UWO and again on the radio show. 

So what I'm saying is that you (yes, you.  I can see you out there at your computer reading this blog – screw Web 2.0, that's Web 3.0, baby!) should find this book and read it. 

Posted 10 March 2007 § Censorship § Main Page § Politics § PopCulture ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: ,

"Your Name" Game

Saw this on meme on Facebook.  Here are our answers  (me first, Shea second and sometimes using her maiden name, Thompson, to keep it interesting)…

1.YOUR ROCK STAR NAME: (first pet and current street name)
Lamp Schneider
Tippy Schneider
(Sounds like a folk duo!)

2. YOUR MOVIE STAR NAME: (grandfather/grandmother on mother's side first name, favorite candy)
Wally KitKat
Thelma Bounty Bar

3. YOUR “FLY GIRL/GUY” NAME: (first initial of first name, first two or three
letters of your last name)
J. Ham
S. Ham (or S. Thom) 

4.YOUR DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite animal, name of high school)
Monkey Ihhs
Beagle Weyburn Comp

5. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you were born)
Scott Indian Head
Lisa Regina

6. YOUR OPPOSITE SEX NAME: (name of dad/mom, cell phone Company you use)
Janet Luddite
Dennis No

7. YOUR STAR WARS NAME: (first 3 letters of your last name, last 3 letters of mother's maiden name, first 3 letters of your pet's name)
Hampeenik
Thobecsno

8. YOUR JEDI NAME: (middle name spelled backwards, your mom's maiden name spelled backwards)
Ttocs Teep
Asil Daetskceb

9. YOUR STAGE NAME: (middle name, street you grew up on)
Scott Robison
Lisa Hughes

10. YOUR SUPERHERO NAME: (“The”, your favorite color, the first thing you see when you look to your left)
The Red Mirror
The Brown Mirror

Also on Facebook, there's a growing group of current LIS students who are planning to get their cutter numbers as tattoos.

We heard tales of others who had done this but no one (at least in my cohort as far as I know) did anything like this.  But I've gone back and updated my “Library School Bondage” post because this is another fun idea. 

Seek them out if you're interested in participating!

Posted 10 March 2007 § LibrarySchool § Main Page § Meme ‡ Comments (5) °

Web 2.0's Potential Benefits To Society

MetaFilter is having one of its periodic debates about Web 2.0.  As I mentioned the last time I talked about this, young, web-savvy types are supposed to be cynical about everything, especially what they see as marketing-driven buzzwords like Web 2.0 (read the thread for more insight.)

Still, one comment in that thread caught my eye, not least of all because it's in handy-dandy list format. (Yay, lists!  They make information meaningful!  )

IMHO,
web-double-ought is important because it's now a cultural movement,
albeit mostly vain, shallow, and superficial.



Instead of worrying about how you make money off of it, howsabout we look at the potential benefits to society?



1. UGC is a big deal to Old Media because it's free content. And just
like Hollywood, the “best” content will rise to the top and translate
to old media. But those millions of people who are “practicing”
writing, or YouTubing, or photoshopping, or collaborating on things are
cumulatively adding to society, and gaining skills that are
transferable in the workplace, plus they most likely are learning
something new that they are enjoying.

2. Wisdom of Crowds: Individuals are dumb, markets are efficient, and
crowds can be smart (and dangerous). But democracy is a messy thing. We
pay a lot of attention to stock markets, Vegas, futures markets, and
prediction exchanges, don't we?

3. Examining big data can mean new discoveries. It can also mean false positives (ie. MySpace sex offenders).

4. The greater the level of engagement (or interaction, for people),
the stronger their feelings, and the more likely they are to link it to
positive emotions. Doing online research to pick the camera you want
and reading the opinions of others may likely cause you to enjoy the
purchase more afterwards.

5. Network effects: When you are composing a MeFi post, how useful is
del.icio.us versus Google for finding those esoteric BOTW links?

6. Openness: More transparency = more trust. If you share everything,
then you have nothing to hide (within reason). And allowing other
people to “mashup” your data gives you new ways to look at things, new
insights, and potentially new opprtunities for monetization.



Web 2.0 might be a pretentious buzzword, but it's a part of the culture now, which means it can become a real force for change.

Posted 09 March 2007 § Internet § List § Main Page ‡ Comments (2) °

Friday Fun Link – Scribd (March 9, 2007)

Scribd is a new site attempting to be the “YouTube of documents.”
It currently accepts .doc, .ppt, .txt, .pdf, .xls, .ps, .lit, .cia and
.nhl file formats (just seeing if you’re paying attention on those last
two!)

Right now, the site seems to be a mix of pirated e-books (there’s that YouTube connection!) and documents of the type your mom might forward to you by e-mail.

But
it definitely has potential as an information sharing medium. As one
commenter in the TechCrunch story says: “It’ll be interesting to see
what kind of content becomes popular. Term papers? Government
documents? Porn? All of the above?” If YouTube is the guide, “all of
the above” is probably the most likely. (Er, except porn. YouTube
doesn’t allow that. Uhm, at least that’s what a friend told me.)

Like YouTube, Scripd allows embedding of any documents. Here’s one called “18 Tricks To Teach Your Body.”

Posted 09 March 2007 § FridayFunLink § Internet § Main Page § PopCulture ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: