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On my job...
Jul. 29th, 2008 12:26 amI really love my job, you guys. Like, seriously. There are things about it that really annoy me sometimes, but that happens with even the best jobs.
( Wherein I ramble. About the library. )
So, in closing, a few book recs: (links provided for summary purposes, not for go-out-and-buy these purposes) (Also, these reflect my reading trends right now: ie weird/interesting non-fiction rather than fiction.)
For Bug specifically, A Companion to Wolves by Sarah monette and Elizabeth Bear. I can't vouch for the writing as I haven't gotten to read it yet, but it looks right up your alley. Big wolves, faux-Scandinavian fantasy, and good reviews (but how much do they know, really?) I read the summary and went, "Bug!" So, there's that rec for you.
Don't Panic. A biography of sorts of the Hitch(h)iker's Guide to the Galaxy, written partly in quotes from Douglas Adams himself, but also compiled and further added onto by Neil Gaiman. Yes, people, Neil Gaiman writing about Douglas Adams and Hitchiker's. It was fascinating and awesome.
Bodies We've Buried. Which is a look inside the National Forensics Academy, "the top CSI training school in the country". If some of the Amazon reviews are to be believed, there are several details very, very wrong, and some people won't like the humor. But I found if entertaining and fun, and I almost laughed out loud at some bits, so the humor hit right with me. So, take it with a grain of salt or just read it for semi-gory entertainment. Still fun.
Freakonomics. Again, some of the reviews at Amazon are unfavorable, but this is a great--and here's that word again: entertaining--book. It's an economist doing what an economist does: looking at numbers and statistics and extrapolating conclusions. But he's doing it because of questions like: If drug dealers make so much money, why do they still live with their mothers? Or: What's more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool? It is, of course, more than that, because each question leads to more questions, and the answers are surprising. I actually heard the book, since the first copy without a hold on it to come through my hands was on CD. But that's good, too. And unabridged.
Okay, I'm done. I'm going to sleep now... And I totally need a librarian icon. To-do for tomorrow.
*Side story: yesterday I overheard a woman at the next station complaining about fingerprints and scratches on kids DVDs, and how we should clean all of them as they come in. I looked over at our juvenile movies shelves, which are right next to the desk, and see them crammed full, and then visualize the piles of movies still to be checked in, and shake my head. If we had the time and woman-power [there's only three guys in circulation department right now, and one of them's a manager, one of them's leaving soon, and the other one has been out of town for weeks] to clean all our DVDs as they came in, we totally would. But we just don't. It's not actually possible. That would probably at least double our check-in time, and delay getting the materials that you check out every day back on the shelves for you to get. So it takes you two extra seconds to either do it your own self so your kids don't put more scratches/fingerprints on the discs, or to clean the two discs you're bitching about yourself, which you claim your husband is an expert at. Bleh.
( Wherein I ramble. About the library. )
So, in closing, a few book recs: (links provided for summary purposes, not for go-out-and-buy these purposes) (Also, these reflect my reading trends right now: ie weird/interesting non-fiction rather than fiction.)
For Bug specifically, A Companion to Wolves by Sarah monette and Elizabeth Bear. I can't vouch for the writing as I haven't gotten to read it yet, but it looks right up your alley. Big wolves, faux-Scandinavian fantasy, and good reviews (but how much do they know, really?) I read the summary and went, "Bug!" So, there's that rec for you.
Don't Panic. A biography of sorts of the Hitch(h)iker's Guide to the Galaxy, written partly in quotes from Douglas Adams himself, but also compiled and further added onto by Neil Gaiman. Yes, people, Neil Gaiman writing about Douglas Adams and Hitchiker's. It was fascinating and awesome.
Bodies We've Buried. Which is a look inside the National Forensics Academy, "the top CSI training school in the country". If some of the Amazon reviews are to be believed, there are several details very, very wrong, and some people won't like the humor. But I found if entertaining and fun, and I almost laughed out loud at some bits, so the humor hit right with me. So, take it with a grain of salt or just read it for semi-gory entertainment. Still fun.
Freakonomics. Again, some of the reviews at Amazon are unfavorable, but this is a great--and here's that word again: entertaining--book. It's an economist doing what an economist does: looking at numbers and statistics and extrapolating conclusions. But he's doing it because of questions like: If drug dealers make so much money, why do they still live with their mothers? Or: What's more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool? It is, of course, more than that, because each question leads to more questions, and the answers are surprising. I actually heard the book, since the first copy without a hold on it to come through my hands was on CD. But that's good, too. And unabridged.
Okay, I'm done. I'm going to sleep now... And I totally need a librarian icon. To-do for tomorrow.
*Side story: yesterday I overheard a woman at the next station complaining about fingerprints and scratches on kids DVDs, and how we should clean all of them as they come in. I looked over at our juvenile movies shelves, which are right next to the desk, and see them crammed full, and then visualize the piles of movies still to be checked in, and shake my head. If we had the time and woman-power [there's only three guys in circulation department right now, and one of them's a manager, one of them's leaving soon, and the other one has been out of town for weeks] to clean all our DVDs as they came in, we totally would. But we just don't. It's not actually possible. That would probably at least double our check-in time, and delay getting the materials that you check out every day back on the shelves for you to get. So it takes you two extra seconds to either do it your own self so your kids don't put more scratches/fingerprints on the discs, or to clean the two discs you're bitching about yourself, which you claim your husband is an expert at. Bleh.
