Week Five: Building Base Knowledge (Part II)

Assignment 1

Visiting The Book Beast, it's very easy to get a wee bit distracted. Who doesn't want to look at the weirdest chickens ever?

The Fancy

But I digress. One fun article I stumbled upon was, Jane Austen Coined Modern Slang from the Women in the World pages. Yes, did you know "dinner-party" and "brace yourself" and 1,640 other fabulous phrases in the Modern Oxford English Dictionary come from none other than Jane Austen?

On another visit I became overcome with laughter when I spied the The Oatmeal: the stories behind the funniest comics (photos)

But, I digress. Again. I caught an article on the new biography by Jimmy Connors, The Outsider. And with a heading of "Jimmy Connors, Still a Jerk" who can pass that one up? And I'm glad I didn't because less than one week later a customer came in to request that book and I already knew about it and we were able to chat about the book. Awesome!

I'm really enjoying this site. I have set up my Google Calendar with a reminder so I can read the articles on a regular basis. I cannot read ALL of them, but I can look at a few. Thankfully, they are short and sweet. 

Assignment 2

Popular fiction, and whatever just came out and "I heard this on the Today Show this morning" are pretty popular at Perry Hall. We have our regular "Hot Titles" readers for sure. I have always scanned the People Magazine book pages and NPR Books, but I am finding Early Word extremely useful and nice to look at. How they managed to streamline that much information is beyond me, but color me impressed.

As a bit of a grammar nerd, the first thing I noticed is that they use "readers" as an adjective instead of a possessive noun when writing "readers advisory." I can't be the only person who wonders about style choices like that! I believe I may be rambling now, but I think that is what blogs are for.

I then immediately saw an article on Fairyland, Alysia Abbott's memoir. Since I had JUST heard that interview on Fresh Air, it is all coming together.

There are so many links, but I like the readers advisory page the most and am putting that on my "to read" schedule. I obviously do not read fast enough; you know what they say: so many books, so little time, but being able to read small blurbs on what is up and coming helps immensely.

Assignment 3

Last week I perused the up-and-coming titles and chose The Yonahlossee Riding Camp For Girls. It is a coming-of-age story for young adults, but I think it is one that will appeal to adults as well. It is described as having a lush writing style with a strong sense of place with steamy and disturbing appeal factors. It delves into class issues and takes place during the Great Depression, which is an interesting backdrop as well. People who enjoy a dramatic story with heartbreak and family mystery should enjoy this book. I think a good read-alike would be The Girl With a Pearl Earring. I put it on my "to read" list myself; it looks intriguing.