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Blog A Penguin Classic

This is interesting: Penguin Books Ltd. have set up a blog inviting readers' reviews of titles in the Penguin Classics series. An interesting selection of titles have been reviewed so far -- click on the "Books" link for the list (not for the first time I smugly note that our catalogue's title browses don't list all the books beginning with "The" under "T").

Sadly, I was too late to get a free book for myself (which may account for the cheap point-scoring in the last paragraph).

Shopping list

I bumped into Ellis Nadler's blog by accident, and a happy one too. I'm a great believer in the power serendipity and Ellis' often deceptively-simple sketches are often chock-full of stray thoughts skittering off in all directions.

His recent "Shopping List" is a nice example. Here's a game for those of us with enquiring minds:

• What on earth was Ellis planning on doing that prompted him to draw up this shopping list?
• Did he do it?
• And who did the cleaning up afterwards?

No prizes, just a bit of fun.

National Year of Reading: quick update

I've added a new tab to our Web Catalogue for the National Year of Reading.

At the moment there are two pages:

• NYR: a list of National Year of Reading resources and reading list links based on the Ultimate Book Guide
• Themes: reading list links based on the monthly themes

Cult Books

The Daily Telegraph's issued a list of "The 50 best cult books," which is to say, 50 books of cult reading rather than 50 books by or about cults (for the most part). Personally, I think the list betrays the vintage of the writer: I recall too many of the "you really must read this" titles from my student days (luckily I did a science degree, so intellectual reading wasn't compulsory and we could read sensible stuff like Machiavelli, Voltaire and Edgar Wallace).

The comments are almost as much fun as the list, too.

Read all about it

Here's one where I ask you for help:

I'm putting together some National Year of Reading-themed reading lists for the Web Catalogue. The "Read all about it" theme obviously suggests print journalism so that's what I'm going along with. I can find lots of non-fiction but I'm struggling with fiction: I want to include books with journalists as the main protagonists or with a press setting. Aside from "Scoop," which we have in reserve stock, all I could think of were some of the works of Edgar Wallace and E.Phillips Oppenheimer (betraying my vintage) which we don't have at all. (If you have to ask who they are you're too young to know). Oh, and Superman because Clark Kent's a reporter.

Any ideas?

Alexander the Corrector by Julia Keay

Subtitled "The Tormented Genius Who Unwrote The Bible," this is an engaging biography of Alexander Cruden, who wrote "Cruden's Concordance," a key tool for biblical scholars for more than 200 years.

This book was recommended by a friend. I expected a pretty dry read and was surprised to be dead wrong. This is a well-researched biography which relies on detective work in the original sources rather than rehashing old work. The result is a humane, briskly-written story of the life of a man who, while a tad obsessive, was not the madman he's often portrayed to be. Cruden comes across is a courageous, moral, if somewhat naive man.

I'd recommend this biography.

--s

Reading group blog

Rochdale Readers, the children's reading group that meets at the Wheatsheaf Library, have created their own blog. The blog's an opportunity for the group to let people know what they're doing; share reading ideas; and post small pieces of creative writing.

Rochdale Readers meets at the Wheatsheaf Library about once a month on a Saturday. The group's open to children over the age of six.

The National Year of Reading

2008 is The National Year of Reading, a celebration of words and reading in every form: from novels to song lyrics, from poetry to film scripts.

From April to December events and activities linked to The National Year of Reading will have a monthly theme:

• April: Read all about it!
• May: Mind and body
• June: Reading escapes
• July: Rhythm and rhyme
• August: Read the game
• September: You are what you read
• October: Word of Mouth
• November: Screen reads
• December: Write the future

Look out for National Year of Reading events in a library near you!

Emma: The Twice-Crowned Queen by Isabella Strachan

This is a profoundly frustrating book! The author's to be commended for having done a great amount of research to pull together an array of fascinating characters, violent times and courtly intrigues. Sadly, though, although all the characters and events of epic drama are present and correct the drama itself doesn't come to the party. The author just doesn't have any sense of narrative flow.

Take, for example, the incident of the St. Brice's Day massacre. It's heavily touted within the book as the single most catastrophic incident in the reign of Ethelred the Unready (and, arguably, Saxon England history) but when the moment comes in the narrative you would hardly notice it. A couple of pages afterwards it suddenly dawned on me that the author's references to the event had changed from "would be" to "was."

There are other instances, and plenty more where the narrative flow begins to build and then is lurched out of the way to make room for a short, distracting side issue. It reads and feels very much like reading a chronicler's efforts: "here's the latest installment of the story and while I remember here's a couple more facts."

Sadly, this is a book written by an encyclopedist, not a historian.

-- Steven

Friends Forever by Lynn Andrews

More comments and reviews by the Home Library Reading Circle

"A good read"
— D.

"A very enjoyable book. YOu have to keep turning the pages, and it makes you realise how lucky we are to have good friends.!
— N.R.

"A very good read. I loved every page."
— L. McE.

"A light-hearted story line. Well written, which makes 'Forever Friends' a very easy read."
— D.Y.

"One of those books which is an enjoyable, light-hearted read. I will be looking forward to more books by Lynn Andrews."
— L.N.

We have copies of "Friends Forever" at most of our libraries. It's also available in large print and as a Talking Book.

Spread The Word!

Spread The Word — the organisation set up by The Bookseller's Association to encourage a love of reading — has set up a web site called Books To Talk About, which does what it says on the tin. Amongst the features on the site are competions and a discussion forum.

You'll also find links to the web site for this year's World Book Day on March 6th. This site will be listing events and activities for World Book Day but you don't have to wait until then to have a look at the games and links.

We've added links to titles from the Books To Talk About list on our Web Catalogue. Borrowers registered with Rochdale Library Service can reserve any of these titles by clicking on the "Request item" button and it won't cost you a penny. All you need is the barcode from your library card and your PIN number (if you don't have a PIN, or can't remember it, you can ask a member of staff to set one up for you next time you're in the library).

Landscape Photographer of the Year Collection

What a beautiful book! There are a lot of really gorgeous photography books around at the moment and this is a splendid example.

The pictures are lovely. Some of them are really surprising: they are straightforward shots of landscapes or features within landscapes but the angle of the camera or the light or the way the colours interact make them impossible to identify at first sight. All those "ordinary" things I'd just walk past and ignore if I were there, suddenly made wonderful. Others are just wonderful landscapes taken well. The colours are marvellous and some of the skies!

— Susan

We have one copy of this book, at the Wheatsheaf Library.

Literary awards

This is a bit of mischief on my part but I couldn't resist it: I've added the shortlist for the Literary Review's Bad Sex In Fiction award to the Reading Links pages of our Web Catalogue.

I'm not sure how much should be read into the fact that we've got all the titles on the shortlist and the previous five winners. Probably best not to think about it!

Web Catalogue: Winning Reads

Beowulf

With all the recent publicity and hooplah for the premiere of the film version of "Beowulf" it's worth our pointing out that we have a few different editions of the poem in our libraries, along with some scholarly commentaries on the poem.

As well as classic editions we have:

• Copies of Seamus Heaney's much-acclaimed retelling both in book and audio format;


• Michael Morpugo's version for children, with dramatic illustrations by Michael Foreman; and


• Caitlin Kiernan's novelisation of the film.