Libromancer's Apprentice

Assassins in Love (Assassins Guild #1) / Kris DeLake ( Powell's Books ) When one killer falls for another Agent: Misha Profile: Highly trained in every method the assassins guild has to offer. Always goes by the book. Agent: Rikki Profile: Rogue assassin who kills only to rid the world of hardened criminals. Hates organizations. Always does it her way. Love becomes a matter of life and death Misha's mission is to get Rikki to join the guild or give up her guns. He completely underestimated the effect she would have on him...and what heat and chaos they could bring to each other... Sometimes I read well written smutty novels, sometimes I read serious literature, sometimes I read hard science fiction, and sometimes I read fluff.  This novel was fluff, and not even real well written fluff.  It at least doesn't have people in physically impossible poses on the cover (even if the appearances don't match the character descriptions).  We have some plot that exist...

So back at Book Expo America I met a whole bunch of awesome authors, including Chuck Palahniuk, who I've described as " possibly one of the coolest authors I have ever met " and then completely failed to explain why . Awkward photo pose is awakward Well, several months later I can finally talk about one of the reasons he is so damn awesome. My cousin (not actually my cousin, but close enough) Scott is a huge Palahniuk fan.  This man's books triggered reading as a fun activity for him, which alone is enough to make me happy.  What can I say?  I cannot image not enjoying reading.  So when I found out that Palahniuk would be hanging out at the Kobo booth doing an interview via questions submitted on Twitter I had to track him down to say hi.  On hearing that I knew someone whom his books impacted he paused me, dug around in his bag, and gave me a SASE with a greeting card inside. See, Mr. Palahniuk has this game .  My part in it has finally finished...

I spent a good chunk of this past Sunday crawling under grubby desks while my library was closed.  But it was for a good cause - how else to actually trace out all our network lines and clean up this mess: I wonder if this is why Charles Stross likes to include Lovecraftian horrors in his cyber-fiction. For various reasons, technology at my library has a bit of a haphazard history.  To start things off I am the sum of the technology budget (which is a whole different issue) and the library itself consists of a historic house with two 'modern' additions, none of which were built with any sort of Internet access in mind.  My predecessor did a lot for the technology set up in my library, but computers made up only a small area of her many responsibilities.  The wiring was not all run by the same person, or even all by people who really knew what they were doing, and it shows.  Some of the mess is stuff we are not supposed to touch (such as the yellow cab...

LibraryThing is Hiring: Bookish and Social Media Savvy? :D What do you think about E-Cigarettes in libraries? This is spurred by an active discussion right now on the MA library listserve.  No definitive answer has come either way, but largely libraries are leaning towards "not allowed." New Infographic: Good News in Fair Use for Libraries  Selling the value of literacy I love the focus on the idea of selling the value of literacy, of learning from the students in order to best help them love learning. Censorship doesn't just stifle speech - it can spread disease About some real world health risks that can (and do) arise due to information lock-down. Newest YouTube user to fight a takedown is copyright guru Lawrence Lessig Well, this could be worth following.

Recap: Fantasy & Science Fiction: The Human Mind, Our Modern World This was a decent class with some amazing fellow students and on subject matter interesting that I find interesting.  It also had distinct downsides. Taking this class also requires a significant time commitment, and even as a quick reader I experienced difficulties staying on top of the assignments , often choosing to not complete all of the readings when presented with several books in a week.  The course description says 8-12 hours of work per week - a week that includes likely 2 hours of lecture video, reading several hundred pages, writing a short essay, and evaluating other student's essays.  Completing the coursework would have been distinctly easier had I not also enrolled in a second MOOC, and if I was willing to read only the assigned coursework for 10 weeks. I found the format choice a bit odd.  Each unit began on a Thursday with a 2-3 minute "before you read" segment that someti...

For the final essay of Fantasy and Science Fiction: The Human Mind, Our Modern World, we read Cory Doctorow's Little Brother . This essay earned me my worst grade in the whole class. I wish that my peer reviewers all gave some feedback on this essay, though I appreciate the three that made an effort.  I do admit that I failed to stick to the guidelines for sticking to purely literary matters.  I also needed a larger Works Cited submission box, I went past the word limit and could not include more citations (including the book itself). Little Brother resonates with me.  I strongly believe in the message that Doctorow projects through his novel, and do not mind that his message is about as subtle as a brick wall.  This all is pretty evident in my essay. Little Brother is about the dangers complete trust in security measures.  Benjamin Franklin wrote "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty ...

Hamlet is Banned It should be no surprise that I'm against filtering, and this is a rather hysterical (if incredibly frustrating for the author) instance of filtering gone wrong. A Rational Framework for Library eBook Licensing Interesting read. XKeyscore: NSA tool collects 'nearly everything a user does on the internet' Does anyone else miss the days when NSA was known mostly as the boogie man of a Dan Brown novel?  It's good to know, but damn it is depressing. Cory Doctorow: privacy, oversharing and government surveillance On privacy, over-sharing, and concerns about surveillance. Are Hackers the Next Bogeyman Used to Scare Americans Into Giving Up More Rights? Aren't they already being used as the bogeyman?  This is a great time to reread Little Brother by Cory Doctorow. Fortunately, the book... (Explained) Gaiman's Fortunately, the milk is delightful both in writing and illustration, and I was fortunate enough to acquire a signed ARC at Bo...