Delicious has come out with a new version, complete with a snazzy new interface. Here’s a link to the details about the new features, which include a side bar featuring your top 10 tags, the ability to sort alphabetically, and faster searching.
NPR ran an interview with Boyd County, Ky., Library Director Debbie Cosper, who talks about the resurgence her library has had since the economy has gone south. A lot of people are coming in (who haven’t in a long time) for books and movies because, well, they are cheap and times are tough. You can also check out the responses people had to the story. I especially liked the man who was surprised that they scanned his book out instead of stamping a card in the back with a date stamp.
Maybe everyone already knows this, but it’s news to me: NPR streams entire concerts, for free, as part of its All Songs Considered segment. You can check out the list of performers here, which includes such Bibliovoodoo favorites as The Hold Steady, Devotchka, The Black Keys, The Ting Tings, and, most recently, Saint Tom Waits.
Of the books I’ve had on my radar for the last couple of months, this has been the one I’ve been most excited to read. Partly for what I knew of the story–it takes place on one Saturday night in Las Vegas, and centers around the disappearance of a 12 year old boy–but also to see just what all the fuss was about. The book was reviewed twice in the New York times (here and here) and the author was the subject of a lengthy profile in the Sunday magazine. All this press for a first book? I think it might be deserved.
Bock’s prose has a precision that doesn’t lose any of it’s poingancy for it’s surgical exactness. At points (and there are many of them) the prose actually hums. The story is told from the point of view of 7 different characters, each one with a voice as different and engaging as their individual back stories. Las Vegas itself might be the 8th character of this book, and, perhaps, one of the most important. And we get all of the seediness, despair, and degradation that we might expect from a story set there. But on every page Bock shows us the humanity that arises from our failings, and how preciously precarious a thing hope is. And, from a craft perspective, I made many many marginal notes here of things I liked.
There are probably things wrong with this book, and if I thought about it I could probably come up with some. (I’m wondering what people will think of the ending, for instance, or how integral Bing’s story really is to the larger narrative.) But, I actually enjoyed this book well enough that I don’t really want to think about it all that hard. I’m sure that will change with future readings of it, and that the next time through I will be taking things apart, reading with a sharper eye. But that is a testament to two things: 1), there’s enough going on here to merit such scrutiny, and 2) I know I will be reading this book again.
I am rushing to try and finish Lush Life by Richard Price in time for Labyrinth Book’s discussion of it next week. But, since I’m going to be away this weekend without much time to read, and since several of my nights this week are booked up, I downloaded the audio version of the book from Audible, so that I could listen to it while I’m sitting on the Merritt Parkway 2 hours out of everyday. But this gave me an idea for the Kindle (and the like) that would make it much e-book readers (and, as a result, e-books) much more interesting to me. What if, when you down load the e-book, it also came with an audio version? And that the readers also functioned as audiobook players? That way, people who procrastinate (like me) could read the e-book version while at home and then take it with them when on errands and listen to the audio version while in the car. I know Jeff Bezos is an avid reader of this blog, so don’t be surprised when you see such a Super Kindle hit the shelves just in time for Christmas.
