habitually probing generalist » Ebook reading http://marklindner.info/blog Palmer, CL. “Structures and strategies of interdisciplinary science.” JASIS 50(3): 242-253, 1999 Sun, 06 May 2012 21:26:11 +0000 en hourly 1 Constructing my Books Read in 2010 post http://marklindner.info/blog/2011/01/04/constructing-my-books-read-in-2010-post/ http://marklindner.info/blog/2011/01/04/constructing-my-books-read-in-2010-post/#comments Tue, 04 Jan 2011 20:41:25 +0000 Mark http://marklindner.info/blog/?p=2358 Constructing my previous post, Books Read in 2010, was far too difficult.  Still. I keep a simple running list of books I read in VoodooPad, a personal wiki, on my laptop.  I record them by date started, author’s last name … Continue reading →]]>

Constructing my previous post, Books Read in 2010, was far too difficult.  Still.

I keep a simple running list of books I read in VoodooPad, a personal wiki, on my laptop.  I record them by date started, author’s last name and title.  When I finish I add that date.  At some point I look them up in a library catalog—generally WorldCat nowadays—and bring them into Zotero and add them to a folder titled Books Read in 20xx.

In the past I have exported that folder from Zotero as a bibliography in HTML and pasted it into WordPress.  With some minor editing I got a decent bibliography including COinS data for every title.  But somewhere along the line over the last year or two things have gone wonky and some interaction between the COinS-formatted HTML from Zotero and WordPress have caused much of that data to be stripped out.  Last year was a real pain and seeing as this year my list was 20-some-odd percent longer I could not face all of that work simply to have much of it disappear no matter how much wrangling and struggling I did.

My next thought was that I would simply use the OpenBook plugin by John Miedema that I am using for book reviews [example post].  I was not looking forward to plugging one hundred or so ISBNs into its input form one at a time but it was in theory doable. [This was due more to how much work I had already done verifying ISBNs, "correcting" those in Zotero and pasting a copy of the ISBN into the text file created with the bibliography exported from Zotero than it was the effort to use the plugin.]

So I ran a little test trying a few “random” ISBNs from the list to see what the Open Library records looked like and/or if they had records for some of my less popular titles.  The results were horrible!  I estimated I would have to add records for at least 20 titles and fix records on 2 to 3 times that many.  I began slowly poking away at them over the course of a couple days—days when I should have been doing other things of course—and although my estimates were highly accurate I got it done.

At some point in my cataloging I noticed that Open Library had recently added a lists feature.  I thought perhaps I’ll just make a list there and point my blog readers to it; although that did strike me as rather dismal.  Of course, I noticed the list feature after I had added or re-cataloged somewhere around 30 books; which meant I had to look them all up again individually to add them to my new list.  ::sigh::

Then I discovered that you can export a list in either JSON, HTML or BibTex.  Sadly I know little to nothing about either JSON or BibTex so if they would have made my life easier—without a steep learning curve first—then I did myself a disfavor by using HTML.

Well, the HTML needed a lot of massaging to look decent once imported into WordPress.  As the native page exported by Open Library it looks OK, but WordPress treats those h3s, spans and divs much differently. [Technically not an export but a simplified page generated from your main list that you can save and/or copy from the source.]

I believe the titles are in the list in the order I entered them, or something close to that anyway.  Sadly, that order bears no relation to anything useful.  Thus, I had to cut and paste the whole list into the order I wanted.  Then I started playing with layout to see what would look decent enough in WordPress.  Once I figured it out I started changing the divs and h3s to spans and removing all the extraneous white space.  By hand.  TextEdit was of no use in the white space changing game.  As I was getting really tired of all the mousing, etc. involved I remembered that Dreamweaver might do a much better job with white space in find and replace.  With hope I fired up the long disused copy of DW and opened my file.  I highlighted a group of white space and a tag to change, hit ⌘-C to copy it, hit ⌘-F to open Find and Replace, saw that the white space was intact, put the cursor in the replace box, hit ⌘-V to paste the same in, deleted the white space I wanted removed, and hit OK.  It did what I wanted so I had it fix the rest of those and went on to the next bit needing fixed.  Thankfully Open Library had been consistent in how and where it added the white space.

After that it was rather simple to verify my data and do the odd minor correction here and there.  As for the ebooks, I pulled those out of my original list exported from Zotero and ginned them up in a text file with links to each book in feedbooks.  Yes, Open Library has ebooks but from what I could find not a single one from feedbooks.  I could have added them but I was in no mood to add another 18 books, and cataloging free ebooks that give absolutely no indication of which text they are was not something I intended to undertake.  Ebooks are great in many contexts!  Ebook metadata is in a despicable state! [That is a rant for another, and previous, occasion.]

Once I had the ebooks fully ginned up in the text file I cut and paste them into the blog post where they went in the list.  Then I wrote the text that went along with the list and waited for the end of the year a few days away.  On the 31st I made a few minor corrections to the list since I finished one of the books I had given up on and added another that I read on the 30th and 31st.  I also fixed the numbers/commentary regarding the other two books and added a bit more commentary.

Sadly, the only COinS data available is for the post itself and I doubt many of you are truly interested in adding my post to Zotero, Mendeley, or whatever.

If I had used OpenBook I could have had COinS.  But I got distracted by needing to fix so many records at Open Library and then by finding the Open Library list feature.  After spending so much time futzing and seeing what it would do for me I had given up on Open Library.  Honestly, I had no desire to copy and paste 100+ ISBNs into it one by one either.  Still, I wonder how well it would have handled the job? [John, if you are still reading, any idea how the plugin might handle 100+ titles using template 5, embedded? Certainly wouldn't want to be making all those calls to OL live.]

None of this is meant to take away from the OpenBook plugin for which I greatly thank John Miedema!

It makes me sad that it is 2011 and this task is still so darn difficult.  Much progress has been made in the sharing and linking to book data on the web but it is still so crude.  Much of the assorted quasi-FRBRization going on in places like Open Library, WorldCat, goodreads, Library Thing, etc. actually seem to make it worse.  If one only cares about pointing at a title/work then things are somewhat better.  But I cared about editions long before I became a cataloger.  In most cases if someone takes a recommendation from me I could care less which edition of the work they read or listen to in the end.  But in some cases it does matter.  And for my own purposes I want to know which manifestation(s) of the work I engaged with.

Some day the future may arrive and making a list like this in which the titles will bring their own (accurate) metadata along with them will be easy. That day simply has to arrive. Soon.

Then again, I’m still waiting on the flying car I was promised almost 50 years ago.

]]> http://marklindner.info/blog/2011/01/04/constructing-my-books-read-in-2010-post/feed/ 10 Books Read in 2010 http://marklindner.info/blog/2010/12/31/books-read-in-2010/ http://marklindner.info/blog/2010/12/31/books-read-in-2010/#comments Sat, 01 Jan 2011 01:35:58 +0000 Mark http://marklindner.info/blog/?p=2262 This list of books that I finished this year is based on the date I started reading each book. Though they were generally finished in something close to this order, some books took much longer than others. I finished a … Continue reading →]]>

This list of books that I finished this year is based on the date I started reading each book. Though they were generally finished in something close to this order, some books took much longer than others. I finished a total of 102 books in 2010. Five of these were re-reads.

I read 85 print books and 17 ebooks (epub) this year. I gave up on 3 print books and 2 ebooks (epub), although one of the print books was really just interrupted. I placed it on my 12 Books, 12 Months Challenge list [see below] and I will begin that one again. I am also working my way through a pdf book, Digging into WordPress v3 which is not included on this list.

My ebook reading is off due mostly to changes in travel and other lifestyle-related issues. I have not become averse to ebooks in any way, they simply do not fit my current lifestyle as much as they once did. All of the ebooks I read this year were epub formatted free books from feedbooks.com (except for the one pdf book).

Of the two ebooks I did not finish, one was Lady Chatterley’s Lover which I discovered about halfway into it that it was an expurgated version. Sara who was also reading it as an ebook found an unexpurgated print copy and started over. Although I was somewhat enjoying the story, I did not find it that compelling so said the heck with it. The other was Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Women. While this is an important work, she just droned on and on. There are far better examples of effective literature in this genre, even if few this early.

In August a friend of mine introduced the 12 Books, 12 Months Challenge to begin in September. Here is my post accepting the challenge. Is it really any wonder that mine is a baker’s dozen? Here is my list at goodreads, at Open Library, and the 12 Books, 12 Months tag here on the blog. This small image for 12 Books 12 Months designates a book on my list.

If I wrote a ‘review’ here on the blog I have linked to it after the entry for the book as [Review]. All of the 12 Books, 12 Month Challenge books that I have read so far (7) have been reviewed here. There are more reviews at goodreads but most are simple commentary and I am too lazy to go find them and link them. [Do not get me started on the amount of work required to generate, much less format, the following list!]

I received four of these books via the Library Thing Early Reviewers program. They are identified by “Library Thing Early Reviewer copy” and a link to the review at Library Thing.

I read 31 books of poetry, not including the one for weddings. I also read 2 books about poetry (Oliver and Kooser), not including the one on syntax. The author I read the most by is the poet Mary Oliver with 13 titles (12 poetry, 1 about poetry). The author in 2nd place is Roy Harris with 6, four of which were re-reads. The author in 3rd place with 3 titles seems to be Conan Doyle, all ebooks. Perhaps I missed someone else with 3 titles though. There were several authors with 2 books each in my list: Jim Harrison, Wilkie Collins, Anne Carson, Pablo Neruda, ….

]]> http://marklindner.info/blog/2010/12/31/books-read-in-2010/feed/ 1 A few more thoughts on reading last year and this http://marklindner.info/blog/2010/01/05/a-few-more-thoughts-on-reading-last-year-and-this/ http://marklindner.info/blog/2010/01/05/a-few-more-thoughts-on-reading-last-year-and-this/#comments Wed, 06 Jan 2010 02:34:36 +0000 Mark http://marklindner.info/blog/?p=1698 In my recent Books Read in 2009 post I talked a bit about what I read last yea and a few other aspects of reading. In this post I want to touch on a few other issues, some of which … Continue reading →]]>

In my recent Books Read in 2009 post I talked a bit about what I read last yea and a few other aspects of reading. In this post I want to touch on a few other issues, some of which are orthogonal ways of looking at what I read last year; so partially an update, partially new.

Public domain

January 1st was Public Domain Day [and when I started on writing some of what became this post].

In honor of the public domain, and Public Domain Day, I intend to read some William Butler Yeats whose stuff enters public domain this year. Look around the Public Domain Day site:“To celebrate the role of the public domain in our societies” and check out the list of authors (probably) entering public domain this year (Sigmund Freud, for instance, and Yeats). All of the listed authors have links to their Wikipedia pages (or the several I checked anyway. All seem to be links. Ergo.)

I have never intentionally read any Yeats so I am looking forward to it. For me, one of the big boons of reading ebooks on my Touch [I use Stanza and ePub files] is the number of public domain titles I am reading. Much of it I have been aware of, for assorted reasons, for much of my life but I never got to it. Although I have purchased a very few ebooks I have not made the transition to buying ebooks. Despite the advantages of ebooks—I do believe there are some (and that I’ve said so on this blog)—the limited capabilities of today’s hardware and software, combined with the fact that I am mostly reading stuff from free sources, means that I still buy print books. But the technology and the social/legal situation means that (currently) I get to focus on the stuff now free. I like that.

Based on my Books Read in 2009 post (and feedbooks) I read 28 public domain books last year. That is 35% of my entire reading. Only one (ah, 1.5) of those was in print: Siddhartha and half of Lord Jim. That means that 96% of my public domain reading (a solid 33% of all reading) was done on my Touch. [Only 2 of the total ebooks read were not in the public domain for the US, at least according to feedbooks.]

Fiction vs. Nonfiction

I didn’t even think of this until I saw Jessamyn West’s list a couple days after mine. When I got home I decided to sketch it out, both overall and for ebooks, and finshed vs. not finished.  Jessamyn also looks at ratio of male-to-female authors (amongst a few other looks) and that does not serve any interestof mine. Data’s there, count for yourself if you are. ;)

Overall (print/ebooks)

  • Finished: 44 Fiction, 39 Nonfiction.
  • Unfinished: 2 Fiction, 5 Nonfiction.

So 53% of total finished was fiction; 47% nonfiction. Pretty even split and appropriate, for now. If you throw in the unfinished books on both sides it comes closer to even (51/49%)

Ebooks

  • Finished: 24 Fiction, 4 Nonfiction
  • Unfinished: 1 each

86% of the finished ebooks were fiction; 14% nonfiction. Goes to 83/17% if add in one each unfinished, except the fiction gains it back since it is still being read; Emerson’s essays were given up completely.

Goodreads

As of 4 January I have joined Goodreads. Both Jenny and Angel asked me in the comments of the book post why I’m not on Goodreads. I’d never discovered a need, primarily. Thus never had an account and did not know what it is exactly.

Books—most in one of a couple different ways—get tracked in a lot of places by me. Amazon for some things I want; Google doc of acquisitions (chronological); LibraryThing as, primarily, a catalog for me of mostly stuff I own (~99%),  I do little of the social there; Zotero for things I have read, regardless of source; wiki for what read and dates. What else is left?

Well. I haven’t been happy with the amount of engagement I’ve given many of these books (or articles) after I have finished reading them, in a long time. I should write more reviews, even mini-reviews, and other commentary on what I have read. Will this help?

One thing I do not like already is that I cannot find where to find someone I know who uses it so I can add them as a friend. The add friends function seems to really want me to give them my Gmail contacts, my facebook friends, etc. I am not cool with that.

Griped about it on twitter and a friend reached out and friended me. Many of her Goodreads friends are my friends too. But I still do not know how to find and friend Angel. Jenny was found in the previous manner.

I sure wish I could figure out how to simply get a csv file out of a Zotero collection. Might play with putting the last 3 years books read in if I could. I do not want to import my whole LibraryThing database. Wonder can I just export an LT collection? Need to look into that. And. Ebook metadata/editions remains a problem and even adds a new twist. Anyway ….

No promises but I am going to give it a try.

A new year in reading

No idea what 2010 will bring for me in reading. But I am looking forward to whatever it is. Am already reading some Wendell Berry poetry and Kundera on the novel.

Here’s to a great year of reading for everyone!

]]> http://marklindner.info/blog/2010/01/05/a-few-more-thoughts-on-reading-last-year-and-this/feed/ 1 Books Read in 2009 http://marklindner.info/blog/2009/12/31/books-read-in-2009/ http://marklindner.info/blog/2009/12/31/books-read-in-2009/#comments Fri, 01 Jan 2010 02:36:48 +0000 Mark http://marklindner.info/blog/?p=1607 Not sure what any of this means, or why, it is, or if, of importance. Much can be seen of my book reading habits over the last 3 years at this blog [see links at end of post]. According to … Continue reading →]]>

Not sure what any of this means, or why, it is, or if, of importance. Much can be seen of my book reading habits over the last 3 years at this blog [see links at end of post]. According to previous posts, it looks like another banner year in the Lindner household for book reading. No doubt, article reading was even further reduced; perhaps I need a different ratio; slip a few more articles back in.

Numbers

Numbers, in the real world, are often hard. Overlapping and/or conflicting categories, different reasons for not finishing something, one read 1st half on a Touch and back half in a Penguin paperback (Conrad, Lord Jim), …. Nonetheless, one must try:

90 books total

9 unfinished (all reasons)

81 books read (all formats)

3-4 unfinished are still being read (2 actively: Chan and Mitchell; Gaskell)

Of these totals, the ebooks follow:

31 total

1 given up on (Emerson)

1 ebook/print (Conrad)

1 still reading (Gaskell)

29 ebooks read

So, ebooks made up 29/81 (~36%) of my book reading this year. Some of them being short stories, or short collections, probably helped. Hmmm. I am OK with this.

There is some color-coding and other data exposed, and, in some cases, some commentary. The commentary is down a notch let’s say and, sadly, leave it at that. Dates of reading where known are included.

The titles of books not finished are in red. An “edition statement” is present for all ebooks and says ebook (type) in a sort of pink.

“Professional development” in a comment generally implies that I read it at work on breaks (notice lengthy reading times).

Some previous commentary on a few of the ebook titles read [15, 17-19 & 45], and commentary on my experience reading ebooks on an Apple Touch, can be found in these earlier posts re ebook reading from 2009:

Hopefully there is COinS metadata for all 91 entries; Zotero for the win!

So, without further ado:

Books Read in 2009

  1. Steven Black, Serials in Libraries: Issues and Practices (Westport, Conn: Libraries Unlimited, 2006). Read: 5 Dec 2008-2 Feb 2009. Professional development.
  2. Walt Crawford, The Liblog Landscape, 2007-2008 : a Lateral Look (Mountain View, Calif.: Cites & Insights Book, 2009). Read: mid-Dec 2008-6 Jan 2009
  3. Wendell Berry, The Long-legged House, 1st ed. (Washington DC ;[Berkeley Calif.]: Shoemaker & Hoard ; Distributed by Publishers Group West, 2004). Read: 29 Dec 2008-8 Jan 2009
  4. Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha : an Indian tale (New York N.Y.: Penguin Books, 1999). Read: 1 Jan / 10 April-6 May 2009
  5. Robert Butler, Intercourse : Stories (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2008). Read: 3-4 Jan 2009. See also: Some things seen around the internet lately
  6. Jacques. Ellul, A Critique of the New Commonplaces (New York: Knopf, 1968). Read: 3 Jan-15 March 2009. Read about half, all in all. Counting it read. Cited by David Bade in a talk he gave to the UIUC ASIS&T Student Chapter about 2 years ago.
  7. Christopher Hutton, Abstraction and Instance: The Type-Token Relation in Linguistic Theory, 1st ed., Language & communication library v. 11 (Oxford [England]: Pergamon Press, 1990). Read: 4 Jan-?? 2009. For my CAS interests. Difficult.
  8. Mary Oliver, New and Selected Poems. Volume Two (Boston, Mass.: Beacon Press, 2005). Read: 9-10 Jan 2009. Wow! Very earthy, natural, attentive. Nice to have read it on the heels of Berry.
  9. Mary Oliver, Red Bird : Poems (Boston: Beacon Press, 2008). Read: 10 Jan 2009
  10. Paul Woodruff, Reverence : Renewing a Forgotten Virtue (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2002). Read: 11-23 Jan 2009. I had begun a post on the amazing synchronicity and overlap between, and their effect on me of, Berry, Oliver and Woodruff. Sadly, somewhere along the way, that fell through; like so many other attempted blog posts this past year. Even if it didn’t get posted, I sure wish I had written it for myself.
  11. Pablo Neruda, Residence on Earth = Residencia en la tierra, trans. Donald D. Walsh, New Directions paperbook 992 (New York NY: New Directions, 2004). Read: 16 Jan- 2009. Have not yet finished this. Spent several months at it slowly but the last fair bit is about war and destruction. I could only take so much, beautiful as it may be, with my son deployed to Iraq.
  12. George Steiner, Grammars of Creation: Originating in the Gifford Lectures for 1990 (New Haven [Conn.]: Yale University Press, 2001). Read: 26 Jan-1 March 2009. This was an extremely interesting book, although hard to follow sometimes. I had intended to read more Steiner after this but haven’t gotten to it yet.
  13. Wendell Berry, The Mad Farmer Poems ([New York]: Counterpoint Press, 2008). Read: 28 Jan 2009. This was a gift from Sara that she brought me from her ALA Midwinter trip.
  14. J. H Bowman, Essential Dewey (London: Facet Pub, 2005). Read: 2-16 Feb 2009. Professional development.
  15. Rachel Kramer Bussel, ed., The Lust Chronicles Anthology, ebook (pdf). (Beverly, MA: Ravenous Romance), http://www.ravenousromance.com/the-lust-chronicles/the-lust-chronicles-anthology.php. Read: 5-13 Feb 2009
  16. Pablo Neruda, Ode to Typography = Oda a la tipografía, trans. Enrique Sacerio-Garí (Torrance, Calif.: Labyrinth Editions, 1977). Read: 9 Feb 2009 in Illinois State University Milner Library Special Collections. [Issued in a portfolio. "One hundred copies printed." No. 26. "This book was printed on Japanese Masa and Ragston papers at Yale University School of Art using a Vandercook proof press. This book was designed & produced by Richard Bigus, Labyrinth Editions ..."--Colophon. "We have translated the ode not only into English but also into the typographical space it celebrates. The "Ode to Typography" is Neruda's song to a world of words as it is created under the ancient fingers of a masterful hand. Typography is also poetry. In this book printer Richard Bigus was the poet."--Translator's note. Letterpress printed. Bound in Japanese side-sewn style using linen thread. Covers created from artist-made marbled paper.]
  17. Edgar Allan Poe, Bon-Bon, ebook (epub)., 1832, http://feedbooks.com/book/760. Read: 15 Feb 2009
  18. D. H. Lawrence, Amores : Poems, ebook (epub)., http://www.munseys.com/book/24967/Amores. Read: 16-17 Feb 2009. Enjoyed quite a few of these.
  19. Christina Rosetti, Poems [New Poems by Christina Rosetti: Hitherto Unpublished or Uncollected], ebook (epub)., http://www.munseys.com/book/22140/Poems. Read: 18 Feb-7 March 2009. A bit much sometimes, especially when she’s on about religion, but I enjoyed quite a few.
  20. Virginia Tufte, Artful Sentences: Syntax as Style (Cheshire, Conn: Graphics Press LLC, 2006). Read: 1 March-. Gave up fairly quickly as did not feel prepared for it in some way. Hope to get back to it someday.
  21. P. K. Page, Cry Ararat! Poems New and Selected (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1967). Read: 2-5 March 2009. Quite enjoyed these.
  22. Leonard Smith, Chaos : a Very Short Introduction, Very short introductions 159 (Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press, 2004). 6 March-27 April 2009. I really appreciated how it kept hammering away on the differences between models and reality; numbers in our mathematical models, the numbers we observe when taking measurements in the world, & the numbers inside a digital computer; and models, computer implementations of our models, and the real world.
  23. H. G. Wells, Tales of Space and Time, ebook (epub)., 1900, http://www.feedbooks.com/book/3469. Read: 11-20 March 2009. I quite enjoyed these stories. Makes an excellent read on a mobile device.
  24. P. K. Page, Evening Dance of the Grey Flies (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1981). Read: 14-15 March 2009. Enjoyed these also. Have a couple more books of Page’s poetry to read.
  25. Alex Rose, The Musical Illusionist : and Other Tales (Brooklyn N.Y.: Hotel St. George Press, 2007). Read: 18 March-3 April 2009. Read this at Sara’s. Was pretty good, all in all, but I seriously longed for some sort of pointers (citations/references) to that which was based on fact. I guess there is just too much admixture of reality and make believe in this for me.
  26. Lisa Lane, The Darkness and the Night : Blood and Coffee, ebook (epub)., A Ravenous Romance™ Fantastica™ Original Publication (Beverly, MA: Ravenous Romance, 2009), http://www.ravenousromance.com. Read: 20-25 March 2009
  27. Barrett Watten, Conduit (San Francisco: GAZ, 1988). Read: 22-24 March 2009. Cited by Ron Day, “The “Conduit Metaphor” and the Nature and Politics of Information Studies” JASIST 51(9) p. 808. Although I was really looking forward to this, I didn’t quite get it. Mostly a series of disconnected thoughts, statements, etc. Maybe I’m just not bright or hip enough to get it. :-(
  28. H. G. Wells, The Time Machine, ebook (epub)., 1895, http://feedbooks.com/book/32. Read: 25-28 March 2009. Enjoyed it but also noticed a few issues that with a bit of probing around academically I discovered have been commented on by Wells scholars. Tad bit pleased with myself for that.
  29. Umberto Eco, Serendipities : Language & Lunacy, trans. William Weaver, Italian Academy lectures (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998). Read: 27-29 March 2009. Enjoyed this much better than the longer book for which it is the leftover bits (see Eco below).
  30. Roy Harris, Mindboggling : Preliminaries to a Science of the Mind (Luton: The Pantaneto Press, 2008). Read: 29 March-1 April 2009
  31. Charles Wagner, The Simple Life, trans. Mary Louise Hendee, ebook (epub). (New York: Groseet & Dunlap, 1901), http://www.munseys.com/book/25493/Simple_Life,_The. Read: 30 March-9 April 2009. Quite excellent; highly recommended.
  32. Per Linell, The Written Language Bias in Linguistics: Its Nature, Origins and Transformations, Routledge advances in communication and linguistic theory 5 (London: Routledge, 2005). Read: 2-15 April 2009. A most excellent book that I hope to revisit someday; preferably with my own copy.
  33. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-reliance and Other Essays, ed. Edna H. L. Turpin, ebook (epub)., Merrill’s English texts (New York: Charles E. Merrill, 1907), http://www.munseys.com/book/17951/Essays. Read: 9-21 April 2009. Only read Intro and four essays (through Friendship) before giving up. I found Emerson practically incoherent and self-contradictory. I wanted to like and respect these essays more but simply could not. May give them another chance in another decade or so.
  34. Ronald Gross, Peak Learning : How to Create Your Own Lifelong Education Program for Personal Enlightenment and Professional Success, Rev. ed. (New York: J.P. Tarcher/Putnam, 1999). Read: 12 April-. Am supposedly still reading this but haven’t been back to it in a while unfortunately.
  35. Umberto Eco, The Search for the Perfect Language, trans. James Fentress, The making of Europe (Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 1997). Read: 15 April-19 May 2009. Of some value but highly disappointing. The outtakes, which comprise Serendipities, make for a better read.
  36. John Clarke, Libraries in the Medieval and Renaissance periods. The Rede lecture delivered June 13, 1894., ebook (epub). (Cambridge [Eng.]: Macmillan and Bowes), http://www.bookglutton.com/detail/Clark/Libraries+in+the+Medieval+and+Renaissance+Periods/352.html. Read: 22-24 April 2009. This was an excellent lecture. The only drawback of the ebook version was that all but one image was missing.
  37. Catherine Belsey, Poststructuralism: A Very Short Introduction, Very short introductions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002). Read: 28-30 April 2009
  38. John Miedema, Slow Reading (Duluth Minn.: Litwin Books, 2009). Read: 29 April-3 May 2009. Worth reading. Short with an easy style. [The LibraryThing reviewers who called this overly academic in their reviews are nuts.] I started on a review of this but didn’t get far due to assorted interruptions. Another one that I wish I had at least gotten down for myself.
  39. Tom McArthur, Worlds of Reference: Lexicography, Learning, and Language from the Clay Tablet to the Computer (Cambridge [Cambridgeshire]: Cambridge University Press, 1986). Read: 2 May-30 June 2009. Ordered my own copy from amazon on the 2nd day of reading. This is an excellent book, especially appropriate for all LIS folks. Should be required reading for all LIS & book history folks.
  40. Irving Singer, Sex: A Philosophical Primer ; with New Material on Same-Sex Marriage, Expanded ed. (Lanham, Md: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004). Read: 4-7 May 2009
  41. Mary Midgley, Wisdom, Information, and Wonder: What is Knowledge For? / (London: Routledge, 1991). Read: 9 May / 30 June-4 Aug 2009. Restarted 30 Jun with my own copy. A most excellent book which I hope to revisit on occasion. Recommended by David Bade.
  42. Sheila S Intner and Peggy Johnson, Fundamentals of Technical Services Management, ALA fundamentals series (Chicago: American Library Association, 2008). Read: ?? May-11 Sep 2009. Professional development.
  43. Toni Weller, Information History : an Introduction : Exploring an Emergent Field (Oxford: Chandos Publishing, 2008). Read: 11-16 May 2009. OK but I was hoping for something more.
  44. Nick Baylis, The Rough Guide to Happiness: Practical Steps for All-round Well-being, Rough guides (New York: Rough Guides, 2009). Read: 18 May-. Finished most of this. Free from LibraryThing via their monthly publisher review copy program.
  45. Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, ebook (epub). (Project Gutenberg, 1997), http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/844. Read: 29-30 June 2009. My 1st Wilde and I enjoyed it immensely.
  46. Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book (ebook (epub), 1894), http://www.feedbooks.com/book/162. Read: 1-6 July 2009. Quite enjoyed this and makes a fine ebook read.
  47. Rafael Sabatini, Captain Blood, ebook (epub)., 1922, http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2158. Read: 6-11 July 2009. Awesome swashbuckling goodness!
  48. Aristophanes, Clouds, trans. William James Hickie, ebook (epub)., 2001, http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/2562. Read: ?12-16 July 2009. Seriously underwhelmed. Need a good print edition with lots of foot/endnotes fleshing out the huge amount of missing context.
  49. John Dewey, Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education, ebook (epub)., http://www.bookglutton.com/detail/John+Dewey/Democracy+and+Education+an+Introduction+to+the+Philosophy+of+Education/400.html. Read: 18 July-22 Sep. My 1st long nonfiction work read on the Touch. It went OK but this, for me, would have been better in print.
  50. Wendell Berry, Whitefoot: A Story from the Center of the World (Berkeley, Calif: Counterpoint Press, 2009). Read: 1-2 Aug 2009. Excellent for all ages! Gift from Sara that she brought me from ALA.
  51. Anne Carson and Center for Hellenic Studies (Washington, D.C.), Eros the Bittersweet: An Essay (Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1986). Read: 5-11 Aug. Most excellent! Acquired my own print copy shortly after finishing it. Will definitely be revisiting this.
  52. Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space, trans. Maria Jolas, Beacon paperbacks 330 (Boston: Beacon Press, 1969). Read: 12-16 Aug. Quit at pg. 16 because I just could not get into it. Maybe someday. The main text looked like it was better than the introduction but that was where the author was setting out what he had tried to do and placing the work in the context of his subsequent work [English translation came years after the original].
  53. Susie Bright, Susie Bright’s Sexwise: America’s Favorite X-Rated Intellectual Does Dan Quayle, Catharine MacKinnon, Stephen King, Camille Paglia, Nicholson Baker, Madonna, the Black Panthers, and the GOP–, 1st ed. (Pittsburg, Pa: Cleis Press, 1995). Read: 16-19 Aug 2009. Saw this on the quick sort shelf waiting to be reshelved. What can I say? A large font Sexwise down the spine caught my eye.
  54. Laurie Bauer and Peter Trudgill, eds., Language Myths (New York N.Y.: Penguin Books, 1998). Read: 20-28 Aug 2009. Short overviews of lots of issues in linguistics and language studies. Generally good quality throughout that makes for a good introduction.
  55. Birger Hjørland, Information Seeking and Subject Representation: An Activity-Theoretical Approach to Information Science, New directions in information management 34 (Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 1997). Read: 28 Aug-11 Oct 2009. This time got through the whole thing.
  56. Robert Fiengo and Robert May, De Lingua Belief (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 2006). Read: 29 May-. Supposedly still reading this but I think I’ve given up on it. While they are challenging the received norm in philosophy of language they are doing so on a very fine point. I agree that theirs is a valid critique but I also feel that it is spurious and does not begin to go far enough; that is, to question the whole of the received norm of philosophy of language.
  57. Marina Orlova, Hot for Words: Answers to All Your Burning Questions About Words and Their Meanings, 1st ed. (New York: HarperCollins, 2009). Read: 31 Aug-1 Sep 2009. What can I say? This little tramp caught my eye on the new book shelf at Urbana Free (my public). Really not worth the effort; which isn’t much, mind you. Etymology of the worst kind. And by a[n intentionally] tarted up blond.
  58. Alan Moore, Lost Girls (Atlanta: Top Shelf Productions, 2006). Read: Vol. 1 sometime in Aug. perhaps; vol. 2 7-8 Sep; vol. 3 8 Sep 2009
  59. Paul Muldoon, Horse Latitudes, 1st ed. (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006). Read: 9- 24 Sep 2009. Another poet tried. Another that didn’t particularly speak to me.
  60. Owen Barfield, Speaker’s Meaning, 1st ed. (Middletown, Conn: Wesleyan University Press, 1967). Read: 13-15 Sep 2009. Enjoyed.
  61. Owen Barfield, The Rediscovery of Meaning, and Other Essays, 1st ed. (Middletown, Conn: Wesleyan University Press, 1977). 15 Sep-15 Nov 2009. Enjoyed most of these essays. Would like to revisit this with my own copy someday.
  62. Arika Okrent, In the Land of Invented Languages: Esperanto Rock Stars, Klingon Poets, Loglan Lovers, and the Mad Dreamers Who Tried to Build a Perfect Language, 1st ed. (New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2009). Read 20-24 Sep 2009. A popularization of some of the types of invented languages discussed by Eco, amongst others, but far more readable and interesting.
  63. Karel Čapek, R.U.R., ebook (epub)., 1921, http://feedbooks.com/book/4199. Read 23-25 Sep 2009. I have been filling in the name of this story in crosswords for decades so I figured it was time to read it. I was not disappointed. Another great ebook read.
  64. David M. Levy, Scrolling Forward: Making Sense of Documents in the Digital Age, 1st ed. (New York: Arcade, 2001). Read 25 Sep-24 Nov 2009. Pretty good but read at work during breaks so the author’s point was kind of too spread out for me. Instead, I recommend Avatars of the Word [See below].
  65. Arthur Conan Doyle, Through the Magic Door, ebook (epub)., 1907, http://feedbooks.com/book/356. Read 28 Sep-5 Oct 2009. Doyle on other books; excellent. Would be easier to (re)consult if printed.
  66. Melissa Kwasny, Reading Novalis in Montana, 1st ed. (Minneapolis, Minn: Milkweed Editions, 2009). Read 2-31 Oct 2009. Mentioned positively on a good friend’s blog so I wanted to check it out but these poems just didn’t speak to me. But in a bit of sychronicity, the epigram at the start of Lord Jim is by Novalis.
  67. Rafael Sabatini, Casanova’s Alibi, ebook (epub)., 1914, http://www.feedbooks.com/book/3952. Read 5?-10 Oct 2009. Interesting read.
  68. Paulo Coelho, The Way of the Bow, ebook (epub)., 2008, http://feedbooks.com/book/3873. Read 10 Oct 2009
  69. Kurt Vonnegut, 2 B R 0 2 B, ebook (epub)., 1962, http://www.feedbooks.com/book/912. Read 12 Oct 2009. Quick, fun read.
  70. Oscar Wilde, The Canterville Ghost, ebook (epub)., 1887, http://www.feedbooks.com/book/7. Read 12-13? Oct 2009. Hilarious!
  71. Wilkie Collins, The Moonstone, ebook (epub)., 1868, http://feedbooks.com/book/3311. Read 12?-19 Oct 2009. Quite good; I highly recommend it. “Widely regarded as the precursor of the modern mystery and suspense novels, ….”
  72. Kimberly Zant, Surrender (Lake Park, GA: New Concepts, 2007). Read 20-22 Oct 2009
  73. George Eliot, The Lifted Veil, ebook (epub)., 1859, http://www.feedbooks.com/book/4316. Read: 23-24 Oct 2009. Decent enough short story but not classic Eliot.
  74. Aldous Huxley, Crome Yellow, ebook (epub). (1921), http://www.feedbooks.com/book/4146. 25-26 Oct 2009
  75. Jane Austen, Lady Susan, ebook (epub)., 1794, http://feedbooks.com/book/3922. 22?-30 Oct 2009. Yes, I did read Huxley in the midst of this. It got off to a slow start for me but I went back to it after Huxley. All in all, I’d say it is decent enough. Epistolary novel.
  76. Stephen Dunn, Local Visitations: Poems, 1st ed. (New York: W.W. Norton, 2003). Read 1-3 Nov 2009. Another poet that really didn’t speak to me.
  77. Rafael Sabatini, Scaramouche, ebook (epub)., 1921, http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2168. Read: 2-13 Nov 2009. Good Sabatini; the one he is most known for but I prefer the previous 2 I read more.
  78. Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World, ebook (epub)., 1912, http://www.feedbooks.com/book/67. Read 13-14 Nov 2009. Excellent!
  79. Max Black, The Importance of Language, Cornell paperbacks (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1969). Read: 6/14 Nov 2009. Read on the way to/from ASIST 2009 Annual Meeting; 1st half on planes there, back half on a train home.
  80. David Yanor, ed., Lust: Quills Annual Erotic Magazine, vol. 1 (Vancouver: Quill’s Canadian Poetry Magazine, 2004). Read: 14 Nov 2009. I read this on the City of New Orleans train from Chicago to Champaign on the way home from ASIST 2009. I got this from Little Sister’s in Vancouver.
  81. George Eliot, Brother Jacob, ebook (epub)., 1860, http://www.feedbooks.com/book/4370. Read: 17-18 Nov 2009. Again, not the best Eliot, but fun and short.
  82. Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim, ebook (epub)., 1900, http://feedbooks.com/book/719. Read: 18 Nov-11 Dec 2009. See also entry below. Read just about half on my Touch and then while at the Illini Union bookstore during a 30% off sale I noticed a new Penguin Classics paperback for $7. On sale it was $4.90 so I grabbed it and finished the novel in print and then went back and read the introductory essay by Alan H. Simmons. Print also provided me the glossaries and all the editorial notes. This was an excellent novel. The Novalis epigram, mentioned in the Kwasny entry above, that opens the novel is: “It is certain my conviction gains infinitely, the moment another soul will believe in it.”
  83. Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim : a tale, [New ed.] /. (London: Penguin, 1900).
  84. James Joseph O’Donnell, Avatars of the Word: From Papyrus to Cyberspace (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1998). Read: 18 Nov-14 Dec 2009. Noticed Dorothea Salo thanking Steve Lawson for recommending this in friendfeed so picked it up. Quite good; recommended.
  85. R. L. Trask and Bill Mayblin, Introducing Linguistics, Introducing … (Cambridge [Eng.]: Icon Books / Totem Books, 2000). Read: 29 Nov 2009
  86. Duncan Emrich, The Folklore of Weddings and Marriage; the Traditional Beliefs, Customs, Superstitions, Charms, and Omens of Marriage and Marriage Ceremonies (New York: American Heritage Press, 1970). Read: 10 Dec 2009. This was grabbed on a lark when looking for books on alternative wedding vows because it was illustrated by Tomi de Paola.
  87. Mary Oliver, American Primitive : Poems, 1st ed. (Boston: Little Brown, 1983). Read: 13 Dec 2009. One of my favorite poets so far.
  88. Saki, The Chronicles of Clovis, ebook (epub)., 1911, http://feedbooks.com/book/3401. Read 14-?? Dec 2009. Decidedly wicked and wickedly funny.
  89. Wood, James. How Fiction Works. 1st ed. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008. Read 17-30 Dec. Quite enjoyed this.
  90. Chan, Lois Mai, and Joan S Mitchell. Dewey Decimal Classification: Principles and Application. 3rd ed. Dublin, Ohio: OCLC, 2003. Read 21 Dec-. Professional development for the new year.
  91. Gaskell, Elizabeth Cleghorn. Curious, If True: Strange Tales, ebook (epub)., 1859. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/3335. Read 21 Dec-. Enjoying this so far; 2 out of 5 stories read.

Well, that’s it for 2009. #90 and 91 are still being actively read. A few others will hopefully be continued soon. As to what’s next? I got lots of Mary Oliver, Erotic Poems, Crowley, and a Harris book for Christmas. I also have plenty on the ‘to be read’ shelf among many more. And seeing as I have yet another ‘to be read’ shelf at work, too, … *le sigh*

Metadata issues and the issues of (non)reference for ebooks still sucks. I have begun doing my best to get my ebooks via the Web on the MacBook and then syncing them. When I grab the file from feedbooks, gutenberg, …, I bookmark the page in my delicious account and tag it with ebook. Then I can at least see what the source is claiming for what I believe I got. Has been somewhat helpful but a real pain. Most of the metadata in the CoinS in this post for ebooks comes from my entering a good deal of data from those pages. Very little good structured data in free things often; it is a difficulty.

Oh well. Here’s to reading in 2010!

2007/2008 Books read and earlier 2009 posts re Reading

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