BotD: Continuing on Our Cheery Path

Julian Barnes is a critically acclaimed author, and a writer of many novels, 10 of which we own.  This latest book, however, is a set of Barnes’s musings on death.  Yes, death.  Because we can’t stop with the uppers around here.  But as the title implies, it is Nothing to Be Frightened Of.  The author’s fascination with the subject goes from awkward to reassuring and back. As interesting as it is, you may want to pick up another item we just added to balance out the mood…

1.21 gigawatts? Great Scott!

BotD Sells Out for a Movie

Japanese film directors: who do you think of?  Akira Kurosawa?  Quite a good guess, but not today. Takashi Miike?  Another good guess, and Audition is one of my favorite films, but…

We’ll need to go back, like 1960s back, to another phenomenal director.  An Autumn Afternoon is the last film directed by Yasujiro Ozu.

Here’s a little backstory on Ozu.  He spent his life making films beginning in the 1930s.  While critics liked them, he was not successful enough to get a pass when the country went to war, and was then drafted into infantry.  It is said that during WWII, he was asked to make propaganda films, and spent most of his time watching confiscated American flicks, holding a particular favoritism for Citizen Kane.

When the wars were resolved, he went back to making the kind of films that would define him: family centered narratives typically involving the relationship between parents and their children, often with the overcoming of an absence.  An Autumn Afternoon is no exception, focusing on a widowed father planning his daughter’s wedding in 1960s Japan.  Ozu died in 1963, only a year after this film’s completion.

An Autumn Afternoon was added to the Criterion Collection this year.

Book of the Day vs. Cows

Fact: I don’t eat meat.  I’m not lauding it, I don’t care, and I’m not part of a radical movement to free the bovine.  However, I’m flipping through today’s BotD: Introduction to Animal Science: Global, Biological, Social, and Industry Perspectives, and it appears that in my brief time perusing the item, I’ve encountered the food industry, and lots of bovine.  For real, I think I’ve opened up to more cows than any book I’ve ever touched.  But look at that cover!  Adorable!

Despite my observations, it does not completely adhere to the food industry (or moo-ing animals).  It has a lot of graphical information which is researched and cited.  It also goes into the history of domesticating animals, service, environmental issues… But if you’re simple like me, there are a lot of color pictures of puppies (puppies!!) and rabbits (bunnies!!).

So pick it up for the education (and bunnies!).

Book of the Day

Pay attention, faculty:  You’ve been given the task to improve and implement your individual and departmental assessment.  Lucky for you, the library’s backed this with a preemptive strike and ordered a load of assessment-related material.  The one featured, Assessment Clear and Simple by Barbara Woolvard, is designed specifically to help educators alter habits, behaviors, and curriculum to better gauge their own performance, their department’s performance as a whole, and can be used to aggregate it all into the overall institution. And there are plenty more, educatation-specific and otherwise.

So get reading, impress a dean, impress your supervisor, and get your department assess..erizing?  Sounds good enough…

Special Book of the Day

Yesterday, the new book compiler went down, so no BotD was unleashed.  Today, however, we’ll do two.  The first is extra special, written up by Andrea Kempf, Librarian at JCCC, and responsible for an enormous chunk of our libGuides (they’ve got my name on them by default, but that’s changing).  Without further ado, here’s her chosen book.

I like to read mysteries and I like locked room puzzles and I like books about how Europe is dealing with a massive influx of immigrants.  The Clash of Civilizations over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio by Amara Lakhous, an Algerian immigrant to Italy satisfies all three desires.  When a bully nicknamed “the Gladiator” is found stabbed to death in the elevator of his apartment building in Rome,  the kindest resident becomes the chief suspect because he disappeared the day of the murder.  An inspector interviews the residents revealing the pressures that build when everyone is from somewhere else and no one understands the other.  It was impossible to guess the outcome until the last chapter.  This is a page-turner that sneakily informs while it entertains.

Book of the Day Brings Sexy Back

One of my best friends was approached by her grizzled, burly, lumberjack hometown buddy, I think after taking a college literature class, and said, just like this: “Have you EVER read a ro-MANCE novel?!”  I guess he found something interesting.

Now, I’m not going to lie to you:  I’ve read a couple ro-MANCE novels in my day, and one thing remains true:  You know within the first paragraph what’s going to happen from beginning to end. It has been argued that this is reassuring, and a reason readers like this.

But here’s a question slightly different than the previous:  Have you ever listened to a ro-MANCE novel?!

This stuff is amazing. I can tell you that I’m listening to disc 3, and so far there is a witch’s curse preventing the men in this family from being engaged.  So now one of the men in the family is ready to try to break the curse with a special lady!  There has been some forehead petting, some passionate pleading, and some ro-MAN-tic music.  Your life is not complete until you listen to a lady talk through a passionate scene as both people involved… wait, PASSIONATE KISS… Oh, this is getting good… I’d like to type more, but this is some good stuff.  Gotta go. (If you’re out for the good stuff and only good stuff, skip to track 24 on Disc 3)

Book of the Day

Who’s ready for eugenics?! You know, whether it is for religion, scientific, or some other reason, the genetic engineering of humans scares people.  This book today, The Case Against Perfection: Ethics in the Age of Genetic Engineering by Michael Sandel, takes on the fight against it.  In an effort to be all-encompassing, Sandel takes on religion and a general ethical approach in addition to takes on scientific facts. While this book obviously has a bias, and no matter how you feel, it is still a good read and an interesting argument.

Get Out and Vote!

You can vote too!
You can vote too!

Hey!  I just got my registration! After living here for 5 months, I’m finally prepared for election day. If you live in Kansas, you have until October 20th to register to vote!  Make sure you do.  Red State, Blue State:  Last night Linda Ellerbee reminded me that these are just made up terms to help the media.  To quote Ms. Ellerbee on Nick News’s Election Special (Sunday Night Football was a massacre…): “There’s no such thing as a red or blue state just like their are no red or blue people.” Learn about the issues, get your own opinion about what is best, and make your choices November 4th.

BotD Plays It Safe

Today’s new books, if you subscribe to the RSS feed, have topics ranging from 9/11 to China being wealthier than the United States to stress to the social stigma attached to unmarried parents.  That’s why I’m rejecting my social obligation to deliver incredibly pertinent information, and hitting you up with something a lot more important in today’s uncertain global economic climate:

Adorableness.

Check out that cover! Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes by Meg Fox and Helen Oxenbury is absolutely lovely.  Maybe you have young children.  Maybe you’re going into Early Childhood Education. Maybe you just need a pick-me-up from nostalgia.  It has been a long while, most likely, since you’ve read a book like this for independent pleasure, but that doesn’t make it any less adorable.

You know, we have a fairly sizable collection of children’s books.  If this doesn’t do it for you, hit up some Dr. Seuss.