April 2010

At the recent Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo, a librarian from Jessamine County, Kentucky, spoke firsthand about dealing with calls for censorship in his library, and an expert from the American Library Association discussed how to handle challenges to graphic novels at the panel titled “Burn It, Hide It, Misshelve It, Steal It, Ban It! Dealing with Graphic Novel Censorship in Your Library.”

Full article at Publisher’s Weekly

But Richard Rayner, a writer for The New Yorker, reports today that during his research Ambrose apparently had only limited access to Eisenhower, and that archived datebooks and other records conflict with some of the times Ambrose claimed he had sat down with the former five-star general.

Full article

Article cites to this piece in the New Yorker that is the basis for the news stories about Ambrose/Eisenhower

Brochure from the Somerville MA Public Library…via Wicked Local.

“The New York Times’ Anahad O’Connor got his grubby little grey-lady hands on a copy “at a bookstore” right now and spilled the beans. And while it’s no Overton Window, it has its fair share of thrills! Speak to us from the heart, Anahad: What’s in the book?

Intrigue! In the sexy thriller part of Spoken from the Heart, the Bushes and their staff are poisoned, which she knows happened because “They all became mysteriously sick, and the president was bedridden for part of the trip,” and also, “several high-profile poisonings” happened, in the past. Hmmm.

Romance! Laura loves her husband, and will defend all his decisions, like the time he “responded” to Hurricane Katrina by flying over the resulting devastation, in his plane: “‘He did not want one single life to be lost because someone was catering to the logistical requirements of a president,’ she says about the Katrina fly-over.” Hmmm.”

Etc. etc. and so forth…from Gawker.com.

Fresh Air on WHYY

Interview with Ken Auletta

Ken Auletta’s latest column asks the question, “Can the iPad topple the Kindle and save the book business?” The article, published in the April 26 issue of The New Yorker magazine, discusses the ongoing battle between publishing companies and Amazon for pricing e-books, which are projected to eventually account for as much as 40 percent of all books sold.

Auletta is also the author of 11 books, including World War 3.0: Microsoft and Its Enemies and Googled: The End of the World As We Know It, which tracked the development of Google from a search engine to the provider of all things Internet. He has written the “Annals of Communications” column for The New Yorker since 1992.

Listen to full piece or read interview highlights here.

Library Journal links to an article by Lauren Gilbert in Publisher’s Weekly that is about librarians at Book Expo America.

Book story on NPR:

I’ve heard activists in the Tea Party movement call on conservatives to study the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and the collected works of Glenn Beck. In these wildly partisan times, what we really need is an alternative reading list — one suitable for anyone who finds himself in political exile.

See the three books that were selected by Christine Rosen on NPR

Dallas News: Former First Lady Laura Bush’s upcoming memoir promises to deliver behind-the-scenes glimpses of her “public triumphs and personal tribulations,” according to promotional material on her new website.

The book, Spoken from the Heart (Scribner, a division of Simon & Schuster), will be released on May 4. A major rollout is planned. She’ll be on the morning talk shows and traveling across country to promote the book. Yak yak yak.

As one of the more enigmatic figures in the Bush family, Laura Bush could deliver a new perspective. White House senior advisor Karl Rove has already published a defense of the Bush years and the former president’s own memoir is scheduled for release later this year.

The advance hype on Laura Bush’s book promises “rare intimacy and candor” in her telling of major events not only in Washington, but from her early life.

The man they call “the library guy,” Paul Clark, returned to the State Capitol Tuesday carrying a simple, happy message: “Thank you.”

The 39-year-old father of three put a very human face on the 2010 legislative session through his sheer tenacity. Day after day, Clark stood silently in the Capitol pleading for lawmakers to find $21-million to maintain the level of state support for public libraries.

When lawmakers came through near midnight Monday, Senate budget chief JD Alexander made a passing reference to “that guy” who persisted in getting library money. Clark, who earns about $45,000 a year, had forfeited most of his personal vacation time to push for funding– including putting in a 12-hour day on Sunday in the Knott Building, where budget negotiations took place.

Complaint by patron about library weeding and response from the library. Article here.