Sports manga and children's fiction

I'm not really going to have an "Interesting books cataloged" post this week - I did a lot of pretty-looking picture books, and a few interesting-looking novels for children and young adults. I thought I'd mention one of those novels, though, Two-Minute Drill by Mike Lupica [PZ7 .L97914 TW 2007].

Although I've mentioned before that I like anime and manga, I haven't really said what genres I like. Just saying you like anime or manga is like saying you like books and movies - you're not saying anything specific, just that you like a certain format. Well, much to my surprise, I discovered a few years back that I enjoy sports manga. I don't watch sports, I don't keep up with sports, I don't even know the rules for a lot of the different games, and yet I love several different sports manga - my favorites are Whistle! (soccer), Eyeshield 21 (American football), and Hikaru no Go (which is about a board game, not a sport, but it uses some of the same conventions, so I'm counting it). Several of my favorite titles have the whole "underdog triumphs" thing going on, which I just love. I also love reading about really intense and often unorthodox training, friendships, etc. Unfortunately, lots of shonen manga tend to be very lengthy - I think Whistle! is at least in the 20s as far as numbers of volumes are concerned. It's going to take some effort to keep up with it and other titles via ILL.

The back of Two-Minute Drill sounds a lot like Whistle! to me - I should try it out sometime.

Interesting books cataloged March 2-6

There's lots this week, since I cataloged quite a few gift books as part of a little project to try to figure out how to use Workflows and OCLC Connexion together.

• The thirteenth tale : a novel by Diane Setterfield [PR6119.E86 T48 2006] - The description for this book reminds me a bit of the anime movie Millennium Actress (not the director's best, but still quite good, and certainly jaw-dropping at points).
• Mr. Timothy : a novel by Louis Bayard [PS3552 .A85864 M7 2003] - As far as I can tell, this is almost "A Christmas Carol" fan fiction. "Mr. Timothy" is Timothy Crachit from the original story.
• The Audubon quartet by Ray Sipherd [PS3569 .I59 A94 1998] - An art-related mystery.
• Eye of the archangel : a Mallory and Morse novel of espionage by Forrest DeVoe [PS3604 .E887 E94 2007] - The cover makes me think of James Bond.
• The survivors club by Lisa Gardner [PS3557 .A7132 S87 2002]
• The Da Vinci code : a novel by Dan Brown [PS3552 .R685434 D3 2003] - I've heard that this book's writing is actually quite bad - this only makes me want to read it more, to judge for myself and finally see what the fuss was all about.
• Cause of death by Patricia Cornwell [PS3553.O692 C38 1996] - Yet another Cornwell book on the list.

I also cataloged several children's picture books (with many more on the way - two shelves of my 6-shelf book truck are full of picture books).

Interesting books cataloged Feb. 23-27

We'll see how doing just one of these lists a week goes....

• From Potter's field by Patricia Cornwell [PS3553 .O692 F76 2005] - This is from her Kay Scarpetta series, which I've heard of but haven't yet read any of. I tried reading one of her most recent ones, Book of the Dead or something like that, but I didn't get very far. I'm willing to try again, however.
• What schools ban and why by R. Murray Thomas [LB3012.2 .T56 2008] - I'm mostly interested in this book for its chapter on book banning in schools/school libraries, but the rest of the book looks like it could be pretty interesting as well.
• Fiction writer's workshop : the key elements of a writing workshop by Josip Novakovich [PN3355 .N68 2008] - This would probably be a good book to check out during NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month, which is not actually national but sounds better that way). I have participated twice and haven't yet come even close to finishing.

Interesting books cataloged Feb. 17-20

I got a little behind on listing interesting books, but there really wasn't much I felt like listing. Actually, I'm thinking I might make these TBR lists a weekly, rather than daily, thing.

• Writing well : the essential guide by Mark Tredinnick [PE1408 .T74 2008] - Not something I'd necessarily want to read for fun, but it seemed like it could be a very helpful, yet still readable, book.
• Blood legacy : the true story of the Snow axe murders by James Pylant [HV6533.T4 P95 2008] - Local (or nearly local - I think this happened not far outside of Stephenville) history. The photographs alone make this something not suitable for those with weak stomachs. I had to create the LC call number for this - I chose to class it as "Murders in Texas" rather than as "Snow family genealogy" although the record I was asked to choose does list the "Snow family" aspect as one of the first subject headings.
• See Sam run : a mother's story of autism by Peggy Heinkel-Wolfe [RJ506 .A9 H43 2008] - This is one that just grabbed me while I was flipping through it. It looks to be a very interesting and honest description of what it was like for the author to raise an autistic child. There's a little bit at the end written by Sam in 2005. The annotated bibliography also looks very good.

Interesting books cataloged on Feb. 16th

• The collectors by David Baldacci [PS3552 .A446 C65 2006] - I've never read anything by this author, but... a suspense story involving the Library of Congress and a rare book? Could be my kind of thing.
• The dumbest generation : how the digital age stupefies young Americans and jeopardizes our future (or, don't trust anyone under 30) by Mark Bauerlein [HQ799.7 .B38 2008] - I list this as an interesting book, because it is, but I doubt I'll be reading it - just skimming its contents has the potential to raise my blood pressure. I'm not that old, but I feel old sometimes when I find myself amazed (and not always in a good way) by some of the things that high school students and undergraduates do or don't do. I don't have nearly as low an opinion of their abilities as this author seems to, however. I'm also not inclined to put all the blame in the same place he does. I think I'd have lots of fun arguing with this guy, if the blood vessels in my head didn't explode first.

TBR stuff, courtesy of Unshelved's banners

It's been a few days since I last looked at Unshelved, but that was enough time to miss the beginning of the "Book a Day" banners. Fortunately, they'll be sticking around for a bit in the Unshelved archives - yay! I always love adding to my TBR list, even though it's always longer than I could possibly ever finish.

I've taken a look at the banners, and here's what I'd like to read sometime (this is almost, but not quite, everything from those banners):

• The God Stalker Chronicles by P.C. Hodgell - This is actually two books in one. The description for this makes it sound odd and confusing, yet still potentially appealing. I'm willing to give it a try sometime. Although the description made me think of books by lots of other authors (Robert Jordan, Guy Gavriel Kay, etc.), this book seems to have things that their books don't (not that I remember, anyway): a female main character (makes me think of Tamora Pierce and Robin McKinley) and a quirky sense of humor (hopefully it doesn't turn out to be more accurate to say that the description, rather than the book, has a quirky sense of humor).
• The Battered Body by J.B. Stanley - I've only really started to read mysteries in the past five years or so, and I still don't read them very often. However, some of my favorite mystery authors write cozies, so I like to try out new cozies every once in a while. Food cozies, like this one, can be fun, even if I could never make the recipes that tend to come with them work out. I may occasionally like to bake and cook, but I'm not good at it, and hardly any of these recipes ever seem to be of the "For Dummies" sort.
• Tea in the Library by Annette Freeman - I tend to just gobble up books that have connections to books (or places with books). Freeman writes about fulfilling her dream of opening a bookshop cafe, only to discover that running a bookshop can be more frustrating and difficult than she ever imagined.
• Rhapsody in Green: The Garden Wit and Wisdom of Beverley Nichols edited by Roy C. Dicks - I've never read any of Nichols's works and I'm not a gardener, but this book looks funny and interesting all the same.
• A Rule Against Murder by Louise Penny - Another cozy mystery, this one set in a small Canadian village. What caught my eye about this one was a quote from the book - apparently, one of the characters really does have a rule against murder.
• The Color of Earth (vol. 1) and The Color of Water (vol.2) by Kim Dong Hwa - I don't read a lot of Korean manwha, so I don't know this author/artist, but the sites I've linked to have a couple sample pages - the artwork is clean and simple, but pretty. I like the covers of these books even more. The actual story sounds more serious than what I usually read, but I'd be willing to give it a try (although I suspect I should wait a while before trying to get these through ILL). Since this is manwha, however, I'll have to train my eyes not to read it from right to left (most Japanese manga is now published in the US in the original Japanese right to left format) - I even started to read the sample pages from right to left before I caught myself!
  

Interesting books cataloged on Feb. 12th

Today I only cataloged one book that ended up on my TBR list:

• Killing time : a novel of the future by Caleb Carr [PS3553 .A76277 K55 2000] - A suspenseful book set in the near future (2023) - no idea if Carr's writing is anything like J.D. Robb's, but J.D. Robb is the first author that popped into my head as I was reading this book's description.

Interesting books cataloged on Feb. 11th

• Growing bonsai indoors edited by Pat Lucke Morris and Sigrun Wolff Saphire [SB433.5 .G76 2008] - Bonsai take a little too much patience and care for my tastes (not to mention I've got a black thumb), but I love how they look. This little book would be a fun read, even if I never actually put any of this information to use.
• Children at play : an American history by Howard P. Chudacoff [HQ792 .U5 C46 2007] - Yes, this is an academic book, but it still looks interesting, and there are a few nice (black and white) photographs here and there.

Adding to my list of books

Here's a list of some of the interesting-looking books I cataloged today:

• God's mechanics : how scientists make scientists and engineers make sense of religion by Guy Consolmagno [BL240.3 .C68 2008]
• The boy who was raised as a dog : and other stories from a child psychiatrist's notebook : what traumatized children can teach us about loss, love, and healing by Bruce D. Perry and Maia Szalavitz [RJ499.34 .P47 2006] - This one's pretty much guaranteed to make me cry, but the book jacket (and title) makes it seem like maybe all the kids in this book end up ok (or as ok as they can be, considering).

The war of the Jesus and Darwin fishes by John C. Caiazza [BL240.3 .C334 2007] has a great title, but it doesn't look quite as fun on the inside as it does on the outside, so it's not going on my TBR list - just on my mental "cool titles" list. There are some topics that interest me enough that I'd be willing to slog through something a little more academic (if I actually had time, that is, which usually isn't the case), but this book isn't on any of those topics. If it were about anthropology (especially linguistics) or library science, there'd be a much better chance I'd give it a try.

Cataloging indulgence

None of the ordered stuff that I cataloged today was what I would call "fun stuff" in any way - not even academic stuff I might read to broaden my horizons (I'm not sure anyone would read the stuff I cataloged today for fun, but you never know). With that in mind, since I needed to catalog a few gift books anyway, I indulged myself a little and cataloged some popular fiction:

• Maximum Ride: School's Out--Forever by James Patterson [PZ7 .P27653 SCH 2006 - Curriculum Collection] - I've wanted to read the Maximum Ride books for a while now, but, since this is book 2, it'll probably be a while before I see about checking this out. If anybody's read book 1 and wants to try out book 2, you no longer have to get it through ILL - yay!
• The Scorpio Illusion by Robert Ludlum [PS3562 .U26 S35 1993] - Not something I see myself ever checking out, but I'm sure there are Ludlum fans somewhere in Stephenville who'd appreciate this. On a more depressing note, Ludlum was not yet dead in our authority files before I cataloged this book. The authority record for Robert Ludlum has now been updated, and that is no longer the case. I always feel a little morbid when I add death dates to authority records...

When I need a mental rest, popular fiction is one of my favorite things to catalog, because it's usually really easy - often, 1000 libraries or more have already "touched" the record, so there's not much for me to edit.

First post

I finally decided to start a blog connected to my work Blogger username (I've got a book/movie/TV blog under another username). This is going to be a pretty random blog - at this point, I'm thinking there's going to be posts about the many different kinds of muffins I've been making lately, cataloger stuff, my pet rats, and the many books I catalog at Tarleton's Dick Smith Library that I'd love to read but don't have the time for. Very exciting, huh?

So, since I've mentioned those books, here's a few I've done today that look good (unless otherwise stated, these books are in the General Stacks):

• Naked conversations: how blogs are changing the way businesses talk with customers by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel [TK5105.8884 .S26 2006]
• Challenger revealed : an insider's account of how the Reagan administration caused the greatest tragedy of the space age by Richard C. Cook [TL867 .C653 2006]

This isn't necessarily the only interesting stuff I cataloged today - it's just the stuff that I found interesting. If you've stumbled upon this blog and happen to be someone from Stephenville, you should take a look at the list of newly cataloged materials on the library website.