Improve Yourself with This List

It is not an exaggeration to say that I turn to books to learn and push myself. When the architecture office where I work held a meeting to brainstorm ways to educate the non-black staff about the BLM movement and what we can do, I - of course - offered to create a list of books and other sources. What follows is that list, garnered from my library research, coworker suggestions, and quite a few social media posts I saved. Thank you to those other list-makers out there who share their knowledge so we can educate ourselves!

Life on Toast #7 & #8

#8 is below the cut 

Words, thoughts, and reading at pace.

Those of you who've joined me before should probably turn to those who have not and assure them I am just as crazy about reading as they think. If I could spend all day in the hammock chair in the garden reading and sipping my coffee, I would.
We are not quite a quarter of the way through the year and my read book list is maybe 1/3 of its usual length. (I post a full list every year so you can look at them if you want to.) Part of this speed is related to the fact that I'm taking some classes. My personal rule from my undergrad years of not reading for pleasure when I should be studying has resurfaced. Only this time I permit some fun fiction once the homework for the day is done.
When one of the book bloggers that I follow posted her 1000-page reading challenge for the month of March, I wondered how my reduced rate would affect something like this.

New Year's post of last year's books

Books, long articles/essays and comics I read during 2018. Here's to another good year of words!

1. Whiteout compendium - Greg Rucka & Steve Lieber. The first half had more appeal than the second.

2. No Time to Spare - Ursula K. LeGuin. A lovely little book of essays with some great one-liners.

3. We Should All Be Feminists - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Required reading for humans of all stripes.

4. Unexplained - Renee Regent. College kids researching unexplained phenomena. Meh.

5. Zoogeomorphology - David Butler. Studies on how animals change the shape of the earth. Woo-hoo!

6. From Here To Eternity - Caitlin Doughty. Not quite anthropological, not quite tourism. A cool look at death.

7. Other Minds - Peter Godfrey-Smith. A look at the evolutionary development of consciousness. Plus, cephalopods!

8 The Tick #2, 3 - Cullen Bunn & Jimmy Z. more oddly translated french.

9. God Complex Dogma #3 - Paul Jenkins & Henry Prasetya. Pretty sure now I don’t like the protagonist.

10. Sherlock Frankenstein and the Legion of Evil #3, 4 - Jeff Lemire & David Rubin.

Quick Book Repair

I am not a professional book conservator. This is just a quick look at a simple repair for minor rips to paperback books that have been loved to pieces. The book above is one example. It has been read so much the back cover came off, with a few pages still clinging to it.

Do not use masking tape, Scotch tape, duct tape, painter's tape, electrical tape or washi tape. These all have chemicals that will off-gas and make the paper even more fragile than it already is. If you want to pass this beloved favorite to future generations, use the tape shown below.

Now, I found this box buried in the back of desk drawer that I inherited along with my current job. I have no idea how old it is. However, I do know where to get it. Here or here are two good places. I bet if you look hard enough you can find others.

The tricky part about this tape comes from how thin it is. Threading it through the separator is annoying, but will help in the long run. Trust me.

Hard to see - since I was using a white table - but there is a piece of archival tape cut to size and placed half on the back of the book.

I realigned the cover and pressed the tape down firmly. I also run my fingernail or a bone folder over the tape to be certain it holds.

I added a second piece to the inside seam.

Then to be sure it holds tight, I added two more pieces to the outer cover. One overlaps the first piece, holding it on to the spine better. The last one overlaps that and reinforces the front cover. The front had not fallen off, but on a well-loved volume like this, it can't hurt to prepare for the worst.

There are some cool tutorials of more complex repairs on youtube. You may also be able to find someone near you who can fix trickier wear & tear. Happy reading! 

2017 Book list

I read. A lot. This year I hit a personal goal of an average of four books a week. I had wanted to draw way more book reviews. However, the one above is the only one I finished. Ah well, tomorrow is another year.

1. Forest of Memory - Mary Robinette Kowal. A great novella from one of my penpals.
2. Once Broken Faith - Seannan McGuire. 10th in a great series.
3. The Spaceship Next Door - Gene Doucette.
4. True Story #3 Muzzled - Gabriela Denise Frank. Chilling.
5. The Heart Goes Last - Margaret Atwood. Creepy dystopia goes wrong.
6. Tides, Surges and Mean Sea-Level - David Pugh. Yay, tidal research!
7. The Reason I Jump - Naoki Higashida. Excellent book written by an autistic individual explaining life from inside their head. Highly recommend.

Annual book post

I like to read. A lot. This year's list is different in a couple of ways. First, inspired by my good friend, Elaine, this year there is a short description of each one to help you decide if you want to read it as well. This means that the list is longer than usual - or maybe it just seems so. Secondly, I have introduced illustrated book reviews. There are less of these than I had hoped, but only because I seriously injured my drawing arm and lost 3-4 months of potential productivity. Anywho, the whole series of illustrated book reviews can be found here. I hope to have more in 2017. Enjoy!

1. Bats of the Republic - Zachary Thomas Dodson. An illuminated novel, the drawings being one of the main reasons I bought the book. Odd, surreal. Honesty, I thought there would be more about bats in it.
2. The Unlikely Hero of Room 13B - Teresa Toten. Good at capturing confusing emotions and working some of them out. Two pages were ripped from the volume I read. The book made sense anyway.
3. The Golden Age of Death - Amber Benson. #5 in a series
4. The Edge of Lost - Kristina McMorris. Through loss of family, immigrating, assimilating and adventure, an Irish boy is constantly reinventing himself. The tie-in to SF Bay is what made me pick it up.

Book Reviews on Toast

Introducing Book Reviews on Toast!!! As many of you know, I read a lot. I have wanted to review many books I have devoured, but couldn't find the right balance of teasers/descriptions to entice without giving away the whole plot. For me this is essential, as the joy of reading is in discovering how the pieces fit together.

This is the first in a series of book reviews I am doing. You can find the whole series here on tumblr, or here.

The books of 2015

As part of my traditional new year, I post all of the books, comics and magazines I read last year. I would definitely recommend #13, & #60. My daughter introduced me to #124, which was better than I expected. 

What did you read?

1. Creative Nonfiction #54; 55; 56; 57
2. Poets & Writers vol. 43 no.1; no.2, no. 3
3. Drawn By Instinct - Tiffany Bozic
4. Shimmer #23; 24
5. Egg & Spoon - Gregory Maguire
6. Sex, Drugs, and Sea Slime - Ellen Prager
7. The Woman Who Died a Lot - Jasper Fforde

The 2014 book list

For those of you interested, here is a list of all the books, magazines and comics I spent time with in 2014.  I highly recommend #8, 19 (especially if you've read the first two), 48, and 95. Feel free to ask me about any of the others. Keep reading!

1. The Maltese Falcon - Dashiel Hammet
2. The Casual Vacancy - J.K. Rowling
3. The Testament of Jessie Lamb - Jane Rogers
4. The Inventor and the Tycoon - Edward Ball

the books of 2013

Below is the list of books, journals, and comics that I spent time with in 2013. How geeky!

1. The Unwritten #42; 43; 44; 45; 46; 47; 48; 49; 50; 51; 52; 53; 54
2. Wild Blue Yonder #1; 2; 3
3. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 9, #16; 17
4. Angel & Faith, season 9, #16; 17; 18
5. Willow, season 9, #1; 2; 3; 4
6. Shimmer #16; 17
7. Creative Non-Fiction #47; 48;  49; 50
8. Tin house 14(4)
9. Saga, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16
10. Print, 67.5
    

Stories in Stone

They don't make books like they used to. I've been hanging out in the closed stacks of the library lately. Many of the older books on the shelf have the best decorations on the front. Lots of gold leaf, funky designs. Here (beyond the break) are some of my favorites from this week....

books books BOOKS

This is one for the book nerds. :)
For those of you uninterested in the entire list, some quick recommendations:
The Toaster Project - Thomas Thwaite. Follow Thwaite as he makes a toaster from scratch. Really.
Blackout & All Clear - Connie Willis. I swore I'd never read a WWII novel again, yet I could not put these down.
Sacre Bleu - Christopher Moore. Funny. Artsy. Profane.
anything written by Carlos Ruis Zafon

(read the whole list below.....)

The week no books would die...

 

Even if I didn't work in a couple of libraries, I have enough book-loving friends to remind me that this is ALA's Banned Books Week. I am always interested in what makes the list of most challenged books and why. The message for me from this whole publicity campaign is to keep reading, and not to let others dictate what is and is not acceptable reading (rather, you should read them and decide for yourself - a typical librarian attitude, I suppose). Most years I do not participate by reading something currently on the list. This week, however, I intend to reread one of my favorite books that has made the "decade lists" for 20 years:

A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck. It was #16 on the list from 1990-1999, and #80 from 2000-2009. Set in a small rural community during Calvin Coolidge's presidency. It is slow-paced, full of descriptions of farm life and animals. My favorite scene involves the grey squirrel and the chocolate cake. I won't spoil it - you need to read it. It will change how you view both.