eBranch Blog

July 30, 2004

How Fast Do You Read?

Ever wonder how fast you read? Are you faster or slower than everyone else? Take this speed reading test to see how you measure up.
Link from #!/usr/bin/girl

July 29, 2004

Amazon.com to Require Credit Cards to Review

Amazon.com has annouced that it will require reviewers to input their credit card information before posting a review. This new policy is in response to criticism from authors and publishers on the "open-door policy."
From The Guardian via Blog of a Bookslut

You can write and read reviews, no credit card needed, right here on the Harris County library site.

July 28, 2004

Between Two Worlds

In this episode of Engines of Our Ingenuity, a program of the University of Houston College of Engineering, called Between Two Worlds, host John H. Lienhard explores an 1872 book on water found at a library. The program focuses on the innovations discussed in the book with reference to the innovations taking place at the same time in the library.

So imagine entering this embryonic library and finding this book. Book and library alike are caught in a time-warp of rapid change. The book finishes with this flourish: "... the victories of the intellect [he says] can never be confined to the narrow limits of world."

July 27, 2004

New Bestsellers

The following books are appearing on the best seller lists for the first time this week. For a complete listing see our collection of Best Seller Lists.

Fiction

Eric Jerome Dickey.DRIVE ME CRAZY (Dutton, $23.95.) An ex-con in Los Angeles gets involved with a woman who wants him to kill her husband. (New York Times #16)

Sue Grafton. R is for Ricochet
... And R is for romance: love gone right, love gone wrong, and matters somewhere in between. (New York Times #1, Publisher's Weekly #1, USA Today #3, Wall Street Journal #2)

Carl Hiaasen. Skinny Dip
Chaz Perrone might be the only marine scientist in the world who doesn?t know which way the Gulf Stream runs. He might also be the only one who went into biology just to make a killing, and now he?s found a way?doctoring water samples so that a ruthless agribusiness tycoon can continue illegally dumping fertilizer into the endangered Everglades. When Chaz suspects that his wife, Joey, has figured out his scam, he pushes her overboard from a cruise liner into the night-dark Atlantic. Unfortunately for Chaz, his wife doesn?t die in the fall. (New York Times #3, Publisher's Weekly #3, USA Today #8, Wall Street Journal #3)

Linda Howard. Kiss Me While I Sleep
Chock-full of the intrigue, breathless action, and sensuality that have made Linda Howard the master of romantic suspense, Kiss Me While I Sleep is a daring thriller of passion, sudden twists, and richly imagined characters who live and breathe in reader's hearts. It is the most gripping and complex novel of Linda Howard's career. (New York Times #10, Publisher's Weekly #14, Wall Street Journal #8)

Nonfiction

Carmen bin Laden. Inside the Kingdom: My Life in Saudi Arabia
Osama bin Laden's former sister-in-law provides a penetrating, unusually intimate look into Saudi society and the bin Laden family's role within it, as well as the treatment of Saudi women. (Publisher's Weekly #15)

Sylvia Browne & Lindsay Harrison. Prophecy
Eye-opening predictions about our nation and the world. (Wall Street Journal #9)

Thomas Frank. What's the Matter with Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America
With his acclaimed wit and acuity, Thomas Frank turns his eye on what he calls the ?thirty-year backlash??the populist revolt against a supposedly liberal establishment. The high point of that backlash is the Republican Party?s success in building the most unnatural of alliances: between blue-collar Midwesterners and Wall Street business interests, workers and bosses, populists and right-wingers. (Publisher's Weekly #9, Wall Street Journal #14)

Linda Greenlaw. ALL FISHERMEN ARE LIARS (Hyperion, $22.95.)
More sea stories from the author of "The Hungry Ocean" and "The Lobster Chronicles." (New York Times #15)

Peter G. Peterson. RUNNING ON EMPTY (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $24.)
The author, who was secretary of commerce under President Nixon, says that Democrats and Republicans "are bankrupting our future." (New York Times #13)

9-11 Report

The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States has issued it's report on the "circumstances surrounding the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks." It's available online.

Color Your World...Rainbow!

Each week during the Summer Reading Program we are featuring a color. This week's color is Rainbow!. There's rainbow play time, craft time, and reading time.

Color your world all the colors of the rainbow!

Look around...what colors do you see? Imagine how dull your world would be without red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, pink, brown and all of their various shades and mixes.

How lucky we are to live in a world full of color!

July 22, 2004

Dixie Chicks Book List

The Dixie Chicks book list features strong southern women. There are several nonfiction titles indicated with NF. Compiled by the subscribers of the Fiction_L mailing list.

Adriana Trigiani. Big Stone Gap
It's 1978, and 35-year-old Ave Maria Mulligan is about to discover a skeleton in her own family's tidy closet that will blow the lid right off her quiet, uneventful life.

July 20, 2004

Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest

The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest is an annual contest celebrating bad opening lines to literature. The contest is named for Victorian novelist Edward George Earl Bulwer-Lytton who opened his 1830 novel Paul Clifford with the words "It was a dark and stormy night..." imortalized by Snoopy. He is best known for his novel The Last Days of Pompeii.

The 2004 overall winner is Dave Zobel of Manhattan Beach, CA with the following entry:

She resolved to end the love affair with Ramon tonight . . . summarily, like Martha Stewart ripping the sand vein out of a shrimp's tail . . . though the term "love affair" now struck her as a ridiculous euphemism . . . not unlike "sand vein," which is after all an intestine, not a vein . . . and that tarry substance inside certainly isn't sand . . . and that brought her back to Ramon.

New Bestsellers

The following books are appearing on the best seller lists for the first time this week. For a complete listing see our collection of Best Seller Lists.

Fiction
Tami Hoag. Kill the Messenger
An LA bike messenger finds his employer dead and becomes the prime suspect on the run. (New York Times #9, Publisher's Weekly #8, Wall Street Journal #8)

Walter Mosley. Little Scarlet
An irresistible story of love and death, this latest Easy Rawlins mystery takes place during the devastating 1965 Watts riots. Easy's hunt for a killer reveals a new city emerging from the ashes--and a new life for Easy and his friends. (New York Times #16, Publisher's Weekly #15)

Adriana Trigiani. The Queen of the Big Time
An epic of small-town life, spanning a century in one family's struggle to preserve their culture and unity in a foreign land, "The Queen of the Big Time" is the story of the determined, passionate woman who shepherds them through decades of change, but who cannot forget her first and, she believes, only true love. (New York Times #15, Publisher's Weekly #14, Wall Street Journal #14)

Nonfiction
Christopher Andersen. American Evita: Hillary Clinton's Path to Power
The bestselling author of "Sweet Caroline, The Day John Died" and "The Day Diana Died" returns with his latest newsmaking biography. Andersen presents a compulsively readable bestselling profile of an intriguing American personality--equally loved and hated--sure to make headlines nationwide. (New York Times #12, Publisher's Weekly #15)

Ric Flair. Ric Flair: To Be the Man
Professional wrestling's millions of buffs finally get the lowdown on a legend who has dominated the sport for decades--the incomparable "Natureboy," Ric Flair. Now fans across the globe who have watched him slam the best competitors to the mat can get the inside scoop on his long and storied career. (New York Times #5, Publisher's Weekly #10, Wall Street Journal #7)

WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH KANSAS? by Thomas Frank. (Metropolitan/Holt, $24.)
An examination of what the author calls the Great Backlash, in which conservatives "won the heart of America." (New York Times #14)

WHO LET THE DOGS IN? by Molly Ivins. (Random House, $22.95.)
Essays about "incredible political animals," from Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush. (New York Times #16)

David Zinczenko. The Abs Diet
"Men's Health" shows readers how to develop the superior strength and sexy symmetry every man--and woman--lusts after, in just six weeks. (Publisher's Weekly #12, Wall Street Journal #12)

July 19, 2004

Color Your World...Brown!

Each week during the Summer Reading Program we are featuring a color. This week's color is Brown!. There's brown play time, craft time, and reading time.

Brown is a warm color. It is the solid earth. We grow our food in the brown soil. Brown can be big and strong like a bear or soft and loving like a dog. Brown is the sweet taste of chocolate melting in your mouth. Take some time to notice the brown in your world.

July 12, 2004

New Bestsellers

The following books are appearing on the best seller lists for the first time this week. For a complete listing see our collection of Best Seller Lists.

Fiction

Catherine Coulter. Blindside
Coulter's fast-paced FBI novels featuring married FBI agents Lacey Sherlock and Dillon Savich have rocketed up the "New York Times" bestseller lists and garnered millions of fans. Coulter's heady blend of action and intrigue grows more intoxicating with each book and reaches new heights in "Blindside." (USA Today #7)

Kay Hooper. Sense of Evil
The victims are always the same: beautiful, successful and blonde. Someone was able to coax these intelligent and confident women away from safety. Someone was able to gain their trust long enough to do the unthinkable. Their shocking murders have terrified the inhabitants of a small, peaceful town where such heinous crimes are simply not supposed to happen. (USA Today #14)

Billie Letts. Shoot the Moon
From the author of the bestselling "Where the Heart Is" comes an eagerly anticipated tale of a small Oklahoma town and the mystery that has haunted its residents for years. (Wall Street Journal #13)

James Patterson. Sam's Letters to Jennifer
Laced with mystery, this new work by the mega-bestselling author combines two amazing love stories in a novel that's impossible to put down. (New York Times #1, Publisher's Weekly #2, USA Today #5, Wall Street Journal #2)

Julia Quinn. When He Was Wicked
The sixth book in Quinn's immensely popular Bridgerton family saga, set during the Regency era, in which the widowed Francesca Bridgerton gets a second chance at love. (USA Today #9)

Nicholas Sparks. The Wedding
From America's favorite chronicler of love stories comes the long-awaited follow-up to his classic, "The Notebook," as Wilson Lewis struggles to find his way back into the heart of the woman he adores. (USA Today #15)

Danielle Steel. Second Chance
In a dazzling tale of modern misadventures and career-crossed relationships, Steel captures the heady magic of instant attraction, the challenges of change--and the hope that comes when we dare to do it all over again. (New York Times #4, Publisher's Weekly #10, Wall Street Journal #8)

Nonfiction

David Hardy. Michael Moore is a Big Fat Stupid White Man
In Michael Moore Is a Big Fat Stupid White Man, Hardy and Clarke dish it back hard to the fervent prophet of the far left, turning a careful eye on Moore's use of camera tricks and publicity ploys to present his own version of the truth. (New York Times #9, Publisher's Weekly #13, Wall Street Journal #12)

Robert Kurson. Shadow Divers
" Who knew that German submarine U-869, long thought to have been sunk off Gibraltar in 1945, was actually sunk by its own torpedo less than 60 miles from Brielle, New Jersey? No one--until 1991, when two death-cheating wreck-divers began exploring the boat's wrecked hull, 230 feet underwater." - Booklist (New York Times #4, Publisher's Weekly #5, Wall Street Journal #5)

Calvin Trillin. Obliviously on He Sails
The Bush Administration in rhyme. (New York Times #7, Publisher's Weekly #14)

Business

Thomas J. Stanley. Millionaire Women Next Door
Eight years ago, Dr. Stanley swept aside the mythical magic curtain of wealth to reveal "The Millionaire Next Door." Now the author focuses on one of the least understood but increasingly rich demographics. (New York Times #8)

Color Your World...Pink!

Each week during the Summer Reading Program we are featuring a color. This week's color is Pink!. There's pink play time, craft time, and reading time.

Pink is a fun summer color. It's sweet like cotton candy and bubble gum. It stands graceful as a flamingo. Almost every type of flower is available in a shade of pink. Pink is the color of the inside of many seashells. Notice all of the pink in your world.

July 08, 2004

New Titles Cataloged in June

The lists for new books, audio, and movies have been updated with titles cataloged during the month of June.

July 06, 2004

Color Your World...Orange!

Each week during the Summer Reading Program we are featuring a color. This week's color is Orange!. There's orange play time, craft time, and reading time.

Orange is bright and fruity with a little zing in its sweetness. Orange can be wild like a tiger or gentle as a kitten. A glass of orange juice to start your morning or a scoop of orange sherbet to cool off your evening--orange brightens a summer day. Orange is part of the rainbow and creates an incredible sunset. Take time to notice the orange in your world.

July 02, 2004

Independence Day Holiday

All Branches of the Harris County Public Library will be closed on Sunday, July 4 and Monday, July 5 in observation of Independence Day.

New Bestsellers

The following books are appearing on the best seller lists for the first time this week. For a complete listing see our collection of Best Seller Lists.

Larry Bossidy, Ram Charan & Charles Burck. Execution
A legendary CEO and a top consultant team up on the biggest problem in business today: delivering results. Perhaps the most timely business book ever, "Execution" details the ideas Larry Bossidy is putting in place right now as he works to turn around the struggling Honeywell International. (Wall Street Journal)

Bill Clinton. My Life
Former president Bill Clinton's highly anticipated memoirs will be published in June. My Life, an account of Clinton's life through the White House years, is one of the most eagerly awaited books of recent years. (USA Today, Wall Street Journal)

Catherine Coulter. Blowout
Coulter's electrifying new FBI thriller features married agents Savich and Sherlock in their most challenging and baffling case yet when they are charged with heading up an investigation into the killings of some of Washington's prominent figures. (Publisher's Weekly, New York Times, & Wall Street Journal)

Janet Evanovich. Ten Big Ones
From the #1 "New York Times" bestselling author comes the latest Stephanie Plum adventure. The fun shifts into fear when Plum is the lone witness to a gang-executed robbery and cop shooting. There's a contract issued for her head and a California-based killer looking to fill that contract. (USA Today, Wall Street Journal)

Michael E. Gerber. The E-Myth Revisited
In a new and totally revised edition of his groundbreaking bestseller The E-Myth, Gerber completely revolutionizes the idea of starting, growing, and maintaining a small business. (Wall Street Journal)

Malcolm Gladwell. The Tipping Point
This celebrated bestseller, now in paperback, is a book that is changing the way Americans think about selling products and disseminating ideas. The new Afterword by the author describes how readers can constructively apply the tipping point principle in their own lives and work. (Wall Street Journal)

Elizabeth Lowell. Color of Death
From "New York Times" bestselling author Lowell comes another glittering novel of nail-biting suspense. (Publisher's Weekly & New York Times)

Eric Van Lustbader. Bourne Legacy
The prime suspect in the murders of his two closest associates and the object of an assassination attempt, Jason Bourne is on the run--finding himself barely a half-step ahead of a killer whose vengeance is personal . . . and the pawn in an even deadlier game. (Wall Street Journal)

STRANGER THAN FICTION, by Chuck Palahniuk. (Doubleday, $23.95.) A collection of essays by the author of "Fight Club," "Diary" and other novels. (New York Times)

Kathy Reichs. Monday Mourning
Following the worldwide raves for her recent "Bare Bones," Kathy Reichs returns with a riveting new Tempest Bledsoe novel--filled with all the forensic details that readers love. On a trip to Montreal, Tempe recovers three skeletons from shallow graves in the basement of a pizza parlor. (Publisher's Weekly, New York Times, Wall Street Journal)

July 01, 2004

Once Upon a Time Book List

Once Upon a Time
As children, we all like a good fairy tale. Well, many authors have reimagined or used fairy tales as a basis for books for adults. Based on lists compiled by the subscribers of the Fiction_L mailing list. Books suitable for young adults are noted with YA.

Gregory Maguire. Confessions of an Ugly StepSister
The acclaimed author of Wicked conjures up a fresh perspective on the timeless tale of Cinderella in this provocative, superbly written story about the true meaning of beauty.