The Hawking Index

There are certain books on our "must read" list. Books it seems like everyone else is reading (ahem, The Goldfinch). Books that will make us look well-read. Books we've been told will change our lives.

Finally, we find the time to read these books. We pick them up, read a few (or a hundred) pages, and set them down. Later down the road we may valiantly try again, but they will probably remain half-read, doomed to our "I meant to read" or "I tried to get through but couldn't" list.

We've all done this for different reasons, and we've all felt guilty about it. But now there's (unscientific) proof that we're not alone! Math professor Jordan Ellenberg has provided us with an entertaining method to get a sense of how far people are reading by looking at a Kindle book's top highlighted passages. He calls it the Hawking Index (named for Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time):

"Amazon's "Popular Highlights" feature provides one quick and dirty measure. Every book's Kindle page lists the five passages most highlighted by readers. If every reader is getting to the end, those highlights could be scattered throughout the length of the book. If nobody has made it past the introduction, the popular highlights will be clustered at the beginning."

Here are some of his findings:

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt : 98.5%

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins : 43.4%

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald : 28.3%

Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James: 25.9%

A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking: 6.6%

Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty : 2.4%


At abcreads, we have some books we're guilty of not finishing (we're getting to them!). Here's what makes our list:

The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy

Middlemarch by George Eliot

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

The Iliad by Homer

Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace (Ellenberg addresses this book and more in his blog)


What books are on your "I tried" list?


For more, check out NPR and the Chicago Tribune.

J.K. Rowling: Should She Stop Writing?

Back in February, Lynn Shepherd posted an editorial on Huffington Post's UK blog about J.K. Rowling and why Rowling should stop writing. Shepherd equated Rowling's The Cuckoo's Calling (written under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith) to a monopoly, suggesting that the high sales of the book resulted in other books not being sold or possibly even given shelf space. Here are some of Shepherd's thoughts about The Cuckoo's Calling phenomenon and J.K. Rowling writing adult fiction:

"The book [The Cuckoo's Calling] dominated crime lists, and crime reviews in newspapers, and crime sections in bookshops, making it even more difficult than it already was for other books - just as well-written, and just as well-received - to get a look in. Rowling has no need of either the shelf space or the column inches, but other writers desperately do. And now there's going to be a sequel, and you can bet the same thing is going to happen all over again."

"By all means keep writing for kids, or for your personal pleasure - I would never deny anyone that - but when it comes to the adult market you've had your turn. Enjoy your vast fortune and the good you're doing with it, luxuriate in the love of your legions of fans, and good luck to you on both counts. But it's time to give other writers, and other writing, room to breathe."

Shepherd's editorial got me thinking--is it fair? While I understand the frustration Shepherd expresses--the same frustration is expressed often when celebrities publish fiction--in that it's hard to be published, and Rowling's books might mean other, equally talented, adult fiction writers won't get published. Still, I'm not sure I agree with Shepherd's sentiments. After all, J.K. Rowling had to start somewhere, too. According to Wikipedia, it took her approximately four years to write Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, and twelve publishing houses rejected the manuscript before Bloomsbury purchased the manuscript and published it in 1997.

What this means is, Rowling's publishing story isn't unlike that of other authors. It proves, in fact, how difficult it can be to get published. Did the success of Harry Potter make it easier for Rowling to publish adult fiction? Maybe. Does that mean she shouldn't continue to write and publish adult fiction, and instead let lesser-known and unknown authors publish it instead? I'm not so sure. After all, if she should stop writing adult fiction for those reasons, then so should many other authors--Stephen King, James Patterson, Danielle Steel, and other bestselling authors. In addition, if Rowling has had her turn with adult fiction, then can't it also be said that she's had her turn with children's fiction, and possibly just writing in general? The age level a book is written for doesn't make it easier or harder to be published--it's likely that there are just as many unknown children's authors as there are adult fiction authors, so can't it be said that if Rowling writes more children's fiction, she's taking shelf space and other resources away from children's authors who haven't been published yet? (That is, of course, if we follow Shepherd's logic.)

What do you think? Do you agree with Shepherd, and that Rowling has had her turn with adult fiction? Should Rowling only write children's fiction, or should she celebrate her success as a writer for multiple age levels across multiple genres, and continue to write anything she wants to write?

Remembering Erna Fergusson

July 30, 2014 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Erna Fergusson. ABC Library remembers Fergusson as an ally, a pioneer, and a patron in the best sense of the word. The cultural and intellectual growth of Albuquerque’s citizens mattered to Fergusson as much as the growth of its streets and subdivisions. Her staunch support of Albuquerque’s libraries ensured that as the city grew, its libraries did, too.

Erna (Ernestine Mary) Fergusson was born in 1888. Her grandfather, Franz Huning, was one of three key players who brought the railroad to Albuquerque. Her mother, Clara Huning Fergusson, was active in civic affairs, and her father, Harvey B. Fergusson, served from 1912 to 1915 as congressman for the newly-admitted state of New Mexico.

Among her varied careers, Fergusson taught, worked for the Red Cross home service, reported for the Albuquerque Herald newspaper, ran Koshare Tour Services, and wrote several books. Her occupations always served her principal preoccupations -- her passion for the unique beauties of New Mexico, and her faith in “New Mexico’s extraordinary opportunity to make of its diverse heritages a richly patterned and truly democratic community.”  (New Mexico: a Pageant of Three Peoples, p.264.)  

When it came to Albuquerque’s public libraries, Fergusson was both historian and advocate. She remembered the library ball, an early fundraising effort by the Ladies’ Library Association. She was an adolescent witness to the battle over moving the library from the Commercial Club to the Raynolds building in 1901, and she was instrumental in the campaign to build a new library (now Special Collections)  in 1925.

Of the rebuilding of Albuquerque’ first public library she recalled the argument that persuaded Clyde Tingley that the fire-damaged Raynolds building should be demolished and a new library built on the same site:

“The chairman of the City Commission at the time was a very picturesque gentleman who had no books and naturally saw no point to anyone else having them. But he was a builder – he liked building – that interested him, and he said to me one time, ‘You know, I seen all that stone in that old Raynolds Building and I just thought wouldn’t that make a good fire station.’ So he put it to the City Commission that way, and the City Commission agreed that a new Fire House would be fine, and you couldn’t get any better stone than tearing down that old library. Then there was going to be a pile of bricks which they might as well use to build a new library.”  (“Libraries in the Southwest: Their Growth – Strengths – Needs.” UCLA Library Occasional Papers. Number 3. 1955.)

Fergusson led the call to rebuild the library in the Pueblo Revival style: “It will be as good an advertisement for the town as the Alvarado and Franciscan [hotels] have proven to be in the past.” (New Mexico State Tribune, June 19, 1924). Albuquerque was fortunate that she and her supporters prevailed – the Alvarado and the Franciscan are long gone, but the library is still in business.

Erna Fergusson understood that it took persistence and hard work to build a library – not so much to build the edifice, but to solve the “terrific problem: how to make people realize that money invested in books … is a good investment in the town.” (“Libraries in the Southwest: Their Growth – Strengths – Needs.” UCLA Library Occasional Papers. Number 3. 1955.) For forty years, she lent her support as the Albuquerque Public Library on Edith and Central grew into a library system with six locations and bookmobile service to the unincorporated areas of Bernalillo County.

The Friends for the Public Library, the Albuquerque Public Library Foundation, and the Library Advisory Board continue Fergusson’s efforts to address the “terrific problem”.  Albuquerque dedicated its seventh library to her memory when it opened Erna Fergusson Library on April 3^rd, 1966. The library named in Fergusson’s honor remains one of ABC Library’s busiest, liveliest branches – and that may be the best tribute we can offer her.

Dedication Card for Erna Fergusson Library

For a more complete account of Fergusson’s life, check out Robert Gish’s Beautiful Swift Fox.

Maps & Charts

It is not down in any map; true places never are. 
~Herman Melville, Moby Dick
 
To put a city in a book, to put the world on one sheet of paper -- maps are the most condensed humanized spaces of all...They make the landscape fit indoors, make us masters of sights we can't see and spaces we can't cover. ~Robert Harbison, Eccentric Spaces

Maps! We look at a globe or world map and take the borders and dimensions for granted, when in reality the dimensions are not always accurate and every border has a history. In this digital age, when we are more likely to do a search for an address on Mapquest or use an app on our phone to find our location, occasions to read an actual map are becoming scarcer.  But map-reading, like letter-writing, is a skill we would be loath to see die out completely. Here are some books about maps and infographics to whet your appetite for geography. and perhaps improve your cartographic skills.


Sea Monsters on Medieval and Renaissance Maps by Chet Van Duzer

Maphead: Charting the Wide, Weird World of Geography by Ken Jennings

Personal Geographies: Explorations in Mixed-Media Mapmaking by Jill K. Berry

On the Map: A Mind-Expanding Exploration of the Way the World Looks by Simon Garfield

Phantom Islands of the Atlantic: The Legends of Seven Lands That Never Were by Donald S. Johnson

Strange Maps: An Atlas of Cartographic Curiosities by Frank Jacobs

In the Memory of the Map: A Cartographic Memoir by Christopher Norment  [eBook]

Uncharted: Big Data as a Lens on Human Culture by Erez Aiden and Jean-Baptiste Michel

The Infographic History of the World by Valentina D'Efilippo and James Ball


Links

Map Reading Basics

Bad at Reading Maps? Maybe Your Brain Just Needs Better Maps

The Peters Projection World Map

Daily Infographic

Hemingway & Gellhorn

In honor of Ernest Hemingway's 115th birthday (July 21st), the beginning of the Spanish Civil War (July 17, 1936 - Hemingway and his third wife, Martha Gellhorn, were both journalists in Spain during the war) and the 2012 movie Hemingway & Gellhorn (now available in the library catalog), we offer you this list of titles that we hope will pique your interest.

Hotel Florida: Truth, Love, and Death in the Spanish Civil War by Amanda Vaill

The Breaking Point: Hemingway, Dos Passos, and the Murder of José Robles by Stephen Koch

Hemingway: The 1930s by Michael Reynolds

The Selected Letters of Martha Gellhorn edited by Caroline Moorehead

Related Items

Guernica: The Biography of a Twentieth-Century Icon by Gijs van Hensbergen

Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell

Children of War, Children of Peace: Photographs by Robert Capa

The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family by Mary S. Lovell

Two-Wheeled Travel

This summer, NPR is approaching travel in a different way:

Who needs destinations? This summer, we're focusing on the journey. All these books — some old, some new — will transport you: by train, plane, car, bike, boat, foot, city transit, horse, balloon, rocket ship, time machine, and even the odd giant peach. Bon voyage! (Taxes and fees not included).*

We have taken the liberty of compiling some of their recommended two-wheeled titles for you here, along with a few of our own - as a nod to the ongoing Tour de France - but check the links below for more!

Adults

The Motorcycle Diaries: Notes on a Latin American Journey by Ernesto "Che" Guevara

Right Ho, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse

The Lost Cyclist: The Epic Tale of an American Adventurer and His Mysterious Disappearance by David V. Herlihy

Bicycle Diaries by David Byrne

Around the World on Two Wheels: Annie Londonderry's Extraordinary Ride by Peter Zheutlin

French Revolutions: Cycling the Tour de France by Tim Moore [eAudiobook]

Life is a Wheel: Love, Death, Etc., and a Bike Ride Across America by Bruce Weber

The Land of Second Chances: The Impossible Rise of Rwanda's Cycling Team by Tim Lewis

Archangel: Fiction by Andrea Barrett

It's All About the Bike: The Pursuit of Happiness on Two Wheels by Robert Penn

Svetat e golyam i spasenie debne otvsyakade = The World is Big and Salvation Lurks Around the Corner [DVD]  


Kids

The Mouse and the Motorcycle by Beverly Cleary

The Giver by Lois Lowry

Hero on a Bicycle by Shirley Hughes

Wheels of Change : How Women Rode the Bicycle to Freedom (With a Few Flat Tires Along the Way) by Sue Macy

Tillie the Terrible Swede: How One Woman, a Sewing Needle, and a Bicycle Changed History by Sue Stauffacher 


Links

Book Your Trip: Tales of Two-Wheeled Travel - A Literary List to Cycle Through*

Vroom, Vroom, Hmmmm: Motorcycles at Literary Metaphor

On the Big Screen

With the amount of young adult books that are being made into movies recently (Divergent, The Fault in Our Stars, The Hunger Games, The Maze Runner, and If I Stay are the top movies based on young adult books that come to mind), I've started thinking about which young adult books I'd love to see on the big screen. It wasn't easy to narrow down my choices, but I came up with a list of ten books I'd love to see as movies.

Love Letters to the Dead by Ava Dellaira

Along for the Ride by Sarah Dessen

Bright Young Things by Anna Godbersen

Dangerous Girls by Abigail Haas

Life by Committee by Corey Ann Haydu

Splintered by A.G. Howard

Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins

A Long, Long Sleep by Anna Sheehan

Liv, Forever by Amy Talkington

Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor

These books have just the right amount of drama and romance to make them perfect for the big screen. What books would you love to see as movies? Are there any upcoming movies based on young adult books that you're excited about?