New & Novel: Purr-tagonists

From Puss in Boots to Krazy Kat, the Cheshire Cat to The Cat in the cult British TV show Red Dwarf (if you're not familiar, he's a Felis Sapiens which evolved from a domestic housecat), felines demonstrating agency have been around for quite some time. Cats in literature have quite a pedigree, particularly in mysteries - some of the most well-known include:

• Lillian Jackson Braun wrote a couple dozen The Cat Who books, starring reporter named Jim Qwilleran and his Siamese cats, Kao K'o-Kung (Koko for short) and Yum-Yum

• Rita Mae Brown has co-authored a mystery series with her cat, Sneaky Pie Brown (the mysteries also feature a cat named Mrs. Murphy)

• Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough have written science fiction books about the space-traveling Barque cats

• T.C. LoTempio's Nick and Nora series has Nora Charles as a crime reporter and Nick is now "a stray cat...who has a talent for detection" 

• Carole Nelson Douglas writes the Midnight Louie mystery books, where chapters alternate between the voice of Midnight Louie, a slightly overweight black cat, and his human "roommate"

• Shirley Rousseau Murphy's cat P.I., Joe Grey, has his own website, which describes him as "the sharpest feline sleuth on the mystery scene--one cool cat, a clawed and formidable enemy of crime"

• Sofie Kelly writes about a librarian who solves mysteries with the aid of her cats with magic powers

• the Dixie Hemingway mysteries feature a sleuth who is a former sheriff, now professional cat-sitter 

How do you feel about anthropomorphized pets in novels? We confess to a tendency to avoid them, having been irrevocably scarred by exposure in our youth to the sad end of the animals in Sounder and Old Yeller, but books about animals running the show seem to be quite popular.  In fact, there are two (very different) brand-spanking-new books with cat protagonists:
 

Cat Out of Hell by Lynne Truss

For people who both love and hate cats comes the tale of Alec Charlesworth, a librarian who finds himself suddenly alone: he's lost his job, his beloved wife has just died, and to top it all off, his sister has disappeared. Overcome by grief, he stands in his sister's kitchen staring at the only witness to whats happened to her - her cat, Roger. Who then speaks to him. It takes a while for Alec to realize hes not gone mad from grief, that the cat is actually speaking . . . and that much of what we fear about cats is true. They do think they're smarter than humans, for one thing. And, well, it seems they are! Whats more, they do have nine lives. Or at least this one does. Roger's older than Methuselah, and his unblinking stare comes from the fact that he's seen it all. And he's got a tale to tell, a tale of shocking local history and dark forces that may link not only the death of Alec's wife, but also several other local deaths. But will the cat help Alec, or is he one of the dark forces?

Mort(e) by Robert Repino

The war with no name has begun, with human extinction as its goal. The instigator of this war is the Colony, a race of intelligent ants who, for thousands of years, have been silently building an army that would forever eradicate the destructive, oppressive humans. Under the Colony's watchful eye, this utopia will be free of the humans' penchant for violence, exploitation and religious superstition. The final step in the Colony's war effort is transforming the surface animals into high-functioning two-legged beings who rise up to kill their masters. Former housecat turned war hero, Mort(e) is famous for taking on the most dangerous missions and fighting the dreaded human bio-weapon EMSAH. But the true motivation behind his recklessness is his ongoing search for a pre-transformation frienda dog named Sheba. When he receives a mysterious message from the dwindling human resistance claiming Sheba is alive, he begins a journey that will take him from the remaining human strongholds to the heart of the Colony, where he will discover the source of EMSAH and the ultimate fate of all of earth's creatures.  Sound intriguing?  For more fiction with cat protagonists, check out the library catalog. We recommend, just for fun, The Meowmorphosis - a parody of Kafka which sees "Gregor Samsa, a seemingly typical man...transformed into a cat"; or, if you prefer something more serious, check out Takashi Hiraide's The Guest Cat, which NPR called "illuminating and achingly poetic". If you're more of a dog person...well, we're sure there's books about dogs too.

*descriptions are taken from the library catalog unless otherwise noted

LeBron James and Reading

As an NBA fan, it's impossible for me not to know who LeBron James is. I remember when he left Cleveland to play for Miami, and how angry it made everyone, and I remember when he left Miami to return to Cleveland--not that it happened all that long ago.

The reason I mention remembering it is because I remember how upset people were about his leaving Cleveland. Fans were so upset that they burned his Cleveland jersey. A lot of people were disappointed that James would leave a place that had supported him as much as Cleveland (and surrounding areas) had--James is from Akron, Ohio. At the time, I didn't have much of an opinion on LeBron, except that I thought he was a bit too egotistical.

But then, I heard about his efforts to support literacy. Before we get to that, check out this video about James' reading habits. It's pretty awesome.

So, what exactly has LeBron James done for literacy? As it turns out, a lot.

In 2014, The LeBron James Family Foundation funded an e-library program for Akron Public Schools, through the Wheels for Education program. As it turns out, James adopts a new third grade class every year; the Wheels for Education program provides those classes with various literacy tools.

It might seem small that his focus is on Ohio schools, and that it's limited to third grade classes, but even by doing that, LeBron can reach so many people and provide them with tools they need to build their literacy skills. That's not to mention the video posted above, which has been seen by many, and is a great example of LeBron James modeling good reading habits.

I have to say, it's really hard to dislike a guy who loves reading and supports literacy in the way LeBron James does. I give him major kudos for the work he's done and continues to do.

If you know of any other celebrities who have a heavy focus on supporting literacy, let me know in the comments--I may just turn this into a small series of posts.

3/14/15 is Pi-est of Pi Days!

by Fiona Shields

Every March 14, we celebrate the day where mathematics and round food intersect -- π (Pi) Day! Pi, the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter, has drawn many admirers for its infinite, non-repeating digits as an irrational and transcendental number. It's been calculated to the ten trillionth digit, and math enthusiasts and students all around the world challenge themselves to memorize pi 100 (or 67890) places past the decimal point!

Since pi begins with 3.14159, it only makes sense that March 14 (3/14) has been nationally recognized as Pi Day. This year has special significance as it will occur on 3/14/15, or the first six digits of pi!

This mathematical constant also has the happy coincidence of having a homophone that's one of our favorite round baked goods -- pie. This is how we like to observe Pi Day (and also Alfred Einstein's birthday), but we encourage you to eat or enjoy anything circular in shape!

To celebrate Pi Day to the pi-est, have a slice of pie on 3/14/15 at 9:26 am/pm and check out one of our materials related to pi, pie, or mathematics:

All About Pi:
[Pi]: A Biography of the World's Most Mysterious Number by Alfred S. Posamentier & Ingmar Lehmann

All About Pie:
Mrs. Rowe's Little Book of Southern Pies by Mollie Cox Bryan
The Hoosier Mama Book of Pie by Paula Haney
Desserts from the famous Loveless Cafe by Alisa Huntsman
Easy as Vegan Pie by Hannah Kaminsky
First Prize Pies by Allison Kave
Pie School: Lessons in Fruit, Flour, and Butter by Kate Lebo
Pies and Tarts by Kristina Petersen Migoya
The Southern Pie Book by Jan Moon
Vegan Pie in the Sky by Isa Chandra Moskowitz & Terry Hope Romero

Mathematics and Numbers:
The Joy of Mathematics Parts 1 & 2 (DVD) by Arthur T. Benjamin
The Queen of the Sciences: A History of Mathematics (DVD) by David M. Bressoud
Zero to Infinity: A History of Numbers Parts 1 & 2 (DVD) by Edward B. Burger
The Number Sense: How the Mind Creates Mathematics by Stanislas Dehaene
Math in Minutes by Paul Glendinning
Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter
The Man Who Knew Infinity by Robert Kanigel
A History of Mathematics by Uta C. Merzbach and Carl B. Boyer
Things to Make and Do in the Fourth Dimension by Matt Parker
Cosmic Numbers: The Numbers That Define Our Universe by James D. Stein
Math Girls by Hiroshi Yuki

Featured Author: Lev Grossman

Author Lev Grossman was no stranger to writing when his first book came out in 1997.  His parents are the poet Allen Grossman and the novelist Judith Grossman, and his twin brother is the author Austin Grossman. In addition to writing fiction, Lev Grossman is also the book critic at Time magazine, and has been published in many other periodicals, including  the Believer, the New York Times, Wired, and Salon. His second book, Codex, became an international bestseller in 2004, and he has really hit his stride with the publication of the fantasy fiction Magicians Trilogy, which began in 2009.

The Magicians Trilogy is the story of Quentin Coldwater, a high school senior obsessed with a series of fantasy novels set in a land called Fillory. Upon his admittance to an exclusive college of magic, Quentin discovers that Fillory is real. George R.R. Martin called The Magicians "thoroughly adult, his narrative dark and dangerous and full of twists"; Patrick Rothfuss said "[m]ost people will like this book. But there’s a certain type of reader who will enjoy it down to the bottoms of their feet"; and Cory Doctorow said it "may just be the most subversive, gripping and enchanting fantasy novel I’ve read this century". The series is considered to be dark urban fantasy.

Codex [eAudio]
About to depart on his first vacation in years, Edward Wozny, a hotshot young investment banker, is sent to help one of his firm's most important and mysterious clients. His task is to search their library stacks for a precious medieval codex, a treasure kept sealed away for many years and for many reasons. Enlisting the help of passionate medievalist Margaret Napier, Edward is determined to solve the mystery of the codex-to understand its significance to his wealthy clients, and to decipher the seeming parallels between the legend of the codex and an obsessive role-playing computer game that has absorbed him in the dark hours of the night.

Magicians Trilogy

The Magicians [eBook, eAudio]
Like everyone else, precocious high school senior Quentin Coldwater assumes that magic isn't real, until he finds himself admitted to a very secretive and exclusive college of magic in upstate New York. There he indulges in joys of college-friendship, love, sex, and booze- and receives a rigorous education in modern sorcery. But magic doesn't bring the happiness and adventure Quentin thought it would. After graduation, he and his friends stumble upon a secret that sets them on a remarkable journey that may just fulfill Quentin's yearning. But their journey turns out to be darker and more dangerous than they'd imagined. Psychologically piercing and dazzlingly inventive, The Magicians, the prequel to the New York Times bestselling book The Magician King and the #1 bestseller The Magician's Land, is an enthralling coming-of-age tale about magic practiced in the real world-where good and evil aren't black and white, and power comes at a terrible price.

The Magician King [eBook]
Quentin Coldwater should be happy. He escaped a miserable Brooklyn childhood, matriculated at a secret college for magic, and graduated to discover that Fillory—a fictional utopia—was actually real. But even as a Fillorian king, Quentin finds little peace. His old restlessness returns, and he longs for the thrills a heroic quest can bring. Accompanied by his oldest friend, Julia, Quentin sets off—only to somehow wind up back in the real world and not in Fillory, as they’d hoped. As the pair struggle to find their way back to their lost kingdom, Quentin is forced to rely on Julia’s illicitly learned sorcery as they face a sinister threat in a world very far from the beloved fantasy novels of their youth.

The Magician's Land [eBook, eAudio]
Quentin Coldwater has been cast out of Fillory, the secret magical land of his childhood dreams. With nothing left to lose he returns to where his story began, the Brakebills Preparatory College of Magic. But he can't hide from his past, and it's not long before it comes looking for him. Along with Plum, a brilliant young undergraduate with a dark secret of her own, Quentin sets out on a crooked path through a magical demimonde of gray magic and desperate characters. But all roads lead back to Fillory, and his new life takes him to old haunts, like Antarctica, and to buried secrets and old friends he thought were lost forever. He uncovers the key to a sorcery masterwork, a spell that could create magical utopia, a new Fillory--but casting it will set in motion a chain of events that will bring Earth and Fillory crashing together. To save them he will have to risk sacrificing everything.

*book descriptions are provided by the publisher unless otherwise noted
  

Science & Technology Staff Picks

Library staff don't just check out books to you - we read them, too! Many branches have staff pick displays which you can browse. Here are some staff picks in science, social science, and technology from various staff members.  Would you like to see more staff picks in different categories on abcreads?  Let us know in the comments! Also, make sure you check out our Best of 2014 Staff Picks and our Staff Picks in the catalog.

Time Reborn: From the Crisis in Physics to the Future of the Universe by Lee Smolin 

From one of our foremost thinkers and public intellectuals, a radical new view of the nature of time and the cosmos. What is time? This deceptively simple question is the single most important problem facing science as we probe more deeply into the fundamentals of the universe. All of the mysteries physicists and cosmologists face--from the Big Bang to the future of the universe, from the puzzles of quantum physics to the unification of forces and particles--come down to the nature of time. The fact that time is real may seem obvious. You experience it passing every day when you watch clocks tick, bread toast, and children grow. But most physicists, from Newton to Einstein to today's quantum theorists, have seen things differently. The scientific case for time being an illusion is formidable. That is why the consequences of adopting the view that time is real are revolutionary. Lee Smolin, author of the controversial bestseller The Trouble with Physics, argues that a limited notion of time is holding physics back. It's time for a major revolution in scientific thought. The reality of time could be the key to the next big breakthrough in theoretical physics. What if the laws of physics themselves were not timeless? What if they could evolve? Time Reborn offers a radical new approach to cosmology that embraces the reality of time and opens up a whole new universe of possibilities. There are few ideas that, like our notion of time, shape our thinking about literally everything, with huge implications for physics and beyond--from climate change to the economic crisis. Smolin explains in lively and lucid prose how the true nature of time impacts our world.  Staff review: Lee Smolin is the guy to turn to for arguments that time is not an illusion, and that physics is stuck because we don't understand it.  

The Perfect Theory: A Century of Geniuses and the Battle Over General Relativity 

by Pedro G. Ferreira

At the core of Einstein's general theory of relativity are a set of equations that explain the relationship among gravity, space, and time--possibly the most perfect intellectual achievement of modern physics. For over a century, physicists have been exploring, debating, and at times neglecting Einstein's theory in their quest to uncover the history of the universe, the origin of time, and the evolution of solar systems, stars, and galaxies. In this sweeping narrative of science and culture, Pedro Ferreira explains the theory through the human drama surrounding it: the personal feuds and intellectual battles of the biggest names in twentieth-century physics, from Einstein and Eddington to Hawking and Penrose. We are in the midst of a momentous transformation in modern physics. As scientists look farther and more clearly into space than ever before, The Perfect Theory engagingly reveals the greater relevance of general relativity, showing us where it started, where it has led, and where it can still take us.  Staff review: A great book about the history of General Relativity, full of new insights about the theory as well as the people.  

The Science of Interstellar by Kip Thorn 

Interstellar, from acclaimed filmmaker Christopher Nolan, takes us on a fantastic voyage far beyond our solar system. Yet in The Science of Interstellar, Kip Thorne, the physicist who assisted Nolan on the scientific aspects of Interstellar, shows us that the movie's jaw-dropping events and stunning, never-before-attempted visuals are grounded in real science. Thorne shares his experiences working as the science adviser on the film and then moves on to the science itself. In chapters on wormholes, black holes, interstellar travel, and much more, Thorne's scientific insights many of them triggered during the actual scripting and shooting of Interstellar, describe the physical laws that govern our universe and the truly astounding phenomena that those laws make possible.  Staff review: Kip Thorne was the science consultant for the movie, and he's also one of the top experts on relativity and worm-holes.  It's lot's of fun, and well grounded and speculative, with great pictures.

Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior by Leonard Mlodinow 

The best-selling author of The Drunkard's Walk and coauthor of The Grand Design (with Stephen Hawking), gives us an examination of how the unconscious mind shapes our experience of the world and how, for instance, we often misperceive our relationships with family, friends, and business associates, misunderstand the reasons for our investment decisions, and misremember important events. Your preference in politicians, the amount you tip your waiter, all judgments and perceptions reflect the workings of our mind on two levels: the conscious, of which we are aware, and the unconscious, which is hidden from us. The latter has long been the subject of speculation, but over the past two decades researchers have developed remarkable new tools for probing the hidden, or subliminal, workings of the mind. The result of this explosion of research is a new science of the unconscious and a sea change in our understanding of how the subliminal mind affects the way we live. Employing accessible explanations of the most obscure scientific subjects, the author takes us on a tour of this research, unraveling the complexities of the subliminal self and increasing our understanding of how the human mind works and how we interact with friends, strangers, spouses, and coworkers. In the process he changes our view of ourselves and the world around us. 

Staff review: Spooky! 

Going Viral by Karine Nahon and Jeff Hemsley  

We live in a world where a tweet can be instantly retweeted and read by millions around the world in minutes, where a video forwarded to friends can destroy a political career in hours, and where an unknown man or woman can become an international celebrity overnight. Virality: individuals create it, governments fear it, companies would die for it. So what is virality and how does it work? Why does one particular video get millions of views while hundreds of thousands of others get only a handful? In Going Viral, Nahon and Hemsley uncover the factors that make things go viral online. They analyze the characteristics of networks that shape virality, including the crucial role of gatekeepers who control the flow of information and connect networks to one another. They also explore the role of human attention, showing how phenomena like word of mouth, bandwagon effects, homophily and interest networks help to explain the patterns of individual behavior that make viral events. Drawing on a wide range of examples, from the Joseph Kony video to the tweet that spread the news that Osama Bin Laden was dead, from the video of Homer Simpson voting in the US elections to the photo of a police officer pepper-spraying students at the University of California Davis, this path-breaking account of viral events will be essential reading for students, scholars, politicians, policymakers, executives, artists, musicians and anyone who wants to understand how our world today is being shaped by the flow of information online.

 Staff review: A fascinating and timely study.

*book description is provided by the publisher unless otherwise noted

Scully & Mulder Write! (But Not About the X-Files)

You can stream all the seasons of Friends on Netflix. Twin Peaks is coming back to TV! People are brushing the dust off their Doc Martens and buying new scrunchies, because the '90s are back in style!  That's what we've read, anyway. But we're starting to believe it now that Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny have both published fiction within 4 months of each other!  (Guess they got really in sync all those years as Scully and Mulder on The X-Files, which, by the way, is also rumored to also be making a comeback.) Interestingly, Gillian Anderson's book is science fiction and Duchovny's is a humorous fable.  Of course, we're only basing this on their X-Files characters, but that's not what we would have expected from them!

How about you? Would you check out a novel by Anderson and/or Duchovny? What do you think of celebrity authors?

 

Vision of Fire by Gillian Anderson and Jeff Rovin

Book one of the Earthend Saga. Juggling her career, parenting responsibilities and lackluster dating life, child psychologist Caitlin O'Hara begins treating an ambassador's daughter, who starts having fits and speaking in tongues right before children throughout the world demonstrate similar mystical symptoms.

Holy Cow: A Modern-Day Dairy Tale by David Duchovny

A rollicking, globe-trotting adventure with a twist: a four-legged heroine you won't soon forget. Elsie Bovary is a cow, and a pretty happy one at that--her long, lazy days are spent eating, napping, and chatting with her best friend, Mallory. One night, Elsie and Mallory sneak out of their pasture; but while Mallory is interested in flirting with the neighboring bulls, Elsie finds herself drawn to the farmhouse. Through the window, she sees the farmer's family gathered around a bright Box God--and what the Box God reveals about something called an "industrial meat farm" shakes Elsie's understanding of her world to its core. There's only one solution: escape to a better, safer world. And so a motley crew is formed: Elsie; Jerry--excuse me, Shalom--a cranky, Torah-reading pig who's recently converted to Judaism; and Tom, a suave (in his own mind, at least) turkey who can't fly, but who can work an iPhone with his beak. Toting stolen passports and slapdash human disguises, they head for the airport. Elsie is our wise-cracking, pop-culture-reference-dropping, slyly witty narrator; Tom--who does eventually learn to fly (sort of)--dispenses psychiatric advice in a fake German accent; and Shalom, rejected by his adopted people in Jerusalem, ends up unexpectedly uniting Israelis and Palestinians.  Feeling nostalgic?  The X-Files are in the library catalog!   *all book descriptions are taken from the library catalog unless otherwise noted   

On John Green's Response to the Quote He Never Said

This week, one of my colleagues alerted me to an article about John Green and a quote that has been attributed to him, but was not actually written by him in any of his books. The Swiss Army Librarian posted about it, as did the Copyfight blog, and an interesting topic came up: the fact that because of digital rights management (DRM), an author was not able to search his own copy of an eBook to see if he had written the quote that has been attributed to him.

Let's start with this: What is digital rights management? According to the American Library Association, "the purpose of DRM technology is to control access to, track and limit uses of digital works." For eBooks, this means DRM "limit[s] copying, printing, and sharing of eBooks," according to Wikipedia.

Now, let's take it back to John Green. He needed to find out if the quote that was being attributed to him all over the Internet was, in fact, something he had actually written. The easiest way to do this? Check the book that the quote was said to come from, of course. With DRM, you might not be able to do that, so John Green illegally downloaded a copy of a book he had written, just so he could search the text for the quote. And for many, this is problematic, because, as the Copyright blog pointed out, DRM can prevent authors from doing things such as sharing samples of their books, or, in a case like John Green's, searching the text for a specific quote or passage.

As it turns out, John Green is just plain awesome, because once he confirmed that he didn't write the quote being attributed to him, he decided that his store, which was selling posters with that quote on it, would pay royalties to the person who did originally say the quote. That person turned out to be a thirteen year old Nerdfighter. In addition, John Green loved another image that person had on her Tumblr so much that they started selling that poster, too--with royalties going to the Nerdfighter.

I love this about John Green because he could have continued to accept the quote as being his, without researching it further, as he had done for several years, and instead, he not only said that the quote is not his, but he gave credit where it was due, and he took it a step further by deciding to pay the person royalties from posters already sold with that quote. I also love it because in his vlog where he discusses what happens, he touches on copyright and intellectual property, which is always an important issue to talk about. Here's the video.



I can't write this blog post without using John and Hank Green's catchphrase: Don't forget to be awesome. Because in this case, John Green didn't forget.

Want to know more about DRM? Check out the following websites.


Boing Boing: Here, author Cory Doctorow writes about DRM and why he believes it to be so problematic.
EPIC Digital Rights
Wikipedia