Fusenews: Why Didn’t the Rest of the Country Warn Me About the Impending Snow?
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Slate gives us the rundown on how to blog. Point number two makes the most sense to me. "Don’t worry if your posts suck a little . Unless you’re Jeffrey Goldberg, your first blog post is unlikely to be perfect." Darn tooting. I’m so glad I had a lot of time before anyone noticed my blog existed. Those early posts were a little rough (though I was amused to reread my Bert’s purple hand post, because it still strikes me as weird). Thanks to Original Content for the link.
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And if you read nothing else today, consider taking a glace at the Walter Dean Myers piece in The Huffington Post entitled Rescue the Children Along with the Bankers. I can say nothing better than he already has. Thanks to Virginia Anagnos for the link.
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I enjoyed Editorial Anonymous’s post on the pseudonym vs. the crazy person who doesn’t want their editor to know their name. Choice.
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Sarah Miller is discomforted by people who rate Goodreads books that they do not finish. I agree with her wholeheartedly on this point. And as Sarah so cleverly points out, Goodreads allows you to review without rating. So you can merely say "Got bogged down in the unholy crap that is this book" without rating what you haven’t read.
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This is cool. I wish that more author/illustrators like Meghan would post the awards they get in a given year at the year’s end. It’s a desirable thing for a creative person to do because I, quite frankly, want to see what all the cool state awards look like. Like that hand-painted chickadee. Cute!
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Sam Riddleburger gets into the holiday spirit and watches that old Rankin/Bass version of Charles Dickens’s Cricket on the Hearth. He then rereads the original story. The conclusion? In his words "wakky tobaccky".
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Entretien avec Mo Willems, peut etre? Pourquoi pas? Un question: " Que redoutiez-vous le plus lorsque vous étiez petit ? La taille." Ha ha ha! Tres bon, n’est pas?
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Daily Image – Holiday Gift Edition:
They’re from a company called Books to Bed which sells pajama/book sets designed from your favorite children’s titles. And a rather nice selection they make too (did you know that your book was included, Jane?) Though as Coe points out, they don’t make ’em for adults. Which is too bad since I could totally go for some full-sized Garmann’s Summer footie pajamas. Not that they offer it, but wouldn’t it be great if you could have it designed after any book of your choice?
Filed under: Fusenews
About Betsy Bird
Betsy Bird is currently the Collection Development Manager of the Evanston Public Library system and a former Materials Specialist for New York Public Library. She has served on Newbery, written for Kirkus, and has done other lovely little things that she'd love to tell you about but that she's sure you'd find more interesting to hear of in person. Her opinions are her own and do not reflect those of EPL, SLJ, or any of the other acronyms you might be able to name. Follow her on BlueSky at: @fuse8.bsky.social
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Having to rate, review and record my reading on Goodreads really stressed me out, I canceled my account this month. My reading totally suffered. Now that I’m out, reading is fun again. I’m sure it’s a great site for some, not for me.
I could definitely see that. But for systematic minded folks like myself it’s a boon. I get to catalog every possible item that passes through my brain? Hooray! That only thing that could make it better would be if Goodreads sent me barcodes and a scanner like LibraryThing does. Then life would be perfect.
Oh I catalog–I have everything written down in a neat little “Book book.” With notes and a numerical rating (1-10.) I thought I would LOVE Goodreads, but it made my private reading into a social activity, which I didn’t like.
Interesting! I think that I was basically using my children’s book reading as a social activity anyway, so for me it was a perfect fit. But I can see how it would rankle with others.
Goodreads reviewers and I aren’t speaking at the moment.
As for “Cricket on the Hearth,” I’ve now finished it and can only review it using the words of F#8 herself: “unholy crap.”
This story may rate below Hard Times.
To imitate Mike Myers paraphrasing G.K.Chesterton, all Dickens after Tale of Two Cities is crrrrrrrrrrrrrap.
Aw. I’ve always had a fondness in my heart for Edwin Drood. Probably because he died before it was done, though.
Sorry to jump back in, but Dickens was hot on the mike after Two Cities, with Our Mutual Friend, Great Expectations and Edwin Drood.
I feel a real loss for never knowing more about the character from Drood who lived in an apartment done up as ship’s cabin, Mr. Tartar. He shows promise of being one of those Great Dickens Characters like Mr. Guppy or Jaggers or Valentine or…
PEOPLE CRITICIZING CHARLES DICKENS?! Damn it, I haven’t had my coffee yet, and there are people out there, on a perfectly decent pre-Christmas day, DISRESPECTING CHARLES DICKENS? The Dickens Action Figure next to my computer is hopping up and down with rag, slashing the air with his pen, ready to tear his critics limb from limb! And–coffee or not–I’m right behind him, buddies. Run for coveror take the consequences! And while we’re at it, G. K. Chesterton would NOT approve of the careless and inaccurate way he is being paraphrased–(though he is probably less blood-thirsty than Charles and I.)
To be fair, it isn’t disrepectful as much as it is an acknowledgment of the fact that as Dickens got older he lost his sense of humor. Happened to Twain too. I mean, can anyone read Great Expectations and say that it stands on the same level as Tale of Two Cities? Even Oliver Twist had humor, but GE is just so doggone earnest. Defend thyself!
Only a few books in the pantheon of written works stand on the same level with Tale of Two Cities … and most of those are also by Dickens.
And by the by, Cricket on the Hearth came out 14 years before Tale of Two Cities. Apparently Dickens kicked the wakky tobakky habit at some point in between….
Loved the link to “how to blog”. I actually got away from it for a while this fall, and then recently posted about that very thing, and how I needed to make writing a habit again.
Thanks for the timely link!
Actually, what Chesterton said (in Charles Dickens: Last of the Great Men, aka Charles Dickens, A Critical Study) was that you should be careful how enthusiastically you praise the late Dickens or Dickens lovers will realize that you don’t love Dickens at all. (I’m a David Copperfield gal, myself.)
I commented on Sarah Miller’s blog and said something to the effect that the post does raise the question (at least with me) as to how my Goodreads list is for myself and how much it is for others. If my ratings and shelves rankle other people because I put some books on the abandoned list and gave them one or two stars as little signposts for myself (i.e. I thought the part I read was okay, not great, etc.), then– well, I don’t know what to say. I should probably stop now before I write something I regret!:)