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Author Archives: Aimee Owen
Friday Reads: Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld
You may be familiar with Elizabeth Bennett and her sisters Jane, Mary, Kitty, and Lydia; their mother desperate to make them good matches, and their father smart enough to try to stay out of the way. But what if Liz Bennett was a magazine writer, Jane a yoga instructor, Mary focused on her online degree, Kitty and Lydia into CrossFit, and the family lived in Cincinnati circa 2013?
Meet Curtis Sittenfeld’s 21st century Bennett family. In this retelling, Liz and Jane have moved to New York City to pursue their careers, but the rest of the girls still live at home in Ohio, where Mr. and Mrs. Bennett belong to the local country club and ignore the decay of their Tudor home, their rapidly dwindling fortune, and the failing state of Mr. Bennett’s health. After their father ends up hospitalized, the older daughters return home, and Mrs. Bennett wastes no time in trying to set up one of her girls with reality television star-slash-ER-doctor Chip Bingley.
While a romance blossoms between Chip and Jane, Liz finds herself fending off advances from tech-whiz Cousin Willie and trying to save her family members from themselves. Enter neurosurgeon Fitzwilliam Darcy and…well, if you’ve read Pride and Prejudice, you already know how this one goes…
Sittenfeld, Curtis. Eligible. New York: Random House, 2016.
Adopt a book!
The Library Commission has a range of books that are looking for a good home. There are volumes of Nebraska history, poetry books, library science texts, reference works, titles by local authors, and much more. All are free for Nebraska librarians to browse, request, and keep!
Next time you stop by the Library Commission, ask to have a look at the shelf – who knows what treasures you will find!
Friday Reads: How Music Got Free: The End of an Industry, the Turn of the Century, and the Patient Zero of Piracy, by Stephen Witt
How do you listen to music nowadays? Do you still buy CDs? (…did you ever buy CDs? I might be showing my age here…), download digital files, use a streaming service online? Did you ever wonder how exactly we got from the “good old days” of recording mixed tapes to having any song available at our fingertips? How Music Got Free: The End of an Industry, the Turn of the Century, and the Patient Zero of Piracy by Stephen Witt answers this question and more. From the invention of the MP3 format to the role of the music industury executives in the demise of their own business, this is a fascinating history of an industry turned on its head. Witt focuses on 3 individuals who couldn’t be more different, yet who each played a crucial role in changing how we access music.In Germany, an audio engineer, Karlheinz Brandenburg, and his team developed the MPEG3 data compression format and fought for its acceptance over rival formats, a largely political battle. When not adopted by the industry, the team released the MP3 format to the public as a free conversion tool and music player.
In North Carolina, Dell Glover was using his job at a CD manufacturing plant to become the leading music leaker in an elite online community. What had been a tedious task of burning individual cds to sell from the trunk of his car on weekends became vastly simplified with the introduction of the MP3 format and the ability to upload music easily and quickly to the internet. (Mr. Witt also published this piece about Dell Glover in the New Yorker in April 2015.)
In New York, Doug Morris, the CEO of Universal Music Group, was too concerned with signing the next big rap artist to pay much mind to the growing portable music revolution. Morris and other executives failed to grasp the significance of the MP3 format (and the piracy it enabled), leading eventually to a litigative nightmare and the downfall of the music industry as we knew it.
Whether or not you were online in the heyday of Napster, this book tells a compelling tale about a fascinating part of our recent history.
Friday Reads: My 2015 Reading Challenge
For 2015 I set a personal reading challenge of 120 books. It seemed like an attainable goal; in 2014 I completed 100 books, and I read for the Golden Sower Awards voting committee, so I go through a LOT of intermediate-level books in the spring. And really, what’s 10 books a month, right? But life happens, as it always does, and sometimes life hands you a newborn that kicks books out of your hands when you try to read in the evenings… I got a little behind in my reading pace over the summer. I got back on track and finished my 120th book on December 31st.
I read for pleasure mainly, but also for enlightenment, or distraction, or because my son or husband beat me to the remote control. I’m not a picky reader: there were memoirs, mysteries, poetry, science fiction, fantasy, classics, humor, short stories, political issues, historical fiction, information science, chick lit, and graphic novels. There was a book on economics, (Adam Smith, anyone), several on parenting, one about dressing better, many about celebrities, and also many about mice and their adventures (I read to a 5 year old). I read in all formats – good ol’ print, eBooks, and audio. The beauty of such a lofty goal (for me) was that I didn’t allow myself to be choosy. If it piqued my curiosity, I read it. Quite a few titles I waited months on reserve for at my local library, but just as many were impulse grabs. Only a couple earned me fines for late return…
Out of 120 books, there were bound to be a few that I loved and some that I could have done without. I’ve shared a couple so far this year in our Friday Reads feature (Ready Player One, After the Golden Age), and here I will mention a couple more:
If you want to laugh until you cry: Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things, by Jenny Lawson. The author is deeply depressed, but doesn’t let it get her down. (New York: Flatiron Books, 2015. ISBN 1250077001)
If you just want to cry: Between the World and Me, by Ta-Nehisi Coates. This book made me sad for all of humanity. I took a couple of days off from reading after this. (New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2015. ISBN 0147520509)
If you want to cringe: The Nest by Kenneth Oppel. This one had me listening for the buzzing of small insects. Aimed at the upper-elementary set, but creepy enough for us older kids too. (New York: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2015. ISBN 148143232X)
If you want to cheer for the underdog: The Martian, by Andy Weir – read it before you see the movie. Or better yet listen to it -the Brilliance Audio version has R.C. Bray narrate to great effect. (Grand Haven, MI: Brilliance Audio, 2014. ISBN 9781491523216)
If you loved “one of the greatest love stories ever told”: As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales From the Making of The Princess Bride, by Cary Elwes. First watch the movie, then read the book. Then watch the movie again. I went the audiobook route again – narrated by the author. (New York: Simon & Schuster Audio, 2014. ISBN 9781442383456)
Did you set a reading goal this past year? Are you aiming for a certain number in the year to come?
Happy New Year everyone – looking forward to many more great books in 2016!
New Makerspace Page!
Check out the Nebraska Library Commission’s newest page: Creative, Innovative, and MakerSpaces in Nebraska! Here we list Nebraska libraries that have purchased 3D printers, as well as public and private “creative spaces” throughout the state – places you can visit to take classes, work with technology, make art, write poetry – whatever your creative outlet, we want to help you find a space for it!
This page is a work-in-progress and will be constantly updated as we discover more resources. If you have, or know of, a space we have not listed, please contact the Information Services Team.
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Friday Reads: Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
I’m not sure I consider myself a child of the 80s, but I’m certainly old enough to appreciate the vast majority of the pop culture references in Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One. From Ferris Bueller to Geddy Lee, Max Headroom to Dungeons & Dragons, Monty Python to Back to the Future, there’s a bit of 80s nostalgia for everyone in this story. I listened to the audiobook (one of the pleasures of a long daily commute), narrated by Wil Wheaton.
The year is 2044. Our hero, Wade, is an 18-year-old orphan living in the stacks – an overgrown trailer park where the mobile homes are literally stacked sky-high. Things are not going so great for Wade “IRL” (in real life), but that’s OK! Wade spends most of his waking hours in the OASIS, a sprawling online utopia that most of the population of Earth relies on to escape the crumbling mess that the real world has become. When the OASIS’s creator, game designer James Halliday, passed away, he promised control of the OASIS and his vast fortune (in the hundreds of billions) to the first person who can find the “Easter Egg” he has hidden inside this virtual world. The catch? The egg hunters or “gunters”, as they’ve been come to be known, must possess enough knowledge of 1980’s trivia to decipher the clues Halliday has sprinkled throughout the OASIS. It’s been 5 years and no one has found the first clue that will begin the game and lead to the ultimate prize… Until one day Wade stumbles upon it, putting his name at the top of the game’s scoreboard and making him both a legend among gunters and a target for the ruthless corporation that has its sights set on taking over the OASIS.
If you enjoy fast-paced humorous science fiction (even if you’ve never picked up a joystick), grab this one before it hits the big screen in the not-too-distant future.
Friday Reads: After the Golden Age by Carrie Vaughn
This year’s Summer Reading Program is “Every Hero Has a Story” (or “Escape the Ordinary” for us older folks). After the Golden Age caught my eye as I passed a display of hero- themed books at my local library. I’m not typically a reader of graphic novels or the Marvel Universe, but I enjoy fantasy and science fiction, and this book has a bit of romance and family drama thrown into the mix.
It takes super powers to be a hero. At least that’s what Celia West assumes. After all, she’s the daughter of Captain Olympus and Spark, the superhuman crime-fighters that lead Commerce City’s vigilante team, the Olympiad. Much to their disappointment, Celia didn’t inherit her father’s super strength or her mother’s pyrokinesis. Instead, she seems destined to be a target for city’s villains; she’s been kidnapped so many times, she wonders if she should change her name to “The Captive Wonder.”
After a youthful indiscretion, Celia tries to make a normal life for herself as a forensic accountant, away from her parents and out of the Olympiad’s shadow. Our story begins when Celia is asked to assist with the tax-evasion trial of The Destructor, the city’s most notorious supervillain and her parent’s archenemy. Will Celia be able to take down the criminal mastermind that neither her parents nor the police could ever defeat? Or will her involvement in the trial be just the public distraction the mayor needs to rid Commerce City of its meddlesome superheroes? It’s up to Celia to save the day.
