I just signed up for a lifetime subscription to LibraryThing. It’s a very nifty online book cataloging site that keeps a nice record of all of the books you own and with the purchase of a $13 CueCat bar code scanner you can just scan the bar code to import books into your database (no typing!).
If you’d like to see the books I have on my bookshelf just check out my LibraryThing public listing. Of course I just signed up a few hours ago so it’s just got what I could remember I have off of the top of my head, I’ll be busting out the CueCat soon!.
I also embedded a little searching widget in the sidebar of my blog so you can search my library from here. At some point when I have time for projects I’d like to build a simple loaning application that would allow me to track who I’ve loaned my books to so I can get them back– I imagine it would be fairly straightforward coding wise.
P.S. If the person who I lent His Dark Materials to is reading this, please bring it back when you’re done.
Quit bitching about not having anything new to read and read one of these books:
- Little, Big
- The Devil in the White City
- Bomb the Suburbs
- Fabulous Small Jews
- House of Leaves
- Dreamcatcher (hey it’s still summer/light reading season)
Ian | 10/13/2005 | 1:28 pm
Boy why can’t they write like this any more:
There wasn’t any trouble figuring out what he said, though. The child comes home and the parent puts the hooks in him. The old man, or the woman, as the case may be, hasn’t got anything to say to the child. All he wants is to have that child sit in a chair for a couple of hours and then go off to bed under the same roof. It’s not love. I am not saying that there is not such a thing as love. I am merely pointing to something which is different from love but which sometimes goes by the name of love. It may well be that without this thing which I am talking about there would not be any love. But this thing in itself is not love. It is just something in the blood. It is a kind of blood greed, and it is the fate of a man. It is the thing which man has which distinguishes him from the happy brute creation. When you get born your father and mother lost something out of themselves, and they are going to bust a hame trying to get it back, and you are it. They know they can’t get it all back but they will get as big a chunk out of you as they can. And the good old family reunion, with picnic dinner under the maples, is very much like diving into the octopus tank at the aquarium.
Ten points and a cookie if you recognize that passage without looking it up.
Ian | 10/18/2004 | 12:00 pm
I had an idea to write up movies, books and albums that I’ve enjoyed over the last few weeks. I’ll try to keep this up to date, we’ll see how well I can stick to it.
Books:
Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood.
A very interesting view of a pair of guys who break into someone’s house and kill the entire family. I’ve always been amazed by Capote’s writing style and once again he doesn’t let me down– fantastic stuff by a truly great writer.
Stephen King’s The Dark Tower.
The final in a series of books I’ve been reading for the past 5 years. King has been working on them since the 70’s. I have always taken issue with King’s endings but he got it right this time. Not as satisfying as it could have been but still, a good read and a fantastic series overall.
Frank Herbert’s Dune.
A classic. I’ve read it a hundred times and will probably read it a hundred more. It’s a pity the rest of the series aren’t as good as this one is.
Movies:
Martin Scorsese’s After Hours
Who knew Scorsese ever did a comedy starring (among others) Cheech and Chong?! It’s pretty weird, even for an 80’s dark comedy but I dug it. It was recommended to me by my soon-to-be-ex-neighbor Jim, who hasn’t steered me wrong yet.
Music:
Green Day’s American Idiot
I love the Green Day! It’s not cool any more, I know, but I stopped apologizing for my taste in music a long time ago. It’s peppy, poppy , occasionally very long (2 9+ min tracks!), and has all kinds of nifty political and social commentary stuck in between the lines.