If you’ve ever ventured into a public library, you’ve probably noticed celebrity READ posters. I’m always intrigued by the stars chosen, and their favorite books. Some seem obvious, such as Orlando Bloom with The Lord of the Rings. Some seem more surprising, like Shaquille O’Neal with Undying Glory.
How do you think the poster subjects are chosen? Do you have a favorite literate celeb you’d love to seem emblazoned on your library’s wall?
This extremely snowy day has me thinking about the weather.
Where’s your favorite place to be when it snows? How does
I actually quite like both my apartment and so far, Snell Library, to be able to look out and see the snow coming down. But I’m also someone who (as long as it’s not too cold) likes to be outside in the snow—skiing, either downhill or cross-country.
Do you know of anyplace that’s particularly transformed when it snows? Where do you like to be? Or when it snows, would you prefer to be somewhere far away?
Our video upload attempts got me thinking about video on the web. With the writer’s strike stalling new television shows, I recently read an article on shows designed with internet viewing in mind. It also seems that users (myself included) have come to expect a smorgasbord of free entertainment (including television) on the web. While most networks have jumped on the bandwagon, usually providing a few episodes of their most popular programs online, they hardly offer an exhaustive season catalogue. This past week, I spent a fruitless hour trying to find episodes that I had missed.
Until I purchase a TiVo or DVR, is this a hopeless exercise? Or is the possibility of a complete television canon, free and readily accessible online, in the near future? Or, have users come to demand far too much in the way of free content, and will they be forced to pay for it, one way or another?
I love to read, and make sure to do it on a regular basis, and one stumbling block I occasionally run into is that I imagine all of my friends and family are as excited about it as I am. When it’s time to give a gift, the bookstore lures me in, and I always think that the perfect gift will be a special book that I enjoyed and want to pass along to someone I love. However, experience has taught me that after a point, a gift-recipient will say “Enough! They look good, but I’m never going to finish all of these.”
The earliest silent films often used books as their source material, from F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu based on Bram Stoker’s Dracula, to D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation taken from Thomas Dixon’s The Clansman. Gearing up for Oscar season, late fall and winter releases seem to regularly adapt popular or acclaimed literature. Beowulf, The Kite Runner, I Am Legend, Love in the Time of Cholera, Atonement, The Golden Compass, No Country for Old Men, Persepolis, and P.S. I Love You are all adapted from novels or short stories. Of those, I’ve only seen Atonement so far. I enjoyed it and would recommend it, but I certainly didn’t think it measured up to Ian McEwan’s novel (which I loved). But at the same time, if I love a story enough, I’m happy to see it in almost any version.
What adaptations are you most eager to see this winter? Which book do you think would make a great movie? (Who would you cast?) And are there any movies which you think have blasphemed the books they were based on?