Harry Potter e la pietra filosofale

I love seeing the different editions of well-known books.  Even when they get it wrong (yes, I mean you, The Twilight Saga: Wuthering Heights), it's interesting to see different interpretations of stories I know.  Which is why I love the various translations of Harry Potter that the library owns:

These are the Spanish and German translations of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, respectively.  It's fun to see the different Harrys, but it's so interesting to see what events from the story make the cover.  In the Spanish language version, we see the golden egg that's a clue in the Tri-Wizard Tournament as well as the horses from Beauxbaton.  In the German version, Harry is flying around the dragon, trying to get the golden egg.  (Also, his glasses are that super-tiny, super-cool German style.)

However, the version that's most perplexing to me is the Italian version:

Obviously, wizard chess plays a part in the Philosopher's Stone, but where does ROUS come in?  And why is Harry wearing a rat hat?  And perhaps most disturbingly, why is Harry wearing Slytherin house colors??

The cover is kind of off, but the Italian Harry Potter offers something the others don't: illustrations!

Still in Circulation: Art Nouveau Typographic Ornaments

Some books remain shelved, hiding amongst more relevant or popular titles. Even the well-versed staff are unaware of their existence, though they are Still in Circulation.

Earlier in the week, the cover of this little oddity caught my eye:It may have been the colors, which are even more garish in person. The font also intrigued me - I always pause for interesting or old-timey lettering. It seemed like such a strange book for us to have; most of our books on typography are relatively new, with chapters on Adobe Illustrator and the like. I'm not sure why we've kept it, when other books from its era have phased out. But it turns out, I'm glad it's there.

Isn't she beautiful?

Moving past the hideous cover, the typographic ornaments (aka clip art) are really lovely - and copyright-free, as the intro page informs me!

Spreading the gospel of Margaret

It's not often that I'm asked for book recommendations beyond asking my opinion about The Hunger Games (very favorable, btw). When I am, my go-to rec is "anything by Margaret Atwood," with a particular plug for The Blind Assassin.

(cover loving!)

A few years ago, in between school semesters, I spent my summer devouring any Atwood book placed in my path. She's an author with the amazing ability of creating a complete, believable, and absolutely unique first-person voice for each novel she writes. Her narrators are realized so fully that initially I thought she wrote autobiographical fiction. And while some aspects of her stories are probably autobiographical, Cat's Eye in particular, most of them are simply life stories told by complete, rounded characters.

Many of her books deal with feminist issues, some through realistic fiction and others through science-fiction. One of her most-read titles is The Handmaid's Tale, often referred to as a feminist 1984. While I like The Handmaid's Tale, I think The Blind Assassin is her most interesting and successful combination of genres.

The Blind Assassin is a "novel within a novel," a science fiction/romance book that's broken up and woven between the story of two sisters and their lives in Toronto. The younger sister dies as a young woman, but becomes a beloved literary celebrity when her science-fiction/romance book is published posthumously. Her novel is interspersed between the voice of the oldest sister, now an old woman, explaining her decisions and coming clean about all the mistakes she's made. It's extremely engaging - the stories are placed together and combined perfectly.

All of this is to say that a patron read The Blind Assassin on my recommendation and came in to tell me about how much he loved it/Margaret Atwood. It made me feel happy and I decided that I've picked the right career.

Still in Circulation: Dressing Right

Some books remain shelved, hiding amongst more relevant or popular titles, keeping us from exploring their contents. The well-versed staff is unaware of their existence, even though they are Still in Circulation.

I'm excited to add this feature to my librarian-blogger repretoire. In circulation, I come across so many great, old books that I never would have known about otherwise. Often funny and interesting, sometimes kind of ridiculous and charming. This one's a bit of everything:
Dressing Right might be an easy joke, what with its late-70s/early 80s fashions and extreme male modeling.

So let me get this part out of the way: ha ha ha ha ha ha men used to have mustaches ha ha ha ha ha ha my dad used to wear that ha ha ha ha ha ha ha hairstyles!

Now I've put that behind me, I'd like to talk about the advice found within Charles Hix's guide to the well-dressed man.

Mr. Hix is all about bringing style to the masses: "When fashion becomes elitist, it's a bore designed for boors."

He's also about equality: "Neither biologically nor physiologically superior are women's eyes to men's; nor do women possess an innate sense of what goes with what that men by their birthright lack."

And he's also about clean living: "Believe it or not - and you should - dressing right in the right way with the right attitude can be a natural high."

Other nuggets of truth and wisdom:
"One of the prime reasons for dressing is to get undressed."
"Man does not live by vested suit alone."
"Only creeps hire bouncers to oust nonconforming guests."

Once I got over the "OMG, did people actually wear this?"-ness of Dressing Right, different categories of outfits began emerging. While some remained in the "Did people actually wear this?" category, others fit elsewhere:

Surprisingly not from Urban Outfittersand Downright Bassian

Dressing Right by Charles Hix is available for checkout at the Logan Library. Only, you'll have to put it on hold, because I'm keeping it the full three weeks. xoxo, M

Cover Judging - To Tame a Highland Warrior

All right, friends. I've taken a month off from Cover Judging to remind myself that the GRE board does not define "enervate" as 'a spell in Harry Potter that is used to restore a person to consciousness."

Side note: Other Harry Potter spells that find their home on the GRE Vocab "Hit List":
evanesc(ent)o, impervious, obliviate, and stupefy.

This is all to say that I've not abandoned judging books by the covers. Why, here's one now . . .

First Glance: There's not a whole lot there, visually, with this one: the author's name and the title reserve about three-quarters of the cover. And we get a bicep (though he's cheating by crossing his arms) and a shadowed glimpse of waxed chest in a sort of blue-toned black-and-white. In this case, however, the visual isn't the point . . . Score: 3 out of 5

Does Not Signify: Born a Coal Miner's Daughter

A lot of people put The Memory Keeper's Daughter on hold. We have several copies, so I end up shelving this book a couple times a week. I've never read the back, so I don't know what it's about. I think the daughter might drown in it, because the cover features a desaturated, floating dress that's kind of glowy, like in movies where people drown and it's supposed to be symbolic of being overcome by whatever.
Another book that's checked out a lot is The Wizard's Daughter. Again, haven't read the back, but I assume it's about a wizard's daughter whose father forbids her to see her true love, who is a Muggle. But she's rebellious and goes to see the Sea Witch, who turns her into a mute Muggle for three day, so then it's up to the wizard's daughter to make her Muggle fall in love with her before the sun sets on the third day. Seems a little derivative.

Also popular is a book called The Beekeeper's Daughter. It's a Harlequin Superromance novel and I can only guess that it takes place in the same reality as The Memory Keeper's Daughter.
I've kind of rolled my eyes at this trend because I consider it a lazy way to title a book. It's basically a fill-in-the-blank title: The [Unconventional Occupation]'s Daughter. All the author needs to do is come up with an unconventional occupation and then input a spirited young daughter who grew up knowing she and her family were a little different from everyone else. And when the time comes for her to learn her father's trade, she must choose between carrying on the family traditions and love, I'm guessing.

Anyway, I've rolled my eyes at the trend, but mostly ignored it until I saw a copy of The Gravedigger's Daughter. And for some reason, maybe because I could tell that the girl will grow up to be preternaturally aware of the dead, meaning she'll be a lot deeper than her peers, and because even the title is trying so hard for depth, that I came to a decision: all publishers should place a moratorium on The [Unconventional Occupation]'s Daughter.

It's a trope that's been repeated so often that it doesn't even mean anything anymore.

Last post of the year

Books I read this year:

Maren's 2009 book montage

Maren's favorite books »

There's probably more, I just lose track.