Books in Browsers Conference

And now that I've sung the praises of book-based social media sites, here is an excerpt from this article about the Books in Browsers conference.

Nicole Ozer of the Northern California ACLU spoke eloquently on the dangers of gathering data on what people read. “If you build it, someone will come calling, asking for information.” Other speakers, though, argued that many readers will trade some amount of privacy in exchange for more features and greater possibilities. If a website helps you find the next book you want to read, perhaps giving it your reading history or some portion thereof is a price worth paying.

Nicole Ozer also writes Bytes and Pieces, which seems to be all about technology and civil liberties and will probably be incredibly useful for one project or another.

More Book Social Media Sites

Along the same lines as SPINEBREAKERS, a few more book-related social media sites are popping up. Scholastic's 'You Are What You Read' site sounds particularly promising, though SPINEBREAKERS is still the best named site.

The site is free to anyone, and people can log in via Facebook or create a Scholastic account. Features include an interactive web that shows how users’ Bookprints are connected and a tool that lets people compare their Bookprints to participating celebrities—on the site, they’re called “Names You Know”--and find out if they share any books in common. Among the celebrity profiles are ones by Taylor Swift (whose books include Eat, Pray, Love and Big Bird’s Day on the Farm), Al Roker (Green Eggs and Ham, The Bonfire of the Vanities), Sir James Dyson, Scarlett Johansson, Venus Williams, Jodi Picoult, Malcolm Gladwell, Judy Blume, and President George H.W. Bush.

I'm still liking this idea.

All Hallow's Read

Blah blah blah Neil Gaiman blah blah blah All Hallow's Read blah blah blah give a scary book this Halloween. Post complete! Now it's time to cowboy up a Halloween event.

Penguin Books' Spinebreakers

First off, kudos for coming up with a badass name about reading. I almost want to join just to say I am a member of SPINEBREAKERS. Instant street cred! Sadly, I am too old. The site is for teenagers 13-18.

Inspired (?) by Facebook, Penguin Books has introduced a social site dedicated to reading. Site founder Anna Raffery, managing director of Penguin Digital, said:

"There are too many distractions out there for teenagers which pushes reading down the list of hobbies. Even other social networks are a major distraction for teens, which is why I hope giving reading its own social network, which is written and edited by teenagers, will help keep reading relevant in the digital age."

Though not intended to be commercial, the site does feature brand-related promotions, but does not have any commercial advertising (and more kudos are given for that).

I know I would've been all over this site as a teenager aged 13-18. I love talking about books but never had the opportunity to do so in high school. One reason why I enjoy my library technician program is that finally I have a large group of associates who like to read.

Rebecca Serle's Top Ten Classic Children's Books

Here is Rebecca Serle from the Huffington Post's Top Ten Classic Children's Books. This is partially for reference for myself in the future, wherein I will procure books for my niece, who, though not yet two years old, is sensible enough to love books.

Red and the Comic Book Movie

On Monday night, partially to celebrate two midterms completed in one day, I went to see Red with some friends. Great movie, very funny, good action, I quite liked it.

Red was a brief comic book series by Warren Ellis and Cully Hammer. There's this retired CIA agent named Frank Moses (or Paul Moses in the comics) who suddenly finds himself pursued by the government - he's been reclassified to retired and dangerous, meaning he needs to be gotten rid of. He gathers his old team together and saves a girl he's interested in along the way.

At the end of the movie I turned to my friend and asked, "Is it just me, or have movies been a lot more fun since comic book movies started getting made?" He agreed. Movies made from comics do indeed seem fun, with a few exceptions (From Hell, I'm looking at you).

Much like the popularity of (or perhaps partly because of the popularity of) graphic novels, all of a sudden it seems like people are realizing that comic books have a lot of really entertaining stories to tell. And since they're already partially visual media, they've got that going for them in the transition to film. Comic book artists started borrowing 'camera shots' from movies, and now those angles and shots are being translated back to film, which is pretty cool.

(In a somewhat related aside, The Ultimates is an alternate version of Marvel comics where familiar faces follow different paths or are re-imagined. One such case of re-imagining came from changing Nick Fury, head of SHIELD, from a white guy with an eye patch to a Samuel Jackson in an eye patch. That was who they decided Nick Fury would look like. This paid off when Ironman was made and Sam Jackson signed on to be Fury. If you missed it in the first movie, it was after the credits and it was awesome.)

Warren Ellis commented about Red on his site. Also, take a gander at Comic Book Movies, a site devoted to comic book movies. (How surprising.)

Gordon Pinsent Reads Bieber

"Ahh, the girls... the grilled cheese... I wish I was you."