Want to know where all that stimulus money is going? Check out MSNBC’s Stimulus Tracker:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33498869/ns/us_news-the_stimulus_tracker/#/all/all/us/all/

This is an interesting idea. However, it makes you wonder about how the books will fare in the weather. I like the take a book and return it or leave another book idea. I also like the stage for public performances. It would be a great space in a warm-weather environment:

Click here to visit the Open Air Library

With the recent release of Fallout 3: Game of the Year ed. for PS3, now seems to be a good time to cover it in a review.  I have played very long games and I have played very short games, Fallout 3 is the shortest longest game I have ever played.  If you just follow the main story line it will not take long to beat the game, the real fun comes in when you start doing all the side missions and exploring the vast (and I do mean vast) wasteland that is Washington D.C.  The game is huge.  To give some idea of how large the game is I spent a good few weeks on it and still didn’t see everything.  The graphics are awesome, voice acting was done very well and the all of the story lines are great; this was one well-thought-out game.

For replay value I have to give it a 9.  You can play the game as the most helpful, kind and honest chap, just a plain nice guy, a neutral guy, a bad guy or a complete and utter ,um, *beep*.  Also, be on the look out for downloadable content as well that is going to make the game just that much larger [which is included in the Game of the Year ed.].  The one annoying thing I found was the radio.  For being such a large game, the rotation of music was lacking. If I heard “I don’t want to set the world on fire” one more time I was going to vomit.  Thank god for more than one station, right? Wrong.  That other station gets stagnant pretty quickly too. However keep listening because as you accomplish more the radio will tell of your adventures or misadventure.

The language is mild, but there are some adult themes…what am I talking about , the whole thing is adult themed….you are in the Washington  D.C. wasteland after a nuclear fallout trying to survive…blood,  gore, and suggestive themes definitely give this game a mature rating (official game rating: M). I would say 16 and up to be on the safe side.  This is a game to buy to have in your collection of games because it is one you will go back to again and again.  Five stars.

-contributed by Christopher Nagle

The competition for the Booker Prize was extremely tough this year, with A.S. Byatt, Sarah Waters and previous winner J.M. Coetzee making the short list. However, after much speculation and debate, Hilary Mantel was awarded the 2009 Booker Prize for her novel Wolf Hall. Set in the court of Henry VIII in the 1520s, Wolf Hall is an extraordinary read. Find out more about the author and her novel in this interview.

Sarah O’Reily: What made you a writer, and when did you realize that writing was where your future lay?

Hilary Mantel: I realized quite late in life, as these things go. A lot of people know they’re going to be writers when they’re children, but I made a conscious decision to become one when I was 22, when, because of my poor health, I saw other career prospects slipping away from me. I knew I could write – you couldn’t take the decision otherwise – but what I didn’t know was whether I could write fiction. I didn’t seem to be what people call a ‘natural storyteller’. I had to learn that bit.

SO: How did you first come across Cromwell, and when did you decide to write about him?

HM: I first came across him when I was a child learning history in a Catholic school. I grew up with the sainted Thomas More looking down from stained-glass windows. As I am a contrarian, it made me ask whether there was more to Cromwell’s story than just his opposition to More, and I carried that question with me. When I began writing, I registered him in my mind as a potential subject. This would have been in the 1970s, before I’d finished my first novel. There seemed to be a lot of blanks in his story, and it wasn’t easy to find out anything about him, but it’s in those gaps that the novelist goes to work.

SO: When you eventually came to write about Cromwell, was there a discovery that helped you to unlock his character?

HM: When I began writing Wolf Hall, it was the arc of Cromwell’s story, the transformation from blacksmith’s son to Earl of Essex, that fascinated me. I wondered, ‘How is that done?’ You’ve got to try to answer that question – it’s the very kind of question that novels are for. But what made me sure that I could work with him, so to speak, was a letter he wrote to a friend in the 1520s, when he was an MP. It is a huge rhetorical description of the course of Parliament and all the business it dealt with, which finishes with a simple, and totally deflationary, line. I paraphrase: ‘And at the end of it, absolutely nothing changed.’ The wry humour in that letter showed me there was a personality that I could write about.
Another thing that drew me was Cromwell’s will, which he wrote towards the end of the 1520s. When you’ve seen somebody’s life so minutely taken apart, when you know who’s going to get his books and who’s going to get his second-best gelding, and you know the names of the people in his household, you become part of that life. You see his daily existence and routine and his whole system of orienting to the world. Seeing the will was like being able to go into Cromwell’s house and take photographs.

SO: How did you find a title?

HM: I liked the idea of a book that was always in progress, right up until its last words. Wolf Hall, the Seymour house in Wiltshire, is where we’re going at the end of the book. But, of course, I chose it primarily for its metaphorical resonance: who could resist it? The whole of Henry’s court is Wolf Hall.

SO: ‘Alistair Campbell with an axe’ is one of the less flattering descriptions given to Cromwell by the historian David Starkey. What persuaded you that this unlikely hero not only required, but actually deserved an advocate?

HM: I think Cromwell’s been given a very hard time by writers. In fiction and drama he’s been caricatured as an evil figure in a black cloak, lurking in the wings with dishonourable intentions. In biography he’s missing, because his private life is almost entirely off the record.

David Starkey’s phrase works wonderfully to alert you to Cromwell’s role as a propagandist for Henry, but Cromwell was a lot more subtle than Alistair Campbell – or at least, more subtle than the popular picture of Alistair Campbell suggests. Cromwell didn’t deploy his heavy artillery unless he needed to. He was a persuader and a negotiator and, to a degree, a compromiser.

I think the picture darkened with the Victorians. Cromwell’s image hasn’t always been bad: in Elizabethan legend and literature he was a hero, but to the Victorians he presented a problem. He wasn’t a varsity man. Historians couldn’t get their heads around the idea of a member of the lower orders rising so high in the hierarchy. There was also a sentimentality about the medieval world, with Cromwell seen as one of its destroyers. This idea persists today.

SO: How did you tackle the challenge of writing about a period of history that is so familiar to modern readers? And why did you choose to do so in the present tense?

HM: The Tudors are the great national soap opera; their story has been worked over so extensively that we see it as having a kind of inevitable, predetermined quality about it, so I needed to find a way of telling the story that would create an immediacy of viewpoint and cancel out the preconceptions we were brought up with. In writing the opening scene, of the boy being beaten up by his father, I was simply launched into the present tense. And I stayed with it because it was a way for me to capture the soundtrack inside Cromwell’s head – the immediacy of his experience. Also, though we may know how it all ends, Henry and his court didn’t. They didn’t know that the War of the Roses had ended; because the Tudor claim was weak, they dreaded that civil war might break out again. Henry didn’t know he would have six wives – even when he married number five, he couldn’t have known it. The present tense forbids hindsight and propels us forward through this world, making it new, just as it was, in every unfolding moment, for the players.

SO: How did you go about finding a voice for Cromwell and getting under his skin?

HM: Because they were so often dictated, letters, personal or impersonal, can give you a sense of the rhythm and vocabulary of the character’s spoken voice, and hence their mode of thought. So you look at those, and you look at what other people have said about your character.
The main person who tells us about Cromwell is the Spanish Imperial Ambassador, Chapuys, who was his enemy, but he was also his neighbour in the city and someone whom Cromwell saw a great deal of. Chapuys was a very astute observer. He tells us about how, when you were talking to Cromwell, he would fasten his eyes on your face, to calculate minutely the effect his words were having on you. He also paints a portrait of Cromwell as a very open-handed, generous, affable host, a man with whom it was wonderful to have a conversation.

SO: Can you talk a little about what it’s been like to live with a character like Cromwell during the writing of this book?

HM: There’s huge exhilaration in following a career like this, charting someone’s rise and rise. I do think without doubt that you become completely involved: someone of Cromwell’s strength and optimism can’t help but get into you. But the downside of it is that sooner or later your character will fall from the heights. Living with Cromwell has been a good experience so far, but you’ll have to ask me again when I’ve executed him.

SO: Near the end of the novel you write: ‘It’s the living that turn and chase the dead. The long bones and skulls are tumbled from their shrouds, and words like stones thrust in their rattling mouths. We edit their writings, we rewrite their lives.’ How much of a responsibility do you feel towards your historical characters, who have had an existence independent of your imagination, when you pin them to the page?

HM: In the lines you’ve just quoted, I am holding up my hands and saying to readers, you might think that what I’m doing in this book is dubious – it might even be thought reprehensible – yet we can’t help but reimagine the past; we have no choice. It is part of us, and we must acknowledge that it is we who reimagine it, we in the present moment, who can’t help but project our own insights and preoccupations backwards.
I think this creates a responsibility for the writer. I feel research must be as good as I can possibly make it, and guesses should be made only where there are no facts to be had. They must be plausible. Where gaps occur, the way you fill them must offer a possible version. I owe these characters as much scholarship as I can contrive, and all my care to try to get them right.
I should also say that it’s immensely rewarding to feel that you have, perhaps, succeeded in reanimating someone. There is a kind of magic moment where you feel your characters are really speaking, and you don’t have to think about their dialogue any more. I found that very early in this book, particularly with Thomas Wolsey. As soon as he began to speak, I felt that my job was simply to take down what he said, like a secretary. There is a peculiar pleasure to be had in feeling that you’ve brought someone back to life in that way.

SO: You’ve written in a number of forms – short story, memoir, the contemporary and historical novel. Have any of these had a bearing on the composition of Wolf Hall?

HM: Looking back, I think that writing my memoir was a kind of training ground for future novels, and something that was good for me as a writer. There are people who insist that almost all your memories of childhood are later reconstructions, but what I found when writing my memoir was that my childhood rose before me as an utter sensory wraparound, so that I was able to inhabit my past, and my work was to simply describe it. When you write fiction, the object is to achieve that on behalf of a character that you’ve invented or a person who is dead. I don’t think I’ve ever managed to do it as successfully, in fiction, as I have in Wolf Hall.
What I also found when writing Giving Up the Ghost was that whilst I could capture the entirety of my childhood experiences, I often couldn’t tell the reader why things happened, or how the event I was describing linked to another, and I think I carried this discovery into Wolf Hall. When Cromwell remembers an incident from his childhood – for example, he recalls plunging the head of another boy into a butt of water – he has no idea why he did it, and I knew from my own experience that these gaps and holes are part of the texture of memory. In this book I was determined to reproduce a life from the inside. I thought, ‘Let us try to see a man in his full complexity. Even if there are bits that he himself doesn’t understand and can’t add up, let me still include them, because that’s the experience of being alive.’

SO: Can you describe your mood on launching into the Tudor period once more, for the follow-up to Wolf Hall?

HM: Exhilaration. I’m longing to be back in the thick of the action. Partly it’s because I want to know what’s going to happen next. When I write, there are often times when I go into a scene not quite sure what I think, knowing that the problem I have to solve revolves around one question, ‘How did this happen?’ And by the end of the scene I have an answer, because it’s happened on the page. So I am looking forward to getting back to those puzzles in the new book.
Also, I’ve been so heartened by the way in which Wolf Hall has been received. There’s always the danger with historical fiction that it may fall short as both literature and history. I knew when I took on this project that it was going to be a very difficult thing to do. But, ha! Who’s interested in what’s easy?

Fans of Metal the Gods almost shined on you with Brutal Legend.  I may be one of the few that are not praising how awesome this game is.  Oh, don’t get me wrong the graphics are stunning, the sound track is absolutely amazing, and the voice acting is thought out and somewhat funny.  You play as Eddie, a heavy metal roadie voiced by Jack Black.  I’m not a big fan of Jack Black; he can be funny but after awhile I feel like lighting my head on fire and putting it out with a sledge hammer.  There are other surprises that I will not ruin for metal heads but I will say you can’t have a game about heavy metal, demons, and rock and roll without a certain Metal Icon.

Let us get to the game play….Brutal Legend becomes Brutal Boring.  I was forcing myself to play it just so I could write a review.  You spend most of your time driving/ or running around exploring, which becomes very mundane and rather humdrum.  The actual missions and secondary missions at first are ok but then, once again, they become humdrum as well and rather bland.  But, once again, the soundtrack I could listen to over and over…it rocks.

Now for you parents:  in the beginning of the game you will be asked if you want the vulgarity bleeped out and to see or not to see the gore.   This is of course to make it safe for kids to play…..don’t be fooled.  Kids will just reset the game and choose door number one to get all the F-bombs and blood the game offers.  This is not a game for kids.  Yes, I know it looks all cartoony and it is somewhat funny but once again this is not a game for kids.  Do you remember your first real, and I do mean REAL, metal album and knowing how much it was going to tick off your parents…this game is that record/tape/ cd.  Blood, Gore, Language, and partial nudity make this game definitely not for kids.  I have to give this game 2 stars one for the great voice acting and graphics and one for the sound track.

-contributed by user Christopher Nagle

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego_Rock_Band:

youtube.com trailer

Song title	Artist	DS version
“A-Punk“	Vampire Weekend	Y
“Accidentally In Love“	Counting Crows	Y
“Aliens Exist”	Blink-182
“Breakout“	Foo Fighters
“Check Yes Juliet“	We the Kings	Y
“Crash“	Primitives The Primitives	Y
“Crocodile Rock“	Elton John
“Dig“	Incubus
“Dreaming of You“	Coral The Coral
“Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic“	Police The Police
“The Final Countdown“	Europe	Y
“Fire“	Jimi Hendrix
“Free Fallin’“	Tom Petty	Y
“Ghostbusters“	Ray Parker Jr.	Y
“Girls and Boys“	Good Charlotte	Y
“Grace“	Supergrass	Y
“I Want You Back“	Jackson 5	Y
“In Too Deep“	Sum 41	Y
“Kung Fu Fighting“	Carl Douglas	Y
“Let’s Dance“	David Bowie	Y
“Life is a Highway“	Rascal Flatts	Y
“Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me)“	Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel
“Monster“	Automatic The Automatic	Y
“Naïve“	Kooks The Kooks
“The Passenger“	Iggy Pop	Y
“Real Wild Child“	Everlife
“Ride a White Swan“	T. Rex
“Rooftops (A Liberation Broadcast)“	Lostprophets
“Ruby“	Kaiser Chiefs	Y
“Short & Sweet”	Spinal Tap
“So What“	Pink	Y
“Song 2“	Blur	Y
“Stumble and Fall“	Razorlight
“Suddenly I See“	KT Tunstall	Y
“Summer of ‘69“	Bryan Adams
“Swing, Swing“	All-American Rejects The All-American Rejects	Y
“Thunder“	Boys Like Girls
“Tick Tick Boom“	Hives The Hives
“Two Princes“	Spin Doctors	Y
“Valerie“	Zutons The Zutons
“Walking on Sunshine“	Katrina & the Waves	Y
“We Are The Champions“	Queen	Y
“We Will Rock You“	Queen	Y
“Word Up!“	Korn
“You Give Love a Bad Name“	Bon Jovi

Dan Brown, author of The DaVinci Code, Angels and Demons, and most recently, The Lost Symbol, appeared on NBC on Friday to talk to Matt Lauer about the new book. Brown told a little bit about what is fact and what is fiction in his latest conspiracy tale set in Washington D.C. Here is the link to the transcript of the interview, in case you missed it, plus some video clips that may be of interest (such as a Sept. 15th interview w/Dan Brown about the Freemasons):

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33280724/ns/dateline_nbc-newsmakers/

Ok, I just bought books from Amazon. “What?” you say, “You work in a library. Why are you buying yourself books?” Well, I’m going to let you in on a little bit of our buying process at the Avalon Library (specifically stated, because acquisitions policies in  libraries differ). The books that I bought are very specific to yoga and anatomy, subjects that I feel will not circulate well in the library. They are not general works on yoga, which might go out, but very specific works on a particular topic within the field of yoga.  So, I figured it was unethical for me to buy something that only I was likely to be interested in reading.

So, have you ever wondered why sometimes when you request a book from the library we purchase it, and sometimes we get it for you from another library (i.e. Interlibrary loan)?

There are a couple reasons why we buy a requested book: 1. We think it will be popular with  other patrons too. 2. It is too new to get from another library, even if we are not sure if it will be popular with other patrons. 3. It is a classic work and we think that we should have it in the collection, no matter what.

We will try to get the book from another library if: 1. The book is out of print. 2. The book is too specific to be of interest to our general population. 3. The book is expensive and does not merit acquisition, according to our criteria. Most likely, the book is out of print. Also, we will interlibrary loan books for book clubs if they are older and there is large demand for a short period of time (i.e. the month the club is reading the title). This saves precious room on our shelves.

Our library is small, and although we are fairly new (opened in November 2005), we have already had to discard a great many books (referred to in the business as “weeding”) for lack of space. Don’t worry–the books get good homes. We have learned that we are mostly a poplar reading library and not a reference or research library. We have few students, and even though we are connected to the K-8 school, the children’s non-fiction collection is sufficient to cover their research needs. When those students go to high school (and keep in mind a typical graduating 8th grade class in Avalon is between 8 and 15 students), they seem to use their school libraries or the Internet for projects rather than our library.

Essentially, we just don’t have the space to have the kind of subject depth that we would like. So, would I like to be able to have one or two books on yoga and anatomy on the shelves? Yes, absolutely. Does this seem unreasonable, it’s only 2 books, right? However, if the books will not circulate, they are not worth buying. We need to purchase what our patrons want. And while, yes, even though I work in the library, and I am a patron, I have an ethical dilemma considering I have the ability to make purchasing decisions. So, I bought the books for myself through Amazon with my own money and I will have them to keep.

But, there are a lot of books that I purchase for the library, read, put out on the shelf and market to our patrons, because I think that they are worthy of a look and that people will like them. So there’s a thought-process that goes into buying books. We carry the burden of representing the taxpayers and trying to reflect what items the taxpayers will want. With media, it’s a bit easier; we can’t seem to go wrong with DVDs and CDs. Everything we buy in these categories are popular and go out like crazy. But books are harder these days. The publishing industry overwhelms us with gems and tripe left and right. We who are charged with acquiring the books have the tools to view these items and reviews of these items in advance. This gives us the difficult task of trying to make an educated guess (and there are methods to help with this) of what will be the next best-seller, the next big hit. Often we hit the mark, and sometimes we take a chance and we bomb. But we try our best.

Hopefully you found this an interesting little slice of how we make some of our decisions in the library. I enjoy letting people in on the little secrets of the “back of the house.” Sorry, folks, no gossip, though

-contributed by staffer Shannon Wertzberger

Boingboing.net reports that a teenage boy is keeping a lending library of his school’s banned books (with an inventory and due dates and everything!) in an empty locker next to his. Demand was so great for particular books his school had banned, such as Catcher in the Rye (heaven forbid the kids get out of control if they read that oldy but goody). The article source was Yahoo Questions so the location of the school is not named but it sounds like it may be a parochial school.  It’s great! I’m so glad to hear that kids want to read so desperately that they are willing to run the risk of “illegal” libraries. Here are some of the books listed that the teenager has inventoried. Click here to read the full article.

You must take this fun quiz, created by the Chicago Tribune, that judges whether you are a foodie, a Trekkie (I know, folks, the preferred term is “Trekker” but I still like Trekkie, so deal), or an NPR—what?—nerd? Junkie? Anyway, click below to take the quiz. I got a 93% (one question wrong, btw. Number 12. Guess that shows that I am all of the above.  What can you expect from a librarian anyway?)

Is it a Star Trek Character, an NPR Host or a Food Additive?