Where Readers Vent About Bad Books

In Need of Some Amazon Group Therapy
Where Readers Gather to Vent About Bad Books
by Cynthia Crossen

Has this ever happened to you? A book has the critics in full-throttle gush and then wins a big prize and/or becomes a bestseller. So you read it, or start it, anyway. You don't like it, but you know you must be wrong. That makes you hate it even more because it's making you feel like a clod.

It's time for Amazon group therapy, where readers like you gather to vent about bad books. "This was the first book I've ever thrown in the garbage," one reader wrote about Anne Enright's "The Gathering." Another said, "Reading this book was purgatory."


I also didn't like "The Gathering," a novel about a typically dysfunctional Irish-Catholic family (alcoholism, suicide, poverty, blah, blah, blah). But professional critics hyperventilated over it ("fierce and beautiful"; "lyrical and clever"), and it won the 2007 Man Booker Prize.

Some of Amazon's amateur critics, however, had revenge fantasies about it: "I'm trying to think of someone I don't like so I can give this book to them for Christmas," one reader wrote. Another, on Amazon UK, said, "At the book club we even joked about having a ritual burning of it as we disliked it so much." Those words were a comfort to me.

Generally, I don't write about books I didn't enjoy. Why waste your time telling you not to read something? But I've read my share of books that disappointed me, and an astounding (to me) number of them have been darlings of the literary-industrial complex. Sometimes I think it's an elaborate practical joke by critics and judges on us ordinary readers.

Amazon makes it easy for you to find your affinity group, although the positive reviews aren't nearly as much fun to read. On-line critics award from one to five stars (many readers resent that they aren't permitted to give zero -- or even negative -- stars). You can click right to the one-star (or any other star) reviews, and wallow in other people's censure.

I always find people who think I'm right and everyone else is wrong. Their criticism can be succinct and eloquent. About John Banville's "The Sea," another Man Booker winner I couldn't finish, a British reader wrote, "As my own professor used to say, 'This writing has an awful lot of so-whattedness about it.'" Another amateur critic with weaker spelling was more passionate: "OMG This book was so hard to get into. It is the only book I have never finished, and I read probably a book a weak. How do books as boring as this get any kind of awards? Literary Geanius or not, if it does not entertain then I am not into it."

Denis Johnson has often been described as a literary genius, but I turned to Amazon for consolation when I found his prize-winning novel, "Tree of Smoke," unreadable. "Ghastly prose, flat cardboard-cut-out characters and would-be Pynchonian paranoid theories of history that go exactly nowhere," one reader wrote. Another was bitter: "Denis Johnson owes me eight hours of my life I'll never get back."

The classics get raked over, too. "Moby Ick's more like it," one reader said. About "The Great Gatsby," readers have written: "excellent substitute for valium"; "This is a book you should read when there is absolutely nothing else to read. If there is anything else at all, read that instead"; and my favorite, "It grieves me deeply that we Americans should take as our classic a book that is no more than a lengthy description of the doings of fops."

Amazon therapy brought me back from the edge when I was being driven crazy by Alice Sebold's novel, "The Lovely Bones." This was one of the few books I have ever started, hated, thrown away, watched it climb the bestseller lists, picked it up again, hated it again. But everywhere I went, I saw that pale blue cover, and I was tormented by self-doubt. Amazon readers rode to my rescue:

"This book is best summed up as an Afterschool Special -- Teenaged Murder brought to you by Hallmark," one reader wrote. Another was more practical: "On the positive side, it is short, there are no typos, and I didn't pay my own money for it." Finally: "This story is told from the point of view of a dead girl. I wish she had just stayed dead and not bothered to tell us a story."



From the Wall Street Journal

How to Start a Reading Revolution

How to start a reading revolution
I am really excited about my BBC challenge to inspire a genuine love of reading in a Cardiff school
by Michael Rosen

Over the last 10 years, listening to teachers and visiting primary schools, I've seen a slow but steady change in the way books are read – or not read. While "reading" and "literacy" have been made into a top priority, reading books has been sidelined.

In practice, it means that a great deal of energy, money and focus have been put into teaching children how to read, while older children are given excerpts from books to read and then be quizzed about. It's quite possible to find primary schools where older children don't have the experience of reading a whole book, of talking about it in an open-ended way. In such schools, the library may be not much more than a corner in a corridor; visits to the local library may be non-existent; local writers and people who work with the printed word may never visit the school.

There is no requirement from Ofsted or anyone else that these book-loving practices should be in place – there isn't a category on the Ofsted checklist for assessing whether books have an important place in a school or not.

Books are low-tech, portable packages of the widest range of human experience, presented in a format which gives time to grasp complex ideas or to spend time in imaginative worlds. Children who "get" the reading thing have the best possible platform for "getting" the trick of school learning, as well as a resource for the rest of their lives.

This makes the current situation, with "reading" compulsory, but reading books optional, discriminatory. If schools don't make books important then children who come from homes with no books, and who don't visit libraries, will never find their way into this vital way of presenting ideas, feelings and knowledge.

But just how difficult would it be to get schools currently teaching "literacy" to teach a genuine love of reading instead? The BBC challenged me to turn an ordinary school, that was doing all the right things as far as "literacy" was concerned, into a book-loving school in 10 weeks.

You can see how I got on this Sunday on BBC 4. I'll say now that it "wasn't about me". It's about the teachers in the school. If you say to teachers, how can we, with the resources we've got here, develop a policy on reading books, then within minutes, people have ideas, make plans, invent activities. It's as if these wellsprings of teachers' creativity have been held in aspic for the last 15 years.

For me, and I hope the viewer, one of the most exciting things about this BBC project was to see the teachers enjoy the freedom of being able to transform children's lives. I hope Ed Balls and Jim Knight will be watching.


*********************************************************************************
Note: Michael Rosen is the Children's Laureate in the UK. Visit his website here.
Ofsted is the Office For Standards in EDuctation. You can find more about them here.
Ed Balls is Edward Michael "Ed" Balls, a Labour and Co-operative MP for the West Yorkshire constituency of Normanton and has been the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families since 2007.
Jim Knight is a Labour Party MP who, since 2007, has been the Minister fo State for Schools and Learners in the Department for Children, Schools and Families.

The Guardian''s 1000 novels everyone must read

Just in case you didn't already have a list of books on your "to be read" list, you can check out The Guardian's series on the 1000 books it thinks everyone must read (conveniently broken up into sections so as not to overwhelm you). Check it out for yourself at The Guardian's web page.

I can't believe I went to this highschool

It's a good thing this parent wasn't around when my class was reading D. H. Lawrence: http://www.parentcentral.ca/parent/article/571999

Donkeys Boost Ethiopian Literacy

Donkeys Boost Ethiopian Literacy

By Elizabeth Blunt BBC News, Awassa

In a bamboo and matting shelter on the edge of the town of Awassa, rows of tiny children are struggling with Ethiopia's fiendishly complicated Amharic alphabet.

"Huh - HUH! Hoo - HOO! Hee - HEE! Ha - HA!" they chant in unision after their teacher.

Their teacher is a small boy, scarcely older than they are, but he moves his pointer confidently along the chart showing the 256 different characters, and the children shout back.

"Ma - MA! Meh - MEH! Mi -MI! Mo - MO!"

Reading is a real challenge for children here, and not just because of the script.

When they have mastered the basics, what can they practice on?

The range of children's books published in Amharic is limited, and for many of the children Amharic is not even their first language.

There are seldom any books at home, and often very few at school either.

But these children in Awassa are lucky.

Silly Mammo

If you leave them practising their letters and walk out through the garden gate, you will find another group of children, clustered under a shady tree, absorbed in their books.

Parked alongside them is a brightly painted wooden cart, with sides which fold down to display the shelves of books.

The two donkeys which pull it are resting in another patch of shade.

This is Ethiopia's first Donkey Mobile Library - the brainchild of an expatriate Ethiopian now living in the United States.

His Ethiopian Books for Children and Educational Foundation (EBCEF) is also a publishing house and has produced many of the books on the shelves of the cart.

Some children are enjoying the lovely illustrations in the foreign picture books, which the library also carries, but their English is limited or non-existent.

Mostly they prefer the locally published, Amharic language stories.

It turns out that everybody's favourite is the story of Silly Mammo, familiar to generations of Ethiopian children.

Mammo is a well-meaning young man, but very silly. When his mother finally finds him a job, he drops the coins he earns and loses them.

"Next time, put your pay carefully in your pocket," says his mother.

The following day the farmer, instead of money, pays him with milk, with predictable consequences.

"No, no, no," says his mother, when she sees his dripping clothes.

"When he gives you something like that, you should carry it on your head," she says.

But Mammo's next wages come in the form of fresh butter wrapped in green leaves.

The children giggle delightedly at the drawing of the blazing sun, and the melting butter running down Mammo's face.

Ill-treated

Silly Mammo is the first book that the EBCEF has published in three languages: alongside the pictures are parallel texts in English, Amharic and Sidama - the local language of the region round Awassa.

By mid-afternoon it is time for the mobile library to pack up and move on to its next destination.
The children help pile their stools into the cart and the donkeys are harnessed up between the shafts.

The donkeys are not just a gimmick - in rural Ethiopia and provincial towns like Awassa, horse-drawn buggies and donkey carts are a normal form of transport.

But the project also tries to teach the children about respect for animals.

Donkeys here are generally despised and often ill-treated, but these two working donkeys wear the colourful embroidered trappings usually reserved for riding horses.

Alongside them walks the project's mascot - Queen Helena, the queen of all the donkeys.

She is an old lady now, but is decked out in a red silk saddle cloth, and a red and gold crown.

Absorbed

The donkey cart moves off down the street, surrounded by a swarm of delighted children, and eventually turns into the gate of a local primary school.

More excited children run out to meet it.

Like many state primary schools in Ethiopia, this one has no library of its own.

The staff say the children have made great strides in their learning and in their behaviour since getting regular access to books.

Most are from poor families; for them, even the modestly priced picture books published by EBCEF cost something like two days' wages.

In the centre of Awassa, and in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, EBCEF also runs conventional children's libraries, busy in the late afternoon with school children reading and drawing and doing their homework.

All the children are completely absorbed in what they are doing and treat the books with great care.

Out in the countryside, projects are under way to provide school libraries in villages where there have been none before.

For those children with access to books, the ritual chanting of the alphabet can be just the first step on the path to a lifetime of reading and learning.

For EBCEF's project manager in Awassa, Mezrasha Kibret, books are the key to everything.
"If we are interested in changing the world," he says, "then we have to read."

Story from BBC NEWS:http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/7777560.stmPublished: 2009/01/08 11:44:03 GMT

Best Careers 2009: Librarian

This just in from U.S. News & World Report...

Best Careers 2009: Librarian
By Marty Nemko
Posted December 11, 2008

Overview.Forget about that image of librarians as a mousy bookworms. More and more of today's librarians must be clever interrogators, helping the patron to reframe their question more usefully. Librarians then become high-tech information sleuths, helping patrons plumb the oceans of information available in books and digital records, often starting with a clever Google search but frequently going well beyond.


Librarianship is an underrated career. Most librarians love helping patrons solve their problems and, in the process, learning new things. Librarians may also go on shopping sprees, deciding which books and online resources to buy. They may even get to put on performances, like children's puppet shows, and run other programs, like book discussion groups for elders. On top of it all, librarians' work environment is usually pleasant and the work hours reasonable, although you may have to work nights and/or weekends
The job market for special librarians (see below) is good but is sluggish for public and school librarians. Nevertheless, persistent sleuthing—that key attribute of librarians—should enable good candidates to prevail.
That effort to land a job will be well worth it if you're well suited to the profession: love the idea of helping people dig up information, are committed to being objective—helping people gain multiple perspectives on issues—and will remain inspired by the awareness that librarians are among our society's most empowering people.

A Day in the Life. You work in a small municipal library, where you have to do a little of everything. You start your day by leafing through catalogs from online database publishers and book reviews in Library Journal to decide which titles to add to your collection. Next, it's out to the reference desk, where visitors regularly ask how to find something. Sometimes, it's esoteric; often, it's the bathroom. Later, you teach a class: an advanced lesson in Googling. Next, it's back to the reference desk, but you're soon interrupted by a group of boisterous kids, so you have to turn into schoolmarm: "You'll have to be quiet, or I'll have to ask you to leave." You end your day reading about "automated librarianship": data storage systems that let the public get needed resources without the help of a live librarian. Tomorrow, you decide, you'll start writing a grant proposal to develop a computer kiosk that will help patrons find health information.

Smart Specialty
Special librarian. All sorts of organizations need librarians, not just public libraries. They work for colleges, law firms, hospitals, prisons, corporations, legislatures, the military, and nonprofit agencies. In fact, special librarianship is the field's fastest-growing job market. Unlike public and university jobs, which require night and weekend hours, these jobs are mostly 9 to 5.

Salary DataMedian (with eight years in the field): $47,400

25th to 75th percentile (with eight or more years of experience): $42,800-$63,700

(Data provided by PayScale.com)

Training
The American Library Association offers information and links regarding training, including online options.
U.S. News rankings of library programs

Learn moreDepartment of Labor profile: Librarian
American Library Association
Special Libraries Association
Association of College and Research Librarians
Medical Library Association
American Association of Law Libraries
A Day in the Life: Career Options in Library and Information Science by Patricia Shontz and Richard Murray (editors)
Straight from the Stacks: A Firsthand Guide to Careers in Library and Information Science by Laura Townsend Kane
What's the Alternative: Career Options for Librarians and Info Pros by Rachel Gordon

Our Librarian Bodies, Our Librarian Selves

from: In the Library with the Lead Pipe

Our Librarian Bodies, Our Librarian Selves
by Emily Ford

Thanks to Inju on Flickr for this image. (Exercising in National Library Singapore)

Librarians are great at taking care of their patrons. We will conduct searches for our patrons and provide them with the resources they need, we contribute to the public good and offer ongoing educational opportunities, and we provide community space in the name of discourse and community building. We also testify in and lobby Congress in support of legislation that affects our work—all in the name of taking care of our patrons. But to what extent do we take care of ourselves?

I’m talking about workplace wellness. This is an issue that seems largely ignored in library land, an issue that may cause eye-rolling and cause some of our Lead Pipe readers to stop right here and move along to the next post in their feed reader. But workplace wellness is an issue that seems to be largely ignored by libraries, librarians, and library organizations. Literature searches in library and information science databases return very few relevant articles on the subject. Why?

Before I attempt to answer this question I’d like to propose a working definition of workplace wellness. Wellness in the workplace refers to an employee’s mental and physical health. Many businesses and organizations have implemented workplace wellness. Examples include the facilitation of lunchtime walking groups, providing on site massage appointments, and offering classes and lectures regarding wellness. Also included would be programs supporting employee health; providing free flu shots and health screenings, providing ergonomic work stations, having healthy snacks available, or even allowing workers flexible schedules to take care of their physical and emotional health as needed. According to this loose working definition it’s likely that every library has some sort of wellness program, but it seems to me individual and organizational buy-in aren’t that widespread in the library community.

I assume that the reason workplace wellness hasn’t caught on in libraries is a combination of the following reasons. First, wellness programs that do exist usually happen within a broader institutional context. Since most libraries are part of an academic institution, county or city government, or some other larger bureaucratic model, wellness initiatives seem to occur at a higher institutional level, and, as such they haven’t become top priorities for many libraries. Second, librarians are hard working dedicated people, who may not feel they have the time or even the desire to participate in a wellness initiative. Third, wellness programs haven’t been heavily marketed to libraries and librarians, either by their institutions or by profession-wide initiatives. Fourth, wellness programs cost, and most libraries are already run on tight budgets. Finally, wellness may not be part of a library’s organizational culture, or it might not even been an organizational value. It is this fifth factor that is perhaps the most prohibitive to the overall wellness of library employees.

A healthy and well library staff will provide better services to its patrons. Providing for and assisting employees in this regard will mean that they can work more efficiently and effectively. Of concern to many administrators should be the fact that wellness initiatives will save the institution money in health care costs when workers have fewer physical and mental health problems. One of the best examples that support this is ergonomics.

Wellness in the workplace constitutes a web of factors that can determine the status quo level of health and wellness experienced by employees at your library. Many of these factors may seem irrelevant when considered on their own; however, when placed in conjunction with others, they work collectively to either create or hinder employees’ well being.

The first two factors affecting workplace wellness are simple—your library’s physical space and physical location. How the inside of your workplace is designed affects how much you move at work. (E.g. is there an elevator, how far do you have to walk to place something in the recycling?) The library’s physical location can also affect workplace wellness. (Is there a tempting restaurant nearby or are you close to a park with walking trails?)

The third factor isn’t as cut and dry—organizational culture and values. These can greatly impact wellness at work. For example, many librarians work hard and long hours, which can lead to skipping breaks, even skipping lunch or eating at our desks in front of a project. These habits do not contribute to having a healthy workplace. For one, it reinforces the sedentary nature of library work, and second, it doesn’t allow an individual the mental break that one needs to best achieve work efficiently.

Food is also a large part of culture at many libraries. At one library where I used to work, there was a “chocolate drawer” behind the reference desk. Whenever we had a particularly trying interaction with a patron we would medicate ourselves with chocolate. Other libraries might have a tradition of pastries at department meetings, or social events, which usually include food.

However, changing an organization’s culture is not an easy thing. And if there’s anything that organizations are not quick to do, changing the culture and our values are it. So how are we to tackle this issue? How do we even frame an argument for starting wellness initiatives within our workplaces? First, we have to work to create wellness as a value within the workplace. At institutions where a wellness program already exists, but is not culturally adopted by the library, how do you get the library to do so?

I’d like to offer some suggestions as to how we can begin to tackle the organizational culture and values regarding wellness issue in the places of our employ.

Conduct an informal evaluation of your workplace to find supporting factors and hindrances to a healthy work place.
Ask for institutional support based upon your informal evaluation or observations. Paired with the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, this might be a convincing argument that your supervisor can send up the management chain.
Start a wellness committee and task yourself with developing a wellness plan for your library.
But what if your place of work/administration is not understanding of your plight?

Be aware of your habits at work. Wear a pedometer; take a walk during your lunch break (and invite your colleagues to join you), consider ergonomics, etc.
Investigate whether your larger organization (city, county, institution) has a wellness program and participate in that as an individual. Then try to market it to your fellow staff.
If you create community programs in your library or conduct outreach work, try to plan and implement programming about health and wellness.
There are some resources and initiatives that do exist regarding wellness in libraries. Most notably, ALA Past President Loriene Roy created the Circle of Wellness as one of her presidential initiatives. This web site offers resources for individuals to use to assess wellness attitudes in their library, as well as track their personal wellness goals. These resources offer a good starting place for you if you are interested in investigating wellness at your library.

The healthiest work places already have an organizational culture of wellness and value health as an institution. If this is not the case in your library, establishing a culture of wellness will happen very slowly. It takes quite a bit of energy and work to change and shape organizational values and change begins with the action of one or two motivated and dedicated individuals. It’s time we take care of ourselves and take the steps to create healthier work places. In the long run, our health and wellness serves our well-being and also our ability to provide the best services to our patrons.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
See the following articles on organizational culture:
Shepstone, C. & Currie, L. (2008). Transforming the academic library: Creating an organizational culture that fosters staff success. Journal of Academic Librarianship, 34(4), 358-368.
Sannwald, W. (2000). Understanding organizational culture. Library Administration & Management, 14(1), 8-14.


Many thanks to Phil Eskew (one of the best instructors I had in library school), and Miriam Rigby for offering feedback on this post. Thanks also go to fellow Lead Piper Derik for reading this prior to posting.