EXCHANGING BOOKS ONLINE: BOOKMOOCH

Are you running out of space for your books? Do you have books that you won’t read again? Or books that you don’t even want to read? 

Exchanging books online may be a good idea to dispose of books you no longer need or get those books you really want to read for free. 

Here you have a website that allows you to swap books with other users:

BOOKMOOCH

Book-mooch is an on-line book exchange community founded by John Buckman in 2006. Membership, which has grown to around 74,000 in over 90 countries, is open to anyone and is free. About 500,000 book titles are available and about 2,000 books are swapped per day.

BookMooch allows its users to exchange books using a points system. Members earn points by adding books to their inventories, by sending books to other members and by providing feedback when they receive books. The points earned can then be used to “buy” books from other members. All books “cost” the same number of points, with a multiple point surcharge for international mooches. Point exchange takes place at the beginning of any transaction, allowing “currency” to circulate quickly. Members may opt to send books only within their own country, worldwide, or worldwide upon request.

(Source: Wikipedia)

Here you have an extract from Rachael Ray TV show about Bookmooch:

Why not give it a try?

YOUR IDEAL BOOKSHELF

Do you know this website? 

If you had to choose just 12 or fewer books that mean the most to you, the ones you'd have on your "ideal bookshelf" – what would they be, and why?

What would I include in mine?

The Bible
Pippi Longstockings (Astrid Lindgren)
A big visual book (either Magritte, photography (Chema Madoz), impressionist painting)
El Cuento Infinito (Poldy Bird)
A compilation of American short stories
A compilation of poems 
My compilation of recipes (it's a book after all)
A Henning Mankell that I haven't read yet
A Niccoló Ammaniti
Whatever book we're reading in our book club, of course

That's what I can think of off the top of my head. YOUR TURN!

WHY WE LIE

Why We Lie (from WSJ)

We like to believe that a few bad apples spoil the virtuous bunch. But research shows that everyone cheats a little—right up to the point where they lose their sense of integrity.
Not too long ago, one of my students, named Peter, told me a story that captures rather nicely our society’s misguided efforts to deal with dishonesty. One day, Peter locked himself out of his house. After a spell, the locksmith pulled up in his truck and picked the lock in about a minute.
“I was amazed at how quickly and easily this guy was able to open the door,” Peter said. The locksmith told him that locks are on doors only to keep honest people honest. One percent of people will always be honest and never steal. Another 1% will always be dishonest and always try to pick your lock and steal your television; locks won’t do much to protect you from the hardened thieves, who can get into your house if they really want to. The purpose of locks, the locksmith said, is to protect you from the 98% of mostly honest people who might be tempted to try your door if it had no lock.
We tend to think that people are either honest or dishonest. In the age of Bernie Madoff and Mark McGwire, James Frey and John Edwards, we like to believe that most people are virtuous, but a few bad apples spoil the bunch. If this were true, society might easily remedy its problems with cheating and dishonesty. Human-resources departments could screen for cheaters when hiring. Dishonest financial advisers or building contractors could be flagged quickly and shunned. Cheaters in sports and other arenas would be easy to spot before they rose to the tops of their professions.
But that is not how dishonesty works. Over the past decade or so, my colleagues and I have taken a close look at why people cheat, using a variety of experiments and looking at a panoply of unique data sets—from insurance claims to employment histories to the treatment records of doctors and dentists. What we have found, in a nutshell: Everybody has the capacity to be dishonest, and almost everybody cheats—just by a little. Except for a few outliers at the top and bottom, the behavior of almost everyone is driven by two opposing motivations. On the one hand, we want to benefit from cheating and get as much money and glory as possible; on the other hand, we want to view ourselves as honest, honorable people. Sadly, it is this kind of small-scale mass cheating, not the high-profile cases, that is most corrosive to society…..

From Dan Ariely's Blog (his videos are also very interesting).

LET'S PUT A LITTLE LOVE IN OUR BLOG

Over 100 entries and not even one about love??? This cannot continue so and here goes my post on love and literature.

Here's a link to an article in The Guardian about a bestseller in Amazon by Hilary Boyd (by the way, did you know the term "gran-lit"?) dealing with romance between 60-somethings.

And here's another one which is good news for all those of you that voted for Bridget Jones's Diary, because it seems Helen Fielding has announced she is writing a 3rd novel about Britain's favourite singleton, due out next autumn. As for me, I confess I am praying that book does not get chosen - yeap, sorry, not my cup of tea :) Hey, needless to say, I'll read it if it gets chosen!

RHETORIC - You Talkin' To Me???

I know you're thoroughly engrossed in reading about Kevin at the moment - I am too!- but I'm already working on my list of "to-read books", such as this one by Sam Leith. I am really interested in language and words and the power of persuasion they have, so this book really caught my eye.

Rhetoric is what gives words power. It's nothing to be afraid of. It isn't the exclusive preserve of politicians: it's everywhere, from your argument with the insurance company to your plea to the waitress for a table near the window. It convicts criminals (and then frees them on appeal). It causes governments to rise and fall, best men to be shunned by brides, and people to march with steady purpose towards machine guns. In this highly entertaining (and persuasive) book, Sam Leith examines how people have taught, practised and thought about rhetoric from its Attic origins to its twenty-first century apotheosis. Along the way, he tells the stories of its heroes and villains, from Cicero and Erasmus, to Hitler, Obama - and Gyles Brandreth.

(AMAZON'S REVIEW)

WELLINGTON AIRPORT AND THE HOBBIT

As you probably know, on December 14th the movie "The Hobbit" will be released, and to mark the occasion, New Zealand's airport is displaying the largest Gollum in the world to welcome passengers.

I think it's obvious the locals are quite happy Peter Jackson is filming the trilogy in New Zealand.

Not only that, but Wellington is going to change its name for a week to The Middle of Middle-Earth. I guess they're really getting in the mood.

And finally, a video about the installation of the Gollum.

HALLOWEEN TALES - 2012 (Download for free!)

I know I am a little late, but here's a link to a free e-book (downloadable both in pdf and epub format). They are the stories resulting from a workshop about Pulp literature.

Enjoy!

CAN PAPER SURVIVE THE DIGITAL AGE?

We've discussed this topic repeatedly in our class, right? However, it is a hot topic and articles continue to be published about it.

Here's another one published recently in The Guardian.

I love the idea that "paper is our second skin" (it is for me despite all these new technological gadgets) and also the strong link between paper and art:

"For better and for worse, paper remains our absolute all-time favourite self-extending prosthetic technology and device. It enables and represents the best of us, and the worst. Take art, for example. Of course, not all art takes place on paper. And not all art on paper is paper art. And some paper art may not be everyone's idea of art at all. Anyone for Lucio Fontana's paper-piercings? Or Gordon Matta Clark's paper slits and cuts? Joe Good's pellet-peppered paper? Martin Creed's Work No 88, A Sheet of A4 Paper, Crumpled Up Into a Ball (1994)? Or – my favourite, a masterpiece of its kind – Tom Friedman's 1000 Hours of Staring (1992-1997), stare on paper, 32½ins x 32½ ins, which is simply a plain white piece of paper that has been stared at. For a long time. But these are only the more obvious examples of the role of paper in art. It's possible to argue that the development of all modern art derives from what the critic Clement Greenberg called the "pasted-paper revolution". The use of paper collage in the early 20th century, according to Greenberg, liberated art from being merely decorative, an illustration of reality."