Puttin' on the Ritz: Science Fiction Classics

The library has just updated its book collection to add some of most famous science fiction novels out there. Here's the list of books with links to our catalog so you can find out if a book is in or not.

• Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein
• Foundation by Issac Asimov
• A Canticle for Leibowitz by William Miller
• The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula LeGuin
• Neuromancer by William Gibson
• The Drowned World by J.G. Ballard
• Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
• American Gods by Neil Gaiman
• Sirens of Titian by Kurt Vonegut 
• Four Novels of the 1960's (Man in the High Castle, Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch,  Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Ubik) by Phillip K. Dick
• The Phillip K Dick Reader
• Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
• I am Legend by Richard Matheson

 
                                               

How is the readability on that page?

Have you ever found yourself wishing that the web page that you are on was a little less busy? Sometimes it's difficult to follow an article through the haze of advertisements, links to additional articles, searches and quizzes. There's a nifty tool called Readability which was created by the Arc90 Lab experiment group. Readability cleans up the screen so that you are looking at a 14 pt. text file with a white background and are able to focus on reading the article with no distractions. It is an easy tool to install; simply drag the button onto the browser that you are using. Installation is slightly different for IE users, but I was able to activate it in Google Chrome, Flock and IE in a matter of seconds. According to the documentation, it also works in Firefox and Safari without any problems. There are certain limitations: it does not translate a home page well, and should not be used for that purpose. It also eliminates any images and multi-media unless they are embedded in a particular fashion, and I am unsure as to what that fashion may be so you may or may not get images relating to your page in the Readability format. Each time you go to a web page, your original web page is displayed, so it does not automatically default to "readability" mode, so you must click the tool bar button again. There is also a print and email function. The email sends a link linking you to the original web page but the print option prints out in the "clean" format.

Seeking book recommendations?

As previously posted in this blog, several websites exist for recommending titles to read based on an author or an author/title. A recent suggestion that can be added to this list is The Book Seer which uses Amazon and LibraryThing as a back engine to come up with suggested titles to read. Book Seer works best with classic titles where more relevant data has been gathered, but it will list other books by a specific author even if it doesn't have any "outside" recommendations. Check it out!

Check out our Oversize Books Collection

When you have the opportunity, stop in the Ritz Library and take a gander past the Oversize Books collection. Found in our Oversize Collection are beautiful old and new books on wildlife, nature, birds, art, and architecture among others. For example, we have a 1944 edition of The Birds of America, featuring the original drawings of John James Audubon. The 435 plates of exquisite renderings of the bird life in America found in this volume were originally drawn between the years 1827 - 1838. Complementing the beautiful volumes that we have on birds are multiple books on wild flowers, such as Wild Flowers of the World with paintings by Barbara Everard and two volumes of Wild Flowers of Western Pennsylvania and the Ohio Basin with water colors by Andre Avinoff. Enjoying the beauty of the plates can enhance your day!

In another vein, Stubbs Anatomical Works is a fascinating look at early attempts at representative anatomical exactness. The drawings by Stubbs for The Anatomy of a Horse from 1766 are included, along with human and other animal anatomy drawings. For something completely different, take a look at General Dynamics book entitled Dynamic America. Published in 1960, Dynamic America follows the creation of the General Dynamics Corporation from 1880 until the publication date in 1960. By the way, General Dynamics Corporation still exists today. Dynamic America shows the changes in the United States from a rural nation to an industrialized one. The photos, drawings and pictures included show the effects of the various war efforts and the growth in this country. Included also are images and sheet music reproductions from war times such as George M. Cohan's Over There.

Besides these few great old gems there are various art books such as 30,000 Years of Art and other old books on artists and paintings, architecture, and other topics. Stop in the library and view our Oversize Books Collection!

Not sure what to read this summer?

If you're at a loss for what book to read next, here's a couple of websites to check out: What should I read next? and Literature Map.

www.whatshouldireadnext.com is a simple to use website that looks for you to input a title and author of a book that you enjoyed reading and to hit enter. Once you do that, you will be returned with a list of books and authors that you would likely enjoy. From there you can decide what you'd like to do.

www.literature-map.com is also an easy to use site - it requires you to enter the name of a favorite author and it returns a graphical image with your author at the center surrounded by the names of others who write in that genre. The closer the name is to your author's name, the more similar the writing styles. Be advised, enter the full name of the author, and not just the last name. You end up with better results that way.