Results of the poll about fiction organization

The poll about how to organize the fiction section is now closed, and I am happy that 47 of you took the time to answer.

The result was clear, you want the fiction section to be organized in one, hardcover and paperbacks mixed instead of the current organization with hardcover and paperbacks separated.

So - we'll get onto that task, read more!

Robotics books

Early this semester we got a bunch of new Robotics books for the library. These are the titles:

• Advanced NXT: The Da Vinci Inventions Book (Technology in Action) by Matthias Paul Scholz
• The LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT Idea Book: Design, Invent, and Build by Martijn Boogaarts et al
  
• FIRST LEGO League: The Unofficial Guide by James Kelly (read it for free at google books)
  
• The LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT One-Kit Wonders: Ten Inventions to Spark Your Imagination by James Floyd Kelly
• NXT Robotics Competition Workbook by James Floyd Kelly and Jonathan Daudelin
  
  
• Classroom Activities for the Busy Teacher by Damien Kee

I have a friend who is also into robotics, Check out his R2D2 here! And here is a video clip from my previous library - one of the staff got a farewell gift.

Uglies, Pretties, Specials by Scott Westerfeld

"Uglies is the first book of the trilogy. The second book is Pretties and the third is Specials. It's about a world in which everyone has an operation when they turn sixteen, making them supermodel beautiful. Big eyes, full lips, no one fat or skinny. This seems like a good thing, but it's not. Especially if you're one of the uglies, a bunch of radical teens who've decided they want to keep their own faces. (How anti-social of them.)"

This trilogy is no longer a trilogy since the forth book, Extras, has been published. Extras is still for the Library to acquire though.

By the same author, we already have Peeps (vampires again) and it's sequel The last days in the MS library. I am reading Peeps at the moment, and I think I would have liked it more if I was a teenager, the author tries a little too hard to sound like someone "cool" for my liking.

Uglies was checked out the moment it arrived, so I haven't had a chance to read it yet, but I will.

New new books display

If you haven't been to the library recently you might not know that we now have a new display for new books. This one shows the covers better and gives an easier overview, in my humble opinion. Thanks to Alphonse who made it for us!

Tamil books

We are working on a section for non english books in the library, and we are adding quite a few books in Tamil. This is one of the recent purchases of Tamil books - Obama by Senthil Nathan. (blog in Tamil). Unfortunately my Tamil needs some work, so I can't actually say anything more about this book than the fact that it is about Barack Obama and in Tamil.

As you can see I couldn't even find an online image of the book, so you'll have to do with this one from my phonecamera.

If anyone has read the book - please write a comment.

Introducing the book review on video

Introduction to book blog from Anna Kagedal on Vimeo.

In this video clip, I talk about the book blog and the video reviews in general and recommend this book: A thousand splendid suns by Khaled Hosseini

Fashion books and blogs

The library has now updated it's collection of fashion books with the following books:

1. Style A to Zoe by Rachel Zoe
2. A guide to Quality, Taste and Style by Tim Gunn
3. The little Dictionary of Fashion by Christian Dior.

And here are a few inspirational fashion blogs for you as well:

• The Sartorialist
• Facehunter
• Garance Dore
• Sea of shoes
  

The Host by Stephenie Meyer

I am sure not many people have been able to avoid Stephenie Meyers extremely successful books about the vampire Edward and human Bella in the Twilight series. The HS library acquired the series last semester and they have been on constant waiting lists since then. We now have 2 copies of the two first novels, Twilight and New Moon to reduce the waiting a little.

The Host is Meyers first novel intended for a grown up audience. Aliens, called souls, has invaded the earth and the soul Wanderer is placed in the body of the human Melanie. Melanie is among the few humans left on the earth and she refuses to leave her body. The impossible happens, and they become friends.

I thought this book was a bit slow in the beginning, but after some time I really enjoyed it.

New college books from The Princeton Review

The Best 368 Colleges, 2009 edition "College students (120,000 of them) reveal what life is really like at the nation's top schools. This must-have guide gives you college rankings like no other and covers all the essentials -- from academics to social life to financial aid, and everything in between."

Guide to College majors, 2009 edition "Choosing an undergraduate major is a difficult decision that impacts a student’s college years and future career path. Guide to College Majors includes the most current information possible on over 350 of the most popular majors. Perfect for high school students who want to plan ahead and for college students in the process of choosing a major!"

You find them at the new books shelf at the HS library.

Current Protocols Essential Laboratory Techniques

We have recently been gifted this book by one of the editors, Sean R. Gallagher.

The online version of this book has recently won the PROSE award for excellency in Biology and Life Sciences

"Current Protocols Essential Laboratory Techniques (CPET) provides every researcher with the skills and understanding of fundamental laboratory procedures needed to ensure greater success at the bench. CPET takes the novice researcher from very basic skills like weight and volume measurement, through reagent preparation and the use of routine instrumentation, and finally into advanced topics such as real-time PCR and bioinformatics."

Quote from here.

American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld

American Wife is loosely based on the life of Laura Bush, and some of the people close to her and her husband can be recognized. Other than that, this is fiction.

"A kind, bookish only child born in the 1940s, Alice learned the virtues of politeness early on from her stolid parents and small Wisconsin hometown. But a tragic accident when she was seventeen shattered her identity and made her understand the fragility of life and the tenuousness of luck. So more than a decade later, when she met boisterous, charismatic Charlie Blackwell, she hardly gave him a second look: (...)Comfortable in her quiet and unassuming life, she felt inured to his charms. And then, much to her surprise, Alice fell for Charlie."

Quote from the website of Curtis Sittenfeld

About this blog

This is a blog where new additions to the MS and HS libraries at Kodaikanal International School will be presented. All books will have its cover posted together with a few lines about the book. Some books will be reviewed by students and staff at KIS, and comments by other readers are very much appreciated.

If you want to contribute with a review, you ar most welcome to do so. Send your review to the HeadLibrarian. (This link will only work if you are on the KIS network.)

The Gemma Doyle trilogy by Libba Bray

Gemma Doyle lives in India but when a tragedy happens to her family she is sent of to a boarding school in England to learn how to behave like a favorable young lady, to be suitable for marriage. She is troubled by visions of the Realms, and is followed by a strange young man. She becomes friends with three other girls at the school, who all have more or less tragic lifes. The girls finds a way to enter Realms with tragic consequenses. The only one who can set out to bring the Realms back in control of an order, is Gemma.

I read the first novel in the series, A great and terrible beauty, but I didn't feel the urge to continue with the other two. Probably these books will do better or a somewhat younger audience. But the covers are beautiful!

Read more about the trilogy and the author Libba Bray.

Nemesis by Jo Nesbø

Jo Nesbø is a Norweigan crime writer and Nemesis is the 4th book in his series about cop Harry Hole. Nesbø is by many considered to be in the top league of crime writers right now.

More about Jo Nesbø on his official website.

The Associate by John Grisham

John Grisham probably doesn't need any closer presentation. The Associate is the latest legal thriller and his 22nd novel.

Read more about John Grisham on his website.

Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates

Revolutionary Road Richard Yates debut from 1961 as recently become a blockbuster film starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet. (You know - Titanic?)

"Set in 1955, the novel focuses on the hopes and aspirations of Frank and April Wheeler, self-assured Connecticut suburbanites who see themselves as very different from their neighbors in the Revolutionary Hill Estates. ... Seeking to break out of their suburban rut, April convinces Frank they should move to Paris, where she will work and support him while he realizes his vague ambition to be something other than an office worker. Unfortunately..."

Quote from Wikipedia.

Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese

Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese is an unforgettable journey into one man’s remarkable life, and an epic story about the power, intimacy, and curious beauty of the work of healing others.

About the author in the Hindu.

BBC list of books

The BBC believes most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here.

Instructions:
1) Look at the list and put an 'x' after those you have read.
2) Tally your total at the bottom.
3) Extra rules for us who aren't super intellectual. Put an 'o' if you've seen the movie/tv series

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen (o, x)
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien (o,x)
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte (x)
4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling (o,x)
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee (x)
6. The Bible (x)
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte (x)
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell (x)
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott (x)
12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare (No I haven't read the complete works, but quite a few.)
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien (x)
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19. The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger (no but I soon will!)
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell (o)
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy (x)
25. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams(x)
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky (x)
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll (x)
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy (x)
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens (x)
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis (x)
34. Emma - Jane Austen (x)
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis (o,x)
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini (x)
38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne (X)
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell (x)
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown (x)
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery (x)
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding (x)
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel (x)
52. Dune - Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon (x)
57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt (x)
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas (x)
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac (x)
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding (o,x)
69. Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens (x)
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker (o,x)
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett (x)
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses - James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath (x)
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession - AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens (x)
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker (o,x)
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert (x)
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte’s Web - EB White (x)
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (x)
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad (o)
92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery (No but I will after my daughters birthday)
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas (o)
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare (x)
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl (o,x)
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Number of read (x): 41
Number of watched(o): 9

My favourites on this list (in no particular order) are: Life of Pi, The lord of the rings, Crime and punishment, The Secret History. The Secret Garden