Amazon

According to this article by the Huffington Post, Amazon is planning to open its first store. The store would be located in its city of origin — Seattle, Washington — and could open in the next few months.

There have been rumors about Amazon opening a store for years, but now the popular book-selling and Kindle-creating web site could really use the help. As the article mentions, Amazon is facing fierce competition from Barnes and Noble, with its Nook and its decision not to sell Amazon-published book in any of its stores. Not to mention, not having an Amazon “brick and mortar” store makes it difficult to repair Kindles — unlike, say, the Apple Store, with its ability to easily repair iPads.

No specific design plan has been announced yet. But with the popularity of the site, I could see the store opening and quickly becoming a nationwide phenomenon that will likely spread at a rapid rate.

What do you think?

Contributed By: Sam Smink

Recap: The name “he Romantics” was attributed to a long list of 18th and 19th century poets and artists who believed that love and passion could conquer all. But in the novel by Galt Niederhoffer, it refers to a group of  seven former Yale co-eds who reunite  two of their best friends’ wedding, six years after graduation.

Lila –the bride– is a self-appointed queen with the attitude to match. She’s very easy to dislike; after all, she’s beautiful, intelligent and landed the alpha male, Tom. Our groom-to-be is handsome, brilliant and scared out of his mind. He wants to be an artist and build a life out of instinct, but fear has kept him with Lila for 10 years.

Cue Laura, Lila’s ex-roommate and Tom’s ex-girlfriend. Laura is smart, attractive, and — like Tom — doesn’t know what she wants out of life but accepts it. In other words, she’s a mess. Lila loves Tom, Tom loves Laura, Laura loves Tom. In the ten years that Lila and Tom have dated, Laura and Tom’s love is never quite at bay. But Tom’s desire for a life without obstacles keeps him firm in Lila’s grasp.

Now it’s the night before the wedding and all seven of our Romantics are essentially unhappy with the way life has turned out, although they’d never admit it to each other. A night of drinking and tomfoolery leads to a lost groom, a coke habit, and some adultery. All’s forgotten in the morning –or so we are led to believe.

Analysis: In The Romantics, we meet seven of the most selfish people — people that are always unhappy and unsatisfied. They have gone through life at the top of the food chain, with the romantic idea that life’s struggles will disappear eventually. Only it doesn’t, and when they realize that, they’re already stuck in lives they don’t want.

My real problem with the book is that the main characters are unlikable. Instead of maturely dealing with their problems, they are self-destructive. For instance, Tom broke up with Laura ten years ago, but she still shows up to be the maid of honor at his wedding, with a sourpuss expression on her face. You’d almost sympathize with Lila, if she wasn’t awful. She’s depicted as nothing more than a self-absorbed monster, who shivers at compliments handed to others and revels in adoration. And Tom is just as easy to look at with disdain. It’s clear Tom doesn’t know what he wants, but it’s not fair to drag Laura into his mess.

Other than that, it’s hard to feel anything personally for the sidekicks. They engage in self-destructive behavior and are very one-dimensional. That being said, I wouldn’t discount the entire book. If you want to read a story to remind yourself how great you have it, and learn a lesson or two, this book is for you.

MVP: Laura. Despite being consistently outshone by the sexier Lila, and being hopelessly in love with an engaged man, Laura stays true to herself. She knows she is a mess but she accepts is. Is she a little selfish too? Absolutely. But she is not afraid, in the end, to let Tom know exactly what kind of coward he’s been all along.
Get The Romantics now for just $2!

Or get it for your Kindle for $9.99.

According to this article by Huffington Post, it’s the largest publisher to add their Facebook fans to their digital sales plan. Archie Comics will work with Graphicly to provide the digital copies. Archie is now being touted as one of the more forward thinking comic book companies. This digital move is considered a bold one.

Archie Comics already offers digital copies of its new comic books to readers the day the comics are released. The company’s Archie Comics app has been downloaded 4 million times. They’re also the first to offer Spanish-speaking copies of their comic books. Co-CEO Jon Goldwater explains toHuffPo why this move is such a big deal.

Facebook has been a huge source of fan interaction, feedback and energy. The ability to merge that with our significant digital output is really a no-brainer. No company with our level of reach on Facebook has done this. It’s in the numbers. Having the chance to make our Facebook page a place for fans to not only learn about the company’s news and initiatives but also to sample our titles and build a collection right on Facebook. It’s really a major move toward connecting the potential reader to the product. We make it easy and hopefully create a new, lasting part of our fanbase.

Goldwater explains that once you like the Archie Facebook page, you can click “Comics” and start reading the first few pages of a title. If you’re so inclined, you have the option to purchase the comic book. It seems like a relatively simple process. It blows my mind how little I know about the comic book world, but it IS kind of amazing to imagine a world where you can log onto Facebook and buy whatever digital copy of a book or comic book you want — instead of having to go to Amazon or Barnes and Noble.

According to this article by Huffington Post, Knox will, for the first time, tell her side, with the help of journals she kept during her time spent in an Italian jail. Publishers say her memoir will detail the murder, the trial, and the second trial that ultimately acquitted her last year, as Hillel Italie explains.

“Knox will give a full and unflinching account of the events that led to her arrest in Perugia and her struggles with the complexities of the Italian judicial system,” HarperCollins said in a statement Thursday.

“Aided by journals she kept during her imprisonment, Knox will talk about her harrowing experience at the hands of the Italian police and later prison guards and inmates. She will reveal never before-told details surrounding her case, and describe how she used her inner strength and strong family ties to cope with the most challenging time of her young life.”

The $4 million deal promises world rights for the book, which is due in early 2013.

As the article mentions, the legal process is not yet over for Knox and the case of her dead roommate. So who’s to say whether or not the book will help or harm her case?Either way, it’ll be interesting to get an inside glimpse into Knox’s life.

Also worth noting is that 20 publishers made offers to buy Knox’s story; yet no one wants to buy the rights to Casey Anthony’s story.

It’s time to give a shout-out to fellow book blog The Composites. The Tumblr site make composite sketchings of book characters, based on their physical descriptions in those books. According to the site’s “About Me” section, they use the same composite software that law enforcement agencies use.

As far as I can tell, there aren’t too many characters to view right now, and most of them are ones with which I’m not familiar. However, the site allows you to send in suggestions.

It’s pretty amazing, and I commend the site’s blogger for his highly original content.

Recap

So begins Jodi Picoult’s most recent novel, which, as her novels do, revolves around controversial issues and family. Besides the infertility issues, the story follows Zoe and Max’s after the divorce. Zoe comes out of the closet and marries a woman. Max becomes a born-again Christian and moves in with his religious brother, Reid, and sister-in-law, Liddy.

The fact that Max and Zoe don’t warm to each other’s new lifestyles is no big deal. That is, until Zoe decides she wants to use the last few embryos she froze with Max’s sperm to have a child with her wife, Vanessa. Max has equal say, and as a newly religious man, he does not want to let Zoe raise their children in a homosexual home. What ensues is a trial that makes every character crazy, tired, and determined to get what they want.

Analysis: Jodi Picoult has a way of making interesting stories about families turn into dark, controversial tales that become legal issues. In this story, Picoult takes the debate of homosexual marriage and parenting head-on. She considers the legal and Biblical points of view. With Max, the reader is told that gay marriage is against the law of God, according to the Bible. According to Zoe, family is family, no matter how it’s composed.

She makes these points clear by sharing narrative duties among the characters — Zoe, Max, and Vanessa. It seems strange for Zoe to marry a woman after being married to a man for 9 years; it seems odd that Max — a recovering alcoholic — is born again. But as we read their stories through their eyes, it helps us understand why they’ve changed and how, no matter what happens, there’s still an underlying connection between Max and Zoe.

In Sing You Home, Picoult does an excellent job of taking us through this story of love, children, and the trial. The characters are described in depth, and the issues at hand take a number of turns throughout the story. Picoult also points out the hypocrisy and bureaucracy of the justice  system. The one aspect where the story falls short is in its subplots and the way they’re wrapped up in the end– particularly one about Zoe and one of the girls she counsels. Though the ending feels a bit rushed and predictable, it’s more than satisfying.

MVP: Zoe’s wife, Vanessa. Each character in this book is flawed, and Vanessa is no exception. But she’s the most liberal and understanding. She is madly in love with Zoe, but lets Zoe determine the speed of the relationship, and it’s Vanessa who pushes for Zoe’s dream baby. Vanessa shows how strong true love can be in a book that proves love sometimes can conquer all.
Get Sing You Home now for just $10.88, down from $16.
You can also get it on your Kindle for $9.99, down from $28.

It tells the true-life story of the Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane, who used good budgeting and undervalued players to outsmart richer teams and have an extremely successful season. It’s certainly an uplifting, underdog story — and when it involves baseball and a true story, how can you say no?

Get it now in paperback for just $9.72.

Or you can get it for your Kindle for just $8.29 — or for FREE if you’re an Amazon Prime member.

“What is it, then?” I thought, as I looked around at the bookshelves fully stocked with books and a world of imagination and information.

“It’s a media center.”

At first, I had no idea what that meant. But as I got older and took on more research projects, I learned the true meaning of “media center” and came to appreciate it. The days we were given to do research in the media center were so fun, not only because it meant less lecturing, but  because we learned how to use all these programs I’d never heard of before — like LexisNexis, a large database of public records and information. Not to mention, the librarians — or rather, media center specialists — usually pulled for us the materials we would need.

But as school budgets are slashed and more teachers find themselves unemployed, school libraries and media centers face major cuts — no new books, no full-time staffing, no additional programming. I thought art education cuts were bad enough. Now this?

According to this essay by The Huffington Post, a group made a petition to fight education cuts that would force schools to be without fully operational media centers.

As a lover of learning and the daughter of a high school family and consumer science teacher, I’ll be the first to say how important it is to make sure our schools continue to get sufficient funding, no matter what kind of budget crisis our country faces. Children deserve it.

In January, the Tuscon Unified School District (TUSD) in Arizona allegedly banned books from the Mexican-American Studies (MAS) courses. According to this article by The Huffington Post, school officials ruled that MAS courses violated an Arizona law, requiring classes not to promote the overthrow of the U.S. government or to promote resentment toward a specific race.

But these books weren’t just banned. According to the article, school officials went into classrooms and took the books from students as they were reading. Here is a list of some of the removed books:

• ‘Critical Race Theory’ by Richard Delgado
• ’500 Years of Chicano History in Pictures’ edited by Elizabeth Martinez
• ‘Message to AZTLAN’ by Rodolfo Corky Gonzales
• ‘Chicano! The History of the Mexican Civil Rights Movement’ by Arturo Rosales
• ‘Occupied America: A History of Chicanos’ by Rodolfo Acuna
• ‘Pedagogy of the Oppressed’ by Paulo Freire
• ‘Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years’ by Bill Bigelow

School officials deny that these books are “banned” per se.

Either way, they’re no longer being used, and now teachers and authors are taking a stand against the school. On March 12-18, protestors will form a “Librotraficante” (book trafficker) caravan, carrying the allegedly banned books back over the border into Arizona.

I think this is amazing. For literary and first amendment speech purposes, there’s no reason these books should have been taken from students in the first place. It’s unfortunate though that this is the first I’m hearing about the issue. I hope that when the “Librotraficante” happens, it makes national headlines. There’s something to be said for people standing up for their rights — and using books to do it.

This past weekend, a number of libraries nationwide held the first annual event, which offered story hours, scavenger hunts, craft projects, and guest authors. According to this article by The Norwich Bulletin, a library in Connecticut came up with the idea back in December, and emailed a few other local libraries on its Listserv. The idea quickly spread to the Midwest and as far north as Canada.

About 130 libraries in 15 states and Canada participated in the free event to spark interest in public libraries and raise awareness about reading.

Honestly, I think this is a great idea. But the real beauty of it is that going to the library is always free. We shouldn’t have to hold events to get people to visit.