Daily Thoughts 9/3/2010 (the Defector, Barnes and Noble, Strand Books)

Photo showing the address as 221B beside the location of the Shelock Homes Museum in London England, October 2007,Original Uploader, Jordan 1972, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:221B_Baker_Street,_London_-_Sherlock_Homes_Museum.jpg




Daily Thoughts 9/3/2010

I have been reading a little more of The Defector by Daniel Silva.  I like how the setting moves between Italy, King Saul Boulevard in Israel, Thames House in London, and the CIA headquarters in Langley.  It gives the book an international feel. The focus is between the russians and the israelis mainly, the other secret services add a little extra diversity to the plot.  I finished reading the book this evening.  It was quite enjoyable.




I added February and March of 2009 to my book review list.  A little bit each day. I also added three of the titles from this list to Goodreads.  It should work well.  A little bit each day.




I am thinking about getting some free business cards with the new url http://www.bookcalendar.net/ on them to see if it makes any difference.  People make lots of claims about how if you have your own domain, more people will come visit your blog.  I find this a little silly.  Seth Godin for example has the word Typepad in his blog http://www/sethgodin.typepad.com .  Personally, I think it is the content, and the name behind the content that matters most.




Another Barnes and Noble Bookstore is closing in Manhattan.  The Lincoln Center stores is a superstore much like the Astor Place Barnes and Noble was.  I think of it being like Walmart abandoning one of their stores.  A superstore moves in and drives out many of the local stores.  The rent goes up and people have less money because there is less money being put into the local economy by the big store.  Then the big store decides to leave.  It is kind of harsh because Barnes and Noble had a strategy of opening next to independent bookstores which drove many out of business.   http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/30/barnes-noble-to-shutter-lincoln-center-store/?scp=2&sq=barnes&st=cse#preview 




This affirms my idea that the Strand Bookstore will eventually be the only book superstore in Manhattan.  They even expanded this year to two floors.  They are looking in to put in a coffee bar.  I still haven't seen it.   I hope the coffee is good. http://nymag.com/nymetro/shopping/shops/n_8001/

Daily Thoughts 9/2/2010 (The Defector, Libraries )

Chimmie Fadden, Major Max 1911, From New York Public Library Digital Gallery

Daily Thoughts 9/2/2010

The ability to upload photographs was a bit buggy this morning, so I embedded a picture from the New York Public Library Digital Gallery.




I have been reading some more of The Defector by Daniel Silva. It is quite enjoyable.  It is not that action oriented.  There is quite a bit of thinking in the novel.  The main character, Gabriel Allon,  is tracing the steps of a russian agent who defected to england and recently disappeared.  It has a steady pace with very nice details. The villain is quite plausible. 




I walked up to my local library on the way to get some fruit from the market and found it was closed.  Their hours are 1-8 today.   I'll probably stop by tomorrow.  I have a few days off and am in no hurry.

Daily Thoughts 9/1/2010 (Blogs, The Defector)

Image of American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882). The engraving was made after a painting by Longfellow's younger son Ernest Longfellow. The original portrait still resides in Longfellow's study at the Longfellow National Historic Site in Cambridge. Image taken from Life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow by Samuel Longfellow (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's brother). Published by Ticknor & co., 1886

Daily Thoughts 9/1/2010

I took a little bit of time to look through places that had links to my site.  There is http://www.shakespearewroteformoney.wordpress.com/ which is a book review site and http://www.morevikings.com/ which is an entertaining site on books, comics and speculative fiction book reviews. Speculative fiction is an all encompassing term for writing that speculates about the nature of reality; it includes science fiction, horror, magical realism, fantasy, and other books with fantastic elements in them. I rather like the More Vikings site.




I put in the reviews of material from May 2009 today.  When I am done, I may go back and pull out links to create a resource list of the internet sites which I have written about. 




On the way to work, I found a paperback copy of Daniel Silva, The Defector.  It is a spy novel with quite a bit of style and art in it.  The author mentions Caravaggio, Vogue, chess, and a villa in Italy in the first 23 pages.  I rather like it. 




Today has been a very busy day.  I put together a bookmark for starting a business today as well as had several of my older bookmarks printed up for distribution.  I also printed up a new form for tracking missing items and had several flyers printed for the Womens Enterprise Development Center sessions on small business.  I also took some time to sort through the donations for a few minutes.  There was a new copy of Before I Fail by Lauren Oliver which is a fiction title, some classsic paperbacks, and a few Naruto graphic novels. 



The requests for the book mobile came in as well.  There were a number of requests for books on the bounty mutiny as well as works by David Niven, books on Leonardo Da Vinci, and biographies.