You Couldn't Ignore Me If You Tried: The Brat Pack, John Hughes, and Their Impact on a Generation. A book review

I've just finished You Couldn't Ignore Me If You Tried: The Brat Pack, John Hughes, and Their Impact on a Generation. Now, i'm a huge fan of John Hughes. I mean, name me an iconic film in the 1980's that used the library as its central place of events occuring in the film? It has to be the breakfast club? I had already had a cup of reminiscence reading Pretty in Pink and watched the excellent Don't You Forget About Me, which had a group of film-makers trying to meet the reclusive John Hughes to look at there documentary on him and the interviews they had with his former stars.
Anyhow, the book is by a real fan of the Hughes genre Susannah Gora. In the midst of writting this book she looks at Hughes early life, his body of work (Sixteen Candles, Breakfast club, Ferris Buellers Day Off, Some Kind of Wonderful and Home Alone. Gora also discusses the impact of David Blum's Brat packstory, and the impact it had upon there career. Gora, also looked at the two other directors that shared the same space whilst working in the 1980's together. These are Joel Schumacher and Cameron Crowe. Joel directed St. Elmo's Fire, whilst Cameron Crowe created Say Anything.
Well, Gora is VERY knowledgeable (the library in Breakfast club is actually in made in the gym in the school). She got to interview all the major stars in the films (but not John Hughes obviously). Its quite sad as well, because if anyone's watched Hughes films, its really sad that he'd stop talking to his muses such as Molly Ringwald and Anthony Michael Hall.
I love Hughes for many reasons, one being I took my brother to see Home Alone and I can still here him laughing.
What I did find problematic with the book was that there was little mention of Weird Science, Uncle Buck and Planes, trains and Automobiles. Also, the book Pretty in Pink discussed Breakfast Club, and why that dance sequence? Its just wrong.
Overall, its just a book you have to read. Because 'When you grow up, your heart dies."

Book to come......books to get

Having written previously of the book Googlization of everything, I've pre-ordered my copy which is due out on monday 07.03.11. Its been reviewed and looks a pretty good read.
Another book out soon is James Gleick's The Information : A history, a theory, a flood is due out 31.03.11 and reviewed here. Information overload, don't you just love it?

Books to read for the new year

Having mentioned previously what I had enjoyed reading previously, I thought I would say the books I hope to acquire and read. Anyhow, here goes.

1. Siva Vaidhyanathan The Googlization of Everything: (And Why We Should Worry), which is out on 07.03.10. I've been looking forward to this book since he mentioned it on his blog for the book in 2007. I read with interest his previous book The Anarchist in the Library: How the Clash Between Freedom and Control is Hacking the Real World and Crashing the System. Siva is often (fairly, I believe) of Google, so I think it'll be a pretty good read.

2. Nicholas Carr fairly new book The Shallows: How the Internet is Changing the Way We Think, Read and Remember. This book looks at the effect the Internet is having on society and on our brains.

3. Robert Darnton The Case for Books: Past, Present and Future. This I have ordered and was hoping to read whilst in Germany.

Anyhow, thats another list. Will I make the 200 post for this year? I'm still trying.......

Real Wikiman is writing a book

The real wikiman has revealed he is writing a book. In the post he says the following:-

this isn’t a book about marketing the profession (or the industry) – it’s about marketing your specific library. So, I would absolutely love to hear what you think you’d like to see in such a book. Each chapter will be on a different theme, and they’ll all feature a case-study. I’m yet to finalise the proposal with Facet, so if you can give me your ideas quick I’ll try and make sure they’re addressed!.

Sounds interesting. He also asks anyone to send him any idea's, saying:-

I would absolutely love it if you can leave me some comments, or email me your thoughts if you’d rather it be private, and tweet a link to this post to encourage others to do the same (or share it on Facebook).

So I'll put my totally unoriginal idea's here. These idea's I expect Ned already knows. First up, read Brian Mathews Marketing Today's Academic Library: A Bold New Approach to Communicating with Students I suppose is the first step.

Secondly, ask Joanne Alcock about her dissertation which was about 'marketing in HE libraries in the UK'.

Thirdly, check Nancy Dowd's blog and Book called The Accidental Library Marketer.

Fourthly, Marilyn Johnson This Book Is Overdue!: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All. I remember reading a chapter in the book that described a librarian at New York library and would introduce himself to authors, offering to assist them if needed. These would then assist him when setting up any financial events they may need for the library.

Anyway. I expect he knew this already.

The Googlization of Everything (And Why We Should Worry) has a free chapter available

Having spoken previously of the release of The Googlization of Everything (And Why We Should Worry), the author, Siva Vaidhyanathan has released the first chapter free here.

The Googlization of Everything release date confirmed

Siva Vaidhyanathan has confirmed the date of the release of his book The Googlization of Everything as being early 2011. Have spoken of the book before I'm quite excited by this news.

The book :-

Assesses Google's global impact, particularly in China, and explains the insidious effect of Googlization on the way we think. Finally, Vaidhyanathan proposes the construction of an Internet ecosystem designed to benefit the whole world and keep one brilliant and powerful company from falling into the "evil" it pledged to avoid.

I also noted another interesting book by Tim Wu's book The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires. Both sound fascinating.

Give way to digital format? Not yet, we're British......

Seems us Brits do not want to get rid of our physical objects like CD's,DVDs and books in an article entitled 'The majority of Britons are still 'wedded to Cd's, DVDs and books'. I use both, but I do enjoy the physicality of the object. How long that lasts is another matter.

Audio book via Librivox

(Found via here). I was just reading about Librivox which is described thus:-

LibriVox volunteers record chapters of books in the public domain and release the audio files back onto the net. Our goal is to make all public domain books available as free audio books.

Seems a great idea and worth volunteering for.