long long ago, in a land far far away

I love the very idea of this month's #rwpchat twitter reading group theme - #faraway. The idea of exploring places not here, worlds that don't exist, and times long past is exciting and intriguing, and just downright fun!  I feel like a small child in a fancy toy store - it's all so bright and sparkly and I want to look at and touch everything at once!

So what are some of my favourite #faraway reads? Where are some of my favourite #faraway places?

Anything Fantasy, anything Science Fiction immediately springs to mind. But so do Westerns and Historical fiction. Anything set overseas 'cause hey, it's not here and here being Australia means that overseas is faraway. Even something that explores a concept I am unfamiliar with is a #faraway read. And of course cooking books which explore cultures from around the world falls naturally into this group as well. 

I love this theme - the choice is limitless!

Lord of the Rings / J R R Tolkein
The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, Unbeliever / Stephen R Donaldson
Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn / Tad Williams
The Dirty Streets of Heaven / Tad Williams
Zoe's Tale / John Scalzi
The God Machines / John Scalzi
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy / Douglas Adams
Discworld series / Terry Pratchett
The Long Earth / Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter
Shakespeare
Chaucer
John Donne
American Gods / Neil Gaiman
any / all of the NASA twitter feeds
any / all of the ABCStarStuff twitter feeds
Wuthering Heights / Emily Bronte
Jane Eyre / Charlotte Bronte
Emma / Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice / Jane Austen
Shades of Grey / Jasper Fforde
The Eyre Affair (Tuesday Next series) / Jasper Fforde
The Lightbringer series / Brent Weeks
Wanderer of the Wasteland / Zane Grey
A Song of Ice and Fire / George R R Martin
Harry Potter series / J K Rowling
Where the Wild Things Are / Maurice Sendak
The Bunyip of Berkeley's Creek / Jenny Wagner
Australian Women's Weekly cookbooks

Global Village / SBS
Food Safari / SBS
Star Trek
Red Dwarf

Star wars
Shrek
Willow
The Princess Bride
The 13th Warrior
The Searchers
Harry Potter

Bioshock
Game of Thrones
Assassin's Creed


... just to name a few

Did you ever notice that 'this' looks like 'this'?

Today I read a blog post from Amanda Palmer and it resonated and so I am sharing it.

be afraid, be very afraid....

Over the last few years I have noticed a bit of a change not just in what I read but also in the way I read. Notably has been a consistent shift towards reading, and enjoying, horror fiction. I'm not talking blood and guts and gore (think any one of the Saw movies - that's really not my cup of tea at all), but more along the lines of deep and scary and profoundly terrifying. 
I've always enjoyed reading thrillers, but I think the first tale which tipped me towards reading 'horror' was 'The Book of Lost Things' by John Connolly. There is this one scene in this book where I found myself so engaged with the main character that when I could see the bad thing coming I found myself saying "no, no no" out loud - trying to warn David not to take the bad man's hand, that the bad man was very, very, very, very, very bad. That moment left me breathless, my heart was pounding so hard - it felt like that very same moment when you are abseiling and you move from standing upright to leaning out over the cliff edge completely perpendicular and you simply cannot see where to put your feet only you know you must move and so you reach your foot out into nothingness, trusting that you will find rock. That moment. That one fearful moment when it could all go horribly, horribly wrong. Wow. I had finally read a book which gave me an adrenalin rush - the adrenalin rush of fear.

Just as with abseiling I was obviously hooked from then on.

Alfred Hitchcock was the master of film noir and horror - think the shower scene in Psycho

So I devoured Dean Koontz and Darren Shan, and actually challenged myself to read Stephen King who I had steered clear of at all times previously (blame a very bad experience seeing 'Misery' at the movies ... *shudders*). I sought out lists of horror writers and found my library had compilations of short horror stories - Blood and other Cravings and Teeth: vampire tales. What struck me most when I read these stories was how clever the writing was, how excellent the use of language to quickly engage and terrify. I came to admire the quality of writing which seemed to be required to tell a good horror story. Like with any good story the writing must also be good (and the writer therefore somewhat talented), but horror writing seemed to require a higher level of skill than I had struck previously (and I am someone who reads all types of fiction). I found myself reading more and more horror fiction not just for that adrenalin rush of fear but to simply enjoy the clever use of language and the high quality of writing skill which was displayed.

Don't get me wrong, I don't believe that horror fiction is the absolute best and only genre you can read - or that writers of other genres are any less talented or less skilled or that their use of language is poor. No, I admire all writers and enjoy most genres. My point is more that horror fiction deserves to be treated fairly as a genre, that what it offers is not simply blood and gore and guts but a quality of tale that reaches in under your skin without you even noticing until you are suddenly aware how deeply affected you are by the turn of events .... and how clever the author has been on insisting that you keep reading, that you turn the next page, that you peer under the bed and into the dark shadowy corners and look the monster in the eye.


My favourite 'scary' writers include:
Algernon Blackwood
Bram Stoker
Edgar Allen Poe
H. P. Lovecraft
Richard Matheson
Wilkie Collins
John Connolly
Dean Koontz
Peter Straub
Darren Shan
Stephen King
Neil Gaimain
Ellen Datlow
Kaaron Warren
B. R. Collins

My favourite 'scary' games include:
Alan Wake
Bioshock

My favourite 'scary' TV shows and movies include:
The X-Files
Twin Peaks
The Woman in White (1948)
Psycho
Rear Window
(basically most Hitchcock movies fit the bill here)
and seriously, any Doctor Who episode is bound to give you a good scare every now and then

Hootsuite gems

I've been using Hootsuite for a while now - personally and professionally. Yet it seems that each time I turn around I discover some new gem which Hootsuite offers. Lately I've been discovering the range of whitepapers, guides, and video which Hootsuite has put together to support businesses using social media (Hootsuite Enterprise). At the moment in my library we are currently building a 'Digital Business' collection aimed at supporting local businesses and entrepreneurs seeking to put their enterprises online and make the most of the NBN as it rolls through town. So finding these gems on Hootsuite has been an absolute bonus. So, thank you Hootsuite, not only is providing this sort of information a help to your own business but it is most definitely a huge help to those businesses still struggling to come to terms with the changing nature of small business in an online environment (complete with small budgets to match).

What to do with my rss feeds now that Google reader is closing down....??

I've known for some time now that I needed to move my rss feed subscriptions from Google Reader to another reader service, but me being me I kept putting it off (procrastination is good for the soul, truly).

Anyway, this week I decided to bite the proverbial bullet and find a new rss reader service. So I checked out a gazillion reviews and reports (okay, I read five) on what to do with my Google Reader stuff, found out how to create an archive of my Google stuff (which I did, and then backed up in about 3 different places). 

After reading this article from The Verge and this one from LifeHacker I decided to check out NewsBlur (even though Feedly came through as more popular, not to mention free) and went with their premium (yes $$ changed hands) account. I've spent the last few days playing with my NewsBlur account and have to say I'm quite pleased with my choice (and at $2/month don't feel too bad for paying the extra freight for it).

A neat little element I discovered today is that as part of my package I get a NewsBlur blog which is automatically embedded with stories I share from my rss feeds. It's pretty bare at the moment (obviously) but it's a feature I can see as being quite useful for me, and has been ridiculous fun to play around with.

Setting up a NewsBlur account was very simple and transferring my Google Reader subscriptions across did not require creating an archive at all (though I am still very glad that I did create an archive as it pulled everything I have on Google not just my Reader stuff). A fun element I have discovered with NewsBlur is that it gives me access to "global shared stories" and from this I can connect to stories my feeds don't normally access which other NewsBlur users have shared from their feeds. This element of connectivity is a huge bonus and perhaps the main feature I have enjoyed, as I don't recall having that sort of connectivity with Google Reader. Even though some/many of the shared stories are complete rubbish (ie, of no interest to me whatsoever) quite a few have been funny and interesting and have seen me discover new people to follow and connect with - and my rss feed has grown as a result.

Yep, today is a good day.

a nice discovery - free social media resources from GCFlearnfree.org

I am currently preparing for a public info session next week in my library on all things Twitter. I'm good at helping people get started and then leaving them to it, but this has meant I've actually had to create a logical presentation and for someone with my particular brand of stream-of-consciousness that isn't necessarily that easy (go ahead Pam, say it out loud). Plus I haven't had to do something like this in quite a while (the last session I ran would have been on eBooks etc last year some time).

Anyway, along the way I have discovered GCFlearnfree.org (Goodwill Community Foundation) and their range of simple, straightforward, and free, social media resources which I will of course be using during my presentation (after all, why recreate the wheel?). 

http://www.gcflearnfree.org/twitter101

Combined with info already out there from the State Library of NSW's learning 2.0 and learning 2.1 for public library staff, and the more recent ANZ 23 mobile things I think I'll probably do okay (now if only I could reign in my stream-of-consciousness.........).

Once I've finished my Powerpoint presentation I'll probably upload it to Slideshare (I'd really like to use Prezi  as it seriously appeals to my visual outlook but I think that may just freak out too many people).

Anyway, GCFlearnfree.org has been a nice discovery this week. :)

Libraries of the Future

The following visualization was adapted from PewInternet.com, of a keynote address for the 2012 State University of New York Librarians Association Annual Conference.

Source:LibraryScienceList.com

Storify from yesterday's #risg2013 seminar at the State Library of NSW

sometimes......

... you need a little bit of this in your day!

via Grow Food Not Lawns