Tim G. posted an article on A Progressive on the Prairie - Feb 9, 2012, 8:57 am
I’ve commented before on the fact the New York-centric publishing world seems to have more than a bit of disdain for the reading public outside that world. Part of it is a sense of an essentially pretentious perspective, one that seems based on the notion that if you aren’t part of the “liter...
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Tim G. posted an article on A Progressive on the Prairie - Feb 4, 2012, 10:54 am
Bulletin Board The deadline to apply to be a book-giver on World Book Night has been extended to Monday.Interesting Reading in the Interweb Tubes (this week) Burning Man (“Kneeling there, on fire, he’d resigned himself to death. All he’d wanted to know was how long? How long would he have to b...
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Tim G. posted an article on A Progressive on the Prairie - Feb 1, 2012, 7:19 pm
Very little progress made on the lust list this year — but it’s not my fault. First, two of the books from last month won’t be released until next week. Another I just got from the library after the person who had it kept it two weeks past the due date. This means there were two books that ...
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Tim G. posted an article on A Progressive on the Prairie - Jan 31, 2012, 9:04 am
There’s plenty of problems plaguing the press, particularly the mainstream media. The digital and social media world seem to have preempted or seriously damaged the traditional press. But I found this a real shock: the United States fell from 20th to 47th in the annual Press Freedom Index of Rep...
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Tim G. posted an article on A Progressive on the Prairie - Jan 30, 2012, 2:06 pm
“A human being, like a dog, can get used to anything!” So says Adam Salmen, a fictional narrator in Dieter Schlesak’s The Druggist of Auschwitz: A Documentary Novel. But what Salmen and others imprisoned in the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II got “used to” is staggering,...
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Tim G. posted an article on A Progressive on the Prairie - Jan 29, 2012, 1:00 pm
A survey conducted by an advertising firm at the end of last year seeks to give us a picture of book buying in America. I can’t vouch for the statistical validity of the internet-based survey, which had 2,200 respondents, It claims to have a 1.5 percent margin of error. So what did the survey r...
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Tim G. posted an article on A Progressive on the Prairie - Jan 28, 2012, 11:59 am
Bulletin Board The Main and Ronning branches of Siouxland Libraries have registered to be book pickup locations for World Book Night. The library will have a party for the book givers selected by World Book Night and give them a reusable Siouxland Libraries bag. You can apply here to be a book giv...
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Tim G. posted an article on A Progressive on the Prairie - Jan 23, 2012, 8:51 am
How popular have ebooks and ebook readers and apps become? Consider this: ebook checkouts from the Siouxland Libraries increased 201 percent over the course of 2011. Meanwhile, the number of electronic materials went up 139 percent from 2010 to 2011. The figures are rather stunning. Last January...
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Tim G. posted an article on A Progressive on the Prairie - Jan 22, 2012, 2:47 pm
Last year I read nearly 150 books, with fiction (74) slightly exceeding nonfiction (67). In the latter category, about one third of the books were biographies or autobiographies. So how did I do in voting for the National Book Critics Circle awards? Once again an 0-fer in the finalists in four ma...
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Tim G. posted an article on A Progressive on the Prairie - Jan 21, 2012, 11:40 am
Interesting Reading in the Interweb Tubes Torturer’s Apprentice (“… the administration’s threshold for when an act of torture begins was the point at which the Inquisition stipulated that it must stop.”) 10 Reasons The U.S. Is No Longer The Land Of The Free (“Since 9/11, we have created...
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Tim G. posted an article on A Progressive on the Prairie - Jan 19, 2012, 8:22 pm
Bob Mercer put it well: “A newswoman like no other.” That was the headline of his blog post today in which I learned Tena Haraldson is leaving her position as the Associated Press bureau chief for the Dakotas and Nebraska. Tena probably is a 35-year veteran of AP. I’m proud to say I’ve kn...
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Tim G. posted an article on A Progressive on the Prairie - Jan 19, 2012, 1:48 pm
Remember my “nonresolution” to read what I want when I feel like it? Given that I posted it just 10 days ago, temptation has already reared its head. It sneakily arrived in the mailbox. When I got home last night there were two catalogs from a major publishing house of forthcoming books on a ...
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Tim G. posted an article on A Progressive on the Prairie - Nov 1, 2011, 9:04 am
This month’s list is quite short, largely because my lust diminishes when I have books stacked up to review and plenty of other books that I really, really want to read. I guess that is one of the things about being an adult — common sense can put a damper on lust and distinguish between it and...
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Tim G. posted an article on A Progressive on the Prairie - Oct 31, 2011, 9:13 am
Some historical events take on such significance they become ingrained in a nation’s culture. The assassination of President John F. Kennedy is one such event. In part because of the conspiracy theories that have grown up around it, nearly 50 years later we still see a variety of books, both nov...
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Tim G. posted an article on A Progressive on the Prairie - Oct 29, 2011, 1:38 pm
For reasons not worth detailing here, for the last 25 years or so I only go to ophthalmologists for my eye exams. Once again yesterday that habit paid off. When the routine of your annual eye exam becomes different than the year before and the year before that, etc., etc., you tend to notice. The...
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Tim G. posted an article on A Progressive on the Prairie - Oct 29, 2011, 12:22 pm
Interesting Reading in the Interweb Tubes Consider the context (“A book symbolises the whole intellectual history of mankind; it’s the greatest weapon ever devised in the war against stupidity.”) Quack Prophet (“Whether it’s the Dead Sea Scrolls or Finnegan’s Wake, there’s a long lite...
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Tim G. posted an article on A Progressive on the Prairie - Oct 28, 2011, 8:49 am
The main ramifications of historic events are frequently easy to see. Often, though, we overlook the ripples that produce unexpected, or even untended, effects. Take 9/11, for example. It didn’t take a great deal of thought to realize it would bring the U.S. into direct armed conflict with al-Q...
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Tim G. posted an article on A Progressive on the Prairie - Oct 22, 2011, 1:27 pm
Bulletin Board As for my weekend, let’s leave it at saying Herman’s Hermits groupies (several years older than me) are not a pretty sight.Interesting Reading in the Interweb Tubes Why We Love the Porn of War (“Really, there isn’t much of a distinction left between porn and snuff, between sel...
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Tim G. posted an article on A Progressive on the Prairie - Oct 20, 2011, 8:58 am
I’m behind on writing reviews and have not been implementing ideas for other posts. I have several review books lined up ahead of even more books I’ve been wanting to read for a while. Still, I find a touch of consolation in the fact the same thing is happening in London. I actually have a co...
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Tim G. posted an article on A Progressive on the Prairie - Oct 15, 2011, 11:45 am
Bulletin Board Occupy Sioux Falls is this afternoon. At about the same time the Twin Cities Book Festival is being held in downtown Minneapolis.Interesting Reading in the Interweb Tubes Humor speaks truth: Wrong People Arrested on Wall Street (“NYPD spokesman Frank Hannefy explained the controver...
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Tim G. posted an article on A Progressive on the Prairie - Oct 8, 2011, 11:16 am
Blog Headline of the Week How to Get Back at Your Ex: First, Kill a BearBookish Linkage The Uprise Books Project hopes to provide new copies of banned and challenged books to underprivileged teens throughout the country free of charge. SF Signal has made its guide to NPR’s top 100 SF and fantasy ...
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Tim G. posted an article on A Progressive on the Prairie - Oct 3, 2011, 9:09 am
In an Oxford lecture earlier this year, literary critic James Wood suggested that the “New Atheists” might be well served by looking to the modern novel. He says atheists — and some Christian fundamentalists — insist too much on polemic literalism. Novels, he said, are a vehicle to explore...
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Tim G. posted an article on A Progressive on the Prairie - Oct 2, 2011, 10:37 am
This month’s lust list reflects that we’re into the fall/winter release cycle. In fact, there are actually two other books that would have made the list except I got them through the library between last month’s list and this one. Granted, two of the books below don’t actually come out unt...
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Tim G. posted an article on A Progressive on the Prairie - Oct 1, 2011, 11:23 am
Bulletin Board The South Dakota Festival of Books is next week in Deadwood.Interesting Reading in the Interweb Tubes I Committed Murder (“And even cases of undisputed guilt can continue to haunt executioners to the end of their days.”) A brief history of the brain (“Not only did the growth in...
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Tim G. posted an article on A Progressive on the Prairie - Oct 1, 2011, 10:34 am
As another Banned Books Week comes to an end, I thought I would make mention of a few other items that appeared in the blog world about it this week, along with a news item. Two blogs took rather unique approaches to Banned Books Week. NYRB Classics blog highlighted some of its authors who struggl...
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Tim G. posted an article on A Progressive on the Prairie - Sep 30, 2011, 8:46 am
It’s too easy to think of book challenges in the abstract. The fact is it is something we confront even here. If you take a look at a map showing documented challenges to books in schools and libraries in the United States, you’ll see South Dakota has two push pins. In 2010, “Paul Shaffer�...
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Tim G. posted an article on A Progressive on the Prairie - Sep 29, 2011, 8:50 am
As I’ve noted this week, one of the debates that’s going on is whether “banned” is a misleading word when it comes to what Banned Books Week is about. Cut to the bone, the question is basically whether restricting access to/removing a book a parent believes is age inappropriate is “bannin...
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Tim G. posted an article on A Progressive on the Prairie - Sep 28, 2011, 8:36 am
The issue of challenging books is one that is unlikely to go away. After all, it has come up repeatedly in the 220 years the First Amendment has been part of the Constitution. But where are the challenges coming from, what prompts them and in what settings? That’s something the American Library...
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Tim G. posted an article on A Progressive on the Prairie - Sep 27, 2011, 8:41 am
... enough that even books now considered classics haven’t been immune from challenges. In 1998, the renowned Radcliffe Publishing Course (now the Columbia Publishing Course) was asked to ... , by Vladmir Nabokov 12. Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck 15. Catch-22, by Joseph Heller 16. Bra...
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Tim G. posted an article on A Progressive on the Prairie - Sep 26, 2011, 8:49 am
As I wrote about yesterday, an August news story on book challenges in the schools had as a sidebar a list compiled by the American Library Association of 20 books “banned” by schools already this year. Yesterday’s post covered the first 10, listed alphabetically, and today I’ll take a look...
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Tim G. posted an article on A Progressive on the Prairie - Sep 25, 2011, 11:52 am
The debate over whether Banned Books week is propaganda or not continues. Before it started full bore, though, USA Today outlined the battle lines. Distilled to the simplest terms, the core question seems to be whether restricting access to/removing a book a parent believes is age inappropriate is...
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Tim G. posted an article on A Progressive on the Prairie - Sep 24, 2011, 1:40 pm
Although it was recently called an exercise in propaganda, Banned Books Week is here again, being “celebrated” today to October 1. At the risk of being called a propagandist, I’m going to try to again have daily posts on the topic for the week. (Although I can’t say I’m a fan of this yea...
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Tim G. posted an article on A Progressive on the Prairie - Sep 24, 2011, 9:39 am
Bulletin Board A relatively early edition this weekend because I am today enjoying several games and three of the greatest words in the world: “Let’s play hockey!”Worthwhile Reading in the Interweb Tubes My God, It’s Full of Stars (“…we have the technology and capability to feed, clothe,...
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Tim G. posted an article on A Progressive on the Prairie - Sep 23, 2011, 1:50 pm
For future reference, there is no First Amendment right to attend illegal cockfights. A hunter in Alaska is suing the National Park Service for threatening to prosecute him if he keeps hunting moose from his hovercraft in a federal preserve. Meanwhile, in nearby British Columbia a man who was aban...
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Tim G. posted an article on A Progressive on the Prairie - Sep 22, 2011, 8:30 am
I don’t usually post just pictures, particularly when they’re from so-called social media. But Random House, Inc., said so much with this picture and short slogan posted on its Facebook page that I needed to pass it along. If television does that to inanimate objects, just think of its effect ...
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Tim G. posted an article on A Progressive on the Prairie - Sep 17, 2011, 12:51 pm
Bulletin Board Siouxland Libraries is today celebrating its 125th anniversary.Interesting Reading in the Interweb Tubes Jon Stewart and the Burden of History (“Now, you have to understand Jon Stewart is just like everybody else: He can be a dick.”) The Dark Side of the Placebo Effect: When Inte...
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Tim G. posted an article on A Progressive on the Prairie - Sep 16, 2011, 1:50 pm
A 290-pound stockbroker is suing White Castle because he could not fit in the booths at one of its restaurants in New York. A law firm, of all places, reportedly threatened to fire an employee who was selected as a juror in a lengthy murder trial. Tampa Bay Woman Arrested for Stripping at Club Tha...
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Tim G. posted an article on A Progressive on the Prairie - Sep 16, 2011, 9:42 am
World War II is often seen as the last “good war,” a clear-cut conflict between good and evil. And there was plenty of evil to go around, not just in the Axis forces. Take, for example, the case of Marcel Petiot. Petiot, a French physician, was convicted of murdering 26 people in Paris during...
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Tim G. posted an article on A Progressive on the Prairie - Sep 13, 2011, 8:23 am
Living on the Great Plains, we can tend to think we are removed from the nation’s ongoing debate over illegal immigration. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Just last year, Fremont, a town of some 25,000 in northeastern Nebraska, drew national attention when voters approved a law fining...
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Tim G. posted an article on A Progressive on the Prairie - Sep 11, 2011, 10:14 am
So, if a lifelong pacifist liberal says a book about how to train our soldiers is a “must read,” it must be full of peacenik bullshit aimed at undermining the military, right? Believe me, though, when I say that’s not the case with Karl Marlantes’ What It Is Like to Go to War. Marlantes br...
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Tim G. posted an article on A Progressive on the Prairie - Sep 10, 2011, 11:07 am
Bulletin Board Because I agree with Charlie there are no 9/11 links today.Blog Headline of the Week Geodog For Android Tracks Your Canine’s GPS Collar, Costs More Than The DogBookish Linkage It’s nice to know that Banned Books Week “is an exercise in propaganda.” If you have any doubts, jus...
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Tim G. posted an article on A Progressive on the Prairie - Sep 8, 2011, 9:10 am
Glenn Kleier’s new novel, The Knowledge of Good and Evil, may confound a few readers. On the one hand, it is a novel of ideas, some rather esoteric. On the other hand, it is an action-based thriller. How a reader reacts may depend on which approach they prefer. The book is Kleier’s first sin...
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Tim G. posted an article on A Progressive on the Prairie - Sep 6, 2011, 8:54 am
In many professions today, there’s a lot of talk about striving for “work-life balance.” Although focused on a balance between our work and personal lives, the ultimate goal is to improve and broaden the quality of life. Yet more than 2,000 years ago Aristotle recognized that balance was the...
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Tim G. posted an article on A Progressive on the Prairie - Sep 3, 2011, 10:42 am
Bulletin Board Proof this is the first summer we’ve been empty nesters? I hit 100 books read for the year last Saturday. The blog will see its eighth anniversary on Friday.Interesting Reading in the Interweb Tubes The Black Hole of 9/11 (“9/11, for all its tragic and heroic drama, is an easy e...
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Tim G. posted an article on A Progressive on the Prairie - Sep 2, 2011, 5:34 pm
Having spent my fair share of time in them, I can’t say the holdings of law libraries are such that they would encourage a person to do this. A mistrial was declared last week in the sex-trafficking prosecution of a massage parlor owner when an employee who testified for the prosecution recognize...
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Tim G. posted an article on A Progressive on the Prairie - Sep 2, 2011, 8:38 am
When I see documentaries or read books about the 1960s, I occasionally can’t help but ponder whether the radicals of the period, such as Abbie Hoffman or Bernadine Dohrn, ever wondered what America would be like today had the change they advocated come to pass. They face the problem all of us do ...
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Tim G. posted an article on A Progressive on the Prairie - Sep 1, 2011, 1:41 pm
I think this month’s list is a bit short because I’ve been spending so much time reading review copies. I’m not complaining but it makes it hard to think about what I want to read just for the heck of it. Still, I came across a few interesting items since the last installment. American Empe...
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Tim G. posted an article on A Progressive on the Prairie - Aug 29, 2011, 8:58 am
This list of the 50 most influential books of the last 50 years or so comes from a site I stumbled across and there is nothing by which to judge its judges. In fact, it comes from one of those sites that seem to be fairly prominent these days, they look like blog but are there to promote online col...
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Tim G. posted an article on A Progressive on the Prairie - Aug 27, 2011, 9:32 am
Interesting Reading in the Interweb Tubes Chapter and verse on why readers get a benefit from their novel experiences (“…people who spend every spare moment with their nose stuck in a novel are actually better at both relationships with others and understanding of the world in general than those...
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Tim G. posted an article on A Progressive on the Prairie - Aug 26, 2011, 5:27 pm
It still is not a good thing when, rather than hold a hearing on sanctions, a judge says he “assumes is as incompetent as he appears.” (via) A Maine school district is not liable for damage caused when four members of its wrestling team converted a motel room into a makeshift sauna to help a t...
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