Dogs may be considered man's best friend, but in these books, dogs are the stars. "Pick a Pup" by Marsha Wilson Chall, illustrated by Jed Henry, Margaret K. McElderry Books, 2011, ages 2-5.
Elizabeth Dobler: Books about dogs are great for summer
May 21st, 2012Posted in Information | No Comments »
15 Books by Popular UFC Stars to Add to Your Reading List
May 21st, 2012Riding the wave of fame means appearing in movies and writing books about your life story. Here are 15 books written by popular UFC fighters, a cut man and a referee (with help from ghost writers and editing teams, of course) to add to your reading list or buy as a gift for the UFC fans on your list.
These books make great (Father’s Day, birthday or other holiday) gifts for your favorite UFC fan. This list is presented in no particular order. No book reviews (check Amazon for reviews), just the titles to help you choose.
15 Books by Popular UFC Stars
Who did I miss? Who else should be added to this list?
1. Urijah Faber
“The Laws of the Ring” by Urijah Faber – This book goes on sale May 22, 2012. Urijah picked a great time to promote his book since he is a coach on “The Ultimate Fighter Live” with his next fight scheduled against Renan Barao for the interim championship title currently held by Dominick Cruz (who is not fighting due to torn ACL) at UFC 148.
2. Chael Sonnen
“The Voice of Reason: A V.I.P. Pass to Enlightenment” by Chael Sonnen – Sonnen is scheduled to face UFC Champion, Anderson Silva at UFC 148 in a rematch that Sonnen is convinced he will win to become the new middleweight champion.
3. Anderson Silva
“Fighters Only” is not available for sale in the US (I couldn’t find it on Amazon). UFC champion and the number one pound for pound fighter in the MMA world, Anderson Silva, has other instructional books on Brazilian jiu jitsu and boxing.
4. Randy Couture
Written with MMA writer, Loretta Hunt, “Becoming the Natural: My Life In and Out of the Cage”. Randy Couture is a UFC Hall of Fame fighter mostly known as a wrestler and well-loved by UFC fans. He had his last UFC fight at age 48 and has now retired from fighting.
5. Chuck Liddell
“Iceman: My Fighting Life” by Chuck Liddell. The Iceman has retired from fighting after an illustrious career. He is known for his heavy right hand. He faced Randy Couture three times, winning twice by knock-out. Like Randy Couture, Chuck Liddell has also been inducted into the Hall of Fame.
6. Tito Ortiz
“This Is Gonna Hurt: The Life of a Mixed Martial Arts Champion” by Tito Ortiz and Marc Shapiro. Tito is another one of the old-timers of the UFC. Fans either love him or hate him, but they never ignore him.
7. Forrest Griffin
Forrest Griffin, has written more books than any other UFC fighter. Forrest is popular with fans and has a great sense of humor. “Be Ready When the Sh*t Goes Down: A Survival Guide to the Apocalypse” and “Forrest Griffin Biography: The Life of an Ultimate Fighter Revealed”
and “Got Fight?: The 50 Zen Principles of Hand-to-Face Combat”.
8. Matt Hughes
“Made in America: The Most Dominant Champion in UFC” by Matt Hughes and Michael Malice . Another Hall of Famer, former champion, and still looking for what might be his last fight.
9. Jens Pulver
“Little Evil: One Ultimate Fighter’s Rise to the Top” by Jens Pulver and Erick Krauss. I thought Jens retired. He might have tried retiring, but he keeps turning up on fight cards–last seen fighting in April 2012.
10. BJ Penn
“Why I Fight: The Belt Is Just an Accessory” by BJ Penn and Dave Weintraub. BJ Penn may yet fight again. He recently turned down a match with Josh Koscheck. I wonder who it will take to pull him out of retirement and back into the cage.
11. Brian Stann
“Heart for the Fight: A Marine Hero’s Journey from the Battlefields of Iraq to Mixed Martial Arts Champion” by Brian Stann and John R. Bruning. Here’s a video about the events that earned him high honors for bravery. Brian Stann: “Operation Matador” video
12. Stitch Duran
“From the Fields to the Garden: The Life of Stitch Duran” by Stitch Duran, Cut Man. Here’s an interview with Stitch from “UFC Tonight” on Fuel TV video
13. Big John McCarthy
“Let’s Get It On!: The Making of MMA and Its Ultimate Referee” by Big John McCarthy and Loretta Hunt. John McCarthy was a police officer for 22 years and an early frequent flyer on the UFC circuit.
14. Brock Lesnar
“Death Clutch: My Story of Determination, Domination, and Survival” by Brock Lesnar and Paul Heyman. Brock Lesnar has now returned to the world of professional wrestling after a popular run in the UFC.
15. Ken Shamrock
“Inside the Lion’s Den” by Ken Shamrock, Richard Hanner and Clixtro Romias. Outspoken and controversial, Ken Shamrock keeps himself in the headlines by focusing on raising awareness surrounding pay for UFC fighters.
Source: Amazon.com
More from this contributor:
Post UFC 145 Win, Jon Jones Ready to Reconcile Feud, Rashad Evans Not so Much
Jon Jones in UFC Fast Lane, First Beer Ad, Then DUI Drama: Fan’s Look
Two UFC Legends Discuss Korean Zombie’s Chances Against Jose Aldo: Fan’s Look
Poirier is Tough, but I’m Tougher’, Korean Zombie Submits Poirier at UFC on Fuel TV 3: Fan’s Tak
Cheryl Ragsdale started out boxing and has added kicks and BJJ so she can practice MMA. She trains with Keith Florian and UFC Fighter Kenny Florian at Florian Martial Arts – follow @thatgirlisfunny
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Chemists on Music and Books – Viewer Questions
May 19th, 2012Our chemists share their favourite music and books (science and non-science) – hey, it was a viewer question! Take from it what you will? Here is the samovar video The Prof mentions: www.youtube.com More chemistry at www.periodicvideos.com Follow us on Facebook at www.facebook.com And on Twitter at twitter.com From the School of Chemistry at The University of Nottingham: www.nottingham.ac.uk Periodic Videos films are by video journalist Brady Haran: www.bradyharan.com
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Books With 140 Characters
May 19th, 2012At 64,000 members and counting, the Twitter-based reading group 1book140 is a global concern.
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Books Held by Kings
May 19th, 2012
British Library
An angel appearing to the Magi, from The Queen Mary Psalter, circa 1310–1320
A reader climbing the great staircase of the British Library’s modern premises near St. Pancras Station in London is confronted suddenly by that wonderful building’s most wonderful feature. Behind the glass walls of an internal tower six stories high, more than 60,000 sumptuously bound books stretch upward, shelf upon shelf, a cliff-face of leather and gilt lettering gleaming softly through the tinted glass. In that architectural coup de théâtre, a world of learning serves as the visible core of a building created to contain all the learning of the world.
In its day that display, the so-called King’s Collection, made up one of the greatest of Enlightenment libraries, assembled over a lifetime of dedicated book-buying by the bookish King George III. It rests now at St. Pancras because within ten years of the old king’s death in 1820, his books were presented to the nation by his son, King George IV. “Prinny,” as his subjects liked to call him (half affectionately, half contemptuously), was a lavish patron of the visual arts, but not much of a reader. More to the point, perhaps, he was eager to clear the site of the run-down royal residence at the western end of the London Mall where his father’s library was stored, in order to build Buckingham Palace, a lavish setting for his own overblown notions of royal grandeur.
George III had created a great library for himself in part because the monarchy he inherited in 1760 from his grandfather had disposed of all its books just three years earlier. The Old Royal Library had been a magnificent collection of more than two thousand medieval manuscripts and nine thousand printed books. Begun in the 1470s by King Edward IV, though incorporating many older books, it had been expanded over the centuries, not least by an influx of loot from the monastic libraries dissolved during the English Reformation. But the entire collection was signed away to the nation in 1757 by King George II.
His motives are far from clear, but he almost certainly felt no pang at the parting, for he cared nothing about books. “Rex illiteratus est quasi asinus coronatus,” declared the twelfth-century scholar John of Salisbury: “A king without learning is like a donkey with a crown.” If so, George II was to father a long line of donkeys, for, his grandson George III apart, the monarchs of the House of Hanover were more noted for their devotion to horses and the hunting field than to the pursuit or patronage of libraries. Alan Bennett playfully exploited the persisting reputation of royal philistinism in the House of Windsor in his 2007 comic novella The Uncommon Reader. In it, Queen Elizabeth II happens upon a van containing a circulating library, intended for the use of the palace servants, and discovers in herself a compulsive love of reading. There follows a sharp decline in her attention to duty, with disturbing consequences for the constitutional position of the Crown.
Bennett’s fable depended for its humor on the wild improbability of a bookish monarch. But it was not ever thus. For earlier English royal dynasties, as for their European counterparts back into late antiquity, the creation of lavish royal libraries had been one of the pillars of royal reputation and display. The Yorkist King Edward IV, the Tudor Henry VIII, and the Stuart Charles II, as well as the Merry Monarch’s uncle, the young Prince Henry Frederick, who had died while heir apparent to James I in 1612, were all avid book collectors. Between them they assembled the superb collection that George II parted with so lightly in 1757.
Allowing for items mislaid or misappropriated during the many mishaps and migrations of the collection before and after 1757, that collection, the Old Royal Library, remains one of the glories of Britain’s national book collection. Unlike George III’s books, however, on spectacular permanent display in their new tower of glass, no one for centuries has seen the Old Royal Library assembled in a single place. Its two thousand manuscripts have been absorbed into the library’s general holdings, and lie hidden from view in the air-conditioned obscurity of the stacks.
The “Genius of Illumination” exhibition recently put on show 111 of the Old Royal Library’s 1,200 illuminated books, together with thirty-seven complementary manuscripts with royal associations, drawn from other collections. All are illustrated in the exemplary catalog, which also provides three fascinating essays by the editors tracing the history of the royal libraries. Though fewer than a tenth of the royal collection’s illuminated books were included, the show offered a concentration of pictorial glory surviving with an intensity and opulence that exists in almost no other medium. Most medieval art objects—wall paintings, panel paintings, jewelry, or carved statuary—have fallen casualty to time in one way or another. The majority have been lost, and what remains is often dilapidated, faded, incomplete. Medieval paintings and statues were mostly religious, and myriads of images were therefore scraped or hammered or burned into oblivion by zealous Protestant iconoclasts in the sixteenth century. And most of the precious metalwork into which so much medieval craftsmanship and wealth were poured has long since been broken up and melted down for its bullion and gemstone value.
Most medieval manuscripts, too, have perished. But where they survive, they are often in better condition than any other kind of medieval artifact. The splendor of an illuminated manuscript constituted a form of conspicuous consumption valuable only for itself. A book, however costly, is a book: it cannot be melted down for bullion. Pages might be removed for the sake of the individual miniatures they contained, whole volumes might be ripped up or burned as the superstitious rags of popery, texts considered redundant might be carelessly dismembered to wrap cheese, or to do humbler duty still in the privy. In the course of the English Reformation, whole libraries were lost in this way.
British Library
Robert of Anjou enthroned, addressed by a personification of Italy; from the Carmina regia, circa 1335
But for all that, medieval books endure still in their thousands. The sheep- or calfskin on which they were written is remarkably durable, and a closed book protects bright colors from the bleaching light. So the British Library exhibition was, among other things, a heart-stopping display of some of the most perfect surviving medieval works of art, pictures and text created for monarchs, centuries old, yet as fresh as the day they were completed. Their bright pages, many included in the catalog under review, offered window upon window into the medieval world as it imagined itself, gloriously frozen in vermilion and lapis lazuli and burnished gold.
Not all these royal books, though, were displayed for the splendor of their pictures. The very first item in the exhibition was a worn and rather dowdy early eighth-century Latin gospel book, with few illuminations and no pictures, though it was probably written in the same scriptorium as the more famous and far more spectacular Lindisfarne Gospels, the illuminated Latin manuscript now in the British Museum. But the Old Royal Library gospel book is remarkable all the same, for it contains an added note in Anglo-Saxon, recording the manumission of a slave by King Athelstan, immediately on his accession in 925. This moving record of the king’s magnanimity (the earliest such manumission to survive) suggests that the book was being used for services in Athelstan’s own chapel royal at Winchester.
The Lindisfarne book is exceptional in the Old Royal Library because it is a liturgical book, designed for weekly use at Mass. It is not in itself surprising that altar and choir books, however sumptuous, rarely feature in the catalogs of aristocratic or royal libraries, for they were kept where they were needed, in the vestry or the chapel book chest. But in any case, the religious upheavals of the sixteenth century took their toll on these kinds of books in particular. In 1550, Edward VI’s Protestant government decreed the systematic destruction of every medieval liturgical book in England, and in 1551 the Privy Council specifically ordered “the purging of his Highnes Librarie at Westminster of all superstitiouse bookes.”
As a result, the Old Royal Library contains not a single missal, and only eight other liturgical manuscripts of any kind. It is equally thin in medieval books of personal devotion, with only eight books of hours and eighteen illuminated psalters, half of which entered the Royal Library only in the seventeenth century. These absences are truly remarkable, for psalters and books of hours are the most common of all medieval manuscripts, and every other comparable library contains multiple examples of them. The great eighteenth-century library of the Earls of Oxford, for example, whose manuscript collections are similar in scale and opulence to those of the Old Royal Library, and which is also in the British Library, has sixty-one psalters and 103 books of hours.
But the religious upheavals of mid-Tudor England brought gain as well as loss. Two of the psalters that do survive in the collection were presented to Queen Mary I, as part of the restoration of Catholicism after 1553. And one of those two, the so-called Queen Mary Psalter, has a fair claim to be one of the most beautiful books produced anywhere in the whole of the Middle Ages. The work of a single anonymous early-fourteenth-century English master, its 319 leaves contain no fewer than 223 prefatory tinted drawings, recapitulating the Old Testament from the creation of the world to the death of Solomon; twenty-four calendar pages with signs of the zodiac and labors of the months; 104 whole- or half-page miniatures; twenty-three historiated initials (i.e., enlarged and containing a figure or scene); and 464 marginal drawings.
No one knows for whom this sublime and lavish book was made, but in 1553 the manuscript, with its parade of delicate, curly-headed holy figures and its furred and feathered marginal bestiary, belonged to Henry Manners, Earl of Rutland. An ardent Protestant, Manners had made the huge mistake of supporting the Duke of Northumberland’s attempt to prevent Queen Mary’s accession, long after it was clear that this coup had failed. Imprisoned in the Fleet in July 1553, Manners’s goods were forfeit: his psalter, that miraculous and exquisite survivor of the Edwardine holocaust of “superstitious books,” entered the comparative safety of the royal collection.
As that suggests, English monarchs might acquire books by many means—by gift, by marriage, by spoil of war, and by confiscation. But some of them at least set out to buy them. In this they were self-consciously following the pattern set by fabled European royal book-collectors like Alfonso the Wise of Castile or Robert the Wise of Anjou, king of Naples. Looted and dispersed in the 1340s, much of Robert’s magnificent library found its way to the royal library of France, and from there a few of his books, including a lavishly illustrated history of Troy, even found their way to England: two of them were on display at the British Library.
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Books-A-Million, Inc. to Broadcast Its First Quarter 2013 Conference Call Live on the Internet
May 17th, 2012BIRMINGHAM, Ala., May 16, 2012 /PRNewswire/ – Books-A-Million, Inc. (BAMM) (the “Company”) today announced that it will provide an online Web simulcast of its first quarter 2013 conference call on Tuesday, May 22, 2012. The Company will release results for the first quarter ended April 28, 2012 on May 22, 2012 after the markets close.
The live broadcast of the Company’s conference call will begin at 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time (4:00 p.m. Central Time) on May 22, 2012. The link to this event may be found at the Company’s website: www.booksamillioninc.com.
If you are unable to participate at that time, an online replay will be available two hours after the call ends and will continue to be available through June 22, 2012.
Books-A-Million, Inc. is one of the nation’s leading book retailers and sells on the Internet at www.booksamillion.com. The Company presently operates 255 stores in 31 states and the District of Columbia. The Company operates large superstores under the names Books-A-Million (BAM!), Books & Co. and 2nd & Charles and traditional bookstores operating under the names Bookland and Books-A-Million. The common stock of Books-A-Million, Inc. is traded on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol BAMM. For more information, visit the Company’s corporate website at www.booksamillioninc.com.
Follow Books-A-Million on Twitter (www.twitter.com/booksamillion) and like us on Facebook (www.facebook.com/booksamillion).
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The New Yorker reboots online books coverage
May 17th, 2012
The New Yorker magazine, which has always provided top-notch literary content and coverage, relaunched its online books offerings Tuesday (or, for those of us who stumbled across the change, Monday night).
It’s got a spiffy books landing page, and its active book blog, the Book Bench, has been renamed Page-Turner. The blog has a new pink-and-red logo, of a reader surrounded by books, that appears on its rebranded Twitter feed. Page-Turner editor Sasha Weiss explains what to expect of the blog:
We’ll debate about books under-noticed or too much noticed, and celebrate writers we’ve returned to again and again. We’ll look to works in translation and at the politics of literary scenes beyond the English-speaking world. We’ll think about technology and the reading life. We’ll recommend and we’ll theorize. Daily essays will be the blog’s mainstay, with books as an anchor for wide-ranging cultural comment.
The blog is staking out its elite territory by bringing some of the magazine’s star contributors into the mix. The opening two days’ sirocco of literary goodness included Salman Rushdie on censorship, Giles Harvey critiquing “Death of a Salesman,” Ryan Bloom’s corrective translation of the first sentence of Camus’ “The Stranger,” Nick Thompson on running, and Mary Norris from the magazine’s copy desk on an obsolete medieval alphabetic character.
When the blog launched in 2008 as the Book Bench, it was named for the place where books up for grabs piled up in the magazine’s hallway. There was a scrappiness to it, of ideas caught on the fly, and often wrangled by people whose names didn’t appear on the contributor page. But the work of co-founder Macy Halford made the blog and Twitter feed essential parts of the ongoing online discussion of books and media. Halford’s reach stretches beyond the world of books; she was named one of the New York Observer’s 50 media power bachelorettes in 2011.
That’s a strong tradition, one that I hope the newly branded blog continues.
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– Carolyn Kellogg
twitter.com/paperhaus
Image: Screenshot of the New Yorker’s Page-Turner book blog.
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Coffee Table Books That Didn’t Sell 5/10/2012 – CONAN on TBS
May 14th, 2012Conan unveils more coffee table books that absolutely no one bought.
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Patagonia Books Proudly Announces the Publication of The Responsible Company, by Yvon Chouinard and Vincent Stanley
May 14th, 2012VENTURA, Calif., May 14, 2012 /PRNewswire/ – Patagonia Books is excited to announce the publication of The Responsible Company: What We’ve Learned from Patagonia’s First 40 Years, written by Yvon Chouinard, founder and owner of Patagonia Inc. and Vincent Stanley, Patagonia‘s head of marketing. The book draws on the authors’ cumulative years of experience at Patagonia – and knowledge of current efforts by other companies – to articulate the elements of responsible business of today.
(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20120514/CL06749 )
“I co-wrote this book because I wanted to provide concise step-by-step solutions for people who want to green their business,” said Yvon Chouinard, “The Responsible Company is a practical sequel to Let my People Go Surfing and was written for individuals and businesses that want to stop causing unnecessary harm. Most notably, it includes checklists of activities that every company, including our own, needs to address in the coming years.”
In plain, compelling prose, the authors articulate how companies can reduce the harm they cause, improve the quality of their business, and provide the kind of meaningful work everyone wants today. Its advice is simple but powerful: reduce your environmental footprint (and its skyrocketing cost), make legitimate products that last, reclaim deep knowledge of your business and its supply chain to make the most of opportunities in the years to come, and earn the trust (and business) you’ll need by treating your workers, customers and communities with respect.
“Our hope is that the book will have as broad a readership as possible – not just business owners. People have power as individual consumers and citizens, but also as producers,” noted Vincent Stanley, “What we do at work to lighten the economy’s environmental and social footprint makes a far more significant difference than whether we personally recycle or drive a hybrid.”
To date, the book has received media coverage and praise from National Public Radio’s Marketplace, The Wall Street Journal Magazine, Fast Company and Men’s Journal, illustrating it’s broad audience appeal to both business owners and general readers.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303513404577352221465986612.html
The Responsible Company is available at www.patagonia.com. $19.95, 150 pages.
About Patagonia Books
Patagonia Books, based in Ventura, California, is an imprimatur of Patagonia Inc. – the outdoor apparel and gear manufacturer. Patagonia Books believes that books are still the most important medium for passing values to the next generation and was founded to realize that obligation. The titles Patagonia Books publishes tell stories that at some level reflect Patagonia Inc.’s beliefs and values. Previous titles include Yosemite in the Sixties, a collection of black and white photographs that celebrate the golden age of rock climbing in America and Surf is Where You Find It, a book by the legendary surfer, Gerry Lopez. Patagonia Books can be purchased at www.patagonia.com or at most major booksellers.
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Facebook to close IPO books two days early: source
May 14th, 2012NEW YORK (Reuters) – Facebook Inc will close the books on its $10.6 billion initial public offering on Tuesday, two days ahead of schedule and a signal that Silicon Valley’s largest IPO is drumming up strong demand, according to a source familiar with the deal.
The No. 1 social network is scheduled on Thursday to price its shares, then begin trading on Friday. The IPO is already “well oversubscribed,” which is why the social network is closing its books earlier than anticipated, the source said.
No decision has been made about raising the proposed offer price for Facebook shares, which are being offered at $28 to $35 each, said the source, who asked not to be identified because discussions with the company are private.
If the price range is increased, it will likely be done after final orders come in Tuesday. Given the size of the IPO, the deal’s underwriters are likely to be very cautious about raising the price range, the source said.
If Facebook’s underwriters choose to raise the deal’s price range more than 20 percent, the company will need to file an amendment with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Company spokesman Jonny Thaw declined to comment on Monday.
Facebook will continue with its roadshow for the rest of the week, said a second source familiar with the deal, and investors who haven’t yet attended a roadshow presentation will still be able to place orders.
Company executives met with prospective investors in Chicago on Monday and are slated to travel to Kansas City and Denver, before returning to Menlo Park, California, where Facebook is headquartered.
The IPO comes amid concerns from some investors that Facebook hasn’t yet figured out a way to make money from an increasing number of users who access the social network on mobile devices such as smartphones.
A host of Wall Street banks are underwriting Facebook’s offering, with Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs serving as leads. Facebook will trade on Nasdaq under the symbol FB.
(Reporting By Olivia Oran; Editing by Richard Chang, Edwin Chan and Bernard Orr)
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