From the author of the highly praised The Pencil and The Evolution of Useful Things comes another captivating history of the seemingly mundane: the book and its storage. Most of us take for granted that our books are vertical on our shelves with the spines facing out, but Henry Petroski, inveterately curious engineer, didn't. As a result, readers are guided along the astonishing evolution from papyrus scrolls boxed at Alexandria to upright books shelved at the Library of Congress. Unimpeachably researched, enviably written, and charmed with anecdotes from Seneca to Samuel Pepys to a nineteenth-century bibliophile who had to climb over his books to get into bed, The Book on the Bookshelf is indispensable for anyone who loves books.
This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Asian Digital Libraries, ICADL 2007, held in Hanoi, Vietnam, in December 2007. The 41 revised full papers, 15 revised short papers, and extended abstracts of 10 poster papers presented together with three keynote and three invited papers were carefully reviewed and selected from a total of 154 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections.
The audacious first novel from the award-winning and bestselling author of Boy, Snow, Bird and What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours • “Oyeyemi brilliantly conjures up the raw emotions and playground banter of childhood. . . . A masterly first novel.”–The New York Times Book Review "Remarkable. . . . As original as it is unsettling, The Icarus Girl runs straight at the heart of what it means to belong."– O, The Oprah Magazine Jessamy “Jess” Harrison, age eight, is the child of an English father and a Nigerian mother. Possessed of an extraordinary imagination, she has a hard time fitting in at school. It is only when she visits Nigeria for the first time that she makes a friend who understands her: a ragged little girl named TillyTilly. But soon TillyTilly’s visits become more disturbing, until Jess realizes she doesn’t actually know who her friend is at all. Drawing on Nigerian mythology, Helen Oyeyemi presents a striking variation on the classic literary theme of doubles — both real and spiritual — in this lyrical and bold debut.
A striking poetic debut that brilliantly illuminates and celebrates the intersection of poetry and science, and the ways they can mediate our discovery of the world and our place in it. Originating from her living room, backyard garden, university office, or the field sites in boreal or tropical forests, the poems in Madhur Anand’s captivating debut collection compose a lyric science; they bring order and chaos together into a unified theory of predicting catastrophes, large and small. Anand’s ecologist poetics are sophisticated and original; her voice is an “index,” a way of cataloguing and measuring the world and human experience, and of illuminating the interconnectedness at the heart of all things. Narrating the beauty of her perceived world, the poems unabashedly embrace the scintillant language of scientific evidence as they interrogate crises of personal and global concern. The result is a poetry that is as complex as it is compassionate. Anand’s modernist intervention into “nature” poetry is a sparkling addition to poetics in Canada and beyond.
In this “remarkable novel,” two young women face towering adversity amid the historic spectacle of the 1939 New York World’s Fair (Lynda Cohen Loigman, author of The Two-Family House). Vivi Holden is closer than ever to becoming a lead Hollywood actress—until an unfair turn of events sends her back to New York. Desperate for a chance to return to L.A., she sets out to perform at the upcoming World’s Fair. It won’t be easy, but her summer in New York will help her finally find her own way, on her own terms . . . Maxine Roth dreams of becoming a serious journalist at the iconic New York Times. But instead, she’s landed a post at the pop-up publication dedicated to covering the World’s Fair. Once again, she finds her big ideas are continually overlooked by her male counterparts. But she’s worked far too hard to sit on the sidelines. When Max and Vivi’s worlds collide, they forge an enduring friendship. One that shows them to be the daring, bold women they are. In the most meaningful summer of their lives, they will learn to never stop holding on to what matters most.
The author of more than 50 books--125 million copies in print--Clive Cussler is the current grandmaster of adventure literature. Dirk Pitt, the sea-loving protagonist of 22 of Cussler's novels, remains among the most popular and influential adventure series heroes of the past half-century. This first critical review of Cussler's work features an overview of Pitt and the supporting characters and other heroes, an examination of Cussler's themes and influences, a review of his most important adventures, such as Raise the Titanic! and Iceberg, and a look at adaptations of his work in other media. Cussler joins the pantheon of such as Rudyard Kipling, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Ian Fleming, and this overdue volume demonstrates that beneath Cussler's immense popularity lies a literary depth that well merits scholarly attention.
Since 1994, Nancy Mulvany's Indexing Books has been the gold standard for thousands of professional indexers, editors, and authors. This long-awaited second edition, expanded and completely updated, will be equally revered. Like its predecessor, this edition of Indexing Books offers comprehensive, reliable treatment of indexing principles and practices relevant to authors and indexers alike. In addition to practical advice, the book presents a big-picture perspective on the nature and purpose of indexes and their role in published works. New to this edition are discussions of "information overload" and the role of the index, open-system versus closed-system indexing, electronic submission and display of indexes, and trends in software development, among other topics. Mulvany is equally comfortable focusing on the nuts and bolts of indexing—how to determine what is indexable, how to decide the depth of an index, and how to work with publisher instructions—and broadly surveying important sources of indexing guidelines such as The Chicago Manual of Style, Sun Microsystems, Oxford University Press, NISO TR03, and ISO 999. Authors will appreciate Mulvany's in-depth consideration of the costs and benefits of preparing one's own index versus hiring a professional, while professional indexers will value Mulvany's insights into computer-aided indexing. Helpful appendixes include resources for indexers, a worksheet for general index specifications, and a bibliography of sources to consult for further information on a range of topics. Indexing Books is both a practical guide and a manifesto about the vital role of the human-crafted index in the Information Age. As the standard indexing reference, it belongs on the shelves of everyone involved in writing and publishing nonfiction books.
