2007 Reading List

One of my blogging friends posted about having a 2007 reading list the other day and I got inspired so I solicited suggestions from my friends about what to read next year. Here's what I have so far:

Fiction:

Life of Pi - Yann Martel
Norwegian Wood - Murakami
Secret History of the Pink Carnation by Lauren Willig
Rug Merchant - Meg Mullins
Book Thief - Markus Zusak
Stardust - Neil Gaiman
Virgin Suicides - Eugenides

Non-Fiction

Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior
Fear of Falling - Barbara Ehrenreich
Velvet Elvis - Rob Bell

Comment below to share your suggestions with me!

Miss Potter

On the way into work this morning, I listened to a wonderful story about the new Beatrix Potter movie, "Miss Potter". The movie starts Renée Zellweger as Potter and Ewan McGregor as Potter's publisher, Norman Warne.

Beatrix Potter is famous for her serious of Peter Rabbit books.

Notable Deaths in 2006

A list from the Associated Press

Deaths in the News: Gerald Ford and James Brown

Ford, our 38th president, died yesterday and Brown, "The Godfather of Soul" died on Christmas Day.

We have a wonderful collection of Brown's music, a 2CD set, "50th Anniversary Collection".

We also have a great book about the Ford presidency, 31 Days: The Crisis That Gave Us the Government We Have Today.

National Film Registry

Today the Library of Congress added 27 titles to the National Film Registry. How many how you seen? I've seen three. Care to guess which ones?

* Applause (1929)
* The Big Trail (1930)
* Blazing Saddles (1974)
* The Curse of Quon Gwon (1916-17)
* Daughter of Shanghai (1937)
* Drums of Winter [Uksuum Cauyai] (1988)
* Early Abstractions #1-5, 7,10 (1939-56)
* Fargo (1996)
* Flesh and the Devil (1927)
* Groundhog Day (1993)
* Halloween (1978)
* In the Street (1948)
* The Last Command (1928)
* Notorious (1946)
* Red Dust (1932)
* Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania (1971-72)
* Rocky (1976)
* sex, lies and videotape (1989)
* Siege (1940)
* St. Louis Blues (1929)
* The T.A.M.I. Show (1964)
* Tess of the Storm Country (1914)
* Think of Me First as a Person (1960-75)
* A Time Out of War (1954)
* Traffic in Souls (1913)

Cool Links

Transcript of President's Bush Press Conference

Longterm.gov: National Clearinghouse for Long-Term Care Information (Department of Health and Human Services)

Swivel.com A new site for data set and graph geeks.

And I thought I had a lot of books

Holiday Party Excuse Generator

Books Reviewed in Today's Chicago Tribune

Guantánamo and the Abuse of Presidential Power by Joseph Margulies (review)



The Handmaid and the Carpenter by Elizabeth Berg (review)

Looking for something to do this weekend?

Try going downtown to visit Chicago's Christkindlmarket, a "Traditional German-American Holiday Market" in Daley Plaza.

It's a Wonderful Life

As a subversive film? You decide.

Cool Site: Immigration to the United States, 1789-1930

From the Harvard University Library

Free Searchable Koran

Three different versions can be searched here.

Dennis Kucinich runs again

Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich has thrown his hat into the 2008 presidential race.

Read our copy of Kucinich's 2003 book, A Prayer For America.

Cool Site of the Day: Encyclopedia Popcornica

Encyclopedia Popcornica

Everything you wanted to know about popcorn and much, much more.

Iraq Study Group

Want to read the Iraq Study Group Report for yourself? Reserve our copy or read it online.

Congrats to Ryno!

Ryne Sandberg, the former Cubbie 2nd baseman and Baseball Hall-of-Famer, is getting back into baseball as the manager of the Peoria Chiefs.

Road trip anyone?

New and Better Bus Service in Addison?

Yesterday, the Addison village board approved plans to make it a possibility.