Shelfari

Review: The Soul Thief: A Novel by Charles Baxter

                     

Review by James Marcus

In The Soul Thief, Baxter ups the metaphysical ante once again. There are doubles, dreams, impersonations and a climactic bit of trickery that turns the entire novel into a kind of narrative Möbius strip. Yet after a cryptic preamble, we seem to be on the solid ground of naturalism. The year is 1973. The setting is Buffalo, N.Y., a decaying eyesore that embodies "the noble shabbiness of industrial decline." In short order, we meet grad students Nathaniel Mason and Jerome Coolberg, whose freaky symbiosis is at the heart of the novel…

…We are all soul thieves, in other words. We beg, borrow or steal our lives from others. Coolberg argues that this is a distinctly American trait. "[W]e've got disguises on top of disguises," he tells Mason, "we're the best on earth at what we do, which is illusion. We're all pretenders." He's absolutely wrong, of course: It's a global racket. But can there be a more flagrant offender than the novelist himself? To create a work like this one, with its flaws and scattered sublimities alike -- well, it takes a thief. (complete review)

Happy Reading!

Amanda

“Outside books, we avoid colorful characters.”

--Mason Cooley

Professor, Aphorist

Shelfari Releases Top Books in January

See what our readers have to say about the Top 5 Books in January:

Duma Key by Stephen King

“All in all, very well crafted, Bravo. I think my $20 was very well spent and this little 600 page book kept me captivated for a week, which is a long time in my reading world.   King proving he is the King of storytelling again. I would love to see this get some real critical praise. Hope.” -theworleys

Plum Lucky by Janet Evanovich

“Janet Evanovich books are like popcorn: thoroughly enjoyable, a little greasy, and pretty forgettable once you're done with it. This one doesn't disappoint. Its classic Stephanie Plum slapstick with the regular cast of characters (some of whom get different names or descriptions in each book) and a car gets blown up. You can read it in a short afternoon.” -sharon gr

In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto by Michael Pollan

“One of the first books in a while that made me want to buy a dozen or so copies and hand them out to friends and family. Finally, common sense about food, food science and how to tell the difference [between the two].” -brian doll

The Senator’s Wife by Sue Miller

“A great read. I loved this book. Sue Miller is great at drawing characters through action...  The theme was complex, and always kept me wondering; do I agree with this character or that one? Do I sympathize with one or both or all of them?” -elaine z

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

“The vivid combination of love, violence, and one man's quest for atonement creates a sad, captivating novel for readers who like a good, emotional story about the bond between a boy, his family, his friend, and his country.”  -catherine-anne

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Happy Reading!

Amanda

So You Want to Be President?

TOW Books (Funny Books for People with Good Senses of Humor) introduces:

So You Want to Be President? by John Warner: Find Out If You Have the Ego, Bankroll, and Moral Flexibility to Lead the Nation and Take On the World

Perhaps the better question than "So you want to be president?" is "Who wouldn't want to be president?" Consider the perks: Nice house (rent-free), massive staff (taxpayer-supported), private plane (and helicopter, and hovercraft, and super-secret modes of transportation the public doesn't even know about), guaranteed television exposure … it's like being Donald Trump, except with your own hair, and access to nukes.

Other Titles:

·         Everything is Wrong With You by Wendy Molyneux: The Modern Woman's Guide to Finding Self-Confidence Through Self-Loathing

·         Really, You've Done Enough by Sarah Walker: A Parents’ Guide to Stop Parenting Their Adult Child Who Still Needs Their Money But Not Their Advice

·         Oh, The Humanity by Jason Roeder: A Gentle Guide to Social Interaction for the Feeble Young Introvert

Enjoy! J

Amanda

Harper Collins (Finally) Offers Free Books Online

Book publisher HarperCollins has been inching towards an improved web strategy for well over a year now, with widgets and promotional profiles on popular social networks like Myspace. But HarperCollins’ most recent move may finally help the company change the game. In what appears to be the online version of a bricks and mortar Borders book store, HarperCollins will be offering free electronic editions of some its book on its website. In an effort to increase book sales, HarperCollins is adopting a web-based “try before you buy” approach to book promotion, both for online and on the iPhone. (more)

Happy Reading,

Amanda

James Patterson Stamping Out the Competition

James Patterson has knocked Jacqueline Wilson off her perch as the author most-borrowed from British libraries, with more than 1.5m copies of his thrillers issued between July 2006 and June 2007.

He becomes only the third author ever to have claimed top spot, Wilson having taken over in 2004 from Catherine Cookson, who had reigned supreme since records were first published in 1982. (more)

Curiosity piqued, I had to find out whose ranked #1 on the US libraries most-borrowed list.  Lo and behold!  James Patterson is the top ranking author on the fiction list.

Have a great weekend!

Amanda

Amazon Web Services

One of the benefits we receive from our investment from Amazon is getting early looks at the Amazon Web Services that get built out.  We are heavy users of the Amazon Associates Web Service and big fans of Amazon's developer-friendly APIs, as well as the pay-as-you-use approach they've been championing.

Unfortunately, I was recently misquoted in an Associated Press article talking about Amazon’s Associates Web Service, saying that Shelfari is not interested in Amazon's new web service because paying our own IT staff to monitor servers is "worth the extra cost."  On the contrary, we actually outsource the management of our servers already.  Pay as you go would be great change from the large bill we pay our hosting service every month :)

We constantly evaluate Amazon's services as we launch new features and grow our business.  Our current features to date have not been able to leverage EC2, S3, FPS, SimpleDB, or the SQS services simply because they haven't met any of our exact needs yet.  Still they offer some very interesting opportunities for tasks many startups need to perform -- I'm sure we will start using some of them before too long. As an investor, Amazon has done the right thing and been very supportive of us making the right technical decisions for our business's needs. (We haven't ever been asked to make round pegs fit square holes!)

Any emerging startup would be silly not to seriously evaluate the merits of these services and determine whether and how they can elevate your business. Amazon has spent considerable resources in the evolutionary development and improvements to their Associate Web Services and they offer a fantastic platform on which to drive innovation.

Happy Reading,

Josh

Review: Water for Elephants, by Sara Gruen

"Compelling…vivid" Chicago Tribune

Review by Shelfarian Ma Titwonky.

When this book was published, I avoided it because I didn't think I'd be interested in reading a story about a circus. I'd been to the circus as a child, and I hated it. But when Good Reads, a Shelfari group I belong to, chose this book as their monthly selection, I broke down and bought it. I'm very glad I did.

The story concerns that of a young man in college about to take his test to graduate as a veterinarian when everything in his life is turned upside down. All of sudden his future is very insecure, and by a stroke of happenstance he ends up with a circus acting as their vet. The story is told in retrospect when the man is either 91 or 93 years old and living in a nursing home. His mind is sharp; his body is frail. He has kept a secret about his time in the circus, and now the memory of the events that sparked this secret are weighing on his mind. The book switches from the present to the past. I enjoyed reading the story from whichever time period the author chose to tell it.

I was particularly impressed by Sara Gruen's understanding of and ability to write clearly about how it feels to become aged. I have not read any novel before Water For Elephants that expressed nearly as well what it is like to no longer have control of the body but have the mind remain almost as sharp as it was in a person's youth.

I also have to add that once I began reading Water For Elephants, and I do mean from the very first page, I realized it was not merely a story about a circus. It was about love and loyalty; treachery and heartache, and about the decisions we have to make and how we live with them. I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a good story well told. I still wouldn't go to see another circus, but I definitely learned something and enjoyed reading about Sara Gruen's "Big Top".

Add this book to your shelf and join a group to discuss.

Happy Reading,
Amanda

Easier widget creation

Last week we shipped several improvements to the widget (for our new readers, the Shelfari widget allows you to display your book collection on your blog / web site). This week we’ve improved the way the widget is created. We offer two types of widgets: Javascript and Flash. With the new widget creation flow you no longer have to worry about which widget is right for you. Just tell us your blog / web site URL and we’ll suggest the best type of widget for you.

To create a widget go to  http://www.shelfari.com/widget

Happy reading!

Mike

Editing multiple books just got easier

Our new shelf has been great for displaying your book collection, but since it’s so visually rich, it’s been fairly hard to use it to efficiently manage it, especially if you have hundreds of books. A number of you have been asking us to solve the problem of moving multiple books from one list to another, tagging all books or changing the book order in large book collections. Today we have good news for all the collectors who contacted us: starting today managing large book collections should be much easier. Just go to your shelf and select “Edit multiple books” button located at the bottom of the shelf. You’ll see an editable list view of all your books. The list view has two different modes:

• The first (default) mode allows you to perform multiple actions on your book collection, by editing each book separately in a list (for instance, tag a couple of books, move a couple of books from one list to another etc.)
• The second mode (which you can access by clicking the “Edit in bulk” button) allows you to perform one action on all selected books (for instance, tag all your books with a single tag)

Between these two modes you can:

• Reorder multiple books
• Tag/remove tags from multiple books
• Add/Remove/Move books between lists
• Apply ratings to multiple books

We hope that the new page will make managing large book collections much simpler.
Happy reading!
Mike