Ned Hayes's Blog, page 45
June 22, 2015
BOOK QUOTE:“The sound of a distant ocean covers me with surf,...
BOOK QUOTE:
“The sound of a distant ocean covers me with surf, that tide that bears me back eternally into the past, back to the place where I was born.
People come through the whiteness, through the bright light, but all of them are ghosts. The day before he died, my mother did something inexplicable. She took me out in our little fishing boat, out on the open water of the sea. The thrum and hiss of surf upon the shore behind us, the breaking rhythm never ceasing. My mother waited until we were out of sight of land. She squinted against the bright sunlight, making sure of our isolation. And then she taught me something: strange words in a foreign tongue, a lilting sing-song rhythm to it.”
— from the novel Sinful Folk
Summer Reading Series
Summer Reading Series Welcome to our “If you liked…” summer reading series for diverse books! The We Need Diverse Books campaign is deeply committed to increasing the visibility of the wonderful …
Just in case you may not know we have the archive of our popular Summer Reading Series on our site where you can see diverse comparisons to books you may have read & enjoyed.
Buy them. Recommend them. Request them at your library and bookstore. Spread diverse books far and wide!
June 19, 2015
"Libraries have had a long history of dealing with authoritarian organizations demanding reader..."
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What It’s Like to Get a National-Security Letter : The New Yorker
In my last gig in a public library, I would have to explain to adorable old ladies why we weren’t keeping records of which cat-mystery they had read. I remember, as a teenager in the library, hearing the librarians rail against The Patriot Act. Go on. Ask me how I feel about metadata. Ask me how I feel about the NSA.
What’s interesting for someone like me, who understands possibly better than your average-bear the architecture of record-holding in the 21st century, is how important it is to think about how information is kept even before you build the archival system.
That public library I worked at? They transitioned from a paper-cataloging system to digital as The Patriot Act was written. The director bullied the poor systems administrator for the new software into deleting the option of ever remembering a patron’s borrowing history. Now, you may think that patron’s borrowing history isn’t a huge deal, but historically what books you were reading was very dangerous indeed (see: every contentious change of religion post-Gutenberg as an example).
How something is built matters; any architect can tell you that. Hell, any writer or painter can tell you that. But we are only now learning (perhaps too little too late) that maybe systems engineers needed to remember to build with security in mind. Security advocates (read: those often tagged as “hackers” because we have migrated into a sci-fi novel and are only now just realizing it dear lord help us all) have been saying this for years, but we’re only now just getting around realizing that our castles were built on sand.*
*America’s capital is built on a swamp and is slowly, inexorably, sinking into a boggy grave. I cannot think of a better metaphor.
(via princehal9000)
Libraries have gone through this before. We decided that it was better to not have this information than to have it and be able to do a couple neat things with it.
(via chrischelberg)
June 17, 2015
See the cover and an excerpt from E.K. Johnston's upcoming novel 'A Thousand Nights' -- exclusive
[New Book Preview] This looks really interesting….
In A Thousand Nights, an upcoming YA novel, author E.K. Johnston tells the dazzling tale of a brave teen who the murderous Lo-Melkhiin takes as his…Hello, Tumblr. Here is the cover of my next book, A THOUSAND NIGHTS. I am still in awe of how pretty it is, so you should definitely click for a look at the big version of it.
Also, the prologue and first chapter are at the bottom of the article. So. If you were curious. :)
Find out more here… ekjohnston
June 16, 2015
June 15, 2015
BOOK QUOTE: “People come to me on waves of memory, but all...
BOOK QUOTE:
“People come to me on waves of memory, but all of them are ghosts. The sound of a distant ocean covers me with surf, that tide that bears me back eternally into the past, back to the place where I was born. My mother took me out in our little fishing boat, out on the open water of the sea. The thrum and hiss of surf upon the shore behind us, the breaking rhythm never ceasing. My mother waited until we were out of sight of land. She waited to tell me the secret.”
PHOTO: Casuarina curves by Cedric Jacquot
June 14, 2015
BOOK QUOTE:“April comes to us, with her showers sweet. I wake to...
BOOK QUOTE:
“April comes to us, with her showers sweet. I wake to the cries of little birds before the light comes across the heath. They wait all night with open eyes. Now, with the rain at dawn, their voices make melody. I turn back the reveled cloth of gold on my bed and walk to gaze beyond my glazed casement window. In the plaintive voices of the wood fowl, I imagine my mother calling to me, her words echoing across the years.”
May 22, 2015
BOOK QUOTE:“Spring grew into summer, and the rhythm of my life...
BOOK QUOTE:
“Spring grew into summer, and the rhythm of my life now included Nell. I learned that her secret thyme and mint beds were deep in the woods, out by the chuckling stream that disappeared underground. She gathered plants she needed every day, and she was as a child who gathers flowers in May.”
PHOTO: lilac dream by .nevara on Flickr.
May 11, 2015
BOOK QUOTE:“Spring grew into summer, and the rhythm of my life...
BOOK QUOTE:
“Spring grew into summer, and the rhythm of my life now included Nell. I learned that her secret thyme and mint beds were deep in the woods, out by the chuckling stream that disappeared underground. She gathered plants she needed every day, and she was as a child who gathers flowers in May.”
PHOTO: eucalypt by .nevara on Flickr.
May 7, 2015
BOOK QUOTE:“Spring grew into summer, and the rhythm of my life...
BOOK QUOTE:
“Spring grew into summer, and the rhythm of my life now included Nell. I learned that her secret thyme and mint beds were deep in the woods, out by the chuckling stream that disappeared underground. She gathered plants she needed every day, and she was as a child who gathers flowers in May.”
PHOTO: Elle Croatia January 2015: Pletivo U Srcu
