Adventure-hungry Quinn Ellington’s job solving mundane mysteries for library patrons entangles her in a mission to decode the whereabouts of a weapons cache from a priceless work of art before arms dealers beat her to it. Her adventure is filled with twists, turns, and a budding romance. Transcontinental pursuit, daring rescues, and intense covert flirting follow. 1. Spies—attractive. 2. London—criminal networks. 3. London—Harry Potter references. 4. Libraries—secrets of. 5. Best friends—nosy. I. Ellington, Quinn.

    Americans are not reading enough, they say, or reading the right books, in the right way. In this book, Alan Jacobs argues that, contrary to the doomsayers, reading is alive and well in America. There are millions of devoted readers supporting hundreds of enormous bookstores and online booksellers. Oprah's Book Club is hugely influential, and a recent NEA survey reveals an actual uptick in the reading of literary fiction. Jacobs's interactions with his students and the readers of his own books, however, suggest that many readers lack confidence; they wonder whether they are reading well, with proper focus and attentiveness, with due discretion and discernment. Many have absorbed the puritanical message that reading is, first and foremost, good for you--the intellectual equivalent of eating your Brussels sprouts. For such people, indeed for all readers, Jacobs offers some simple, powerful, and much needed advice: read at whim, read what gives you delight, and do so without shame, whether it be Stephen King or the King James Version of the Bible. In contrast to the more methodical approach of Mortimer Adler's classic How to Read a Book (1940), Jacobs offers an insightful, accessible, and playfully irreverent guide for aspiring readers. Each chapter focuses on one aspect of approaching literary fiction, poetry, or nonfiction, and the book explores everything from the invention of silent reading, reading responsively, rereading, and reading on electronic devices. Invitingly written, with equal measures of wit and erudition, The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction will appeal to all readers, whether they be novices looking for direction or old hands seeking to recapture the pleasures of reading they first experienced as children.

    This is but a fraction of one man’s life spent collecting every book on every subject – including antique and modern worlds, science and law, as well as playing cards, pornography, and popular music.Who was Hernando Columbus and how did he achieve this?Set to the backdrop of Christopher Columbus’ paradigm-defining explorations of the New World and beyond, and cutting across events of the Renaissance and Reformation, this book follows Hernando Columbus’ bibliomania and curation of the first ever library of its kind.

    Lesson plans and lecture notes matter less than the special way teachers comprehend the subject and value human learning. Whether historians or physicists, in El Paso or St. Paul, the best teachers know their subjects inside and out--but they also know how to engage and challenge students and to provoke impassioned responses. Most of all, they believe two things fervently: that teaching matters and that students can learn.In stories both humorous and touching, Bain describes examples of ingenuity and compassion, of students' discoveries of new ideas and the depth of their own potential. What the Best College Teachers Do is a treasure trove of insight and inspiration for first-year teachers and seasoned educators.

    Now this new edition of The Read-Aloud Handbook imparts the benefits, rewards, and importance of reading aloud to children of a new generation. Supported by delightful anecdotes as well as the latest research, The Read-Aloud Handbook offers proven techniques and strategies—and the reasoning behind them—for helping children discover the pleasures of reading and setting them on the road to becoming lifelong readers.

    For, while the order of the alphabet itself became fixed very soon after letters were first invented, their ability to sort and store and organize proved far less obvious. To many of our forebears, the idea of of organising things by the random chance of the alphabet rather than by established systems of hierarchy or typology lay somewhere between unthinkable and disrespectful. The author fascinatingly lays out the gradual triumph of alphabetical order, from its possible earliest days as a sorting tool in the Great Library of Alexandria in the third century BCE, to its current decline in prominence in our digital age of Wikipedia and Google.

    Drawing wisdom from the playgrounds of his youth, where he spent hour upon hour sharpening his body and his mind, Carroll shares with readers his Rules of the Red Rubber Ball - how to achieve maximum human potential through the power of passion and creativity. Finding your own -red rubber ball+ and chasing it to your heart+s content, he argues, is the surest route to peace, prosperity, and happiness. Over the years as an athletic trainer and public speaker, Carroll has transformed his philosophy into seven simple rules that any successful leader will endorse: 1) Commit to it2) Seek out encouragers 3) Work out your creative muscle4) Prepare to shine5) Speak up6) Expect the unexpected7) Maximize the day With an award-winning design and color photos throughout, Rules of the Red Rubber Ball will inspire the child in everyone for generations to come.

    Library and information science students and professionals will find the background and concepts they need to meet today's - and tomorrow's - challenges. TABLE OF CONTENTS: 1. The Information Infrastructure: Libraries in Context; 2. Information Science: A Service Perspective; 3. Redefining the Library: The Impacts and Implications of Technological Change; 4. Information Policy: Stakeholders and Agendas; 5. Information Policy as Library Policy: Intellectual Freedom; 6. Information Organization: Issues and Techniques; 7. From Past to Present: The Library s Mission and Its Values; 8. Ethics and Standards: Professional Practices in Library and Information Science; 9. The Library as Institution: An Organizational View, and 10. Librarianship: An Evolving Profession.

    At the end of 2013, novelist Linda Grant moved from a rambling maisonette over four floors to a two bedroom flat with a tiny corridor-shaped study. The trauma of getting rid of thousands of books raises the question of what purpose personal libraries serve in contemporary life and the seductive lure of the Kindle. Both a memoir of a lifetime of reading and an insight into how interior décor has banished the bookcase, her account of the emotional struggle of her relationship with books asks questions about the way we live today.

    When her adoptive father loses his job, she is forced to leave college and take the only employment she can find--delivering books on horseback to poor coal mining families in the hills of Kentucky.The small community of Boone's Hollow is suspicious of outsiders and steeped in superstitions that leave Addie feeling rejected and indignant. Although she finds an unexpected friend in an elderly outcast, the other horseback librarians scorn her determination to befriend Nanny Fay.Emmett Tharp grew up in the tiny mountain hamlet where most men either work in the coal mine or run moonshine. He's the first in the community to earn a college degree, and he has big dreams, but witnesses the Depression robbing many young men of their future.Then someone sets out to sabotage the library program, going so far as to destroy Addie's novel in progress. Will the saboteur chase Addie and the other librarians away, or will knowledge emerge victorious over prejudice? Is Emmett the local ally that Addie needs--and might their friendship lead to something more?Inspired by the real WPA program that sent librarians on horseback to deliver books to hill families in Kentucky, Kim Vogel Sawyer immersed herself in Appalachian history to tell this captivating story.

    The focus has moved from the library as a confined place to one with fluid boundaries that is layered by diverse needs and influenced by an interactive global community. Guiding principles for school library media programs must focus on building a flexible learning environment with the goal of producing successful learners skilled in multiple literacies. Defining the future direction of school library media programs is the purpose of the newest set of guidelines from the American Association of School Librarians (AASL), entitled Empowering Learners: Guidelines for School Library Media Programs

    Learn how inmates observe and select victims. Also, see how they gain their confidence and sympathy and make demands.

    A Guide to Understanding Your results on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

    "The only really acceptable modern textbook on physical bibliography". -- The Library

    Of course, when the librarian Mrs. Dewey leaves George in charge, he’s in quite the quandary. How will he organize the books? By color? By size? Will he able to shelve them all before Mrs. Dewey comes back? Activities exploring alphabetizing and classification add even more fun to the equation.  For more monkey fun, investigate www.curiousgeorge.com and discover all the latest on Curious George, books, promotions, games, activities, and more!