The Biblio Files
The Biblio Files
- Location
- Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S.
- Birthday
- January 01
- Bio
- We (Steve and Helen) irresponsibly gave up our promising careers in aviation and bookselling over ten years ago. Now books seem to have taken over our lives. We frequent libraries, bookstores, and thrift shops in search of interesting books. We buy/swap/sell, but mainly, we read. We both wear glasses and have been mistaken for librarians.
MY RECENT POSTS
- Kindle's Robot Voice
February 24, 2010 01:35AM - Batgirl Was a Librarian
February 17, 2010 12:00AM - Accept No Substitutes
February 09, 2010 10:50PM - Listening Isn't Reading -- Why
Braille Is Still Necessary
February 02, 2010 07:58PM - Roundup: Contests, Spring
Previews, a Secret Online
Bookshop
January 26, 2010 10:51PM
MY RECENT COMMENTS
- “It's funny, but most of
the distinctive voices are
from older
generations. Who
wo…”
July 16, 2010 05:18PM - “Hm. I wonder if you
would say it was a site mostly
for men if
the ratios were
rev…”
July 16, 2010 05:09PM - “Nice post, Steven, lots
to think about. Have you read
the
recent Norman
Rockwell:…”
April 23, 2010 11:01AM - “Love Jeeves &
Wooster! I haven't read any
non-J & W
Wodehouse,
though. I'…”
March 15, 2010 10:14PM - “Whew, it's harder than I
thought it'd be.
Practice,
practice.”
March 10, 2010 04:24PM
The Biblio Files's Links
- Recent Acquisitions
- Man Made: A Stupid Quest for Masculinity
- Why We Read What We Read: A Delightfully Opinionated Journey Through Bestselling Books
- Martha Gellhorn: The War Writer in the Field and in the Text
- Brainwashing: The Fictions of Mind Control : A Study of Novels and Films Since World War II
- Books We've Recently Reviewed
- Bookless in Baghdad
- Queen of the Conqueror: The Life of Matilda, Wife of William I
- Landing in Las Vegas: Commercial Aviation and the Making of a Tourist City
- Slaughterhouse Blues: The Meat and Poultry Industry in North America
- Amazon Reviews: takingadayoff and Found Highways
- Helen's Amazon Reviews
- Steve's Amazon Reviews
- Books We're Reading Now
- Plague, Fear, and Politics in San Francisco's Chinatown
- America at the Mall: The Cultural Role of a Retail Utopia
- Modernist America: Art, Music, Movies, and the Globalization of American Culture
- The Divorce of Henry VIII: The Untold Story from Inside the Vatican
Ever hear a computerized voice mail system? You can't mistake it for a real person. Maybe just for a second, if you're not paying attention.
The text-to-speech feature of the Kindle reader sounds like that.
When the Kindle 2 came out about a year ago, some/… Read full post »
Librarian as Superhero
Publisher Harper Collins has just released a new book – about librarians. Talk about optimistic.
This Book is Overdue! by Marilyn Johnson, and it describes the exciting new world of librarians. Tattoos, precision drills using tricked-out boo/… Read full post »
Does every new humor writer have to be described as “the new David Sedaris”? Maybe I should be pleased we've moved on – it used to be every new humor writer was “the new Bill Bryson.” Or “the new Dave Barry.” Before that it was Erma Bombeck.
If you listen to an audio book, have you read the book?
It's undoubtedly a different experience to read a book with just ink and paper (or pixels and screen) between you and the author than it is to listen to someone's vocalization of the sentences. In Proust… Read full post »
Contest #1
Amazon.com has started accepting entries for its third year of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. Grand Prize is a publishing contract with Penguin. Many of the finalists in all the categories also received publishing deals, so it isn't winner-take-all, by any mea/… Read full post »
Favorite Open Salon posts of 2009? Too limited a time frame. Favorite OS posts of the Decade? Better, but still too limited. Favorite OS posts and blogs? Almost there.
Join us in the Wayback Machine to revisit The BiblioFiles' Favorite Open Salon Content (Posts and Blogs) of/… Read full post »
… Read full post »
A heartwarming story in today's Washington Post tells of the local bookstore in the tiny town of Poligny, France. The owner was about to close the store, which she could no longer run, due to her failing health. One hundred city residents pitched in about $750 each to form a corporation/… Read full post »
How do you choose which books you'll read? You probably have a variety of sources for new reading ideas: books you've read or heard about online or on radio or TV, suggestions from friends, browsing the bookstore and library. But unless you belong to a book club, you probably don't have… Read full post »
There's nothing more fun than a scandal, and the book world has been full of them lately. It's getting so that I can barely keep up with the book scandals, let alone the very entertaining British Ministers of Parliament expenses revelations. And actual news? Supreme Court nomina/… Read full post »
The Second Annual Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award (ABNA) Contest is in progress. The grand prize is a publishing contract with Penguin.
I didn't intend to participate – I don't have a novel inside me. But then an email arrived. “Dear Amazon Reviewer, You have been/… Read full post »
Mondegreen: A form of error arising from mishearing a spoken or sung phrase.
etymology: Coined by Sylvia Wright in Harper’s Magazine (The Death of Lady Mondegreen, Nov 1954) from a mishearing of/… Read full post »
Late breaking news from Entertainment
Tonight (ET) reveals that author Dan Brown has completed the
long-awaited sequel to
The Da Vinci Code! The blockbuster news was divulged by
Angels & Demons 
If you're a newspaper junkie, you may already know about the Newseum website. But I've just found out about it and I can't take the chance that some of you may not have discovered it yet.
The best feature is the Today's Front Pages i… Read full post »
Green Eggs and Hamlet
Would you kill him in his bed?
Thrust a dagger through his head?
I would not, could not, kill the King.
I could not do that evil thing.
I would not wed this girl, you see.
Now… Read full post »
copyright Warner Bros. 2001
Quick, how many Canadian authors can you name? If you can think of just one, then you named more than 47% of 1,502 Canadians surveyed, according to this article that recently appeared in the daily Canadian newspaper The National Post. It says that only/… Read full post »
The To-Be-Read pile is getting out of control. I used to keep it on a shelf in the bookcase, but if it isn't in my direct line of sight, I tend to forget about it. Now I keep the TBR pile on a table where I can't miss it.… Read full post »
It's time to shop for gifts and although it goes without saying that books are the best gift of all, sometimes it's hard to pick just the right book for some people. (Although undertow has some original and unexpected book suggestions for just about everyone on your gift list.) Book-related… Read full post »
"December 7, 1941 -- A date which will live in infamy."
We stop every year to recall what happened on that day, and think about what followed. We commemorate the date that we were attacked. We try not to think too much about the injustices we committed at home.
The Japanese internment… Read full post »
Fast food is not one of our many vices, but lately we've found ourselves in several fast food establishments and I must reluctantly report that there is some unsavory business going on.
When we're out and want a quick meal, we usually stop at a Subway for a… Read full post »
Maxine Hong Kingston, author of The Woman Warrior and many other works, received the 2008 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters at the National Book Awards ceremony last night.
In her acceptance speech, she said that after her award was annou… Read full post »
How much do you love your favorite bookstore? Enough to name your firstborn after it? Okay then, how about your second born?
That is exactly what Audrey and Kevin DeKam did. Their son, born on October 3, 2008, is named Powell Finley DeKam, after their favorite bookstore, the entirely wonderful… Read full post »
Imagine walking up to an ATM, pushing a few buttons and after a few minutes of mechanical whirring sounds, out pops a fresh new paperback book.
The Espresso Book Machine is rather like that. The size of a small car, it can print out and bind a book in a few… Read full post »
Powell's Books, the best bookstore in the world (although our search for an even better one continues), has just revamped its excellent website. If you haven't visited it yet, you are in for a treat.
Powell's sells both new and used books, which makes browsing in… Read full post »
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lasomnambule
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