Follow in the footsteps of your favorite characters

Thursday, August 30, 2007 at 10:33 AM

Posted by Dan Abbe, Book Search Support Team

I've heard many people describe reading as an experience that "transports" them to "another place." This strikes me as true. When I'm lost in a book (so to speak), it's easy to forget what's going on around me. It somehow makes sense that so many great books have journeys in them, from Homer's Odyssey to Dave Eggers' You Shall Know Our Velocity.

Since we've just launched the apropos Google Book Search layer in Google Earth, it seems the perfect time to tell you about sites that feature other kinds of interesting book/map mashups.

Google Lit Trips is a site that teacher Jerome Burg created to help his students explore literature in a new way. The site lets you download custom maps for Google Earth that trace the route of famous literary journeys like the ones in the Odyssey and Candide. You'll also find fun maps for literary works without ocean- or globe-trotting characters, like Macbeth.

Fans of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin series (of which Master and Commander is the most well-known representative) might want to check out The Patrick O'Brian Mapping Project. This site plots out the Aubrey and Maturin journeys using Google Maps -- fascinating even if you don't know the books, especially if you're a history buff.

If you have a minute, give these book-exploration tools a try -- you can relive the journeys in your favorite books and experience others from a brand new perspective. Read the full post 0 comments

What's your story?

Wednesday, August 29, 2007 at 1:55 PM

Posted by Bethany Poole, Product Marketing Manager

From time to time, we stumble across great stories about the unique and interesting ways you're using Book Search. Recently, we invited Jo Guldi, the "roads scholar" we told you about last spring, and Erin McKean, the writer behind the A Dress A Day blog, to tell us more about how they use Book Search for the work they do. Here's what they had to say:



If you have a story like Jo or Erin's, or ideas for ways we can make Book Search more useful for your work (and play!), send it our way. We'd love to hear from you. Read the full post 0 comments

Happy Birthday, Ms. Parker

Wednesday, August 22, 2007 at 9:03 AM

Posted by Laura Harold, Book Search Support Team

Inventory

Four be the things I am wiser to know:
Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe.
Four be the things I'd been better without:
Love, curiousity, freckles, and doubt.
Three be the things I shall never attain:
Envy, content, and sufficient champagne.
Three be the things I shall have till I die:
Laughter and hope and a sock in the eye.

-Dorothy Parker, Enough Rope, 1926

Lately, I've been on a big 1930s kick. There's something about the bobbed hair and Benny Goodman records that makes me want to stop what I'm doing and pick up a book of Dorothy Parker poems.

Born today in 1893, Dorothy Parker was ahead of her time. Famous for her sharp tongue and acerbic wit, she was prolific in the '30s and '40s, writing short stories, poems, and strongly worded reviews. The only female member of the Algonquin Round Table, she regularly contributed to Vanity Fair and The New Yorker. It's said that when her telephone rang, she would answer by asking, "What fresh hell is this?" and she once wrote, about her birthday, that she had something "terrible" to remember: "Not just plain terrible. This was fancy terrible; this was terrible with raisins in it."

You can find much of what was written by and about Dorothy Parker with Google Book Search, including this fascinating personal account from 1922. When I checked it out at the library, the kind gentleman librarian there said, "I'm so happy to see young people are still reading great books." Certainly, Dorothy Parker's writing makes for a great book, and remembering her birthday is the opposite of terrible. Happy birthday, Ms. Parker, wherever you are. Read the full post 0 comments

A book lover's view of the world

Tuesday, August 21, 2007 at 8:19 AM

Posted by Jennie Johnson, Corporate Communications

Here on the Book Search team, we're always looking for new ways to help you explore the world of books. That's why we're excited to partner with Google Earth to launch a Google Book Search layer. You may be familiar with our "Places mentioned in this book" feature, where we use a map to show you locations referenced in a particular book. With the new Book Search layer, we bring together two great Google tools to do the opposite -- to organize books by place. Using Google Earth, you can "fly" from city to city browsing related books as you go, or search for a specific location, like Canterbury, UK, to explore literary references to it from public domain books in our index. What's more, because all of the books featured in this layer are out of copyright, if you find something you like, you can browse the full text online or download the PDF to read the book at your own pace.

To find out more, including details for trying out the new layer, check out yesterday’s post on Google Lat Long Blog. Read the full post 0 comments

Cornell University becomes newest partner in Library Project

Wednesday, August 08, 2007 at 10:32 AM

Posted by William Rucklidge, Software Engineer

I would found an institution where any person can find instruction in any study. --Ezra Cornell, 1865

As a graduate student at Cornell University, I spent many hours in the library stacks. Cornell's collections are outstanding in breadth and depth; there, it seemed to me, any student could indeed "find instruction in any study." So I'm especially excited to share the news that Cornell has joined our Library Project as part of its educational mission. The collection housed at the extraordinary Mann Library will be digitized, making it possible for people everywhere to search and discover books on environmental science, public policy, natural resources, and much more.

"In its quest to be the world's land-grant university, Cornell strives to serve the scholarly and research needs of those beyond the campus," said Cornell President David J. Skorton. "This project advances Cornell's ability to provide global access to our library resources and to build human capacity across the globe."

This is tremendous news, and I hope people around the world will gain as much joy and enrichment from Cornell's libraries as I did. Read the full post 0 comments

Tom Bombadil lives

Monday, August 06, 2007 at 11:12 AM

Posted by Josh Veltman, Specialist, Book Search Support Team

This past weekend, when it was too hot to even think about abandoning my air conditioner, I was left with one question: "What can you do for nine straight hours from the confines of your apartment?" My girlfriend had what is for me always the perfect answer: watch all three Lord of the Rings movies, back-to-back (extended editions, of course).

Yes, I had to return once again to the tale of Frodo Baggins and his harrowing journey to destroy the One Ring of Sauron. While its theme may be common (good vs. evil), the story is peerless in the intricate mythology that J.R.R. Tolkien crafted.

Several times during the movie, I was reminded of parts of the story that were, in my opinion, woefully omitted. That's right -- you can count me among those who mourn the loss of Tom Bombadil and his adventures helping Frodo and company escape Old Man Willow, a treacherous tree living on the outskirts of the Shire.

My Tolkien indulgence didn't stop there -- I started poking around in Book Search. After looking up "Bombadil" and finding some great books, I entered the name "Morgoth" (the first Dark Lord of Middle Earth) and discovered a brand new Tolkien book that's only recently been published. It turns out that in 1918, Tolkien started a story about a character who's only briefly mentioned in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. This spring, his son Christopher pieced it together and published it.

Let's just say that my girlfriend knows what to get me for my birthday.

I've read the Lord of the Rings books more times than I can remember, but I never get tired of them, and watching the movies only whets my appetite for more. It's a good thing there's another book -- it's never long after I finish reading one that I'm ready to go back to the beginning and start all over again. Read the full post 0 comments

Exploring under-the-radar greats: Chester Himes

Wednesday, August 01, 2007 at 3:00 PM

Posted by Dan Abbe, Book Search Support Team

I dreamed a fellow asked me if I wanted a dog, and I said yeah, I'd like to have a dog, and he went off and came back with a little black dog with stiff black, gold-tipped hair and sad eyes that looked something like a wire-haired terrier. ...I took the dog and got on the streetcar. I liked the little dog; but when I got home nobody else seemed to like it.

Then I turned over and dreamed on the other side.

Even just a few sentences from the opening of Chester Himes's classic novel, If He Hollers Let Him Go, demonstrate the power of his voice: direct, often startlingly blunt, yet strangely poetic. I'm a big fan of the book, and while we often highlight works by more famous authors (Shakespeare, anyone?), I'm excited that today we're celebrating Himes, an African-American writer whose 98 th birthday would have been this past Sunday.

If He Hollers... was published in 1946. The main character, Bob Jones, is an African-American shipyard worker living in Los Angeles. Written in the first-person, the novel is a gripping, unflinching look at race relations in 1940s America.

If you're interested in reading more about Himes, check out this brief but excellent biographical essay. It tells the story of how he began his life as a writer: sitting in a Midwestern jail, using the typewriter he bought while serving time for armed robbery. Later on, responding to the poor reception he initially received in the US, Himes moved to Paris, finding fellowship and sanctuary with contemporaries Richard Wright and James Baldwin.

You may also want to browse two more of his novels: The End of a Primitive and Yesterday Will Make You Cry. The latter is introduced by director and Renaissance man Melvin van Peebles, who shares his own perspective on life as an African-American artist in this revelatory filmmaking manifesto.

We love to hear from you. If you have a favorite under-the-radar author you'd like more people to know about, drop us a line -- we may share your story here. Read the full post 0 comments