Friday short takes.

Ah, the weekend, she's almost here. And I for one am glad.

Nothing particularly pithy today (or any day, yes, thank you, hecklers), just a few short takes on this Friday morning.

I went to look at Joseph Stiglitz's new book Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy yesterday, and it looked quite interesting. But I have to face reality in that 1. I don't have the heart to read it right now, and 2. it's well-written, but it's still pretty dense stuff and I'm not going to have the time to read it right now. So then I flipped to the back to take a wander through the index (I do this a lot; I find that doing indexing has helped me develop the skill of looking at an index and gleaning a lot of information about a book that way) when I was shocked to find that THERE WAS NO INDEX. What the hell? In a complex book about finance and economics? W. W. Norton and Co, and Mr. Stiglitz, you should be ASHAMED of yourselves. I'm no economist but I could tell you how to make one person's economy better: hire a freelance indexer, you cheap bastards.

I only got about two chapters into Ian Mortimer's book The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century, and it's a bit too dense to recommend for pleasure reading, but it's a lot of fun nonetheless. I wish there were books like this for every century (and location)--Mortimer talks about every aspect of the 14th century, from costume to traveling to health to eating and drinking to the law (among many other topics), and it's all written in the form of a friendly guidebook introducing you to the culture. Super cool stuff.

Anna Dean's Bellfield Hall: Or, the Observations of Miss Dido Kent. If you're a Jane Austen or Regency fan run, don't walk, to get this title. It has nothing to do with Austen, but is set in her time period and features witty writing somewhat similar to hers. And its heroine is named "Dido Kent." You've got to love that. At least I did.

And that's it! Enjoy the weekend, folks, life's too short not to. Or, alternatively, sometimes it feels too damn long. Either way grab a good book and tell the rest of the world to buzz off for a couple of days.

Comments

[Venta]

You tell those cheap bastards, CR! Have a good weekend!

[Laura]

Dear CR, You're the web crush of the week at the Library Journal Shelf Renewal blog!

http://www.libraryjournal.com/blog/1760000776/post/950054095.html?nid=4877

I was excited to see one of my favorite blogs featured!
~Laura in MN

[Citizen Reader]

Venta,
My pleasure. Stiglitz has won the Nobel Prize in economics, for pity's sake. If his book doesn't merit an index I don't know why any financial books do. (And have a great weekend yourself!)

Laura,
Hey, thanks for the heads up! This is very exciting. I've never been anyone's "crush" in any way--I pretty much started out as Mr. CR's old ball-and-chain. Super cool! (And thanks for your kind words too--I'm proud to be one of your favorites!)

[Ruthiella]

Hi CR,

I checked out your kudos at the library journal. I had to smile at this: “(this is) the web to follow if you're interested in readable nonfiction or if you need to know it for your patrons”.

I am not terribly interested in nonfiction and not a librarian. And yet I still love your blog! I really like the lively discussions and the fact that you ALWAYS respond. On some other blogs…you don’t know if they ever read your post or if they even care.

Congratulations!

[Citizen Reader]

Ruthiella,
Can I let you in on a secret? The comments are my favorite part of the blog. I love the conversations and I appreciate the time and thought everyone puts into their comments. I always learn something, which I also appreciate. And who doesn't respond in a conversation? That would just be weird. :)

Thanks for the kudos, and thanks for reading the blog, especially if you're not terribly interested in NF!

[Eva]

And I have now put Bellfield Hall on hold! :)

I can't believe Norton cheaped out on the index!!! If I were Stiglitz, I'd have hired some cheap grad students to do it, if nothing else.

[Citizen Reader]

Eva,
I'm still a little stunned, frankly. Major author, major publisher, and still no index? And he wouldn't have had to hire grad students either (although even that would have been better). Indexers are, like many freelancers right now, not upping their rates so they can keep business. Norton and Stiglitz could have found a professional at a reasonable price.