Holiday Post 2008: The one for readers

I barely managed to get back to this, but here we are. As the Spanish saying goes, "lo prometido es deuda" (a promise is a debt), and I promised three posts for the holiday. This is the third, which is basically a collection of some reading lists and other things for readers I have found around the net. As a disclaimer, I tried to avoid the obvious lists (The NYTBR, TLS, and similar) since you can easily find them elsewhere. I will be posting the annual list of books I read later this week at The Gypsy Librarian, so I hope my two readers will return for that. In the meantime, here we go:

• Random House has their "Books are Great Gifts Campaign." I could not agree more: a book does make a great gift. And if you live in Latin America (or in our house), you are still on time for Dia de Reyes (Three Kings' Day). They even have a video with some celebrities telling why books make great gifts. I love Jon Stewart's reason because I will often pop open a book when I come across a slow buffering website too. And because you can travel to faraway lands for less than the cost of a gas tank, according to Christopher Paolini.
  
• I found this story about book clubs that don't quite get along interesting. Personally, I am not a reader who cares for book clubs, and some of the reasons in the article are mine as well. From The New York Times, "Fought over any good books lately?" This could be why I would not make a good public librarian: I don't care much for book clubs (at least as most of them seem to work).
  
• Want to remember some forgotten books? Go to The Neglected Books Page.
  
• BusinessWeek has a list of Best Business Books of 2008. Not so sure we want to remember 2008 in terms of business given the economic chaos and the many financial villains, but still worth a look.
  
• The Financial Times has its look at The Reading Year for 2008. They have lists in various categories.
  
• Now, if the economy is tight, you may want to consider this piece of advice: read the books you already have on your shelves. From The Wall Street Journal. I know I have a good number of books sitting in my perpetual TBR pile. Maybe it's time in 2009 to see if I can make a dent on that TBR pile and read some of the books I have bought (or gotten as gifts, so on), but not quite gotten around to yet. For the pile to grow is easy: I am a slow reader, so books often pile up in my case. But maybe 2009 will be the year we decrease the TBR pile.
  
• The Library Advocate offers a huge "Gift Guide for Library and Book Lovers." You are bound to find something here.
  
• Cosmic Variance blog has a list of "The Thousand Best Popular-Science Books." The list itself is not quite a thousand, but what they do is they ask readers to comment and provide their own suggestions as well. This could be the year for more people to read a bit more in the area of science.
  

Hope everyone out there has a safe and happy celebration of New Year's Eve. If you drink, please do so in moderation, and for the love of your deity of choice, if you do drink a bit much, do not drive. There are always those stories of stupid drunk drivers at the end of the year. Don't be one of them. Best, and see y'all in 2009.