Book News
A new chapter.
Can you imagine a college library without books?
Actually, an imagination isn’t necessary to picture a book-free library. It’s already here.
The University of Texas at San Antonio says it has built the first book-free college library. When the university constructed the library for its applied math and technological holdings, it decided to dedicate the space exclusively for electronic volumes.
If this seems extreme, get used to it. Higher-ed experts say that the bookless library at the University of Texas reflects a trend of minimizing or getting rid of printed volumes in libraries on college campuses across the country.
Some library visionaries, including the dean of libraries at Syracuse University, are advocating for fewer books in libraries and more space for students to study and access library holdings on their computers or electronic readers.
First Lines
The Reversal, by Michael Connelly
The last time I’d eaten at the Water Grill I sat across the table from a client who had coldly and calculatedly murdered his wife and her lover, shooting both of them in the face. He had engaged my services to not only defend him at trial but fully exonerate him and restore his good name in the public eye. This time I was sitting with someone with whom I needed to be even more careful. I was dining with Gabriel Williams, the district attorney of Los Angeles County.
It was a crisp afternoon in midwinter. I sat with Williams and his trusted chief of staff — read political advisor — Joe Ridell. The meal had been set for 1:30 p.m., when most courthouse lawyers would be safely back in the CCB, and the DA would not be advertising his dalliance with a member of the dark side. Meaning Me, Mickey Haller, defender of the damned.
The Water Grill was a nice place for a downtown lunch. Good food and atmosphere, good separating between tables for private conversation, and a wine list hard to top in all of downtown. It was the kind of place where you kept your suit jacket on and the waiter put a black napkin across you lap so you needn’t be bothered with doing it yourself. The prosecution team ordered martinis at the county taxpayers’ expense and I stuck with the free water the restaurant was pouring. It took Williams two gulps of gin and one olive before he got to the reason we were hiding in plain sight.
“Mickey, I have a proposal for you.”
Hardcover Best Sellers
Fiction
1. Freedom, Jonathan Franzen
2. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest, by Stieg Larsson
3. Dark Peril, by Christine Feehan
4. The Postcard Killers, by James Patterson and Liza Marklund
5. Lost Empire, by Clive Cussler with Grant Blackwood
Nonfiction
1. The Power, by Rhonda Byrne
2. Crimes Against Liberty, by David Limbaugh
3. S – – – My Dad Says, by Justin Halpern
4. A Journey, by Tony Blair
5. The Perfection Point, by John Brenkus
Publishers Weekly
