Mansion Beach

Finished April 25

Mansion Beach by Meg Mitchell Moore

This novel is supposed to be a modern spin on The Great Gatsby, and follows Nicola Carr as she spends the summer on Block Island, where she is doing an internship as a marine wildlife researcher. She has left her previous partner and career and is taking her life in a new direction. She is staying in a small house that is owned by her cousin's wife's family. David is her favourite cousin, and they grew up very close, almost like siblings, including spending the summers at the lake in a family home. Now he is married to a real estate heiress, Taylor Buchanan. Taylor is very involved in her father's real estate empire and does whatever he asks of her, leaving her little time for David and their young daughter. 

Nicola soon discovers that her next door neighbour is Juliana George, creator of a fashion-based social media empire called LookBook. Staying with David and Taylor is an old college friend of David's, Jack, who is a pro golfer, taking time for an Achilles tendon injury. 

As Nicola continues getting a variety of job experience and exploring the small island, she also gets to know her neighbour Juliana and learn a little of her story of building her business and how her life has changed over time. She also finds herself courted by Jack, and unsure about Taylor given her standoffish attitude and how little time she is spending with her family. Nicola tries to avoid being drawn into any of the drama going on, but she also finds it all interesting, seeing these people in a world she is unlikely to ever live in. 

The story is interrupted by transcripts from a podcast about what happened on the island that summer, but that part of it feels like it isn't really needed for the story. 

This is an interesting tale of questionable relationships, social class, and misadventure. 

Keep Me Posted

Finished July 21

Keep Me Posted by Lisa Beazley

This novel is about a woman in New York City, Cassie, who begins a physical correspondence with her older sister Sid, who lives in Singapore. It begins as a thoughtful way for the two to keep in touch, as they live very different lives. Sid was inspired by old letters she found when visiting her grandparents and issued a challenge to her sister to reconnect through physical letters.

Sid had a child when she was quite young, River, and he is now an adult, taking a gap year before he goes on to further education. She has remarried a man who leads a busy life as an international businessman, and they have a young child Lulu. 

Cassie is married to Leo, and has twin toddlers, Quinn and Joey. They live in a small apartment in New York City. Cassie is vaguely dissatisfied with her life. She finds the apartment confining, and even though she and her sons go out often, the hassles of getting around are tiresome. 

The letter writing experiment goes well, and Cassie decides to keep copies of them online in a private blog, just for her to look back on. When a technical glitch makes the blog public, Cassie isn't aware until she realizes that they've gone viral and become the center of a social media discussion. Some of what they've written is very personal, and Cassie has to try to stem the leak, and find ways to tell the two people most important to her, Leo and Sid. 

I enjoyed the sisters relationship, and how they managed to keep the connection despite the distance between them. I also found it interesting to see how they dealt with the leak and made it part of the conversation in a wider, more inclusive way. 

A Friend in the Dark

Finished May 31

A Friend in the Dark by Samantha M. Bailey

The main character, Eden Miller, has had a lot happening in her life lately.  Her only child Ava is just starting college at the nearby University of Michigan. Her husband has been pulling back from her for a while, ever since his father, a big presence in their lives died. In the parking lot of the university after they'd moved all Ava's stuff into her room and said goodbye, her husband Dave tells her he wants a divorce. 

Eden thought they'd always had a great relationship, and is frustrated that Dave won't tell her why he wants to end their marriage. He keeps telling her that she's done nothing and that she's perfect, but she feels like failure. 

After the prologue teaser, the book begins with Eden, alone in her home on her birthday. Her friends sent her over some wine, but she didn't feel like being with other people, so she's alone drinking, and she makes an impulse decision to friend her college crush, Justin Ward, on Facebook. She is very surprised when he responds and seems to be interested in her, giving her compliments and saying that he thinks of her as "the one that got away."

She tutored him at university, and kissed him at a party at his fraternity house, but she doesn't remember much about that evening, other than running for a toilet, throwing up a lot, and being taken home to her shared apartment by her now-husband Dave. But something else happened that night. Eden's co-worker, Tyler, who also lived in the frat house, and was a friend to her and Dave, disappeared that night and no one has ever solved that disappearance. Tyler was a nice guy, and got along with most people. 

As Eden becomes more involved with Justin online, she finds herself doing things out of character, and taking crazy risks. But things aren't always what they seem, and Eden finds that her family has been put into danger through this online relationship. 

I liked the teaser at the beginning that lets you know that things get very bad. I also appreciated seeing how Eden's low self esteem made her a target, and I could see the gradual hold this online relationship began to have on her. An engrossing and fast read. 

Because Internet

Finished July 1

Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language by Gretchen McCulloch

This book was fascinating. I've always been interested in language, poring over my mother's old linguistics textbooks when I was a kid, but this book brings a lot of linguistic theory into the now with its focus on how the internet changed the way we use language and the way that we communicate.

It sometimes looks back further at how other technology changed communication as well and looks at how societal change feeds the way language changes. For instance it looks at the telephone and how greetings were suggested and adapted for that new broadly adapted form of communication and compares that to the way that different pieces of the internet changed language and communication.

It looks at both formal and informal types of communication and generational differences between broad groups as the internet grew and changed and became part of everyday life. 

There was so much here in terms of ideas that made me think and bits of communication history I hadn't been fully aware of before. 

My favourite part was in the section on memes where the author talked about an embroidered piece that she made based on a common meme, that she then adapted to be more personal to herself.  She comments

Both memes and needlework are collective folk texts that spread because people remix and remake them. The words "text" and "textile" have a common origin, from a Proto-Indo-European root teks, "to weave." Writing and weaving are both acts of creation by bringing together. A storyteller is a spinner of yarns, and the internet's founding metaphor is of a web. If we go far enough back, before printing presses and cameras and photocopiers introduced the notion of faithful reproduction, all transmission is re-creation. Teks is also the root of the word "technology," which at one point meant a systematic treatise on an art or craft, or even a grammar, before it referred to a study of mechanical or industrial arts (a 1902 dictionary gives the examples of "spinning, metal-working, or brewing") and then to digital tech.

Since I am a needleworker, this really hit home for me. Since I also work with a lot of internet pieces, and have helped others navigate the internet as part of my job, this all connected for me. 

A fascinating look at language, social change, and human adaptation. 

Tell Everyone

Finished March 19
Tell Everyone: Why We Share & Why It Matters by Alfred Hermida

This book looks at the phenomenon of sharing information online. UBC professor Alfred Hermida looks at social media, digital journalism, and online storytelling in this interesting analysis on how we are social creatures in this new environment.
Chapter one looks at news sharing. Hermida looks at instances where this was done well, like the movie theatre shooting in Colorado, and instances where misinformation had the upper hand like the Boston Marathon bombing. He puts this in the historical context of news dissemination from newsboys hawking on street corners to the mix of comedy and journalism in venues such as The Daily Show. He looks at how ordinary people now have the ability to refute "official" versions of a news event. He examines issues such as context loss and the illusion of privacy.
The second chapter looks at the psychology behind the urge to share. From social capital to bonding, personal expression as a means of defining ourselves, to the kinds of relationships we develop online, this looks at sharing more closely. Hermida looks at what benefits we get from sharing including self-fulfillment to helpfulness to a feeling of connection.
Chapter three looks at what kinds of information we share. Most of it aligns with the kinds of things we share when we socialize in person: what we are doing, gossip, updates on news, and the kind of "wow" stories that often lean toward urban legend. Emotional impact of a story drives us to share more widely. Interestingly, social media tends toward sharing positive news, the opposite of traditional media, although sad can be appealing to share if it is framed in a hopeful way. Fear is not a driving force in sharing, but anger can be, especially if it offers a connection to a personal experience. Disgust is also a strong driver.
Chapter four looks at how connections play a role. Celebrities sharing everyday experiences, people sharing reactions to news events in a "where were you when" sort of way, How the news reaches us rather than us going looking for it. Hermida looks at this in historical and cultural context as well as the algorithms present in social media and how they influence what we see. He shows that the common idea that social media causes us to be in "filter bubbles" where we only see news with the same view that we have personally is not actually true. The way that information moves in social media can counter this selective lean and bring us broader viewpoints. One of the most interesting historical tidbits in the book came in this chapter. Early newspapers offered blank space for people to add their own news and comments before sending the newspaper on from the city to rural friends and family. Some even were designed to be folded up with a space to put an address for mailing on. Historical instances of this use have proved quite interesting from a social history viewpoint.
The fifth chapter looks at who has risen from the ranks in terms of social news sharing to be more well known, whether it is as a trusted source that others find and build up through referrals, or through mass appeal. This type of influence tends to be more ephemeral in nature in social media than it has been traditionally.
Chapter six looks at the role of dissemination of information in crisis situations. Hermida looks at sharing of information from the Japanese earthquake of 2011 and compares it to how information was shared about the Portuguese earthquake of 1755. The dissemination was slower, naturally, in 1755, but the pattern was similar. He shows how the collective sharing of this type of information can even beat official channels in terms of how fast a warning can get out to those who need to know. Other events he looks at are the Haiti earthquake of 2010, Hurricane Sandy in 2012, and Queensland flooding in 2011. He also talks about the disaster myth. This is the idea that people who are most affected by a natural disaster are stunned by the situation and unable to help themselves. In reality, victims are often the most likely to step in and help others around them.
Chapter seven looks a consumer power in this information context. Social media gives individuals the voice to speak out against companies and governments to tell their side of the story when traditional media doesn't give them a voice. Hermida looks at how companies have handled this, both well and badly. He discusses how early social media reaction to products or services can be good forecasting tools for the success of such offerings. Fans can become ambassadors for a brand if handled well.
Chapter eight looks at the darker side of online information sharing, when lies and rumours take on a life of their own and spread, affecting reputations and situations in a negative and damaging way. He discusses what signs we can look for to determine with such information is true or false, sometimes looking at the nuances of language or details and sometimes stepping back and looking at the bigger picture of data around a situation or new event.
The last chapter is on the politics of online information. From the Arab Spring to Idle No More, individual voices have made a difference to outcomes despite political pressure and mainstream media to silence those voices.
This was a very interesting look at social media and its role in our lives.

Future Crimes

Finished March 17
Future Crimes by Mark Goodman

This book covers a lot of issues around internet security and privacy, and I liked the apt quotes drawn from entertainers, writers, politicians, scientists, and other sources.
The author uses examples to illustrate many of the concepts given here, and that really shows the effect on real people of some of these vulnerabilities.
The book is divided into three sections.
The first section sets the stage by introducing the vulnerabilities, with aforementioned examples. The concepts here include cybercrime as it first appeared, malware, and security vulnerabilities. Goodman shows how the global connectivity we now enjoy is also a weakness. He discusses how Moore's law, which is about exponential growth in technological change also applies to criminal technology. He looks at many of the "free" sites and programs we use, such as social media and discusses the realities of "terms and conditions" we accept and how we and our information are really products to the companies that run them, rather than customers. He looks at how all the data we have out there about ourselves is used and how the data, while seemingly benign by individual piece, adds up to big vulnerabilities for us. He also refutes the notion that not creating online profiles is a protection. He takes a close look at apps and the information they gather about us from contacts to GPS location. He reveals the industry of "friends" in social media and just how many don't exist will likely surprise you. He talks about the manipulation of data and how this can plant false information about you from location to actions.
The second section of the book takes a closer look at the criminal world that exists in the online world, something he refers to as Crime, Inc. He reveals the cutting edge nature of the technologies involved and how criminals are often in the group of early adopters of new technology. He discusses the various criminal roles that exist in the hierarchy of organized crime in this world. He talks about the nature of funding and how money gets moved around. He discusses hacking, both software and hardware and how the growth in Internet of Things, technologically-tied home access and controls, medical technology devices, robots and drones all open us up to being left vulnerable in ways we never dreamed of. He includes a section on biotech and its vulnerabilities to our safety.
The third section is more hopeful. Entitled Surviving Progress, it looks at ways to mitigate the vulnerabilities discussed in the earlier sections, things the industry should be doing, things we can do as individuals, and suggestions for how we can come together to tackle these issues in a way where more heads mean more protection.
I found this book fascinating, the first couple sections stomach-churning at times, but the last section giving some positive thoughts about how we can overcome the vulnerabilities.

Teaching Social Media

Finished October 12
Teaching Social Media: The Can-Do Guide by Liz Kirchoff

This book starts with an introduction that includes an overview of social media, why we teach about it, how to get organizational support if you don't already have it, and where to start. It outlines the preparation and planning that pertain to this type of teaching, ideas around format for the teaching, and the arguments for either live teaching or canned powerpoint teaching.
There is discussion of tone, and this is important as a casual tone fits well with this content. People have a lot of questions and they should be made to feel comfortable to ask those questions. For each class, you need to assess your audience and adjust your teaching for any difficulties particular to that group.
The following chapters deal with individual social media programs and follow similar outlines, covering common questions and concerns, variations for teaching, notes for the instructor, ways to use that program, sample handouts to use, and a list of some users of that social media that you may want to follow. Not all social media programs have all these sections, as they may not apply.
Chapters that dedicated to a particular social media include Twitter, Foursquare, Yelp, Pinterest, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google+.
Then there is a chapter that gives shorter overviews of some other programs, including Goodreads, MyFitnessPal, TripAdvisor, Reddit, Tumblr, Ravelry, Pandora, Prezi, and GoogleDrive. It is interesting to note that some popular ones are missed, such as Instagram and Flickr. Of course, there are so many social media programs now they couldn't possibly cover them all. Here's a link to a Wikipedia list.
The Conclusion wraps things up nicely, talking about how to tailor these classes to your community, ways to evaluate whether the learning is happening, and how to stay effective and relevant.
This is a useful guide for those libraries just starting out teaching these programs.