Davina Morgan-Witts, BookBrowse editor

A Living Library event looks much like a conventional library - tables and chairs are set out for study, librarians staff the check out desk and borrowers can browse a catalog of books.  The difference is that what's on loan are not books but people!  The heart of The Living Library are Living Books - people that, for one reason or another, are subjected to stereotyping and prejudices. All are unpaid volunteers.

The concept is simple; interested participants check out a Living Book on a topic of interest and spend 30 minutes in discussion with the particular Book. 

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Kim Kovacs, BookBrowse reviewer

I have to admit I've become something of a Christmas Grinch. I don't have children, and my two cats have always shunned any gift I've purchased for them (apparently preferring toys of their own devising, like twist ties and the plastic rings off milk jugs). I'm also at that stage in my life where I have everything I need, as do my friends, so we end up exchanging gift cards: No fuss, no muss, no long lines at the store, but also not very festive. Over the years it's become too much of a chore to dig out the ornaments and set up a tree, so "decorating for Christmas" has come to mean that I've changed the wallpaper on my Blackberry to something holiday-appropriate.

I used to shop carefully for my nieces and nephew, choosing toys that I thought were both educational and fun (and, preferably, noisy, to drive my sister crazy). I'd also pick out a book for each of them, hoping that at least one would develop a love of reading (so far, no luck). I'd wrap each gift with great care and pack them into boxes, then trek over to the post office to stand in line for hours to spend a relatively large sum to get the presents across country in a timely manner. Then one Christmas my sister decided to videotape the kids unwrapping the gifts I'd so lovingly sent them. It's hard to imagine four children looking more bored and unimpressed then this quartet. "Say thank-you to Aunt Kim!" I heard my sister chirp in the background. "Thanks, Aunt Kim..." the four replied in an unconvincing monotone. It's been cash ever since.

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Davina Morgan-Witts, BookBrowse editor

At this time of year, 'best of year' lists start popping up all over the place. Any number of products that can be measured against easily defined and relatively objective criteria lend themselves comfortably to 'best in class' lists. Considering this, it's somewhat ironic that more 'best of year lists' are devoted to books than any other product that I can think of - ironic because it's difficult to imagine a more subjective topic than what defines a good book. Added to which, while it's quite possible for one person to test every toaster on the market, it's impossible for even the most prolific of readers to read more than a tiny fraction of the books published in a year - so are any of us in a position to opine on which are the best?

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Kim Kovacs, BookBrowse reviewer

I'm a hard-as-nails network administrator for a large company, and as such I strive to present a certain image - logical, unemotional, impersonal (yes, Star Trek's Mr. Spock is my hero). Much of my reading reflects this about me. I love high-tech science fiction novels like Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon and William Gibson's Neuromancer. I'm also a fan of well-written (and well-reasoned) mysteries and thrillers, finding myself easily immersed in their order and logic. I can often be seen at lunch perusing a technical manual just for the fun of it (really).

And yet...

I've unexpectedly found buried deep inside myself a - gasp! - ROMANTIC! Yikes! What would my techie co-workers think if they only knew?

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Davina Morgan-Witts, BookBrowse editor

By the time election day arrived, my election-habit had reach chronic proportions.  In the normal course of events I'm happy to catch up on the news daily at most, and find that the world gets along perfectly well without me following its every movement, but by November 4th this year I was an addict.  Not content with picking up the news every day or so, I'd moved to hourly, even minute by minute checks - keeping screens open to key sites and refreshing them feverishly every few minutes, just in case something, anything, had happened.

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Davina Morgan-Witts, BookBrowse editor

Back in 2003, Alan Brennert published Moloka'i, set on the Hawaiian island of the same name which, for many years, was home to the isolated leper colony at Kalaupapa. The book was a sleeper hit, in large part due to the enormous amount of time and enthusiasm Alan put into reaching out to book clubs and spending time with them chatting about his book.

Now he's back with Honolulu, to be published in March 2009.

Honolulu explores the early years of Hawaii's capital city through the eyes of a Korean 'picture bride' who arrived in Hawaii in the early years of the 20th century. The term picture bride refers to a practice in which Asian immigrant workers (usually Japanese or Koreans) selected brides from their native countries via a matchmaker's photograph (a precursor to today's "mail-order brides" which, incidentally, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services estimate result in between 4,000 to 6,000 marriages between US men and foreign brides each year).

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