The eNotes Blog These Are a Few of My FavoriteThings

These Are a Few of My FavoriteThings Its almost a new year, let the embarrassing work Christmas parties commence and the Auld Lang Synes ring! For my part, Id like to say farewell to 2012 and herald 2013 with a list of favorite things I discovered or enjoyed this past year, for the most part online. Hopefully youll agree that this collection has a little something for everyone: students, teachers, avid readers, art admirers, humorists, or simply the  perennially  curious. Working for I try my best to promote learning at every age. I strongly feel that if you cannot participate in a classroom, you should at least maintain an active level of curiosity and wonder about the world around you. With the many information-grabbing, curio-snapping sites below, youll never be at a loss for tools of learning and instruction 1. Brain Pickings Its not hard to imagine the Internet as a museum of wonders. Its much harder to imagine oneself as the curator of such an exhibit. Enter superwoman Maria Popova, interestingness hunter-gatherer and curious mind at large and creator of the wonderful blog Brain Pickings, the site that collects everything funny, captivating, and obscure from the far corners of the interweb for your consumption. Without Brain Pickings this year I would not have learnt of Salvador Dalis struggle between skepticism and faith, or of  how to talk about books I havent read, or book spine poetry  and how to dabble in it myself. Brain Pickings  is a human-powered discovery engine for interestingness, culling and curating cross-disciplinary curiosity-quenchers, and separating the signal from the noise to bring you things you didn’t know you were interested in until you are  Brain Pickings  is your LEGO treasure chest, full of pieces across art, design, science, technology, psychology, sociology, anthropology, you-name-itology. 2. Underground New York Public Library As the Sartorialist does for the fashion conscious, UNYPL documents in photographs the penchants of everyday people in a bustling metropolis, the difference being that creator Ourit Ben-Haim is more interested in what youre reading than who youre wearing. If youre looking for book recommendations hot off the pavement, this blog is the place to find them. And if youre looking for the picture of a kid grossed out by reading Fifty Shades, that can be arranged too. But the best part about UNYPL (besides the also stellar visuals themselves) is that beneath every caption telling you what the subject is reading, youll find links to either Read by purchasing the book online or Borrow the book from your local library (via the very handy WorldCat library network service). Youll find works you never knew existed, not only in a New York subway, but right outside your front door, too. The photos come together as a visual library. This library freely lends out a reminder that we’re capable of traveling to great depths within ourselves and as a whole. 3. What a year for literary adaptations! Yes, books are adapted for the silver screen all the time, but in 2012 the results really stuck out for me, either for their ambitious undertakings (naysayers said Cloud Atlas and Life of Pi could never be made into films) or for their daring takes on old classics (such as the stage play-esque adaptation of Anna Karenina and the forthcoming 3D red curtain spin on The Great Gatsby). Its also the year that most of the Internet fell in love with the British series Sherlock, a modern-day adaptation of the Holmes mystery series (and precursor to CBSs Elementary). There are so many more books worth a mention here Cosmopolis, The Hobbit, Great Expectations, On the Road,  The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Midnights Children come Oscar season, the awards will be dominated by films that were originally books. Watch out for a punch up over the Best Adapted Screenplay prize, not to mention the Best Visual Effects nod, as filmakers outdid themselves in 2012 to recreate the stunning landscapes of these  imaginative  novels. 4. S#@! My Students Write If you are or have ever been in charge of a classroom, youll likely have a few gems in your back pocket similar to the above. Now theres a tumblr account to collect other unintentionally hilarious snippets from teachers everywhere, and yes theyre all true. Even this one. And this one. You would not believe how much tumblr helped me waste time ahem, grow as a person this year. S#@! My Students Write:  Evidence of the true cost of educational funding cuts. 5. Quizzes Interestingly, a great way to counteract the above problem! This year we at released our very own collection of quizzes across hundreds of book titles. And because theyre all developed in-house, these quizzes contain thousands of unique questions geared towards helping students study for their literature tests. Theyre also a pretty fun way to kill a few minutes, or 30 Out of all of releases in 2012, Quizzes iss definitely my favorite, and its an area of the site we expect to grow and grow. If you havent checked it out yet, test your knowledge today to try and beat some of our top quiz takers. 6. TED Talks Okay, I admit, I must seem a little late to the game right now, but omg TED Talks!! I love you. Youre so great, you even made it into one of those futuristic teasers for the Prometheus movie. Where else could I learn about neo-evolution, how to 3D print a human kidney, or about  time-lapse nature photography  all in one place? I also believe that any site that allows you to sort through its video archives by Rated jaw-dropping must contain some very humbling stuff. If youve never visited TED before what are you doing with your life? Get on it now, or better, watch one of my favorite ever talks below: We believe passionately in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and ultimately, the world. So were building here a clearinghouse that offers free knowledge and inspiration from the worlds most inspired thinkers, and also a community of curious souls to engage with ideas and each other. Free knowledge for all! (If not a free pass to their annual TED Conferences, which will run you more than the cost of ten Coachella tickets. But hey, thats what the video archives are for.) If youre interested in keeping up to date with all the worlds brilliant ideas, this non-profit organization has a great blog to peruse, too. 7. Books on the Nightstand A podcast I discovered just this year, BOTNS is a great resource to turn to to stay ahead of the latest  book-selling  trends. Hosted by industry insiders Michael Kindness and Ann Kingman, the show offers lots of great conversation on new releases, mostly sorted into various categories (their holiday gift guide does a great job of this, collating best graphic novels, best non-fiction, best childrens lit, and so on into a neat gift-giving manual). Its because of this podcast that I picked up my current read, Age of Miracles, and have a lot more waiting on my Amazon wish list. Check out the show notes on their website  for lots of good end-of-year recommendations, plus info on their annual reading challenge and Booktopia Festival. 8. Twitterature Last but not least, if youve read any of my past posts you may have noticed my growing fascination this year with the idea of Twitterature. I was never a great supporter of Twitter until 2012I knew it was a good publicity tool, yes, but how could it actually work for me in my life? At best, I thought of tweets as glorified Facebook statuses, and the last thing I wanted to read on the Internet were the details of others lives eating chips and looking out windows. I do enough of that on my own, thank you very much. I also dont like this new word we have in our lexicon thanks to Twitter: hashtag. To me, its an ugly word that now, unfortunately, is somebodys ugly name. But I digress In May I encountered Jennifer Egans short story created purely for Twitter, Black Box. The installments, all published as tweets of 140 characters or less, read like a kind of poetry. It struck a chord with meif tweets reveal a persons thoughts, then perhaps narration is perfectly suited to Twitter? Luckily, authors across the world have taken this idea and run with it. At this years Twitter Fiction Festival, I encountered a variety of stories created purely for this new form, from the murder mystery narrated by three party guests Twitter accounts, to a retelling of Hardys  The Turn of the Screw, via the perspective of the nannys tweets. While I still may not hold a Twitter account personally, I am eager to see where this new avenue of literature leads to in 2013, especially in light of the latest Bridget Jones scoop.   Its always exciting to feel in the midst of a big change in the world of literature. Sure, tweeters may not make up the next Romantics, or Beats, or Angry Young Men, but they might, just might, be carving out a new form for a brave new literary world. Well, thats all from me until next year. Happy holidays, and a very happy 2013 to everyone! I hope this new year will be just as exciting as our last.