All posts in: book lists

04 Jul 2013

second quarter stars

The second quarter of 2013 has come to an end. Half over. Or, if you are optimistic, still six good months to come! I can’t tell you which side I am on because I AM GETTING MARRIED IN SEVEN DAYS. I CANNOT EVEN FORM A COHERENT THOUGHT MUCH LESS A SENTENCE. I am also having trouble focusing on reading. Or packing. Or cleaning. Or anything.

I am assuming that once this is all over, I will regain control of my mental facilities and be ready to read another 50+ books. Fifty books! That’s so many! I could read fifty more FIVE STAR AWESOME books. I could re-read my favorites for six straight months! I could read only new releases, only award winners, or just read whatever I happen to want to read on any given day! I could just read the entire Songs of Fire and Ice series! (Let’s be honest, that is probably what I will do)

I’m sure some people feel this way about new recipes or restaurants, movies, vacations, video games. But there is just something special about being a reader, isn’t there? You get to have your life, the same everyday living that everyone gets, but then you have another life. A reading life. All yours to choose, story after story after story.

Lovely.

Here are the books I read in April, May, and June.

FIVE! STARS!

*****

Five star books rock my world, enter my personal canon, change my life. Likely re-reads for the duration of my existence. Flash bang. Excitement. Yay. Rah.

The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart
A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin

FOUR STARS!

****

Four star books are definitely excellent. Above Average. These are the books I will recommend to others without hesitation.

The Middlesteins by Jami Attenberg
After Visiting Friends: A Son’s Journey by Michael Hainey
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Lock and Key by Sarah Dessen
Dr. Bird’s Advice for Sad Poets by Evan Roskos
The Silver Linings Playbook by Matthew Quick
Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter
The Circle by Sara B. Elfgren and Mats Strandberg

Three Stars

***

Three star books are alright. Good. Middle of the road. Nothing special, but nothing worth throwing the book against the window either.

Someday, Someday Maybe by Lauren Graham
The Tragedy Paper by Elizabeth Laban [review here]
The Book of Broken Hearts by Sarah Ockler
Wonder by R.J. Palacio
Reconstructing Amelia by Kimberly McCreight
Golden by Jessi Kirby
Uses for Boys by Erica Lorraine Scheidt
Winter’s Tide by Lisa Williams Kline
Season of Change by Lisa Williams Kline
Relish: My Life in the Kitchen by Lucy Knisley
Overexposed by Susan J. Korman
Home Front Girl by Joan Wehlen Morrison
Firecracker by David Iserson
Sketchy by Olivia Samms

Two stars

Two star books have issues. Writing or content. Books that make me roll my eyes and sad for the state of literature

Janie Face to Face by Caroline B. Cooney
The Year of Luminous Love by Lurlene McDaniel
Legacy of the Clockwork Key by Kristin Bailey
Life After Theft by Aprilynne Pike

one star

One star books make me say “HOW DID THIS BOOK COME TO BE?? WHY, GOD, WHY??”

Andrew Jenks: My Adventures as a Young Filmmaker by Andrew Jenks

book lists

02 Jun 2013

summer reading list 2013

Full disclosure: of all the lists of books I make for myself, this is the list I never follow. Let’s look at last year why don’t we? I wanted to read ten books. I read one – See You at Harry’s. I read 3 more before the end of 2012, but that is a rare and unusual feat.

In the interest of giving-myself-a-break, can you please look at my summer life lately?

2009 – Jumped from 24 hrs/wk to 32 hrs/wk + Summer Reading Program + Preparing to Move to Boston + Moving to Boston

2010 – One intense summer class + Working 20 hrs/wk + Internship across the river 16 hrs/wk + Moving to a new apartment

2011 – Two intense summer classes + Working 20+ hrs/wk

2012 – Working retail + Applying for jobs and job interviews + No place to live come September + New job + Moving

2013 – Planning a wedding + Getting married + Taking a long international trip for the first time + Moving

I would like to pat myself on the back for merely surviving FIVE YEARS of RIDICULOUS SUMMERS. However, I would like to mention that come hell, high water, exhaustion, stress, or Boston real estate… I still read plenty of books. Why I eschew my selected summer reading titles, I do not know.

I do not suspect that this summer will be any different. Not only am I doing all of the above tasks, I also have an impressive stack of review books on my docket for the next months. If I want to retain any hope of meeting my deadlines, I must attack those titles before addressing any arbitrary reading list.

But will that stop me from creating an arbitrary reading list?

No. Of course not.

Dead End in Norvelt by Jack Gantos

Alright, I am GOING TO READ THIS ONE THIS SUMMER. In fact, I have the audio completely downloaded and ready to listen to. You see, since last year’s post, I have gained the power to select and purchase children’s and teen audio books. Such kismet.

The Moon and More by Sarah Dessen

A freebie. I’ll take it!

The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer

The hold list for this one is 10 miles long, but it’s a summer camp book. I LOVE summer camp books. A hyped up summer camp book with a rainbow cover? Sign me up. Immediately.

A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin

You guys, I am having a problem. Regarding fantasy. And me. And how I might like it. Give me a few months, I need to process my thoughts. Also, while I am usually a staunch “Read the book before you see the movie/show” practitioner, I am thinking that watching the appropriate series and then reading the appropriate book(s) will probably be enjoyable in this case? There is so much going on in each episode that I can imagine there is tons more that just couldn’t be squeezed into the show…

The Shade of the Moon by Susan Beth Pfeffer

I love this series even though it scares the absolute CRAP out of me. I’ve blogged about it before since I consider it to be one of my favorite dystopias, even though it’s not really a dystopia… I had no idea a 4th book was in the works, and it comes out in August!

Sisterland by Curtis Sittenfeld

I like Curtis Sittenfeld in a way that I usually reserve for YA authors: although I haven’t liked all of her books equally and there’s nothing about her writing that particularly impresses me, I just like what she does. If she writes a book, I will give it a go. Also: Sister Story

Mile Markers: The 26.2 Most Important Reasons Why Women Run by Kristin Armstrong

I feel like my list is missing some nonfiction. I haven’t read a running book since last summer, and I do like me some running books. I started this one a few times and I did like it, so I should finish it. The end. Also, I should be running right now but I decided to dye my hair instead. Lazy slacker.

Gorgeous by Paul Rudnick

I feel like my life is missing some new YA. Everyone’s chatting about this one and it seems like the type of silly romp I could read in one sitting on a Saturday afternoon. One Saturday afternoon this summer, maybe?

We will see. My Saturdays are filling up fast, I might need to start a reading-waiting list. I don’t even know what that is, but it sounds awful. Or like another list of books I will never read. Heaven help me.

book lists

18 May 2013

wild riches

Remember when I said I wanted to read something shiny and fun on my plane trip next week?

Well, that decision just got a little harder….

The following books have appeared on my hold-shelf in the past few days…

1) Her by Christa Parravani, which I already mentioned I might read on the plane…

2) The Silver Linings Playbook by Matthew Quick, which I have been waiting for FOREVER and I want to read before watching the movie

3) Dr. Bird’s Advice for Sad Poets by Evan Roskos, which I thought would be a nice way to segue back into reading decent YA

4) The Signal and the Noise by Nate Silver, which I have been in line for since 2012

5) How Children Succeed by Paul Tough, which I have ALSO been in line for since 2012

6) House Girl by Tara Conklin, which I have nothing else to say about other than I thought it looked good.

To that I have to say…

Well, NOW what?

book lists

03 Mar 2013

reading wishlist: memoirs

I love a good memoir. Something about the pouring of the psyche onto the page is intoxicating. You can be famous and interesting and wise . You can have a completely boring life and do one interesting thing for a week or so.. You can be a questionably moral person. If you write a good memoir, it’s all good.

Actually, I sometimes love a bad memoir, too, especially if they involve Addiction or Fundamentalist Religions.. Ghostwriter-schmostwriter.

I’m currently listening to Monkey Mind: A Memoir of Anxiety by Daniel Smith on audio, and while the subject matter is awkward, extremely personal, and sometimes painful, I’m digging it. Because Awkward, Extremely Personal, and Sometimes Painful are the stuff of the decent memoir, right? Here are some more memoirs that have caught my fancy recently:

Drinking with Men by Rosie Schaap

I am a raging introvert who values a certain level of feminine propriety in my daily conduct. I am the last lady to drink in a bar alone. One our friends from Michigan moved here, to Boston, a few years ago without a clear trajectory other than to enjoy the fruits of City Living – one such fruit, for him, was Becoming A Regular At A Bar. I was judgmental, but time passed, and heck if he didn’t succeed in making some charming neighborhood bar friends. One of them helped me move into my apartment. My third story apartment. That is something special.

Rosie Schaap is a lady who seems to understand this something special, and while I won’t ever be a lady to drink in a bar alone, I might read her book while drinking alone on my couch.

Sugar in the Blood by Andrea Stuart

An examination of the author’s complicated family heritage, spanning generations, moving from country to country, and wrapped up in the business and exploitation of early America. This is the kind of book that fascinates me – part history, part memoir – but that I don’t know if I ever *read*. Although I will say, just typing that last sentence made me want to put it on hold and prove myself wrong… because that’s a reasonable way to aim your incessant sense of competition, naturally. Outread yourself.

Living and Dying in Brick City: An ER Doctor Returns Home by Sampson Davis

So, there was a little bit of time when I was in love with Atul Gawande and all I wanted to read was doctor memoirs. This may have also coincided with the longer bit of time when I watched Grey’s Anatomy reruns on a nightly basis. Since the words “ER Doctor” occur in the title of this memoir, I hope there is some medical drama, but this memoir looks like it focuses on the social issues surrounding Davis as he returns to his hometown of Newark, NJ after defying all sorts of odds to leave.

Give Me Everything You Have: On Being Stalked James Lasdun

I don’t know about you, but pretty much anytime I hear a dude talking about his “crazy ex-girlfriend,” I wonder what kind of douchey things he did to her. Surely, there are at least a few. That being said, I could listen to the other side of the story if it’s in the form of a dishy memoir. Lasdun didn’t have a romantic relationship with his stalker, but there seemed to be some conflation of a professor-grad student relationship. Scandalous!

Her: A Memoir by Christa Parravani

Parravani’s memoir focuses on her relationship with her twin sister, Cara, as they grew up together children of a single parent, found success as artists, and Cara’s subsequent downward spiral. If one of my sisters died, I would absolutely lose my shit; I will probably read this and just weep and weep and weep.

After Visiting Friends by Michael Hainey

I could really label any memoir with a needlessly specific category. This one I would call a Solving A Family Mystery That Has Obviously Done Some Emotional Damage to the Author memoir. Hainey’s father died when he was a child, under circumstances that were innocuous but lacking significant details. After a lifetime of wondering about those details – and dealing with the pain and grief that accompanies living without a father – Hainey sets out to put the mystery to rest.

Dear Genius: The Letters of Ursula Nordstrom by Leonard Marcus

This is probably the least memoir-y of the bunch, and it was published in 2000, but Recovering Grad Student me is fixated on its existence. For those of you who aren’t exceptionally nerdy kid lit junkies, Ursula Nordstrom was the head of Harper & Collins children’s book division from 1940 to 1973. She had a tremendous influence over the books we now consider children’s classics, and the way we think about children’s books today. Do I want to read her correspondences with these authors, illustrators, and other kid lit legends? OF COURSE I DO.

Vow: A Memoir of Marriage and Other Affairs by Wendy Plump

I am getting married in six months. Good idea: reading memoirs of marriages to prep my mind to what is in store.

Bad idea: reading memoirs of marriages fraught with infidelity and extra-marital children.

We’ll see which side I land on.

book awards

24 Feb 2013

Alex Awards, 2013

I think this wraps up my gaggle of ALA awards posts for the season… I could keep going and talk about them all, of course, but limits are a good thing.

I have been enjoying looking back at last years winners and seeing which books I read, which ones are still on my radar. From last year’s Alex Awards, I didn’t read anything more than the book I’d already read, but everyone and their second cousin read Ready Player One and are still talking about it from time to time, I checked out The Night Circus three times without reading it, and I just put Salvage the Bones on my eReader.

One Shot at Forever by Chris Ballard

I have been thinking about high school sports lately, because wow, is there anything I don’t understand more than high school sports? I am the least sporty person alive. I played a few years of JV tennis while not being a sporty person and not really understanding high school sports. My brain-body coordination can’t be trusted. My ability to join in on a Team Mentality is lacking.

I could take all this and say “No, I should not read a book about a high school baseball team because I just won’t get it,” or I could say “I should read a book about a high school baseball team because I would like my brain to be more open to things the world seems to understand that I don’t.” That is the difference between an enlightened, wise reader and one who is not. I am not sure which reader I am.

My Friend Dahmer by Derf Backderf

It has just recently come to my attention that I probably know more about serial killers than I do high school sports.

This is a graphic novel about Jeffrey Dahmer, created by someone who knew Dahmer as a teen. This sounds right up my alley, but I have heard some mixed reviews from my friends on Goodreads. I will probably check it out, though, because graphic novels are just SO easy to put on hold, so check-out-able.

Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan

One thing I like about the Alex Awards is that it reliably highlights some high-profile adult books from the year that have teen appeal. Secret YA books are all around us! Adults, even adults who purportedly hate YA, read them all the time! And put them on their Best Adult Books for Adults lists every year!

This book is a magical-realism, pseudo-fairytale about a crazy bookstore. I should probably read this post-haste.

Where’d You Go, Bernadette? by Maria Semple

Cut and paste first paragraph previous. This book got so much buzz in the Fall, and was written by an Arrested Development writer. Again, I post-haste.

Pure by Julianna Baggott

I recognize the name “Julianna Baggott” because she has written adult books with teen appeal before. A cross-over author. Pure is a dystopia for adults… a cross-over genre. A cross-over cross-over.

Sounds intriguing, but I pretty much don’t read dystopias any more unless there is a gun to my head, so I will probably skip it.

Juvenile in Justice by Richard Ross

Out of this year’s Alex bunch, I’ve heard the most about this title. It is purported to be powerful – photography of juvenile detention facilities, collected over five years – but is not available through traditional book vendors, really. There aren’t even any new copies on Amazon! As someone who thinks a lot about how libraries build collections, relationships between publishers and vendors and libraries, and how awards shift publication practices, I’m interested to see how this one pans out. I, for one, would love to get my hands on it for my library.

Tell the Wolves I’m Home by Carol Rifka Brunt

I’m going to ignore the contents of this book and focus on the cover, since I am an unashamed, unabashed book-cover-judger. Love good cover art. Love love love it.

This is a great cover, right? A bear. A silhouette. A teapot (?). Ribbons. Hand-lettering. Swirly swirls. Love it. I put it on hold months ago just because of the cover. I’m glad it seems to be getting some attention for it’s literary contents because otherwise that would be a fine cover wasted.

The Round House by Louise Erdrich

The Alex Awards seem to have a steady relationship with the National Book Awards. Or, the National Book Awards have a strange favoritism for Secret YA Books. Or, Secret YA books are awesome and are universally loved.

Anyway, The Round House won the National Book Award, and here it is on the Alex List. I am number 44 in line on the hold list.

Girlchild by Tupelo Hassman

Any protagonist who is described as “the least likely of Girl Scouts” is a protagonist I’d like to meet. That is all.

Caring is Creepy by David Zimmerman

This book sounds like a completely frightening read – parents involved in drug deals, meeting strangers on the Internet, something that sounds like a teenage girl kidnapping a grown man… and I appreciate the title invoking the title of a Shins song that is probably the least frightening song in existence.

book lists

09 Feb 2013

Newbery Awards, 2013

Award

The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate

Animal stories. Never been a big fan. Well, I did read the Rats of NIMH a few years ago, which was pretty awesome, and there is always Charlotte’s Web. But on the whole, even as a child, they never really thrilled me. I’m a realism girl through and through.

However, there was a bit of critical buzz around The One and Only Ivan these past few months, I and I’ll admit – I was a bit intrigued. A caged gorilla narrator who likes to think about art? I could dig it.

Honors

Splendors and Glooms by Laura Amy Schlitz

Well, well, well, Ms. Schlitz. Two out of your last three books have earned Newbery nods. I liked Good Masters, Sweet Ladies well enough, but wasn’t quite sure what to make of it – I don’t read a lot of collections of dramatic shorts, especially those set in medieval England. I have heard that Splendors and Glooms is complex, long, and maybe not quite accessible to younger readers. But I’ve also heard on good authority that the writing is lovely and the effort rewarding.

Bomb: The Race to Build – and Steal – the World’s Most Dangerous Weapon by Steve Sheinkin

What can I say about Bomb that I haven’t already said?

Bomb certainly cleaned up this year. Newbery Honor, Sibert Award, YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction Award, National Book Award Nominee – could life be any sweeter for Mr. Sheinkin? We shortlisted Bomb for the Cybil’s MG/YA Nonfiction Award, so maybe next week will be yet another honor for a completely deserving book.

As always – three cheers for nonfiction in the major awards mix!!

Three Times Lucky by Sheila Turnage

Not super-suprised this book got a Newbery Honor, but let’s be honest, were we super-suprised by any of the above? Well, I mean, if you’d asked me in the 6th grade if I thought the author of Animorphs would win a Newbery Award, I would probably not have believed you, but there you have it.

Three Times Lucky, however, has a plucky heroine, a dynamic setting, a cast of interesting townsfolk, and a murder mystery, which makes for a crowd + critic pleasing read. Personally, I love reading books set in the South, so I might give it a read.

book awards

02 Feb 2013

Michael L. Printz Awards, 2013

Awards!! Yay!!

What better a way to spend an hour on Monday morning than tuning into the livecast? Last year, I was commuting during the announcements, but this year I saved some special, boring data-related work tasks to do while I watched, and then BAM it was lunch – morning well spent.

Congrats to Rachel Hartman’s Seraphina for taking home the William C. Morris last week. Commenter Sarah pretty much insisted it would win, so I put it on hold, and then it won and I felt like a prescient rockstar, even though it wasn’t my idea at all. Shall we continue our ALA Youth Media Award Blitz with a little more YA? I think so…

Award

In Darkness by Nick Lake

Have I mentioned how much I love awards? I do love awards, I do! In Darkness is one reason why I love awards – because even when you read and read and read and follow the buzz and there are books you just know are going to win… well, that awards committee is reading books that you’ve never even heard of. And those invisible books are awesome, so they win.

I had not heard of In Darkness, but I think I saw the phrase “drinking blood to survive” in a review, so I’m guessing intense, crazy, and awesome.

Honors

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

Well, well. We meet again. This winner was the one that excited most of my friends and colleagues – I can think of two folks who read it between Monday and today, work book-club picked it for next month… and I’m thinking about how I renewed it five times and it sat on the floor by my bed, unread for all five renewals.

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein

Well, no surprise here! I haven’t read this. I need to read it. It is sitting within my arm’s reach right now. I could reach over and read it, I could! But I’m not, because I am writing this post and watching Girls for the umpteenth time and I don’t always make great decisions with my time. There you have it.

Dodger by Terry Pratchett

I also love awards because the books and authors that are New! and Flashy! and So-Good! often obscure those authors that have chugged along, writing books that aren’t full of flash, for years and years and years and continue to do so. Like Terry Pratchett. I’ve only read Nation – which also won a Printz honor – and I liked it; long, wordy but not dense, playful, funny. Dodger apparently stars both Charles Dickens and Sweeney Todd, which sounds like madcappy fun.

The White Bicycle by Beverley Brenna

The dark horse of this year’s Printz. This is the third in a series, which means if you want to read it, you’ll have to get a hold of two other books first. And by “you” I mean “me” – maybe you are not such a series purist. This series is about a teenage girl with Aspergers, and in this installment, she travels to France on a babysitting job… which sounds like a book that I would love, so maybe I’ll start hunting down books one and two?

book awards

26 Jan 2013

William C. Morris Award, 2013

Did you know that this weekend is the ALA Midwinter Conference? And that on the last morning of the conference, at the crack of dawn, all of the ALA Youth Media Awards are announced?

Are you suitably excited?

I had the privilege of attending ALA Midwinter a few years ago. Those awards were announced so early, I tell you, that the conference shuttle buses weren’t running yet and I had to beg and plead my dear boy/chauffeur to drive us all the way to the Waterfront, which is an annoying trip straight through downtown Boston. Before we bought a GPS. Also, there was some sort of nasty January Nor’easter going on – I saw a girl almost get swept off her feet from the wind and the rain, I swear it up and down.

Anyway, this is how much we all love the ALA Youth Media Awards. Our moment of cultural influence, of glam, a lot of EXCEEDINGLY hard-working committee members put in the work and we will risk our lives to show up at 4:30 a.m. to hear the announcements.

I can’t wait until next week to start talking about ’em, so here is the William C. Morris shortlist for you – the top five YA books written by debut authors in 2012. In a few days, one will be the winner! I have read zero, so I have no opinion. I should really consider actually reading award nominees – I just referred to last year’s Morris Award and since that announcement, I’ve read one! One!! For shame. Anyway, more of these posts to come, because even if I never read any award books, I still love ’em.

Wonder Show by Hannah Barnaby

A period piece about runaway teenagers and traveling circus freak shows. I was not at all inclined to read this book, but after reading a few summaries enough to write that pitiful last sentence, I am kind of intrigued. Also, a 20-something guy who had no business being in a children’s bookstore bought this book when I was working, once, claiming he had no idea what YA was and didn’t usually buy books like this, and although it was a bit ridiculous, it was cute. I hope he reads lots of YA now. Probably not, but maybe this book changed his entire life and I should read it and see!

Love and Other Perishable Items by Laura Buzo

This is one of my five romances, but it is still “on order,” meaning I may have months ahead of me. This is an Australian import, I believe, about an independent 15-year-old young lady and her maybe-not-so-impossible crush on her older male coworker. Can we please give a cheer for contemporary humor/romance appear on awards lists? Yay! Rah!

Seraphina by Rachel Hartman

Dragons. Princes and Princesses. Characters named Glisselda, places named Goredd. Not my cup of tea. However, I have been playing a lot of Skyrim; perhaps enough that dragons seem cool. Perhaps. Oh, and everyone I know who read it has loved it. So maybe I should stop being such a fantasy stick in the mud.

After the Snow by S.D. Crockett

I am still feeling ambivalent toward dystopias and haven’t read any new ones since Divergent a year ago. However, The Boy is currently re-reading Life As We Knew it and telling me about his reading every few days, reminding me of how freaky it would be to have no sun or no power, how we need to store more food, how we should get a place with a wood stove, etc. Anyway, After the Snow sounds like a dystopia with more of a survivalist bent, like Life As We Knew It, which I appreciate.

The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth

Put this one in the category of “Books I keep checking out/renewing but never actually reading because other books get in the way.” Yeah, I know. Sad story. Protagonist Cameron Post loses her parents and discovers her sexuality almost at the same time, and her life changes dramatically while also going through related emotional traumas. Well, I guess I’ll put it on hold AGAIN… try harder this time around!

If I had to make a prediction of which book will win, without having read any of the five, my instinct says…. Wonder Show. I don’t know why, that’s just my gut. And the guy I sold it to in June of 2012. That’s all I’m going on. We will find out in just a few short days!! Happy Awards Season!!

book lists

18 Jan 2013

reading wishlist: shiny new young adult fiction

I have something traumatic to tell you: my library is not buying books right now. I know, the horrors. It’s a technical issue – we’ve unrolled a new ILS, and for those of you who’ve had the privilege of working in a library during an ILS switch, well, you will understand these horrors. They are horrible. Not buying books is almost the least of the horrors, but it is still quite sad.

We should be ordering soon (crossing my fingers every day…) but in the meantime, all these new releases are stacking up. Once orders start rolling through, there will be so many new books it will be overwhelming. Here are some upcoming YA titles that have caught my eye, that I gaze longingly at in their little Titlesource carts, waiting for the day that they show up in the flesh, on my hold shelf.

Once I am out of hold jail, that is.

Just One Day by Gayle Forman

I liked If I Stay alright, but didn’t feel like re-reading it before Where She Went came out… but Just One Day looks intriguing enough to keep Gayle Forman on my radar. We should talk later about the recent proliferation of YA novels featuring European-Romances. I suspect Anna and the French Kiss is to blame.

Out of the Easy by Ruta Sepetys

Between Shades of Gray got so many awards and recommendations that I wanted to read it despite my relative disinterest in the topic of Lithuanian refugees. Out of the Easy, however, seems much more up my alley – New Orleans prostitutes in the 1950s? Yes, please. We should talk later about whether or not it’s okay to not be interested in refugees. It’s probably not and we should all go work on our empathy.

The Tragedy Paper by Elizabeth Laban

I had never heard of this book, but THREE library patrons requested its purchase this past week. Three is not a big number, but, as I’ve mentioned before, I very rarely get any requests for YA books, and if I do they are typically asking for the next Pretty Little Liars installment. Three patrons requesting a seemlingly under the radar contemporary YA novel? Yes, I need to see what that’s all about.

Uses for Boys by Erica Lorraine Scheidt

I love this cover and I love books about characters learning the power and limitations of one’s new-found sexuality and I really do just love this cover.

Five Summers by Una LaMarche

Spied this book on Netgalley or Edelweiss or something, and the blurb said “for fans of Summer Sisters.” There are five main characters, girls who meet up every summer at camp and share various traumas and problems, and while some of these plotlines seem a bit melodramatic, I have been jonesing for a good summer camp story lately, and yes, yes I am a fan of Summer Sisters. Is it sacrilege to read a summer book when it is below freezing? Maybe not, but probably depressing either way, especially if read while residing in Arctic Apartment.

The Lord of Opium by Nancy Farmer

House of the Scorpion sequel. I don’t think I need to say much more than that. It is upsetting when authors of great talent actually require significant amounts of time to write their masterpieces and don’t feed you a new story every year for the duration of their writing careers… but then when that new book shows up it feels a little triumphant. It comes out in the fall, if you haven’t yet, read HoS now to get ready, review here.

The Lucy Variations by Sara Zarr

Ever since I started listening to her This Creative Life podcast, I’ve become a bit more endeared to Sara Zarr. She takes her craft, her career, quite seriously and I haven’t read as many of her books as I think I ought to have. Her 2013 book is about competitive piano-playing teens – Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, anyone? Also, love the cover.

The Moon and More by Sarah Dessen

Yeah. A Sarah Dessen year is a good year.

book lists

12 Jan 2013

library card exhibitionist

This edition of the Library Card Exhibitionist comes with the following complications:

1) On December 6th, I checked my account and noticed that a VAST majority of my checked out books were due on December 7th. And a frightening majority of that majority hit up against the five renewal limit, or were requested by other patrons.

I have a bad back/neck/shoulders, so to maintain my health and happiness, I am now sticking to a strict “No More Than 2 Books in Your Purse” rule. Unless I can trick The Boy into serving as my beast of burden with a full back-pack, I am doomed to overdue hell for awhile.

2) On December 3rd, I put a random hold on yet another book that caught my eye for one second and I thought about the shelf of (soon to be overdue) books on my shelf at home and I said to myself “JESSICA YOU ARE OUT OF CONTROL.” I have put myself in Hold Jail for awhile. I mean, I went ahead and put any books that I simply MUST read on hold on December 3rd, but other than that, I am done for awhile. I am not sure when I will be released from jail, but it will be awhile. It is about Kid Lit awards time, too – please admire my restraint. Or question my adherence to arbitrary, self-imposed rules, whichever you deem more appropriate.

Anyway, I am a neurotic librarian who needs more meaningful hobbies, but on with the show?