A good library haul

Yesterday, I was in such a foul mood that people were noticing, even at work. I decided I'd better try not to bring that home and went to the library instead.

I wasn't expecting much. Usually when I go to the library in a bad mood, I have a hard time thinking of things I want to read, and my mental state means that I won't luck into anything that looks good, because NOTHING looks good. And I get irritated that they just buy crappy books for morons and that the whole place is geared towards lovers of Danielle Steele and people who only visit the library when they want to try to fix their sink themselves and not people who actually like decent books, which by the end of my trip, I can't even define anymore.

Miraculously, that didn't happen to me yesterday. I found all kinds of books, including some I've wanted to read for a while, at a library where I've historically had bad luck despite it being the second-busiest in our 37-library system. I could have even had Jill Kelly's book, "Without a Word," but I flipped through it and it seemed to have more Jesus in it than the Bible, so I left it on the shelf.

Here's what I got. Try not to die of envy.

Matched, by Ally Condie. I actually read this one already and will have an entry about it soon.
The Help, by Kathryn Stockett. I was reminded to look for this book when I saw another patron with it. I figured, why not see if they have another copy? And they did.
City of Dreams: A Novel of Nieuw Amsterdam and early Manhattan by Beverly Swerling. I liked "The Island at the Center of the World" a lot and was excited to see that someone had novelized about an era that doesn't loom large in our collective imaginations. She has several books, too, so the prospect of discovering a whole new author is exciting.
The Year that Follows by Scott Lasser. I only remember that it was a family drama that looked interesting.
Gifted: a novel by Nikita Lalwani. I deal a lot with 'stage parents' in my job. I don't mean that they are literally trying to make actors out of their children, but they're usually trying to gain some sort of renown for them. This novel is about a girl whose parents are trying to get her to be the youngest person ever admitted to Oxford, and what happens when her own desires clash with theirs.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larson. I liked the movie.
Townie: a memoir by Andre Dubus III. The author of "The House of Sand and Fog" recalls growing up in two worlds: that of his working-class mother and his academic father.
The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet by Reif Larsen. As you know, I like anything that's weird, anything that promises to be different. This is about a 12-year-old cartographer and his cross-country journey to accept an award from the Smithsonian. Other than "Matched," obviously, this is the one I'm looking forward to reading the most.

So yeah, it was a good day at the library!

Popular

The library system in Erie County (where I live) has released its list of most borrowed books in the past year. I found it pretty interesting. The top adult fiction novel surprised me, and it surprised me that it's ruled for two years in a row.

I'm not at all surprised that "Without a Word" dominated adult non-fiction around here. A decade and a half after retirement, Jim Kelly is still revered as a god in these parts. Thousands of people participate annually in the Hunter's Hope fundraising events. He and his wife remain sought-after speakers, emcees and commentors. Some of the others surprised me. I'm curious, do other library systems do this sort of thing? I feel like I've never seen a list like this from the Erie County system before. If anyone else has a link to one from a different part of the state or the country, or another country altogether, I'd love to see it. I wonder how much what we read varies by region.

Adult Fiction: "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" by Stieg Larsson ** this is the second year this title has been the most borrowed library book in Erie County.
New Adult Fiction: "The Confession" by John Grisham
New (21-day) Adult Fiction: "Sing You Home" by Jodi Picoult
Graphic Novel: "Grim Hunt (The Amazing Spider-Man)" by Joe Kelly, Fred Van Lente and others
Adult Non-Fiction: "Without a Word: How a Boy’s Unspoken Love Changed
Everything" by Jill Kelly
Adult Paperback: "Eat This, Not That! 2011: The No-Diet Weight Loss Solution" by
David Zinczenko
Children’s: "Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Ugly Truth" by Jeff Kinney
"Princess Bedtime Stories (Disney Princess)" (no specific author)
Children’s Non-Fiction: "The Wimpy Kid Movie Diary" by Jeff Kinney
Children’s Paperback: "The Sea of Monsters" by Rick Riordan
eBOOKS
Fiction: "The Help" by Kathryn Stockett
Non-Fiction: "Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption" by Laura Hillenbrand

The Library in my House

Today, I was trying to clean up a "problem room" in my house. Often known as "the back porch," "out back" or simply "the back room," it's been a trouble spot ever since the day I opened its sliding door to move my stuff in. Four years on, I feel like it's never really gotten set up. There are two bookshelves back there, along with a whole lot of other random crap. One large thing back there made its exit this weekend, when we gave our old television to my future sister-in-law and her husband (previously it had been in the middle of the floor).

Mr. Library Diva's Halo-playing chased me back there with my book about the Vikings, and I started looking around. I decided that if I could get rid of the "overflow" books stacked on top of the bookshelves and on the floor, it would go a long way towards making the room feel more like a room and less like the place where things we don't know what else to do with dwell. Since I'm not working in the field right now, I took all of my museum reference books off the shelves to put in a box until things change. It's odds-on that I won't be looking up how to write exhibit labels or searching for ideas on where to put an accession number on a sofa in my day-to-day life. That freed up significant space on my shelves, since those are big books.

It also made me really look at everything on my shelves. With shame. There are quite a few books I've never read, good books by authors I like. I decided that my new year's resolution will be to make decisions one way or the other on them. I've had some for so long that I'm ashamed to feature them in a TBR list on this blog again. Here are some others, though:

Children of Henry VIII, by Alison Weir. This was one of those strange choices, where I saw someone reading it at a Renaissance Festival that my old, terrible job hosted. For some reason, it got into my blood. I had to have it. I didn't want to read anything else. It wasn't at the library, so I bought it. I think I made it to page 4, but having just finished a book about Elizabeth I, maybe the time is ripe to revisit it.

Crystal Beach: The Good Old Days, by Erno Rossi. This was a Christmas gift a couple of years ago. Crystal Beach was an amazing old amusement park that got torn down to make way for condos when I was 13. From time to time, I still visit it in my dreams. I'm not the only one. It's spawned a minor cottage industry in Western New York. Someone purchased the recipie for the suckers they used to make, and several places claim to sell Crystal Beach-style waffles and loganberry. Of course, there are also books. I think I have them all, but have yet to read this one.

Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver. When she's good, she's very very good. When she's bad...I don't want to say she's horrible, but I've read some of her books that were absolutely forgettable. I guess this one never much appealed to me, but I'm going to give it a try anyway.

Bushwhacked by Molly Ivins. I bought this ages after it came out. I love Molly Ivins but wasn't really in a political mood when I picked it up. I put it on a shelf and it's stayed there ever since.

The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens. Bought it over the summer after finishing "David Copperfield." I decided to start with "Our Mutual Friend" instead, but didn't get far, and didn't pick this one up either.

Collected stories by Carson McCullers. I got it during the Borders closing orgy. I love her writing style, though, and don't think this one will linger unread too much longer.

Dracula by Bram Stoker. I tried it once before. I'm not sure if knowing the plot will work against me or not.

Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky. I got it at the American Association of University Women's book sale this year. I've had a longstanding interest, and vaguely planned it as a winter project.

Bluebeard by Kurt Vonnegut. Growing up, I always looked forward to our library's biannual book sale. You could get tons of books very inexpensively, and my whole family pretty much just grabbed. I got this during one of those. I do like Kurt Vonnegut, though, so I really should get this one read.

Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer. A few years ago, my dad asked me to go through a big box of books, take what I wanted, and bring the rest to the library for the aforementioned book sale. This is one of my rescues. He's a good writer, and I enjoyed his book about Mormons a lot.

Front Row at the White House by Helen Thomas. Another resuce, and one that I might enjoy more now that I'm working in the field, albeit at the lower end of it.

The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe. I like learning about the space program, and actually didn't even realize I had this book.

Often, reviewing my shelves doesn't turn up anything unread that I still have a strong desire to read, but today was different. Rather than go to the library when I finish my Viking book, I'm going to pick up one of these.

The Useless Books

I had an idea a few months ago to start a collection of books that will one day be pointless. It was inspired by a conversation with my friend over at The Sedentary Vagabond about Y2K. I remember as early as 1998, looking at a table of books in Glastonbury, England during my semester abroad, and seeing a treatise on this terrible, looming apocalypse of Y2K that everyone was afraid to talk about. I didn't buy it, but less than six months later, the general tone of the book would have become obsolete, as everyone was talking about it by then.

It spawned many, many successors. By 1999, Barnes and Noble was offering entire tables of Y2K books. You could read about any aspect of the coming disaster: how it happened, how to prepare for life afterwards, how it could be averted, how to avoid similar catastrophes, should we survive this one. Obviously, it didn't come true. But someone worked hard on all of those books. What became of them?

I wondered that anew the week Barack Obama produced the original copy of his birth certificate. I happened to be in Barnes and Noble again, and saw a hardcover copy of a book called something like "Where's the Birth Certificate?" on the new release table. Unfortunate timing, though I felt less sorry for the author once I learned that he was behind the Swift Boat book, too.

I can't help but feel a little sorry for the authors of all of these books that are current now, but will soon fall out of favor. Those who write books like the 300-page guide on finding information on the internet (c. 1997) that I saw at my library in Central New York, at least know that they are not necessarily writing for the ages. But I feel bad for those who spent a lot of time formulating and researching a thesis, only to be entirely off-base with it.

Apparently I'm not the only one who does. I checked out one of my favorite book humor websites, Awful Library Books, and they too have a white elephant book featured in a recent entry.

Fail

I don't know why, but I've had a rather high fail rate among my library picks recently. I went to the library a few weeks ago, full of ideas. Of course, they were all checked out or unavailable. I got some alternatives.

The first to fail was Last Night in Twisted River by John Irving. I'd liked Cider House, of course, and wanted to try something else. This was set in a logging camp and opened with a gripping account of the death of a young boy. But after that, I just couldn't get into it. Also, not to sound shallow, but the book was falling apart, and I kept having to hold the pages and the binding together.

So I turned to The Invisible Circus by Jennifer Egan. I was savvy enough to know that the title couldn't possibly be literal, but naive enough to get drawn in enough to pick the book up anyway. It sounded like it might be good. It's about a girl whose older sister was a hippie in the 1960s and died under mysterious circumstances in Italy several years earlier. Adrift after high school, she goes to retrace her sister's footsteps.

The first half of it was slow-moving and emotionally devoid. Phoebe (the main character) has had a lot of sad things happen to her, and from her lifestyle, it's obviously affected her deeply, but we don't feel it. She seems flat. It's hard to conjure up much empathy for her, and by the time she's obtaining her passport and plane tickets, I wanted her to just quit fucking whining already.

But when she made it to Europe, I just wanted to smack her. I went when I was slightly older than her, and it was so terrific and incredible that I've wanted to return ever since. I remember vividly the sense of possibility around every corner, the feeling of your mind and senses being blown wide open, the way that everything seemed extraordinary. Phoebe doesn't see any of this. She's a one-note singer, looking for hippies everywhere and asking if they remembered some random girl who had passed that way years earlier, as if it's even remotely likely.

So I gave up on that book. I looked in my book bin, and only two still appealed to me. Riches Among the Ruins by international financier Robert Smith is the one I'm reading right now. I saved Pelican Road (can't remember the author) as well, and a few others I'd picked up at a library visit earlier this week: a book by Carolyn Chute, and a book about the Vikings. The rest are going back today. Better luck next time, right?

The Stench of Death II:another library visit

Well, the purge continue at my library. There has been a well-publicized
scandal involving thousands of books that have been discarded. Officials say that all that was thrown out were books that were badly damaged, hadn't circulated in years, or were outdated. Online comments on several of those articles from people who claim to work at the libraries say otherwise.

When you're there, you can feel it. 67,000 books recycled in the past year makes an impact. And the reorganization continues. When I walked in, I went straight to the fiction section and almost had a heart attack. They'd removed several rows of shelves to make way for a new kids' section. But there already is a kids' section. It has its own room off the main floor. I can't figure out what they intend to put in that room. And yet, the large cafe with the limited hours remains untouched.

All this made me even angrier as I looked around the library. A lot of the people there were poster children for why the place needed to exist. The most poignant to me was a couple who appeared to be in their fifties. They were clean, but looked sort of on the poorer side. They also sort of looked like they didn't normally patronize libraries. They sat together at a table with a backpack between them, full of water bottles and cheap snacks. She was reading a true crime book. He was staring straight ahead. I was there towards the end of the day, and they had the stupefied look about them that people get in waiting rooms everywhere. My theory, after passing them a few times, was that their heat was shut off at home and they came to the library to be warm for a few hours.

So, my trip was very depressing, and most of the materials I selected matched my mood:

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. I picked it because I imagined it'd be as bleak and apocalyptic and moving as the Hunger Games trilogy. So far, it's sort of diffuse. They're getting at something big here, and from the movie reviews, I have a vague memory of what.
American Pastoral by Phillip Roth. Living in Buffalo and recently watching "Cars" several times, urban decay intrigues me.
Ava's Man by Rick Bragg. Part of a trilogy on his family and growing up poor in the South.
Postcards by E. Annie Proulx. I haven't read this one yet. And I love her.
Novelties and souvenirs: collected short fiction by John Crowley. Haven't read any in a while, and I liked the title.
Paradise, New York by Eileen Pollack. Because there's rural decay, too.
The Last Talk with Lola Faye by Thomas Cook. I need to get on this one, it's a 7-day about a son's meeting with his father's mistress.
Too Rich: The Family Secrets of Doris Duke by Pony Duke. I went to her house and know that she led a sad life. More of a guilty pleasure I guess.
Buffalo Bill's America by Louis Warren. A work-influenced book. I recently did a story on a high school that was doing "Annie Get Your Gun" and wanted to know more of the real story.
Bean Blossom Dreams by Sallyann Murphey. About life on a farm or something. I guess a cheerful selection never hurt anyone.
Egypt: a short history by Robert Tignor. Influenced not by current events, but by World of Warcraft, and the fact that several of their new dungeons borrow heavily from Egyptian mythology.

So there you have it. I am trying to enjoy this library while I can. Each time I go feels like the end, though I know logically they'd close every other branch before they closed this one. But it's a shadow of its former self already, and the page I talked with has no idea when they're finishing.

The Stench of Death: last weekend's library haul

Dark times are upon our library system. Our county executive called for the system's budget to be slashed, causing public outcry but suspiciously low-key response from the institution's trustees. At the eleventh hour, county legislators voted to restore the funding that had been slashed. Our county executive is notorious, though, for simply ignoring things of that nature. Yeah, he's an asshole.

But the plan that was devised to deal with these cuts entails cutting hours at a good portion of their branches. At the branch I frequent, however, they decided to cut not hours but services. They have a wonderful humanities/nonfiction collection that's very fun to walk through. On the second floor, they have a large collection of business and employment-related resources for all levels of the job market. Whether you're the type who needs a book to tell you to shower and dress nicely for a job interview, or whether you're looking for pointers on how to start your own company, that section of the library can help. What they're doing is closing that floor, moving a good portion of the job stuff into the humanities, and kicking the humanities stuff into closed stacks.

This transition was well underway when I wandered through the doors last weekend. Lots and lots of empty shelves. Fewer employees around, already. Very sad stuff.

Anyway, I got a fair amount of books, although it was another one of those visits where the majority of my haul was of dubious interest past the initial impulse. So here's the list:

Vamp: the rise and fall of Theda Bara by Eve Golden. I know the name from the Country Bear Jamboree at Disneyworld (it features a "Teddy Beara"). Like Runnin' Wild, the documentary also inspired me to pick this one out.

Clara Bow: Runnin' Wild by David Stenn. Covered elsewhere on this blog.

Accordian Crimes by Annie Proulx. I like her a lot, and believe this is the only one I haven't read.

Hadrian's Wall: a novel by William Dietrich. It seems that I don't really see too many books about that period in England. I've seen the real thing, it'd be neat to know a little more about it.

The Blue Moon Circus by Michael Raleigh. This is a re-read. I can vividly remember getting it out of the Schenectady Library when I was doing my internship, lying on my loaned bed in my small apartment with the train noises drifting in through the open window, reading this book. It was just a joy. I bumped into it accidentally, grabbed it just to look at it again, and simply could not put it back.

Disco Boy by Dominc Knight. Goddamn this one. It was a seven-day book that I had no interest in one I got it home, but I kept it for three days too long. Nothing sucks worse than paying fines on something you didn't read.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society by Mary Ann Shaffer. Part of my newspaper job is processing all the events that come in from the library, the senior center and the community at large. I think every single book club that submits has read this one. I decided to find out why.

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Due to my newfound love of Charles Dickens, a recent Facebook meme about how many books you've read off a list purportedly developed by the BBC, and the season in general, I picked this one up.

Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah. I have no idea WTF it's about but love the title. I also noticed that book clubs around here read this.

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. I'd always assumed this was some sort of crappy romantic melodrama. Then the movie came out and I found it what it was really about. Sounds cool, and creepy as hell.

I am Hutterite: the fascinating true story of a... by Mary-Ann Kirkby. The receipt cuts off the subtitle. But I picked this one out as my next read, and am currently about 50 pages in. Subcultures and religious communes interest me. I even used to work at a museum that used to be one. I like memoirs, I don't know much about the Hutterites and this one just stood out. A longer review will come, but it's interesting so far. The author does a good job of taking us inside without being too self-conscious and allowing the differences between mainstream and Hutterite cultures to emerge fairly naturally.

So that's my haul. I'm hoping there are some books there the next time I go.

Adults only? An interesting debate

There's an interesting debate about library use and rules going on at Free Range Kids right now. You can read the post that sparked it here, but basically, the author of the post (who is also an author of children's books) and her husband were shooed out of the children's section of their local library because they didn't have a child with them. The rationale they were given was that "we can't have people hanging around and looking at the kids."

Based on that, I knew what I thought. I think society has gotten incredibly hysterical about "stranger danger" and has made all sorts of normal behaviors suspect, from sitting on a plane next to a child to giving out Halloween candy, to just smiling at the sight of someone else's kids having fun in public. This seems to be another sad and pathetic example of that, especially since the library was deserted when the writer and her husband were shooed away. There weren't even any kids for them to ogle.

But then I read some of the comments, especially those from public librarians. They stated that the goal was to provide a separate space for the kids, away from both the creepy people that genuinely do like to hang out at libraries and the overbearing yuppies who treat it as their personal office. They want it to just be a sort of "adult-free zone" where the kids can get into books without any disapproving stares, and from a practical standpoint, without having to fight for space with people who have the entire rest of the library.

I can see both sides of the issue, I guess. I always think it's bad to keep anyone away from any kind of book. But I also confess that I've been irritated many, many times by the screams of a bored child whose mom, in her infinite wisdom, dragged her into the adult section while she looked at adult books when the children's room was RIGHT. FUCKING. THERE. and full of things Young Screamer would have found more to her liking than the newest Lauren Weisenberg. Maybe if that mom had felt better about leaving her kid in there, the rest of us wouldn't have been treated to her Symphony of Boredom.

And while Lenore's blog focuses on overprotective parents, there are the other kind, too. The kind that see any supervised, kid-friendly environment and think: FREE BABYSITTING. The kind that will leave their three-year-old in the Kid Zone at Barnes and Noble while they go get their hair done. Those parents love libraries, too, and you know that if "something happened," they'd suddenly take a huge interest in their parenting duties and would sue. Maybe the policy was to address that issue, too.

I think it has to be applied judiciously, though. There are all sorts of legitimate reasons to want to use that space. In my city library, I see lots of new immigrants there who are trying to learn English. When you're switching entire alphabets, "Make Way for Ducklings" is probably a more appropriate place to start than the newspaper. Teachers use it to get books out for their classes. Museum educators use it to get books out for programs. Parents may want to use it when their kids are elsewhere. Students taking courses in children's lit, teens who have to babysit, there are a million reasons why. Many commentators pointed out that it's often simply the most attractive place in the library. Would you rather read your book in a beanbag chair by the 10-foot tall windows that overlook the park, or in a dimly-lit 1970s fake-wood cubicle?

I guess, sadly, a policy is needed to make sure adults are considerate, though. I think the librarian in the original example went a little overboard, kicking out obviously harmless people when the library was empty. But you see so much selfish and bizarre behavior in libraries that, sadly, there needs to be some way to curb it. No, you can't keep kids safe forever, and yes, the people who flock to libraries that need social services have the right to be there too. But you don't want to chase out the library's core audience just because our society fails so miserably at mental health care.

Today's catch at the library

It was a good day there. I found parking right away, I got a large quantity of books, and as it turned out, didn't owe them any money. I did have a secret weapon, though: the spring fiction issue of the New Yorker. It is to readers what the September issue of Vogue is to fashionistas. It tells you what's going on in the book world and why. It's as valuable for its ads as it is for its editorial content. It has the added advantage over Vogue, though, of being in reach of anyone with a library card, whereas the average Vogue reader will probably have to wait for the knockoffs to come to their local mall, or seek out a vindictive ex-husband of a wealthy fashionable woman who's putting all her purses on eBay for $50 each.

I noticed a couple of interesting things at the library today:

1. They're putting in a handicapped entrance near where I usually park. OK, I guess it's not that interesting, but it's disrupted things a bit.

2. You can make anything sound trendy and modern by sticking an "i" in front of it. Like iPoe, who is the subject of the local Big Read. Calling him ePoe would have made more sense, but I'm not in marketing.

3. If you eat right and try to exercise on an increasingly regular basis, "as many books as you can carry" becomes less of a solid benchmark for what your personal limit should be. Today, I could carry ten.

So, what'd I get? I'm so glad you asked.

The House on Salt Hay Road by Carin Clevidence. Just because it sounds cool.

Lockport Boy: a memoir of a magical time and place by Frank Bredell. I like to read books about the area, and this just sounds like such a joyful one. It was on their staff picks table, proving again that their stff has great taste.

She's Not There: a life in two genders by Jennifer Finney Boylan. I read her other book and thought it was terrific. This has been on my mental list for a while. Since I actually came with a paper list this time, I remembered to look for it.

Private Life by Jane Smiley. This was in the New Yorker issue that I mentioned. It sounded very good. I only read one of her other books, and it had an animal subplot that was so compelling and upsetting that I completely missed the point of the rest of the book.

The Family Beach House by Holly Chamberlin. A sort of quandary, because it's a family saga, which I tagged as suitable for fall, but about a beach house, which makes it more summery. I figured this in-between period would be perfect.

Midnight on the line: the secret life of the US border by Tim Gaynor. I passed it looking for something else and I thought it seemed like a valuable thing for a Northerner to read. We hear so much about border issues up here, but they don't really affect our lives to the point where we might have an informed opinion. I want a better understanding of why this is such a big issue, and if it's a real issue or just a 'wedge' issue like the so-called Ground Zero mosque or gay marriage.

Glass, paper, beans: a revelation on the nature of... by Leah Hager Cohen. I also found this on the way to something else. I guess it tracks the sources of these three things or something. Looking at my list, I would dub this one Most LIkely to Be Returned Unread, especially since it's so similar in subject matter to what I was really looking for, which is...

The Story of Stuff by Annie Leonard. Consider me her Colbert Bump: this is where I heard about her book, but it's a topic that's sort of interested me for a while: how the poorest Americans have tons of shit, where it comes from, and what happens to it when we're done with it.

The Beans of Egypt, Maine by Carolyn Chute. I guess this was the It Book one year in the 80s. My parents had it, and as a little kid, the title confused the absolute hell out of me, especially since on closer examination, the book was not set in Egypt nor did it have anything to do with beans. I think it's about white trash, actually. I also think I've tried it before and not gotten far, but I'm interested in trying again.

Rest area: stories by Clay McLeod Chapman. This one had me at the description of the story in which preteen boys pretend that the lifeguard at the pool is a witch and they have to safely get to the bottom of the slide to defeat her. It's been a while since I read a good short story collection. I hope this qualifies.

Library Diva needs your help

The dog days of summer seem to have hit my reading list. I'm stuck in a rut with things to read. Tried some non-fiction, turns out I'm not in the mood (I'm ashamed to admit it was Undaunted Courage, too, which has always gotten very high marks for being an abosrbing, exciting read). Tried some fantasy, a book of short stories about dragons, got halfway through and my desire to read about dragons seems to be quenched. At the library, generally seem to find myself re-verifying that I have, in fact, read everything by Jennifer Haigh, Tawni O'Dell, Richard Russo, et al and that the library doesn't carry more Geraldine Brooks or Mark Jude Poirer -- still -- and going home with a bunch of random books that looked kind of appealing but upon closer examination, I don't actually want to read after all.

Someone, please, help me break this cycle. I want to hear about something you guys have read and loved, or something you think I might enjoy. I hate not having a book to read. It tends to lead to lots of mindless puttering around the house and marathon sessions of either WoW or some mindless TV show like Law and Order SVU or Keeping Up with the Kardashians (OMG, Scott is such a dick!). I'm looking for a good reccomendation. I may go to the library as soon as tomorrow to check them out, if I get any.

Hey, look, I'm at the forefront of a trend!

I saw this article on a friend's Facebook page this morning. I liked it a lot, especially since I've pretty much never been at the forefront of a trend in my life! Guess I'll have to work harder at updating this blog.

From an article on npr.com:

I realize we're picking the bones from the Old Spice campaign at this point, but when I saw that the Brigham Young University parody of the Old Spice ads had gotten more than 1.2 million views (Old Spicy himself — that's what I'm calling him — did a video for libraries), it got me thinking.

Specifically, it got me thinking about the very enjoyable Librarians Do Gaga video that everyone sent my way after the debut of the NPR Does Gaga video.

And about the fact that a local news story skeptically questioning whether libraries are "necessary" set off a response from Vanity Fair, and a later counterpunch by Chicago's Public Library Commissioner won her support from such diverse, non-library-specific outlets as The A.V. Club and Metafilter, and from as far away as The Guardian.

Call it a hunch, but it seems to me that the thing is in the air that happens right before something — families with a million kids, cupcakes, wedding coordinators — suddenly becomes the thing everyone wants to do happy-fuzzy pop-culture stories about. Why?

">Are libraries the next big thing?

The Library: there for you and me

That's one of the things I love the most about the library. Some visits make it harder to love than others, but still, I enjoy it. I enjoy seeing the recent immigrant adults learning English from the books in the children's room. I enjoy seeing the teenage girls check out armloads of Gossip Girl books. I like the nostalgia of the mom trying to explain to her six-year-old that there is NO WAY he's going to be able to read all of those books in a month and he has to put some back.

Free For All by Don Borchert is an insider's look at the drama that parades by the checkout desk daily. Borchert works in a branch library in the Los Angeles system, located near a public school, and he sees it all. The older woman who confesses, one day, that she loves to bake but has no audience, and wonders if she might bring her treats in for the staff. The woman who returns every year with a new last name, takes out a new card and racks up hundreds in fines, and uses the library as a babysitting service. The flying saucer man. The pervert who chats up the preteen girls doing their homework. The Great Korean Mom Fight in the parking lot.

Not all of the stories in the book are happy, of course. But it's a funny book, and uplifting in a weird way. Borchert is a very empathetic writer, especially when he's talking about some of his nuttier patrons. The book makes you glad that the library is there for people who may have no one or nothing else. It's one of the few places you can go that's not home or work where you're not expected to buy something. It's there whenever you have a question about anything in life, from: "what type of taillights does my 1992 Lincoln Mercury take?" to "why is everyone tossing my resume in the trash bin?" to "do bluebells grow well in this climate?" It cares not one whit whether you're the type to pose about ten of these questions a week, or if this is the first and last time you'll ask.

Borchert feels this way too, and though he never comes out and says it, that sentiment imbues every sentence of the book. In an era where so many people desperately cling to jobs they despise because, hey, at least they have one, it's nice to read a book by someone who genuinely loves and believes in what he does.

New Job, New Library

So, my new job is going pretty well. Most jobs seem great at first, but there are some real positive signs -- one literal, in fact, welcoming me and announcing to the rest of the office that I was starting there on my first day. Today, we had a potluck Christmas party, and as usual, there was way too much food, so I wasn't even remotely hungry on my lunch.

I wondered what I was going to do with myself, then I saw the answer directly across the street: the public library. For some reason I'm a little wary of being too specific about where I live and work on here, so I'll just call it Suburban Library. Around here, all of the branches are linked together, so I can use my card wherever I want. Very handy. Of course I went to check it out.

The main word I'd use to describe it is "functional." It's in a large brick building of 20th century vintage. The walls are drywall, ceiling is acoustical tile, and the floor is very low carpet. The same seems to apply to its selection. Books like Edgar Sawtelle, the Twilight series, and other hotties are all displayed prominently. Most of the new non-fiction had titles like "Divorce for Dummies" and "The First-timer's Guide to Breastfeeding."

I was surprised to learn that Barbara Kingsolver has a new novel out, called The Lacuna. I'm a little skeptical. It sounds like a departure for her into more historical fiction, and honestly, some of her other books haven't been that great. I passed up The Lacuna, because it was a rather long seven-day book. No way in hell, not Christmas week. But one of my TBR's from the New Yorker year in review was there, so I grabbed that, along with a few others. Here's my haul to the best of my memory:

Carson McCullers, The Member of the Wedding. The one by her I wanted to read the most, liberated from the rest of her novels.

Dodie Smith, I Capture the Castle. Not sure why, just looked good.

Audrey Niffeneger, Her Fearful Symmetry. This is the one from the New Yorker.

E. Annie Proulx, Accordion Crimes. The only by her that I haven't read yet.

I did OK for just being on a half-hour lunch! The staff was very nice, and it was worth taking my life in my hands to cross the street there.

Book Haul 1.1

I mentioned earlier that when I'd gone to the library last week, I'd known what I wanted and they didn't have it. Since these were not mere pleasure books, but were books about starting a freelance writing career, I actually reserved them. They came in this week, and since I was out and about yesterday morning, I went to pick them up.

I'm going to have to remember what a world of difference it is to drop by the central branch early in the day. I noticed it before I even went inside: there were parking spaces. It was quiet upstairs, the guards were still in a decent mood, computers were open everywhere and no one was being annoying. Maybe they were all still half-asleep. But at any rate, the morning's definitely the time to go!

I couldn't just walk past all the stacks of books without getting myself something. So I grabbed a book on Norse mythology. The reason why I wanted to read it is so dorky, I don't even want to put it on the blog. But it should be interesting, and a fast read, too. I always think it's good to know a little about that sort of thing. Myths endure long past the cultures that created them, and continue to capture the imaginations of modern authors (or video game developers). I think I'm going to bring a few books that I've read already back tomorrow, though. My box of library books is overflowing!

Yesterday's Library Haul

When I first moved to the city, the chance to go to the Central Branch on a regular basis was one of the things I was looking forward to the most. The Branch is about a half-hour drive from where I grew up, so going there was a rare treat, and normally I contented myself with my town's library branch, or occasionally that of the next town over.

Now that I get to go on a regular basis, some of the sheen has worn off. Why? For one thing, it's always crowded. But worse than that, it's generally crowded with people who seem to be unfamiliar with how to act in a library. People talking so loudly on their cell phones that the entire section could hear them. People having raucous conversations in the stacks, despite the fact that the library cafe is only a few feet away, and that there are three or four regular cafes on the same block. Someone apparently applied deordorant at one of the computer stations, because when I got there, the plastic thingy was left right next to the mouse. Ewwww.

The library staff seems to have made the decision not to police everyone's behavior for minimum wage. It makes sense, in a way. The cell phone offenders are so legion that if you made it your business to tell them all to STFU, it would be virtually all you did. But worse, some of the staff are also ignorant of how to act in a library. The cafe workers had the Bee Gees blasting so loud you could hear it in the adjacent stacks. The reference desk woman wouldn't ask them to turn it down, so I had to. The girl gave me a blank, shocked stare, and turned it down. Come on! It's supposed to be a quiet place. It's not Abercrombie and Fitch. It's not a traditional coffee joint. IT'S A LIBRARY. THAT MEANS QUIET.

Asking her to turn it down made me feel like a crotchety old lady, but you know, our society is so noisy. Banks and fast-food places have television sets and music on, lest you fail to be totally stimulated while waiting in line. JetBlue Airlines has little televisions in the back of each seat, and they're rigged to make turning them off less than intuitive. If you manage to turn it off before liftoff, it'll turn back on again once the plane is in the air and assault you with your viewing options. When you go to the cinema, a television is playing a loop of previews while you buy your tickets and popcorn. So what's wrong with having one quiet place? I liked the cafe at first and thought it was a good way to draw people in. Now I think they'd be there regardless and it just makes the library noisier.

My aggravation with the other patrons was matched by my aggravation in choosing books. Unlike a typical visit, I knew what I wanted...and of course, it wasn't in. So I wandered around for about an hour and still managed to find eight books, as follows:

Where You Once Belonged, Kent Haruf. It was featured on the end shelf, and its plot kind of reminded me of one of Tawni O'Dell's novels.

Carson McCullers Complete Novels, Carson McCullers. Trust me, NOT how I would have chosen to read the rest of her work. The volume is suspiciously slim, too. But other than a bunch of other copies of The Heart is a Lonely Hunter and her short stories, that was all they had of her. I took it. I may or may not read it.

Gig: Americans talk about their jobs at the turn of the millenium, ed. John Bowe. An updated version of Studs Terkel's marvelous Working. Hope it's as good!

I'm looking Through You: Growing Up Haunted, by Jennifer Finney Boylan. It's non-fiction. I can't really determine what it will be about, but it looks intriguing. I'll let you know!

Free Range Kids: giving our children the freedom we had, Lenore Skenazy. I'm a big fan of her blog,Free Range Kids, and her book was literally the first thing I saw when I came into the library.

Ava's Man, Rick Bragg. This is part two in a trilogy, apparently. I found Part Three in their "Staff Picks" section. It looked interesting, but I decided to try to go chronologically. It's a sort of family memoir.

Modern Ranch Living, Mark Jude Poirer. I read one of his novels and a short story of his, too. They were both terrific, and I bumped into this one and decided to grab it.

Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman, Jon Krakauer. His books are always good, and I recently saw him on The Daily Show promoting this one.

So that should keep me busy for a while, and hopefully, keep me from having to return to the library!

St. Peter, Don't Call Me, For I Can't Go

I owe my soul to the library fines department!

OK, maybe not quite, but it's a fair bit of money. In my defense, they never told me that one of my books was a seven-day book. I didn't look at the receipt because, well, it just didn't occur to me. Those are ALWAYS marked, and the book in question (the last one I reviewed, actually) has been out for at least a year. It should have been off 7-day status by now. It doesn't explain why I kept the others so long. I guess because I tend to pick my books really impulsively, and often wind up with things that, upon further reflection, I'm not actually interested in reading.

It makes me tempted to quit going to the downtown branch, even though it is glorious. It's so stressful, too. Limited parking. Massive selection. And always, at least one person who's really, really weird. But there's no other convenient destination around me. The branch within easy walking distance has a Spanish-language focus, and their selection of English books is about as good as the selection of Spanish books at most other branches in the system. Everyone says great things about the branch on Elmwood, which is the next closest. But those people must have different tastes than me. I was unimpressed with their selection. Plus, it smells musty and chemical-y in there, like plastic dust jackets offgassing in the hot sun for thirty years. And additionally, their parking sucks even worse than the downtown branch. There's an adorable little branch a couple of miles away -- that's closed to the public due to asbestos issues.

I guess there's nothing for it but to continue hanging on to my quarters, scrape up an extra $30 to pay off my fines, and keep going to the downtown branch. My only other option is to continue to re-read The Poisonwood Bible and Burmese Days forever (I guess I'm in a post-colonial mood lately, go figure.)

Yesterday's Library Haul

Usually, when I go to Central, I see something interesting and bizarre that's worth sharing on the blog. Yesterday, it was just the usual mix of people, though: moms with young children; people who are homeless or close to it; poor people taking advantage of the free internet to either look for jobs or pick up women on Myspace; recent immigrants teaching themselves English in the children's section; teenagers hanging out in one of the few adult-sanctioned hangouts (what parent could possibly turn down a request to be dropped off at the library?); older women getting their book club books, etc. And me, hauling out all I can carry as usual:

Vince and Joy, by Lisa Jewell, whose books are always light in a good way.
Sid Vicious: No One is Innocent, by Alan Parker. People in my area have been reading Slash's book like mofos. It's been checked out constantly. I read Nancy Spungen's biography years ago and figured I'd give Sid a try, too.
Steinway and Sons, by Richard K. Lieberman. It was in the music section, too.
Three Junes, by Julia Glass. Amazon.com keeps telling me I should.
Life after Genius, Ann M. Jacoby. An interesting-looking 7-day book about a child prodigy-turned-dropout.
Buffalo Lockjaw, by Greg Ames. Profiled a few weeks ago in our local alternative paper, written by a native. I always enjoy books set in the area. Another 7-day book, which means I need to get reading!
The Smallest People Alive, by Keith Banner. Bunch of short stories.
Popular Culture and High Culture: an analysis, by Herbert Gans. Goes under my "Most Likely Not to Be Read," but I think about that sort of stuff a lot, so I figured I'd check it out.

There we have it. I have until the 31st to read or renew!

Yesterday's Library Haul

Well, I hope everyone else enjoyed National Asshole Day yesterday. I didn't even know it was going on, but there were celebrants everywhere I looked. Not one, but TWO cell phone douchebags in the library. A cabbie parked in the middle of the road during rush hour. Many, many of them in World of Warcraft last night, even more so than non-players may suspect. Quite a few on the roads. Several in IHOP, despite the restaurant being virtually empty. Even in sleep, I didn't get away from them: my upstairs neighbor decided that 3:30 AM would be a fine time to rearrange the room above our bedroom. Even my cats joined in, providing an excellent wake-up call by jumping on my dresser and knocking everything off of it, one item at a time. Grrrr.

But, some good did come out of it. I mentioned the cell phone douchebags at the library. I got a decent haul despite the emotionally needy man alternating calls between business calls ("I offer musical entertainment and will be in your region next week. I'd love to get together with you and talk about the possibility of performing at your venue") and harassing some poor woman ("Me again. I just want to be assured that you're not mad at me. You promise? I thought I detected a tone towards the end of the last conversation there five minutes ago. OK, good. I'll probably call back in another five just to make triple-sure you're not mad.") I swear, I tried hard not to listen to that shit, but it was hard since he was right in the middle of the fiction section, talking loudly. (The other cell phone d-bag was describing in detail how they got the bullet out of him. Ah, the downtown branch!)

As per usual, every single book I'd intended to get was checked out. So I improvised and got a lot of stuff I didn't plan on. I succumbed to the second trend in a week (first was joining Facebook) and checked out The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski. You might say this seems to be this year's Snow Falling on Cedars: read by every book group, sold even in places where they don't normally sell books. How this book is in and Slash's autobiography isn't, I just don't understand. But it's mine for the next six days.

Also got:

The Deal by Sabin Willett. I read another novel of his, Present Value, and surprisingly learned something about economics from a book that was actually fun to read. I bumped into it while trying to get away from the cell phone guy, who was up in the new books section near the A's.

East of the Mountains by David Guterson. I said I'd try something else by him. This one looked good.

The Bearded Lady: A Novel by Sharlee Dieguez. I'm a sucker for circus stuff.

Human Voices by Penelope Fitzgerald. I liked The Bookstore (Bookshop?) and always meant to try another one by her.

Since Sawtelle is the longest, and due back the soonest, I started there this morning. Pretty good so far.

It's like it was made for me! Today's BTT on Libraries and You

Suggested by Barbara:

I saw that National Library week is coming up in April, and that led to some questions. How often do you use your public library and how do you use it? Has the coffeehouse/bookstore replaced the library? Did you go to the library as a child? Do you have any particular memories of the library? Do you like sleek, modern, active libraries or the older, darker, quiet, cozy libraries?

Well, as anyone who comes here often knows, I make frequent use of my public library. I've done so pretty much everywhere I've ever lived. I have library cards for about four or five different systems in my state. I patronize them quite a bit and pay enough late fines to have my own wing in some of them. I've been going to the library all my life. I think I got my first card when I was around five. It was a paper card with my signature on it. I spent hours in our Pizza-Hut looking local library (was about the same size as a Pizza Hut too). I can't claim to have read all the books in it, but I'm pretty familiar with their offerings.

When I was living and working in Central New York, I had four libraries at my convenient disposal. One was right at my workplace. It worked entirely on the honor system. It wasn't staffed. They kept a binder in the room, and if you wanted a book, you wrote down your name, what you were taking, and the date you took it. You kept it as long as you wanted and brought it back when you were ready. If it had been a while, the librarian would hunt you down and give you a gentle reminder that maybe someone else would like to use that book. It was great. The town library was within walking distance of where I worked, on the same road, so I went there a lot, too. I joined their book club and went faithfully, even had my own session once. Around the corner from my apartment building was yet another library, but it was a pretty crappy library. I only went a couple of times. It had extremely limited hours and selection. Both times I was there, I was the only person in the joint.

As to what type of library I prefer? I'm not sure. I thought I liked the sleek, modern huge one in my area the best. Then before vacation, I went to the one in my hometown. Although it falls into the sleek and modern category too (the Pizza Hut one was abandoned in favor of a new building and now houses the school district's admin offices), it's smaller and more manageable. I did much better there. I wasn't rushed because of parking limits. There weren't a million people there. The selection was less overwhelming -- I could actually see everything -- and I walked away with a fair number of books. I felt the same way about the library in Stockbridge, MA. It was small, but it was in a beautiful old buidling and it had a terrifc selection, particularly for its size. Oddly, I have more trouble getting the books I want from the large library I generally go to than I ever did in Stockbridge or in my hometown. So I'm going to cop out and say that it's good that there are both. Just like IKEA serves its function, but so do local boutique furniture and housewares stores.

I don't think the library will ever be replaced by the bookstore/coffeehouse. People may use libraries a little differently now. It may have become less of a hangout than it used to be. Families with young children will always patronize them because picture books are expensive and it doesn't take kids long to get bored with them. Students doing reports will patronize libraries as long as there's information in books that can't be culled reliably from the internet. It's a great place for any book lover on a budget.

I think libraries represent some of the best values of our society: open access to information and education, trust in one another, sharing resources with the community. I feel good every time I go to the library. I never want to see them go away. So everyone, enjoy National Library Week. Keep patronizing them, and keep speaking up for them when your voice is needed.

Breaking my TBR vow already, with spectacular results

I was going to stay away from the library for a bit, and read through some of the books that have been languishing on my shelves. I even re-organized my bookshelves, and put all the ones I hadn't read yet together. And...nothing. Nothing jumped out at me as being the one I had to read now. I did pick up The Children of Henry VIII by Alison Weir again, and it's still slow going. But I wanted to get out of the house, and go somewhere other than the grocery store or a shop that sells things I can't afford. So, the library it was.

It was a downcast and grey day here, and the mood continued through the doors of the library. Our local cable provider has been in an ongoing dispute with a local network affiliate, the result being that you can't watch any of that affiliate's programming on cable at the moment. So a group of men were huddled in the corner of the cafe, watching our football team lose via antenna. The library was showing a movie today, and the audience seemed to be a mix of folks who were excited about the film, and homeless people pleased to have the chance to sleep indoors for a change. Other than that, nothing. No wait to use any of the computers. No recent immigrants reading children's books to improve their English, no teenagers doing their term papers in the cafe, no one. Between the weather and the football game, there was ample incentive to stay home, I guess.

But the depressing atmosphere did yield a pretty spectacular haul. I scored not one, not two, but THREE new-release books that I've been interested in. I've been trying to get one of them since March, but the other two are new within the past 2 or 3 months. I also got the new Jennifer Weiner, an interesting staff pick, another book by Sarah Bird, and (hot hot HOT, circa 2000) The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime. Always been interested in it, never remembered that fact at the library. Tomorrow, the weather is supposed to be damn near apocalyptic, so at least I'll have some good things to read in between playing the "Guess the Precipitation" game (rain? snow? hail? or all three!!!).