I apologize that my last post was a bit abrupt – let me tell you the rest of the story.

At the beginning of October I moved into a new position at work. I’d been a youth services librarian for four years and, though I enjoyed it, it was not my passion. When a vacancy in adult services was created by a retirement I jumped at the chance to move into a position that better suits me. I had to go through an interview process and then started my new job about the second week of October. I am now doing adult programming, readers’ advisory, marketing, displays, digital resource training, coordinating two book clubs and managing the adult fiction collection at my branch – all things I love and have great enthusiasm for. However, I haven’t really been able to fully immerse myself in the new job as I am also still the youth services supervisor until someone is hired to take my place. I don’t have to tell you how hard it’s been to juggle both sets of duties. On top of that, my boss has been gone a lot and we just had another librarian leave – so, I’ve been working the desk more than I usually do.

To be honest, my brain has been filled with so many work-related thoughts that blogging and reading blogs were put on the back burner. I’m not very good at dealing with stress sometimes and my way of coping is to let enjoyable hobbies that would probably help to relieve stress fall by the wayside and to obsess over things I can’t change.

I am fairly certain I’ll be back to blogging – I really hope that by December someone will be hired to replace me in the youth job.

Thank you for your kind thoughts! Here are the books I’ve finished in the previous month and my teeniest reviews:

Bellman & Black by Diane Setterfield – Neo-Victorian, ponders death, very meandering. Where is the plot? A disappointment to me.

Longbourn by Jo Baker – A re-telling of Pride & Prejudice from the perspective of the servants. Fascinating and not insulting to Austen fans. Loved the domestic details. Thumbs up!

The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri – A tale of India, immigration, how siblings can be so different, and how selfish decisions reverberate through the generations. Beautiful and heartbreaking. A must read for anyone who is interested in contemporary women’s literature.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak – Narrated by death, the story of a normal German family and their struggle to survive during WWII. A choppy narrative that failed to pull me in. I didn’t like it as much as some, but I will see the film.

What have you been reading in the past month? Anything I must read?

Also, I’m going to revive the Facebook page for the blog, so if you aren’t on Twitter but are on Facebook you can follow here.