Category: Contemporary Novels
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I Finished A Few Books
Since I last wrote I made a bit of progress on my yearly reading challenge and finished a few titles. One by a new favorite author, one I picked up on a whim and one for book club. As the summer wears on (and on and on…) I am getting back into a reading routine…
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My New Year, New Reads Recommendations
As I mentioned in my previous post, last Saturday was my bi-annual book buzz program at the library where I work. After reading about 15 books for the program I narrowed down my picks to the following titles. I do try to choose a variety of books, but I also want them to be a…
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My Top Eleven Books of 2016
Last year was the best reading year, numbers wise, that I’ve had in quite a while. I read 66 books (6 over my goal) and am pretty content with the mix of contemporary novels and classic novels that I completed. A lot of my reading was generated by the two “book buzz” presentations that…
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Missing, Presumed by Susie Steiner
Well, hello there! It has been much too long since I’ve posted here. I didn’t mean to go so long without writing anything but, you know,…life. Not that I’ve had a lot of stress or craziness – it just seems that when I’m in the day to day stream of living blogging seems to come…
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Fabulous Fall Reads
Last Saturday, my friend and colleague Melissa and I gave our “Fabulous Fall Reads” presentation at my library. We talked about the books we think people would love to read over the next three months. We had another great turnout, similar to our Sizzlin’ Summer Reads attendance, and plan to do it again for spring…
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August 2016 LibraryReads List
Today the August 2016 LibraryReads list was released. I think I’ve written briefly about this list before, but I’ll explain a bit further. Every month this handy list of librarian favorites is shared with public libraries across the US. The titles on the list are read and nominated by library staff across the country and the…
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The Girls by Emma Cline
“I looked up because of the laughter, and kept looking because of the girls.” I had quite a struggle within myself when deciding whether I wanted to read The Girls or not. On the one hand I love reading about the sixties, the Manson murders are such a defining moment of that era and I…
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Sizzlin’ Summer Reads
Last Saturday, my fellow librarian Melissa and I gave a presentation for our library patrons called Sizzlin’ Summer Reads. It happened to be our hottest day of the year so far and the temperature reached 116 degrees that afternoon. It was not pleasant. So I was very happy that we got 11 people to come…
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Book Club: Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
My book club has been meeting for almost 3 full years now and for much of that time I’ve lobbied to get Gilead on our schedule with no success – until last month! Since this year we took turns choosing the books I knew this would finally be the year we read it (since I’d…
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The Child Garden by Catriona McPherson
I read about this Scotland-based mystery in a recent issue of Library Journal who gave it a starred review. I always look out for books that are well-reviewed yet don’t have the ‘buzz’ that a lot of other books have – the ones that not everyone is talking about. This one is definitely in that…
A Certain Fondness 