From One Book Lover

A trip to the library is a giddy pleasure: free books for the taking! Sure, you have to return them, but that's okay because you just get more. Here is my latest stack of books: I've had the cookbooks for a while. My husband David is the family chef, so I gathered these for his reading enjoyment — but still found about a dozen recipes to share with him. Mostly dessert. Shocker. It's October, which means I have to find some creepy books to read. John Dies at the End counts, as does the conspiracy theory novel The Shell Game (a recommendation from Reader Karen). I may not get to Gone Girl by the end of its lending period, but I will try. David and I are going to the Caribbean next year, and we have to start plotting now, hence the travel books. There are two movies on top. One is based on a book and — well, both of them are. Never mind. So, what have you borrowed from your library lately?

Are you ready to read some banned books? For some of us, this isn't a stretch — like Whoopi Goldberg, we read plenty of books that have been banned or challenged, like poems by Shel Silverstein. (Watch the video below.) For others, it is novel: why read something you're not supposed to read? Someone decided it's not right to do, read a particular book — so why read it? My question is: why let someone else decide what you're going to read? Yes, we do it all the time. We pay attention to awards and bestseller lists, bookseller picks, our friends. But we have choices. When someone pulls a book off the library shelf, it removes our choice based on their criteria. Libraries do not have all books on the planet (and they have fewer every day — so make sure your state and municipality support and fund public libraries!). Someone has to decide what makes it on the shelves, so why not manipulate the criteria? If I don't "believe" in evolution, o...

There's something carefree about reading during the summer. Even when I took summer school classes (for fun!), I always had extra time to read. In fact, many of the classes I took included reading lists that somehow seemed less daunting because the books could be read under a tree, on the beach, in a hammock. I could tackle hefty books in the bright summer sunlight. I could breeze through light fare on the windswept beach of the Pacific Ocean of my childhood. There was nothing too huge that couldn't be faced in the summer. One excellent source of summer reading lists was my local library. There was always a reading competition, an incentive to read more, the most, the best. Not to brag, but one year I read more books than any other kid in the library. The librarians ran out of prizes — which was even better because reading was its own reward. But as I left school and found myself in the workaday world, I found fewer and fewer reading programs. Libraries used to offe...

What do libraries mean to you? To me, they mean possibility . There are thousands, even millions, of books in libraries in every town. For no additional cost to patrons, books are available for reading. (Just return them on time — a challenge for even the most voracious reader!) I have read the first two Fever books by Karen Marie Moning at the recommendation of my friend Karen and have been totally sucked into the world of Fae (and the sexy lead male character). I perused (okay, totally read ) The Happiness Project and realized I could be happy living in comfort on the Upper East Side, too — especially if I could write a book about how happy it made me. (I jest. It had some interesting information and ideas in it. Plus, I'd only be happy on the Upper West Side.) I had only two days to try to (unsuccessfully) finish The Princess of Mars before I had to hand it over so these pesky Jane-come-latelys could discover John Carter. (Thanks, Disney, for your impeccable timing ...

Every year, the American Library Association reminds us that freedom is not free by holding Banned Books Week.  And every year, I get the same questions:  What's the big deal?  Books aren't really banned, they're just challenged — and shouldn't I have the right to tell my kids what they can read? Well, here's the thing: parents have the right to tell their own children what they can read.  However, they do not have the right to tell other people's children, including me and mine, what they  can  read. I was among the more fortunate children: my parents didn't curtail my reading.  I showed my folks what I had checked out from the library; in the off-chance they weren't around or available when I got home, the books were stacked on my nightstand in my bedroom.  They were books, for heaven's sake, and everyone loves books, right? That doesn't mean I didn't make my parents uncomfortable with what I read.  When I asked Dad about ...

I have seen the future without Borders, and it is Target. And it makes me wish to weep. David and I stopped by Borders the other day to indulge yet again (and to say "hello" to our future shelves).  We had a stack of goods we literally could not carry without each others' help.  Between coffee table books on music and guitars, a Jackie Chan video, Game of Thrones , The Anubis Gates , another Flavia mystery novel and a few novels and DVDs that will be gifts, our arms were full. While we were there, I could not find some of the more recently published books, but I suspect most of the newer items had been snatched up quickly.  There was a biography I had tried for the better part of a year to pick up at the bookstore, but was again unsuccessful. Today I encountered a book trailer that made me want to race out and purchase said book (thanks to Harper Collins Canada ).  I knew I wasn't going to risk another encounter at Borders so soon — it's too exhausting ...

April 10-16 is National Library Week!  To honor libraries and librarians, I share with you a poem sent to me by my librarian friend, Suzanne, who serves as a prime example of what is great about libraries and librarians.   I'm glad she has been a part of my library — and my life.     Please enjoy this poem shared by Suzanne, who grew up on the shores of Lake Michigan and whose family has a personal connection to Carl Sandburg and his family's goats.   PICNIC BOAT SUNDAY night and the park policemen tell each other it      is dark as a stack of black cats on Lake Michigan. A big picnic boat comes home to Chicago from the peach      farms of Saugatuck. Hundreds of electric bulbs break the night's darkness, a      flock of red and yellow birds with wings at a standstill. Running along the deck railings are festoons and leaping      in curves are loops of light from p...

It is no secret, my love of books.  I hope also it is no secret I hold an equally deep love for libraries, especially public ones.  The first tax-supported public library opened on this day in 1833, in Peterborough, N.H., and it stands today with more than 9,000 other public libraries that feed our need for information and resources.   You may not be able to get a subscription to the Post or pay for Internet connection, but you know you can get that at the library — as well as books in many languages, DVDs, recorded books and reference material and magazines from all over the world. We talk about all of the things we can live without in economic hard times.  Some jurisdictions seem to think libraries are one of those things that can come and go when "times get tough."  You and I know better.  Call your mayor, call your chairman, call your parish president or county leader and make sure they know that, too.  While we're at it, let's have a shout-out to ...