Wednesday, July 12, 2006

why I belong in a library

Reason #2182: I'm excited about the fact that I use a typewriter in my new job. It's newish as typewriters go, but still has a delightful clunk and gives me the opportunity to mess up many labels in the process of getting one right.

Reason #834: When I look at the library catalog online (which, can we just pause for a minute to think about how stupendous an online catalog is?) I wish I were on one of the staff computers so I can check to see when a hold went in transit and whether or not I can expect it to arrive today. I also wish I could view circ stats from home.

Reason #85713: I shelf-read compulsively. I spent my last 10 minutes of Officially Working in Children's last week flipping through our paperback mysteries and setting things in order. Pulling out the j-fiction and the young teen and the scifi that mysteriously ended up there, putting them back in alphabetical order. Even on my way to lunch I'm scanning the shelves for something out of place. It's like reading shampoo bottles, I just can't stop myself.

Reading: The Thin Place. Which I'm enjoying muchly but abandoned for a day while I speed-read through How I Live Now (the 2005 Printz medalist). It's the sort of story that could just have easily had a more conventional, historical setting but instead is a sort of near-future type thing. The plot didn't really depend on that element, but it added a neat layer of suspense. Because if it had been set in WWII Britain, rather than near-future Britain with hypothetical war going on, we would've know How It Ended. But a fictional war? Anything Could Happen. But Meg Rosoff doesn't take it in any fantastical directions, it's very grounded. And the cover is spiffy. Although it's one of those titles where they did something totally different for the paperback.

9 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

You have to quit telling me about books because I find that I want to read. them. all. And since I'm very much in a "read harry potter all the time, but not necessarily reading the books in the proper order" phase right now, you telling me of new books is a bad idea. :D

(um, don't really stop. I like books. Especially since I want to read more young fiction and you are my lifeline to that grouping. :D)

11:11 AM  
Blogger Jess said...

I get a huge number of my recommendations from Leila at Bookshelves of Doom (on my blogroll) and then I read them and love them and go back and tell her, "damn you, it's all your fault my reading list is so long!" So you can blame her vicariously if you'd like.

Your lifeline! I'm so honored.

Harry Potter is a little like candy. Or ice cream. Can't stop. But this book here? This one's a blueberry pie. Still sweet, but some of those antioxidants, too!

11:23 AM  
Blogger Leila said...

Ha ha.

And Kara, give Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones a try, if you haven't read it already. (If you like that, she's written a kajillion others -- the Chrestomanci Chronicles are the most similar to HP. The first in that series is Charmed Life, I think.) Also, Rick Riordan's The Lightning Thief has been embraced by Potter fans -- it doesn't have the depth of the later ones, but it's a riot.

12:48 PM  
Blogger Kristina said...

I totally get everything you're taking about here. We're library dorks :)

8:11 PM  
Blogger Kathy said...

I get it too except I just can't shelf read -- it drives me crazy. Although I will notice in a bookstore if a book is in a place that doesn't make sense. Once they told me that a mystery was in the Gay/Lesbian section instead of mystery because the writer was a lesbian. Do they not have a clue as to how huge the Gay/Lesbian section would be if they put all their books by gays and lesbians in that secion!?

I may go read How I Live Now -- I love the first cover.

2:28 PM  
Blogger Suse said...

Ooh how I would love to work in a library.

Thanks for your comment on my blog. The public Waldorf schools in the US that you mention are called Charter schools, and the whole school is Waldorf, rather than just a stream, like we have.

And they attract the same controversy ours do!

PS. I hope you've bought a kettle with a whistle this time.

6:17 PM  
Blogger Andrew McAllister said...

Do you get as wrapped up reading blogs too?

I learned to type on the manual typewriters. Computers just don't seem to have the same satisfying feel as when you grabbed that bar at the end of the line and sent the carriage flinging to the right. Sometimes old things have a satisfying feel. (Like books instead of blogs?)

2:50 PM  
Blogger Jess said...

I do get caught up reading blogs. In a different way but with a similar intensity. And inability to stop.

My typewriter isn't THAT old. It's an IBM. No carriage to push back.

7:07 PM  
Blogger BabelBabe said...

Hey! I JUST finished The Thin Place at lunch today! What do you think of it?

The library unfortunately sent How I Live Now back to its original library as I didn't pick it up in time : (

1:32 PM  

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