Reading Envy 225: Books About Libraries and Librarians

I'm joined first by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray to discuss their joint novel, and decided to ask my co-workers for their favorite books on libraries and librarians. The episode finishes up with a few reading recommendations based on questions I've answered from listeners.

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Reading Envy 225: Books About Libraries and Librarians

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Books discussed:

The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray

Other mentions:

My review of The Personal Librarian
An Illuminated Life by Heidi Ardizzone
Yellow Wife by Sadeqa Johnson
Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi
The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
Lirael by Garth Nix
The Giver of Stars by JoJo Moyes
The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson
The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman
Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
The Strange Library by Haruki Murakami
Glaciers by Alexis M. Smith
The Borrower by Rebecca Makkai
A Hidden Fire by Elizabeth Hunter
American Dreamer by Adriana Herrera
Bear by Marian Engel
Kitsy Babcock: Library Assistant by Joan Sargent
Sorcery of Thorns by Margaret Rogerson
The Library by Sarah Stewart
Penelope Popper, Book Doctor by Toni Buzzeo
Library Lion by Michelle Knudsen
Wild About Books by Judy Sierra
Help! I’m a Prisoner in the Library by Eth Clifford

Related episodes:

Episode 138 - Shared Landscape with Lauren Weinhold

Stalk me online:

Jenny at Goodreads
Jenny on Twitter
Jenny is @readingenvy on Instagram and Litsy

All links to books are through Bookshop.org, where I am an affiliate. I wanted more money to go to the actual publishers and authors. I link to Amazon when a book is not listed with Bookshop.

Reading Envy 040: Proustian Ratatouille

Jenny stayed closer to home for this episode, to talk comics with local teen services librarian and Secret Stacks podcaster, Thomas Maluck. The podcast starts and ends with comics but if that isn't your speed, there are other books discussed in the middle.  Jenny isn't really an expert in comics either, and soon learned she may never be as much of an expert as Thomas! Talk about envy - this is an entire genre practically unexplored.

Download or listen via this link: Reading Envy 040: Proustian Ratatouille

Subscribe to the podcast via this link: Feedburner

Or subscribe via iTunes by clicking: Subscribe

Books discussed:



Winter Soldiers: An Oral History of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War by Richard Stacewicz
All I Did Was Ask: Conversations with Writers, Actors, Musicians, and Artists by Terry Gross
Some Girls Are by Courtney Summers
H Is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald
Hank Johnson: Agent of Hydra #1 by David Mandel

Other mentions:

ALA Great Graphic Novels for Teens - 2015 list
Comics, Cosplay, and Geek Culture in Libraries blog
How to Do Free Comic Book Day at Your Library - blog post by Kristin from Secret Stacks
Mark Millar
Neonomicon by Alan Moore
Secret Stacks Podcast Episode 6 - Fun Home and Duke, etc.
Comic Book Legal Defense Fund
New York Comic Con
The Complete Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
Sex Criminals, Vol. 1: One Weird Trick by Matt Fraction
Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel
Are You My Mother?: A Comic Drama by Alison Bechdel
Dykes to Watch Out For (web comic) by Alison Bechdel
Out Loud: The Best of Rainbow Radio edited by Ed Madden and Candace Chellew-Hodge
Can't We Talk about Something More Pleasant?: A Memoir by Roz Chast
In Search of Lost Time: Swann's Way: A Graphic Novel
Ratatouille (movie)
Cages by Dave McKean
The Sculptor by Scott McCloud
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
A Wrinkle in Time: The Graphic Novel by Madeleine L'Engle and Hope Larson
Captain America: The Winter Soldier (movie)
Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
Spirited Away (movie)
Princess Mononoke (movie)
From Up On Poppy Hill (movie)
The Goshawk by T.H. White
The Once and Future King by T.H. White

Thanks for listening!

Here's Thomas as Ms. Marvel:

Stalk us online:
Jenny at Goodreads
Jenny on Twitter
Thomas on Twitter
Secret Stacks on Twitter
Secret Stacks Podcast ("YOUR comics in libraries podcast")
Thomas's graphic novel reviews at No Flying No Tights

Related Reading Envy Episodes:
Episode 004 - Home, Frightening and Banned with guest Karen Acosta
Episode 005 - The Second Definition of Geek with guest Tamahome
 

Library Books July 2015

I went to the leisure reading section of the academic library where I work, to check out a book I needed to read for my book club. Somehow more books followed me home. The story continues....

Guided Mindfulness Meditation by Jon Kabat-Zinn
Guided Mindfulness Meditation Series 2 by Jon Kabat-Zinn
The Folded Clock: A Diary by Heidi Julavits
Strange Bodies by Marcel Theroux
The Library at Night by Alberto Manguel
The Cairo Affair by Olen Steinhauer
The Love Bunglers by Jaime Hernández

The book I was looking for was The Cairo Affair, which will be the August read for my local book club. Somehow I ended up also picking up the Theroux, the Julavits (beautiful cover!), and the Hernández. These three I have read or discarded, but I have yet to read the Steinhauer. Isn't that always the way.

I had started reading an eBook version of the Manguel through one of the academic platforms we have access to. Except Yale University Press didn't include the images in the eBook version. Blank squares kept instructing me to consult the print edition, which seems to counter why you would ever just buy an eBook! I had to request the print from interlibrary loan (this explains the strange call number, which is neither LC nor Dewey) because the images seemed to be important to the text.

After attending a Contemplative Pedagogy workshop in June, I have been looking for more ways to meditate, etc. I spent my lunch hour Monday on the floor of one professor's office doing a body scan from one of the Kabat-Zinn CDs, so I checked the rest out from the library.

What have you brought home from the library lately?

Jenny's Books Added in July 2014

Because of my three weeks in Oregon, I did not check out any books from the library in the month of July.  Well, to be honest, I visited my old hometown library with my Mom and she checked out The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry for me, but *I* didn't check it out. So there was not a mid-month library books post this time around.

Before I left for Oregon, I had a birthday.  I often get books for my birthday, but most often they are cooking and baking related.  In case you didn't know of my alternate baking persona, she can be found over on Jennybakes.com.   That interest will explain most of the books on this pile.  The songwriting one is by the man I took a MOOC from through Berklee College of Music, and the picture book about public libraries is gorgeous.  I'll probably bring it to my office at an academic library.

While I was in Oregon, I did make it to a few bookstores.  Okay, I went to Powell's four times - twice downtown, once at the mall formerly known as the Beaverton Mall, and once in the airport.  I also went with my Mom to two used bookstores that she has credits at.  Love love love Powell's, but had no room in my luggage for a huge buying spree. I bought only one book there - a book of poetry in Turkish.  They had three shelves of books in Turkish!

The Margaret Atwood and Wiley Cash books come from the bookstores my Mom had credit at - the Atwood I'd never heard of and the Cash was in great condition so I couldn't help it.  The Hillary Rodham  Clinton audiobook came in the mail while I was away, a review copy from the publisher.  I'm two discs in. Hillary is going to spend quite a few work commutes with me (since they are only three miles, ha!)

Before I left for my trip, I downloaded two more audiobooks.  I also got a few review copies digitally before it turned to August, so I'll list those here.

Authority (Southern Reach Trilogy #2) by Jeff Vandermeer, read by Bronson Pinchot
I've already listened to this one! I listened to it while I was reading the paperback, because Bronson Pinchot is a great reader and then I could more easily take the book with me. 

Prototype by M.D. Waters
I had read Archetype, the first in this series, and enjoyed it. About clones.

A Spy Among Friends by Ben Macintyre, read by John Lee
I'm always on the hunt for spy books and John Lee is usually a great narrator.

The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson
Not too thrilled about this one, but it's for one of my bookclubs, the one that meets in person, and I like it when people read books I pick that they aren't thrilled with.  I tried listening to it on the plane and had a hard time focusing, and picked it up again one night when coyotes woke me up. 

The Book On Fire by Keith Miller

The Book on Fire by Keith Miller
My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars

A book thief lands in a fantastical version of the legendary Alexandria to steal from his ultimate library, and falls in love with a librarian working there. I'm not sure if the author loves libraries or librarians more, considering that his previous book, The Book of Flying, was along similar lines, but I have to admit it works for me. I almost feel embarrassed to say how much I enjoyed reading this book, but I can't really explain why. I was already enamored with Alexandria after reading the Durrell quartet, and this made it so much worse!

The writing is very descriptive, and I'm tempted to say overly so, except I don't feel it is. Most of the time if I pick up a book that spends half its time describing smells and food, it reads like filler, but here it serves to place the reader into his vision of Alexandria. I found myself drawn in and living in the world as I read, which doesn't happen often as an adult. (I also ended up hungry!)

There are elements of the writing and of the storytelling that are the same elements I love in Catherynne Valente's writing, and anyone knows me knows that is high praise indeed. After reading a little more about the author himself, I feel like you can see glimpses of his real life experiences tucked into this book, as far from reality as it seems.

"This is the true heart of the city, this street of cubbyholes of stacked paper. The library is of course its soul, but it is hidden."

"That's the difference between heroin and literature... The drugs you take are lonely voyages. I can share your needle but I can't share your trip. Each reading is separate, to be sure, but I can come much closer to another person's experience."

"You fall deeper into a book. The others flip through the pages, their eyes are always floating up, but you drown."

"First readings are like first kisses - you can't remember the taste, the shape of the other's lips, you have only a heady sensation of stained glass shattering."

"To read a cherished book aloud to someone who also knows the book by heart is an experience closer than any other conversation, closer than making love; the same reefs and swells crossed at the same time, the chuckles rising in tandem. You feel you're speaking into her blood."