Library Books Mid-September 2015

The Places that Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times by Pema Chodron
It Will End with Us by Sam Savage
The Coroner's Lunch (Dr. Siri #1) by Colin Cotterill
The Complete Visual Guide to Good Dog Training: The Balanced Way to A Well Behaved Pet by Babette Haggerty
All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews
Man at the Helm by Nina Stibbe
The Good Luck of Right Now by Matthew Quick
The Fishermen by Chigozie Obioma
The Chimes by ANna Smaill
A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler
Can't We Talk about Something More Pleasant?: A Memoir by Roz Chast

This month has been a busy month of books from the library (libraries, really). Three of the books on this pile are on the Man Booker Prize Longlist (Obioma, Smaill, Tyler) and I was trying to read at least the first 50 pages of as many of those books as I could.

I went to our leisure reading collection to pull the Chast because I was preparing to speak with a librarian who specializes in comics and graphic novels, and I was thinking I would have one fresh in my mind to talk about, and knew the Chast had been a finalist for the National Book Award (USA) last year. I ended up not using it as one of my primary choices, but I can say I have read it! When I was over in that collection, the Helm, Quick, and Toews followed me home. Whoops.

The Savage seemed out of place in the New Books section, a slim black paperback in a sea of academic hardbacks. Reading the description I found it is set in South Carolina, so decided it was worth a try, maybe a quick read.

I had wanted to read another Chodron after reading her book When Things Fall Apart. This one was not as easy of a read, but still great. I requested the Cotterill from interlibrary loan immediately following the recording of Reading Envy Podcast 037, where Juliane mentioned that series in passing. That was enough to peak my curiosity, not to mention that it is set in a country I had yet to read a book from for my Around the World challenge.

The dog training one was a whimsy pick from the new books section at the public library - I have two dogs who badly need training but we haven't taken the time to do a class yet.  I thought maybe it would help!

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?