What's On Your Shelves from the Library

[Melanti]

I've liked it a lot.

Since you're the one creating the list that other people pick from, there won't ever be anything on there that you're just not interested in. And with 3 to choose from, there's usually going to be at least one that you're in the mood to read.

Most of the time, people say why they're picking a book - whether if it's a favorite, or they have it on their TBR and want you to be a guinea pig, or they just think the cover or title is interesting. If someone says that a book that's been on my shelf for years is one of their all-time favorites, I'm definitely more inclined to dust if off and read it.

The other group has 20-30 people playing, but I think it'd work with around a dozen. Maybe fewer if there was more time in between rounds. You want enough so people can drop out for a few rounds when they get busy, and so that you're not picking from the same people's shelves over and over again.

And, obviously, people have to have public profiles, or friend everyone involved. I've noticed quite a few people in this group value their privacy.

[Julia]

Just picked up a large stack from the library--feels like Christmas! :-)

The Camelot Spell (reading this with my 9 year old grandson)
The Woman Who Died a Lot (I own it, but trying the large print version--my eyes are happy!)
The Secret History of Vladimir Nabokov
The Old Fox Deceiv'd
The Anodyne Necklace
Wonders of the Universe

[LaLaLa Laura]

Melanti wrote: "I've liked it a lot.

Since you're the one creating the list that other people pick from, there won't ever be anything on there that you're just not interested in. And with 3 to choose from, there..."

Good points, Melanti. I may consider it for the new year.

[LaLaLa Laura]

Julia wrote: "Just picked up a large stack from the library--feels like Christmas! :-)

The Camelot Spell (reading this with my 9 year old grandson)
The Woman Who Died a Lot (I own it, but trying the large print..."

I know! It's an addiction! Like candy on Halloween!!!

[Julia]

Absolutely! And we don't even have to say "trick or treat"--it's all treats :-)

[LaLaLa Laura]

LaLaLa Laura wrote: "Julia wrote: "Just picked up a large stack from the library--feels like Christmas! :-)

The Camelot Spell (reading this with my 9 year old grandson)
The Woman Who Died a Lot (I own it, but trying t..."

I think I'm going to need to start to read large print myself soon!

[LaLaLa Laura]

I'm reading You Are Not So Smart: Why You Have Too Many Friends on Facebook, Why Your Memory Is Mostly Fiction, and 46 Other Ways You're Deluding Yourself.
It's kind of cynical but still interesting in that it makes you see common things in your daily life from a different perspective.
For example, he talks about how human beings are not wired to have more than 150 friends, so how can somebody have 500 friends on Facebook?
Things like that!

[Julia]

Good points, Laura--before I retired, I was stunned when one of my students said her best "friends" were those she met online. That's really sad and scary to me, since she had no idea if the person was really who they said they were.

I just checked out What Are the 7 Wonders of the Natural World?, since I'm reading about them for the "Around the World in 80 Books" goodreads group. Turns out it's a slim children's book, but that's fine--I'm ordering it for my grandchildren.

One interesting bit on Mount Everest (which was named by the British): "The Tibetans call it CHHA-MO-LUNG-MA, meaning 'district of the birds.' In Nepal, it is called SAGARMATHA, or 'sky head.'"

I like those names, which honor the mountain rather than Sir George Everest, a supervisor of the Survey of India.

[LaLaLa Laura]

i did not know that about MT
Everest. or should I say "Sagarmatha'!
funny how sometimes we are taught things in history from our own country's perspective instead of a more "worldly" perspective....

[Julia]

You're so right, Laura--that colonial period in history slapped A LOT of European names on places that already had been named by the indigenous people.

Victoria Falls is another of those 7 natural wonders; the Kololo people (who first showed Livingstone the Falls that he named for the queen) called them MOSI-OA-TUNYA, which means "the smoke that thunders." And earlier people called the falls SHONGWE, meaning "rainbow."

So here's to "Sagarmatha" and "Shongwe"--no matter what names humans impose on nature, they're mainly places of awe and wonder :-)

[LaLaLa Laura]

I love the true names so much more. it gives so much more honor to what it actually is!

[[deleted user]]

I, Robot
The 1940s
Little House on the Prairie

[Julia]

I'm lucky that our library in this tiny town (2200) is connected to a consortium of over 60 libraries, so I can place holds on almost everything. They also connect to MelCat, a catalogue of Michigan colleges that will have what the consortium might not.

Right now I have The Zookeeper's Wife by Diane Ackerman, since I'm giving that book for World Book Night on April 23.

[[deleted user]]

Alicia wrote, " I just got I, Robot online. My library is a little hard for me to get to and they don't usually have what I want."

Gee, I feel sorry for you. But you'll love I, Robot.

[[deleted user]]

At the moment I have these books:

We Have Always Lived in the Castle
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
The Mark of the Dragonfly
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe
The Woman in the Fifth

[Kennedy]

It's been a bit since i borrowed a book but last night i got on the online library and i got
and

[Andrea]

The Museum of Extraordinary Things
The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America

[[deleted user]]

At this moment I have:

The Kite Runner
The Snow Child
The Laura Line
Going Vintage

[LaLaLa Laura]

Laura Line sounds awesome ;)

[Melanti]

If that's The Snow Child written by Eowyn Ivey, I read it as a group read in another group last year and it was really lovely. Nearly everyone liked it.

[[deleted user]]

@Melanti

Yes it is, thanks for the review! :)

[[deleted user]]

Now I have the following

Crime and Punishment
Life After Theft
Poached

And yes, The Laura Line was awesome!!!!!!!!!!!! ;) :)

[LaLaLa Laura]

haha Sarah! good to know! I will check that out!

[[deleted user]]

This week I have:

Elsewhere
Pi in the Sky
Theo's Tricks

[Julia]

I really like Peter Matthiessen, who died recently. His books on the natural world are wonderful: The Tree Where Man Was Born, The Snow Leopard, In The Spirit Of Crazy Horse.

The library had his most recent work, published 3 days after his death: In Paradise. I just checked it out, and it's very different from his other works. The Amazon blurb says:

"In the winter of 1996, more than a hundred women and men of diverse nationality, background, and belief gather at the site of a former concentration camp for an unprecedented purpose: a weeklong retreat during which they will offer prayer and witness at the crematoria and meditate in all weathers on the selection platform, while eating and sleeping in the quarters of the Nazi officers who, half a century before, sent more than a million Jews to their deaths. Clements Olin, an American academic of Polish descent, has come along, ostensibly to complete research on the death of a survivor, even as he questions what a non-Jew can contribute to the understanding of so monstrous a catastrophe. As the days pass, tensions, both political and personal, surface among the participants, stripping away any easy pretense to healing or closure. Finding himself in the grip of emotions and impulses of bewildering intensity, Olin is forced to abandon his observer’s role and to embrace a history his family has long suppressed—and with it the yearnings and contradictions of being fully alive. In Paradise is a brave and deeply thought-provoking novel by one of our most stunningly accomplished writers."

[Julia]

I just checked out In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick. The goodreads blurb says:

"In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex brings to new life the incredible story of the wreck of the whaleship Essex—an event as mythic in its own century as the Titanic disaster in ours, and the inspiration for the climax of Moby Dick. In a harrowing page-turner, Nathaniel Philbrick restores this epic story to its rightful place in American history.

In 1820, the 240-ton Essex set sail from Nantucket on a routine voyage for whales. Fifteen months later, in the farthest reaches of the South Pacific, it was repeatedly rammed and sunk by an eighty-ton bull sperm whale. Its twenty-man crew, fearing cannibals on the islands to the west, made for the 3,000-mile-distant coast of South America in three tiny boats. During ninety days at sea under horrendous conditions, the survivors clung to life as one by one, they succumbed to hunger, thirst, disease, and fear.

In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex tells perhaps the greatest sea story ever. Philbrick interweaves his account of this extraordinary ordeal of ordinary men with a wealth of whale lore and with a brilliantly detailed portrait of the lost, unique community of Nantucket whalers. Impeccably researched and beautifully told, the book delivers the ultimate portrait of man against nature, drawing on a remarkable range of archival and modern sources, including a long-lost account by the ship's cabin boy."

The book is being made into a film directed by Ron Howard. The movie stars Chris Hemsworth, Cillian Murphy, Ben Whishaw, Brendan Gleeson, and Tom Holland. It is is scheduled for release on March 15, 2015.

[[deleted user]]

Here's my list for the week:

The Cardturner
Mr.Popper's Penguins
Harriet the Spy

[Julia]

I really like the dark magical realism of Jonathan Carroll, so I've been excited to find The Ghost in Love, which I found at my new library in Chelsea :-)

Going there this afternoon to get A Higher Call: An Incredible True Story of Combat and Chivalry in the War-Torn Skies of World War II by Adam Makos, which will be the read for my new book club. Such are the joys of moving and finding other book lovers!

[LaLaLa Laura]

so how is your new place, Julia? how wonderful you have found a book club!

[Julia]

LaLaLa Laura wrote: "so how is your new place, Julia? how wonderful you have found a book club!"

I was a bit concerned about entering a retirement community, but my small place is the right size for me and so far people have accepted that I'm a secular humanist in the midst of all these church folk :-) Thanks for asking, Laura--and my main interest will always be the library!

[Greg]

Julia wrote: "LaLaLa Laura wrote: "so how is your new place, Julia? how wonderful you have found a book club!"

I was a bit concerned about entering a retirement community, but my small place is the right size ..."

Julia, glad you're feeling it's a good fit and that you're feeling accepted! My parents, aunts, and uncles are all approaching those same transitions right now. Be well Julia! I'm already enjoying the Vonnegut selection!

[Teresa]

I checked out Chose the Wrong Guy, Gave Him the Wrong Finger, so far it is interesting and quite funny.

[[deleted user]]

This time I have:

Vampire Kisses
Agnes Grey
Loki's Wolves
The Diviners

[♦Ashley♦]

Interview With The Vampire Audio

[Greg]

Ashley wrote: "Interview With The Vampire Audio"

The first three books in that series were fun!

[♦Ashley♦]

Greg wrote: "Ashley wrote: "Interview With The Vampire Audio"

The first three books in that series were fun!"

I really like the first movie, so I hope I like the books even more:)

[Greg]

Ashley wrote:
I really like the first movie, so I hope I like the books even more:)"

For my part, I enjoyed the books more - hope you enjoy them too!

[Julia]

My library stack is growing :-)

Tiger Lily by Jodi Lynn Anderson
The Enchanted by Rene Denfeld
The Snow Queen by Michael Cunningham
The Ruby in the Smoke by Philip Pullman
Crazy Brave: A Memoir by Joy Harjo

[Julia]

Now I have:

The Round House by Louise Erdrich

The Rise of Silas Lapham by William Dean Howells

The Wee Free Men (Discworld, #30) by Terry Pratchett

[LaLaLa Laura]

let me know how that is, Lugosifan! I read his books in HS!

[Nidofito]

I borrowed Red Rain when it came out. But I stopped reading it after a few chapters because I accidentally spoiled myself with the ending :-( Maybe I'll pick it up again some time later as I was a huge fan of him as a teenager :-)

[Nidofito]

I borrowed Red Rain when it came out. But I stopped reading it after a few chapters because I accidentally spoiled myself with the ending :-( Maybe I'll pick it up again some time later as I was a huge fan of him as a teenager :-)

[Nidofito]

I borrowed Red Rain when it came out. But I stopped reading it after a few chapters because I accidentally spoiled myself with the ending :-( Maybe I'll pick it up again some time later as I was a huge fan of him as a teenager :-)

[Nidofito]

I borrowed Red Rain when it came out. But I stopped reading it after a few chapters because I accidentally spoiled myself with the ending :-( Maybe I'll pick it up again some time later as I was a huge fan of him as a teenager :-)

[Antonija]

I borrowed A Singular Hostage yesterday and I'm looking forward to reading it :)
Has anyone read it?

[Nidofito]

I loved Thirteen reasons why and made my mom read it too :-)

[Kristen]

I was just at the library today. My three year old daughter picked out about 15 children's books for herself and her 6 year-old sister and for myself I got: White Gardenia, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, and The Life We Bury

[LaLaLa Laura]

have fun reading them together, Kristen!