Darien Library

GPO My bookshelf.

(Source: powells)

Look at all the books we had delivered today! The ladies in cataloging came running across the hall to get a camera to capture this shot. XD 

jenkirkman:

Hello everyone!
My book “I Can Barely Take Care of Myself” is out today!! (April 16th!)

I think you will get some laughs. There’s stories about failed teenage love, failed early 20-something love, fights with my parents, bad stand-up comedy gigs, getting engaged, getting married, getting divorced, bad haircuts, anxiety disorders, the threat of nuclear war, not wanting to have a baby, not wanting to talk to strangers and explain why I don’t want to have a baby, pretending to be pregnant at a nail salon, my nana and next door neighbor who died alone, the horror of alcohol-free afternoon birthday parties for adults, getting bullied at school, feeling like an outsider in life….

This book is about what gets said to women who are almost 40 who don’t desire children but it’s a lot more than that.

I encourage you to support your local bookstore (even if it is Barnes and Noble) and buy the hardcover there this week.  If not, you can purchase on Amazon or Barnes and Noble websites.

In fact, I made it easy - all info is here:

http://jenkirkman.com/book

I enjoyed this book! And I reviewed it for Library Journal:

Kirkman, Jen. I Can Barely Take Care of Myself. S. & S. Apr. 2013. 224p. ISBN 9781451667004. pap. $22. MEMOIR

Kirkman (Chelsea Lately) is childfree by choice. Unfortunately, this explanation doesn’t suffice for many people, including her mother-in-law, strangers at weddings, and even an audience member who encounters her in a comedy club bathroom after one of her stand-up routines. Kirkman—like her acts—is deadpan in her descriptions of the repetitive, inappropriate comments friends and strangers have made about her decision to abstain from parenthood. Retold with the characteristic wit that is found in her comedy writing, this is a smart book that will serve as a childfree-by-choice manifesto for working adults and women pursuing a career in a male-dominated industry. VERDICT Even if you are a parent or hope to be, this book shows the other side of the coin by dispelling the myth that a woman who is childfree by choice will eventually change her mind.

thelifeguardlibrarian:

“You must do something to make the world more beautiful.”

duttonbooks:

Hands down, best garage ever.

I would probably drive through this accidentally. Mesmerizing.

(Source: igotlemon)

To my mind, the first responsibility of a book recommender is to provide the reader something they will enjoy. Otherwise, you lose credibility and people will no longer come to you for recommendations, so your uptightness is more of a common courtesy.

That said, as the Biblioracle, I try to fulfill the primary directive while also pushing the envelope as far as it will go for that particular reader in order to expand their palate of books and authors. I do this not to move the needle on what people read towards what I’d like them to read, but because I think that readers who come to me will really enjoy having a somewhat different vein of literature opened up for them.

For example, if someone submits a list of recent reads filled with very popular, but also somewhat formulaic (an observation, not a criticism) and exclusively male crime/thriller writers like Robert Crais or Harlan Coben, I will recommend Laura Lippman, Kate Atkinson, or even Patricia Highsmith.

For me to recommend a book that’s truly “challenging,” the requester needs to demonstrate an openness to that challenge. If Gravity’s Rainbow is on someone list of recent reads, I’m confident I can recommend William Gaddis’s JR. If they’re on a Virginia Woolf kick, I can recommend Djuna Barnes. The interesting thing about these sorts of recommendations is that there’s a much higher likelihood that the reader will find the suggested book “revelatory” than when I’m working in “less challenging” territory.

I think this just speaks to the different demands different readers have of books. I only go for “challenging” books occasionally. Sometimes I just don’t have the mental horsepower necessary to process something like Infinite Jest.

And just because I might like two books, and one of those books is on the list of recent reads, I don’t necessarily automatically suggest the other book I liked. As a present example, I loved both May We Be Forgiven and Beautiful Ruins, but if someone said they loved Beautiful Ruins, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend May We Be Forgiven.

— 

Most of our librarians did not get to participate in today’s ToB matchup between Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk and May We Be Forgiven since almost everybody chose wrong for the play-in.

So instead, let’s all admire John Warner’s commentary, which would be right at home in any Readers’ Advisory 101 course!

millionsmillions:

Our own Edan Lepucki judges the opening round of The Morning News’s Tournament of Books — and this match-up is like a Sophie’s Choice.

So far the brackets of the Darien Library are not faring well in this tournament. Almost everybody picked The Yellow Birds (Billy Lynn took the day) and today, almost everybody had The Round House. Only one person is two-for-two! She is one of our children’s librarians. There’s really nothing children’s librarians can’t do.

doubledaybooks:

Beautiful Mosaics of books (and more!)

Mosaic of found objects

If you cross and uncross your eyes like the bottom one is a Magic Eye, you can kind of make out Albert Einstein.

(Source: from89)

wellaht:

Maggie Appleton

I’d like to add notecards to this list.