No, I don’t want to read this book

I have a bit of a reputation as a reader, and am whitelisted by several publishers on Edelweiss and Netgalley. At work we get Library Journal, Booklist and Publisher's Weekly so we can keep up with what's being published and consider those books for our collection. There are a few things I look for in a…

We have a winner!

Serving on a book award committee is always fun: reading books outside my comfort zone and talking about books with thoughtful, intelligent readers? Yes, more, please. And at the end, you get to call the winner. You’re emotional… they’re emotional. So many emotions. This time it was a Zoom, so in addition to the words…

My Year in Reading (2023 edition)

This year was better than last in terms of reading: in addition to the book award books, more books were above "meh" and there were several that I love recommending. Herewith, the round-up for the year: Thanks to m.e.g. lewis' Instagram, I was inspired to share my five-star reads as bookshelves (sorry, I couldn't find all…

Minor Musings

Books, Reading, etc. Something to watch out for: books written by AI (they literally can kill you!) Where did slang expressions come from? Green's Dictionary of Slang has some answers. A good argument against most books (spoiler: they could be shorter... or even pamphlets) I should do this with my ~2,000 books. The BBC has…

Need something to read?

I’ve posted before about serving on a book award committee, and how it can force you to read books you might not have picked up otherwise. I had a great time catching up with the rest of the committee (having joined late) and yes, reading some books I wouldn’t have thought to read. Our monthly…

Bucket List things

I just got back from a weekend with some high school friends. One of them asked me how many books I've read this year (as of that moment? 232) It started a conversation about how much people read, and I had to remind them of a few things: I read very quickly, and it's pretty…

Why do it?

When I was at ALA Annual in June, I attended the Morris Book Award celebration. A woman sat next to me and I asked her if she was on the 2022 Morris committee and she said no, that she'd never been on a book award committee and would I recommend it? Would I???? You know…

Bucket List Check

I've served on three previous ALA book award committees (Nonfiction, Alex and SFNotables). Last week, I got an email asking if I was interested in stepping in for someone who had withdrawn from the William C. Morris YA Debut Novel Award committee. It took me about a nanosecond to say "yes". Morris has been a…

Stop gatekeeping

Every few years (sometimes more frequently) there's a tweet/article/blog post like this: https://twitter.com/wclodfelter/status/1634609783750680576?s=43&t=sbio11dN4TJgB3SdKXpteQ To which I say, UGH. Make that several "ughs". The biggest program for "leveling" books was founded in 1986, after I left college. I'm just wondering what would have happened had it existed when I was in school because I certainly read…

They’re kidding, right?

I'm sure by now everyone has heard about the increase in book banning, often on the flimsiest of grounds. This tweet sums up the "WTF"ery of the supposed reasons: https://twitter.com/notthecarkia/status/1628810855209992195?s=43&t=BdVptMNhhFbvbKQjX770nA If you look at the reason for the responses to that tweet, it's what one of the Moms for Liberty says (on it's surface it's…