Since I work in a bookstore, when I have the night off, I like to really live it up.

By, you know, going to another bookstore.  I live on the wild side, what can I say?!

Portsmouth Book and Bar

There were delicious snacks.  

Kristin, enjoying her beer and the delicious snacks.

That's my cider on the shelf.
They have a great selection of books, and that's not just the alcohol talking!

My cider makes another appearance.
Books everywhere!  Even the windowsills.  

The renovation looks great.

The woman in the bottom right is reading on a kindle.  Poor form lady, poor form!

The back half of the store is where most of the books are located.  

The grand opening event was very packed.  It was great to see so many people turn out to welcome the business to Portsmouth, but I'll be hoping that there are a little less people when I go back.  It was a bit hard to browse with so many people milling about and any seats were constantly occupied.  I can hardly blame anyone for wanting to spend a lot of time there as I can't wait to browse more when the crowds have thinned out a bit.  Though that might be wishful thinking on my part.  So far, I've heard positive comments from anyone that has visited, so it might be crowded all the time!  

Over the Thanksgiving holiday, I had the chance to go through some old papers at my parents' house.  When I was a child, my mother kept a box that she filled with important papers from my childhood.  Each of my siblings and I had such a box and from time to time growing up, we'd hear, "you'd better put it in your box."  I've scanned through the contents before but I don't think I really took the time to read everything like I did this time.  There was such an array of items in my box: my IEP, a family portrait I drew in first grade, my sash from Girl Scouts, folders filled with writing assignments from fifth grade through eighth grade, an invitation to my high school graduation.  Also included was this:

At eight years old, I was already establishing myself as a bookworm.  About that time, a wonderful thing happened in my life.  A children's bookstore opened in my town.

 

There was no better birthday present than one of their gift certificates enclosed in a red envelope with my name written on the front.  The address was different back then in the late eighties, but I'm thankful to still be able to visit the bookstore of my youth.

That chair out front is a newer addition, too.  

Here's a different angle of the chair, which you've hopefully noticed is comprised of  the A,B,C's.

When Eight Cousins opened, there were multiple other bookstores in Falmouth though none were exclusively for children.  Unfortunately those other stores have since shut their doors.  In their absence, Eight Cousins has evolved into a bookstore for every age in the community, offering books for adults as well as their vast selection for young readers.  I'd love to regale you with tales of me discovering the classics that were stocked on the shelves of Eight Cousins, but I can't.  I was consumed by a love of Sweet Valley Junior High books and the Babysitter's Club.  Was the super edition in stock??  Did Logan like Mary Ann?  Would Jessica continue to be the bad twin?  These were pressing questions in any young girl's life.  And I discovered the answers while cementing my love for reading.

Not only was I a customer, I also had close connections to the staff.  One of my close childhood friends and my sister both worked at Eight Cousins at various times.

My sister, in costume, being led down Main Street by a friend during a First Night celebration.  Its hard to see in those costumes so a guide is very helpful.    

I found my way into their backroom a few times too, folding the newsletters that would grace customers' mailboxes.  Even once I was past the age at which those newsletters were aimed, opening the mailbox to reveal the latest one still excited me.

If you find yourself on the Upper Cape, the book nerd in me can't recommend Eight Cousins enough.  You won't be disappointed.

A Selection of Quotes that I've Enjoyed Recently

"As we rush headlong into the twenty-first century, the physicality of trees seems more vital than ever.  The modern workplace and home are becoming increasingly antiseptic.  Americans now spend their days staring into computer screens that receive information as if by magic.  Daily life seems alarmingly virtual.  Trees provide the antidote.  The smell of pine needles, the crunch of autumn leaves, the roughness of bark are all reminders that we are a part of nature.  Tree hugging, in its most literal sense, offers a reconnection with the physical world, the world of our forefathers.  The forests and their trees are a sanctuary for the spirit.  To enter them is to seek renewal."  

Eric Rutkow

American Canopy

Pg. 347-348

"The most satisfying compliment a reader can pay is to tell me that he or she feels personally addressed.  Think of your own favorite authors and see if that isn't precisely one of the things that engages you, often at first without your noticing it.  A good conversation is the only human equivalent: the realizing that decent points are being made and understood, that irony is in play, and elaboration, and that a dull or obvious remark would be almost physically hurtful."

Christopher Hitchens

Mortality

Pg.  50-51

"I am of Irish descent, and to the Irish, books are as natural and inevitable a feature of the landscape as sand is to Tuaregs...When the English stormed the Emerald Isle under Cromwell in the seventeenth century, they took everything that was worth taking and burned everything else.  Thereafter, the Irish had no land, no money, no future.  That left them with words, and words became books, and books, ingeniously coupled with music and alcohol, enabled the Irish to transcend reality."

Joe Queenan

One For The Books

Pg. 9

"Certain things are perfect the way they are and need no improvement.  The sky, the Pacific Ocean, procreation, and the Goldberg Variations all fit this bill, and so do books.  Books are sublime, but books are also visceral.  They are physically appealing, emotionally evocative objects that constitute a perfect delivery system.  Electronic books are ideal for people who value the information contained in them, or who have vision problems, or who like to read on the subway, or who do not want other people to see how they are amusing themselves, or who have storage and clutter issues, but they are useless for people who are engaged in an intense, lifelong love affair with books.  Books that we can touch; books that we can smell; books that we can depend on."

Joe Queenan

One For The Books

Pg. 27

Image by Roger Roth, Available through the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression

Today marks the last day of an annual event in the book world, Banned Books Week.  

It seems shocking that in this day and age of the internet, the age of information at one's fingertips, that there are still people who think that banning books at a library or a school will keep the offending words from the "victims'" eyes.  

When I first heard of this yearly event, I thought it was a thing of the past.  That we were highlighting years past when books with "sinister messages" were kept off the shelves.  But then I learned that, unfortunately, this still happens.  I can be fairly idealistic at times so I guess I just preferred to think that we were long past all that censorship business.  

  Here is a list of the top ten challenged books for each of the past ten years.

Adults who are doing the challenging are going about this all wrong.  If they want a book banned, they should merely never mention it.  As soon as kids learn there is something they can't have, what do they want?  The item that is being kept from them!  

Most authors probably don't mind if their books are challenged because it means more people will read the "offending" books, if only to see if they agree about the "subversive material."  

Reactions from famous authors of challenged books.  

My life must be filled with lots of offensive moments and questionable material because I don't think any of the challenged books are that shocking.  I've read some and not read many others, but the reason has never been because they were kept under lock and key away from me.  I was merely not interested in them.  Those that I've read merely seem enlightening and not distressing.  

Or at least not distressing for the reasons that they've been challenged.  Last year I read Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian because I had seen it was included on numerous lists of banned books and yet it was always included in my store's table of summer reading titles.  On the ALA's list of challenged books, the first two reasons for wanting the book banned are "offensive language; racism."  Which is exactly why this book should be read!  Because the main character, a Native American living in poverty on a reservation, endures racism and offensive language at the hands of his peers and many of the adults he encounters.  Yes, the book contains these things [offensive language and racism] because it is imperative to the story.  Why should it be watered down to "save the readers from this harm" when there are real kids who endure what this fictional character is detailing in his journal?  

Keeping these kinds of struggles from young readers will not shield them from the realities of life, merely of the ability to understand these struggles when they confront them in their own lives.  And they will confront them if they haven't already.  It is best to lead informed minds into the world, prepared to handle what life throws at them, and not let them think they can shield themselves from the struggles that they will face.       

Today was Friday.  If you are at all familiar with the book (or music) world, you would think that it has been days since new books were released or that it is days from the next day that books are released.

That is because Tuesday is the new release day in the book and music realms.

Except when it is not.

Just when we have trained customers to only expect a new title on Tuesdays, someone has to go and change it.  Usually that occurs when a REALLY BIG NAME AUTHOR decrees it.  You might ask, who can wield such power?

Well, SHE who created Harry Potter, for one.

Most people, well, most muggles anyways, will probably remember that many a bookstore had fun and exciting midnight release parties when the last few Harry Potter titles were released.  When the stores held these parties, J.K. Rowling and her publisher were able to decide many small details that normally have no attention paid to them whatsoever.

For instance, while the boxes of books were delivered to the store days in advance, not a single box was allowed to be opened.  All booksellers were warned: open a box before midnight on release night and be ready to find yourself a new job.  In fact, no photos were to be taken of the boxes.  That's right, we weren't even allowed to take a photo of the outside of the boxes.  Which seems a bit strange, but, when you're J.K. Rowling and have created Harry Potter and the millions of dollars in sales that came with him, no bookseller would ever say no to you.  So our huge pile of boxes was wrapped in plastic wrap until a hour or two before midnight.

At that time, we were tasked with getting those boxes from the back room of the store up to the front of the building where the registers were, all the while trying to stop all those muggles from taking pictures of those boxes.  I'm fairly certain that will be my closest run in with the paparazzi.

All day customers had been arriving at the store and receiving wristbands that differentiated when they got to line up.  By 11:30pm, the line was officially forming.  By 11:55, the energy emanating off the crowd was almost overwhelming.  I was concerned what would happen if our registers crashed at 12:01...would we have a full-fledged riot on our hands?!

At 11:59, my manager yelled out the time.  With 30 seconds left, everyone started counting down together.  And at 12:00am, the twelve registers in our store rang out the first copies of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.  Sometime after 1am, the crowd was on its way home and the employees were allowed to purchase their copies.  Within that one hour, we sold through countless boxes and even those empty boxes were taken off our hands.  The fans wanted anything and everything we could give them that had to do with Harry Potter.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was released on Saturday July 21st, 2007, which meant the first sales could be processed at 12:00am Friday evening, which is of course technically Saturday morning.  That weekend I had no friends.

Because everyone I knew was reading the final installment in Harry's journey. Literally everyone.  

Except for me.

Yup, I've actually never read them.    

So, anyways, SHE who brought the world Harry Potter released a new book this week.

Yesterday.

Thursday.

And it has nothing to do with Harry Potter.  And it is not a kids book.

So the publishing world waits.  Will J.K. Rowling still retain the power she now has after this book's sales have been tallied?



**I should also note that J.K. Rowling still controls details connected to the Harry Potter series.  Earlier this year, the e-book versions were finally made available to fans.  But to obtain them, one had to purchase them through her own website.  Any attempt to buy them through a different site would redirect customers to her site.  So five years after the last book in the series came out, she can still decide exactly what she wants to happen with her creation.  This could allow future big name authors to wield the same power.  I bet publishers are waiting to see how that plays out as well.**



 

At the beginning of June, I went down to the Cape to have a yard sale with my parents and sister.  We cleared a lot of our junk out.  I mean, our treasure.  The whole "one man's trash is another man's treasure" thing.  Perhaps the best repurposing we were privy to learn about had to do with an old volleyball net.  A man saw it haphazardly thrown in a box with a couple of dog runs and asked for the price.  When I declared $1, it was already in the man's arms while his hands reached for his wallet.  He had immediately thought outside of the box and recognized the old volleyball net as a trellis for his newly planted cucumbers.

                                               My sister "merchandising" the books for sale.

What if other people thought outside of the box a bit more?  My customers would be less likely to get an annoyed or disappointed look when I tell them we have no free bookmarks.  Kids would look less crestfallen when parents shake their heads no to the bookmarks picked out from our display.

Some people of course do think outside this bookmarked box.  The receipt is the easiest discovery.  Sometimes a napkin from the cafe or maybe even a sugar packet.  I'll often use a piece of newly received mail, though I prefer the personal kind to bills or junk mail.  In January and February, my bookmark is likely to be one of my siblings' christmas cards.  Nothing beats opening a book to my niece and nephew's faces or my sister's artwork.

                                  A postcard for a bookmark: from Shakespeare and Company.

                                    In case I ever get amnesia, this postcard should help me out.

                                                A sticker from a coworker fits the bill, too.

                            Sometimes I just need to find a bigger book to fit a hand-knit bookmark.

Though sometimes I do use actual bookmarks and sometimes they come to me from other parts of the world.  This is from Scotland, I believe.  

A Selection of Quotes that I've Enjoyed Recently

"Our correspondences show us where our intimacies lie.  There is something very sensual about a letter.  The physical contact of pen to paper, the time set aside to focus thoughts, the folding of the paper into the envelope, licking it closed, addressing it, a chosen stamp, and then the release of the letter to the mailbox - are all acts of the tenderness.  

And it doesn't stop there.  Our correspondences have wings - paper birds that fly from my house to yours - flocks of ideas crisscrossing the country.  Once opened, a connection is made.  We are not alone in the world."

Terry Tempest Williams

Refuge

Pg. 84

"Love is an infinite feeling in a finite container, and so upsets the intellect, frustrates the will.  An anarchic emotion that transcends rules of age, race, blood, passionate love has a wild philosophy at base.  Because we can't control the fixation of love and desire, we experience emotional mayhem - stories, fiction, works of art result."

Louise Erdrich

The Blue Jay's Dance

Pg. 106

"Hypothetical Pierogies

They were the best thing she ever made, the dish she was known for, the food of the gods, the manna, the festive occasion's one missing element.  I hunger for these pierogies with a human hunger for the unattainable, for it is true that although she was famous for her pierogies, my grandmother made them only once.  I was eight years old, attaining the age of reason, subject to wrathful appetites.  I encountered melting dough, smoky onions, sour cheese filling, edges browned in lard.  Rotund pierogies filled me with a desire that would never be gratified."

Louise Erdrich

The Blue Jay's Dance

Pg. 201-202

"Books, for me, are a home.  Books don't make a home - they are one, in the sense that just as you do with a door, you open a book, and you go inside.  Inside there is a different kind of time and a different kind of space.  

There is a warmth there too - a hearth.  I sit down with a book and I am warm."

Jeanette Winterson

Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?

Pg. 61

"But that was the point.  Reading things that are relevant to the facts of your life is of limited value.  The facts are, after all, only the facts, and the yearning passionate part of you will not be met there.  That is why reading ourselves as a fiction as well as fact is so liberating.  The wider we read the freer we become.  Emily Dickinson barely left her homestead in Amherst, Massachusetts, but when we read, 'My life stood - a loaded gun' we know we have met an imagination that will detonate life, not decorate it.

So I read on.  And I read on, past my own geography and history, past the foundling stories and the Nori brickworks, past the Devil and the wrong crib.  The great writers were not remote;  they were in Accrington."

Jeanette Winterson

Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?

Pg. 117

"But in spite of its sexism, snobbery, patriarchal attitudes and indifference to student welfare, the great thing about Oxford was its seriousness of purpose and the unquestioned belief that the life of the mind was at the heart of civilised life."

Jeanette Winterson

Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?

Pg. 143

"The more I read the more I fought against the assumption that literature is for the minority - of a particular education or class.  Books were my birthright too.  I will not forget my excitement at discovering that the earliest recorded poem in the English language was composed by a herdsman in Whitby around AD 680 ('Caedmon's Hymn') when St. Hilda was the abbess of Whitby Abbey.  

Imagine it...a woman in charge and an illiterate cowhand making a poem of such great beauty that educated monks wrote it down and told it to visitors and pilgrims."

Jeanette Winterson

Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?

Pg. 143

I have something I need to get off my chest.

I have an addiction to little notepads.

Its overwhelming at times.  There are countless empty ones already in my apartment but I can't help myself from picking them up and flipping through them when I discover more at a store.  In order to stem my hoarding of these little notepads, I resolved to never buy one at full price.  Since I'm not much of a shopper, I figured my self-imposed rule would save me.  And it works, at least until the bookstore has a clearance sale.  I always find some hidden among the leftover books from whichever holiday was most recent.  
I've at least been using the notepads in these first two photos.  

  The notepads in these next two photos are still new and in pristine condition, just waiting for their perfect use.

These next two notepads remained empty for a few years before I found the perfect use for them. 

I list books that I'm interested in checking out in the notebook pictured above.  Some favorite quotes make it in there too.

And this final one is where I list the books I've read, starting with my first year of making that list, 2009.

Right now one of the women who is in charge of the kids section is on maternity leave.  Which means that I've been working in the kids section more often.  There are many times when I am appalled by the behavior that occurs in that area of the store and sometimes its even the kids' behavior that shocks me.

Before you get up in arms about how a non-parent shouldn't throw stones because her glass house is empty, let me say its more my history of being a reader that causes my indignation.  I want to encourage everyone to read, regardless of what they are reading.  Many customers will have a three inch stack of magazines yet say they never read.  Unless that entire stack is "adult" magazines, I'm pretty sure there is definitely some actual reading going on when those magazines get opened.  

Back to the kids section.  I encounter many adults who want to push their child towards a certain kind of book.

"He reads a lot of science fact type books but I want him to read real books."

"She reads anything if there's a horse in it but if there's no horse she won't even open it."

"He's just starting to read on his own and he really loves those Captain Underpants books, but ummm I'd like him to read something better."

"All she reads are things that look like cartoons.  I want her to read books with a story."

Here is my soapbox: If you want a reader, you should probably provide books that the reader likes to read or else they won't be a reader anymore.  That seems so simple, right?  How can I convince my fellow adults of this?

Should I share stories about the time when I read countless books of Garfield comics and then colored in the ones I especially liked?  Or maybe I should share how I read nothing but The Babysitters Club books when I discovered their existence?  Or maybe how I graduated from that series to Sweet Valley High books?  None of these books would be considered particularly great children's literature, but I was allowed to read them.  My mother probably sighed as I picked the next one off the shelf, gleeful that a number I hadn't read yet was waiting for me.

Still, I continued to read.  And that was the point.  To want me to be excited enough to want to hole up in my room with a book.  Early on it was with Ramona and Beezus, then Kristy and Claudia and Mary Ann and Stacey, and then it was Elizabeth and Jessica.  If you are in your thirties and read a lot as a young girl, these names probably mean something to you.  Perhaps the most important part of this story is that I am still a reader.  Clearly.  And my interest in books has expanded past the walls of Sweet Valley High, but it might not have had I not been able to choose my own direction as a child.  And this is what I want to tell these parents.  Guide them towards books and then let them roam.  You never know what you're helping to encourage.


Disclaimer: Obviously there are underlying reasons these questions could be presented to me.  Is the child reading below their grade level?  Are they refusing to read books assigned in school because its not the type of books they want to read?  None of the customers I encounter add these explanations into the mix, so I assume that is not the case.  Once you work in retail, you are no longer shocked by the overshare from the customers.

Top Ten Books I Read in 2011

(in no particular order)

Nothing Daunted is a tale of two Smith College educated women who leave behind the comforts of their 1916 lives to go teach in a one room schoolhouse on the frontier.  Perhaps my use of the word tale makes you think its fiction;  in fact the book is written by one of their grand daughters.  The material for the book was culled from the extensive correspondence both women had with their friends and families back East.  I was quickly drawn into their story and eagerly awaited the unfolding of each new chapter much as their family awaited their letters.  At the start of the book, I was aware that only their time on the frontier was covered; by the end I wished the narrative continued even once their teaching contracts were up.

Erik Larson's books read like fiction yet each is a highly researched piece of non-fiction.  In The Garden Of Beasts continues in this tradition.  It follows the US ambassador to Germany during the 1930's and his family's realization of the true nature of the Nazi regime.  The most compelling member of the ambassador's family is his daughter who wants to indulge in all that her connections can bring her, however, as the years unfold, the shine fades and she begins to see what was truly happening in Germany.  I find this time period so intriguing because it seems unfathomable that the German people and the world as a whole could have turned a blind eye to Hitler's early moves and yet this book does an excellent job of drawing the reader into that world.  Of course the current audience has the benefit of history and yet Larson still manages to draw the reader into the unfolding horror.

I started the year off with Julia Child.  As Always, Julia is a record of her correspondence with Avis DeVoto.  It all started when Julia responded to a piece written by DeVoto's husband Bernard about the poor quality of American-made knives.  The rest, as they say, is history.  A decades long correspondence followed, with DeVoto encouraging the piece de resistance that Child would become famous for, Mastering the Art of French Cooking.  The letters included much food talk that went over my head yet the descriptions of food and cooking and Paris and Julia's struggles with compiling the cookbook sucked me right in.  I was also fascinated by the talk of the political climate in the US.  At one point Julia's husband is questioned about possible communist activities and beliefs and it was gripping to read about proceedings that could have changed their lives drastically had Joseph McCarthy decided Paul Child's actions were un-American.  The letters made me feel like I knew these women intimately and the struggles they dealt with in their daily lives in a time so different from my own.

I have read a few books this year that claim to be the guide to the other side.  The previous side being one of comfortable living and wanting not and the new other side being one in which the world has turned upside down on oneself and one must fight to come out on top.  The Feast Nearby is on the surface such a memoir, except that the new side also includes a more present approach to daily living.  Robin Mather has lost her husband and her job and retreated to a cabin on a lake in Michigan.  But she has her dog, and her parrot, and a daily desire to make her life better.  The Feast Nearby was a pleasant surprise after a disappointing read of another such book of this kind earlier in the year (Cherries in Winter).  Mather does everything right, perhaps just by honestly facing her days.  Her life appears as full, if not more so, by the end of the book as it appeared empty on that first night in the cabin.  That spirit alone is enough for me to recommend this book, as well as my impression that one could call this a modern day We Took To The Woods, a title I read and loved in 2010.

Shadow of the Wind is a book I should have read about ten years ago, or at least the first time a friend of mine recommended it to me.  But I didn't.  We all do stupid things sometimes and taking so long to read this novel is on my list.  I borrowed it from the library and I'm not sure I slept at all between the time I checked it out and the book dropped into the return box.  I pretty much ignored the world as I was following Daniel's journey to uncover information about the author Julian Carax, an author Daniel discovered after a trip with his father to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books.  Such a place seems magical to me and if the mere thought of a Cemetery of Forgotten Books peaks your interest as well, I'll warn you now that you might miss a night's sleep in discovering it. I can assure you the lost sleep is worth the discovery.

You've all heard the cliche "you shouldn't judge a book by the cover" but what if sometimes its ok to do just that?  With an actual book no less.  Running the Books grabbed me from my first glance at the cover though it might not grab you if you didn't frequent libraries before the computer age.  The image is comprised of stamps from the date stamps librarians used to stamp the check out cards that were in the pockets at the back of books.  The book details author Avi Steinberg's time as a librarian in a Boston prison.  From his interview to eventually finding his footing as librarian to his last day, Running the Books follows Steinberg's time among the books and the prisoners and the delicate line he was forced to walk with both.  An interesting look at the role that a library plays in a prison environment.

The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet chronicles the cross country journey of young T.S. on his way from his family in Montana to the Smithsonian in Washington D.C..   The margins of the book are filled with the various charts and maps that T.S. creates to calm the chaos of his life and its this interest of his in maps that leads him to the Smithsonian.  As a character who does not quite understand the world around him, his maps, charts, and drawings also help T.S. work his way through the confusion and grief that his older brother's death has plunged his family into.  While I did find myself having to suspend my disbelief a couple of times, overall I was more than willing to accompany T.S. on his journey.

The Bill McKibben Reader collects essays that environmentalist and journalist Bill McKibben has written over the past twenty five years or so.  For all of my earth-loving ways, I had never heard of McKibben so this was a good introduction.  At the beginning of each essay, the publication year is listed which was a definite plus in placing yourself in the right historical mindset.  One of the most important things I took away from this collection was something McKibben mentioned in an essay about the Keystone Pipeline (recently delayed, hopefully indefinitely, by President Obama).  McKibben mentions how even if the Pipeline were to exist and have no environmental impact at all (a near impossibility as he states it and which I agree with) that in 30 years, give or take, we would be back in the same situation regarding the dwindling supplies.  The only true solution that will help us is to rethink everything;  to truly learn to use less resources and to reuse that which we must use instead of just creating more energy efficient items that allow us to continue living at the same pace of destruction while believing that we are still doing good.

Blankets is an award winning graphic novel by Craig Thompson.  It chronicles his upbringing in a strict religious household and the isolation he felt both within his family and outside that household.  His first love and heartbreak accompany illustrations of the stark yet beautiful winter weather that surrounded him in Wisconsin.  I feel like anything I say won't do justice to Blankets so I'll just leave it at this: the graphic novel is truly greater than its parts.  Neither just words nor just artwork would have told Thompson's story in quite the same way.

My final selection for 2011 is a novel by Louise Erdrich, Shadow Tag.  Shadow Tag immerses the reader in the story of a family splintering apart.  It is stark and lonely and stifling.  Or, rather, that could aptly describe the characters.  That mood seeps over every page as if her characters had come alive and were drawing me into their lives.  I was intrigued at the idea of writing a fake diary and the complications that arise from this, at once expected and somehow still surprising.  Perhaps the part that affected me the most was the unveiling at the end.  The small spoiler I need to include here is this: at the end of the book one learns the story is being told by someone within the story and learns how imperative the telling of this story was to that character.  A welcome reminder for me that the desire to record a history can be much needed.       

                 

We're four days into the new year and, if lines of customers at my store were any indication, there are many people out there who are reading a new book right now.  Well, maybe not right this instant...actually, yes they are.  Most Americans would probably do almost anything to avoid the media's excessive coverage of the Iowa caucuses, maybe even read a book.  Most adults have already filed themselves into a specific category of reader.  Which kind of reader are you?  Would you only read if someone held a gun to your head?  Maybe only if its about the Kardashians?  Would you read a book by the Kardashians?  Or maybe just about them?  Is your taste a bit higher than Snooki's literary talents?  Or is funny fluffy reads all you're willing to entertain?  Will you be among the booknerds like me who have packed away over fifty books on your finished list?  Whichever category you fall into as an adult, a gift from another is probably unlikely to greatly change your path as a reader. 
But I feel that, with every book that is presented to a child, a new kind of reader could be born.  When asked for recommendations for children by customers in the store this holiday season, I suggested books that I thought a child might like to read.  Because creating a reader is the outcome I want these gifts to accomplish.

   Here I am, probably aged five, receiving my first library card from the local librarian.  To get to this spot, dressed up (check out those shoes!), and accompanied in the background by my mother and sister, I was already a reader.  I might not have been able to read much by myself at that age, but that girl was already a reader.  This photo has lingered in my parent's photo albums for years but even the fact that it made it into the albums shows how the written word is revered in my family.  Yes, as a teenager I probably would have hid this photo from the light of day, but now I want to plaster it on a billboard.  There is no greater gift to humanity than a new reader.  A five year old me in a little plaid dress didn't know the knowledge that this new library card could bring me.  But I can't fathom my life without that curiosity within me.  And I can hope that some book I recommended this holiday season has lit the same curiosity in the child who unwrapped it.

    And maybe one of those kids will grow up to search out a community with a quality library, a town with residents who value curiosity and knowledge...

Books Read in 2011

(chronological)

As Always, Julia by Joan Reardon

Exley by Brock Clarke

The Lover's Dictionary by David Levithan

You Don't Look Like Anyone I Know by Heather Sellers

Cherries in Winter by Suzan Colon

The Fates Will Find Their Way by Hannah Pittard

Zombie Spaceshipe Wasteland by Patton Oswalt

Loud In The House Of Myself by Stacy Pershall

Nothing Was The Same by Kay Redfield Jamison

The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman

The Phone Book by Ammon Shea

The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet by Reif Larsen

Skippy Dies by Paul Murray

Running the Books by Avi Steinberg

Newspaper Blackout by Austin Kleon

Changing My Mind by Zadie Smith

The Shadow Of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

The Winter Of Our Disconnect by Susan Maushart

Bossypants by Tina Fey

Second Nature by Michael Pollan

An Object Of Beauty by Steve Martin

The Bill McKibben Reader: Pieces From an Active Life by Bill McKibben

Settled In the Wild by Susan Hand Shetterly

Countdown by Deborah Wiles

And The Pursuit Of Happiness by Maira Kalman

Booky Wook 2 by Russell Brand

A Beginner's Guide to Acting English by Shappi Khorsandi

Gourmet Rhapsody by Muriel Barbery

The Guinea Pig Diaries by A.J. Jacobs

Shadow Tag by Louise Erdrich

Backstage With Julia by Nancy Verde Barr

The Cheese Monkeys by Chip Kidd

Amelia Earhart by Kathleen Winters

The Idiot Girl and the Flaming Tantrum of Death by Laurie Notaro

How Did You Get This Number by Sloane Crosley

You Lost Me There by Rosecrans Baldwin 

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet by David Mitchell

Malled by Caitlin Kelly

The Devil In the White City by Erik Larson

Sippewissett by Tim Traver

Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut

Mr. Funny Pants by Michael Showalter

Bright's Passage by Josh Ritter

In the Garden Of Beasts by Erik Larson

Every Man Dies Alone by Hans Fallada

The Pacific Northwest Reader edited by Carl  Lennertz

It Looked Different On the Model by Laurie Notaro

Color Me English by Caryl Phillips

Chicken With Plums by Marjane Satrapi

Elegy for Amelia Johnson by Andrew Rostan

Life Itself by Roger Ebert

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

The Good Girl's Guide to Getting Lost by Rachel Friedman

Thunderstruck by Erik Larson

One Day by David Nicholls

Blankets by Craig Thompson

The Sibling Effect by Jeffrey Kluger

On Writing by Stephen King

Finding Beauty In a Broken World by Terry Tempest Williams

Nothing Daunted by Dorothy Wickenden

The Future Of Us by Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling

The Feast Nearby by Robin Mather

Seriously...I'm Kidding by Ellen DeGeneres

The Visible Man by Chuck Klosterman

The Borrower by Rebecca Makkai

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides