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Book reviews by library staff and guest contributors
Booklist is continually putting out Top 10 lists of recommended reads. If you like reading biographies, then checkout the list of Top 10 Biographies below. This year includes biographies of activists, musicians, writers, and more.
Karen Brooks gives Chaucer's Wife of Bath a chance to tell her side of the story in this vivid and absorbing tale of how a woman could gain agency in her own life in a time when she legally had none.
It is summertime and hopefully you will get time outdoors to enjoy nature. The new book Wings, Waves, & Webs by Robin Mitchel Cranfield might inspire you go on a pattern hunt next time you are out.
Andy Warhol and Truman Capote planned to write a smash Broadway play together in 1978. The two friends recorded approximately 80 hours of their conversations as an artistic experiment. The project was never completed and the tapes were filed away and inaccessible to the public at the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. After Andy Warhol's death in 1987, over 3,000 cassettes recorded on Andy's Sony Walkman were discovered. The tapes were undated and had little or no notations and had been recorded by somewhat stealthy means so were not "legal" to listen to until 2037 under New York law.
I heard a radio interview with Amas Tenumah about his book, Waiting for Service: an Insider’s Account of Why Customer Service is Broken and Tips to Avoid Bad Service. I was eager to read this book for two reasons: 1) to improve my attitude and patience when dealing with customer service at, say, AT&T, and 2) to improve my own skills in delivering customer service.
Tenumah, a motivational speaker and former customer service consultant, writes that most businesses have small customer service departments and budgets - and little incentive to improve. This is news?
Sandra Boynton needs no introduction for anyone with a toddler in their life, and I was very excited for the newest addition to the collection, this one a hardcover picture book instead of the classic board book, but still filled with the signature silly animals and great rhymes.
Not since Mo Willems' pigeon had to go to school ("The unknown stresses me out, dude") have I felt so seen and understood by an animal in a picture book, but this story spoke to me from the opening page:
Anyone who's known me for a while as a reader knows I can dig my feet in when a book becomes too popular. If I read a book before it became hugely popular, great. But if it's become hugely popular? I'm far more likely to not read it then. If I'm being honest here (and why else would I start talking about this?), I'll admit I like to be the discoverer of the books. I like to find the gems before everyone else. My petty confession of the day.
Do you like reading about other people's recollections? Then check out the current Top 10 Memoirs from Booklist listed below. Also for more memoirs and biographies then consider subscribing to the Insiders newsletter Thanks for the Memories. It comes out bimonthly.
Elena quiere aprender a montar en bici, pero cada vez que lo intenta... ¡CATAPLAM! ¡CATAPLOM! ¡CATAPLUM! Después de su tercer intento y su tercer choque, Elena está lista para rendirse, pero un amigo la anima a intentarlo de nuevo y ¡adelante! Este libro de primer lector es un recuerdo de que la única forma de mejorar en algo es practicar.
"London’s soul has gone missing. Lost? Kidnapped? Murdered? Nobody knows – but when Sharon Li unexpectedly discovers she’s a shaman, she is immediately called upon to use her newfound powers of oneness with the City to rescue it from a slow but inevitable demise.
