Librarians like to curate lists for sure, so I look forward to the monthly post on a listserv of what the upcoming month’s celebrations are both as a full month, weekly, and also daily celebrations. For instance, today is Husband Appreciation Day. So I started to think about his books but then other people’s books: their bookshelves, their reading habits, their likes and dislikes, and thought I’d share a few observations about other people’s books.
My husband
… is a logical guy. Computer science major with a math minor. Army veteran. Thinker. Health nut. A grill-obsessed cook that approaches it like a grand science and taste experiment. His reading materials include magazines like Ask This Old House and Prevention. He’s currently bouncing around in his personal copy of Howard Stern’s new Howard Stern Comes Again featuring his biography alongside his best interviews.
My boys
… are 5th graders who love humor and adventure. One wants more silly so he’s a Dog Man and Stuart Gibbs’ FunJungle series, serially listening to them while doing origami. One likes adventure and history who has read the Harry Potter series twice and pays attention to any new books in the I Survived series.
My mom
… has collected bodice-rippers at garage sales forever and she regularly trades them with one sister-in-law too. Occasionally she’ll read a book if I’m obsessively talking about it or I have an author coming in that I’m particularly excited about. And she dived in headfirst to books about “life after retirement” before hers almost two years ago.
A work colleague
… who has taught English for about twenty years who has a voracious appetite for fantasy and science fiction which has led to a house ripping at the seams with books. Now, I confess to having never actually been in her house but her constant descriptions of dusting, cleaning, moving, and reorganizing her books leads me to believe that if I walked in to any room in the house, there would be at least one book in it.
One technology guy in our district
… who I often trade emails and social media tags about books and reading with. And one he had shared probably sums up his books at home (I’m only speculating). It’s the Japanese word tsonduko which is the art of collecting books at home that you aren’t reading and likely won’t ever get to but must have anyway.
Everyone has their own taste and book collecting style. What’s yours? What are your favorite series? Do you buy or borrow or mix it up? Is there someone’s bookshelves or reading nook that you covet?
Moving on to an informative picture book, this one details the life of Ruth Wakefield, inventor of the chocolate chip cookie. Ford provides the three versions of how people think the cookie was created and has fun providing you with a well-rounded tale of her passion for food and how her toll house became part of the “Nestle’s Toll House Cookie” recipe stamped on each chocolate chip bag you buy.
Faruqi and Shovan are publishing A Place At the Table next month and I couldn’t be happier that this book exists. When I read it, I felt a warmth for the characters and the food that filled me up with love. Sara is Pakistani American and Elizabeth is Jewish and they both end up in the Southeast Asian cooking class run by Sara’s mother after Sara moves to the school. They befriend one another and find that their connections run a bit deeper as both of their mothers are not naturalized American citizens. But as the title implies, the girls work through typical middle grade angst by finding a place for each other at the table.
And last is an adult title that was recommended to me by a friend. While the book is over ten years old, it will resonate with those who can appreciate all the ways that food affects our lives be it romance or in mourning, friendship or solitude. It’s a series of vignettes that are all centered around Lillian’s cooking school “The School of Essential Ingredients” that she runs on Monday nights. It follows the attendees in various parts of their lives and how they all came to be together in the class. The languid storytelling is part of the appeal, like savoring a meal, and enriches the understanding. I also found myself pausing and re-reading lines that hit me to my core as a cook, baker, lover of food. As said by two participants in the class: “Here’s to kitchens. And here’s to what comes out of them.”
Maybe it’s because I’m a woman or maybe it’s because I’m a librarian, but either way, I want to take a moment to celebrate books about periods. They’ve been kind of having a moment. And I knew I wanted to share a post about periods two days ago when I finished Lily Williams and Karen Schneeman’s graphic novel published by First Second this past January called Go With the Flow. It’s a celebration of menstruation and friendship alongside actively advocating for rights.
But let’s also give it up for the most memorable scene where Sasha’s blood-stained pants are showing as the girls usher her to the bathroom and why the book works so well in its graphic novel format. Most can empathize or sympathize with her situation and it’s the kind of thing that is discussed in other books discussing periods: the truthful portrayal.
Fat Tuesday is also Paczki Day. Paczkis are Polish doughnuts usually with jelly filling and rolled in either powdered sugar or granulated sugar. They’re made on Fat Tuesday in preparation for the Lenten season’s austerity. This past Monday, I homemade them and was excited to share them with my family, colleagues, and neighbors who all know my love for baking.
Title: Inventing Ourselves: The Secret Life of the Teenage Brain
Readers Be Advised 