Category: Reflections

2016 Library Challenge–A Book Over 100 Years Old

Here at the library, we’ve been getting into the spirit of March Madness by making brackets, and that prompted me to start thinking about one of the 2016 Library Challenges: read a book that is over 100 years old. I suspect that for those of you who are participating–and even those of you who are not–reading that challenge either filled you with a palpable sense of dread or it made you positively giddy that you’d be revisiting one of your old favorites. If there’s one thing I’ve noticed from working in the library, as well as taking literature classes, it’s that there are two types of people in the world–there are those who love 19th century literature and those who do not.

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2016 Library Challenge: A Book by a Female Author

Tomorrow, March 8th, is International Woman’s Day, and we decided to celebrate by blogging about the challenge that asks you to read a book written by a female author.

Of course, we’ve already covered a lot of great female authors over the past couple of months, including but certainly not limited to Jane Austen, the Brontë sisters, Daphne Du Maurier, Barbara Kingsolver, and Margaret Atwood.

But I thought I’d use this blog post to be more reflective than usual and chat about some of my favorite female authors, though this list certainly doesn’t include all of them. As always, if you are interested in reading any of the books mentioned, just follow this link to our catalog.

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2016 Library Challenge: A Book Your Mom or Dad Loves

Every month at the Berryville Public Library, we celebrate a theme with our displays and programs. For February, our theme is “Home is where the heart is.” We have all sorts of displays highlighting this theme, ranging from home improvement/interior decorating books to music about romance and relationships.

I decided to blog about all of the challenges that seemed related to heart and home from the 2016 Library Book Challenge this month, as well, and “Read a book your mom or dad loved” seems like a perfect start. So far, we’ve been providing lists of suggestions to help you make selections, but this challenge is so uniquely personal for everybody that I decided to instead write a more reflective piece on the books that my parents–and grandparents, who helped raise me–shared with me.

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