As summer rolls around, we all, maybe, hopefully, have a little more time for reading. But if you’re looking for a quick read to enjoy between all of your summer plans–or if you need one to fulfill the library challenge requirement–consider reading one of the following books, all of which are well under 200 pages long and, in most cases, are barely 130 pages in length.)
Continue reading “2016 Library Challenge: A Book You Can Read Quickly”
As some of you know, in addition to managing the library’s blog, I also co-moderate our tween book club with my coworker Mary-Esther, which means we’re responsible for picking books, leading discussions about those books, and directing a related craft or activity for a group of 8-12 year olds.
This month marks my one year anniversary of working with the book club, and the experience has been a valuable one for me, not only because it’s fun but also because it’s given me some much-needed knowledge about the current scene of children’s books.
Confession: Before I started working with the tween book club, I always secretly dreaded when someone asked me to help them find books for kids this age. Not because I’m a monster but because I was so out of touch with what was current.
The author with your initials challenge took me an embarrassing amount of time to find a book for. None of the authors with my initials seemed particularly interesting to me, until a few weeks ago when Mynette told me I really needed to read S. E. Hinton’s classic coming-of-age story, The Outsiders. In addition to being intrigued by her recommendation, I also realized that Hinton shares my first and middle initials. In the weeks since then, the book has come up a couple of times with other people, and whenever I would admit to never having read it, the response was always a confused “You’ve never read The Outsiders?”
Having finally read The Outsiders, I now understand everyone’s reaction. I’m actually embarrassed that I hadn’t read it before.
Continue reading “2016 Library Challenge: An Author with Your Initials (S. E. Hinton)”
I had trouble picking books for this challenge because I kept second-guessing how the instructions define “an author under 30.” Are we talking about someone under 30 now? Or does it just mean someone who was under 30 when their book was published? Or maybe under 30 when it was written? It’s a veritable wormhole!
Anyway, I’ve decided to just include a sampler of books from people who are still under 30 and also those from people who are now in their 30s but were under 30 when the book was published.
Incidentally, in much the same way I realized that books over 500 pages tend to come from a couple of different genres, I realized that a lot of these authors write either speculative fiction or historical fiction. Make of that what you will.
As always, if you’re interested in learning more about one of the books, just follow the link to our online catalog.
Continue reading “2016 Library Challenge: A Book By An Author Under 30”
Thanks to everyone who joined us recently at this year’s Books in Bloom Festival!
This year was actually my first time attending, and I’m already looking forward to going back next year!
So many of the author sessions looked interesting that it was hard to pick which presentations to attend. Ultimately, I decided to attend one for an author whose work I haven’t read yet and one from an author whose book I did read recently.
If I asked you who your favorite author is, what would your answer be? Quick! Don’t stop and think about this question too hard.
Was it easy for you to come up with an answer or did you struggle to pick just one favorite author?
Continue reading “2016 Library Challenge: A Book By Your Favorite Author”
Here at the Berryville Library we’re looking forward to the 11th annual Books in Bloom Literary Festival on May 15th. You’ll get to mingle with famous authors and fellow book lovers. To prepare for Books in Bloom, we’ll be running teasers about the authors who will be giving talks. We also have works by all of this year’s Books in Bloom authors on display at the library. Read them now–meet them on the 15th!
Do you like true crime? Mysteries? Suspense? If so, you’re in luck because Books in Blooms will be featuring a few authors who publish in those genres. If you’ve read the blog for any length of time, you know that I really enjoy crime fiction, and I’m really looking forward to attending some of these sessions. We might run into each other!
One of the questions submitted to me for this series was “What 3 questions would you ask an author?” by Kris. (Thanks, Kris!)
I had to really think about this one because the one time I did get a chance to talk to an author–at a writing conference I attended in college, I got to meet Ron Hansen, who wrote one of my all-time favorite books, The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward R0bert Ford–I couldn’t think of any intelligent questions. I just mumbled something about being a big fan and then brandished my own personal copy of one of his books for an autograph. Because I’m smooth like that.
Continue reading “Ask the Blogger: What Would You Ask A Writer”
We’ve been talking about the upcoming Books in Bloom Festival the past couple of weeks. As part of my preparation for attending, I started reading a book that will be the subject of one of the featured talks–Brooks Blevins’s Ghost of the Ozarks: Murder and Memory in the Upland South.
This books tells the strange story of Connie Francis, a drifter who was murdered in Stone County, Arkansas, in the spring of 1929 by several local men. That anecdote in and of itself doesn’t really stand out in the annals of true crime, but the fact that several months later Francis testified at his own murder trial does. (No, you didn’t read that wrong. The murder victim testified at his killers’ trial.)
Intrigued?
Continue reading “2016 Library Challenge: An Author You’ve Never Read Before (Brooks Blevins)”
Here at the Berryville Library we’re looking forward to the 11th annual Books in Bloom Literary Festival on May 15th. You’ll get to mingle with famous authors and fellow book lovers. To prepare for Books in Bloom, we’ll be running teasers about the authors who will be giving talks. We also have works by all of this year’s Books in Bloom authors on display at the library. Read them now–meet them on the 15th!
Do you like to write in your spare time? Have you ever dreamed of making your living as an author? If so, you’ll really enjoy attending the Books in Blooms talks where writers will be discussing the creative and business side of their craft.
Berryville Book Buzz 