Recommended 4

Break out of your claustrophobia with the Lumberjanes! Sure you should start at the beginning, but Indoor Recess is my quick pick today.

Recommendations 3

The Librarian is In, a podcast from the New York Public Library, made me want to be better at readers' advisory (the practice of recommending books to all kinds of readers). General interest listeners will come away with additions to their To Read list. This year's first discussion of a book on the NYPL 125 list prodded me to read Giovanni's Room, a title always lurking on my "should have read" list.



I always describe my GoodReads reviews as "notes to myself" rather than proper reviews. Here's what I jotted down:

Passion and the futility of love in Paris in the 1950s. While David's girlfriend tours Spain without him, he gets evicted from his Paris hotel. He turns to an older man he knows, someone who often helps "boys" like him. They go to Guillaume's bar and both immediately become enamored of Giovanni, the bartender. The larks and liaisons of this (gay) crowd roll along at a leisurely, drunken pace until girlfriend Hella returns. Only, the book tells the story out of order: sooner than we see those scenes we know that something terrible happened and that David and Hella definitely aren't getting married. (Lots of undergrad paper / book club themes to mine: "room[s]" and being trapped; the way the characters -- Baldwin? -- view women; the caricatures of the older men.)

Recommendations in the Time of COVID19, part 2

Graphic Novels and the Like

Many public libraries buy into the digital hoopla collection for their patrons -- this service offers music, steaming video, and books including comics and graphic novels. Henrico's collection includes Joe Hill's Locke & Key which you may have gotten sucked into via Netflix (surely that wasn't just me?)








Some things I've read recently that I recommend are below. If you're here in Richmond, local booksellers are delivering. I know Chop Suey will order books for you.

Chop Suey Books

Fountain Bookstore

Small Friend Records & Books



Sara Berman's Closet

A great example of the art -- photos and paintings -- being as much of the point as the biographical story of a Greenwich Village personality.















Spill Zone

When Scott Westerfeld brings his A game, it's an A+. He captures young people's voices well and brings us amazing post-apocalyptic visions. This cover doesn't do the art justice: Puvilland uses vivid color to convey the spill zone itself.



'


Jumberjanes



I approach things that are Girl Scout or summer camp-adjacent with trepidation. I fear lack of the proper reverence, knowledge, or simply not getting it. The creators of Lumberjanes get it and have nothing but love for girls' camps. In this series, our heroines take on magical monsters, champion friendship and teamwork, earn badges -- and try to make curfew.

Recommendations in the Time of COVID19

Tuesday

Listen to Bill Nye and Alan Alda chat over tea about science and communication.

Read a romance in which a NYC epidemiology student keeps ignoring the emails from "an African prince" -- so he shows up at her door. Princess in Theory, by Alyssa Cole.



Monday 3/16/20

Read the Lager Queen of Minnesota and spend time with generations of a midwestern family as they shift form farmers to service workers; able-bodied to creaky; highschoolers to grandparents. Also: beer-making and family drama.



Listen to a light-hearted romp through copyright, intectual property, and dance hits with 99PI's episode, Whomst Among Us Has Let the Dogs Out.

Last Week

"Dad Ward" put together a super-informative Virology podcast for us. Link to that Ologies episode.