Sunday September 18th, 2011 Sharing the Library

This fall, the Thunder Bay Public Library wants you to share the Library with your friends and family. Every time you bring someone in to apply for a library card or renew their expired card, you will each receive a ballot to win a new Kobo Touch ebook reader (draw to be held Dec. 16). Not only is this a great way to spread the word about our Library, it’s also a great way to get talking about books, what you’re reading, what your friends are reading, and trying something new.

If you’ve never chatted with staff at our circulation desks or your friends/family about what to read next, you really should try it. Who better to make prime suggestions than the people who know our books or the people who know you? One of the greatest perks of working at TBPL is never being stuck for a good book to read or craving something different. Over the last few years my colleagues have helped guide me to exciting new authors (new to me at least) and several fantastic series.

My favourites have included the Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde and the Maisie Dobbs series by Jacqueline Winspear. Though I haven’t made it all the way through either series, they are so compelling and entertaining that I can’t help but flip flop between them in order to read it all at once. Fforde’s first title in the series, THE EYRE AFFAIR (2001), begins the saga of lead character, Thursday Next, as she traverses a different “1985, somewhere in the could-have-been, where the Crimean war still rages, dodos are regenerated in home-cloning kits and everyone is deeply disappointed by the ending of 'Jane Eyre'.” At first I wondered if the storyline would be too farfetched and sci-fi for my taste, but it is so well written that before I knew it I was feeling empathy for the plight of the dodo. Books that are on my to-read list, and recommended by friends, include THE DEVIL IN THE WHITE CITY by Erik Larson and STILL LIFE by Louise Penny.

If I were asked what I would recommend, without knowing anything about the reader’s interests, here are three of my standbys: SHELF MONKEY by Corey Redekop, the Sookie Stackhouse series by Charlaine Harris and BLINDNESS by Jose Saramago. SHELF MONKEY features a small group of employees at a large chain bookstore who are bent on the destruction of the most popular talk show host led book club. Riddled with dry wit and a shocking outcome, Redekop’s book gives volume to that little voice inside every book lover’s head that demands we make our own decisions about what makes a good book. A good friend got me hooked on the Sookie Stackhouse series and I’ve been recommending it ever since. With nine books in the series so far, Sookie Stackhouse goes from being an everyday waitress (who just happens to be able to read people’s innermost thoughts) to being entangled in a world of vampires, shape shifters, werewolves, and extremely complex love triangles. For a higher level of intellectual intrigue I suggest BLINDNESS. J. W. Eagan once said to “never judge a book by its movie”; an idea in which I firmly believe, especially when it comes to this book. A small piece of advice if you’ve never read any of Saramago’s work before is be prepared for a lack of punctuation and paragraph separation. His style takes some getting used to but it’s completely worth it.

Try browsing the Best of the Backlist Blog, or better yet try browsing the shelves in your favorite subject area (fiction or non-fiction). We also have two online databases, called NoveList and What Do I Read Next?, that can help make the search more fruitful. Log in to "My Giant Search" and find these databases in the List of Resources.

Jesse Roberts