Exploring Villains and Monsters in Literature

I enjoyed all the episodes of The Great American Read, but my favorite, hands down, was the discussion of villains and monsters, which airs next Tuesday, October 2.

I know people have found my love for literary villains a bit . . . creepy. But it’s really not! I swear! At the very least, like any good villain, I have well-developed reasons for it. 🙂

TV Review: And Then There Were None (2016)

Agatha Christie’s best-known novel And Then There Was None is one of the 100 books that made the Great American Read list. And that seems like the perfect excuse to review the most recent adaptation of the book, this one an all-star production made for British television a couple of years ago.

2016 Library Challenge: A Book at the Bottom of Your To-Read List

I’m going to veer away from my usual routine here, so please humor me.

When I had to pick a book from the bottom of my to-read list, I wasn’t quite sure where to even start. I mean, my to-read list on Goodreads currently has 128 books on it, and that’s not even counting the books I want to read but haven’t added.

I ended up deciding to read Agatha Christie’s 1920 debut novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles. I love Agatha Christie mysteries–the twisting and, at times, convoluted plots; the witty characters; the atmosphere. I’ve read roughly 40 of her books over the years, but I realized that I’d never read much of her early work, including her very first book. So, I read The Mysterious Affair at Styles and also 4 of her 5 next books–The Murder on the Links, The Man in the Brown Suit, Poirot Investigates, and The Secret at Chimneys–within a couple of weeks.

2016 Library Challenge: Book with a Number in the Title

Happy Pi Day!

Since the 1980s, people have been celebrating the concept of π–the mathematical ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter, which is always a constant 3.14 –on March 14th. Sorry to subject you to math lessons early in the morning.

I’m not entirely sure what people gifted in mathematical ability do to celebrate Pi Day because I was an English/history major for a reason. But someone in my classes always brought a pie to class on Pi Day, so I was always a fan of this holiday. I’m not going to argue with any train of thought that results in free pie.

Since I can’t deliver a pie to you through the internet, I thought I might instead offer a list of suggestions for this year’s challenge to “Read a book with a number in the title.”

A quick answer to this question would be to just read one of the many books in either James Patterson’s Woman’s Murder Club series or Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum series, both of which always feature numbers in the title.

However, there are a lot of other books in our system that also work for this category, so let’s explore a few of them. As always, if you’re interested in learning more about them, follow this link to our online catalog.