bookshelves of doom

Donation of the day.

I live in a small town with a small library, and unsurprisingly, my small library has the sort of small budget that calls for lots of creative thinking and whatnot.

And since now—as of yesterday!—I'm RUNNING THE SHOW at the library, I've decided to donate a book every day that I work. After all, I have PLENTY, and it'll make me happy to share.

Today's book: Far Far Away, by Tom McNeal:

An impending foreclosure; a runaway mother; a father who won’t leave his bed; a televised trivia challenge; special cakes that are rumored to make people fall in love; a new friendship and a prank turned ugly; a suspicious sheriff's deputy; a baker who looks like Santa Claus; an unlikely act of forgiveness; a mysterious antagonist; and through it all, a sense of impending doom, dread and darkness: You name it, Far Far Away probably has it.

Unless otherwise noted, all donated books come from my personal collection, and have been reviewed by me, either here or at Kirkus Reviews.

Donation of the day.

I live in a small town with a small library, and unsurprisingly, my small library has the sort of small budget that calls for lots of creative thinking and whatnot.

And since now—as of today!—I'm RUNNING THE SHOW at the library, I've decided to donate a book every day that I work. After all, I have PLENTY, and it'll make me happy to share.

Today's book: Shadow and Bone, by Leigh Bardugo:

The onion domes suggest Russia. The font suggests historical fiction, while the red lines in the font point more specifically toward a war story. The title and color scheme suggest dark and spooky. The swooping lines suggest romance, either lurrrve or heroism. And the whole package suggests classic fairy tale.*

And that’s sort of what it is.

Unless otherwise noted, all donated books come from my personal collection, and have been reviewed by me, either here or at Kirkus Reviews.

June 6, 1933: The first drive-in theatre opens.

Once you discount the series books (Mercy Watson, Wishbone, Buffy, Boxcar Children), there are surprisingly few stories about drive-ins in the kidlit world.

So someone might want to jump on that.

Years later, and the first paragraph of Marjorie Reynolds' The Starlite Drive-In still kills me:

I wasn't there when they dug up the bones at the old drive-in theater, but I heard about them within the hour. In a small town, word travels like heat lightening across a parched summer sky. Irma Schmidt phoned Aunt Bliss and delivered the news with such volume that her voice carried across the kitchen to where I was sitting.

Love that.

Anyway, it's one of those that is often categorized as YA (that's where it was shelved in the library I borrowed it from, and School Library Journal reviewed it as such), but I don't personally really consider it to be YA: the majority of the storyline takes place when Callie is twelve or thirteen, yes, but she's also looking back on the whole thing from adulthood.

YA appeal? TOTALLY. But her voice and her perspective would make me more inclined to shelve it with the grown-up books.

Or at least cross-promote it.

Regardless of what shelf it should go on, it's a good one.

June 5, 1956: Elvis Presley flings his hips around on the Milton Berle show.

Which, you know, was SCANDALOUS.

I've got to say: this semi-regular series has been HELL on my wallet. Because every time I find a historical fact I want to highlight, I start combing through my old reviews (and Novelist), looking for something that fits... and then I end up ordering a whole bunch of other books that catch my eye.

IT'S GETTING BAD.

Anyway, in honor of Elvis and his hips, I shall point you back to my post about Autum Cornwell's Carpe Diem, which, among other things, features a character who talks like John Wayne and has hair like Elvis: sideburns, pompadour and all.

From my post:

Vassar Spore is the daughter of an efficiency expert and a life coach. She has her life planned out—in detail—for the next ten years.

On her sixteenth birthday, she receives a UPS package from her artist grandmother, who she's never met in person. It contains a plane ticket to Singapore.

Of course, Vassar has no intention of going, and her parents have no intention of letting her go. For one, no Spore has ever even left the state, let alone the country—for another, missing her summer classes would mean falling behind in her battle with Wendy Stupacker for valedictorian. It would not fit into The Plan.

Man, I love that cover. I loved it when the book first came out, and I continue to love it now.

May 23, 2013: Lucky Penny Day.

I haven't been able to find anything about who started Lucky Penny Day, or why.

Which leads me to realize that creating these "national days" is a pretty serious free-for-all. CLEARLY WE NEED TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THAT AND COME UP WITH SOME NEW ONES.

Anyway, despite the dubious nature of this "holiday", I shall point you back to my old post about Jennifer L. Holm's Penny from Heaven anyway, because I'll use any old excuse to highlight a good book:

My affection for Holm's characters just sort of crept up on me—I hadn't realized how much I cared about them until Something Bad Happened and I found myself crying. 

The story itself starts off quiet and lightly comic: Penny tells the reader about her various family members and has some adventures with her cousin Frankie. She does mention the fact that her mother hardly ever talks about her father, and never talks about the circumstances of his death—that in itself was enough to alert me to the fact that there was Rough Stuff Ahead.

May 22, 1859: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is born.

So many options here!

We could go with characters who LOVE Sherlock Holmes, like Ingrid from Peter Abrahams' Echo Falls books, or Christopher from The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time or Colin Fischer from er, Colin Fischer.

Or we could go with books in which Doyle appears/is mentioned, like Jenny Davidson's The Explosionist* or the one where he teams up with Oscar Wilde to solve a mystery (I haven't read it, but have been meaning to for ages), or the series where he works with Charles Dodgson to solve mysteries. (<--I have no idea if those are any good, but I totally just ordered the first one, because HELLO, HOW COULD I BE EXPECTED TO RESIST THAT TEAM?)

Or one of the versions of Young Sherlock Holmes, like the one with the Bieber hair or the Shane Peacock series (which I haven't tried yet... should I?). Or Old Sherlock Holmes, as in the fabulous Mary Russell books.

Or books his brother, Mycroft, appears in, like the Thursday Next books (LOVE the new cover on The Eyre Affair), or the Quinn Fawcett ones that I haven't tried. Or Nancy Springer's series about their pretend sister, Enola. 

BUT. As is probably evident by the image to the right, I'm going with Neil Gaiman's story 'A Study in Emerald', which appears in Fragile Things:

A Sherlock Holmes story set in the world of H. P. Lovecraft. Loved it so much I've been babbling about it to everyone who will listen regardless of whether they A) are interested or B) know who H. P. Lovecraft is. Loved it so much I immediately ILLed Shadows over Baker Street, the collection it originally appeared in. I'm waiting with bated breath. (Or I would be, if I wasn't busy obsessively playing Okami.)

WHEW.

So, I'm sure I missed your favorite: tell me all about it in the comments!

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*OH MY GOD I LOVE THAT BOOK SO MUCH HAVE YOU READ IT WHY NOT GO READ IT I'LL WAIT RIGHT HERE OH MY GOD DIDN'T YOU JUST LOVE IT SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!

May 21, 1973: Noel Fielding is born.

Noel Fielding, in case you're tragically unaware of who he is, is one of the Mighty Boosh guys.

I adore him, both in his Vince Noir persona on The Mighty Boosh and as himself as a team captain on Never Mind the Buzzcocks. Whenever we re-watch the Boosh—or any episode of Buzzcocks in which he appears—I swoon all over the living room. Whilst giggling maniacally, of course.

And Josh doesn't even mind, because A) how can you get jealous over Random Dude on TV and B) he has a bit of a mancrush on him, too.

ANYWAY. So, the first season of The Mighty Boosh is set in a zoo, so I'm going to point you back to Cecil Castellucci's Queen of Cool, in which the title character signs up for an internship at the Los Angeles Zoo, and it turns out to be a life-changing experience:

I ESPECIALLY loved it that Libby's transformation took TIME. She doesn't work a day at the zoo and all of a sudden miraculously appreciate Tina and Sheldon and the others (including Sid, who I loved). It was a slow process, and I got the feeling that Libby was aware it was happening, though A) she didn't want to admit it was happening and B) she fought it. All that complexity and yet, light enough for beach reading. Way impressive.

I was going to embed a Noel Fielding clip, but then I fell into the Youtube vortex and just lost, like, an hour. I LOST AN HOUR WATCHING CLIPS I'VE ALREADY WATCHED A ZILLION TIMES BEFORE.

My brain, I weep for it.