Lower East Side Librarian

The Long Way Home, which I got from the Miami-Dade Public Library via Columbia interlibrary loan, takes up where the tv show leaves off, more or less. So far having read the first and third installment, I haven't really learned much about what happened immediately after the destruction of the hellmouth and Sunnydale, just that Buffy, the surviving Scoobies, and the potentials have relocated to Europe. And that somehow along the way, Dawn got turned into a giant, which is possibly some kind of mystical STD.

I know, I know, I'm sick of reading all this paranormal fiction. I really need something a little meatier right now. But it also has to be compelling. I've been in a bad way for all of 2009, literarily speaking, I think. Suggestions welcome for literary fiction (along the lines of A Map of Home or Peony in Love, for example) and Twilight readalikes!

Rivalry was one of the "disposable" books I brought to France with me, since it was not on loan from a library. I did, however, acquire it from a library. It was in our giveaway pile at Barnard, though I'm not sure why. It's a Columbia University Press publication and women's studies-ish enough that I would probably order it if I read a good review. It's a translation of a 1917 novel. Can you say "public domain"? Being an academic press publication, it's also got a six page introduction (that I didn't bother to read). Oops--now that I look at the intro, I realize that homosexual that I am as a media consumer, I might not have read it (and might not buy it for the library after all), that the author was a man.

I wanted to like this book more than I did. It was given to me by a nice editor from the Public Affairs publishing house, and the other book she gave me from there, This Common Secret: My Journey as an Abortion Doctor rocked my world really hard. Since reading it I've often consider giving up the glamour of librarianship for life as a baby killer. (It pays okay, but the people trying to murder you gets wearing after a while, from what I understand.)

I bet you know where I'm going with this. Welcome to Shirley, perhaps because my expectations were high, was just okay...

The latest in the Julie Tozer recommended YA "horrible-alternate-world-scenario" series, The Hunger Games, is the most compelling so far. In this future world, the U.S. is divided into twelve districts, ruled by a very nasty bunch. This nasty bunch, referred to as the Capitol and headed by a President Snow, require each district to provide two "tribute," really a male and a female teenager chosen by a lottery stacked against the poor, to participate in a multi-week snuff television spectacle. The nation is forced to watch as the 24 teens fight to the death. As with reality tv, the proceedings are augmented with interviews and special features. There is also heavy betting.