Free Library Blog - Posts by Liz A.

Surviving Your First Job

Liz A. — 2008-09-03T12:45:00-05:00

How To Be Useful : A Beginner’s Guide to Not Hating Work / Megan Hustad

Admission: I picked up this book because of its cover. I don’t take much stock in the whole “don’t judge a book by its cover” line of thinking; I’ve always judged books by their cover and will likely continue to do so as long as there are book covers.

The thing about this cover is that, on first glance, it’s kind of misleading. How To Be Useful is a how-to book for people facing their “Quarter Life Crisis.” (Lesser known than its Mid-Life counterpart, the Quarter Life Crisis affects 20-somethings and usually coincides with graduating college and getting one’s first job.) And as we all know, How-To books (unless about cooking, piano-playing, or computer programs) are really Self-Help books.

Which is why the jazzy cover is misleading: self-help books have covers of wise-looking authors reclining on beaches, or big pictures of apples or some other comforting object that’s meant to make us feel better immediately. They are not supposed to be covered in florescent orange doodles. But a read of Hustad’s introduction sheds light on one possible intent: the 20-somethings the book is intended for would rather be struck with the plague than be seen carrying a Self-Help book. Even the truly useful ones.

Which this one is. Summarizing over a hundred years’ worth of business-related advice to the next generation of the workforce, Hustad provides a thorough guide at how to be successful at work. There are useful anecdotes, along with chapter-closing, convenient lists and the scope of the material she presents is generous, to say the least.

And thankfully, with a cover like this, it’s not too uncool to read.

Call number: 650.1 H968h

New True: New Non Fiction

Liz A. — 2008-08-27T08:14:00-05:00

Ocean : The World’s Last Wilderness Revealed / American Museum of Natural History

I LOVE big, new, glossy, non-fiction books—the kind that are so big you’d most definitely knock someone out with if you whacked them with it (not recommended). Books that you can lose yourself for hours reading up on interesting facts about a topic (recommended). No one does this better than Dorling Kindersley (better known by their red logo of an open book with DK on the pages).

The DK people ensured my eternal devotion when I was a kid in elementary school with their books on everything from Ancient Greece to Jungle Animals. They have succeeded in keeping me as a lifetime fan with their “grown-up” books.

My new favorite is Ocean. Featuring page after page (512 to be exact) of beautiful (and sometimes scary) photos of giant clams, starfish, whales, sea lions, coral reefs, and everything in between, this book is engaging, fascinating, and with captions for every picture, informative. It covers anything that anyone could possibly want to know about the ocean, from the evolution of the ocean, to costal landscapes, to whale migrations, to the relationship between oceans and climate.

I want this book. We have this book. Come get this book. Just make sure you have some time to pour over it. You’ll be hooked on DK, too. I promise.

Call Number: 551.46 Oc2d

Breaking Dawn

Liz A. — 2008-08-01T12:11:00-05:00

The biggest question to hit the literary world since "Does Harry die?!" is "Will Edward and Bella have a happy ending?!" And thankfully, we don’t have to wait much longer to find out. As I type, it’s about 11 hours and 49 minutes until Breaking Dawn hits the shelves. But who’s counting, right? Stephanie Meyer Mania has hit and if you haven’t noticed, it’s likely you are living under a rock or purposefully avoiding all media outlets. As an avid fan, I’ve watched nearly every trailer on YouTube for the Twilight movie, but avoided reading any spoilers for Breaking Dawn because I don't want to ruin it for myself.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about or who Edward and Bella are, you have some catching up to do. Here’s the three run-on sentence summary of the first three books of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight Saga:

Bella moves to Forks, Washington to live with her father and transfers to the local high school where she meets Edward, who is the hottest thing since toasted bread and who, interestingly enough, is a vampire of the non-human eating variety, living with his family nearby and of course Edward and Bella fall madly in love, much to the chagrin of her best friend (and werewolf) Jacob, who is also in love with Bella and is by (werewolf) nature, a sworn enemy of vampires. Bella, clumsy, but endearing heroine that she is, gets herself into all kinds of trouble with not-so-friendly vampires, which Edward saves her from repeatedly. Bella wants nothing more than to be with Edward forever through becoming a vampire herself, but Edward, and Jacob think this is a bad idea, which is where we are now, eagerly awaiting Breaking Dawn.

I have to admit, I tried to use my Librarian Connections to get a copy of Breaking Dawn before it hit the shelves. But this book is locked up tighter than Fort Knox. So I’m waiting like the rest of you to find out the fate of Bella, Edward, Jacob and everyone else I’ve come to know in Forks.

The only real question I anticipate having after I turn the last page of the book’s 768 pages is, What am I going to do now that it’s all done??

What do you think is going to happen? Who do you think Bella should end up with? Share your thoughts!

Want to catch up or reread her other books? Find Stephenie Meyer at the Free Library!

And if you haven’t done it already, place your hold now; copies are expected to hit library shelves Monday or Tuesday due to a shipping snafu. (Sorry!!)