Attempting to Read

Richard and I took the kids to the library this afternoon.  Given that we were not-entirely-politely tossed out the first and last time I took the kids solo, we opted to tag-team it.  (I'll tell that story later, if anybody's interested.)

I got to wander off by myself for a few minutes and actually look at book titles and read blurbs and everything.  It was kind of cool.  I even picked out a few books, though thinking that I'll be able to scratch out enough time to finish even one is probably silliness.

I'll admit to two of them.

The Queen's Rival by Diane Haeger.  The way this particular library shelves their fiction, it's kind of hard to tell sometimes exactly what genre your book is going to fall into.  This one looks like it's going to be a nice combination of historical, romance and personal redemption, without being too much of any one of them.  I don't expect it to be a particularly light read, but I'm looking forward to it.

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen.  This is probably gong to sound ridiculous, but I had NO IDEA that a movie of this book had been made, much less one starring Robert Pattinson and Reese Witherspoon.  When did that happen?  (Oh, last year, by the looks of it.  I was a little busy.  Obviously missed it.)  I was going to give some sort of blurb, but I suppose everyone's already seen it. ;)

I picked up a third book too, but it's a poorly written piece of garbage to have on hand for car rides.  Also probably the only one of the three I might have time to finish - sad as that is.

After picking out my books, I went to find Richard in the kid's section.  I was shocked...that place had been stripped clean.  Bug has been reading the Magic Treehouse books and the shelf that used to be full of them was entirely empty, as was every other shelf on the aisle.  Aisle after aisle after aisle in the kid's section was empty.  I thought that perhaps they were rearranging or moving the books elsewhere, but it turns out they've all just been checked out.  Almost all of the chapter books, almost all of the easy reader books, almost all of the board books, almost all of the kid's music and movies.  Stripped clean.  Richard was baffled until I pointed out that it's the first week of summer vacation and 115 degrees outside during the day.  Even mid day on a Thursday, the library was packed.

Bug ended up finding a handful of books that he was excited about (a new Charlie & Lola, his first Ramona book and a few that we've never heard of before), so it ended up being a good trip.  We read a whole bunch of little board books to Boo while we were there, but she generally prefers to hear whatever Bug is reading, so left all of those there for whoever might want them.

I'll go online and put holds on some of the books that we couldn't find for Bug today.  He'll be pretty excited by that, I think.

Yay for Books!

Bug and I made it to the library and got our library cards today.  I kind of can't believe that it took so long for us to get around to getting them...but there's been a lot going on.  And I'm so excited that Bug has his own card!  At our old library he was still a smidge too young to have one of his own.

With today being our first visit, we were limited on the number of items that we were allowed to check out.  Five apiece.  Which was probably a good thing, otherwise we'd have come home with entirely too many books and CDs and movies.  As it was, we picked up four books and a video each.  (And had to put back a book to get the videos...but Bug was pretty excited about taking something home to watch, too.)

The library was nice.  Light and bright and open.  The librarians we spoke to were very nice and very helpful.  Everything was laid out nicely and things were easy to find.  The children's section was large and had a comfortable play and reading area.  Bug and I spent some time hanging out over there after we'd picked out what we were going to take home.

I was a little surprised, though, by some of the things they *didn't* have.  Not much selection for a few authors that I looked for specifically.  Like Jane Austin.  I got a craving for some Austin last week and the library had one book.  One.  But it was one I hadn't read yet, so I picked it up.  The other books I more or less chose at random.  I've had some pretty good luck doing that in the past.

Today's book list: Persuasion by Jane Austin, The Tattooed Map by Barbara Hodgson, Adventures of the Artificial Woman by Thomas Berger and (the one I'm a little loathe to admit to) Hex Appeal by Linda Wisdom.  To keep myself on track with getting through them before the due dates and so that they can perhaps lead me to other books/authors/etc, I'm making a mental promise to write a bit about each of them as I get through them.

Now, off to read...