Peachy Reads

You Can Never Find a Rickshaw When It Monsoons: The World on One Cartoon a Day / Mo Willems Mo Willems is HUGE in kiddie lit and has received Caldecott honors for his cartoonish Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus and Knuffle Bunny and Knuffle Bunny Too . I was curious about this volume he published for a somewhat older audience, namely adults. The library system didn’t have it, so a quick order to Amazon and a few days later it was on my doorstep. Just out of university, Mo Willems did what many young adults do, he took a year off to see the world. At the end of each day he produced a pen and ink drawing about an unusual or memorable event that happened that day. The drawings are collected in You Can Never Find a Rickshaw When It Monsoons with contemporary commentary from Mr. Willems. He draws in an almost expressionistic style and with this volume has created a rather unusual chronicle of a trip to different cultures and peoples. It’s really quite enjoyable to flip through, and is ...

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo / Stieg Larsson Click here to check availability at AFPLS This crime novel from Sweden has become an international publishing sensation. The first in a trilogy, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo deals with the family history of a slightly faded Swedish industrial dynasty that holds many secrets. Just how horrific these secrets are doesn’t become apparent until journalist/investigator Mikael Blomkvist and his unlikely research assistant Lisbeth Salander (the girl in the title with said tattoo) start to unravel the details of the disappearance of a young female family member some forty years earlier. It was hard to put this one down. I liked the descriptions of the brutally cold Swedish winters, the coziness and banality of small town life in Hedeby, the bustle of Stockholm, the eccentric personalities in the family, work relationships... all this against the brutality of the crimes that are revealed. ©Ken Vesey, 21 Apr 2010

This Book Is Overdue! : How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All / Marilyn Johnson Click here to check availability in AFPLS This book is an interesting collection of essays that offer glimpses into the brave new world of librarianship. It’s sort of the antithesis of Nicholson Baker’s grumpy dissing of librarians in his 2001 book Doublefold . If you thought that librarians are still the be-bunned shushing ladies in wool skirts with reading glasses dangling around their necks on slender gold chains, then this book certainly is overdue for you. The author shows how librarians are morphing and adapting to the new information landscape, meeting new challenges with fewer resources and a public that wants instant gratification in clicks-and-mortar libraries. Meet librarians who offer triage reference services in streets filled with protesters and others who assume alternate identities and inhabit virtual libraries in the cyber universe called Second Life. Learn about how the venerable N...