Do you check out your own library books? The library where I work does not have self-checkout stations, but my public library has had them for a while. I only recently started using them. I think my branch was the last one to move the "hold shelf" from behind the Circulation Desk to the main area (hence--why use self-checkout when nearly all my books were new books that were being held for me). Not so long ago I was standing in a long line at the circulation desk when it dawned on me--why not just go and do it myself? Now, silly as it sounds, I kind of like hearing the little machine chirp when I check out my books. (Such power!).
I actually have a pretty healthy and very steady pile of library books at home, but these are my most recent selections. I have a pretty poor record of late when it comes to actually reading what I am bringing home. It is such a crazy cycle and I am not sure why I do it to myself. I am lured by the new, but then reality sets in. I always have a good stack of my own books on the go at home that when I bring big hardcovers I have to really want to read the book to add it to my in-progress pile. I really do want to read all of these, but I tend to peruse library books at home, then think longingly of them (surely just one more to the reading pile is okay), but waffle for so long that the due date looms and I know I will never it get it read in time so just lug them back. Sometimes I will buy the book (though I almost always just wait for the paperback) or get back in line. Sometimes I will start the book and occasionally I will start and finish it.
But I can't help myself. I have to look at all the new books and maybe dip in randomly a little and at least get a taste. What I will be perusing for the next few weeks:
In Love with the World: A Monk's Journey Through the Bardos of Living and Dying, Yongey Rinpoche -- This sounds wonderful and if I am lucky I will try and renew it--"In this powerful and unusually candid account of the inner life of a Buddhist master, Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche offers us the invaluable lessons he learned from his near-death experience. By sharing with readers the meditation practices that sustain him, he shows us how we can transform our fear of dying into joyful living."
The Last Stone, Mark Bowden -- Apparently Laura Lippman used this as inspiration for her novel What the Dead Know (which I listened to on audio some time ago--and it remains one of my best ever audio book experiences). ". . . a rigorous documenting of the 40-year journey taken by Montgomery County detectives and the cold-case team that interrogated Lloyd Welch. It's a riveting, serpentine story about the dogged pursuit of the truth, regardless of the outcome or the cost. And it's a useful reminder that in an age of science, forensics, and video and data surveillance, the ability of one human being to coax the truth from another remains the cornerstone of a successful investigation."--NPR.
The Electric Hotel, Dominic Smith -- I have a fascination with silent films so would love to get to this one. "For more than thirty years, Claude Ballard has been living at the Hollywood Knickerbocker Hotel. A French pioneer of silent films who started out as a concession agent for the Lumière brothers, the inventors of cinema, Claude now spends his days foraging for mushrooms in the hills of Los Angeles and taking photographs of runaways and the striplings along Sunset Boulevard. But when a film history student comes to interview Claude about The Electric Hotel―the lost masterpiece that bankrupted him and ended the career of his muse, Sabine Montrose―the past comes surging back. In his run-down hotel suite, the ravages of the past are waiting to be excavated: celluloid fragments in desperate need of restoration, as well as Claude’s memories of the woman who inspired and beguiled him."
Underland: A Deep Time Journey, Robert Mcfarlane -- A big chunky book that has more than a little heft to it. And well it should. "Hailed as "the great nature writer of this generation" (Wall Street Journal), Robert Macfarlane is the celebrated author of books about the intersections of the human and the natural realms. In Underland, he delivers his masterpiece: an epic exploration of the Earth’s underworlds as they exist in myth, literature, memory, and the land itself."
So many good books out there. Why does everything sound so appealing to me?!