Top 5 random display books from Manukau Library

List by Tosca

"What is more important in a library than anything else - than everything else - is the fact that it exists."
- Archibald MacLeish, "The Premise of Meaning," American Scholar, 5 June 1972

What is more important in a library is that I am able to get my hands on anything and everything that catches my interest for whatever awful reason - sense of humour, nostalgia, knowledge. I am forever raiding the downstairs library. No matter how many books I have on the go at any time (as of Friday I had something like 4 requests available for pickup, 21 on the way, 28 issued to my card) - I still think there's room for more. Or at least, that's what I tell myself just before I pop downstairs to steal books off their shelves. Today's list is a quick roundup of my latest batch of Oh-look!-Books!-I-gotta-have-them!-Need-them!-Want-them-now! that I borrowed from Manukau Library. And yes, that is how I talk out loud and in my head.

Things you might want to know: You can turn on your reading history in My Info! It's a nifty little thing if you're the sort of reader who likes to keep track of everything they read. As a rule, I'm not, but occasionally I like to do a bit of a check and see how much I'm reading and how much of it is trashy/quality and whether or not I need to even it out a bit. To switch on your reading history:

1. Log in to My Info with your barcode and PIN

2. Under My Preferences click My Reading History

3. Click the Opt In button

My Info will now start keeping track of all physical items issued to your card from this point on. Give it a go :-)

And now - the books!

5 books or films you may not have known were banned or challenged in New Zealand

List by Tosca

"To choose a good book, look in an inquisitor's prohibited list."
- John Aikin

When it comes to freedom of choice in relation to books I have always been eternally grateful that I live in New Zealand. I grew up encouraged to read - through my parents and school - both classic and contemporary books that, in the US, were considered highly controversial. I didn't know they were controversial at the time. It certainly wasn't a concern to my parents or teachers. I know, though, that they didn't encourage me to read those books on a whim. I believe that they gave them to me for three reasons: they had enjoyed them, they thought I might enjoy them and they wanted to challenge my way of thinking. Often I wonder whether or not I've lived up to that ideal. Sometimes, I think yes. Other times, not so much. I've been rather smug in the idea that New Zealand bans very little. Or at least, what I thought was *very little* until I delved a little further. I had assumed that there weren't many titles that had ever been banned (oh, naivety, thy name is Tosca) so I was all kinds of astounded to learn differently. The Office of Film and Literature Classification has a Classified books/film list from 1963 to 9 July 2010 that made for most interesting reading. I downloaded the spreadsheet and browsed through all of those marked 'Banned' and then chose my top 5 from the ones that surprised me the most. So here you go.

Top 5 picks from the American Children's Poets Laureate

List by Danielle

'Read and write! Write and read! Think about words, play with them, taste them in your mouth, turn them into games...'
~ Mary Ann Hoberman

In May, the Poetry Foundation named their third Children's Poet Laureate, J. Patrick Lewis. Like the previous Laureates, Mary Ann Hoberman and Jack Prelutsky, Lewis will serve a two year term as a champion of children's poetry in the States.

I've been taking a wander through Prelutsky, Hoberman and Lewis' works, trying them out on my two pre-schoolers, who love a good, bouncy rhyme. Mary Ann Hoberman has a lovely wise warmth to her stories-in-verse, touched with a neat sense of whimsy, and Jack Prelutsky is just so much plain, silly fun that it takes a while to realise how sneaky-clever he is with words!
J. Patrick Lewis does seem to pitch many of his poems for a slightly older audience than my kids; they're full of in-jokes, riddles and references and the sort of language play that really suits older children.

All three poets have been teamed up with a variety of wonderful illustrators that make their books a real visual pleasure for any age group. Here are a selection of some of the titles that have been especially popular with my kids.

Top 5 display books I stole from Manukau Library's shelves

List by Tosca

"A book must be an ice-axe to break the seas frozen inside our soul."
- Franz Kafka

One of the best things about working upstairs from a library is that I can pop down and randomly grab books left, right and centre. One of the worst things about working upstairs from a library is that I can pop down and randomly grab books left, right and centre. Many years ago I discovered that I am forever fatally attracted to books: titles, covers, writers, smell of new pages, smell of old pages...if it's a part of a book (the spine, the blurb, the font...) I will love it to death. And then some. I think that Manukau Library (the branch downstairs from me) does a fantastic job of keeping their display shelves topped up. They must do, because I am forever risking their ire to raid them and leave them empty. Today's selection is little more than the top 5 of their display books that I felt just begged to be read!

Bestselling hardcover nonfiction, May 15 - 22 (according to NY Times)

List by The New York Times Best Sellers list

"There is a great deal of difference between an eager man who wants to read a book and a tired man who wants a book to read.
- G.K. Chesterton

Howdy & gidday! Just a quick post for today that might be useful for those of you feeling the need for a nonfiction read. Quite an eclectic mix and, hopefully, a little something for everyone.

Honourable mention:

From this moment on / Shania Twain by Shania Twain

Unbroken : an extraordinary true story of courage and survival by Laura Hillenbrand

The heart and the fist : the education of a humanitarian, the making of a Navy SEAL by Eric R. Greitens

My lucky life in and out of show business : a memoir by Dick Van Dyke

Onward : how Starbucks fought for its life without losing its soul by Howard Schultz with Joanne Gordon

5 of Harlow's poems that made me want to dog-ear the pages of a library book (although I resisted)

List by Tosca

"Out of the quarrel with others we make rhetoric; out of the quarrel with ourselves we make poetry."
- W.B. Yeats

I'm an inveterate dog-ear folder of pages. Not because I'm intentionally destructive (although some ardent bibliophiles may argue otherwise). Maybe more because when I connect with a book emotionally I feel as if I have to create some obvious landmark that says, 'Epiphany here!' Once I've finished reading the book in its entirety I tend to go back and re-read the marked pages and try to figure out why I had such a lightbulb moment. Sometimes the reasons aren't always so clear why some lines strike a chord and others don't. I had lots of those moments when reading Michael Harlow's The tram conductor's blue cap. So much so that narrowing down my selection to 5 wasn't so easy. So many passages, if not the entire poem, came to life for me. This is a whimsical post and I make no apologies for my flights of fancy. Here I do little more than share the titles of 5 of Harlow's poems that struck a chord with me although I couldn't begin to tell you why.

Top 5 reads for my NZ Book Month challenge

List by Tosca

"No entertainment is so cheap as reading, nor any pleasure so lasting."
- Mary Wortley Montagu

I don't read a lot of NZ authors as an adult. As a child, yes. As a teen, absolutely. As an adult - very, very few. If I see an NZ sticker on the spine in the library I tend to wince and move on. The 3 most recent NZ books I read were Mr. Pip by Lloyd Jones, The 10pm question by Kate de Goldi and Ruined: a novel by Paula Morris and those were well over a year ago. It was while reading 'Ruined' that I realised I'd become an NZ-book bigot and, really, my reason for being so wasn't good enough: I don't identify with a lot of NZ books. Which sounds totally daft because, as some of you know, I edit our romance newsletter and there's no way in Hades I identify with a Greek gazillionaire tycoon nor an impossible virgin secretary. Maybe, then, it's that I identify too much with NZ characters. I don't read romance stories with Maori or African-Americans because the character voices - and the possibilities - would feel too much like I was looking into my sibling's backyard. That would strike too close to home. And I think I'd prefer to have it all one giant step removed.

A year or two ago I set an NZ book challenge and lost focus halfway through. This year I plan to step outside my comfort zone (or maybe step back into it, I'm not totally sure yet) and pick 5 books across kids, teens and adults (fiction and nonfiction) and read them all for this year's NZ Book Month. The hardest part of setting this challenge has been choosing the books. Remember, it's been years since I've really read anything NZ-ish that hadn't been picked by our branch book club so I had no clue where to start. In the end I looked up a mix of book award finalists and winners from the Montana Book Awards,NZ Post Children's Book Awards and the NZ Post Book Awards - and so I offer up a jumbled mishmash of all.

I'm already partway through my Top 5 NZ Book Month challenge and, so far so good! Touch wood it stays this way. This month could either be really interesting. Or really awful. I'm about to find out. There are no re-reads on this list - everything is a first-time read for me. Almost as if I were an impossible virgin secretary about to meet a Greek gazillionaire tycoon but yet not.