5 graphic novels you need to request now right now

"Always read something that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it."
- PJ O'Rourke

I'm spoilt for choice when it comes to graphic novels. Not because I'm any good at picking them. (If anything, I'm absolute rubbish at knowing what to try next. It's because I have next to no filter when it comes to books. I will try anything and everything at least once, and sometimes this goes against me). It's more that I'm lucky enough to work with amazeballs people who, almost daily - by email, text, Facebook message, Twitter, and in person - give me suggestions. Totally unsolicited. Once they've given me one, I find a whole heapload more that I just have to read. Which results in a Top 5 list much like this one. My parents encouraged me to read comics as a child. They wouldn't just buy them, though, we'd also talk about them. I distinctly remember, as a 9 year old, falling in love with Peter Bromhead. Well, his editorial cartoons in the Auckland Star, that is. My parents noticed my interest, and so Bromhead would, often, be a part of our dinner conversation. We would discuss the point of the cartoon in relation to whatever current events were taking place both nationally and internationally at that point in time. I am lucky enough to work with people who do the same - recommend titles or writers and, afterward, want to talk about them. The other day, someone told me to give Marbles: mania, depression, Michelangelo, & me : a graphic memoir by Ellen Forney a try, so I've requested it already, and am impatiently awaiting its arrival. Once I've finished it, we'll catch up and trade opinions and thoughts. And, as is usually the case when I'm in the catalogue, I came across 5 other graphic novels that, really, have to be bumped to the top of my TBR list. Today's list is: 5 graphic novels you need to request now right now. Have I steered you wrong yet? (Don't answer that just in case I have). They're an unusual mix of books, too - cooking, fantasy, life in Jerusalem, love in a time of a galactic war, and aliens in Australia. I know, right? You're welcome!

What graphic novels are you reading right now?

5 airship adventures for teens

List by Danielle

"Invention, my dear friends, is 93 percent perspiration, 6 percent electricity, 4 percent evaporation, and 2 percent butterscotch ripple."

~ Willy Wonka, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Steampunk, wonderful steampunk! I've been reading my way through the YA category of this year's Locus Awards for sci-fi and fantasy, and two of the five books nominated this year have a distinctly steampunkish feel (though Ian McDonald's very enjoyable Planesrunner is actually 'electricpunk', taking place in a parallel universe where oil has never been used as a source of energy). All of the books below have plenty of adventure, interesting and imaginative settings, awesome steampunk technology and brave, smart, resourceful heroes and heroines. They're really good for readers who aren't scared of a little dose of science with their fiction - a little bit of 'how the rollercoaster works' alongside the whole rollercoaster ride. All that, plus - airships! Air pirates! Mid-air battles!

5 books shared between me and my valentine

List by Danielle

The eskimos had fifty-two names for snow because it was important to them: there ought to be as many for love.
~ Margaret Atwood

This is a shout-out for all of us out there who might not be celebrating a grand romance this Valentine's Day, but who have happy, bookish, geekish memories to treasure anyway.
Sharing books can be a real expression of love... there's the excitement you get when you stumble on something you think your sweetie will enjoy, because you know some of what ticks their fiction-lovin' boxes... the pleasure if you get it right, and they pick it up and run with it... the lingering discussions of favourite characters and plot points afterwards... the race for sequels, prequels, the author's entire back catalogue. Usually I'd end up in a queue for the library copy while he raced ahead with a stealthily purchased ebook, but he's a faster reader anyway, and he knows better than to spoiler me (though I swear he gave away at least one of the key events in A game of thrones without meaning to).
Here are just some of the books we've shared over the years.

Top 5 sci-fi books from childhood

List by Danielle

As for courage and will - we cannot measure how much of each lies within us, we can only trust there will be sufficient to carry through trials which may lie ahead.
~ Andre Norton

New books are wonderful, but old books, stains, funny smells and all, are another pleasure altogether. Our Research Centre stacks have a trove of YA books from the distant past with the gloriously 70s-style covers I remember from my own childhood reading, with all of the terrible psychedelic 'space' pants-suits you could wish for. I've just finished H.M. Hoover's Another heaven, another earth, something I'd not come across before, but something that stands out in stark contrast to the newer YA I'd been reading lately. Don't get me wrong, I love recent YA to pieces, and it's cool seeing sci-fi dystopias making a comeback, but it was a nice change to read something that didn't wrap itself up in teen angsty knots, didn't obsess over forbidden love, and dealt both thoughtfully and emotionally with the ethics of colonisation from the points of view of both colonisers and colonised.

I'm not a big sci-fi reader, and I haven't read most of the classic authors, but I do remember a handful of great sci-fi stories that I read and re-read as a kid, including another H.M. Hoover that I was lucky enough to be able to buy, second-hand, ex-library, with all of it's stamps and everything. These stories had everything I was looking for, and more - excitement and adventure, great characters in tough situations, moments of despair and triumph - all the stuffs of good storytelling. So feel free to add your own recs in the comments, I'd love to take a tour through other folks' favourite space adventures!

Top 5 wild, weird Western crossovers

List by Danielle

"The first thing you find out when yer dog learns to talk is that dogs don't got nothing much to say."
~ The first line of 'The knife of never letting go', by Patrick Ness

Wikipedia goes into loving detail about some of the newfangled flavours of Western out there, from the Weird West or Science Fiction Western (which seems to have a more historical setting, albeit one that plays fabulously fast and loose with real history, see 'Cowboys vs Aliens' or Cherie Priest's award-winning steampunk westerns) to the Space Western, in my heart always associated with by Joss Whedon's wonderful (and forever shiny!) 'Firefly' and 'Serenity'. Okay, the boundaries of these sub-genres are as fluid and fiddly as most genre distinctions seem to be, but the lists of films, TV, graphic novels and books cited show that there's some exciting storytelling to be exploring, out on the frontiers.

Top 5 punny titles

List by Annie

"The kind of humor I like is the thing that makes me laugh for five seconds and think for ten minutes."
- William Davis

Sometimes you just have to laugh. Authors – and editors – obviously love playing with words, and this selection of titles proves it.

Honourable mention:

Reign check Michelle Rowen

Top 5 dragons

List by Annie

"People have freaked out when I tell them that my dragons are scientifically based...what else can you call a genetically engineered life form?"
- Anne McCaffrey

For centuries dragons have held our imaginations – whether as destroyers or protectors.

For that reason, there are so many dragon stories out there, it’s really hard to pick just a few… so I haven’t picked a top 5, more a selection sorted by age / reading level, with a few honourable mentions.

As a young teen, my reading-teeth were cut, as it were, on Anne McCaffrey’s Pern novels. (Don’t get me started on the whole fantasy / science-fiction argument with these. Yes, they are dragons. But...they are dragons, genetically modified by humans who have travelled to their planet on space ships.)

Even before this intro, one of my fav books, and a comfort re-read, was Green Smoke by Rosemary Manning. (It nearly made the final list, but we have so few copies around, I didn’t think it was fair.)

Knowing my mother (she who introduced me to McCaffrey in the first place), if there had been any dragon picture books around, I would have had those, too.

Working from younger to older – with the understanding that anyone from that age and up should read it. Picture books should be enjoyed by all. As I pulled the list together, I realised that I’d managed to pick humorous stories. That’s the way it goes sometimes… so slightly more serious books became honourable mentions.

Top 5 most requested titles for April 2011

List by Natalie and Tosca

"There's nothing to match curling up with a good book when there's a repair job to be done around the house."
- Joe Ryan

Our Top 5 Goodies blog turned 1 year old over the weekend, and what a great twelve month journey it has been to date. Thank you all for visiting, reading, commenting and suggesting ideas for posts! Your input is always *very* much appreciated :) Here's to another successful year just like it.

This is a very quick post! If you're looking for ideas for what to read next, why not check out what our top 5 most requested titles were for April 2011?

Top 5 dystopian movies of all time according to Snarkerati.com

List by Snarkerati.com

"Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted. That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history."
- Aldous Huxley

Last year sometime I came across the word 'dystopia' in relation to fiction and films. Somehow or other I had gotten to 35 and had never heard it before. Turning to Twitter (as I do at most times for quick answers) I asked 'What are dystopian novels?' It was Tim Jones, New Zealand poet, fiction writer and editor, who answered my query. Even better, he didn't just tell me what it was, he listed some examples (such as Brave new world by Huxley, Fahrenheit 451 by Bradbury, The handmaid's tale by Atwood and even The road by McCarthy to name a few) and then suddenly a lightbulb went on. I knew what he was talking about because I'd read some of these books. In fact, as a teen so much of what I'd been drawn to was, in fact, about dystopias rather than utopias - I just hadn't realised that that's what they were called. Which made me wonder about dystopian films - what were they? Had I seen them and not known? And how soon could I get my hands on a list to compare? A little Google-fu (Google is my boyfriend, I swear, geez) and I ended up at Snarkerati.com a pop culture site (which features a lot of celebrity gossip), who had, back in 2007, put together a fantastic list of their Top 50 Dystopian Movies of All Time. It made for great reading and prompted some intense discussions with siblings about a lot of the placings *sigh* It's never boring in our house though I often wish it were. We've listed the Top 5 from their list - this being a Top 5 blog and all - so you can see how your choices stack up against Snarkerati. And as a final note - two things: 1) Equilibrium at #50? Shut the front door! Really? I would've had it in my top 20 for Bale's fight scenes alone! and 2) We don't hold Mad Max 2? Shut the front door! Woe is me :(

Top 5 hardcover fiction bestsellers for March 10 according to NPR.org

List by NPR.org

"A good book is always on tap; it may be decanted and drunk a hundred times, and it is still there for further imbibement."
- Holbrook Jackson

Quick and simple list that will, hopefully, help you if you're stuck for ideas for what to read next in the way of bestselling fiction.

Honourable mention:

The help by Kathryn Stockett

Room: a novel by Emma Donoghue

Swamplandia! by Karen Russell

When the killing's done by T. C. Boyle

Minding Frankie by Maeve Binchy

Top 5 books that I read as a child and have never been able to re-read since because they were too scary or too darn sad

List by Tosca

"I would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves."
- Anna Quindlen, Enough Bookshelves, New York Times, 7 August 1991

Ever since I was a child I have realised that my attachment to characters in books was probably not normal. I'm not talking about literary crushes on characters such as Mr. Darcy or Captain Wentworth. In that respect I am sure I am wholly normal. I'm talking more about having so much of your personal energy invested in one character (or a group of characters) that you feel every twist and turn of the plot as if you were living it with them. Every hope and every hurt is yours, too. And then there are the storylines that so creepily scary that you think the best defense is to read it quickly and never touch it again. But, as with anything else, out of sight doesn't necessarily mean out of mind. These are the top 5 books that I read as a child and have never been able to re-read since because they were too scary or too darn sad.

Top 5 new book covers and titles that caught my eye on a sneaky visit down to see cataloguing staff

List by Tosca

"It is what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it."
- Oscar Wilde

I heart new books! I've often been told that to admit that makes me sound terribly naive. To be honest, I don't care if it does. When I was first interviewed for a library assistant position 8 years ago with Manukau Libraries I was asked, 'Why do you want to work in libraries?' and, like a true hick, I replied, 'Because I love books.' And I do, I really do. It wasn't long though before I realised that, even better than indulging my own love of books, I was able to help others do the same. I enjoy face-to-face readers' advisory with customers. There's something particularly satisfying about seeing people make connections with books. It's the one reason I've stayed in libraries so long. These days I don't work at a branch customer service desk like I used to so being able to recommend books through this blog and via some of the eNewsletters I edit is the icing on the cake of my job, and I live to take ten or fifteen minutes out of the day to skip down to visit cataloguing staff and raid their trolleys for ideas. I'm conflicted, though. I'm not quite sure which gives me the greatest kick: the new books trolley or seeing staff :) This list is little more than my most recent 'DO WANT' list for pretty covers and/or quirky titles.

Honourable mention:

Nostradamus & the third Antichrist : Napoleon, Hitler and the one still to come by Mario Reading - totally made this list for the title alone