Devourer of Books

Receiving unsolicited review copies can be a hit or miss sort of thing, but it is great when I receive one from a publisher I nearly always love.  Today a review copy showed up unrequested and unannouced from Algonquin Books, publisher of the fantastic “A Reliable Wife” (see my review) among other thing.  This book, “Every Last Cuckoo,” isn’t new, per se, but it is being released next month as a paperback.  I hadn’t heard of this yet but it sounds very interesting.  At the very least, I’m intrigued by the beautiful cover:

It looks so cozy and inviting, this book is just begging to be read.  I’m wondering if the fact that they brightened up the paperback cover will translate into more sales.  Here’s the original hardback cover:

It is the same artwork, but darker, and without the red background for the title.  I like both covers, but I think the paperback cover calls out to me much more.

What do you think of the two covers?  Would you be more inclined to buy one than the other?

I saw that National Library week is coming up in April, and that led to some questions. How often do you use your public library and how do you use it? Has the coffeehouse/bookstore replaced the library? Did you go to the library as a child? Do you have any particular memories of the library? Do you like sleek, modern, active libraries or the older, darker, quiet, cozy libraries?

It is sort of funny that this question came up on a morning when I’ve already posted this week’s Library Loot.  I actually answered a lot of this question in LAST week’s Library Loot, but I’ll reiterate a little.

As I mentioned in my post last Thursday, “The Library and Library Loot,” for a long time I did not use the library.  I am one who generally prefers to own my books so I can reread them, but for a variety of reasons (check out the post, I have been told it is at least sort of funny) I have realized the need to slow down my acquisitions, but I can’t bring myself to ignore all the new books that come into my awareness.  Enter, the library.

I love my local library.  For years before I got my library card I would go there with my laptop to work on resumes, look for a job, do any important computer or document-based task that would be endlessly procrastinated if I stayed at home.  I’d say our library is a cross between sleek and modern and older and cozy.  It isn’t dark, but the light is not glaring either, they are quite technologically up-to-date, but also have a cozy, small library feel.  Plus, Monday thru Thursday they’re open until 9 pm, which is incredibly convenient.    When I finally did get my library card, I had no intention to check out actual books.  I first got it specifically to get an audiobook for my husband and I to listen to on a car trip.  Then I started requesting DVDs I wanted and bringing home more audiobooks.  Now I have 11 or 12 things checked out at a time and (currently) nearly 30 items on my holds list.

I’m not totally sure what happened to make me ‘eh’ about the library for so many years.  Don’t get me wrong, I thought they were absolutely essential public institutions, I just didn’t have any desire to use one.  When I was young we went to the library fairly frequently (and I would almost always check out “Where the Red Fern Grows”.  I can remember when my class (in 4th grade?) took a field trip to the local library to learn about it and how to use it.  I don’t remember much about being in the library exactly, since I was already quite familiar with it I probably didn’t pay the most attention to the instructions.  We were, however, allowed to check out some books if we had a library card.  That’s the day I learned that I was only allowed to check out 50 books from that library at a time.  Now, obviously I didn’t actually check out that many, because we had walked the mile, mile and 1/2 to the library and would be walking back, and 50 books is a little much for an elementary school student to carry that far – not that I would want to try it even now!

When I was in 5th or 6th grade, the county I lived in went bankrupt, possibly because of embezzlement, but I was young so I’m not quite sure I remember correctly.  When this happened, our county libraries seriously cut back on their hours, making them less and less convenient to use.  I’m not positive, but I’m guessing that at this time we stopped using the library pretty much althogether (although my obsession with collecting and reading Baby Sitter Club Books may have slowed us down years earlier).

Do you use your local library? How and how much?

I realized I need to start adding the years on my monthly wrap-up posts, because I’ve now been blogging for more than a year!  This month signals a return to some of my former reading glory of last summer, albeit not without the help of some trusty audiobooks.  I read a total of 20(!) books – twice as many books as in February – including 6 audiobooks for a total of 4,043 pages and over 3 and 1/3 days of audio.  A few of my reviews are being held for the book’s publication date or simply as a backup for when the baby comes.  As usual, book titles link to reviews and all books are listed within their genre in the order in which I read them.  After my list of what I read this month, you’ll find a list of the other reviews I posted:

What I Read:

Fiction
America America by Ethan Canin (audio)
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini (audio)
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson (audio)
Case Histories by Kate Atkinson (audio)
American Rust by Philipp Meyer
Water Ghosts by Shawna Yang Ryan – review coming April 17th
A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick
Godmother: The Secret Cinderella Story – review pending

Children’s/Young Adult Fiction
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (audio)
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins – review pending
Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson – review pending

Historical Fiction
The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn by Robin Maxwell
A Rose for the Crown by Anne Easter Smith (audio) – review pending
The Last Dickens by Matthew Pearl – review pending

Historical Romance
The Nonesuch by Georgette Heyer – review coming May 25th

Memoir
Invisible Sisters by Jessica Handler – review coming April 13th
First Comes Love, Then Comes Malaria by Eve Brown-Waite – review coming April 15th, guest post coming this summer

Nonfiction
Throw Out Fifty Things by Gail Blanke
Real Food for Mother and Baby by Nina Planck – review  coming April 3rd

Pick of the Month

This was a REALLY HARD CHOICE!  I spent the first 2/3 of the month sure that “America America” was going to take the honor, even thought I mostly read it in February (although “Hunger Games” was certainly a contender).  Then I had to go and read “First Comes Love, Then Comes Malaria,” followed a week later by “A Reliable Wife” just to make the decision really difficult.  Although any of these four books would be worthy of a top spot, I think in the end I’m going to have to go with…

Although Eve always told everyone she was going to go into the Peace Corps, but her decision was sealed when she fell in love with her recruiter and embarked on an adventure that took her from New York, to Ecuador, to a very dangerous corner of Uganda.  It wasn’t just the adventure that pulled me in, though, Eve is smart, sassy, and hilarious in her recounting.  She’ll also be writing a guest post for me this summer when I’m busy with my new little one.

What I Reviewed:

Fiction:
The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid

Historical Fiction:
Murder Most Royal by Jean Plaidy
The Tsarina’s Daughter by Carolly Erickson
The Tory Widow by Christine Blevins

Nonfiction:
The Four Queens: The Provencal Sisters Who Ruled Europe by Nancy Goldstone