Reading Everything

This week our chair sent back the list of nominated Newbery books. Just like Roxanne I read mine on my phone squinting without glasses. Later in the day I gave it a closer re-read, paying attention to the wording of each nomination.

We didn't all nominate the same 3 books and we didn't nominate 45 different books. I've gotten better about not finishing every book this year, but I still have finished FAR more than I probably should have. (I can think of at least three books that I kept reading after I knew they weren't distinguished because I was still enjoying them and at least in one case it was the only book I had brought with me.) Our chair keeps telling us to be ruthless, if you know by page xx this isn't distinguished, let it go.

Good news: there's only one book on the nominated list I didn't finish (and one book I haven't gotten a copy of yet). The one I don't have yet looks amazing. The one I didn't finish was boring (at least to me, hence the not finishing). I'll try it again. Maybe it will catch me this time, but even if it doesn't I will finish it.

There was one book earlier this year that was getting a ton of hype that I just couldn't get into, until I did. David caught me at one point still reading, very late, because I couldn't put it down, after complaining to him about it and forcing myself through the entire first half.

Some of the books I was nervous about nominating got other nominations and that made my week. I was surprised by what was nominated and by who. Maybe I don't remember people or I've switched them in my head. At ALA we all had nametags on the table in front of us. I need a sheet with our photos and names to help me remember people.

This weekend: I'm pulling into a special section all the nominated books so I can start the re-reading and reviewing. I'm sorting that huge box of books I haven't sorted yet. But yesterday I took a night off as did David from his studies and we went to a movie. (I completely recommend Pitch Perfect FYI).

And if you're interested, we've got a personal blog/wedding site/website going now: aknicolais.com
You'll all be happy to see that the knitting goes there now. And really I've resisted flooding this blog with knitting. So from now on it should be all librarianship all the time, mostly.