A Nice Reminder

In the January 2008 issue of School Library Journal, Barbara Genco provides a list of Guilty Pleasures, meaning books written by adults for adults that Young Adult Librarians should read.

I appreciate the tongue-in-cheek reference to the fact that many Young Adult Librarians feel compelled to read YA Lit almost exclusively. Of course, as you may have noticed from a few posts on this blog, I don't subscribe to this philosphy and, in fact, sometimes fight against the need to read quite so much YA Lit.

Still, I appreciate the big reminder that we sometimes need that there are books out there that will feed our adult minds and will not detract from our ability to recommend good books to teens. In fact, if we remain aware of the good books for adults, for ourselves, I'm convinced that we'll be better at readers advisory in general.

So, in light of the article, I went home and snagged my post-it notes with scribbled titles and put in requests for those books from my library.

In the next several weeks, I will happily read the following:

Burning Bright by Tracy Chevalier, a fictionalized account of the life of William Blake. English major that I am, this topic fascinates me, even if I never wanted to live out my days in a musty smelling office trying to interpret "The Tyger."

Mockingbird by Charles Shields, a biography of Harper Lee and the process of creating and publishing To Kill a Mockingbird. One of my favorite books...that lead to one of my favorite movies...and it's sad to me that I've been meaning to read this book since last April, when the book was published.

If This is a Man by Primo Levi, one survivor's account of Auschwitz and its aftermath, recommended by a fellow librarian (and former orchestra conductor). I'd love to read it in the original Italian, but with only a semester's worth of the language under my belt, it's not a task I can tackle.

So, what are you going to read to remind yourself that your brain still needs nutrition, too?