Entry bubble Curl Up With A Good Book This Winter

By: Sam | December 19, 2007 | Category: Fun

I may be biased but many fabulous things have come out of Georgia.  Delicious food, R.E.M., Hank Aaron, the Varsity, Gone With the Wind…I could keep going.  But it wasn’t till I read this recent Washington Post article that I realized how many great authors are from the Peach State (this coming from a girl who took a year of GA history).

The article looks at six major American fiction writers and the ongoing efforts to preserve their homes and other landmarks.  These authors include such luminaries as Alice Walker, Flannery O’ Connor, and Carson McCullers.  After reading the article, I was really surprised at how many of their books I hadn’t read.  How could I’ve missed a book that summarizes my single gal woes in one simple phrase:  A Good Man is Hard to Find.

With this realization, I decided to put together a list of books that I wanted to read this winter.  I started my search at the Big Read blog.  The Big Read  is an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts designed to restore reading to the center of American culture.  It provides citizens across the country an opportunity to read and discuss a single book within their communities.  The books are some of the most iconic in literature, including one of my all time favorites, The Great Gatsby.

Of course a search of great books would not be complete without a stop at the Library of Congress.  The Center for the Book, along with this wonderful thread from the Library’s blog, gave me plenty of interesting selections for my list.  But I didn’t stop there.  Here are just a few more sites that I checked out for my ultimate winter reading list:

Before I head off to the library, I would love to get recommendations from y’all.  Some of my favorites are Beach Music by Pat Conroy and Personal History, the autobiography of Katharine Graham. 

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Entry bubble Library Benefits

By: Marybeth | November 27, 2007 | Category: General

I like the idea of having an in-home library with old, built-in bookshelves and rows of hard-bound books, but I don’t have the space, shelves, or books. My collection—if you can call it a collection—consists of tattered paperbacks stored in cardboard boxes.

Photo of library booksOther than reference materials, a few favorite books, and special editions that were gifts, I find that most books end up in storage boxes. So, driven by hopes of reducing clutter and saving money, I’ve gone back to the stacks.

It’s free and easy to sign up for a library card. You can find a library near you by entering your ZIP code in the Library Search box on USA.gov’s Government and Public Libraries page. From here, you can also access federal government libraries, presidential libraries, the Library of Congress’ Ask a Librarian, and more.

Library holdings vary, but in addition to paper books, music, and DVDs, some library systems offer eBooks and eAudiobooks, which you can download to your computer or portable device. If you need help doing research or navigating the catalog, talk to the library’s best resource—the librarian(s).

When I started using the library again, I figured I’d only stick with it if it ended up being convenient. It has been convenient, though I’ll admit that I’ve had to renew every set of books I’ve borrowed (and perhaps had to do a few renewals on a certain Tolstoy novel). Still, such transactions are easily managed online. Taking everything into account, it's been positive and I've ended up doing more than reducing clutter and saving a little money—I’ve made more time to read.

| envelope Email This Entry | Tags: books   clutter   librarian   library   money   reading