I have a confession to make. I’ve been avoiding the library like an over-hyped book. It all started a couple of months ago when I forgot to return my selection of five books for…about a week. It’s not like I had a good excuse to not return the books. It was wintertime, but the roads were not snowy. Nor did I have any weekend plans; I may have tried to convince myself that I needed to clean the apartment, but I’m pretty sure I was playing the video game, Fallout 4, and racking up late fees instead. This happened once before at my old library. I kept books for so long that I ended up racking up THIRTY DOLLARS in late fees. And then I kept avoiding all of the late fee notices for so long that eventually the library threatened to turn me over to collections, and my mom ended up paying the balance. Those were some pretty dark financial times in my life, and I hope to never revisit them again. Also, yes mom, I know I still owe you thirty dollars from like seven years ago. Do you want to just write it off to bad debt? (LOL! ACCOUNTING JOKE!) Seriously though, do you?
Luckily, my late fees totaled only four dollars this time, and much to the library staff’s dismay, I walked in with a pocket full of quarters. You know those negative stereotypes of librarians? That’s basically who works at my local library. Late fees and pockets full of quarters or not, they’re always pinch-faced, and they look at me with lifeless eyes like they’re counting down the hours until they get to go home. Or, maybe they’re robots. Or…maybe they don’t approve that I bypass the self-checkout. I don’t mean to be an inconvenience…it’s just the self-checkout beeps loudly, and it startles me.
As for my selection this week, it’s as varied as usual. It’s been three long months since I’ve visited the library and the Young Adult stacks were filled with newer releases. I was like a book lover in…well…a library, and in about two minutes, books were toppling from my arms. I had to pause and think about how many books I could realistically read in a few weeks, so morosely, I placed most of them back on the shelves. I decided to hold on to Mosquitoland by David Arnold and the Wrath and the Dawn by Renee Ahdieh because both books received a lot of praise back in 2015, and it’s about time I catch up with the rest of you. I also picked up the Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater because everyone raves about this series, and I still haven’t read a book by Stiefvater. Oh! And they finally had a copy of Ms Marvel, Vol 2: Generation Why by G. Willow Wilson (not pictured) that I snagged from the shelf immediately.
I was also feeling a little spooky this week, so I picked up Four and Twenty Blackbirds by Cherie Priest, Soulless by Gail Carriger, and No Ghouls Allowed by Victoria Laurie because I was such a fan of another book in Laurie’s Ghost Hunter Mystery series, Ghouls, Ghouls, Ghouls.
As giddy as I am to read Soulless, I think I’m going to cozy up with No Ghouls Allowed to see if I can finish another of Victoria Laurie’s books in one sitting.
What book are you currently reading?
By Golly, Ollie! 
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