On My Bookshelf: All the holds!

As you may already know, I love the library. Fortunately for my future profession, a lot of other people also love the library. Unfortunately for my desire to read more current fiction, that means I sometimes have to wait months to read a particular book ... or, in this case, five.


That's right, five of my holds (some of which I'd been waiting for since January) came in on the same day last week. Now I only have three weeks to read them all before they're due back and I have to wait in line again—eek! I finished All the Light We Cannot See last night and am getting ready to snuggle in and start The Girl on the Train today. This is actually my book club book for March, so I really need to get cracking!

I know many of you are also readers, so please help me: Which book should I read next?! The other two may have to go back to the library unread, so this is a pretty intense decision! ;) Your options are Station Eleven (I've heard GREAT things about this one from all different kinds of readers), The Boys in the Boat (a nonfiction book about an Olympic rowing team from the University of Washington, recommended by one of my classmates) or Everything I Never Told You (a contender for our April book club selection). Your advice is appreciated!

How do you choose your next book when you have way too many good options?

Linking up with Lori for Saturday Situation.

Banned Books Week 2014: A Semi-Charmed Photo Challenge

Good evening, friends! I write to you tonight from Seattle, Washington, where I am spending the next few days attending orientation for my Master of Library and Information Science program. Woohoo! During our introductory lecture today, our program chair had a few great quotes that I had to write down, including:

"We're all better off when people can read and think freely."

Well said. Naturally, this got me thinking about Banned Books Week, which I then looked up and realized is next week! Last year, I hosted a photo challenge for Banned Books Week, which I found to be quite entertaining and received some positive feedback on. Therefore, I am turning this into an annual challenge!

Instead of providing specific prompts for each day this year, I decided to leave it open to all of you to post any bookish photos you wish throughout Banned Books Week (September 21 - 27). Please tag your photos with #bookphotoaday, and I will curate my favorite posts each day and feature them on my personal Instagram at @mcstroup and also here on the blog!

Please feel free to share the above graphic on your own social media and/or blog to encourage others to join the challenge! I hope to see your bookish posts on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr next week. :)

Linking up with Nicole for Treat Yo' Self Thursday.

Change is here!

Well, now seems as good a time as any to post my big news, considering I just got home from my last day at my current job. Woohoo!! As of next week, I will be working part-time as a library aide, and (hopefully) part-time as a lifestyle blogger. ;) Y'all are some smart people; most of you guessed that a new job was one of my big announcements!

As for the other announcement, it goes hand in hand with the new job....

5 Awesome Things Your Local Library Offers

When my fiance and I got DVR in our apartment last summer, I started recording all the Criminal Minds episodes that aired and kept an Excel spreadsheet on my computer to track which episodes which were recorded and which episodes were upcoming, so Jonathan and I could start watching the show in order from season one, episode one (#nerdalert). After three seasons of this meticulous record-keeping and sifting through the 50+ episodes on our DVR, I had an awesome idea: the library.

Of course I always knew the library had DVDs and CDs, but for some reason it had never occurred to me that I could rent entire television seasons! It's way better than DVR because I don't have to fast-forward through commercials, and the library has shows Netflix doesn't offer (Exhibit A: Criminal Minds). That got me thinking about all the other awesome resources my local library has, and yours probably does, too! Here are five such fantastic things:

Photo via @mcstroup; design by Megan.