best reads of 2013

some of my best reads of 2013

I've read some great books this year; some recommended to me, others were random picks off the shelf. I've nearly reached my projected target of 50 books for the year, and am grateful for the tracking widget on Goodreads. 

There's a mix of short stories, memoirs, and fiction. Two of those pictured are from our reading maps programs. I met one of the authors (Fiona McIntosh) and I saw Anh Do's show at the theatre. One of the authors grew up in a place I used to live.

Last Drinks was the fourth book I read about the Fitzgerald Inquiry years in Queensland; two fiction and two nonfiction from different perspectives (journalist, honest cop, protester, crooked cop). I read them just after I'd stayed in a hotel in inner-Brisbane in an area represented in the books. Fabulous insight into recent history!

We're launching our library's Goodreads site with Great Summer Reads - featuring staff picks of 2013.
I would like to grow the program into a biannual showcase of staff recommendations for our community, perhaps in the future complementing the online presentation with a booktalk.

The best story came to us at the QPLA conference recently. A great librarian told us that she had implemented a program she'd read about on our project blog about staff recommendation displays, and that she had 100% staff involvement. The librarian who had guest blogged her program was also at the conference so we got the two together.
We're very keen on program sharing state-wide and nationally, and to see this in action was amazing. The two librarians work in libraries nearly 2000kms apart. You can re-read Chris' post  here  .
Chris has great statistics - Using this method we have loaned over 11,000 ‘staff picks’ in the last 12 months.

Mission accomplished

source: The Art of Brick

On Monday afternoon, Jo and I will present our paper at the QPLA conference, and then we will celebrate!
Thanks for working with me, Jo! Thank you very much :)

If you would like to discuss any of the issues we raise about readers' advisory, add your comment here or contact us.

What's the coolest way you know to get into reading?

22: Nothing Holds Back the Night by Delphine De Vigan

Nothing Holds Back the Night by Delphine De Vigan

Bloomsbury, London, August 2013.
Review published in The Townsville Eye, 9 November 2013.

‘What’s she done, what’s she done?’ Delphine De Vigan’s thoughtful exploration of her mother’s extraordinary life and death begins with this question on a Wednesday morning when she finds Lucile dead in her apartment. Lucile was a feted child model in 1950s Paris, third of nine children in a family that was at one time the subject of a television documentary showcasing the ‘perfect family’. Common sense tells us there is no such thing, and De Vigan does not don rose-coloured glasses for her mother’s story. She interviewed Lucile’s surviving brothers and sisters and listened to her grandfather’s taped history to make sense of the family, to discover how they shaped her mother’s life. De Vigan draws out stories of an overbearing patriarch, accidental deaths, acrimonious divorce, painful accusations, terminal cancer, and suicide. Lucile’s adult life was punctuated with delirium, despair and hospitalisation which had its inevitable impacts on Delphine and her sister Manon’s lives. Lucile was a singular woman; elusive, glamorous, a daughter, a sister, a mother. Nothing Holds Back the Night stands as
De Vigan’s tribute to Lucile.

Verdict: Tragic