I (Finally) Finish The Goldfinch; What Readers Want in Their Characters; and How Much Coffee Do Librarians Really Drink?

After reading The Goldfinch for a month, I finally finished it. Did I like it as much as I hoped? More, I think. Here's my review:

Donna Tartt takes us deep into the life of a boy who suddenly, tragically, loses his mother in an art museum bombing. It's a decisive moment in Theo's ...more

What am I reading now? Picture books, picture books, and more picture books. So far, I've read 40 Cybils Award nominees. It's a huge process of requesting books from the library and picking them up and reading and reviewing them. 

But sometimes I need a break from all those furry animals and rhyming text. I picked up "Challenge Yourself" A.J. Jacobs' latest book, Thanks a Thousand. His snarky voice grounds me again in the grownup world. Jacobs did a TED Talk about his journey to thank everyone who had a hand in his morning cup of coffee.

What do readers want in their characters? I answered that question for myself on my blog last week in this post, Character Traits I Love. As I visited others' blogs, I became curious about what most readers want in their book characters. As usual, I got carried away with this idea, visiting every blog that participated in the prompt, tallying character traits, and graphing the results. Here's what I came up with. The graph shows the twenty most common preferred traits of characters by their readers.

Library Journal asked the question we all want to know:  How many cups of coffee do you need per day to reach peak productivity in your job at the library? Over 60% of library staff, it turns out, drink at least one cup of coffee per day. Twenty-eight percent of this group drink 3-4 cups a day, while 7% admit to drinking more than four cups a day. Library Journal went further: Of the 39% who do not drink coffee, 46% of these drink tea, 20% soda, 3% chocolate, while a full 31% rely on their superpowers.

As you may know, I became a Texas Master Naturalist last year. I learned recently that a neighbor Master Naturalist group, the Galveston Bay Area Chapter, holds monthly book club meetings, so a couple of us from our group visited the book club last week. The group was discussing Half-Earth by E. O. Wilson, and I was pleased to hear the thoughtful discussion and see so many master naturalists many attending. I think I will continue to attend the club during the next few months, and I may help with the formation of a similar naturalist book club in our Cradle of Texas chapter. I took a picture of the book selections for next year (above) and you can see a list of the past club selections here.

I look forward to the Austin Kleon (Steal Like An Artist) newsletter that arrives in my inbox every Friday. This Friday, Kleon links to a post he wrote called The Right Book in which he explains why, for him, the stack of books pictured above, are the right books. It is quite simple really. And it is completely true for me, too. Well, with different books, of course.

Oh my goodness! You are almost out of time! Nominations from the general public end on October 15. To nominate your favorite children's and YA books published from Oct. 16, 2018 to October 15, 2019 for the Cybils, go here.

I went antiquing the last two weekends, but I will be spending this weekend closer to home. I'll be holding alligators and snakes at KBR Day in Houston on Saturday and I'll spend Sunday afternoon at our Alvin Museum Society general membership meeting. 

What was your week like?

Did you read any good books? Tell us about them.

What other bookish things did you do? What else is going on in your life?

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