The Wonderful World of eReaders or: How I gained access to all the hot titles and stopped worrying about what to read during the holidays

Is there a book you have been on hold for what seems like forever for? Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl immediately comes to my mind. What if I told you you could become the first in the hold line without cheating? The library has three copies with no hold list (at this time of writing!), and all can be checked out for 28 days. If you are a Des Plaines Library cardholder, simply search “Nook” in our online catalog and place a hold on one of our ereaders.When your hold is in, visit the Reader Services desk on the 3^rd floor and pick up one of the circulating Nooks the library owns. 

In addition to the Nook devices, we also have Sony Readers and Kindles available for checkout. The Sony Reader has both the Hunger Games trilogy and the first four books of the A Song of Fire and Ice series by George R.R. Martin (the inspiration for the Game of Thrones series you probably have a hold on). The Kindle also has a solid collection of new favorites including Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus and Chad Harbach’s The Art of Fielding. To find out the exact titles available on each ereader, click here to access the catalog, click on one of the ereaders (i.e. Sony Reader), and then click on the “Summary” option to view the titles available on the ereader. 

With the holidays coming up, if you have an ereader on your wish list but aren’t quite sure which one to go with, checking out different types of ereaders can be a way of seeing what might work best for you. These ereaders are equipped with at least 15 books apiece, easily enough to get you through downtime during holiday festivities without having to carry a bag of books with you.

If you have any questions regarding our circulating ereaders, feel free to contact the Reader Services department.

The Hits Just Keep on Coming

How do you figure out what book to read next? I think a fair amount of us rely on a combination of serendipity while browsing and other people’s recommendations. There are a lot of areas in the library where you can get the best of both of those worlds. 

Courtesy of zen

Take for instance the somewhat hidden and mysterious Mullenbach Collection. Often shrouded in secrecy in the Rotary Heritage Room, all the books available in this collection are classics or contemporary favorites of literary quality. A few new titles are added each year so along with perennial picks such as The Catcher in the Rye you can find fresh copies of instant classics such as The Help. The first section of books across the Rotary Heritage Room is the Book Group Collection. This area features copies of past book club reads and is a great place to look if you are stumped on what to read next. Or if you never got around to reading “that book everyone keeps talking about” such as The Hunger Games.  

Another place to look for recommendations is the Positively Ellinwood Street blog display located on the third floor. We feature suggestions from our blog posts there, along with bookmarks and flyers on different topics such as popular teen books or books to read while you wait for your Fifty Shades of Grey hold to come in. 

Of course we are always available at the Readers Services desk if you are not sure where to look for your next great read. Beyond our powerful minds we can provide lists of similar authors to your favorite writer or similar materials to a book you just read and loved. One of my new favorite quotes about reading comes from Diane Duane’s So You Want to Be a Wizard: “Reading one book is like eating one potato chip”. If you feel the same way about reading, Des Plaines Public Library can easily be all that and a bag of chips for your reading tastes.  

How did you stumble across the last great book you read? And how will you find your next read? 

Young Adult Literature for All Ages

With NPR releasing The 100-Best Ever Teen Novels list and the runaway success of various teen book franchises, there is no denying teen literature is hot right now. The NPR list features a mix of newcomers and old classics to the young adult genre.

 If you have never ventured into the young adult or high school sections, you may be surprised and even devastated to know how many great books you are missing out on. When I was a teenager I read mostly adult literature. But as an adult I have learned to appreciate the emotionally-charged, creative, and often fast-paced literature available in the teen area. Here are a few that really entertained me far after my teenage years were over.

Are you already a fan of The Hunger Games? Check out Veronica Roth’s Divergent series. Set in a dystopian Chicago, the adventure revolves around a female protagonist coming to terms with her role in society. Already set to be adapted to film, this is a great time to read the series before it becomes the next big thing. Another series to check out is Lauren Oliver’s Delirium where love is considered a disease that people are cured from upon turning eighteen.

Do you prefer more realistic tales? There are plenty of teen books being released that do not involve a dystopian society!  An instant classic is Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian. The story follows a teenager living on a Spokane reservation who decides to try and better himself by traveling outside the reservation to attend an all-white farm school. The book is both bittersweet and surprisingly funny while exploring themes of what it means to be an outsider. Other great, character-driven reads include John Green’s An Abundance of Katherines, where the hapless hero analyzes how he has managed to get dumped by nineteen girls named Katherine.  In Nick Burd’s The Vast Fields of Ordinary, the protagonist must come to terms with a rapid series of changes during the summer between high school and college. 

Lastly, for fellow fans of horror who have run out of Stephen King novels to devour, check out Lauren Myracle's Bliss.The novel takes place in the sixties with the protagonist leaving her parent’s hippie commune to enroll at an elite high school where she befriends a girl obsessed with the occult. The book embeds itself in the time period, with numerous references to the Charles Manson case to raise the tension that builds till its cinematic conclusion.

For more suggestions and ideas of what to read, check out Tracy’s Teen Lit Picks on the Staff Picks page. If you are a fan of young adult literature, what is your favorite? Were you surprised by anything that made or did not make the NPR list?