Fangirl - by Rainbow Rowell

Cath and her twin sister Wren are starting college at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln, but in different dorms. Cath is less than thrilled about this arrangement and is more than a bit intimidated by her roommate Reagan. At least she still has her fanfiction to disappear into. Cath and Wren used to write Simon Snow fanfiction together, but Wren lost interest and Cath now writes on her own. 

After getting special permission to take a 300-level fiction writing class Cath meets Nick and the two become writing partners. Nick works at Love Library "(That was the actual name; thank you for your donation, Mayor Don Lathrop Love)" shelving books, although he clearly doesn't take the job seriously enough. He left a cart full of books at the end of his shift because he was doing his homework instead of shelving. When Cath points this out he assures her that "the morning girl can do it. It'll remind her that she's alive". This turns out to be a bit of foreshadowing as we discover that Nick is all to happy to take credit for work that women do.

Cath mostly holds her own in the upper-level writing class, but is taken aback by an accusation of plagiarism when she uses some of her fan fiction as a basis for one of the writing assignments. Her professor is understanding, but will not change the failing grade, or allow Cath to rewrite the assignment. I disagree that what Cath turned in was plagiarized. If she had turned in the same story and used different character names her professor would probably never have realized. Also, I turned in a similar assignment myself as a graduate student (re-wrote a scene from a novel from a different character's point of view). My professor loved it. I got an A.

Cath spends a lot of time in the library, and her full nerd-dom is clear when we discover that she has a bit of a fantasy about "being trapped in a library overnight." She even writes a Simon Snow scene that takes place between the stacks.

Cath finds love (or something like it) with Levi. One of their early bonding experiences involves Cath reading The Outsiders aloud to Levi who has trouble with reading to himself. And really who doesn't love The Outsiders? I've said it before and I'll say it again: reading aloud with another person is never a bad idea. You will always have something to talk about.

Anne of Manhattan - by Brina Starler

In this reimagined Anne of Green Gables for the twenty-first century, Anne is a graduate student in Manhattan, getting her Masters Degree in Education at the fictitious Redmond College. Diana is her roommate. Anne is a go-getter who somehow manages to work full time at a bookstore, go to school full time, serve as a teaching assistant in a Shakespeare class, and run an after-school program for aspiring middle school writers. And if that isn't enough she can suck a mean dick, too. She also knows how to use the term quid pro quo when oral sex is on the table.

While I appreciate a story of a woman who owns her sexuality, there was much about this one that I just couldn't wrap my head around. The kind of time a person needs to do the amount of work (and play) that Anne does frankly defies the laws of physics. I'm also not sure the author has a firm grasp on what a person needs in order to get an Associate Professorship. Anne manages to score one of these increasingly rare gems of a job after earning her Master's degree. She even has the luxury of turning one job down in order to hold out for the one she really wants. Ummm...no. To begin with one needs a PhD to get that sort of position, and no one turns down such a position simply in hopes of getting the exact job they want.

The library of the Redmond Writers House, located on the ground floor, is one in which we can picture Anne Shirley settling right in

Three original fireplaces had been bricked over decades before, and now contained arrangements of silk flowers or sinuously twisted clay sculptures. Bookcases lined the walls, and although the rooms were small and crowded, with intimate seating arrangements, tall arching windows let in plenty of natural light tinted by multiple verdant green plants spilling out of hanging baskets. The entire library had an airy, bohemian feel to it...  

The library is also a dandy place for Anne and Gil to meet to work on their combined thesis project (again, really, not a thing in academia). As it turns out the "middle ground between their two apartments was technically the school library."

Caveat Lector
This ultimately is a romance novel with a rather trite resolution, so Anne of Green Gables fans should take heed. While the protagonist is still a feisty feminist, there are some hard-to-take romance tropes. 

My husband and I listened to this on Audible during a road trip. 

La biblioteca mágica - por Valeria Cavajal Vasco

According to amazon I bought this book on April 30, so I must have purchased it for Día de los niños/Día de los libros (aka "Día" or Children's Day/Book Day). I do recall specifically looking for a library-centric, Spanish-language book to read. I usually pick a picture book to blog about for Día but this year I selected a chapter book, so it took me a bit longer to read it.  This is the story of friends Emma, Park, Paige, and Liam who want to take a summer vacation together, but first they need to earn some money. Paige and Park find work at a local store, and Liam gets a job with his uncle. Emma is worried that she will be the only one who won't be earning any money, until her mother helps her land a job at the local library el "único lugar al que muy pocos adolescentes irían a pedir trabajo", as well as "el lugar más aburrido del pueblo" (for those who are Spanish-language challenged, that translates to 'the only place that few adolescents would ask for work'; and 'the most boring place in town').

Emma, however, discovers that the library is far from boring. In a library lover's version of Night at the Museum Emma learns that those who work the night shift have the ability to visit the characters in the books. Beginning with Caperucita roja (Little Red Riding Hood), she moves on to Peter Pan,  Harry Potter; and Crepúsculo (Twilight), among others. From each book she also brings back a souvenir (Red Riding Hood's Cape and Peter Pan's sword, for instance). Far from boring, Emma finds that she not only looks forward to going to work in the library she is more interested in her work than in hanging out with her friends. She is reluctant to tell them about the library's secret until she learns that the mayor wants to close the library because nobody visits it, and it isn't a money maker. With the help of her friends and the other library employees, she comes up with a plan to save the library.

I must say I was left a little wanting with the resolution they came up with which I saw as stop gap at best, and had nothing to do with magic. No one wanted to reveal the library's secret for fear of exploiting it. However, if I were writing the ending to this book the friends would have sparked interest in the library, and helped it to make money without letting anyone in on the secret by  strategically visiting books, bringing back cool relics, and selling them. In fact I thought this solution was so obvious I really was stunned that it wasn't how the book ended.

Ahab's Return: or, The Last Voyage - by Jeffrey Ford

In a re-imagined world of Melville's Moby Dick Captain Ahab (along with others of the crew of the Pequod) survived the attack of the white whale. A reformed Ahab comes to Manhattan in search of his wife and son, whom he has been told moved from Nantucket to live with a relative. In a tale of manticores and monsters Ahab reveals more about his travels. He also runs into Daggoo (aka Madi), harpooneer from the ill-fated Pequod. We learn a bit of Madi's back story - that he was young and wanted to see the world - and remembers very little of Africa

I only dimly recall my mother and father. My homeland and Islam. All that was washed out of me by the rolling sea. I've been on a voyage to another world, suffered solid months of stillness at the equator, and been lashed by furious typhoons. At night, I have fleeting glimpses of my father's handiwork, the jewels and metals he shaped like a sprinkling of gold dust in my dreams. That and a story my grandfather told me when I was a child of the fabulous libraries of Timbuktu.

Ahab enlists the help of a journalist George Harrow to navigate the city. Harrow, in turn, seeks assistance from Mrs. Pease, the archivist for the Gorgon's Mirror (the tabloid for which Harrow works). The archive comprised

shelves and drawers and cabinets containing various and sundry articles and clippings from myriad  local newspapers and magazines-all catalogued, filed, and cross-referenced according to a system devised by Mrs. Pease. How the materials were chosen-and the criteria by which they were arranged-was a mystery

Mrs. Pease knew the system though, and could find anything within. With information she found she was able to do research and create maps. Of course any one could tell you that a person with these duties and skills is a librarian. And, indeed, Harrow eventually identifies her as such.

A fun bit of fiction. I'm not sure how true Melville fans will feel about it, though.

What if the Gilmore Girls were librarians?

This is all because of Logan. 

My husband (James) and I finished binge watching all seven seasons of Gilmore Girls over the weekend and started on the new retread. After watching the first episode -"Winter" - I said to James that if I were in charge of the new mini-series I would have had Logan have a complete change of heart, and he would be a social worker. Then I thought a bit more about it and said "no, better yet, a librarian". Then we started joking about what kind of librarian all the characters would be. From there it just got out of hand. So grab a cup of (fair-trade, organic) coffee (in a ceramic mug) and join me in a re-imagined Stars Hollow where everyone finds their true calling in library work. 

Lorelei  is the community program director of Stars Hollow Public Library (SHPL). As a single parent she is keenly aware "that it takes a village". Parents of young children are especially grateful for her free daytime programs where they can take a break from endless mind-numbing games of Candyland, and talk to some other adults. Her annual Banned Books Week display and reading is anticipated more than the town's annual Winter Carnival.

Rory is a research librarian at National Public Radio. She loves hobnobbing with the national personalities and really can't  tell you how much she wishes that the Organization would just stop taking donations from the Koch brothers. For goodness sake she'd rather take money from the Huntzberger Group!

Jess received the prestigious Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers fellowship from at the New York Public Library.

Luke and Dean are in charge of Library maintenance at SHPL. Dean is fantasy fodder for the bubble gum brigade at Stars Hollow Middle School (and that includes the gay captain of its football team - thank goodness it is finally safe to be out in Stars Hollow!) making the teen center at the library the place where all the cool kids go after school. Luke keeps the coffee maker in the break room filled and takes special joy in reminding patrons who are talking on their cell phones to "take it outside". He also gives cooking lessons at the library on Saturday afternoons. Reliable as ever, there is never a burnt out bulb in the stacks, or an un-shoveled walk after a snow.

Sookie found her passion in food research and got a job as a reference librarian at The Culinary Institute of America. She is royally peeved that the Institute's homepage does not include a direct link to the library, but will continue to fight the good fight on that front. She commutes to work from her home on Long Island, where Jackson maintains a lovely garden and runs an heirloom seed library.

Emily runs a homework helper volunteer program at the Nantucket Atheneum. She thinks some of the children must speak Portuguese, but can't be sure. She understands them anyway.

Lane and Zack finally extricated themselves from Mrs. Kim's control by moving the family to Cleveland to be curators at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. They are currently creating a special exhibit of 70s rock star jumpsuits - an idea given to them by a 50-something librarian who thoroughly enjoyed her visit to the museum earlier this year.

Paris writes and maintains the pamphlet collection at Planned Parenthood. Her attention to detail and medical expertise assure that only the most current, accurate, and medically-based information is available at all times.

Doyle works as an archivist at the New York Times. 

Miss Patty and Babette maintain a Little Free Library adjacent to the town gazebo.

Logan is a systems librarian at Bunker Hill Community College. He had a spiritual reawakening and a realization that he was just a blond jackass after all after his last business deal was such a disaster it caused the lay off of over 1,000 workers. He had to take out a loan to pay for is Master's degree in Information and Library Science because even his father had had enough of his shenanigans. He is a better person for it though, and is glad to provide service with his signature smile.

Marty is the director at the Bunker Hill Community College library and Logan's boss (an irony not lost on Logan, believe you me). They both still carry a torch for Rory, but she is having none of it. Occasionally Marty and Logan will have a cry over some beers together.

In a twist that surprised even them, Kirk and Lulu became nudists and moved to to Kisamee, Florida where they work at the American Nudist Research Library.

April won the student worker of the year award at the MIT's Dewey library.

Michel and Caesar both volunteer two evenings a week at the New Haven Free Public Library. Michel teaches French for travelers and gets a truly perverse pleasure in telling Emily's former cronies from the DAR that he can't understand a thing they say. Caesar teaches English citizenship classes. Whenever one of his students passes the citizenship test he celebrates by making them his famous chilaquiles.

Taylor is archiving the town's historical documents. Every scrap of paper is sacred and must be cataloged, digitized and, preserved in acid-free archival boxes. He is all about acid-free now.

Richard left a colossal amount money to the Chilton prep school library. The will stipulated that they money be used to update the collections, and that the librarian had to be the highest paid member of the faculty and, of course, that the library be renamed in Rory's honor.

I understand that Paul also got a library job... now if I could just remember where?

A special thanks to James for being my Muse on this one, and for helping me to flesh out some of these ideas.