lower east side librarian

I felt like I earned this one. So far in 2010 I've only read one other paranormal fiction book, and I didn't even like it very much. I'd put a hold on Dime Store Magic, from Armstrong's Women of the Otherworld series at NYPL 100 years ago, and so was pleasantly surprised when I finally got notice that my turn had arrived.

I wasn't expecting to like The Namesake very much. I wasn't crazy about her short story collection Interpreter of Maladies, and the description wasn't particularly enticing. So why did I even read it? Maybe just because Lahiri is a Barnard alumna? Or because I'd saved it in my library account to read list, and it was the only thing I didn't have to go over to Columbia to borrow? Who knows? Regardless, I'm glad I did.

A lonely girl who moves a lot and has a wacky mom meets a lonely boy with a distant dad and a missing twin. But refreshingly, this isn't a teen romance novel. There is some romantic tension and jealousy, but really this book is about the friendship between the two of them.

Girl with "raw talent" gets rescued by black-skinned blue-eyed from "primitive" Trinidad and discovers America in 1963.

I read this book when I stayed overnight with friend house in Boston. (Thanks again for the Bloody Marys Jake and Lisa!) Basically it's just photos of signs and things that have been improved with a FUCK sticker. You can get the idea from Fuck This Website.

The author quotes former ALA president Patricia Wilson Berger in her epigraph "Show me a computer expert who gives a damn, and I'll show you a librarian." I wouldn't say all librarians give a damn or that no non-librarian computer geeks don't, but I do think that sentiment is an appropriate way to launch into Johnson's 250 page mash note to librarians. What she likes about us is what I like about us—that we are dedicated to our user population and to our professional ethics. That unlike many other experts, our mission involves educating people and providing access to self-education tools without being snotty about it. At least to your face.

As it turns out, although it was the computer expertiness of librarians that made Johnson notice us, many of the librarians and library projects she profiles in this book are stronger in "give a damn."

Before I really get started, I need to contemplate for a moment that Johnson got interested in librarians, because in researching her previous book The Dead Beat: Lost Souls, Lucky Stiff, and the Perverse Pleasures of Obituaries she fell in love with librarians through their obituaries. She is a loving and generous writer, but we have to admit a little quirky, right?