Of Note

 A friend sent me the New York Times Book Review "100 Notable Books of 2025" article this morning (not sure if it's paywalled, sorry). I always experience a funny blend of feelings when I see the headline of one of these. Primarily excitement: I love a good list, and I like counting how many books of those mentioned I have read and putting others on hold. There's an undertone of trepidation, because invariably there are many, many books that I not only haven't read, I haven't even heard of them - and I don't consider myself someone who is completely ignorant of the book world. And then there is the merest soupcon of weariness and derision - the tiniest bit, really - because who has done the choosing, and what are the precise criteria, and what does 'notable' actually mean (at least they didn't call it the BEST books of 2025). Obviously there's an element of subjectivity. I always end up concluding that maybe I am just a basic reading bitch, and that's FINE. 

I had read five, which is laughably few and yet is more than in some years. One of them I hated, one of them I thought was over-hyped, one I loved, one I really liked, and one was strange and I admired it. I am currently reading two more, and one I just had to return because it was too overdue.

Honestly, I didn't find a lot to raise my eyebrows at in the list. It seemed like a pretty good mix of fiction, non-fiction, genre, current issues and biographies of significant personalities. I had a good number of them on hold already thanks to Sarah (HI SARAH). I put like twenty more on hold, just as I was getting ready to wind up my 'year of putting all the physical books on hold' experiment, thanks a lot New York Times Book Review.

It was Scholastic Book Fair week at two of my libraries, which is always a heady mix of excitement and chaos. I had two amazing parent volunteers to help at one school, which was great because we didn't think we'd end up having to use the card machine but one parent came in and two teachers and it took me a stupid long time to get it working - tech hates me. But we did a brisk business and the kids were happy.

One major shock was that the posters - which have been five dollars each since time immemorial - jumped to SIX dollars in 2023, and are now SEVEN dollars each. That's a hundred and forty percent jump in TWO YEARS (I think, math's not really my thing). One of the kids repeated this incredulously and I said "I KNOW. This is all on Scholastic, and we completely agree that it is (thinking: I can't say bullshit, I can't say bullshit) NOT COOL."