Links to Click: March 22, 2024
YA turning 25, a history of the Carnegie library, font nerdery, and more
Once a month feels like a good cadence for a link roundup of my work and, when I’ve got them saved, the links of work I’ve been reading and thinking about. Welcome to that monthly installment, inspired by remembering a podcast I did this week and never actually publicized–a podcast I loved writing and recording to boot.
It’s the first day of spring break here in the upper midwest and it is…snowing, of course. We have had an unseasonably warm winter, so this all tracks.
This month, I left my clinical mental health counseling masters program. I don’t feel like getting into the details of it, and even though I have hardly had time to process such a huge and life-altering decision, I am happy and confident in it. I’ve slept the best I have slept in a long time, I am actually able to muster up energy to do things, and I’ve been reading again. I reenrolled in my ballet class, which I’ll get to start again in April. I’ve been writing a lot, both here and on Book Riot and for myself/future projects that have been simmering on the back burner because of school. The excitement I have about getting time back to be creative and engage in photography again is not small.
I think quitting was my biggest act of self-care in a long time. I’m a proponent of quitting and always have been. You live once, and the sunk cost fallacy is real. Finding confidence to say it’s not for me is hard and there are certainly situations that make saying that difficult, but if you are able to quit things, do it. Be a quitter. Wear it as a badge of honor.
Another act of self-care worth bringing up here is this: I’m turning off comments on all newsletters from here on out. I do not have the capacity to respond anymore. Plus, one of the beauties of the internet is that it is so easy to begin your own writing space to share your thoughts. I encourage it! I love reading those thoughts, but I need to do it on my own time, with my own boundaries coming first and foremost.
All of that said, shall we dig into the link-o-rama?
Writing About Libraries
What exactly is a Carnegie library? This is one of my favorite pieces I’ve written in a long time and also one of the least read. It’s an exploration of what the Carnegie designation is, alongside what it takes to list a building on the National Register of Historic Places.
A Massachusetts public library is waiving book repair and replacement fines for patrons who show them a picture of a cat. The library is already fine-free; this is to help with the costs of items that are damaged or lost, which is almost never forgiven.
Oak Park Public Library’s board fired their director on Saturday. What led to that decision?
Writing About Book Bans/Censorship
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Some of the most common book ban related myths and why they’re wrong.
Why ban books when you can ban entire book awards? That’s what happened in Millburn School District 24 this week in suburban Chicago.
The current status of anti-book ban legislation in several US states.
The Autagua-Prattville Public Library director was fired by the board for not removing 113 LGBTQ+ books from the library. In response, several librarians locked up the building in protest and they, too, were fired.
Higher education is being targeted by the same book banners who are ruining public and school libraries.
A Llano County, Texas, public librarian fired for not banning books is now suing the county.
The landmine of Common Sense Media. It’s an RA tool, not a collection development tool. Unfortunately, it’s being used for collection development and it’s being used uncritically by media.
Why are Mauston Public Schools using BookLooks to pull books from classroom and library shelves?
Writing About Books & Bookish Ephemera
New bookish puzzles, several of which are now on my to-find list.
Podcasts
1999 was a hell of a year for YA, y’all, and there are so many titles considered canonical, foundational texts that turn 25 this year. (If you like YA books, don’t forget to subscribe to the biweekly “What’s Up in YA?” newsletter I publish at Book Riot).
I talked about two books that published in March 2023 that I have not stopped thinking about since on last week’s All The Backlist. One is a work of horror and one, also a work of horror but more commonly categorized as “nonfiction.”
My book Here We Are: Feminism for the Real World is on sale all month long. $3 will get you the digital copy at whatever retailer you prefer. I’ve linked to Amazon but go wherever you prefer.
Currently
Reading
I’ve been reading my way through a ton of books sitting on my to-read. Right this moment, I’m flying through Snowglobe by Soyoung Park and translated by Joungmin Lee Comfort. It’s reminding me of the storytelling I like when it comes to dystopia, and in a lot of ways, is giving me the same reading feelings that first reading Blood Red Road by Moira Young–speedy pacing, an environmental nightmare of a setting, and not wanting to put it down until I know what happens. I don’t have this feeling a lot with dystopia. Does it mean the book is mind-blowingly good? That remains to be seen but I’m enjoying the heck out of it.
Listening
The final episode of 60 Songs That Explain the 90s, one of my favorite podcasts, landed. That last episode is excellent but I want to highlight episode 119 (if you’re like “why are there 119 episodes of 60 songs,” welcome to the podcast!). It’s one of the few country music episodes on the show and it’s about Garth Brooks’s “Friends in Low Places.” I think Rob’s country episodes have been the best, and my only wish for the show was he did more of them. This one was so, so good and a reminder of how vast 90s music was–and how we live in such a different musical world for all of the reasons you can think of immediately.
I’ve been listening to the newer episodes of Sounds Like a Cult and honestly, I know there were issues with Isa and Amanda together, but Amanda alone is not doing it for me. I find her a little difficult to listen to, period, which is such a shame because her writing and books are fantastic. The Age of Magical Overthinking comes out soon and it’s one I’m so excited to force onto people.
Puzzles
I’ve gotten so many questions about puzzles lately. Let me answer some of them rapid-fire.
I get my puzzles in several places. I buy many full-price and usually order them through my indie bookstore (I don’t buy a lot of books, so it evens out!). I also thrift a lot of my puzzles, swap with friends and family, and/or buy ‘em on discount on Poshmark. I don’t care about potential missing pieces.
When I finish my puzzles, I share them or sell them at Half Price Books. I usually share more than sell, fwiw.
This is the new puzzle board I bought. It rotates! I LOVE it. I swapped this one in and passed along my old solid wood one (which was fine, but didn’t swivel!).
Finally:
One of my yoga teachers sent me this and it’s spot on.
As for future programming here, I’ve got two posts in the hopper. One is a really fascinating–and angering, honestly!–guest post and one will be a musing about a cultural institution that is seeing a renaissance in pop culture that I cannot stop thinking about.
Thanks for being here. If you like what I do, you can support the newsletter by subscribing, by paying for a subscription, or by sharing the newsletter with others. As of now, nothing will ever be exclusively paywalled, but your bucks help keep my child in books, toys, and Bluey apparel (they also keep me in good coffee).
–Kelly