(It’s not the top question. That’s “Do you have a book?” followed by “Where’s the bathroom?”)

It’s actually a fun part of bookselling, helping someone who knows they love a certain book or kind of book find something new and exciting to read.

Except there are a lot of books/genres I don’t know anything about.

Unfortunately I can’t log into something like Shelfari from work (not allowed to log into anything from any work computer). I can go to Google and hope the power of the internet (and/or Amazon’s suggested other books) will bail me out, but there are a few really fantastic websites that can help more quickly. And quick is important – nobody wants to stand around while I putter on the internet trying to figure out what kind of book they want.

These are my go-to websites (depending on the query):

• What Should I Read Next? – Yes, this actually exists as a website. Enter a title or author and get a list of suggestions of other authors and titles that you might check out. This is my major lookup, especially if someone has read EVERTHING by a certain author or authors.
• Fantastic Fiction – a great listing of author biographies, lists of titles by each author, and author suggestions. While it’s no guarantee that your favorite author will suggest books that you’ll like, it’s a neat reference and they tend to stay within genres.
• Wikipedia – If all you need is a list of a series in order, Wiki is likely your quickest lookup. Many series aren’t written book 1 through book 10, and often Wikipedia will have a list both in chronological publishing order and in “plot” order.
• GoodReads – books by title, author, ISBN, and genre and often with reviews. While the majority of social options aren’t available on GoodReads without signing in to an account, you can read the reviews there without it, and they list new releases by genre.

So the next time you finish a really great book and want to read something similarly awesome, these resources may be able to bail you out – especially if you’re online shopping (or on your phone at the bookstore).

Or, you know, ask a bookseller. That’s what we’re for! (But we do appreciate if you have more than just “I saw a book over there, it had a blue cover, do you still have it?”)

I highly recommend Diet for a Dead Planet to anyone who wants to read about the human costs to the current agricultural system – not so much as a condemnation (which it is) but also as a history of how the system actually developed, both industrially and politically. It’s written in such a way as to be easy to read in small chunks, and it was my bedtime reading book for awhile. Cook also does a great job of endnoting his work, so anything that seems outrageous can be fact-checked – something I did a few times.

The Consumer’s Guide was pretty dry but good to read, since it actually takes SCIENCE to the idea behind “greening” your everyday decisions. Especially in light of this week being Earth Day (more on that later this week), it’s nice to read something that says “these things actually make a difference, but those things really don’t”. For example, choosing to buy an energy efficient refrigerator is a much more important decision than whether you use plastic or paper grocery bags. They line up their scientific method and have a large section of data and analysis in the back of the book to support their findings as well. (Not surprising, given the authors.) Unfortunately, it’s about 10 years old, so it’s not as up to date as it could be, and a lot of the progress they see as possible hasn’t come about yet.

I have given up on the Dalai Lama’s book for now, mostly because it is a little too thinky for me right now. I’ve put off most of the other books for another time.

Instead, on my reading list, I have:

• Bunnicula and The Celery Stalks at Midnight, by James Howe
• The Lightning Thief, by Rick Riordan
• The Pioneer Woman: Black Heels to Tractor Wheels, by Ree Drummond
• Beezus and Ramona, by Beverly Cleary
• The Omnivore’s Dilemma, by Michael Pollan
• A Garden Book for Houston and the Texas Gulf Coast, by the River Oaks Garden Club, and Houston Garden Book, by John Kriegel

Plus, of course, finishing Redwall and whatever other Brian Jacques books I can track down at work. Hopefully this will be a good continuation of both fun reading that I’ll enjoy and reading that will feed my brain (pun intended) as I research and study various things about our food industry and about my local gardening climate.

Also, for what it’s worth, those books at the top of this post are the first books I’ve actually finished since all this started last year. *\o/*

Needless to say, it’s taken a bit of willpower not to pour my paycheck back into the store, even with the snazzy employee discount I get. Especially since I tend to be in the middle of a bunch of books all at once.

On my list right now:

• The Lies of Locke Lamora (need to actually finish this) – Scott Lynch
• Blood Sucking Fiends - Christopher Moore
• The Spellman Files – Lisa Lutz
• Wherever You Go, There You Are – John Kabat-Zinn
• The Universe in a Single Atom – His Holiness the Dalai Lama
• Diet for a Dead Planet – Christopher D Cook
• The Diet Myth – Paul Campos
• The Courage to Start and No Need for Speed – John “The Penguin” Bingham

As some of you might know, though, I’ve had some troubles for the last 6 months (has it really been that long? :/ ), so my attention span is a fickle beast that I’m frequently frustrated with. Which basically boils down to my having trouble actually finishing books, or not being able to read them front to back in any reasonable time.

That’s not so much a problem with the non-fiction books, since I can usually go chapter to chapter with them, and bounce between a few.

But with fiction? I’ve read the beginning of Lies of Locke Lamora at least three times now, because I get into it, get excited, have to put the book down… have a few bad days, and just don’t pick it up again after.

I’ve always been a serious reader who didn’t shy away from tome-sized novels. But now I’m finding that it might be time to focus on short stories for awhile, and get back to the tomes later. (You’ll notice that both the other novels on that list are lighter and more humorous reading. That’s intentional as well.)

Either way though, I’m pretty excited about my current list of things to read. I’ll post updates if any of them become favorites, and hopefully in a month or so have another list of things that are on the bookshelf.

Until then, though, you might consider stock in bookmarks. I tend to use lots of them.

At the far end of town, where the Grickle-grass grows
and the wind smells slow-and-sour when it blows
and no birds ever sing excepting old crows… is the Street of the Lifted Lorax

Everyone has books they remember as “making a difference”.

Well, ok maybe not everyone, but I’d wish that fate on everyone, so I’ll leave it.

The Lorax was one of those books for me.  I can remember reading it for the first time, and thinking “This isn’t like I expected it to be.  It doesn’t have a happy ending.  Dr. Seuss books are supposed to have happy endings.”  Maybe that’s why it mattered, as a 9 year old (or 11 year old, or whatever. I don’t know exactly when I first read it).  Maybe it mattered because I’ve loved trees since I was very small, thanks either to some innate tree-hugger gene or because my father also loves trees and caring for them, or both.  But I can remember coming away from this book with a better perspective on the world.

A powerful thing, that.

This week is Banned Books Week.  Many of the books on the list are ones that I am a more well-rounded human for having read.  To Kill a Mockingbird. On the Road. The Sound and the Fury. Brave New World. The Lord of the Rings. The Lorax.

Many of those books I read at home – some of them probably younger than my Conservative WASP School District would’ve liked.  But my parents knew their child – and knew what I could and couldn’t handle.  When I read The Lord of the Rings with my dad, he used it to talk to me about evil, and about how the world is sometimes not a nice place.  In short, he used it as a way to both connect to his kid, and to help her grow up. I had similar conversations with my mom, when reading Of Mice and Men as a freshman in High School.

And I know, I was lucky.   I have amazing parents, and they did a good job.  But teachers can do this too (I got lucky in that front as well, having had some tremendous literature teachers throughout my schooling).

A lot of times, book banning is done to “PROTECT THE CHILDREN”.

Bull-honkey.

Should a 5 year old be reading The Sound and the Fury?  Probably not.  Would a 5 year old understand it?  Uh… probably not.

Books are some of the best teaching tools for helping people expand their minds, for presenting something outside of what they normally experience.  Reading To Kill a Mockingbird and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer present racism /clearly/ as a bad thing.  I’m quite sure that nobody wants their children to be confronted with racism in their every day existence – but if they can learn about it from Scout and Tom and Huck, and see those negative effects in what is, essentially, a safe environment, isn’t that a good thing?

And sure, books that present difficult subjects should be presented to kids who are ready to start tackling those subjects – but banning them only serves to make those conversations more difficult.  Sheltering children doesn’t make the bad things in the world less bad – and without these kinds of discussions, how can we expect kids to magically come to the “good” conclusions?  Books present the “bad things” in a way that is relateable, and a way that is controllable.

Now don’t get me wrong – I think parents need to have the final say in what their kids are or aren’t reading.  Who knows a kid better than his or her parents?  Sometimes kids aren’t ready for certain conversations – and that’s 100% ok.

But /banning/ the book says that it presents nothing good, that it can serve no purpose. Reading To Kill a Mockingbird isn’t going to turn kids into racists (and 90% chance says they’ve heard a racial slur before in their life, whether on TV or on the playground) – but banning books is a good way to take away those conversations, and make them impossible for kids who ARE ready.   It’s fine to stop your own kids from reading something; that’s called responsible parenting. But to tell everyone else’s kids what they can and can’t read takes that decision away from other responsible parents.

Ignorance doesn’t solve anything.

Responsibility, however, does.

*Writing this post was hard, because this is a very emotionally charged subject for me.  I struggle to refrain from nerdraging about people banning The Lorax and other books I have loved and learned from.  I need to thank Falconesse for helping me turn this into a productive post.  She is wise, you know!

And then you get a smear of chocolate in your new book, and it all goes downhill.