Citizen Reader

I carry a lot of books home from the library.

Normally this system works out quite well for me. Everything from the library is free, so I just request books I hear about from family members and friends, books I see on lists and other blogs, and books I find while meandering through my library catalog looking through other things. This means I almost always have something around I want to read, want to look at, or just want to dip into at random. Because I also fall on the minimalist side, I also try to keep few things in my house, but with small children and various freelancing jobs my house still always looks like a paper and plastic toy bomb just went off.* The point of this long, admittedly not-very-minimalist story is that sometimes I look at my overwhelming shelf of library books and feel the urge just to get them all out and start fresh.

So today I'm going to list everything that's going back. If you see anything on this list I should bother getting back, let me know, would you? Thanks!

Amy Gary, In the Great Green Room: The Brilliant and Bold Life of Margaret Wise Brown. Bybee, who I trust for all recommendations bookish, suggested that this one is perhaps not worth the read. Mr. CR also took a look at it and thought it read mostly like a gushing fan tribute. I took a look at the index and was disappointed; the entry for Michael Strange, "the gender-bending poet and ex-wife of John Barrymore," with whom Margaret had a love affair, had no fewer than 50 page references and no subentries. That is not responsible indexing.

Beth Macy, Truevine: Two Brothers, a Kidnapping, and a Mother's Quest--A True Story of the Jim Crow South. For some reason I keep bringing Beth Macy books (she also wrote Factory Man) home and never closing the deal on reading them. Anyone read this one? Should I? Why?

Lisa Wade, American Hookup: The New Culture of Sex on Campus. Got a lot of press but gosh, I just can't face it right now.

Robert A. LeVine and Sarah LeVine, Do Parents Matter? Why Japanese Babies Sleep Soundly, Mexican Siblings Don't Fight, and American Families Should Just Relax. I'm just not in the mood for this. I might be done with parenting books for a while.

Eric Fair, Consequence: A Memoir. Memoir of a man who worked as an interrogator in Abu Ghraib prison. I just don't have the heart right now. This was another book on my shelf that prompted Mr. CR to ask, "Can you bring home some books that aren't as depressing as hell, please?"

James M. Stone, 5 Easy Theses: Commonsense Solutions to America's Greatest Economic Challenges. Actually, I read parts of this one, and it made several "best of" lists in the economics category. It seemed interesting but again, I'm just not in the mood right now.

So? Should I let all these go or are any of them worth getting back? What books have you seen or had lately that you just weren't in the mood for?

*Incidentally? All the bombs in the world should be required to be made of only paper and plastic toys. They wouldn't be as lethal as most of the weapons we use today, but such bombs, I can attest from seeing their effect on my house, are very disruptive.