When I was a kid, my mother was a stay-at-home mom for a while. I vaguely remember a system of index cards that kept us organized, which may have been the SHE precursor to the Flylady system that I still sort of follow. I’ve never asked, but it seems familiar. Anyway, one of the index cards specified “library day” which was good because even as a child, I motored through books. We probably took out Beatrix Potter’s entire oeuvre about two dozen times.

Since becoming a stay-at-home mom to Chester, our puggle, I have reinstated library day. I go on Mondays. The main reason I am fanatical about keeping it to one day a week is that then the items I take out are all due on the same day of the week so I actually remember to return them. No fines!

Every once in a while, one of the new blogs I’ve found through Pinterest comes up with a book recommendation. Generally they’re new or very popular books so I often have to place holds on them and wait for a couple of weeks until a copy becomes available. Maybe I’m easily entertained, but it’s fun to get emails from the library telling me that my books are ready to be picked up. It’s like getting a notification that a present awaits me on the shelves at the Fairfax County Library.

I’m a renewed fan of the library. It’s much cheaper than buying books. Plus, I always tried only to buy books that I thought I might read more than once and some of these definitely don’t fit that category.

Here are a few of my latest reads. Some are light, beach* type reads. Others are a little more serious. All were excellent in their way. I haven’t read Mad Women yet (I just placed the hold today), but I have high hopes.

*Please don’t take library books to the beach. I worked as a library volunteer in high school and it was awful when books would come back with sand in them. We had to recover them, which was time consuming and messy. So just don’t. Please. Pick up a cheapo used paperback.