A Treasury of Jewish Inspirational Stories Book

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It's time for my library's annual Winter Reading Challenge. The challenge, should I choose to accept it (duh, of course I do), is to read five books between January 20th and March 20th. Once completed I can earn myself yet another bragalicious mug for my collection . . .



Oooops, wrong mug . . .



Easy peasy lemon squeazy, right? Well, the kicker this year is the theme is "Love on the Rocks."


Romance is not my forté. The extra kick in the pants is out of the 25 suggested selections, I've already read 10. Although reading what the librarians suggest isn't a requirement, I like to choose my 5 from their list whenever possible. That's what led me to Adverbs. Uhhhhhh . . . .



Yeah. Daniel Handler might possibly be the biggest hit or miss author I've ever come across. Being a mom I loved the world that Lemony Snicket built, and as a grown-up I was floored by Handler's ability to flip the switch and write something like The Basic Eight . . . But then I read Why We Broke Up and it was so "meh" that I didn't quite know what to expect. Well, I should've expected zilch 'cause this book was a real turd.

Handler describes Adverbs as a "novel about love - a bunch of different people in and out of different kinds of love." What it really turned out to be was a series of unfortunate events (Ha! See what I did there?) - little vignettes that had characters, San Francisco, and yellow-billed magpies as repeating items that would tie them together. What it lacked? Any kind of depth or ability to entertain me. Wait, I take that back. The story "Clearly" was brilliant (but it was also creepy instead of "romantic," so you should probably take that statement with a grain of salt). Sadly, one snippet of a whole book is not enough to bump my rating up to 2 Stars. The schizy, rambling style aside, when Handler opted to break the fourth wall at the 68% mark, I knew this book had officially jumped the shark. However, I don't have the ability to "DNF" so I trudged through to the end, growing ever more bored and questioning how I could have ever enjoyed someone who wrote such pompous drivel. Let's hope the next four books in the challenge aren't lousy.

Alright, enough with the bad stuff. Now I'm going to bore you with the awesomeness that is my public library. First, I work two blocks away from it, so whenever I need to escape from my crappy job it's super easy. And what an escape it is . . .



That's just the parking garage. When you get inside it's sooooooooo purrrrrrty . . .



With features like the old bank vault that has been turned into a "film vault" where movies are played . . . .



And the children's library that literally has you stepping into a book . . .



Or the rooftop, where you can enjoy a game of chess Alice In Wonderland style . . .



I'm forever grateful to my beautiful library. It's the only way I could ever be able to read 200+ books a year, so one stinker of a recommendation is easily forgiven : )