Bibliophilia

I read Bibliophilia by Michael Griffith yesterday.  It's a book of short stories, but the longest one (which is actually a novella), is Bibliophilia.

It's about a librarian, who claims that she doesn't fit in with the librarian stereotype (the old, bitter, sex-less woman), but she really does.  And as the story goes on, you find out her past and why she fits it so well.

But that's not all.  Every other chapter is written by a man named Seti, who is in America (Louisiana, in particular), to get a degree in hydrology so he can go back to Egypt and find a way to get more water to people who need it.

So it's an odd mix of Seti's trying to figure out Americans (including his knowledge of slang...it's great), and the librarian's past.

That is, of course, until it all comes to a head.  When the librarian finds a young couple having sex in the stacks, and Seti comes to rescue her.  But the shock of it all...well, it's amazing.

Then she runs home to start her new life...and then the twist happens.

The ending is a little questionable, but still...the twist...oh, the twist rocked my world.  A word of warning though...the whole book is a little sex obsessed.  But I still really liked it. 

And!  If I were double dipping, it would fill 3 spots in the 9909 challenge: Southern, starring a librarian, and by a man.  Stellar.

How I Fell in Love with a Librarian and Lived to Tell About it

Okay, so I have to admit that when I started looking for books about librarians, this one came up first thing. It looked a little odd, so I decided against it. But then I changed my mind and thought, "what the heck, why not?"

Rhett Ellis wrote How I Fell in Love with a Librarian and Lived to Tell About it (and let me tell you how freaking long that title is!).

It's a short book, just 101 pages about how a small town minister falls in love with the new librarian. Why did he have to live to tell about it? There was no great murder mystery, no overwhelming force that kept them apart.

The librarian was bipolar.

And then there's the guy who wants to shut down the library, and tries to blackmail the minister. It (of course) doesn't work out that well for him.

Anyway, it was cute, if a little odd.

Ghost Hunter

Ok, are you ready for this one? I'm reading Ghost Hunter, by Jayne Castle, and the male lead is a librarian! Awesome!

Okay, so Jayne Castle is the pen name for Jayne Ann Krentz. Anything by Jayne Castle takes place in the future in another realm. It's kind of weird, but fun.

Anyway, every city has The Guild, a mafia-type organization that keeps ghosts from hurting people in the catacombs under the city. Yeah, I know, far fetched. But still...fun.

In this one, Cooper is the new Guild Boss of Aurora Springs. When Elly breaks off their engagement, he waits 6 months before following her to Cadence where he can try to woo her again.

But things start to go awry when Elly's neighbor gets hurt in the catacombs, and suddenly they're trying to uncover a drug dealer who's trying to set up Cooper.

Confused yet? Let's throw in her pet dust bunny just for fun. Little predators, big fun.

I liked it. Plus...male librarian. How often does that happen?

C.J.'s Fate

So, when anyone asks me what I did at home...the easy answers are "read" and "watched movies"

I just finished C.J.'s Fate, and older Kay Hooper. But it stars a librarian! Although the only reason we know that is because it's mentioned...she does absolutely nothing librarian-esque.

Anyway, C.J. is attending a wedding in Aspen. On her very first night, tired of her friends harassing her about not dating, she enlists a stranger to pretend to be her lover. You can see where this is going, right?

Fate (yeah, his name is Fate) falls in love with her immediately, so he decides to woo her and play along. She can't decide if the affection is really him, or the role he's playing.

Eventually, of course, they end up together, but it was fun getting there. Especially when Fate decides to read C.J. poetry in order to woo her. Fun. Not at all demanding, very fluffy, and probably not anything I'm ever going to read again, but I enjoyed it.

The Dewey Decimal System of Love

Okay, so I found this book for $5 on a clearance rack at Barnes & Noble. I thought to myself, "Huh...a book about a librarian falling in love. Fun."

So it's by Josephine Carr, and is entitled, The Dewey Decimal System of Love On the cover is a card that you could stick in the card catalogue. Since I barely remember using these, it makes me laugh.

Oh, yes, and it is my first filled requirement for the 9909 Challenge.

So, onto the story. Ally is not your typical librarian. Unless you count wearing her hair up, wearing "librarian clothes", having thick glasses, and her most intimate relationships are with books, then no, she's no typical librarian.

But when she goes to a concert and falls in love with the conductor (Aleski), her whole world changes. When he seems to be interested in her (never mind his lovely wife), everything is glorious.

Except the odd homeless man with a PhD from Harvard who may or may not be placing stink bombs in the library. And her boss, Gordon, who suddenly sees her as, well, a woman. And Yvonne, who's in love with Gordon. Oh, and did I mention that Aleski's lovely wife might be planning to kill him? How odd.

It's funny, yes. Not laugh-out-loud funny, but funny anyway. It's quick, and wraps up very nicely at the end. She bemoans her fate as a single woman (at about 40) after the first time she sees Aleski, and spends a lot of time talking to the reader (which is a little...unsettling).

Though, at the beginning of every chapter, it tells you where to find certain things in the Dewey Decimal System (oh, Dewey...).