Sara Grajek
Rowan Public Library
Library Notes

Every year, I take a look back at the list of books I’ve read in the past 12 months. I also review my “to-be-read” list. It seems that list grows a little longer every year, yet the list of books I’ve read never grows quite as much. Recently I read Howard’s End is on the Landing by Susan Hill, where the author looks around her house one day and realizes how many books she has collected and hasn’t read. Although Hill has a different taste in reading materials than I do, she reads classics and literature while I choose young adult fiction, a wide-variety of non-fiction, and current fiction, I found it interesting to read about her year of “reading from home.” During that year, she chose to only read books that were already in the house, the exceptions to this rule being academic books from the library and books sent to her from publishers to review. While I have no intentions to stop checking out books from the library, I think this year may involve reading from my very long “to-be-read list.” What books are on your reading list this year? Chances are, Rowan Public Library has some of them. I know they have many of mine.

The London Eye Mystery by the late Siobhan Dowd has been on my reading list since it was first published in 2008. Dowd received much critical acclaim for the few young adult books written in her short career. A human rights activist, her books are poignant and leave you thinking about them long after you have finished them. In The London Eye Mystery, Ted and Kat take their cousin Salim to the London Eye and watch as he circles high into the sky and back down – and doesn’t emerge from the ride. Where could he have possibly gone when Kat and Ted were watching the exit the whole time? When the police and other adults can’t solve the mystery, Kat and Ted (who has Asperger’s) take on the challenge.

Explorers David Livingstone and Ernest Shackleton are well-known, but Colonel Percy Fawcett? David Graham tells us in the Lost City of Z, during his era, Fawcett was just as well known. After hearing Fawcett speak at the Royal Geographical Society, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle used his experiences as inspiration for writing The Lost World. A few colleagues believed he was “immune to death.” His last adventure proved them wrong however when he departed for the Amazon with his 21 year old son, searching for El Dorado, or the City of Z, as Fawcett called it. The entire group vanished, leaving behind few clues and a group of adventurers determined to find him.

Oliver Sacks, the neurologist/author who is perhaps best known for his book Awakenings, writes about the complexities of the human brain. Musicophelia: Tales of Music and the Brain, examines the science of music. Readers will learn about the man who was struck by lightning, then experienced an overwhelming desire to listen and learn to play music. You’ll read how music can help senile patients regain lost memories and help bring movement to immobile patients. Sacks believes music can be beneficial to neurology because it works in many areas of the brain. Even if one area of the brain were to become damaged, another part may still recognize or remember music.

With these books, and the 116 others that are still on my list, I should be able to find something to read this year. Reading from home, as Susan Hill did, but mostly, reading from the library.