and here i thought classic was the only way to go...

People are evidently doing interesting things with bookshelves these days. I started out just wanting a simple picture of a bookshelf for this blog, because I was going to write about books again. Instead, my Google Images search turned up some photos that I just couldn't leave alone. (I think I might be doing some interior decorating in the near future...) Enjoy!

This one's actually a staircase bookshelf! (Want one? They're designed by Levitate Architects, based in London!)

How cool is this-- a cave bookshelf! What a perfect hideaway. (Especially if you're a little kid!)

This one's called the Gravity Bookshelf. It looks really cool... but I think it would drive me nuts. (I don't think it's avaliable commercially yet.)

This one, however, I might actually consider buying someday (I like traditional, personally). It's got such great, clean lines!

I like this Aluminum and Wood Bookshelf a lot, too. The curved front part gives it a very unique, modern look.

Here's a look that money can't buy: color-coding your books to create a rainbow on your shelves! (Credit goes to user chotda on Flickr for taking this photo.) This one's probably my favorite of the bunch.

Hope you enjoyed seeing these as much as I did!

everyone should own their favorite book.

what's yours?

now launching...

If you know anything about me at all, you should know that I LOVE books. I eat, sleep, breathe books. (I read 300 a year.) Anyways, I've been wanting to write book reviews for a long time-- after all, I read so many, I ought to share that knowledge with others-- but I wasn't sure exactly how I'd go about doing that. I mean, the New York Times comes out with book lists, but many of those are just trash. Why not create my own list-- Marian's List? (Please visit the link for the complete list of recommended reading!)

I don't normally go for poetry, but...

I saw this poem on a bookmark, and liked it so much I just had to post it. Enjoy!

If books are spice
And baking powder
And I,
Eggs, milk and flour
I fold into
A buttery scene
Creamed with plot
Laced with theme
Mixed with fact
And story wild
Baked into
A bibliophile
Rising high
Wafer-free
!Magnifico!
A scrumptious,
Savory,
Multi-layered
Me!

-Pam Munoz Ryan

Of Werewolves and Vampires...

I've just finished re-reading the Twilight Saga by Stephenie Meyer. It was my second time through the series, so I took my time on it. (For me, this means it took me about a week to get through all four books.) I'm still not exactly sure how I feel about the series as a whole. While I enjoyed the overall story, there's a lot of underlying content that gave me a lot to think about. (For more on this subject, see the article at www.pluggedinonline.com.)

I was shopping with my mom yesterday at Barnes and Noble-- a rare treat-- and while browsing, I ended up in the teen section. I figured maybe I could get some ideas for something lighthearted to read in between book series. However, 'lighthearted' was NOT what I would call the selection I found. Of course, most of the books for teens are almost guaranteed to be angsty hormone-driven things, but that wasn't what caught my attention. The vast majority of teen novels were either vampire/occult books or shallow-teen-girl-clique ones. Don't teens get anything better to read? I wondered.

Not surprisingly, the Twilight Saga dominated the space, taking up most of two entire bookshelves with all the copies of the four books. Meyer has been hailed as "the world's most popular vampire novelist since Anne Rice" (Entertainment Weekly) and her novel Twilight is an Amazon "Best Book of the Decade... So Far." The kind of craze surrounding these books and the upcoming Twilight movie (set for release November 21, 2008) is nearly as epidemic as that of the Harry Potter books. Twilight Saga by-products, including paperweights and even Godiva chocolate, were also EVERYWHERE.

Stephenie Meyer wasn't the only vampire novelist in attendance. Also adding to the black, red, and white-colored covers were authors such as Rachel Caine, Ellen Schreiber, and Amelia Atwater-Rhodes. Most of these books also hinted at teen drama and romance, but definitely not in a way that I would want my teenage sister to be reading about.

Feeling rather disgusted, I turned to the shelf behind me. The vast majority of the books here were book series such as Clique Novels and Gossip Girl-- again, not something I want my sister reading, and nothing I was interested in at that age, either. How can books about girls being mean to one another be better than steamy vampire novels? (They can't.)

I also noticed that there were precious few books aimed at boys. True, statistically speaking, boys don't read as much as girls, but why would they when their only options are Eragon by Christopher Paolini and Stormbreaker by Anthony Horowitz? (Note: From a boy's perspective-- which I don't have-- these books might not be too bad. Personally, I didn't like them enough to get beyond the first 20 pages.)

So where on earth am I going with this? What do teen books have to do with me, anyways? "You're an adult, Marian, what do you expect?" No, don't give me that. I read kids' books like crazy, and I know for a fact that there has to be better than this. After much searching through the teen section, I finally found C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia-- in a tiny, cramped, almost nonexistent space-- but my point of all of this is that teens deserve better than the crud these publishers and authors are giving them. Middle school is one of the rockiest times in a teen's life, and they should be getting better help and entertainment options than these books are offering them. Reading about social cliques is not going to help my sister or any other teen girls. These books are sending the message, "If you want to be gorgeous and have a boyfriend and be popular, you should do what these fictional girls are doing." How does it help ANYBODY if the message is, "Be mean to all your friends"?

If I can't find any good teen books, I guess I'm just going to have to write one.