Just in case you weren't sure what librarians do when they're on vacation: they read. Duh. Or, at any rate, I do :)
First up, "Riverdale: the Day Before", a fun YA book based on the hit CW show "Riverdale" (please tell me you watch "Riverdale". If not, you really should, it's awesome. Although I will never 'ship Betty and Jughead. Betty belongs with Archie. Full stop, end of discussion). This story focused on our four main characters in the weeks leading up to when the show began on the fourth of July. Betty is in L.A., honing her journalistic chops by interning for what sounds like a truly dreadful blog about celebrities, fashion, and interior decorating. Jughead is bumming meals at Pop's and wondering why Archie is acting so weird. Archie is acting weird because he doesn't want his father or Jughead to know he's having an affair with his music teacher, Ms. Grundy (which the show just totally glossed over, in my opinion). And Veronica is living the perfect society IT girl life in New York, unaware that her life is about to shatter. It was a quick, fun read.
Not a traditional biography, but rather 99 vignettes about the Princess, who was haughty, proud, vain, and a rather atrocious and demanding house guest, yet everyone clambered for the privilege of hosting her. Why? Because she was royalty? Her main redeeming quality is that she was quite fun in her youth. All in all it was snarky good fun, although he did insert a few "what if?" sort of chapters, imagining if she'd married different people (Pablo Picasso was one, apparently the artist had a huge crush on her and told people he was going to marry her someday). They were just odd and didn't really go well with the rest of the book, but thankfully there weren't that many.
God, I miss Mickey Spillane. I'm glad Max Allan Collins has been finishing up his manuscripts and outlines, but I could tell this one was more Collins than Spillane, which makes me yearn to reread "I, the Jury"... at any rate, it was still pretty fun. Set in the early 1990s, Mike is hired by a Senator who has his eye on the White House. He's being blackmailed by someone who has an audio tape of him boinking his secretary. While his wife doesn't care about his extra-marital affairs, he's concerned the voters might (pre-Clinton, this sort of behavior was frowned upon). Mike sets out to find the blackmailer, but of course the case isn't that open and shut. A few grisly murders and twists and turns along the way made for fun, if not quite up to par, Hammer goodness.
"Song of Achilles" was beautifully written, the story of the great warrior Achilles, who was born to a goddess and her mortal husband. It was prophesied that Achilles would be the greatest warrior the world had ever seen. Achilles had a faithful male companion and lover, Patroclus, who traveled with him to the Trojan war. The story is told from Patroclus's point of view as an exiled Prince (he accidentally killed a boy when he was young and is sent to Achilles's father's house to be raised) who finds a friend in the young Achilles. Soon the two are inseparable. It makes me want to reread "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey" again, which I never thought I'd say :)
And finally, "The Library Book" by Susan Orlean is, ostensibly, about the fire that ravaged the Central Library in downtown L.A. in 1986, destroying close to a million books and other items, but it was an interesting mix of history as well as a tender love letter to libraries and librarians and the good work we do every day. I was just a little girl when the library's collection burned, but I remember hearing about it on the news and my father promised to take me to the "big" library once it reopened. It took almost a decade before the city was able to repair and restock (Dad never took me, by the way. I should remind him...). The case was also never solved. It was ruled an arson, and there was a viable suspect, but not enough evidence and so it went nowhere. The suspect died decades ago, and we'll never know the truth. But the library rose, phoenix like, from the ashes and continues to serve everyone who comes through their (many) doors.
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