Dictatorship of the Dress by Jessica Topper

dictatorship of the dressWhen I was growing up, I always had a secret hope that I would meet my significant other on a plane and we would magically fall in love, travel to an exotic location, and live happily ever after. When I reached high school, I realized that my plane-phobic self would actually have to get WILLINGLY on a plane(and not freak out) to do this… My child self was crushed. I would have to continue to look for those fairy tales in books.

Just last week, I stumbled upon a fiction romance novel called Dictatorship of the Dress by Jessica Topper that allowed me to live out my childhood fantasy of travel love. In this novel, Topper weaves together the lives of Laney Hudson, the dress bearer for her mother’s wedding, and Noah Ridgewood, a software designer on his way to his bachelor party. Laney is sick of hauling her mother’s dress around, as her mother seems to care only if the dress actually makes it to the wedding, not her daughter. As she carries the giant dress bag through the airport, she is constantly mistaken for the bride, a mistake Laney uses to her advantage so she can be bumped up to first class. Here she is seated next to Noah, who the flight crew mistakenly thinks is her husband-to-be. Enter in horrible winter weather, missed flights, Laney’s lost love, and an overbearing fiancé, Laney and Noah soon find themselves grounded in the last available honeymoon suite. The two must wrestle with events in their past that are holding them back from catching this new love connection.

The Price is Right

the price is rightCome on down! When I’m sick, I find myself binge-watching daytime television. Bob Barker’s voice haunts my sickness dreams telling me that I’m the next contestant on The Price is Right! Even though Mr. Barker is no longer the host, I still find myself watching the show as Drew Carey leads contestants through all the classic games in order to win the showcase.

Since my dream to be on The Price is Right has never materialized(Dangit!), I have found other ways to compete with my family and friends to win bragging rights. One of these is the Wii game, The Price is Right. Here I can live out my fantasy of being on the show and compete on Contestant’s Row against my friends to try to get to that treasured Showcase round. Fans of the old and new version of the show will recognize a wide variety of the games: Bonkers, Plinko, Punch a Bunch, Hole in One, Contestant Row, Grocery Game, Lucky Seven and many more. Over thirty classic pricing games are available to be played.

Gather up your friends and see which one of you is the best at guessing the closest price!

AsapSCIENCE: Answers to the World’s Weirdest Questions, Most Persistent Rumors & Unexplained Phenomena

asap scienceGrowing up, I was always curious about anything and everything and I still am. As a result, my poor parents, and really any adult who happened to be near me, were often subjected to my numerous questions: Why is the sky blue? Is cracking my fingers really bad for me or do you just find it annoying? Are my eyeballs really going to pop out of my head if I sneeze with my eyelids open? And many many more questions…

Now that I’m an adult, I find myself on the receiving end of those questions every day as well as having questions of my own. How do I answer these questions? Well, I look them up either online or in books. One of my favorite places to look for answers when I don’t have books nearby is a YouTube Channel called AsapSCIENCE. (They also have another channel called AsapTHOUGHT where they add a social conscience twist to science.) On the AsapScience channel, Mitchell Moffit and Gregory Brown have made hundreds of YouTube videos about a wide variety of science subjects.

As I was walking the new shelves, I discovered that Moffit and Brown had come out with a book called AsapSCIENCE: Answers to the World’s Weirdest Questions, Most Persistent Rumors & Unexplained Phenomena that goes into more detail than their YouTube channel does on certain popular questions, rumors, and unexplained things that are populating our everyday lives. Filled with illustrations as well as easy to understand definitions of difficult terms, Moffit and Brown tackle the important questions: What are eye boogers? How can I cure my hangover? Is binge watching tv really bad for me? Crack open this book to answer those burning questions about the 5 second rule, what would happen if you stopped sleeping, and even if the zombie apocalypse could really happen. They even have the answers to my blue sky, cracking fingers, and sneezing questions!

Have more questions that this book doesn’t answer? Come visit the library and our reference librarians can help you find the answers.

I Could Pee on This

i could pee on thisI have a dilemma. I think cats are adorable, but I’m allergic, so I can never own one. I get my cat fix by visiting my friends who own cats, where I’m forced to admire them from afar and not get too close. Let me tell you something that I’ve noticed: cats are WEIRD. Don’t get me wrong, I admit cats are significantly smarter than my dogs, but I can never be 100% sure what exactly is going on in any cat’s head.

Enter in I Could Pee on This: And Other Poems by Cats. This book has become my go-to manual for figuring out what that tabby cat is thinking as it stares me down from the corner of the room. Ever wondered how they feel about catnip, laser pointers, traveling, or even that new fuzzy kitten you brought home? Let the cats tell you all about it. The next time you decide to try to sleep in, are wondering what happened to your curtains or couch, or are even curious about why your cat seems to change his mind so quickly, turn to this book to gain a humorous understanding of why cats behave the way they do(and then maybe swing by the pet store on your way home and pick up some catnip and a brand new toy – they’re not opposed to bribery).

Parenting: Illustrated with Crappy Pictures

Parenting: Illustrated with Crappy Pictures is a book put together by Amber Dusick. The idea for this book came about when she was looking for a way to vent about her frustrations and joys of being a parent. As a result, her blog, Illustrated with Crappy Pictures, was born and morphed to include anything and everything that she needed to vent about in her life, not just parenting. It became so popular that she decided to turn her blog posts into a book. She just came out with one about marriage as well. Go Amber!

Dusick describes her family throughout her book as Crappy Baby, Crappy Boy, and Crappy Husband, though she stresses multiple times that none of them are in fact crappy, JUST her drawings! Since she wanted to tell people about the things that happened in her day-to-day life, she figured drawing crappy pictures, the only kind that she can draw, to go along with her stories would help illustrate her frustration.

Parenting: Illustrated with Crappy Pictures is broken up into ten different chapters, each detailing one major part of parenting that Dusick and other parents can completely relate to, from the difference in your life before and after kids, how to deal with sickness in your house, remembering the good stuff about being a parent, and also what she calls the “50 Crappy Laws of Parenting”.

Follow Dusick as she regales you with stories about how you just can’t get your kids to BE QUIET while on a road trip especially on a plane, how family dinner time is never actually family dinner since that would require everyone to sit at the table at the same time, and just how much you should treasure sleep because babies, for some reason, do not sleep at all!

The Bro Code

bro codeAre you a fan of the hit CBS show, How I Met Your Mother, which ended last March? If so, you might be familiar with The Bro Code that Barney Stinson lives by. The Bro Code has a deep and righteous place of holiness within Barney’s life. Some people live by a code of morals, some by a guardian angel, some by religion or the Constitution, but Barney instead runs his life by a code of awesome.

Lucky for fans of the show, Barney Stinson and Matt Kuhn came out with a book version of The Bro Code. Barney is very clear, both on the television show and in the introduction to this book, that these are “rules for social decorum” that determine how bros should live their lives. For those confused about the show, who Barney is, and what exactly is a bro, Barney has you covered. He breaks down all the necessary details in the introduction, the origin story of the bro code, his section on just what is “the bro” and the subsequent glossary in the back of the book. The articles of the bro code range from the simple (Article 1: Bros before hos) to the complex (how to pick a good wingman and how to maneuver the Hot/Crazy scale).

People looking for a good laugh and fans of the show will enjoy this book.

A Bollywood Affair

a bollywood affairLet me tell you about one of my favorite places in the library: the new shelves. The new shelves are the first place I look whenever I go into any library. They let me see what reading mood I am in before I decide to trek through the whole library, since I can never come into a library and leave in less than an hour… When I’m pressed for time, I wander the new shelves because I’m bound to find something, usually more than one something, that I want to read.

My latest new shelf discovery was A Bollywood Affair by Sonali Dev. In this fiction romance, Dev has woven a classic story of love, loyalty, and confusion. Mili Rathod was promised and married to her husband when she was 4 years old and hasn’t seen him since. For years, she waited for her husband to come back and rescue her. When he never shows up, Mili takes it upon herself to go to America to get an education, so she can become a more perfect modern bride. Enter in Samir Rathod, a famous Bollywood director, who just happens to be Mili’s brother-in-law. After an accident has injured his brother, Samir is sent to Michigan to convince Mili to sign the divorce papers. This should be easy, right? WRONG. Enter in last-name confusion, accidents, Samir’s writer’s block, and Mili’s crazy roommate’s love story, and readers are guaranteed to be hooked into this story and rooting for Mili to finally get her happily ever after.

NBA 2K12

nba 2k12March Madness has descended upon us. For those of you not familiar with this, March Madness refers to the NCAA college men’s basketball tournament or the NCAA college women’s basketball tournament that both happen every spring. If your house is anything like mine, basketball has now taken over every television and computer screen. Videogame basketball is even happening!

One of the favorites to be played in my house is NBA 2K12. The NBA 2K series lets you utilize real player rankings and press conferences to talk up the rankings of your player(ie. get more endorsements, money, and a better draft spot), learn who the famous players were that year and in previous years, and even learn more about how basketball statistics work. The 2K12 version of this game allows you to pick from the greatest NBA teams of all time and even lets you see the rosters, which show the players who were actually playing during that time. If you’re more interested in the current players, the previous years’ rosters have all been included as well.

Don’t have a Wii and are looking for this game in a different platform? Or maybe you’re looking for a more up-to-date version of this game with more current players? If yes, then head to the library catalog and search “nba 2k*” and that will pull up results for the other versions of this game, (for example: NBA 2K13, NBA 2K14, and NBA 2K15), as well as different platforms: Wii, Playstation 3, Xbox 360, and Playstation 4. Any questions? Visit or call the library and our reference librarians call help you.

March 20th is National Proposal Day!

proposal dayDid you know that March 20th is National Proposal Day? The date, March 20th, was chosen as it was said to signify the beginning of spring(it is the first day of spring!) and is also the vernal/spring equinox. If you missed the March 20th proposal day, don’t worry! There is another “National Proposal Day” on September 23rd, the autumnal equinox or the first day of fall. Both the vernal equinox and the autumnal equinox were chosen as National Proposal Days as the length of both night and day are equal, so proposing on this day is seen to put both people on a balanced scale and to symbolize their equality as they enter into marriage (I personally love the idea of linking it to the first day of a season!).

Once the proposal is over though, the fun part begins. The couple chooses venues, finds dresses and tuxes, picks flowers, and decides just who is going to be in their wedding party. If you’re lucky enough to be closely related to the engaged couple or even in the wedding party, you may find yourself on the receiving end of having to give a speech at the reception. I don’t know about you, but I simultaneously DREAD and LOVE the speech portion of wedding receptions! I can usually tell within the first couple of sentences whether that speech is going to make me laugh or cringe.

irish toasts

 

In order to help prepare said speech-giving people, I have found some toast-giving books to make designing your speech a little easier. First up let’s try something humorous like the book Irish Toasts, illustrated by Karen Bailey. *DISCLAIMER – Please make sure you know the couple REALLY WELL before decided to go a little crazy in your toast. If they’re okay with it, YOU. ARE. GOLDEN!* While some of these may be uniquely set to Ireland, note that they can also be changed to fit your specific circumstances. These are meant to give you ideas. Read these classic and witty Irish toasts and find the one that will fit your toast.

 

 

 

 

 

wedding toasts and speeches

 

Perhaps the couple is more along the traditional sense and you are as well. Maybe you’re looking for the right quotes and toasts about love to add to your speech or need some inspiration. If so, check out Wedding Toasts & Speeches: Finding the Perfect Words by Jo Packham. In this book, Packham has compiled a wide variety of quotes that can easily be slipped into any wedding toast. Whether you’re looking for something long/short, funny/romantic, or well-known/by a nobody, this book has gathered something for you. It even offers you advice on how to be a good speaker in front of a crowd. Extra Bonus.

 

If you’re still looking for inspiration to create that perfect wedding toast, head to the library and we can help you find something that will help you wish that lucky couple the very best in their new life!

Save Me by Kristyn Lewis

saveme2Save Me by Kristyn Lewis is compulsively readable. I’m trying to pin down in my own mind what it is  that makes it impossible to put down once you start reading. Maybe it’s the contrast of the confessional style and the sudden vulnerability of the main character with her previously almost perfect life. Daphne is someone who’s always been very controlled and successful at everything she did.

A high achieving doctor, with a perfect Martha Stewartesque home, garden and career, she, on the surface, doesn’t seem like someone you’d warm up to right away. After her husband and childhood sweetheart confesses that he’d had an affair, her predictable life and all her assumptions are blown apart. A car accident changes the trajectory of the story and the usual expectations of this type of novel. Family and friends are quick to give Daphne advice about whether or not she should leave her husband, and Lewis shows the complexity of any decision Daphne may make.

As a second time novelist, Lewis is very accomplished and assured. I can’t think of any passages or sentences that seemed false or clunky. Part of the appeal is the setting. You get a feeling of  Durham and Chapel Hill, North Carolina in a natural, unforced way.

This was marketed to book groups, and I would predict spirited discussions about the choices Daphne struggles with.