ASRC 2021: Week 1

It's that time of year again! Hello and welcome to Adult Summer Reading Club 2021.

Before you do anything, register for the program here so that you can participate. Then, for every book you read, you can fill out the Reading Log to get raffle tickets to win prizes.

Prizes include a $50 gift card to Park West Tavern, a $25 gift card to Bookends, two $25 gift cards to It’s Greek to Me and more.

The Literary Monopoly Board

To add even more fun, this year we’ll be playing Literary Monopoly. Here’s how to play:

• Come into the library to roll two physical dice at the Circulation Desk or type “roll 2d6” into google

  • If you don’t want to roll dice, move up to 12 spaces on the board, selecting what you want to do for the week

• Complete the task you land on

  • For most of the spaces, you’ll read a book that falls into the category

  • Other categories include: Attend a Visual or Performing Arts Performance, Watch a Film Adaptation of a Book, Take Part in a Community Discussion

  • If you land on "Free Parking," read a book of your choice.

  • If you land on "Go to Jail," read a book that you have owned for at least three years without reading.

  • Every time you pass Go, we will waive a $1 fine on your library card.

• Comment about what you did on that week’s blog post

  • Brief summary of what you did, did you enjoy it, etc.

  • How does the book fit the category you’re on

• You can complete multiple turns in a week if you’re feeling ambitious

• For each comment on the blog post, you get a raffle ticket.

  • Fill out this form to pick your raffle ticket

• If you land on the same spot twice you can either complete the task again or move another space.

Every week we’ll be updating the board with initialized tokens to show where people are.

Now for this week’s staff participation:

Elizabeth: This week I rolled an eight and landed on Young Adult. I chose to read The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky. This book is a classic YA novel that I somehow never got around to reading in high school. In it, the protagonist, Charlie, navigates his freshman year of high school, dealing with the drama surrounding making friends and dating. I personally thought this book was just "meh." Charlie got on my nerves. There's a plot twist at the end that puts his behavior into new perspective but it wasn't enough to redeem the book for me. I give it 3/5 stars.

Elias: I rolled a nine this week, which put me on the Anthology square. I don't read a lot of anthologies so this was a nice way to branch out and find some new names to follow. I chose to read Be Gay, Do Comics by The Nib because it's pride month and because I'm a big comics fan. Not every comic in this anthology will be to everyone's visual tastes, as is usually the case with anthologies, but I found that the vast majority were excellent, funny, and often-times illuminating. Even the weaker strips were great, which is the sign of an editorial staff that knows what they're doing. From the story of Gad Beck, Gay Jewish Nazi-hunter, to the ultimate gender reveal party, to personal stories of coming out and living life, history, memoir and satire blend together to form a rainbow of stories for this anthology and I guarantee you'll find at least one new creator you'll want to read more from. I give it 4.5/5 stars.

We'll see you back here on the 28th!