The Valley is Wild with...."Meh". lol

I felt the picture to the left was appropriate because I know that I have been neglecting all of my "bound paper friends" this past month.  I choose to blame it on the Fall semester starting, and I'm sure a number of my colleagues will join me in placing the blame squarely there.  :)

So, let's get to the point and publish our totals which have taken a hit this month.  I'm hoping to see us begin to trend upward again soon, especially since we have two new adjunct reference librarians that will be joining us for the month of September.  So for the other campuses...enjoy the low numbers now, because they aren't going to last.  We're out for blood next month! 

FLORISSANT VALLEY

# of Participants:     6

# of Books:               24

# of Pages:            7429

WILDWOOD

# of Participants:     1

# of Books:              3

# of Pages:             912

WHAT THE GANG READ:

The Serial Killer Whisperer by Pete Earley

Cathy's Book by Sean Stewart and Jordan Weisman

The Abolition of Marriage by Maggie Gallagher

Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

Guns, Germs, and Steel: the Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond

For One More Day by Mitch Albom

Shakespeare: the World as Stage by Bill Bryson

Claire de Lune by Jetta Carleton

The Moonflower Vine by Jetta Carleton

Do Dogs Dream? by Stanley Coren

Mystery in the Minster by Susanna Gregory

Murdered by Nature by Roderic Jeffries

Elizabeth the Queen: The Life of a Modern Monarch by Sally Bedell Smith

Family Patterns by Kristin Eckhardt

Unhooked by Woolverton & Shapiro

Justice by Karen Robards

The 11th Hour by James Patterson

The Passage by Justin Cronin

Before the Poison by Peter Robinson

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

An Atlas of Impossible Longing by Roy Anuradha

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer

Peace Like a River by Leif Enger

Plus there were some editions of Newsweek in there as well.

Now....CRACK THOSE SPINES!!!!

Meramec. August.

Meramec’s grand total for August:  8481 pages, 33 books. Betty once again takes the lead with 12 books, 2708 pages.

Yes, I know we're very late posting, but the fall semester hit us like a whirlwind! 

The books:

Jeanette Walls, Half-Broke Horses, 272

Diana Abu-Jaber, Birds of Paradise, 362

Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth, 256

Suzanne Collins, Catching Fire, 391

Anne Sinclair Mehdevi, Persian Folk and Fairy Tales, 117

Jean Russell Larson, Palace in Bagdad: Seven Tales from Arabia, 95

Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay,390

Jim Carroll, Petting Zoo, 336

Gustav Flaubert, Madame Bovary, 303

Barrett, Bookmarked for Death, 297

Jeffries, A Lady Never Surrenders, 388

Gouveia, Creative Stuff, 183

Barrett, Murder is Binding, 281

Gregory, A Plague on Both Your Houses, 406

Dunnett, Bagpipes, Brides and Homicides, 279

Daniel Handler, Why We Broke Up, 354

Mark Haddon, Red House,264

John Corey Whaley, Where Things Come Back, 228

Gary Thomas, Sacred Pathwaysk,  224

Richard Schmidt, Glorious Companions: Five Centuries of Anglican Spirituality, 145,  pp.186-330

Steven Ozment, A Mighty Fortress: A New History of the German People, 202,  pp.124-325

Il Sung Na, Hide and Seek, 32

Helen Lester, All for Me and None for All, 28

Bob Graham, Bus Called Heaven, 37

Marion Dane Bauer, Dinosaur Thunder, 31

Jane Feather, Bachelor List, 343

Jane Feather, Bride Hunt, 373

Jane Feather, Wedding Game, 349

Celeste Bradley, Duke Most Wanted, 342

Celeste Bradley, Desperately Seeking a Duke, 332

Celeste Bradley, Duke Next Door, 352

Paul Meisel, See Me Run, 24

Jane Feather, Unsuitable Bride, 465

HPIR: Leading the way YET again! ;-)

Here I thought I was late posting the HPIR numbers, but we're first again! Our 8 participants this month read a total of 12,160 pages. For the first time, Marian was NOT the champeen reader in our crew. What happened? Did she get a smart phone? Because that's what happened to me in August and why I couldn't even break out of triple digits. Evale came in first with 2248 pages, then Sheila with 2073, and then Jane with 2064. Here's most of what we read:

Private # 1 Suspect / James Patterson
Root of wild madder / Brian Murphy
Little house on a small planet / Shay Saloman
Victims / Jonathan Kellerman
The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born / Ayi Kwei Armah
Catching Fire / Suzanne Collins
The Outlook / S&P
Ignore everybody / Hugh MacLeod
The Annunciation / Ellen Gilchrist
Enemies: A History of the FBI / Tim Weiner
The Rose Without a Thorn / Jean Plaidy
Calico Joe / John Grisham
The Beast / Anders Roslund & Borge HellstromGone Girl / Gillian Flynn
Private Games / James Patterson & Mark Sullivan
Mockingjay / Suzanne Collins
Waterland / Graham Swift
The Great Leader : a Faux Mystery / Jim Harrison
Guilty Wives / James Patterson & David Ellis
The Outlook / S&P
15 Seconds / Andrew Gross
Black List / Brad Thor
Cutting for Stone / Abraham Verghese
Marriage Bargain / Jennifer Probst
Harper's Magazine (June 2012)             
The Man in the Window / K.O. Dahl
Yellowrocket: poems / Todd Boss
Big City Eyes: a novel / Delia Ephron
Pavilion of Women: a novel / Pearl Buck
Libby: the Alaskan diaries and letters of Libby Beaman, 1879-1880 / Libby Beaman
Traveling Mercies: some thoughts on Faith / Anne Lamott
La Petite: a memoir of childhood / Michele Halberstadt
East and West: stories / Pearl Buck
West of West: poems / Walter Bargen
The Sixth Wife / Jean Plaidy
Childhood Education v.87:6                     
The Big Thirst / Charles Fishman
The Last Werewolf / Glen Duncan
Dorchester Terrace / Anne Perry
Built-in furniture / Jim Tolpin
Shadow of Night / Harkness

THE VALLEY DOES A LITTLE BETTER, BUT EVEN ABBY CAN'T PUT US OVER THE TOP

The folks at Florissant-Valley may have lost a participant, but we picked up an extra thousand pages from last month.  (Thank goodness Sharon picked up some Wally Lamb!  lol)  Our HP compatriots seem to be kicking all of our derierres so as much as I hate to say it, "Congrats to you guys in the warehouse.  I guess your home lives must be very sad."  LOL!  Just teasing you guys.  We would never be able to do a thing without any of you.  We are so very glad to be alongside all the great men and women of STLCC Libraries!

Now, let's get down to business, shall we?

The combined totals for Flo-Valley and Wildwood are as follows:

# of participants:       6

# of books:               26

  # of pages:              9327

Sandy Morris takes the prize for most books and pages read.  3285!  Twice as much as anyone else in our group!  Turns out July was too hot for her to do anything other than read.  I heard that! 

For those that like to see what's being read (like me):

The Never-Ending Story by Michael Ende

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

In One Person by John Irving

The Vault by Ruth Rendell

When the Thrill is Gone by Walter Mosley

Feast Day of Fools by James Lee Burke

Newsweek magazine (3 issues)

To Kill or Cure by Susanna Gregory

A Killer in Winter by Susanna Gregory

The Hand of Justice by Susanna Gregory

The Mark of a Murderer by Susanna Gregory

A Vein of Deceit by Susanna Gregory

The Killer of Pilgrims by Susanna Gregory

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie

The Innocent by David Baldacci

The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamp

I Know This Much is True by Wally Lamb

The Last Resort: A Memoir of Mischief and Mayhem on a Family Farm in Africa by by Douglas Rogers

You Have No Idea: A Famous Daughter, Her No-Nonsense Mother, and How They Survived Pageants, Hollywood, Love, Loss  by Vanessa and Helen Williams

Beautiful Ruins: a Novel by Jess Walter

Gone Missing by Linda Castillo

Uncommon Places: The Complete Works by Stephen Shore

Canada by Richard ford

Long Gone by Alafair Burke

Well, that about does it for the Wild Valley crew.  Either next month will be better because faculty will be back, or it will be worse because we're about to hit the crazy times.  Keep reading, all.  We got some librarian butts to kick!  :)

HPIR Sizzles in July!

Did we just break our own record? Yes we did! Seven readers at Highland Park Instructional Resources read 13,474 pages. The indefatigable Marian read 3170 pages; Sheila was second with 2665, then Jim with 2362. Here's what we read:


Fifty Shades of Grey / E.L. James
Love is Murder / Bestselling authors
The Outlook (July 4, 2012)
Breakdown / Sara Paretsky
Fifty Shades Darker / E.L. James
Joe's Black T-Shirt: Short Stories About St. Louis / Joe Schwartz
Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA / Tim Weiner
The Yard / Alex Grecian
Night Circus / Erin Morgenstern
The Sun (March 2012)                                                                                       
The Sun (May 2012)                                                                                           
Red Mist / Patricia Cornwell
The Good Father / Noah Hawley
The Sun (Sept. 2011)                                                                                          
Julip / Jim Harrison
Nano Houses / Phyllis Richardson
New Republic (Aug 2, 2012)                                                                            
Design it yourself clothes: patternmaking simplified / Cal Patch
In the Time of the Butterflies / Julia Alvarez
The Games Men Play: Short Stories and Vignettes / Joe Schwartz
Diamond in the Rough  / Shawn Colvin
Before I Go to Bed / S.J. Watson
Blind But Now I See: The Biography of Music Legend Doc Watson / Kent Gustavson
The Lady in the Tower / Jean Plaidy
Birds of Paradise / Diana Abu-Jaber
The Final Problem / Arthur Conan Doyle
Adventure of the Empty House / Arthur Conan Doyle
Frankenstein / Mary Shelley
Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde / Robert Louis Stevenson
The Hunting of the Snark (An Agony in 8 Fits) / Lewis Carroll
The Hobbit / J.R.R. Tolkien
Michael of Wales / Paul Conklin
In Mad Love and War / Joy Harjo
Tunnel of Love: a novel / Hilma Wolitzer
Step.Ball.Change: a novel / Jeanne Ray
Julie and Romeo Get Lucky: a novel / Jeanne Ray
Calling Invisible Women: a Novel / Jeanne Ray
Jurgis Petraskas: poems / Anthony Petrosky
Death in Ecstasy / Ngaio Marsh
The Chronicles of Harris Burdick: 14 amazing authors tell the tales / Chris Van Allsburg & others
Delights and Shadows: poems / Ted Kooser
The Beatles Illustrated Lyrics / Edited by Alan Aldridge
The Lion is In: a novel / Delia Ephron
Bobbed Hair and Bathtub Gin: writers running wild in the Twenties: Zelda Fitzgerald, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Dorothy Parker, and Edna Ferber / Marian Meade
Remedies for Vertigo: poems / Walter Bargen
After You've Gone: short stories /Alice Adams
The Last Lovely City: short stories / Alice Adams
Private #1 Suspect / James Patterson
The Third Option / Vince Flynn
Transfer of Power / Vince Flynn
Eyes of Prey / John Stanford