Ever wonder what the staff at your local Warwickshire Library have been reading lately? Well, if you’re a Rugby Library user, have we got a treat for you today! Find out what staff have been reading and enjoying recently below…

Keith is reading: The Zoologist’s Guide to the Galaxy: What Animals on Earth Reveal About Aliens – And Ourselves by Dr Arik Kershenbaum

Having recently read Frans De Waal’s Mama’s Last Hug (which is about animal emotions), and Peter Godfrey-Smith’s Metazoa (which is about the development of animal consciousness*), I’ve decided to stick with the animal-related theme, and I’ve made a start on Arik Kershenbaum’s The Zoologist’s Guide to the Galaxy. 

Kershenbaum is a zoologist who has worked on animal communication and is a member of a group that works on the topic of extra-terrestrial messaging. The book looks at how evolution has shaped the ways in which Earth’s creatures look and behave, and it predicts how alien creatures might be the same (and different) to life as we know it! 
 
*This book isn’t on the library catalogue, but his previous book, Other Minds, is.

Jo is reading: Can’t Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation by Anne Helen Petersen. 

Do you feel like you have played by the rules all your life but feel exhausted and unfulfilled? Did you do as you were told at school, passed your exams, worked hard in your profession, but for some reason this hasn’t provided the charmed life you were promised? 

Petersen’s book tells us why, describing the cultural and economic changes that (American) society has undergone in recent years, and which are echoed to some extent in the UK.

She describes the societal beliefs and pressures that persuade us to behave in ways that are leaving us tired, ill, indebted, and wondering where it all went wrong.

Fascinating!

Cheryl is reading: The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne. 

This is a magnificent novel, set in Ireland, spanning the decades from 1945 to 2015 and following the life of Cyril Avery. 

It has moments that are hilariously funny often immediately followed by moments that are profoundly tragic, but throughout the book, despite many, many challenges it highlights the determination of the human spirit.   

April is reading: Acts of Desperation by Megan Nolan.

A dark, compelling, uncomfortable modern romance.

I find myself wanting to keep reading whilst simultaneously wanting to hide from the brutal realness. 

From the blurb: Love was the final consolation, would set ablaze the fields of my life in one go, leaving nothing behind. I thought of it as a force which would clean me and by its presence make me worthy of it. There was no religion in my life after early childhood, and a great faith in love was what I had cultivated instead.

Dee is reading: A Theatre for Dreamers by Polly Samson. 

Based in the 1960’s, this is a story of hedonism and at the same time the gritty reality of human emotions.

Set in the paradise of the Greek island Hydra, a group of bohemian young creatives arrive to explore their crafts sharing a space with washed up and semi successful writers and poets. 

The Grecian heat is palpable and draws you in to the pages where you live this tale immersively.  

Joe is reading: Filmish by Edward Ross.

A kind colleague recently lent me this wide-ranging graphic history of film. It’s a fun and at times fascinating read, narrated by the author and organised thematically. I particularly enjoyed the chapter on time.

It’s satisfying to see films in there which I’ve seen, and I felt oddly smug about some which I could tick off. I ended up adding a few to my ‘to watch’ list, and resolving myself to try some Nollywood movies (I must confess to being ignorant to the size of the Nigerian film industry).

Ross has recently released the follow-up, Gamish, which looks at the history of video games.