Shelf Life

Library staff’s picks for the best books of 2018

With another year in the books, Lawrence Public Library staffers share their favorite new titles of 2018. Ian Stepp, information services assistant:   Can I cheat and choose two? I’m going for it. These fantastic graphic novels are both set in space, but couldn’t be more different. ...

A glimpse at next year’s most intriguing sci-fi novels

With 2018 winding to a close, librarians and book lovers everywhere are reflecting on another joyful year of reading. The curated “best of” lists are rolling out or are in the works — stay tuned! — and readers get to think back on the titles that will stick with them for many more ...

Neighborhoods bond over Lawrence’s Little Free Libraries

In 2009, the first Little Free Library box was constructed by a man named Todd Bol in Hudson, Wis. What started as a spiritual gesture to honor his late mother, June, quickly became a neighborhood sensation. And less than a decade later, it has evolved into a movement that has taken over the ...

Tips for breaking a reading slump

It’s happened to the best of us. Call it what you will — a slump, a rut, a dry spell — we’ve all had times when we just can’t seem to take solace in, make time for or even just plow through our reading. It could be that the act of reading itself is difficult and you’re struggling ...

‘Unsheltered’ an eloquent, provocative new read

"Unsheltered" is more than the title of Barbara Kingsolver's new book — it is a thoughtful overarching metaphor that connects characters from two distinct time frames in one place. Kingsolver juxtaposes turmoil from today and the past, and yet wit and resilience are found throughout each ...

4 intriguing stories about orphans

Like any good child of the '80s, my first foray into relating to a fellow orphan happened with that precocious, red-haired girl pining for the family she’d never known on the windowsill of the Hudson Street Orphanage. Until last month, it took two fictional accounts of orphans to make me ...