Every week in the library, we get a delivery of new books. They come in plain brown boxes, and look as boring as it’s possible for boxes to look. But opening those boxes is like waking up to Christmas every day: the kind of Christmas where you didn’t think to TELL people what you really wanted, and so you know that what you might find could range from a pair of white acrylic tube socks, to some quite nice coffee mugs, to a fully automated robot butler made entirely of clockwork that brings you hot chocolate in the mornings.
Let me illustrate this by pointing out a few of the new books I unpacked yesterday:
- Brand new shiny replacement copies of sci fi classics Neuromancer and Dune
- The Usborne Illustrated Arabian Nights (for kids)
- A giant white copy of Lego Star Wars the Visual Dictionary (Lego Luke, I am your Lego father …)
- A lift-the-flap book called See Inside the Second World War
- A recipe book simply called Pizza that looked so mouth-wateringly tasty I went home and MADE pizza for tea
- An embossed cream-coloured volume called Telling dildrams and talking whiff-whaff (thinking this one will be useful for future blogging and wordy showing-off)
- Legends of the Australian Football Hall of Fame (with pictures)
- Something called The Goldilocks Planet – pretty sure there’s not much porridge here, it seems to be about our planet: not too hot, not too cold, not too wet , not too dry …
- And for those who have a penchant for googly eyes and insects, a charming book about Chameleons
I’ll leave you to figure out which titles on this list are the ‘tube socks’, and which are my robot butler – I’m off to browse the new books display at my library. If you can’t wait for us to unpack boxes each week, might I suggest you sign up to the New Titles newsletters and RSS feeds and get ready to place some holds, otherwise I’ll see you at the New Books shelf …
