Our annual adult reading program started on Monday and will run for eight weeks. Biblio Bingo was born about a decade ago and this labor of love has become a staple among our adult readers. Your clever library staff come up with all kinds of categories for books and then we find the books to match the categories. Sometimes this is a real stretch and each year we remark that it might be our last because how long can we keep pulling this stuff off - but somehow we do just that and our readers line up to test their mettle yet another time. This program gets you out of your reading comfort zone and don't we all need that now and then?

If you read a book from four categories in a column, row or diagonal you get a small prize and you earn a drawing slip for wonderful prize baskets put together by our designer, Carol. Some might say it's about the baskets ,but if you heard all the conversations that go on in this place when people bring their books back to get their Bingo card stamped you will know it's really about the books. Readers may not like everything they read, but they never regret the time spent reading. This year's categories include, Bildungsroman, Cats&Dogs, City, Cli-Fi, In the Sticks, Propostion Preposition, State of Affairs, Twitter Fiction, Viet Nam, What's that Smell and Wisconsin 2017. Some of these categories are obvious but for the ones that aren't...well, you'll just have to stop in to find out what they mean and while you're here, we'll talk you into signing up to play Biblio Bingo. Thank you dear readers for requesting this program year after year.

The Huffington Post featured an article of 60 must reads for 2018. There may have been one year in my life that I read 60 books but it was so long ago I cannot remember. I read close to 30 books this year and I consider that an accomplishment. Life seems to get in the way more and more when it comes to the reading life. Of course the online life has something to do that. And even if I could read 60 books in a year, there are still so many books from last year, and the year before that, and the year before that and so on and so forth, that are still waiting for my attention. But if you, dear reader, are inclined to read that many books in a year and you are all caught up from previous years, then I present you with this feast of titles to consider. I like this list because it's anticipating good titles for the coming new year, rather than presenting us with titles already published.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/2018-book-preview_us_5a383493e4b0c6...

There are many reasons for booklovers to enjoy this time of year. For some it is making lists of books they'd like to get as gifts for the Christmas holiday. For others it is the thought of giving books as gifts to other appreciative booklovers. For us here at the Library it is the coming of the "Best Books of 2017" that we will be reading in the next month or so. There are many different entities that produce these lists and while there are certainly some titles that keep appearing on the different lists, it is amazing how many unique titles there are. There are also lists for young people's literature that we enjoy reading and talking about. We use these lists for figuring out books purchases, for deciding books to read for book club and for creating that chaos in our own lives that every reader knows about...more books on a list we already cannot get through. Click on the link below to see Publishers Weekly's Top 10 Books of 2017. The titles include fiction and non-fiction. Chances are infosoup has all of the titles so if you think you want to read one of the books you can order it directly through the catalog or you can call the Library and we'll reserve it for you.

https://best-books.publishersweekly.com/pw/best-books/2017

“It was like when you make a move in chess and just as you take your finger off the piece, you see the mistake you've made, and there's this panic because you don't know yet the scale of disaster you've left yourself open to.”

― Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go

Our next read for the SML Book Club is Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiquro and what a timely choice because it was recently announced that Mr. Ishiguro was awarded the 2017 Nobel Prize for Literature. This prestigious prize always raises the profile of a writer and that will make for a more interesting discussion come December. "Never Let Me Go" is a novel about cloning and is set in a dystopia not altogether unrecognizable. The book was adapted for a movie starring Keira Knightley in 2010. Other works from Mr. Ishiguro include The Remains of the Day which also became a well-known movie starring Anthony Hopkins. We are looking forward to reading and discussion "Never Let Me Go" and we invite anyone who is interested in the book and joining the discussion to attend the next book on the 1st Wednesday in December. If you want to place a hold on the book click here. If you want us to reserve a copy for you give us a call at 920-596-2252. We extend our congratulations and best wishes to Kazuo Ishiguro and look forward to the discussion in December.