Some of my favorite books

The other day I realized I had gained 5 pounds since the beginning of summer. I was trying to figure out what was different between this summer and last summer and realized it was ice cream.
I usually just buy a few boxes of sundae cones throughout the summer, this year, I started buying cartons of it, and I've gone through quite a few since summer started. I decided it was a necessity of summer, and all the different flavors is came in, how could you go wrong. I don't know how many cartons I've bought and gone through, but I've had quite a few cartons of Fasco/Blue Bunny, two cartons of Breyer's, at least 6 containers of Edy's, and at least 6 of Ben & Jerry's pints. I was also trying to figure out how I'd spent so much this summer too, but ice cream adds up. I never buy it unless it's on sale, but it's varied from $2 to $4 depending on what I was buying. Today, I just bought a pack of sundae cones for $2.50, I'm sure it will last me awhile.

As most of you who've followed my blog for awhile know, I work at a library and that gives me a lot of books to look at.
I've been reading how people are recording the books the read. I've always done that, but I keep wondering if I share on here will people be interested, or think my choices of books are weird? I've started recording all the books I read in 2013, and have done it since then. I find it such an accomplishment when I finish a book.
I'm in the middle of two long and deep reads right now. One of them is Gotham: A History of New York to 1898, this book is about 1300 pages long and it's not a small book, height and width wise, so it's a lot of words in a lot of space, plus the chapters are exceptionally long.
The second one is KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps, it's about 600 pages, but it's deep and painful to read. It's one of those books that I really want to finish, but it's not an easy read.
I'm also in the middle of The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin, I read her second happiness book, Happier at Home in July. I've tried to read the Happiness Project before but I couldn't get into it. Happier at Home was very easy to get into, and I thought I'd give The Happiness Project again. I'm well past half of the book, but I'm still having a hard time getting into it.
Most of the time I try to avoid books that are really popular, but I've had so many people recommend it, and I keep hearing about it on some of the blogs I've read, and since I liked the other one, I thought I'd try again.

I have a Staff Picks shelf at the library, which is basically certain staff members put their favorites on on a shelf for the patrons to see what they're interested in. This is the blurb I wrote to put on my shelf so patrons would know what I like to read: I love non-fiction, I choose books the grab my attention on the first page and won't allow me to put the book down until I'm done with it. On my pics you will find an eclectic selection of non-fiction from true crime to war history to biographies to traveling and living in Iowa. I like learning about things. 
Usually my reading choices are true crime, or history, or books about books, or anything about growing up in Iowa. My choices are very wide. I also love reading kids picture books, I'm not sure I have particular favorites in that area, I do really love Mo Willems books about Piggy and Elephant, you can't go wrong with those.
I have a part-time job and should really be focusing on finding a full-time job or another part-time job to fill in my extra hours. Since, I have a lot of free time, I read a lot, in 2013 I read 57 reading books. My definition of Reading Books being ones that have a lot of depth to them, I record all the picture books and books with less depth to them as well, so the real total of books read in 2013 would be 108 books. My favorites from that year would be Weird Things Customers Say in Bookstores by Jen Campbell, a lot of the stories she has relate to libraries, not all of them of course because mostly people don't buy books at the library, we do have a small used bookstore. While looking up this book on Amazon for a link, I found she wrote another one, and just requested that through our website, I'm sure it's as funny as the first one.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, this is about a woman named Henrietta Lacks who had cancer and her doctor took some of her cells and basically have been recreating them for years to replicate other diseases and find out how to cure/treat them. Lots of treatments for diseases exist because of her cells, unfortunately, she never gave permission for them to take her cells and her family has been trying to get recognition for them for years.
This next one, is one of those I'm hesitant to share with the world, Columbine by Dave Cullen. I can imagine you can guess what that's about, though as the years pass, I'm saddened by the people I run into that don't know about it. Dave basically shows what leads up to the shooting, and the aftermath of it. He studies the writings, tapes and police files about the boys.
The Children's Blizzard by David Laskin, in 1888 there was a very sudden blizzard that came upon the midwest in the middle of the day. It's called the Children's Blizzard because a lot of kids got stuck in it on their way home from school and perished. Very interesting read.
Free For All by Don Borchert, Don worked in a library and has some very interesting stories about what happens in a library. After reading this book I told my co-workers what a great book it was and so many people requested it that they bought two more copies.
Edward Gein: America's Most Bizarre Murderer by Robert H Gollmer, this would be another one I'm hesitant to reveal. I find books about serial killers very interesting. Edward Gein was very strange, Silence of the Lambs is partially based on him, he would skin his victims and make things with their skin, he also liked to use their bones for things as well.
Blooming by Susan Allen Toth, Susan grew up in Ames, IA where I live and details some of her exploits growing up. I especially like the part on the library.
The Year without Summer by William K Klingman. In 1816, a volcano erupted spewing volcanic ash into the atmosphere so far up that it changed the climate of the Earth.

Well, that was a lot of favorite books for one year, I think I'll do another post on 2014 and 2015. I don't know if my readers are interested in what I read, but it's fun to remember my favorites and why I liked them.