Have You Visited Our Blogs Lately?

TBPL Off the Shelf has been the home of our online book reviews, interviews with authors, and book club bag updates for several years. Scroll through the different categories to access tons of library staff book reviews, searchable by genre and linked directly to our catalogue, allowing for quick and easy placement of your TBPL holds. Our staff read a little bit of everything, so you will find reviews on everything from comic books like Groot by Jeff Loveniss and Brian Kesinger to mysteries like The Vanishing by Wendy Webb. In order to promote across our collection, we like to spotlight items from the back list in addition to what has just arrived. This means that you might read about a brand new title or a hidden gem from a few years back. Our reviews are a great way to find something new to try! Another popular category of posts is our Author Interviews. Scroll through to see the wide variety of authors featured: everyone from local YA author Michelle Krys to Andy Weir, best-selling author of The Martian. These interviews are conducted by TBPL staff member Shauna Kosoris and are original TBPL content.

Previously, our @your library articles could be found on a separate blog. We want to make it as simple as possible for you to find us online, so these posts will now also appear on the TBPL Off the Shelf blog! Why visit these articles online after reading in print? Well, you can easily click on the book titles in the article and travel directly to our online catalogue to place your TBPL holds. You can also start a conversation with the article’s author and other Thunder Bay readers in the comments. For our complete @your library online archives, visit their former home at tbplatyourlibrary.blogspot.ca.

Young adult books are popular with teen and adult readers, and now you can find all our YA reader’s advisory content directly on TBPL Off the Shelf. Recent posts include a complete list of all Young Adult series that wrapped up in 2017 including a plot description. This list is perfect for binge readers and completists – if you hate waiting for book two, this is for you! You’ll also find occasional read-alike lists, like the one suggesting titles for fans of the hit series Riverdale. Our YA content used to be located at tbplteens.tumblr.com, and you can still visit there for the full archives including over a dozen book lists of recommended reads.

Finally, did you know that TBPL produces a monthly mailout promoting new and upcoming books in our collection? You can now find this newsletter online as a post on our blog, which means easy access for creating your TBPL holds.

Check out the blog at tbplofftheshelf.com, and make us one of your online stops when you are looking for new books to read or literary conversation. We’d love to hear from you!

Laura Prinselaar – www.tbpl.ca. If you have a comment about today’s column, we would love to hear from you. Please comment below!