July is a month of celebration and remembrance of America’s greatest accomplishments. To commemorate America’s 246th birthday, we have compiled a list of novels and films telling the American stories of success, struggle, and growth as time has passed. We hope to celebrate the diverse American experience throughout history and provide a reflection on the American mosaic.
June is Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) Pride Month, a time to recognize and highlight the LGBTQ community as well as reflect on the history of the movement. One way to do that is to read books about and written by LGBTQ voices. This month’s pop lit picks will highlight several such fiction and nonfiction books in FSU Libraries’ Pop Lit Collection which include everything from memoirs to romance to science fiction/fantasy. Enjoy these LGBTQ titles this June and all year round!
May is National Pet Month! A time to celebrate our four-legged friends and furry companions! Our digital book display this month features titles that honor pets of all kinds and the wonderful impact they have in our daily lives. With this, we are also celebrating the pets of our library staff! Be sure to check out our digital pet gallery below.
Scroll to peruse all the Popular Literature Committee’s “Tattoo Tuesday” posts for the summer.
(TW: This book contains references to Sexual Assault, Child Abuse and Violence). This #tattootuesday recommendation was submitted by @julno12 and designed by (IG:@leahdavinci). Roses often symbolize love and beauty in literature, but what results when that beauty is kept from the world. “The Butterfly Garden” tells of a beautiful escape, where young, kidnapped women are tattooed and held against their will. This horror/thriller has components like novels “The Handmaid’s Tale” and “The Maze Runner”, while being told through the lens of an FBI investigation.
Today we’re taking inspiration from @Keckster00 and their wings and taking it to the sky with this SciFi dystopian fantasy. Charlie Jane Anders’s All the Birds in the Sky is a tale of childhood friends who must come together to stop – or overcome – the collapse of society and the world around them. They work in their own teams of engineers and magicians to “repair the world’s ever-growing ailments.” As they work in their teams to save the world, something bigger than either of them from their past creeps up and is determined to bring them together again.
For Gargi, we have a wonderful tattoo of a compass with a plane taking off from the North and, below the Southernmost point, the word “Wanderlust” in fancy script. Gargi clearly has a taste for adventure, so for them we’re recommending Atlas Obscura: An Explorer’s Guide to the World’s Hidden Wonders by Joshua Foer, Ella Morton, and Dylan Thuras. It is a “bucket-list guide to over 700 of the most unusual, curious, bizarre, and mysterious places on earth” ranging from Europe, Asia, Africa, Oceania, Canada, the United States, Latin America, and Antarctica. There’s something for every traveler in here, and we hope you’ll find the thing that inspires you. You can find Atlas Obscura in the Popular Literature collection in Strozier by the Starbucks, or on our online catalog here: https://fsu-flvc.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01FALSC_FSU/pag4dr/alma990346216880306576.
Today’s tattoo features a sphere with an outer space theme vignette including two astronauts reaching out gloved fingers, much in the same vein as Michelangelo’s famous painting “The Creation of Adam.” Our submitter mentioned they loved space and the ocean. Also, the clean lines and bold features of the tattoo seemed to veer towards a nonfiction book. So, we’re recommending “Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void” by Mary Roach, which explores space travel and what humans give up making it happen. The title addresses everything from how to survive a bailout at 17,000 miles per hour to how to use the bathroom to what happens when you can’t walk for a year. You can find “Packing for Mars” in the Popular Literature collection in Strozier Library near the Starbucks or on our online catalog here: https://fsu-flvc.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01FALSC_FSU/pag4dr/alma990222729590306576
What better book to talk about the music of the heart than Jazz, by Toni Morrison? For Morrison, Harlem in 1926 thrums with grace, power, love, betrayal, and murder. It is enlightened. It is haunted. It is alive with music, and so too will you be. If the complexities of the heart, mind, soul, and the body compel you, check out Jazz in the Pop Lit section by the Strozier Starbucks, or in our online catalog: https://fsu-flvc.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01FALSC_FSU/pag4dr/alma990245192650306576.
We have a ton of new arrivals just in time for you to pop in and check them out for Spring Break!
We’ve received everything for your spring break reading fancy, from Science fiction to fantasy, romance to true crime, and history to literary fiction. Swing by the Pop Lit section by Starbucks on the first floor of Strozier Library and find your next favorite read for that trip to the beach.
Don’t see something you’d hoped in our Pop Lit section?? Email us your purchase recommendations!!
Scroll to peruse all the Popular Literature Committee’s “Tattoo Tuesday” posts for the month of March, 2022.
For this wonderful tattoo my recommendation is “Every Heart a Doorway” (Wayward Children #1) by Seanan McGuire and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Books have always been a doorway to other worlds with new places to explore, people to meet and adventures to have. Children slip through these doors all the time but what happens when the fantasy world no longer wants them? What happens when the children return to a world that no longer understands them and the experiences they have had? This is where Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children comes in. The children who come live have all stepped through these doors and been changed but have no way to return. They yearn to find a way to open the door so they return and for some no cost is to high. Nancy, recently expelled from her world, has just arrived when someone starts murdering the other children and stealing body parts. As the new girl she is immediately a suspect and must figure out who the monster is before they get her too.Your incredible tattoo brought a lot to mind – but eventually we decided on A Darker Shade of Magic by Victoria Schwab…just look at that cover! Combining an enrapturing cast of characters with magical world-building, this fantasy takes place in a mythical London and stars Kell, official ambassador and prince of Red London…unofficial smuggler between parallel universes. This is the first in the Shades of Magic series, so if you like this one check out the others, all available in the Popular Literature collection by the Starbucks in Strozier. We hope you enjoy our selection!This whimsical tattoo sent me down several rabbit holes looking for the right book and narrowing it down to one was tricky. So…a twofer! For a more gritty science fiction read, everyone is universally (online) in agreement that The Lying Cat in the graphic novel series, Saga, is the best of the alien cats. She sounds fierce, fabulous and hangs out with a bounty hunter. The series itself is described as “Star Wars meets Game of Thrones” and there are seven volumes to explore if this fits the bill! For something more on the whimsical fantasy side of things, there is A Taste Fur Murder by Dixie Lyle in which the main character starts seeing animal spirits, including her dead cat Tango who she can now communicate with telepathically, and they are off to solve a murder together with a ectoplasmic dog named Tiny. This is also the start of a mystery series so more books ot explore if this strikes your fancy. Saga is available in the Libraries’ Graphic Novel collection and A Taste Fur Murder is in the Popular Literature collection. Happy Reading!
Scroll to peruse all Tattoo Tuesday posts posted in the month of February, 2022.
Sing, cardinal, sing! Your gorgeous tattoo deserves a gorgeous book, and Jesmyn Ward’s prose hits the mark. Today we’re recommending Sing, Unburied, Sing, by Jesmyn Ward, a book about family, grief, addiction, and personal freedoms. We hope you’re as captivated by the language as we are with your tattoo. You can find it in our online catalog here: https://fsu-flvc.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01FALSC_FSU/pag4dr/alma990353871120306576 or at the Pop Lit collection by the Starbucks in Strozier.For this #tattootuesday post, @elizabethrayart submitted this striking puzzle piece ink. Accordingly, this recommendation is equally striking book, “Can’t Escape Love” by Alyssa Cole. Just the cover art alone is gorgeous. A nerdtastic businesswoman is on the cusp of greatness with her pop culture media company, Girls with Glasses; the problem is insomnia is putting a crimp in her plans. Solution? The voice of puzzle-obsessed live streamer Gustave Nguyen; his deep, soothing voice provides the source of relaxation she needs. He’s willing to help in exchange for pop culture expertise. But when their online friendship has IRL chemistry, will they be able to escape love? Author Cole provides a witty, modern story that features lead characters that are diverse and relatable on many levels along with detailed backdrops that combine for great stories. You can find it in our online catalog here: https://bit.ly/3tOQIfM or at the Popular Literature collection by Starbucks in Strozier Library. #libraries #fsu #puzzles #tattoosThis week’s Tattoo is of Bill from It’s Such A Beautiful Day. This little tattoo reminder to take a look around and see the life around. A book that does the same is Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake. It’s “revelatory introduction to this world will show us how fungi, and our relationships with them, are more astonishing than we could have imagined”.This week’s Book recommendation is Sleeping Giants. You might ask yourself, giants? What does this have to do with my cute cow? Well, a lot! As a spirit animal, the cow is said to symbolize trust and positivity. In Norse mythology, the cow Audhumla had udders that emitted four rivers of power that provided nourishment for giants.You can read more about their symbolism here https://www.artdependence.com/articles/symbolism-in-art-the-cow/#:~:text=As%20a%20spirit%20animal%2C%20the,less%20sacred%20and%20mutual%20relationship. Sleeping giants is a fast-paced thriller about a girl that falls through the earth, and when she wakes up she realizes she’s in the palm of a giant. What follows is a mystery to solve the giants’ origins. We hope you enjoy our recommendation @diannab92. Tattoo artist is @mattisonfire who is local to Tallahassee at Carbon ink Tattoo!
Black history in the United States cannot be given due attention in a meager blog post. From the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, to Reconstruction, to the Civil Rights movement and the Black Lives Matter movement, it’s easy to get entrenched in stories of Black pain and trauma. But amidst that there is also: excellence, joy, and success. It’s important to remember that Black history is not a thing of the past; history is being made every day.
Although there’s a plethora of seminal nonfiction texts written on Black history and the Black diaspora in America – you can check out How To Be An Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi or A Black Women’s History of the United States by Daina Ramey Berry and Kali Nicole Gross, among others, for more critical reading – for the purposes of this post, we’ve focused on some wonderful voices in fiction*. We’ve selected a short list of classics and contemporary works from our Popular Literature collection, ranging from literary fiction to romance to science fiction. A permalink for each book is included below, which will take you to our catalog – there, you can search for more books by Black authors.
If you have suggestions for books you cannot find in our collection, please let us know by emailing lib-poplit@fsu.edu.
Scroll to peruse all Tattoo Tuesday book recommendations posted in the month of January, 2022.
With apologies to the tattoo’s owner, we cannot supply a book about dolphins – our Popular Literature catalog is evidently lacking in that department – but this week’s selection is written by someone who loves dragons as much as you love dolphins. We hope that this sense of passion for the extraordinary and inquisitiveness in the ordinary is conveyed in A Natural History of Dragons: a Memoir by Lady Trent by Marie Brennan, and that this selection piques your interest. To learn more about this title, visit it on the FSU catalog here: https://fsu-flvc.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01FALSC_FSU/pag4dr/alma990352349780306576.
The smell of fresh syllabi is in the air and new classes are back at FSU and the Libraries Pop Lit committee wants to welcome you back!
What is The Pop Lit Collection? Firstly, the Pop Lit collection belongs to YOU, the students. The Popular literature committee orders books within set genres on behalf of the Student Government Association so our library is stocked with new and favorite books to enjoy outside of your classes! We also select DVDs that are added to the “DVD Open” collection.
The Pop Lit Collection is next to the Strozier Starbucks Café on the main floor, perfectly located for browsing the shelves while you enjoy a coffee. Our Graphic Novels collection is also located close by. Just look for the large POP LIT sign when you walk into the main floor of Strozier!
Having trouble finding a book on the shelves? You can check to see if it’s in our catalog here. If we have a copy in one of the main collections, we don’t purchase duplicates (this lets us use our money to the fullest potential). If you still don’t see a copy email us a request to purchase!! Lib-poplit@fsu.edu This is YOUR collection. Tell us what you’d love to read!
What else can you expect from us this year? Keep an eye on our social media accounts to see our Tattoo Tuesday (Tattuesday?) posts! OR take part and send us a picture of your tattoo and we’ll send you a recommendation from the pop lit collection. Don’t have a tattoo? That’s ok! Send us a picture of a piercing, a work of art, your favorite song, another book that you love, and we’ll give you a rec.
Reading lists! We try to post reading lists related to seasonal and monthly awareness holidays, new arrivals, and more!
The Genres we order include Biographies, Graphic Novels, History and Politics, Literary Fiction, Mystery, Romance, Science, Science Fiction and Fantasy, Self-Help and Psychology, Suspense and Horror, Travel, and True Crime.
We hope you take the time to fit in some leisurely reading this year and treat yourself to some of our favorite books in the library.