All this town needs is a ten-minute nail place.

Because brevity truly is the soul of wit, and because I wasted most of my lunch hour walking around looking for a place to get an express pedicure (seriously Kingston, what the hell?), a brief and undoubtedly witty list.

Favourite items my new library has that my old library didn't.

My New York Diary by Julie Doucet. Something about the way she draws can make a roach-infested Harlem squat look cozy and appealing. And her slightly-off quebecois english diction is adorable.

A scrapbook of uncollected sketches and stories by Adrian Tomine, my favourite comic artist to read when you kind of feel like you might kill yourself and need someone to push you off the ledge, or at least feel pretty miserable about the state of humanity. I love comics, partly because there's something inherently lonely about the artists I read. I don't know what it is about the medium that's so navel-gazey and personally nostalgic for the writers, but I love it. If you haven't read anything by Tomine, start with Summer Blonde.

Veronica Mars. Okay, in truth I borrowed this from a fellow librarian, but we have it at the library too! This! Show! Is! Amazing! It has elements of so many things I love, from My So-Called Life to Nancy Drew to noir-ish detective fiction. And cute boys. SWOON.

Dawson's Creek on DVD. Secret shame alert. I have not borrowed this yet but when I saw it on the shelf I had a flash in my head of a weekend in February when I will unplug the phone, plug in the DVD player, and not leave my house for days.

I cannot put enough emphasis on how exciting it is to have a whole new library collection to explore. It is Nerd Christmas, friends.

Librarians pick great books.

The IMPAC Dublin Shortlist is out. It's the only award in the universe selected entirely by librarians (the longlist, anyway). This year, I was promised a spot on the selection committee for my library but my follow up emails were ignored. I am not bitter. I am, however, annoyed by the shortlist. I know it's an international award, which means there are some titles on it that are not so new to us because selections are made based on world-wide availability. Still, I hate seeing old news titles on a brand new shortlist. I live in the moment. I live fast and die young. Or live quiet and stay cranky. Whatever.

That said, I really, really, sincerely and enthusiastically, hope The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz takes home the gold. This book was so moving and funny and kind-hearted and multifaceted and just generally awesome. There are not enough books written with overweight, Tolkein-obsessed Dominican kids at their core.