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Ask the Girl is my debut novel. Murdered in 1925, Kate must seek the help of Lila and her sister to save her from her demon prison.

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Kim Bartosch

Oct 5, 20234 min read

Building Your Perfect Library: Guest Post from Author Shanna Miles

I am thrilled to be hosting a spot on THE FALL OF THE HOUSE TATTERLY by Shanna Miles Blog Tour hosted by Rockstar Book Tours. Check out Shanna Miles' post "Building Your Perfect Library" and make sure to enter the giveaway!

About The Book:

Title: THE FALL OF THE HOUSE TATTERLY

Author: Shanna Miles

Pub. Date: October 10, 2023

Publisher: Union Square Kids

Formats: Hardcover, Paperback, eBook

Pages: 280

Find it: Goodreads, https://books2read.com/THE-FALL-OF-THE-HOUSE-TATTERLY

Twelve-year-old Theo Tatterly’s ability to see ghosts is a useful skill in a house full of dead relatives, but it makes him a loner at school and everywhere else, where ghosts eternally pester him for help. For Theo, life is easier on the periphery. When his first failed exorcism portends an end to the Tatterly line, Theo must bring together his entire family—living and dead—to save the home they’ve lived in for generations . . . and maybe the world. Author Shanna Miles’s story of magical modern-day Charleston crackles with unforgettable characters and pays homage to the city’s rich culture, folklore, and history.

Reviews:

“A richly detailed story that amplifies the importance of connections and community.”—Kirkus Reviews "A spine-chilling stand-alone for readers who love the works of Eden Royce and Lora Senf." —Booklist "Over-the-top fantastical ambiance, paired with rich depictions of Charleston’s historical and cultural lore, makes for an endearing, enchanting adventure teeming with quirky characters." - Publishers Weekly

Building Your Perfect Library

By Shanna Miles

Are you on a book diet? It might be time to fall of the wagon.

Outrage about books isn’t anything new in America. In 1961 Tarzan was pulled from the shelves of the public library in Tarzana, California because the there wasn’t any evidence that Jane and Tarzan were married as they live in unwedded bliss in the treetops. In 2010, the Texas Board of Education thought that Bill Martin Jr. or marxist theory fame was the same Bill Martin Jr. that wrote Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? It had to go.

Book bans can range from the ridiculous as evidence by my two previous examples to downright dangerous. On May 10, 1933 there was a mass book burning across thirty-four university towns in Germany. It was an attack on “Jewish Intellectualism”. Books by Americans, by Jewish authors, books detailing queer theory, and anything considered un-German. It was a critical step in the third-reich’s reign of terror that ultimately left over six million Jews, queer people, Romani, and others dead, guilty of no crime other than existing.

Now, we’re in an era of attacks on “wokeism”, and any book that details the history of Black Americans, slavery, race relations, or queer people is on the chopping block. In the last school year, PEN America’s Index of Book Bans lists 874 individual title bans across the country. Houston schools just removed their libraries entirely to make room for discipline centers and Penguin Random House recently came under fire for altering the original language of some Roald Dahl books without alerting the purchasers.

Books are disappearing from shelves and if those books remain on the shelves they are subject to being altered. So what to do?

Build a library.

Not in the multi-million dollar, Rockefeller way, but in the small lending library and reading room tradition of old. Before Andrew Carnegie kicked off the public library craze by donating a good bit of his worldly goods, people subscribed to private lending libraries in their towns. They might meet with friends in a reading room of some local socialite and read the newspapers of the day along with the books that person had collected. Books were a very valuable commodity and they still are today.

Step 1 - Collect your books

If you’re a lover of the show WestWorld, then you’re probably devastated that you can’t stream it anymore. Content can appear and disappear at any publisher’s will these days so it’s best to get your books in print and in hardcover so they’ll last. Books by and about BIPOC folks and LGBTQIA people are the most banned across the country so they should take priority. Historical analysis and Biographies are important as well. Who tells the story is as important as the story itself.

Step 2 - House your collection

This is the fun part. You get to design your version of the library in Beauty and the Beast and you don’t even have to use the dewey decimal system. Although, you could, if you wanted to. Divide my genre, organize by book spine cover or by the author’s first name instead of the last. Just keep it consistent so you can find everything.

Step 3 - Share the collection

This is the hard part. You can’t just hoard your treasure like some troll under a bridge, you’ve got to share it with the people, your people, your community. You can start a book club that discusses books in a particular author’s oeuvre. Let’s say you invite people to pick books from your Toni Morrison section and discuss. You could start a TikTok channel dedicated to each of your books where you review and enlighten us with choice quotes. You could also lend them out using a site like https://www.librarything.com/, which lets you catalog your own books.

In the grand tradition of historian and collector Authur Schomburg you too can become a curator of literary history and it all starts with a book haul.

Thank you Shanna for this wonderful post! Be sure to check out THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF TATTERLY, which is on sale now, and enter the giveaway below!

About Shanna Miles:

Born and raised in Columbia, South Carolina, Shanna Miles considers herself a dyed-in-the-wool Southern girl. She lives in Georgia with her family. When she’s not working as a high school librarian, she can be found writing. Visit her online at shannamiles.net or on Twitter at @srmilesauthor.

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