Unshelved

Librarian Gene Ambaum and cartoonist Bill Barnes created Unshelved in late 2001. Unshelved follows the adventures of a sarcastic public librarian named Dewey, who, along with his fellow librarians, deals with a wide (and bizarre) range of library patrons, including Ned, who celebrates his freedom of expression through nudity, and a guy who uses bacon strips for bookmarks.

Since 2006, Unshelved’s Sunday color strips have been devoted to book recommendations, and they’ve promoted some truly excellent titles: Gregor the Overlander, Ptolemy’s Gate, Heir Apparent, The Thief. The Sunday strips do show some major genre blind spots, however—while the Unshelved Book Club has reviewed a few mainstream comics and avant-garde teen dramas, there’s no love for manga like Yotsuba&! or Tramps Like Us, excellent, adult-oriented romances by people like Georgette Heyer, or the straightforward teen romances of Jennifer Echols or Meg Cabot. (Actually, fellow high-impact librarian Nancy Pearl left Meg Cabot out of her Book Crush collection, too, which leaves us wondering: is there some kind of Cabot/librarian feud we’re unaware of?)


Note: In addition to reading the strip, you can also check out Unshelved for the thrilling saga of the "Pimp My Bookcart" competition—a contest to discover who can make the most gloriously lurid bookcart in all the land!