What’s on my nightstand? I don’t actually have a nightstand, but I do have a stack of books on my side of the headboard, as well as a leaning tower of books from the floor up. How does a title end up on the pile? I was already reading it and took it to bed with me. I had just finished a book and it was late and I shopped the galley shelves for something to start, usually a known author. It was next up on the pile of books that I knew I wanted to read. A few titles have a permanent spot – I tend to dip in and out of short story and poetry collections.

What gets them out of the bedroom? Books that I want to get into the hands of kids and teachers are the first to go. Notice that there are no copies of Divergent, True: Sort of, and Okay for Now sitting around. When the pile becomes dangerously tall or falls over, I weed out the titles with pub dates over six months ago or duplicates that I have somewhere else. Some just move to another room or go back to school or get packed in the recycling. If a book has been sitting there a long time and I have already read it, it usually means that I have a hardcover of that title somewhere else.

Also, the books by my bed fall into several distinct categories. First up: books that I am reviewing, like The Girl of Fire and Thorns. Books that I am rereading for school (book talks or curriculum): First Girl Scout, The Cheshire Cheese Cat, Blood Red Road, Inside Out and Back Again. Books that someone recommended (PW star, SLJ, Shelf Awareness, Horn Book, Bank Street Book Committee): Young Fredle by Cynthia Voigt, This Dark Endeavor by Kenneth Oppel. Books that I am pondering thematically: Cleopatra Confesses by Carolyn Meyer, Lights on the Nile by Donna Jo Napoli, and Cleopatra’s Moon by Vicky Alvear Shecter. Then there are the grown-up books that everyone is reading but I will probably never get around to but I am reluctant to admit that just yet, like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Or ones that I am dying to read and just need a rainy Sunday afternoon with no deadlines: The Borrower by Rebecca Makkai, Once Upon a River by Bonnie Jo Campbell.

I realized that most of the books left here are already read and I just haven’t moved them on (to school or kids or librarians). Red Glove by Holly Black was a worthy successor to White Cat. I read it way back before it pubbed in April. What’s it still doing here? It was tempting to weed before taking the picture but I refrained, so yes, there are embarrassing duplicates....

For my own reading, past 10 p.m., I choose short stories, mystery novels and memoirs. Welcome to Bordertown, edited by Holly Black and Ellen Kushner, is a series that I was thrilled to see revived. Steampunk! An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories, edited by Kelly Link and Gavin J. Grant, was a delightful read, each story better than the last (grabbed that one from Candlewick at BookExpo).

The last book that I finished reading in bed was Sweater Quest: My Year of Knitting Dangerously by Adrienne Martini, about her attempt to knit the Mt. Everest of sweaters, the Alice Strathmore Fair Isle, Mary Tudor. Could not put it down. Buried at the bottom: a small lime-green-spined mass market, Isaac Asimov’s Murder at the ABA, never fails to put me to sleep before I finish the second chapter. Off to the side is my iPad, with e-editions of books and galleys. I have started to reread Mr. Popper’s Penguins via NetGalley. For personal reading nothing beats the unique genre of dog mysteries, most recently Black Ribbon by Susan Conant and One Dog Night by David Rosenfelt, which I’m reading using the Kindle and Nook apps.

Lisa Von Drasek is the children’s librarian of the Bank Street College of Education. She blogs at EarlyWord.com.