A Full-time Life

A LITTLE TIME TO READ - MARCH

 

There wasn't as much time to read last month as usual, because March was a very busy month here at Upriver. 

(And we went on that boat trip, where we both certainly read, but where the boat kind of rocked us to sleep before we'd read very much.)

But we both read every day and books are completed and enjoyed even when a few pages at once are all the reading time there is. 

I had a couple of fun reading surprises last month.  I received two lovely new books via snail mail from Margot at Joyfully Retired.  I entered a giveaway contest on her terrific blog and won!  The books are Radio Shangri-La by LIsa Napoli.  Subtitled "What I Learned in Bhutan, the Happiest Kingdom on Earth."  I love travel books and am looking forward to a joyful experience reading this book.  Click here to read Margot's review of this book.

The other book is "Stiltsville" by Susanna Daniel.   This novel is set in Florida.  It will be good to be "home" for a change, since almost all of the books I read last month were set in England.    Thank you again Margot!

The other cool surprise was when I turned on my Kindle one morning and found the latest in Alexander McCall Smith's Ladies Detective series sitting right there on my home page.   

OK, technically "The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party" shouldn't have been a surprise.  I pre-ordered it prior to publication (the only time I've ever done that).  But that was a few months ago and, heck, I'm getting older and lucky to remember what happened last week! 

So the book was right there and it was fairly early in the morning -- I just poured my first cup of coffee and sat down and read the whole book almost in one fell swoop. Like all of this series, it's a fast and wholesome read and just makes you feel good!  (The mystery in these books is secondary to the characters and just the reminder about what's really important in life -- what makes life "very full" in Precious' words. )  Highly recommended. 

Ladies Detective is pretty much the only series of books I've ever read in order as they came out.  Started with the first one and was hooked.  But this is the only book I've ever bought and read the very first day it was available. 

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My 2011 reading challenges:  

Electronic reading:  16 books

Support Your Local Library:  11 books.

Foodies Reading Challenge:  I have read 6 books total for this challenge.  Two of the latest ones were health-related menu planning books not very interesting to anyone else really and one was a five-ingredient cookbook that I thought might be useful for cooking when we travel in the Roadtrek.  But it was a big disappointment.  (Fortunately it was a library book.)

My personal challenges: 

 Read all of Agatha Christie's books:  I read two or three Jane Marple mysteries last month and have completed seven, with one waiting on my Kindle.  The list I have shows there are 14 Janes. 

"Classic" books:   (Books I've heard of, know about, but have never actually read).  I read Zora Neale Huston's "Their Eyes Were Watching God" at the end of February/first of March.    I hope to write more about reading this wonderful book.

What I'm Currently Reading.   I started this page up on top of the right-hand column here with the idea to log my current reading.  But I keep forgetting to update it. So I'll add that to my goals again   -- and see how it goes for this month. 

 

 

 

PECULIAR CRIMES -- bookish post for February (oops)

 Running a little late on my personal reading goal of trying to write about what I'm reading at least once a month.

 

  I've fallen in love with a new (to me) mystery series.  It is the Peculiar Crimes Unit series by Christopher Fowler.  The series is set in London and features Bryant and May, the Unit's senior (in both senses of the word) detectives. 

These are great police procedural mysteries but there is much more to them. 

 The books are well-researched and filled with great facts and trivia about the wonderful (and sometimes not so beautiful) City of London. 

In addition, the main characters are not kids -- in fact they are sometimes described as elderly.  But yet, they are bright and active.    What's not to like!

The first one of the series that I read was plucked from the North Fort Myers Library new book shelf during my bi-weekly treasure hunt.   I made a mental note to add the series to my (ever-growing) To-Be-Read list.  The next time I went back, I found another of the series right in the same spot.  I figured this was a sign, so after I'd returned that one, I started searching the back shelves for the earlier books. 

Arthur Bryant and John May were hired as new (and very young) detectives for The Peculiar Crimes Unit, which  was formed during the London Blitz.  The purpose of the Unit was  to deal with street crimes that were occuring with greater frequency at that time.  The Unit freed regular police staff as it investigated what were understatedly referred to as 'peculiar crimes'.  It has continued through the years under various overseers.

Arthur Bryant is a genuinely eccentric character who knows the history of London inside and out (he moonlights as a walking-tour guide).  Bryant's  head is filled with facts, which may seem to be distracting, but often prove of huge help.  He works on instinct and has a stable of community characters on whom he depends on for their insights and he often uses them in ways that are not quite according to police procedure. 

John May, his partner of many years, is more a by-the-books detective.  He believes in doing the detail work and he and his staff do it.  But he works very well with -- and deeply respects -- his unusual partner.  Together and with their staff (each of whom is eccentric in his or her own way) they make a great team.

I love the characters in this series and even though the books can be  grisly, I often laugh out loud while I'm reading.   I haven't even finished the whole list yet, but I am already hoping that Mr Fowler is at home writing a new one right now! 

One caveat:  if you start this series, I recommend doing as I say not as I did and beginning at the beginning.  I caught on really quickly (as with most mystery series, enough background is repeated so that the books make sense as stand-alones), but in one case, because I started in the middle, there was a continuing case that I read the end of before I read the beginning.

   

 Our pictures show some of the London peculiarities that Arthur Bryant knows intimately and which feature in some of the ones I've read:  The British Museum,  London pubs, and the undeground subway(the Tube) .  All places that we visited and  wished we had more time to get to know!

 

Here is the list of books (so far, I hope) in order of publication:

Full Dark House

The Water Room

Seventy-Seven Clocks

Ten-Second Staircase

White Corridor

Victoria Vanishes

Bryant and May On the Loose

Bryant and May Off the Rails

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READING OLD STUFF WITH NEW TECHNOLOGY

The Library's a treasure-hunting ground, but the Kindle is my place to order books I already know I want.

It's not as much fun to browse around electronically.  Reading the lists of available books is a fairly sterile pastime -- you can't look at the shelves of lovely books, or touch or feel or even flip pages very easily (although KIndle does give you a "sample" option).  

So before I order an electronic book, I know exactly what I want and I hit the 'buy' button. Just like that, the book is there and ready to read almost instantly. 

Most of my Kindle collection so far consists of old books I've missed (I have a lot of gaps in my education).  All books are cheaper on Kindle and the classics and old stuff are free or very low cost.  

  So right now, I'm reading "Moby Dick."   Which, in spite of dire warnings from readers I know and love, I'm actually enjoying. 

Mostly because of our roadtrip stop in New Bedford, where we got interested in whaling stories (that's author Herman Melville's pew in the Whalers Chapel in the picture).  The Kindle format makes it easy to skip through those chapters devoted to listing and describing the various members of the cetacean order.  When I commented to Bill that the story-telling (once you skip past those chapters) is great, he just looked at me and said sort of in a "duh" tone of voice:  "I think that's why they call it a classic." 

The only thing about Ishmael, Ahab, Starbuck and the crew, though, is that I can only read this book when I have at least an hour (of non-sleepy) time to devote to reading.  It's not the kind of book you can easily pick up and put down.

So I have other books for when I'm not in an Ishmael mood.  I'm reading Willa Cather and re-reading Louisa May Alcott. (I'm  not picky about reading in any order  -- just whatever I happen to be reminded of that "I always meant to read." )

And I'm still reading (or re-reading) those Agatha Christie mysteries.  The good thing is you can easily read Agatha at odd moments here and there, whether curled up in a lawn chair -- or (because we try to combine errands) waiting for Bill while he's in Home Depot or the boat-part store.

 I carry my Kindle at all times now, for just such purposes, and it's great to have Miss Marple as company while I wait.

 (That's a Google picture of Geraldine McEwan who played Miss Marple on BBC shows which have run on PBS stations here.)

 

READING FOR FUN AND CHALLENGE

For Margot's Foodie Reading Throwdown.  (My total to date = 2 books)

E-Book Reading Challenge  = 5 books, completed.

  "Garlic and Sapphires" is my third Ruth Reichl memoir.  I read the Kindle edition and was a little disappointed because I don't think Mr Kindle did a real good job of copying this book.  Quite a few words were divided in the wrong places.  (Obviously, I really don't have any idea how the whole process of transferring printed-on-paper words to this format works -- and this is the first one I've read where I noticed any problems.) 

There are also recipes included in this book and I hadn't yet learned how to bookmark (that's my fault), so now I will need to use the search function to find the one or two that I actually think I might make someday.  (Had I been reading the paperback or hardcover version, I'd just have gone right to the copier and printed the recipe.)

In this book, Ruth, her husband and small son move across the country to New York City, where she's taken the dream job reviewing restaurants for the NY Times.  (You don't have to read her first two books to see the arc of how she "earned" that job, but you'll enjoy this one more if you do.) 

It's fun reading about the food -- and (most of the time) envying her for being able to enjoy the three or four meals she and her companions "needed" to eat at each restaurant to write her review.  All on the NY Times expense account, of course.  She includes some of her reviews as they were printed in the paper, along with her experiences arriving at what she finally wrote. I enjoyed her descriptions of the good and bad parts of the restaurants she reviewed.

And it was fun to read about her family life in a New York City apartment and her work life at the Times (surprisingly to me, much of it was similar to offices everywhere.)

 But the subtitle of this book is "The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise" and that's the part I enjoyed most. The restaurant world in New York apparently is way more like a small town than I would have thought; to get an unbiased review, she really couldn't go to a restaurant where she'd be recognized as herself.

So she went in wigs and different outfits and made up a personna for each different disguise.  She talks about how her appearance changed her very personality (if only temporarily) and how she liked and disliked parts of her "selves."  Being somebody else for a short while actually changed the way she thought and acted when she was living her real life.

And of course, depending on how she was disguised, her appearance changed the kind of service she received at the restaurants.  And sometimes even the food.  If she went as herself and was recognized, she got better service and more attention from the kitchen.  Some restaurants had her picture posted so that the host could alert the staff.

I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys memoirs, even if you don't consider yourself a foodie! 

  

 

 

 

 

TREASURE HUNT

 

My library card is a treasure-hunting license.  I always start at the new acquisition shelves to see what interesting finds I can score.  

 Sometimes I get really lucky and find a new book that I've just read a good review of, like this one.  Usually, these books are on hold by people who really know how to use the library system.  But sometimes one escapes and is just sitting there on the shelf waiting to be picked up. 

 "I Remember Nothing" is a quick, fun read. Nora Ephron's short essays are like talking to a friend or neighbor (or reading a favorite blog) -- if your friend or blogging buddy just happens to be an academy award nominated film writer and director of (just for a few examples) "When Harry Met Sally",  "Silkwood", and "Julie and Julia."  This collection of stories and her last one "I Feel Bad About My Neck" make you realize how much women (of a "certain age" anyway) have in common --  no matter how different our lives.    And Nora Ephron makes you laugh about it all.    

  Sometimes I find a new book by a favorite author.  

I love Alexander McCall Smith's "Ladies Detective Agency" series.  (Is there anyone in the world who doesn't?)  And I enjoy his books centered on Isabel Dalhousie too, although not quite as much.  Another series he writes, the 44 Scotland Street series, I have found utterly incomprehensible.   

So I wondered about "Corduroy Mansions" (the Library is a great way to sample books you're not sure of).   I liked this book right away and, even before I finished it, guessed it would be the first of a new series.  A peek at Amazon confirmed it -- the second book will come out next month.  

"Corduroy Mansions" is the name of the London condo building where most of the characters live.  And there are a bucket-load of characters.  But they're easy to keep track of -- I got to know them in the same way I get to know my real-life neighbors.  You might not remember everybody's name right away but you begin to know them gradually, know when they go to work or take a walk, and who they hang out with and pretty soon you know how they are connected to each other.   At the end of the book, I wanted to know more about most of the people who seemed like neighbors while I was reading it.  So of course there must be a follow-up book.  

It is amazing that this prolific author can keep all these balls in the air.  Several series already and now this one, with its many recurring characters.  I wonder what it would be like to know someone with all these people bounding around in his head?

 

What I'm reading now 

 

READING CHALLENGES 2011

 Click here to see what's on my current reading list.

Because I enjoyed "Support Your Local LIbrary" so much last year, I am joining two additional book challenges in 2011. 

Margot, of Joyfully Retired is hosting the Foodies Reading Throwdown.  I love to eat food, read about food, and, on most days, even cook food!  So I'm joining her challenge at the "Bon Vivant" level.  I think I can read at least 5 books about food (this includes cookbooks, memoirs, non-fiction, anything food-related).   

Right now, I'm reading "Garlic and Sapphires", the third of Ruth Reichl's series of memoirs.  You don't have to be a foodie to enjoy Ruth's books, especially if you enjoy reading about lives that are different from your own, related with a touch humor.

But start with "Tender at the Bone", her first one. It's about Ruth's unique childhood growing up as part of a restaurant family in New York City.   It seemed to me that her early life almost predestined her for a future as a top-rated restaurant reviewer and critic.  "Garlic..." begins when she gets the plum job of restaurant critic at the New York Times. 

I've enjoyed following her interesting life and reading about her love of good food (whether at New York's fine restaurants or her own cooking). This one even has recipes.

 

I'm reading this book on my Kindle and so it will also work for the E-Book Reading challenge -- the third one I'm joining.  This one is sponsored by The Lady-Bug Reads.   Because it was fun keeping track of my books on the Library Challenge last year, I am excited for this nudge to keep track of my Kindle reading.  I think it will be easy to meet a goal of 25 E-books.

For me (and I think for most readers who join them), these challenges are  not at all about out-reading the other participants, but more about learning to write about books and, for me at least, helping me to remember what I've read. 

Thank you to the Hosts of all three reading challenges.  I look forward to checking out their links to see what other participants are reading.  And, although this isn't primarily a book blog, I do want to share a few of my own favorite reads this year. 

  

TIME TO READ

This is a post I had almost ready before we left Florida for our summer roadtrip -- in case I ran out of things to post as we traveled.  (Instead, we visited so many interesting places that I couldn't keep up.  There are still places I want to remember in future flashback posts.)

The picture here is from the roadtrip though. The clock stands on the sidewalk outside Bunch of Grapes, a charming bookstore in the village of Vineyard Haven on Martha's Vineyard.

LIBRARY CHALLENGE UPDATE #3 

 Thanks to the branch library near our Florida canal cottage, I've read 39 library books this year.  (Thirty-nine?  I really want to cheat and round that up to 40 -- like cheating yourself at solitaire, because who really cares -- but still!)  We'll be back to Fort Myers in late Fall though and I should surely be able to complete my new self-challenge to read 50 library books during 2010.

While we have had the privilege of a Public LIbrary, I've tried really hard not to check out "beach reads"  because that's what I usually find when we travel.  (There's usually a book trade shelf or two at RV Parks.  And with the small RV we'll be traveling in this time there will be even less room to carry extra books.)

So my personal challenge has been to read at least a book a month that I've heard about, know something about, but have never actually read.  It's amazing to me how many of those there are.  (There are a lot of gaps -- too much time spent on too many silly beach reads!) 

This month I read "My Antonia" by Willa Cather.  I know a little about this book -- have even heard it parodied on "Prairie Home Companion."  Because of that, I thought maybe I'd find the book silly or trite.  But I enjoyed it.

 The book was written in 1918  and even then was a look back on a time that had vanished.  It's written as a reminiscence by Jim Burden, a professor at an Eastern college who has gone back to visit the Nebraska prairie where he grew up living with his grandparents, who were established land-owners.  He wonders about what happened to his neighbor Antonia, the eldest daughter of the Schimerdas, a family of recent immigrants, who lived a very hard life.  Antonia's bravery in difficult circumstances and her shining character have stayed with him for all these years.   Her story represents the struggles of immigrant famillies in the new world.

The story is character driven and because it is written as a reminiscence, it moves slowly.   I didn't mind that -- the slow pace helped me to visualize the endless prairie and slow moving days that the characters experienced.  

In our travels, we've driven miles and miles along the midwest prairies -- and I think that, even today, living in these isolated places might drive me wild.

This book made me admire even more those people who could do it.  These are characters I won't forget. 

There are two other books in what is called Willa Cather's prairie trilogy and those other two will go on my TBR list.

THE ONE WHERE I PRETEND TO BE A BOOK BLOGGER

This is the occasional post where I pretend to be a book blogger and write about a lifelong hobby -- I can't remember a time when I didn't have something at hand to read. 

Blogging makes it easy to keep track of what I've read (something I've wanted to do for a long time, but never seemed to find a good method).  Typepad (our blog host) has a cool feature that allows users to create a booklist by typing in its ISBN number; the link to Amazon pops up, with the illustration.  The typelist even allows me to write notes and rate my reads -- one to five stars.   Pretending to be a book critic -- fun!  

Here's a recent read that I gave five stars.  I chose it because our daughter recently mentioned that this has been one of her iconic favorites since the first time she read it in school -- a book she still re-reads from time to time.  I didn't know that!  And although I already knew a lot about the book -- the author and setting -- even the name of the heroine --  I'd never actually read it.  I loved the writing style and immersing myself in this other world, but one with a universal theme.   

(I was really surprised to learn this was an Oprah Book Club choice; I don't follow O at all, but I thought her Club choices were all new books.)

Because I enjoyed "The Good Earth" so much, my new goal is to try to read at least one book every month that I've heard about, know something about, but have never actually read.    Self-education!  You're never too old.

We've been using the Fort Myers Library since we got here -- we are card-carrying citizens!  And this month, I surpassed the goal I set when I joined the "Support Your Local Library Challenge" in January.  I said I'd read 25 Library books this year.  So I'm raising that bar to 50, maybe more.  Bill likes to read as much as I do (and he's faster).  So with at least eight books every couple of weeks (we seldom read the same books) we save big bucks.  We love libraries.    

It's easy to slip into a perpetual "Beach Reads" mode.  When we're traveling,  mysteries and adventure stories are easy to pick up in RV Park libraries and used book stores.  And then, when we get to a spot where we can take advantage of the local library, I sometimes forget to get out of that mode.   

The REAL book blogs I read help to remind me to broaden my horizons.   Here are links to a couple of my favorites, where you can read actual reviews and get suggestions to lengthen your own To-Be-Read lists.  Use the Library! 

JOYFULLY RETIRED 

 AT HOME WITH BOOKS. 

The Support Your Library Challenge is here:

LINK TO THE LIBRARY CHALLENGE (at Home Girl's Book Club) 

 

LIBRARY CHALLENGE (non)Update

FOR WATERY WEDNESDAY this foggy waterfront from an April boat trip. 

 

 Last month  -- on an overcast Saturday morning -- we went to a boat club lunch at Doc Ford's on Fort Myers Beach.  It is one of a couple of restaurants owned by Randy Wayne White, a local author whose best-selling adventure novels feature Doc Ford, for whom he has named his bar and grills.  Doc Ford (the character) is a marine biologist and adventurer who works out of a lab that White has set on Sanibel Island.  Randy Wayne White (the author) really lives on Sannibel and his first restaurant is there. 

Bill really enjoys these books and when he's reading one, he usually shares some of the passages that have great descriptions of this area. 

I love place-oriented novels, especially when they're about somewhere we've stayed, so I really wanted to like this series -- and I really tried, but I just couldn't get into the adventure. 

And it would have made such a great lead-in to an update post on my Library Challenge.  What can I say?  I'm just a book wimp.   

I like my mysteries and adventures on the cozy side like this one  -- where nobody anyone cares about ever gets killed.  And look!  This reprint even has a pink cover.  Yup, a real girly murder mystery. THE BODY IN THE LIBRARY

 (There is an Agatha Christie challenge going on at some of the Book Blogs I read.  I'm not taking part, but I was happy to be reminded of Dame Agatha and  it is fun to read some of these books that I either missed or have forgotten.)

But for those with more adventurous tastes in reading, the Doc Ford series would be a good one -- and you'd get all those great descriptions and history of this part of Florida.  Below are a couple of framed blow-up posters of the series book covers.  They were hanging on the wall behind the bar. 

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Here's the Amazon link to all of the Doc Ford Books:DOC FORD NOVELS CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER

LIBRARY CHALLENGE UPDATE

I'm not really a book blogger, but I read them on the Internet.   As a result, my To-Be-Read list has grown and grown. On this book blog, I just read:  "Essentially, people could totally stop writing books for the rest of my life and I'd still never read everything I want to read."  For sure, I could have written that!    There is so much I want to read and mean to read someday, but new books keep turning up.  So it's a never-ending challenge but one to enjoy along the way!

 

 

That blogger highlighted in blue above there is also the host of the "2010 Support Your Local Library Challenge".  I joined the challenge at the 25 library book level.

We went to our nearby branch of the Ft. Myers library this week, signed up for our card, and checked out our first stack of books.  So now seems like a good time to do an update on this challenge.   Originally, I thought I'd list the books on this sidebar, but that began to get too bulky, so I took the list off-line. (It's on Typepad, just not published.)   I like keeping a list though  -- and just started another of favorite not from the library books.  (Apparently I have a slight case of OCD, but I'm loving every minute of it!) 

I read eight library books between the first of the year and February 9, when we hit the road, leaving behind our access to Fern Ridge Library (that's it in the picture above).  The economics of using the Library is readily apparent, since Bill read probably one-and-a-half times the books I did! We have differe-nt tastes in reading and only one book that I read was also on his list.  So that would add up -- even at used boook prices - and we might never have found the best ones in a used book store.  In fact, we decided to support our local library in another way and we made a small contribution to the Fern Ridge Friends of the Library (not nearly equal to what the books we read while we were there would have cost). 

Here are the highlights from the January/February list.  The blue links will take you to the AMAZON page for each book, where of course you can read real reviews.  

SOUTH OF BROAD.   This is the book we both read. We'd just seen a review of this book when I spotted and snagged it off the new arrivals shelf.   Pat Conroy is a wonderful writer and we both enjoyed this book a lot.  It is set in the 1960s, an era we remember.  Some of it was probably a little unrealistic for the time -- but it is a novel after all!  And while we have read all of Conroy's novels in the past, we've only  recently visited South Carolina for the first time.  (Our granddaughter and g-s-i-l live there now.) And so we enjoyed even more the sense of place that Conroy is so good at.  Even though we're sort of gypsies at heart, we're both fascinated by people who love their own part of the world.

 LIT  I read Mary Karr's first memoir "The LIar's Club" and was blown away.  Her second one was interesting and fun to read.   This one -- not so much.  I think she's about memoired out. 

DON'T LETS GO TO THE DOGS TONIGHT.  I read a review of this memoir on Margot's blog which you can find by clicking on the blue here:  JOYFULLY RETIRED.   Margot's was one of the first book blogs I found somehow in wandering around the Internet, so all of this is really her fault!  Thank you Margot (sincerely)!

I would never have heard of this book nor its author had it not been for Margot's review and I loved it.  It's a very different look at growing up in Africa.    Go get it at your library!

LET THE GREAT WORLD SPIN.  This book had been on my TBR list for such a long time I didn't even remember what I'd heard about it or where the recommendation came from.  But I'm glad I looked for it because it is the best novel I've read in a long time and definitely my top recommendation on this list.  Read the first Amazon review -- apparently the book was one of its top 2009 books -- and go check it out (one way or another).    

I also read THE LOST ART OF GRATITUDE  by Alexander McCall Smith -- part of the Sunday Philosophers Club Series (Isabel Dalhousie).  Always satisfying reads, although I don't love this series as much as I do his Ladies Detective Club.  

The rest of the eight were pretty much forgettable -- what I call girl-mysteries (cozies or accidental detective series -- hardly any violence except to people who really deserve it.).  Sometimes I need those kind of books, especially after I finish a better one -- that I'm not ready to let go of yet by focusing on another good book. And at least by listing them, I'll be less likely to pick up the same ones again Although it really wouldn't matter because "forgettable" is the operative word for this genre.  Those are also the kind of books I tend to read when we're on the road -- so no more of them for a while now I hope!

Well, we definitely had a couple of down-time months at the end of our stay at Fern Ridge, so we might not read quite as many books each month now that we're here at Upriver, where we're once again busier and more active.  But no matter what else is going on, I don't think either of us has ever passed a day without reading at least a little bit, so I'll be working on that Challenge and saving book money for some other fun purpose!   It's good to be card-carrying citizens again.  

SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL LIBRARY CHALLENGE

THIS IS A RE-RUN of a post I did last year about libraries.  I'm reposting it for SUNDAY FAVORITES and because I have decided to join the SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL LIBRARY CHALLENGE.  The idea is to challenge yourself to read a certain number of books from your local library.   I learned about the challenge from these book blogs:   JOYFULLY RETIRED  and AT HOME WITH BOOKS.

We both love to read and I get good ideas for my reading list from these great book blogs and others. 

I'm sure I can read at least 25 Library Books this year. (Hopefully they will be from at least two different public libraries -- one on each Coast.)   There's a list on the sidebar.   I'm not sure how that will work (if it starts to be too bulky, I'll come back here and change this post).  But it seems like a good way to keep track of what I've read -- something I have always wanted to do.  Keeping up the list will be my personal challenge.  Of course, this list will only be those borrowed from Public Libraries, not ones I am given, already own, borrow, pick up from assorted RV Park bookshelves, or (rarely) buy. But it's a start.

HERE IS THE ORIGINAL POST from OCTOBER 2008:

 

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We’ve always loved using public libraries but thought we’d have to give them up when we sold our Springfield home to travel full time.   But we’ve been pleasantly surprised to get a visitors card in several of the places where we’ve stayed a few months.  You’d kind of think that people who could pull up their house and leave at any time would be poor risks for borrowing books, but instead we have found that Winter visitors are welcome to take out a card. There's a small fee ($8 to $10 so far) and all they ask is an RV Park address and our cell phone number.

It’s great to save money by not having to buy books for a few months.  But besides that, I like the ambience of a library.  I like to look at books and imagine having time to read them all.   

When we visited my sister and brother-in-law in Seattle recently, we toured  the amazing Seattle Central Library which opened in 2004.  The architect was Rem Koolhaas.  The print guide to the library is called "Cool House", so now we won't forget the name of that architect. 

I wondered if a building this massive and modern would even feel like a library.  It really does because there are lots of small and friendly spaces within the big one.    Although the map room alone (for example) is as big as some of the small libraries we’ve used, the whole building has been designed for readers.  There’s a café inside, a large but cozy reading area called the living room, and tables and chairs in every section. 

We learned that Koolhaus chose the art work and furniture as part of the design.  The different levels are built as ramps, similar to a parking garage, with the shelves arranged crosswise and leveled.  The Dewey Decimal System numbers are incorporated into large blocks on the floor, so it is easy to find the section you want.  My sister found a book of Kentucky history that mentioned one of our great-uncles.  (He fought a duel over politics – but apparently both parties were poor shots and nobody was hurt!)

The whole library is e-wired and there are tons of computers everywhere for public use. 

This is a view from a top floor window.  You can see the Amtrak Station Tower. 

The library was only a small part of our most excellent personally led tour of the wonders of downtown Seattle.  Our guides had to go back to work on Monday.  It was raining and we had some time before our train so we hung out there for a while reading magazines, drinking lattes and exploring the stacks.   If I lived in Seattle I’d be there a couple of times a week.  Maybe more often during the rainy season!

But while we’ve stayed on the lake this summer, Cyndi and Jeff have let us piggyback onto their family card at the Fern Ridge Library here in Veneta (pictured at left).    It’s considerably smaller, but there are, after all, considerably fewer people here than in Seattle.   We have borrowed great books and the staff is so friendly.  No lattes though!    

This library also gets a lot of use – when I stopped by one afternoon, the school bus let about ten high school kids out right in front of the building.  Before I left, they were on the computers doing their homework or quietly searching the stacks.  I love that libraries are a welcoming place for every age. 

No matter what size it is, a library is a great community resource and I am always happy when we get to use one again.

   

 

LIBRARIES

I’ve always loved using public libraries but thought we’d have to give them up when we sold our Springfield home to travel full time.   But we’ve been pleasantly surprised to get a visitors card in several of the places where we’ve stayed a few months.  You’d kind of think that people who could pull up their house and leave at any time would be poor risks for borrowing books, but instead we have found that Winter visitors are welcome to take out a card. There's a small fee ($8 to $10 so far) and all they ask is an RV Park address and our cell phone number.

It’s great to save money by not having to buy books for a few months.  But besides that, I like the ambience of a library.  I like to look at books and imagine having time to read them all.   

When we visited my sister and brother-in-law in Seattle recently, we toured  the amazing Seattle Central Library which opened in 2004.  The architect was Rem Koolhaas.  The print guide to the library is called "Cool House", so now we won't forget the name of that architect. 

I wondered if a building this massive and modern would even feel like a library.  It really does because there are lots of small and friendly spaces within the big one.    Although the map room alone (for example) is as big as some of the small libraries we’ve used, the whole building has been designed for readers.  There’s a café inside, a large but cozy reading area called the living room, and tables and chairs in every section. 

We learned that Koolhaus chose the art work and furniture as part of the design.  The different levels are built as ramps, similar to a parking garage, with the shelves arranged crosswise and leveled.  The Dewey Decimal System numbers are incorporated into large blocks on the floor, so it is easy to find the section you want.  My sister found a book of Kentucky history that mentioned one of our great-uncles.  (He fought a duel over politics – but apparently both parties were poor shots and nobody was hurt!)

The whole library is e-wired and there are tons of computers everywhere for public use. 

This is a view from a top floor window.  You can see the Amtrak Station Tower. 

The library was only a small part of our most excellent personally led tour of the wonders of downtown Seattle.  Our guides had to go back to work on Monday.  It was raining and we had some time before our train so we hung out there for a while reading magazines, drinking lattes and exploring the stacks.   If I lived in Seattle I’d be there a couple of times a week.  Maybe more often during the rainy season!

But while we’ve stayed on the lake this summer, Cyndi and Jeff have let us piggyback onto their family card at the Fern Ridge Library here in Veneta (pictured at left).    It’s considerably smaller, but there are, after all, considerably fewer people here than in Seattle.   We have borrowed great books and the staff is so friendly.  No lattes though!    This library also gets a lot of use – when I stopped by one afternoon the school bus let about ten high school kids out right in front of the building.  Before I left, they were on the computers doing their homework or quietly searching the stacks.  I love that libraries are a welcoming place for every age. 

No matter what size it is, a library is a great community resource and I am always happy when we get to use one again.

   

TRAVEL -- REAL AND FICTIONAL

JA Jance writes an enjoyable mystery series that's set in Cochise County.  Her main character, Joanna Brady, is the County sheriff.   Jance's descriptions of the country-side (and the passages about the length of time the officers spend in their cars) are spot-on.  The author lives in Tucson and in Seattle (where she has set another mystery series).  But she grew up in Cochise County and obviously knows and loves the area.  One day when we were driving around looking for the post office we happened on the sheriff's office complex at the outskirts of Bisbee.  You almost expected to see Sheriff Brady and her deputies.  We wondered what the real-life officers think about their fictional counterparts.  So this got me to thinking about other places we've been where favorite books are set. 

This is the "Little House on the Prairie" in DeSmet, South Dakota.  In September, 2004, we actually drove quite a few  miles out of our way to stay in this little town, where there is the church that the Ingalls family attended and a little museum dedicated to Laura Ingalls Wilder and her books.  It was a pleasant little town and a nice drive out to "Laura's Living Prairie" the homestead claim where the family lived.   (This was the second place the family homesteaded -- maybe the last five or six books).  Bill didn't mind the trip and enjoyed looking at the old home and farm tools -- but it would have been a good place to be with somebody else who remembered reading about and loving the family; the Little House series really is kind of a a girl-thing.

Later on that same Fall -- across a few states and after several other interesting stops-- we stayed at the Mark Twain Caves RV Park in Hannibal, Missouri.  The park is located near the cave that Mark Twain is said to have visited and written into his story (the Becky Thatcher cave).  From Old Town Hannibal, we took the Mark Twain River Boat Excursion for beautiful views and an overview of river history from the guide.  The next day we toured Sam Clemons' boyhood home and a museum in the old Hannibal drugstore.   In the visitor center, we bought new copies of Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer to re-read and then to give away, because it had been such a long time since we'd read those wonderful books. 

Bill really likes the Dave Robicheaux series by James Lee Burke -- those are set in the Bayou country of Louisiana, an area which we both love. 

Pre-retirement, we spent quite a bit of camping time in Steinbeck country in California -- and he's one of our favorite authors still.   

It's fun to see places that you've only read about and interesting to realize that the fiction we enjoy most is regional -- we get travel books and good stories all in one that way.

And then, of course, there was our trip to England.  Here's where there are people who plan all their travels and recreational time around their favorite authors.  We just stumbled across these places by accident.  We saw where Jane Austen lived in Bath.  And a whole lot of places where Charles Dickens hung out and wrote.  The Trafalgar Tavern here is one of them.  And then there was that other guy, William, whats-his-name ... oh, Shakespeare!   

So, that's the end of the post because I've worked up from books we read now to books we read in the past, to books we re-read, to books we should read someday, if only we live long enough!

OUR OWN LIBRARY

One thing we miss as full-time RVers is regular access to a good public library.   When we had our stick-house, the Springfield Oregon public library was a regular hangout.  We're not the only RVers who like to read.  The big resorts all have at least a small lending library.  Voyager, here in Tucson, has a pretty nice one.  Even the smallest over-night stop parks almost always have some kind of book-trading spot. And, of course, there are good used-book stores in any city.  We don't like to pay new-book prices, because we have to get rid of the books as soon as we've read them.  Bookshelf space is limited in any rolling home.

But we've also discovered a great way to pick up good used books and contribute a little bit to the public library in the community where we're staying.  Friends of the Library Book Sales are great.  They sell withdrawn library books and donated materials.  We've gone to these sales in San Diego, Louisville, Foley and now Tucson.   This one was huge and it was hard to restrain ourselves.  The Pima County Friends have a giant warehouse, from which they conduct several sales a year and in between sell on the Internet.  They've given over five million dollars to the Library and community.

We contributed only twenty-one bucks to the cause.  And for that we got enough to fill up all of our available book shelves.  Here's our dining table stacked two-deep with good books waiting to be put away.  Such a deal.  We'll have reading material for quite a while down the road.

After we've read our books, especially the hardbacks, which are heavy, we often used this website when we give them away:  http://www.bookcrossing.com

The premise of Bookcrossing is that you register your books and release them (into the wild); finders can let you know (anonymously) when and where they find your released book.  It's fun for us, as travelers, to put our already-read books off on their own journey around the country and interesting when we get feedback about where they are found.