Catching Up with Books

Time does fly, although I may also use the heat as an excuse for neglecting my updates. At least I'm now keeping a running list of what I've read so it's not quite as difficult coming up with titles and authors.

I first became aware of David Ignatius from watching Chris Matthews' roundtable show on Sunday nights and quite frankly, found him attractive (liked his views, too). So when it was announced on one of the shows that he had a new book coming out, I looked into it. Body of Lies is a gripping spy yarn set in the war-torn Middle East and explains the political and cultural landscape of the area better than any State Department position paper. It centers around CIA agent Roger Ferris, double blinds, and has enough action in it to leave the reader breathless. Ridley Scott & Warner Brothers have optioned the book and rumor has it that Russell Crowe will be starring. Almost sounds too good to be true. But read the book first!

Our July book discussion group read The Virgin of Small Plains by Nancy Pickard. The book was nominated for an Edgar Award Finalist and has just been named one of the 2007 Kansas Notable Books. I loved the book when I first read it a year ago and it was just as good the second time around. Of course, it doesn't hurt that Ms. Pickard spoke at our library last year and is one of the nicest, most gracious writers I've met. Definitely put this on your must read list if you haven't already.

Lee Charles Kelley's latest entry in his dog training series is Like a Dog With a Bone. Yes, I enjoyed it but did it live up to the expectations of his earlier books? I'm not so sure. Still, it was a fast read with plenty of excitement. Maybe I just wanted more dogs.

Country Lovers by Rebecca Shaw was also a bit of a letdown. Her earlier two books in the series were enjoyable antidotes to yearning for English village life but this one was more formulaic and I didn't find myself getting involved with the plots. Maybe the heat was getting to me by the time I picked it up and the crankiness was setting in.

Still, two really good books out of four isn't a bad average. And one I don't think I'll find in August.

Good Bye Judy!

Although I've sent this most recent "@ the Library" column to the newspaper three times now, they haven't been inclined to run it. So here it is (minus the new book lists--although I have those posted inside the library):

Change is not an easy thing for me to accept. I get very comfortable with the familiar and don’t want to get out of that groove. So when my longest-tenured employee, Judy Hardin, announced to me several months ago that she would be moving this summer, I was stunned, bereft, dazed—pick any emotion and I probably experienced it. Yes, I felt happy that a great opportunity opened up for them that would get them closer to their North Carolina roots, but saddened by the loss we will feel in the reference department. For the past ten years, Judy has been the rock I could count on—always willing to come in when I called, taking on whatever task I threw at her, and putting up with my idiosyncratic ways with nary a negative word (though I suspect Russell heard many stories that began, “you won’t believe what she did today!”) I’ve always referred to Judy as our Southern belle (although I don’t think she really cared for the moniker) so today’s column is in her honor as I celebrate North Carolina in books.

Jan Karon may not have put North Carolina on the literary map but she has certainly advertised the state with her Mitford series. Who doesn’t want to visit after reading about Father Tim, Cynthia, Dooley, and the various and sundry residents of the small mountain burg? In fact, Mitford (based on the very real town of Blowing Rock, NC) has become a cottage industry for Ms. Karon. And for those of you who were afraid they had heard the last about Father Tim, rest assured that come October you will be able to read Home to Holly Springs: the First of the Father Tim Novels. Did you really think she’d stop writing?

Joan Medlicott’s Covington series is also set in the Tarheel state and follows the lives of three senior women who share a home (think a gentler “Golden Girls”). Although not as well known as Karon’s series, the Covington ladies have attracted a following who are always looking for the next book (Unexpected Family, the seventh in the series, has just hit the bookshelves).

Miss Julia, the creation of author Ann B. Ross, is more the tart-tongued, tough ol’ bird type of senior citizen who usually has a heart of gold. Perhaps Miss Julia does, but one must look long and hard to find it! Actually, she shows her good side by taking in her late husband’s mistress and their child and making them her family and the change in her lifestyle makes for some interesting stories.

Other authors from NC are Fred Chappell, Clyde Edgerton, Kaye Gibbons, Margaret Maron, Nicholas Sparks, Phyllis Whitney, and Thomas Wolfe, all who can be found on the library’s shelves.

And lest I neglect Judy’s soon-to-be-home state of Alabama, check out one of its authors: Fannie Flagg, Anne George, WEB Griffin, Homer Hickam, Richard North Patterson, and, of course, Harper Lee.

We will not be without a Tarheel influence as one of our newer employees, JP Sloop, hails from the state (he’s filling the shoes of Seth White, who is now in Taiwan teaching English to kindergartners). Wes Hinman has moved upstairs from the circulation department to become our new Judy—and I’m sure he’ll be thrilled if you call him that! But Judy’s departure leaves a void not only at the library but in my—and other’s—life as well. She knows (or should) that she is held in high esteem by all of her former co-workers and she will be missed very much. And she better be thinking of us while she’s walking along the beach at Mobile!