Did You Hear Them?

I don’t know how long this link will last, but here is a video clip from the Waterbury Republican-American, today’s edition (April 21st) of CDN singing at the library’s benefit concert this past Sunday, April 20th.

http://www.rep-am.com/multimedia/videos/doc480bfa4a3a6bd188445878.txt

April’s Book Club

So this Friday evening, April 25th, we will be discussing The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri.

February’s Book Club

On Friday, February 29th, we will be discussing Gabriel García Márquez’s Love in the Time of Cholera (see post below). And we did decide what we’d be discussing in March, but do you think I remember?

Son of a Witch

I’m listening to an audiobook of Gregory Maguire’s Son of a Witch, sort of a sequel to Wicked (which I haven’t read yet), on which the musical is based. He himself narrates it. I can’t recommend him as a narrator, but I’ll excuse him because I love his writing.

This starts where Wicked ends, apparently—when the witch dies. (In case you haven’t read or seen Wicked, it’s a riff on The Wizard of Oz.) Full of unexpected twists in language, character, and plot, this adult novel blends satisfyingly complex vocabulary and cultural references with the commonest of street talk. It also blends Maguire’s wild inventions with not-very-veiled references to current events.

I also loved the other book of his that I’ve read—Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister. He reimagines the story of Cinderella, placing the characters in 17th-century Holland, and turning everything upside down.

Book Club, January 2008

I keep forgetting to post the book club meetings here. Well, the next one is tomorrow night (Friday, January 11). We’ll be discussing The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, a book that makes me feel as if I were in school again—in a good way.

In case you’ve forgotten how it works (if you’re like me), we alternate every month between classics* and current books. We decide two months ahead of time which book we’ll read, to make it easier for the librarian to get copies for us. We decide at each meeting what the date will be for the next meeting (always on a Friday night, except for the Christmas party, which is on a Saturday night in December) and where we’ll meet. In December, the meeting and book discussion are replaced by the Christmas party, and in the summer we slow down, meeting only once in July/August.

For information on book club and where it is this time, please call the library at 482-8806.

The book we’ll discuss next time (which we decided last time—confusing, isn’t it?) is Love in the Time of Cholera, by Gabriel García Márquez (1985).

*We’ve expanded the category of “classics” to include biography and nonfiction, when we feel like it.

I've Come Late to the Philippa Gregory Show

I thought I’d made a new discovery in The Boleyn Inheritance, Philippa Gregory’s historical fiction about Henry VIII’s fourth and fifth wives. Unlike some other efforts I can think of, this is not just a costumed veneer to disguise steamy sex (or a jockstrap ripper, as my mother said once), but what seems like an honest attempt to make history come alive (okay, with some incidental steamy sex).

Of course now that I look at the cover (I listened to it, so I didn’t get the full physical impact of the book), it does look more like a romance than anything else; I can see why I've skipped over this author before, completely unaware.

It turns out that Ms. Gregory is practically an industry already (philippagregory.com), and The Boleyn Inheritance is just the latest in a long line of novels about English history. A reliable source in the book club says that it’s not even her best. I’ll let you know when I read another one. And apparently a movie based on an earlier novel, The Other Boleyn Girl, is coming out in February.

It used to be that all I knew about Henry’s wives was “divorced, beheaded, died; divorced, beheaded, survived.” Whether this book is on target or not (and it seems as though she intends it to be), I’ve got more of an interest in Anne of Cleves and Kathryn Howard, and an urge to read more.

Back to Everyday Life

I’m reading a relatively new Leslie Glass. I have fond memories of her books about April Woo and Mike Sanchez, police procedurals with heavy doses of humor, mostly about April’s Chinese parents and their extreme behavior. Her mother, Skinny Dragon, calls her Worm Daughter, just the tip of the iceberg of verbal abuse.

This one, A Clean Kill (2005), was only available in paperback; I’m not sure it was ever in hardcover. It is a decent police procedural (a quote on the back of the book calls Glass “Lady McBain”), but the humor has all but disappeared. Go back to her first ones. They should still be at the library.

In book club news, the next meeting is scheduled for Friday, January 11th, and we’ll be discussing The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson. It’s a quick read (only three CDs’ worth of an audiobook)--join us!

Thanks Again!

We had a good crowd on Friday night, with perfect weather, and we raised almost $2500 for the library. A few pictures are below; more are at the library website.

This Friday, November 30th

It’s that time of year again, no matter how hard you try to ignore it. And we haven’t even hit December yet.

The Bakerville Library’s big winter fundraiser is this Friday evening. The fun starts at 7 pm. Bring your mittens and your flashlights to the bonfire, carol sing, and tree lighting across the street from the library, in Neal Yates’s yard. Refreshments will be available.

Also starting at 7, Mrs. Claus will be receiving visitors in the old firehouse next to the library. We’ll have singing and crafts for kids there, also.

The Friends were hard at work again Monday night, setting up the auction. Come in and look around, and start bidding! You can bid any time during library open hours this week. The auction will end on Friday night at 9 pm.

This year’s special raffle prize, donated by the Friends, is a DVD player.

If you haven’t dropped off your auction donation, please do it as soon as possible. (It’s late, but never too late.)

If you’ve never been to the Bakerville Library, this is your chance to hang out in this charming, historic building in a relaxed, fun atmosphere!

Here’s a preview of some of what you’ll find. There are also pictures of the Friends, but they protested.

We learned that this is called a candlescape. Who knew?



Deb Reardon holds a doll called Crystal.


This is a REALLY BIG wreath in real life.


What else? I’ve just heard that a Flea ukulele (made right here in New Hartford) has been dropped off. And would you like to go for a sail on West Hill Lake next summer? Come and bid on that!

Further Quick Update

The “friend” concept (see yesterday’s post, below) gets a little stretched, here. This is Nora Ephron, after all. She writes (and does other things for) movies. She’s friends with Rosie O’Donnell and knew Craig Claiborne. She lived in a much tonier section of the Upper West Side of Manhattan than I did.

Until I realized how much out of my league she was, though, I listened with a “time to tell my friend to quit whining” attitude. She writes about things that are common to most women over, say, 40—common enough that my reaction is, What else is new?—and with not enough exaggeration to be really funny. I confess I fast-forwarded through much of the Purse essay. I listened to most of the New York apartment in the 1980s essay thinking that I could have written it, until I came to the end. It was like watching all of “When Harry Met Sally” just for Meg Ryan’s fake orgasm in the deli—that one scene makes the whole movie worthwhile.

So I’ll keep listening.

Quick Update

I’m listening to I Feel Bad About My Neck by Nora Ephron. I was pre-primed to enjoy this one.

She wrote “When Harry Met Sally,” for one thing. And another movie I saw a long time ago and enjoyed.*

For another, she correctly titled it I Feel Bad..., not I Feel Badly..., which would have disqualified it immediately for my listening.

For yet another, Ms. Ephron herself narrates it, and has a great New York voice. She sounds like about a hundred people I used to know and like in New York.

And the first disk is all scratched and full of skips (don’t worry, I’ll do something about that before I return it), so a lot of people must have listened already.

And I am liking it, so far.

But here’s the weird thing: she doesn’t read it very well. Ms. Ephron reads as though she doesn’t know what’s coming next, and emphasizes words unexpectedly and ineffectively. Maybe she’s just not a great reader out loud, or maybe she’s self-conscious about reading her own prose, or maybe she’s self-conscious about her neck confessions.

I’m going to finish it and enjoy it, anyway. I’m going to pretend I know her and like her (I suspect I would), and listen to a friend’s effort at narration just because she’s my friend. (Yes, I do have a life.)

I’ll let you know how it goes.


*Just looked it up: “Heartburn.” Also “Sleepless in Seattle,” and “You’ve Got Mail.” And other famous ones, but these are the ones I’ve seen. I’m limited.

Another Really Good Audiobook

I was at the library yesterday and noticed that they have a copy of Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden. I don't remember who the narrator was, but it looks like the same version I listened to several years ago, and you should run right into the library and borrow it. The text, as I'm sure you all know by now, is compelling (Arthur Golden must have been a woman in a previous life), and the narrator complements it perfectly.

In the meantime, I have resorted to The Lord of the Rings again.

I Win

I'm happy to report that at the next book club meeting (Friday, October 19) we'll be discussing Copies in Seconds. As you know, I'm always eager to recommend this book, and the book club members finally took the bait.

We've heard from one member who has already finished the book that she enjoyed it. I'm re-reading it now, and luckily it lives up to my memory.

In other news, some of you may know that I was the only book club member who didn't enjoy Water for Elephants (see post below). I did force myself to finish it, however, even after the discussion, and it didn't get any better for me. The author definitely did a lot of research into circus life in the '30s, but for me that alone didn't translate into an entertaining book.

On the other hand, I did enjoy the selection before that, Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, probably because there wasn't a single expected sentence in that book.

Anyway, I just finished a lovely palate cleanser after the elephant debacle: Howards End by E.M. Forster. I was probably the only one left on the planet who hadn't read that book yet, so I was lucky to find an audio version (Recorded Books) at the library with a very good narrator. An older-sounding man with a great British accent (John Franklyn-Robbins), he struck the right balance between straight narration, imitation of character voices, and a very subtle emphasis on the funny parts. Run to the library now and pick this up before it goes back to Middletown.

World’s Cutest Event

This Saturday, August 4th, come to the Bakerville Library’s annual summer fundraiser, the Bakerville Marketplace and Used Book Sale.

The Marketplace runs from 9 am to 2 pm. Community members of all ages are welcome to participate. Attractions include plants & herbs, crafts, face painting, booths of all kinds. A teacup auction benefits the library. Auction prizes include gift certificates for area restaurants and businesses, gifts and craft items, and several grand prizes, including an iPod shuffle.

The Used Book Sale will be held from 9 am to 3 pm (EARLY BIRD 8:30 am; admission $7, for early bird only). We usually have around 5,000 books, conveniently categorized for your browsing pleasure.

Summer Newsletter Available

Here’s a pdf of the newsletter that just came in your mail last week (if you live in New Hartford), and that’s available now at the Bakerville Library.