Ah, Winter—the cozy season for curling up with a good book to read, or to re-read. I’ve been doing a lot of the latter, not finding anything new as compelling as old favorites. I’ve done my annual re-read of A Christmas Carol, which thrills me with its long sentences and descriptions of food. And while the movie is great (I prefer the George C. Scott version), it can’t replicate the clever language, such as Dickens talking about why the expression is dead as a door nail, rather than dead as a coffin nail. I remember not knowing what “the organ of benevolence” meant when I first read the novella as an elementary school child. I still have my paperback Scholastic Star Edition, Copyright 1962, for which I paid 50 cents.
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One of the ever-popular holiday tropes is the small-town bakery (or restaurant or b and b) and the daughter who doesn’t want to come back to the place. She must, not only to save the bakery but also to find her happily ever after. This Christmas novel doubles the risk, because the heroines are twins. The novel begins twelve days before Christmas, counting down with alternate chapters for each of the twins. Charlie, building a career on a television bake show, and Cass, keeping the home bakery running, trade places after Charlie falls. The resulting concussion affects her sense of smell and taste, so she persuades her sister to cover for ten days. Not as easy as it sounds, for either young woman. BTW, Maggie Knox is a pen name of two authors, Karma Brown and Marissa Stapley. This is their first collaboration; each has published under her own name. This charming novella by British playwright Alan Bennett explores a fictional world in which Queen Elizabeth II becomes—in her 80s—an increasingly sophisticated reader.
Her family and staff are not amused; she is late to events, which has never happened before, and she cares less about her clothing, willing to wear the same outfit more than once. She reads while being driven to events, her head bowed, her free hand waving to the crowds lined to see her. Furthermore, she departs from the usual script of her meetings, instead asking people what they’ve been reading, or if they’ve read a particular author. And—inevitably, Bennet would have us believe—she begins taking notes and putting down thoughts of her own. Read it for the Queen’s observations along with the plot! I’m doing no traveling right now, but if I were, with world enough and time at my disposal, I’d make a pilgrimage to Nashville. Two of my favorite contemporary writers—Margaret Renkl and Ann Patchett—live there, and Patchett co-owns Parnassus Books, which appears to be a wonderland. Renkl is a New York Times columnist, covering the world from Nashville. Patchett is an essayist and novelist. Coincidentally, both have recent essay collections out: Patchett's These Precious Days and Renkl's Graceland at Last. Reading both of these women concurrently has been a delight and a new reading experience. To read about a horrific storm (derecho) in Patchett, and the next night, to read about it again from Renkl’s point of view, was something I’d never before done. Might be time to treat yourself—or a friend or family member—to one or both of these lovely essay collections. |
What I’m ReadingI began working in libraries as a seventh grader, courtesy of scoliosis. My orthopedic surgeon wrote me a pass to miss gym class, so I began working in the school library to feed my love of reading. Even after my surgery to correct the curvature, I kept getting out of gym to work in my high school library and then in my college library (for pay, at last!).
So began my eventual career as a college reference librarian—after a detour into teaching high school English. Later I worked for an educational publisher before going back to libraries.
I have a reading and writing life now. I devour both fiction and nonfiction, and will tell you about some of my favorite reads, both old friends and new discoveries.
Here's some library-themed music to get you in the mood.
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