tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26250946061636901302009-05-12T14:28:49.931-05:00What are you reading/listening to? <BR>Tell us, and share the goodness, or help us avoid the pitfalls...J Auclairnoreply@blogger.comBlogger58125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2625094606163690130.post-71135853624284131922009-05-12T14:22:00.004-05:002009-05-12T14:28:49.938-05:00

Well, no.I recently listened to the Arkangel Romeo & Juliet performance on CD, from the Bakerville Library, without high hopes. I can happily say that I recommend it. If you’re reading it for school, or read it a long time ago in school, and want a refresher (that is, if you’re basically familiar with the plot), this is just the ticket.The acting is quite good (Joseph Fiennes is Romeo), and the

J Auclairnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2625094606163690130.post-58694939818658065482009-02-27T15:25:00.003-05:002009-02-27T15:31:54.410-05:00

The third of Julia’s book reviews.Acts of Faith by Philip CaputoCaputo’s novel delves into the soul of Africa as his characters seek to know their inner selves and find their way in the turmoil of Sudan and the upheaval of civil war.Ethics, faith, friendship, and humanity are tested time and time again as Caputo’s fast-paced novel traverses the continent and characters seek means to sustain

J Auclairnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2625094606163690130.post-37725628880089859772008-12-09T13:58:00.003-05:002008-12-09T14:02:20.790-05:00

The Book Club’s holiday party will be a brunch this year, coming up this Sunday (Dec. 14th) at noon. Call the library, 482-8806, for more information.The next book, which we will discuss sometime in January, is Old School by Tobias Wolff. Copies are in at the library. I am listening to it now, and can recommend it.

J Auclairnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2625094606163690130.post-7120431439005352702008-12-09T13:54:00.002-05:002008-12-09T13:57:08.656-05:00

Photos from the 2008 Bakerville Holiday Festival are up at the library’s website. If you were able to attend, thank you! If you were not able to, we missed you, but don’t worry—we still had a good time. And we raised almost $2900 for the library.

J Auclairnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2625094606163690130.post-85694100306335700612008-08-19T10:11:00.003-05:002008-08-19T10:15:52.953-05:00

Since I have not gathered all the Marketplace photos yet, I’m taking the lazy woman’s route and posting the second of Julia’s book reviews (see the first review in the post below). Thanks, Julia!Same Kind of Different as MeThe amazing true story Same Kind of Different as Me by Ron Hall and Denver Moore tells of their unusual friendship as a result of Deborah Hall’s grace and vision. This memoir

J Auclairnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2625094606163690130.post-81018889183887079762008-08-12T15:50:00.002-05:002008-08-12T16:00:40.980-05:00

While I go through more photos of the Bakerville Marketplace and Used Book Sale, and collect lists of people to thank, let’s enjoy the first of many book reviews sent in by book club member Julia Cowans-Wilhelm. She has graciously shared her thoughts on, count ’em, seven of her recent reads. Good job, Julia! (Both the reading and the writing.) I’ve chosen the following to begin with because we

J Auclairnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2625094606163690130.post-86566566686622487032008-08-05T15:57:00.009-05:002008-08-06T13:43:50.616-05:00

Thanks to everyone who participated, the Bakerville Marketplace and Used Book Sale raised upwards of $3500.Here are some preliminary pictures (more to come, as well as a long list of people we are thankful to have on our side).On Friday evening, we put up the auction tent (thanks to the Grange for lending it out to us again). While the guys worked,the girls plotted.Jumping ahead to the

J Auclairnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2625094606163690130.post-58583098361646673942008-07-28T09:55:00.003-05:002008-07-28T10:01:55.113-05:00

Bring your used books to the Bakerville Library this week!Bring your auction donations this week!Bring your baked goods this Friday or very early Saturday!Bring yourself to the library at 8:30 am this Saturday for the early bird opening of the Used Book Sale ($7).Or wait until 9:00 for everything else—Used Book Sale (free admission), Teacup Auction, Bake Sale (all those benefit the library), and

J Auclairnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2625094606163690130.post-30046140613833835112008-06-27T11:04:00.005-05:002008-06-27T13:01:21.902-05:00

From book club member extraordinaire,Mary Lee Dunn:The House at Riverton by Kate Morton, 2006 ATRIA BooksThe trick to enjoying a good read is in finding the right book. How lucky we are to have Julie LaSata as our shepherd to guide us to a book that will make you put everything else on hold until the book is finished. Once you become a Bakerville Library regular, and you let her know what you’re

J Auclairnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2625094606163690130.post-11866044966962004192008-06-25T14:14:00.005-05:002008-07-01T08:41:26.366-05:00

This is one of those obituaries that’s interesting not only because I didn’t realize she was still alive until now, but also because she had a very unusual life. To say the least. A link to the New York Times article:Tasha Tudor, Children’s Book Illustrator, Dies at 92And a link to the Concord Monitor, in New Hampshire:Illustrator Tudor dies at age 92

J Auclairnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2625094606163690130.post-33709549492832058932008-06-20T14:59:00.005-05:002008-06-25T14:19:05.540-05:00

Friday, August 8th.NOTE: We will be meeting early, starting at 6:30 pm, to enjoy the summer evening. Call the library at 482-8806 for more information.We will be discussing The Memory of Running, by Ron McLarty.

J Auclairnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2625094606163690130.post-3997292405038337582008-05-29T15:54:00.010-05:002008-06-25T14:19:54.877-05:00

Another good friend of the Bakerville Library has passed away. Bud Sedgwick (right), who with Bill Stafford made it an annual event to tell second graders what it was like when the library building was a schoolhouse, died on Thursday, May 22nd. He will be missed at the library and around Bakerville. Following is his obituary from the Register Citizen.Posted on Fri, May 23, 2008Malcolm Sedgwick,

J Auclairnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2625094606163690130.post-58211255102952102932008-05-19T13:44:00.008-05:002008-06-20T15:13:06.343-05:00

June’s book club meeting will be about The Pickwick Papers, by Charles Dickens. I was one who voted for it, and some people are blaming me. Okay, I stand by my vote. It’s a very funny book.Also, I have to present Dickens’s bio. (As part of my punishment.) So come back and visit this post in the next few days—I’ll try out some ideas here.First, the basic facts.Born: 1812.Died: 1870._______________

J Auclairnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2625094606163690130.post-26919836487538020092008-05-16T15:38:00.005-05:002008-05-16T16:06:25.767-05:00

A while ago, I was in the library looking to feed my audio addiction. My eyes lit on this attractive cover of Robinson Crusoe, and I grabbed it, since I’d never read it.It felt strangely light; judging from the shape, it should have contained a bunch of tapes.I opened it up, after some struggle, and saw that it contained a little calculator-shaped gadget, and a battery in a separate foam slot.I

J Auclairnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2625094606163690130.post-15440009144341322762008-04-21T15:08:00.004-05:002008-04-21T15:12:56.822-05:00

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

J Auclairnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2625094606163690130.post-45036200042766056262008-01-17T11:07:00.004-05:002008-04-24T09:31:53.768-05:00

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

J Auclairnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2625094606163690130.post-75148874693468943422008-01-15T11:59:00.001-05:002008-01-15T12:04:05.572-05:00

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?

J Auclairnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2625094606163690130.post-64223183199369264212008-01-10T14:55:00.000-05:002008-01-10T15:42:35.967-05:00

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.)

J Auclairnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2625094606163690130.post-72751257074054128072008-01-10T10:11:00.000-05:002008-01-10T10:21:42.399-05:00

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

J Auclairnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2625094606163690130.post-89015988054410600142008-01-03T10:57:00.000-05:002008-01-10T10:07:29.743-05:00

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

J Auclairnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2625094606163690130.post-6071242635396677892007-12-27T10:57:00.000-05:002008-01-10T10:07:53.592-05:00

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

J Auclairnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2625094606163690130.post-8555820306373423822007-12-03T11:15:00.000-05:002008-01-10T10:05:15.601-05:00

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.

J Auclairnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2625094606163690130.post-79126333199476578332007-11-27T12:53:00.000-05:002008-01-10T10:05:51.287-05:00

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,

J Auclairnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2625094606163690130.post-36417710714870496862007-10-18T10:27:00.000-05:002008-01-10T10:08:29.173-05:00

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

J Auclairnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2625094606163690130.post-48026712065999131612007-10-17T11:09:00.000-05:002008-01-10T10:08:54.404-05:00

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

J Auclairnoreply@blogger.com0