I'll also add my recommendation on Secret Life of Bees , Water for Elephants , and The Glass Castle. All good reading, and you've given me lots to add to my "To Read" list! Thanks!
Sally
Submitted by Sally
Thursday, July 31, 2008
I love hearing everyone's book recommendations --- especially those of you who are right up-to-the-minute with the new books coming out.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
The New York Times is beginning a series on reading and the Internet. The first article is called "Literacy Debate: R U Really Reading?" Here is the link: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/27/books/27reading.html?pagewanted=1&th&emc=th
Submitted by Elaine Zorbas
and more to consider reading...
Ivan Doig. The Whistling Season
From The Washington Post's Book World. Ivan Doig writes about a vanished way of life on the Western plains with the kind of irony-free nostalgia that seems downright courageous in these ironic times. A celebration tinged with sadness, his new novel, The Whistling Season, tells a story twice removed from us: It's the late 1950s, and that little Soviet satellite has startled the United States into an educational panic. Paul Milliron, the narrator, is superintendent of the Montana schools, and he's come to Great Falls to make a sad announcement to the superintendents, teachers and school boards of Montana's 56 counties: In pursuit of greater efficiency and rigor, the state has decided to close all its one-room schoolhouses.
Lauren Kessler. Stubborn Twig. Three Generations in the Life of a Japanese American family. A factual account of three generations of a Japanese-American family living in the Pacific Northwest. It begins in 1903, when Masuo Yasui arrived in Hood River, Oregon, to seek his fortune. This part of the story is similar to other immigrants' tales-years of hard work, loneliness, and struggles with a new language and customs. The striking distinction appears around 1919, with the rise of anti-Japanese sentiment. Yasui, his brother, their wives, and children had sacrificed much to establish a thriving general store and owned several orchards. Yasui, who spoke fluent English, was the acknowledged leader of the Japanese community in the area and an active member of the orchardists' cooperatives, the Methodist Church, and the Rotary Club. His family continued to have great success despite discrimination. Their lives were painfully disrupted, however, on December 7, 1941. Yasui was arrested as a spy and imprisoned for the rest of the war; his relatives were scattered and some were interned. This book puts human faces and emotions to the events of that period. (YA)
Lisa See. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan: A Novel.
From Publishers Weekly: See's engrossing novel set in remote 19th-century China details the deeply affecting story of lifelong, intimate friends (laotong, or "old sames") Lily and Snow Flower, their imprisonment by rigid codes of conduct for women and their betrayal by pride and love. While granting immediacy to Lily's voice, See (Flower Net) adroitly transmits historical background in graceful prose. Her in-depth research into women's ceremonies and duties in China's rural interior brings fascinating revelations about arranged marriages, women's inferior status in both their natal and married homes, and the Confucian proverbs and myriad superstitions that informed daily life. Beginning with a detailed and heartbreaking description of Lily and her sisters' foot binding ("Only through pain will you have beauty. Only through suffering will you have peace"), the story widens to a vivid portrait of family and village life. Most impressive is See's incorporation of nu shu, a secret written phonetic code among women—here between Lily and Snow Flower—that dates back 1,000 years in the southwestern Hunan province ("My writing is soaked with the tears of my heart,/ An invisible rebellion that no man can see").
Jeannette Walls. The Glass Castle.
Publishers Weekly. She opens her memoir by describing looking out the window of her taxi, wondering if she's "overdressed for the evening" and spotting her mother on the sidewalk, "rooting through a Dumpster." Walls's parents—just two of the unforgettable characters in this excellent, unusual book—were a matched pair of eccentrics, and raising four children didn't conventionalize either of them. Her father was a self-taught man, a would-be inventor who could stay longer at a poker table than at most jobs and had "a little bit of a drinking situation," as her mother put it. With a fantastic storytelling knack, Walls describes her artist mom's great gift for rationalizing. Apartment walls so thin they heard all their neighbors? What a bonus—they'd "pick up a little Spanish without even studying." Why feed their pets? They'd be helping them "by not allowing them to become dependent." While Walls's father's version of Christmas presents—walking each child into the Arizona desert at night and letting each one claim a star—was delightful, he wasn't so dear when he stole the kids' hard-earned savings to go on a bender. The Walls children learned to support themselves, eating out of trashcans at school or painting their skin so the holes in their pants didn't show. Buck-toothed Jeannette even tried making her own braces when she heard what orthodontia cost. One by one, each child escaped to New York City. Still, it wasn't long before their parents appeared on their doorsteps. "Why not?" Mom said. "Being homeless is an adventure."
From The Washington Post's Book World. Ivan Doig writes about a vanished way of life on the Western plains with the kind of irony-free nostalgia that seems downright courageous in these ironic times. A celebration tinged with sadness, his new novel, The Whistling Season, tells a story twice removed from us: It's the late 1950s, and that little Soviet satellite has startled the United States into an educational panic. Paul Milliron, the narrator, is superintendent of the Montana schools, and he's come to Great Falls to make a sad announcement to the superintendents, teachers and school boards of Montana's 56 counties: In pursuit of greater efficiency and rigor, the state has decided to close all its one-room schoolhouses.
Lauren Kessler. Stubborn Twig. Three Generations in the Life of a Japanese American family. A factual account of three generations of a Japanese-American family living in the Pacific Northwest. It begins in 1903, when Masuo Yasui arrived in Hood River, Oregon, to seek his fortune. This part of the story is similar to other immigrants' tales-years of hard work, loneliness, and struggles with a new language and customs. The striking distinction appears around 1919, with the rise of anti-Japanese sentiment. Yasui, his brother, their wives, and children had sacrificed much to establish a thriving general store and owned several orchards. Yasui, who spoke fluent English, was the acknowledged leader of the Japanese community in the area and an active member of the orchardists' cooperatives, the Methodist Church, and the Rotary Club. His family continued to have great success despite discrimination. Their lives were painfully disrupted, however, on December 7, 1941. Yasui was arrested as a spy and imprisoned for the rest of the war; his relatives were scattered and some were interned. This book puts human faces and emotions to the events of that period. (YA)
Lisa See. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan: A Novel.
From Publishers Weekly: See's engrossing novel set in remote 19th-century China details the deeply affecting story of lifelong, intimate friends (laotong, or "old sames") Lily and Snow Flower, their imprisonment by rigid codes of conduct for women and their betrayal by pride and love. While granting immediacy to Lily's voice, See (Flower Net) adroitly transmits historical background in graceful prose. Her in-depth research into women's ceremonies and duties in China's rural interior brings fascinating revelations about arranged marriages, women's inferior status in both their natal and married homes, and the Confucian proverbs and myriad superstitions that informed daily life. Beginning with a detailed and heartbreaking description of Lily and her sisters' foot binding ("Only through pain will you have beauty. Only through suffering will you have peace"), the story widens to a vivid portrait of family and village life. Most impressive is See's incorporation of nu shu, a secret written phonetic code among women—here between Lily and Snow Flower—that dates back 1,000 years in the southwestern Hunan province ("My writing is soaked with the tears of my heart,/ An invisible rebellion that no man can see").
Jeannette Walls. The Glass Castle.
Publishers Weekly. She opens her memoir by describing looking out the window of her taxi, wondering if she's "overdressed for the evening" and spotting her mother on the sidewalk, "rooting through a Dumpster." Walls's parents—just two of the unforgettable characters in this excellent, unusual book—were a matched pair of eccentrics, and raising four children didn't conventionalize either of them. Her father was a self-taught man, a would-be inventor who could stay longer at a poker table than at most jobs and had "a little bit of a drinking situation," as her mother put it. With a fantastic storytelling knack, Walls describes her artist mom's great gift for rationalizing. Apartment walls so thin they heard all their neighbors? What a bonus—they'd "pick up a little Spanish without even studying." Why feed their pets? They'd be helping them "by not allowing them to become dependent." While Walls's father's version of Christmas presents—walking each child into the Arizona desert at night and letting each one claim a star—was delightful, he wasn't so dear when he stole the kids' hard-earned savings to go on a bender. The Walls children learned to support themselves, eating out of trashcans at school or painting their skin so the holes in their pants didn't show. Buck-toothed Jeannette even tried making her own braces when she heard what orthodontia cost. One by one, each child escaped to New York City. Still, it wasn't long before their parents appeared on their doorsteps. "Why not?" Mom said. "Being homeless is an adventure."
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
OK everybody, Mary Ann, wanted an update on bees. I didn't have time to sign
up to Goggle.
up to Goggle.
Our bees have us bee witched and bee-wildered. There have been big clusters
of bees on the side and underneath one bee house. Yesterday, Dimitri smoked
them to look into the hive and try to break up the cluster. There is a
chance that these are "robber bees" trying to invade a weaker hive to steal
the honey. So he narrowed the entrance to the house, which created havoc
with bees madly flying about. Today a big swarm of angry bees gathered on a
nearby prune tree, left, later went to an apricot tree, and have now
returned to cluster on the side of the house. How does one handle bezerk
bees? Stay tuned.
By the way, a charming book is "The Secret Life of Bees" by Sue Monk Kidd, a
coming of age novel of a young girl in the South who flees her abusive
father in search of finding out about her dead mother. The only clue is a
label from a jar of honey.
Also recommended, "Water for Elephants" about a down and out circus during
the depression, replete with a cruel ring-master, dazzling acrobat dancer,
and a shrewd elephant.
Thanks to all for the wonderful book recommendations. A lot for even a
retired person to read!
Elaine
Submitted by
More titles from the scratch paper envelope...
Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Infidel.
from PW: Readers with an eye on European politics will recognize Ali as the Somali-born member of the Dutch parliament who faced death threats after collaborating on a film about domestic violence against Muslim women with controversial director Theo van Gogh (who was himself assassinated). Even before then, her attacks on Islamic culture as "brutal, bigoted, [and] fixated on controlling women" had generated much controversy. In this suspenseful account of her life and her internal struggle with her Muslim faith, she discusses how these views were shaped by her experiences amid the political chaos of Somalia and other African nations...
Alice Hoffman. Magic
From Publishers Weekly:
Her 11th novel is Hoffman's best since Illumination Night. Again a scrim of magic lies gently over her fictional world, in which lilacs bloom riotously in July, a lovesick boy's elbows sizzle on a diner countertop and a toad expectorates a silver ring. The real and the magical worlds are almost seamlessly mixed here, the humor is sharper than in previous books, the characters' eccentricities grow credibly out of their past experiences and the poignant lessons they learn reverberate against the reader's heartstrings, stroked by Hoffman's lyrical prose. The Owens women have been witches for several generations. Orphaned Sally and Gillian Owens, raised by their spinster aunts in a spooky old house, grow up observing desperate women buying love potions in the kitchen and vow never to commit their hearts to passion. Fate, of course, intervenes...
Geraldine Brooks. People of the Book.
Amazon review: One of the earliest Jewish religious volumes to be illuminated with images, the Sarajevo Haggadah survived centuries of purges and wars thanks to people of all faiths who risked their lives to safeguard it. Geraldine Brooks, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of March, has turned the intriguing but sparely detailed history of this precious volume into an emotionally rich, thrilling fictionalization that retraces its turbulent journey. In the hands of Hanna Heath, an impassioned rare-book expert restoring the manuscript in 1996 Sarajevo, it yields clues to its guardians and whereabouts: an insect wing, a wine stain, salt crystals, and a white hair. While readers experience crucial moments in the book's history through a series of fascinating, fleshed-out short stories, Hanna pursues its secrets scientifically, and finds that some interests will still risk everything in the name of protecting this treasure. A complex love story, thrilling mystery, vivid history lesson, and celebration of the enduring power of ideas...
from PW: Readers with an eye on European politics will recognize Ali as the Somali-born member of the Dutch parliament who faced death threats after collaborating on a film about domestic violence against Muslim women with controversial director Theo van Gogh (who was himself assassinated). Even before then, her attacks on Islamic culture as "brutal, bigoted, [and] fixated on controlling women" had generated much controversy. In this suspenseful account of her life and her internal struggle with her Muslim faith, she discusses how these views were shaped by her experiences amid the political chaos of Somalia and other African nations...
Alice Hoffman. Magic
From Publishers Weekly:
Her 11th novel is Hoffman's best since Illumination Night. Again a scrim of magic lies gently over her fictional world, in which lilacs bloom riotously in July, a lovesick boy's elbows sizzle on a diner countertop and a toad expectorates a silver ring. The real and the magical worlds are almost seamlessly mixed here, the humor is sharper than in previous books, the characters' eccentricities grow credibly out of their past experiences and the poignant lessons they learn reverberate against the reader's heartstrings, stroked by Hoffman's lyrical prose. The Owens women have been witches for several generations. Orphaned Sally and Gillian Owens, raised by their spinster aunts in a spooky old house, grow up observing desperate women buying love potions in the kitchen and vow never to commit their hearts to passion. Fate, of course, intervenes...
Geraldine Brooks. People of the Book.
Amazon review: One of the earliest Jewish religious volumes to be illuminated with images, the Sarajevo Haggadah survived centuries of purges and wars thanks to people of all faiths who risked their lives to safeguard it. Geraldine Brooks, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of March, has turned the intriguing but sparely detailed history of this precious volume into an emotionally rich, thrilling fictionalization that retraces its turbulent journey. In the hands of Hanna Heath, an impassioned rare-book expert restoring the manuscript in 1996 Sarajevo, it yields clues to its guardians and whereabouts: an insect wing, a wine stain, salt crystals, and a white hair. While readers experience crucial moments in the book's history through a series of fascinating, fleshed-out short stories, Hanna pursues its secrets scientifically, and finds that some interests will still risk everything in the name of protecting this treasure. A complex love story, thrilling mystery, vivid history lesson, and celebration of the enduring power of ideas...
In the company of readers
Reading this blog made me remember how much fun it was to work with all of you back at PPL! Amy in particular was such a great source of recommendations - I remember devouring Cold Sassy Tree after she recommended it, and then sharing it with lots of friends and family. My "new" library is a lot of fun in many ways, but we don't have the same spirited discussions about books that I remember from PPL...or maybe its just that as Director I'm not interacting with the librarians in the same way.
Anyway, thanks to Amy I went straight to our fiction section yesterday and checked out Stern Men (I thought the title meant that they were serious, but my husband Don who is from Maine straightened me out and told me to pronounce it correctly as one word!). I started it last night, am already loving it, and told Don he has to read it too.
Thanks also Mary for a great list of things to try!
Anyway, thanks to Amy I went straight to our fiction section yesterday and checked out Stern Men (I thought the title meant that they were serious, but my husband Don who is from Maine straightened me out and told me to pronounce it correctly as one word!). I started it last night, am already loving it, and told Don he has to read it too.
Thanks also Mary for a great list of things to try!
Cat Book
I just read Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World by Vicky Myron, an advance copy I picked up at Book Expo. I must be the only librarian around who had never heard of Dewey Readmore Books of Spencer Public Library, Iowa. Of course, very poignant and additionally, a very quick read! I noticed that the author thanked Roger Greer of Emporia State University. She did a community analysis soon after she became the head librarian there, so when she thanked Roger Greer, it all made sense. It will come out in September (in regular print and Large Type!) and I am sure that all of your public libraries will buy a copy. Dorothy
I saw a man reading his own copy of Edgar Sawtelle yesterday in the library - the first 200 pgs. were o.k. but after that he was slowing his pace so the story wouldn't end. He was enjoying Shakespeare, King Lear and other motifs and said the writing was really good. I'm 70th on the reserve list.
Samurai's Garden is very strong, and quiet. Mountains Beyond Mountains is sort of like Three Cups of Tea - one (determined) person can make a difference.
Samurai's Garden is very strong, and quiet. Mountains Beyond Mountains is sort of like Three Cups of Tea - one (determined) person can make a difference.
Submitted by Amy K.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
...and we talked about books....
We sat around the table in the evening and all the next day, sharing our lives...and stories of the past. Then, it happened...books came out from the bookshelf, and we started to share...Now I don't remember who recommended which book...but here they are...from the scribbles on the used envelope I had to rip open for more room!
Markus Zusak.The Book Thief. (fiction) Mary Ann loved it; Anne didn't)
From School Library Journal: Zusak has created a work that deserves the attention of sophisticated teen and adult readers. Death himself narrates the World War II-era story of Liesel Meminger from the time she is taken, at age nine, to live in Molching, Germany, with a foster family in a working-class neighborhood of tough kids, acid-tongued mothers, and loving fathers who earn their living by the work of their hands.
Diane Ackerman. Zookeepper's wife. (nonfiction)
From Publishers Weekly...tells the remarkable WWII story of Jan Zabinski, the director of the Warsaw Zoo, and his wife, Antonina, who, with courage and coolheaded ingenuity, sheltered 300 Jews as well as Polish resisters in their villa and in animal cages and sheds.
David Wroblewski. The Story of Edgar Sawtelle. (fiction)
Born mute, speaking only in sign, Edgar Sawtelle leads an idyllic life with his parents on their farm in remote northern Wisconsin. For generations, the Sawtelles have raised and trained a fictional breed of dog whose thoughtful companionship is epitomized by Almondine, Edgar's lifelong friend and ally. But with the unexpected return of Claude, Edgar's paternal uncle, turmoil consumes the Sawtelles' once peaceful home. When Edgar's father dies suddenly, Claude insinuates himself into the life of the farm--and into Edgar's mother's affections.
Sandra Dallas. Tall grass. (fiction)
Amazon reader review: This story, told through the eyes of a 13 year old girl caught my full attention from the first paragraph and never disappointed me throughout the entire story. When I picked up the book to read a new chapter I was immediately transported back to WW II Colorado (and America) and felt the characters were people I knew. This was a book that I did not want to end...
Gail Tsukiyama. The Samurai's Garden (fiction)
From Publishers Weekly: Set in Japan just before WWII, Tsukiyama's novel tells of a young Chinese man's encounters with four locals while he recuperates from tuberculosis.
Kidder, Tracy. Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World
Book promo: At the center of Mountains Beyond Mountains stands Paul Farmer. Doctor, Harvard professor, renowned infectious-disease specialist, anthropologist, the recipient of a MacArthur “genius” grant, world-class Robin Hood, Farmer was brought up in a bus and on a boat, and in medical school found his life’s calling: to diagnose and cure infectious diseases and to bring the lifesaving tools of modern medicine to those who need them most. This magnificent book shows how radical change can be fostered in situations that seem insurmountable, and it also shows how a meaningful life can be created, as Farmer—brilliant, charismatic, charming, both a leader in international health and a doctor who finds time to make house calls in Boston and the mountains of Haiti—blasts through convention to get results.
more tomorrow...
Markus Zusak.The Book Thief. (fiction) Mary Ann loved it; Anne didn't)
From School Library Journal: Zusak has created a work that deserves the attention of sophisticated teen and adult readers. Death himself narrates the World War II-era story of Liesel Meminger from the time she is taken, at age nine, to live in Molching, Germany, with a foster family in a working-class neighborhood of tough kids, acid-tongued mothers, and loving fathers who earn their living by the work of their hands.
Diane Ackerman. Zookeepper's wife. (nonfiction)
From Publishers Weekly...tells the remarkable WWII story of Jan Zabinski, the director of the Warsaw Zoo, and his wife, Antonina, who, with courage and coolheaded ingenuity, sheltered 300 Jews as well as Polish resisters in their villa and in animal cages and sheds.
David Wroblewski. The Story of Edgar Sawtelle. (fiction)
Born mute, speaking only in sign, Edgar Sawtelle leads an idyllic life with his parents on their farm in remote northern Wisconsin. For generations, the Sawtelles have raised and trained a fictional breed of dog whose thoughtful companionship is epitomized by Almondine, Edgar's lifelong friend and ally. But with the unexpected return of Claude, Edgar's paternal uncle, turmoil consumes the Sawtelles' once peaceful home. When Edgar's father dies suddenly, Claude insinuates himself into the life of the farm--and into Edgar's mother's affections.
Sandra Dallas. Tall grass. (fiction)
Amazon reader review: This story, told through the eyes of a 13 year old girl caught my full attention from the first paragraph and never disappointed me throughout the entire story. When I picked up the book to read a new chapter I was immediately transported back to WW II Colorado (and America) and felt the characters were people I knew. This was a book that I did not want to end...
Gail Tsukiyama. The Samurai's Garden (fiction)
From Publishers Weekly: Set in Japan just before WWII, Tsukiyama's novel tells of a young Chinese man's encounters with four locals while he recuperates from tuberculosis.
Kidder, Tracy. Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World
Book promo: At the center of Mountains Beyond Mountains stands Paul Farmer. Doctor, Harvard professor, renowned infectious-disease specialist, anthropologist, the recipient of a MacArthur “genius” grant, world-class Robin Hood, Farmer was brought up in a bus and on a boat, and in medical school found his life’s calling: to diagnose and cure infectious diseases and to bring the lifesaving tools of modern medicine to those who need them most. This magnificent book shows how radical change can be fostered in situations that seem insurmountable, and it also shows how a meaningful life can be created, as Farmer—brilliant, charismatic, charming, both a leader in international health and a doctor who finds time to make house calls in Boston and the mountains of Haiti—blasts through convention to get results.
more tomorrow...
Stern Men
A surprising, yet satisfying end.
Next on the bedside table:
Friday Night Knitting Club.
It's already proving to be a formulaic, but relaxing read. Now I feel I should be knitting. I haven't touched my grey sweater since it was on Mary Ann's couch. What's everyone else up to?
A surprising, yet satisfying end.
Next on the bedside table:
Friday Night Knitting Club.
It's already proving to be a formulaic, but relaxing read. Now I feel I should be knitting. I haven't touched my grey sweater since it was on Mary Ann's couch. What's everyone else up to?
Submitted by Amy K.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Ok, I am a blogging fanatic. But I thought that this way we could keep track of who is reading what, what the bees are doing in Fiddletown, and how many games of Scrabulous Anne has won. And we can go back to it as well! I will be putting in all the titles that we talked about...and that I scribbled on that envelope. I heard today that Amy is reading Sten Men. Amy...start off this blog by letting us know all about it! p.s. this is a closed blog for just us...I believe. I am checking on it!
Submitted by Mary Ann
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Dear X-PRTS,
Dear X-PRTS (EX-Pasadena Reference Team Sisters ? Survivors? Soul mates? Saviors? Supporters? Superwomen!!) (we'll get the right name eventually!) Thanks to all of you for an absolutely wonderful weekend of memories and laughter and warmth and friendship! It was perfect! The following doesn't begin to cover it all, but........
Elaine--thank you for envisioning this gathering, spearheading communication, making it happen, driving through smoke and long miles to get to Pasadena!
Anne--you were Elaine's companion in supporting this great idea, initially offering your N. Calif. home, sharing the plans and the long drive. Thanks for so much for adding so many memories & stories, for all you did for Vickey---and even for contacting Ed (his surprise phone call was an amazing touch!)
Mary Ann--you were the perfect hostess! Relaxed, fun, graciously sharing your delicious food, your comfortable home--bedrooms, pool, computer, family, etc. You and Laurie and Dorothy and Carolyn, our unofficial Pasadena committee, planned a wonderful mix of activities and sharing experiences! And you even threw in a dramatic dark night in the pool with an eerie sound and light show as an extra special effect!
Laurie--Thank you for housing two of us, for all your time and organizational skills and quiet efficiency. The Huntington tour and tea couldn't have been better! (Although your Sunday lemon bread was very tasty too!) Your efforts coordinating and pre-paying for it all are most appreciated---it was a great tour, a delish tea, a delightful guide, good weather, perfect companions, a most interesting day!
Dorothy--you are still gentle and gracious and lovely (are those the words Ed used?--well, they're true anyway!) Thanks for your work in event planning, for thinking of the card for David....and it was really fun to remember your perceptive/wry humor. Congrats on the successes of your daughters-- you seem to be the only one of us who is giving back to our profession by contributing a fresh new face/mind to it!
Carolyn--thanks so much for adding us to your crazy schedule and for taking time from your recovering husband to join us and to share the Huntington and dinner with us. I'm looking at & smiling at the great group photos right now--that was so characteristic of your usual thoughtfulness-- to dash out and get copies made for everyone!
Amy--it was wonderful to see you again, to hear your laughter & perceptive/funny comments, to be reminded of your knowledge of contemporary books and authors. Thanks so much for using your airline miles to come to Pasadena instead of going to New York----we appreciated you so much more than Mayor Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Kelly would have!
Kathy--thanks for taking time from a busy library weekend to join us on Saturday at the Huntington. You've traveled so far in life and had a lot of different career experiences since our Pasadena days (Ed once told me he though you would go far--he was right!) Thanks for remembering us and for wanting to share some of the old times and friends.
Sally--we were so sorry you were unable to join us----you missed something very special. See you next time--there really will be one---this group is too much fun & too comfortable not to continue meeting!
Vickey--you should have been there--you would have loved it--we missed you terribly--we love you.
Thanks again to you all. It was great working with you in the "olden days" and even better that we feel so comfortable & natural & happy together all these years later ! I look forward to the next time!
love, Jan
Elaine--thank you for envisioning this gathering, spearheading communication, making it happen, driving through smoke and long miles to get to Pasadena!
Anne--you were Elaine's companion in supporting this great idea, initially offering your N. Calif. home, sharing the plans and the long drive. Thanks for so much for adding so many memories & stories, for all you did for Vickey---and even for contacting Ed (his surprise phone call was an amazing touch!)
Mary Ann--you were the perfect hostess! Relaxed, fun, graciously sharing your delicious food, your comfortable home--bedrooms, pool, computer, family, etc. You and Laurie and Dorothy and Carolyn, our unofficial Pasadena committee, planned a wonderful mix of activities and sharing experiences! And you even threw in a dramatic dark night in the pool with an eerie sound and light show as an extra special effect!
Laurie--Thank you for housing two of us, for all your time and organizational skills and quiet efficiency. The Huntington tour and tea couldn't have been better! (Although your Sunday lemon bread was very tasty too!) Your efforts coordinating and pre-paying for it all are most appreciated---it was a great tour, a delish tea, a delightful guide, good weather, perfect companions, a most interesting day!
Dorothy--you are still gentle and gracious and lovely (are those the words Ed used?--well, they're true anyway!) Thanks for your work in event planning, for thinking of the card for David....and it was really fun to remember your perceptive/wry humor. Congrats on the successes of your daughters-- you seem to be the only one of us who is giving back to our profession by contributing a fresh new face/mind to it!
Carolyn--thanks so much for adding us to your crazy schedule and for taking time from your recovering husband to join us and to share the Huntington and dinner with us. I'm looking at & smiling at the great group photos right now--that was so characteristic of your usual thoughtfulness-- to dash out and get copies made for everyone!
Amy--it was wonderful to see you again, to hear your laughter & perceptive/funny comments, to be reminded of your knowledge of contemporary books and authors. Thanks so much for using your airline miles to come to Pasadena instead of going to New York----we appreciated you so much more than Mayor Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Kelly would have!
Kathy--thanks for taking time from a busy library weekend to join us on Saturday at the Huntington. You've traveled so far in life and had a lot of different career experiences since our Pasadena days (Ed once told me he though you would go far--he was right!) Thanks for remembering us and for wanting to share some of the old times and friends.
Sally--we were so sorry you were unable to join us----you missed something very special. See you next time--there really will be one---this group is too much fun & too comfortable not to continue meeting!
Vickey--you should have been there--you would have loved it--we missed you terribly--we love you.
Thanks again to you all. It was great working with you in the "olden days" and even better that we feel so comfortable & natural & happy together all these years later ! I look forward to the next time!
love, Jan
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Friends together...a new tradition begins...
This weekend was the reunion we all hoped Vickey could attend...as friends from the early days at Pasadena Public Library came together to rekindle friendships and reconnect after the loss of our good friend and colleague.
We scheduled a morning meeting at the Huntington where Laurie arranged a private walking tour of the gardens including the new Chinese garden. We walked and talked and thoroughly enjoyed our day...spending time at tea for lunch and then we were back on the campus again. Beautiful day! We then met for dinner at my home and sat out by the pool talking all night...women friends reconnecting in a special way. Swimming in the later evening until the impending threat of lightning and thunder drove us to shelter.
Talking until midnite...and into the next day...all day....
How often Vickey's name came up...we told funny stories and special memories...we talked about how perfect her memorial service way...we all knew she was smiling down on us....
Mary Ann
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