Friends! I have been remiss! I apologize for getting so far behind in reading and responding to your posts. I hope you are all well and I’m looking forward to catching up!
Austin Library, Lander County, Nevada
I’ve been busy of late with revising my historical fiction manuscript after receiving feedback from an agent and a publisher. It’s been fun, in that odd way that perhaps only other writers can understand—a challenge, a wrestling with words, a content shift—all of it within a world that was once mine alone and that now I must share if it is ever to come to fruition as a novel that lives in the world.
Field Trip! I can’t remember where I saw this exercise in visualization. It was likely from one of you, so please accept my apologies for not remembering the source, and let me know if it was you. I love the idea: Go to a book store or a library and find the spot on the shelf where your book would be shelved if it were published. Make a space for your beautiful creation and take a picture. What books will be nestled up to yours?
In the Austin, Nevada library, my book would be shelved right next to Jodi Picoult’s if it were published today!
Your Turn! I’d love to see your spaces! And if you already have a book or books out there, it would be wonderful to see where they sit on the shelf. Please share!
This past week I read Tom Booth’s charming picture book, This is Christmas, at our December library story time. Of the seven young children in attendance, none of them thought they’d ever seen a chipmunk in our town/area. I have only lived here for four years and am no expert on the local wildlife, but I have spotted a few (very few) chipmunks. Never a squirrel though. This is the only squirrel-free zone I’ve ever lived in, and I can tell you it’s a bit unnerving. I can only surmise that the trees are too small (mostly pinion pine), the spaces in between them too distant, and the rain too infrequent to sustain squirrels. . . I’ve read that the forest in our mountain range, the Toiyabes, is referred to as a dwarf forest, because it’s in the shadow of the great Sierra Nevadas. That could be why I haven’t seen squirrels here, but I don’t really know. But I digress.
Anyway, here in Austin, Nevada, which is located in the center of the state and sits at 6,555 feet elevation, the mammals I’ve noticed include: some humans (not a lot!), many feral cats (a few of which now live inside my house, so they are not quite so feral these days), a plethora of mule deer, occasional groups of antelope and wild horses in the valley below, maybe two bunnies, and perhaps a dozen chipmunks.
So when I spotted these tracks in the snow on one of the trails outside town on today’s walk, I had to take a picture to show my library friends. Definitely, chipmunk prints, right?
Tiny and perfect little lightfooted creature prints compared to Mr. P’s boot.
So I came home and asked Mr. Googly what chipmunk prints look like and they look just like my picture, I think . . . but I guess they could be mouse prints, too, and come to think of it, I have seen a few mice over the past few years (sadly, they have usually been the victims of the aforementioned feral/not-so-feral cats).
Regardless! We had a lovely trail ride today, and the prints charmed us. I’ll definitely report my finding to my little library patrons and tell them to keep a sharp eye out for chipmunks.
These past couple of weeks have been busier than usual. Our newly reopened library began the summer reading program, folks are out and about enjoying warm summer temperatures, and summer celebrations are underway.
Library Days…
Austin Library at The Gridley Store
We are enjoying settling in to our beautiful “new” facility in the wonderful historic Gridley Store. This building has an important place in Austin, Nevada history, and the Civil War, as the original owner of the store, Reuel Colt Gridley (1829-1870), “repeatedly auctioned a plain sack of flour and raised over US $250,000 for the United States Sanitary Commission which provided aid to wounded American Civil War Soldiers… Mark Twain told this story in his 1872 book, Roughing It.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reuel_Colt_Gridley
This is a new beginning for residents and visitors alike! Thank you, Lander County!
Lake Tahoe Days…
After the library opening, Mr. P and I took off for a couple of idyllic nights in Lake Tahoe, about a 3 1/2 hour drive west. We danced (Kat and Arizona Jones were fantastic!), ate, walked, and relaxed all around the lake, which is both in Nevada and in California in the majestic Sierras.
Gridley Days…
The following week brought us to Austin’s annual Gridley Days celebration, which included a parade, picnic, fireworks, live music, and a rodeo. It’s Sunday afternoon now, and folks are resting after church, or packing to go home, or maybe planning one more ride out on the trails to Big Creek before saying goodbye to a great Nevada weekend.
Wishing you all long and happy summer days and nights, where ever you may be. Life is a beautiful gift! With Love and Gratitude, Lori
Hello readers and writers! It’s a bright and shiny day here in Austin, Nevada. We’re experiencing our first really warm days and our summer activities have begun. I’m told that two high school seniors graduated yesterday in our tiny school district in a lovely ceremony with all the pomp and circumstance of a much larger school. Congratulations to them and their families! In addition, our new library opens to the public Tuesday, and our summer friends are arriving—they of the full-time RV life—bringing their fresh faces and musical entertainment to our quiet town.
How are you? Is the season bringing you joy? What are you up to in your community and life? What changes does the summer season bring?
I opened the main page on my WordPress blog today and noticed I’d written 99 blogs so far. The number 99 is so close to 100 that I felt it best to get down to it and send out another. I don’t post regularly, so 100 posts isn’t really too impressive considering I started this blog in 2013. I spend much more time working on my manuscript and querying prospective agents than I spend blogging.
Still, it almost always feels good to write a blog post (once I’ve committed to sitting down and I’m at least a few paragraphs in-not so much at the beginning when I’m staring at the blank page, obviously) – it’s a way to reach out to family, and friends, old and new, and also is a sort of diary where I can record images and thoughts on times and places—and of course, there’s the curative element of a diary or journaling.
Recent and current books I’ve been reading: A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles; The Night Tiger, Yangsze Choo; A World of Curiosities, Louise Penny; and Hang the Moon, Jeanette Walls. They are all wonderful!
A lovely book, and a fun journal I bought in January while traveling.
I was excited to learn that A Gentleman in Moscow has been adapted to the screen in a series (thank you, Denice from Washington who stopped into the library last week!), so I will watch that as soon as I finish the novel.
The Night Tiger is enthralling- we’re listening to it when we travel to the grocery store (112 miles away), and any other time we’re in the car for more than 10 minutes (which is anytime we leave town since we are so remote…). Here’s an example of the wonderful writing just from memory. Choo describes a doctor’s writing as “a conga line of ants.” Brilliant!
As for Louise Penny… she got me with the first Chief Inspector Armand Gamache mystery years ago, and I am never disappointed as the series progresses. Wonderful characters, heart, and settings.
Books! Wonderful books!
I am a big fan of Jeanette Walls and have read and reread The Glass Castle several times. Hang the Moon is another big thumbs up!
Meanwhile, the crickets are back. Just last week I was remarking that there weren’t any in our yard this year and maybe the gigantic hordes that usually march through town would miss us this year. Uh, no. I’m sure that no matter where you live you have some kind of unusual local wildlife… There are other parts of this state, for example, that experience large migrations of tarantulas, and I know the cicadas are a huge presence in other parts of the country. I’ve heard that Miller moths are everywhere in parts of Nebraska… It’s all a bit eek, but I always think of the line from one of the Jurassic Park films, “Life finds a way.”
I am one of trillions… I just want to travel south (I don’t know why!), but your house in the way! Please move your house!
This, too, shall pass!
Have a wonderful weekend and please do check in and share what’s going on in your little corner of the world!
Hello, Readers! I just finished The Midnight Library and wanted to linger over it a while longer. One way to preserve and examine a recent experience is to write about it. Another way would be to get together with my friends at the Austin Ladies Book Club, but it’s been a busy summer and we are on hiatus. Here then, is my short take on Matt Haig’s “whimsical” novel (as The Washington Post aptly calls it).
It’s an intriguing little book, chockful of tiny little chapters, each one the piece of a puzzle containing alternate lives for our damaged, yet clever and likable heroine, Nora Seed. It’s midnight, and as Nora’s consciousness flickers between life and death, a wise and kind librarian directs Nora to endless books of possibilities—the myriad different paths her choices may have led her, and may lead her still.
This is a puzzle many of us have played in our minds, and often, as in The Midnight Library, we move these pieces around in the wee hours of the night.
Imagine if I had… What if I hadn’t… If only I could go back and change…
Regrets. Lost opportunities.
Shame.
Like Nora Seed, I’ve had plenty of these, and being the imperfect human I am, I continue to accrue new ones regularly. It can be a heavy load. The nights can be very dark.
Sometimes, a book can help. Some night soon when I drift off to sleep, perhaps I will find myself in a magic library like Nora’s. After all, I often have vivid dreams where things I experience in my waking hours revisit me in interesting and revealing ways (sometimes horrifying ways, too, but this isn’t that kind of book, thank goodness). So it could happen. Maybe tonight.
The Midnight Library is an obvious win-win for me, the lady lucky enough to run the local library and the lady who finds reading and writing endlessly captivating. It is wonderful for all the right reasons. Fun, and funny, too. Sweet, sad, insightful, and smart—it’s a little volume that may just lighten your heart.
Being vegetarian and eating greens and salads out is always a risk, it s hard to be 100% sure all you eat is absolutely safe, so take it twice a year to guarantee your body is free from unwanted organism
The goal of this blog is to create a long list of facts that are important, not trivia, and that are known to be true yet are either disputed by large segments of the public or highly surprising or misunderstood by many.
This blog feature amusing and heartwarming stories about our late Leonberger dog Bronco, as well as other Leonbergers. It also has a lot of information about the Leonberger breed, the history, care, training, Leonberger organizations, etc. I also wrote a Leonberger book, which I am featuring in the sidebar.
LakeArrowheadLadyWriter 
What I’m Reading: The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
Hello, Readers! I just finished The Midnight Library and wanted to linger over it a while longer. One way to preserve and examine a recent experience is to write about it. Another way would be to get together with my friends at the Austin Ladies Book Club, but it’s been a busy summer and we are on hiatus. Here then, is my short take on Matt Haig’s “whimsical” novel (as The Washington Post aptly calls it).
It’s an intriguing little book, chockful of tiny little chapters, each one the piece of a puzzle containing alternate lives for our damaged, yet clever and likable heroine, Nora Seed. It’s midnight, and as Nora’s consciousness flickers between life and death, a wise and kind librarian directs Nora to endless books of possibilities—the myriad different paths her choices may have led her, and may lead her still.
This is a puzzle many of us have played in our minds, and often, as in The Midnight Library, we move these pieces around in the wee hours of the night.
Imagine if I had… What if I hadn’t… If only I could go back and change…
Regrets. Lost opportunities.
Shame.
Like Nora Seed, I’ve had plenty of these, and being the imperfect human I am, I continue to accrue new ones regularly. It can be a heavy load. The nights can be very dark.
Sometimes, a book can help. Some night soon when I drift off to sleep, perhaps I will find myself in a magic library like Nora’s. After all, I often have vivid dreams where things I experience in my waking hours revisit me in interesting and revealing ways (sometimes horrifying ways, too, but this isn’t that kind of book, thank goodness). So it could happen. Maybe tonight.
The Midnight Library is an obvious win-win for me, the lady lucky enough to run the local library and the lady who finds reading and writing endlessly captivating. It is wonderful for all the right reasons. Fun, and funny, too. Sweet, sad, insightful, and smart—it’s a little volume that may just lighten your heart.
If you read it, let me know what you think!
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Filed under Books, Commentary, Reading
Tagged as Books, Libraries, Reading, Writing