Chasing Embers

I love the website NetGalley where I can find books about to be published and read them (and review, of course)  but I get too greedy and then I have to suspend all other household activities (poor me) and read, read, read.  This one was fun and not quite what I expected.

As a first time novel, it's pretty good, tho the author gets carried away in some of his plentiful use of adverbs and adjectives, but I hold out hope he'll tone it down in his following novels. It's a fun read about dragons and magic, and fairly well reasoned out to its use in this alternate earth. I found it interesting that the author talks about conservation of resources and the earth's changing climate, and the devastation of war as seen from a dragon who has the long view. I was impressed with this addition. There's lots of action, and a bit of romance. Lots of introspection on the part of the dragon, and growth in the character, which was somewhat unexpected on my part.

Reader's Advisory: Urban Fantasy. First in the series. This is a great What to Read Next for followers of the Sandman Slim series by Richard Kadrey, the Dresden Chronicles by Jim Butcher, or Simon Green's Nightside series.

Where I am Now by Mara Wilson

I love autobiographies.  There's something sort of naughty about them peeking into someone else's life, and not minding my own business.  I suppose it's a manner of wondering if I'm doing my life right, because for sure it's doesn't seem to be going as I would prefer.  However, I really enjoyed Mara Wilson's new autobiography Where I am Now.  It's a parody of those click bait sites we see at the bottom of articles, that tell you the celebrities you've grown up with are now completely disgraced, old, fat or whatever.  Like we're not all human.  Anyway, my review:

Autobiographies; where we peek into someone else's life with no shame. Wilson's story was a thoroughly enjoyable read, even though I empathized as Ms. Wilson discusses her personal anxieties and obsessions, and later discovering that they are treatable. But I particularly like how she discovers that her true love is telling stories and doing stand-up story telling. She speaks to how being a very young actor sets up expectations in later life, within herself and with others who saw her movies. And she talks about, even though she was considered |cute" by casting directors in her youth, she is not considered "pretty enough" as she grows into her teens, giving no credit to her acting talent. I mean, really, how many of us were pretty in our teens? She speaks of some of the people she worked with, especially her love of Robin Williams. She takes these stories as her stand up material giving them a wry, comedic twist, making the folly of our human experiences comparable.

Faithful by Alice Hoffman

I don't know that anyone would be interested, but I read...alot.  And to hang on to a shred of my 30 years of librarianship and Reader's Advisory service, I write book reviews, fairly short ones, for GoodReads, NetGalley, Amazon, Pinterest, Barnes & Noble.  Nothing spectacular, just what I think. So I thought I would just start adding them here, too.  What the heck.

And I'm starting it off with a book I've just finished that in many ways hit home.  My mother passed away almost 4 years ago, and it devastated me.  Perhaps because my father had died when I was very young, and she raised me and my two younger brothers by herself.  She never remarried.  She claimed my late father was the love of her life.  But we lived in a small town, and she had many brothers and sisters to provide emotional support for her.  She told me once, she had knew she had to stop crying after he died of polycystic kidney disease.  She had three little children to raise and she couldn't let Grief take her over.  I recognized her story, and mine, in Alice Hoffman's Faithful.

Grief and loss....like falling helplessly, hopelessly into a black hole. All the "what ifs..." and the "I should haves..." that run through one's mind, examining all ways that this mindnumbing loss could have been prevented. Having been through this type of loss four years ago when my mother passed, I easily recognized the desolation Shelby feels when her best friend is left comatose, after a black ice incident when Shelby had been driving. Reliving the incident in every moment endlessly on some type of hideous loop of self destruction and self recrimination.

And yet, this story is not the sad descent into hopelessness that one may expect. It's the powerful story of the support of family and friends, and even strangers. Working one's way through grief and again finding worth in your own being. Being faithful to the person you've lost and to yourself. Dealing with Grief can take years, and it never really goes away. One just gets better at dealing with it in microsteps. And one can find truths in one's own hidden depths. This is a touching story, full of hidden hope. Don't miss it.

And that's where I was for a long time.  In a black hole.  Recriminations of how I treated her, or should have done better by her.  And yet knowing all along, she'd tell me not too.  We'd loved each other and we were there for each other when necessary.  And slowly, slowly I've pulled myself out and felt like caring about life and the future again.Okay, enough sadness for now.

New Page

I am starting a new page in my life.  My, that sounds pretentious.  But it's now been four years since I've retired from CML, and it's been three and a half since Mum passed, and I'm starting to pull myself out of my grief and self pity and working to find a new direction I need to take.  So what has been my major interest these past few years....that thing that still sparks my interest and keeps my mind working?  Ok, so I like to read and that will continute, but I think both you and I know that many times reading is escape from reality.  And I really need to start dealing in reality more often.  Amanda has turned 18, and will be starting college soon, and will be moving even further out of my life...as it should be.  Can't just hang around anymore.

So what's interesting for me?  Vintage stuff, really.  I love finding vintage stuff that needs some love and tenderness and a good cleaning and a bit of repair, and then doing that.  Mark is of course, wondering what I'm going to do with this "stuff" and how much of it is going to pile up, but maybe I can sell it.  Some of it I'm repurposing for me:  Like the two mid century modern couches I found, and some of the mid century starburst clocks, but we'll see how this goes. I don't think I'm in this really for the money.  However, money allows me to buy some more.  Bad Me.  But let's see how this goes.

I retired from the CML System in January of 2012 after 26 years and 10 months of being a CML employee, and I haven't regretted a moment of it.  I had begun to realize that as much as I love the library world, and books and reading...I wasn't happy at where it was going.  I don't think there was any real choice in making the changes that Administration had made.  The world is changing more and more quickly, and what I grew up with as a traditional library just wasn't viable anymore.  I realized that what the library had become, and where it was heading, was no longer something I was interested in.  There are those persons that are, of course, and I decided it was time to let them have at it.  I haven't looked back.  I find the only real thing I do regret, is the access to the new books.  There's something about having them all around you that makes you notice them more, and makes it easier to find new interesting things to read.  I have to work harder now to find good things to read, and perhaps I'm not reading as much.  But my library card now only has a few items on it, where as before it was constantly full.

I also knew that there was a great deal of stress in my job, but I didn't realize how much until several months after I left. And let's face it, I don't miss the paperwork and the deadlines.  All around it was a good decision. Yay for me, for making the right decision.

Searching for Bryan Tarlton

I had an uncle, since passed away, who had a little general antiques store in Ontario, CA. He would go around to auctions and buy stuff up and put it in his store. My mother saw a painting there that she really liked - a woodland scene. She would have loved to own it but she didn't have the money to purchase it. (my uncle was married to my mother's sister, and you had to know him) Anyway, For some reason the painting got damaged. I mean really damaged. Someone must have put an elbow through it. It was being put into the trash, and my mother asked if she could have it. She put it away and tried to find someway to fix it. It's been in storage for years, until I took it to get it fixed. I've got a lead on someone might be able to fix it.

However, my mother wanted some information on the artist. The picture is signed Bryan Tarlton. I've found a little bit of information about him, gleaned from here and there. There are many of his paintings going through the auction houses, averaging from $150 to about $500, mostly of beech tree scenes. Obviously, not a famous artist, but respectable.

He's from Indiana, and most of his oil landscapes are of Brown County, Indiana beech woods.He must have really loved beech trees. He was born in Franklin, IN and lived in Indianapolis. He lived from April 1899 to September 1962. His second wife's name was Mildred Boyd Tarlton. And that's really about it. Of course, I haven't dedicated my time to it, but it will come. And I would welcome any offerings of anyone who has more information.

The power is OUT!

I never know whether I should be amused or worried. Example: Today at my work location the electric power was out. (Somebody hit a street pole down the avenue, electric wires everywhere, police diverting traffic, etc) My staff met me as I got out of my car, informing me of the situation. I'm sure the first thing they wanted to hear was that they could go home, but no...This is basically still a library and people can read - by the windows, under the skylights - And we opened our doors to the public on time as always. Life can go on.

For once, there was NOT a great flood of people into the branch as the doors opened. Of course, having signs on the doors that said - No electricity, No computers and Yes, we're open - might have had a bit to do with it; especially the No Computers part. However, several people came in to check. We'd meet people at the door "Hello, the electricity is out. May I help you find something?" And almost every single person would respond "Are the computers working?" (No, the lack of electricity let all the squirrels out of their cages) That is the part that worries me, or amuses me - take your pick. After we'd explain "No, the computers are not working as they run on electricity and the electricity is out," (let me lead you by the hand through this thought process) then they'd ask with all seriousness "When will the computers be working again?" (When we can round up all the squirrels and get them working again?) Oooh the things I want to say, when properly all I can respons with is "I don't know." They then turn and walk out, some of them angry.

And it's not just the computers being out, people come in looking to use the copy machine, or the computer printer, or the wi-fi, and to ask why is it so warm in here? Again we patiently explain the power is out and that electricity runs that particular item.

Have we just become so used to electricity that we can't conceive of losing it? It was a quiet morning though. Even staff couldn't perform basic morning duties - no computers. We pretty much just sat around like lumps, and/or caught up on our professional reading. We did get our shelves all straightened though, and we checked out books the old fashioned way - by hand, paper and pencil.