I'm not here right now, but if you leave a message ...

I leave in 3 days and there is so much to do! We have our big end-of-summer and end-of-summer-reading club tea tomorrow so we are baking and shopping and calling and generally acting like headless chickens. Meanwhile, I am packing and sorting and organizing and trying to make sure I don't forget essential overseas travel things ... like face wash or passports. And to top it off, I'm trying to finish my two British-themed books before I leave.

Last night I was all cozy in bed (with the AC on and my doggie snuggled beside me) enjoying the cute, quaint, book-lovers book The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Then I turned to page 178. Oh, I won't give it away but I lay sobbing for awhile. It's a wonderful, if slightly melodramatic, book. When it is finished I will quickly read The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett (Queen Elizabeth finds she loves to read ... what could be better??) and then I'm ready to crack my crisp, new paperback copy of Jason Pinter's The Mark on the plane.

Needless to say, I'll be too busy browsing the British Library and shopping at every book store I can find in Central London to do any blogging! So until September, happy reading!

Roll Call

If you reside in or are visiting the Hamptons this week, grab a copy of Hampton Style. It is free and available wherever you can get Dan's Papers (whose cover story this week is the annual Artist and Writers Charity Softball Game - the artists won for the second year in a row). Hampton Style's cover story is writers of the Hamptons and on the cover is my favorite patron, Tom Wolfe. He is looking elegant in a (BLUE?!) blazer over his white shirt and pants. My favorite part of the story is looking closely at the photos of Mr. White in his Southampton home ... you can see titles to some of the books on his shelves.
The issue also contains a compiled list of local writers, which we at the library contributed to. In case you are not lucky enough to be on the East End of Long Island, here is the list:

Edward Albee
Alan Alda
Arlene Alda
Julie Andrews
Marjorie Appleman
Philip Appleman
Ken Auletta
David B. Axelrod
Melissa Bank
Helen Barer
Richard Barrons
Louis Begley
Edward Bleier
James Brady
Ben Bradlee
Marie Brenner
Tina Brown
Tricia Brown
Robert Caro
Betsy Carter
Marilyn Church
Mark Ciabattari
Tom Clavin
Bob Colacello
Jennet Conant
Gwyneth Cravens
Sophie Dahl
Robert Dash
Jill A. Davis
Nelson DeMille
Morris Dickstein
E.L. Doctorow
Antony Drexel-Duke
David Ebershoff
Nora Ephron
Jason Epstein
Sir Harold Evans
Charles Ades Fishman
James Frey
Alan Furst
Steven Gaines
Philip Galanes
Danielle Ganek
Ina Garten
Stan Goldberg
Barbara Goldowsky
Barbara Goldsmith
Aaron Richard Golub
Alastair Gordon
Martin Gottfried
Gael Greene
John Jonas Gruen
Patricia Gussin
Angelica Harris
Ursula Hegi
Amy Hempel
Arthur Herzog
Barbara T. Hoffman
A.M. Homes
Robert Hughes
Bonnie Jacobson
D. Daniel Judson
Phil Keith
Pamela C. Keogh
Klaus Kertess
Chris Knopf
Jill Krementz
Alex Kuczynski
Lucette Lagnado
Denise LeFrak Calicchio
Margaret Logan
Robert Long
Mike Lupica
David Margolick
Peter Matthiessen
Renee Mauborgne
Nick McDonell
Jay McInerney
Hope McIntyre
Marijane Meaker
Sylvia Mendelman
Barbara Metzger
Danny Meyer
John Meyer
Judith Miller
James Monaco
Daniel Thomas Moran
Bob Morris
William Norwich
Josephine Nobisso
Sidney Offit
Joseph Olshan
Holly Peterson
Jean Marie Pierson
Nicholas Pileggi
Joe Pintauro
Jason Pinter
Allen Planz
Taylor Plimpton
Norman Podhoretz
Faith Popcorn
Anne Porter
Norman S. Poser
Georgette Preston
Richard Price
Sally Quinn
Nahid Rachlin
Phyllis Raphael
Dan Rattiner
Robert Reeves
Paul Reickhoff
Robert Borris Riskin
Roger Rosenblatt
Jim Rutenberg
James Salter
Lynne W. Scanlon
Karenna Schiff
Caroline Kennedy-Schlossberg
Bud Schulberg
Philip Schultz
Michael Shnayerson
Dani Shapiro
Wilfred Sheed
Julie Sheehan
Gail Sheehy
Carol Sherman
Dava Sobel
Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel
Warren St. John
Anne Surchin
Simon Van Booy
Eric Van Lustbader
Victoria Van Lustbader
Emma Walton
Kurt Wenzel
Barbara Wersba
Alexandra Wolfe
Tom Wolfe
Hilma Wolitzer

Newsflash

It seems like every few months there is some sort of expose of school or library spending. Well, it's that time again. When I grabbed my soggy Newsday from my front lawn Saturday I opened it to find an article about the different taxes charged in different Long Island communities, and how just because some people pay more it doesn't mean they have a "better" library. You can see the full article here.
I found myself yelling at my dog (the only one who listens) over the paper. Yes, Sachem Public Library serves one of the biggest communities, but just because other libraries have more books does not mean they are misspending their money. Sachem does a dizzying amount of programs, trips and classes. They do so much because that is what their community wants and needs, so more of the budget goes to that department (actually, they have an entire staff devoted to programs, whereas other libraries have their programs coordinated by "reference" librarians, which means programming is not their only job). It is actually a GOOD thing that libraries differ so much. The whole point of a library is to be a community center that caters to its individual community. And on a diverse island such as ours, that means vast differences from community to community, library to library.

This morning's soggy paper yeilded less yelling. An opinion piece by Bob Keeler reminded me that there are patrons out there who will stand up for their libraries. Those who are looking for scandal to fill a newspaper are not patrons, just like those who bellyache about library taxes are not patrons. Community members who use their libraries for books, movies, classes, entertainment and as community centers know what a great bargain they are.

Authors, authors everywhere

I missed seeing Paula Uruburu when she was at Cold Spring Harbor Library so I have decided to take it upon myself to bring her to my library ... even though we have a programming department that does an amazing job. So I have emailed Mrs. Uruburu and am anxiously awaiting her response. I figured I'd take a break from checking my email and post.

Twice now I've seen Zachary Lazar, local resident and author of Sway, here at the library typing away with a huge pile of typed pages beside his Mac. Is it totally rude to ask him what he is writing about next??

A reporter from Hampton Style contacted me yesterday because they are running a piece on all the writers who live full time or just summers in the Hamptons. She wanted to see if she missed any and between Terry and Elizabeth we thought of a number of additions. I won't post the list now (I don't want to scoop them!) but maybe after the issue is out ... it's amazing who is out here!!

I hope this is me someday!

A woman who began her work as a librarian in 1934 is still at it ... at 100!
Full article here.

Q: What's better than a great book?

A: Finding out the author is a nice guy!

Our final Summer Reading Program genre discussion group was Monday and we discussed mysteries. Thanks to Terry, our librarian/bookstore owner, we had a guest speaker. Jason Pinter, author of The Mark, The Guilty and the newly released The Stolen (all with protagonist Henry Parker) who came bearing homemade cookies and brownies. He gave our (large!) group a short biography and then took questions. We learned about what books he reads, how he constructs his mysteries and how he went about getting his books published.

Terry and I also had the pleasure of having dinner with Jason after the discussion. We got some great dirt on a big writer (he he) along with our Italian food. And Jason even let me follow him on the scary, dark back roads of the Hamptons to the highway.

The best part is that this nice, young guy is getting crazy buzz! From Publishers Weekly, "Parker's first-person voice dominates: it lists between Parker as gritty, desensitized journalist and young romantic who wants little more than to spend the rest of his life with one woman. The emotional dichotomy makes Parker a captivating and complex protagonist, one whose pithy observations about New York are dead on." Jason has also been nominated for a string of various awards.

I have a long flight in 17 days and I am a nervous flier. I need some good distractions so I purchased Jason's three books (from my local independent bookstore :) ). After meeting him and hearing so many good things about the character he has created I am anxious to start ... but I will hide the books from myself until the day I leave for London. And I'll finally get to meet Henry Parker high above the Atlantic Ocean.