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No Excuses!

by | | Growing the Community • Something to do • Topsham Tales

Joy of the Pen submissions have been received and we are eagerly awaiting the Joy of the Pen Reception on Saturday, November 14 1-3pm here at the Topsham Public Library. We have been encouraged by the growing number of submissions we receive each year for this program. The number of submissions is evidence of the vibrant writing community that exists in Topsham and beyond.

Are you one of those people who, upon hearing that Joy of the Pen has rolled around again, excitedly dusts off a piece e-b-white-writing-routine-quotesof your work and spruces it up to submit? And as you tidy up this piece, ideas and characters pop into your imagination for other pieces, and you tell yourself that this time you will keep writing and get on to paper the worlds that are in your head. At first, you write hurriedly and excitedly because things are so clear and the characters are so alive, but then things become blurry and what was once so clear has become dark and difficulties with timing or plot arise. Or perhaps a story wants to be written one way, but you don’t want to write it that way, so you decide to let it rest for a bit, but you will return to it in a little while – at least that’s what you tell yourself. Then a few weeks pass, maybe a few months, could be a few years later you stumble upon it and guilt floods in. You are a terrible writer – a terrible person – what kind of human being are you?! (My mind pictures over-dramatic damsels lying slumped over the writing table weeping in despair.)

Well no more! No more are we going to languish in self-loathing! No more are we going to keep silent the stories that war in us! Instead, we are going to encourage one another to do what we have dreamed of doing! We are going to help each other overcome the fear of doing something new and slay the dragon that keeps us from telling the story the way it needs to be told. Whether a new writer or an old pro, we can help one another. Beginning November 2015, the first Tuesday of every month (so the first meeting is November 3, 6-7pm) the Topsham Public Library will host Writer’s Meetup. It will be facilitated by Melissa Walsh (she facilitated our writing programs that were part of our summer reading program this past summer), and it is an informal time (with snacks!) to meet new people, make new friends, and talk all things writing. This is a free program and open to the public, so there is absolutely no reason why you can’t join us!

 

There’s a Body in the Library!

by | | Topsham Tales

lindaIt was the end of a very long day at the end of a very long week. The gray and gloom inside my sparsely furnished office reflected the gray and gloom of the dreary day outside. My P.I. business was limping along. Things were grim. I sat at my desk contemplating my dismal future. Looking at My Girl Friday, I said, “All good things must come to an end, sweetheart.” And being the cactus that she is, I got no response, but a prickly tension filled the air.

I was just about to call it quits when I heard the click clack of shoes on the wooden stairs and the jangle of bracelets on someone’s wrist. Suddenly there was a figure silhouetted in my office door window. I sat back down and with a tone of, “yeah, what d’ya want” in my voice I said, “Come in.”

A long haired beauty entered the room. She took in the room and my situation, and a look of doubt was plastered all over her face. She handed me her business card which read Cyndi Burne, Assistant Director, Topsham Public Library. I told her to sit down as I poured her a cup of tepid coffee which she rejected and said, “It’s cold in here.”

After some bit of hesitation on her part and a whole lot of begging on mine, we got down to business. The long and short of it was, a body was found in the library and the police were stumped. She needed help, and she needed it fast.

“Well,” I said, “it so happens that you have caught me between cases. Tell me what you know.”

Cyndi explained that Julie was the one to open the library that morning and she received a panic laden phone call from a her at 8:07am right after the body was found in the fiction stacks between PEN and QUE. That was my first clue. “Someone likes mysteries,” I said, “to place a body between Louise Penny and Ellery Queen is a dead giveaway.”

“Linda loves mysteries. She’s our mystery expert.” Cyndi said.

Hmmm. Linda is a mystery expert, I thought to myself. Then I added, “Who is Linda?”

“Linda is one of our staff members. She facilitates our Mystery Readers’ Roundtable Book Group. She has been with us for fourteen years. She is originally from Ohio, and moved here because her husband was in the Navy.”

I pondered this for a moment then said, “I wish I could have seen the body before it was moved.”

“Oh, the body hasn’t been moved. Dale, our custodian, is still dealing with the plugged toilet in the children’s bathroom. He hasn’t been able to get to the body yet.”

“Lead the way,” I said.

Upon entering the library, I was greeted by the library staff, and the woman I took to be Julie was still swooning from her grisly discovery.

“Is everyone here and accounted for?” I asked.

“Hello. I’m Susan Preece. I’m the director of the Topsham Public Library. First, I just want you to know we are all eager to help you and will fully cooperate with you in this investigation. Most of us are here, but Dale is in the children’s bathroom dealing with a plugged toilet. Dave is stacking boxes of books in the Friends’ closet. Linda is the only one missing.”

Hmmm. Linda is unaccounted for, I thought to myself.

I looked over this ragged bunch of employees. Oh, they all looked sweet and tidy, but I know that librarians are not to be trifled with and a more dangerous creature has yet to be found. I would have to be careful with this crowd.

Susan directed me to the body. Some rascal of the most dastardly sort wearing a Denver Broncos sweatshirt lay dead between the stacks – an arrow sticking out of his chest.

I pondered the recent events as I made my way back to the circulation desk. I was just going to ask them to request Private Investigation for Dummies when I heard one of them gasp.

“What?” I asked.

Yet another stepped forward and said, “I just noticed the book drop had some items in it. They must be from last night! Once the police were alerted, they blocked off the entrance to the library so no one would have been able to return items today.”

“Who are you and what are the items?” I asked, knowing this was a clue of the colossal kind.

“I’m Lynne and it’s two seasons of Midsomer Mystery,” she replied. I noticed the furtive glances they all cast at one another.

“What? What are you not telling me?” I demanded.

Mariah, who I deduced was the children’s librarian because of the guitar she carried with her, answered in a quiet voice, “Midsomer Mystery is one of Linda’s favorite shows.”

Hmmm. Linda’s favorite show, I thought.

Suddenly Helen exclaimed, “There is a disc missing!”

Instantly the staff began chattering wildly amongst themselves. Once I restored order, Emma informed me that only under great stress would Linda return an item missing a disc. It just wasn’t something she would do. Then Cyndi received a call from the chief of police informing her that a witness reported seeing someone wearing an I LOVE ALASKA sweatshirt speeding away from the library last night. Again in her quiet voice, Mariah told me Linda had spent five weeks this past summer visiting family in Alaska.

Hmmm. Linda went to Alaska, I thought.

Dale, finally emerging from the children’s bathroom, spoke up and said, “Weren’t the Patriots and the Packers playing last night? That could be why she was speeding away. They are her favorite teams. She wouldn’t want to miss that game.”

“Tell me all you know about Linda,” I said excitedly, “everything depends on it!”

Everyone began speaking at once. “She likes ketchup on her burgers,” “She prefers lobster over steak,” “She would take salad over soup, fries over coleslaw, and bacon and eggs over pancakes!”

From the back, barely audible over the others, Sharon yelled, “She wants to go to Rome!”

Hmmm. Linda wants to go to Rome, I thought.

We all stopped and looked at one another. Then without speaking, Susan led the way to the travel section. Just as I suspected, all the travel books for Rome were gone!

There was no time to lose! I was going to catch her before she made her getaway. I was hot on her trail, and if I stopped her the publicity would bring so much work I could hire a voluptuous secretary to water My Girl Friday. Acting as one, we all made for our vehicles and raced to Linda’s.

Once there, I barged into her home. I can tell you, Linda was quite surprised to see us all there.

“What is going on?!” She exclaimed.

All at once everyone started talking. “Quiet!” I yelled. “Linda, I have come to take you in, you no good scoundrel. The trail of clues leads directly to you.”

“What are you talking about?” Linda queried.

Cyndi explained the situation to her and Linda proclaimed her innocence, but I was having none of it. Then Cyndi’s phone rang. After a quick conversation, she hung up. “That was the police chief. They’ve arrested the perpetrators. We can all go home now.”

“Who? Who was the culprit?” I demanded.

“The police have arrested a travelling minstrel group. Evidently the man was a part of their act. It is a case of  a Hunger Games re-enactment gone terribly wrong.”

When the staff saw the dejection all over my face, they offered to get me a cup of tea. We arrived back at the library just as Dave was finishing in the closet.

“What? What did I miss?” He asked.

The preceding story is the third in a series of staff interviews. Linda is our mystery expert and facilitator of our Mystery Readers Roundtable which meets on the 4th Tuesday of every month (Sept-May) at 3 pm. 

Chores Can Be Fun! (Really, they can!)

by | | Staff Picks • Topsham Tales

cleaning-roomThis past week, I rolled up my shirtsleeves and decluttered my house. From the tip-top of the roof to the dark corners of my basement. (Well, that one corner of the basement I left alone. I’m afraid there may be a body hidden under all that stuff.) I sorted through the books, then attacked the trunks and the plastic totes. I made piles; piles for me to sort through, piles for my kids to sort through, and piles for my husband to sort through. There was no excuse worthy enough to get them out of their given tasks. I was waging war.

I sorted through everything: baby clothes (and my baby is now 14 – there comes a time when you must just let things go), quilting supplies, basketball trading cards (which, unfortunately, he refuses to part with) and winter gear. We have given things away to friends, sent loads of stuff to the charity shops, and even more loads to the recycling bins at the transfer station. And I feel great! As I decluttered my house, I decluttered my mind and body.

You may be asking yourself where all this is going. I will tell you, but first I have a confession to make. I do not like computers. I am not comfortable with all this technology and how public our lives have become, but recently I have discovered not all is bad. I have purchased a “smartphone.” I did it begrudgingly, but my children are involved in sports and coaches rely on Facebook to communicate with the teams and their parents. I found it difficult staying on top of schedules as I do not carry my laptop around with me, so I finally caved, and now I am “plugged in.”

Bear with me – just one more item before I get to the point of all this rambling on.  I love audiobooks! My absolute favorite audiobook is The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak and read by Allan Corduner. I think Mr. Corduner’s reading made this book come alive in ways I would have missed had I read it myself. Now, you do have to be careful with audiobooks, too. Some readers can really destroy a book, but when you’ve found a great narrator it seems like the colors in the fictional world are just a little bit brighter and the characters are a tad bit clearer.

Finally, to my point. My smartphone can play audiobooks!! Some of you have been enjoying this ability for ages now, and I wish I had made the discovery sooner. For me, it feels like opportunities have exploded right before my eyes. Through my Topsham Public Library, the online resource called Maine InfoNet Download Library is available to me for free, and once I downloaded Overdrive (the app used to download the audiobooks) to my phone, I had a whole library at my fingertips! When I was cleaning out the attic, I listened to Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro and read by Simon Prebble. When I was ridding the basement of spiderwebs (ewww!), I listened to Watership Down by Richard Adams and read by Ralph Cosham. Not once did I have to stop what I was doing to change cds. Not one of the cds skipped or stuttered at the most exciting moment because there weren’t any cds to skip or stutter. In my car, or in my garden, or in my kitchen, I can listen to audiobooks. Now, that is progress!

If you need help downloading an audiobook or an ebook (No, I don’t have an ereader and no, I don’t want one, either, but some people love them. We are all different and that’s why the Topsham Public Library is great because it has something for everyone!) we have a volunteer, Trisha, who is available Tuesday mornings  from 9am-11am, to help you get set up. Check it out!!

I look forward to doing my chores now that audiobooks can go with me wherever I go.

It’s Banned Book Week!!

by | | Banned Books • Topsham Tales

We get pretty excited about Banned Book Week here at the Topsham Public Library (Emma is absolutely giddy!) Every year during the last week of September the American Library Association (ALA) sponsors Banned Book Week. ALA coordinates this event to educate the public that censorship is still a thing. The ALA also maintains a list of the top ten challenged books, and the objections given for each title for each year.

In celebration of Banned Book Week, some of the Topsham Public Library staff members wrote about a favorite banned or challenged book.

Summer_of_My_German_Soldier

I chose Summer of My German Soldier By Bette Greene. It has been a long time since I have read this book, but I remember that it is the first book to make me cry. This is a the story of a friendship that develops between a girl and a German POW, and it is set in Arkansas. Greene explores themes of personal value, kindness from unexpected places, and evil in those who are closest to us. I may just have to read it again.

 

 

Susan
My favorite banned book on this year’s list is Hop On Pop! hoponpopAccording to Robert P. Doyle, from  AL Direct, April 30, 2014, this book was challenged because, the book “encourages children to use violence against their fathers.”  Hop On Pop  was groundbreaking in 1963 when it was published because it was a silly book that was fun and accessible for the young reader. Easy readers, as librarians and teachers refer to books like Hop On Pop, feature controlled language, simple repetitive sentences and strong visual clues to put the words in context for beginning readers. The whole point of them is to encourage reading. No child that I have ever met has used  Hop on Pop  as an excuse to be violent to their fathers. On the contrary, most kids and Pops I know relish the silliness and fun word play with each other!  After 51 years, it is still a classic and one of Theodore Geisel’s best!

 

hp

Linda
This year I’m going for banned books that are enjoyable to read. In that category, the Harry Potter series wins hands down. They’re exciting, imaginative, and just plain fun. One doesn’t even notice that they deal with the problems every child faces while growing up or the many injustices which exist in our society. There are great lessons in these books and so much fun in the learning.

 

 

 

 

Emma
If you enjoyed the Hunger Games trilogy by Susan Collins or sci-fi films like Equilibrium or Snowpiercer thenbrave you have, in part, to thank Aldous Huxley and the vision of the future he put forth in Brave New World. Considered to be a dystopian classic along with 1984, Fahrenheit 451 and A Handmaid’s Tale, this book has consistently hit most banned and challenged lists since it was published in 1932. In fact, it was the 16th most banned book in the 20th century. Why? Here is the ironic twist: for a book that is critical of sexual promiscuity and numbing emotions with drugs, it has been criticized and banned for promoting the very same things (which makes one wonder if the would-be banners have actually read the book). Brave New World is by far my most favorite dystopian novel. I read it as a teenager, and it is, in my opinion, the one that has proved most prophetic. When I think of the world that Huxley predicted, I am astonished at how closely it resembles the world we live in today.

 

glass

Lynne
My challenged book choice is The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls.  I really enjoy memoirs and this one was done well.  I believe it is challenged for its description of the dysfunctional childhood the author experienced. This was the medium Walls chose to communicate her experience and it was successful.

She also wrote a follow-up true life novel, Half Broke Horses based on her mother’s childhood.  Check that one out as well.  There’s a bit of dysfunction in all of us!

 

 

gone

 

 

Helen
Gone with the Wind is my choice.  I read this years ago and really liked it.  Scarlett is a force to reckon with as she goes about trying to survive during the times after the civil war.  I would say that it is on the banned book list because of the slavery issue and the Civil War.

 

 

 

diarySharon
I read The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian with my daughter who was a reluctant reader in the 5th or 6th grade. It was the one book that captured my daughter’s heart and her attention. She read it voraciously, several times and it is considered among her favorites. She read it for the some of the reasons it was banned, including “depictions of bullying.” Bullying is a topic profoundly present in middle school, and it is helpful for students to read about how other people lived with bullying or overcame it, because it can help a reader give voice to his or her own struggles. It’s also a story about a kid who lived in poverty and refused to be categorized as a lost cause.

 

 

 

Now Julie couldn’t pick just one. The following are her choices for this year:

persy

 

 

The graphic novel tells the story of a young girl growing up in Iran during the Islamic revolution of 1979 and the reintroduction of a religious state.

 

 

 

penguin

 

 

The children’s book was inspired by a real-life story of two male penguins raising a baby chick.

 

 

 

 

stars

 

 

Book about teens dying of cancer who find love.

Want to celebrate Banned Books Week with us? You can find banned book lists, social media banners and profile pics here: http://www.ala.org/bbooks/bannedbooksweek/ideasandresources/freedownloads or you could check out a banned book at the library (we have a display).

It’s the Beatles for Helen

by | | Topsham Tales

The following is the second in the series in which I conduct flash interviews with members of the Topsham Public Library staff. 

When I was a teenager, I often heard my mother call up the stairs, “Jen, come set the table.” I think my mother hated telling me to do it as much as I hated doing it. See, my mother pays attention to detail, and I do not. I would plop the plates around the table, scatter some silverware, place napkins on the plates (this was probably the worst of my infractions in my mother’s eye) and call it good. My mother would check my work, and we would do it over again. Fork on the left, knife on the right, little spoon to the right of the knife, and napkins folded and placed under the fork. (I’ll not mention the ordeal when setting the table for the after-church dinners on Sunday and the additional silverware necessary for that.) I don’t worry about the details – I’m a big picture person. Thankfully, there are people out there, like my mom, who pay attention to detail, and Helen is one of them.

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Helen is a New Jersey girl and, as it is with many of our Topsham residents, it was the Navy that brought her family to Maine. She has been with the Topsham Public Library for 19 years! It is all her fault that Cyndi, Lynne, Linda, and Julie work here, too. (And we are thankful for that!) Helen used to be the volunteer coordinator, and in that capacity, she brought the aforementioned on board, and eventually, they were each hired on as a member of the staff.

Helen’s responsibilities have changed since then, and now she is, what we call, a cataloger. I’m not sure of all the ins and outs of what she does, but I do know it is meticulous work and if Helen did not pay attention to the details, we would not be able to find the books, movies, cds, and/or all the other items we want in the card catalogue and Minerva sites.

Reading has always been a love of Helen’s. Her first favorite books that she can remember are the gothic romance novels by Phyllis Whitney. Bookstores weren’t around when she was young, so Helen had to go to the local drug store and search “the spinning things” for new books. Now, she loves horror, and Stephen King is her favorite author. (I asked her about Dean Koontz because I know she liked him at one time, but he has since fallen out of favor with her.)

Helen can scream! No, I have not heard her scream, but I know she can scream because in 1964 Helen went to a Beatles concert when they played at the Atlantic City Convention Hall! (I’m a bit envious myself.) We know a whole lotta screamin’ went on there. She promises me she did not faint, though.

If you were to hang out with the staff at the library, you would discover we talk about food a lot: “What’s that you’re having for lunch?” “What are you having for supper tonight?” “Have you tried insert name of restaurant here, yet?” “Did you see this new cookbook we just got in?” And on and on it goes. So, of course, I had to ask the important food questions. Helen prefers ketchup to mustard, and coleslaw instead of fries (personally, I never say no to fries). She will take her eggs scrambled, soup instead of salad, and Italian before Chinese food. No lobster dinner for Helen – she’ll take the steak.

There is one question I ask myself on a regular basis, and I asked Helen this question, too. “Helen,” I said, “If money were no object and you could do anything you want, what would you do?” She looked at me like I asked her what color the green grass was and said, “I would buy a house on the beach, so I could read a book.” Sounds good to me.

 

 

I Do Not Have a Green Thumb

by | | Topsham Tales

imagesThis past Friday, in the drizzling morning rain, I found myself cleaning out my garden. I am the first one to admit that I am terrible at keeping any plant alive, and my family will tell you the same thing. Every spring my children shake their heads and look at me with panic stricken eyes. They say things like, “Mom, really, you don’t have to do this. There are plenty of farmers and farmers’ markets around here where you can buy fruits and vegetables. The farmers NEED your business. You can even go to Hannaford. They have a whole produce department.”  But I do like to grow things. I like to put a seed in the ground and water it and talk to it and care for it – well until about mid-July when I find that I have forgotten to check my garden for the past week or two, and you all know that when I do finally check it, the @#!?** weeds have taken over.

Well, this year I decided to add sugar pumpkins and squash to my garden and of course I planted the ever over-abundant producing zucchini plant. They all came up beautifully! The leaves were a luscious green and the buds were numerous on all of them. It was like Ta-Da! Everything came together. Well, I went out one day to check on their progress when I noticed something wrong with the roots. The plants still looked great, but the roots had turned to mush and gradually the mush worked its way up the stems and the plants stopped producing.

So, this past Friday I was pulling out my dashed hopes and carting them off to the compost heap. Even on this sad occasion, I enjoyed being in my garden and my thoughts carried me to a passage in Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White that is one of my all time favorites. It reads as follows:

     The crickets sang in the grasses. They sang the song of summer’s ending, a sad, monotonous song. “Summer is over and gone,” they sang. “Over and gone, over and gone. Summer is dying, dying.”

     The crickets felt it was their duty to warn everybody that summertime cannot last forever. Even on the most beautiful days in the whole year – the days when summer is changing into fall – the crickets spread the rumor of sadness and change.

     Everybody heard the song of the crickets. Avery and Fern Arable heard it as they walked the dusty road. They knew that school would soon begin again. The young geese heard it and knew that they would never be little goslings again. Charlotte heard it and knew that she hadn’t much time left. Mrs. Zuckerman, at work in the kitchen, heard the crickets, and a sadness came over her, too. “Another summer gone,” she sighed. Lurvy, at work building a crate for Wilbur, heard the song and knew it was time to dig potatoes.

Fall, my most favorite time of year, is quickly approaching, and though there is a melancholy to the passage from Charlotte’s Web, I find it beautiful. And I thought about Fall and apples and bonfires and this passage as I worked in my garden.

My tomatoes are still doing well, and I will stew them in my kitchen while enjoying the sun shining through my windows and feeling the crispness in the almost fall air.

 

 

 

 

The Book Sale is Coming! The Book Sale is Coming!

by | | Something to do • Special Events • Topsham Tales

2014-09-27 11.36.20Do you like music? Do you know every year, the Topsham Public Library hosts Music in March – a series of FREE concerts that range from a capella, to bluegrass, to barbershop quartet, to folk, and even flute ensembles?

Do you like the discounted museum passes that the Topsham Public Library offers its patrons? Places like Portland Museum of Art, The Children’s Museum, The Maine Maritime Museum, and of course Maine Wildlife Park are wonderful places for exploration, fun, and thoughtfulness.

Do you like Big Truck Day? Summer reading programs? The annual fishing derby? All of these events and opportunities would not be possible if it were not for The Friends of the Topsham Public Library. This group of dedicated volunteers sponsors every one of these programs.

One way they fund these programs is through the annual book sale. AND IT’S ALMOST HERE!!!! I go to the book sale every year, and this year won’t be any different. I get so excited! Not only do I get to support The Friends of the Topsham Public Library through my purchases, but I get great books, cds, movies, and audio-books as well! Over time, I have collected the complete Harry Potter series in hardcover. And these books look just like new – no one would know I bought them used. (That is a HUGE savings compared to any other book seller!) I also have found a delightful collection of English ghost stories. And last year, I left the sale with a beautiful over-sized book titled Folk Tales of the Amur. I never would have seen that book anywhere else. There is always something unexpected and unique at the book sale. Have you found something unexpected at the book sale?

Enough of my gabbing – you want to know the details. If you are a member of The Friends of the Topsham Public Library, the book sale begins on Friday, September 25 at 5pm until 7pm. (If you want to become a member, click here. Also, memberships will be available at the door.) The book sale is open to the general public on Saturday, September 26, 9am-4pm and Sunday, September 27, 10am-2pm. Sunday is the $3 bargain bag sale!

We are still taking donations for the book sale, too! There is no better time to clean off your bookshelves than now. You may drop them off at the front desk next time you come to the Topsham Public Library.

Please note: The Topsham Public Library will not be open for normal business during the book sale hours.

We hope to see you there!!

Joy of the Pen

by | | Special Events • Topsham Tales

JOPThere once was a writer from Nantucket
who ran around town with a bucket,
and when asked, “why do you carry that thing?”
she just shook her head and said, “Do you not have any imagination?”

It’s just my first draft. I know, I have a lot of work to do. I only have until October 10, to polish my piece. What am I talking about? Well, on September 1, 2015, the Topsham Public Library began accepting submissions for the Third Annual Joy of the Pen Writing Competition.

We are fortunate to live in a community, and in a state, where writers of all levels abound, and we celebrate that here. Joy of the Pen is open to year-round Maine residents, and the categories are: poetry, fiction, and non-fiction. There is also a category for teen-aged writers, and new for this year – Maine-related non-fiction.

Not only do we live in a community of writers, we live in a community that supports and encourages writers. We want to thank our sponsors: The Cryer sponsors the Verdi L Tripp Award for fiction, the Margaret F. Tripp Award for Poetry, and the Richard F. Snow Award for Nonfiction; Just Write Books sponsors the Maine-Related Nonfiction Award; the TPL Teen Room sponsors the TPL Teen Scene Award, and the Friends of the Topsham Public Library sponsors the Honorable Mention Awards in fiction, nonfiction and poetry. Joy of the Pen would not be possible without the support of our sponsors. Please, check them out – see what they are about and thank them for their support.

Well, I need to go sharpen my pencil and get back to work. If you would like to submit your work, you can do so here.

 

 

Here are the answers to last week’s quiz – I know you all have been holding your breath-

1. Romeo & Juliet by William Shakespeare

2. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

3. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

4. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

5. Moby Dick by Herman Melville

6. Watership Down by Richard Adams

7. Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

8. The Crow Road by Iain Banks

9. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

10. The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields

11. The Once and Future King by T.H. White

12. Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier

13. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling

14. The Color Purple by Alice Walker

15. The Gunslinger by Stephen King

And if you identified The Crow Road as containing Emma’s favorite first line, you get 10 bonus points!

Pop Quiz!

by | | Topsham Tales

pop quizThe countdown is on – only five more days until school begins on August 31! The first day of school is always a bitter-sweet moment for us at the Topsham Public Library because that means summer reading will soon be over and lazy summer days are quickly coming to an end. So, to help get our heads back in the game, I thought it would be appropriate to give you all a quiz. Don’t worry, and put your calculators away – no math is involved.

Below you will find a list of first lines from books. Some are from new books, some are from old books, some are from books I read for English class and some are from books I read instead of reading books for English class. You can earn 10 bonus points if you tell me which one is Emma’s favorite first line. (If you don’t know who Emma is, read last week’s post.) The answers will be available in next week’s blog.

1. Two households, both alike in dignity/In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,/From ancient grudge break                 to new mutiny,/Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.

2. The Nellie, a cruising yawl, swung to her anchor without a flutter of the sails, and was at rest.

3. 1801 – I have just returned from a visit to my landlord – the solitary neighbor that I shall be troubled with.

4. Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

5. Call me Ishmael.

6. The primroses were over.

7. Scarlett O’Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were.

8. It was the day my grandmother exploded.

9. There was no possibility of taking a walk that day.

10. My mother’s name was Mercy Stone Goodwill.

11. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays it was Court Hand and Summulae Logicales, while the rest of the week it was the Organon, Repetition, and Astrology.

12. Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.

13. Not for the first time, an argument had broken out over breakfast at number four, Privet Drive.

14. You better not never tell nobody but God.

15. The Man in Black fled across the desert, and the Gunslinger followed.

God Save the Queen!

by | | Topsham Tales

batman_logo_finalDon’t worry! Don’t worry! We have not been invaded! Periodically throughout the next couple of months, I am going to highlight a member of the Topsham Public Library staff. We see so many different faces every day, I thought it would be nice to introduce ourselves and help you get to know us a little better. So, let’s get started.

For those of you who don’t know, our Adult Services Librarian, Emma Gibbon hails from Yorkshire, England. Emma joined the library staff in 2011 and earned her Masters in Library Science in 2014. Enough of the boring stuff – let’s get to the good stuff.

Emma and I met together so I could conduct what I call a flash interview – I asked Emma a series of either/or questions, and she had only seconds to respond. This is the result.

Though she enjoys fiction more than non-fiction, Emma’s first favorite book was a children’s non-fiction book about dinosaurs released by Penguin Books. Now, I don’t mean to stir up any controversy, but Emma shuns ereaders for the hold it in your hand and flip the pages the old fashioned way honest to goodness book. But, make no mistake, Emma is no luddite; she is a master of Facebook and Twitter (but if she had to go without one of them, she would rather sacrifice Twitter than Facebook) and stays on top of the goings on in the tangled world of technology with her PC and not a Mac (little warning here – don’t get her started on Google).

Emma prefers the short story, but she is an avid reader of graphic novels especially the Sandman series by Neil Gaiman. Now, there is one thing that is vital for you to understand when it comes to Emma, and that is that she believes with her whole heart that Neil Gaiman is practically perfect in every way, (the only fault she finds in him is his short story) so, it must be made very clear that it was only under duress that she answered my question when I asked her which she preferred – American Gods or Sandman. It took her time and periods of great anguish before I received a civil reply.

After she composed herself, we were able to carry on and I inquired about her hero preferences. DC comes in first for Emma, and that is due to the Caped Crusader – Batman. And if she could have her own super power, she would prefer to read minds than be invisible.

Of course, since Emma is from England, I had to ask – tea or coffee and yes, tea won. She prefers fried eggs to scrambled, salad to soup, and chocolate to vanilla. When Emma is not at the library, you can find her reading, writing, knitting, x-stitching, and avoiding housework. Oh – and she enjoys playing video games badly.

Stop by and say hi next time you’re in.