Day Job

Librarians are usually busy people, but now and again, our schedules are insane. Mine for the next week is absolutely ludicrous. I will be giving not just one, but two lectures/presentations; the first on the hilarious and morbidly fascinating Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach, and the other, on biography and memoir. There is a library-related meeting every single day this week, and I have to belt out an entire new circulation training manual as a result of the massive renovations currently underway in my library. There are also library association annual conferences to plan, and other programs to organize. Oh, and I should be a first-time aunt any minute now.

Today we hosted Jane Urquhart as I mentioned in yesterday’s post. It was brilliant; she was charming and eloquent, and everything went very, very well. We have a new ideal for all our programs, which is to give our attendees not just an event, but an experience. We set up our auditorium with small round bistro tables, bedecked with white linen tablecloths, votive candles, roses and cups and saucers. People walked in with soft classical music playing and a warm ethereal atmosphere. We even set up tiny white lights on huge potted plants for effect. To make them feel special, we walked around and served pastries, coffee, and tea à table. What a shindig.

Despite all of this going on, I still make a point of reading those four books a week. It will be a miracle if I pull it off again by next Sunday, but in the meantime, I did manage it for today.

Frank Furedi’s Therapy Culture: Cultivating Vulnerability in an Uncertain Age, was incredible. I cannot express to you how much I love this man’s writing. Ever since I read Where Have All the Intellectuals Gone? I am a complete Furedi die-hard. Every paragraph I read, I think “Yes! Yes! Yes!” He’s so right, so often. Check out his website at http://www.frankfuredi.com to read more about him and his work.

I read more fiction this week than usual, but for no reason, really. Quebec writer Gil Courtemanche’s Une Belle Mort was very good. About a middle-aged man who watches his father suffer from Parkinson’s disease, it will likely be translated into English, since his first novel, A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali, was internationally acclaimed. I still haven’t read that one, but it’s in the ‘read next’ pile.

The last book of the week was Isabel Allende’s Portait in Sepia, which I listened to in its audio format. The actress who narrates the book, Blair Brown, is really fantastic and she does most, if not all, of Allende’s books. The story itself, spanning several generations in both San Francisco and Chile, is lovely. I particularly enjoyed the way she describes her characters, especially the women, who are never straightforward.

I really better get back to work as I still have a long night ahead.