Thursday, July 30, 2009

One Month, One Week


It's been one month and one week since I climbed the dreaded 118 steps and set foot in my beloved library. Perhaps it was glad to see me today. The shelves are looking nice and well-stocked since most of the students have turned books in and gone away for the summer. Library, I was faithful to you. ..I didn't go to my hometown library during vacation.

Anxious to get back to my "Support Your Local Library Challenge", I saw plenty of good books, but checked out only two. I'm attempting restraint because during my last couple of visits in the spring, I returned most of the books I'd checked out without reading them. Once I get these two done, I want to tackle The Forsyte Saga.

Anyway, here's what I carried out and back down the 118 steps:

1. The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne. Would you believe that I've never read this book? In college, I read some Hawthorne: a handful of the short stories, The Blithedale Romance and The House of The Seven Gables twice. I liked the stories, perceiving the faintest enjoyable whiff of Poe in them. The two novels didn't float my boat at all -- in fact, quite the opposite, actually --but I have high hopes for Hester & the gang. Meanwhile, my Tough & Cool Inner Bookworm is wriggling with glee.

2. Shaking The Nickel Bush - Ralph Moody. I've never read anything by Moody, but I saw this autobiography, (which I gather is part of the Little Britches series) in the humor section, not too far from The Benchley Roundup, which I loved and always stop by and visit when I'm in my library. On the first page of Shaking The Nickel Bush, Moody mentions that his hometown is St. Joseph, Missouri, which is less than two hours from Sedalia. Proximity seems to have carried the day for Mr. Moody.
'
Although I hated for vacation to end, it's so cozy and reassuring to get back to my rituals and routines.

9 comments:

Lezlie said...

I've had The Scarlet Letter sitting around forever. I need to get to that one, too!

Lezlie

Milkmaid said...

Hi. I found your blog this morning. The Ralph Moody Little Britches set is our family's favorite book series. We haven't gotten to the Nickel Bush one yet (I think it's next), but we've thoroughly enjoyed the others.

Have you read The Fields of Home? If so, we have a neat post up at our site regarding the property in Maine where the story takes place.

And did you know Moody calls the public library his alma mater?

Hope you enjoy your reads!

Amateur Reader (Tom) said...

I believe it! I just read The Scarlet Letter in May.

It was fantastic.

Anonymous said...

i've been hiding from my library for two weeks now...i have a several overdue books and haven't had a second to get there--even though i'm a weekly volunteer! i think that my overdue fines helped to fund the new addition on our library...lol.

D said...

Just a couple weeks ago I found a little secret I'd never known about: Half Price Books.
Now, I don't go to the library mostly because I love owning books and I enjoy going back and rereading them.... plus I hope to someday start my own little library inside my future home..

Anyway, I understand how you feel. Sometimes I'll get a bunch of books and only read one or two, simply because it seems kind of overwhelming. Now, I get one or two (max) and make sure I read them.

Currently reading a psychology book called The Face in The Mirror by Julian Paul Keenan. I plan on tackling Frankenstein soon.

Good Luck!

Carrie K said...

I understand your attempt at restraint - I'm attempting it myself - more or less successfully.

Eh, the Scarlet Letter was okay. You didn't like The House of Seven Gables but read it twice?

Bookfool said...

Oh, me too on The Forsyte Saga! It's been taunting me since I overdid the ARC acceptance thing and is one of the many reasons I'm giving up book tours and not accepting advanced readers. Too many books I've owned for a while are calling my name.

Susan said...

Welcome home, Susan! I've missed you! I hope your library there is good for you since you showed it such loyalty! lol I like that back to routines bit. My kids are having problems settling into the summer routine. And we have another month to go!

I didn't read the Scarlet Letter. My sister had to, though. I read the back of the book and thought it was stupid Puritan thing to do and I wouldn't have worn it (I would have made a very bad Puritan....) so I'll probably never read this book because I get so mad at the idea of it!! See? I'm all the way over here in Canada, and just thinking about the Scarlet Letter gets me mad!!

I haven't read The Forsythe Saga, though my step-mother did, and of course it was a tv series from England over here in the 1980's, I remember it playing. I want to read Trollope first before thinking of any other big series!

Dawn said...

I have been meaning to read "The Scarlet Letter" for a long time; probably eighth grade. I remember I had to write some sort of essay over it after watching a short film. I think it was because we were studying Romanticism. Make sure to tell us how it is! I'm curious to know.