October Books

Well that was fun. After writing for an hour I lost my entire draft. Now to reinvent the wheel.

I read seven books this month, after a slow start. I had planned to start this post by writing about last Monday, when Andrew surprised me by appearing in my office, but Nancy wrote about that, so I don't need to! Her post also reveals what she was up to, but did not tell anyone about, so we wouldn't worry about her! In her post you will find pictures of me with Andrew, and me with the cute "Trick or Treat, Smell my Feet" card that Andrew delivered to me. Pictures taken by our desk students. It was fun to see Andrew for two seconds during his very busy trip to BYU.

It was a slow month for reading because it was a difficult month at work. Since I am the department chair, I get to make sure that all the things get done, and we have had too many absences with people having babies, and strokes, and COVID. Babies are good. Strokes and COVID, not so much.

And now for the books:

1. Life after Theft by Aprilynne Pike. Even though she is a New York Times best selling author, I have never read one of her books before. I liked it, so I will probably read more. This book was another case of "I need a book in case I am waiting" run to the Juvy shelves nearby my office. It tells the story of Jeff, who moves to a new school in California, and he meets Kimberlee, who is arrogant and not at all his type of friend, but she is dead and she needs his help. Because he is the only person who can see her, and he has hands and feet and things that she needs to help her to hopefully "move on" if she can make right some of the things that she thinks are tying her to her high school. Like her theft of all the things, the many things, that are doing her no good since she is dead. An interesting concept for a book, and Aprilynne Pike tells an interesting story.

2. Swim Through the Darkness: My Search for Craig Smith and the Mystery of Maitreya Kali by Mike Stax. I read this book because of research I was doing on the Clinger Sisters for a paper that Janet and I are presenting this coming Friday at the A. Dean Larsen Book Collecting Conference. And that research led to me writing an encyclopedia article about Peggy Clinger. For both purposes, I really wanted to talk to a Clinger sister, and noticed that Patsy was Facebook Friends with several of my Raymond friends who happen to be part of the James and Fannye Walker family. (My brother bought that home in Raymond; my husband helped with some of the renovation of the upstairs.) So, one of them (Linda Fairbanks, whose mother-in-law was a Walker) hooked me up with Patsy, and we had a lovely telephone chat and several emails and Facebook messages. The Clinger Sisters were featured in an issue of a fanzine called Ugly Things, which is written and published by Mike Stax in La Mesa, California, which is where my sister Arlene lives. Long story short, after reading the issue of Ugly Things, I became interested in reading a book by Mike Stax, and Craig Smith was a good choice, since he was friends with the Clingers, and so Patsy and I could also talk about that book. Since she is in it sometimes. As for Craig Smith, what a sad life. He was a golden boy, a very handsome and talented singer/songwriter who got derailed by drugs and bad choices. 

3. Hilary & Jackie by Hilary Du Pre and Piers Du Pre. When this book was first published, it had been given the title Genius in the Family. I think that is a better title: there is a quote on p.337, from somewhere else but used in the book, that says "No family should have less than three children. If there is a genius among them, there should be two to support him." Or in this case, "to support her." Hilary and Piers loved Jackie devotedly, but being her sibling was HARD. I can imagine that it would have been so much harder if they didn't have each other!! A disturbing element in the book is the relationship that developed for a time between Hilary's husband Kiffer and Jackie, and referred to in other sources, like Wikipedia for example, as an "affair." But I would not characterize it that way. It was very weird, uncomfortable and shocking, but Kiffer got sucked into what the family always did, which was to make life as easy as possible for Jackie, and to give her what she wanted and needed, and for a time, she seemed to need Kiffer. But it wasn't an affair--Hilary was very aware; she and Kiffer talked about it. A lot. Like, he was not doing it out of disloyalty to Hilary at all; perhaps it was even BECAUSE of loyalty to her family. This book made me very grateful for science, and the advances researchers are making in treating MS, and I am glad that Rosie is a beneficiary of that. Jackie's MS was pretty horrible.

4. The sweetness of forgetting by Kristin Harmel was a beautiful book, recommended to me by my daughter Kelline. Hope's grandmother is in a home, suffering from Alzheimer's, and she has set Hope on a quest to find the Picard family from Paris. Hope is so confused! Her grandmother was a Durand. Who are the Picards? Hope and her daughter Annie learn the truth, find a grandfather and a great-uncle and discover much about what happened when the Holocaust came after Jews living in Paris. 

5. Shove the Witch into the Oven by Jan Francisco. The author is a journalist and a cousin to our family friend Diana (who is married to Andrew's cousin) and I decided to support this young author by buying her self-published book. This Wyoming organic farm retelling of the Hansel & Gretel story was really interesting--like, I thought it had a good plot, and she has a nice style of telling. However, I was often distracted by the need for editing!! The commas!! She really needed some help with commas. Run-on sentences! I also think she should have set the story out from the mother's death by more time than just a week. That stretched my credulity a bit too much. Like, with a good editor, this book could go places, I think. Further than my mailbox.

6. The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray. Marie Benedict had the idea to write a novel based on the life of Belle Marion Greener AKA Belle Da Costa Greene, and approached her agent about it. She wanted a co-writer because she is a white woman, and she wanted a co-writer who would understand why a colored woman would feel the need to pass for white. Victoria Christopher Murray's own grandmother had done that sometimes, so she was a good fit. And the two authors found they liked each other and worked well together as they wrote what it might have been like to be Belle, the personal librarian of J.P. Morgan.

7. A Great Reckoning by Louise Penny. Louise Penny is a Canadian writer, and I have not read one of her books since 2017. I don't know why--she is a really good writer, and the New York Times agrees with me on that. I read her first Armand Gamache novel, and then, just now I finished her #12, skipping all the ones in between! I have #16 waiting to read next, and #17 on hold. In this book, a murder is solved, a map's provenance is solved, and past hurts receive healing. A lovely book. I need to go back and read 2-11, 13-15. Fortunately, you can read them out of order. 

A comedy of errors

 Well, the pandemic is definitely not over yet. Right now, I have one faculty member and one student out with COVID.

And already, our department is kind of burdened with absence, because Mary is out for knee surgery, only then she had a stroke, and so has been gone for two months. She will start back to work with very limited hours next week, but it will take another month at least until we have her full time again. And Matt is out for parental leave, and the rules are that he has to take the whole semester, and can't work at all. Those are the rules. (It has been very hard for Mary to follow the no work at all rule!! Matt has been better at that.)

All this is to say that, Robert emailed the Library Instruction people (Jessica and Caitlyn) to say that he could not teach a scheduled session on Wednesday:

Caitlin (and Jessica listening in),

 So we were making plans to meet with an ENGL 303 class tomorrow over in the SWKT (285) – ground floor, by the door going into the auditorium when they hold the Int’l Cinema.

 So, I’ve been diagnosed with COVID and now have to quarantine. Caitlin, do you want to take on this by yourself? The professor just wanted a short intro (that’s why he didn’t want to come over to an instruction room). Here’s what he told me:

 I am interested in them learning three things: 1) how to use Boolean search terms effectively, 2) how to use the library search engine, and 3) how to use and access relevant databases (JSTOR, ProjectMuse, ABELL, etc)., 

Well, Jessica didn't want Caitlin to do it by herself, so she asked if someone in our department could please do it. I knew that the person would have to be me--we are already short-staffed, and the other people were either out sick with not-Covid, or already covering for Matt doing Spanish and Portuguese things, or in the case of Kellie, covering for Mary. So I was the choice. And fortunately, I had the time free on my calendar right when it was needed.

So I prepared for the class. Robert's email said that the class was English 303. I looked that up and saw that each section had a different topic. So--which section was important. The email also said the class was at 2 pm in 285 SWKT. Of the possible four sections, only one was in the SWKT. I did notice that there was another class at 2pm, but it was NOT in the SWKT. (Which isn't called SWKT anymore, but KBMT, but there was the 285, so it had to be right, right?) This section, I noticed, was taught by the psychology librarian's husband. I momentarily thought of calling her to see if she wanted to teach it. Had I done that, it would have been a really good idea. In hindsight!

Assuming I knew what I was doing, I prepared for his class, which is all about the graphic novel Maus by Spiegelman. I planned my teaching around "holocaust" and "Spiegelman" and other words that seemed like they would be relevant to the class. The preparation was nice because I learned about databases I was unfamiliar with, but that have theatre content which is useful information for my own subject responsibilities. And I boned up on ways to present about Boolean Operators. I was ready! I gathered what materials I needed and headed over to the SWKT.

Robert had requested a TA to "drive the bus" while he talked, so I told Jessica to go ahead and send Caitlyn. I like to have a TA, too, mostly because of my poor blind eyes. If I am working the computer and talking, I am either needing to switch glasses constantly or just never having the people in focus so that I can see the computer! Caitlyn got there before I did. She had the computer ready on the library home page.

But oddly, nobody came to class. No teacher. No students. We knew that the professor (who we thought was Emily's husband) had only asked for a 30 minute presentation, so we thought "Maybe the whole class is starting late today?" We waited until 2;30, and then we left.

I got back to my office and emailed Robert (I had also tried to call him, but got no answer at his house. I assumed he was probably in bed asleep!) to say that nobody had come to the classroom. I finally followed up on the thought that I should contact Emily, just so her husband would know that we tried to teach his class. I emailed her, and she emailed me back to say that he only teaches on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and today is Wednesday, so...

I thought it was a DAY OF WEEK mix-up! did not even think about the OTHER CLASS at 2 pm, because it wasn't even in that building! I was just stunned when Emily's husband emailed me to say that Robert had already taught his class last week!

So, this evening, I get this email from Robert:

Myrna,

Take a look at the email I got yesterday from my faculty member (Brice P--), just after the library instruction over in the SWKT that you so graciously prepared to cover for me!

Can you believe that? Playing musical rooms! I’m sorry you wasted your time, but hopefully you learned something, and you sure put my mind at ease when I didn’t know how I was going to get my work done.

Thanks again,
Robert

From: Brice

Sent: Wednesday, October 6, 2021 4:13 PM
To: Robert
Subject: Re: library instructon

Robert,

I'm sorry to hear that you have COVID. I hope that you start feeling better soon!! We didn't have the pleasure of seeing Myrna today. I looked back at our communication, and I realize that I had sent you my old classroom number earlier this semester. My classroom was changed after we communicated; I'm sorry that I didn't think about sending you my new classroom!! I especially apologize for the time that Myrna took to prepare for my class.

Again, I'm sorry about the mix-up, and I hope that you start feeling better!

Best,
Brice

So!! It was a classroom mix-up, not a day mix-up!! And I should have been preparing for section 4, instead of section 1, on the topic of Writing Literary Criticism. 

Welp. Too bad!

September Reading List

 It was a ten-book month of reading for me. If I keep this up, I will make it to 100 books this year!

1. The Stolen Prince of Cloudburst by Jaclyn Moriarty. I do love to read anything by a Moriarty! Since I really like YA, I think that Jaclyn is my favorite author among the Moriarty sisters, but I like them all. This book is related (but stands alone) to others of Jaclyn's books - ones involving Bronte Mettlestone. Elements of both The Whispering Wars and The Extremely Inconvenient Adventures are alluded to and/or referenced in this book. So while it can stand alone, some people might prefer reading the other two before reading this one. The heroine of this book is Bronte's cousin, Esther Mettlestone-Staranise. There is magic in the air as Esther tries to save her family, her school, and possibly their whole entire made-up world. 

2. Caste: The Origins of our Discontents by Isabelle Wilkerson was a really good nonfiction book. Like, I was reading it at the same time as #1 above, but it was a compelling read. I just always read several books at once these days. The book is well-researched and has lots of notes and a good bibliography to satisfy scholars, but the writing style is designed for the general audience. Win, win. I posted this on Facebook on Sept. 7 when I finished the book: Just finished "Caste: The Origins of our Discontents" by Isabel Wilkerson. Beautiful book. NYT Bestseller last year, so I am late to the party, but glad I found this book. I will need to read it again one day, but it is on a shortened loan period so I will take it back to the library for now. A quote from the epilogue that resounds with me: "Our times call for being pro-African-American, pro-woman, pro-Latino, pro-Asian, pro-Indigenous, pro-humanity in all its manifestations. In our era, it is not enough to be tolerant. You tolerate mosquitos in the summer, a rattle in an engine, the gray slush that collects at the crosswalk in winter. You tolerate what you would rather not have to deal with and wish would go away. It is no honor to be tolerated. Every spiritual tradition says love your neighbor as yourself, not tolerate them."

3. Broadway North: The Dream of a Canadian Musical Theatre by Mel Atkey. So, actually I was reading at least three books at once!! I was reading this one for work, because I like to collect musicals (scores, recordings) from all over the world. I actually contacted Mel Atkey over this book, because a Canadian musical that was missing from the book was Bob McMullin & Ernie Mutimer's Cannington's Manners. Atkey ALMOST mentioned Bob McMullin in the book--he said the closest thing to a theme song for Toronto was the theme music from the TV show King of Kensington, which was written by Bob McMullin, but he never named the composer. Maybe he didn't ever look up who wrote that music, since television music is not what he researches. Anyways, we chatted back and forth--he told me that he had updated another of his books with musicals from new places, like Egypt, and then I ordered that book, too. So that is my story about this book. 

4. Love, Lies and Hocus Pocus: Beginnings by Lydia Sherrer. Was it a Facebook ad that told me about this book? Maybe. This is the first in a series of seven books so far, that fall into a category called "cozy mysteries." Maybe they are clean and pleasant enough for Josie's little old lady readers? Lily Singer is a wizard, but most importantly a librarian/archivist. So, what's not to love? Her friend Sebastian is a witch, and there is also a talking cat. I liked this book because it kind of had three sections that were like separate stories but also tangentially connected. It was a fun, pleasant read. Our library only had book one, so I asked the librarian in charge of the collection if we are going to get more, and because I asked, we are. So--I plan to read more. I quite liked Lily the Librarian.

5. Minerva: The Story of an Artist with a Mission by Elaine Cannon & Shirley A. Teichert. This is my book group's book for November, and here I finished it in September! I didn't think I would like this book, and then I really liked it a lot. I am not the biggest fan of Minerva Teichert's art AND I knew some of her grandsons well back in the day decades ago when I was 17-18 and a freshman at BYU. We called them the Brady Bunch because some of them had the last name Brady, but some had the last name Teichert and they were all cousins and from Cokeville, Wyoming. So, given those two things--not a fan; knowing people in her family--I don't know what I was expecting. But it was better than I expected, honestly. Elaine Cannon wrote the book in first person (relying heavily on Shirley, Minerva's daughter-in-law for facts and nuances.) I was captivated in the first chapter, when Minerva, as a nursing home resident, is singing the words to ALL the hymns at church as "I want to go home." If the song is "There is sunshine in my soul" she would be singing "I-I want to go-o-o-o home; I-I wa-ant to go home." If it was "There is a green hill far away, " she would sing out loud and clear, "I want to go home, to go home, I wa-ant to go home!" What a character she was! Her own person, through and through.

6. And then I finished the book that our book group is reading for October--A good girl's guide to murder by Holly Jackson This was a very well-told book, as Pip takes on, as a Senior project (High School Senior) looking into the disappearance of Andi Bell five years earlier. Andi was assumed dead, and her boyfriend Sal Singh was assumed to be the murderer after his apparent suicide. But Pip knew Sal, and she doesn't think he did it. She teams up with Sal's brother, and they start to put the pieces together. Interesting thing about this book--Holly is British, but she sets the book in Connecticut. She mostly pulls it off. I caught two mistakes--in one case, Sal's brother Raj is teasing Pip that she only wanted to work with him because she "fancied" him. Now, British girls and boys DO "fancy" each other. But I cannot imagine an American teenager EVER using that language to describe a crush. So, that one slipped by the editor! The other time is when they find Andi's diary, and one of the entries is that she has scheduled time for "revision for history test." In the US revision means maybe if you wrote a paper, and you were going to revise it, but no student ever revises a test, or revises FOR a test. US students study. UK students revise.

7. One day when I wanted to grab a book in case I had to do some waiting, I was lucky enough to get the fourth Vanderbeeker novel! Hurray! This one was The Vanderbeekers Lost and Found by Karina Yan Glaser. This mixed race family of children in Harlem are a fun group to spend time with! And their neighbors, who are basically also their family. This book centers around someone's lost mother, a lost son, and the New York City Marathon. With lots of pets and knitting and cupcakes thrown in for good measure!

8. I decided to read Seven Little Australians by Ethel Turner because it was mentioned in Broadway North--someone Atkey talked about in that book was in the musical of Seven Little Australians in Australia. I love musicals, so I thought it would be great to read the book. This book! Has staying power. I invite you to look it up on Wikipedia. It was written in 1894, and has been made into plays and a musical and television series and films. It is like the Romeo and Juliet of Australia, not in story, but in popularity of retellings. My take-away: what an awful father!! Also, I knew that Judy was going to die, so I had to read the book very slowly, because I didn't want to have that ending. And still the father!! His remaining six children meant more to him after losing Judy, but you couldn't really tell by his actions! Like--the author basically says that. I wanted to shake him!! (The father; not the author. Anyway she is a her, not a him.)

9. Fresh Water for Flowers by Valerie Perrin. A French author writing in English--at least I think so. Like, I don't think she wrote this in French and then it was translated. I loved this book; she made the setting of a cemetery a very calm, beautiful place to be. She told a story of such heartache and blame and loss and love so well. Slowly, and in a sort of random way, like how we discover things all out of order in real life. The protagonist, Violette--I always liked her, but her husband!! I hated the guy. But then--I didn't anymore. I grew to understand him and to have compassion for him. Elegantly told story.

10. The path of names by Ari Goelman. The juvenile collection is on my floor of the library, so when I want a book to read just in case I have to wait, it is easiest to quickly find something there. I picked this up with the Vanderbeekers that one day (Glaser, Goelman--they were neighbors!) and finished it as my final read of the month. Dahlia is unwillingly spending a week at a Hebrew camp with other members of her faith, and immediately she sees ghosts. Who are they? Also, she is getting thoughts in Hebrew, understanding the language to a degree that is just not her reality. Why? This actually turned out to be a good read, once I suspended disbelief and got into the story.

And there you have my month of reading!