Notice from the Seattle Public Library

Those are some of the sweetest words to ever show up in my e-mail box.

I am an avid library goer. Back in the day I frequented the Thurman G. Casey library in Walnut Creek after school most days. It was in that library I discovered Robert Cormier, S.E. Hinton and Madeleine L'Engle, among others.

We usually go to our neighborhood library branch once a week, after our pilgrimage to the Ballard Farmer's Market on Sundays. But when I get an e-mail with the subject line, "Notice from the Seattle Public Library," I perk right up since it usually means one the books I have on hold has come in and is ready for me!

When I arrived today, not only did I find the book listed on the e-mail notice, but another book that the library hadn't even told me about yet (double bonus). The titles are:

Good Mail Day, A Primer for Making Eye-Popping Postal Art
by Jennie Hinchcliff and Carolee Gilligan Wheeler

Graphic Design, The New Basics
by Ellen Lupton and Jennifer Cole Phillips


Words could not describe the elation I felt finding those two gems on the holds shelf. I could feel my smile radiating off the spines of the books on the stacks as I meandered around the library, sending elegantly lovely cards and letters out into the world before I'd even cracked open the books. My fingers tingled as I fondled their covers.

It got even better when, after scanning my favorite art/design/craft section I found two other superstars:

The Crafter Culture Handbook
by Amy Spencer

Pattern Sourcebook: Nature, 250 Patterns for Projects and Designs
by Shigeki Nakamura

Huzzah! The rain is falling on this gray day, but my room with the bright green wall is buzzing. I can't wait to get started!!

Au Revoir, Epilogue

Our absolute favorite new/used bookstore in Ballard is closing.

It began with a bit of buzz, as these things tend to do. I was there earlier in the summer, browsing the stacks while one of the clerks sorted through my box of possible re-sells when a woman who came in asked the clerks about the 'For Lease' sign out front. I didn't hear their conversation. I don't think I wanted to hear it. NW Market Street, the main hub of Ballard's "downtown," has seen vacant storefronts for some time. Living here since 1998, we've seen the neighborhood evolve a lot. We shopped at the Ballard Farmers' Market when it was only a few canopies in the Bank of America parking lot (now home to the new library). We've watched the lutefisk make way for the global exchange coffee. We've slowed behind the cars driven by blue-haired old ladies in Oldsmobiles while watching the jagged-hair hipsters in hybrids pass us. We've questioned gentrification while at the same time appreciating it--realizing that we, too, are more at the core of what Ballard is becoming rather than what it was.

So I didn't eavesdrop on their conversation because a large part of me didn't want to see another local store slip away. I couldn't avoid it a couple of weeks later when their closing sign went up. It isn't easy to watch their prices drop as they get rid of inventory. Nor is it easy to see that they are selling a lot of their fixtures. Being avid readers ourselves, we're always on the hunt for bookshelves, so I felt like a vulture when I inquired about buying some of them. The owner, Nathan, was so sweet when he replied, "Don't feel like a vulture--you're helping us." That made me feel worse.

Doug got this e-mail notice: Epilogue will be open three more days.

The people at Epilogue are fantastic. They helped nurture my love of books, were great to my kids and always let me have the bathroom key. I want to thank them and wish them the best of luck for the future.

15 Books

My good friend Tina tagged me on a note from her Facebook page listing 15 books that stuck with her over the years. The message said to think of 15 books pretty quickly, in about 15 minutes. After closing the message and thinking it over a little, I finally added my note today (2 days later or 2,880 minutes). Here were the books I picked:

1. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon: I was sucked in before I could even pronounce "golem."

2. The Good Earth, Pearl S. Buck: O-Lan is bad ass. When she just handed over the jewels to her idiotic husband, knowing he was giving them to his mistress...that kills me so much more than imagining her squatting in the field, delivering a baby, then strapping it to her body to go back out in the field. So relieved the husband realized he was an idiot in the end.

3. Come to Me (short stories), Amy Bloom: Complicated. Well-written. Not sure I believe her when she says she doesn't use her own patients or case studies for her characters. Its raw detail makes me wonder at the lives she's seen--and the life she lives.

4. East of Eden, John Steinbeck: Dark and light, Biblical, tenuous family relationships. The guy I was dating when I read this got furious at me when I spent our weekend away reading it instead of paying attention to him.

5. To A God Unknown, John Steinbeck: One of the more obscure, shorter novels by Steinbeck (though I'll read anything by him). Love the spiritual ties between Man, Nature and God.

6. A Ring of Endless Light, Madeleine L'Engle: Not the obvious choice by L'Engle, but the Austin family became just as important to me as the Murrys and the tween love drama fed my 13-year-old self. Non-verbal communication bridging science, spirit and a boy and a girl.

7. The Autobiography of Red, Anne Carson: A poetic retelling of Geryon and Herakles. Cannot believe that kind of narrative and language came from Carson seeing a tube of red paint in the drawer.

8. The Cider House Rules, John Irving: The detail, the characters, a sense of place. I was pulled into this world and reluctant to let it go when it was over. The Rep production was one of the first shows I saw here in Seattle, enabling me to fall deeper in love with this city.

9. The English Patient, Michael Ondaatje: Hardly put it down once I started it. The Sapper is never far from my mind.

10. Saturday Night at Pahala Theatre (poetry), Lois-Ann Yamanaka: A series of poems that spoke to me in pidgin, helping me remember where I came from-and dynamic enough to help me see where I wanted to go.

11. When A Woman Loves A Man (poetry) David Lehman: As a prompt, I would like to take a poem a day from this volume and attempt to create something as interesting and meaningful.

12. The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini: Amazing. Interesting to read about another immigrant community's perspective in a place that felt to me like a foreign country. Heard him speak at Stanford and he was so down to earth and likeable--and a doctor--that life seemed just freakin' unfair.

13. The Red Tent, Anita Diamant: The Sisterhood of the Traveling Tent. Loved every blood soaked page

14. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen: The Rom-Com that started them all. When I read it I yearn to be smart and sassy and British.

15. The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros: Too lovely to forget. Little Esperanza, oh, how I cried for you.