Reader's Advisory

I’ve decided to borrow a theme from a friend’s blog and pepper my posts with what I am reading/watching/listening too. I suppose as a librarian I should be doing more informal advisory and so I will try. I just finished up watching the third series of Monarch of the Glen on DVD. For those of you who like BBC shows I highly recommend this—it’s set in Scotland and one you can’t catch on PBS. It’s about a young man’s wacky family on a degenerating 35,000 estate. Lots of beautiful scenery and quirky storylines. I’ve also recently become absolutely to Farscape, a space opera from the FX channel that aired from 1999 to—2003? My supervisor got me started on this and now I am a junkie. I never really was a big Star Trek fan, but this series by Henson Production (Muppets) is witty and funny. I am working through the first season.

As for books I am halfway through Every Which Way But Dead (start with Dead Witch Walking) by Kim Harrison. Set in Cincinnati, it’s a mix of mystery, light romance and supernatural intrigue. Not too violent or sexual. Another wonderful read along those lines is the Sookie Stackhouse series, start with Dead Until Dark. I adore these books and am a regular poster geek on the fan site message board.

As for listening, nothing much of interest I think—I’m quite worried Recorded Books didn’t pick up the rights to Eleven on Top, the latest in the Stephanie Plum series—or maybe my library just hasn’t gotten it yet.

And finally YA fiction—I have just started “Finding Lubchenko” the second novel by Michael Simmons (Pool Boy) and I have to say, two chapters into it I am pretty darn impressed.

Found my future writing desk..er, a piece of it anyway.

For the past couple of months I have been thinking about what kind of writing desk I wanted in our study. I thought I had settled on what I wanted, a mission style desk with a single drawer in good to okay condition. The ones I have seen on ebay and antique stores were going for a couple hundred dollars (who knew mission style was so popular) and I thought I was content to just keep looking. This weekend however was Mutual Days, were the two antique stores bring out lots of items them have been storing through out the year. I'm ashamed to say I walked past this piece but Andrew, wtih the slower and more patient eye pointed it out to me.

It's a solid walnut slanted writing desk--not a roll top but it does have two large drawers as deep as the desk itself with key holes and some decorative lines. It has a flat top at the edge of the slant to place inkwells. It has a nice patina and for some reason reminds me of my Grandfather--and it is huge like it came from a courthouse--it's going to take up quite a bit of the study I', afraid but Andrew thinks it will be all right. We got it for 30 dollars because well, the poor little guy has no legs. The previous owner had two legs on it and attached to a wall. Andrew has a couple of different ideas of how to build a walnut frame underneath it and then four walnut pillar legs. While the stain and poly looks pretty good, it has some scratches and white paint so when I am ready I will use the gentler formsby's stripper on it--but don't hold your breath for pictures, we are keeping it in the barn well until this winter or next spring because we have too many other projects. I am very pleased with it and think when it is done it will be wonderful piece...

How well can I type

with Kitten on my lap. She has been super snuggly all day. Her little bald patch is all grown in now and she is her sweet self. ALA was all right, I was fighting the tail end of a cold the whole time but my hjotel was comfortable and I had an easy enough time getting around. I reconnected with friends and made some new ones and picked up some advanced reading galleys of titles by some of my favorite authors so that is always a treat. I am balancing the keyboard on the very edge of my lap as kitten rests across both arms. I know, I should make her get down, but she is warm and purring and even when she is in the way she is comforting company. Dad has cut the driveway for the lot and we applied for our loan last week with fingers crossed. Luckily all of our permits are in place so once we get the green light from the bank we will be able to break ground immediately so I hope to be posting more exciting house pictures soon. As for teh doors, Andrew is nearly finished with the Canada door and it looks great. The second mission door is proving to be a challenge. The consistency of the paint is different and came up so gummy with the stripepr that I decided to chisel off the first layer of paint--it's more time consuming but it saves on stripper it less frustrating because then when I put the stripper on it, it comes up much easier and evenly. The mission doors needs more work thatn the canada door, new doorknobs ( I want to get tiger eye) and the floor sweeps on the bottom have like 50 nails in it. One of the doors has a bunch of tiny staples that almost look like carpet tacks. They will be lovely in the house though and I am glad I have Andrew to help. My goal is to get both doors to the point where Andrew can finish them by the time our trim and doors come in because I will be staining that.

We had a lvoely cool day yesterday but now we are back to summer weather. I have been tying up loose ends from the conference, spending time with family and packing more books up--boy andrew and I have a lot of books already...