Self-Check — No April Fool's Joke!

On April 1, 2008, the Cumberland County Library System plans to quietly turn on its first self-checkout station for library card members at Carlisle's Bosler Memorial Library.

We plan to test the equipment there for two weeks; and if all goes well, turn on self-check stations at our two busiest libraries, Simpson and Fredricksen, later in April.

Our big public ribbon-cutting is planned for May 1, 2008.

So, be on the lookout...come to Carlisle and give it a try.

We are very excited!

Let us know if you like it too!

Crummy Book Club No More!

Last year I was happy to form a book club with seven friends. We meet every other month over a potluck dinner and enjoy conversation, a lot of laughter and a fair amount of conversation about the chosen book.

Amazingly (since we each consider ourselves people who like books and know how to choose them), most of the books that we selected last year were disliked by pretty much everyone.

So, by the end of the year we agreed that perhaps our group’s name should be "The Crummy Book Club”.

Well, we are The Crummy Book Club no more. We've had two consecutive meetings where we all liked the books that we chose.

This month's book was no exception: Richard Russo's Bridge of Sighs. It is a wonderful, deeply imagined portrait of small town life in rural New York state. Perhaps not as humorous as some of his earlier novels (Nobody's Fool or Straight Man), it is similar in flavor to his Pulitzer Prize winning novel Empire Falls.

For an excerpt and an interview with Russo, check out NPR's Morning Edition (October 1, 2007) website.

Eat, Pray, Love - One Quirky, Fascinating Book

This past week, I read Elizabeth Gilbert's best-selling memoir, Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia.

It ranks as one of the most unusual, quirky books I have read in a long time. Our library catalog summarizes it this way:

Eat, Pray, Love traces the author's decision to quit her job and travel the world for a year after suffering a midlife crisis and divorce...a journey that took her to three places in her quest to explore her own nature and learn the art of spiritual balance.

It is a most surprising novel; one that swings from eating with joy and abandon in Italy to seeking communion with God in India and back again to loving life more fully in Bali.

If you have read it and are curious about where Elizabeth Gilbert is now, you may want to check out these websites:

• Elizabeth Gilbert's website
• Penguin Reader's Guide
• March 2006 Book Reporter interview
  

Also, Fredricksen Library will hold a book discussion about the book at its Literary Cafe on Tuesday, March 25, 2008 at 7:00 PM. Unfortunately, I can't attend the program that night, but I'll be looking forward to hearing from those who do.