blogcutter

Welcome to Freedom to Read Week, February 18-24. If you live anywhere in Canada, you may be able to find an event you'd enjoy here:

https://www.freedomtoread.ca/events/?syclid=cn9rscj7v77s739m300g&utm_campaign=emailmarketing_129722318918&utm_medium=email&utm_source=shopify_email

If you're in Ontario, it's Family Day and all public libraries and schools are closed. If you're in the Ottawa area, it's the final day of Winterlude and the Rideau Canal is actually open, as is the community rink around the corner from us.

Over the past year, I've been reasonably content with the (lack of) decisions to ban books. The Ottawa Public Library received 7 "requests for reconsideration" of books on their shelves and acceded to none of them:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/ottawa-public-library-book-challenges-tintin-stegosaure-1.7109676?cmp=rss

In Alberta, some public library materials relating to LGBTQ+ issues were returned damaged or vandalized, but I guess the good news is that the libraries did have those items available for loan in the first place, and police were called in.

The policies in school libraries (at least the ones I've heard about) are a little less progressive. But I was cheered by this article in a Brandon, Manitoba paper in which candidates in the fall 2023 provincial election were asked about their position on censorship:

https://www.brandonsun.com/local/2023/10/19/candidates-speak-against-book-bans-at-bsd-forum

The election resulted in a change of government, a shift to the left.

I'll conclude this entry with a link to an article on recently challenged books in Canadian libraries:

https://www.freedomtoread.ca/articles/rising-tide-of-censorship-recent-challenges-in-canadian-libraries/

In 2023, I read 96 books, an average of 8 per month. That's more than I read in 2020, 2021 or 2022, although I'd have to say the reading I did during the early COVID lockdowns was rather more challenging and ambitious. The books are coded as follows:

A Anthology (a bunch of short pieces, whether stories, essays, poetry or whatever)
D Drama
F Fiction
M/B Memoir, Biography (including autobiography), Diaries etc.
NF Non-fiction, if it doesn't fit into one of the other categories above

The numbers break down as follows: 3A, 1D, 64F, 11M/B, 17NF

So here's my list (books listed in the order I read them)


1. The Story Species - Joseph Gold (NF)
2. Dreadfulwater - Thomas King (F)
3. People change - Vivek Shraya (NF)
4. I'm afraid of men - Vivek Shraya (NF)
5. Ottawa Rising - Ottawa Independent Writers (A)
6. Son of Elsewhere - Elamin Abdelmahmoud (M/B)
7. Chokepoint Capitalism - Rebecca Giblin & Cory Doctorow (NF)
8. The Persuaders: At the front lines of the fight for hearts, minds & democracy - Anand Giridharedas (NF)
9. Devil's Delight - M.C. Beaton with R.W. Green (F)
10. The Book Eaters - Sunyi Dean (F)
11. My Darling Detective - Howard Norman (F)
12. Death takes a perfect trip - Mary Jane Maffini (F)
13. Open and Closed - Mat Coward (F)
14. Petit Pays - Gael Faye (F)
15. All the Queen's Men - S.J. Bennett (F)
16. You light up my death - Mary Jane Maffini (F)
17. The Swedish art of aging exuberantly - Margareta Magnusson (NF)
18. Gobsmacked! Peter Cleveland (F)
19. Stealing Jenny - Ellen Gable (F)
20. The Library Suicides - Fflur Dafydd (F)
21. Hobgoblins of Little Minds - Andrew J. Simpson (A)
22. The future is now - Bob McDonald (NF)
23. The Bookseller's Notebooks - Jalel Barjas (F)
24. The White Hare - Jane Johnson (F)
25. The Black Dove - Colin McAdam (F)
26.Bill Bergson Lives Dangerously - Astrid Lindgren (F)
27. Behind the scenes at the museum - Kate Atkinson (F)
28. Once upon a prime - Sarah Hart (NF)
29. L'évangile du nouveau monde -Maryse Condé (F)
30. A Spot of Bother - Mark Haddon (F)
31. Book collecting now: The value of print in a digital age - Matthew Budman (NF)
32. The Little Wartime Library - Kate Thompson (F)
33. When last seen - Brenda Chapman (F)
34. A Room of One's Own - Virginia Woolf (NF)
35. Open Heart, Open Mind - Clara Hughes (M/B)
36. Git Sync Murder - Michael Warren Lucas (F)
37. The Brothers Lionheart - Astrid Lindgren (F)
38. War Diaries 1939-1945 - Astrid Lindgren (M/B)
39. End of Story -Louise Swanson (F)
40. Astrid Lindgren: The woman behind Pippi Longstocking - Jens Andersen (M/B)
41. Vinyl Resting Place - Olivia Blacke (F)
42. The Puzzle of the Happy Hooligan - Stuart Palmer (F)
43. A Natural History of Transition - Callum Angus, ed. (A)
44. Avenue of Champions - Conor Kerr (F)
45. Crow Winter - Karen McBride (F)
46. Sun Storm - Äsa Larsson (F)
47. Queen High - C.J. Carey (F)
48. Librarian Tales: Funny, strange & inspiring tales from the stacks - William Ottens (NF)
49. Maudites Rumeurs - Chantal Beauregard (F)
50. Sweden: The essential guide to customs & culture - Neil Shipley (NF)
51. The Forgotten Home Child - Genevieve Graham (F)
52. We know you remember - Tove Alsterdal (F)
53. L'Avare - Moliere (D)
54. A Nearly Normal Family - M.T. Edvardsson (F)
55. Red Wolf - Liza Marklund (F)
56. Mio, My Son - Astrid Lindgren (F)
57. The Girl with the Sturgeon Tattoo - Lars Arfssen (Lawrence Douglas) (F)
58. Faceless Killers - Henning Mankell (F)
59. The Murder of Halland - Pia Juul (F)
60. Sweet Revenge: 2 novellas (Women Without Mercy; Truth or Dare) - Camilla Lackberg (F)
61. The Survivors - Alex Schulman (F)
62. Master Detective - Astrid Lindgren (F)
63. Sweden for Beginners - Gunnar Jägberg (NF)
64. Meet me in Malmö - Torquil MacLeod (F)
65. Once upon a time in Uppsala - Shirin Amani Azari (M/B)
66. An extra pair of hands: a story of caring & everyday acts of love - Kate Mosse (M/B)
67. Crisis - Karin Boye (F)
68. The Autists: Women on the spectrum - Clara Törnvall (NF)
69. Karlsson on the Roof - Astrid Lindgren (F)
70. The Foulest Thing: A Dominion Archives mystery - Amy Tector (F)
71. Memories look at me: A memoir - Tomas Tranströmer (M/B)
72. Anywhere out of the world - Karin Tidbeck (F)
73. Speak for the dead - Amy Tector (F)
74. Red X - David Demchuk (F)
75 The Pale Horse - Agatha Christie (F)
76. Shadow Play - Peggy Blair (F)
77. Sleet - Stig Dagerman (F)
78. Loving the Difficult -Jane Rule (NF)
79. Pageboy - Elliot Page (M/B)
80. Losing the signal: The spectacular rise and fall of Blackberry - Jacquie McNish & Sean Silcoff (NF)
81. Encore- Alexis Koetting (F)
82. The Dogs of Winter - Ann Lambert (F)
83. An English Murder - Cyril Hare (F)
84. Reykjavik - Ragnar Jonasson & Karin Jakobsdottir (F)
85. The Power of Language: The codes we use to speak, think & live - Viorica Marian (NF)
86. Wishin' & Hopin' - Wally Lamb (F)
87. Days at the Morisaki Bookshop - Satoshi Yagisawa (F)
88. The Instant - Amy Liptrot (M/B)
89. Woman in the Shadows - Jane Thynne (F)
90. The Librarianist - Patrick DeWitt (F)
91. The Go-between: A portrait of growing up between different worlds - Osman Yousefzada (M/B)
92. Death of a Bookseller - Alice Slater (F)
93. Yule Island - Johana Gustawsson (F)
94. Tom's Story: My 16-year friendship with a homeless man - Jo-Ann C. Oosterman (M/B)
95. Blood and Circuses - Kerry Greenwood (F)
96. What you are looking for is in the library - Michiko Aaoyama (F)

I'm a huge fan of Nordic crime novels, many of them Swedish: Henning Mankell, Camilla Lackberg, Liza Marklund, Helene Tursten, Tove Alsterdal, M.T. Edvardsson, Åsa Larsson - and, of course, Stieg Larsson. So at the top of my must-see/must-do list on my recent trip to Sweden was the Stieg Larsson Millennium tour, a 2-hour guided walking tour in the Södermalm neighbourhood of Stockholm.

Although the tour itself was not until 6PM, I decided to make a day of exploring the Södermalm/SOFO part of town. I took the metro to Slussen station and then had a leisurely walk along Götgatan and Folkungagatan, grabbing a coffee along the way and stopping in at various little shops that caught my eye. I looked for (and found) the English Bookshop on Södermannagatan ... and of course that led me down a whole new rabbit hole. I wanted to buy everything but managed to limit myself to books that were of a relatively compact size and that I didn't think would be that quick or easy to obtain at home. Surprisingly, perhaps, most of them were not in the mystery or crime fiction genre; they were more in the line of memoirs and books by prominent Swedish writers like August Strindberg, Astrid Lindgren and Karin Boye. I think I'll have to devote a separate entry to discussing the books I got there. Anyway, when I was paying for it all, they gave me a slew of their bookmarks and I learned that they also had a shop in Göteborg, a city that was also on my itinerary. Yet another must-visit shop for my list! You can find out more about English Bookshop locations in Sweden at: www.bookshop.se

Then it was off to the Stockholm City Museum (Stadsmuseet), where I enjoyed an outdoor lunch followed by a pleasant afternoon exploring the museum and strolling along the waterfront.

After all that walking and still with time to kill before 6PM and another two hours' worth of walking (much of it uphill over cobbled streets and lanes), I decided I'd better start orienting myself and locate the place where the tour was to start. Have I mentioned before that I have a terrible sense of direction and can easily get myself turned around and heading in completely the wrong direction? Anyway, I followed my map and found 1 Bellmansgatan (the site of Mikael Blomkvist's apartment) quite easily. And in that area were quite a number of pubs and cafés with outdoor patios. So I went to one that appealed to me, just a few doors away from no. 1 Bellmansgatan and ordered myself a glass of local beer so I could people-watch and browse through some of my purchases.

By around 5:50PM, I saw a woman standing next to a wall just by no.1, holding a clipboard and a stack of leaflets and other papers. It was indeed Eva, my tour guide. We chatted a bit about our favourite books and authors as we waited but by about 6:10, it was apparent that no one else was going to show up. So that was a surprise but a very pleasant one, as I had the luxury of my own private tour! She had lots of stories to tell about Stieg Larsson, his life and upbringing and family, his editorial work and political activism and efforts to understand the motivations behind some of the extreme right-wing factions that were gaining an alarming foothold in Sweden at the time. And that of course made for some serious threats to his life and his security.

She talked about Pippi Longstocking, the main inspiration behind Lisbeth Salander. I read the Pippi books as a child myself, as did my daughter and now my grandchildren. I reread them as an adult, in addition to several other Astrid Lindgren books for kids like the Kalle Blomkvist series (in the second-hand American editions I ordered through Abebooks, he was called Bill Bergson) and Mio, My Son. While in Sweden, I bought a couple more of the Astrid Lindgren books in English translation: Master Detective (published in the U.K. and in which Kalle Blomkvist was actually called that) and Karlsson on the Roof. Interestingly enough, my edition of Karlsson was translated by Sarah Death, who also translated Karin Smirnoff's The Girl in the Eagle's Talons, the latest book in the Millennium series.

There was ample time for the questions I had and Eva even took me to some spots that weren't part of the official tour. For example, the final stop before we parted at the metro station was rather a sad one: the grave of Michael Nyqvist, the actor who played Mikael Blomqvist in the movies, and who died in 2015.

As an aside, I had pretty much given up on reading the Millennium series after the first David Lagercrantz book, which I found somewhat disappointing. I was curious, however, about the new one by Karin Smirnoff and Eva said she thought that I would probably still enjoy it and be able to follow the characters and action, even without having read the rest of the Lagercrantz books. So I'll probably get a copy through one of my favourite independent bookstores and read it in the next few months.

As I did for 2020 and 2021, I once again kept track of the books I read in 2022. Once again, in defiance of all my librarian training, I have not listed them by author or title, but rather in the order in which I read them. I did, however, make one concession to categorization this year: I wrote "NF" beside all the works of non-fiction. As you will see from the list, about a third of the titles I read were non-fiction, many of them memoirs.


1. Eight Detectives - Alex Pavesi
2. Around the World in 80 Days - Jules Verne
NF 3. Bodies - Susie Orbach
4. The School for Good Mothers - Jessamine Chan
5. The Maid - Nita Prose
NF6. The Shitstorm that was 2020 - Jon Sinden & Mark Lim
NF7. The Hot Mess that was 2020 - Jon Sinden & Mark Lim.
8. Murder at the Seaview Hotel - Glenda Young
NF9. Secrets of the Sprakkar: Iceland's extraordinary women & how they are changing the world - Eliza Reid
NF10. The World of All Creatures Great & Small - James Steen
11. A Shetland Winter Mystery - Marsali Taylor
12. The Abortion: An Historical Romance 1966 - Richard Brautigan
NF13. Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word
14. The Christie Affair - Nina de Garment
15. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain
16. The Girl Behind the Wall - Mandy Robotham
17. Something Lost: a mystery novel - Pat Duffy Hutcheon
18. Pluck - Donna Morrissey
NF19. The Informer: Confessions of an ex-terrorist - Carole de Vault with William Johnson
20. Looking for Jane - Heather Marshall
21. The Break - Katherena Vermette
22. A Thousand Steps - T. Jefferson Parker
NF23. Run Towards the Danger - Sarah Polley
24. Crispr'd - Judy Foreman
NF25. The Five Clocks - Martin Joos
26. The Strangers - Katherena Vermette
NF27. Forever Young - Hayley Mills
28. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd - Agatha Christie
NF29. The Case for Basic Income - Jamie Swift & Elaine Power
30. The Man in the Brown Suit - Agatha Christie
31. A Man Can Build a House - Nathalie Sedgwick Colby
32. Omand's Creek - Don Macdonald
NF33. Even the Sidewalk Could Tell - Alon Ozery
NF34. Beyond the Gender Binary - Alok Said-Menon
35. Hitman's Daughter - Carolyne Topdjian
NF36. The Film Club: A true story of father & son - David Gilmour
37. Miss Graham's Cold War Cookbook - Celia Rees
38. Light a Penny Candle - Maeve Binchy
39. Murder in an Irish Village - Carlene O'Connor
40. The Happy Prince & Other Stories - Oscar Wilde
41. Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats - T.S. Eliot
42. Queer Whispers: Gay & Lesbian Voices in Irish Fiction - edited by Jose Carregal (intro: Mary Dorcey)
NF43. We Don't Know Ourselves: a personal history of modern Ireland - Fintan O'Toole
NF44. Ireland, A Bicycle and a Tin Whistle - David A. Wilson
NF45. Country Girl: A Memoir - Edna O'Brien
46. Yeats is Dead: mystery by 15 Irish writers (editor Joseph O'Connor; benefit for Amnesty International)
NF47. Reel Ottawa: a memoir - Dan Lalande
48. A Noise from the Woodshed - Mary Dorcey
49. Dubliners - James Joyce
50. Curtain Call at the Seaview Hotel - Glenda Young
NF51. Sorry for Your Trouble: The Irish Way of Death - Ann Marie Hourihane
52. Romping Through Ulysses - Niall Laverty & Maite Lopez-Schroder
53. Deadly Director's Cut - Vicki Delany
54. Running Out of Road - Cath Staincliffe
55. Cascade - Rachel A. Rosen
56. Clouded Vision - Linwood Barclay
57. Metronome - Tom Watson
58. Bill Bergson and the White Rose Rescue - Astrid Lindgren
59. Donna Parker, Special Agent - Marcia Martin
60. I Married A Dead Man - Cornell Woolrich (William Irish)
NF61. Dublin's Literary Pubs - Peter Costello
NF62. Growing Up Trans: In our own words - edited by Lindsey Herriot and Kate Fry
63. Where The Crawdads Sing - Delia Owens
64. The Sleeping Car Porter - Suzette Mayr
NF65. The Myth of the Wrong Body - Miquel Missé
66. The Foghorn Echoes - Danny Ramadan
NF67. A People's Senate for Canada - Helen Forsey
68. The Part-time Job / Murder Most Foul - P.D. James
69. The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry - Gabrielle Kevin
NF70. Not One, Not Even One: memory of life-altering experiences in Sierra Leone - Nancy Christine Edwards
71. A Line to Kill - Anthony Horowitz
NF72. 1963: The Year of the Revolution: How youth changed the world... - Robin Morgan & Ariel Leve
73. Dandelion - Jamie Chai Yun Liew
74. Blind Date - Brenda Chapman
75. 54 Pigs - Philipp Schott
NF76. Saving Us: A Climate Scientist's Case for Hope & Healing in a Divided World - Katherine Hayhoe
77. The Wonder - Emma Donoghue
78. A Vicky Hill Exclusive! Hannah Dennison
79. Precious Little - Camille Fouillard
NF80. Trafficked - Sophie Hayes
81. Hope for the Innocent - Caroline Dunford
NF82. Wired for Music - Adriana Barton
83. Pawn to Queen: a Chris Prior mystery - Pat Dobie
84. A World of Curiosities - Louise Penny
85. Murder After Christmas - Rupert Latimer
NF86. Rewired: Protecting Your Brain in the Digital Age - Carl D. Marci
87. The Disappearance of Adele Bedeau - Graeme Macrae Burnet
88. Murder Most Royal - S.J. Bennett
89. A Spoonful of Murder - J.M. Hall
NF90. Becoming Eve: My journey from ultra-Orthodox rabbi to transgender woman - Abby Chava Stein
91. The Accident on the A-35 - Graeme Macrae Burnet

So that's my list. A handful of serious books, a couple of classics I've either been meaning to read for ages (or was prompted to re-read for various reasons). A few are kids' books. I don't think there were any really long books I read this year. Lots of crime fiction. Many are recent best-sellers.

As we say goodbye or good riddance to 2021, I thought I'd list the books I've read this year. I'm listing title and author only, in the order in which I read them. So it's not in alphabetical order, nor is it in any kind of prescribed bibliographic style format, nor is it categorized according to subject matter or even divided into fiction vs. nonfiction. But then, they say that truth is stranger than fiction. I apologize to any authors whose names I may have misspelled - I'm transcribing from a handwritten list (yes, I still write stuff longhand) and my handwriting is atrocious. If you want to revoke my librarian licence, then go ahead. I'm retired anyhow. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!


1. Self Made Man - Norah Vincent
2. Pigeon Tunnel - John LeCarré
3. For This I am Grateful - Christine Thalker
4. Sartre - Iris Murdoch
5. The Forgers - Bradford Morrow
6. Two Tears on the Window - Kevin and Julia Garratt
7. The Push - Ashley Audrain
8. The Corpse with the Silver Tongue - Cathy Ace
9. The Measure of Darkness - Liam Durcan
10. The Walkable City - Mary Soderstrom
11. Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore - Matthew Sullivan
12. Big Girl, Small Town - Michelle Gallen
13. Gender: What Everyone Needs to Know - Laura Erickson-Schroth & Benjamin Davis
14. The Paris Library - Janet Skeslien Charles
15. Plague - Julie Anderson
16. The Invisible Library - Genevieve Cogman
17. A Tourist's Guide to Murder - V.M. (Valerie) Burns
18. Hidden Agenda - Anna Porter
19. Secret of the Blue Trunk - Lise Dion
20. This Time Next Year We'll Be Laughing - Jacqueline Winspear
21. The Broken Spine - Dorothy St. James
22. Rockin' on the Rideau - Jim Hurcomb
23. Swimming in the Shadows - Diane Janes
24. Cynical Theories - Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay
25. Celtic Knot - Ann Shortell
26. Ramona The Pest - Beverly Cleary
27. Lady Jail - John Farrow
28. Burning the Books - Richard Ovenden
29. The Creak on the Stairs - Eva Bjørg Aegisdottir
30. Extraordinary People - Peter May
31. A Deadly Chapter - Essie Lang (Linda Wiken)
32. Resilience is Futile - Julie S. Lalonde
33. Waking Up in the Men's Room - Catherine MacLeod
34. Fear, Love & Liberation in Contemporary Quebec: A Feminist Reflection - Alexa Conradi
35. Girl A - Abigail Dean
36. Mystery on Hidden Lane - Clare Chase
37. The Librarians and the Pot of Gold - Greg Cox
38. Neglected No More - André Picard
39. The Last Bookshop in London - Madeline Martin
40. Shadows - Melanie Raabe
41. Like a Boy but Not a Boy - Andrea Bennett
42. Monsieur Pamplemousse and the Militant Midwives - Michael Bond
43. Electrical Storms - David Homel
44. Trans Love: An Anthology of Transgender & Nonbinary Voices - edited by Freiya Benson
45. Health of Strangers - Lesley Kelly
46. How We Read Now - Naomi S. Baron
47. I'll Keep You Safe - Peter May
48. The Rapunzel Act - Abi Silver
49. From Paupers to Prime Ministers: A Life in Death - Brian McGarry & Paul Maher
50. The Favorite Game - Leonard Cohen
51. A Trans Feminist Past - Forrest Handford
52. The Lamplighters - Emma Stonex
53. Leonard, Marianne and Me - Judy Scott
54. The Girl on the Platform - Bryony Pearce
55. The Black Prince - Iris Murdoch
56. False Witness - Karin Slaughter
57. Blue Ticket - Sophie Mackintosh
58. Threat of Autumn - Robin Timmerman
59. In the Skin of a Jihadist - Anna Erelle
60. Widowland - C.J. Carey (Jane Thynne)
61. Speaking Out Loud - Jack Layton
62. A Life of Bliss - Don Butler
63. The Madness of Crowds - Louise Penny
64. The Gothic Tunnel - Brian Meech
65. Doors Open - Ian Rankin
66. Transitions: Our Stories of Being Trans
67. Death at High Tide - Hannah Dennison
68. Wildflower - Mark Seal (Joan Root in Kenya)
69. The Hangman and other tales - Brian Meech
70. We Shall Be Monsters - edited by Derek Newman-Stille
71. The Secret Life of Writers - Guillaume Musso
72. Freaks Like Us - Susan Vaught
73. The Bookseller's Tale - Martin Latham
74. The Devil to Pay - Barbara Fradkin
75. Deadly Summer Nights - Vicki Delany
76. State of Terror - Louise Penny & Hillary Rodham Clinton
77. DIY Family - Lorraine McQueen
78. Radical Cataloguing - K.R. Roberto (ed.)
79. Danger at the Cove - Hannah Dennison
80. Seven Lies - Elizabeth Kay
81. Fight Night - Mirian Toews
82. A String in the Harp - Nancy Bond
83. Transcription - Kate Atkinson
84. Missing - Jane Casey
85. That Night - Chevy Stevens
86. Eight Perfect Murders - Peter Swanson
87. Death at Greenway - Lori Rader-Day
88. Falling Together: A Family's Story of Mental Illness & Grief
89. The Tenant - Katrine Engberg
90. Life in the City of Dirty Water - Clayton Thomas-Müller

Happy International Special Librarians Day (ISLD) everyone! It has been 30 years since the first ISLD was announced. For that occasion I, along with many other colleagues in my profession, got a special kit from the Special Libraries association. I still have some items from that kit, most notably a coffee mug from which I drank my breakfast coffee this morning. The pens have long since been lost, discarded or given away but I do still have one or two pads of the sticky-notes and pin-on badges from that kit.

Every year there is a slightly different theme or slogan - the first was "Information Beyond Borders: Building Global Partnerships" and had a globe logo which was on all the publicity materials. Later, the name of the occasion was changed to Information Ethics Day:

https://targetstudy.com/knowledge/day/238/international-special-librarians-day-information-ethics-day.html

The idea of information ethics struck me as being particularly important as I read the recent book by Richard Ovenden (director of the Bodleian Library at Oxford), Burning The Books, in which he looks at instances of the destruction (whether deliberate or otherwise) of human knowledge in the form of books, archival documents and digital files throughout history.

Earlier this week, final drawings are to be released for the new superlibrary - a combined Ottwawa Public Library and Library & Archives Canada to be built at 555 Wellington:

https://inspire555.ca/welcome

All of which brings me to the recipient of my donation this week, the LAC (Library and Archives Canada) foundation:

https://lacfoundation.ca/

Books and reading have played a huge role in keeping me semi-sane during the pandemic and the long stretches of lockdowns and stay-at-home orders. I'm sure many, many people around the world feel the same way. So happy reading everyone, whatever your particular literary poison!

I've discovered a new crime author - but sadly, only as her mysterious disappearance and death is being announced:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5jBLV-9gKQ&ts

https://www.cornwalllive.com/news/cornwall-news/famous-author-harriet-hicks-spooky-4630217?cmpredirect=

Not far from where the video was filmed but several decades earlier, Agatha Christie also disappeared for a short time. Happily she later re-appeared and over the course of her life and beyond, became the author whose books out-sold all except the bible and the works of Shakespeare.

I'm ordering copies of any of Harriet Hicks' works that are available at affordable prices. Perhaps they will be re-issued although the question of her survivors, the fate of the copyright and who would stand to benefit from any re-releases remains unclear.

For those of us in our sixties and beyond, her story also serves as an uncomfortable cautionary tale and a reminder to ensure we have our affairs in order before it's too late.

October is Library Month in Canada. And today also marks the beginning of First Nations Public Library Week:

https://fnplw.olsn.ca

My mini research project for today is to find out a bit about Juliana Armstrong of Nipissing First Nation, the artist behind the beautiful poster which you can view at the above URL. So far, I don't know much beyond what I've read on the sites of a few public libraries in Ontario, for example this one in Oshawa:

https://www.oshawalibrary.on.ca/fnplw

I did find an obituary for her brother, who died in January 2007 at the age of 26:

http://yourlifemoments.ca/sitepages/obituary.asp?oId=139058

If you're like me, reading has assumed an even greater part of your life since COVID-19 reared its ugly head earlier this year. And now, with virus numbers surging again, the weather getting colder and people cocooning indoors, books and reading are more important than ever as a tool for imaginative distancing.

What better time of year to celebrate libraries?

So around here we are developing new routines for what I really hope will be a temporary normal. Yesterday I downloaded a newer browser since there were more and more things that my version of Safari just couldn't cope with (Safari, I feel your pain!) Tomorrow we take delivery of a very basic twin mattress from Mattress Mart to go on the Ikea loft bed. Friday we get a delivery from Burrow Shop with a bunch of locally sourced products including Hummingbird chocolate. And today I registered at Ottawamarkets.ca for future orders of fresh locally grown produce. There's not too much of that available yet although there are a few ready-made products that look tempting, like blueberry wine and various jams and salsas.

I'm keen to support local businesses as far as possible. There are a couple of fabric shops on my bookmarks list - Ottawa Valley Fabrics and Fabrications Ottawa; bookstores, of course; craft beer brewers (Beyond the Pale and Nita); our local grocery store, pharmacy and Produce Depot (so far we've been shopping them in person) and Petsmart.

We're still getting out for a walk every day; Wednesdays and Sundays continue to be our laundry days, although I start laundry earlier on Wednesdays now that off-peak hydro rates are in effect all day; alternate Mondays are usually grocery shopping days; pharmacy visits are as the need arises (which is more often than I'd like now that they'll only provide 30 days' worth of meds at a time). My Toastmasters group has resumed meetings via Zoom but so far I haven't zoomed in - I used to regard Wednesday mornings as my time to do in-person stuff and errands on my own and now I have no real substitute for that. I do still keep in touch with other group members via e-mail though.

In terms of keeping-busy-at-home projects, I've been doing some sorting and organizing of possessions: books, papers, clothes, toys (of the child and adult variety), games and various household objects. And I'm getting around to reading some of the books I've been meaning to read for ages. Right now it's George Eliot's Middlemarch - I'm maybe a quarter of the way through its some 900 pages, but it makes for interesting reading.

The way I'm spending my time these days is certainly not how I envisioned my spring or summer or fall. I don't know 2020 will shape up to be an annus horribilis but it will definitely be a year to remember!

Today I'm wearing a T-shirt that I bought at the Ottawa Citizen's on-site boutique many, many years ago. It's not quite prehistoric ... except that it IS, in a way. On the front, it has two dinosaurs - one orange, the other green - and both are reading. The green one is reading a newspaper, La Brea Times; the orange one is reading a book (by Dinah Sor, of course) called Fossil Fuel in Your Future. The caption on the front of the shirt reads "READ. Avoid Extinction." On the back? Ottawa Citizen.

I've been reading the Citizen - or parts of it, anyway - since I first learned to read. Fair play and daylight have flowed into my home for many decades now.

I do think that local news is particularly important in pandemic conditions. Local news delivered to your mailbox or doorstep? An added bonus. I think that's where traditional media can really excel, and where they should focus their scarce resources. Thank heavens we still have the infrastructure there for daily newsPAPER delivery. Now, if we could only restore door to door mail! Those community mailboxes are rather an anachronism now, aren't they, given how many businesses, faced with having to close their doors (some no doubt permanently), are actually offering FREE delivery to the local community?!

I was rather peeved when CBC TV cut its local newscast a few days after Covid 19 hit the capital. I miss seeing Lucy van Oldenbarneveld, Adrian Harewood, Ian Black and all the others. In protest I have now turned to CTV, which offers local newscasts weekdays from 5 to 7PM and weekends from 6PM.

To be sure, I want national and international news too, and the news sources I've just mentioned are by no means limited to what's happening in the local community. But when you're no longer free to explore at random, the news that's of most immediate importance is likely the hours of availability of your local grocery and drug stores!