The Second Floor Librarians

I recently went through the stressful, challenging, and at times overwhelming task of moving to a new home.  We are starting to feel settled and even tilled the garden spot last weekend for the vegetable garden.  But the process of moving, and handling all of our “stuff”, was exhausting, both physically and mentally.

Embroidery looks like fun, and I’ve always thought that one day I’d find the time and learn to make the glittering beetles and dragonflies in Jane Nicholas’s books on stumpwork, or try my hand at bead embroidery with books like Dimensional bead embroidery : a reference guide to techniques.  I select the craft books for [...]

Understandably, it’s a bit late to be doing a reflective post about 2011, but better late than never, I say! What was popular at the CBCPL in 2011? Amongst the favorites: Stieg Larsson’s posthumously published trilogy of gritty crime novels; books related to food, be it a manual or a memoir;  historical fiction set in [...]

All this crazy, cold weather has me confused.  Is it March or is it mid-winter?  In any event, I’m ready for a little springtime.  Although we usually think of light reads as great for the beach, what I’m thinking about right now are some books that that put me in a sunnier state of mind [...]

Gluten-free or gluten-light living seems to be a trending topic that isn’t going to the archives of diet history anytime soon. Living in a divided household (one gluten-free eater & one gluten-lover), I have developed an interest in making gluten-free work for both palates. On the shelves of the library you can find many tools [...]

Would you like to participate in a community-based book giveaway to promote reading? World Book Night will be here on April 23, but you need to sign up here by Feb. 1.  World Book Night is a charity dedicated to the promotion of literacy and the celebration, sharing and enjoyment of reading among teenagers and [...]

I watched a Werner Herzog documentary the other night titled Cave of Forgotten Dreams.  This amazing documentary gives unprecedented access to Chauvet Cave, a cave in France discovered in late 1994, which contains the oldest known cave paintings in the world.

I like this time of year for curling up with a book.  It’s partly the rain and short days that make this appealing, and partly the need to take a little break from the frenzied holiday season.  Why not escape into the past with a good historical novel?

Are you curious about meditation?  One of my co-workers is taking a meditation class, and since it is something I’ve always wanted to try,  I decided to take a look at what the library has on the subject.

This week I read critic Michael Dirda’s column Dirda’s Reading Room : Come talk about books  in The Washington Post.  His topic, “My most challenging book,” got my gray cells going about the work we undertake when we read books that are over our heads.