Selling books is undoubtedly awesome, but there's something truly special about people borrowing your book from the library.

Who remembers Nancy Drew’s father’s name ? What about the name of their housekeeper?

Done & dusted. The painting itself was done by an unknown artist sometime in the 16th century; it depicts the “First Meeting of Rostam and his Grandfather, Sam” from the Iranian national epic, the Shanama (Book of Kings) by Firdawsi (c934-c1020.

Jane Haddam's Act of Darkness-"She was a single-minded machine for the operation of triumphant narcissism, and that narcissism had a nasty edge of envy to it.(She) was one of those people who was happiest not when she won but when she could watch other people losing." I know someone just like this

Ross Thomas was one of the most cynical writers ever, and he was terrific in the use of similes and metaphors. My favorite novel of his is Briarpatch, but one of my favorite lines comes from The Mordida Man: "The eyes looked tired and defeated—as if they had sued for peace in 1916 and lost."

From Jane Haddam's mystery Festival of Deaths: "Café Blasé was one of those vaguely French restaurants that decorated all its food with flower petals, so that a perfectly respectable piece of fried chicken breast arrived at the table looking as if it had been drowned with Ophelia."

2 quotes from Jane Haddam's mystery Glass Houses-she's such a good writer. Be sure to start w/the 1st one, Not a Creature Was Stirring. "Hell was a place where mediocrity reigned day by day, without the relief of outright awfulness." and "They lived their entire lives in the passive voice."

“And that the heart, in those days, was small, and hard, and full of meanness.”

Another quotation from my notebooks, this one from Jane Haddam's Gregor Demarkian mystery Glass Houses: "Hell was a place where mediocrity reigned day by day, without the relief of outright awfulness."

I am inordinately fond of epigraphs-please share your faves with me: the author & quote, plus the book it's from. Here's a favorite of mine, from part 2 of Jane Haddam's mystery Flowering Judas: "In a football match, everything is complicated by the presence of the other team." —Jean-Paul Sartre

Done & dusted. Another winner from @galison.bsky.social - Dog Gallery is just the right amount of crazy-making 1000 pieces. While I worked on this I listened to Natasha Pulley’s Hymn to Dionysus with great pleasure

Long time ago now -

I was looking through my notebooks of quotes and found this, from The Half Life of Valery K by @natashapulley.bsky.social. It gave me chills

Done & dusted. Perfect 1000-piecer, just what I always expect (and get) from @eeBoo. This one is Alchemist’s Orchard

I’ve discovered that a whole day isn’t enough time to not do all the things I might have done

I just loved doing this interview with Maggie - I've been a fan of hers since I read The Raven Boys, a dozen years ago. And as I tell her in this interview, I'd love to take a writing class from her.

Overheard on the Burke-Gilman this morning- “No offense but you’re probably an afterthought”

This poem. Wow, just wow.

Giant copy of the Constitution being carried down Pennsylvania Avenue.

Done & dusted. “Serenity Meow”-a terrific 1000-piecer from @galison.bsky.social. While I worked on it I listened to Patrick Ryan’s Buckeye with much enjoyment

Absolutely loved Mimi Pond's Do Admit! The Mitford Sisters and Me. Her drawings complement the biographical details to a tee, and the bibliography is filled with other interesting titles about the family. You go, Decca!!!

Another favorite poem, this one by Katha Pollitt - Wisdom of the Desert Fathers: “Before they knew it, it was too late to go back: the farm had gone under, cancer had taken Mother, everyone was married. Even the demons hardly came round anymore with their childish bribes of money and sex.”

“Praise the odd, serendipitous world.” I really wish I had interviewed Stephen Dunn so I could tell him how much I loved his poetry. This one, especially

Great quote, from jmarriott.substack.com "What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book because there would be no one who wanted to read one." — Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death

I love @tomgauld.bsky.social’s work

"Say Daphne, If you knew her as a tree." Midcentury poet Howard Moss is one of my favorites, and this poem, Shorelines, is one of my very favorites of his.

1930s France sounds so much like what’s happening here that it’s eerie

Here's a link to my @seattlechannel.bsky.social interview with the most wonderful Kira Jane Buxton: bsky.app/profile/seat...

R.I.P. Thomas Perry, author of two of my very favorite thrillers: 1983's Metzger's Dog (which featured a particularly interesting cat) and 1995's Vanishing Act, (which introduced his series star Jane Whitfield).

Done & dusted. “Fantasy Toy Shop,” a 1000-piecer from @ravensburgertcg.bsky.social was-I cannot lie-tricky to do (all those dolls!) While I worked on it I listened with great pleasure to Amy Gamerman’s The Crazies: The Cattleman, the Wind Prospector and a War Out West.

Another excellent sign

Best sign of the day;

Love this photo of Joe and I walking the Kennet-Avon canal footpath into a darkening sky and potential torrential rain. Sort of a metaphor of aging together in a very long marriage

Late to the party, but really loved Cameron Reed's The Fortunate Fall. Still processing how amazingly current a novel orig pub some 30 years ago can be. Excellent plot, wonderful writing. Grateful to Tor Essentials for reprinting this last year.

What Seattle definitely needs (I am tempted to say, more than anything) is a Marks & Spencer Food Hall

The LAF is delighted to meet another librarian named Nancy !

In his terrific book Everything is Tuberculosis, @johngreensbluesky.bsky.social quotes a friend of his who says "Nothing is so privileged as thinking history belongs to the past," which I haven't stopped thinking about since I heard it on the audiobook, which Green reads.

Finding an "Easter egg" in a novel you're reading is such a treat, and here's one I found while I was listening to the audio book: the librarian in Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Books uses "nancypearl" as her password! Very very cool, thank you @kirstenmiller.bsky.social !

“The death of human empathy is one of the earliest and most telling signs of a culture about to fall into barbarism.” Hannah Arendt

When one beloved dies there is no need for rain. Tears will wet the earth Wrote this haiku when I was about 12. #haiku

How to turn your ox into bouillon cubes -

I was looking through some old notebooks of mine and found this, which I wrote when I was 17 or 18

Best sign seen on today’s walk. Plus, for Seattle peeps and visitors, I highly recommend the one scoop hot fudge sundae from Dick’s Drive-In. I figured an 11 mile walk easily justified it.

A @brianbilston.bsky.social poem is always a treat and this one is terrific.

Done and dusted. This @galison.bsky.social puzzle 1000-piecer is a delight to do. I listened to Jacque Roy reading Adam Highinbotham’s Midnight in Chernobyl while I worked on it. It’s a terrific book

“It was love that set me on the journey, love that called me home.” - Denis Johnson

“-The owls are restless. People have died here, Good men for bad reasons, Better forgotten.” R. S. Thomas