Now through June 30, the Library of Virginia is accepting ballots for the best work of fiction and non-fiction by a Virginia author.  Winners will be announced at the Library of Virginia  Awards Celebration on October 17, 2009.  Here are the chosen books for this year. 

FICTION

Divine Justice by David Baldacci

People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks

The Legal Limit by Martin Clark

The Fire by Katherine Neville

Tomato Girl by Jayne Pupek

NONFICTION

This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War by Drew Gilpin Faust.

The Hemingses of Monticello, an American Family by Annette Gordon-Reed.

A Voyage Long and Strange; Rediscovering the New World by Tony Horwitz.

The Place to Be; Washington, CBS and the Glory Days of Television News by Roger Mudd

Because the Cat Purrs: How We Relate to Other Species and Why it Matters by Janet Lembke (This title is still on order and we await it’s arrival)

Stop by and check these titles out and vote for your favorite!

I have been wanting to read the book “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society” by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows for quite some time. The title was very intriguing, but the thought of letters written to each other to form a novel, well, it threw me off for a while from reading it. A couple of the patrons here (thank you ladies) encouraged me to read it, saying it was very good. I broke down, checked out the book and haven’t put it down since.
The book starts off as letters between an author, Juliet, and her publisher, Sidney. She is thinking of a topic to write for her next novel after writing a best selling series during World War II. She receives a letter about a literary group on the British Isle of Guernsey, sparking her interest in the occupation by the German soldiers during the war. The letters between the literary society and Juliet are sincere, heartwarming, and encouraging. It made you feel like you were listening to a conversation between two of your oldest friends.

Administrative housekeeping first… we are OPEN on Saturday, May 23, but CLOSED on Memorial Day (May 25) Have a great weekend, enjoy a picnic, and stop by to get a goood book from us!

Everybody has probably already heard about the beef recall, but here are several links to the stories published in the paper and on the news. Specifically, the first link will take you to a list of the recalled products. I know I said to have a picnic, but don’t invite the e. coli!

The List
NBC’s Report
United Press Internation Report (includes company’s phone number! 

As for “Memorial Day,” the holiday has its roots in the American Reconstruction period. Immediately after the end of the Civil War, people began decorating the graves of fallen soldiers —Confederate and Union alike. The first official celebration was in Illinois in 1866, although many other cities, including Richmond, claim earlier unofficial celebrations. “Decoration Day” was first named as a day of remembrance in 1868. After World War I, the day was expanded to remember all Americans who have fallen in battle. And finally, in 1971 is named a national holiday to be renamed “Memorial Day” and celebrated as the last Monday in May.

So, spend a few moments in reflection of those who have secured our country and our freedom, then enjoy your day off, and bid summer welcome!

I recently finished Mount Vernon Love Story, a Novel of George and Martha Washington by Mary Higgins Clark. What prompted me to read this novel was a recent trip to Mount Vernon, VA and the incredible sense of awe I was left with for our first President of the United States and his wife.
The tale bounced around from George’s young life and young loves to his final months in the presidency and times between. The love between George and his beloved Patsy, his nickname for Martha, was always shown. George and Patsy raised Patsy’s two small children from her previous marriage and ultimately raised their grandchildren.
Mary Higgins Clark loving shows her admiration for the Washingtons and their beloved Mt. Vernon plantation throughout this book, having done research from documents and interviews with Washington’s ancestors. To me, the love story is her tribute to a man we all admire, George Washington.

There are so many things that May conjures up for me… weddings, graduations, holidays, and of course, May Day itself. May 1 is one of *those* holidays… it started as a Celtic religious festival (Beltane). Then sometime early in the first millennium, it was appropriated by the early Christian missionaries as a holy day honoring Mary. During the English Renaissance, which began with the Tudors and flourished under Elizabeth I, many of the old Catholic holidays metamorphised into folk holidays.

May Day was no exception. For the next couple of centuries, it devolved into a day celebrating folk dances and legends in England.

I remember as a child dancing around the maypole. I and all of my grade wove cloth ribbons as we danced over and under each others’ arms. I also remember reading Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s slightly (okay, more than slightly) saccharine poem, The May Queen. Warning if you look it up… the original had only two verses, May Queen and New Year’s Eve. Tennyson added to it several years later, as poets are wont to do. The concluding verse has more than slightly Christian religious overtone. It’s a favorite poem of mine, though, so I recommend it to anyone who likes sappy Victorian poetry.