Giveback Tuesday: Library week LOCKDOWN giveaway!

Want a copy of Lockdown?  Ooh, yes, look at these, you know you do… Okay: we all know that libraries—and librarians—rock, right? And we all know that, as my dedication to The Moor put it, librarians… “…spend their lives in battle against the forces of darkness.” Now more than ever. But no matter our niche…

Read More

Takeback Tuesday: social workers and other heroes

[NOTE: corrections below, after my information was corrected. Thank heavens for copyeditors and experts…] Mystery Writers of America, NorCal, had a fascinating program on Saturday with the owners of the house in which serial killer Dorothea Puente lived and did her awful work.  We were joined by the homicide detective, the assistant DA, and the…

Read More

Takeback Tuesday: fiction edition

I’ve been in Honolulu this past week with crime writers, and it’s been interesting how often politics has been the unspoken presence on a panel. Some of us are outright in our opinions, while others feel that they need to keep their opinions to themselves. Whichever way you feel, there’s no doubt that books carry…

Read More

The Ides of Trump

Okay, today’s Takeback Tuesday isn’t about donating to a Good Cause. This one is fun and communal. Tomorrow is the Ides of March, a day Julius Caesar would have cause to remember. To celebrate a day that changed Roman history, tomorrow has been declared #TheIdesofTrump. I’d like all of us to dig out a postcard–or…

Read More

Takeback Tuesday: a nation of bush mechanics

There’s an entire series of videos on YouTube (thanks, BoingBoing) about the Bush Mechanics of the Australian outback, Aboriginal gents who work miracles on heaps of junk and rust and turn them into… well, I’m not sure I’d agree that they’re cars, but they are mobile. More or less. America is now a nation of political and…

Read More

TBT: Them radical librarians

I spent my childhood in libraries. Their stacks, their people, were my sanctuaries, the safe and nurturing places where my real community lived (rather than these changing cities where my family seemed to continually be moving). So it makes sense to me that libraries are now declaring themselves as sanctuary spaces—although with political overtones that…

Read More

Takeback Tuesday: Postponed

Laurie’s internet service is down due to storm damage, so she will post today’s regularly scheduled Takeback Tuesday blog when she is reconnected with the outside world. Thank you for your patience.

Read More

Takeback Tuesday: women’s work

Among the more interesting people I have met in this lifetime of odd people were John and Wink Allen. On the books, John was the Swahili scholar, but in fact much of what he did was based on Wink’s ability to wander into the women’s huts and chat. Before John and Wink, anthropologists generally assumed…

Read More

Takeback Tuesday: our rights

Takeback Tuesday is Team LRK’s weekly vote of confidence in the future, when I talk about steps our community of readers can make in asserting the good. My husband Noel was born in what is now Pakistan. He grew up among Muslims, lived in Africa for many years, and had friends of all religious persuasions…

Read More