I adore librarians.
I throw myself at their feet, I put myself in their hands, I embrace them fully, I adore librarians.
Thank you, Andrea and Beth and Pat and Linda and Eva and Ann and all the others for choosing THE BEEKEEPER’S APPRENTICE for the 2006 Spokane is Reading project. Thank you for the amount of work you went to in organizing the venues, in putting together the ten thousand flyers all over the city (the first to hit my eye was at the airport, as Andrea and Beth held it up for the admiration of arriving passengers.) Thank you for continuing to fight what must feel like an uphill battle against the myriad of other time-consumers—or as I put it in the dedication of THE GAME:
For the librarians everywhere, who spend their lives in battle against the forces of darkness.
As I’ve said here before somewhere, I really hope that on the next tour I can do a number of library events, both to support the institutions and–hey, I’ve got bills to pay!–to get the LRK name into corners it may not have reached. The two events I did in Spokane were filled with enthusiastic, well-read people (it’s a library event, duh) who made every minute a pleasure. They even forgave the gritty voice from the cold I caught three days before. And to give lie to the Accepted Truth of publicists everywhere, they bought books!
And a big thanks to Chris from Auntie’s Books and her hard workers, who was not only one of the planners, and showed up to sell books, but when she ran out of copies of BEEKEEPER, then ransacked the city for them in order to have enough to sell at the evening event. Pride, not profit, rules at Auntie’s. (At any rate for those particular books, which not only cut her wholesale discount but added on the cost of gasoline…)
Roxanne says
October 23, 2006 at 7:25 pmChris from Auntie’s Books sounds like my kind of bookseller.
I was once a bookseller myself and from there found my way into librarianship.
Should you ever find your tour extends to the East Coast, I highly recommend Chester County Book & Music Company for an event.
Hope you are all over your cold by now.
Sonja says
October 23, 2006 at 7:30 pmOh, they definitely are adorable! Most of them, at least. I met a few I was afraid of. But I get scared of people very easy, so it wasn’t probably their fault. However, I worked with a few of them and they were great colleagues! I’m not a librarian btw, only a secret wannabe…
I’m glad you have had a nice time Laurie, and I also hope you can do some library events: just because they deserve it. Life would be boring (or expensive) without libraries…
Geri says
October 24, 2006 at 2:52 amLaurie
As a librarian of 20+ years…thank you! You have a lot of fans in libraryland and adoration from you means the world.
By the way…I just finished listening to Locked Rooms on my MP3 player in my car, a wonderful way to deal with a 45 minute commute. I loved the book the first time, but listening to it forced me to actually, well listen instead of reading quickly ahead. Am about to start Art of Detection which I’ve also read, but will enjoy the listen.
Geri
Anonymous says
October 24, 2006 at 1:05 pmThank you from this librarian, warms my heart to read comments like yours
Karen says
October 24, 2006 at 1:19 pmIf it weren’t for libraries, there would be many books I would not have bought, including yours. Libraries serve as a test run of sorts – is this book good enough to keep? If so, off to the bookstore I go.
Mary says
October 24, 2006 at 8:53 pmLaurie,
It is because of librarians like “Andrea and Beth and Pat and Linda and Eva and Ann and all the others” and writers like you that I decided to become a librarian in the first place.
Sincerely,
Mary (First Year Grad. Student in Information Sciences)
Jenni411 says
October 24, 2006 at 9:34 pmWe adore you, too!