Living in libraries

What is the purpose of a library?  What is a library?  A safe place, a place where the imagination can run riot, a place where I can find a job or learn a skill or use the computer or discover something new, every single day. I love libraries. One of my earliest memories is of…

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Spring surprises

Last spring this time, I was waiting for my offer on a house to be accepted.  And waiting.  In the meantime, the garden went through the springtime without me.  That means that this year, every week brings a new surprise.  Like the view off my deck, green all winter and now scattered with various colors…

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Beekeeper on the Beeb

One of the Lost Treasures of the LRKing universe is a radio adaptation the BBC did years and years ago of (under a previous cover, of course) which they broadcast, sold for a time in the shops, and then it sort of faded into the storied mists.  Even I never got a copy of the…

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Libraries! Yes!

In case you didn’t open your newsletter (you are signed up for the News, aren’t you?) you may not have seen two Events With Deadlines, both celebrating next week’s National Library Week. Event the First: A contest. There’s a complete set of five Martinelli hardbacks with your name on it–or rather, with my name on…

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Higher Mysteries

On May 14, I will sit down with Zoe Ferraris, Sharan Newman, and Julia Spencer-Fleming to talk about Higher Mysteries. You do not want to miss this. It’s the 2013 King Lecture in Santa Cruz, at 7:00 in the main library at 224 Church Street. 

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The thrill is coming!

Just to give you a head’s up: the spring newsletter is going out tomorrow, with some exciting snippets in it.  If you’re not signed up yet, you can do so here. More to come…

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Sherlock, at last!

Some weeks ago, Team LRK put up an e-book collection of my writings on that fellow with the pipe and the violin.  At last, it’s available in an actual paper version!  There are eight essays that range from my explanation of how old I think Sherlock Holmes is to the very academic introduction I wrote…

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Dog love

I’m participating in an event Thursday night for:  “UnChained, a Canines Teaching Compassion Program that helps change the lives of kids and save the lives of dogs by matching at-risk youth and shelter dogs together.”  It’s at one of my favorite bookstores, Capitola BookCafe–details here.

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A literary soirée

The third event of the recent Pacific Northwest Library Extravaganza was a soirée called Author! Author! at the gorgeous offices of architects Rice/Fergus/Miller in Bremerton.  Over the Puget Sound area’s most tasty appetizers, thriller writer Kevin O’Brien and I talked books– –and writing and drank some beer and talked and answered questions and… well, I…

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Libraries & love: a ferry tale

My second event for the recent LRK Pacific Northwest Library Extravaganza was even more unusual than in a library built over a river, although this, too, had a watery theme. Once upon a time (last year) I came across an article about a book group that meets on a ferry.  These are regular commuters who…

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