As Time Goes By

The Last Letter from your Lover - Jojo Moyes (Viking, 2011)


One of the reasons I feel blessed to be a reader is for the feeling you get when you come across a book that makes you so pleased to be reading it. It may be romantic, or exciting, or heartwarming, or tear-jerking. But whatever it is, you are glad that the book exists, and that you exist and are able to read it.


All of which is a rather over-the-top way to say that I really loved this book. I am all about the British romances, apparently.


Story, in brief: in October 1960, Jennifer Stirling wakes up in a hospital, her memory essentially gone. She tries to return to upper-class life with a husband she feels is a stranger ... and then finds a letter. She had been having an affair, and now much begin a mad search to determine the identity of her lover, the trajectory of their love, and what her husband and friends may have known. 


Interspersed are flashbacks just a few months, to when she met the man behind the letters, all from his point of view. How he found himself desperately in love with someone who should have been only a conquest. And then time moves forward.


And then time moves dramatically forward, to 2003. Ellie, a reporter whose own "all-consuming" love affair threatens to wreak havoc on her career, finds a cache of these letters. For reasons both professional and personal, she sets out to discover what became of Jennifer & B. 


The earlier story is the more compelling, and I wouldn't blame any reader who wanted to take Ellie and shake her for being just like any other British chick lit heroine. But that is unkind, and not entirely true. (And also kind of okay, b/c this reader loves [most] British chick lit.) And Moyes does two things that I adore. The first is making a romantic hero of the librarian. (Thank you!) The second is entwining the two stories such that the resolutions of each are entirely bound up in one another.


If I only read novels like this, I'd be pretty darn close to perfectly content.

Librarians to the Rescue

This Book is Overdue! How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All - Marilyn Johnson (HarperCollins, 2010)

For the past two months, I have been working on my e-Portfolio, the culminating project for my MLIS. As I have pondered core competencies and looked for evidence that I have met them, I have been guided by Johnson's humorous and impassioned look at the library profession. She's popped up in 3 or 4 of my essays, and thus I don't have much desire to pull a lot of quotes for you here.

But I will recommend this book to library-lovers, as well as those who are interested in how we are navigating the Information Age. Also those who like charming looks at the hidden sides of "boring" professions.

Johnson covers a lot of territory - I remember hearing first that she gets into librarianship in Second Life and other adventures in cyberspace. And yes, she does. But that's only one part of it. She talks about Radical Reference and librarians out of the streets, hawking their trade for social justice. She talks about cataloging, and the cultural importance of good subject headings, the economic value of libraries, the tension between scholars and the general public at renowned institutions like NYPL, and the value of reading as a reliable cure for racing thoughts. (It was a relief to be reminded I'm not the only one who does this.)

Did she get everything perfect? Doubtful. Will she save librarianship? That's too loaded a question to even tackle. But it's a fun and often witty reminder that my chosen profession is home to as much variety and opportunity as I could ever hope for. (Provided I ever actually find a job.)