In Episode 12 I chatted with Barbara Ball, the Library Director at the Windsor Public Library, in Windsor, VT. This library is one of three in Windsor Country built by the same benefactor, Benjamin Blood. All three libraries share some common features and have their original shelving. I asked Barbara if the Windsor Library still has the antique metal fold-down steps attached to the shelves - made to help reach books on the upper shelves. And they are still there!
Barbara also told me about programs and events happening at the library, including a special hiking event, book discussions, and open mic nights in the library's backyard. The Library also received a Vermont Arts Council grant to create a story archive of residents' stories. And the library is also raffling off a pickleball set at their Fall Festival in September! You can find out more information about all of this at the library website.
Barbara shared some great books that you might not have heard about. She said the first one is great if you're feeling stressed or overwhelmed. How to Age Disgracefully by Clare Pooley (2024). It's a novel with some senior citizen hijinks. When the city council threatens to close the community center building where the senior social hour and the community daycare reside, the two groups join forces to save the building. This is a book with a big heart and many funny moments.
Barbara is also reading the book, Bringing Nature Home by Douglas Tallamy (2009) is a non-fiction book about saving your yard and increasing insects which helps the bird population and nature in general. And she rounded everything off with an award winning juvenile fiction book, that made almost every "best of the year" list in 2021. Fighting Words by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley is about a 10-year-old girl and her older sister who has been looking out for her forever. Her final book is a novel about two women and touched with a bit a magical realism.
I shared the time travel romance, The Ministry of Time by Kalliane Bradley (2024) that is also part spy thriller and part workplace comedy. It was on the NY Times Best Seller list this past spring and folks may have missed it. It takes place in England, sometime in the near future. The government has developed a way to pluck people out of the past and bring them into the future/present day. This of course can be very disorienting for the time traveler, so they are assigned a person called a "bridge" to live with them and help them orient to the current time. The person we follow in this story is Commander Gore, lifted from a failed Artic exploration in the 1800s. His "bridge" is a woman and we never learn her name, but this is both their story and a story about the real nature of this time travel experiment. It is a page-turner and different than anything I've ever read. I highly recommend it.
My second book is a debut novel by Douglas Westerbeke, A Short Walk Through a Wide World (2024). Another book unlike anything I've read before that begins in Paris in 1885 with a 9 year old girl who develops a mysterious illness that doesn't allow her to stay in any one place for more than three days or so. If she stays the illness will kill her. And if that isn't quirky enough, we find out the world she walks through isn't quite the same as the one the rest of the people live in. At first I thought I understood where the book was going, then I didn't but I was still fascinated by the story. I don't know want to share any spoilers, but I'd love to hear what others think of this book. One of my good friends and I have discussed it for a couple of month. Feel free to leave comments on the WTBAnow Facebook page.
Thanks for listening! Please visit us at Facebook for more Vermont public library tidbits. If you would like your Vermont library to be featured on an episode of WTBAnow, please use the contact information on the website or send a Facebook message. **All of the books mentioned on WTBAnow are available at your public library or through interlibrary loan. The book covers you see on this page are linked to Bookshop.org a great place to purchase books and support your local independent bookstore at the same time.
Until next time...Happy Reading,
Nancy
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