by Sonja Hakala

“This kind of weather was invented to give the word sultry new meaning,” Edie Wolfe said. “And the idea of sitting in a room with a dozen other hot, sweaty bodies just doesn’t appeal. So I’m sorry, Annie, but I believe my entire afternoon is going to be taken up with sprawling semi-comatose in a lounge chair on my back porch.”

“I know what you mean,” Annie said. “I’ve got the A/C cranked in the library, and there are two fans pushing the air from one side of the building to the other, and it’s still only minimally better inside than out. What I wouldn’t give to get heat pumps in here. My sister has them in her house, and winter or summer, she rarely needs to touch the thermostat because they keep the temperature so even.” She sighed. “I don’t think this Yankee was built to take this heat.”

“It’s either the heat or the bugs. I’ve never known the black flies to be so persistent,” Edie said as she extracted a jug of iced tea from the back of her refrigerator.

“Or to last so long into the summer,” Annie said. “So what do you think I should do about the book club today? I have a hunch that most of the women will feel just like you.”

“Yeah, I know. But there’s always the off-chance that you’ll cancel it and someone will show up live and in person.” Edie sipped while she gave the matter some thought. Since she was the newly minted chairwoman of the board, talking to the town librarian had become a pleasant, almost daily, occurrence. “Wait, I know. We have a Zoom account, don’t we?”

“Oh of course,” Annie sighed. “I swear the heat is clogging up my brain. Of course we can do the book club meeting that way.”

“I’ll tell you what, if you get the meeting set up, I’ll call the members, and alert them to watch their emails for the Zoom link,” Edie said. “It’s not the same as being together but under the circumstances, I think this is the best way to do it. Talk soon.”

Judging by the relief she heard in the voices of the book club members, Edie’s judgment was right. Responses ranged from “thank you thank you thank you” to “I hated missing it” to “how do I connect to Zoom again?”, a perpetual question.

“Everyone take up whatever book you have at hand,” Edie told them all. “It’ll be a real mishmash.”

“But at least we get to talk about books,” her friend Ruth Goodwin said.

“With iced tea and in the shade,” Edie said.

By the time everyone figured out how to use Zoom, there were eleven avid readers connected with one another from all over Carding. “So what’s everyone reading these days?” Annie asked. She’d eased her shoes off under her desk in the library’s atrium, the coolest spot in the building. The tile floor felt good on her feet.

“I decided it was too much effort to read anything contemporary because it might make me think,” Agnes Findley said. “So I am moseying through a true oldie-but-goodie called Doctor Thorne.”

“Oh, Anthony Trollope,” Annie said. “Did you know he was the bestselling author in the middle of the nineteenth century? Have you read anything else by him, Aggie?”

“A couple of books but that was years ago.” Aggie held her worn copy of Doctor Thorne up to her computer’s camera. “I thought I remembered that I liked his stuff, and I still kinda do. But he’s also making me remember how much I appreciate the more streamlined writing style in books written since the 1960s or so. There are times when Trollope’s characters meander around the central point so much that I just want to reach into the book, shake them by their shoulders, and say ‘would you just ignore all those stiff-necked snobs and get around to doing what you want to do anyhow?’”

“So did you flip to the last pages to see how it all turns out?” Ruth asked.

“Of course I did,” Aggie said to more than one groan from her listeners. “I know, I know that most of you think it’s a sin to read the end before you finish the book but you should try it sometime. Now I do have to add that Trollope’s a gentle soul with a healthy sense of justice so I can read him before I go to sleep without worrying about ginning up my anxiety level so knowing how Doctor Thorne ended was not critical to my enjoyment. I just got curious about a couple of his odious characters and couldn’t wait to see what he did with them.”

“Gentle books to read before falling asleep at night. I say amen to that,” Edie muttered, “November can’t come soon enough for me.” Then she picked up her book to show her friends. “Now this is one I can wholeheartedly say you can read just before falling asleep, and look forward to continuing it over breakfast. It was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2012, and it’s called The Forest Unseen. This man’s writing is just delicious. I learn something new about nature on every page, and that reminds me of what’s really important in this life.”

“Who’s the author again?” Aggie asked.

“David Haskell, a botanist and a Buddhist and a philosopher. Great writer,” Edie said.

“Annie, it’s your turn,” Ruth said.

“Well, I’ve been roaming through the library’s fiction shelves seeking out women writers whose work is new to me,” Annie said as she moved her feet to a different cool spot on the library’s tile floor. 

“Aww, I would have thought you’d read every book in the Frost Free by now,” Ruth said. 

“Actually, there are some in here that I will never read,” Annie said. “I’m not a fan of spy thrillers or sci-fi or authors like Elmore Leonard. I know that lots of people like him but to me, his writing style is like a bunch of notes without any music. I like more flavor in my books.”

Edie leaned toward her screen. “So what treasures have you uncovered?”

“Well, this one, for starters.” Annie held up a copy of The Rose Code by Kate Quinn. “I love well-written historical fiction, especially books that highlight women’s accomplishments. This one is about the codebreakers in Bletchley Park in England during World War II. I have to say, I am impressed with Quinn’s research. She’s sent me off on more than a few tangents to look into more aspects of the non-military side of the war, and I have to commend her attention to detail. There were so many brave, brave people defending their country during that time, and each one of them is a story.”

“I’ve read it too, and it will keep you up at night because you can’t put it down,” Aggie said. 

“Did you flip to the back of that book to read the end?” G.G. Dieppe asked.

“I did,” Aggie said, “and it spurred me on to read even faster because I just had to know how the author tied everything together. You see, that’s what I like about reading the end of a novel when I get to about the halfway point of it. Reading the ending doesn’t tell you everything that happens. What you get is just one or two pieces of a puzzle, and I love seeing how the author braids it all together. That process fascinates me.”

“G.G.? How about you? What are you into?” Annie asked.

To everyone’s surprise, the usually officious queen of the Mount Merino social scene looked decidedly uncomfortable. Even across the Zoom ecosphere, the rest of the group sensed she was squirming in her seat. Annie decided to let the silence linger on for just a moment more. Then, just as she was about to open her mouth, G.G. spoke.

“Well, you see, I’ve been writing a book of my own,” she finally said.

“Oh? Well, good for you.” The librarian struggled to keep all notes of surprise out of her voice. Inside, she started chanting, “Please don’t ask to read it out loud. Please don’t ask to read it out loud.”

“I don’t have any plans for it,” G.G. said. “It’s just kind of an exercise to see if I can do it.” She shrugged. “I used to write stories when I was a kid but I haven’t done anything like this in many years. But I’ve been reading a lot of the books that all of you have recommended, and it kind of woke up that part of me. And then I found this at the transfer station’s book exchange.”

She waved a tattered copy of Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird in the air. “And then there’s this.” G.G. raised a copy of Neil Gaiman’s Art Matters at the camera. “Between the two of them, they keep my pen moving. I’ll tell you one thing I learned pretty quick, writing something long is quite the grind.”

“Oh I love that Neil Gaiman book,” Annie said with a smile. “It has one of my favorite quotes: ‘We have an obligation to support libraries, to protest the closure of libraries. If you do not value libraries you are silencing the voices of the past and you are damaging the future.’”

“Ooh, that gives me an idea,” Ruth said as she leaned toward her screen. “Annie, remind me if I’m wrong but hasn’t the Frost Free won a grant from the Children’s Literacy Foundation, and it comes with a whole bunch of new children’s books?”

“We have indeed.” Annie glowed. She’d nearly levitated off the ground when she received word about the CLiF grant.

“What are you thinking, Ruth?” G.G. asked.

“Well, why don’t we do what Neil Gaiman suggested, and support our library,” Ruth said. “The CLiF grant is for new children’s books, am I right Annie?”

“Yes.”

“Well, we’ve talked about the books we loved as kids more than once in book club. What if we start a town-wide drive to put together a collection of books we loved as kids. Many of them still wear well,” Ruth said.

“Like Dr. Seuss,” G.G. said.

“And Eric Carle,” Ruth Agnes said.

“And Richard Scarry,” Annie said. “I have two very old and now very fragile copies of his Cars and Trucks and Things That Go, and it still goes out the door.”

“My niece is reading Nancy Drew mysteries,” Denise said.

“Let’s do it,” Edie said. “There are a lot of readers in this town, and if each one of us donates just one book, can you imagine what our children’s book collection will look like?”

Annie was suddenly glad that the August book club meeting was on Zoom because that meant she could shed her tears in private.

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Before you leave, a word about the Children’s Literacy Foundation. I was one of the original members of its board of directors when it was started by Duncan McDougall in 1998. Our first program involved grants of new children’s books given to small public libraries in Vermont and New Hampshire. And believe me, we have a bunch of wonderful libraries like the Frost Free Library that I describe in Carding, Vermont in our two states.

It’s been 26 years now, and the variety of programs offered by CLiF is astounding. As my dear friend Duncan has observed more than once, “literacy is a social justice issue.” If you can’t read, too much of the world is closed to you.

So I encourage you to take Neil Gaiman’s words to heart—if you love to read, you have an obligation to support libraries.

Thanks for being here.~Sonja

The Carding Chronicles are short stories written by author Sonja Hakala about the Vermont town that no one can quite find on a map. They feature the characters in the four Carding novels.

The Carding books are available from Amazon and the Chronicles appear here, on this website, every Monday. Hope to see you next week.