The Roseledge Books Blog

and Roseledge Books is an aggregation.  Who knew?   This news dawned as I read about Matt Drudge’s staying on top with his Drudge Report because “[h]e can look into a huge stream of news, find the hot story and put an irresistible headline on it….Everyone goes to [the Drudge Report] because, well, everyone else goes there.“ (David Carr’s column, “The Media Equation,” NYT 5/1/11) He is not just an aggregator, but a good AND “effective” aggregator. How is this relevant? you ask warily.

Aggregated aggrevator, what is the pattern? What is the cause?

Well, I choose specific books from a “huge stream” of published-in-paperback options, and then highlight them somehow so that you are drawn to that which catches your mind’s eye. Okay, having a shelf for unusual mystery series may not be as catchy as an oh-boy-headline, but the goal is similar. I don’t claim to be an aggregator with laudatory adjectives, but if you end up finding a book and reading something that somehow clears away a bit of the dust of the world, I just might. “Good” or “effective” work for me, especially if you come again to Roseledge Books.

And now for the really exciting news: IT’S THAT TIME AGAIN. Roseledge Books will open on Memorial Day, even if the boxes of winter are still unpacked. More important for some, the webcam will be picturing the harbor’s boats and the walkers of Sea Street on their way to the Tenants Harbor Memorial Day parade. At least I hope so. I can hardly wait.

Snow in summer and protruding green reframe the aggregated scene.

Now, midst packing layers for Maine’s ten-minute weather shifts and reinvigorating wireless service, plumbing, and wine and cheese supply, I have to decide what book to read en route. Lee Child said once that if he has only minutes to choose in the airport, he’ll pick up a David Baldacci. And there always seems to be at least one. I think I’ll settle for the latest Jack Reacher in paperback, Lee Child’s Worth Dying For. We were just discussing how Reacher might have prepared to capture Osama bin Laden. One doesn’t want to lose touch with what Reacher knows.

Few things in life are better than the morning paper, a cup of coffee, and a long look out the window, especially when the paper holds a RB treasure as it did last week: an almost hidden reference to Lincoln Kirstein anecdotes in a review (ST 4/18/11) by the local restaurant reviewer of Jacques d’Amboise’s I Was A Dancer which matters because a Roseledge Books neighbor has ties to Lincoln Kirstein. So RB will definitely have the book as soon as it is out in paperback and hope the neighbor waits.

Green and blue and forsythia, too; ideas hover. Where are you?

Morning browsers (clearly) are superior people. Their favored content and format may vary, but not the with-it-ness they almost certainly have. Some Washington aides browse for others (NYT 1/18/11) which insures the others’ up-to-dateness and the aides’ importance, but I always hate it when I can’t browse myself, as I couldn’t when library stacks were closed. So much learning goes on as the browser decides what to look at more closely and what to skip over. John Kennedy used to scan dozens of newspapers folded back to editorial pages. I can’t remember — if I ever knew — if the papers were arranged geographically, alphabetically, by subject or perspective, but what a good way for a pre-Internetter to stay in touch.

Paul Krugman writes of “systematically” reading mostly economic newspapers and blogs and no conservative sites because, as he explained to his readers who asked, he knew of none that “regularly provide analysis or information I need to take seriously.” (NYT 3/8/11) Charlie checks online sources –he won’t say which ones, even though I am his mother — but he is usually on top of things that matter. Surely RB readers are browsers. Now I have to figure out what they look at and what just-right book mentions might crop up.

If you don't remember this nifty new sign, you've been too long away.

Marilyn Stasio reviewed (NYTBR 4/24/11) the latest Clare Fergusson/Russ Van Alstyne adventure, (Julia Spencer-Fleming’s One Was A Soldier) so its available, but not to RB readers until the paperback arrives for summer 2012. I’m hoping the early eager readers who are also RB Regulars will have missed enough details to make a reread part of their next summer. Meanwhile, I’m thinking mightily and trickily to come up with a must read for them this summer.

Four weeks from now, RB will be open and waiting for you to come. I know the time is nigh when I’m watching the PBS show New Scandinavian Cooking almos nightly, more for the ocean views than the food. They use too much butter, but the scenery is spectacular. Reminds me of Tenants Harbor and environs.

Note from breakfast: surely someone eating a wedge of pink grapefruit is one of the least attractive sights possible, but oh my it’s good and accessible to those of us who struggle with the serrated spoons. Now I am hungry for a TH Schoolhouse Bakery cinnamon roll. See you soon.