Room for reading.

I believe my reserve list at the Dunwoody Library is the longest ever. I just tried to add one more book. The system bounced me out because I'd exceeded their limit. Harrumph. There are just so many intriguing books coming out in the next few months. I finished Dan Brown's Lost Symbol this past week thanks to a loan from the McA's.  And I listened to Elizabeth Berg's The Year of Pleasures audiobook during my recent visit to North Carolina. Both were quite satisfying.

I get leads on good reads from friends, buzz on bestseller lists, and trolling around Barnes & Noble (my favorite bookstore).  My current reserve list is heavy on chick lit, but - I'm a chick.

The forgotten garden : a novel /     Morton, Kate
The girl with the dragon tattoo /  Larsson, Stieg
Knit the season : a Friday Night Knitting Club book /   Kate Jacobs
Sarah's key . . . Tatiana de Rosnay 
U is for undertow /  Sue Grafton
Hardball / Sara Paretsky
Have a little faith [a true story] /   Mitch Albom
Half broke horses : a true-life novel /  Jeannette Walls
The help  Kathryn Stockett
The weight of silence /  Heather Gudenkauf
Her fearful symmetry : a novel /   Audrey Niffenegger

Since the DeKalb Library system isn't keen on investing in knitting books, that particular list gets tucked into my knitting bag for the next Atlanta Knitting Guild meeting. Their borrowed books library is generous and very helpful for budget-conscious stash and pattern building.

More audiobooks are hitting my reserve list now that I've discovered how very pleasant it is to listen to a story while I'm knitting. (And driving long distances.) If the Dunwoody Library doesn't have it, I can always download a must read on my Ipod. I'm slow to embrace technology, but I do get there eventually.

It's raining outside (yet again), my Preschool Phonics class is prepped and ready for tomorrow, and I have some reading and knitting to enjoy.

Bliss.

Read it and reap.

The newly renovated Dunwoody library opened this week and the tween and teen and I have visited three times already. We transferred our holds from the Chamblee branch (thanks for your hospitality!), explored the changes, and checked out even more books. We love to read and each of us regularly roars through more than a dozen books each month. (Which is why we aren't terribly fond of required reading over the summer - school assignments interrupt hours and hours of leisurely exploration.)

Changes:

• Newly separated children's area, with a visual entry and sense of enclosure.
• New circulation desk, an island in the middle of the entry area.
• Relocation of self-check out kiosks to the circulation desk.
• Expanded computer research area, with more carrels and stations.
• Relocation of reserved books, large print, audio books, and CDs.
• Centralized reference section, including more foreign language materials.
  
• New paint, carpet, and decorative accents.

The result is open and appealing, plus the shift of reserved and new books to the side means less congestion around the circulation desk.

The Knitternall family "likes this" very much.

Miles to go before we read.

So, the Knitternall family made our first trek to the Chamblee Library on Clairmont Road. Since we're fervent users of the online reservation system, it was just a matter of time before we had to try out our temporary library home. (The Dunwoody library is still open for a few more days, but they're already redirecting reservations to the "library of your choice." Hmmm. Brookhaven or Chamblee?)

Such a pleasant surprise. An airy, newish building, better placement of the computers (lots more and you don't have to dodge around them like we do at Dunwoody), HUGE children's section, an intriguing section devoted to Vietnamese books, and really nice staffers. A faint musty scent of old books wafted through the high-ceilinged space. The parking lot was filled with a familiar mix of mom-vans rear-ended with their kids' school and sport magnets, genteel land yachts, and beat-up jalopies as well as a delivery van with Korean and English lettering.

We weren't there to linger since we needed to visit Borders to pick up the teen's AP US History texts (oh, the joys and expenses of required summer assignments), but we definitely want to go back and stay awhile.

Hint to my Dunwoody neighbors: go only between 10 am and 3 pm - outside those hours and the traffic will be brutal.

Hey, I like my comfort zone. Dunwoody fits us just right. But this one-month inconvenience might open new doors for the Knitternall family.

I love the library.

When I was a kid, the library was my best friend. We moved from one Air Force base to another, changing schools, homes, and cultures at the whim of the military powers-that-be. There were constants, however: a commissary, base exchange (glorified general store), dental and hospital facility, cafeteria, and a library.

I loved the library. Children's books were always an afterthought on military bases, so I was drawn to adult literature, poring through classics by Jane Austen, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Sir Walter Scott, Louisa May Alcott, Willa Cather, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Charles Dickens. Consequently, my vocabulary was fairly precocious, though my pronunciation left much to be desired. (If you'd only read "preternatural" but never heard it spoken, you may, too, pronounce it "pre-TER-natur-OWL." Wince.

I walked or rode my bike to the library on Saturdays and spent a few happy hours choosing that week's reading. Then I stayed up late at night, loathe to put down a particularly good story (and they were ALL good), happy to pay the price the next day of sleep deprivation and dry eyes.

Since I could roar through a dozen Cherry Ames and Nancy Drews and two or three thick classics at a time, I always ran out of reading material before the next Saturday. Resigned to the fact that new books wouldn't appear, particularly when we lived on Okinawa, I just re-read the same favorites over and over again.

Today, someone said she hadn't stepped foot in a library in YEARS and wouldn't know where to begin looking for a collection of books by a famous children's author. Astonishing. Now, I do understand that there are many other ways to discover and enjoy great books. But the library is basically FREE. And if you're patient, most popular books will appear on the shelves for your reading pleasure. Plus, the DeKalb County library lets you reserve books online, so you don't even have to look for them. The system pings you when they're in and you pick them up, scan them in the self-checkout station, and move briskly on to your next stop.

There's just one problem with our library system, though. They really don't like knitting books. They add one or two with some disdain. The latest Nicky Epstein finally showed up in the catalog and I pounced. (Too late, though - dozens of other knitters noticed before I did and put in their reserve first.)

I love the library. I think I'll go right now.