Call me crazy...

...but is maintaining library service for one day a week the best way to spend $500,000 if that's all you've got for library service? Say you live in Salinas and you've ponied up a generous donation to save your precious library. Congratulations! The library is open from 2:30 to 4pm on Tuesday afternoons. But wait...you're busy on Tuesdays. How is that any different from the library shutting its doors for good? (Okay, okay, you could still use the Salinas Library website. Or could you? Maybe the website should only be open one day a week.) I just might prefer a bookmobile...

Howard Norman

I can't believe I'm the only one who's listed The Haunting of L. as a favorite book. Is that possible?

I went through a phase where I read books with moral dilemmas. Or at least that's how I categorized them. Books about decent people who didn't exactly make bad choices, they just declined to make the right ones.

Howard Norman's books are deliciously dull. I like to imagine them being read in a monotone. Imagine yourself in a room full of people, doing something very uninteresting, and drifting off into daydreams. There's a crash, and suddenly you're called to attention. Everyone is laughing at a joke you missed, or people are fleeing the room with expediency. Something changed without you noticing, and you're left feeling uneasy. Subtle, yet drastic. That's what his books are like.