What's on your bedside table?

The very clever credit card commercials with Vikings in contemporary settings asks the question, "What's in your wallet?"  So I'm asking, what's on your bedside table? What books are stacked up there for you to read or what have you recently downloaded that you can't wait to start?  We are past the beach read season and we will be staying inside more, so now's the time to stop by the library or visit our website and get stocked up with books and DVDs.

There are two books on the table beside my recliner.  "Doc" by Mary Doria Russell and "The Last Town on Earth" by Thomas Mullen.  Russell is one of my very favorite authors.  She writes sentences that make you stop and catch your breath because they are so beautiful.  You savor every paragraph.  "Doc" is a fictional biography of Doc Holiday.  Transplanted to the Arizona and Kansas catttle towns from his upper class Atlanta family because of tuberculosis, John Henry Holiday was trained as a dentist and  practiced his skills in tough, boom or bust times, but made his living at the card table in dusty saloons. The story is fascinating with its cast of famous characters like Wyatt Earp and it narrates the life of someone who perserved through very difficult circumstances.  Now I want to watch Val Kilmer's portrayal of Doc on film all over again. Check out the DVD "Wyatt Earp" for a gritty, honest view of the Old West.

To talk about the next book, I have to share a little secret.  I love plague literature; fiction and nonfiction.  It doesn't matter what the disease is; bubonic plague, yellow fever, ebola outbreak, whatever.  I want to read about it.  I read about plagues from long ago and plagues of the future.  What can I say?  Some people love serial killers, or boddice rippers, or romance.  I love epidemics.  Good novelists use the dynamics of a plague to explore how humans rise and fall, succeed and fail, in stressful situations.  It brings out the best and worst in our characters. Some time I will give you my list of favorites.

"The Last Town on Earth" is the story of a Washington state logging town that quarantines itself off during the horrible Spanish influenza epidemic in 1918.  I remember seeing old photographs of the ISU campus where there were their rows and rows of beds to accomodate the growing numbers of flu victiims.  Commonwealth, Washington decides to let the flu burn itself out in their town rather than spread the disease to surrounding communities.  Talk about stress!  The novel is scary, yet hopeful. The story is similar to Geraldine Brooks' novel "A Year of Wonders" in which the townspeople of a small British hamlet shut themselves off from the rest of the world during an outbreak of bubonic plague in 1665-1666.  Brooks' novel is based on a true story.

So, that's what I'm reading.  Do you like to talk about what you are reading?  I would love to gather people together who want to discuss books.  Are you interested?  We can structure the group in many ways; talk about what we are reading and just share good titles, or pick a book a month to read and talk about, or create a series of discussions around a topic or a kind of book (like childhood favorites, history of Iowa, war and peace, or genres like chick lit, mystery, or science fiction).  What intrigues you?  Please email or give me a call if you would like to join a book discussion group.  We can talk about what, when, how often, and where.  My phone number is 563-582-0008 and my email address is dawnh@dubcolib.lib.ia.us.

Enjoy this wonderful fall weather and have a good weekend.  Dawn