 Summer is in full swing here at the library! If you haven’t had the chance yet I highly suggest taking a peak at the door on our old front entryway on Academy Street. It’s been refinished by local woodworker Mike Bennett, who did an excellent job. It looks so much better now! Preserving the historic nature of our beautiful library building can be a challenging task at times, so we’re always thrilled when we can check another task off our list and we’re always relieved when it’s done well. We’ve got a number of different events coming up in the next couple months. First will be our Trivia Night tomorrow evening, August 24th, at 6:30pm. This will take place in the banquet room at the Homestead, and the theme will be Home, Sweet Home (local trivia focused on Farmington and Franklin County). This will be the first of hopefully many fundraiser Trivia Nights that the library will host, so come on by! If you win you might have the opportunity to choose the theme of our next Trivia Night, some cool library hats, or a library bag full of books.  We’re also looking forward to starting up our art shows again at the library. Phil Poirier will be our first artist, and his show will be opening on Wednesday, September 13th, at 5pm. Come on by and meet the artist, see some artwork, enjoy some light refreshments, and maybe buy some raffle tickets for the piece of art we’ll be raffling off. The raffle piece was just put on display in the library lobby! In the fall we’re planning to welcome several authors who will be talking about their books. Dale Potter-Clark will be speaking about her book Escape from Bunker Hill on September 30th at 11am. Jeri Theriault will be coming in October to read from and discuss her new poetry book, Self-Portrait as Homestead on the 19th at 5:30pm. And finally, Ron Joseph will have a book reading and signing for his recently published Bald Eagles, Bear Cubs, and Hermit Bill: Memories of a Maine Wildlife Biologist on November 8th at 6pm. I’m so looking forward to all of these events, and hope to see some of you there!  Keep your eyes out for news of a possible upcoming board game night we’re thinking of starting up as well–and if you didn’t know that we had a board game collection available to check out, come on in and see what we have. We’re hoping to start up a puzzle swap sometime soon too!
We got some new book arrivals and I’ll finish with highlighting one I’m pretty excited about reading–Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher. It’s a tiny little novella but I am a huge fan of Kingfisher’s writing, so I’m looking forward to reading it and I highly recommend her other books that we have! Nettle and Bone was my favorite so far, but What Moves the Dead was a close second. She’s certainly worth checking out! Hope you all have been enjoying some good books this summer! And remember you can sign up to get the Desk of the Director directly in your inbox (with higher quality pictures and better formatting!), as well as info and reminders on upcoming events, if you sign up here.  Welcome to the first From the Desk of the Director in 2023! We are busy welcoming in the warm weather here at the library by planning a number of upcoming events, which we hope you will join us on. Here’s some quick info on what you can expect to see at the library over the next few weeks and months, as well as a picture of an icy morning we had a few weeks ago. We have a couple author events coming up. We’ll be ending April (National Poetry Month!) with a poetry reading and book launch by local author Sarah Carlson on the evening of Thursday, April 27 at 6pm. Sarah will be reading a few works from her most recent book, Tender Light Softens, and there will be the opportunity to purchase two of her books, one for $20 or both for $30. The library will also be hosting another local author, Karla Jordan from Madison, who has written two historical/general fiction novels. She will be discussing her most recent book The Road to Marietta. Join us on Wednesday, May 10 at 5:30pm to hear her speak!  The library will be at a few upcoming community events. Help pick up litter and say hi to me at the 10th Annual Earth Day Clean-Up event from 1-3pm this Saturday, April 22nd. Then come visit me again at the library table at Fiddlehead Festival the next weekend, on the 29th, where we will have a fun children’s activity available as well as some library info. Finally, stop by the library May 6th from 10am-12pm and pick up a few plants from our Annual Plant Sale. If you have plants and/or seedlings to donate, please drop them off at the library the week preceding the sale, we’d be happy to have them! Here’s a little preview of a few plants we’ll have at the sale. Of course, with the warm weather arriving, remember that we have a Maine State Park Pass available for checkout. Ask at the front desk the day before your trip to see if it’s available. We also have a Western Maine Play Museum Pass, so ask about that as well! We’ll soon be running a little fundraiser and the proceeds will be used to help support the continued yearly purchase of these passes, so if you like this service I encourage you to keep your eye out for that–we’ll be launching it at the end of the month, so stay tuned. We are trying to step up our fundraising game this year, so if you appreciate all that the library does for this community then we’d really appreciate it if you helped us out by participating in our fundraisers!  As you can see, we have a lot going on at the library, and there will definitely be more to come! We hope to see you at some of our upcoming events. And if there’s anything you’d like to see the library do that we have not done, let me know! I love hearing about new ideas and ways the library can benefit the people in this town. Feel free to send me an email at director@farmingtonlibrarymaine.org, call the library at 207-778-4312 and ask for Jess, or just stop in and chat with me. I’ll finish off with a book recommendation. This is actually an author recommendation specifically–for any historical fiction fans out there, I definitely suggest picking up a book by Kate Quinn! In recent years she has focused on writing World War II historical fiction, and her books are amazing. They’re based on real events and real people, and very well researched in my opinion. For audio listeners, the audiobook reader, Saskia Maarleveld, does an amazing job. My favorites are The Alice Network and The Rose Code, although they're all excellent. I had to take a pic of my books because most of the library copies are out! Quinn is a great writer, I can’t recommend her books highly enough. Interested in receiving this little newsletter directly in your email when it’s published, or receiving updates on events and programs the library does in your inbox? We are thinking of setting up an email newsletter, so if you’re interested, sign up here! Don’t worry folks – there will be minimal emails sent out. I hate getting junk mail as much as the rest of you. If you sign up for this newsletter you can expect to receive the following, and no more:
 It’s the end of another year here at the library. And what a year it’s been! I’m glad we’ve been able to welcome so many more people inside the library this year and work our way back to some semblance of normal after the rollercoaster rides we’ve all been through these last few years. I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season, and are looking forward to the upcoming new year. We certainly have been making some plans for 2023! Although we are just at the beginning of a cold Maine winter, it’s never too early to start thinking about starting some plant clippings so they’ll be ready for our spring plant sale. We’re also looking forward to reinvigorating our little community garden come spring, and we hope you’ll all be on board to help out, learn more about plants, and take home some fresh herbs or veggies when the time comes!  In the short term, let’s talk about things you can do inside until the weather gets better. Winter is an excellent time to take up a new hobby or craft, which is why I’d encourage anyone who is interested to come attend our knitting/crocheting classes Thursday nights! All skill levels welcome, even if you already know what you’re doing we welcome you to just come spend some time dedicated to your project in the company of others. We’re actually planning to combine our knitting/crocheting classes into a general craft night Thursday nights, so any crafter is welcome! We’ll have some projects and supplies available for all, or bring whatever you’re working on along! We hope this will be a great way for people to connect over the winter months.  That’s all I have for now, so I’ll leave off as usual with my recent reads. They are pretty seasonally appropriate, if I do say so myself. East by Edith Pattou is a YA fantasy book I read when I was younger, and I have been happily re-reading in preparation for winter. I have been listening to The Diamond Eye by Kate Quinn, narrated by the wonderful Saskia Maarleveld, who does an excellent job as an audiobook reader. Like many of Kate Quinn’s other recent works, it is a World War II historical fiction novel. If you’re looking for suggestions on other wintery reads, I’d like to humbly suggest either The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden or The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey, as both are wonderful books that really get me ready to weather the winter. Feel free to stop by and recommend other great winter reads, and I wish you all a happy new year!
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August 2023
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