Dear Penny Black:

I'm doing spring cleaning. I have a bunch of those red books of Canadian 42 cent stamps and the like around the house. I was planning to use them up when I send mail. What should I do?

-Phil.

Dear Phil:

Save those books as they are, Phil. Some are worth many times more than the face value. I found an ordinary one that was now worth $30, provided it's intact. This is surprising since they seem to be the standard issue stamps that we remember well from the time eg. the 1990s, with flag or Queen on the front. These were are sometimes valuable than some older, more interesting looking items.

If you have any old Christmas seals with no value on the front, don't give them to the kids to play with! First, check out the Unitrade Specialized Catalogue of Canadian Stamps. If you already have, don't despair. Remember that the true value in things is the enjoyment they give you and what they mean to you! You never know, you may want to enter the world of Philately.

-Penny

p.s. Calgary Public Library has a great collection of collectibles books, so have a peek!

(this one of the left is one of Canada Post's newest, but you get the idea)

Today Jarome Iginla left the Calgary Flames. I was thinking about Jarome when I suddenly remembered meeting him once when he came into a bookstore I worked in. I remember two things distinctly about that day: 1) Jarome looked like he could bench press a smart car, and 2) he bought a copy of The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas — a rip-roaring adventure story written 169 years ago. Sometime later I remember reading an interview in which Jarome said that The Count of Monte Cristo was his favourite book. I don't know if he had just read the copy I sold him for the first time or if he bought it to reread his favourite book, but I did feel it was exceptionally cool that our biggest sports hero named a 19th Century french novel as his favourite book. 

I wish Iggy the best of luck in Pittsburgh and I'll pay tribute the best way a book snob like me can — by reading the book he loves! So why not check it out yourself?

Review of Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

I read Cheryl Strayed’s book almost the way that Cheryl hiked the Pacific Crest Trail: hard, with not too many stops, and with a devotion that bordered on the maniacal. It is a good book in that it accomplishes what she wants, to bring to life the hardship and wonder of pushing your body to unendurable limits. I mean, the name of her knapsack was Monster, and I would have given it a few more besides if I’d been her. With no real experience of backpacking she hikes for 1100 miles from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State in boots that are too small and a packsack that even veterans of the trail could hardly lift. At times, she believes the spirit of her dead mother is watching her, sometimes helping her. At other times, I would assume that she’d blush to have her mother watching over her, as she rashly decides on one-night stands.

Her old life would catch up to her at the most inconvenient times: when she was 22 her life was veering out of control with a marriage that was over, her mother dead, her family scattered and her drug abuse mounting. To say that she was impulsive is an understatement. How does this all tie up in her memoir? Each chapter is both a struggle with her hiking, (the boots, the endless urgings for Snapple and food, the weight of her pack) and with coming to terms with her past. Each chapter has a person’s name associated with it - her father’s and those memories, her ex-husband’s, her mother’s. Each one is grappled with and then closed as the chapter closes. She finds closure with her past and as she does so her journey becomes bearable.

I wouldn’t for all the world want to come to terms with my grief the way Cheryl did with the endless torture of walking, the way the body breaks down under stress and all the haunting memories, but it seemed to release her from her self-destructive tendencies in a remarkable way. This is what I loved most about this book; there is no psychobabble in it, no big ahah moment, no one to take the camera picture. She is just there, constantly improving with no visible understanding of why.

- Laurie Schut

Review of Georgette Heyer’s Regency Romance novels

I hesitate to write of Georgette Heyer’s novels in that they resemble nothing more than pale shadows of Jane Austen at her not very best. Heyer’s novels centre around getting married in the time of the Regent, 1795-1837, in England. The plots are improbable, the dialogue gets tiring and yet, and yet, they are delicious. No less a writer than A.S Byatt, among others, has sung her praises and I can definitely recommend them for those readers who have worn out Pride and Prejudice on their CD players. Georgette never fails.

Let’s be clear. The heroines are always virtuous, if a little careless, and the heroes, are not... That makes for some interesting stories. Kidnappings, near rapes, some interesting duels, getting into scrapes with the law and (more importantly) people of the Ton, getting out of scrapes, getting money, losing money and then, of course, shopping. It is rather dizzying. Heyer is good with details, bad with editing. She goes on at length about the way a ball gown is draped, but neglects to do the one thing that all good novelists should do, move the plot along. So, perhaps perceiving that the reader is lost somehow in the folds of a necktie, she retrieves him, (or her), stuffs her in a coach with her heroine, and drops them in a Vauxhall rout. Wait, weren't we supposed to be eloping with Valdor? Or was it Charles? The other problem with Heyer is that she loves to stuff us full with dainties - characters that are either straight out of Dickens or out of Bronte. A harsh villain may bear a close resemblance to Heathcliff while another father figure seems a tad like Daniel Peggotty. We do love these characters, but perhaps not quite so many in such short novels all enacting such Cheltenam tragedies! Her use of the vernacular of the times is brilliant, I want to be bedeviled, blue as begrim, or perhaps have a fit of the vapors. Life was so much more lived then. There were orgies, balls, duels, gaming, rakes and penitence. Above all, in Heyer, there is penitence.

Laurie Schut Louise Riley Library

Enchantment Emporium

So- I came across a booklist called: Calgary Reads - Fiction Set in Calgary that someone had kindly put together and there was one fantasy/science fiction title on it; “The Enchantment Emporium” by Canadian author Tanya Huff.

I thought ‘Nice! My patriotic book duty will soon be fulfilled.’ I tend (for no good reason) not to read Canadian books by Canadian authors, unless they have fantasy or faery content, for example: I can’t get enough of Charles de Lint and his urban faery tales. In his books it’s so easy to step between worlds and something about that really catches my interest. I have to know more! They make me want to make travel plans to walk down the same streets as the characters and see if the café that they ate at has the same feeling as was emoted in the book.

Yep, bit of a nerd that way. :D

Anyways, I’ve read Tanya Huffs’ “Blood” novels and really enjoyed them, (what a thrill to see colourful Canadian money in her “Blood Ties” TV series!) and I thought it would be interesting to try out this recommendation. A fantasy book set in Calgary! I picked up the MP3 audio version so I could listen to it in my car and by the time the main character had reached Calgary and was on a whirlwind taxi ride through the downtown core headed towards the antique/junk shop in Inglewood that she had inherited from her grandmother, I was hooked. I haven’t finished the MP3 yet but I’m really enjoying its quirkiness - also, today while unpacking brand new paperbacks – I noticed that its sequel “The Wild Ways” has just been published! More magic in Calgary!

So - time to plan a trip to the antique shops in Inglewood, a walk down Atlantic Ave S.E. in search of a good cup of coffee from a fellow named Kenny and check in at Fort Calgary, just to make sure there aren't any stray portals into the faery realms... You never know :)

On a hunt for magic!

By Garry Ryan

It’s kind of strange to look back on a book after the writing, the research, editing, etc. and realize where it all came from. Blackbirds is the story of a young woman from Calgary who finds herself in the thick of it in England in 1940. It’s where she discovers her rare and valuable talent.

Now I realize the story is rooted in Calgary’s post war Glendale. Our next-door neighbours were from Poland. Cas had been a prisoner in Siberia then went to Persia (Iran), Palestine, to the UK and to Canada. Hedi survived the war in Poland. She once told me that during the war, “You never knew whether you’d be alive from one minute to the next.”

Across the alley lived Mafalda and Ernesto. He’d been in the Italian Army and had been a prisoner of the French, Germans and Americans. For four years his family didn’t know if he was alive or dead. When he returned home for the first time, he hesitated at the front door and coughed. His mother recognized the sound immediately, opened the door and collapsed.

Down the block, lived three men who had been in the Canadian Navy. Smitty was one of them. After the war he joined Calgary Fire Department, used to take us fishing and died rescuing a man from a fire.

My mother was orphaned in 1940 and for a time lived at Calgary’s Wood’s Home. At eighteen, my father joined the Canadian Air Force near the end of the war and was scheduled to go to Japan.

You won’t read any of these stories in the history books. Few people know the stories, because the people on my block were reluctant to talk about the war. They moved to Glendale, had livings to make and families to raise.

Blackbirds is fiction, but it was influenced by the lives of ordinary people who accomplished the extraordinary. In many ways it is an attempt to honour their remarkable stories.

Congratulations to Calgary writer (and Louise Riley Library patron) Will Ferguson.

Will Ferguson is a historian, a social commentator, and an all-round funny guy. His books are best-sellers: How to be a Canadian (written with his brother Ian), Beauty Secrets From Moose Jaw, Beyond Belfast....It seems that he has hit upon a great recipe for success, making funny books of fiction and non-fiction alike that the Canadian reading public loves. And he has won awards. He has received the Leacock Medal for Humour three times, The Pierre Berton Award for History, The CAA Award for History and numerous appearances on various long lists and short lists. To these accolades Will can now add a Giller Prize long list nomination, as his most recent novel, 419, is one of thirteen Canadian novels vying for Canada's top literary award.

This must be a particularly satisfying nomination for Will, because 419 is nothing like the lighter comic novels he has so far produced. It is a serious literary novel, and as such he took a great risk in alienating those who had come to expect more of the same from him.

419 gets its name from the section in the Nigerian Criminal Code that deals with obtaining money or goods under false pretences. Internet fraud in short. Have you ever gotten one one of those emails from the nephew of a wrongly imprisoned African politician who needs your help to access millions of dollars in frozen assets and will give you bags of money for your trouble? Well Laura's dad got one of those and instead of deleting it he fell for it. Henry Curtis emptied his bank accounts, remortgaged his house and maxed out his credit cards. Then he died, leaving Laura grief stricken and looking for answers. This search takes her from the soft, white underbelly of the first-world (a gleaming Calgary condo, to be exact) to the streets of Lagos, hoping to find the man she feels is responsible for her father's death.

Woven into Laura's story is the tale of Nigerians who are trying to survive as honorably as possible in a very dangerous place, where the interests of muti-national oil companies are putting the squeeze on traditional ways of life.

419 is a complex novel that deals with complex issues. Kudos to the Giller Prize committee for recognizing it as a work of high artistic merit and congratulations again (and good luck!) to Will Ferguson.

Click here to see a secret interview with Will Ferguson.

One of my regular magazines reviewed Some Kind of Fairy Tale, and I placed my hold in a hurry. Why? It sounded like a fantasy novel for pragmatists, and a good summer read. I was not disappointed. It's a page-turner that I would recommend this novel to mystery fans as well.

A couple's daughter turns up on their doorstep having been missing for twenty years and assumed the victim of foul play. As expected, her then-boyfriend was accused of the crime and became lost in time socially as a result.

Tara's explanation for her disappearance is that she was seduced away by a friendly man while lying amongst the bluebells in a popular local woodland. Her took her, she claims, to another land/dimension. Everyone else is skeptical of her account that seems to be a tale of abduction by fairies. Meanwhile a strange man is stalking her loved ones.

Graham Joyce's novel explores the family dynamics of reconciling with a lost loved one, the literary history of fairies, and the analytical perspective of Tara's psychiatrist, who simply cannot conceive of her experience as reality.

By Jackie

It can be hard to stay up-to-date with new book releases and even harder to pick your “next read”. Luckily, CPL has just launched a new book recommendation service that can help:

When you register for the NextRead service, you will be asked to indicate your genre preferences from the 16 available categories. Provide is your name, email address and a password, and you'll start receiving regular NextReads newsletters by email.

The newsletters will offer quick book summaries and let you easily connect to the CPL catalogue to place a hold. You can cancel or change your subscription preferences at any time.

For more suggestions on what to read, visit the Riley blog or stop by our branch and speak with someone from our book-savvy staff team.

Leah Johnston is one of the talented and fun artists that is currently showing in our Horse Art Exhibition at Louise Riley Library running July 5 to Oct 30 2012. Stop by to see her colourful work up close!

Why horses?

Because it's Stampede time!

What's your favourite medium to work in?

Acrylic

Which artists do you find inspiring?

Angie Rees

What's your favourite section of the library?

Crafts!

What's your favourite colour right now?

Blue!