So Much To Read, So Little Time

Southold Library Has New Reading List To Get You Hooked

By Phyllis Lombardi

I love free stuff. You’re walking through a variety store and a nice lady offers you a small sample of shampoo. Or you’re pushing a cart in a supermarket and another nice lady (maybe the variety store lady?) insists you take a tiny box of sample cookies.

It gets even better. I have a Long Island Ducks hat and all I had to do was open a charge account to get it. Then, just for the price of admission, my big orange and blue Mets towel, my Yankee cooler bag and my Saratoga tote bag. Though I did not win big at the races. I didn’t even win little.

So I hurried out to Southold when I heard there was free stuff just for doing one of my favorite things. Reading. Southold Free Library has a winter reading program for adults and boy, did they hook me. “Sign up at the circulation desk and receive a drawstring bag of cool stuff” read the library’s bulletin. If I read three books I’m eligible for a raffle. And then on Thursday, March 22, there’s an evening reception for all readers in the program. Imagine that. The last time a reception was held for me, I had to share it with my brand-new husband – 49 years ago! That’s why I’m looking forward to March 22.

Let me tell you about that drawstring bag of free stuff. I picked it up at the library but resisted opening it till I got home. I wanted to spread out all the gifts on the kitchen table and just savor the moment. First, there was a bookmark telling me to R-E-A-D. Then, a little memo pad. Good. I need to write out everything. Two bright orange pencils with oversized erasers, a pencil sharpener shaped like a book, and finally, a little plastic container filled with gold foil-wrapped hard candy. Something to enjoy while I read. Thank you, Southold Library.

Now as for the reading. When I got my free stuff I was already in the middle of a book. I figured if I counted that as Book One, I’d be cheating. So I checked out ‘Flags of Our Fathers’ by James Bradley. (No, I didn’t see the film.) I figure I’ll have no trouble reading a few more books by March 22. That way I can go to the reception in good faith. It will be spring and who knows? I may even dig out a pair of heels for the occasion. We do it up right on the North Fork.

It’s Melissa Andruski, Adult Services librarian, who’s doing it up right at Southold Library. A Southold resident, Melissa has worked at the library for 22 years and is enthusiastic when she talks about this second annual winter reading program. “It gets lots of people reading,” she said. And it also gives people the chance to voice opinions about the books they’ve read.

This is how Melissa does it. She’s set up a couple of portable bulletin boards right near the main circulation desk in the library. As readers complete their books, they write a short (maybe 100 words or so) comment, anonymous of course, and that comment is tacked to the board. This gives everyone who enters the library a chance to read a kind of mini-review by real North Fork people – not highfalutin professor types. You know them.

They don’t live here on the North Fork. They just visit, thinking we’re quaint.

I read through some of the reviews and more often than not my reaction was “Hey. That’s something I’d like to read.” (I bet Melissa hears that all the time.) A couple of non-fiction books looked especially good to me. ‘Sea of Thunder,’ the story of the battle of Leyte Gulf, by Evan Thomas, was one. Another? Well, Tom Calvin’s ‘Dark Noon,’ about the final voyage of the Pelican, made it to my list. It’s a long list, impossible, but exciting.

Fiction? ‘A Peach of a Murder’ by Livia Washburn, got high praise from one North Fork reader. Me? I just liked the title - perhaps because I like peaches. What would the highfalutins say about that!

Know what? North Forkers don’t really care what the highfalutins say. We just get a book, sit down in a quiet spot, put on our glasses, and read. See you March 22.