Sarah's Books - Used & Rare

There's nothing like it, is there. Where did this little person come from? And why? Meeting a new baby sure makes one ask all the ultimate questions. Mother and son (and father!) are all doing fine, my beautiful nephew arrived at six a.m. on Tuesday the 11th, which is indeed, as I mentioned earlier, my other sister's birthday, so all in all a nice confluence of events! I house-sat and kitty-sat and grocery-shopped and generally helped get things ready for their homecoming yesterday (including filling their house with flowers, and finding a fresh cherry pie at a local farmer's market, two of the most celebratory things I could think of to do), so I've been away from the shop since Monday. Came back in this morning and had many kind messages via email and phone, and many mildly disgruntled customers wondering where I've been all this time. The note on the door said "It's a boy! I have a new nephew!! Be back on Friday!" but some people drive by and see my closed sign and don't stop to read the fine print. Apologies, grumpy people! Life waits for no one!

Thanks for comments about my painting, those of you who did, and here is another, from two weeks ago:

Another structure - this is the south side and main door of my childhood home in downeast Maine. Again, color is a little washed out - there is a rosy red in the lower window reflections that gradates downward, which is all kind of lost in this picture, and the blue is more blue, but oh well. My sisters and I spent much of our school years in this house, and it still is what I think of when I think of home, though my parents live elsewhere now.

And back to books, which are never far from my mind - nothing much to report at the moment, so here is a cobbled paragraph of bookish scraps: No sales slips because I haven't been open. I haven't read any book-blog news all week and have no idea what's been happening, and every time I've picked up a book to read, I end up reading the same paragraph several times in a row without comprehending it in the least (baby-gazing makes time stop and derails many standard thought processes). So I'm in the middle of trying to read the memoir of artist John La Farge, about his trip to the south seas around 1890. He went with Henry Adams, whose wife had suddenly died and who was so distraught the only thing he could think to do was leave the country for the next year and a half. The book is wonderful so far - great descriptions of moonrises over the Hawaiian islands, and the colors La Farge notices because he's a painter - but it's also huge and I've been unable to sit still for a few days now, so I ended up lugging it from place to place but not making any forward progress. More soon, when I get back in the loop. Such as it is. It's a small loop, to be sure...