Sunday, April 3, 2011

More of My Favourite Places

A couple of years ago I wrote a series of articles for Local in the Know about some of my Favourite Places in Moncton. These included Bistro-Cafés, delectable edibles, interior décor and fashion stores.

These can be read at knowmoncton.com/favorite-places/

I plan to continue that series here in my own journal pages.

One of my favourite places to curl up and read isn’t always at home. It’s in the sunny reading area of the new Riverview Public Library. As a life-long avid reader libraries have been a source of discovery, quiet contemplation and delight. Where else can you have so much fun, learn so much and meet great characters (between the pages) for free, or at the most a couple of dollars if there’s a book sale? There was this week, which added two more books to my shelves.

Often I go with a book list in my notebook - I've just added Henning Mankell's latest Wallander The Troubled Man -  but find a must-read almost as soon as I walk along the stacks. It’s not unusual for me to be weighed down with an armful of books I’d love to read.

That’s when I sit for a while and reluctantly make a selection.

We live just across the Petticodiac River (or trickle as it is now), just a short drive, but a bit too far to walk.  

During most of 2009 the library in Riverview was closed for renovations to the municipal building that contains both library and town offices. A definite gap in my reading months. Finally in January 2010 it re-opened, two and a half times larger than previously with a wall of large windows and special reading and activity areas, plus a special activity room.

Library Director Lynn Cormier told me membership has increased 10 to 15 per cent in the year since re-opening. Not suprising as we look around the bright, airy space. Lynn knew in Junior High she wanted to be a librarian. More than twenty years later and studies at Dalhousie University, she still loves her job. “I’ve great staff and I always love the people contact,” she says.


Fiction accounts for 65 per cent of books borrowed. Current popular books include The Room by Emma Donoghue; Secret Daughter by Shilpi Gowda; The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, plus all Stieg Larson’s series. Books by Susan Wiggs, her Summer By the Sea for instance, and by Jodi Picoult,  Sing You Home is a big favourite. In non-fiction The King’s Speech by Mark Logue is a major request. Non-fiction popular categories are travel, self-help, parenting and cooking. You can also borrow CDs, audio and electronic books and there are now seven computers available.

Programmes at the Riverview Library include activities for mothers and babies with rhymes, songs and music.

There are pre-school and older children programmes and an all-summer reading project. Older library members can enjoy the book and travel clubs.



New this year is Conversation Circle, helping new immigrants with pronunciation and accent. 

Like me Lynn Cormier usually has several books she’s reading at any time. Among her favourites she lists The Book of Negroes, The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns.

I settled into a comfortable wing chair for a while to turn the pages of another book on India from the sale table to add to my collection, before heading home.

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