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Dear friends,
Five! Five! Let's talk about the number five!
This month's newsletter is being brought to
you by the number '5' for a 'penti'-tude of
reasons! On May 1, the Town of Duck
celebrates their Fifth Anniversary with a picnic
at the park; On May 5, we celebrate Cinqo de
Mayo; this year also sees the 5x5 (25th)
anniversary of the Duck Volunteer Fire
Department and in just about five weeks
summer will officially ensue
marking our FIFTH year in business! So
think of five good reasons to abandon
whatever you're doing (or at least take a 5
minute break!) and begin reading in 5... 4...
3... 2... 1...
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Between the Lines
Reading Recommendations from the Cottage Shelves
Dave w/North Beach Outfitters recently read
Crashing Through: A Story of Risk,
Adventure and the Man Who
Dared to See (Robert Kurson) Blind since
age 3, Mike May is a former CIA analyst and
champion skier who, in 1999, finds a
new type of transplant surgery that would
restore his sight but must decide if it is worth
the risks, both physical and, more importantly,
mental. Both Dave and Dr. Fred read
Survival of the Sickest: A Medical
Maverick Discovers Why We Need Disease
by Sharon Moalem and raved about it. I
read just released Plenty: One Man, One
Woman and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally
by Alisa Smith and J.B. Mackinnon
and
marveled at how this Vancouver couple
managed to eat a 100 mile diet for an entire
year. Though not the easiest way to eat, Smith
and Mackinnon's research on why this is a
better diet for the planet and a more important
path to follow than eating organically is
fascinating and offers much food
for thought (no pun intended). I recently had
the
opportunity to hear writer Pamela King Cable
speak.
She is a self-proclaimed storyteller whose
blend of
humour, passions and poignant life lessons
can be
fully appreciated in her book Southern
Fried
Women. SFW is a captivating
collection of
short stories with titles like 'Vernell Paskins,
Mobile
Home Queen' and 'Punkin Head', a spin-off of
her
upcoming novel, Televenge. Her
arresting stories feature some great
characters and plenty of unexpected endings-
just like I like 'em. Kathy over
at Town Hall is raving about Blindness
by Jose Saramgo, a Portugese Nobel Prize-
winning author. The next few months bring lots
of new books and staff recommendations that I
am really excited about so make sure you
keep reading Notes from the Pond
every
month!
Learn more about a Southern Fried Woman!
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And the Winner is....
Recent Prizes and Awards
Announced this month were the Pulitzer Prizes
and the ABA BookSense Book of the
Year
winners. On April 16th, Columbia University
awarded
14 Journalism prizes and 6 Literary Pulitzers.
The
2007 Prize for Fiction was awarded to Cormac
McCarthy, whose apocalyptic novel, The
Road, is not only the current Oprah Book
Club selection but is enjoying a number one
spot on paperback bestseller lists and is
a
Booksense Honor Book. Pulitzer winners in
some of
the non-fiction categories include The
Looming
Tower (Lawrence Wright); The Most
Famous
Man in America (Debby Applegate); and
The
Race Beat (Roberts/Klibanoff).
Booksense, the
marketing arm of The American Booksellers
Association, announced their Book of the Year
winners on March 29. Casting votes in this
contest are
owners and staffers of
independent bookstores and the winners, who
will be
feted at the upcoming Book Expo of America in
New
York, included: Adult
fiction- Water for Elephants (Sara
Gruen); Adult Non-Fiction- I Feel Bad
About My
Neck
(Nora Ephron); Children's Literature- The
Book
Thief
(Marcus Zusak)- who told you about that book
first?; and Children's Illustrated- Owen and
Mzee:
The
True Story of a Remarkable Friendship
(Isabella
Hatkoff), one of Sarah's favorites!
This year's winners are truly deserving and
when included with the
Booksense Honor books (recognizing other
nominees) provide a most satisfactory, well-
rounded and well-written
reading list. Congratulations to all!
See the BookSense Book of the Year Honor Books
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Four Years of Books: The Classics
Duck's Cottage Reading Selections 2002- present
The word 'classics' scares a lot of people who
perhaps don't recall their high school
encounters with Great Expectations or
The Old Man and the Sea too fondly,
myself included. When looking for a classic
novel, think outside the box- don't just stick
with the tried and true. Any avid reader has
most likely read Steinbeck's Grapes of
Wrath or East of Eden but hardly
anyone has heard of The Wayward
Bus which our group read and really
enjoyed! For some It inspired further reading
of his
lesser known works like The Pastures of
Heaven and Tortilla Flat.
Look for an author
who has great character development or is
writing in and of a time in which you are
personally interested. Always keep in mind the
contemporaneous morals and
language of a book when going into a
discussion. I really
think it is unfair to penalize or judge an author
for using a word, gesture or attitude we find
offensive today which was not considered
offensive then and, conversely, was widely
used and accepted. (For the record, I do not
include
Humbert Humbert's predilictions in that
acquittal.) Classics
can be a good book discussion/movie viewing
combo
opportunity and there are loads to choose
from. Watching Stanley Kubrick's
Lolita enhanced our discussion of the
book in so many different ways- it was
amazing! Some people could only see the
black humour woven through the book
once they saw it on screen. Still a
bit nervous pulling something down from
that 'revered' classics shelf? Start with
something that's received the Duck's Cottage
Reading Group Seal of Approval: Anna
Karenina,
Leo Tolstoy; Babbitt,
Sinclair
Lewis; Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov; The
Sea, The
Sea,
Iris Murdoch; The Sun Also Rises,
Ernest
Hemingway;
The Wayward Bus, John Steinbeck.
The Modern Library 100 Best Novels
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So that about wraps it up for Month Number
Five! And remember, it only takes five seconds
to tell someone you love them, but in five
minutes you could show them in five different
ways! Have a very, merry month of May!
High Five!
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Happy Anniversary to Chief Donna
Black and the entire awesome
firefighting crew at DVFD!! They've
been providing services to Duck and the Outer
Banks for 25 years and you'd have to
look high and low to find a harder working,
more
dedicated team on this beach!! Coastal
Provisions Market is opening a deli here
at the Waterfront
Shops! They open May 1 and will be serving
up great sandwiches, salads, beer
and wine.... to everyone at CPM- welcome
to Duck! The Town of Duck is
celebrating
its FIFTH year as an incorporated
municipality... an Anniversary Picnic to mark
the occasion will be held on Tuesday, May
1st,
from 1pm to 4pm at the recently opened Town
Park... everyone is invited to
help Duck celebrate this milestone! What we're
watching: Tony (Soprano) is back and
this is the end!... The Office is funnier
than ever...
Planet Earth on The Discovery
Channel is awesome!!... Caroline digs
Spoons on BBC America.... alas
hockey season has ended at our house, but
look out for the awesome Penguins
next
year!... by the time you read this paving on
NC12 in Southern Shores should be
complete
with no more delays... see you in June!
