Linda-Marie Barrett / Executive Director
Reading: Magical Meet Cute by Jean Meltzer. Picked up this romance at NVNR after meeting the author, whose dress perfectly and beautifully matched the book cover. Very poignant narrative that addresses the impact of childhood abuse and antisemitism, and supports the possibility of healing through art, therapy, and the love and support of community and a good man (who is NOT a golem).
Listening: To the soft summer sounds of late August in Western North Carolina: bird calls, woodland creatures (squirrels, box turtles, and feral cats) scrabbling in the bushes beyond the window, and the occasional bear passing through.
Watching: Continuing to watch TV series centering on murders in beautiful places, this time in Italy through the gaze of Signora Volpe, a British spy who is on sabbatical but, needless to say, keeps happening upon dead bodies and can't fight the urge to solve mysteries.

Candice Huber / Membership:
Reading: Who has time to read when you have to pack your whole house into pods?
Listening: Almost finished Somewhere Beyond the Sea by TJ Klune and loving the new kid David!
Watching: Who can watch TV when it's packed into a pod?

Nicki Leone / Communications:
Reading: In keeping with my attraction to novels about creatives, I have just started Villa E by Jane Allison, a story inspired by the real-life relationship of Eileen Gray and Le Corbusier.
Listening: Still listening to Maggie Nelson, Like Love in the morning when I am putzing about doing chores. Sometimes I realize I have been standing in front of the sink for ten minutes, listening to Nelson and not washing the dishes.
Watching: The DNC. And this week's movie suggestion from SP was Junebug (2005), which was a beautiful slice of small town Southern life that makes all others under that heading seem unbearably trite in comparison. SP and I each fixated on different things: she was mesmermized by the play of light/dark. I was fixated on the play of sound/silence.

SP Rankin / Website Administrator:
Reading: I'm continuing to dip in and out of Maggie Nelson's essay collection, Like Love, as well as The Secret Public: How LGBTQ Performers Shaped Popular Culture 1955-1979, by Jon Savage.
Listening: Sometimes I don't realize what kind of mood I've been in until I look back at the music playing in the background (there's almost never not music playing in my background). I told Spotify to make a playlist based on "Little Martha" by the Allman Brothers which while it does indicate a definite mood, I'm still figuring it out.
Watching: My last two movies were Twisters (2024), which I watched with my daughter visiting from Oklahoma and who had many outraged Oklahoma-related things to say, and then Junebug (2005) with Nicki, which somehow I missed when it came out. There's not room here to say a lot but what a perfect little gem of a movie it is. Beautifully filmed, perfectly cast, precisely and lovingly written.

Andrea Richardson / Sales:
Reading: I guess I'm about to start The Book of Elsewhere by China Mieville and Keanu Reeves, since Keanu made a stop at the store yesterday to sign books!
Listening: The weather is so nice I have the windows open to hear all of the birds outside chirping.
Watching: Love Island USA because when things are stressful, I like to watch dumb things to relax.