It's my last peaceful day this week--painter is supposed to come tomorrow!--and I'm powering through, getting masses of sundry things done while I can. (And if you are at all in possession of mystical powers, throw me a bone here, I beg of you, and perform some mighty mogambo to get my part of the house painted and finished by Friday afternoon so I can be DONE. Seriously--I would probably sob with gratitude if I could put the renovation stuff to bed and have nothing but a few piddly details left to sort. SOB, I tell you.)
But in the midst of the crazy, there is some lovely. First, and this is tiny, miniscule, and absurd, but I can't tell you how it cheered me--I had a wee library fine. Completely wee--twenty cents--and it wasn't even mine. Someone, rhymes with "maughter", borrowed my card and kept a book for two extra days. No worries, and she ponied up a quarter to see me in the clear. I discovered it the last time I was in the library and my purse was in the car. I offered to go fetch it, but librarian very kindly said not to bother and checked out my new books for me. So today I went, quarter in hand, ready to pay--and it had been cleared.
Now, this is a very small kindness, but goodness ME. It absolutely tickled me that librarian cleared out my fine. We had joked about how it MUST have been someone else's overdue book because I am diligent about turning everything in on time and was deeply mortified to have a fine at all. (Yes, I am a completely nerdly library-pleaser. I own it.) I don't know if she was just in a good mood or if it was because I make a habit of always turning things in on time or if she was practicing random acts of kindness, but it made me smile. It's like when you're trying to get into a crowded lane and someone unexpectedly waves you in. It's just civilized and makes things so much nicer, no? And it makes me want to slow down a bit and try to be a little kinder in my day to day interactions.
Another bit of loveliness is that dear Eva Stachniak is releasing her divine novel, The Winter Palace, in the US TODAY! It's a novel of the court of Catherine the Great, and truly wonderful. I was fortunate enough to read it in advance, and was thrilled to give it a glowing blurb because Eva is superbly talented. Somehow she manages to create an enigmatic heroine that I felt I hardly knew but cared about deeply. If you think about it, that's an extremely, HEROICALLY difficult task for a writer. Her Barbara is mysterious and complex, and I was often surprised by her, but nothing she did ever felt out of character, and that mysterious quality was profoundly engaging. Sorry, I'll stop gushing now. But it's fab--go buy it. (And if you get a chance, tweet something lovely at Eva, she is genuinely one of the humblest, loveliest folks.)
If you aren't entering the montly contests here in my little corner of the interwebs, DO check out this month's. It's the VERY LAST TIME I am giving away a signed first edition HARDCOVER of Silent in the Grave because it's my very last one! Aside from the one I'm keeping for myself, obvs. Usual contest rules apply. In subsequent months, I'm going to be giving away copies of the Australian editions, and let me tell you now, they are FABULOUS. The Australian editions are huge oversize trade paperbacks with gorgeous covers and according to the covers, sell for absurdly high prices. (Honestly, God bless any Aussie who buys books because they must mortgage their houses to do it. I have no idea why books are so costly there, but I've heard from friends who moved to Oz that it's one of the biggest expenditure, comparatively speaking.) So, do keep an eye on the first of each month for the contest changes and enter to win!
And finally, a reader did something for me today that I am still shaking my head over because it was so incredibly generous. Last week Alecia mentioned in the comments that she had seen a documentary in Australia that might help with my research. Unfortunately, video copyright laws being what they are, I couldn't view it in the US and was gnashing my teeth because she was absolutely correct--it looked DIVINE. And dear Alecia WROTE A TRANSCRIPT of the documentary for me. It's pages, chickens, PAGES AND PAGES of work solely to help me out without being asked. I am truly boggled and finding that words like "thanks" and "gratitude" are grossly inadequate in the face of such generosity. So, huge shout-out to Alecia for her loveliness!