We at the Vancouver Community Library have to say goodbye to a good friend and long time volunteer, Nora Landers. Nora retired from the Federal Government 20 years ago and took up volunteering soon thereafter. She put a lot of effort into making Friends book sales a success for almost 20 years. Patrons who frequent the library on Tuesdays may remember Nora working the 11AM to 2PM shift at the Booknook along with Paula. They were an inseparable pair. After Nora suffered a stroke in 2014, she returned to the Booknook to help Paula run the show and strike up conversations with patrons who really enjoyed chatting with Nora. Services will be held Sunday the 21st at 3:00PM at Evergreen Memorial. She will be missed terribly. Thanks for everything Nora.

Click on the title of this post to leave a comment. Thank you!

A cute scene in the movie Moonrise Kingdom about a girl who is so depressed she steals library books even though she's not poor. Don't do it!

This is a really interesting book, and I must acknowledge here that I have done what the author did, downsize and live the simple life. This book contains 100 short chapters on how to get out of the rat race, slow down and, as we say aboard our houseboat Great Ambition, live life full measure. The author tells us that while living the high speed life is exciting, it may not suit everyone. If you can figure out what is really important to you, you can reduce your stress by living a simpler, more fulfilling life. You don't need to throw away all the things you worked so hard to acquire, but you should decide what you must have and what you can live without. A great read for just $1.

I was reading the book The Half Life Of Facts which makes the point that the facts we "know" might not be right, or if they are right today, they may be wrong tomorrow. When I was very young I couldn't wait to get my library card. As soon as I turned 10 years old I got access to the Adult section of the library and went straight for all the science books. One book I read told me how Admiral Byrd discovered that the Earth is hollow during his polar expeditions. According to this book, Byrd flew inside the Earth and there was an internal Sun with advanced humans living inside with dinosaurs, mammoths, and other creatures that had gone extinct on the outside of the Earth. The people living inside the Earth had flying saucers and they occasionally came out to explore the outer surface of the Earth, which explained why people saw UFOs. Even at 10 years old I realized this was insane, but it was in a book, so I learned a valuable lesson. Not everything in books is correct. The author might be insane, the facts might be out of date, or it could be just a simple error. 
In the book The Half Life Of Facts there was a misstatement made that neither the author nor the proofreaders picked up on. When recounting the story of the re-discovery of the Coelacanth, a fish that was thought to be extinct for millions of years, the author made a fatal error. 
"At the time, Marjorie Courtney-Latimer, a young woman in South Africa, was the curator of a small museum in the town of East London, not far from Cape Town. She had befriended a fisherman in the area, and he would periodically show his catch to her, allowing her to add any possible finds to the museum's collection. One winter day at the end of 1938, when Courtney-Latimer went to the dock to check out the fisherman's haul..."
Do you see the error? The fact that you can find a statement like this in a book about what a tenuous thing facts are is ironic to say the least!
If you didn't see the error in the above statement, perhaps you should do some research on South Africa's climate. 

The movie Jurassic World opens this weekend! Remember that Tammy gave us plenty of warning back at the Spring booksale. Get out there and see the movie, it's predicted to be a blockbuster, opening at $120 million this weekend alone!

The Library has two copies of the book, The Half Life Of Facts by Samuel Arbesman. This book explains that facts are fleeting things, not the solid, stationary things we think they are. For example, it was once a fact that the Earth was flat. It was once a fact that the Sun revolved around the Earth creating the night and the day. It was once a known fact that smoking improved your health, doctors even recommended one brand over another and got paid for product endorsements by the tobacco companies. A very entertaining read for everyone packed with fun facts about the history of facts, science, medicine and politics.