Towards the end of last Sunday’s Books ‘n’ Brunch event, staged by Shelley Macbeth and her Blue Heron Books staff, I turned to the audience. I had been interviewing successful crime writer, Giles Blunt, author of six books featuring fictitious Canadian detective John Cardinal. Having asked all my questions, I invited some from the audience. One of the first questions came from a librarian from Sandford. The second came from a former librarian in town. It occurred to me that in a room of about hundred avid readers, a goodly number of those in attendance had served in the libraries of local schools and branches of our public library.
When author Blunt later commented on the quality of the audience’s questions, I pointed out how arts focused and well read this community is.
“We’ve got something like 25 or 30 book clubs here,” I told him. “And it’s probably no surprise that at the heart of those clubs are current or former librarians.”