A fun entry for the many Coffman readers who have enjoyed Miss Benson’s Beetles includes six short (2-5 minutes) video clips featuring the author. Another visit-worthy entry is Pride and Prejudice, where the video clips range from Jane Austen’s Reading List to HM Queen Camilla Visits Jane Austen House.
 
The website isn’t perfect. Now and then a link doesn’t work, and it can be somewhat of a maze to navigate. However, you might find that to be one of its charms. Let it lead you down the rabbit hole and provide a mental break from our hectic lives.
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Coming Soon...

...is our permanent online connection to those many books in our two-story Library. Please continue to access the catalog via this link: Coffman Library catalog. Sometime soon there will be a new link on the Library page of the 1666 website.

Something New

I am making a current subscription to Twin Cities Consumers’ Checkbook available in the Library to all residents. Currently, the Fall 2023/Winter 2024 and Spring-Summer 2024 issues are filed in a black folder beside the seagulls just below the clock on the Library’s lower level. It includes local ratings for car insurance, dental specialists, carpet and flooring stores, dry cleaners, tailors, auto repair shops, and lots  more, with in-depth articles on all of the above. More issues to come.

Books and Reading

David just read The Wide Wide Sea, by Hampton Sides, about the final voyage of Captain Cook. Ship logs and journals and the extensive previous scholarship stand behind this narrative. The author gives emphasis to the scant but insightful oral histories of the Pacific Islands and Alaskan people who made dramatic and often-fatal contact with Cook and his English crews. This reads afresh with their perspective.

Because I had read good reviews and wanted our library to purchase it, I dove into Doorman Wanted, by Glenn R. Miller, and read at least fifteen pages before I began to get into it. After his wealthy father’s death, our hero inherits L’Hermitage, a large New York hotel, and his own penthouse on the eighth floor. As he approaches the entrance to this building, he spies a sign, “Doorman Wanted." You guessed it. Being embarrassed at owning the hotel, he applies for the job, thinking to work his way into his REAL job as hotel owner. The story gathers depth and interest as Franklin connects with residents and passers-by who have their own stories. (He does sleep in his apartment, entering through the back door in the dead of night.) I recommend it.