1666 Coffman
  • Home
    • Virtual Tour
    • Art Gallery >
      • Dreams & Woodcraft
      • Botanicals & Gold
    • Exercise Room
    • Flora & Fauna
  • Activities
    • Events Calendar
    • Ongoing Activities
  • Residents' Realm
    • Newsletter
    • Coffman Office >
      • Coffman Calendars
      • Exchange
      • Resident Absence
      • Accident Form
      • Room Reservations >
        • Social Room Reservations
        • Dining Room Reservations
        • Guest Room Reservations
        • Other Room Reservations
    • Dining >
      • MealOrder Calendar
    • Maintenance >
      • Maintenance Calendar
      • Trash
    • Governance Documents
    • Operational Documents
    • Board & Committees >
      • Long-Range Planning
      • Architectural Integrity Committee
    • Health & Safety >
      • COVID-19
    • Suggestion Box
  • Library
    • News & Updates
    • Book Checkout
    • Tour the Library
    • Recommended Reading >
      • Reader Reviews
      • Acquisitions
    • Book Night >
      • Book Night Archive
    • Donating Books
  • Available Units
    • Application Form
    • Condos for Sale
    • Floor Plans
  • Contact

Those Mitford Sisters, Part II

3/20/2023

 
By Carol Van Why, Library Committee Co-Chair

I just finished
The Six: The Lives of the Mitford Sisters by Laura Thompson, a very readable biography of the high-profile Mitford sisters. The book includes extensive notes and a good bibliography. 

Simultaneously I enjoyed a 1980 Thames TV miniseries titled Love in a Cold Climate. This production is an adaptation of two of Nancy Mitford’s works of fiction – The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate. An unexpected treat was Judi Dench portraying an aristocratic matriarch. This three-disc series is available via Netflix.

I’m winding down my Mitford binge with the Mitford Murders series by Jessica Fellowes. In the series’ first book, Nancy Mitford and a fictional Mitford family employee unwittingly become involved in a murder investigation.  Each of the five subsequent books features another of the famous/ notorious Mitford sisters. Check the local public library catalogs for holdings of these titles. 
Picture

Those Mitford Sisters!!!

2/20/2023

 
My January post mentioned The Mayfair Bookshop, a historical novel by Eliza Knight.  It featured Nancy Mitford who frequented and subsequently worked in London’s Heywood Hill bookshop during the later years of WWII.  
 
My current read is the recently published Mitford Affair by historical fiction heavyweight, Marie Benedict. Alternating chapters frame the pre-WWII years through the eyes of three high-profile Mitford sisters. Diana and Unity have become confidants of Hitler; Nancy is a struggling author, appalled that her sisters and parents have embraced fascism. 
 
My next book will be The Six: The Lives of the Mitford Sisters, a biography by Laura Thompson.  These books are not in Coffman’s Library but can be borrowed at local libraries with a Ramsey County Library card.  
Picture
Picture

Library Committee Update

2/7/2023

 
By Audrey Estebo, Library Committee

The Coffman community is back. We’re having potlucks and sing-alongs, we watch movies together, we meet in person, we are going out to plays and restaurants, and we’re traveling! The Library Committee is thrilled that lockdown is loosening but, honestly, we were maybe just a little concerned that library usage would slip in 2022. Happily, that wasn’t the case. In spite of fewer COVID restrictions and a three-week closure for carpet installation, overall usage of the Library held firm in 2022 at 1,189 checkouts. Sixty-four of the units at Coffman checked out at least one book from our library.

​We keep our Library up to date with monthly book buys, the fall BookFest buy (fifty-five new books last year), and donations. To be sure, we are acquiring the titles you want to read, and the committee likes to take stock of Coffman’s reading habits each year’s end.
Picture
Picture
So, what did Coffman read in 2022? Fiction! Consistent with prior years, general fiction remains the most popular category, comprising 40% of all checkouts. The second most popular category is mystery/thriller—29% of all books borrowed. Biography/memoir and history make up 9%, down a bit from 2021. The remaining books cover all the other genres, with Ann Patchett’s essay collection, These Precious Days, by itself making up 1% of all checkouts. Unlike 2021, in 2022, young adult and children’s books were popular, likely because grandkids were more frequent Coffman visitors.

What authors are most read? The most popular authors are mystery/thriller authors, due, of course, to the fact that they typically tend to have multibook series. By far, the author checked out the most is Saint Paulite William Kent Krueger. There were thirty-five checkouts across nineteen of his books. Louise Erdrich (another Minnesotan), Louise Penny, and Donna Leon were also in demand.

A couple of series proved very popular in 2022 with more than twenty-two checkouts each. One, Mick Herron’s Slough House books about misfit spies in London, is the basis for the Apple TV+ series Slow Horses. There are eight books in the series, and we have them all. (See Is Anyone Ruder Than Jackson Lamb? by Victoria Tirrel, October, 2022 1666 Coffman News). The other series is the Cat in the Stacks mystery series by Miranda James (did you know Miranda James is a pseudonym for Dean James, a medical librarian?).

Two newer series that Coffman readers are enjoying are the Cash murder mystery series by Marcie Rendon, an enrolled member of the White Earth Nation who lives in Minneapolis, and the Thursday Mystery Club series by Richard Osman, set in an active senior community with no (!) parallels to Coffman.

What are you going to read in 2023? Need ideas? Subscribe to “What’s New at 1666 Coffman Library” (sign up at the Library webpage on the 1666 Coffman website), check the recent and relevant shelves, review the green BookFest list (copies in the library and on the Library webpage), or just wander through the library.

Have ideas for us?  Send suggestions for specific books or types of books that you would like to see in the Library to library@1666coffman.com. Happy Reading! 

Librarian Spies

1/15/2023

 
​By Carol Van Why, Library Co-Chair

I grabbed Information Hunters: When Librarians, Soldiers, and Spies Banded Together in World War II Europe by Kathy Peiss from my Arizona public library’s Recent Arrivals bookshelf. It dovetailed nicely with my current reading binge, revolving around WWII, bookshops, libraries, and spies. 
 
My addiction began with finding Janet Skeslien Charles’ Paris Library and Madeline Martin’s Last Bookshop in London in the Coffman Library. Both titles share characteristics of good historical fiction—a mix of actual persons and places along with fictional ones. 
 
I’ve since read Madeline Martin’s Librarian Spy, Elizabeth Knight’s Mayfair Bookshop and Michelle Gable’s Bookseller’s Secret. Now my binge reading has expanded to encompass Nancy Mitford and her eccentric family members, some of them, notorious.  Read all of these books to see how they are intertwined.  
Picture
Picture
<<Previous

    Newsletter

    Coffman residents, signup for monthly updates from the Library!

    Thank you!

    You have successfully joined our subscriber list.

    Posts by Year

    All
    2011
    2013
    2014
    2015
    2016
    2017
    2018
    2019
    2020
    2021
    2022
    2023

    Posts by Month

    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    April 2018
    February 2018
    December 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    July 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    December 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    January 2015
    April 2014
    February 2014
    September 2013
    September 2011


1666 Coffman Condominium Association

Amenities

Library

Activities

Virtual Tour

Sales info

Condos for Sale
  • Home
    • Virtual Tour
    • Art Gallery >
      • Dreams & Woodcraft
      • Botanicals & Gold
    • Exercise Room
    • Flora & Fauna
  • Activities
    • Events Calendar
    • Ongoing Activities
  • Residents' Realm
    • Newsletter
    • Coffman Office >
      • Coffman Calendars
      • Exchange
      • Resident Absence
      • Accident Form
      • Room Reservations >
        • Social Room Reservations
        • Dining Room Reservations
        • Guest Room Reservations
        • Other Room Reservations
    • Dining >
      • MealOrder Calendar
    • Maintenance >
      • Maintenance Calendar
      • Trash
    • Governance Documents
    • Operational Documents
    • Board & Committees >
      • Long-Range Planning
      • Architectural Integrity Committee
    • Health & Safety >
      • COVID-19
    • Suggestion Box
  • Library
    • News & Updates
    • Book Checkout
    • Tour the Library
    • Recommended Reading >
      • Reader Reviews
      • Acquisitions
    • Book Night >
      • Book Night Archive
    • Donating Books
  • Available Units
    • Application Form
    • Condos for Sale
    • Floor Plans
  • Contact