It opened at 11 a.m. I got there at 10:55. There was a line of people waiting to get in. By the time I emerged 15 minutes later, three books in hand, and headed across the street to the bus stop the front parking lot was totally full. Amazing. It wouldn't have surprised me to see the main DeKalb County library in Decatur looking really busy, but seeing the Brookhaven branch looking crowded was rather startling. In a good way, of course, but still startling. As for what I picked up, it's the usual mix of mind candy (Ice Run by Steve Hamilton, Darker Jewels by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro) and something serious (Defying Dixie: The Radical Roots of Civil Rights 1919-1950 Glenda Gilmore). The Younger Daughter recommended Hamilton -- he's apparently done a series of books set on the eastern end of the Upper Peninsula (i.e., the Sault Ste. Marie area). She claims he's got the setting nailed -- and she should know. She spent a fair amount of time down on that end counting trees for the U.S. Forest Service a few years ago. I do like Hamilton's description of Lake Superior: "water so cold and deep it was like a cruel joke to call it a lake at all. It was a sea, . . ."
