Almost a ‘gothic thriller’ – not my favorite genre, generally speaking – Kostova’s description of the research process would indicate an intimate personal familiarity with the methodology.

This isn’t a book for the squeamish, though. And the librarian who falls under the influence of the Dark Side reminds me more than a little of a colleague from my own past. That aside, for those who enjoy enforced persistence in space and time jumps (again not me, usually) this one will be a challenge in maintaining plot cohesion.

Shelve below adult eye level.

If you liked Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code, there’s a good chance you’ll also enjoy John Fasman’s The Geographer’s Library (Penguin, 547pp). Heck, even if you didn’t like Da Vinci, you might still enjoy this one.

The Times Literary Supplement says “highly entertaining … keeps the reader guessing”, at least according to the blurb on the back cover. And they’re not going to make something like that up, are they?

Found the writing a little heavy at times, but the plot makes the effort worth while. Unfortunately though for library professionals, there isn’t a lot of information regarding the classification scheme used in the protagonist’s personal book collection, nor no mention of any policies or procedural documentation, so I guess that the term ‘library’ may be being used a little too freely here. But it’s definitely a good read. Shelve this one at eye level.

I prepared for today’s shopping futility by spending a lot of the week’s reading time revisiting Erma Bombeck. How I miss that woman! But her words never spoke truer. “Stretch marks over 90% of [her] body”, and she cant’ get a smile out of her teenagers. I guess they’re all adults now - I wonder how they feel about what their mother wrote about their behaviour?

Now when I get around to writing the chronical of daily domestic life here and get to Grouchman, boy - is that going to be a story mothers will relate to!

Which all sounds really rather nice, doesn’t it?  But let me be the first - of what I’m sure will be many - to stand up, look down at my feet, and mumble in embarrassment that I didn’t know that there even WAS an Australian Pain Society. 

However, I do know a number of people that are complete pains, so I’m guessing that they’re already members of the Society.  Maybe in the interests of information dissemination, I should forward them the contact details.   But then again, maybe it’s easier to deal with them on an individual basis, rather than allow them to coagulate into structurally coherent groups … 

But that’s not actually fair - I’m just being sniffy because no one was interested in producing a Warrior Librarian action figure.  Pearl actually showed a quite reasonable knowledge of Australian popular literature … considering she’s from the Very Far North Queensland village of Seattle.

Who knew that they had such an excellent quotations section?  Not to mention many other bits that were unearthed recently.  But there does seem to be a major gap in coverage; namely nothing about Warrior Librarianship, the Warrior Librarian, or the best type of coffee to sip on a late night reference desk shift.  How could such a tragedy have occurred?!!!

I’ll have to put this on the list of things to do when I have managed to have myself cloned.

They shall grow not old,
As we that are left grow old.
Age shall not weary them,
Nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun
and in the morning,
We shall remember them.

Lest we forget.

• Removed (with long tongs) due to malodorous fog surrounding item
• Item contained photograph that resembled librarian’s ex-husband
• Reading Circle members suggested that book be removed as an acceptable compromise to breaking staff’s kneecaps
• Superceded by any of the last 20 editions of this encyclopaedia
• Too many books on this shelf - something had to go. This was ‘it’
• Critical accumulated mass of book lice residing in book found to exceed OSH maximum lifting recommendations
• Font size too small; budget request for electron microscope reader refused
• Hazardous Materials Team refused to handle item, so it could not longer be shelved

Had it not been for the timely intervention of a fellow traveller, I would not have realised that I had transgressed yet another of the Unwritten Laws of Commuting. Indeed, his resonant quizative assertion of “are you f*ckin’ stoopid or somefink?” was all that prevented me from returning home, after a long day of employment servitude, completely in ignorance of my crime.

I certainly was not fooled by the appearance or manner of my informant. Being stubbly unshaven in the recently publicised month of ‘Mo-vember’ – to raise awareness of men’s health issues – is surely to be considered as a Badge of Honour.

And the reek of alcohol could have come from any number of sources apart from the crumpled paper bag containing a brown, long-necked bottle. On reflection, I suspect that the gentleman was in fact returning from a convention of quantum physicists, and the rumpledness was merely the result of being confined to some philanthropic Think Tank for a prolonged period.

As to the question of my stupidity, I am not keen to venture an opinion with regard to comparison of such august company. Clearly I am not in the same intellectual league as my incidental travelling companion, although to be fair neither of us had ready access to an appropriate assessment instrument at that time and place, let alone any means of independent judgement.

But I have digressed, in addition to transgressed. Again. I once was thoughtless enough to prop an elbow onto an armrest, never suspecting that five minutes later the adjacent passenger would require the use of the same facility.

In a moment of wild abandon in a now bygone time, I took a thoughtfully folded broadsheet newspaper onto the train with me. Unfortunately though, I found myself eventually needing to open to a new page. Regardless of the care taken to minimise the amount of space required for this seemingly mundane task, it clearly drew the ire of many of the jet-setting globetrotters temporarily in transit between Harris Park and Lidcome.

And here’s a quick tip for any other middle aged women with a single piercing in each ear. Don’t engage in eye contact with those who flaunt multiple exhibits of face hardware, unless you’re skilled in that dazzling repartee of the type popular in the emerging genre of Street Lit. I’ve never quite understood why these young adults would go to the trouble, pain and expense of looking like a cluster bomb victim, given that they object to a related species observing them.

But be assured, I have learned my lessons well. I did attempt to make notes on the other subtle nuances of commuting, but apparently the scratching of a pen on paper was interfering with the Personal Listening Devices from three rows down. The Personal Listeners quite reasonably needed to increase the volume even further than was normally required to drown out the audial obstructions caused by twenty other passengers, simultaneously telling their mobile phone callers that they were on the train.
A book titled in the vein of The Lore of the City Commuter would be a fine vessel for documenting the lessons from my past sojournal wickedness, for the edification of future travellers. However, it would seem wise not to attempt to write any part of it on the 7.55 Interurban from my local railway station.