Still Reading Proust

So back in 2009 M. and I began to read Proust aloud. Shockingly, on so many levels, we are still reading Proust aloud. We have made our way from Swann's Way to In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower to The Guermantes Way, and our now midway through the fourth volume Sodom and Gomorrah. After hundreds of pages about the customs of dinner parties, he suddenly plummets us into a heartbreaking section on the death of his grandmother. M. and I both in tears as we remember our own dead while reading.

As it turned out to read Proust and also write about Proust at the same time was not as easy as I thought it might be when we began. Will we make it to the end of all the volumes? I suspect we will, but clearly we need to pick up the pace at this point!

And given that I originally chose Gorey Librarian as the title of this once imagined blog ... I will share the news that all of the Gorey cats are now dead. Jane, our sweet Gorey cat, and the other five along with Edward Gorey himself will have their ashes scattered around his house (which is now a museum) at the end of the month.

I am now thinking I need to start a blog called "Reference Librarians Anonymous" for Reference Librarians who care too much. In the age of "google is good enough" the real Reference Librarians need some kind of outlet for their rage and sadness at the gradual loss of such a grand profession. But may I also say, I had a student come into the Reference Room yesterday who was smitten with the International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences! Moments like these give me hope for the future of a world where books & reference still have meaning beyond "did you try g*"?