Libraries draw big crowds with author readings

Robert Taylor, the writer, has reading glasses slung on the tip of his nose. His tie is perfectly knotted and his hair is coiffed with Victorian punctilio. In his hands, Taylor holds a copy of his latest book, “All We Have Is Now,” a love story severed by a hate crime, and reads from it in a low-slung voice with remnants of a Southern upbringing. He is part preacher, part raconteur at the lectern of Blue Hill Public Library delivering a poised half-hour reading from the novel.

Welcome to summer at the local library, where the free lecture and author reading are staples of a season that devotes itself to books.

It’s common enough even in winter that authors tour the literary circuit, typically in bookstores where sales drive the moment. But something about summer, something about vacation, brings people to books with greater cause. Among the 70 or so participants in the audience last month at Taylor’s reading – repeated at 2 p.m. today at Bangor Public Library and at 2 p.m. Wednesday at Porter Memorial Library in Machias – were the authors Tess Gerritsen and Sanford Phippen. Other professional wordies such as a publisher and an English professor sat in the first row.

But mostly it was the reading public from the neighborhood, from away, on holiday. Some had read the book. Most hadn’t. Many bought it that day. The point, however, is to look at a writer and to assess the account he gives of himself. At its best, the event is a brush with a mind that holes up alone in a room for long days, months, a year to jigger words around on a page.

Naturally, Taylor and his publisher hope books will sell, but the pressure is oddly off at a library, where all the while the busyness of book lending continues in hushed tones in the background.

When Taylor, a former journalist who lives and writes in Blue Hill, finishes a blistering passage about a funeral, there is full-handed applause. “Thank you,” he whispers demurely. The reading is over, but the audience is restless for more.

One woman praises the book by recounting an aphorism that goes, roughly: From the heart it comes and so to the heart it must go. “Wonderful, wonderful,” responds Taylor.

“Did you have a good time with the character of the grandmother?” another person wonders.

“She had a good time with me,” corrects Taylor. “These characters just come and then they’re there to stay.”

Here, Tess Gerritsen nods her head.

“What happens when you write these incredibly emotional books? Do you cry?” a woman probes.

Taylor: “Oh yes. Oh yes. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to read today without crying. And I would not want it to be otherwise. I love the people in this book.”

A man, referring to the murder of one character and the response of his bereaved lover, asks: “How does Ian finally feel about Jimmy’s death?”

Taylor holds up the book as if to say: Buy it and find out. The audience chortles. But Taylor recovers the earlier, non-marketing mood by adding: “I can’t be flippant. Let me tell you that Ian comes to understand.”

By the time the event ends, more than an hour has passed. Taylor invites the audience to a reception and moves to a table to sign books. His signature is sailing across title pages as others huddle in gabby groups. They consider the book, friends they lost over the winter, tonight’s cocktail party.

It’s a social moment, brought on by a passion for words and bolstered by the “public” in public library. And inspired by summer – the only one of the four seasons used formally to modify the word reading.