Choosing books from the library is now, apparently, somewhat less dangerously akin to picking my way through a minefield. Inside a specimen with a nice innocent title like "Candles on Bay Street" lurks plot themes such as dying from cancer. I don't like such plot themes just now, for some reason. I do not wish to cry and picture what might have been me.

To be fair, this is the first such theme to mar one of my selections for several weeks. I do remember a week in the not-so-hazy past when three or four of my selections were so unfortunately endowed, however, and I remember being quite frustrated. Perhaps that's why I've been sticking to old favorites lately. Now that I think of it, that particular plot theme has not ever been high on my list.

I think I'm justified in my aversion to this theme. I think that's why the Cancer Support Group that meets Tuesdays at 11 saw me only once. I would like to actively hate this theme for quite a long time to come.

Where are all the books with the had-it-fought-it-now-I'm-picking-up-the-pieces-and-moving-ahead plot? Perhaps authors think there's not enough dramatic scope, nothing literary or gripping about happy endings, not enough hook. Let me tell you -- I'm pretty hooked on that plot line!