Valentine’s Day is one of those holidays that sneaks up on a person. It seems that Christmas has just passed and that you’re just getting back into the groove of not going to holiday parties and not shopping for gifts when all of a sudden, it’s Feb. 12 and the hand-knitted scarf you had planned to make for your beloved just isn’t going to happen.

However, you still have plenty of time to buy Valentines, former U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser’s collection of more than two decades worth of Valentine’s Day poems. Every year for 22 years, Kooser wrote a new poem, printed it up on postcards, which he mailed (from Valentine, Nebraska, when he had enough time) to an ever growing list of women friends around the country. It’s a sweet thoughtful gift, even last minute.

In other news, Bess Streeter Aldrich’s classic novel A Lantern in Her Hand has been selected for this year’s One Book One Nebraska statewide reading event. The book tells the story of Abbie Deal, a young woman with dreams of becoming a famous painter or singer. Instead, she and her husband become pioneers, parents and founders of a small Nebraska community. Events celebrating Aldrich and her book are planned throughout 2009, many in Elmwood, Nebraska, where Aldrich spent most of her adult life. For  more information, visit the One Book One Nebraska web site. For books by (and about) Bess Streeter Aldrich, visit her page on the UNP web site.