Feast of St. David; February Books

 

Omena Bay: blue sky, blue water

It was a gorgeous morning! The only problem was, for me, that there were no daffodils to be had, for love nor money, anywhere in northern Leelanau County! You see, March 1 is the Feast Day of St. David, patron saint of Wales. (In Welsh, the Hebrew name David becomes Dafydd; either way, ‘beloved’ is the meaning of the name. Dafydd ap Llywelyn was Prince of Wales from 1240 to 1246, others claiming the title through the years.) And as a day to remember the saint canonized in 1120, and also to honor Wales, the feast day is marked with bright yellow daffodils and green leeks. 

Leeks were twice the price they should have been, but I bought them.

So I'll make do with images of daffodils from old posts, for today I am remembering my late husband, the Artist, David Grath, and also my late friend Annie Pritchard, who was Welsh to the core, both still beloved by many in their absence. 

4/27/2013

Books Read in February 2024

20. Wallace, David Rains. The Turquoise Dragon (fiction). A mystery, the story naturally begins with the discovery of a dead body, and from there complications sprout and multiply. Descriptions of hiking (not for pleasure) in California mountains had me picturing every step, but after all the suspense and hair-raising situations, escalating as the number of pages left diminished, I have to say I was disappointed in the way the book ended – or, rather, stopped. I inspected the binding thoroughly, thinking that final pages must have been left out or removed by a previous reader, but no, apparently not. Many loose ends. Rats! Authors! Denouement, please!*

21. Shoemaker, Jan. Slow Learner: Essays (nonfiction). I met the author when she visited my bookstore with her previous book of essays, Flesh and Stones: Field Notes from a Finite World, and was very happy to receive this new volume in the mail. I devoured it much faster than I should have, always saying to myself at the end of one essay, “Just one more.” Shoemaker writes beautifully of life in her corner of the world, which of course connects to all other corners in one way or another.

22. Horowitz, Anthony. Magpie Murders (fiction). Something light and entertaining for the weekend, I thought, and it was that, but it was also much more. A murder mystery within a murder mystery, the ‘outer’ story (as it were) is told by the editor of the author of the ‘inner’ story. Horowitz did not make things easy for himself when he concocted this tale, but his skill is equal to the challenge.

23. Westover, Tara. Educated (nonfiction). I couldn’t recall if I’d read this book before but remembered a friend raving about it. About halfway through it began to seem familiar, but by then I couldn’t stop, of course. Kept away from doctors and out of school, with no birth certificate until she was nine years old, Tara’s hunger for learning had enormous obstacles to overcome, but overcome them she did. Now with a Ph.D. in history from Cambridge, what will she do next?

24. Deloria, Vine Jr. God Is Red: A Native View of Religion (nonfiction). Basically a history of Western Christianity and comparison of that to Native American religions, the latter being place- and community-specific, the former claiming universality, this is a serious theological treatment and not a book to be skimmed. Well worth reading; highly recommended.

25. Gibbings, Robert. Coming Down the Seine (nonfiction). Any book by this Irish writer and artist is a peaceful escape from all that ails. A solo traveler, he made friends everywhere along his way, and his ways were as various as dreams. The illustrations in his books are his own and as lovely as the writings. 

26. Doyle, Brian. One Long River of Song (nonfiction). Celebratory essays on the wonder of ordinary things, the final volume from this author before his death. Surprises on every page. Sometimes you are caught sideways and laugh out loud when you least expect it.

27. Mosley, Walter. All I Did Was Shoot My Man (fiction). This is one of the author’s Leonid McGill series and, while not among my top favorite Mosley novels, engrossing enough that I couldn’t put it down as McGill seeks to make amends for past sins and finds nothing but more trouble for himself and others.

28. Theroux, Paul. Millroy the Magician (fiction). I kept hoping the narrative meander would develop an arc, but it never did. Lolita without either the sex or the insights. Desperate finale hardly seemed a conclusion. Theroux has written some wonderful books, but this isn’t one of them.*

29. Short, Wayne. This Raw Land (nonfiction). The author brought a bride to Alaska in the mid-1950s, where they began their married life fishing together for salmon. In the winter, Wayne and his brothers camped and trapped far from home base. Eventually, he and his wife and two young sons spent a winter of isolation on Murder Bay, where Wayne had taken on the job of dismantling a canning factory for the lumber to build a larger house for his growing family. Alaska became a state, and change was in the air….

30. Jance, J.A. Paradise Lost (fiction). I am a total sucker for Jance’s Sheriff Joanna Brady series, set in Cochise County, and this one will keep you guessing until the end, as a good mystery should do, but I also love it for the locales: the road to old Fort Bowie was just 8 miles from my beloved ghost town, and the Chiricahua Mountains less than 20 more down the road. Even Onion Saddle gets into the story! I felt right at home. 

31. Merrick, Leonard. A Chair on the Boulevard (fiction). Light, humorous stories featuring a host of impecunious artists (painters and writers) and artistes (performers) in Montmartre in the days before the arrival of the horseless carriage. English dialogue presented as literal word-for-word translation from French exaggerates the comedy.

32. Shaw, Irwin. Paris! Paris! (nonfiction). Wonderfully illustrated by Ronald Searle, in this book Shaw looks at Paris through his own experiences over many years, beginning with the exciting chaos of the Liberation in 1945 and through many changes in the city. Whether you know Paris or simply wish you did, this book will fill you with longing.

33. Proulx, Annie. Fen, Bog & Swamp: A Short History of Peatland Destruction and Its Role in the Climate Crisis (nonfiction). As a longtime lover of “swamps” (I had no other words as a child for various types of wetlands), I felt called by this title. I was a bit afraid it might be too full of dates and numbers to be readable, but such was not the case. Proulx is a lover of wetlands herself, hence the book. A bibliography would have been helpful.

34. Herman, Mimi. The Kudzu Queen (fiction). Mystery without murder, suspense without gunfire or car chases, this book kept me up way past my bedtime. Fifteen-year-old Mathilda, called Maddie, seems an unlikely candidate for a beauty pageant, but the golden-haired, smooth-talking Kudzu King has turned her head. Where will it all end? Now, is the story 100% believable? Does it have to be? I willingly suspended disbelief. A real page-turner!

35. Dionne, Karen. The Wicked Sister (fiction). Psychological thriller suspense is not exactly my genre (I wouldn’t call this novel a murder mystery), but with a Michigan author and a story set in the U.P., I gave it a shot. As far as mystery goes, it was what a friend would call “a thin bowl of soup” (i.e, not mysterious), and there are loose ends aplenty, but the author has clearly set us up for a sequel down the road.

36. Coetzee, J.M. Waiting for the Barbarians (fiction). If you’re looking for lightweight escape reading, this is not for you, but the beautiful writing of a gradually unfolding brutal parable, which could almost be set at any time, past, present, or future, ensures that once you read this novel, you will never forget it.

37. Gibbings, Robert. Lovely Is the Lee (nonfiction). Thanks to books, we can travel back into the past and faraway visit places in their most lovely and most peaceful times. How did people live in Ireland in the mid-20th century, and what stories did they tell? The author’s illustrations add to the spell.

38. Smith, Alexander McCall. My Italian Bulldozer (fiction). A Scotsman’s plan to finish his book in the Italian countryside takes a surprising turn when no rental cars are available. Pure, gentle delight! For all who love Italy … or think they would … or simply need a break from the harsh edges of the nonfictional world.

39. McGinley, Patrick. Bogmail (fiction). A pub owner in rural Ireland murders his barman and buries him in the bog, then begins receiving blackmail letters. Which of the pub regulars is the “bogmailer”? One of the locals or the Englishman? Lyrical landscape writing, detailed Raskolnikovian account of the murderer’s increasingly unsettled state of mind – and a most unsatisfying finish, with loose ends galore, a fault shared with #20 and #28 in this list.*

40. Van Gulik, Robert. Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee (Dee Goong An) (fiction). Not one to be gentle with those he suspects, Judge Dee lands on the criminal every time. Illustrated. Tortures in the courtroom and grisly varieties of capital punishment but an interesting look into a different historical period and culture.

41. Yu, Charles. Interior Chinatown (fiction). What parts are real life, and how much is acting? When a dream comes true (Generic Asian Man becomes Kung Fu Hero) but fails to fulfill, what then? The author brilliantly plays off Erving Goffman’s Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (nonfiction) to create a dramatic novel whose characters you’ll love. Serious and fun at the same time.

42. Whitehead, Colson. Zone One (fiction). Post-apocalyptic fiction is not usually at the top of my list, and I have never read a book about zombies before, but I couldn’t resist a novel by Colson Whitehead. What an amazing writer! I kept thinking how much David Foster Wallace would have appreciated this masterfully written book. I also wondered whether I should take it as fantasy (in which case, zombies don’t scare me, since they don’t exist) or as an allegory for our times – in which case, it is terrifying! 

43. Leon, Donna. Friends in High Places (fiction). Leon’s are not formulaic murder mysteries. Set in Venice, the stories are presented by the author as realistic episodes in Venetian life, where government is rife with corruption, the Mafia is strong, and murderers are not necessarily brought to justice. The 1960s idealism of Commissario Brunetti and his professora wife, Paola, have taken a beating over the years, but Brunetti holds to what shreds of justice he can find in his police work.

*And now, aspiring novelists and/or readers, if you missed my preceding post, in which I harp about problematic beginnings and endings of novels, you can find it here.

For today, Happy St. David's Day!

Daffodils from May 6, 2014

For David and for Annie, Jane, and Curig --

Yet Another Bookman's Holiday

Artist with donkeys

We are getting back to normal -- or at least establishing a "new normal" following the Artist's three-day hospitalization in Tucson due to a non-ST heart attack. [link] Since a friend visiting from Michigan, staying in nearby Willcox, is a big fan of indie bookstores and offered to do the driving, we made a little expedition over to Benson the other day to introduce him to bookstores we have discovered on the other side of Texas Canyon. Sadly, our very favorite Benson bookstore closed three years ago -- was in the process of closing in April of 2015 before we left Arizona for Michigan -- not because of business failure, I'm happy to report, but because the owner had put in her quarter-century of bookselling and decided it was time to retire. Even without that shop, however, our itinerary included several interesting book sites.

The first was Singing Wind Bookshop, unusual primarily for its location. Singing Wind is not in the town of Benson at all but two miles north of the expressway on Ocotillo Road and then down a long dirt driveway. It is housed on a ranch, and you can see exterior shots on my 2015 post. This time I photographed only the donkeys outdoors. The Artist loved them! (See above.) Aren't they sweet? 

Indoors we were greeted by Missy, resident bookstore dog, eager to have herself immortalized in a portrait.

Then Peggy, in charge for the day, called the owner to give us "the tour," and Winn toured us to a fare-thee-well, shelf by shelf, through her excellent inventory featuring (but hardly limited to) books about the Southwest. Tom and I both made substantial purchases while the Artist went back outside to commune with the donkeys, and Tom was impressed with the selection and very glad we had made the trip to Singing Wind, all the more so since he found a favorite author whose books he usually has trouble finding. 

Peggy and Winn

Me and Winn

From the ranch we went back into the town of Benson for a stop at the little bookstore run by the Friends of the Library. All three of us found treasures there -- books, magazines, music CDs -- more bags of books to crowd into Tom's car!

Then, rather than take time for lunch, we decided to push on to one more bookish destination, the Benedictine monastery on the San Pedro River south of the town of St. David. 

Meditation garden

As we paused by the little meditation garden so I could step out of the car to photograph it, I thought of Chiang Lee, whose The Silent Traveller in Boston David and I had just finished reading the night before. Silent Traveller Lee would have smiled gently upon the meditation garden and would have had many reflections on the concept of meditation gardens in general and examples from his native country, China. 

Bishop's house

I wanted to photograph the bishop's house, also, because it is so gracious and lovely but was disappointed that the peacocks, although within hearing, were nowhere in sight. They had showed off, preening and strutting like runway models, feathers shining irridescent in the sun, on our previous visit -- the day I didn't have my camera with me. Now they remained hidden. How vexing! But of course we had come primarily for the bookstore, where once again I managed to find a few delightful items amid the donated books. Both bookstore and thrift shop, as well as the office and shop with new religious books, souvenirs, and local produce (mostly pecans and honey), are maintained by volunteers who come for a month at a time and live in their RVs back by the birding trail along the San Pedro River. 

The three of us agreed unanimously to content ourselves with treats at the Old Benson Ice Cream Stop instead of traditional lunch, which made me happy, as I had been anticipating an Italian cream soda ever since we set out for Benson. 

While I was inside waiting to order, another woman came in, apparently on her first visit and practically reeled when confronted with the huge menu board listing possibilities, exclaiming, "You could come here every day for a year and have something different every time!" As for me I'm working my way through all the available flavors of the Italian sodas. Last time hazelnut, this time raspberry, next visit who knows?

It was very windy all day, and when we came through Texas Canyon the dust was still in such an uproar on the Willcox Playa that Dos Cabezas was not visible at all, and it remained hidden to us all the way home. I tried to capture the effect of a dust storm with my camera but to so little effect that there's no point posting the results. 

Here, on the other hand, are books I have bought recently. Four of those pictured (which ones, do you think?) were not from our Benson trip: one (used) was from the little Friends bookshop in Willcox, two (new) from a research station in the Chiricahua Mountains, and one (used) from a desert museum store. The remainder, my purchases from Thursday, totaled $60. That was spent at $50 Singing Wind and $5 at each of our other two stops. Can you guess which books came from where and which were most expensive?

Bookseller's note: I do not begrudge paying full price for new books or a reasonable price for used books in an indie bookstore. Bookstore owners have invested time as well as money in their businesses and are working to make a living and deserve to be paid for what they do. I am not without prejudice in these matters, of course, as you know, because, as an indie bookstore owner myself, I understand from firsthand experience that a bookstore owner cannot make expenses, much less make a living, by selling books at the same prices as volunteer-staffed library bookstores, but I bring the matter up today because at the Friends bookstore in Benson there was no way to help overhearing a man (with a very loud voice) complaining about the wonderful store with the fabulous inventory of used books that used to be our favorite Benson stop. His complaint was that prices in the bookstore were higher than yard sale prices. 

All of us could, I suppose, survive without bookstores. We could do our book-buying online (searching out specific titles) and at yard sales and garage sales (taking potluck). But I have to say that if I am ever able to retire, I plan to continue patronizing indie bookstores wherever I find them, as I already do, despite having my own. I love the volunteer-run library bookstores and thrift shops, but I also really appreciate well-curated bookstores, run people who know their stock, love their books, and have enough faith in themselves and what they sell to maintain open public, "bricks & mortar" shops. And I'm (really) not saying this to toot my own horn but to salute my colleagues because I know the sacrifices you make on a daily basis. Thank you, people like Winn at Singing Wind, for providing me with bookman's holidays!

Winn, bookseller at Singing Wind Bookstore

Reader's note: Then just last night (in the middle of the night, actually, during a sleepless hour) I finished my reading of Ronald Takaki's A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America (1993). Reading it was often, I'll be honest, an emotionally painful experience. Nevertheless, it is a book I highly recommend, and I guarantee that if you read it through to the last page, you will never again be tempted to view American history in simplistic terms. Thank you, Ron Takaki, for this important work!

I have now begun Edith Wharton's Age of Innocence, and before the Artist and I go to sleep at night, I read aloud a chapter of Brad Herzog's Turn Left at the Trojan Horse, so far much more than just another travel memoir.