Dear Faraway Friends

 

Sunday, November 26, 2023

 

Those of you as far from me geographically as Seattle, Washington … Tucson and Dos Cabezas, Arizona … northern and central Illinois … and, coming closer, Kalamazoo, Michigan … all of you are in my thoughts today, but Leelanau County and Traverse City friends seem “faraway,” too, as the first real snow accumulates in the yard and on the roof of my old farmhouse. I’m not feeling isolated. Cozy, rather. It’s so lovely, after a busy week, to have a whole day at home, me and Sunny Juliet, with nowhere else we need to be. -- Wait, wait, wait! I did not mean to forget those in Minnesota, New York State, the U.P, and Brazil!!!

 

Did I say it was a busy week? Monday was a trip to Traverse City for new snow tires. I took Frederick Franck’s Zen Seeing, Zen Drawing to read while the tires were being mounted, because just reading Franck’s books is a meditation -- actual drawing practice that much more so, however, and something I want to get back to this winter. Tuesday I cut a tiny little pine tree and took it to the bookstore, then cancelled agility class for Sunny and me, needing those four hours at home to mix cookie dough and shop for Thanksgiving. Wednesday was my day to decorate the bookstore tree, along with accepting deliveries of new books, and that evening I began preparations for the next day’s dinner. 

Like Charlie Brown, I love my little tree!

Because Thursday, of course, was Thanksgiving! A different kind of holiday for me this year, as I fixed turkey dinner for a friend and took it to his house to share the meal with him. This man was like a brother to the Artist for many years, they were that close, so I would tell people, “He’s like my brother-in-law,” and now he has forgotten the Artist and had no clue who I was, either. He knew me a few short months ago, but when I arrived at his house on Thursday afternoon, having called the previous Saturday to tell him I would be coming, he asked, “Do we know each other? Do you live around here?” When I reminded him it was Thanksgiving, he was astonished. Still, he was pleased to have company, and his appetite was good. It was strange to be with someone so familiar to me, whose house is so familiar to me, as well, a friend with whom the Artist and I shared many holidays past, but for whom I am now become a stranger. How much more difficult it must be for family members in such a situation….

 

Friday evening was a cookie baking session with my friend Susan, accompanied by lots of visiting, naturally. (Susan and I shared happy memories!) Then at last came Saturday! Horses in Northport! (Sadly, for me, on a shorter loop this year that did not include Waukazoo Street, but I think that was to avoid long wait times for all the families who wanted the horse-drawn village tour.) Activity gatherings and open houses all through the town! And at 6 o’clock, Santa turned on the tree lights. What a day!

Carolers at the bookstore

Darkness falling...

Fire truck in front of bookstore, blocking traffic...

Passerby stopping to admire artist Deborah Ebbers's work...

Crowd awaiting Santa and tree lights...

Our beautiful village tree!!!
 

So you see why I was ready for a Sunday of rest!

 

After busy days all week I turned at bedtime to re-reading: Ellen Airgood’s The Education of Ivy Blake and Walter Mosley’s Walkin’ the Dog. Two very different works of fiction, but both favorites of mine, with characters I love and satisfying but not simplistic conclusions. Writers whose work means a lot to me. Another comforting young person’s novel was Elizabeth Enright’s Gone-Away Lake. Enright really knew her botany! Then, beginning Friday night, came a first-time read, The Good Pilot Peter Woodhouse, by Alexander McCall Smith, Not one from any of his series but a stand-alone tale from World War II England and Germany -- and not sugar-coated, either, but still, in the most difficult decisions his characters must make and in the complicated emotions they experience, delivered with Smith’s characteristic gentle wisdom. Peter Woodhouse, by the way, is a dog….

 

Now two nonfiction books, both begun but neither more than one-quarter read yet, await. Undaunted Courage, by Stephen Ambrose, needs no introduction or explanation. The other, Beyond the Outer Shores, by Eric Enno Tamm, is the story of the man who inspired Steinbeck’s “Doc” in Cannery Row, and I’m learning a lot more about Steinbeck, too, namely, his friendship with Ed Ricketts and their collaboration on tidewater collecting expeditions. Fascinating. 

Ricketts and Steinbeck on the Pacific shoreline, Enright delighting in her bogs. For me the natural world these days is snowy meadow, woods, and orchard -- 

And yet, although I could not possibly be more at home than here in my Leelanau farmhouse, it felt strange this month not to be crossing the country from Great Lakes to Southwest, as the Artist and I had done for several years and as I did once again last year with Sunny Juliet, from the north woods and Great Lakes to prairie to Great Plains to high plains and mesa lands and finally mountains. My little ghost town neighborhood, our “mountain family,” so far away! One friend there sent me a Thanksgiving video her son made of wildlife in their yard (deer, fox, coati mundi) and her house and yard and the entire ghost town from a drone overhead, a video I know I’ll watch over and over. The music with it is perfect, too.

Other years ... another life

But here I am in my own beautiful home place! And it is snowing! What kind of a winter will it be? I remember my first northern Michigan winter, Traverse City in 1970-71, when it was never not snowing, whenever I looked out a window, and the icicles grew like stalactites from roofs to the ground. Bundling up my toddler to pull him on his little sled to the tiny Oleson’s store on Front Street a couple of blocks from our house was an expedition that consumed half a morning! 

 

Whatever comes this year, right now it’s good to be in a warm house, looking forward to homemade turkey soup and meanwhile catching up on desk work and housework, with periodic breaks for outdoor dog fun. Winter is underway, my friends. And when spring comes again, we older ones will be looking back and saying that, in retrospect, winter flew by. I already know that will be true.

 

May everyone traveling today be prepared and safe, and may the freeing of hostages from Gaza continue with maximum happy results -- until all are once again home.

Books, Grief, Hope, and Holidays

How I live now....

Desert nights are cold, already down in the 20-degree range, and for the last two nights high winds have been battering the cabin. Saturday morning was sunny, calm, still. A good morning for a walk. Sunday was a different story, with the wind continuing relentless throughout the bright daytime hours.

 

No one sleeps well here on windy nights, and in what my mother always called the “wee hours,” when I would turn on the light and pick up a book, Sunny would bring me a toy and nudge me to engage in play. She can be as relentless as the wind! So I would indulge her with a little gentle wrestling on the bed and tell her she’s a good girl before picking up my book again (though often I added to myself, “Not really,” if she had trouble settling down again so I could read myself back to sleep).

 

And now for that long-neglected topic, books. Since I haven’t given a list of the recent books I’ve read for a while, I’ll annotate today’s to help you decide whether or not you might want to read any given title.

 

112. Hill, Grace Livingston. The Enchanted Barn (fiction). One of my early bookstore customers, back in 1994, was a big fan of Grace Livingston Hill and told me that Hill was a Michigan writer. I have been unable to find a Michigan connection, however, and in my bookstore no longer shelve Hill in the Michigan section. While her books are generally categorized as Christian fiction or Christian romance, religion is presented gently, as are the characters’ struggles, and The Enchanted Barn is a good example. Much as did the author herself, the main character is working to support her mother and siblings (in Hill’s own life, she had children to support from two failed marriages, in addition to her mother) and struggles to keep from becoming discouraged by poverty, to find a way to a better life. Where the story will end is obvious early on, but the details of the family’s move to the country, planting gardens, and making their home in an old barn make for a charming fictional escape from modern life. The Enchanted Barn was published in 1917. 

 

113. Gibbon, Lewis Grassic. Cloud Howe (fiction)

and 114. Ibid. Grey Granite (fiction).

These are the second and third titles in the author’s trilogy, A Scots Quair, which I have written about previously, novels that can only be considered “escape” in the sense that one is immersed in intriguing and sometimes lovely language because, other than that, they share with most of classic literature a clear-eyed confrontation with the hardest aspects of life. Here we see poverty not simply as one family’s temporary situation but the grinding poverty of workers in general, generation after generation, as they are caught up in the social and economic forces of history, and the author provides no deus ex machina to bring about a happy ending. But these are books (along with the first of the trilogy, Sunset Song, its story beginning in 1911) that deserve to be much more widely read and known, definitely worth a reader’s time, and I would add worth reading more than once.

 

115. Bythell, Shaun. Seven Kinds of People You Find in Bookshops (nonfiction). If I’m being honest – and what’s the point of being otherwise? – I have to say I was disappointed with this one. A very slim volume, it comes off more like a lengthy magazine assignment than like a continuation of the author’s delightful Diary of a Bookseller and Confessions of a Bookseller. Perhaps it was a case of a publisher pushing a writer to take advantage of previous success by getting a new title out too soon. I don’t like to say that -- and wish my impressions of Seven Kinds had been different -- but there you are. Bob’s your uncle.

 

116. Deutsch, Jeff. In Praise of Good Bookstores (nonfiction). Obviously not a book rushed into print, this one is worth reading carefully and lovingly, as any lover of books and bookstores will. The bookseller-writer makes a case for bookstores as something distinct from retail business. His primary example, the unabashedly scholarly Seminary Co-op Bookstore in Chicago, went from a cooperative model to a nonprofit model in 2019 (after many years of having paid no dividends), and Deutsch says the nonprofit model acknowledges the store’s “financial realities” and its privileging of “cultural value over financial dividends.” Browsing here is raised to a new level. 

 

While I would love to browse this store, I am not convinced that nonprofit status is the only way forward for bookstores. Seeing socks for sale in a bookstore bothers Deutsch. It doesn’t bother me. I don’t sell socks myself but have no problem with other booksellers who use such items to enhance their slim profit margin, as long as they are also stocking good, important books. Most of us in the used book trade realized early on in our eccentric “careers” that following our calling (because I agree with Deutsch that it is a calling) would demand certain financial sacrifices, and for us no price can be put on our independence, so I even wonder if a nonprofit model, with all the record-keeping and particular laws governing that model, might not put a crimp in my independence. But the book – yes, I do recommend it. 

 

117. Leiris, Antoine. You Will Not Have My Hate (nonfiction). The Eiffel tower on this book’s cover made me reach for it. It is broadly classifiable in the category of books on grief, a category in which I have read more extensively this past year than ever before – but with a difference. The author’s wife not only died suddenly but was murdered, gunned down in the terrible scene of mass violence at the Bataclan Theatre in Paris in 2015. The title of the book comes from something Leiris posted on the Internet, refusing victory to the killers. His book is a behind-the-scenes account of that night and days and nights following, as he had to go on with life for the sake of his very young, now-motherless son. 

 

118. Hill, Jemele. Uphill: A Memoir (nonfiction). An interview with Jemele Hill on NPR prompted me to buy this book. Careers in journalism are very different from life as a bookseller but also focus on words and writing. Hill is from Detroit, therefore a Michigan author. Perhaps the fact that she is a sportswriter made my choosing this book surprising because, in general, I could not care much less about sports, but Hill has always gone beyond sports in her career as a journalist, and her social insights and opinions fascinate me. (When asked to write an opinion column, she wondered why anyone would care about her opinions and was astonished by how deeply her readers cared.) Also, along the way, I picked up a couple of wonderful uses of contemporary Black English, one I’d seen before on a friend’s Facebook posts, the other a new word to me: “Ride or die” was the phrase; caucasity the new word I learned. Brilliant word!

 

119. Barry, Jane. A Time in the Sun (fiction). This one, like the nonfiction Empire of the Summer Moon, was a book that I both wanted and didn’t want to read. Western frontier history, whether fictionalized or not, is brutal – and often, to make it worse, it is inappropriately romanticized or has a political axe to grind, so wariness is my byword. Barry’s book, as it turned out, was of particular interest to me, as the story was set in southeast Arizona, from Apache Pass (between the Chiricahua and Dos Cabezas mountain ranges) up to Fort Grant and over to Tucson. It is hauntingly well written. Of course, it ends in tragedy, for the Apaches and for more than one of the white characters, but what else could you expect? It is worth reading, both for the historical perspective, diversity of characters, and for the lyrical writing.

 

120. Solnit, Rebecca. Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities (nonfiction). This book of essays is a re-issue, and re-issuing it was a good idea. Solnit’s message is that those “in love with despair” or so given over to pessimism and cynicism that they answer any bit of good news with “Yes, but –” is that there is good news, along with the bad and that it’s important to keep hope alive and celebrate victories even while continuing to fight for a better world. Hope in the Dark is a tonic, good for what ails many of us from time to time. 

 

And finally --

121. Penny, Louise. A Better Man (fiction). Many of my friends and bookstore customers are devoted fans of Louise Penny’s Inspector Gamache mysteries, and yet somehow I had never gotten around to reading any of them. There it was, though, on Margaret’s counter at Readers’ Cove in Deming, New Mexico, and the time seemed right. (Note: I seldom begin to read a mystery series with the first book. Instead, whatever title comes my way is where I dive in.) And now, count me as a fan of Inspector Gamache, especially of his three questions to ask oneself before speaking: Is it true? Is it kind? Does it need to be said?

 

So there are the books that kept me company from Michigan to Arizona. For me, the company of books has always been essential and never more so now that my only daily companion is a very vocal but not at all verbal 11-month-old puppy. 

The Artist remembered at Source of Coffee in Willcox, AZ

This morning, doing errands in Willcox, I was struck by all the places the Artist and I used to go together. In fact, nowhere did I go that we had not gone together, and every mile of the road between the cabin and town is a mile we traveled together countless times. It was – difficult. But everywhere I went, when paying for a purchase I made a point of saying, “Happy Thanksgiving” to the cashier, because while holidays can be particularly challenging for those of us who have lost a beloved partner, whenever I think (as I so often do), There are ghosts everywhere, in Arizona as well as in Michigan, I have to stop and remind myself that there are friends in both places, too, and that I have much for which to give thanks. 

 

Happy Thanksgiving, friends! A what have you read lately that you want to recommend?

Also how I live -- and always will.

Our Long, Long Trail, Part II

Steins

Steins again

As we near and finally cross the state line from New Mexico into Arizona, I feel my smile will crack my face. When we pass the first little Arizona ghost town, Steins, one we have ever only seen from I-10, the sight of it makes me want to laugh out loud. The peaks of Dos Cabezas are visible from the edge of New Mexico, too, if you know where to look. Happy sight! Though the naked eye's spotting of them would not mean much in a phone or camera image.

 

Arriving at the cabin midday on Tuesday (five days after leaving our Michigan home), the Artist immediately set about the mundane tasks of reactivating electricity and water while I carried bags and boxes in from the car. Peasy watched our every move intently. Did he experience the same comfortable familiarity I felt? Everywhere I looked were dear little pockets, such as the little desk holding my field guides, watched over by a 2021 horse calendar whose pages I eagerly turned from May to November. Of course, there was sweeping and dusting to do, but it was a pleasure, part of making myself at home again in the cabin. 

One small part of the happiness of unpacking was finding my camera, which I was certain I had brought along but hadn’t been able to find on the trip itself, reliant on phone alone for images along the long, long trail west. And so, unaccustomed to carrying the camera, I neglected to take it out with me on Wednesday morning, when Peasy and I met our friends, Therese and her dogs, for a long-awaited reunion, but here is a phone image from Friday’s get-together that we can pretend was from Wednesday.

Friends! Reunion!

And then the rains came! First sprinkles, as I was working in the backyard to clear it of four-foot-high weeds that had grown up into a forest during the summer. Then a downpour! And then a text came from Therese: “Rainbow alert!” I found it the most spectacular rainbow I have ever seen (though it’s possible that rainbows fade in memory and that others in the past have been equally spectacular), stretching full and bright from one end to the other, with a fainter second rainbow arching above the first. Oh, for a wide angle lens! As it was, Therese captured by far the better image from her house.

Therese gets the rainbow prize!

Thursday. Thanksgiving! Before going to dinner with our neighbors, I began a list of things I was thankful for, and with each item added I thought of five more. As my friend Juleen and I have often agreed, each of us can say truly, I am a lucky woman! I was that day and still am supremely grateful that the Artist and I and our little special needs dog are all still alive and together and here for another winter in Dos Cabezas, seasonal retirement for the Artist and me, homecoming for our wild desert dog. And I must say that Peasy clearly remembered not only Therese’s dogs but Therese herself and showed not a shred of nervousness when he approached her fearlessly for a treat from her hand! Like a normal dog!

Dinner with neighbors on Thanksgiving was lovely, the beautiful holiday table overlooked by a piece of art over the mantel by our hostess, her COVID project. Feathers and birds are souls we lost, winging their way to heaven by way of the peaks of Dos Cabezas.

Again on Friday, this time without a planned rendez-vous, Peasy and I encountered our friends once more down in the wash -- that is to say, Peasy and Molly found each other on the range, which always means a lot more exercise for both of them -- and thanks to that chance encounter, also, I was invited to help set up the Christmas “tree” in the little cabin down the road that will be the scene of a holiday arts and crafts sale this coming weekend. 

 

Pine trees do grow at higher elevations in Cochise County, Arizona, but down here on the high desert floor the favored plant for a Christmas tree is the dry stalk of a century plant, Agave americana, which you’ll remember is a member of the asparagus family. First we measured the space between floor and ceiling and sawed the bottom of the stalk to accommodate the space. Then we set up sawhorses on the porch to string the lights – a new experience for me (I’ve only seen the finished product until now) but one my friend Therese has done many times before. A bucket weighted down with rocks and sand holds the “tree” in place, and it will look even more beautiful decorated with ornaments. 

I did very little reading on the road west, but here are the last books I finished reading in Michigan before we set out on our cross-country trek:

159. Pride, Christine & Jo Piazza. We Are Not Like Them (fiction)

160. Gubbins, John. Profound River (fiction)

161. Roy, Anuradha. An Atlas of Impossible Longing (fiction)

162. Damrosch, Phoebe. Service Included: Four-Star Secrets of an Eavesdropping Waiter (nonfiction)

The book I began reading on the road and now find myself halfway through, reading voraciously, is titled Unbreakable, its author Richard Askwith. It is the story of a woman "who defied the Nazis in the world's most dangerous horse race," an unbelievable brutal steeplechase in Czechoslovakia, but her story begins well before World War II, and her love of horses, matched by her feminism, makes this a gripping story, to say the least. 

Meanwhile we are here. Enjoying reunions. Settling in. Acclimating to the altitude. Recovering from our long, long journey.

I am Pierre’s dog.

Another dawn, another day

David, a.k.a. the Artist, took me to a new coffee house in Willcox, and we sat out on the front porch on Haskell Street (Business I-10) with our drinks. When I was in graduate school and reading Sartre, I wrote a paper called “Consciousness of Self and Pierre’s Dog.” Or maybe it was “Pierre’s Dog and Consciousness of Self.” The first line, anyway, was “Consider the dog in this café,” my variation on Sartre’s famous “Consider the waiter in this café.” In my version, Pierre’s dog was called that because, while Pierre did not own the dog, he and the dog had fixed morning routines in the café every day. Then comes a morning when Pierre does not appear, and everywhere the dog looks, all he sees is Pierre’s absence. 

 

As for reading, I haven’t finished a book since we were in Michigan, and that last book I read was Rinker Buck’s The Oregon Trail, which I left in Illinois (our second night out on the road) for my sister and brother-in-law to read. I tried to finish Absalom, Absalom! for a Zoom meeting with the reading circle but couldn’t manage to lock myself for long enough into that depressing, claustrophobic atmosphere to get through the last third of the book. Instead, while traveling and during our first days and nights here in the cabin, I read now and then a few pages of SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome, but my progress in it was slow, my attention repeatedly drawn away from the book to our dog’s unaccustomed demeanor. 

 

Then Sarah had a good day on Sunday, and I felt briefly optimistic that she would “recover from the trip,” as the Artist put it, and that we would have – not long hikes, but at least one more short walk with our neighborhood adventure pack before I had to leave her home on mornings I went off into the mountains with them. So on Monday and Tuesday of last week, which is to say during Sarah’s last days, I started into my winter writing project.

The following Tuesday, on what turned out to be her last day of life, I only “left” her briefly (we were scant feet apart and could look into each other’s faces whenever either of us had the desire) to sit with the handwritten diary that a young man in Pennsylvania began in 1854, a diary I will be transcribing this winter, putting his entries together with my own journal entries and other thoughts and reflections on his time and mine. 

 

Now that she is gone, I still read myself to sleep after an evening movie but have set aside SPQR for a comfort book, one of Alexander McCall Smith’s novels set in Botswana and featuring Mma Ramotswe. When we wake up in the middle of the night, as we do every night, the Artist and I may talk quietly or lie together in silence, but sometimes then too I turn on my bedside light to escape to Botswana. The cows in the book are comforting. I wish the cows of Dos Cabezas would pay us a visit, but they seem to be grazing and foraging somewhere out of sight.

The comfort of cows....

While I was lying on the floor with Sarah on Tuesday, stroking her head and fondling her ears, a Motown song by Gladys Knight and the Pips came into my head and would not go away, and it has been there ever since. “Neither One of Us Wants to Be the First to Say Goodbye” is a song about a couple postponing a breakup they realize is inevitable. For me, it was about my dog – about Sarah hanging on and about my world having shrunk to wherever she was lying at any given moment. She never did “go to sleep” but kept following us with her eyes whenever we moved from one part of the room to another. She and I did not want to say goodbye to each other – and the Artist and I did not want to say goodbye to her.

Night lingers as day begins

My sisters mentioned another song, one called “Sara,” by Jefferson Starship. I put off listening to that one for days after Sarah’s death, and when I finally called it up, the Artist and I could hardly bear the lyrics: “I’ll never find another girl like you…. No time is a good time for goodbye.” 

 

Then the other day I picked up a small collection of poetry, ten poems by ten different poets, put together in a book by Roger Housden called Ten Poems to Say Goodbye. This may be the book I will finally finish and be able to add to my “Books Read 2020” list.

I am thankful

But life goes on, as it always does, and Thanksgiving will be here in two days. The Artist and I have each other! We have priceless family and friends! And we have received a flood of touching and very meaningful sympathy messages from a couple hundred people, many who knew Sarah for years and others in distant places who knew her only through my blog posts. We were unbelievably fortunate to have found puppy Sarah in the first place and then to have had her in our lives for so many years -- the best traveler, the best bookstore dog, and the best companion imaginable. 

 

I am very well aware of how blessed I am, what a wonderful life I have, and there are moments already when the Artist and I can make each other laugh, even over shared memories of Sarah. At the same time, for now, Sarah is my Pierre, and I am her dog: Everywhere I look, I see her absence.

Holiday Fun -- AND Treasures!

My original subject heading today was going to be “No Big Plan – Just Good Books.” On Saturday, however, I had a visit from a representative from the Chamber of Commerce, and plans for the holiday weekend in Northport have taken promising shape. There will be band music, caroling, evening lighting of the village Christmas tree (with 4,000 lights this year), many other events and attractions, but my favorite, from 4 to 7 p.m., will be the decorated horse-drawn wagon giving free rides through the village. And the horses this year will be black Belgians! So my new plan is to keep the bookstore open until 7 p.m. on Saturday rather than closing at 5. Weather, as always, permitting, so cross your fingers!

Schedule for Saturday, Nov. 26, in Northport

Meanwhile, I posted on Facebook and asked a few people on e-mail what was the most memorable book they had ever found at Dog Ears, whether they bought new or used books, ordered new books not in stock, asked for suggestions, etc.., and here are some of the answers I received.

Marilyn:

My favorite purchase of all time took place at Dog Ears when I discovered that you had a (used, of course) copy of a now out-of-print childhood favorite book on your shelf. Flying Skis is now in my granddaughter's possession.

Another favorite book I purchased from you was one you thought I would appreciate after you read the early reviews. Ruth Ozeki's A Tale for the Time Being remains one of my favorites and I might have missed it if not for your kind suggestion.

Deborah:

Hard to select a favorite. My most recent favorite is Even in Darkness, which I purchased new having read your review. Another book I purchased after eagerly awaiting its arrival was Long Arc of the Universe by Kathleen Stocking, another new book.

Trudy:

You helped me find a book for my husband George--a Mosley book he really liked! I felt proud to bring my young granddaughter to your store. She and I both love to read, and you order the books she likes best.

Sarah:

What I have found at Dog Ears is a warm welcome, an open mind and heart, good and wise advice on books and life in general. I love the author visits, the chance to sit and listen to an author read, and to ask questions and buy the books and get them signed. I love that there are so many books at Dog Ears that have a local connection.

Steve:

I loved delving into a series of books called Introducing. The Guardian said that Introducing is a miracle of modern publishing. For me it really is. The series covers topics from Ethics and Psychology to Chaos and Quantum Theory and Semiotics and Joyce and much more. Lots of graphics to liven them up and help explain.

Being new books, Pamela promptly placed my order and they soon arrived. The experience is much better than online. A visit to the bookstore can evolve into a wonderful conversation. I have more than twenty of these Introducing books on my bookshelf, close at hand.

Books are important to me. I am in two reading circles.

Barbara:

Giving Thanks and reasons to head for Dog Ears Books on Buy Local Saturday:

I’d still have to say the most impactful book I’ve gotten at my favorite book store, Dog Ears Books, is Donald Lystra’s Season of Water and Ice. Not only was the book itself absolutely captivating and beautifully written, but Pamela Grath’s recommendation that I read it led to a turning point in my pathway to authorship, and was a perfect example of why she is a talented bookseller. She knew I’d become a novelist after a long career doing something else, and she knew I loved northern Michigan, and split my time between Northport and Ann Arbor. She also knew Don Lystra had a similar trajectory and that I would appreciate his work. His successful example and beautiful book inspired me to move forward, and Pamela was the catalyst.

It’s hard for me to choose among my favorite activities at Dog Ears (and I decline to leave Sarah out of the equation!!!) a. choosing a section of the store to browse that I haven’t seen in a while, b. the front table- the new and often local books to peruse c. chatting with Pamela (and YES! Petting Sarah!). I must say, however, that my favorite day at Dog Ears, aside from my own author events, was the day I got to be a bookseller for a couple of hours!  Hunting for a military mystery for a customer, helping a little girl pick out that best one book, handing off a book club’s books to a regular customer, and being grateful – again – for Dog Ears and Pamela Grath.

Wish I could be there Saturday … will be up for about 5 days the first week of December….

Susan L.:

1.  Over the years, I've purchased many treasured books, from Modern Library editions to The Legend of Sleeping Bear, books both new and used.

2.   I've asked for help, and have also found things by chance.

3.   Books have been ordered on my behalf with never a problem. They also have been sent in many different directions. They've always arrived at their destination.

4.  Yes, Sarita! I love the peace, comfort, and organized environment. The selection and the encouragement to dabble in different reading materials.

5.  Books revive me. Books open my mind to different points-of-view. Books are filled with fascination. Book discussions bring people together. Books fill every nook and cranny of our abodes. Books are in the rack opposite the toilet so not a minute is wasted. Books are amusing to Finnie and Bianca [her cats], particularly Ulysses and Finnegans Wake. Books are vital, as are bookshops.

Carson:

The best? The most memorable? My most favorite? After 20 years of shopping at Dog Ears Books in Northport, Michigan, I have to say it's a little treasure I spotted high up on a shelf called "Love Letters." It was a small paperback with an old-fashioned drawing on the cover, and for some reason it caught my eye. It was too high to reach, and I didn't want to disturb the lovely bookstore owner, so I resisted my first impulse. As I knocked around the gallery and bookstore, it kept drawing me back. Finally I asked Pamela about it, just asked, and while my back was turned, she grabbed a ladder, climbed up there, and brought me that book. I didn't know if it was fiction or nonfiction, old or new. Inside the charming front cover the frontispiece said, "The Etiquette of Introduction, Courtship, and Proposals; Also a Large Number of New and Original Letters to be Used as Models for any Style of Love Letter." It was just as advertised: Love Letters. So many different ways to say I love you; I want to make you my own; and also, stop asking, already! Published in 1914, it seems more than many lifetimes old, with sentiments so delicately expressed they would be unintelligible to today's young men and women. I couldn't determine if it was old or new; there are no indications of a reprint. The volume is high quality and so perfectly preserved it seems new, yet it's hard to imagine a publisher reissuing this. Writers of love letters are not even a niche market!

Debby:

If not for Dog Ears Books, I would never have discovered MIchigan author D.M. Greenwald and his series of books (Frozen Moon; Cody; and The Wichita Mountain Manhunt) about a man and his search-and-rescue dogs.

One of my other favorite meet-the-author/book signing experiences was with Ellen Airgood at Dog Ears, with her then-new novel South of Superior, which is a wonderful read.

For keeping up with regional authors - as well as many other discoveries - Dog Ears is the place to go.

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Of course, one smart-aleck (Kirk, you know who you are) accused me of running a bait-and-switch operation, in that I sell only books and not dog toys and treats. Well, thanks, anyhow, Kirk, for being a good regular customer and buying new books as well as selections from the "just a bunch of old books" you wrote to say is all I have. (Why is it, with all you quick-witted, zany guys I always feel like George Allen playing straight man to Gracie?)

Gratitude

And no, I am not ignoring or skipping over Thanksgiving! I am deeply, deeply thankful for a loving, supportive marriage; physical and emotional shelter from the storms and vicissitudes of life; dear, dear family members and friends; a planet with heavenly touches like dogs (especially Sarah!) and horses; and my work of nearly a quarter-century in a life of books, where fellow booksellers are colleagues and customers are friends. 

Thank you all for being part of my world!

Beginning of winter project: organizing photographs!