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.

A Good Time, with Only Minor Controversy

Books!

Tree and refreshment table

Tree was decorated long in advance. Books were delivered in plenty of time. All was in readiness for Susan Newhof's reading and book signing on Friday.

The author arrives!

It's always a relief to the bookseller when the guest of honor arrives before the crowd, especially when, as in this case, the author and her husband were driving down from Manistique after a book tour of several days in the U.P. Fortunately, weather was not a problem (one never knows what to expect at this time of year), and here she is, looking lovely.

More people arrive

Other people began to arrive--and kept arriving. This is good! The more, the merrier at an author event, always!

All chairs were taken--a pleasure to see!

The audience came prepared to be entertained. Did they expect that the author would begin by asking them a question? "How many of you here believe in ghosts?" Only one hand was raised, and everyone stared. It was the only moment that controversy reared its head during the evening, however, and everyone took it in good--spirit!

Documentary evidence that I met the author

I even remembered to have David take a picture of me with the author, something I often forget to do.

{Now if only I can master the intricacies of the new Blogger platform and figure out how to arrange my photos the way I'd like them to appear, everything will be fine. Please take note: this is the first time I have added captions to my photos. I have long been envious of bloggers on other platforms who could add captions to their photos. Now I can, too! But I wanted my first paragraph to begin in that big blank white space to the right of the tree picture. Obviously, I need more practice and must search out solutions to problems I'm still having.}

Thank you, Susan Newhof, and thanks also to Doug and Merilee Scripps, to Bruce Balas, to Marjorie Farrell (the cookie lady) and to all who came to our book party. We had fun, didn't we? Yes, we did!

Vroom, vroom!

The real University ... has no specific location. It owns no property, pays no salary and receives no material dues. The real University is a state of mind. It is that great heritage of rational thought that has been brought down to us through the centuries.... – Robert M. Pirsig, ZEN AND THE ART OF MOTORCYCLE MAINTENANCE

Life has been very busy lately, with the season heating up. That’s metaphorically speaking. We did have a couple of beautifully summery days when young people shed shoes on downtown streets before the temperature plunged again, getting down into the 30s at night. Not, I'm happy to say, before my morel bonanza or before I finally this year, for the first time, got the wild asparagus before it went to seed, but it's been hard to be cold again after being warm. (Spring, that fickle young thing!) My straw bale gardening project is coming along, too, and I’ll be posting something about that soon; for today, however, it’s a philosophical road trip. Hop on! Don’t be scared! Philosophy will not hurt you!

One of the several reading groups I’m in is a kind of support group for a young man in difficult circumstances (to say the least) who is making a herculean effort to finish his high school work from far off-campus. Four or five of us are reading books “with” him for his last elective credit, sharing our impressions after he has written up his. Our current book is Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, which I read for the first time only 14 years ago, having stayed away from it for years out of some kind of overly fastidious feeling that anything that popular couldn’t be that good. Surprise—it was. I'm currently halfway through for my second reading and realize I hardly remember anything from my first. (The one part I do remember I haven't gotten to yet.) I am really glad to be rediscovering this book.

The narrator gives the name Phaedrus to the self he was before his hospitalization and shock treatment for mental illness. He, the narrator, refers to Phaedrus in the third person because he himself is "not that person any more." In what ways not? Well, a big way is that he has lost most of his memories of that earlier life. The narrator also describes the way Phaedrus dealt with other people, implying that he, the narrator, is different, but already I’m wondering if this is true.

ZAMM is a road trip novel as well as a philosophical novel. The narrator and his son travel cross-country with a married couple, through prairie, plains and mountains, with moments high and low along the way. Here is my strongest praise for the book: It is so well written that I do not skip the sections on motorcycle maintenance. When the four travelers reach their destination, the town where Phaedrus taught in the English department, Chris, the narrator’s son, remembers some of the streets and the school where his father taught and fills in some memories of that past for his father. We get the picture that this was not a happy time for the family.

For me the orienting theme of this book is ghosts. From the first time Chris brings up the subject of ghosts as the travelers are sitting around the campfire, the narrator uses it for his philosophical musings. The imagination conjures up phantoms of all kinds, whether former selves, other souls or forms of ideas through which we see the world. Are they "real"? If they are not, is anything?

The part of the book that has stayed with me, a part still ahead in my re-reading, is the seminar room. Ha! Seminar room--or torture chamber? I remember it well. I knew that room myself. I was there. How will it be revisiting it this time around? I’ll get back to you on this.

P.S. I take it back. This is a scary book.

P.P.S. The seminar room was not always a torture chamber. It depended on which professor was giving the seminar.