Let’s See Where We Are

Still in the ghost town in Cochise County. Still moving through grief by getting outdoors every day with the puppy and otherwise feeding my book addiction, notes here picking up where I left off the last time:

 

4. Irving, Washington. A Tour on the Prairies (nonfiction)

 

Often my bedtime books are more serious in nature, in part because if I am all wound up in a novel, it’s easy for me to stay awake reading all night. Not that Washington Irving’s 19^th-century horseback travels on the Great Plains were dull, by any means. In fact, it seems he was quite the eager, adventure-loving companion, it seems. Not a sleepy Rip Van Winkle guy at all!

 

5. Swan, Walter. How to Be a Better Me (nonfiction)

Walter Swan (from the 10-cent sidewalk table outside the Friendly Bookstore in Willcox) had plenty of lessons to impart and decided to put them between the covers of a book. Homespun Western commonsense.

 

6. Maxwell, Gavin. A Reed Shaken by the Wind (nonfiction)

7. Ferber, Edna. Show Boat (fiction)

8. Simeti, Mary Taylor. On Persephone’s Island: A Sicilian Journal (nonfiction – uncorr. proofs, 1986)

 

I wrote quite a bit about the Maxwell book before I’d finished reading it, and that “quite a bit” can be found here. The same is true for Edna Ferber’s Show Boat and Mary Taylor Simeti’s On Persephone’s Island. The next book on my list, number 9, was sent by a friend back in Michigan. (Thank you, Laurie!) I’d seen the book before and not been drawn to it by the title, but my interest was piqued by looking more closely and seeing that the author was the creator of “Downton Abbey.” There are no heroes or villains here -- every character is a mix of admirable and repulsive qualities, and Fellowes is at his best when speculating on complicated motives. The Keillor novel is exactly what you would expect from the storyteller from Lake Woebegone.

 

9. Fellowes, Julian. Snobs (fiction)

10. Keillor, Garrison. Pontoon (fiction)

I include an image here (above) of book endpapers to illustrate why I was drawn to the light novel that spawned the 1950s Debbie Reynolds movie. The girl in the story was raised on a houseboat on the Mississippi River, so it is a book for my little houseboat book collection, and the story is innocent and charming, if thoroughly predictable.

11. Sumner, Cid Ricketts. Tammy Out of Time (fiction)

12. Jance, J.A. Unfinished Business (fiction)

13. Jance, J.A. Until Proven Guilty (fiction)

14. Abels, Harriette. Mystery on the Delta (fiction – YA)

 

Next came a mini-binge, as I devoured two murder mysteries back-to-back, followed by a YA mystery that was a cinch to solve early on, but, again, it was a story with a houseboat theme.

 

Then this past weekend I read two more serious nonfiction books, both of which moved me deeply. Kirkus Reviews thought Harlem is Nowhere, by Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts, “suffered” from not fitting clearly into one particular genre, being neither strictly academic nor strictly popular. (What was that reviewer thinking? Sounds like marketing talk to me.) From my point of view, the genre-bending, genre-overlapping qualities of the book made it a rich reading experience from a very gifted writer. I was transported in time and place and felt as if I had been there, with Rhodes-Pitts as both a well-informed guide and my personal friend.

She had some surprising nuggets for a bookseller, too. While I knew most of the names of important Harlem people mentioned, a new one to me was book collector Arthur Schomburg, whose collection of black history, literature, art, etc. was eventually bought by New York Public Library with a Carnegie Foundation grant. The collection included “more than 5,000 books, 3,000 rare manuscripts, 2,000 etchings and portraits, clippings albums, and several thousand pamphlets.” Rhodes-Pitts spent many hours in the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, which she calls “as much a community center as a library, and a little bit of home. Highly recommended. 

 

Finally, a new friend back in Michigan sent me a copy of her memoir in manuscript, the story of finding and losing all too soon, to cancer, the love of her life – and going on from there, as one must following loss. Much familiar territory for me, but new ground, also, and Mary Robertson is a lovely writer, with a frankness and, perhaps surprisingly, a sense of humor that brought me to both tears and laughter, often at the same time.

 

15. Rhodes-Pitts, Sharifa. Harlem is Nowhere: A Journey to the Mecca of Black America (nonfiction)

16. Robertson, Mary E. I’m Sorry For Your Loss: One Woman’s Journey Through Love, Loss & Recovery (nonfiction – ms.)

 

So now the question is, what book will I finish next? It probably won’t be my current bedtime volume, Anthony Trollope’s North America. Trollope gives us a fascinating window into American life during the Civil War away from the battlefields; however, he gets carried away on many long, detailed digressions into earlier American and Canadian history that occasionally try my patience. I am most entertained when he describes cities and towns in his time that I have known in my own, and I was very sympathetic to his disappointment at not seeing the real “prairie” he hoped to see, for all the cornfields that had taken the place of those seas of grass. I felt the same way years ago in southwest Michigan after reading James Fennimore’s Oak Openings: I so wished I could go back in time to see that prairie as it was before clearing and cultivation, before houses and barns and electric and telephone poles and lines. Just as it would be thrilling to see the West without barbed wire everywhere! But this is one of the glories of reading -- magically slipping away into a past we never saw with our own eyes.

"Did He who made the Lamb make thee?"

What light through yonder window breaks!

March – at last! Often considered the least bearable month Up North, March can bring late winter storms or early spring blossoms, or it can zig-zag back and forth from one season to the other. Wise are those who save their “winter” getaway for March, when desire for change – of scenery, of weather, of company – can just about blow the top of a person’s head off. What do you say of today? Is it lion or lamb? Or, taking our cue from William Blake, shall we ask, is it tiger or lamb? We drove home around midnight last night, after a dinner party, through near-blinding snow, so I'm going to say March came in like a very big cat, neither creeping softly like fog nor frolicking gaily like a spring lamb. 

Whatever March brings, the plan is for our pack to stay put and stick it out. On Thursday morning past, we thought we might just stay put at home and not even venture into the village. The morning had brought more subzero wind chills, there was more blowing and drifting in the forecast, and all the area schools were closed. Why bother? On the other hand (see photo above through farmhouse bathroom window), the sun was shining! I mean, the sun was shining!!! And our driveway was plowed clear and not, it seemed, drifting closed any too fast. We came to town. I opened the bookstore. A customer called, having gotten my message from yesterday, and said she would be in to pick up her order, eager to have it. “Good! I’m here!”

And considering that we’ve endured yet another week of brutally cold weather, with no real let-up in sight, it wasn’t a bad week for Dog Ears Books. First of all, on Wednesday I discovered that we’d made the website of the National Writers Series. Cymbre Foster had contacted me earlier in the month, sending a questionnaire and requesting photographs, and NWS has always been supportive not only of writers but also of area bookstores, but the new NWS initiative to feature bookstores and bookstores on their site has me nearly speechless with gratitude. Nearly, I said. Thank you, National Writers Series!

Next, remember the mystery poet? Nothing had come from him or her for quite some time, but Wednesday brought another poem (this one #7). As usual, it was typed on lined paper, with no return address or signature, and a variety of old stamps made up the necessary postage. Thank you, mystery poet!

Here's a transcription, in case my photograph is too difficult to read: "what of love is the daffodil moon/if not mr. day/to ms. night crooning/I send you flowers but you/never call/and from the window/ms. night leaning/but don't you see I unboxed them all." 

Don’t you love the thought of daffodils on this bitter-cold first March day Up North? At left and below, to complement the poet's offering, is a visual preview in the form of a couple of photographs from last year.

 (Honesty compels me to add that last year's daffodils did not emerge until April, but that's not far off, is it?)

April 27, 2013

A third surprise came on Thursday morning when I opened my daily issue of Shelf Awareness and saw myself heading the page under “Quotation of the Day.” Total surprise! Thank you, Shelf Awareness and Robert Gray! Thanks for further elevating my bleak winter mood, already given boosts by Cymbre, NWS, and the mystery poet.

Yes, I’ve had worse weeks in my life than the last one of February 2014.

And look at these poor, patient lovelies. 

This group of deer has spent most of the winter yarded up in a little patch of woods on the western edge of the village of Northport. Like humans (one young mother, indoors for weeks with small children, told me she feels "like a hamster on a wheel") and dogs (thank heaven Sarah had one indoor play date this week!), local deer have been treading and retreading the same limited ground for the past couple of months. There’s no way they’ll be flying to Florida, and they don’t even have the relief of escaping through books or movies, but do they complain?

Here Up North, do we humans complain? Yes, indeed. This year, just about all of us. But February is past, March is here, and sooner or later we’ll see daffodils -- and be able to walk and run and explore in the woods again, too, Sarah. I promise! Just be patient a little longer....

P.S. If the date on this post appears as February 26, that's because I began composing and saving it on that day, and it was just too much trouble to copy the whole thing over again to make the date come out as March 1. Trust me! It is Saturday, and I'm really looking out to a sunny Waukazoo Street on the first day of March as I click on -- any moment now -- "Publish." There!