Time Also to Think

The image above (not a very good one) doesn't show this morning's sky. I referred to the moon over the barn on June 30 but was unable to upload my image then, so here it is on July 3. Sadly, I remain unable to upload the image from Fleda Brown’s TEA event at Dog Ears Books. The moon was on my phone, Fleda on the Artist’s camera. Technical challenges continue. 

But each night continues to give way to another day, and up at 4:30 a.m. on this day before the 4th of July, I picked up a book set aside a year ago or more, about halfway through, The Physicist & the Philosopher: Einstein, Bergson, and the Debate That Changed Our Understanding of Time. One reason I set it aside was my inner editor’s constant carping: I wanted more smoothly flowing sentences, cleared of unnecessary obstructions, and I found repetitions annoying, jumbled chronology confusing. My other reason was more personal: Since first making the acquaintance of Henri Bergson’s work, I have loved him, and to read an account of the “controversy” during his lifetime, controversy fomented by interested philosophers, scientists, and journalists who pitted him against Einstein as if the two were boxers in a ring — well, it was just too, too sad. Bergson and Einstein had very different concerns,  therefore different thought objects, definitions, and arguments, and neither was vitally interested in the other’s chief concern. How does a downhill skier compete with a figure skater? Skiers will judge for one, skaters for the other, ¿claro?

Philosophy stimulates thought in ways different from the stimulation of fiction. My mornings this summer more often begin with novels, but life used to be very different. Back in graduate school days, all my mornings began with philosophical arguments. One night, I recall, I slept not at all, so furious was I with Bertrand Russell’s clumsy attack on Bergson, whom he had completely failed to understand. I spent that night spent writing furiously, arguing with one dead philosopher for his failure to comprehend another! 

During my first year of graduate work, in fact, the only way I could go to sleep at all most nights was to turn to the familiar novels of Jane Austen. I had all of them lined up at the head of my bed, so that when I reached the last page of one I could pick up the next, working my way to the end the line and then starting over at the beginning. Jane Austen was a comfort. Bertrand Russell was not. 

But mornings — ah, it is not such a bad thing to have one’s mind jolted awake by thought in the morning! And today it occurred to me long before sunrise that while certain philosophers have criticized what they disdainfully call “the god’s-eye view,” a perspective they say human beings often try to assume but can never realistically inhabit, the “subatomic view” is just as much outside human experience. Solid objects are not solid, the physicist tells us. Solidity does not exist! Accepting that there are gaps and spaces between atoms, what has this to do with life as we live it? With the “too, too solid” nature of our bodies and floors and the earth itself in terms of our experience (though we gardeners know healthy living soil to be full of earthworms and fungi and bacteria — anything but “rock solid”)? My question is, why is the subatomic view to be preferred? Why is it any more legitimate than the view from heaven? If one of those perspectives is suspect for being outside our experience, surely the other is, also.

Then, unbidden, an image of a doe and fawn comes to my mind. Not bothering their heads with philosophy, they stand motionless by the side of the road, the fawn obedient to its mother’s signals. Be still. Watch me. Listen. Follow me when I let you know it’s time. In some ways we share a world with deer, and in other ways we inhabit very different realms. Venn diagrams, our lives are, intersecting only at one edge, forming a delicate lentil of overlap. 

After a while the sky to the west takes on a rosy tinge, reflecting sunrise, and Sarah and I stroll out into the grass. She takes off like a shot toward the barn. Must have seen a rabbit. Thing is, she often doesn’t see the rabbits if they don’t move.

Dog, rabbits, deer. They are closer to my notice and understanding than gods and atomic particles, but even to pay attention to these other creatures means taking a break from the books. Not just “the books,” as in novels and philosophy, history, economics, and such, but “the books” in terms of the profit-and-loss thinking necessary to running a largely seasonal business during “high season.” 

And it occurred to me also this morning that running an essentially one-person business, as I have for 25 years now, is a lot like conducting a second marriage alongside and simultaneously with the first. There is the anticipation stage, preparation for the initial launch (engagement). Then one goes public (wedding), followed by the leap into a honeymoon, the nature of which can never be precisely foreseen, and further surprises of life together. If the business is successful, one year follows another, but none is ever just like the previous, as each brings new challenges to be met. Children? Well, as a bookseller, though my guest authors are adults, I have almost family feelings for the authors and books I choose to promote.

My husband, as friends and regular readers know, is an artist — “the Artist,” I have taken to calling him lately — and so he too has another “marriage” on the side. Art has been his life for over half a century, while I have been married to a bookstore for only a quarter-century. How does that work out for us? Are we jealous of each other’s other partners? In a word, no. There are occasions when one of us, in fact, gives priority to the other’s other partner over our own. At those times we are each other’s support system. At other times, I go my way with the books, the Artist goes his way with painting, and we come back together with new stories to share, and that’s good, too. 

All these marriages — that of two human beings, of one with a business, of the other with his art — also involve many more people. Some friendships blossom and fade, others persist and deepen, but every single one of them has a place in the rich marriage history. 

These are some of my thoughts this morning, before sunrise, when I have time to think, to let my mind roam.

Happy 4th of July, everyone! And don’t forget, our TEA guest (Thursday Evening Author) this week, on July 5, is Kim Schneider. That’s at 7 p.m. on Waukazoo Street, so join us if you can — and bring your visiting relatives! They’ll pick up all kinds of ideas for how to entertain themselves when they visit you.

Photo of long-ago photo. Who remembers that place and time?

Mornings Are Mine

[Technical difficulties prevent me from publishing this post with the intended images. When/if I can add them, I will. I particularly regret not being able to show you the photo of Fleda Brown and me at our second TEA. Soon! I hope!]

My days begin in the dark, as early as 3 or 4 o’clock, with whatever book I was reading the night before (or the previous morning, if I happened to be too tired to read before falling asleep). Today my book was an advance reader’s copy of a title due out in the fall, Hard Cider, by Barbara Stark-Nemon, author of the award-winning Even in Darkness. The earlier work was set in 20th-century Europe. Most of the story in Hard Cider takes place right here in Leelanau County. Before settling down to my book, however, I step outside for a minute to admire the moon over the barn. 

The first hint of first light brings sounds of morning’s earliest birds. Are they hungry? I am. Toasted English muffin with cheddar cheese and refried black beans is today’s solution, and I fix a peanut butter kong for Sarah, my early morning companion. She cares nothing for coffee but loves to start the day with a peanut butter snack, after which she looks to me for the last bite of whatever I’m eating. Her expectations are learned, but we don’t mind: we taught her, after all, and her manners are exquisite.

At “quite-light” but still well before sunrise, Saran and I go outdoors, where my straw bale gardening needs watering. As for Sarah, she has important business and exploring to do before she comes back to lie in the grass near where I’m working, continuing to monitor the air with twitching nose.

An old, beat-up plastic children’s sled still functions to move certain objects from one part of the yard to another. Today a box of lettuce seedlings asks for sunnier placement. Then it’s back indoors to throw a load of laundry in. By the time the sun is up, the wash will be ready to go out on the line, and meanwhile another cup of coffee is in order, this time outdoors on our boardwalk, where spires of delphiniums are beginning to open to the warm air.

Poet and essayist Fleda Brown, my second Thursday Evening Author of the season, was a delight, as always! I was grateful to her for making the trip out to Northport from Traverse City, and we both appreciated the number of people who turned out for an evening poetry reading. Thanks to a miraculous and mysterious memory flash, I even remembered to get a photo of my guest and myself together for a change. Thanks to the Artist, a.k.a. David Grath, for operating the camera (his), as well as for the loan of his gallery space for our TEA gatherings.

And now June is almost over! How swiftly the weeks swoop past! Unbelievable. It’s strawberry season already. Coreopsis on the roadside (the “longest day” flower in my associative memory) is already moving over for sweet peas. And Friday mornings are farm market time in Northport, as one day tumbles after another. Can’t miss farm market!

Still, it’s good to have these quiet, sweet morning hours in which to look around and catch my breath.

A Colorful Riot

There is no single theme to my gardening this year. No limited color palette, as in some more restrained seasons.One summer, for instance, white, grey, blue, lavender, and purple were the only colors in my boardwalk garden. No red, no orange, no yellow. Subtlety was my guiding principle. 

This year I threw all restraint to the winds. Red and orange, pink and yellow, every shade of blue and violet from lightest to darkest, even tomatoes and herbs mixed in with perennials and annuals. Nothing ruled out, my boardwalk garden is a riot of diversity this summer, and I’m loving it! 

(Earlier season, grass not mowed)

(These photos are not the most recent or representative, owing to loss of my good camera.)

A similar broad brush paints my bookstore’s summer literary series, TEA, which stands for Thursday Evening Authors. My TEA guests are writers of fiction and nonfiction; books written for adults, for children, and for readers of all ages; poetry, history, travel, and memoir. Every week this summer will be something different, with no discernible theme other than that of celebration, as we celebrate books and writers, readers and reading, and 25 years of Dog Ears Books. I hope you will be able to join us for as many Thursdays as possible. 

Here, then, is my lineup of guest authors — all Thursdays, all beginning at 7 p.m.:

June 21 (last week) - Rachel May, An American Quilt (nonfiction)

June 28 - Fleda Brown, The Woods Are On Fire (poetry)

July 5 - Kim Schneider, 100 Things To Do in Traverse City Before You Die (travel)

July 19 - (Double-header!) Lynne Rae Perkins, Secret Sisters of the Salty Sea (middle grade novel), AND Anne-Marie Oomen, Lake Michigan Mermaid (narrative poetry)

July 26 - Dennis Turner, What Did You Do in the War, Sister? (novel based on true events during World War II)

August 2 - Virginia Johnson, Ira’s Farm (memoir)

August 9 - Karen Anderson, Gradual Clearing (radio essays)

August 16 -(2 books) Bill Smith, Chickadeeland & 4 A.M. December 25 (stories with pictures for all ages)

August 23 - Loreen Niewenhuis, author of three Great Lakes books, presenting “Isle Royale”

August 30 - Thomas Hooker, various books of geology and poetry, plus his own original music

All TEA guests are either northern Michigan residents or have summer roots here (the latter the annuals in our literary garden). Among Michigan towns represented in this summer’s TEAs are Marquette, Traverse City, Suttons Bay, Empire, Omena, and Battle Creek. Our first guest of the season, Rachel May, from Northern Michigan University in the U.P., was delighted with her Northport audience, and the feeling was decidedly mutual. 

Meeting authors in person is an opportunity not only to see the person behind the book but also to learn some of what is involved in the writing process, which varies from one writer to another. Whether you are a writer yourself or simply curious about how people do it, this aspect of TEAs should prove interesting.

I’ll post reminders as we go through the summer, (this list won’t be your only reference), but some of you might want or need to plan beyond the current week — hence the list. And do, by all means, plan to be with us this Thursday for Fleda Brown. You’ll thank yourself afterwards for having come to meet her!

Fleda as previous Dog Ears Books guest

Meanwhile, happy reading and happy gardening in this lovely month of June —

Deep Breath, First Tea -- and Maybe Riddles?

Talking to Myself

You’re here now. Take a deep breath.

I’m talking to myself. Yes, I often talk to myself, though sometimes under the pretense of talking to the dog, which somehow is not seen as quite so eccentric, although a bookseller, as I told my mother once, is supposed to be eccentric, especially a bookseller whose shop specializes in used books, so since the stereotype already exists, I might as well play it to my advantage. “What will people think?” They’ll think I fit the stereotype, of course. That I’m typical. — Or is ‘typical eccentric’ anything a contradiction in terms? Well, there I go, down a rabbit hole of pointless digression, but so what? It’s early morning … or was when I began writing this, hours and hours ago.

On the morning after my first TEA event — Thursday Evening Authors, my summer literary series celebrating 25 years of Dog Ears Books — while in the backyard watering my straw bale garden in the early sunlight, with birds singing their hearts out all around me, I told myself, Take a deep breath. You’re here now. That is my mantra: You’re here now. Or, more prescriptively, Be here now. Summer is a busy time, but it’s important to stop and look around and listen to the birds and take those deep breaths.

Getting ready for first TEA

The First Dog Ears Books TEA of the Season

Rachel May

One reason I felt I could afford to relax a bit on Friday morning was that Thursday evening at the bookstore had gone so beautifully. Author Rachel May was so natural in her presentation, honest and forthright and well prepared, and the passages she read from her book were so full of detail that we in the audience had no trouble picturing the surroundings she described. Our audience was great, too — attentive, engaged, receptive — and the author appreciated their questions and clearly enjoyed answering. The house was full! We sold out of books! A great start to the series and to the season! And I'm still hearing from people who loved the evening and are loving the book.

Next Thursday (all Thursday events begin at 7 p.m.) is poet and essayist Fleda Brown, and on July 5 we’ll have travel writer Kim Schneider, and we’ll just keep going on from there, all through July and August.

Thoughts on Emily

I had to miss a discussion with friends Wednesday evening on the poetry of Emily Dickinson and ask forgiveness of the woman who would have been my hostess for the evening. But now, how many of my readers are Dickinson readers and/or fans? Some of her poems are well known and quite simple, but I was surprised (not ever having been an “English major”) by how difficult I found many of the unfamiliar pieces. A couple incomplete, random notions on the subject of her work are bouncing around in my head, though, and here they are: 

One friend e-mailed me last week or so that she needed a break from Emily, that there was just too much death and mourning in the poems, and there is a lot, which led me to thinking that death, always a major topic for poets, was particularly so in the 19th century. It was the poetic fashion, one might say. For example, one of my mother’s favorite poems was William Cullen Bryant’s “Thanatopsis,” written when the poet was only 17 years old. “So live, that when thy summons comes to join/The innumerable caravan which moves/To that mysterious realm where each shall take/His chamber in the silent halls of death….” Read the entire poem and see what you think of it. Is it depressing? Morbid? It doesn’t seem so to me. Rather, immersion in nature, along with thoughts of life’s brevity and death’s inevitability, seem both prescriptive and consolatory. And I see the same themes working out in Emily Dickinson’s poetry. People in that age lived closer to death on a daily basis than most Americans do today. We keep it at arm's length. But maybe we are the ones who have the morbid attitude?

My other thought — and this might be a bit far out — is that many of Dickinson’s poems remind me of the literary riddles so popular among the educated classes in the 18th and 19th centuries -- not the simple question riddles but those in the form of verse. In truth however, it is my compulsive re-reading of Jane Austen that brought the riddle idea to my mind when reading Dickinson. In Jane Austen’s Emma, one of the plot lines rests in part on the collection of “charades” that Emma encourages her young protegée, Harriet Smith, to put together. Could some of Emily Dickinson’s poems be riddles? Or is this a very naive and unliterary question to ask?

Anyway, I quite like all the flowers and bees in Emily’s poems. Lots of bees! Full of life, bees and flowers.

And now, Saturday morning, time to take to the road but also, I'm happy to realize, sufficient time to take the slow back roads to town, on my way to errands and another day in my bookstore. The world is lush and green and overflowing with life and death. It is a plenitude. We're here now. And today -- tonight -- is St. John's Eve.

I Couldn’t Slow Down With Emily, After All

What I plan to wear on Thursday evening

Summer kicked into high gear early this year, it seems. No sooner did our little reading circle, a.k.a. (originally, years ago) the intrepid Ulysses reading group, choose a date to discuss the poetry of Emily Dickinson than the first member’s conflict arose, to be followed by another, and another, and another…. So while I didn’t have a specific conflict, we were so far from a quorum already that I didn’t feel terrible saying I could ill afford a social evening.

I’m hoping Thursday evening will be cool enough for me to wear my old, worn, thrift shop quilted jacket (see above), the one that looks like someone’s great-grandmother made it (as is probably the case). It is the perfect attire in which to meet Rachel May, author of An American Quilt: Unfolding a Story of Family and Slavery, and introducing her to my Northport audience. The date is propitious, too, only two days after Juneteenth, the date commemorating the Emancipation Proclamation. And on that subject, let me say that I am concerned with proposed changes to school social studies standards for the State of Michigan.  

Sadly, this year Juneteenth (June 19), as well as my guest author’s appearance (June 21), come at a time when another group is suffering within our borders. As punishment for their attempt to enter the country — even those seeking asylum — parents have had their children taken from them, and children have been put in detention camps. True, this is not an entirely new development, but it seems to be worsening daily. And is it relevant that these camps are run by private companies, profiting from the misery of brown-skinned children? Is anyone else reminded of parents and children of enslaved Black people being separated? Of Native American children being forcibly removed from their families and put in residential schools?

First TEA guest in our summer series

But Rachel May’s story is not one of unrelieved misery. Some of the people whose history she uncovers were able to make the transition to freedom. She is also, besides being a researcher, teacher, and writer, a devoted quilter, as well, and I know she will be happy to talk about her quilting life, what she has learned about quilts and outstanding American quilters, and how her approach to the craft has changed over time. So, crafters and historians and anyone eager to learn, welcome to our first Thursday Evening Author event. We'll begin at 7 p.m., and I hope you’ll be able to join us. 

Random image unrelated to post

Old Dog … New Trick … Hmmmmm

The first Dog Ears dog, 1993-2007

We learned years ago in our household that an old dog is perfectly capable of learning a new trick. Our old dog, Nikki, was not the sharpest tool in the box. No matter. She was a stunning athlete, and she needed me. Then late in life, after many years with us, she accidentally pawed her water dish and flipped it over and was rewarded with having it immediately filled. Imagine our surprise when she took that lesson to heart and began to “flip her dish” whenever it was empty and she wanted to let us know it needed filling. "She flipped her dish! She figured something out!"

Another trick she learned even later was how to open a door. For years, even when a door was ajar, unless it was open wide enough to permit her passage, that dog would simply stand there, patiently, nose pointing in the direction she wanted to go, waiting for someone to push the door open for her. Then one day -- probably accidentally -- she pushed it herself. Hey, it worked! Success went to her head, and she pushed doors open many times in her remaining years. She even, to her dog dad’s dismay, learned to scratch at a door to request admittance. It was to my dismay that one oft-scratched door received a new coat of paint after my sweet girl was gone. 

Nikki and dog mom at Good Harbor, years ago

But this post isn’t really about dogs. It’s about me and my bookselling life. Twenty-five years in the trade, and I’ve never taken credit cards, but today I made my first credit card sale. Sigh! To say I was reluctant would be an understatement. To say I was apprehensive, again, would hardly cover the territory. But today I processed a sale with a credit card. 

So the old dog has learned a new trick. She has been dragged, at last, kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century. I’m not done with learning yet.

Me with Dog Ears dog 2, the beautiful Sarah

Seizing the Carp

Summer is a challenge for me, for us, every year. What is more lovely than a day in June — and how often does the grass in June need mowing! Home, yard, and bookstore:  each could use full-time attention and care. But even if I were three people for those jobs, there is no point in living somewhere beautiful and not taking time to soak in its beauty, no point in living surrounded by books and not taking time to read. 

The Artist shares some of my challenges and has a few others of his own. Sarah is neither job or diversion. She is simply Constant Companion, an integral part of our lives, always there, making few demands, providing endless comfort to us both.

Oh, loveliness of dog and books! We humans in the house, even when worn out by long days of work, sometimes find it difficult to sleep, minds chewing over tasks still undone. That’s when I get out of bed and into a book, escaping into someone else's world for a while. And so, overwhelmed recently (can one be “somewhat overwhelmed,” or is that an oxymoron?) by the rising tide of summer’s demands, I turned once again to Ellen Airgood’s South of Superior, reading it through for the fifth time. It’s good to visit that little Upper Peninsula town and spend time with my old friends there as they deal with the challenges in their lives — although these days I identify as much or more with old Gladys than with 35-year-old Madeline! 

No, I’m nowhere near Gladys’s age yet (85) but edging closer to her as the distance increases between me and thirty-five, Gladys and Madeline always 85 and 35, while I continue to age. But fictional Madeline has her challenges, and Gladys has hers, and so do Paul and Randi and little Greyson and everyone else in McAllaster, Michigan, on the shore of Lake Superior. By the time I reach the last page, most of the various characters have come to some kind of peace, but those who have learned the deeper lessons have also the sure knowledge that their peacefulness and ease is only a temporary resting place. More troubles will come and will have to be faced. More joys will also come. Life, that is, will continue to be interesting, always. Contented in a moment of ice-fishing, Madeline’s eyes on the dipping, quivering bobber, she “watched in anticipation for what would happen next.”

And that’s it. Moments of peacefulness. Summer or winter, spring or fall, out on the ice waiting for fish to bite or hanging laundry on the line in bright sunshine or walking in the northern woods or southwestern desert with a dog or sitting outdoors with friends at the end of a long, beautiful day. Carpe diem! Or, as we used to say in Leland (and as other people down the road there doubtless still say), “Seize the carp!”

When I woke at 3 a.m. the following night, I took Alexander McCall Smith’s Mma Ramotswe as my companion. In The Woman Who Walked in Sunshine, Mma Ramotswe takes a holiday from work and at first, finding herself at loose ends, she begins to speculate about how a black mamba snake might get into her kitchen and where it might hide.

She replaced the egg and gazed at the food cupboard, trying to remember when it was that she had last tidied it. Never, she thought, I have never tidied the food cupboard. The thought made her smile. How many women were there in Botswana walking about with the guilty knowledge that they had never tidied the food cupboard?

In my case, “never” would be an exaggeration, but “not for quite a while” would not. Should that task be undertaken today? Sigh! Must I?

Mma Ramotswe tidies her cupboard and then decides to meet friends for tea. That occasion is not a great success (too much gossip), but in the hotel parking lot, she encounters a small boy in need of rescue, a young boy living in the backyard of a woman who drinks and beats him and steals the coins he brings home from “watching” people’s cars for them in the parking lot. Such a person must not be allowed to victimize the boy further, and Mma Ramotswe is soon on her trail. The bad woman’s house, Mma Ramotswe discovers, was not well maintained, and 

…the yard was ill kempt, which spoke volumes, as it always did. If you did not keep your yard in reasonable order, then your whole life would be similarly untidy. A messy yard told Mama Ramotswe everything she needed to know about its owner.

One or two piles of cut and stacked invasive

Instantly I feel better! While Bruce was at the bookstore on Friday and I could have been tidying my cupboards (or cleaning out closets or scrubbing floors or washing windows), instead I had been out in the meadow, waging my annual war on autumn olive. I’ll never eradicate it — it is taking over the entire neighborhood, any and all bits of land that are not regularly tilled or mowed — but holding it at bay for as long as I’m here is important to me, and looking out now at the expanse cleared of its unwelcome presence gives me great satisfaction. The job isn’t finished, but another day or two should take care of it until next spring. 

I avoided another opportunity for housework by watering my straw bale garden and weeding and mowing grass in our outdoor dining area and around the straw bales. Our yard is not messy! Well, it has its cluttered corners (mostly in and around the old, dilapidated barns), but the general appearance is neat and welcoming and colorful with pots of flowers, and I would not be ashamed to have Mma Ramotswe drop by. I think she would focus on the bright, well-tended areas and understand that one woman — even one man and one woman, at our ages — cannot do everything we once did.

After rescuing the little boy and installing him in a safer, more congenial living arrangement at her friend Mma Potokwane’s Orphan Farm, Mma Ramotswe sings aloud as she drives her tiny white van back to town. She has met a challenge, it’s a beautiful day, and no matter if people in other cars think she is a lunatic, Mma Ramotswe is happy, and she will sing!

It was not a big change in the overall scale of things; it was not something that would be noted by more than a handful of people — at the most — but it was something to be pleased with, even to sing about.

I was happy to have the rest of the book to look forward to later, after morning housework and time spent with friends in the afternoon and before a full day of errands in town on Monday. 

Sometimes making a “mistake” means a day turns out better. I distinctly heard Sarah Shoemaker say that her letter to the New York Times Book Review would appear in the June 17 issue, so why did I rush down to Lake Leelanau as soon as NJ’s opened on Sunday morning, expecting to read Sarah’s letter on June 10? Well, am I glad for having jumped the gun in this case, for the sake of the book review section, because under the headline “Underrated and Unappreciated” was a review of a new book about President Jimmy Carter, a book the reviewer calls “a measured and compelling account,” one that considers Carter’s weaknesses along with his strengths. 

The author of President Carter: The White House Years, Stuart Eizenstat, and the book reviewer, Peter Baker, both seem to share my own view, which is that Jimmy Carter’s presidency has never been properly evaluated. Instead, policies that might very well have led us to a much better world than we find ourselves occupying today were largely undercut by the tone of his message. President Carter’s unflinching honesty compelled him to deliver bad news, hoping America would see its errors and change its ways, but it was the stick, not the carrot, a call to sacrifice, not “You can do it!” optimism. And so, while almost everyone admires him for his post-presidential work, his accomplishments in the White House are generally forgotten. Now comes President Carter: The White House Years from St. Martin’s Press to correct the national memory. It’s about time.

When President Carter’s energy report came out in the 1970s, I was working in a university office concerned with environmental issues and so had a chance to leaf through that weighty tome in our office library. Before that, while I’d voted for him, I hadn’t been excited by Carter’s presidency. That energy report changed my attitude. I was excited by his ideas for energy independence, even if it meant higher gas and oil prices during a transition, and I began paying closer attention to everything he said and did. When he arranged a Middle East Peace Conference at Camp David, I hoped to see conflict permanently resolved in Israel. In general, I noticed with nothing short of amazement that when President Carter gave a press conference, he actually tried to answer the questions asked rather than wiggle out of answering! Incredible!

Despite the unsettled weather an east wind always brings, Sunday was a lovely day. It brought work, and it brought friends. And at day’s end, tired and happy, I took up again The Woman Who Walked in Sunshine. 

Normally Mma Ramotswe would be up first and make tea for her still somnolent husband. This she would place on the dresser at the side of the bed before going out into the garden to inspect the plants, savour the crisp morning air, and watch the sun float up over the horizon.

In our house, it is coffee rather than tea in the morning, and Mma Ramotswe has no dog, but otherwise the morning routine in the novel pretty closely mirrors my own. (See above.) Another morning, another day. But first, the restfulness of a sweet, green June evening.

Book Review: TERRARIUM: NEW AND SELECTED STORIES

Fresh ARC in hand from a writer whose work I have long admired -- always exciting! 

Valerie Trueblood’s new collection, to be released on August 7 of this year, will be a joy to those encountering her work for the first time, as well as to her long-time admirers. To call the book a “joy,” however, is in no way to suggest escapist fiction. Far from it. New stories in the Terrarium section, like those from earlier collections and from her novel, Seven Loves, run the gamut in tone from quixotic to grim, but all are realistic and compelling. This writer’s characters are real people — dreaming, trying, stumbling, falling, and going on as long as they can.

In any collection, it’s difficult not to have favorites, and the story that hit me hardest in this new group was “Crisco.” In only four pages, the author weaves different strands together — the global world of spies and other news, a local high school basketball star, a young reporter, a beautiful killer horse, a baby given up for adoption, losses inflicted by a distant war —  to form a complete world. 

“She did talk about her work,” Madeline told me when I asked. “Who, what, when, where why.” Was that all? “Well, she said you have to do that in her job. Know what the story is. She said that to John when he was shy.” But how, that was my question, how do you know what the story is? And if you do, how do you pull it, like a Slinky in the toy bin, out of the mass of everything else?

The quote above comes from the middle of the story (nearly its geographical center), and the question recurs in the final paragraph, where the narrator suggests possible answers to “What is the story?” That list of possibilities was nearly enough to break this reader’s heart! As always with Trueblood’s writing, however, all remains simplicity, even the all-too-human confusion brought to the question — and this is a paradox, friends, not a contradiction. Again, realistic.

As a terrarium is a small, enclosed world, a miniature portion of earth, just so do many of the Terrarium stories show the author experimenting with more condensed pieces than appeared in her earlier short story collections, Search Party; Marry or Burn, and Criminals: Love Stories. One of the stories in the volume Criminals, “Sleepover,” almost feels like novella, whereas “Harvest,” in the new book, is a single paragraph, and neither, of course, is wrong. A story (like a poem) should be as long as it needs to be and no longer. It is Trueblood’s gift to have such an unerring feel for what is necessary and to pare away the rest.

I’ve been thinking once again in general about short stories, a recurrent subject of my bookseller musings, and it strikes me that the readers who most appreciate the form are other writers. Whether their own work is fiction, nonfiction, or poetry, long or short forms, writers are more aware than any other readers of the level of craft that short fiction (like poetry) demands. A novel may wander or digress, without injury, but the writer of short stories must deny herself that self-indulgent luxury. In a short story, every word has to count.

And here’s something else I noticed in the Terrarium stories. While not every question is answered and many puzzles are left unresolved, at any particular story’s last line I never had the feeling of having been pushed out of a speeding car and left on the side of the highway. I felt satisfied. Not necessarily in every case optimistic or relieved but always, in a literary sense, satisfied. 

Shall I add that dogs figure into many of the stories? Is that an extraneous, irrelevant detail? I have nothing like Valerie’s gift for writing, but her stories are gifts to all readers.