June 1, 2023

Five Nonfiction Books.

Six Novels.

No duds! Now that’s a good month. I should say, however, that I quickly discard a book, if it doesn’t engage me in the first few pages, so the chances of being disappointed by a book is less and less. I am sure I miss some books because of such fast judgment, but so many books, so little time is becoming more true with each birthday. Sometimes, however, I know a particular book just isn’t the right one at the moment, and I don’t discount returning to it at another time.

Thus, the reading adventure continues.

Fiction

Three of six novels read in May receive the “I couldn’t put it down.” rating

• The Cartographers by Peng Shepherd. I initially thought of this book as a good “palate cleanser” book after reading American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins, the first book I read in May and highly recommend. (See May 11, 2023 post ). I needed something lighter, but the further I read the more engrossed I became in the story, which focuses around a group of mapmakers, map experts. Much of the story is set in the New York Public Library, but also in a town that doesn’t exist. Mystery, some fantasy. A good summer read–and just out in paperback.
• The Whalebone Theatre by Joanna Quinn. I have not seen this on any other list and only heard about it through Minnesota Public Radio’s book newsletter, The Thread. I am so glad I was led to this book–even though there are so many books about WWI and WWII right now. The story is about three siblings (complicated–different fathers, different mothers) who grow up in rural England and are devoted to one another. One day a dead whale washes up on the shore and Christobel, the oldest, claims the skeleton and uses the bones to build an outdoor theater. She later becomes a spy in France. Well, the plot is involved, but I loved the characters and the writing was fresh and even at 50 pages kept moving.
• Homecoming by Kate Morton. I don’t know why, but I didn’t expect this book to be as good as it was. I think I expected a fluffier, more lightweight book, but I was impressed with how the story kept unfolding, revealing new facts, new information, new aspects of the characters. Set in Australia in two times–1959 and 2018. A mother and three of her children ( a 4th, a baby, is missing) are found dead at a picnic site. The same day the visiting sister-in-law, who is pregnant, has her baby early. In 2018 that woman is dying and her granddaughter Jess, who was raised by her, returns to Australia from England to be with her–and the story begins to unfold. Lots of secrets. I like this quote from close to the end:

Being old, he had come to realize, was like being stuck inside an enormous museum with hundreds of rooms, each crammed full of artifacts from the past.. He understood now why the elderly could sit, seemingly still and alone, for hours on end. There was always something else to take out, to look at from a fresh angle and become reacquainted with.

p.531

As mentioned earlier, I started the month reading American Dirt. I also read Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club by J. Ryan Stradal, a Minnesota author, and the book is set in Minnesota. The story is about a family, with emphasis on the women, who has owned a supper club for generations. A pleasant read. One other novel on the May list is Private Way by Ladette Randolph. Earlier this year I read and liked her memoir Leaving the Pink House. (March 30, 2023 post.) Set in Lincoln, Nebraska, I liked parts of Private Way very much, especially the references to reading Willa Cather’s books, but I thought the premise of the book–why the main character leaves her life in California and rents a home in Lincoln– a bit of a stretch. She learns much about herself along the way and develops key relationships, and I am not sorry I read it, but it was a bit uneven.

Nonfiction

The star on May’s nonfiction book is One Hundred Saturdays, Stella Levi and the Search for a Lost World by Michael Frank, which I wrote about in the May 18, 2023 post, but I can easily recommend four other titles.

• South to America, A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation by Imani Perry. A remarkable book. I didn’t always understand each of the references, especially related to music, but repeatedly I felt stunned by her insights and revelations. Perry examines specific states/cities in the South–a chapter on each– and in that way it reminded me of Clint Smith’s How The Word Is Passed (see December 1, 2022 post). No matter how much we know about the terror of slavery, more needs to be understood, along with the legacy of that time. This would be a good book to read in a group, one section at a time.
• Sacred Nature, Restoring Our Ancient Bond with the Natural World by Karen Armstrong. In her brilliance and her exhaustive research, Armstrong’s books are never easy reads, but worth the effort. This book looks not only at the dire straights we are in because of how we have separated ourselves from nature, but also the views of a variety of religions about nature. In Christianity and Judaism, nature hasn’t played much of a role, but that is not true in other traditions.
• Catching the Light by Joy Harjo. I am so attracted to her words, and this little book in the “Why I Write” series is no exception. I loved her memoir and also her book of 50 poems for 50 days. (See post on March 30, 2023.) Harjo writes to remember (“The old ones urge and remind us, remember. Remember to remember.” p. 42)–and we white privileged need to read about and understand the ways we colonizers have traumatized indigenous people.
• Lost and Found, Reflections on Grief, Gratitude, and Happiness by Kathryn Schulz. This is another book now full of my underlining. At times, I admit, I found the book a bit tedious–for example, when she wrote about how the last letter of the alphabet was not “Z,” but “&”. Interesting, but what most engaged me was the focus on the dying and death of her father and the finding of love. And then the “and” of life; how life goes on. Beautifully written, which is no surprise because she is a writer for The New Yorker. One quote out of so many I could share:

This type of circular mourning, the grieving of grief itself, is perfectly normal and possibly inevitable yet also misguided and useless. There is no honor in feeling awful and no betrayal in feeling better, and no matter how dark and salted and bitter cold your grief may be, it will never preserve anything about the person you mourn. Despite how it sometimes feels, it has never kept anyone alive, not even in memory. If anything, it keeps them dead: eventually, it you cannot stop mourning, the person you love will come to be made only of grief.

p. 67.

So now that it is June, summer reading begins. I have started The Postcard by Anne Berest. You can check out my thoughts about summer reading in my May 25, 2023 post. Happy Reading.

An Invitation

Did you read anything this past month that deserves the “I couldn’t put it down rating”? I would love to know.

May 4, 2023

Have you noticed I read far more fiction than nonfiction?

Part of the reason is, quite simply, that I prefer fiction. My first career was as an English teacher—reading novels and short stories and poetry, too, was just part of the deal. That preference has only grown throughout my life. Another reason relates to my reading routine. I often read a book related to spirituality during my meditation time, and I tend to read those books more slowly–perhaps, only a few pages in one sitting. Finally, one of my daily reading times is in bed before turning out the light, and many nonfiction books require more concentration than that posture allows. Most of the time I read a nonfiction book alongside a novel, but the novel is usually my first choice during my reading times.

This month I read three nonfiction books. Two were about aging. I have an extensive library of books about that topic, which is becoming more and more relevant in my own life, but I am also becoming more choosy about what I add to that collection. I decided to keep only one of the two I read in April and put the other in the basket for a Little Free Library.

• Alive Until You’re Dead, Notes on the Home Stretch by Susan Moore. Moore is a Buddhist and has written extensively about aging, challenging readers to be curious about this stage of life. I need to think more about her desire to “release my grip on my preferences. I wanted to stop worrying about whether what I was doing was the very thing that I most wanted to be doing.” (p. 23) I find myself thinking more and more about what it is I most want or most need to do; how I want to spend my time and energy, so Moore’s perspective interests me. The book includes an excellent chapter on practices to contemplate death, including walking in cemeteries, reading obituaries, and making a day of the dead altar. This book has found its place on my bookshelves.
• Growing Old, Notes on Aging with Something Like Grace by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas. I appreciate the author’s sense of humor and her common sense treatment of loss, including losing one’s hearing or keys and other things, along with losing significant people in one’s life, but the picture of her on the back cover lighting her cigarette with a birthday candle seemed inappropriate and not funny. I am not keeping this book.

The other nonfiction book I read was Enchantment, Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age by Katherine May. Perhaps you’ve read her earlier book, Wintering, The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times. I had intended to buy Enchantment, but before I did I spotted it on the Lucky Day shelf at the library. Lucky Day shelves hold current and widely requested books–just your luck to find one–but they can’t be renewed. By the time I was done reading it, the pages were dotted with colorful sticky tabs highlighting passages. I don’t often buy a book I have already read, but that’s exactly what I did in this case.

It occurs to me that I am resting. It is not the same as doing nothing. Resting, like this is something active, chosen, alert, something rare and precious. (p. 26)

I tend to think that God is not a person, but the sum total of all of us, across time. That only makes the imperative greater. We have a duty to witness the broad spectrum of humanity, rather than to defend our own corner of it. That is the work I crave: the sense of contact. The possibility that it might change me in ways that I can’t predict. The possibility that I might one day do better. (p. 100)

Play is a disappearance into a space of our choosing, invisible to those outside the game. It is the pursuit of pure flow, a sandbox mind in which we can test new thoughts, new selves. It’s a form of symbolic living, a way to transpose one reality onto another and mine it for meaning. Play is a form of enchantment. (p. 137)

April Fiction

I read nine novels in April and in earlier April posts wrote about three of them, each book memorable: Still True by Maggie Ginsburg and Women Talking by Miriam Toews https://wordpress.com/post/livingonlifeslabyrinth.com/1934 and Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano. https://wordpress.com/post/livingonlifeslabyrinth.com/1982

Out of the remaining six my least favorite was Maine by J. Courtney Sullivan. My main objection to the book, a family saga, is that the characters, mainly women, didn’t grow or change in any significant way. If these characters were real, I am not sure I would choose to spend time with them.

The other five were well worth reading, and I recommend each one.

• Astrid and Veronika by Linda Olsson. A friend recommended this book to me. (Thank you!) In fact, she has bought several copies and given them away as “must reads.” Set in Sweden, Veronika, whose fiancé has recently died in an accident, rents a home next to an older woman, Astrid, whom the village sometimes refers to as a witch. She prefers her solitary life. The two women gradually become close friends; a model of intergenerational relationships, I think. They share their pasts, hurts, secrets, and develop deep trust with one another. They often shared a meal together –a kind of sacred ritual. Veronika is a writer and there were many lovely passages about writing.

It was as if the story were a fragile cobweb, and she had to take the utmost care not to rip the thread…The words on the screen in front of her seemed to paint an almost forgotten landscape. It was as if she were slowly unpacking, pulling out one scene after another and exploding them to this bleak light. The effort was enormous. Here, now, each passage seemed out of place, like clothes bought on holiday.

pp. 17-18

One of my favorite passages is about change.

It is in the nature of things to change. Nothing can last beyond its given time. And I think instinctively we know what time is. What is it that makes us know when the summer turns? The smallest shift in the light? The slightest hint of chill in the morning air? A certain rustling of the leaves of the birches? That is how it is–suddenly, in the midst of the summer heat, you are overcome by a tightening of your heart. The realization that it will all come to an end. And that brings a new intensity to everything: the colours, the smells, the feeling of sunshine on your arm.

p. 72

Now I want to read Olsson’s back list.

• My Antonia by Willa Cather. I decided to sign up for a series of zoom events sponsored by the Willa Cather Foundation, https://www.willacather.org and the first book discussed was My Antonia. I needed to miss that conversation, unfortunately, but oh, how I loved reading this book again, my third time. The story is told by Jim Burden, who as a boy was orphaned and leaves Virginia to live with his grandparents in Nebraska. The day he arrives on the train so does a Bohemian immigrant family, the Shimerdas, including daughter, Antonia. Antonia’s spirit sustains her, and she is loved by all who know her. She is not the only character in the book, however, who displays a hardworking and resilient nature, hopeful and strong.

The landscape is a major character, too, and reading the descriptions made me want to drive to the prairie right now.

As I looked about me I felt that the grass was the country, as the water is the sea. The red of the grass made all the great prairie the colour of wine-stains, or of certain seaweeds when they are first washed up. And there was so much motion in it, the whole country seemed, somehow, to be running…I felt motion in the landscape, in the fresh, easy-blowing morning wind, and in the earth itself, as if the shaggy grass were a sort of loose hide, and underneath it herds of wild buffalo were galloping, galloping…

pp. 17-18

One of my favorite books of all time is Giants in the Earth by O. E. Rolvaag, another immigrant story, and I am drawn after reading My Antonia to reading that once again. I read someplace that books are like nesting dolls–one leads to another. How true that seems.

• Writers and Lovers by Lily King. I had read this before and didn’t much care for it, but recently I heard a conversation about it and decided to re-try it. This time I really liked it, which goes to show how much mood and timing enter into an assessment of a book. Casey is a struggling writer living in a potting shed (!) and her awful landlord says to her, “I just find it extraordinary that you think you have something to say.” (p. 2). She becomes involved with two men–one, a writer her age and the other, older and a successful writer with children who adore her. How will it turn out?
• I Have Some Questions For You by Rebecca Makai. I loved her earlier book, The Great Believers, and I am happy to say I really liked this one, too. Bodie returns to teach at the boarding school where she was once a student –and where her roommate was murdered. She becomes obsessed with investigating this murder, convinced the man convicted was not guilty. There are lots of threads in this book, but Makai is a deft writer, preventing confusion for the reader. A couple favorite lines;

“When my husband passed,” Sheila said, “it was like losing the bookend to a row of books. We all tipped over sideways.”

p. 82

Not a single cell of his body was the same as it had been in 1995. But he was still himself, just as I was still, despite everything, my teenage self. I had grown over her like rings around the core of a tree, but she was still there.

p. 418

• The Last Painting of Sara DeVos by Dominic Smith. A good novel about an art restoration expert, a young woman, and the man who owns the painting she forges. The original was painted by a Dutch woman in the 1600s. The art forger and the art collector develop a relationship (of course!), but it is told beautifully and not stereotypically. They meet again 40 years later when the painting is part of an exhibit. Good story. Good writing.

Wow–that’s a lot of books to share! Hope this didn’t detract too much from your reading time. Perhaps your TBR has just grown, however.

An Invitation

Any recommendations from April? I would love to know.

April 20, 2023

Sitting on a balcony in beautiful Door County, WI, reading a stunning book–what could be better than that? Well, maybe a balcony with a water view, but no whining allowed.

So far the books I’ve read this month have all been worthwhile, even memorable. I wrote about two of them in an earlier post this month, Still True by Maggie Ginsberg and Women Talking by Miriam Toews, and in my April summary on Thursday, May 4 I will share the other titles. I couldn’t wait, however, to tell you about Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano.

I loved the characters, even when I didn’t like them. Sometimes I wanted them to be something more than who they were, but I admired the growth and the recognition of the pain they held within themselves.

I loved the writing, the impeccable sentences, and the fullness of the descriptions without being overwrought.

I loved the pace of the plot, Not too slow. Not too fast.

I loved that each chapter focused on one of the characters. The point of view, third person narrator, stayed the same, but somehow I experienced each person’s perspective.

I loved the overwhelming love, the humanity of that love, so tenderly, but sometimes so fiercely expressed. Powerful, redemptive, heartbreaking love. At times as a reader I wanted them to relax into that love.

Loosely based on Little Women, with emphasis on the word “loosely,” the characters have their times of being Beth or Meg or Jo or Amy. And there is a Laurie, too, in the character of William. We are absorbed into this family of sisters who don’t seem to need others until they do. A friend who loaned me her copy of the book said it made her envious of women who have sisters, and it made me think a bit more about my mother who was the oldest of four sisters and what her reaction to this book might have been.

Ok, the plot: William Waters grew up almost invisible in his own family when his parents could not cope with tragedy. He found solace in basketball and then in the love of Julia, the oldest sister. As each sister discovers her own identity and as William experiences a mental breakdown, all are forced to change and meet new challenges. I don’t want to say more.

A Few Favorite Passages

Julia experiencing the birth of her child:

She was a mother. This identity shuddered through her, welcome like water to a dry riverbed. It felt so elemental and true that Julia must have unknowingly been a mother all along, simply waiting to be joined by her child. Julia had never felt like this before. Her brain was a gleaming engine, and her resources felt immense. She was clarity. (p. 107)

They were dismantling their habits and routines, and it was like pulling up floorboards and finding joy underneath. (p. 349)

At their father’s wake, a young paper-factory worker said, It’s impossible he’s gone. And that man had been right–that had been an impossible loss…But perhaps what felt impossible was leaving that person behind. When your love for a person’s so profound that it’s part of who you are, then the absence of the person becomes part of your DNA, your bones, and your skin…the losses ran like a river inside her. (pp. 360-361)

“When an old person dies,” Kent said, “even if that person is wonderful, he or she is still somewhat ready, and so are the people who loved them. They’re like old trees, whose roots have loosened in the ground. They fall gently. But when someone dies…–before her time–her roots get pulled out and the ground is ripped up. Everyone nearby is in danger of being knocked over.” (p. 371)

Independent Bookstore Day is coming up on April 29. This would be a good book to purchase then. I guarantee there is already a long “Hold” list at your library, so unless you have the patience of Job or can borrow a copy from someone else who has had the wisdom to buy it, buy yourself a copy.

An Invitation

What book is tempting you these days? I would love to know.

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April 6, 2025

Welcome April 1! This was the view out our front door Saturday morning. Not only that, but we had no power for most of the day. What to do? Read, of course.

The sun was pouring into the snug, giving me plenty of light. I wrapped up in a blanket and read and read and read. In fact, I finished one book and most of another, and they were both excellent.

Still True by Maggie Ginsberg was a recommendation several months ago in the newsletter of one of my favorite bookstores, Arcadia Books in Spring Green, WI. https://www.readinutopia.com Ginsburg is a senior writer at Madison Magizine, but I hope she leaves enough time to write a second novel, for this one is stellar. You may recall that one of my favorite books of 2022 was Beneficence by Meredith Hall. Well, this book needs to sit on the shelf next to Beneficence. https://wordpress.com/post/livingonlifeslabyrinth.com/774

The plot is fairly complicated, as I think about explaining it, but as I read, it didn’t feel that way. I think that says a great deal about the polished, smooth and compelling writing. Secrets, lies, grace are all themes in this story about a devoted, long-time married couple, Jack and Lib, who don’t live in the same house. Also, key to the story is Charlie, a young boy who has recently moved to Anthem, WI with his parents, and he becomes Jack’s buddy. Enter Matt who is Lib’s son, whom she left when he was baby. This is news to Jack. And Matt becomes involved with Charlie’s mother. See what I mean? Just read the book and ponder the questions, What is truth? What is true? Are some lies worse than others?

Maybe this is what grace felt like. Maybe the best things were too big and good to be understood. maybe what was holy, by definition, couldn’t be truly comprehended by mortal man. Maybe that was what he’d always sensed in the two of them, and in everything they held dear: that together they were so much bigger than the sum of their respective working parts.

p. 270

Women Talking by Miriam Toews is the book that inspired the award-winning recent movie by the same name. Read the book. See the movie. Both are excellent. The novel is based on a true story about a Mennonite community in Columbia, South America. The women, who have not been allowed to learn how to read, have been sexually-abused, and they struggle with a decision — to do nothing, to stay and fight, or to leave. These women may not be able to read, but they can think, and their deliberations will challenge and impress the ethicists, philosophers, and theologians of the world. They struggle with what they have been taught, with what the men have told them is in the Bible, as they clarify three things they are entitled to. “We want our children to be safe…We want to be steadfast in our faith…We want to think.” p. 153. One of the women says,

I believe that my soul, my essence, my intangible energy, is the presence of God within me, and that by bringing peace to my soul, I am honoring God.

p. 109

The author, by the way, was raised Mennonite and left her family at the age of 18.

I think my April reading is off to a good start. Now, if only the snow would melt.

An Invitation

What books have you read recently that challenged your thinking? I would love to know.

March 30, 2023

I know here it is only the 30th and there are 31days in March, but I am eager to enter April, so why not post the summary of this month’s reading now. And what a month it has been!

NONFICTION

I finished two books I mentioned in a previous posts this month.

• The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee, Native America from 1890 to the Present by David Treuer. I read it slowly, trying to absorb facts, and stories, and reflections. Such an important book. Perhaps the section that most fascinated me was the detailed analysis, which he included near the end of the book, about the protests at Standing Rock. Don’t be deterred by the length of the book, for it is well-worth the time and energy you give it.
• Weaving Sundown in a Scarlet Light, 50 Poems for 50 Years by Joy Harjo. I loved many of the poems, but I also loved her notes about each of the poems, their content, inspiration, and often the mechanics of the poem, also. Such a good companion this was to the David Treuer book. April is National Poetry Month, and I recommend this book as a way to celebrate poets and poetry.

I also read two other books in the broad nonfiction category. One is a book of meditations and the other, a memoir.

• Embers, One Ojibway’s Meditations by Richard Wagamese (1944-2017). A beautiful book in appearance and in its short reflections. I read a few pages in this book each morning during my meditation time. The author says morning meditation is his time to reclaim himself, and I concur with that sentiment. The book is divided into seven sections: Stillness, Harmony, Trust, Reverence, Persistence, Gratitude, and Joy. He writes this in the very first meditation:

I am my silence. I am not the busyness of my thoughts or the daily rhythm of my actions. I am not the stuff that constitutes my world. I am not my talk. I am not my actions. I am my silence. I am the consciousness that perceives all these things. When I go to my consciousness, to that great pool of silence that observes the intricacies of my life, I am aware that I am me. I take a little time each day to sit in silence so that I can move outward in balance into the great clamour of living.

p. 15

• Leaving the Pink House by Ladette Randolph. This book made me nostalgic about living in the country during our years at Sweetwater Farm. Randolph and her husband buy a dilapidated house outside of Lincoln, Nebraska, and she describes the year spent renovating it and making it habitable, but she also reflects on the years that led to this decision and about changes in her faith along the way;. Randolph refers to herself as a “devotee of the quotidian,” and her writing draws us into her daily sights and experiences.

I best understand my life through the houses where I’ve lived. I have only to remember a particular house to summon clear memories of a given time and place. Like many adults, I’ve returned to those places–both in memory and in person–seeking from this exercise I’m not sure what: some part of myself, some time in the past I want to better understand. Houses are often the archives for my deepest, most resonant memories, the places where I’ve curated life stories.

from Introduction

FICTION

I read ten novels this month, and will highlight five of them.

• Afterlife by Julia Alvarez. Perhaps you read some of her earlier books, including How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents or In the Time of the Butterflies. If so, you know what a good writer she is. Antonia’s family, which includes her three sisters, immigrated from the Dominican Republic. Antonia is now 66, a widow, and poet and English professor. Her eldest sister, who is mentally unstable, disappears and the sisters rally to try and find her. At the same time Antonia becomes involved with a teenage unwed mother who is undocumented, and along the way Antonia faces her own “dragons.”
• The Swimmers by Julia Otsuko. What starts as a playful writing style and content (Has one writer ever used so many parenthetical phrases and done it so effectively?) becomes a poignant view of a dementia patient in a memory care unit. Alice is a faithful swimmer, but when the pool closes for good, her issues become more unmanageable. Sad and revealing and well-written.
• Island of the Missing Trees by Elif Shafak. A treasure of a book. Set in Cyprus in the 1970s and then again in 2000s and also in London, a Turkish woman and Greek man fall in love, but are separated, eventually reuniting. They have a daughter Ada who in her teens mourns the death of her mother. Her mother’s sister plays a role in helping Ada heal and also fills in the blanks of her parents’ lives. The father, Kostas, has brought a fig tree with him to London from Cyprus, and the fig tree tells its own story. I know this seems strange, but I believed in the fig tree just as much as the human characters.
• What Are You Going Through? by Sigrid Nunez. A woman dying of cancer ask a friend to be with her as she plans to take life-ending drugs. The woman is estranged from her daughter and has asked others to be with her, but all have said “no.” The friend, more of a distant friend from previous times in their lives, does agree, however, and they become closer and closer. The story is written from the friend’s point of view, but she relays everything the woman tells her. Brilliantly written.
• The White Lady by Jacqueline Winspear. Many of us eagerly wait for the next book in the Maisie Dobbs series. Well, we need to wait longer, for this new book by Winspear is a stand-alone, but definitely a good read. The main character, Elinor White, however could be Maisie Dobbs’ soul sister, for she is also courageous, compassionate, and intelligent. White was a spy both in WWI and then again in WWII, and she carries demons with her during her retirement years in an English village. She is drawn out of her quiet life to help a neighboring family who want to remain separate from the husband’s organized crime family.

Waiting for me are two books from the library, Still True by Maggie Ginsburg and Women Talking by Marian Toews. I saw the acclaimed movie,Women Talking, and now am eager to read the book.

An Invitation

What have you read this last month? I would love to know.

March 23, 2023

I suppose you could accuse me of milking the situation, for I just had a cold. Nothing serious. We all get colds, but my end of the week schedule was quite open, and I certainly didn’t want to spread my germs, so I declared a time-out. I moved into the snug with books and a blanket and spent most of two days reading and napping, napping and reading. Voila! I am back to normal!

Here’s my report:

• At the beginning of each reading session I read a poem or two in Joy Harjo’s Weaving Sundown in a Scarlet Light, 50 Poems for 50 Years. Harjo was the Poet Laureate of the United States from 2019-2022. My favorite poem so far is “Remember” and here are the opening lines:

Remember the sky you were born under,
know each of the star's stories.
Remember the moon, know who she is.
Remember the sun's birth at dawn, that is the
strongest point of time. Remember sundown
and the giving away to night.

• I finished reading a novel The Long-Shining Waters by Danielle Sosin. In this case the waters refers to Lake Superior in all its mystery, majesty, power and beauty. Sosin tells the story of three different women in three different time periods, 1622, 1902, and 2000. One of the women owned a bar on the North Shore and after the bar burns down she decides to drive all round the perimeter of the lake, and now I want to do that. I admit some of the descriptions seemed obscure to me, but perhaps I need to spend more time under the lake’s spell.
• I continued reading The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee, Native America from 1890 to the Present by David Treuer. Much of Louise Erdrich’s lecture that we attended recently focused on the Termination Act of 1953, which Treuer describes in this way:

It proposed to fix the Indian problem once and for all by making Indians–legally, culturally, and economically–no longer Indians at all.

p. 250

Under termination and relocation, unemployment skyrocketed and so did the number of Indians living under the poverty line. By 1970 half of all the Indians lived in urban areas, the single largest demographic and cultural shift in Indian country in a century and arguably more pervasive and transformative than the reservation system established in the mid-nineteenth century. A total of 1, 365, 801 acres of land were removed from trust status during this period and twelve thousand Indians lost their tribal affiliation

p.278

• Finally, I read a short novel, The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka. The story begins in a playful way about swimmers at an underground pool. The writer’s use of parentheses engaged me, as if in conversation with her.

The rules at the pool, though unspoken are adhered to by all (we are our own best enforcers): no running, no shouting, no children allowed. Circle swimming only (direction counterclockwise, always keeping to the right of the painted black line). All Band-Aids must be removed. No one who has not taken the compulsory two-minute shower (hot water, soap) in the locker room may enter the pool. No one who has an unexpected rash or open wound may enter the pool (the menstruating among us, however, are excepted). No one who is not a member of the pool may enter the pool. Guests are permitted (no more than one per member at a time), but for a nominal daily fee.

p. 6

One of the swimmers, Alice is in the early stages of dementia and one of the rules is to “be nice to Alice.”

And even though she may not remember the combination to her locker or where she put her towel, the moment she slips into the water she knows what to do. Her stroke is long and fluid, her kick is strong, her mind clear. “Up there,” she says, “I’m just another little old lady. But down here, at the pool, I’m myself.”

p. 4

When the pool unexpectedly closes, life changes for Alice. As does the tone of the book –from playful to poignant. Alice’s dementia progresses, and it is necessary to place her in a memory care unit. Life at Bellavista pulls at the heart, as well as this trauma faced by Alice’s husband and their daughter, a reality facing so many. So well-written, but I am glad it was not longer than its 175 pages.

Before I emerged from the snug, I started another novel, The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafek. So far very good, but you will have to wait for a full report in a later post.

An Invitation

What would you want to read if you had a cold? I would love to know.

February 2, 2023

I was in a bit of a reading slump towards the end of January. It may not look that way on paper, but I rejected several books I started and just couldn’t immerse myself in what I thought I wanted to read. Why was that I wonder? Is it because the first books I read this year, which I wrote about in earlier posts, were so good, and finding something to meet that quality just didn’t happen? Or was I simply preoccupied with other tasks? and activities that took lots of energy? Or am I building energy for something new? Am I in some sort of shifting sands time?

I’m not sure it matters, for I still read a good pile of books.

During the deepest part of COVID many people who had considered themselves devoted readers had a hard time focusing on books. That didn’t happen to me. There have been other times in my life, however, when I’ve not been able to concentrate on reading in the way that had always been normal for me. Mainly, those have been times of grief and loss, and I am paying attention to that.

January’s Last Two Books

1. I decided to re-read Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway. I can’t remember the first time I read it, but I think it was sometime post-college and probably early motherhood years. I have a vague memory of immersing myself in her books then, experiencing especially the power and relevancy of A Room of One’s Own. I often think of that when I walk up the stairs to my garret. What a privileged person I am. This time I read Mrs Dalloway for the beauty and breadth and depth of the language. Her writing makes me very aware of the importance of commas! This is a book I wish I had studied in a class, as a way to explore the layers and the layering of characters and the times they lived in.
2. Bomb Shelter, Love, Time and Other Explosives by Mary Laura Philpott is a book of essays. Philpott characterizes herself as a worrier, but at the same time someone who believes that “as long as she cared enough, she could keep her loved ones safe.” So much for theories: Philpott’s teenage son is diagnosed with epilepsy. And life goes on in all its joys and sorrow, fears and acceptances.

There will always be threats lurking under the water where we play, danger hiding in the attic and rolling down that street on heavy wheels, unexpected explosions in our brains and our hearts and the sky. There will always be bombs, and we will never be able to save everyone we care about. To know that and to try anyway is to be fully alive. The closest thing to shelter we can offer one another is love, as deep and wide and in as many forms as we can give it.

p. 268

Now it is time to go through my TBR list and request from the library whatever most tempts me. And I will stand in front of one or more of my own bookshelves and listen to a call, “Reread me!” I’ll let you know what rises to the top.

An Invitation

What kind of a reading month did you have? I would love to know.

January 12, 2023

It is only January 10, and I have already read a book that for sure will be on my Favorite Books of 2023 list: The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell.

This is the first book I read in the new year, and it sets the standard high for my reading life this year. (An Aside: The second book was The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles and while it doesn’t surpass The Marriage Portrait, it is good, very good, indeed.)

Lucrezia is a young noble girl in 1550’s Florence, daughter of the grand duke, and she finds herself married to another duke after her older sister dies. She is intelligent, curious, an amazing artist, imaginative, active, not passive, but her role in life is to produce an heir. Her husband shows tenderness and care for her, but…

He bends at the waist and, sliding a hand around her neck, stoops and presses his lips to hers–a brief, emphatic pressure. It reminds her of her father, bringing is seal down on top of a document, marking it as his.

p. 138

The characters are well-developed, as is the setting. The writing is impeccable, and as for the plot, well, I felt my heart race as I read the last few pages.

I have read other books by O’Farrell, including her memoir I Am, I Am, I Am; Seventeen Brushes with Death, and she is a writer who clearly gets better and better with each book. I remember not being excited about reading her 2020 book, Hamnet, which was about Shakespeare’s wife and young son. That was probably because as a decades ago English major and teacher, I read so much Shakespeare, but the book was a gift and all the reviews were excellent, so…. Needless to say, I loved it. Now I think I will add Hamnet to my re-read list.

Now I am reading a fun palate cleanser, Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Rayburn.

An Invitation

What’s your first book of 2023? I would love to know.

January 6, 2023

I read a lot in December–not my usual December activity, but, thanks to a crummy cold, I spent more time curled up with good books. VERY good books.

I’ve already written about the latest Louise Penny book, A World of Curiosities, which I loved, and I re-read her first book, Still Life, but the month was full of other book delights, too.

Nonfiction

• Faces of Christmas Past by Bill Holm. A friend loaned me this charming memoir written by a Minnesota author who was a frequent guest on Prairie Home Companion. He died in 2009. The premise of this short book was writing the annual Christmas letter, whose purpose is to declare, “I am alive, it says, still on the planet. I have not forgotten you. The thread, whether of blood, nostalgia, or friendship, that sews us together has not been cut.” p. 15.
• Let Evening Come, Reflections on Aging by Mary C. Morrison. I re-read this book before leading a conversation about what those of us 55+ hold in our hearts. Full of wisdom, simply, beautifully stated.

Mystery–it is all around us, and we do not know it. But sometimes when we give it time and space, whether in deep peace or great anguish, it will come up behind us, or meet us face to face, or move within us, changing the way we see everything, and filling our hearts with joy and an upbringing of love that needs no direct object because everything is its object.

p. 87

• A Place in the World, The Meaning of Home by Frances Mayes. Best known for Under the Tuscan Sun, a bestselling book that also became a movie, Mayes writes so evocatively about creating and being in home. Reading this book made me think about the many homes I’ve lived in and loved and how hometending remains a key spiritual practice in my life. Mayes says, “My house became my icon” (p. 126), and I understand and identify with that.

Fiction

• The Girl Who Reads on the Metro by Christine Ferat-Fleury. This small, one-sitting book is a love letter to books and reading and matching people to the right book at the right time, along with the power books hold to change one’s life.
• Wild Geese by Margaret Ostenso. I love it when I am led to an author from the past whom I’ve not known about. Ostenso, originally from Canada lived much of her life in Minnesota, and this book, a psychological and sexual drama, caused quite a sensation when published in 1925. The patriarch of a family on the Canadian plains controls his family, always threatening to expose his wife’s secret of an out-of-wedlock child. Written beautifully, this would be a terrific book club selection.
• The Ski Jumpers by Peter Geye. I have enjoyed other books by this author, such as Wintering, and I am glad I read this one, too. However, at times I was irritated by the ongoing barroom scenes and sometimes the chronology was confusing, but the characters intrigued me–the brothers who followed in their father’s footsteps and became ski jumpers at early ages. We meet them as grown men–one has become a writer–and many secrets are revealed along the way.
• No Land to Light On by Yard Zgheib. I was so impressed with this book about the plight of refugees in this country that I gave a copy to our college granddaughter for Christmas, and I am eager to hear what she thinks about it. A Syrian grad student at Harvard married another Syrian who returns to Syria for his father’s funeral and then because of the presidential order is not allowed to return to this country. I’m not sure what I feel about the ending. Read it and let me know your thoughts.
• Joan is Okay by Weike Wang. A young female of Chinese descent is a physician in NYC right before the pandemic. Working in the ICU is the totality of her life. At first she just seemed quirky to me, but the book becomes more serious as it explores immigration, relationships between generations, and the role of women.
• The Love of My Life by Rosie Walsh. I was sucked in to this book almost on the first page. SECRETS!!! The wife in the couple has much in her past that her husband knows nothing about, but as an obituary writer for a newspaper he begins to question some contradictions. The author keeps the reader guessing in a masterful way.
• The Good Left Undone by Adriana Trigiani I have not read any of this author’s previous books, but may in the future, for she tells a good family saga. The story is set in both Italy and Scotland mainly around the years of WWII. The family background is unveiled as the matriarch is dying.
• Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver. I received this book for Christmas, and if that had not been under the tree for me, I would have bought it the next day. What a book! No surprise–the writing is lush, and if I had started underlining favorite lines, the whole book would be a pink mess. David Copperfield by Dickens inspired this story of a boy who suffers terribly as a foster child in Appalachia. Sometimes the subject matter makes it hard to read–he was always hungry, for instance–but don’t stop. This character and his desire to love and be loved made me continue turning the page. And the Big Picture message about poverty and opioid addiction and stereotypes about a region in this country are profound. This book definitely needs to be added to my favorites of 2022 list.
• Lucy By the Sea by Elizabeth Strout. As lush as Kingsolver’s writing is, Strout’s sentence structure is simple and clear. I read this in one day, but that doesn’t mean it is a simple book. The time period is the pandemic and Lucy’s former husband decides they should move together from NYC to Maine. Lucy is grieving the loss of her second husband who died just a year ago, and her adult daughters are going through their own struggles. This book can be read without reading the previous books in which these characters are developed, (My Name is Lucy Barton and Oh, William!) but do read the trio. Strout wrote the books Olive Kitteridge and Olive, Again, too and that character is mentioned in this recent book. You get a whole family and community when you read Strout books.

Not that it matters, but I am often asked about the number of books I read in a year. This year I read 150 books–101 fiction and 49 nonfiction. But who’s counting! In 2021 I read 120 books. Why the increase? Well, I will think about it and let you know, if I come up with a theory.

Here we are in January and a whole year of reading is ahead. My TBR list continues to grow, especially since I just received the most recent copy of BookWomen http://www.bookwomen.net with its list of ‘best reads” submitted by readers, including me. I am moving slowly into 2023, but this coming week I will return to my normal Book Report days on Thursday.

An Invitation

Did you receive any book gifts this past month? I would love to know.