Review and quotes: MR. MERCEDES

Title: Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King

Book Beginning quote:

Friday56 quote:

Summary: Bill Hodges is an overweight, retired cop with too much time on his hands. Daytime TV is about his only activity. His inertia has caused him to reflect on his life and has found it lacking. Maybe he should just do himself in. He has a gun, after all. Then one day he gets a letter in the mail from the Mercedes killer, one of the few cases unsolved at the time of his retirement. In it the killer taunts Hodges and encourages him to commit suicide. Suddenly Hodges has a renewed raison d'etre-- to catch the SOB. He can't do it himself, however, and he doesn't want to report what he knows to his old friends at the police station, so he gets help from two unlikely people---his seventeen-year-old neighbor and Holly Gibney, the cousin of his first client, Janey Patterson. The trio succeed against all odds.

Review: I wouldn't call myself a Stephen King fan. I just can't read horror fiction because I get too frightened. When I read a review of Mr. Mercedes by Sue at Book by Book I thought that it sounded like a King book I could read---a mystery with a old cop as the private eye. I read somewhere that the Bill Hodges trilogy, of which Mr. Mercedes is the first book, is King's first foray into the mystery genre. I don't know that for a fact, but if it is there is now proof that Stephen King can write anything if he wants to and write it well.
      The first half of the book is populated mainly with Bill Hodges and his initial detective efforts, and with Brady, the psychopathic Mercedes killer who is clearly upset that Hodges doesn't want to kill himself. We learn a lot about both characters and what makes them tick. At one point Hodges is given a fedora by his client. He is told to wear it with a jaunty dip. The hat seems to be a literary nod to all the old time private detectives of previous generations like Philip Marlow in The Big Sleep. At about the midway point in the book the fedora is burned up. From that point forward King takes the plot on a different trajectory, as if he is saying goodbye to his old counterparts who wouldn't have taken the plot to such extremes in the early days of the genre. In Mr. Mercedes, Bill Hodges starts to shrink while his other protagonists grow. Holly Gibney is a quirky, off-beat character and an unlikely hero. Her role in the book was especially refreshing and I hope to meet her again in another King book, maybe the second book in this series.
     My husband, daughter, and I listened to the audiobook version of Mr. Mercedes as we traveled to a family gathering last week. It is expertly read by Will Patton, a favorite audiobook voice actor. He has a deep, gravely voice which adds texture to the written word. Before we left on the trip I had cued up three audiobooks for us to choose from. The three of us settled on Mr. Mercedes because Stephen King is known for his riveting writing. And, boy, was it riveting. By the time we got home we still had over two hours of the book left to finish. Our daughter finished listening on her plane ride back to San Francisco. Don and I sat in our family room together listening with rapt attention to the book's climax and conclusion. I had to laugh when I saw this quote from the review in the Sarasota Herald Tribune, "A full-throttle sprint to the finish; the last eighty pages cannot be doled out over multiple reading sessions. You'll have to swallow them in one gulp." That was us, swallowing the last of the book in one gulp, listening to it late at night in a darkened room. We were pretty sure that Bill Hodges would live--he has a sequel with his name on it--but we had no idea what would happen to everybody else. Gulp!
     Now that I'm a fan of the Bill Hodges trilogy I should note that there is a TV series about him. Guess I'd better check that out, too. After, that is, I read the next two books in the series.

Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Rose City Reader. Share the opening quote from current book.
The Friday56 is hosted at Freda's Voice.  Find a quote from page 56 to share. 
Visit these two websites to participate. Click on links to read quotes from books other people are reading. It is a great way to make blog friends and to get suggestions for new reading material.   

Mr. Mercedes qualified for this challenging with 431 pages

-Anne

Thoughts on my Classics Club participation

Several years ago I joined a blogging community called the Classics Club. Members are asked to create a list of 50 Classic books they'd still like to read and then post reviews on the site as those books are completed. I consumed very few classics in my early years and thought this was a great opportunity for me to catch up on all those books everyone else has read.

My initial list was longer than 50 books because I was so exuberant to make up for lost time. In fact, I found myself adding many more books to the list each year than I was actually reading. I would read lists of the best books ever published and then add and add more and more books to my list. It was ridiculous, actually, because I was spending much more time reading about the books than I was reading the books.

The first books I actually did read, however, were found in the textbook room of my school's library. I thought. as the only librarian at the school, I should at least know the books we asked students to read. So I dug into The Great Gatsby, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, A Brave New World, The Lord of the Flies, Bless Me Ultima and Fahrenheit 451. I reread To Kill a Mockingbird. As I shelved my library books I found other books: Lolita, The Phantom Tollbooth, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, A Tree Grow in Brooklyn, The Bell Jar, and many others. I was on a roll, reading more classics in a few years than I had read the whole rest of my life. And by and large I came to understand what all the fuss was about, why these books were considered 'classics.' I even made a stab at linking my reviews onto the Classics Club website, a process I found cumbersome.

Sometime in 2014 (I'm guessing) I discovered the Classic Club's SPIN events. These events happen three or four times a year. Participants are asked to create a numbered list of twenty books from their still unread classic list. On a given day a number is announced and the corresponding book on the participants list is their SPIN selection. A deadline for completion and the encouragement to post a review on the site helped me stay on track. I loved SPINs. I would pour over my list of twenty choices, creating what I thought would give me a perfect chance at reading the best classics. And indeed I did read some gems: One Hundred Years of Solitude, A Woman in White, The Yearling, Great Expectations, A Good Man is Hard to Find and Other Stories, and The Age of Innocence. Along the way I also ran into some real clunkers too: The Wide Sargasso Sea, The Name of the Rose, My Brilliant Career, and Winesburg, Ohio. I even reread a book I loved in my childhood, Little Women, and found it preachy and not nearly as endearing as I remembered. I labored for over six months to complete East of Eden for one SPIN session, way past the deadline for completion. I ended up admiring the book a lot but it took months until I even thought I could finish the thing. Another choice, So Big, was so bland I honestly didn't care if I finished it or not. My interest in the project was starting to wane, probably precipitated by a batch of recent SPIN clunkers..

Along the way I kept updating my list, adding and subtracting titles. When I started reading through past Pulitzer Prize winners for another project, I added several titles onto the Classics list so I could kill two birds with one stone. Books which aren't really 'classics' went onto the list because they were prize winners or were published over 50 years ago, then I added a few which were published only 40 years ago, maybe thirty five. Clearly things were starting to get out of hand. 

A few months ago (in COVID time it was probably six months ago but I've lost all track of normal time) I took a hard look at my Classics Club list and pared it down considerably. For authors I thought I should read I listed 'Something by' their name rather than specific titles. I lobbed off books which no longer interested me. At last count I only have 43 books to go to complete my current list. I have no idea what my original list held since I kept amending it without preserving the previous one. According to the list I have read 55 classics since I started the project, going back about ten years. Not too bad. I certainly have read books I never would have read had I not been a participant in the Classics Club. No one is grading me and I don't have to compare myself to other members who are reading many more titles than me.

This past Sunday was the date of another SPIN. I wasn't home so I didn't peek at the number until I created yet another list of twenty titles I'd still like to read. The winner from my list, number 18, is Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway. I am not sure why, but I felt disappointed in the choice. Why did I even put it on the list if I don't really want to read it? Actually I think it is 'the grass is greener' syndrome. I look at the unchosen other nineteen books and think they look better. Ha! I likely will make a stab at Mrs. Dalloway, but won't feel any pressure if I don't meet the deadline as I have several other reading projects right now.

This blog post was supposed to help me decide to stay in or leave the Classics Club, since my recent participation has been sketchy at best. As I write this concluding paragraph it seems clear to me that I am still invested in the project, that I really do want to read (or reread) the titles I've listed. I will plug along for as long as it seems like a good thing to do. Even if I only read four or five of the titles a year, I should have this project in the bag in what?, nine or ten more years! 😀

-My Classics Club Reading list 

-Classics Club

-Anne

TTT: Books I loved but never reviewed

Top Ten Tuesday: Books I loved but never reviewed

 

1. The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

I adored this audiobook, listening to all 32+ hours of it. I have no idea why I didn't review it. I still slap my head that I didn't. Is it too late?

2.  Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult

I finished this book in June so I am still planning a review, but I'd better get to it soon or the story will fade in my memory.

3. New Kid by Jerry Craft

This Newbery Medal winner is such a good graphic novel. I loved it, yet never reviewed it. Read it anyway.

4. The Sun and Her Flowers by Rupi Kaur

This lovely, short poetry volume is right up my alley yet I never reviewed it. I didn't review her first poetry book either. Sigh.

5. A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

I made a 'rule' that I had to review all book club selections. I broke my own rule on this club selection and never reviewed it. Wonder why?

 6. Harry Potter book in the series

I love all seven of the books but I read them all before I started blogging and I never reviewed any of them.

7. This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel

I am so angry that I never reviewed this book club selection because I met the author a year after I read it and couldn't look back on what my original thoughts were in real time.

-Anne

Review and quotes: SOME WRITER! THE STORY OF E.B. WHITE

Title: Some Writer! The Story of E.B. White written and illustrated by Melissa Sweet

Book Beginnings quote:

Friday56 quote:

Summary: A middle-grade biography of the beloved author of Charlotte's Web, E.B. White. The author/illustrator, Melissa Sweet, with the blessing of White's family, used family photos, writings and ephemera to bring the biography to life.

Review: As 2019 was coming to a close I busied myself creating lists of books in different categories and genres to highlight the best of the decade. I considered creating one such list for biographies and memoirs but decided against it because I wasn't sure I'd actually read ten that I actually liked enough to list them. If I were to create that list now Some Writer! would be at the top of the list. I liked everything about it: the colorful chapters that followed White's life from birth to death with personal mementos, samples of writings, and lots of photographs.

I had known previously that White had lived on a farm and got the inspiration for Charlotte's Web from day to day living there. What I didn't know was Charlotte wasn't his first children's book, That honor goes to Stuart Little. And that book came out of stories he told his nieces and nephews to pass the time. I also didn't know that even though he lived in Maine he continued to work for the New Yorker throughout his writing career, writing captions for cartoons and he wrote short articles on current events called "Comments" and "Newsbreaks" which were humorous column fillers that poked fun at errors and typos in their magazine and in other publications. As a journalist he wasn't interested in doing beat work and didn't like having deadlines to find and report stories, so writing short, pithy items was right up his alley.

What White really liked was the quiet life on the farm, building boats and sailing, spending time with his son and wife and doing farm chores.

Some Writer! is a gorgeous book and so inviting. I imagine that children find the book very appealing. In 2018, the year it was published, Some Writer! earned six starred reviews and ended up on several "best books of the year" lists. When I was checking out the Internet for the specifics on those awards I found a list of them separated by exclamation points (!!) The list maker was clearly a fan of E.B. White and his most famous character, Wilbur, or Some Pig!

Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Rose City Reader. Share the opening quote from current book.
The Friday56 is hosted at Freda's Voice.  Find a quote from page 56 to share. 
Visit these two websites to participate. Click on links to read quotes from books other people are reading. It is a great way to make blog friends and to get suggestions for new reading material. 

-Anne

Review: CAST AWAY: POEMS FOR OUR TIME

Over ten years ago I attended a school library conference in Portland, Oregon. The last session of the day, which was poorly attended, was with Naomi Shihab Nye who writes poetry for middle grade and YA students. If you have never been to an event where poets read their own works, you are missing a rare and wondrous time. Since that I've kept my eye on the published works by this accomplished poet and I've enjoyed them immensely. I just learned that she is now the the 2019-2021 Young People's Poet Laureate. Knowing this makes me happy...she'll be sure to get poetry into more students hands.

Cast Away: Poems for Our Time is a collection of poems on a theme: trash and trash collection. Nye is a "dedicated trash collector, reuser, and recycler." The last few pages of the book are dedicated to 'Ideas for writing, recycling, and reclaiming.' After reading the poems where she writes about her finds I am ready to pick up some gloves and trash pick-er-upper thingy and start cleaning up my city. Who knows what treasures one mind find and feel good about doing something needed.

I read poems aloud to my husband as we prepared for bed one night. Both of us found the poems to be bright and funny. "Who Do You Think You Are" is a poem about a teenage Nye throwing a half-full soda pop can back into a car from which the passenger had just chucked it out. Soda droplets flew. "You lost something?" / She looked stunned. Green light. / I jumped back into my car and zoomed.

In "Not a Bagel But..." Nye describes seeing a coffee cup lid rolling down the street on its side which reminds her of a poem she read in high school, "The Bagel" by David Ignatow. In that poem the chaser of the bagel becomes the bagel at least in metaphor which made him feel happy. Her poem continues, This helped me in high school. / Despite high school, we might still be happy. / I did not become a plastic lid / but I felt so happy for  / an image from a poem which can / stay with you your life. This image of inspirations we have hung onto throughout life is a powerful one for me and may, hopefully, be a message for children to not scoff at the messages they learn in school.

The poem that brought us the biggest laugh was "Happy Day". Here Nye is describing her delight that an ugly building in her community is getting a face lift and a cleaning. We always knew something beautiful was under there / and guess what else? Seventeen truckloads of pigeon droppings / were carted away from the roof and windowsills. / Seventeen truckloads! Can you imagine? I bet students would enjoy the imagery here, too. I makes me laugh to even think about it.

I highly recommend this collection. We all need to find ways to change our worlds for the better. Here is a place to start.

-Anne

Sunday Salon, the John Lewis Memorial edition

Weather: Saturday morning we awoke to drizzly skies after a hot week. The forecast is for clearing and warmer temperatures Sunday.

This week: No hiking or nature reserves but we are preparing for a vacation to Central Oregon this coming week. Our daughter in S.F. will be joining us. Before she left she sent us a text of this photo of Fred, her cat, with the note, "I'm all packed."

Also this week: We took Ian to a bike event at our church for some fun in the sun. He has a little strider bike. Unfortunately I can't post the video, so you only get to see him holding his little bike.

Books:

• Currently reading:
• Finding Yourself in the Kitchen: Kitchen Meditations and Inspired Recipes From a Mindful Cook by Dana Velden--Not sure how I found my way to this book but I am enjoying its simple messages. (Print)
• Don't Call Us Dead: Poems by Danez Smith. Black men and women speaking from beyond the grave. (E-book)
  
• Completed
• Valentine by Elizabeth Wetmore--A book club selection. A tough book to categorize but I give a trigger warning here. The opening chapter is a rape. (Audio)
• Close to Birds by Magnusson, et al.--A gorgeously rendered book with photographs and descriptions of birds. I love this book. (Print, part of the 12-book library haul)
• Cast Away: Poems for Our Time by Naomi Shihab Nye--A Middle Grade/YA collection. All the poems have to do with trash. I enjoyed many of them a lot. (Print, part of the 12-book library haul)
• The Reason I Jump: the Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism by Naoki Higashida--Another book club selection. Very insightful and revealing. (E-book)
  
• Kent State by Deborah Wiles--A YA account of the killings at Kent State during the tumultuous  Vietnam protests in the late 1960s. Relevant for today. Written in poetry, with each group assigned a different font: students, towns people, National Guardsmen, etc. (E-book)
  

Good and important news of the week:

1. Goodbye and thank you, John Lewis:

• John Lewis's funeral
• (all 3+ hours of it!) I spent Thursday weeping and sobbing while watching all but a few minutes of this moving service.
• President Bush (Funny and brief but very touching)
• President Clinton  (His remarks on a theme. I love how he brings it all around.)
• Speaker Nancy Pelosi (I wept through most of this)
• President Obama (Not just a eulogy but a very important political speech. I miss him so much.)
• A 3-minute summary/highlights of the three Presidents giving their remarks (LA Times)
• "Good Trouble" song by BeBe and Marvin Winans
• John Lewis's last words to us, published the day of his funeral in the NYT. Because it is behind a paywall, I know you may not be able to find it there, but try to find it somewhere. Or at least watch the segment on The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell where Morgan Freeman reads the letter aloud while images of John Lewis are shown. Powerful stuff. Here is the last paragraph of that letter---
• "When historians pick up their pens to write the story of the 21st century, let them say that it was your generation who laid down the heavy burdens of hate at last and that peace finally triumphed over violence, aggression and war. So I say to you, walk with the wind, brothers and sisters, and let the spirit of peace and the power of everlasting love be your guide."- John Lewis, published July 30, 2020

2. Sinclair Broadcasting has dropped the segment they were planning to show about a conspiracy theory related to Dr. Fauci -- that he created the coronavirus. (CNN) Hmm, I guess they finally decided to look into the kooky claims themselves and decided it was a no-go. Good.

3. Raffi (remember him kids?) wrote a song to sing at the Black Lives Matter protests:

🙏❤️ in solidarity with #BlackLivesMattter, a tribute to the heroic protests vs injustice in Portland and elsewhere: an idea that woke me up 3 am, now recorded. thanks to @LinzMunroe (vocals) and Ivan Rosenberg (dobro). #PortlandMoms #ResistFascism #FloydGeorge #PortlandProtests pic.twitter.com/uzOIQKW056

— Raffi Cavoukian (@Raffi_RC) July 25, 2020

4. Fully 53% of respondents in the latest Civiqs survey released Thursday said they "oppose President Trump, and there's almost nothing that could change that." Once more, those definitely opposing Trump’s reelection outpaced those definitely supporting him by 19 points.

5. 1619 Project. This week Tom Cotton, senator from Arkansas, earned honors as "Worst Senator in the World" for saying, "Slavery was a necessary evil" and went on to elaborate that he doesn't want the 1619 Project to be taught in our schools. (CNN) Of course not. He is a racist. Clear and simple.

        I was not that familiar with the 1619 Project until Cotton's attempt to censor it. Censor teaching about slavery? After some investigation, I am very impressed with the content of this New York Times project.

        I decided to highlight one aspect of the 1619 Project each week until we read all the way through it. If I link one piece to read, it won't be an overwhelming task. Let's read together purposefully and thoughtfully.

       This week's read is fairly short (unless you follow all the links): "Why We Published the 1619 Project." and the introduction, The Idea of America, by Nikole Hannah-Jones. Thanks for joining me, now let's get to it!

6. The best anti-COVID spot is a Nike ad that is an editing marvel and very inspiring. We can do this! (Muse)

7. For you, a feel good moment  watch and/or dance to 'Love Train' by artists on Playing for Change, highlighting kids from Turnaround Arts featuring many stars including Yo-Yo Ma, Jason Mraz and the O'Jays. Here.

On the lighter side:

My husband saw this at his doctor's office this week. "Good Job, Herald"

Yes. This would be great debate material. Do it!

I had one of those Facebook conversations this week, as a matter of fact. Ears plugged for sure.

Mine is #5

Non sequitur:
Take a moment to breathe. Watch. This is mesmerizing.

I sure do appreciate it if you leave me a comment, even if you disagree with my idea of good news, just so I know you were here. Thanks so much.

-Anne

Review and quotes: VALENTINE

Title: Valentine by Elizabeth Wetmore

Book Beginnings quote:

Sunday morning begins out here is a oil patch, a few minutes before dawn, with a roughneck stretched out and sleeping hard in his pickup truck.

Friday56 quote:  

In the church where I grew up, we were taught that sin, even if it happens only in your heart, condemns you all the same. Grace is not assured to any of us, maybe not even most of us, and while being saved gives you a fighting chance, you must always hope that the sin lodged in your heart, like a bullet that cannot be removed without killing you, is not of the mortal kind.

Summary: In 1976 Odessa, Texas is on the cusp of an oil boom. Men embrace the potential prosperity while women know and fear the violence that will follow.

In the early hours of the morning after Valentine’s Day, fourteen-year-old Gloria Ramírez appears on the front porch of Mary Rose Whitehead’s ranch house, broken and barely alive. The teenager had been viciously attacked in a nearby oil field—an act of brutality that is tried in the churches and barrooms of Odessa before it can reach a court of law. When justice is evasive, the stage is set for a showdown with potentially devastating consequences.---the publisher

Told in the alternating voices of six females which shows their vulnerability and their strength. As we learn their stories , as they circle around the first violent event, we realize how these stories help them stay alive.

Review: Valentine was suggested by a book club member due to the enthusiast review she had from her daughter. Based on this recommendation I expected a much different book than this one. First, and the title is partially to blame, I expected a love story. Secondly, I had no idea that the book begins with a horrific rape. I had no trigger warning, but now you do. I did get pretty wrapped up in all the females' stories and never felt fully prepared to move to the next narrator. But I admit throughout the listening (I consumed the audio version of Valentine), I kept asking myself if I actually liked the book, since that is the first question we always have to answer at book club. How can someone like a book when the subject and the setting are so bleak, depressing, and aggravating? But the writing is so strong and characters are very memorable and heroic in their own way. So, the answer is yes.

Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Rose City Reader. Share the opening quote from current book.
The Friday56 is hosted at Freda's Voice.  Find a quote from page 56 to share. 
Visit these two websites to participate. Click on links to read quotes from books other people are reading. It is a great way to make blog friends and to get suggestions for new reading material.  

-Anne 

Review: EVIDENCE by Mary Oliver

Evidence: Poems by Mary Oliver arrived in my car trunk when the library started curbside checkouts last week. It was part of a big haul of books, totaling fifteen books in all. Apparently one mustn't sit at home during a pandemic and blithely place holds on all the library books one wants or they will all arrive at once. Out of the haul I plucked this small volume of poems to read first, my soul felt just parched in need of a long drink of refreshment by my favorite poet.

Parts of just about every poem spoke to me. It always seems that Oliver is talking about one thing when suddenly she is talking about something much broader and more universal like this in the poem "Swans": What we love, shapely and pure, / is not to be held, / but to be believed in. (3)

I've been thinking about end-of-life scenarios because of all the deaths due to COVID-10 these days. My husband and I even filled out medical advanced directive statements recently. Just in case. In   "Thinking of Swirler" Oliver reminds us that even with the best of intentions, one's life is precious: In my house these are a hundred half-done poems. / Each of us leaves an unfinished life. (9)

But in "Then Bluebird Sang" she helps us remember to awaken every morning to the joys of nature...The birds, the brook, "and the rustle / that greet me whereever I go / with their joyful cry: I'm still here, alive!" (12)

Usually Oliver's poems point us to beauty of nature but all of them cause us to reflect on our lives. In
"Spring" she reminds us of the creator: Faith / is the instructor. / We need no other... / Of course I am thinking / the Lord was once young / and will never in fact be old. / And who else could this be, who goes off / down the green path, / carrying his sandals, and singing? (15)

In "More Honey Locust" she reminds me to prayerful and thankful for all the world has to hold:
...and I hope that you too / will say a word of thanks / for such creation / out of the wholesome earth, / which would be, and dearly it is needed, / a prayer for all of us. (18)

The poem "Halleluiah" was written for anyone who had a hard start in life. The line, Halleluiah, anyway I'm not where I started (19), should be our mantra. I'm not where I want to be but I am sure farther along than where I started!

My favorite poem in the collection is the book's title, "Evidence". It is divided into three parts with little pieces of wisdom and evidence of our good world, or how we should live:

• ...Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.
• ...And consider, always, every day, the determination / of the grass to grow despite the unending obstacles.
• ...I ask you again: if you have not been enchanted by / this adventure--your life--what would do for you?
• ...What blackboard could ever be invented that could hold all the zeros of eternity?

Reading this collection was a meditation, a prayer, a respite.

 -Anne

TTT: My favorite books read each of the last twelve months

 TTT (Freebie week):

 My favorite book for each of the last twelve months.

July 2020

Close to Birds by Mats Ottosson 

This stunningly beautiful book provided me a few moments of respite from all my worries.

June 2020

The Water Dancer by Ta-Nishi Coates

A unique imagining of the underground railroad. 

May 2020

Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi 

A timely and important read.

April 2020

Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry

An epic story of the old west. I'm guess this will also be the favorite book on this list. 

March 2020

Letters of Note: An Eclectic Collection of  Correspondence Deserving of a Wider Audience by Shaun Usher

The subtitle is correct. This a collection of letters deserving of a wider audience. Loved it.

February 2020

Poison Eaters: Fighting Danger and Fraud in Our Food and Drugs by Gail Jarrow

I was busy reading YA nonfiction in January and February for the Cybils Award. I really got into this one about the formation of the Food and Drug Association.

January 2020

Playlist: The Rebels and Revolutionaries of Sound by James Rhodes

Another Cybils finalist (it ended up the SH Nonfiction winner) about classical musicians accompanied by a Spotify playlist of a few of their pieces of music.

December 2019 

The Dutch House by Ann Patchett

A brother and sister and their special relationship with each other and with the Dutch house.

November 2019

Virgil Wander by Leif Enger

A quirky book by a favorite author.

October 2019

Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor

Thought by some to be the Nigerian Harry Potter 

September 2019 

The Library Book by Susan Orlean

A mystery surrounding the LA Public Library.

August 2019

The Overstory by Richard Powers

Interconnected stories all having something to do with trees. Brilliant.

Note: This was fun, going back in my records and determining a favorite from a list of five to ten books read that month. Some months I loved many books and other months were slim pickings. I am not surprised that half of my favorites were nonfiction. Also, it was strange doing this activity now. With the pandemic raging and the world stuck at home, it is odd looking back on what I read and when. Did I really only read that book last month? I would have thought I read it a few years ago. Two of my favorites were super long and took me ages to read, Lonesome Dove and The Overstory, yet the time was well spent. They were both so good. I encourage you to make your own year long favorites list and see what ends up the top of the heap.


-Anne

Review: CLOSE TO BIRDS

"May my heart always be open to little birds who are the secrets of living." -E.E. Cummings //////Pictured: The Eurasian Blue Tit

  

Close to Birds is the most beautiful book I've read in ages, maybe ever. It is chalk-full of gorgeous photographs of our fine-feathered friends taken by Roine Magnusson, an award-winning photographer who has contributed to National Geographic. He seeks unconventional ways to approach his pictures and explains the techniques he used to get these phenomenal shots, though I couldn't really understand how he did it even after the explanation. I guess it is trade secret.

Pictured: The European Goldfinch

Mats and Asa Ottosson are both journalists and nature lovers. They wrote short essays to accompany the stunning photography and shared charming and little known details from the birds' lives. So the reader learns a bit along the way, like why a robin sings so early in the morning and that the iridescence of the male mallard duck's feather make them look green but they aren't really. Along with each essay are short remembrances of each bird collected from other bird-watching enthusiasts. These people shared simple pleasures of moments shared with the birds. My favorite was written by Hakan Nunstedt who works as a university department chair, when he isn't hiding at a lek, waiting to see and hear the Western Capercaille. It starts, "I was no older than thirteen when I first heard the capercaille cocks' snapping sounds in the great dark forest. It awoke something in me. The anticipation, the mysticism, the unpredictability!" He goes on to say that he's camped out for capercaille lekking over 276 times. (Lekking is from Swedish and means a communal breeding display.)

Pictured: Western Capercaille, male

Close to Birds was translated from Swedish by Kira Josefsson. A book loses or gains merit based on its translation and Ms. Josefsson did an excellent job bringing the material to life in English for us non-Swedish readers. Though I have never heard the work 'lek' before and had to look it up, she knows more than I the particulars of language.

Even common birds like this Common Wood Pigeon are shown to be special in this book

My only complaint about the book is that the birds for the most part are ones found in Europe almost exclusively, with the exception of those which are found worldwide or were transplants from North America to Europe or vise versa. They even had a little note on the Canada goose which made me roll my eyes. We feel the same about them here. Not that I didn't love learning about their little and large birds, I just wanted the same treatment for birds over here.  Hint hint. Hey team, make a book that is the same but uses North American birds!

Pictured: Eurasian Jay

I got lost in this book for a few days, which was just the respite I needed from all the political and social upheaval happening all around us here in the USA. I highly recommend it to you, too!

Pictured: The Great Tit

-Anne