"True North"

I’ve said it here before. Now I say it again—I’m a book buyer. I see a book I want and the next thing I do without much thinking about it is hop in the car and head for the bookstore, or, likely as not, I don’t even head for the car but the computer.  Why not let them bring it to me?

                The budget demands that I taper off. Plus, I can walk to two libraries. Use your head, Trilla.

And, I’m getting better.

                Sometimes, though, I don’t have an option. That’s my book adventure of the week—well really the last couple of weeks.

                The Heights is a wonderful older neighborhood in Houston. It’s wonderful not only because of the carefully tended older homes, the fascinating shops, and—no surprise—the great restaurants. It’s the folks who live there. They love their neighborhood and do lots of things to make it a great place to visit as well as to live.

                I’m a Heights booster, you can tell, but not a resident. I don’t live too far away, and when I’m travelling around town, if there is a route through the Heights I take it. I know I’m likely to find a good surprise.   

                A couple of weeks ago, I certainly did. Right up the center of the neighborhood, runs shady Heights Boulevard, with, as you might expect, a well-used running trail right through the center of the esplanade. This day was different, an almost two-mile of the trail was marked with intriguing and large installations. What a great place for an outing with my teen grandson. But he’d want to know more than “aren’t these neat?’ Off to the computer. Here’s a sample of what I found: http://www.visithoustontexas.com/blog/index.cfm/2014/5/12/The-Heights-Outdoor-Sculpture-Project-True-North/

A fine book

Dog in the book

Dog on the ground

The owner of one of those fascinating shops, Redbud Gallery, had spearheaded the efforts of many  artists, organizations, and the City of Houston to make "True North" Heights Boulevard Sculpture Project happen.

 Plus, Gus Kopiva, that visionary Redbud owner did more. He put together a book with photographs of the artworks and the artists. Imagine taking the tour with that in our hands. Of course I ordered it.

Then I began to fret. This is a print-to-order book. The publisher (bookemon) warned me that delivery took a few extra days. The outing was long set for yesterday. Would it make it? You know it did. Did we enjoy? Grandparents and grandson alike! Is this one book I’m glad I ordered? You betcha!

                 

(A version of this post appears at http://storycirclenetwork.wordpress.com/)

Listen, my children and you shall hear

            It’s Poetry Month! All the month of April—as if I don’t every month—I’m reveling (maybe even wallowing) in poetry. Here are some poetry resolutions.

1.      Read more poetry!

2.      Find poets I haven’t read before.

a.       John Koethe

b.      Harryette Mullen

c.       Larry Levis

d.      Rosemary Catacalos

3.      Read old friends

a.       Billy Collins

b.      Maxine Kumin

c.       Shakespeare (!)

d.      Sharon Olds

e.       Rita Dove

My little reading table is getting
overloaded! So many books. . .

Here I’ve got to stop to tell what happened yesterday as I thought about reading old friends. One of my oldest poet friends (I’ve written about this before) is Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Now a poet friend of mine has told me Longfellow is “out” in these day. Not to this girl. I have lots of his lines tattooed into my brain during my grade school days. Never know when they’ll come in handy; like this morning. When I glanced at the morning paper the date sprang out—April 17. Hmmm. Then, tomorrow is April 18. And the words popped not just into my head but out of my mouth—

Listen, my children, and you shall hear

Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,

On the eighteen of April in Seventy–five

Listen my children

Minutes later, the book was in my hands and I read the tale aloud right to the final words.

Through all our history, to the last,

The people will waken and listen to hear

The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,

And the midnight message of Paul Revere.

There I was, in the fifth grade wearing my new spring dress in the center of the stage at the Wolflin School spring program. I gave it all I had. Did everything but bring a horse on stage with me and wear a three cornered hat. Now that I think about it, maybe I did wear a hat. My whistling, stomping dad led the ovation that followed. Thank you, HWL for a great poem, a bit of history, and a fine memory.

Now back to my list:

4.      Write some poetry—I write lots of haiku (check me out on Facebook, occasionally I’ll post one.) This month I’m stretching. Maybe a longer poem about the cats, or the kids at the museum, or the big oak tree. Maybe, one about what’s going on in the news—does history repeat itself?

Poet Laureate of Texas
Rosemary Catacalos

5.      Hear some poets read in person. My wonderful indie bookstore Brazos Books has almost weekly readings. I’ve made one. Last night I met a new poet friend—in person. Off I hied to the Museum of Fine Arts Houston to hear Rosemary Catacalos, the Poet Laureate of Texas, read her poems and to top it off to a party where I’ll met her. What a treat! You saw her name in my new-to-me poets list. Not anymore. I’ve read (more than once) her recently reissued 30-year-old book “Again for the First Time.” They ran out of her new one, “Begin Here” before I could buy one. Not to worry. I ordered it first thing this morning.

and her book.

Serendipity

 

 “You can’t read all day unless you start in the morning,” a friend recently advised. Many a day that’s advice I follow happily. I’m not a reader who takes a book and reads from start to finish before looking at another. No, what I’m reading depends on the time of day, my mood and even the weather.

            I read across the spectrum. I may escape in some light detective fiction just before bedtime, but daytime hours are likely to find me deep in biography, travel or serious fiction. Although I enjoy them all, I do have a favorite genre—memoir. That’s why I was more excited than usual a few weeks ago when a book package appeared by the front door. A new memoir to review for Story Circle Book Review! Saturday morning I braved the rain to head for the Black Hole Coffee House to sip a latte while I read The Secrets of the Notebook: A Woman’s Quest to Uncover Her Royal Family Secret by Eva Haas. Actually, it was three lattes. The book demanded to be read straight through.  Check at  http://www.storycirclebookreviews.org/reviews/secretsofthenotebook.shtml  and see what I think.

I read all sorts of memoirs, not just for reviewing but for pleasure and learning.   I’ve just finished taking a personal writing class; we are used a book of essays (Book of Days) by Emily Fox Gordon as a source for our writing prompts. I became intrigued by the author’s style and bought one of her earlier books, Are You Happy? It addresses memories of her early childhood. I stepped right into her Mary Janes. Or mine. For as I read about her life in Williamstown, Massachusetts, I remembered the little girl in Amarillo, Texas half a continent away.

            While reading, I started a list of those suddenly-surfacing memories, a patchwork of little Trilla’s life. And, no surprise, the earliest memory I have is about a book. My sister is in the brown chair reading from an orange story book. I’m tucked between her and the arm of the overstuffed chair. I look at the pictures and wish I could read too. She starts to read the story about a chicken to me, but she’s only in the second grade; she gets tired of stumbling on the big words. Mother promises she’ll read it to both of us as soon as the ironing is finished and supper started.  I know she’ll keep her word, but I want to be able to read it to myself right now.

It's ours for sure--Sarah Nan
and Patricia Louise Nordyke!

A wonderful book--still!

A few days after I enjoyed this memory, serendipity struck. When I’m not reading or writing, I often spend some time trying to simplify our lives. Part of this involves going through boxes unopened for, sometimes, many years deciding what we can live without. That day I opened yet another box marked “miscellaneous papers” to find not papers but old books.  Near the top was a bright orange, well-worn book, The All About Story Book. The book! What was it doing here? When I’d remembered it, I assumed it was long gone, now I held it in my hands. I turned crumbly pages until I got to 37 and found “All About Miss Fluffy Chick.” I sank down to the concrete floor and read it.

Later, I went to the computer and did some detective work and found an affordable copy. Guess what my sister can look forward to for her birthday? If I can wait that long. She knows she’ll likely be getting a book, she almost always does, but this one will be a real surprise.

Now we’ll see if she reads my blog. Nan, give me a call and you won’t have to wait ‘til your birthday to get your All About Story Book!

Think she'll be surprised?

 Happy Reading! 

(This entry also appears at http://storycirclenetwork.wordpress.com/category/interviews-book-reviews/book-learning/ )

Not totally serious--yet

Zing, zing, zing. Seems like this year, there goes my summer. That’s probably true every summer, but this one, times three. So, here goes on what I trust (cross my fingers) is the last update on the ongoing melodrama of Trilla’s personal life—in the next few months, it’ll be more about Trilla’s book life.

Foster is happy to be home with his
own food bowl. "Feed me!"

Ginger doesn't mind being an
only cat again. Not on bit.

            The doctor told Kate to stay with us two months. That lasted about two-and-a-half weeks.  She’s back at work, but still can’t put weight on left leg at all, and so this means we’re still helping out lots, but we’re all easier on our own turfs. Happiest of all with the arrangement? No surprise—Foster Cat.

So my “reading just for fun days” have slowed and I’m turning to other books, but still reading lots and lots and lots and lots. And I’m not totally serious yet. I had a great fling, and a good transition with Susan Wittag Albert’s Widow’s Tears.  (http://www.amazon.com/Widows-Tears-Bayles-Wittig-Albert/dp/0425255727/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1373379759&sr=1-1&keywords=widow%27s+tears+susan+wittig+albert).  A great story, particularly if you, like I am, a longtime friend of China and Ruby.  But it’s more than just a story. Albert packs lots in there.  Not really escapism, and it’s set in the beautiful countryside around Round Top, Texas—a place I love.  Indeed, I recommend it.

            Then being a reviewer for Story Circle Book brought me just what I needed! Home Front Girl: A Diary of Love, Literature, and Growing Up in Wartime America appeared at the front door as if on cue. I’ve been journaller about as long as I can remember. A one-year diary showed up under the Christmas tree every year with the same dependability as the doll at top of the red stocking, and continued even after the dolls went away. I made my most recent entry this morning. Part of my life. I was ready, ready for this book.

Joan Wehlen Morrison was a greater journaller than I. What’s more, while I assume “no one’s ever going to care about these” and store them helter-skelter and here-and-there, Joan wrote thinking that her journals would be read, stored them carefully, and made sure her writer daughter knew where they were.  That daughter, Susan Morrison has turned these journals into a story of both her mother’s life from when she turned 14 in December of 1936 to 1943 when she met her future husband of 66 years. But Morrison has done more. She’s captured a slice, a small slice but an important one, of American history. This is an important book.

Well read now, and I'll be reading it again.

            And inspirational to me. My next get-organized is not going to be the mess under the kitchen counter that’s on the schedule now. No. I’m going to take those boxes of disorganized mixed-up journals and diaries and get them in chronological order, and then, I’m going to read them.  It may be that some do indeed need discarding—I’ll do it now, and I’ll be the one to do it. But others I’ll keep and who know, while likely they will never be published, someday great or great-great grandchild may enjoy knowing what twentieth-century life was like in the Panhandle of Texas.

            Thank you Morrisons.

            More to the moment, I’m thinking about my weekend reading. Young Joan reported hearing and puzzling over the stance of Charles Lindburg in the time leading up to the war. I knew Kate  read and enjoyed the fictional account of Anne Morrow Lindburg’s life, Aviator’s Wife. I knew it was lying on her bedside table.  Yesterday when I visited Foster, I nabbed the book. Now it’s on my bedside table with the first two chapters consumed—and it is not the weekend yet.

Waiting for bedtime and Chapter 3, maybe 4.

(This entry is also posted at http://storycirclenetwork.wordpress.com)

Things change

June 1 is almost here. It’s happened again. Half a year has slid by and what where did it go? Poof! I look at my tilting “to read” stack, taller than on January 1, but I notice something. I’ve read all the “fun” books—the cozy mysteries, the thick historicals, read and shelved, or in a few case, given away. The more serious book that sound so good in the book review section still wait.

                Get serious! I tell myself. For the summer let’s change direction.  Feeling a bit high-minded I make a half-year resolution: For the summer I’ll read poetry  (and maybe write a bit) and, since I’m spending lots of time volunteering at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, maybe it’s time I learned more art history.  I set June 1 as my beginning date, cleared a couple of shelves and began organizing—not too surprising—I already own enough art and poetry books to fill more than one summer.

                Last Sunday we enjoyed a lovely brunch. It was a beautiful day, why wait until June 1? The minute I got home I’d grab Peter Gay’s Modernism, head for the shady park about a block away and start.  On the way home, the phone rang. Our daughter had dropped by; she’d wait ‘til we got home.  Okay, the park could wait a while. We came in the back door. “In here,” she called from the living room. I rounded the corner. I saw the crutches before I saw the daughter. Things changed.

                Did they ever! She’d badly broken her ankle. An emergency clinic had it stabilized, but she was to stay off of it until we could get to our orthopedist on Tuesday.  Memorial Day Monday, remember. Not much to do but sit by and be company and bring a pain pill every few hours. Serious reading—out of the question. But I could just sit, I needed to read—TV noise made it hurt worse she’d announced. Not a fun book around. But thank goodness for Kindle and e-mail. I remember Amazon had tempted me with an e-mail about a cat book, something about feral cats; I live in a nest of feral cats—feed them every morning. I searched my e-mail. Found it. Grabbed the Kindle and for the first time met cat-loving Jillean Hart a quilting artist in Mercy, South Carolina. Jillean’s deadly adventures (and a little romance) all from the pen of Leann Sweeney helped me through the rest of Sunday and all of the Pando family’s longest ever Memorial Day. 

     Finally Tuesday arrived just as Jillean left. But what’s this? I notice in Sweeney’s credits that she has a series set in Houston. Houston! Where I am. Quick as I can hit the “buy now” button, Pushing Up Bluebonnets is on my home page. Good timing. It’s a day of first one waiting room and then another.  I like Abby Rose; I think I could find her house here in Houston if I gave it a good hard try. 

     Come Wednesday, finally we’re getting some action on the foot. We head to the hospital in the morning; my daughter goes into surgery around noon. Nothing to do but . . . and, hey, this is even less of a time for serious reading than ever.

                Suddenly I recall my blogger friend Nancy’s most recent post. http://nancyoutofmind.blogspot.com/2013/05/books-3-is-there-anybody-out-there-who.html) Since many years ago when there was a PBS series based on the E.F. Benson books about her, Nancy has loved the Lucia books about a madcap English woman we ought to dislike but end up loving. Nancy lamented that not many people remember Lucia, but I did. I enjoyed the series and then read every book. But mine are long gone in that huge book sale we threw when we moved to Houston. But what great news! The whole collection is out in one Kindle volume. (Query—can a Kindle have a volume?) So through the surgery, through recovery, and through a long first night, I capered through an English village while I fretted about and over my daughter.

                Now we’re home, all of us. She’s staying with us until she can put weight on that leg.  This may not be the summer for heavy reading after all. I’m wide open for suggestions about where in the world I go for my next escape.

Note: This entry also appears at http://storycirclenetwork.wordpress.com/ 

Primavera—First things first

Thanks, Primavera!

Welcome Spring! She arrived Wednesday morning, very early; now we're two days in. In this household she brought her fever with her. Happens every year, and of course, it involves reading—for a couple of reasons.

                For many folks and cultures, Spring’s arrival—the vernal equinox—is the start of a new year—try peoples as diverse as the Persians and the Celts. Certainly the flowers in my urban garden will vote for that. Okay, flowers and Spring, I’ll go along and join you by doing what I always do with a new year. Make a resolution. That’s easy as well. I always make the same one. Read more!

A book, a friend, a dog-pal, the
sunshine. Life is good.

Many, in a little while,
a nap.

                Spring makes it easy. The best antidote for Spring’s fever is a trip to the front porch or the nearby park with a couple of books from the stack or maybe the magazine (ah, yes, another one) that came with the morning mail.

                I’ve been doing lots of that lately. Sometimes I take a picnic and spend the afternoon. And I’m not alone. Lots of folks manage to free up a little time for eating, reading, even napping on Primavera’s best afternoon. But, you don’t have to have a park or a front porch to fight Spring’s fever. In my neighborhood you might hit the Black Hole Coffee House or maybe even the Post Office if there’s a line.

Where ever you are, enjoy Spring and grab a good book.

Easy livin', good readin'

"It's ok, Daddy. I don't
mind waiting, I always bring
a book to the Post Office.

Saturday morning at
the Black Hole fun.

(A slightly different version of this entry is at http://storycirclenetwork.wordpress.com/2013/03/22/primavera-first-things-first/)