Six Months of Books

 

When I retired from teaching last summer I thought that I would spend entire afternoons reading. Reality, however, looks very different - since last summer I've seldom spent the afternoon hours just reading. I always found it curious when retirees would tell me that they just "don't have time" and I wondered, well, you should have all the time in the world. Now that I'm a retiree myself I just join that chorus of "not having time" - I have been busy all the time. However, I am slowly getting to the point that I don't have to feel guilty at all if I sit in the garden in the shade of the big tree and spend my afternoon lost in a book. I have a rather large library on my Paperwhite, but most non-fiction books I still prefer to read as a "real" book. As an alternative to reading I also like to listen to audiobooks while I knit, stocking up the inventory in my Etsy store.

Not surprisingly, the first six months of this year haven't been the best "book months" in my life. The shop kept me busy (here we go, "I don't have time"), but I was still able to get a few good and enjoyable reads in.

Please don't expect book reviews - I can't write them, but I will share some thoughts about them.

Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby van Pelt was one of the first reads this year that I thoroughly enjoyed from the first to the last page. The remarkable bright creature is Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living in a small aquarium in the fictional little town called Sowell Bay in Washington state, who also is one of the narrators in the novel. The other two narrators are Tova Sullivan who is the cleaning lady in the aquarium, working the night shift, and Cameron, a young man who never knew his father and is now looking for him. While Marcellus definitely was my favorite character, I really liked everyone in this beautifully told story. There wasn't a single character that was bad or evil, something I don't find often in novels. The book woke my interest in octopuses (seriously, I had to research what the plural of 'octopus' is!) and consequnetly I also acquired Sy Montgomery's The Soul of an Octopus (haven't read it yet).

Years ago, Elephant's Child introduced me to the Australian writer Jane Harper and I am so grateful for that. Since then I have read some of Harper's books, my favorite being Exiles, the third of the Aaron Falk series. I was looking forward to Force of Nature, the second in the series, but I felt quite disappointed in this novel. I didn't like the characters (except for Aaron) and just couldn't get into the story. I found the plot dragging along. Usually I find Harper's books very atmospheric, especially The Dry (the first Aaron Falk and also the first book I read by her), but I missed that here as well. Still, I will go on reading Harper's books, they are so much more complex than just mysteries.

Did I ever tell you by Genevieve Kingston was featured in our local paper. It sounded interesting and it's a very personal memoir about a family who lived in the adjacent neighborhood to mine. All the places and even some people are familiar to me - it's different to read a book that has such a personal connection. When the writer's mother was diagonosed with terminal cancer, she made little packages and wrote letters for her two children for each of their birthdays up to the 30th and for special days like graduation, driver's licence, wedding etc. This way she still was there for her children's important events, even though not in person. I found this very touching and such an endearing act of love.

Sometime in the 90s I read the late Batya Gur's Michael Ohayon series - I think her books were published in the 90s in Germany and I read them "hot off the press". I remember that I really liked detective Ohayon, a Moroccan Jew now living in Israel, and all his cases were quite complex. Murder on a Kibbutz is the third in the series and describes Kibbutz life in great detail. It actually takes a while until the murder happens, but at that point we already know a lot about the people in the community and the existing rules in this particular kibbutz. This is not a typical mystery, but a rather slow and very interesting story. For me it was quite intriguing to read this book again, this time in English and not in German, and I have to say that I liked the German translation better. The language in the German edition was "rounder" and flowed better (I really have no other way to say this).

Let's stay with the mysteries for a moment longer. Saying that I love Tony Hillerman is like saying that I love wine, but yes, I love Tony Hillerman. And what I love even more is listening to his books, especially when they are narrated by George Guidall who does an excellent job in bringing the stories to life. In case you are not familiar with Tony Hillerman, his mysteries take place in the Four Corners area of Arizona and New Mexico featuring Navajo Nation Police Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee and later joined by Bernadette Manuelito. Hillerman's books are always full with interesting cultural details about the Hopi and Zuni and especially the Navajo Nation Police. Since I have been to the Southwest fairly often, I can also picture easily the locations and the arid landscape. It's not really necessary to read these books in order, you quickly catch up. The series starts with only Joe Leaphorn, Jim Chee turns up in book 4 and only in book 7 do they start to work together. Manuelito joins in book 12 (there are 28 books in the series). Hunting Badger is book 14; currently I'm listening to People of Darkness which is book 4 (and therefore the first Jim Chee).

Recently I was going through one of the chaotic shelves and realized that I have this book about California Native Plants for the Garden. I had bought it several years ago, but it kind of "disappeared" in a pile of books. I spent several evenings reading about native plants, making lists what I want to add to my garden in the fall, reading plant profiles and noticing that I am on the right track with my garden. I also have more shade now because I had planted a few trees and that opens up possibilities for different plants like Monkey Flowers (Diplacus). Fall planting time will be very exciting this year.

In the spring of last year, the Sonoma Land Trust (a local environment organization that I support) had invited Rosanna Xia to a webinar about her book California Against the Sea. I had registered for this webinar and found the outcome of her research fascinating. I eventually found her book in my favorite bookstore in Mendocino. Rosanna Xia is an environmental reporter for the Los Angeles Times where she specializes in stories about the coast and ocean. She writes extremely well and parts of her book are almost thrilling. The way she describes how the California Coastal Act was finally adopted in 1976 and established the California Coastal Commission rivals a detective novel. Repeatedly she warns about how climate change warms our oceans and how rising sea levels will change our coasts and how we can work with nature to meet our future. California has a coastline of about 840 miles (general outline of the state's edge along the Pacific Ocean) however, including all the inlets, bays etc the total shoreline length is by far longer. The National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) measures it at 3,427 miles. In short, lots of coast is endangered by rising sea level. Every chapter is dedicated to a different region/area, and I wasn't surprised to find that Gleason Beach was the object of one chapter.

Gleason Beach is on our Sonoma Coast and the first time I saw it was in February 2001 on our preview trip to Santa Rosa before we decided to move here. At that time the coast looked like this:

I remember being completely fascinated and also a bit envious of the people who were able to live so close to the ocean, hear the waves crashing on the shore all the time and have this stunning view over our beautiful, wild ocean. But on second glance I noticed the damage that was already happening, the tarps that were spread out to hold back the steps down the cliff. Yes, tarps against the ocean. What a concept!

25 years later it looks like this:

Xia describes what we pretty much witnessed over the past two decades - houses falling into the sea, homes being red taped, and the road, famous Highway 1, becoming undriveable. Now there is a new bridge further inland that was built with great care for the environment. My guess is that the last few homes will go down in the next 5-10 years as well.

And this is only one of the stories in the book. There are many more, some frustrating and some filled with hope that communities are doing the right thing to live with the new reality of a rising sea. It is a highly fascinating read.

Wild Sonoma by Charles Hood with a beautiful foreword by Jane Goodall is a splendid little guide to the flora and fauna of my county with rich illustrations and a good sense of humour. I learned quite a bit of interesting facts and there are trails described in the books that I still don't know and want to explore soon. 

Last but not least I got these two treasures - The Lives of Fungi and The Lives of Lichens. David posted book reviews about them on his blog and since I am eager to learn more about both, it was a no-brainer to buy these two books. They have excellent photos and description and are perfect for deepening my knowledge about both lichens and fungi (that knowledge is still pretty small).

These were just a few of the 24 books I read in the first half of the year, but certainly the ones that have stayed with me.  And since there are a couple faces on the book covers, I join Nicole's Friday Face Off.