The Roseledge Books Blog

So many good things are happening. Walkers and boaters, some of whom are Roseledge Books Regulars (RBR), are back. So we have the first RB best seller of the season (3 copies sold): Bernd Heinrich’s The Snoring Bird: My Family’s Journey Through A Century of Biology. He makes thinking about the evolution of knowledge an enjoyable effort. Last year’s first best seller was Walter Isaacson’s Einstein, and I still have a copy if you need a jolt of learning. If the meaning of quantum mechanics seem stalled in the ether, I also have Michael Crichton’s Timeline, the first twenty-five pages of which are a good introduction to the concept and the rest of the book an application.

Fig. #60. Roseledge Books from the harbor. East Wind Inn is further left and the public landing is even further left, but all are close by if the Roseledge Books reader-bug bites.

One returnee from twelve years ago (an automatic RBR because his was at least a second visit) remembered the book I had recommended. It was Sarah Orne Jewett’s Country of the Pointed Firs. He liked it and thought she captured the pace and place of Midcoast Maine.  Some would say she captured Tenants Harbor, others Martinsville, and at least on guy argued for Port Clyde.  But no quibble here with just liking it.   What did I recommend this time? Oh, the pressure! But oh, the fun! He decided on Martin Cruz Smith’s Havana Bay. I hope he comes back next summer, especially if he liked Arkady Renko in Havana, as series suggestions are part of my current ploy to draw readers back to RB next summer for another in a series that are hard to find. If Arkady doesn’t do it for him, I may have to switch to books about cities or places.

A commenter left a great note and, with my elbow’s lingering malaise, I’m going to respond herein instead of separately because many of you non-commenters probably also want to know that yes, RB is just up the Sea Street hill (or across Dave Lowell’s lawn) from the East Wind Inn which is almost in the webcam’s picture which stops at the Chandlery which is there but not open this summer, probably because no people were about during June and July. But RB is here always and really open through Labor Day.

I’m reading and liking a lot as always, a Joe Pickett novel. this one C.J. Box’s Blood Trail.  RB has others in the series.  Please come by.

Summer in Tenants Harbor: Four boaters walk by Roseledge Books. Three come in to browse; the fourth sits in the yard, settles the dog, and thinks about things. With the summer’s fog, they’ve taken to becalmed-boat activities, e.g. acting out parts in a play (Roseledge Books always has at least Shakespeare’s The Tempest), making a pot of something (Roseledge Books has Marjorie Standish’s Soups, Stews, and Chowders; the Tenants Harbor General Store has groceries, and the Produce Lady offers a 3 mile walk to stretch your legs and a farmer’s market to satisfy even the fussy). But now the mind needs more. Has Roseledge Books got an idea for you!

Fig. #63. Roseledge Books to the left. Tenants Harbor General Store to the right. Sea Street decision alert.

Evolution is ever within, or maybe without, but ever it is. Clearly, it’s time for a late afternoon discussion-with (that is, discussion with a glass of something). What to do? How about browsing the ever-changing shelves of Roseledge Books to find the perfect reads. For evolutionary starters, Charles Darwin’s Voyages of the Beagle is right there with the sailing tie-in. Then Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (a favorite thinker) advances the cause in Amir Aczel’s The Jesuit and the Skull, and the book provides a snotty Vatican report as well, which is always helpful, I think. Maybe for the alternate viewpoint in the crowd, Roseledge Books has John Darnton’s The Darwin Conspiracy, a murder mystery which, whatever else the critics had to say about it, is evolutionarily accurate. RB is currently out of Tim Severin’s The Spice Islands Voyage, a revisiting of Alfred Russell Wallace’s trip which, some argue, provoked Darwin to finally publish, but when it is more available, RB will have it. I love Tim Severin’s books.

So the readers browse, then read, the thinker thinks with the dog, the day recedes, ideas sprout, exchanges blossom, the boat idles, friendships endure, and the world is a better place. I just don’t think it ever gets better than that.

Otherwise, the slow summer meanders into August. Blue asters are in the ditches. Farley Mowat’s Bay of Spirits has arrived, and I can hardly wait to read this complement to (wife) Clare Mowat’s The Outport People which Roseledge Books is out of right now, but is one of my favorite books.

A day later: Oops; skip the on boat discussion-with about evolution. A RB Regular just bought the Teilhard de Chardin biography. The day is glorious. Time for a webcam look.