Some of you wonder if I choose the books for Roseledge Books which would be okay if, when I say that I do, some of you didn’t have the same look of incredulity that the car rental guy had when, in answer to his question about my occupation, I said I was a college professor. So maybe more explanation is warranted.
Fist of all, choosing books means knowing that a book exists. I am helped in this knowing because I have a book ear. When other people hear background noise, I hear and pick out a book reference.
Think Moby Dick, a long time gone, fog and rocks and nothing is for sure.
For instance, from NPR, always on, I unexpectedly heard the words ”Moby Dick“, “Ireland“, and “Ray Bradbury wrote a book about it.” Hello. The NPR story was about legendary director, John Houston, filming Moby Dick in Ireland; but tucked into the telling was the essential tidbit that a young Ray Bradbury wrote both the screenplay AND a book about the whole Irish experience which I looked up and found to be Ray Bradbury’s Green Shadows, White Whale, which one reviewer likened to “the grandest tour of Ireland you’ll ever experience.” A book related to Moby Dick is always good, but this was clearly a bonanza choice for RB, embedded in a story not about books. Whether nature or nurture, a book ear is not to be explained, just to be tuned in at all times, relished and used wisely.
Backing up a bit, maybe a book ear only works if one’s life is basically a conversation of books, which, lucky me, mine is.
For instance, faithful commenter Mary Ellen picked up on my dad’s reading (true) while watching sheep (not so true) (See “Fact Checking“, posted on 10/17/12) and inferred that he may have been reading ABOUT sheep rather than watching over them and the memories merged into Irish truth. Yes! And then the fun becomes thinking about sheep books he might have liked.
Then love knowing that you can live it all from a comfy seat on shore.
Two favorites come to mind: Marele Day’s Lambs of God, a strange, especially apt choice set in stone ruins off the coast of Scotland. It is also a great snotty Vatican novel, always a favorite category, and a tribute to resourceful women everywhere and anytime. Clearly a dad-book and given the island setting, an RB choice, too. The second favorite is Lorn Rubenstein’s A Season in Dornoch: Golf and Life in the Scottish Highlands which is only slightly about sheep but much about loving the landscape with sheep and golf. Charlie golfed the Royal Dornoch course and I watched, doted, and nattered away with the groundskeeper, and though this may make the book more personally bewitching, it is still a book set alongside the ocean, therefore a must for Roseledge Books next summer. Okay, book inferences may be VERY subtle, several degrees away from the reported situation, sometimes really speculation, and uncommon, if not rare, but they are so much more fun to dwell upon and virtually endless in their possibilities. Another sheep-book possibility is Susanna Kaysen’s Far Afield, although the cover picture of sheep may be misleading because I don’t recall that sheep were key to the story which s set in the Faroe Islands and sheep live there, but I liked the book a lot. I love this stuff.
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At breakfast the other morning, during which I continued noting the absence of flavor and texture in the Wednesday cream of wheat, even though the too-few cranberries helped but not enough, a group-homey was eye-ing the goodie I had not yet eaten. I said, as I sipped my hot, brewed coffee, “We Irish suffer before our pleasure.” Without missing a beat, he responded, “We Scandinavians don’t have pleasure.” Thanks again, Irish dad.