CATCHING UP #2

Most important: ROSELEDGE BOOKS IS OPEN, 2-6pm daily.
The “open” signs are hanging from the porch, (but not in the picture), the flowers are growing, some brand-new and lots of other years’ new books are on the shelves, two book orders (bestsellers and selected titles) are on their way to TH, and the lawn chairs are ready for those with you who mind the dog as you browse.

Fig. #26. Reading, watching the harbor, and waiting for you to come by on a two-shirt, short skirt, sockless day in early June.

Reply to Commenter (and sis), Charyl: Okay, I get the message (see post “Catching Up #1) and I agree. The Icelandic detective is wanting. He is too much enveloped by dreary: his daughter, apartment, childhood, reading tastes, and prospects — all dreary. But the killer point for me is that in these Icelandic novels, there is no mention of the sea or seafaring, so there is no reason to think my sailor customers will want to read them. If I were in my native North Dakota with its Icelandic community, I might decide differently.

Thanks to Commenter Sis, I have read in a row and liked two more Harry Bosch mysteries (Michael Connelly’s City of Bones and Michael Connelly’s The Closers). But picky, picky me, I should have read only one at a time. In the second book, which fits with the three-year retirement to return times, there is, all of a sudden, a 6-year-old daughter and her mother. Imagined conception, maybe? And the turmoil, both bureaucratic and inner, seems repetitious. I like Harry enough to wait a while before reading Michael Connelly’s The Overlook, in paperback for the first time.

Is Julia Spencer-Fleming, who lives and studied in Maine, a Maine author? Friend Kathy asked and after reading her All Mortal Flesh, set in upstate New York, I like her a lot, whether she is or not. Police Chief and Episcopalian Priest solve crimes in small town. Think of Anthony Trollope’s Barchester Towers updated.

Fig. #27. The tide moves out(here) and in as the mudflats grow and shrink, the returning lobster boats off-load their catches into lobster cars, and the water changes color with the sky. The harbor dance will be the same when you come by, probably with more boats.

Now I’m reading Michael Gruber’s The Book of Air and Shadows, a hefty NYTimes bestseller. To page 150, I like the learning in it, e.g. intellectual property, cyphers, Shakespeare’s time and life, threads of film and family, but I love most the “research librarian mafia” that undergirds Al’s repertoire of information sources, as he puzzles through the manuscripts. Clearly the author has led an interesting library life. The 435 pages of this trade paperback book are hard to handle with one good hand, which is what I have, so I looked briefly at the Kindle (Amazon’s ebook device, mentioned favorably by Paul Krugman in his column last week in the NYTimes) which appeared to require two hands as well. Is Charlie going to have to do another of his ever-ready miracle modifications?

A final note to one “exposed” to Edith Wharton — which I trust is different from “immersed:” Roseledge Books has — and has had since 1987 — 3 copies of Louis Auchincloss’s Skinny Island: More Tales of Manhatten. The pages might be a tad yellow, but they aren’t yet brittle and it only costs $3.95. Louis Auchincloss introduced me to New York City as I was growing up in Wahpeton, ND and allowed to check out from the Leach Public Library anything I wanted. A biography of Hetty Green, my first miser, helped, too.

The webcam was off, but now it is on.