Okay, I’ve been remiss, but I have reasons. My computer died and I’ve been away getting intensive (read: in hospital) physical therapy. Then Charlie recovered whatever software needed recovering and I recovered some confidence that, with ever more adaptations, I still have some years of slowly upward and onward at Roseledge. So, whew. I still and will always lean left, but both the computer and I have useful futures. And I still and will always have things to say.
I took with me Bernd Heinrich’s The Snoring Bird: My Family’s Journey Through a Century of Biology. I love this book. The author is sensible and spare, which matter in a memoir. He expects little but reacts forthrightly, makes the best of things that might thwart the less thoughtful, and gets on with a satisfying — if unusual — life of study. I learned a lot about the evolution of the field of biology and about Germany during the first half of the 20th Century. And I enjoyed Maine as lived in by a naturalist. He was a good companion in the hospital. Be prepared; I’ll be recommending it big time next summer. Right now, I’m trying to figure out who gets my “tested” copy as a Christmas gift.
Fig. #68. Really blue harbor water for all seasons, except the rare freezing over. Lovely to have always in mind and sometimes in daily life.
Of course I also brought thrillers with me. David Baldacci’s Divine Justice and Alex Berenson’s The Ghost War were both character-continuations which I knew I would like and I did, though not as much as I liked their predecessors, and I didn’t need the torture parts of either. So I mostly skipped those parts and never knew what I had missed. It was fun to see which visitors to my room spotted which books. Book interests do color character. My family gets these two in the Christmas box of mailed goodies, most of which are “tested” paperbacks.
Yes, it’s time to use again those already used books, to rummage through the year’s noteworthy reads, choose with care, and send them as re-gifts to the unsuspecting or to those who don’t care. An old friend who died too young pointed out that he could tell I had liked a book if he got to p.50 before the first coffee cup ring appeared. More gift ideas coming.