This morning it was cloudy, still and waiting. Now it is sunny and hot, with some leaves moving sometimes. (See webcam and refresh twice, even though, as Charlie pointed out, the horizon is tilting eastward.) Apparently the waiting is over or begun again. Maine weather is a changeable feast.
More certain is Maine’s gift of time to think about things. Some think this is better done with others, which may be an allusion to conversation or among the more vigorous, argument. But what if you love Maine’s gift of time to think about things alone? Hark! It’s another reason to visit RB and find the book-mind (or minds) with which to think about whatever matters most at the moment and probably lots of other things as you and the author meet — at the lighthouse.
Tide is out, boat's afloat. Rocks extend, island nears. I and book are here.
I “met” and learned a lot about spies in China from Charles Cumming’s Typhoon which began in Hong Kong and ended in Shanghai This reminds me that very big huzzahs (cheers?) need to go to the Roseledge Books Regular who called to say he was eating breakfast in Shanghai and WEARING HIS ROSELEDGE BOOKS T-SHIRT! I assured him the world was better for his effort and would be better still if he took a grand hike about town and exhibited his innate sandwich-board skills. The phone hummed in silence. RB is still waiting for two strangers to meet wearing RB t-shirts and thus affirm that good people connect through good books. How about that for thinking about things with others!
Now I am reading Lee Vance’s finiller, Restitution, and though my finance-through-fiction efforts have waned since the death of Paul Erdman, Iancial thr trust former Goldman-Sachs director Vance’s Wall Street activities. I hope Peter Spiegelman has a new story, sort-of-about the NYC family-owned bank adventures, out in paperback by next summer, too.
First books of this summer’s big order have arrived which is good. Bad was failing to recommend Julia Spencer-Fleming to returning visitors — thus, RBR’s — who wanted another of an 80’s, mystery series, set mostly in NYC, with a theater director and cop as detectives that we both knew but could not remember by author or title. Aarghhh! Think Episcopal Church instead of theater and the Clare Ferguson/Russ VanAlstyne duo, and it could have been the start of a beautiful, multi-volume read. Maybe next summer…
A collection of rocks, then books. Is there a pattern? Purpose? Thinking.
Here’s a list of some books sold at RB so far this summer. What do you think?
Cod by Mark Kurlansky
Late Nights on Air by Elizabeth Hay
The Windows of Brimnes by Bill Holm
Bad Luck and Trouble by Lee Child
C olony of Unrequited Dreams by Wayne Johnston
The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
An Island Apart by Lilian Beckwith
A Course Called Ireland by Tom Coyne
Away by Jane Urquhart
The Jane Austen Book Club by Joy Fowler
Frankie’s Place by Jim Sterba
Two Lives by Janet Malcolm
The Forgotten Garden by Elizabeth Morton
Abigail Adams by Woody Horton
Bacardi by Tom Gjelten
The Zookeeper’s Garden by Diane Ackerman
Given the e-coli disaster scaring European salad lovers, Charlie has decided to revert to his favored diet of pizza and doughnuts. I have failed as a mother.
Thanks for the updated summer reading list.
A new book worth checking out is Kitty Pilgrim’s The Explorer Code. She calls it fact based fiction and it’s pretty interesting.
Pilgrim is a former CNN anchor and I bought the book after watching this interview.
http://am.blogs.cnn.com/2011/07/05/former-cnn-anchor-kitty-pilgrim-breaks-down-new-book-the-explorers-code/
Seeing Bill Holm’s name resonates with my recent reading of the first two Reykjavik murder mysteries by Arnaldur Indridason. Thinking about Iceland will always make me think of Bill, and vice versa. And that isn’t even what I liked best about him!
Keep sending your dispatches from the coast for those of us landlocked mid-continent. Hard to believe it was three years ago that my friend Mary and I shared wine and cheese with you on the deck. Wish I were in Maine today, to contemplate and feel the weather modulate.
All four of us, Bill, Lebo, Nora and I, read Country of Unrequited Dreams and still argue about the correction pronunciation of NewFoundland! Learned much about the Province and enjoyed meeting some new historical as well as imaginary characters.
Colleen, want to send you Robert Darnton’s article titled “Google’s Loss: the Public’s Gain from the New York Review, April 28, 2011. I found it to be a good summary of Google Book Search Project, the court decision and Darnton’s (and others) Digital Library for America as an alternative to Google. Will send to Tenant’s Harbor but who knows when and if it will arrive before fall… Looking forward to seeing you in MN.