{"id":2906,"date":"2023-09-13T12:18:34","date_gmt":"2023-09-13T19:18:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/?p=2906"},"modified":"2023-10-07T17:07:20","modified_gmt":"2023-10-08T00:07:20","slug":"sense-of-place-part-2-b00ks-plus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/?p=2906","title":{"rendered":"SENSE OF PLACE, Part 2 B00KS PLUS"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Last blog post, I got all quibbley about Paul Theroux\u2019s <strong>NYT list of books<\/strong> for a traveler to read before visiting Boston, even though I have mostly been a pass-through Boston traveler on my way to Maine.\u00a0 So to answer last post\u2019s wondering, yes,<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> maybe books can furnish a place, but capturing the sense of that place requires something more. But what is that more?\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\r\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For ideas of books to list that have a sense of Maine\u2019s magic, I looked at the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2023\/07\/26\/books\/maine-books-lily-king.html?unlocked_article_code=Pr8328xcnKIiBfFc57LaEOBC9H-BFi_bvK5CSJpS0ta2_vxArXXm7OyiTFY3NziycMASwDUicEk8Y-X28xkjvEdZxY_syIIEdF9YkMR_0g7mpPWwcIqxoIiYuoywIu9mSYZvFLLT_zmDpbjxSPvajhjfS-j0UdcAqhit3hgcQPz4tPlFBWtwi3haJ5axMNI6UTOPcrQdn3SikznFdZ38gtxzMKHyP0IMihvyg7rgyaIWpKEIT6busrAXacWej29voeyZWZfeJBnTelpdLieYkKq2_WxkGuhw-e2oFjWulCo63JyAj05Ocs-jqhvbBPZDWHiKaPh89-WMwbGmcg&amp;smid=url-share\"><b>NYT list of books<\/b><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> for a first time visitor to Maine, developed by Lily King, who is new to me, and sent by Roseledge Books veteran, Margaretta, who is not.\u00a0 [Thanks, M.]<\/span><\/p>\r\n<ul>\r\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>\u201cNight of the Living Rez,\u201d<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Morgan Talty<\/span><\/li>\r\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>\u201cWhen We Were the Kennedys,\u201d<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Monica Wood<\/span><\/li>\r\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>\u201cOlive Kitteridge,\u201d<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Elizabeth Strout<\/span><\/li>\r\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>\u201cOne Man\u2019s Meat\u201d<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and <\/span><b>\u201cCharlotte\u2019s Web,\u201d<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> E.B. White<\/span><\/li>\r\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>\u201cCall Me American,\u201d<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Abdi Nor Iftin<\/span><\/li>\r\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>\u201cLandslide,\u201d<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Susan Conley<\/span><\/li>\r\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>\u201cEmpire Falls,\u201d<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Richard Russo<\/span><\/li>\r\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>\u201cMore Than You Know,\u201d<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Beth Gutcheon<\/span><\/li>\r\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>\u201cSalem\u2019s Lot,\u201d<\/b> <b>\u201cBag of Bones\u201d<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and \u201c<\/span><b>On Writing,\u201d<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Stephen King<\/span><\/li>\r\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>\u201cThe Beans of Egypt, Maine,\u201d<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Carolyn Chute<\/span><\/li>\r\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>\u201cThe Maine Woods,\u201d<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Henry David Thoreau<\/span><\/li>\r\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>\u201cTemple Stream\u201d<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and <\/span><b>\u201cWriting Life Stories,\u201d<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Bill Roorbach<\/span><\/li>\r\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>\u201cThe Sea Trilogy,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201d Rachel Carson<\/span><\/li>\r\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>\u201cFinding Freedom\u201d<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and <\/span><b>\u201cThe Lost Kitchen: Recipes and a Good Life Found in Freedom, Maine: A Cookbook,\u201d<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Erin French<\/span><\/li>\r\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>\u201cEvening,\u201d<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Susan Minot<\/span><\/li>\r\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>\u201cOne Morning in Maine\u201d<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and <\/span><b>\u201cBlueberries for Sal,\u201d<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Robert McCloskey<\/span><\/li>\r\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>\u201cMiss Rumphius,\u201d<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Barbara Cooney<\/span><\/li>\r\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>\u201cWelcome Home or Someplace Like It,\u201d<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Charlotte Agell<\/span><\/li>\r\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>\u201cHow to Write an Autobiographical Novel,\u201d<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Alexander Chee<\/span><\/li>\r\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>\u201cCurious Attractions\u201d<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and <\/span><b>\u201cAnd Then Something Happened,\u201d<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Debra Spark.<\/span><\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Like Margaretta, I\u2019ve read or heard of some, but not others.\u00a0 I learned that my heart is with coastal Maine, that I am getting old and opinionated, and that this list lacks the sense of place that comes from the \u2018then\u2019 that gives meaning to the \u2018now.\u2019 So, I decided to try making a list.<\/span><\/p>\r\n<div id=\"attachment_2912\" style=\"width: 552px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2912\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-2912\" src=\"http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/IMG_20230831_110843264_HDR-542x600.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"542\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/IMG_20230831_110843264_HDR-542x600.jpg 542w, http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/IMG_20230831_110843264_HDR-925x1024.jpg 925w, http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/IMG_20230831_110843264_HDR-420x465.jpg 420w, http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/IMG_20230831_110843264_HDR-768x851.jpg 768w, http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/IMG_20230831_110843264_HDR-1387x1536.jpg 1387w, http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/IMG_20230831_110843264_HDR.jpg 1842w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 542px) 100vw, 542px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-2912\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The red myrtle tree is a lovely late bloomer.\u00a0 Well, aren&#8217;t we all<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">?\u00a0 Sigh.<\/span><\/p><\/div>\r\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I and Roseledge Books spent 35 years on the coast of Maine, so I know something about books and Maine and readers in Maine, but not which book will give them what they need to know to be part of Maine\u2019s magic. It&#8217;s a tricky match. \u00a0 I used to suggest that visitors to Maine should read <\/span><b>Robert Mcloskey,s \u2018One Morning in Maine<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2019, and, if you thought nothing happened, Maine may not be for you.\u00a0 Maine\u2019s magic is elusive.<\/span><\/p>\r\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So, what is the &#8216;more&#8217; that a sense of that place requires.\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 .\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\r\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sometimes a picture says it better than a whole book. And if copying the picture is out of bounds, maybe the headline will do. For example, this <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2023\/08\/25\/books\/robert-mccloskey-books-maine.html?unlocked_article_code=7jHQOZFaX2woBb2HKhP1kjLS_fXHYQRoFdp11KnWAtKE6MbbQD1_L3hybwr-LWkJGro9P4QhWsAJshETcm_SCfiN_So2x6Yf02EVYUQEalsSlpSjYhHEVAb0RrswriyWtH3hWuGZbl8YrUw8c6qaAafvUMKMwNWJKY3CkIplnLYR4rcOr7mT-d6vHG4CUAhGB59THQ5sTTCfU6PD0DdG8ZoOvwsRtXn2iiWLMw19ENSS1fnQwLkhNIuzha_28QdcMGPdVQPDM13gycV7VK8qcs6ZscjWQLAiFmBtygwebhRwJOq6NmucSE_mc30Ui7dpvh4kqrPt6F8y2vjMGtmZlvT_zuY&amp;smid=url-share\">NYT<\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> article about a Maine gathering is perfect<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\r\n<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\"><b>One Morning in Maine, <\/b><\/h1>\r\n<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\"><b>225 People Went to the Library<\/b><\/h1>\r\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Robert McCloskey\u2019s<\/strong> daughter, Sarah, now a grown-up Sal, read her father\u2019s book,, <\/span><b>\u2018Blueberries for Sal\u2019.<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> New and old friends crowded into the Library of a Coastal village to see the author\u2019s very accurate drawings for his books and\u00a0 be part of the event.\u00a0 It was pure ME, but maybe you had to be there, or look at the <\/span><b>NYT<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> article and remember.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\r\n<p>I wasn&#8217;t there for the McCloskey gathering, but I was in the crowded meeting room of the East Wind Inn on a hot July afternoon when an author came to talk about the papers of Dorothea Lange and <strong>Sarah Orne Jewett<\/strong>, but after about ten minutes of heroic effort trying to discuss DL, she ended up mediating a huge and wonderful disagreement about where SOJ had landed and lived when she came to Tenants Harbor, and if she described those piers and paths in her classic book,<strong> \u2018Country of the Pointed Firs.\u2019<\/strong> Everyone there had a dog-eared edition of COPF open and ready for citing Some had historical or town maps. And Roseledge Books had its best sales ever \u2013to that day Pure ME, pure then and now, pure fun. I wish I had a picture. Fortunately, my mind\u2019s eye gets better [well, more interesting] with Irish age.<\/p>\r\n<p>I have a special place in my heart for<strong> Sarah Orne Jewett&#8217;s Country of the Pointed Firs,<\/strong> not because it&#8217;s a riveting tale, classics rarely are, but because the book led me to Tenants Harbor and Roseledge summers, and, thereby, illustrates, again, how the past always matters. then leads to now, and sometimes wrong\u00a0 ends up right.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n<p>[My SOJ story&#8230; I knew from a stone on Monhegan that <strong>Orne<\/strong> was a variant of the family name <strong>Horn<\/strong> behind <strong>HORN HILL<\/strong>. So when my weakening right side said no more to the rocky trails I loved, I flailed about for an alternative, until a MN Health Department colleague from Maine left his latest issue of <strong>DownEast Magazine<\/strong> on my desk. I paged through the mostly pictures and ads and spotted a 4 line ad<strong> \u2018EAST WIND INN, Country of the Pointed Firs, Tenants Harbor, Maine, Phone: (207) 372-6366.<\/strong>\u2019 Totally misconstruing the situation, I figured there might be a tie between HORN of Monhegan and ORNE in a Tenants Harbor ad.\u00a0 So if I loved Monhegan, as I did and do,\u00a0 then&#8230;.\u00a0 I immediately wrote for reservations and was on my way to summers in Roseledge.]<\/p>\r\n<p>And, saving the best for last&#8230;.<\/p>\r\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/heathercoxrichardson.substack.com\/p\/april-22-2023\"><b>\u00a0Heather Cox Richardson<\/b><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is a 4th generation Mainer, and historian who, in her daily <\/span><b>\u2018Letters from an American\u2019,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> sums up how the \u2018then\u2019 informs the \u2018now\u2019 of current events.\u00a0 I read her missives faithfully, but especially like the Sunday pictures with her captions and what they say about a sense of place.\u00a0 Here is a great example. <\/span>\u00a0<\/p>\r\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2018When I was a child, I loved a painting my mother had of a scene also captured in a framed photograph she owned, faded by then into grays. The painting was not great art, but it was made up of the blues and browns and greens I have always loved, and the water and mountains spoke to me. Mother always told me the picture was painted by a friend of her father\u2019s\u2014 he died when I was a baby\u2014 and it was an image of one of their favorite fishing spots, although she had no idea where it was. Mother gave that painting to me, and I have always had it up in one place or another, so Buddy knows it, too.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\r\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A few weekends ago when we stood at this spot at the end of Jordan Pond, we said almost at the same time: \u201cIt\u2019s that painting.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\r\n<div id=\"attachment_2910\" style=\"width: 650px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2910\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-2910\" src=\"http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/hcr-1024x767.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"479\" srcset=\"http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/hcr-1024x767.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/hcr-600x449.jpg 600w, http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/hcr-420x314.jpg 420w, http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/hcr-768x575.jpg 768w, http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/hcr.jpg 1170w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-2910\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">[Photo by Buddy Poland]<\/p><\/div>\r\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Very <span style=\"font-size: 16px; background-color: #ffffff;\">cool to stand in the same spot my grandfather\u2019s friend painted in what can\u2019t have been later than the 1930s, and see the same thing he saw. The past is really not that far away.<\/span> But what really struck me seeing this view was the inverse of that observation. For my grandfather\u2019s nameless and long-gone fishing buddy, who certainly never knew that the painting he made for his friend would continue to speak to someone a hundred years later, the future wasn\u2019t that far away either.\u2019<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\r\n<p><b>To be continued,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> mostly because I had fun and want to keep on thinking about a sense of place, [and my liking best those murder mysteries that have it], how \u2018then\u2019 in \u2018now\u2019 does or can fit outside of Maine, and which books work as examples. <\/span><\/p>\r\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Oh, and I\u2019m working on poems of 50 words or fewer, only one of which can be entered in King County\u2019s public poetry contest.\u00a0 Here is one of my potential entries, pertinent because of my picture with myrtle above.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\r\n<p><b>BALDLY BLESSED<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u00a0<br \/><\/span><strong>The top of my head is round and bald, like tonsured monks of old.\u00a0 <br \/>Theirs were perfect, mine is not, with\u00a0 wiggles and bumps, I\u2019m told.\u00a0 <br \/>I&#8217;ll learn from the monks, who with the nuns, will one day coed-mix,\u00a0 <br \/>And I&#8217;ll be ever ready, as their new day ABBETRIX.<\/strong><\/p>\r\n<p>Millie&#8217;s review, &#8216;What?&#8217;<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last blog post, I got all quibbley about Paul Theroux\u2019s NYT list of books for a traveler to read before visiting Boston, even though I have mostly been a pass-through Boston traveler on my way to Maine.\u00a0 So to answer &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/?p=2906\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2906"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2906"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2906\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2974,"href":"http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2906\/revisions\/2974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}