The list below is a personal one based on the random 120 books I read in 2013. It was a good reading year and it is hard to pick the best since I remember the last books better than the first and I have read 6 more in 2014 which can't be included in this list - otherwise Americans in Paris by Charles Glass would have to be on the list and probably Old Man River by John Schneider.
Westerns
Among westerns the best I read in 2014 was Badlands by Richard Wheeler. I loved two of the original Hopalong Cassidy novels written by Louie L'Amour - Trouble Shooter and The Rustlers of West Fork. And I continue to love the series that was begun by Robert Parker featuring Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch which have been continued by Robert Knott continued the series in Iron Horse and I am pleased.
Sports
It was a good year for sports books - The Art of Fielding by Harbach, The Ghost Horse by Layden and The Old Ball Game by Deford were all books of great writing and excellent stories. The first is the only fiction.
Science
The Age of Edison by Freeberg was an excellent look the shift from gas to electric. It is hard to think of how the simple lightbulb could cause a nation to create a massive network of lines and connections, of interconnected electric services. The bulb was great, but what could have succeeded if the electricity could not be delivered to the homes. The second excellent book was the Emperor of all Maladies by Mukherjee that traces both the discovery and the treatments for cancer - it was frightening as well as enlightening.
Mystery and Thrillers
I am not much for the thrillers. For example I find Reacher to be boring - he narrates the story, not much suspense about the fact that he will succeed. It is just testosterone writing and it does entertain a lot. This year I discovered Lehane and his Live by Night was excellent - his development of both place and person deepens the story telling. C J Box has entertained me for years and Breaking Point and Highway were both well written. Highway is frightening in many ways - the biggest image that stays with the reader is the number of worlds within the worlds exist and not just gangs and gangsters or terrorists and anarchists. Inferno by Dan Brown was an amazingly quick read. I guess I would have to get it a high grade based on the fact that it did not let me go until I finished. Krueger's mysteries in Minnesota continue to entertain and Trickster Point continued the entertainment. However, I am getting near the end of reading this series - Cork O'Connor is a wonderful character, but it is getting to be too far beyond acceptance that the mysteries and danger continues to be so personal. A Fistful of Dollars by Spencer Quinn continues to provide me with laughs from my favorite dog detective, but like Krueger and other series it starts to get too familiar and I will be interested in the next book and whether it will be the last I read. On the other hand I read The Valley of Fear by Doyle again for the ??? time and it is still the writing of the master. There is no better.
Biography and memoir
Let Me Finish by Roger Angell is a wonderful memoir by one of the great baseball writers, The Man From Clear Lake by Christoferson is the biography of Gaylord Nelson - father of Earth Day and the greatest environmental Senator we have had. Grant and Twain and Grant and Sherman continue to explore the complex life of this iconic General and president. The Thunderbolt Kid by Bryson is the funniest of memoirs and The Wizard explores one of our greatest inventors and electrical innovators - Tesla and puts him much higher on my list of great thinkers, scientists, inventors. Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher follows the life of Curtis and his amazing photographic adventures to record the American Indian in place and culture. Home to the Wilderness is an old memoir by Sally Carrighar and we forget how influential her words were in speaking to our environmental Conscience. But number one would be On a Farther Shore by Souder - the biography of Rachal Carson.
History
The Hour of Peril by Stashower was a surprise. First I never heard of this plot to assassinate Lincoln, but second because it was spell binding and even knowing that Lincoln would not be assassinated it was still a tense read. The Children's Blizzard was a tragic weather event in the Dakota's and all of us who know what winter really is can not help be be caught up in this narrative. In the Footsteps of Little Crow is essential to MN history as well as the history of the western Indian Wars while A Chain of Thunder is a fictional story of Vicksburg that really captures the tragedy of this encounter. I loved all the details of the New Madrid Earthquake in A Chain of Thunder and Bataan the March of Death leaves you feeling frustrated with the cruelty of humankind and the strength of humankind and the fruitlessness of wars.
Adventure
A Father's Odyssey by Hitchcock - running daily marathons from MN to Atlanta was moving and emphasizes the cause of single parents, but the writing was not as compelling as the less well motivated Paris To the Pyrenees that chronicled one of lessor known pilgrimages across France. The couple was fun, but not people I would want to walk with. It was my favorite book in this category this year. I read three books on walking the Appalachian Trail and AWOL on the Appalachian Trail was my favorite. Canoeing the Congo was good but I really wanted more about the canoeing. What may surprise is that Lost and Found on the Pacific Crest Trail which was a best seller was not one I particularly liked.
Environmental
Toms River by Fagin is a classic already. Covering the chemical plant that takes over a town by offering jobs and then holds the town hostage while it ravages the rivers, ground water, and air is too familiar. It is playing out now in the battle over the Sulfide Mining near the Boundary Waters. Jobs, money is the cry, but devastation and finally financial ruin is the reality. Shadows on the Gulf by Jacobson and The Great Deluge by Brinckley are outstanding looks at the issues at the end of the Mississippi. I just wish Brinkley would be a little less wordy. American Canopy by Rutkin, Mycophilia by Bone, and The Town that Food Saved by Hewitt were also entertaining and enlightening books this year.
Novels
Andrew's Brain by Doctorow is a fascinating trip looking out from someone else's brain and a brain that is a little warped too. Paris by Rutherford is a history of the most intriguing city in the world and my favorite novel of the year while Songlines by Chatwin was an intriguing look at the musical trails that guide the Aborigines across Australia and The Man in the Basement by Mosely was the strangest set up for a novel this year - a guilt ridden white man seeks to be locked up in the basement of a black man - imagine the complications this can have.
Poetry
Only two books of Poetry this year - Tin Flag by my favorite poet and humerous - Louis Jenkins and a peaceful combination of poetry and photos - Conversations by Clem and Elizabeth Nagel.
Monday, January 13, 2014
Tuesday, January 7, 2014
Americans in Paris by Charles Glass
Paris is the city of light, the literary capital of the
western world, a gathering place, a place of love and yet for one dark period
it was an occupied city with the bleak flags of the Nazi horror fluttering from
every post and building and the sound of the Jackboot replacing the light
murmur of the streets. The city was
saved because it declared no resistance and we all better off because of that.
But the people suffered from lack of heat, lack of food,
lack of freedom and life in occupied places is not pleasant for anyone. The potential knock on the door, the Gestapo
and all the other horrid institutions of intimidation were always there and a
neighbor might choose to turn you in for false reasons just because they are
angry at you.
But this is only a story of the French in that it is there
city and their institutions and their battle, instead it is the story of the
Americans who lived there and chose to stay for the occupation. In the beginning, America was not in the war
so they were not subject to the ill treatment of the French, and especially the
Jews and the minorities.
The cast of people is a fascinating combination of
shopkeepers, doctors, actress, businessmen who each played a significant role
in the drama. We follow a businessman
who is so intrigued by his own genius that he is happy to pursue his ideas with
anyone who has the power in cash and so he becomes involved with the Nazis as
easily as the British, French and Americans he has previously worked with. Even after the US enters the war and the
Americans are captured and put in controlled structures within the controlled
city.
There is the couple who saves the American Hospital and the
American Library, but has no time for the resistance movement. We meet the owner of the Shakespeare
bookstore who has been a friend of Hemingway, Joyce and numerous other
important literary figures – Hemingway even makes an appearance at the
beginning and the end.
Doctor Jackson and his family save lives in the hospital and
also save pilots through an underground railroad that gets many American
fighters out of France, but ultimately all of his family will be sent to prison
camp and in a terrible irony die when the British blow up three ships that are
filled with prisoners shortly before the war ends.
And then there is the story of the black pilot who had to
fly for the French because the Americans prejudice was so great. He saw how the American’s forced the French
to remove Africans from their ranks and refused to allow blacks to walk in the
victory parade through Paris – a city that did not share these terrible racial
traits – traits that were more in line with the Nazis. In the city of enlightenment it was obvious
that the great American Nation stilled needed its own enlightenment in this
area and that would be the next big chapter in American history.
Friday, November 15, 2013
The Man From Clear Lake by Bill Christofferson
This is a look at the mans entire life with great insights into the value of growing up in a small rural WI community with parents who were educated, involved, and ethical. The author does a good job of portraying the man who was nicknamed Happy as a youth and continued to earn that moniker throughout life even as he worked against the challenges that were destroying our environment and resources.
Earth Day was an expression of his love of the Earth and its natural beauty, but more important it was an outlet for millions of people who shared his love and concern. Describing the Earth day rally in the Chicago Tribune – side by side photos during and after the demonstration, the paper wrote with astonishment, “When the demonstrators left there was no post-rally litter remaining to be cleaned up.”
He recognized the conscience of the American mind, the fact that we had grown as a nation in natural beauty and natural abundance. His call for a day to raise the political will to protect the environment included every age. “The National Education Association estimated that ten million public school children took part in Earth Day Programs.”
The day had its detractors, just as we see Koch and others of the Tea Party ilk attacking parks and greenways - the true peoples places - Time magazine wrote that the day “had aspects of a secular, almost pagan holiday.” Unwittingly this would plague the environmental cause with a “pagan” stigma that would be latched onto by some critics. But it was not religion and religious leaders with a true sense of creation joined in the day and celebrations.
Gaylord Nelson delivered a speech on a four day tour that
included this statement: “This is not just an issue of survival. Mere survival is not enough. How we survive is the critical issue…Our goal
is not just an environment of clean air, and water, and scenic beauty – while
forgetting about the Appalachias and the ghettoes where citizens live in
America’s worst environment…Our goal is an environment of decency, quality, and
mutual respect for all other human creatures, and all other living creatures –
an environment in the deepest and broadest sense.”
His ideas were not new - John Muir, Theodore Roosevelt, Emerson, Thoreau, Rachel Carson, Aldo Leopold and many others had been expressing similar sentiments, but Gaylord had put himself in the political position to do something about these concerns and to answer the question raised in 1873 by Wisconsin Chief Justice Edward G Ryan at a University
of Wisconsin commencement said, “Which shall rule – wealth of man; which shall
lead – money or intellect; who shall fill public stations – educated and
patriotic free men, of the feudal serfs of corporate capital?”
The author spends the majority of life in the political decades that defined Nelson, but he also gave us an intimate look at Gaylord and his buddies in Clear Lake: “Gaylord and Sherman were up in Clyde Jones’s apple tree one
night, stealing apples, when Jones came out and turned on the light “so you can
see better,” then went back inside while the embarrassed would-be thieves ran
off.”
We can also see the man who was eloquent in the Senate and the Governors office as a less polished speaker in his young adulthood. “…on a walk along Willow Drive on the U.W. campus. Gaylord shifted from one foot to the other,
finally pulled out a ring with a small diamond in an exquisite rosette setting,
and said, ‘Here, my mother wanted me to give this to you.’
“’He didn’t say I love you and want to marry you, nor did he drop to his knees,
but it was assumed that somewhere along the way that ring would join a band of
a different sort,’ Carrie Lee recalled.
She called it the classic Scandinavian approach: ‘If you think it, then
the other person is supposed to know and already imagine that you said
it.’ At a party for their fiftieth
wedding anniversary, Nelson joked about the Norwegian who told his cousin, ‘You
know, I love Amanda so much that sometimes it is all I can do to keep from
telling her.’”
It is difficult to summarize his life. Like Theodore Roosevelt, he was a politician for the environment and he knew how to get things done. But unlike Roosevelt, he was not captivated by the manly art of war and the Vietnam crisis was another time that tested his strength of character and his need to say what was right even it if was not popular.
Edmund Muskie was a leading environmental politician and friend and he shared friendships with other senators - Russell Long, Hubert Humphrey, Walter Mondale. In fact, despite disagreements, he might have been the most popular Senator on the hill - at least with other Senators who enjoyed the conviviality of his home, the welcome of his wife Carrie Lee, and the stimulation of good debate out of the public eye.
If Earth Day is the thing that will forever be his signature, perhaps if is fitting to end this summary with this is the ad that was run in the New York Times in 1970
for the first Earth Day.
"A disease has infected our country. It has brought smog to Yosemite, dumped
garbage in the Hudson, sprayed DDT in our food, and left cities in decay. Its carrier is men.
"Earth Day is a commitment to make life better, not just
bigger and faster; to provide real rather than rhetorical solutions. It is a day to re-examine the ethic of
individual progress at mankind's expense.
It is a day to challenge the corporate and governmental leaders who
promise change, but who shortchange the necessary programs. It is a day for looking beyond tomorrow. April 22 seeks a future worth living. April 22 seeks a future."
Tuesday, November 12, 2013
Wednesday, November 6, 2013
Trickster's Point - Krueger
What makes this story so interesting is the constant development of a back story that gives insights into Cork and his past, as well as, the strong Ojibwe connection.
The best of this series, for me, are the books that build on the traditional aspects of Anishanabe culture. Krueger is quickly becoming the Tony Hillerman of the northern tribes and it is a role that has grown with the development of the series.
The characters are realistic and the tension of the mystery blend well with the lives of the characters. Krueger has created people we care about.
In this case we are introduced to an old friend of Cork from his school days. This is the super person - the one who seems to do everything better than everyone else. Every school has a character like this, but seldom does that person continue to grow with his status - often high school becomes the peak of the life.
In this case the man is a success in every way, except in the personal ways that lead to a successful personal life to match his political and sports success.
We meet classmates of Cork and we are involved with complex life dramas that swirl around a murder and an attempted murder.
Best of all we are brought along to care about the individuals and we can groan and anguish over the fact that Cork is both the suspect and the target in the murder plot that comes together in the politics of the reservation, lake country and Minnesota.
Monday, November 4, 2013
Mycophilia - Eugenia Bone
It is a book of stories and the stories are told well and are both interesting and factual. It is like an oral tradition of fungus - a look at lessons and ideas through well told stories.
I loved the telling. Sometimes I found sections that were of less interest and skimmed them a little quicker, but still found great gems within them.
It made me wonder about wonder how her husband really responded to this obsession with fungus, but otherwise it was a romp.
We traveled places that were fun, met people who were interested and participated in a world I am not interested in being part of, but a world I am interested in.
The kooks were mixed with the scientists, the places and the mushrooms were fascinating and it was a book that I found pleasing in all ways.
Bibliophilia meets mycophilia.
Sample Quotes that I enjoyed:
"There are two types of cheeses that benefit from saprophytic mold. Blue cheeses like Gorgonzola and Roquefort utilize Penicillium roqueforti. The curd is inoculated with the mold, which then grows throughout the cheese, adding flavor and fragrance. Camembert and brie-type cheeses are ripened with P. camemberti. The mold creates teh thick white rind and digests the milk proteins - that's what creates eh silky mouthfeel."
"Sometimes, when two different mycelia [the thread like material that is the real fungus] from the same species encounter each other, they don't fuse but rather become hostile and compete for resources. Individual fungi can communicate with each other via pheromones, the secreted chemicals that trigger social reactions in animals, plants, and fungi. If they recognize a competitor, they can inject toxic chemicals into the substrate in order to repulse competitive species. They can even invade a competing fungus and such dry its hyphae of nutrients."
"A Japanese study looking to reproduce a phenomenon observed in the field, that shiitake mushrooms fruited prolifically after the ground had been hit by lightning, has found that exposing the substrate of various species of fungi to an electrical charge of 50,000 - 100,000 volts for one 0-millionth of a second will double the volume of fruiting. This may be an evolutionary adaptation. Because lightning poses a survival hazard and may deliver a dead tree for dinner, it leads to accelerated fruiting."
"Fungi are organisms that comprise their own kingdom of life, equal in complexity to animals and plants. There are an estimated 1.5 million species, second only to insects in number and diversity, and only 5 percent of them have been identified. Fungi outnumber plants by a ratio of 6 - 1 and make up 25 percent of Earth's biomass. The biggest single living organism on Earth is a fungus. it is 2,200 acres in size weighs 6,286 tons and lives in the Malheur National Forest in the Blue Mountains of Eastern Oregon. Some fungi are so tiny they live between the cells of other organisms. The first terrestrial creatures may have been fungi, and they are more closely related to us, evolutionarily speaking, than they are to plants."
Saturday, November 2, 2013
Paris to the Pyrenees by David Downie
Walking with his wife, Downie is skeptical and like my adventures - Full Circle Superior and Full Length Mississippi he is dealing with back pains and knees.
What I like is the freshness of his reflections like these:
"Before reaching the chateau we stopped for a snack on a panoramic bench near an alley of mossy, carefully clipped linden trees. I paused before sinking my teeth into a pear, removing the sticker that said "Chile." The baker had told us that the crust of the quiche we'd brought was made with Canadian flour, and that the bacon inside was from Hungary. The mineral water was Italian, the chocolate Swiss. I thought of the vaguely Japanese-Australian meal we'd enjoyed at the neo-Druidic-Buddhist Relais du Maconnais, and wondered just how notional was the Frenchness of French food and "French identity."
"I forced myself to admire the chateau and pronounce it exceptionally attractive. It was not "run down,' but atmospherically down at the heel."
"the monk had also said something that had made great sense to me, and lodged in myu brain's leathery convolutions. 'The only thing all pilgrims have in common is an interior necessity - I must go, I don't know why..."
It is the journey that counts and his insights are certainly different than many I might make, but that is what is intriguing, insightful, and often humorous like:
“…and his description of how some clever local winemakers keep a special “Parker Barrel” of fruit forward wine to hoodwink the supposedly omniscient American critic Robert Parker, came as an entertaining surprise. As big as a barrel, and overflowing with self-confidence, Parker roamed the vineyards of the world, judging wines and making or breaking wineries.
“According to Romain, “Parker Barrel” wines are made for export to countries where they will please the infallible Parker and the palates that share his florid tastes. Essentially, they go to America, England, and Germany. The same chateau’s same vintages sold in France might be different, more nuanced and less oaky. ‘People drink Givry wines here and love them,’ Romain said good-naturedly. ‘They go home, they buy what they think are the same wines, and they say ‘Hmmm, why are they always better when you drink them on the spot?’ “
He wanders into churches and observes the obligatory historic buildings which serve as the signposts of the trek, but still maintains enough distance to write descriptions like this: "If a jury had to nominate castles for the Atmospheric Crumbled Ruin Award, Chateau de Montaigu would certainly be short-listed. A tower with gaping eyes for windows, arm-thick creepers dangling from it, shrubs sprouting at unlikely angles from moat and dungeon, hewn stone walls rising high above scented robinia trees, and fallen arches more dramatic than my own - such was the scene awaiting at Montaigu."
I found myself walking with them, enjoying the brief glimpses into the different personalities of husband and wife, and feeling the trail beneath my feet. What more could you ask for?
Sunday, October 20, 2013
A Curious Man - Neal Thompson
A sports cartoonist who enjoyed the fascinating oddities, his curiosity grew to travel and outlandish individuals and stories. Starting in Chicago with an "Odditorium" exhibition at the World's Fair Ripley touched the pulse of the American common man - so successfully that he continued to prosper right through the Great Depression.
The result of his combined efforts and skills became an amazing story itself and the man failed at marriages, but lived a life with constant female companions and an entourage that would be the envy of any star.
I found it fascinating that a man who had the talent of cartooning, was a good baseball player and a handball ability ended up becoming a rich icon because he tapped in to the curiosity and craving for weird and unusual. He was Horatio Alger - the self made man, but his success came from the great energy he invested in all that he did and his love of world travel.
In the end story is itself a Believe it or Not tale and very enjoyable.
Friday, October 18, 2013
The Town That Food Saved by Ben Hewitt
The goals that were set were not just for the businesses to grow and prosper, but for them to be integral to the community itself: To change the diet and the economics. We meet cheese producers, local off the grid citizens who resent the new idea entrepreneurs, and the voice and energy of the new concept - Tom Stearns.
Here is an excerpt:
"On a sun-washed Vermont hillside on a late July afternoon, my face tilted into the day’s fading heat, I stood and listened to Tom Stearns as he expounded on the woes of modern agriculture. “Who’s the biggest user of energy? Agriculture! Who’s the biggest user of land? Agriculture! Who’s the biggest user of water? Agriculture! Who’s the biggest polluter? Agriculture!” He stabbed a finger in the air for emphasis. “All we have are models of broken plans to look at. Totally, completely broken.” He sipped from his beer, and turned to face me squarely. “In five years, we will have people from all over the planet visiting Hardwick to see what a healthy food system looks like.”Tom and I were standing on the sprawling hillside lawn of Heartbeet Life Sharing, a residential farming community for special needs adults, who participate in all aspects of farm operations on the sloping 160-acres of field and forest. There was drumming and a bonfire and small children running across the sunlit lawn clutching rabbits to their chests. A small herd of cows grazed on pasture below the house, casting long shadows in the late afternoon light. Earlier in the day, there’d been a collective effort to construct a wood-fired stone-and-clay oven and now it sat drying, at once lumpen and graceful. If one were looking for an inspiring setting in which to discuss localized agriculture, with all its ancillary benefits of social good and pastoral beauty, one couldn’t have imagined a better stage.
Over the past months and years, there’s been a lot of these sort of discussions in Hardwick. And lately, Tom Stearns, the owner of an organic seed company called High Mowing Seeds, had found himself thrust (or was he thrusting himself?) into the spotlight with increasing frequency before audiences that seemed to only grow in size. He talked about America’s industrial food system, how it had become frayed and vulnerable, how it sucked the sweet life out of our nation’s towns and cities and out of the bodies and minds of the people who lived in these communities. He talked about the dangers of our dependence on this system, on the urgent need to wean ourselves from its power, to develop an antidote to its multitudinous ills. He spoke of the social good that would arise from this seismic shift in how we feed ourselves. But mostly, he talked about this little town that was embarking on an ambitious quest to define itself as the community that would show the rest of America what a healthy, functioning and, ok, maybe even sustainable food system might look like and how other communities, towns, and even cities, will learn from Hardwick.
And on that halcyon summer afternoon at Heartbeet Lifesharing, standing in what felt like the soft center of a lush, fertile greenness that permeated everything, I listened as he unfolded his vision and I believed it because I could see it all laid out before me: The cows nuzzling for tufts of ripe grass, the wholesome-looking neighbors gathered to share wholesome-looking dishes (I regretted my decision to eat earlier with my family, who’d stayed home) that were surely comprised of local ingredients, the emotionally and behaviorally-challenged men and women who were finding meaning and purpose in this agrarian landscape and the day-in, day-out demands of running a farm. There was nothing to argue, here. There was only health and bounty and promise. This was what a food system should look like. Of course the world would take notice; of course people would come from all its corners to see this wonderful thing being created in this wonderful little town. Who could resist?
I snapped myself out of my reverie. Stearns had dropped into a rare moment of silence, fiddling with the frilly elastic hair band around his neck (he has two young daughters, who were frolicking on the lawn below us). How? I asked. How do you create this thing? How do you break it down into little pieces, how do you address the hard questions of money and regulation and simple habits? How do you take this – I swept my arm across our view – and export it, scale it? How do you make it something that’s not just for foodies, for the affluent and aware?
Stearns, in what I would come to recognize as his preferred oratory style, spoke in the flourished language of a politician running for office. “We can export a lot of things, but I think our main gift will be inspiration.” He flared his nostrils and adjusted the hair band. “We’re going to be exporting a lot of inspiration.” It sounded nice, though it wasn’t a terribly satisfying answer. But by then, I’d finished my second beer, and someone had dropped a pie onto the picnic table. The drums were beating a nice groove and I felt my hips moving. I wasn’t in the mood to press the issue. Tom Stearns and I strolled across the grass toward the pie."
The book tries to balance the competing views. It works to balance the claims versus the results and in doing so provides a reflective narrative while inviting the reader to become part of the community. Because of his own position in the area this is accomplished quite well. As residents of a small rural area, Kate and I recognized the people and voices that are heard hear. Ben's bio - from his website starts:
"I was born and raised in northern Vermont, in a two-room cabin situated on the 160-acre homestead my father purchased in the late 60′s. At 16, the legal age of “school leaving” in my home state, I dropped out of high school to pursue a self-designed study program in excessively loud heavy metal music and extreme partying. I began writing for magazines in my early 20′s; within two years, freelance magazine writing became my sole means of supporting myself and later, my family.
"In 1997, my then-girlfriend (now wife) Penny and I purchased 40 acres in the town of Cabot, Vermont, where we now run a small-scale, diversified hill farm with our two sons, Finlay and Rye."
We loved the use of words, the images and the writing as well as the story. To learn about the Vermont Center for an Agricultural Economy that is featured in the book check out http://www.hardwickagriculture.org/vermont-food-venture-center
To learn about Hardwick check out http://hardwickvt.org/
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)