The subtitle of Heather Lende's book summarizes it very well--Family, Friendships, and Faith in Small-town Alaska. Lende, who is also a commentator for NPR, writes for a local newspaper, sharing in fifteen chapters the stories of her friends and neighbors. They are poignant, sometimes sad, sometimes laugh out loud funny.
Lende shares her own experience of being hit by a truck while riding her bicycle, which provides a framework for the book. The incident and her treatment and healing are referred to frequently. Readers will also learn of the Tlingit people of Alaska and of the land and wildlife. An Episcopalian, Lende also subtly shares her faith, sometimes expressed by singing while snowshoeing. I intend to find more of her books and read them all!
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Photo by Ljubomir Žarković on Unsplash (It's of Lake Bled in Slovenia) You may have seen the Best American...series, with annual volumes of poetry, essays, and short stories. Perhaps you've missed the travel writing series, from the same publisher, the same set-up as the other types of writing: a guest editor combs through pre-selected pieces (I assume thanks are due to interns reading huge piles of writing) to curate a variety of viewpoints and writers. As you may know, I'm happiest doing my traveling in a book. Real time isn't nearly so much fun or simple. When I saw this volume of 2021 travel writing, I picked it up at once. This is a particularly interesting volume, because travel was generally not happening during 2020 and 2021. If traveling and writing about it is your thing, it was a dreadful time. But this volume collects some pieces from hardy folk who traveled as soon as they were able, many of them to places I would never visit, enduring conditions I could not. And some of the essays are memory pieces or explanations of why one travels at all. Well worth your time, especially if you, too, have not been traveling lately. [Photo from National Cancer Institute, via Unsplash, even though cancer was not Elizabeth Zott's area of study.] Apple TV + is beginning a new series, Lessons in Chemistry, on October 13. There’s a reason for that—the novel, written by Bonnie Garmus, is terrific. Read it first; no doubt for television it will be mucked up. Set in the 1950s and 1960s, the book is a love story of two misfit chemists who find one another. It’s also about the challenges women of that era faced, especially if they wanted a career. The sexist, misogynistic world is on full display here. Elizabeth Zott, brilliant and beautiful, is attacked and abused for her desire to be recognized as a chemist, not simply as the host of an afternoon cooking show, “Supper at Six.” The main characters also include a dog, a TV producer, a Presbyterian minister, an anonymous donor, a young child, a kind neighbor, as well as Elizabeth's soul mate. I “lost” two days to reading this book, which was a great pleasure. |
What I’m ReadingI began working in libraries as a seventh grader, courtesy of scoliosis. My orthopedic surgeon wrote me a pass to miss gym class, so I began working in the school library to feed my love of reading. Even after my surgery to correct the curvature, I kept getting out of gym to work in my high school library and then in my college library (for pay, at last!).
So began my eventual career as a college reference librarian—after a detour into teaching high school English. Later I worked for an educational publisher before going back to libraries.
I have a reading and writing life now. I devour both fiction and nonfiction, and will tell you about some of my favorite reads, both old friends and new discoveries.
Here's some library-themed music to get you in the mood.
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