- Following the Sandhill Cranes
in Colorado by Evelyn Horn
- Excerpts from the journal of an
experienced birder who follows sandhill cranes from her
home base in Hart's Basin to various other points on
their migration route. She encounters a wide variety of
other bird species in her travels and writes wonderful
short essays about each. Fun to dip into but kind of hard
to read straight through. Wish she'd written more about
her visit to Bosque del Apache.
- The Crofter and the Laird
by John McPhee
- A typical McPhee-style depiction
of a small island in the Hebrides, its history, and its
current inhabitants. He focuses on a crofter who is eking
out his existence in this last outpost of feudalism and
on the laird (English of courser) who owns the island.
All the island inhabitants are vividly described as is
the terrain of the island itself. I almost felt like I'd
been visiting Colonsay and talking with Donald Gibbie and
Angus the Post and Laird Strathcona myself.
- The Silent Traveller in
Edinburgh by Chiang Yee
- OK. I know I'm addicted to
these books. This is gloomier than the others, but then
again the subject is Scotland -- land of gloom. Anyway, I
loved it.
- Those of the Gray Wind: The
Sandhill Cranes by Paul Johnsgard
- The reader gets to follow the
annual migration of the sandhill cranes from the
wintering grounds in New Mexico to their breeding grounds
in the Arctic and then back again. It cleverly does this
in various decades over the past two hundred years to
show how humans have encroached on the cranes' ancient
cycle.
- The Prophet of Dry Hill by
David Gessner
- David Gessner takes walks with
John Hay, the famous Cape Cod nature writer, and comes up
with a sort of informal biography. But it's so much more
than that. Just reading how awake and attuned to the
natural world both these guys are makes me want to go out
birding immediately.
- The Silent Traveller in
Boston by Chiang Yee
- OK. I think I'm addicted to these
books. Chiang Yee writes with a very strong visual sense,
which makes sense because he was an artist, and his
observations are quirky and wonderful. While he does fall
under the spell of the "quaint New England theme park"
image of Boston when he's describing Beacon Hill in the
snow, a lot of what he notices, writes about, and paints
is the non-theme park reality. My memories of Boston in
the 1950s are of course those of a small child, but so
much of what he wrote about rang true for me. Most of the
"foreign traveller visits Boston" books I've read have
been from the 19th and early 20th century -- so it's fun
to get the perspective of a mid-20th century visitor. One
cool thing that he does is to end each chapter with a
poem. Most enjoyable.
- The Silent Traveller in
Dublin by Chiang Yee
- Told ya I was going to read all of
them. Quirkier than the San Francisco one. He devotes
nearly an entire chapter to trying to make friends with
his host's cats, another chapter to a weird dream about
ducks and dead frogs, and yet another to why he didn't
like/didn't understand Synge's The Playboy of the
Western World. I'm lovin' it.
- The Silent Traveller in San
Francisco by Chiang Yee
- Why was I so late in discovering
Yee's wonderful series of "Silent Traveller" books? I
must now read all of them. Anybody who can visit San
Francisco in 1953 and observe that the bison in the
Golden Gate Park Zoo look like beatniks -- or the
beatniks look like bison -- and get you thinking about it
deserves reading. The main reason I picked this up to
browse is because of the illustrations -- Yee paints
quintessentially California scenes in a Chinese style and
makes it work. The reason the book came home with me from
Myopic Books is his rhapsodizing over the beauty of Mt.
Diablo. Long term readers may remember that the looming
dry brown mass of Mt. Diablo symbolized California for me
as a child -- summarizing the awful sidewalk-less dry
place half of my mother's family moved to in the 1950s.
Yee even comments on the sidewalk-lessness of Pittsburg,
the town La Madre's sister moved to (the brother moved to
S.F. then to Concord then Walnut Creek then back to
S.F.). Yee's visits to the SF Bay Area in the 1950s and
1960s encompassed the same Bay Area I saw as a child.
Amazing.
- Road to Heaven: Encounters with
Chinese Hermits by Bill Porter
- The renowned translator of Chinese
poetry, Red Pine aka Bill Porter, travels the mountains
of China looking for authentic old-fashioned Taoist and
Buddhist hermits. He finds them. More than you would
think. Certainly way more than his teachers in Taiwan
told him he would find. The hermit tradition is not
extinct. "The mountains are high and the emperor is far
away, " as the saying goes. It's a quick read and an
engaging travelogue. By the way, Bill Porter is another
name for Red Pine (or Red Pine is another name for Bill
Porter).
- Rare Encounters with Ordinary
Birds by Lyanda Lynn Haupt
- A collection of seventeen short
essays on birds -- common, ordinary, even invasive ones.
She explores the starling's bad reputation, mating
behaviors of woodpeckers (they're not trying to
wreck your house, really they're not), the mysterious
ways of crows (and why there are so many of them), and
stuff like that. A pleasant, not too demanding bedtime
read.
- The Grail Bird by Tim
Gallagher
- Gallagher writes beautifully of
the search for and rediscovery of the ivory-billed
woodpecker and tells a rousing good story. I couldn't put
it down. Read this book. Right now.
- The Road to Oxiana by
Robert Byron
- OK, so he never actually gets to
the Oxus River. It's still a great story. In 1933 Robert
Byron left England on a journey through the Middle East
to Oxiana--the country of the Oxus River (aka Amu Darya
river ) by way of Jerusalem, Baghdad, and Teheran. The
Oxus forms part of the border between Afghanistan and the
then Soviet Union. Much like nowadays, Afghanistan in
1933 was not your average tourist destination. The
Road to Oxiana gives a vivid account of his
adventures, an interesting glimpse into how pre-WWII
conditions/events prefigured today, and a detailed
description of the architectural treasures of a region,
especially those in Persia (Iran to us), now inaccessible
to most Western travelers. He even mentions a few plant
names and beautifully describes a Grey Monitor Lizard as
having Chippendale legs.
- Rare Bird by Maria Mudd
Ruth
- Subtitled Pursuing the Mystery
of the Marbled Murrelet. This book is a gem. I
couldn't put it down. The marbled murrelet is funny
seabird that nests deep in old-growth forests -- old
growth conifers, how's that for overlapping some of my
interests. It is a threatened species, largely because of
habitat loss. What's really amazing is that the nesting
habits of the marbled murrelet basically weren't known to
science until well into the late 20th century. The first
accepted record of a nest was in 1974! (Hope I got that
right -- memory like a sieve today.) Ms. Ruth tells this
extraordinarily well. Her writing is excellent and her
mastery of presenting the narrative is wonderful. I found
myself asking myself "what will happen next?" right up
'til the end of the book. How the Bush administration can
justify delisting the marbled murrlet is beyond me. I
sincerely hope it doesn't happen. Ms. Ruth will have to
write a sequel to tell us how the case plays
out.
- The House on Ipswich Marsh
by William Sargent
- Vivid and well written but
stumbles on the facts in a couple of cases that only an
Essex County local would probably catch. Unfortunately
the glitches distracted me. If the guy is going to go to
the trouble to contrast the piping plover chick fledging
statistics of Crane's Beach and Parker River National
Wildlife Refuge, he ought to at least get the name of the
refuge right. It s Parker River Wildlife Refuge, not Plum
Island Wildlife Refuge. And for the record, despite
Sargent's implication that we don't use predator
exclosures at PRNWR, we do -- and the biological staff
has modified them to foil predators who started to view
the exclosures as plover vending machines. Also, salt
marsh hay has been stacked on "hay staddles" for hundreds
of years, not in "hay straddles". I blame that one on
Microsoft's spellchecker, which disallows staddle,
gundalow, salt panne, and a bunch of other perfectly good
words. I also blame it on the fact that University Press
of New England is located at Dartmouth -- a long, long,
way inland from any place their editors might ever have
seen a hay staddle. On balance I liked the book, but the
errors were really irritating.
- Tracking Desire: A Journey
after Swallow-tailed Kites by Susan
Cerulean
- More about the process of writing
about swallow-tailed kites than about swallow-tailed
kites themselves.
- Strong Right Arm: The Story of
Mamie "Peanut" Johnson by Michelle Y.
Greene
- A biography of Mamie "Peanut"
Johnson, one of only three women (so far) to play major
league baseball. Johnson was a pitcher with the Negro
Leagues' Indianapolis Clowns from 1953 to 1955. That's
plenty "major league" for me. The book is written for
kids in grades 4 thru 7, so was an easy read for this old
person. Why, you might ask, did I pick up a book intended
for 4th graders? Well, 'cause it's the only book there is
about Mamie Johnson! I attended a play at Brown
University's Rites and Reasons theater based on her life.
Ms. Johnson attended the performance and was visibly
moved by it, as was the rest of the audience. The show
was called Change-Up and was written and performed by
Melodie Thompson. Johnson and Thompson answered audience
questions after the performance. Johnson signed books,
baseballs, and photos before and after as well. It was a
thrill to meet her. I mean this woman pitched against
some of the great hitters of all time and she learned her
curveball from Satchel Page! So, the book is easy to read
and I highly recommend you give it to all the 4th graders
in your life, both boys and girls.
- At the Turn of the Tide by
Richard Perry
- Birds of the sea and salt marsh in
the UK. Nesting habits, mating behaviors, feeding
behaviors, all beautifully observed if a bit overwritten.
And he definitely has a major thing for oystercatchers. I
started referring to this book as ""The Joy of
Oystercatcher Sex".
- The King's English by Betsy
Burton
- All about running an independent
bookstore in Salt Lake City. Surprisingly good, with lots
of wonderful visting author anecdotes, quirky lists of
books, and thoughts and opinions on the soul of the west,
the future of books, business partnerships, and much much
more.
- The Polysyllabic Spree by
Nick Hornby
- Books bought; books read; opinions
offered; damn good. And funny too. Worth owning just for
the Checkov quote about owning thousands of books being a
sign of a cultured person.
- How to be a (Bad)
Birdwatcher by Simon Barnes
- Look out the window. See a bird.
Enjoy it. Presto, you are a birdwatcher. And you thought
it was all about binoculars and scopes and life lists and
rarities... Barnes is a man after my own (bad)
birdwatching heart. He'd rather see a great black backed
gull, say, here in North America where they live than in
the UK where they don't live. A bird lover with the
courage to say that what's good for birders isn't
necessarily good for the birds. And he says it all with
great humor and flair. I laughed the whole way through
it. It's short and an easy read too.
- The Footprints of the Pheasant
in Snow by Alnah James Johnston
- Memoir of an English teacher in
Beijing in the 1920s. I particularly liked her visits to
my old neighborhood in the Western Hills and her trip to
Mongolia on horseback.
- L'Ile Percée by John
M. Clarke
- A New York geologist visits the
Gaspé Penninsula in the early 20th century. Clarke
really makes you see the scenery. I found myself wanting
to get a geologist's hammer and go knock Devonian fish
fossils out of the rocks!
- Birdsong by Don
Stap
- Stap follows around avian
bioacoustics researcher Donald Kroodsma. Stap covers the
history of avian bioacoustis and gives us a glimpse into
the academic politics and behind the scenes machinations
that go into scientific research these days. Reading it
has got me even more interested in reading Kroodsma's
book, The Singing Life of Birds.Bird song is
definitely havibg its 15 minutes of fame.
- The Port by Henry Beetle
Hough
- Novel of quaint Massachusetts
seaside town versus out-of-town developers at
mid-twentieth century. Old Yankee types drinking and
smoking, saving money, and giving the out-of-towners the
runaround.
- No Man's River by Farley
Mowat
- Long canoe trips in the far north,
lots of caribou. See March
27 entry.
- Urgent 2nd Class: Creating
Curious Collage, Dubious Documents, and Other Art from
Ephemera by Nick Bantock
- How he does the things he does and
how you can do them too. Visually lush and
inspiring.
- Cat's Eyewitness by Rita
Mae Brown
- A good mystery written a little
too plainly. The plot makes up for the mediocre writing.
Hmm. wonder if Rita Mae Brown and Lillian Jackson Braun
could merge and make one cat mystery that had both plot
and interesting characters. My weakness for these is
inexplicable, so I won't even try an
explanation.
- The Englishwoman in America
by Isabella Bird
- The trip to North America in 1853
was Isabella Bird's first of many journeys of
exploration. The Englishwoman in America was her
first book. The west was wilder then. Niagra Falls was
already surrounded by tacky shops selling tacky tourist
souvenirs and fake Indian curios -- probably the same
fake Indian curios they sell there now. Boston featured
streets jammed with vehicles, many booksellers, a rivalry
with New York (over whether Mt. Auburn Cemetery is more
beautiful than Greenwood Cemetery), traffic jams, brick
buildings... the only thing radically different is the
elm trees. There were still elm trees then. She met
Longfellow. He showed her around Harvard, which she
consistently yet inexplicably calls Cambridge University.
I'm not doing this justice -- I loved this book. I feel
like I was traveling around North America with
her.
- Parts Unknown by Tim
Gallagher
- A series of essays about birds.
Vivid style makes you feel like you're right there on a
cliff face in Iceland or watching a short-billed
dowitcher in its cinnamon breeding plumage in
Churchill.
- The Fellowship of Ghosts: A
Journey through the Mountains of Norway by Paul
Watkins
- Another in the National Geographic
Directions Series like Among Flowers, My Famous
Evening, and Oliver Sacks' book about fern collecting
in Mexico. Watkins has a clarity of style and a knack for
narrative that combined with his ability to get at the
depth of things make me want to learn to write like him.
The first Watkins I read was the novel Calm at Sunset,
Calm at Dawn, which I picked up for $5 on the yellow
dot table at Jabberwocky. I loved it. Anyway, when I
first found out about this National Geographic project of
"a collection of literary travel books" written by
authors famous in other genres, there were two scenarios
I longed for: one was Howard Norman on Nova Scotia and
the other was Paul Watkins on a Scandinavian country. So
here's the dreamed of "Paul Watkins on a Scandinavian
country." Not only that but how could I resist a book
about Norway that starts on a fishing boat off Rhode
Island. So, about the book, I couldn't put it down. Also,
I can't seem to review it properly at the moment, having
just finished it seconds ago.
- Among Flowers by Jamaica
Kincaid
- A Vermont gardener, better known
as a novelist, goes plant hunting in Nepal with a couple
of seed collectors. See January
9 entry. And she lists
species names...
- The Cat Who Went Bananas by
Lillian Jackson Braun
- The 27th Cat Who mystery. A
pleasant visit with Qwill and the cats and the denizens
of Moose County., but not much of a mystery.
- The Highland Jaunt: A Study of
James Boswell and Samuel Johnson upon their Highland and
Hebridean Tour of 1773 by Moray McLaren
- McLaren follows in Boswell's
footsteps in the 1950s. Includes journal snippets that
Boswell left out of the published Tour. Just the thing
for when I felt lonesome for Boswell and Johnson after
finishing Journal of a Tour to the
Hebrides.
- Moby Dick by Herman
Melville
- That whale thing... See
January
3 entry.
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