Sapphire Girls Book Club Archives,

2014 – 2022

2014

January

Monthly Choice:  The Signature of All Things, Elizabeth Gilbert

We must dive into this book!  This is Elizabeth Gilbert’s new work, a novel. She had us at hello with Eat, Pray, Love, didn’t she? – what was it about that book?  Was it that we wanted to be on that adventure of food, spirituality and love without the heartbreak that precipitated it? Or was it that we’d shared that kind of heartbreak and wished we’d handled it the way the author did?

From the back dustcover of The Signature of All Things, about the main character Alma, “from the moment the girl learned to speak, she could not put an argument to rest.  She wanted to understand the world, and she made a habit of chasing down information to its last hiding place, as though the fate of nations were at stake in every instance.”  Sounds like a Sapphire Girl to me!

Bonus Book (Category: Classic/Re-Read/Learn From):          

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, An Inquiry into Values, Robert M. Pirsig.

A 1974 classic that many have read and savored but our younger sisters may not be familiar with. Enjoy the varied layers of learning here, of relationships (father/son), travel, the search for quality, value and meaning.  “We take a handful of sand from the endless landscape of awareness around us and call that handful of sand the world” – one of dozens of timeless quotes from the book. I’m on my fifth re-read.

February

Monthly Choice:  The Encyclopedia of Early Earth, Isabel Greenberg.

Unusual choice in its “comic book” format but the combo of a story line of “soul mates, that can’t touch” and very good reviews for color and style made it a compelling possibility.  Let’s see how we feel about this strange, fun pick. The second month of 2014 seems a good time to try something completely different!

Bonus Book (Category – Not Well Known): The Art of Hearing Heartbeats, Jan-Philipp Sendker.

A moving love story set in Burma, the words flow with raw tenderness.  Published in 2002, it was translated from the original German in 2006 – but I just heard of it late last year.  Read it when you have time to savor the words and the feelings they evoke.  Can you take the time to hear the heartbeats around you?

                                    March

Monthly Choice:  a Hundred Pieces of Me, Lucy Dillon.

I don’t know this writer and hope she brings the goods.  The concept is the reason for the choice for this month.  If you had to pick just 100 things from your present life as you begin a new one – what would they be and why? **may not be available just yet… more to come.

Bonus Book (Category – Not Well Known): Sky Burial, Xinran.

Once read, this story of one woman’s odyssey to find answers about her lost love will never be forgotten.  Tibet’s vast spaces and mystical, mysterious landscape will envelope you.  This epic journey is profoundly moving. Published in 2004, it was translated from the Chinese in 2005.  Have you read or heard about this story?  I think you will love it.

April

Monthly Choice:   A Garden of Marvels:  How We Discovered That Flowers Have Sex, Leaves Eat Air and Other Secrets of Plants, Ruth Kassinger.

A little history of botany, some modern research, an informal and eclectic musing, and a lot of learning about the life and beauty of plants.  Just released in March this seems a perfect read for our new Spring!

Bonus Book (Category – Books to Learn From): Animal Dialogues, Craig Childs.

Chapter by chapter the author brings you into intimacy with the wild ones.  He knows them well. The subtitle is “uncommon encounters in the wild” and if you didn’t love them before you can’t help but love them after reading Child’s beautiful evocative words.  From bears, mountain lions and jaguars to bald eagles and ravens to squid (and many more) after this read you’ll feel like you’ve talked to the animals.

May

Monthly Choice:   In Paradise:  A Novel, Peter Matthiessen.

One hundred women and men gather for a week of retreat for the purpose of honor and witness of human suffering.  The location is a former concentration camp and the evolution of emotions and tensions as the week progresses creates the storyline.  Matthiessen has written epic and respected manuscripts including two of my favorites, The Snow Leopard and In The Spirit of Crazy Horse.  I love his research and writing. Released April, 2014.

Bonus Book (Category – Books to Learn From): Moonwalking with Einstein, Joshua Foer.

I would expend major energy into improving my memory if I knew it would work.  This book proves that it is possible and also that the learning can be a fun and interesting enterprise.  Build your palaces to place your remembering and enjoy the ramble through contests, techniques, and unique real life characters.  The author, in the course of his research, used the techniques and became a finalist in the world memory championship (within one year!).

June

June Monthly Choice:   behind the beautiful forevers, Katherine Boo.

This book has won many prestigious awards including The National Book Award, The PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award, The Los  Angeles Times Book Prize and The American Academy of Arts and Letters Award.  The author has also won a Pulitzer Prize, and is a staff writer for The New Yorker.  We have to notice and absorb some grand prize winners along the reading journey right?  After just a few pages I can see what all the fuss is about…  raw humanity and distribution of riches, just two of the deep facets explored and written about so beautifully here.  This review really says it all, “There are books that change the way you feel and see;  this is one of them.” (Adrian Nicole Leblanc).  Published in 2012, the paperback edition has just been released.

Bonus Book (Classic): Their Eyes Were Watching God, Nora Neale Hurston .

Now that June is here and summer, let’s reread a classic or two… One of my all time favorites, this is a quick read that is profoundly moving.  I don’t see it on many “must read” lists, but it’s definitely on mine.

July

Monthly Choice:   Still Life with Breadcrumbs, Anna Quildlan.

A 60 year old photographer moves to a cabin in the woods… well, hello!, for me this is a must read! Published in January, 2014, haven’t seen a lot of pub on this book, let’s see if we think we should start some!

Bonus Book (Something to Learn From): Q&A, The Buddha…off the record, Joan Duncan Oliver.

More summer reading fun.  This is a question and answer session with the Buddha – a fictionalized Buddha and an interviewer cover thirteen themes including suffering and morality.  Can be read in short spurts, taken up and put back down to absorb. (Foreward by Annie Lennox). Published in 2010.

August

Monthly Choice:  Tipping Sacred Cows,  Betsy Chasse. 

The author is the award-winning producer of What the Bleep Do We Know!?, so I’m compelled by her perspective and question asking.  Her fearlessness.  After exploring the questions in What the Bleep Do We Know, Chasse realized she didn’t have as many answers as she once had such confidence in.  Seeking to delve deeper into those arenas that she wasn’t aware she had held “sacred” and unquestioned, she started tipping sacred cows one by one.  Are we ready to bravely create new stories? Published, January, 2014.

Bonus Book (Something to Learn From/Reread): The Art of Doing Nothing, Veronique Vienne with photographs by Erica Lennard.

With chapters like “the art of bathing” and the “the art of breathing”, this little book from 1998 has been by my bed, by my bath, in the reading nook, for many years.  I pick it up often.  Just today I read, “some of the best thinking we do happens when the conscious mind is on a sabbatical.”  Think I’ll check out “recipe for a gourmet nap” this month for sure! “Exploring ways to make time for yourself” seems a most perfect theme for long August days.

September

Monthly Choice:  Life By the Cup,  Zhena Muzyka.

Seeking to provide a nurturing life for she and her son, a young single Mother creates a business selling tea.  She evolves with the enterprise to a deep compassion for the tea growers and the next steps are the “ingredients for a purpose filled life of bottomless happiness and limitless success” (the subtitle of the book).  Gloria Steinem writes “your hopes are a form of planning” on the back cover, along with Barnet Bain’s quote “the satisfactions of a handcrafted life come steeped in service to others”.  Both quotes compelled this choice, along with the learning I hope to gain along the reading journey. Published, June 2014.

Bonus Book (Something to Learn From/Reread): The Age of Missing Information,  Bill McKibben. Recommended by a friend, this book from 1992 completely missed my radar, but I’m glad to have discovered it now.  The premise?  With the endless information available to us now in an instant, are we more knowledgeable than when we spent more time absorbed in learning a craft and existing more closely in nature?  The author sought to answer this question by comparing two 24 hour periods.  In one, he watched every single minute of the offerings during a 24 hour period of all the stations available (93 channels!).  Then, he spent 24 hours alone in nature. As the Houston Chronicle wrote in their review, “Do yourself a favor: Put down the remote and pick up this book,”  to experience what he found.  Media is everywhere and constant – it is a wonderful counterpoint to consider what may be missing from our wisdom base from this absorption. For a book that is twenty-two years old (it has been updated to include the impact of the internet), it remains remarkably relevant, maybe even more relevant to our current times.

October

Monthly Choice: Euphoria ,  Lily King. 

Winner of the New England Book Award, another new book published this year, Euphoria tells the tale of 1930’s New Guinea and three anthropologists studying there.  The entanglements, immersion in a culture so different from one’s own, the questions of perspective and truth are all compelling components of this book.  It is a work of fiction but breathes the life of Margaret Meade. So looking forward to getting immersed myself!

Bonus Book (Something to Learn From): Good Book, David Plotz.

What if you grew up holding a book as sacred and the basis of your faith and way in the world, but you’d never actually read it (parts of it of course, but every single word?).  Yeah, me too.  The author is Jewish and like most Christians and Jews knew many of the well told and honored Biblical stories.  After reading Genesis 34, he wanted to know more about the whole of the stories contained in the Bible, and read every single word.  This book is about his journey as a non-scholar, non-theologian, without expectation or preordained thought, lay person, reading and evaluating from his perspective.  I’m looking forward to experiencing his perspective and expanding my own.  Published in 2009.

November

Monthly Choice: 

The Storied Life of  A. J. Fikry,  Gabrielle Zevin.

Bookstore on an island accessible by ferry.  Yes, had me at hello! Much like the 60ish photographer in the cabin in the woods, this is a must read!  A recent widower’s life (bookstore owner) expands exponentially in ways he could never have expected.  But still the simple life and the love of books is the main theme in this story. I love the chapter intros using book reviews and the writing immediately puts you there on this island and in this bookstore.  The characters are so very real and flawed….

Bonus Book (Something to Learn From/Not Well Known):

The Big Burn, Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire That Saved America,
Timothy Egan.

The story of how a huge fire in the western Rockies fueled the conservation of national forests for perpetuity.  Teddy Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot are main characters in their key roles as champions of preservation.  Ranchers and big company interests, much like today, fight hard with large parcels of money and political intrigue to keep all land ownership private.  This book is so well written that it’s a pleasure to read while deepening appreciation for Roosevelt and Pinchot’s tireless efforts to ensure places like Glacier National Park, Yosemite National Park and Yellowstone National Park are here for our enjoyment as well as for our children’s children.  A friend sent this book to me recently knowing how much I’d like it and I highly recommend it.  Published in 2009, reprint edition in 2014.

December

Bonus Book (Something to Learn From/Not Well Known):

A Sudden Light,  Garth Stein.

The Art of Racing in the Rain’s author has a new book released on September 30th.  The reviews promise “unforgettable moments of emotional truth”.  Bring it!  I loved The Art of Racing in the Rain, with its evocative moments and look forward to Stein’s new offering.  He gives us his impression of what it is to be human.

Bonus Book (Not Well Known):

The Mockingbird Next Door, Life with Harper Lee, Marja Mills 

Ever wonder what happened to one of your favorite book authors, Harper Lee?  I sure did.   She penned the tremendous and well loved To Kill A Mockingbird, then seemed to disappear – no more novels, no interviews, no sightings.  In 2004 though, she allowed Chicago Tribune writer, Marja Mills, to move in next door to she and her sister and for eighteen months she formed a friendship with the two and was allowed to write about them.   We will learn why Nelle Harper Lee never wrote another novel….

This book was published in 2014.

2015

January

Monthly Choice: Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, Cheryl Strayed .

To find ourselves is the greatest journey.  The movie featuring Reese Witherspoon is getting rave reviews and the book exploring the deepening of a young woman as she delves into the adventure of hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, while at the same time discovering truths about herself, seems a great read to start the New Year.  Here’s to all of the discoveries in our inner and outer worlds this year.  Let’s get this party started!

Bonus Book (Something to Learn From):  The Witness Wore Red, Rebecca Musser.

 As we continue the theme of finding yourself, this book screams to be heard.  As one of the wives of the Mormon prophet, Rulon Jeffs, the author knew no other life than that of repression, subservience and acquiescence to the men around her.  At age 18 she was Jeffs’ 19th wife.  He went on to add more that 40 more (he was in his mid 80’s at the time).  A tale from our ancient past?  No, this story is a contemporary one taking place in just the last few years.  The fringe cult of Mormons degenerated into the marriage of girls as young as fourteen, where consummations took place in the temple – with witnesses.  Musser got out and found a hard won life outside everything she had ever known.  Then this brave woman helped bring the men involved in the rape of young women to justice. It’s hard reading, and harder still to accept that these behaviors are going on in the United States in present time.  This book was recommended by my Mom, Joyce Eileen Smith Walkup.

Both of the January selections were published in 2013.

February

Monthly Choice:  The Nightengale, Kristin Hannah

As we did in 2014, the book club will explore a host of brand new books as the monthly choice,  novels, biographies, and stories of all kinds chosen in 2015.  The second monthly choices will continue to be from the broad categories of things to learn from, classics, great re-reads and not well know books.  February’s choice just came out Feb. 5th.  The story is of women, war, and perseverance.   We’re all about the women and their experiences so far this year!  This is the quote that got me, “In love we find out who we want to be.  In war we find out who we are.”  Set in France in 1939, we’ll get our Franco-file fix, and embrace the power and strength of women.

Bonus Book (Classic): Winter (notes from Montana), Rick Bass

Rick Bass has written a library of eloquent stories from the wild through the years.  I love his writing. Winter was written in 1991 when Bass was fresh out of college.  Wanting an adventure in a remote place where his girlfriend, Elizabeth, could do her art, and he could write, the couple found a cabin in the Yaak Valley in northwest Montana.  This book is the prose poetry of his winter there.  With drawings by Elizabeth, it is a perfect read while snuggled up in nook with a roaring fire.  If you don’t love winter already as I do, this may help you find its beauty.

March

Monthly Choice:  It’s What I Do, A Photographer’s Life of Love and War,
Lynsey Addario

Those that know me well will appreciate that I don’t pick a war book of any kind lightly.  The ISIS horrors are certainly weighing into this choice, and of course the life of the photographer gripes my emotions too.  In the final analysis, the fact that the title says, Life of Love & War, with Love prevailing, made the choice a comfortable one.  Knowing everyone isn’t a photography junkie like I am, I’m still hoping we all learn something of importance from the experience of this book in images and words, guiding us always toward love.  Just released in Feb., 2015.

Bonus Book (Something to Learn From): The Hidden Life of Wolves,
Jim and Jamie Dutcher

In northwest Montana we have wolves – some are nearby – a Whitefish pack.  They can be polarizing.  In actuality there are few interactions with people and seldom ones with livestock.  Because our ecosystem is relatively healthy and diverse, there is room for predators, people and livestock here.  This incredible study in photos and writing, allows us an intimate portrait of the wolf;  their family structure, loyalty, hierarchy, intelligence, hunting skills, individual personalities, and even drawings of individuals pack members are all here.  Husband and wife team, Jim and Jamie Dutcher, explore the Sawtooth Pack’s intricacies, dispelling myths and deepening understanding.  Yes, another photography book – with something to learn from.

April

Monthly Choice:  The Animals,
Christian Kiefer

Newly released in late March, 2015, The Animals, compelled me by the promise of good writing and the story of an animal sanctuary where bears and wolves are part of the story.  It gets more complicated – there’s a haunting past.   Hoping the story deepens and moves us.  Debut by the author.

Bonus Book (Not Well Known):  S., J.J. Abrams

Stumbled across this book while looking on line for an intriguing bonus book for April.  It’s from 2013 and the concept is intriguing as fellow readers come together through liner notes.  And the reviews!   “The best-looking book I’ve ever seen. . . . The book is so perfectly realized that it’s easy to fall under its spell. . . . If you want to write a romantic mystery meta-novel in which two bibliophiles investigate the conspiracy around an enigmatic Eastern European author, you couldn’t choose a better team.” –Joshua Rothan, New Yorker  “Impressively smart, engaging . . . Filled with secrets and stories that are endlessly beguiling and inviting . . . Reading S., and trying to decode everything [was] an incredibly enjoyable, fun experience, as well as a particularly immersive one. . . . For all its mysteries and intrigues, this is a book about the value of books, and what they can offer us that other storytelling mediums cannot.” —Wired  “S. is gorgeous, a masterpiece of verisimilitude. . . . The book’s spiritual cousin is A.S. Byatt’s Possession. . . . The brilliance of S. is less in its showy exterior than the intimate and ingeniously visual way it shows how others’ words become pathways to our lives and relationships.” —Washington Post.
Certainly more allocates than are normally posted on our book page, but they were all so darn good and intriguing I had to include them all.  What a find!

May

Monthly Choice:  A Curious Mind, The Secret to a Bigger Life, Brian Grazer

Hollywood producer Grazer has created an impressive list of movies:  A Beautiful Mind, Splash, Apollo 13, Friday Night Lights.  His curious mind has been the foundation to his success as a producer and as a student of life.  His list of interviewees to feed his curiosity is equally impressive: Princess Diana, Sam Walton, Michael Jackson, Edward Teller, Andy Warhol, Daryl Gates and Barack Obama (there are hundreds more).  Grazer believes that the ability to stay curious about our world and the people in it are fundamental to staying involved and happy in our lives.  He is tenacious in his pursuit of an interview, never taking no for an answer and is rewarded with a tremendous amount of learning in this pursuit.  The book is a very easy read, not especially well written, but the story of the immense variety of people he has interacted with and learned from is worth the read. This book was published in April, 2015.

Bonus Book (Classic): Bless Me, Ultima, Rudolfo Anaya

Time for a classic.  One of the lovely things about The Sapphire Girls Book Club is going through my library to search out a book that has made a lingering and deep impression.  Bless Me, Ultima most definitely fits that category.  So looking forward to a renewed reading of  the story of a young boy and the curandera, the healer, that teaches and guides him.  Published in 1994.

June

Monthly Choice:  The Sympathizer, Viet Thanh Nguyen

Another debut novel!  This debut author thing could have been a theme this year with all these critically reviewed debuts by young authors.  It wasn’t a theme, but just so exciting to see all of these new voices.  This is a Vietnamese look at the war that received a good review from the Vietnam Veterans of America. and this review from the LA Times: “part literary historical fiction, part espionage thriller and part satire.  With just this information I feel sure we’ll learn a lot, gain perspective, and be entertained along the journey.  A good combination.  Published April, 2015.

Bonus Book (Missed from Last Year):  Everything I Never Told You, Celeste Ng

I kept picking up this book in bookstores, and seeing it online… but not until this early summer did it get the read it deserved.  There is such depth of revelation in this first time author’s story.  Who do we really know?  Are the small pieces that close family are privileged to witness in intimate and daily interactions any semblance of who that family member really is?  In this case, Lydia is known in different pieces and parts by her younger sister, older brother, parents and one friend.  No one knew all of her, but they loved the pieces that they knew.  This book was a NY Times bestseller, a New York Times Editor’s Choice, the winner of the Alex Award, and the winner of the APALA Award for fiction. Now I know why. I can’t wait to read more from this author. Published, 2014, republished Penguin Press, May, 2015.  Another debut!

July

Monthly Choice:  Go Set a Watchman, Harper Lee

Despite the controversy, it’s impossible not to read a “new” novel by Harper Lee.  Locked in a vault and recently “discovered”, this book was written prior to To Kill a Mockingbird, but rejected by Lee’s publisher.  The two main characters are familiar, Scout and Atticus, and they are comfortably back in Maycomb, Alabama, but twenty years after the story line in To Kill a Mockingbird.  Have things changed or stayed the same? Small town politics, racism, family, and acceptable behavior play major roles in this story, but ultimately it’s about the coming of age of the young adult, Scout. I don’t know that Harper Lee wanted this book published, and that’s a hard truth to absorb, but once that choice was made, I did have to read it.  Will you? Published July, 2015.

Bonus Book (Classic): To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee

One of my all time favorite classic books.  The characters jump off the page, the small southern town comes to life, the realities of living in the rural south is illuminated.  This is excellent writing that is never forgotten.  Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Literature, the aftermath of which sent its author into semi-seclusion.  She vowed to never write another book, which makes the publication of the recently “found”, Go Set a Watchman very suspect.  This we know, Harper Lee is a force of a writer that all readers would have loved to have heard more from.

August

Monthly Choice:  The Book of Speculation, Erika Swyler

A summer read encompassing a wide range of fascinations – mermaids, carnivals, the ocean, books, and tarot cards.  This is a debut novel, so not familiar with the author, but the book’s compelling components made it a natural choice.   There are illustrations by the author as well adding to the overall immersion possible in the story.  Let summer reading continue! Published June, 2015

Bonus Book (Not Well Known): Wildwood:  The Wildwood Chronicles, Book 1, Colin Meloy

Sultry long days allow for leisurely pleasure reading, thus this August choice as bonus book!  Although written for young adults, all ages will come to love Prue and Curtis as the humans and the host of animal characters who share the story and the wild woods.  There are mystics and owl princes, and tall trees and ivy intertwined in the intrigue.  It’s a super fun beach or camping read.  Wildwood is the first book of a trilogy, so if you’re smitten you can continue to delve into the wildness.  The illustrations by Carson Ellis are wonderful.  Published in 2012, Wildwood was a New York Times best seller, but I missed it, so categorizing it as “not well known”, even if it was only me that didn’t know it!

September

Monthly Choice:  One Spirit Medicine, Ancient Ways to Ultimate Wellness, Alberto Villoldo, PhD

September seems like a good time to reset, to review, to plan, to learn new things, and to take stock of health. This book contains a wealth of information on resetting the body to heal itself.  From gut to brain health, and all the interconnections between them, the exploration is deep and detailed. The journey leads the reader to a vision quest as one of the ultimate goals to wellness, but along the way the author shares very specific foods, supplements, and processes to undertake to shed the old and the ill and replace it with a re-birthed body and soul.  It gets technical, but it’s worth it.  Published April 2015.

Bonus Book (Something to Learn From): The Island of Knowledge, The Limits of Science and the Search for Meaning, Marcelo Gleiser

Marcelo Gleiser, the author, is a physicist.  The theory explored in the book is despite our sophisticated instruments and testing, there is more that is unknown that known in our universe.  Gleiser explores the limits to our understanding, and illuminates our lack of real answers to the most basic questions of our existence.  There is still much mystery here in our universe.  This physicist author is not afraid to call it what it is – unknowable.  This book was published in 2014.

October

Monthly Choice:  Purity, Jonathan Frazen

This book is “Poly-Fi” – I’ve missed that term – meaning political fiction (where have I been?) Intriguing set of circumstances set the stage for the fictional tale of Pip (Purity), who loaded with student debt and strange new circumstances, sets out to find a father she knows little about.  The reviews got me here, “an elegant writer, capable of magnificent prose”,  the book promises to be clever, intelligent, humorous and full of satire.  Frazen is the author of The Corrections and Freedom.  This newest offering was published September, 2015.

Bonus Book (Not Well Known/Classic): Beyond the Bedroom Wall, Larry Woiwode

I read about this book for the first time as one that a publisher considers one of the best in his library.  Now I’ve lost who that publisher was, but the extraordinary reviews of this book that I found later compelled this choice.   Things like “why teach The Great Gatsby as required reading for high school literature when Beyond the Bedroom Wall is available”.  The author writes in every genre: poetry, novels, biography, reviews, essays, short stories, and commentary – that fact in itself is praise worthy to me. Woiwode has been the poet laureate of North Dakota since 1976 and this novel was first published in 1976.

November

Monthly Choice:  The Invention of Nature, Andrea Wulf.

The story of Alexander von Humboldt’s adventures and scientific endeavors newly published in September.  Again the reviews got my attention and definitely left me anxious to delve into these adventures and scientific adventures.  Sounds like I should know of Humboldt but I don’t.  Looking forward to learning a lot and enjoying the journey.

Bonus Book (Something to Learn From): healing spaces, The Science of Place and Well-Being, Esther M. Sternberg, M.D.

Science meets sense of place, with the possibility of understanding just why nature, land, earth, sky are so vital to the health of humans.  New brain science allows researchers to see the brain’s response to seeing a nature view – and that response is like a shot of endorphin’s – literally.  No wonder we crave immersion in natural environments so deeply.

December

Monthly Choice:  The Diver’s Clothes Lie Empty, Vendela Vida

A new book by Vendela Vida published 2015, whose title, as words from Rumi, got my attention right away.  It is a mystery, and an exploration of loss of identity in a foreign place.  Who would you allow yourself to become?  Vida is a new author for me.  She has four other books that I am now interested in exploring.  I like her easy style, humor, questions that she explores, and the way this book quickly became a page turner.  Will definitely read more.

The Diver’s Clothes Lying Empty by Rumi

You’re sitting here with us, but you’re also out walking
in a field at dawn. You are yourself
the animal we hunt when you come with us on the hunt.
You’re in your body like a plant is solid in the ground,
yet you’re wind. You’re the diver’s clothes
lying empty on the beach. You’re the fish.

In the ocean are many bright strands
and many dark strands like veins that are seen
when a wing is lifted up.
Your hidden self is blood in those, those veins
that are lute strings that make ocean music,
not the sad edge of the surf, but the sound of no shore.

Bonus Book (Something to Learn From): Talking on the Water, Conversations About Nature and Creativity, Jonathan White

This book was purchased on Orcas Island and is even signed by the author – I’ve had it in my library for a long time.  It was in a recent rereading though, as I was doing research for a college class, that the wisdom in its pages really resonated.  The compilation of nature’s wisdom keepers was full of freshness even though this work was published in 1994.  Featuring writers and researchers such as Matthew Fox, Gary Snyder, James Hillman, Ursula Le Guin, Peter Matthissen and Gretel Ehrlich, the book is a series of talks between Jonathan White and each of these luminaries as they chatted on a boat in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska.  The boat is the Crusader, and was designed for just this purpose, for learning, for sharing, for expanding nature knowledge.  It worked!

2016

January

Monthly Choice: Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?, Frans De Waal

To start the year, we are reading about compassion and understanding.  In this new book published 2016, the author explores the different forms that cognition takes, illuminating the various brilliance of many species. The prologue begins with this quote from Charles Darwin, “The difference in mind between man and the higher animals, great as it is, certainly is one of degree and not of kind.” The stories that follow create a deepening understanding of these varying degrees, and promotes respect for these creatures that we share the planet with.

Bonus Book (Something to Learn From):  Tattoos on the Heart, The Power of Boundless Compassion, Gregory Boyle

Father Boyle teaches by example, and exemplifies rare and absolute compassion and love.  His work with gang members in Los Angeles, and his founding of Homeboy Industries to employ them, exhibits over and over again how every life matters, deserves to shine, and how it is always necessary and possible to give second (and third and fourth!) chances.  Gregory Boyle is a humorous saint with raw and real stories to tell.  I fell in love with many of these gang members, and there were lessons here I’ll never forget. This book was a gift to me (thanks Elle!), and I am grateful.

February

Monthly Choice:  Mothering Sunday, Graham Swift

We haven’t included nearly enough romance in our selections, so here’s one for February, the month of Love, the month of celebrating Valentine’s Day.  The author has 30 books to his credit, but this month’s choice, published 2016, is the first for me.   Tender and evocative, the scenes are word paintings that place you in the midst of selected moments in time.  Characters are flawed and layered and you get to know them intimately and quickly.  Swift’s novel, Last Orders, won the Booker prize, and Waterland, was awarded the Guardian Fiction Award and I’m thinking one of these two will be my next book by this author.  Definitely want more….

Bonus Book (Something to Learn From): Angels by the River, James Gustave Speth

This is a memoir of Gus Speth’s lifetime of work as a conservationist and environmentalist.  We have the opportunity to see how his passionately held beliefs evolved over time, from his deeply embedded southerness, to his cultured education, to becoming the Dean of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, to founding the World Resources Institute.   His present life in Vermont, and this writing, that chapter by chapter builds an impressive resume of accomplishments, displays a lifetime spent learning and helping change environmental policy and thinking. Well worth the read. Published 2014.

March

Monthly Choice:  The Wander Society, Keri Smith

A book on a “society” encompassing everything that I love. Wandering (“with complete openness to the unknown”), mysteries, nature and her gifts, books, signs, reading, walking. … with the manifesto “Solvitur Ambulando”, meaning, “it is solved by walking”.  If this calls you, there is a Facebook page, and if you share your address you’ll get a packet of wanderers information.  I felt like a kid when I opened mine! The Wanderers are everywhere and there are posts from around the world.  A grand new involvement and fun immersion all prompted by this little book.  Published 2016.

Bonus Book (Classic): Leaves of Grass,
Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman is the visionary writer that the Wander Society (explored in our March book pick above), follows with awe.  His classic work , Leaves of Grass, published in 1855, was controversial, and these compelling words continue to deeply effect his followers 161 years later., “Your very flesh shall be a great poem”; “you must habit yourself to the dazzle of the light and of every moment of your life.”  Ah yes, Walt Whitman!

April

  Monthly Choice: 

Once or twice a year, we’ll include a self improvement book of sorts, and this is one of 2016’s offerings. “What if you gave yourself permission to question everything you know and threw out all the pieces that hold you back?” the book’s jacket asks, and I do want to throw out all the pieces that hold me back! There are new words to explore, an online experience, a social learning platform, and interviews with successful code breakers like Richard Branson and Elon Musk. I too think it’s possible for ordinary people to choose to be extraordinary (original quote paraphrased from Elon Musk).  Cheers to getting into this “re-coding” process, and breaking some “brules”.

Bonus Book (Something to Learn From):  Elephant Company, Vicki Constantine Croke

Burma, colonization, war, elephants and the elephant whisperer, James Howard Williams are the rich components of this true story.  The story is of the life of the adventurer Williams, living out of the norms of his English upbringing, and his commitment, understanding, and passion for the elephants. He came to know these mystical creatures intimately as he worked for a logging company in Burma, and then as part of the war effort, and his relationship with them makes for an interesting and informative read.  The physical and cognitive abilities of these very special animals, are amazing and lovely to contemplate, and their individual personalities shine through the pages on this book. Published 2014, paperback, 2015.

May

Monthly Choice:  Meet Me in Atlantis,
Mark Adams

Atlantis! I’ve always been intrigued by the story of this illusive sunken place, and the possibilities that are inherent in the stories of the people and civilization of this mystical island. Travel writer, Mark Adams, knew he’d have an audience, and when I bought the book at my local bookseller, the owner said she’s sold a lot of this title.  Looking forward to the adventure! Published 2016.

Bonus Book (You May Have Missed): The Prisoner of Heaven, Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Ruiz Zafon’s characters and writing are true favorites of mine, and somehow I missed that this third installment book had been published in 2012.  I found it as a staff pick in a bookseller’s shop in Mill Valley, Ca – another favorite, that bookshop.  Having read Shadow of the Wind or The Angel’s Game is not necessary to fully appreciate The Prisoner of Heaven, as each of the three books are complete within themselves, but I’d highly recommend all three! I tested this theory out on my husband who has been lost to Shadow of the Wind for two days now.  This is writing that will immerse you completely, with characters that are so real you’ll feel like they must have to exist.  I truly do desperately want the Cemetery of Forgotten Books to really exist…

June

Monthly Choice: the Soul of an Octopus,
Sy Montgomery

This is a story of touching the “other”, a being so alien that all sorts of questions are raised about the kind of interaction the handlers are having, and why it is so moving to those who are having them.  I learned so much about this surprising and intelligent creature.  Their problem solving, creativity, and yes, even soul, was inspiring, and getting to know the unique personalities of the individual octopuses profiled were lovely to contemplate.  The compassionate animal lovers who care for the octopuses are lovely to get to know too.  Soul to soul they witness deep encounters with a being so different from themselves that it brings a new depth to their understanding of their being in the world and of their very consciousness.

Bonus Book (Not Well Known): Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood

This book may be well know by Margaret Atwood fans.  I’ve always wanted to read more from her after the never forgotten story, indelibly imprinted, of The Handmaid’s Tale.  Atwood’s writing is humorous and frightening as she explores futuristic species and life on our planet that is terrifying in how easy it is to imagine; a planet and quality of life that we’re destined for if many paths aren’t changed?  Definitely going to put more Atwood reading in my life. Her writing is unique, well constructed, imaginative, entertaining, captivating and frightening. This book was published in 2004.

July

Monthly Choice:  The Ancient Minstrel,
Jim Harrison

Jim Harrison died just recently.  He was a beloved Montanan, a prolific writer, an eccentric, an explorer, a foodie, and all around fascinating man.  I had read some of his poetry but no short stories or novels, which just isn’t quite right, especially in light of the existence of books like Legends of the Fall and Dalva in his repertoire.  In keeping with our book of the month choices that are fairly recent publications, this book was just published in 2016, just prior to his death. I so look forward to a few quality days with Jim Harrison’s characters and story telling. I read that he died with a pen in his hand… still writing.

Bonus Book (Classic): Dalva,
Jim Harrison

Many eloquent writers wrote in memory of Jim Harrison in the most recent addition of our local Whitefish Review. Dalva was listed by one of the writers as being one of his favorite books of all time.  After reading the first few chapters I’m so immersed in the story and characters, I can see why.  Real and immediate, this is writing that I can lose myself in.  More Harrison on the horizon for sure. (There is also a new book of short stories coming out later in 2016, Dead Man’s Float.)

August

Monthly Choice:  the view from the cheap seats, selected nonfiction, Neil Gaiman

Another staff pick from my local bookseller (Bookworks, Whitefish, Montana), this book’s cover holds this recommendation, “Full of devotion and erudition, this is also a glorious love letter to reading, to writing, to dreaming, to an entire genre.” (Junot Diaz). This is another writer that I do not know, but is a New York Times best selling author for his fiction.  This book though, is a collection of more than sixty articles, speeches, essays and introductions that according to the book jacket “offers a unique glimpse into the mind of one of the most beloved and influential writers of our time.”  Published 2016. Looking forward to this collection!

Bonus Book (Not Well Known): Plenty-Coups, Chief of the Crows, new edition, Frank B. Linderman

With the neighbors of the Crow, the Dakota Sioux, in a stand off in North Dakota over pipe line access which threatens the mighty Missouri’s water, a full immersion in the wisdom and eloquence of a elder of our first nations people seemed in order.  In considering which of the many wisdom filled elders to study, I opened this book, published in 1930, and turned randomly to this passage (page 124): “By the time I was forty, I could see that our country was changing fast,and that these changes were causing us to live very differently. Anybody could now see that soon there would be no buffalo on the plains, and everybody was wondering how we could live after they were gone. There were few war-parties and almost no raids against our enemies, so that we were beginning to grow careless of our minds and bodies. White men with their spotted buffalo (cows) were on the plains with us. Their homes were near the water-holes, and their villages on the rivers. We made up our minds to be friendly with them, in spite of all of the changes they were bringing. But we found this difficult, because the white men too often promised to do one thing and then, when they acted at all, did another. They spoke very loudly when they said their laws were made for everybody; but we soon learned that although they expected us to keep them, they thought nothing of breaking them themselves. They told us not to drink whiskey, yet they made it themselves and traded it to us for furs and robes until both were nearly gone. Their Wise Ones said we might have their religion, but when we tried to understand it we found that there were too many kinds of religion among white men for us to understand, and that scarcely any two white men agreed which was the right one to learn. This bothered us a great deal until we saw that the white man did not take his religion any more seriously than he did his laws, and that he kept both of them just behind him, like Helpers, to use when they might do him good in his dealings with strangers. These were not our ways. We kept the laws we made and lived our religion.” Yes, this is a good book to add to the collection and to read right now. I stand in support of the Standing Rock Sioux Nation.

September

Monthly Choice:  Life Reimagined,
Collette Baron-Reid

Our second book of the year that could be considered in the “self-help” genre (and two seem enough this year!).  This book is intriguing in that the author is the creator of an energy psychology process called “IN-Vizion” that purports to unveil your authentic self.  Once you are in tune you can listen deeply and redirect your life from that authentic self place.  And as the subtitle suggests the book explores the “science, art and opportunity of midlife”.  Well, Yes! Looking forward to the exploration.  Published September, 2016, a perfect time as we move into Autumn more deeply, and have more time for introspection.

Bonus Book (Classic): Night,  Elie Wiesel

We lost Elie Wiesel this year at age 87, after a life that touched us all.  He taught us that to be human transcends the horrors that can be perpetrated by one group of people on another.  Wiesel won the Nobel Peace Prize and produced what the New York Times said of this book, “A slim volume of terrifying power.”  This Holocaust survivor has also produced dozens of works of fiction and non-fiction as well, and was awarded many honors in his lifetime in addition to the Nobel Peace Prize, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States of America Congressional Gold Medal, and the French Legion of Honor.  If you haven’t read Night, you must.  This was Wiesel’s first book, his most important, and he writes that if he were to have written only one book, it would have been this one. In remembrance and honor…  Original copyright 1958, this new edition has an updated forward by the author from 2006.

October

Monthly Choice:  Upstream, Mary Oliver

There are few poets that I know well or understand well, but Mary Oliver is a writer/poet that is both well known to me and whose words are absorbed regularly.  This book is not of poems for which she is more well known, but of essays, and is due to be published this month.  I’m hungry for its contents.   Oliver is able to “lose herself within the beauty and mysteries of both the natural world and the world of literature” according to the Amazon snippet on the order page.   I’m already in love…

Bonus Book (Something to Learn From): Empire of the Summer Moon, S. C. Gwynne

A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and New York Times bestseller, this well researched tale of the settling of the American interior, and the consequent encroachment by settlers into indigenous tribes territories, is raw, intelligent, sometimes shocking, and always informative.  The book is full of information about the powerful Comanche tribes and how they commanded control of the plains for centuries with their superb and unmatched horsemanship and daring.   The shocking parts are in the brutal violence perpetrated by both sides in the conflict.  It is also the story of a particular Comanche leader, Quanah Parker, a half breed of the Quahadi branch of the Comanche, who was instrumental as Texas moves into statehood and the United States continues it’s expansion.  Great history on the Texas Rangers too!  So this is our history book for the year and it’s a good one. Published 2010, this was a staff pick at my local bookseller.

November

Monthly Choice:  Small Great Things
Jodi Picoult

November brings, finally, our Presidential election…  This monthly selection explores many of the themes that are simmering in our country, sometimes boiling over creating divisiveness.   Racism at it’s worst, and too, all of the subtle yet explosive ways race and religion effects the lives of African-Americans, Hispanics, Muslims, Jews and European-Americans.  The story is told from the perspective of a black nurse wrongly indicted, a white supremacist, and a white court appointed attorney.  There are some hard truths here and a good time to read and consider them. Published 2016.

Bonus Book (Something to Learn From): THUG Kitchen, eat like you give a f&*#,

Way not? – a cookbook choice for the month of Thanksgiving?  Well here we have a non-traditional choice in every sense!  Extraordinary irreverent, full of coarse curse words, it is also full of excellent, good for you recipes in all categories, breakfast, salads, mini meals, soups and stews, entrees, sweets and snacks.  This book got me inspired to start making my own dressings and salsas, guacamole, and fudge pops!  Here’s to a Happy, Healthy-eating Thanksgiving with mountains of gratitude to all!! Published 2014. *If you have any aversion to curse words this book is NOT recommended.

December

Monthly Choice:  Atlas Obscura, an Explorer’s Guide to the World’s Hidden Wonders,
Joshua Foer, Dylan Thuras, Ella Morton

Ah… December, time for fires in the hearth, the first accumulating snow, and reading big books!  Loving this choice as our inside time outweighs our outdoor time, and we can spend sweet hours armchair exploring the world! And adding to our bucket lists!  This book promises lots of intriguing photos, mystery, and not well known spots to explore both here in the book and in person possibly later. Where would you like to explore next?  Published, September 2016.

Bonus Book (Something to Learn From): A Field Guide to Getting Lost, Rebecca Solnit

Because to be lost is to find yourself, the lostness allowing your truest deepest self to be seen and known. I loved this book’s exploration of lost and found, metaphorically and physically.  It’s chapters are full of quotes that take you on the journey of deepening, like this one, “How will you go about finding that thing the nature of which is totally unknown to you?” (Meno).  The author has some substantial quotes of her own, “to be lost is to be fully present, and to be fully present is to be capable of being in uncertainty and mystery.”  This book truly is a field guide and I enjoyed the exploration. Published 2005.

2017

January

Monthly Choice:  Transit, Rachel Cusk

Intriguing reviews brought Transit to January’s monthly choice. “In this second book of a precise, short, yet epic cycle, Cusk describes the most elemental experiences, the liminal qualities of life. She captures with unsettling restraint and honesty the longing to both inhabit and flee one’s life, and the wrenching ambivalence animating our desire to feel real” (BookBrowse Review), and  “With the sparest prose, Cusk has again created an expertly crafted portrait in this distinctive novel about the fear and hope that accompany change, and one woman’s quest to conquer them. A masterful second installment to a promising trilogy” (Booklist).  The author’s first installment, Outline,  was on the New York Times Book Review’s ten best books of 2015.  New writer to me and looking forward to the journey! Published 2017 (release Jan. 17). (I will definitely go back and read Outline too!)

Bonus Book (Category: Missed From Last Year):

The Vegetarian, Han Kang

The 2016 winner of the Man Booker International prize, this novel about present day South Korea is, “an ingenious, upsetting, and unforgettable novel” (Publishers Weekly). I missed it last year and am anxious to learn from and absorb it this year.

February

Monthly Choice: The Book Thieves, Anders Rydell

When the Nazi’s looted homes of European citizens, they didn’t burn all of the books that they pillaged.  Many were taken from their owners and placed in libraries in Germany.  Much like the tale of the Monument Men who worked tirelessly to return art treasures to their rightful owners after the war, this is the story of one book’s journey to it’s owner’s family.  Many of these books still remain in the public library system in Germany. “For those who lost relatives in the Holocaust, these books are often the only remaining possession of their relatives they have ever held. And as Rydell travels to return the volume he was given, he shows just how much a single book can mean to those who own it” (BookBrowse Summary). Published February 2017 (release Feb. 7th).

Bonus Book (Category: Missed from 2015):           

The Little Paris Bookshop, Nina George

A deep Montana winter is enveloped around me, and just reading the words, “Paris” and “bookshop” had me at hello (and at the grocery store no less!) Just happened by the book section, and picked it up (can’t remember the last time I bought a book at the grocery!!!) This book turned out to be a New York Times bestseller that I missed, but that Oprah held in high esteem: “If you’re looking to be charmed right out of your own life for a few hours, sit down with this wise and winsome novel.”   The main character, the bookseller, is a complicated pent up man, who dispenses “prescriptions” for life from his bookstore on a barge in the Seine.  The “Literary Apothecary” is the bookstore that I so wished was real!  An easy, fun and surprisingly deep read about books, relationships and life.  Love Monsieur Perdu’s (the bookseller) categories of book buyers, and his endless, wonderful, astute quotes as he gives out his book prescriptions. Published 2013, translated 2015.

March

Monthly Choice: Foreign Soil, Maxine Beneba Clarke

A collection that gives voice to the disenfranchised, and expresses “the global experience with exquisite sensitivity” (Dave Eggers), these stories from the West Indies, Australia, Africa, London are sure to make us see the world’s inhabitants more clearly, more deeply and with more compassion. Just published, 2017.

Bonus Book (Category: Missed from 2007/Something to Learn From): God Grew Tired of Us, John Bul Dau

The author, John Dau is a lost boy of Sudan.  Surviving horrific conditions at the age of 13, including war, loss of family, famine, starvation, terror, crocodiles and lions, he has become a Syracuse University student, an American, a husband and a father.  It is a story that needs to be told, of immigration where there is no home to return to, no family, no history, no community, no country.  The middle of the night attack was from the north where the Khartoum Muslim government sought to eradicate the Christian south, and the resistance there to sharia government and terror.  It continues today.  Remarkably the author has established two foundations, one to assist other lost boys in America with education, and the second to provide medical care for the Dinka tribes in south Sudan who had virtually nothing in the form of care prior to his building of a medical clinic there.  John celebrates America and his life and privileges here while maintaining his Dinka culture and ties to southern Sudan.  The book was published in 2007, and while since then, Dau’s home country is still suffering from war leaving much unchanged, much has changed in our country in regards to immigration with this new presidency; Sudan is one of the banned countries in Trump’s travel ban.  Today John Dau would not be allowed into the United States.

April

Monthly Choice:  The One-in-a-Millon Boy, Monica Wood

One of the reviews that I read on this newly published in April book (release date is April 8th), expressed that one of the characters, at 104 years old, is in the throes of leaning new things.  Loved that way of living of course! The young man who helps her out at home is 11 years old, and their relationship moves the story line.  This compelled me, and the reviews were all excellent.  Never read this author, but she’s an award winner so here’s to hoping we’ll be entranced!

Bonus Book (Category: Something to Learn From): March, Book One, John Lewis, John Aydin and Nate Powell

This is a beautifully drawn graphic novel about John Lewis’ life as a civil rights activist.  It tells his story from that of a young boy who began his life on a sharecropper farm, through the lunch counter sit ins in Nashville that began his life long career in politics, through his continuing work for equal rights.  It is also the story of peaceful protest – the way of love and nonviolence taught and promoted by Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  This is the first book of a trilogy, all highly recommended.  Although it’s written for young adults, all ages can gain a deeper understanding of the long and painful path to freedom that these brave men and women undertook.  We cannot forget this story and that the journey continues.  Please have your children read it!

May

Monthly Choice: The Songs of Trees,       David George Haskill

Published April, 2017, this new book on the connections between trees, other species, and humans is a song to nature.  In the interview I read, the author included recorded tree songs evoking a moving and profound peace.  I have a deep love for the tall trees here at home in northwest Montana, and want to know them better, to understand their individual songs.  I know this book will help us all deepen our respect and love for the trees around us.  Haskill’s prose is like poetry…

Bonus Book (Category: Missed from 2004): Gilead, Marilynne Robinson

A profoundly beautiful and meditative book, Gilead, came to me via a book exchange and I’m so glad it did!  I was unfamiliar with the author, but now her story and her characters will be forever with me.  Reviews say to read this book slowly, and it seems that is the only possible way to read it – the words automatically slow you down.  It is a love story to existence itself, a testament to that rare gift, and also to friends, sons, companions, and to all those small treasures and moments that make up a well lived life.  Many deep, timeless questions are explored. Thank you Bernie for picking out this book for me; it is now a favorite! Published in 2004, it is the winner of the Pulitzer Prize.

June

Monthly Choice: The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, Arundhati Roy

The author of The God of Small Things
has a new offering that seems perfect for summertime reading pleasure.  Roy is a superb storyteller, and this has all the promise of an epic tale – of India, of love, of unforgettable characters.  Yes, a perfect novel for summer afternoons.

Published, June, 2017.

Bonus Book (Category: Something to Learn From):           

The Hidden Life of TREES, Peter Wohlleben

The subtitle “What They Feel, How They Communicate…Discoveries from a Secret World”, contains the essence of the little known mysteries contained in this little book.  The author is a forester turned tree mystery lover and his compilation of facts about trees will change how you feel about these majestic creatures forever.  Nurturing, listening, smelling, communicating with their neighbors, trees are complicated and aware.  With our awareness of these attributes, possibly we’ll have more respect for these beings that are so vitally important to our survival.  I had coveted this book and it was a gift.  Thank you Elle!  Published 2015, English translation, 2016.

July

Monthly Choice:  A Bloom of Bones, Allen Morris Jones

It’s an all Montana authors July, and what a celebration of words and depth and meaning these two bring!  Jones is a new author for me, and I’m glad I found him.  The book was a staff pick at a combo coffee shop/bookstore/craft/ jewelry/tourist treasure trove in the tiny town of Seely Lake, Montana, happened upon in search of a latte driving back from Helena.   Published in December, 2016, it is a story of the land, of isolation, of history – and what one of the main characters has had to live with, burning inside him with each passing season.  There is poetry and rich prose here, deeply satisfying.

Bonus Book (Category: Missed from 2002):           

Off to the Side, Jim Harrison

Back to one of my favorite Montana authors, Jim Harrison.  His writing is just so darned good, I knew this memoir would hold many treasures that would move me.  It is pure Harrison – great writing and story telling, funny and irreverent, raw and honest.  Yep, I’m a huge fan of Jim Harrison!

The New York Times Book Review calls it “a celebration of the hearty, sensual life”, great for long summer days.

August

Monthly Choice: Surviving Death, Leslie Kean

“A journalist investigates evidence for an afterlife” is the line that got me to buy this book at that iconic bookstore, Powell’s, in Portland.  The author provides compelling arguments by going through a series of scenarios where personalities, memories, and consciousness appear to transcend the death of the body.  These include children who remember past lives at a very young age, and describe who they were (then researchers are actually able to find the history of this real person who lived), people who have experienced near-death, mediums who can go into trance and offer a vehicle for spirits to communicate… Because the author is a journalist, she only includes the cases/stories that can be verified, and in the case of mediums, those that work, and that she has experienced herself, in controlled environments.  There is no ultimate proof of course, but the book presents a convincing argument when taken in its totality.  It’s a surprising thing that we humans don’t talk about this inevitable aspect of our life very much.  Having been with my Dad when he made the transition, I can attest to the fact that his spirit remained.  Published 2017.

Bonus Book (Category: Missed from 2015): The Carry Home, Lessons from the American Wilderness, Gary Ferguson

I appreciated this book for many reasons – its love story, its heartbreak, its story of loss and bewilderment, and its story of the wild and its ability to sustain and provide healing.  I ordered several of the authors books after reading this true memoir of his life after his wife Jane’s death in a canoeing accident.  Woven in that story of reconnection to wilderness that was such an integral part of their life together, is the story of the struggles to keep wilderness wild – legally, politically, and philosophically.  The depth of the connection to the wilds around Yellowstone that this couple had, and that Gary continues to have, is profound.  I learned.  Another Montana author that I will read more of.  Published 2015.

September

Monthly Choice:  The Essex Serpent, Sarah Perry

Published June 2017, this new book by Sarah Perry had the most compelling reviews.  Hadn’t heard of the book or the author previously, but reading, “A novel of almost insolent ambition–lush and fantastical, a wild Eden behind a garden gate…it’s part ghost story and part natural history lesson, part romance and part feminist parable. I found it so transporting that 48 hours after completing it, I was still resentful to be back home.”  (New York Times), the author and her new book became irresistible.  We’ll ease into re-entry after reading with another good book!

Bonus Book (Category: Something to Learn From): In the Presence of GRIZZLIES, the Ancient Bond Between Men and Bears, Doug and Andrea Peacock

With the recent heartbreaking policy decision on delisting the grizzly bear from protected status from the ecosystem surrounding Yellowstone National Park, and my planned September trip to Yellowstone with my family, I was seeking to deepen my understanding of the grizz.  Doug Peacock is another Montana writer, and a respected grizzly expert, and his wife, Andrea Peacock, is a respected journalist.  They have written this book in collaboration and their approach provides an incredibly comprehensive treatment to understanding the grizzly.  Doug writes chapters that are memoirs of individual bears – or actually several bears compiled – into a history of terrain, family, encounters, struggles, food, fights, teachings, roaming, and personality.  I loved this part of the book, and read these chapters hungrily like a true story of someone I really wanted to know.  Andrea’s chapters too are full of characters and personalities – human this time, – who all interact in different ways with grizzlies.  These include photographers, hunters, politicians, conservationists – all instrumental in the life and survival of the grizzly bear.  She is a knowledgeable writer who asks excellent questions. The effect of these interspersed chapters deepened my knowledge of the bear and their environment substantially.  Published in 2009, things have changed with this  policy of delisting of the grizzly in the ecosystem surrounding Yellowstone.  I wish everyone would read this book to gain insights, respect, and honor for this great bear, an essential part of the rare wildness that remains in the lower 48.

October

Monthly Choice:  The Weight of Ink, Rachel Kadish

567 pages of good writing, layered story lines, truths told and hidden, passions realized and denied.   A 2017 offering that held me in its sway for several days as I nursed a cruddy cold – a great comfort.  The book features the life and writing of a Jewish woman from the 1600’s who must hide her thirst for knowledge and questioning.   This is juxtaposed with a modern day professor of history who has spent her career studying freely, while denying her other passions.  Well researched and constructed, I felt lonely for the characters after the last page.  Ordered a copy for my niece Sarah for her birthday.

Bonus Book (Category: Not Well Know): A Trail Through Leaves, Hannah Hinchman

This is a most lovely interpretation of why to keep a journal, and how to incorporate drawings and watercolors to provide a deeper integration of daily life.  This is journal as spiritual enterprise, as an honoring to life itself, as a reverence to the smallest wonders.  Hinchman notices everything and takes the care to document the tiniest nuance to the grandest happenings in drawings and writing.  The book was full of memorable quotes and insights. “There’s nothing special about that night that I recall – no breakthroughs, epiphanies, or raptures. The words were simply dreamy impressions. But something happened there, some powerful gathering force was present, though I didn’t know it at the time.” and “I think the journal itself has taught me to revere the ordinary.”  I savored this book, and it caused me to go back to a daily personal journal entry.  Published 1997, and found at my local used book store inside Copperleaf Chocolates on Central Avenue – love that place, I find so many book treasures there!

November

Monthly Choice:  The Purloining of Prince Oleomargarine, Mark Twain and Philip Stead with Illustrations by Erin Stead

Because, Mark Twain!  How can a newly published book, 2017, be a new offering from Mark Twain?  It is a story that started as a verbal narrative offered to Twain’s young daughters at bedtime.  It was never published. Philip Stead has brought it to brilliant life this year.  Ostensibly, a children’s book, this gorgeous offering is a true gift of words and illustrations to readers of any age.  It is just stunning from start to finish, and I know you’ll enjoy all that it has to offer.  And did I mention the illustrations?  OMGoodness, they are a exquisite accompaniment to the words – this book is truly a work of art.  A gift from Elle – thank you my friend.

Bonus Book (Category: Not Well Know/Something to Learn From/Missed from 2009): Immortal Self, Aaravindha Himadra

This is story of the author’s journey to the Himalayan valley of the immortal masters.  It is not a novel, but a story of a real journey.  The author starts the book with a disclaimer of sorts that states that most will not believe his tale, and indeed it is full of mysterious, mystical, and unbelievable happenings.  There are masters that have overcome death and have lived for hundreds of years – and Himadra talks with them, learns from them, and returns to a mortal and mundane life after spending time in their presence.   I was drawn to this book immediately upon hearing about it from a friend, Londa.  It was published in 2013, so these meetings with the masters were not something from eons ago, but recent.  And the author lives on Orcas Island…that resonated too.  A rich and expanding read, much of which I did not understand and much of which was certainly in the realm of out of human experience norm.  I am intrigued and will check out his website and teaching offerings.

December

Monthly Choice:  The Wisdom of Sunday, Oprah Winfrey

This book was a lovely gift from my Mom, who knew how much I’d love it.  As I paged through it, I knew she was right.  It is full to brimming with insights from the masters of spiritual thought and contemplation.  The subtitle is “Life Changing Insights from Super Soul Conversations”.  These profound thinkers and seekers have all appeared on Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday show, and the best of their deep thinking are included in these pages.  Oprah’s quote on the opening page, “All of us are seeking the same thing. We share the desire to fulfill the highest truest expression of ourselves as human beings.”  And the contributions are from an impressive list including: Eckhart Tolle, Iyanla Vanzant, Marianne Williamson, Don Miquel Ruiz, Gloria Steinem, Thomas Moore, Caroline Myss, Thich Nhat Hanh, Jon Kabat-Zinn, Jack Kornfield, Pema Chodron, Deepak Chopra, Dr. Maya Angelou… and many many more.  A beautiful book from cover to cover, with lovely photographs as well.  Published 2017.

Bonus Book (Category: Missed from 2004, Something to Learn From) , Ordinary Wolves, Seth Kantner

I deeply love reading about environments blanketed in snow as our northwest winter gets started.  This book gave me this immersement and so much more.  It’s definitely one of my favorite books of 2017.   As the New York Times Book Review says, it is “A magnificently realized story”.   The cornerstone of the story is the land, with strong supporting roles given respectful attention including the animals, hunting, the Inupiaq, family relationship, snow, sustenance living and the cold.

There are so many glorious quotes that had me putting the book down to absorb: “Don’t chase money, that’s a cheap way to live”, “Don’t kill animals for glory, that makes you the worst kind of bully”; “makes the day feel good, seeing bear”;  “to the old Eskimos the land was everything. They knew the land. I think I was thinking there wasn’t time left… to let you grow up and find your own wilderness. City, it’s everything about insulating you from the earth. I didn’t want to work some job just to afford to get out to the wilderness once in a while. You can’t have both. I like life close to the earth. It’s alive.  The city made me feel wrapped and a long way from myself”; “inside my thoughts, I realized finally that, more than in wind or cold or Breakup, the power and absoluteness of wild earth resided in its huge uncompromising silence.” I will remember these words. Published in 2004, this was Kanter’s debut novel.  Astonishing.

Bonus Book 2 (Category: Not Well Know/Something to Learn From): Zeitoun, Dave Eggers

How often do I have to say this about authors?  How can I not have read Dave Eggers before?  Published in 2009, this is a true story of one family’s odyssey after Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.  After this 2017 season of horrific hurricanes that devastated, and continue to impact, Houston, Florida, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and Barbuda this book revealed itself as newly relevant.  It is heartbreaking.  The hero, a father and husband of Syrian heritage, but of deeply American nationalism, heart, and citizenship, is traumatized by a city demoralized into chaos and inhumanity, and by a political system fraught with prejudice and profiling.  It was so hard to read but so well written.  The reviews were uniformly stellar.  How could this happen in the United States of America?  I have no answers, but I learned a lot by reading this book about the realities of that particular hurricane and about life as a minority in our country in the aftermath.  Yet another excellent used book find from Copperleaf’s used book carousel outside on Central.  I love what my community reads!

2018

January

Monthly Choice:  Green, Sam Graham-Felsen

A new novel for our new year.  Will be published on January 2nd (and can be pre-ordered on Amazon), the review below compelled my interest to start the year with this read:                                        “A coming-of-age novel about race, privilege, and the struggle to rise in America, written by a former Obama campaign staffer and propelled by an exuberant, unforgettable narrator.”   Race, privilege and the struggle to rise in American – yes, themes that we can all be more aware of.  The book has gotten very good initial reviews.

Bonus Book (Category: Missed from 2014, Something to Learn From) , A Plea for the Animals, Matthieu Ricard

Although this was first published in 2014, it was just released in translation to English in 2016, and I missed it.  Another gift from my friend Elle, she knew it would resonate deeply and it did. The subtitle, “The Moral, Philosophical, and Evolutionary Imperative to Treat All Beings with Compassion”.  How can we not do that?  But for those that don’t feel that way, the author makes a deeply compelling argument.  The translator Sherab Chodzin Kohn, in his preface, states how well researched the book is, and how it changed him during the process of translating the words.  I don’t know how any reader cannot be radically changed by reading this book.  Please do read it.

February

Monthly Choice:  Origin, Dan Brown

Disclaimer – do not start this book if you need to accomplish anything beyond reading!  Brown’s suspenseful storytelling has never been better, and the eternal questions of “where did we come from” and “where are we going” form the cornerstones of this new novel.  The everlasting division between religion and science has center stage, along with the ubiquitous Professor Robert Langdon, and a smattering of symbology.  High technology and AI has prominence too, and the whole tapestry made for a two day read that mesmerized me.  It’s not the writing, but the storytelling, and that is first rate – hard to put down.  And the fact that all the locations,  art, architecture, science and religious organizations, are real had me constantly Googling sites in Spain that I was not familiar with and wondered how I wasn’t!  I mean, my Goodness (!), Casa Mila and Sagrada Familia by the architect Gaudi,  Montserrat Monastery, Chapel Torre Girona, El Escorial, Valley of the Fallen (and its giant cross and subterranean basilica)…and so many more.   I loved learning about each of these stunning historical sites and the wonder of their impossibly creative and unique architecture.  Published late 2017, I gifted this book to Craig who has read all of Brown’s earlier works, and I devoured it after he read it.  Always fun to read the same book and discuss it…

Bonus Book (Category: Something to Learn From) , Beyond the Sky and The Earth, Jamie Zeppa

The secondary title of this book is “A Journey into Bhutan”, so I was intrigued immediately.  The author feels a strong pull and calling to go to the Himalayan kingdom when she encounters an opportunity to teach through a Canadian program.  She falls in love immediately with the beauty, grandeur, simplicity, authenticity and kindness of Bhutan and her people, then falls in love again with one of her students.  I loved her questioning – of everything, and the perspective of acculturation she brings to her writing.  Her time in Bhutan began in 1988, and there is political troubles brewing between the Nepali in the south and the strong nationalistic rules being enacted including the mandate that all citizens must wear “national dress”.  When I was in Bhutan in 2009, there was a juxtaposition of western music and dress with traditional clothing and values, primarily in the larger city of Thimphu. When we were in the villages and in the rural areas, virtually everything was traditional.  The book took me back to the lush valleys, to the hot chilies in food, to the majestic mountains, the mists, the temples, the festivals with masked dancers, the monks, and the phallus’s everywhere – carved over windows, painted on houses, flying over doorways.  To me it was a magical and mystical place, full of deep tradition, and only beginning to see the influx of westernization.   Too, the politics that she describes that include the issue of immigration (sanctioned and not) and nationalism seem current and relevant.  I love Bhutan, and I enjoyed this book about this place that I love. Published in 1999, this is another book I found at our used book store at Copperleaf on Central.

March

Monthly Choice:  The Great Alone, Kristin Hannah

Author of The Nightengale, (one of our 2015 book club’s monthly choices), Hannah’s new offering had me at hello with reviews like “epic” (Washington Post), “rapturous” (The New York Times), “riveting” Kirkus Reviews and “fierce, feminist and utterly unputdownable” (Pop Sugar).  Impossible not to give this new book published February, 2018 a try!

Bonus Book (Category: Classic, Something to Learn From), A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L’Engle

This book was instrumental in my life as a reader. As an seven year old  it made me want to READ and that passion is as alive today as it was then.  E’ingle introduced me to so many wondrous ideas at that young age: time and time travel, science, spirituality, kything (sharing thoughts without words), stars and star gazing as meditation, nature as respite, family, the power of love…  My second grade teacher read this aloud to our class after our lunch – I couldn’t wait for the next chapter, couldn’t get enough!  I began to see the mystery and wonder of life. In rereading this young adult novel again now, at this point in my life, I found new wonders and learning, all that I remembered and more.  I also learned that this novel was the first in a series of five (how could I not know that??), so now I’ve read all of those additional four books as well.  And this month, the story will be told on the big screen… this remarkable fable from 1962 told in contemporary times for young girls today.  Go out there, be completely and absolutely authentic, be warriors of love!

April

Monthly Choice:  Forest Bathing, Dr. Qinq Li

Newly published April, 2018, this is the story of shinrin-yoku, the Japanese therapy of being bathed in the energy and peace of the forest.  With 100 photos of forests from around the world, I look forward to getting lost in the beauty, majesty and healing power of the forest and learning from Dr. Li.

Bonus Book (Category: Classic, Something to Learn From), Silence,  Thich Nhat Hanh

This bonus book selection was made as I reconnected with the power of silence – again.  The subtitle “the power of quiet in a world full of noise” resonated – with politics and environmental/earth degradation. – you know what the mind circle can do with all that stuff – ’nuff said, silence is needed.  There are many wise words here, “you come home to yourself so that you can enjoy the here and now in every moment”… and “what you need, what we all need, is silence. Stop the noise in your mind in order for the wondrous sounds of life to be heard. Then you can begin to live your life authentically and deeply.” (and you can do this while forest bathing!)  Published 2015.

May

Monthly Choice:  The Overstory, Richard Powers

This is Powers’ twelfth novel and I have missed his work before now.  Now is the right time.  It is a novel of intertwined characters deeply involved in the life of the trees.  The Amazon review I read said, “If the trees of this earth could speak, what would they tell us? Listen, there is something you need to hear,” and Barbara Kingsolver had to say in her New York Times Book Review, ““Monumental…The Overstory accomplishes what few living writers from either camp, art or science, could attempt. Using the tools of the story, he pulls readers heart-first into a perspective so much longer-lived and more subtly developed than the human purview that we gain glimpses of a vast, primordial sensibility, while watching our own kind get whittled down to size….A gigantic fable of genuine truths.” This book choice seemed the perfect follow up to the forest bathing recommendation from April.  Published April, 2018.

Bonus Book (Category: Something to Learn From ), Belonging,  Toko-pa Turner

I read Toko-pa Turner’s wise words on Facebook posts a lot.  They seem to come at just the right time and are profoundly moving to me during those perfectly timed readings.   The reviews were moving too – “Certain people invite you into an experience that will alter your world view forever. They have gone so deep, searched so thoroughly, traversed territories that most would shun, and then they return and lay their soul at your feet. Toko-pa is one such individual and this book is her soul made visible.” (Clare Dibois). This book has just received the prestigious 2017 Gold Nautilus Award -published December, 2017.

June

Monthly Choice:  This is How I Save My Life, Amy B. Scher

The author describes her many years journey into wellness from chronic illness (too numerous to name).  From stem cells to oxygen therapy and from the Mayo Clinic to India, she explores every possible avenue to explain and cure her many painful, debilitating, and exasperating symptoms.  Step by step she does get better, but she is not completely well until she understands that she may have a role to play in acceptance and love toward her body, stopping the fight and beginning the journey of Love.  Along the healing journey she must give up perfection,  expectations, prescribed roles, and silence (the silence of not speaking your truth). When she needs to speak it is imperative she do so. When she needs to listen, it must be from the deep voice within. These steps complete her healing journey.  For anyone experiencing chronic illness there may be a morsel or two for you here. Published April, 2018.

Bonus Book (Category:  Missed from 2012), A Man Called Ove,  Fredrik Backman

This sweet tale is of an iconic curmudgeon whose heart is too big.  It reminded me, again, that everyone has an compelling story to tell and all stories have tragedies that deserve our kindness, even when those holding the stories are abrupt and angry.  They have their reasons, and we don’t know the steps they’ve walked along the journey.  Ove’s journey has held more sadness than most, but his heart, in spite of his swearing and impatience and obstinate ways, always wins out.  And he does things, for everyone, the right way.  It’s a love story too – Sonja always holding sway with that too big heart thumping in Ove’s chest.  The author is a new one for me, and he’s an astute student of humanity. You can tell that’s he’s a deep observer and listener.  I loved the book and will read more by Backman, and appreciate the recommendation from my Kythe Klub Sapphire Girl Soul Sister Gloria.  Thanks Glo! Published 2012.

July

Monthly Choice: Killers of the Flower Moon, David Grann

Grann is a New Yorker staff writer, investigative journalist, and winner of the George Polk Award.  He is gifted at using these skills to pen a compelling true story page turner that reads like a mystery novel.  This is the true story of the Osage nation, who after being forced onto barren reservation land, found that under that stark landscape was oil rich reserves – enough to make them all wealthy beyond imagining.  They became the wealthiest people per capita in all the world for a short period of time.  That made them targets of white greed, and the lengths to which prominent, respected citizens went to murder those with headrights to annual mineral rights payments is sickening and shocking.  Doctors, lawyers, grand jurors, politicians, mayors, husbands (of Osage women), bankers, all had no compunction to have a Native American killed to take their money.  I’ve read a lot of Native American history, spirituality, philosophy, and fiction and did not know this story.  There are also components of J. Edgar Hoover’s reign, and the birth of the FBI, in the narrative and that adds to the fascination.  This book was a surprise gift which arrived by mail with a note from Beth and Perry.  They had both read it and knew I would appreciate it.  I did appreciate gaining the knowledge and reading the excellent writing, and appreciated too their sending this unexpected gift.  Published 2017.  ps, this is a departure in that I don’t traditionally read or watch anything with words like murder or killers in the title – since this was a recommendation and gift, I did (and glad I did).

Bonus Book (Category:  Missed from 2013; Something to Learn From), The Reason I Jump,  Naoki Higashida

“The inner voice of a thirteen-year-old boy with autism” is the secondary title, and indeed it is a profound glimpse into the workings of the mind of this very special boy.  The author is not verbal, and must use a letter board to painstakingly point to each letter to form the words, sentences, and paragraphs that lead to this remarkable book of insights.  He explains his and others with autism’s propensity to run away, to move fingers in front of his eyes, to jump, and what goes on inside him when he thinks he’s a burden to those around him.  Ultimately, it shows a profoundly intelligent, sensitive, articulate young man who seeks to be understood by the “neuro-typical”.  It is also beautiful to see that he realizes that his atypical neural responses make him different but special, valued and treasured.  I thought I had empathy and compassionate for the warrior like struggles that people with autism undergo daily, hourly, but how can you have true compassion and empathy without understanding?  This book bridges that gap.  Highly recommended.  Jon Stewart said it was one of the most remarkable books he’d ever read. Thanks for recommending Gloria! Published in 2017 in Japanese, translated to English in 2013.

August

Monthly Choice:  The Restless Wave, John McCain

Because John McCain. Iconic, spitfire, patriot, prisoner of war, senator, presidential candidate.  I will never forget his defense of President Obama during the campaign preceding his election.  McCain had no time for bigotry and explained, when confronted by the character accusation of his rival candidate, that Obama was an honorable man who he had political differences with.  That’s exactly how I feel about Senator McCain – he was an honorable man who I had political differences with. I want to honor his legacy of service and sacrifice by reading this recent biography of his life.  Published 2018.

Bonus Book (Category:  Missed from 2017; Something to Learn From),  A Good Country, Laleh Khadivi

This book was presented by Book Browse, the site I enjoy consulting for new publications.  It was new to me and I found it intriguing as a novel that explores how a young, privileged, and wealthy young man can be radicalized in the United States.  In this story, the process only takes a year…  From the Amazon review, “Timely, nuanced, and emotionally forceful, A Good Country is a gorgeous meditation on modern life, religious radicalization, and a young man caught among vastly different worlds.” Published May, 2017.

September

Monthly Choice: Labyrinth of the Spirits, Carlos Ruiz Zafon

I was thrilled to see a new novel in the cemetery of forgotten books series from author Carlos Ruiz Zafon.  The preceding books were mesmerizing – I was completely absorbed and so sad when they ended.  I am surprised and excited that there’s another installment.  Published mid September 2018.  More to follow after reading but I know I (and hopefully you!) will love it! *And if you haven’t read the others (Shadow of the Wind, The Angel’s Game and The Prisoner of Heaven) you may want to indulge while waiting for this one to be published.  You don’t have to read them in order though, each novel is completely self contained.

Bonus Book (Category:  Missed from 2015; Something to Learn From),  Notorious RBG, Irin Carmon, Shana Knizhnik

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, iconic Supreme Court Justice, subject of a recently aired documentary, half a century of law (so far!) as her legacy.  For me this was a timely choice with all that’s going on with the new nominee to the Supreme Courtf. We have choices on what we focus on in these times, in all times. Published, October, 2015.

October

Monthly Choice: What If This Were Enough? Heather Havrilesky

When I read the title I knew that I wanted to read these essays.  I didn’t know the author, and found intriguing things with a little research.  Havrilesky writes the “Ask Polly” column for New York Magazine, is a humorist, is the author of Disaster Preparedness and How to Be A Person in the World, and she’s written for NPR, The Atlantic and the New Yorker (and others).  Looking forward to her perceptive perspective of seeing life itself for the gift that it is. Published September 2018.

Bonus Book (Category:  Something to Learn From),  The Good Neighbor, The Life and Work of Fred Rogers, Maxwell King

Thank you Fred Rogers for being a radiant beacon.  One of the first advocates for early childhood education and excellence in television, Rogers never wavered from his high ideals.  He walked his talk.  So much to learn here – he was an ordained minister having graduated from seminary, he was an accomplished pianist and composer graduating from Rollins College magna cum laude with a degree in music, he testified in front of Congress about the importance of public television, he was a devoted father of two sons.

The world needs more kindness, and Fred Rogers exemplifies how to live a life deeply dedicated to it.  The end.

Published September, 2018

November

Monthly Choice: Becoming, Michelle Obama

Cannot wait to learn born about this highly intelligent, Harvard and Princeton educated, lawyer, FLOTUS, Mother, Daughter and Wife.  What I witnessed as she flowed through her years as First Lady were her strength, smarts, elegance and dignity. She never went low, she was (and is) a leader; she is steadfast, loyal and dedicated.  In reading reviews I have newly learned that her daughters were both conceived in-vitro… Who knew? This revelation alone will give hope to many women – many couples. I know there will be many other revelations to come from this book regarding this remarkable woman. Published November 2018.

Alternative Monthly Choice: The Winter Soldier, Daniel Mason

War novels are not my thing, but this one compelled me for two reasons – it is from the perspective of a medic stationed at a remote field hospital (so it’s not a description of war scenes), and secondly, that the memory of the horrific bloodbath that was World War I is becoming remote in our memory.  Always remember. We lost our last World War I veteran in 2012, and this year, on November 11th, the one hundredth anniversary of Armistice Day will be honored.  This was a monumental day where on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, World War I formally ended.  This is our Veteran’s Day, and in Europe, Remembrance Day.

Mason is the international bestselling author of The Piano Tuner and the reviews of his new book are excellent. Published September, 2018.

December

Monthly Choice: Unsheltered, Barbara Kingsolver

A new novel by Barbara Kingsolver – yep, had me at hello.  The reviews, always good for this author, describe the story as one who asks a question – “how can two people who have worked all of their lives, end up destitute?” Unsheltered.  Where our very home is at stake, we are deeply vulnerable. Love Kingsolver’s writing and look forward to this new offering. Published, October 2018.

Bonus Book: Category: Alternative Choice: Wilderness, Scott Stillman

Wilderness, to me, is truly a gateway to the soul, so this subtitle of the author’s resonated .  And his words continued to hold me.  Stillman, often treks into wilderness alone to be completely absorbed, and he is talented at conveying just how much wonder you can deeply feel by doing that.  He treks into Wyoming, Colorado, Idaho, and Oregon for days at a time with an openness to experiencing the rich moment of being in wilderness.  So many times I put the book aside to experience with him, and to savor the words. I think you will also be enamored of the rich tapestry that he lays before you in this book.  A review by  and included on the cover says, “reminiscent of Edward Abbey ” and I would agree, but Stillman has his own voice too worthy of our time and attention. Published 2018.

2019

January

Monthly Choice:  The Water Cure, Sophie Mackintosh

Found this book on the 25 most anticipated books of 2019 from Esquire Magazine and the review says, “In this sensational debut, three sisters sequestered for life from the toxic world of men are catapulted into emotional turmoil when three men wash ashore on their isolated island. Part fable, part feminist dystopia, Mackintosh’s taut novel turns a keen, unsparing eye on violence, patriarchy, and desire.”  Intriguing. I look forward to delving into this perspective of being “sequestered from the toxic world of men”.  Politics notwithstanding, I’ve been blessed with men in my life that I wouldn’t have wanted to have experienced this life without, my Dad, Craig, my brothers, some good friends, even some ex-husbands!  Yes, looking forward to the author’s perspective and this interesting story line. Published Jan. 8, 2019.

Bonus Book: Category:  Classic: The Group, Mary McCarthy

Sometimes I like to read through a few author’s and magazine’s choices for those books that everyone should read in their lifetime.  This bonus book pic was one of ten books that fit that category for novelist and essayist, Sloane Crosely.  As a part of her explanation for this choice she says, “Every woman should read it to know themselves; every man should read it to know who they’re dealing with” and also, “The Group is a seminal, massively vital book written ahead of its time (it was banned here and there) and yet very much of its time, focusing on gender politics, friendship, socioeconomic status and influencing whole genres of contemporary fiction — all while being a total blast to read.”  How can I have missed it?  Published 1954 (!), the novel is about eight recent Vassar graduates, class of 1933 (!!).

February

Monthly Choice:  The Bear and the Nightingale, Katherine Arden

I was looking for an absorbing winter read  when I came across this staff pick at my local bookseller, Bookworks, in Whitefish.  Of course the bear part got me, and then the accompanying “book one of the winternight trilogy” on the cover definitely spoke to me! Three potential books for getting immersed in on these long, snowy, winter nights. This is a National Bestseller and The Washington Post says, “Arden’s novel has the cadence of a beautiful fairy tale but is darker and more lyrical.”  Perfect. Published 2017.  Next book in the series is The Girl in the Tower, also available in paperback.

Bonus Book: Category: Alternative Choice: Princesses Behaving Badly, Linda Rodriguez McRobbie

And in a kind of un-fairy tale kind of segue from the monthly choice, this alternative choice contains a collection of real-life stories of women from history that are warriors, usurpers, schemers, survivors, partiers, floozies and madwomen (these are the chapter titles). Featured are thirty women’s stories, all real princesses, and fair warning, most of their lives do not have fairy tale endings. Published 2017.

March

Monthly Choice:  The Library Book, Susan Orlean

I am intrigued by this book, published late in 2018, for two easy reasons.  First, it is by Susan Orlean who wrote The Orchid Thief, which I loved, and secondly, it is about libraries.  This book was a January featured book by Oprah magazine, and in the interview with Orlean she says in speaking of libraries: “They keep evolving as town squares where diverse communities can share and access information. ” John Szabo, the current head of Central, views libraries as the people’s university – “apolitical spaces where no one is being judged. Simply being in a library gives us the sense that we have access to all the knowledge in the world. Looking for information there is so different from surfing the internet, which can feel untethered and chaotic. Libraries are busy places, but soothing too.” I hadn’t thought of that difference from the internet to libraries in info gathering, and appreciated it.  Libraries and bookstores are two favorite places of mine for sure, so I know I’ll enjoy this subject matter and the author’s writing. Published Oct., 2018.

Bonus Book: Category: Missed from 2015/Something to Learn From: Walking in Wonder, John O’Donohue

John O’Donohue wrote the iconic Anam Cara and To Bless The Space Between Us, both beautifully spiritual and full of Celtic mysticism. This book, that I wasn’t aware of until this month, contains conversations with John Quinn, his close friend and a radio broadcaster.   A poet, scholar (PhD in Philosophical Theology), and a philosopher, O’Donohue fills minds and hearts with “eternal wisdom for a modern world” (from the subtitle).  Wonder, imagination and possibility were “John’s great concerns” says John Quinn. What could be better to read about as winter fades and a new spring begins?

April

Monthly Choice:  The Patch, John McPhee

A series of essays in two parts, “The Sporting Scene” with entries on fishing, football, golf, lacrosse, and bears” and “An Album Quilt”, that the book jacket says in its entirety is a “covert memoir”.  This is McPhee’s seventh collection of essays, and is dedicated to his 10 grandchildren (all of whom have very cool names!).  Looking forward to John McPhee’s vision of the world!  Published 2018.

Bonus Book: Category: Missed from 2015: Beatlebone, Kevin Barry

Another find from my local bookseller, Bookworks, as a staff pick.  It won the Goldsmith Prize and was a New York Times notable book.  I missed it when it first came out, but was immediately taken by the story line that the back explains: “It is 1978 and John Lennon has escaped New York City to try to find the island off the west coast of Ireland he bought eleven years prior…. But when he puts himself in the hands of a shape-shifting driver full of Irish charm and dark whimsy, what ensues can only be termed a magical mystery tour.”  Being that I am a total Beatlefreak this has got to be fun! Published 2015.

May

Monthly Choice:  Educated, Tara Westover

A memoir of the youngest child of seven, raised on a mountain in Idaho, remote, isolated and uneducated.  Tara does not have any formal education until going to BYU at the age of sixteen.  This in itself is astonishing; that she has enough self possession and motivation to earn her GED and pass the entrance exam, teaching herself algebra and trigonometry.  Equally astonishing is that she becomes a recipient of a fellowship to Cambridge and also to Harvard, and earns her PhD from Cambridge ten years after she began her first classes at BYU.  The story is about being educated and the toll that took of separation from the fundamentalist beliefs of her staunch Mormon parents.  There is violence, there are untold rewritten histories of what was allowed in the family.  It is heart wrenching.  She expresses the rawness and the abiding hurt of having to disavow parents and four of her seven siblings in order to survive, physically and mentally. Three of these children, including the author, earn their PhD while the other four never completed their high school diplomas.  There is the divide, ultimately, in education, and in the breaking down of fundamentalism that this education illuminated.  Westover’s first book and it is a #1 New York Times bestseller, published 2018.

Bonus Book: Category: Missed from 2018: Where the Crawdads Sing, Delia Owens

Recommended by an on line book club that I’m recently a part of (thanks Marianne!), I loved the lyrical writing, the characters, and the story.  Kya comes alive on the pages, an orphaned child whose mother is the marsh.  The connection to all the coastal environment offers her is all that she has, and she is absorbed by it.  I loved too the respect for indigenous knowledge gained by years of attention and study of an environment by a non-scholar, who, in the book, is later recognized as a scholar of the marsh for her years of study and her intimate understanding.  Owens has coauthored bestselling nonfiction books in the past, award winning ones about wildlife, and she has a PhD in Animal Behavior. This depth of knowledge is wonderfully exhibited in her fiction.  This is her first novel and was a NY Times bestseller. Published 2018.

June

Monthly Choice:  The Breath of a Whale, Leigh Calvez

I always include at least one study each year of our four legged, winged or finned co-planet inhabitants on this book list. I love reading about them. And in honor of my trip to Hawaii this month, to Maui and to the Big Island, and to Orcas Island, Washington, in April, this choice is close to my heart.  It is the “science and spirit of Pacific Ocean Giants”, and features humpback and Orcas whales – two that I’ve spent much quality time with living on Maui and Orcas Islands.  Their singing, their families, their displays of communication and joy!!  Cannot wait to learn more. Published 2019.

Bonus Book: Category: Classic/Missed from 2015/Local Author:  The Wild Inside, Christine Carbo

A suspense novel by a Whitefish author set in Glacier National Park, this book had my interest immediately when I found it at our local grocery store in the local interest section.  Yes, the grocery store.  I’m not a suspense or murder mystery reader so this is a departure, but I wanted to check it out with the setting, and I was glad that I did.  Not just the immediate setting of the investigation which is McGree Meadow, but Two Medicine, and Apgar, Logan Pass and Kalispell and Whitefish and Columbia Falls and many many more locations that are well known so bring intimacy to the story.  I liked the characters too, flawed and honest.  And they love Glacier National Park and the valley that I call home here in northwest Montana.  Published 2015.

July

Monthly Choice:  Indian Horse, Richard Wagamese

Published in 2018, this novel was just made into a movie, co-produced by Clint Eastwood.  It tells the story of the institutionalization of Native Canadians, and the devastating aftermath of emotional trauma these missionary schools left on the students who were ripped from their families, forced into abandoning their language, their culture, their spirituality – virtually everything they had ever known.    Ojibway is the tribe of Indian Horse, and his words are eloquent, his path tragic.  This, in spite of his heralded talent as a hockey player and those who selflessly reached out to help…  but the wounds were too deep, his voice swallowed and silent. I saw the movie before reading the book, and I almost always do it the other way ’round. Look forward to reading more from the Ojibway perspective.

Bonus Book: Category: Classic/Something to Learn From: Black Elk Speaks, John Neihardt

This is a newer published version of the 1932 classic.  A book that I treasure and will be reading for the third time.  This edition was published in 2014; the original published in 1932, and again in 1988 .  Black Elk’s life spanned the years of 1863 – 1950; he was one of the last who knew the old Lakota ways.  This books is considered “an American classic” (Western Historical Quarterly), and “religious classic” (Vine Deloria, Jr.).  Neihardt’s telling is eloquent too – he was the first Poet Laureate of Nebraska. In later life, Black Elk embraced Catholicism; it seems he blended beliefs in a way that worked for him – the beating drum was still the heartbeat of the universe.  This fact has not diminished my love for, and my belief in, the authenticity of Black Elk Speaks.  The respect is furthered by the foreword by Vine Deloria, Jr. After this month’s selection of Indian Horse, the book, and after seeing the movie, I wanted to revisit and learn more about Black Elk’s vision and remember his perspective.  It’s been a decade or so, and I know with how I’ve grown and changed the book will have a new and different impact on me.  If you haven’t read it, I hope you will.

August

Monthly Choice:  City of Girls, Elizabeth Gilbert

Always on board for an Elizabeth Gilbert offering having devoured Eat, Pray, Love and The Signature of All Things.  Published June 5th, I preordered this book in March after reading that is was named a “Most Anticipated Book of 2019” by Oprah.com, Real Simple, Buzzfeed, Cosmopolitan, GoodReads, PureWow, Vulture (and others).  Love the perspective of an 89 year old woman looking back… my Mom had her 89th in June.  Maybe she’d like to read it too!

Bonus Book: Category: Something to Learn From: Seven Thousand Ways to Listen, Mark Nepo

Mark Nepo’s words always move me.  His quotes keep crossing my path…  The Book of Awakening is another good choice to experience his words and his perspective on life.  This book was intricately enmeshed in a time when his hearing was compromised, and he says he began to learn more to hear with his eyes and his heart.  I want to do more of that too.  Deepak Chopra says on the front cover, “If you live the questions, life will move you into the answers. Mark Nepo offers you a map to explore the sacred in your own being.”  what better reading is that? Published in 2012.

September

Monthly Choice:  The Second Mountain, David Brooks

A gift of a book, carefully chosen, touches my heart.  A good sized piece of  my family gathered this summer in August, and we celebrated time together and the wonder of Glacier National Park.  Before he left, my nephew, John, left this book that he had chosen, wrapped and very special to me.  It explores “the quest for a moral life”.  John knew this would resonate with me as the author writes about what it means to live a meaningfully.  Published 2019 this book was new to me, and I look forward to exploring every last morsel of its wisdom.  Thank you John.

Bonus Book: Daisy Jones & The Six, Taylor Jenkins Reid, Category: Just for Fun

Another spot I love to check out for potential new reads is Tattered Cover Bookstore out of Denver. When I worked there (in Denver), it was a favorite place to visit and relax with great events, super good coffee, comfy old armchairs, and books… perfection.  This book was listed as one of their “best indie pics” for March 2019, the reviews were interesting and the story line something I know I’ll enjoy.  Hope you do too!

October

Monthly Choice:  A Pilgrimage to Eternity, Timothy Egan

A walk, bus ride, train, or otherwise, journey “from Canterbury to Rome in search of faith”.  Egan is a great storyteller, even when immersed in the troublesome history of religion and the true story of his pilgrimage.  His walk is infused with questions, and examinations of how so much misery and murder could have accompanied and been defended by faith.  The countryside is beautiful, the small towns charming, the history alarming, the observations so interesting… and within it all it is the questioning that provides perfect reading.  Through Canterbury, Calais, Wisques, Saint-Olmer, Arras, Laon, Epernay, Wassy, Langres… and through Switzerland and finally into Italy these questions of faith are compelling.  These are the questions of a true Pilgrim.  Of a Catholic. Of a seeker. Questions that all of us face. I loved this book. Published 2019.

Bonus Book: Voices in the Stones, Kent Nerburn Category: Must Read

Kent Nerburn has spent 30 years among Native peoples of the Americas and the wisdom from these years is infused in this little book.  Nerburn, too, is an excellent writer and distiller of wonder and wisdom ( I plan on reading all of Nerburn’s books).  This one is subtitled, “Life Lessons from the Native Way”, and the lessons are deep and substantive. He, like Egan, is a storyteller, and this is his way of sharing his years of learning with Native Nation members, from elders to children, along his learning journey among them.  It is the kind of reading that has you pausing often to absorb the deepness contained in the words that represent so many years of letting a different worldview permeate your mind and heart.  Highly recommended. Published 2016.

November

Monthly Choice:  In the Valleys of the Noble Beyond, John Zada

Sasquatch is real to the coastal Native Nation members of the Great Bear Rainforest of British Columbia.  This is the story of that belief, the majesty of the deep forests of the Great Bear, and of the people who inhabit this land.  The allure of the mystery of the Yeti is compelling. The author has had an affinity for this story his whole life and he is determined to find proof, going to those places were sightings are prevalent, speaking to those witnesses.  He approaches the possibilities as a journalist would, but he’s not immune to the subjective.  I loved this story of the mystery of the Sasquatch, and of this beautiful wild country that this creature and its people call home.  I found this book in the gift shop of the Prince of Wales Hotel in Waterton, Alberta. Published 2019.

Bonus Book: If Women Rose Rooted, Sharon Blackie , Category, Missed from 2016

This quote on the back cover is what compelled this choice, “This is the core of our task: to respect and revere ourselves, and so bring about a world in which women are respected and revered, recognized once again as holding the life-giving power of the earth itself.”  As I thumbed through it, and read a few passages to consider it as a new read, I found such foundational and fundamental connection to the earth, to being present, to witnessing ourselves as women, and in our sacred mission to the respect and reverence of life and of ourselves spoken about in the above quote.  I knew I must read it.  Originally published in 2016, this edition published 2019.

December

Monthly Choice:  There, There, Tommy Orange

On Dec. 11th, I finish up my first graduate course in Native American Studies.  I have learned a tremendous amount about the myths and the identity of Native Nation members, the 567 tribes of the Native Nations in our country, and their horrific struggle to survive annihilation.  A chapter from this book was assigned in the class to showcase a contemporary Native American experience in the city, in Oakland.  To show that Native Nation members are still here, some excelling in all facets of life, some struggling to survive. Orange is an excellent writer, and he received acknowledgement for his writing as the the book was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. He tells the individual stories of Indians in the city, all as unique as the individuals that they are.  Their stories and their lives will converge in dramatic fashion.  As Margaret Atwood espouses on the cover, “An astonishing literary debut!”.  Indeed.  Can’t wait for more from this author. Published in 2018 .

Bonus Book: All the Real Indians Died Off, Roxanne Dubar-Ortiz and Dina Gilio-Whitaker Category: Something to Learn From

This book, too, was assigned reading in my Native American Studies class.  Each week a myth was dispelled in the class and an accompanying chapter was assigned in this book, along with lots of other reading.  The authors make the subject matter digestible if not palatable.  Many of these facts were not new to me, but even after so much of my reading, there were still shocking new facts to take in.  The myths encompass all aspects of Indian life, including that they were “given” reservations, that Columbus “discovered” America, that there wasn’t violence after that land deal meal that was the first “Thanksgiving”.  It is interesting and distressing just how much of what we think we know of history is based on half-truths, distortions, omissions, and many times exhibiting no truth at all. I promise this little book will change the way you feel about many things as they relate to our nations first people.  Published 2016.

2020

January

Monthly Choice: Year of the Monkey, Patti Smith

Another of Patti Smith’s books has been selected here, as she has become a favorite.  This one is the winner of the National Book Award, published in 2019.  She’s an artist in both the music and writing realms, and I enjoy both.  There are black and white photos and raw, thoughtful remembrances and revelations from life.  There is prose that reads like poetry. This from the back cover exemplifies the depth and moving words she is capable of: “There were bells tolling and wreaths tossed and women turning in circles and there were bees performing their life-cycle dance and there were great winds and swollen moons and pyramids crumbling and coyotes crying and the waves mounting and it all smelled like the end and the beginning of freedom,” and “the things that transport us can be so random.”  I could have included dozens and dozens of quotes here, but you’ll pick your own.  It is impossible to separate dream from reality – do we need to?

Bonus Book: Returning to Earth, Jim Harrison Category:  A Favorite Author

Definitely starting off the year with beloved authors… and Harrison is a favorite.  This novel continues a character that wasn’t featured in an earlier story, Donald, a Chippewa – Finnish man, but that I remembered him well.  A well developed character study, a la Harrison, I was glad to see Donald back.  About Harrison’s writing, The New York Times Book Review wrote, “There is a singular comfort in knowing, on the first page of a novel, that you are in the hands of a master…Makes the ordinary extraordinary, the unnameable unforgettable.”  Published 2007.  I love this man’s writing. If you haven’t read him, please do.

February

Monthly Choice: Born a Crime, Trevor Noah

It’s an election year, and we’re bombarded with opinions, and news that isn’t, falsehoods… you really have to dig deep for truth and be responsible for doing that.  Don’t absorb what’s dished out without due diligence.  Reading what I can unearth for truth is a mission; our comedians that tell us like it is in their own unique way is an enhancement to that – gets the mind moving.  Trevor Noah is a favorite with the way he shocks us with the truth.  This book is not about the upcoming election, or his political views though. It is a book about his upbringing in South Africa, and his deep connection and love for his mother.  He grew up under apartheid, but also got to experience the dawn of freedom.  Born a Crime was selected as one of the best books of the year (2019) by The New York Times, USA Today, San Francisco Chronicle, NPR, Esquire, Newsday and Booklist, all sources of new reads for me, and was the winner of the Thurber Prize for American humor, and the NAACP Image Award.  Enjoy!

Bonus Book, Something to Learn From: the Artist’s Rule, Christine Valters Paintner

For quiet moments and deepening into your creative heart and your contemplative inner nature, this book is a treasure.  Written as a 12 week journey, each chapter has meditations, exercises that uncover creativity and healing, movement, walking and wisdom.  The author is a Benedictine monk.  Didn’t know that was possible for either a woman or someone that didn’t physically live in a monastery.  Love Learning!   I will be working through the chapters this year.  Published 2011.

March

Monthly Choice: The Unlikely Thru-Hiker, Derick Lugo

I would never have found this book had it not been recommended by a friend, Phil. Phil has done the entire Appalachian Trail, twice, as well as the PCT, and many other impressive months long hiking adventures, so the recommendation coming from him about “an Appalachian Trail Journey” made me want to read it.  And it’s March, where northwest Montana begins its long wake up from winter’s quiet and snow, and we begin to think about Spring, being outside in warmer weather and hiking!  The author is a comedian from Brooklyn and had never hiked – that’s the unique perspective he brings.  In spite of this lack of experience, he sets out to complete the entire trek from Georgia to Maine – and he does!  This is Lugo’s first book, published in 2019, and I know I’m going to enjoy his humor and perspective along the 1,900 trail.

Bonus Book: the Hermit’s Story, Rick Bass Category:  A Favorite Author

Rick Bass lives just north of us up in the Yaak.  He is a student, an acute observer, of humanity and in these stories expresses his love for the characters in his remote valley in northwest Montana deploying his acclaimed superb writing.  Nature is deeply interwoven, inextricably stitched, into the fabric of life of the Yaak and in these stories.  Bass understands this connection between humans and nature intimately, and has the words to express passion loss, and the course of things in lives and relationships. Some of his sentences stop me, and I reread them, think about using them, and do  sometimes on Sweet Breathing.  They are so good.  He is so present to life, to emotions, and to relationships. This is a book of nine short stories – a genre I rarely delve into.  Each story though had me from the first paragraph.  They’re so very different, but somehow there is a common thread, that of humanity and wildness intertwined.  I loved these stories – worth a reread.  Published 2002.

April

Monthly Choice: The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, Kim Michele Richardson

In these unprecedented times, good reads are vital!  Here’s how this book came to me – a new author and a new possibility to my reading list:  I parked in front of my local bookseller, Bookworks, here in Whitefish.  They are offering curb side pickup, but I hadn’t called ahead, so I called them from out front.  Marty picked up the call, and I simply said, “would you kindly pick out two books for me?, and I’ll take that Robert Bissell puzzle, The Kiss, too, from the window.”  Five minutes later, I left with The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, and a second book, The Braid, listed as the May monthly choice below, and the puzzle!  I’m so enjoying the story line of this novel – of books delivered by mule to hungry readers in the hills of Kentucky in 1936. There is so much cultural and historical significance, and a lens into a different time and life, the importance of books and the subjugation of women, especially women of color. The Pack Horse Librarian Project was a real thing supported by the New Deal’s WPA – something I didn’t know about and was happy to learn.  The book also explores the rare “blue people” of Appalachia – another true and real genetic phenomena that I learned about for the first time. Published 2019.

Bonus Book: The Rules of Magic, Alice Hoffman Category:  Missed from 2017.

How many times can I say, “how can I have missed, not explored, an author?”  And Alice Hoffman is one prolific writer who delves into themes about magic and women in a way that I enjoy.  It’s not the writing, but the story, the themes and the characters that are wonderful to me.  This novel has two major themes, Love More, and Be Who You Are, Always and Ioved that exploration.  Three siblings, all with powers that they embrace or don’t as life evolves.  All three grow into adulthood journeying through tragedy, denial, hope and joy.  As wisdom deepens and the years unfold and ripen, they individually come to the realization that they must be fully and completely who they are, their authentic and real selves, all three of them do become, who they are meant to be.  This is a prequel to the much more well known Practical Magic written in 1997, but was just published in 2017, ten full years later – I’m sure because readers were hungry for more.  A great light late Spring read.

May

Monthly Choice: The Braid, Laetitia Colombani

The is the second book from Bookworks, on my “pick two novels for me” foray into this new normal.  The author’s first book, I loved the weave of these three disparate women’s lives.  They share the fact of their fierce strength, and that they face terrific challenges. All three show tremendous resolve in survival itself, and in being their authentic selves – a survival all its own.  Smita from India in extreme poverty and the worst possible circumstance as an untouchable, Guila in Sicily, with the weight of responsibility of the family business, three generations old, about to go into ruin, and Sarah in Montreal, a prominent lawyer facing the debilitating and ostracizing effects of her new cancer diagnosis.  What could these three possibly have in common?  The braid is woven between them in an unexpected way; without their ever physically meeting, the connection is there.  The stories of the three women were enough, the reminder of the threads between us on this small planet, icing on the cake.  And in the women’s stories there is much to learn, not just about love and perseverance, but about a Sicilian business, and Hindu custom, and the more than physical effects of cancer. The spare writing took a minute for me to warm to, the author’s screenwriting background evident in the scenes she paints, but I came to love the characters she drew and the intertwining braid she created between them.  I could definitely see this as a movie and would read more from this author.  Published 2019.

Bonus Book: I’m Still Here, Austin Channing Brown

Category: Something to Learn From

That’s no need for an explanation as to this book choice…the recent murder of George Floyd, and the list of black men and women wrongly killed by keepers of the peace in this country continues. We white people are all complicit in the history that allows these actions, this lack of accountability, this inherent racism that is built into the very fabric of our existence in our country.  It is time (past time) to show up, to learn, to listen, to be an ally, to step in… This is one of many books and videos I will be absorbing to deepen my understanding of how we got here, and where we can go, from the voices of those whose lived experience with racism we must hear, acknowledge and work to change.  The author was named Austin so that whites in power would mistake her for a white male – so she would have the opportunity to gain entry, to have doors open, that would routinely be closed to her.  Her parents were realistic and proactive.  Her voice was one of many that was recommended to me.  Published 2013.

June

Monthly Choice: The Bear, Andrew Krivak

Well, of course, with that title, I had to check it out!  And I was immediately intrigued… a post apocalyptic fable with a talking bear – ok, yes!  Not familiar with this author, but certainly the premise and reviews are very compelling.  Published, February, 2020.

Bonus Book: Angle of Repose, Wallace Stegner

And again I wonder how this book hasn’t crossed my path – this writer.  This author of the “best book ever written about the west”.  Well, I’ll read it now, so this bonus book, unlike most all I pick for this category, is not one that I’ve yet read.  I know it will prove to be a most worthy choice for inspired reading as summer begins.  Published

July

Monthly Choice: Nature’s Silent Message, Scott Stillman

The author’s first “little indie book” as he calls it (Wilderness, A Gateway to the Soul), sold 20,000 copies, and I loved it.  This is the author’s second offering, just published in April, 2020.  He writes in the preface, “Truth exists in wild places – where the air is clean, the water pure, the land free,” and “To walk out into the wilderness and see what comes – not what comes to mind – but what comes. There’s a not-so-subtle difference.”   He says the real world is beyond the pavement, and I know that to be true for me.  I know I will love this book as much as his first, and hope you do too.

Bonus Book: History Will Remember When the World Stopped, Donna Ashworth

And here we are.  In a world changed, slowed, realigned, quieter.  These are “poems from a pandemic”.  I wanted the perspective in flowing words and thoughts of another since I’d worn my own thoughts and feelings out. Ashworth captures our unique moment in time and gives us a reflection of a world of individuals at home, coping, thriving, grieving, doing, being.

August

Monthly Choice: Running Toward Mystery, Tenzin Priyadarshi

An unconventional life told by The Venerable Tenzin Priyadarshi along with Zara Houshmand – a book about living a spiritual existence from the age of ten, a book about following your heart and instincts every single step of the way even from the very tender age of ten and that is when this adventure begins.  I needed this book now – to be immersed completely in another culture, to explore beliefs and tenants, and to follow along as the author continues his exploration of his inner world and his spirituality.  It was an escape into reality for me that I savored. Published 2020.

Bonus Book: The Tao of Ordinariness,  Robert J. Wicks                Category: Something to Learn From

Spiritual reading August continues with this gem that I found through the magazine Tricycle that Mela gifted me with for Christmas and I am so enjoying.  Just these book recommendations alone are worth the read of the magazine, but too, there are a wealth of articles to savor.

September

Monthly Choice: The Book of Longings, Sue Monk Kidd

I read about Sue Monk Kidd’s new book, and was immediately intrigued.  The book jacket says, “Grounded in meticulous research and written with a reverential approach to Jesus’s life that focuses on his humanity. The Book of Longings is an inspiring, unforgettable account of one woman’s bold struggle to realize the passion and potential inside her, while living in a time, place, and culture devised to silence her.”  Monk wrote the forever memorable Secret Life of Bees and The Invention of Wings – both favorites, and this compelling story line is sure to be a new favorite. Published 2020.

Bonus Book, Something to Learn From and be Absorbed By: The World That We Knew, Alice Hoffman

This year has had a wealth of favorite authors in our list, and Alice Hoffman is a new favorite of mine.  I completely absorbed her unique and firmly powerful women in the Practical Magic series, new to me this year, then delved into this 2019 offering and it’s a treasure.  Yes, her strong, unique and powerful women are front and center, and magic, more subtle here than in previous books but still front and center too.  Her writing seems to have evolved in depth and complexity and I was enthralled with this book from the first page.  This novel explores the world changed by war, the world of persecution experienced by people of Jewish faith, and the world of survival, finely told.  Highly recommended. Published 2019, and a best seller.

October

Monthly Choice: The Night Watchman, Louise Erdrich

Another favorite author with a new offering for 2020, and I couldn’t wait to read it.  Just loved it.  This is a novel with a story fashioned after the true life and character of the author’s Grandfather, Patrick Gourneau, chairman of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, and his steadfast struggle to end the threat of termination as a tribe as defined by the US government in the early 1950’s.  The characters are beautifully crafted, as per usual with Erdrich.  I fell deeply in love with them.  And the craft of weaving together Chippewa culture, traditional knowledge, and the strength of the people into the novel was superb and compelling.  Highly recommended.

Bonus Book, Another New One Not to Be Missed Recently Published:  Anxious People, Fredrik Backman

I fell in love with Backman’s writing first with A Man Called Ove, then his series about a hockey loving small town and the wonderful characters in that town.  He draws such complex memorable characters that you feel like you actually know them. This new release, published September 2020, came out as a top pick in numerous places, garnering a People Book of the Week, Book of the Month Club selection, #1 Indie Next Pick, and Best of Fall in Good Housekeeping, PopSugar, The Washington Post, New York Post, Shondaland, and CNN!  He’s become a favorite writer for a lot of folks it seems, including me!

November

Monthly Choice: See No Stranger, Valarie Kaur

The month of the US presidential election prompts this choice.  Listening, understanding, using my heart filter all are absolutely needed. Revolutionary Love. Now that’s a revolution I can get behind with all of my molecules. Published 2020. Recommended by Elisheva, thank you Elle.

Bonus Book: Two Old Women, Velma Wallis

Based on a fable of the people, this little book is a tale of survival, betrayal, and redemption, and ultimately the power, wisdom and resiliency of the elders.  I love having it in my Native American section of my home library and loved reading it too. This is a story that the author was told by her mother that is based on an Athabascan legend out of Alaska that has been passed for generations – mothers to daughters.  Published 1993 but timeless.

December

Monthly Choice: The Wisdom Codes, Gregg Braden

December for me, and maybe for you, brings a quieter time as winter begins to unfold, even with the holidays.  I love the more contemplative time with more darkness and fires and introspection. Braden is just such a smart man with his background in science, and a master at bringing spirituality, science and our real world lives together.  That’s what he’s done with The Wisdom Codes masterfully bringing the power of ancient prayers and parables to light for their relevancy to our modern times. Deepak Chopra says of him, “Gregg Braden is a rare blend of scientist, visionary and scholar with the ability to speak to our minds, while touching the wisdom of our hearts.”  I learn so much from him. Published 2020.

Bonus Book: Outlander, Diana Gabeldon
December also begins the season of big novels and multiple book series for engrossing winter reading.  One year it was all of the Harry Potter books, another Madeline l’Engle’s library, yet another the Pillars of the Earth series by Ken Follett, another the Girl with the Dragon Tatoo series by Stieg Larsson, the Wildwood series by Colin Meloy (illustrations by Carson Ellis), Katherine Arden’s Winter of the Witch series, and one of my absolute favorites (although I loved all of these), the Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s series beginning with The Angel’s Game.  I appreciate having a stack of books lined up so that they don’t end!  This choice was born of having had four different friends say either “have you seen The Outlander series on TV or read the books”? After the fourth time, these folks who know me well having said “it is so in your wheelhouse!” I had to do it.  So all four books are waiting and lined up for winter: Outlander, Dragonfly in Amber, Voyager and Drums of Autumn and now I’m learning there are four more – EIGHT for the winter! Join me?

2021

January

Monthly Choice: Uncanny Valley, Anna Wiener

Starting our new year with four new writers to me.  Anna Wiener, Jeb Loy Nichols, Matt Haig and Anna North after a string of favorite authors last year.  I love both – the authors that are dear to me, and trying out new ones. In the review written by Mark Athitakis, that compelled me to add this book to the list, he says that this book, “ought to be read by policymakers just as closely as a set of statistics.” (LA Times).  Ok then.  Published 2020.

Bonus Book: Suzanne and Gertrude, Jeb Loy Nichols

I so loved this little novel.  Another new author for me, Nichols says, “I write because there are things I can’t sing. There are ways of writing that can’t be sung. I write because I watch.”  And that is exactly what the story conveys – how well Nichols’ watches.  His talent as a musician also comes across in the sweetness of the imagery in his words, and the illustrations are his too and I just loved those too.  Wonderful unique characters are so beautifully created for us to savor.  Enjoy! Published 2019.

February

Monthly Choice: The Midnight Library, Matt Haig

The concept of The Midnight Library was immediately intriguing… a library of green clad books, each with an alternative life you had the opportunity to live, or more accurately, are presently living in a parallel universe.  Each tiny nuance of decision making borne out in the fabric of the present in each of your possible existences… I will check out more of this author’s writing. Published 2020.

Bonus Book: I Don’t Want to Grow Up, Scott Stillman

Stillman’s nature writing about the southwest moves me, so I was intrigued by this new offering as well.  Life, Liberty and Happiness without a career – yes please. It’s his story of an unscripted life lived from the intention of living his dreams, not going down a career path, not amassing things but experiences.  The simplicity is the beauty here.  It’s possible to live your authentic life.  Published 2021.

March

Monthly Choice: Outlawed, Anna North

A feminist western is how this novel is billed, so of course, I had to check it out!  A band of sisters finds an existence on the fringe after being outcast and shunned, having their lives threatened by one trait that they all share, their inability to bare children – their barrenness.  A troubling word in itself, and a reminder of the not so distant past’s relationship to women without children.  Published 2021.

Bonus Book: The Education of an Idealist, Samantha Power

An absorbing story of the author’s life from immigration as a child from Ireland to the United States, to UN Ambassador, to wife and mother. The changes these experiences etched into the fabric of her life, the continual learning, the impossible choices, sometimes none of which are good but just the least bad, that are inherent in political life.  The memoir paints a vivid picture and provides a snapshot of time in our country as well as in Power’s individual life.  She’s a easy writer to read and I found the book engrossing and compelling. Published 2019 and winner of the Pulitzer Prize.

April

Monthly Choice: The Tubman Command, Elizabeth Cobbs

A historical novel, well researched, about the brave, heroic, brilliant life of Harriet Tubman. She comes to life on these pages in all her humanity and her incredible conviction and sacrifice.  The history of our nation’s dark side of slavery is fully explored here too. The novel starts with Harriett’s memories of her older sister’s sale, and watching her ankles being chained on a random day while the master counted his money from her sale, and as she left her own mother, and her own small children behind.  Gut wrenching and real. A must read.  For healing to truly take place, we must acknowledge and seek forgiveness for our nation’s original sins. Published 2019.

Bonus Book: The Guest List, Lucy Foley

Just for fun a who-done-it mystery over a weekend weekend, on an island, off the coast of Ireland… yep, when I read wedding, island, Ireland I was all in.  Love the wedding planner character, stoic and calm, cool and collected.  Celebrity bride and groom with all that goes with that, isolation on the island, lots of suspense.  Nope, you won’t guess who-done-it.  Another new author. Published 2020.

May

Monthly Choice: The Vanishing Half, Brit Bennett

This novel explores how twins that are separated create their lives completely differently – one twin identifies as black and the other white.  Looking forward to the story of their reunion in this well received story. I haven’t read this author before and looking forward to it. Published 2020

Bonus Book: Lab Girl, Hope Jahren

Yet another great find from the turnstile  outside Copperleaf Chocolates where the collection of curated used books continues to add to my reading pleasure (Voyageur Booksellers inside).  There are always classics there, but too, always books that I should have known about and read, but didn’t.  Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award with accolades like this one from The New York Times, “Engrossing…Thrilling… Does for botany what Oliver Sacks’s essays did for neurology, what Stephen Jay Gould’s writings did for paleontology,” I knew that was one for my library. The author is a geobiologist, who studies trees, flowers, seeds and soils having found “a sanctuary in science.” We get to enjoy the fruits of her labors here. Published 2016.  If you’re ever in Whitefish and need a book, visit Voyageur Booksellers for sure.  The collection of used books is amazing, and you will find the perfect one for you as I always do. And get some housemade chocolates while you’re there too!

June

Monthly Choice: Klara and the Sun, Kazuo Ishiguro

Artificial intelligence and the meaning of love, the new and the timeless are intertwined in this new novel by Nobel Prize winner for literature, author Ishiguro.  The reviews describe a poignant meditation with prose that is soft… I loved that. Looking forward to this new read, by this well respected author. Published early 2021.

Bonus Book (Award Winner, Great Author):  March, Geraldine Brooks

It took me a minute to understand that the chaplain traveling with a Union Army unit of soldiers is the March of Little Women fame – the father.  Having played a very minor role in Little Woman I didn’t recognize him, until the mention of all four of his daughters, Amy, Beth, Jo and Meg.  And their mom, Margaret, Marmee.  Geraldine Brooks is the author of People of the Book, another excellent novel, so well written, and this one is too.  Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, and published in 2005, this is another beautiful find at Voyageur Booksellers turnstile.  It’s a harrowing story at times of the brutality of war, and the horrific conditions of slavery, the justifications, the weighing of eradicating it at all costs.  It’s raw in places, tender, letters home to Marmee tell some of the story.  It is interesting what he leaves out of these letters.  Then Marmee weights in Excellent.  In the afterword the author reveals that the bones of the book came from her research into Louisa May Alcott’s father, Bronson Alcott.  What a fascinating man!  An educator, lifelong vegetarian who created an Utopian village to promote that cause called Fruitville (it failed but still – during the Civil War!), and a staunch abolitionist, his life as a foundation proved interesting and the historical references illuminating.  He was a contemporary of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau and they were close friends, and these two luminaries make appearances in the novel as well. Highly recommended.

July

Monthly Choice: Whereabouts, Jhumpa Lahiri

Another well respected author back with a novel after a long absence – this is much anticipated. Published April, 2021

Bonus Book (National Book Award Finalist, New Author to me):  The Bird Artist, Howard Norman

I loved the writing in this book. The characters are unforgettable as is the community, the environment of Witless Bay, Newfoundland at the turn of the century.  On the surface it’s such a simple town, with simple days strung together, but there are many complicated personalities, much intrigue and intricate underpinnings that are all explored here and too,  relationships between couples, mothers and sons, sons and daughters, lovers and friends.  And there are birds of every description being drawn on these pages.  The author had me totally engrossed.  Found on the outside turnstile at Voyageur Booksellers in Copperleaf Chocolates – again.  I love that used book store so very much and have found such treasures there. Published 1994 and a National Book Award finalist.

August

Monthly Choice: Revelations, Mary Sharratt

“An ancient “Eat Pray Love” declares the publisher – well, ok, let’s give it a go – and with Julian of Norwich as a main character – definitely. Published 2021.

Bonus Book (s!): North of the Tension Line, J. F. Riordan

I read about this book series on a book lovers site where I order too many books (can there be too many books?).  It’s Bas Bleu, and like Voyageur, my go to local used bookseller, I find many treasures there not previously known to me.  These books of refined and complicated characters living intertwined lives on a remote island in Wisconsin brought deep memories of living on Orcas and San Juan Islands.  It’s the ferry life, filled with nature, quiet, the local bar, locals events, scrabbling to make a living, integrity (mostly), and making your own entertainment. I loved these books for that connection to my island life, and the writing.  They’re quick reads, perfect to binge on read one after the other. The others in order are: The Audacity of Goats, Robert’s Rules and A Small Earnest Question.

September

Monthly Choice: Of Women and Salt, Gabriela Garcia

Bonus Book:  Evidence of Eternity, Mark Anthony

Mark Anthony is known as the physic lawyer – he’s a medium and a trail lawyer.  I’ve seen him on TV, and he makes connections that seemingly are genuine.  From the “other side”.  I gave this book to my Mom for a birthday several years back. I have a picture of her at Lake McDonald Lodge after opening it on her birthday – she had told me she was interested in reading it.  After her passing, I came across the book and of course, needing anything to help understand where my Mom IS, it was the perfect time to read it.  Anthony considers himself an evidential physic, in that he requires that prior to a reading he is allowed no contact or any information about the group or the individual to be read in advance.  This book is also interesting in that it doesn’t just have readings but also how readings and mediumship work.  He includes how the pineal gland may be enhanced by additional crystalline structures in mediums, how he tunes into a higher frequency, how spirits communicate in images, songs and feelings. As the cover of the book states, “Combining science, theoretical physics, and theology, Mark Anthony does an amazing job of presenting evidence of an afterlife” (Dr. Raymond Moody).  I would agree. Published 2015 (the book must have just come out when I gave it to Mom for her birthday).

 October

Monthly Choice: Finding The Mother Tree, Suzanne Simard

Discovering the wisdom of the forest, this smart scientist evolved from a woodcutters sensibilities due to her family’s involvement in logging, to an author who can speak with authority and then a deep love for the trees.  The reality of trees communication and support for each other through an intricate system of nutrient sharing, is remarkable science.  I hope it will come to be common knowledge. Published 2021.

Bonus Book: How To Speak for the Trees, Diana Beresford-Kroeger

The author is a brilliant, truly brilliant scientist, who has at her foundation a deep spiritual truth and learning from her early days being taught by the elders of Lisheen in Ireland.  The elders held sacred and ancient knowledge and as an orphan in the community they believed it their duty to raise her up in knowledge and care.  She went on the get her PhD and has done remarkable studies.  Now she is a tree advocate, spiritualist, and scientist and that combination works beautifully well for me as a reader and learner.  The second part of the book after she explores her young years in Ireland, her studies, and her deepening connection to trees, and after she lays out a plan for the future, she goes through the ancient Gaelic alphabet, where every letter is designated by a tree!  Who knew?  I learned a lot!  Anything by this author is recommended. Her Arboretum books are encyclopedias of trees and would be loved by anyone enamored and seeking to learn more about them. Published 2017.

November

Monthly Choice: The Paris Library, Janet Skeslien Charles

The love of books, and the community of friends and coworkers who love books, is front and center in this novel based on real happenings around the Paris Library as it faces World War II.  The library’s mission became the delivery of books to injured soldiers and those still fighting, to those in Paris without food or water as a diversion and as food for the soul, and to those marginalized and in danger after the Nazi occupation.  The librarians put themselves in grave danger by doing this seemingly small task. I loved the book and the strong characters, many based on real life persons, the turmoil, pain, and the love.  All of it.  There is the constant solace of books, so beautifully drawn in the book, that provide comfort, intellectual sustenance and nourishment that ultimately prevails even in the very worst of times.  And infused throughout the novel is a deep love of books that resonated with me. I didn’t know this writer but there were so many components that made this novel irresistible to me personally.  Set in Paris and Montana (right??), and too, knowing the author also resides in both of these places, made this novel a must read having started my turn around the sun in Paris, and now making my home in northwest Montana.  This novel is highly recommended.  Published 2021.

Bonus Book:  The Fountain of St James Court; or Portrait of an Artist as an Old Woman, Sena Jeter Naslund

I decided to stay in Paris with this well crafted novel from 2014 and it was engrossing and just right for a long fall evening read.  The chapters change between the perspective of the first person narrator, a sixty-nine year old writer based in present time, and the portrait of another woman from an earlier time (1789 – 1841), that the narrator has just written a book about who is an artist. It was an interesting juxtaposition, and the writing is excellent. It proved to be one of those books that I had to put aside after reading a line because it stopped me in my tracks.  I love that!  Here’s one (quoting the man the present day narrator has just begun dating): ”  Found at my used book store Voyageur.  I continue to find so many treasures there!

December

Monthly Choice: The Barbizon, Paulina Bren

It was the subtitle that got me, “the hotel that set women free”.  The Barbizon, a residential hotel, allowed women a spot to live alone and free in New York City, at a time when this wasn’t done often or easily. The hotel was built in 1927, and was designed to house the “Modern Woman.” Many artists and luminaries found safe haven here from Sylvia Plath to Grace Kelly, Liza Minelli, Ali McGraw, and Jacyln Smith.  There were models and secretaries, and writers and women who carved their own way , working, some successfully, some not.  Men were only allowed residency in 1981, previous to that, it was a women only establishment. I’m so looking forward to being carried away by this book. Published 2021.

Bonus Book:  Dept. of Speculation, Jenny Offill

Short scenes in a life, quotes for the ages, stream of consciousness ramble, all held together by love, a deep and abiding love. The narrator’s heart is on her sleeve, her flaws and uniqueness honestly expressed, the feelings raw and palpable.  And with that all abiding love too, there is sorrow. I enjoyed the author’s craft of story telling. In spite of its short spurts, there is a flow and a tenderness about the whole of it when read.  Lots of accolades for this one including, “one of the ten best books of the year” by The New York Times Book Review, and “sparkling with sunlight and sorrow”, from The Boston Globe. Published 2014. Oh, and the quote that opens the book held me in its sway for a moment, “speculators on the universe…are no better than madmen” – Socrates.

2022

Monthly Choice:  The Book of Hope, Jane Goodall and Douglas Abrams with Gail Hudson

What better way to start the New Year then with HOPE.  Jane Goodall as a pioneer, leader and teacher is an excellent conduit of wisdom from her perspective of years and accomplishments. Written in a question and answer interview type format, it’s inspiring and interesting.  Interwoven with stories from her life, successes, frustrations, she shares within them where she continually finds hope even in the darkest times.  She believes in the amazing human intellect, resilience of nature, the power of young people and the indomitable human spirit.  She and Abrams do a nice job too of separating wishful thinking from true hope, as hope requires action.  Learned a lot and glad to start 2022 with Goodall’s spirit and wisdom.  Published 2021. A Christmas gift from Laura and Greg that I am very grateful for.

Bonus Book:  Something to Learn From: World of Wonders, Aimee Nezhukumatathil

My niece Sarah, asked for a book selection as her Christmas gift to me, so I happily went looking through my book sites to find something that I was coveting.  Came across this one, and so glad I did!  Each chapter is a portrait of a wonder of nature, intertwined with very personal stories from the author’s childhood and present day life, where these wonders impacted her growing up years or impact her today very deeply.  The stories are full of interesting facts about everything from comb jelly to peacocks, some of the wonders being familiar, and some totally new to me.  I loved this book, thank you Sarah!  Published 2020.

February

Monthly Choice:  How Lucky, Will Leitch

What a perspective!  How can a 25-year-old with SMA (spinal muscular atrophy) be “lucky”??  The answer is because he has the gift of life, of consciousness, of being able to help, to be helped, to contribute, to have friends and family that love him.  The author is amazing in his ability to interweave facts and realities of this progressive and debilitating condition, with humor, raw truth, and suspense.  Yes, suspense.  I wondered why Stephen King has a note on the book jacket, “A fantastic novel…You are going to like this a lot”, and I certainly found out why. The main character is certainly physically challenged in his body, but not in his mind – a fact we all need to remember. That’s another piece in this novel that’s important, by residing in the character’s thoughts throughout the book, we learn how best to interact with physically challenged people – it’s not hard – just treat them as you would anyone else – and always, always speak directly to them, even if they are using a voice box or a support person to speak for them.  Published 2021, and recommended for sure.  A book gift from Ashley that I am most appreciative of. I wouldn’t have found it otherwise. Thank you so much Ashley! Winter reading is off to a great start.

Bonus Book:  The Stranger in the Woods, Michael Finkel

Two things compelled me to pick up this book, after a rare foray into our local Whitefish library, that, as it turns out, is back to regular hours, after being spotty during Covid.  The first was that this book was a staff pick, always a consideration for me and the second was the subtitle, “the extraordinary story of the last true hermit”.  And there was a third compelling reason too, the author is listed as living in western Montana.  The story is a true one, of Christopher Knight, who lived alone in the Maine woods for twenty-seven years.  That feat is almost impossible to absorb.  The author explores Knight’s mindset as best as he can unravel it, traveling from Montana to Maine to interview him from jail after he is arrested for breaking and entering to steal food.  He has kept authorities at bay for all of these years while making hundreds of break ins of a group camp and area cabins to sustain his need for food, shelter and clothing.  The author also explores other hermits and recluses, and interviews psychologists to better understand the phenomena that is Chris Knight.  I loved the book.  The references to solitude and silence, the appeal of merging with nature and consciousness in such a complete and profound way, the study of those that don’t fit with others, or in our culture.  There are dozens of quotes that resonated with me.  I appreciate what the author chose to include. Published 2017.  Knight was arrested in 2013 at the age of 47 having been in his camp in central Maine since he was 20 years old.

March

Monthly Choice:  The Fallen Stones, Diana Marcum

If you don’t have awe and wonder when witnessing the miracle of a butterfly, you will after reading this book!  But how can we not see the miracle that they are?  Marcum does a super job of mixing science and butterfly facts, with the people, personalities, and real life stories of the butterfly farmers and benefactors from Belize and England.  Good people all. Philosophers.  A great quote from the book, similar to this Thomas Aquinas one, “because philosophy arises from awe, a philosopher is bound in his way to be a lover of myths and poetic fables. Poets and philosophers are alike in being big with wonder”, but more meaningful to these hard working, philosophic workers in the world of wonder that is butterfly farms, ” The blue morpho butterflies had me at hello with their iridescent blues”… Published 2022. I am working on my butterfly garden…

Bonus Book:  Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine, Gail Honeyman

Ashley gifted me with this book – one I hadn’t come across. I’m so glad she did!  Eleanor is someone you’d want to know.  Blunt, with limited culturally acceptable social skills and no friends, a heavy vodka drinker, regimented to a fault.  But there are reasons of course for her solitary life and all her uniquely her attributes and habits… The writing is hilarious at times, and quite sad at others.  It is a social commentary too, on what we accept as “normal”, how easily people can be misunderstood, how often we just don’t know what anyone has been through or is going through.  I really enjoyed this novel and will read more. This is Honeyman’s first novel and it was well received. The book jacket notes it as a Reese’s Book Club pick, and also that Reece plans on making it into a movie.  I’ll watch!  Published 2017 and a New York Times bestseller.

April

Monthly Choice:  Firekeeper’s Daughter, Angeline Boulley

A suspenseful novel, infused with Ojibwa culture, community, family and current event issues.  The weaving together is powerful, the strength of the Native worldview the center of everything. So much of what I’ve learned in my studies of stereotypical portrayals, the survival of Native thinking and culture in the real world right now (not a historic relic), the use of Chippewa language, the circle of women, a mother’s love, a brother’s weakness are all threads in the story of n’Daunis (daughter) – her life as a hockey playing, smart, scientist about to start college. I was engrossed by the book and recommend it as good reading, but also to deepen understanding of Native Ojibwa life on and off the rez today.  The author is an enrolled member of the Chippewa tribe of Sugar Island, Michigan where the novel is set.  Published 2021.

Bonus Book: Ceremony, Leslie Marmom Silko

Another assigned novel in my Native American Literature class, and what a powerhouse it is!  The themes are universal, timeless and profound.  Good and evil, connections to nature, the power of story and how they define us, the disenfranchisement of Native Americans, the PTSD of war, the steadfastness of the stars.  The importance of ceremony, the ancestors.  Mystery.  It is a novel woven around Tayo, a young Laguna Pueblo of mixed race who has many burdens on his heart after returning from WWII where his cousin Rocky died.  They considered themselves brothers and he couldn’t save him. His PTSD lands him in an LA hospital where he succumbs to the “whiteness”, an unconsciousness fog, but obviously his succumbing to the “whiteness” holds much symbolism. Published 1977, I have had it in my library since then!  Had not completed it – it was too deep and rich for me to absorb until exactly now! Highly recommended.

May

Monthly Choice: Love is Everything, A Year with Hadewijch of Antwerp, Translated by Andrew Harvey,  Forewards by Matthew Fox and Laurence Freeman

A spiritual deepening May of illuminated reads about two masters of love and life, Hildegard von Bingen (the bonus book below) and this new one that is 365 poems, visions and contemplation from Hadewijch of Antwerp.  Published 2022 this is a new offering, and the format of reading just an excerpt each day to reflect deeply on Love’s power has proven to be a lovely addition to my library.  Andrew Harvey’s Preface says of this work, “It is my deepest hope that Love is Everything will restore Hadewijch of Antwerp not only to her place as one of the most incandescent and inspired of all Christian mystics, male or female, but also as a universal mystic pioneer and prophet of divinization, of transfiguration-through-Love.”  Her words from the first half of the 13th century retain their power and relevance. It has also been called a work of “sacred activism”. What a thought!

Bonus Book: Illuminations, a novel of Hildegard vonBingen, Mary Sharratt

 Hildegard kept coming across my field with such deep and moving quotes, that I had to know more of her.  Just a unbelievable life.  I mean truly not believable.  After the age of eight, she spent the next forty years walled into a church as an “anchorite”.  I had never heard of this practice of literally sealing in young women who had committed themselves (or were forced) to a life of service to the church.  She and her mentor who was just a few years older lived in two tiny stone cells with a narrow courtyard, with food being pushed through a little door that opened to the church.  There she read voraciously after teaching herself to read thanks to an obliging monk, grew herbs, learned about healing, about the stars, wrote music, and deepened her connection to the feminine source.  1157 is the year in Germany.  Hildegard’s writings, and music remain, and records of her compelling visions that she had her entire life are retained as well. She is finally released from the cell and establishes a nunnery of her own, Rupertsberg… The things you learn by reading!! Published 2012 and found on the outside turnstile of used books at Voyageur in Copperleaf Chocolates. (I squeezed in this read between required reading for my class!)

June

Monthly Choice: Fresh Water for Flowers, Valerie Perrin

 My Mom’s 92nd birthday is June 12th. We always had such celebrations and gifts and good food… this year the longing and sadness is still profound – this first year without her here on her birthday. Getting immersed in this story helped; I became absorbed by this novel.  It covers such deep ground around relationships, assumptions, grief and death, lost love, found life.  The main character, Violette, is a cemetery keeper who is just one of the lost and then found characters.  The cast at the cemetery, the garden, the house where everyone is welcome, had me wanting it to be a real place to visit and stay a while. And there is depth and such hope for healing that is expressed beautifully here. Too, there is hope along the journey through loss and grief.  Profound and moving. I loved reading it in the week before my Mom’s birthday – her first on the other side. Published in French in 2020 and translated by. Hildegarde Serle.

Bonus Book: The Afterlife of Billy Fingers, Annie Kagan

The subtitle is “how my bad-boy brother proved to me there’s life after death”, so with that, and the quotes posted by Kristin, I ordered it from Amazon, and read it in one day.  The foreword is from Dr. Raymond Moody which got my attention, and then the story from the afterlife told to the author from the other side is a celestial powerhouse of possibility.  Billy, the author’s brother, had a turbulent and troubled life.  There was jail time and addiction, but there was spiritual learning too.  Annie, the author, is his younger sister, who witnessed, and tried to help, through his various melt-downs.  The perspective of the earth plane and the various realms of the existence after this one had me page turning.  Published in 2013 but I hadn’t heard about it.  Kristin lost her son very young so I’m aware that like me she is reading about where our most treasured ones are – where they went – are they ok.  This is a comforting book in that regard – Billy tells his sis that not only are they very ok, but they are experiencing wonder and bliss and awesomeness of a magnitude we can’t image.  I’m glad I read it.

July

Monthly Choice: The Bookshop of Second Chances, Jackie Fraser

Looking for summer light novels – for deck or lake reading… and this one was such fun!  I mean who doesn’t like second chances, at 40, after being dumped (for a “friend”), bookstores, eccentric new loves, coffee shops, little shacks, an inheritance that includes books, in a small town, in Scotland??  It’s funny and sweet, but still poignant with the raw hurt and emotion of heartbreak.  It’s a beautiful balance, hopeful, and funny too.  Found in the BasBlue little book of choices that I get routinely by mail and that always compels me to order!  This would make a sweet movie – I have so many firm visuals! And great characters… Published 2021.

Bonus Book : Women in Sunlight, Frances Mayes

A great beach/summer/hammock read! Author of Under the Tuscan Sun, Mayes’ three main characters are new friends who find a villa in a small town with wonderful neighbors, a vibrant piazza, gardens, art, gatherings, and the best descriptions of fresh sumptuous food imaginable – in Italy! All these components had me enthralled in the very first pages.  The women are all in my wheelhouse age wise, and have all lost the men in their lives, two are deceased, and one found a younger companion.  They go from distraught and lost to vibrant and thriving.  They find themselves in their new normal creating connections and finding expression.  It’s telling that the book begins with their meeting at an open house for a retirement community – something they are all considering. This seemed the safe and responsible choice, the choice supported by other friends and family.  But no!  They are not through living fully and vibrantly and being fully absorbed by each day new.  I loved this aspect of the book. They find roots and wings, friends & lovers, passions for writing, cooking, gardens, art and travel. Published 2019.  I have to go back to Under the Tuscan Sun…

August

Monthly Choice: Remarkably Bright Creatures, Shelby Van Pelt

I absolutely love that my beloved niece Ashley and I routinely share book recommendations now! Everything she has shared I have so enjoyed, so everything she recommends I read!  This is the latest.  Published 2022, a first novel by Van Pelt, and beautifully engrossing with fabulous interestingly flawed characters including a giant Pacific octopus. Now, I already love octopus after reading Soul of an Octopus (and recommending it here on this book club), so the book had me from its first pages.  Love how the character’s stories intertwine and how brilliant the octopus is!  Enjoy!

Bonus Book : Circling the Sun, Paula McLain

Beryl Markum is the heroine in this novel based on the real life of the horse trainer, pilot, feminist, independent thinker who carved her own way in 1920’s and 30’s Kenya.  She is a remarkable woman and McLain tells her story in vivid prose that takes us to that time, into her heart and inside her mind. There is also much to learn about the elite lives of white Europeans in Kenya, how they colonized with little reflection on their impact and entitlement.  There is a glimpse of traditional life too, as Beryl’s best friend growing up and all through her life is a tribal member who exposes her to traditional dance, song, connections to the land. McLain also wrote The Paris Wife about Hadley Hemingway that I have qued up for this winter. Love and Ruin is another compelling possibility by this author. Published 2012.

September

Monthly Choice: The Winemaker’s Daughter, Timothy Egan

Usually my monthly book choice is recently published – just kind of been my criteria. New to me, new to us. This novel by another Pulitzer Price winner, Timothy Egan, though had so many contemporary components – fire, water rights, our place in a changing world, aging parents, that it felt right for right now. Published in 2005, I hadn’t heard of this book, but know Egan’s writing. He intimately knows the Pacific Northwest.  His characters are the truest kind – flawed, strange, awesome, lovable (mostly!). I loved this book, was so immersed in it. I hope you love it too!

Bonus Book : The Wild Silence, Raynor Winn

I loved the title of this book, and I had just read about Winn’s book previous to this one, The Salt Path (I will also read this one!). For some reason I chose to read this one first, and once into its 3rd/4th chapters I could see why. I needed this book now. That’s how books come to me – in my path when I need them. I am so appreciative of this gift! This book is a memoir that explores Winn’s relationship to the land as she navigates her mother’s illness as well as her husband’s.  The weaving together of the solace of the forest, the sea, the cliffs, with the reality of what’s before her with those she loves best is difficult yet beautiful.  Published 2020.

October

Monthly Choice: Forest Walking, Peter Wohlleben and Jane Billinghurst

The forest is a wonderland of mystery to me. Healing, immersive, magic! Wohlleben wrote The Hidden Life of Trees and that book with its gorgeous photographs is one that I go to often for learning and to absorb those beautiful images. Trees give us so much, and this book helps us to discover the trees and woodlands of North America (as the subtitle suggests). Get outside ya’ll. The understory in fall in the forest in northwest Montana is a walkers paradise of color and change. And if you haven’t looked thru Wohlleben’s The Hidden Life of Trees, give it a go.  Forest Walking published 2022.

Bonus Book : The Tenth Island, Diana Marcum

After reading journalist Marcum’s The Fallen Stones earlier this year and learning so much about Belize and butterflies, I knew I’d want to explore this novel, “finding joy, beauty, and unexpected love in the Azores.” And I’m glad I did. I feel like I’ve visited the Azores now, and that I know the characters there, both those year round inhabitants and those that visit yearly from central California.  Those that yearn for their homeland and reside on the 10th island and return for the sea breeze, the village bull fights, the food and friendships.  Reading this sure makes me want to visit the Azores in person, but if I can’t I now have a sense of the beauty, joy and love found there – a place I knew nothing about previously. The beauty of reading… Published 2018.

November

Monthly Choice: Joan, Katherine Chen

It’s a month of reading about strong, independent, unique, feisty, smart, courageous women! What better place to start than Joan d’Arc? I knew the myth of course, but not the real woman – a girl really that would not sit back into the proscribed place in the world of her times. From an abused daughter to a leader of armies, Joan captivates, and changes the world! Published 2022.

Bonus Book: Red Paint, Sasha taq’sablu LaPointe

The author tells her own story, one of being unsettled and traumatized, along with the story of the strong and troubled women of her family, beginning with the woman she was named for, her great grandmother. The ties to these women are in her blood.  Her teenage years are tumultuous and the trauma from abuse and lack of feeling at home in her body and in an actual home have not been resolved. They haunt her. She instinctively knows where her healing lies though, finding the cold and wild river, or a burning ceremony, remembering her ancestors, remembering ceremony. She studies and follows her women ancestors until she can find home and healing and move on into a fulfilling life not defined by her trauma.  Coast Salish traditions and history after contact are important to the author’s story and to our understanding and reading. The subtitle is “the ancestral autobiography of a Coast Salish Punk” and that’s it exactly. Published 2022 and found as a recommended book at my local bookseller, Bookworks.

December

Monthly Choice: Solito, Javier Zamora

Let’s put aside any immigration story or individual immigrant story we may have ingested and believed and read the real and raw truth of a life lived in these circumstances. El Salvador to the United States at age 9. That is all. Isn’t that enough? Published 2022. *I have much to say about this poet’s words and journey but am choosing not to interject – your reading his words and truth are enough, and I’m hoping many many people will absorb them.

Bonus Book: The City of Mist, Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Happiness found in a bookstore in Carmel when discovering that one of my favorite authors had a new book!  Then sadness when I read that these stories were penned by Zafon before his passing and were meant to be published posthumously by his request. His writing! It is so absorbing. It is full of the raw intensity of real life, and a mystical, misty quality that is hard to articulate. You feel it! Zafon is wordsmith of the highest level. He takes you in to the world of mists, of Barcelona, to darkness, and to the origin stories of many of his main characters from his previous novels, all of which I’ve savored.  His four book series is one of my all time favorites. Published 2021 and gifted to me in Carmel by my friend Elle. A wonderful present! Thank you Elle!