Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

When I heard Where the Crawdads Sing was our July selection for F2F group, I actually said, "Ugh," aloud. I did not want to read this book. The sheer volume of hype had turned me off and the few reviews I read didn't make it sound appealing to me. I strongly considered skipping this book group selection. After all, I'm on a book-buying ban and planned only to buy those I'm most interested in for book group. 

What changed my mind? I looked up the book and it was reasonably priced. At that moment, I didn't want to go hunt down a copy at the library so I just hit the button and voilá, it appeared in my mailbox. I miss having bookstores nearby but can't deny that modern book ordering can be kinda cool. I read it immediately (in June) because I had been planning to read Gone With the Wind in July since the beginning of the year. 

At first, I was sure my "Ugh," was going to be accurate. I spent the first 60 pages hating the book because I was so angry at every character who abandoned the main character, Kya, aka the Marsh Girl. And, as I mentioned in yesterday's review of Gone With the Wind (and many others), I'm not a fan of dialogue written in vernacular unless its use is very limited. At one point, I mentioned the fact that I just wasn't sure I was going to be able to finish. Thank goodness a friend on Instagram informed me that it improves. 

I'm not sure when I got to the point that I couldn't bear to put Where the Crawdads Sing down but I was up a tad late on the night I finished and totally gripped. I was angry, skeptical, teary, happy briefly, then teary again. What an emotional ride. 

Recommended - While there were things I disliked about Where the Crawdads Sing and things that I found implausible (to the point that I was visualizing the author sitting with pen and paper, plotting), I loved the naturalist aspect of the book and eventually the book became impossible to put down. I had to know what was going to happen to Kya, especially whether or not she would ever end up with the love of her life. The murder mystery was not nearly as interesting to me and I'm not actually sure how I feel about the ending. 

Unfortunately, I did not feel up to driving the 30 miles to book group so I can't speak to what others in my F2F group thought, darn it. I was really looking forward to this meeting because I think there's lots to talk about in Where the Crawdads Sing. So, I'd recommend it as a discussion book, even not knowing how the discussion went. 

©2021 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Nature's Best Hope by Douglas W. Tallamy

[...] maintaining our lawns in their prestigious, weed-free states has become quite a toxic undertaking (Wargo et al. 2003). All this matters: 40 percent of the chemicals used by the lawn-care industry are banned in other countries because they are carcinogens. Scientists are not guessing about this: Seventy-five studies have documented the connection between lawn pesticides and lymphoma, for example. These same studies show that pets and children are most at risk of contracting cancer, because they spend a lot of time rolling around in the grass. 

~from p. 48 of Advance Reader Copy, Nature's Best Hope

Nature's Best Hope is a book about home ecology. Subtitled, "A New Approach to Conservation that Starts in Your Yard," it is about how each individual can contribute to a healthy wildlife population (including insects and birds), which in turn keeps humans from dying off.

Author Douglas W. Tallamy starts out by giving a little historical perspective and talking about things that have helped protect portions of our world. Unfortunately, some of those federal initiatives have been damaged during the Trump administration, like the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act. The current administration has also used waivers to get around laws that protect endangered animals. So, there is already a tiny bit about this book that's dated but my fingers are crossed that these protections will eventually be restored.

At any rate, the book isn't about what the government can do but how any individual can make changes to his or her yard (or add plants to a balcony, if that's what's available to you) to help restore the insects and animals that have been dying off at a shocking rate. See also my review of The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert, which is mentioned in Nature's Best Hope. Both authors talk about the dramatic loss of life on the planet, why it's happening, and how it will eventually impact us, but Nature's Best Hope particularly focuses on the insect and bird life that can easily brought back with a little help by planting native plants (not exotics from other countries, even if they're commonly available and ubiquitous in your area) and even plants that we consider weeds, like milkweed for butterflies and goldenrod (which the author says is not the sneeze-inducing plant you think it is; that would be ragweed), planting oak, willow, or other trees that are attractive to insects, and keeping the grass portion of your lawn smaller. He even talks about how to deal with a Homeowner's Association (HOA) to convince them that your type of yard plantings are not only acceptable but desirable.

I have two problems with this book but I think it's worth reading, so let me tell you what I didn't like. About halfway into the book, I realized that what I really needed was not a detailed description of why chunks of land don't maintain as much wildlife as large areas that are uninterrupted by roads and cities. I've read that, before. I didn't need to read about how many bees there are in the world and how huge their contribution. I've read a Timber Press book about that specifically. I've read about the dramatic loss of insects and birds, so I don't need a reminder. What I really wanted from this book was a practical guide to choosing native plants for my area. And, in fact, the author said that would just be too much and blew off the concept by listing a website where you can look it up yourself and saying if you can't figure it out you can hire someone. No, that's not what I need and while I found the book educational, I doubt it's what others need for the author's idea to come to fruition. It might be a huge labor, but a book with suggested plantings, how and where to plant them (whether they like wet or dry feet/sunlight or shade, etc.), and suggested arrangements to make them attractive is what I believe people really need. A practical guide, in other words, rather than a text about nature and why you should plant in a particular fashion.

The other problem I have is that the author is a professor and the book reads like it was written by a person who is so accustomed to using the terminology of his field that it didn't occur to him that a wider audience would get lost in the weeds, so to speak (pun intended). In other words, I'm about to repeat something I've been saying for at least a decade: If your book has terminology that isn't readily understandable from the context, write a glossary. So many books could easily be made less frustrating and more readable with the simple addition of a glossary. I know the Internet makes looking things up simpler than it used to be but that's no excuse. Books should be understood without having to constantly look things up.

Having said that, I love reading about and learning about nature and I enjoyed Nature's Best Hope.

Recommended - While I think it would require some additional research to get any real benefit from the ideas in Nature's Best Hope and it's slightly dry, I enjoyed the learning experience. Do I think it's practically applicable with help from local nurseries or landscapers? Possibly. I haven't found the people at the local nurseries all that helpful, even when I'm just looking for a particular plant that I've bought from them in the past, so I have a feeling it would be difficult to get much information from them about how to plant native plants. Would they even consider ordering or planting flowering plants that most people consider weeds? I can't say. I will say that I did not leave this book thinking, "I know exactly what to do." I left it knowing what's the right thing to do, but not quite how to go about it, in other words. I think if Tallamy wrote a companion book with suggested plants for each state, diagrams to show how to plant them together, and color illustrations or photographs of how they look, that would be practical and useful. Nature's Best Hope is otherwise informative reading but probably not enough to compel any but the most determined or moneyed to alter their landscapes, much less start a movement as I believe the author intended.

And, for a laugh: I think this suggestion will go down like a lead brick in a time of pandemic and toilet paper shortages, but it made me chuckle for that reason:

I should note that the author mentions most bees do not sting so attracting them isn't likely to get you stung or killed. It's a good idea. Just funny timing.

I received a copy of Nature's Best Hope for review from Timber Press. Many thanks!

©2020 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Mini reviews - The Lost Man by Jane Harper, The Same Sky by Amanda Eyre Ward, and The Last Light Breaking by Nick Jans

It just occurred to me that I should use as much of the week as possible while I'm trying to quickly crank out reviews to finish up 2019, so I may go ahead and post on the weekends and/or skip Fiona Friday until I've caught up and posted my final list with links to all reviews from 2019. I'm going to wing it, for now. Husband may not let me get away with that, so we'll just have to see if that works out. I've just gotten my phone back from the store where I left it behind, so I will go ahead and post a Fiona Friday image, tomorrow.

The Lost Man by Jane Harper is about three brothers. One has become an outcast and lives on a remote piece of his family's property. One feels like he's being treated like he's stupid and left completely out of the decision-making. The third was considered the responsible, likable one. He was married with two children but his body has just turned up in a very strange place, next to a lone grave and far enough from his car that it appears he may have committed suicide. But, something doesn't feel quite right about his death and the outcast brother decides to find out what really happened.

I don't have the book next to me but I remember the story well, if not the names of the characters. As in her previous two books, Jane Harper's Australian setting is practically a character in and of itself, it's so vivid. When she talks about the dust, the dryness, the heat, the way the fine red soil gets into the creases of one's clothing, it's so well described that the real world feels a little unreal for a moment, when you set the book down. The characterization is every bit as sharp. I am so impressed by Jane Harper.

Highly recommended - I was a little disappointed when I found out Jane Harper's third book wasn't going to star the police officer with a wounded soul but an honorable heart of the first two books but I shouldn't have been. I'm not a mystery fan but Jane Harper's writing absolutely sweeps me away. The Lost Man has a slightly slow beginning as you get to know the characters but once you've been introduced to the cast and the questions about the death have been posed, the story becomes absolutely mesmerizing. I continued guessing all the way to the end of the book and I closed the book thinking it was Harper's best.

My copy of The Same Sky by Amanda Eyre Ward was ordered from Book Depository so just a warning, up front: that's probably the British cover. The publisher is Blackfriars, which sounds very British, but I'm just guessing. If you're American and this story appeals to you, be aware that you probably won't see this cover if you go looking for it.

The Same Sky tells two interconnected stories. One is the tale of a young Honduran girl who lives with her grandmother and twin brothers. Her mother lives in Austin, Texas and sends home money but after things deteriorate, Carla and her brother, Junior, are constantly starving. When he starts sniffing glue to help him forget his hunger, Carla knows it's past time to attempt the harrowing journey North. Will they survive?

In the second storyline, Alice is infertile due to breast cancer treatment in her college years and a baby she and her husband were going to adopt has been reclaimed by his mother. Is it time to give up on ever having a child?

It's pretty obvious how Carla and Alice's stories will intersect (Trigger Warning for rape) and, as is often the case in books with two storylines, I favored one over the other — the favorite being Carla's story. I didn't feel like Alice's story was entirely necessary but that's a personal preference. After I wrote that I was unsure why the author bothered to tell Alice's story, on Instagram, another reader and bookstagrammer told me she liked the story just as it is. I wondered if Ward showed Alice's side for the contrast. Alice and her husband have a successful business but feel their lives are incomplete without a family. Carla's family is scattered and struggling in ways mostly unimaginable to an American, so there definitely is a stark difference between their lives.

Recommended but I had mixed feelings - While I think immigrant stories are especially important at this moment, I felt like The Same Sky was a little too disjointed and that some of the elements should have been glossed over or eliminated entirely. I gave it 3 1/2 ⭐. For those who may be wondering, yes I've heard of American Dirt. In fact, I've pre-ordered a copy. I tried to win one (I don't know how many drawings I signed up for) but failed. Before I did so, I'd already pre-ordered it, anyway. It just means I have to wait till its release. 

There's an interesting story behind how I found The Last Light Breaking by Nick Jans. About 10 years ago, the first time we went to Alaska on vacation, Huzzybuns neglected to book one night's lodging in the middle of our stay. Seriously, he just skipped that night. When he realized he'd messed up, the only place he could find for us to stay was on the opposite side of the Kenai Peninsula from where we were staying the rest of the time, in a former cannery. He booked it because he had no other options and it turned out to be a cool side trip because it was on the drive across the peninsula that we saw the one and only moose we encountered on that trip. 

Our room in the former cannery was frigid (the thermostat set in the 50s) when we arrived but there was a little lobby area with corner seating where we could hang out while the room warmed up and a shelf of books on each wall for the guests to borrow. I flipped through a few before settling down to read The Last Light Breaking. I only read a single chapter (it's a series of essays about the author's life in Alaska with Inupiat Eskimos) but I was so impressed that I wrote down the title and author and put the book on my wish list. It took several years before I got a copy via Paperback Swap and I suppose it's taken me so long to actually read The Last Light Breaking because of all the ARCs I've given priority, over the years, but it finally called out to me during my winter break from blogging and I listened. 

The essays in The Last Light Breaking tell Nick Jans' story (not in exact timeline order, but so well that it didn't feel like that mattered): how and why he ended up traveling to Alaska, his experience as a new guy (and not a native in a predominantly native region) in town, the jobs he's held, many of the trips he's made around the area to camp, hunt, fish, hike, etc., and what he's learned from his neighbors and friends. Nick Jans is an adventurer and a people person, so the book is particularly fun to read if you like reading about adventure, interaction, and what it's like to live with the Inupiat, who are among the few natives who actually are OK with the word "Eskimo".

Speaking of the word "Eskimo" and why it's not always OK . . . my son had a swim coach from Alaska. He was indigenous but Tlingit, from Juneau, not a people for whom the term "Eskimo" is used, so he considers it offensive if you call him an Eskimo.

Highly recommended - Stunning writing that will make you feel like you've been on an adventure with the author and convince you that the land is sacred. I will be looking for more by Jans and I wish I'd read him sooner.

When we were in Alaska, or maybe before, I read up on the native way of life and why they still consider subsistence living (hunting and fishing in the traditional ways for food, fuel, etc.) important so I had no problem with some of the things Jans did with his friends but I would caution the squeamish and anyone who objects to the killing of animals for any reason that there are a few graphic scenes that you might need to skim.

©2020 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Far Flung by Cassandra Kircher

The full title of Far Flung by Cassandra Kircher is Far Flung: Improvisations on National Parks, Driving to Russia, Not Marrying a Ranger, The Language of Heartbreak, and Other National Disasters. Boy, that's a mouthful, isn't it?

So, I'll just drop the subtitle for the rest of this review. Far Flung is an exceptional series of essays set in a variety of locations, most of which deal with how nature had an impact on the author's life and her acceptance and understanding of herself and her family (particularly her difficult, emotional father). Settings include Wisconsin, Rocky Mountain National Park, Alaska, and Oxford, England.

I think anyone who loves camping, climbing, or otherwise challenging his or herself outdoors will especially love Far Flung, although I'm someone who desires to be outdoors more than I'm able (thanks to allergies and heat-induced migraines). I was particularly enamored with the settings. Rocky Mountain National Park is where I spent roughly half of my childhood vacations and, in fact, my great uncle was one of the people who died in the Big Thompson Canyon Flood, which Kircher mentions, so her essays set in RMNP really took me back and were particular favorites. And, I've been to most of the other settings, so there was a little bit of a cool factor there, as well. But, it would not have mattered one bit where she the writings were set because Kircher's writing is so incredibly strong that I would have been blown away, regardless. It just happens that I could relate to some of the locations.

Highly recommended, a new favorite - Deeply meaningful, muscular but subtle. Absolutely fabulous, mesmerizing writing. I hated for this book to end. I particularly recommend Far Flung to anyone who loves travel writing, essays, or memoirs. But, just read it if you love fantastic writing. One of my favorite reads of 2019, so far. I feel like I can't do this one justice.

I was one of the lucky people who won a copy of Far Flung via a Shelf Awareness drawing. My thanks to West Virginia University Press! I'll be looking to see what else you have to offer.


©2019 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Look at Me! Wild Animal Show-Offs by Jim Arnosky (Children's Week #6)

I've read several of Jim Arnosky's and they never fail to take my breath away. In Look at Me! Wild Animal Show-Offs, Arnosky takes on the concept of displaying: spreading skin, making noise, inflating body parts, growing large antlers, showing plumage, using color. All are described and shown in Arnosky's typical, vivid paintings with the occasional series of sketches.

There are regular spreads and fold-outs that are so magnificent it's best to just show one.

I had a close-up of the left-hand part of that image but Blogger is having a fit and refusing to let me load it. You should be able to click on the image to enlarge.

Highly recommended - Informative and jawdroppingly gorgeous. I love Jim Arnosky's nature books but I think Look at Me! may have just become my all-time favorite, although they all end up on my favorites list. I am crazy about Jim Arnosky's eye-popping illustrations and highly recommend any or all of his nature books for home or library.

More by Jim Arnosky:

Frozen Wild by Jim Arnosky
Tooth and Claw by Jim Arnosky
Man Gave Names to All the Animals by Bob Dylan, illustrated by Jim Arnosky


©2018 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Our Native Bees by Paige Embry

We really don't have a good idea of how well wild bees are holding up to habitat loss, degradation, and fragmentation plus whatever effects climate change, imported bees, parasites, and diseases may be having. We do know that some bees are in decline. The data on the current status of most bees are patchy at best, and few areas have been well studied. Bee surveys take a huge amount of time and money, and someone has to identify all those bees.

~from. p. 148 of Our Native Bees

Our Native Bees: North America's Endangered Pollinators and the Fight to Save Them by Paige Embry is just what it sounds like - a book about bees that are native to North America, their declining numbers, and what bees do for humans -- and one woman's quest to learn all about them. But, it goes well beyond that, into talk about how little research has been done about bees, how many species of bees exist (20,000!!!) , why honeybees (which are not native to North America) and bumblebees get all the attention but aren't the best pollinators, how poisoning bees that carry worms damaging to trees interrupts a natural cycle without actually helping the trees, whether burning or mowing certain areas is better or worse for bees, etc.

The author, Paige Embry, has a passion for learning about bees and visited with experts across the country to interview them, view bee collecting and identification in person, and basically gobble up every bit of bee information she can. And, Embry describes her experience with a marvelous sense of humor:

The method I learned at Gordon's bee class involves puting the bees in a tea strainer (hopefully one dedicated to lab use) that functions as a tiny bee tumble dryer as you blow hot air from a hair dryer at the strainer. The purpose of the rinse and blow dry is to fluff up the bee's hair. You can see the colors better, it's easier to move the hair to look for markings, and, well, the bees just look better. I know they're dead and the last part shouldn't matter, but I've acted as a mortician for quite a few bees at this point, and I don't want them to be preserved forevermore in the midst of a bad hair day. So I coif dead bees. My children find me creepy. 

~from p. 105 of Our Native Bees

I was out in the field with an old bee biologist once, and a bunch of little bees were zipping about. He said they were halictids (sweat bees). They were tiny. I wondered how he knew that they were halictids and not, say, Ceratina or Hylaeus. So I asked him. His response was something along the lines of "they have a certain gestalt." Gestalt? Well, pish, that's not going to help me learn to identify them.

~p. 111

If you have even the slightest interest in bees, you should definitely read Our Native Bees. It'll give you a well-rounded idea of what's going on with bees -- the threats they face, the way they're managed by humans and how important they are to American crops, what "colony collapse" is all about, and much more. Our Native Bees is crammed with gorgeous photos. It's a beautiful book on high-quality paper.

Highly recommended - One of the books that helped break my brief February reading slump, I could be found leaning forward, rapt, for days as I read Our Native Bees, occasionally smiling at something funny the author said or reading favorite parts aloud to my husband. The most important takeaway from this book:

The one thing you can do to help bees, no matter where you live: plant flowers. Even if you live in an apartment and only have a small outdoor space, planting flowers can make a huge difference to bee populations. We've just potted some spring flowers. I don't know if we're near anything that needs pollinating as a food source but the author said sometimes city flowers are closer to areas where food sources are planted than fields in the middle of the boonies, so you never know . . . you could be helping provide the food at your local market and helping strengthen your local bee population.

©2018 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Saving Tarboo Creek by Scott Freeman and Susan Leopold Freeman

The idea that any organism lives and acts independently of others is a myth. The realization that all organisms are connected is a profound insight.

~fr. p. 175 of Advance Reader Copy, Saving Tarboo Creek (some changes may have been made to the final print version)

Saving Tarboo Creek: One Family's Quest to Heal the Land by Scott Freeman is about how the author and his family purchased a damaged plot of land and set about restoring it to bring back the plants and animals that once made it a healthy environment, including restructuring the original creek to make it a safe place for salmon to breed.

The author's bio is worth mentioning as it shows his expertise, which is important to those who might be skeptical when he talks about such things as climate change:

"Scott Freeman worked in environmental education and international conservation before completing a PhD in evolutionary biology at the University of Washington." He is married to the granddaughter of Aldo Leopold, author of the conservation classic A Sand County Almanac (click through to visit The Aldo Leopold Foundation) and wife Susan Leopold Freeman illustrated the book. Here's an interior view I located online to give you an idea of the illustrations:

The intro to Saving Tarboo Creek is strongly worded as it talks about the dangers of our current administration to our land, including the effect of policies ignoring climate change, although the text of the book is directed more at the history of that particular plot of land and the process of restoration (and what's involved in restoration, in general). It occasionally feels a bit like the author is giving you a college lecture -- in a good way; I felt like reading Saving Tarboo Creek was a learning experience. Freeman speaks from an expert viewpoint, both as a scientist and a person who married into a family in which observation of nature was simply a way of life. Toward the end of the book, he mentions one of the children of Aldo Leopold and how she recorded her observations of the changing climate over the span of many decades. The Leopold family is unusually connected to the land.

But, let's back up a bit. Saving Tarboo Creek will teach you a few interesting lessons about conservation, in general, and some fascinating history but it's specifically about a plot of land in Washington. Freeman purchased this piece of land knowing it was damaged. Trees had been harvested by past owners without any thought to replanting and a former creek had all but disappeared, no longer welcoming to the animals it would have hosted in the last century after decades of abuse. After buying the land, the family went about determining which trees and plants were original to the land (some of that involved intelligent guesswork, some of it viewing the original tree stumps) and then hired someone to dig out the creek and restructure it so that there would be a strong current in some places, quieter, sheltered water in others. He also balanced the replanting of original plants with others he thought more likely to survive the altered climate.

I can't recall what he called the planting sessions -- plantathons? (it's been a few weeks since I read the book) -- but I found one story particularly interesting. In order to fully plant the land, which was a huge job done in sections, the family needed a lot of help, so they got volunteers to join in on huge planting sessions and there was one particular area where the trees kept dying. After the first year, the author assumed the volunteers may have not known how to go about planting those trees properly and thus the die-off was caused by planting error. But, then it happened for a second and third year. Further investigation led to the realization that the soil in that particular area was not what he expected. It was clay that trapped water and was drowning trees that were intended for a drier area. The land was replanted successfully with trees that prefer wet roots.

Highly recommended, particularly to lovers of nature and science. There were a few scattered pages where the biological aspect of flora and fauna got a little too technical for me, but I found Saving Tarboo Creek absolutely fascinating. It was my first read of the year and a terrific way to start the reading year.

I received an advance review copy of Saving Tarboo Creek from Timber Press (via Shelf Awareness, in exchange for an unbiased review) and Yoohoo! I'd love to read more of your books, if you're listening, Timber Press people! Closet environmental fanatic, here.


©2018 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Monday Malarkey on Tuesday

I already shared my weekend with you, since I had such a quiet Sunday, so there's not much to talk about but recent arrivals and weather and blooming things.  It's Monday as I type.  I'm pre-posting because I keep getting ahead of myself with nobody around to thwart my blogging efforts. It stormed, today (and, actually, another round is going through, as I'm writing).  We got marble-sized hail -- totally lucked out.  Just a mile or two away, my son's girlfriend lost her windshield to baseball-sized hail.  

Recent arrivals:

Top to bottom:

• Before Your Very Eyes by Alex George - And, you thought the author of A Good American was a newcomer.  Not so.  When Alex visited my local indie, he told me he had 4 or 5 published titles in the UK. I looked while we were in London, last year, without any success.  But I found a used copy of one of his titles online!  I'm excited to have another Alex George book to read.  Alex ducks and blushes when he speaks about his earlier titles, which just makes me twice as eager to get to this one.  Curiosity and all that.
• The Clover House by Henriette Lazardis Power - from Ballantine Books for TLC tour
• We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo - I got 12 copies of this to distribute to my F2F book group for review and discussion in May from Reagan Arthur Books.  My book group friends are just as giddy as they were the first time I got a pile of books for the group to share (Life After Life by Kate Atkinson).  
• Fever by Mary Beth Keane - An ARC sent by my sweet friend, Melissa.  Thanks, Melissa!

Not pictured:

• Poison by Bridget Zinn - just arrived (purchase).  And, UPS left it outside . . . in the rain . . . without ringing the doorbell.  *sigh*  It's fine, though, because I'm quick to dash to the door if I'm in hearing range. The UPS truck makes a pretty distinctive braking noise.

This is happening in our yard:

We're slowly figuring out what plants we've got in our new yard.  That's one of two Bradford pear trees in the front yard.  From the looks of it, we have about 4 more in the back, some camellias and azaleas and maybe oleander.  The backyard is a bit of a jungle.  On the plus side, that means most of the year we don't have to look at the neighbor's trash cans, which are in full view from our deck when the leaves are off the trees.

I spotted my first woodpecker!  Woot!

We don't have any older trees in our yard; this is a good distance away, so it took a 300mm lens and a good deal of cropping to capture this fellow.  I love seeing redheaded woodpeckers.  They are so gorgeous!

We dog-sat, this weekend.  Teddy is a big, sweet, lovable old guy.  He likes ear rubs.  

That's all for now.  Happy Tuesday!


©2013 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Writing with Friends

Today, I decided to go back to basics with my writing.  I took a new pad and pen outside with a large mug of coffee and my camera.  I can't go out on the patio without my camera.  I managed to write 5 pages of a new story that's been brewing in my head for weeks.  These are the friends who kept me company while I wrote (you can click on the image to enbiggen):

And, this little gal was very irritated that I didn't bring her outside to explore.  I did at least open the windows so the kitties could enjoy the air.  Our weather was pretty much perfect.  Have to enjoy it while it lasts.

©2013 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Monday Malarkey - Two cats for the price of one, a reading update, recent arrivals, and that Atkinson book

Hello there!  Sorry about the belated Fiona Friday pic.  I don't mean to make you suffer an entire weekend without a cat photo.

You won't believe why I hardly showed up at the blog, last week.  Television!  Seriously. I know I told you that I've recently been a bit of a streaming junkie (pretty weird for a girl who doesn't normally watch anything at all, apart from the occasional PBS show or movie), but this was just unreal.  Last week was all about Jericho, Season 1 -- a show that was canceled years ago, and yet I still decided to torture myself.

When I started watching the first season, my husband walked past and said, "You've got a higher tolerance for stupidity than I do."  Haha.  Honestly, Jericho did have a terrible start but it improved.  I'm particularly fond of episodes that are heavier on action than interaction.  Eventually, I got so hooked that I watched the final 6 or 7 episodes of the first season in a single day.  I'm midway through Season 2.  Probably not the best way to spend my time but I'm having fun, so I guess that's okay.  :)

Reading-wise:

I read the same book all week long and finally finished it on Thursday or Friday:  The India Fan by Victoria Holt.  Enjoyed it but not enough to stop me from watching Jericho.  I picked up Firefly Island immediately after finishing because I was supposed to tour it (I missed my tour date but talked to the publicist and she said no biggie, just post within the tour). So far it's just not grabbing me.  I set it aside (again -- that was actually my second attempt) and read Legacy of a Rescue by Marta Fuchs on Saturday, the story of how the author's father and other people in his forced labor camp were saved during WWII by a fellow who ended up perishing in the war. More about that when I review the book.

Last night I started reading The Pope's Last Crusade by Peter Eisner, a book about how Pope Pius XI tried to warn people about how dangerous Hitler was, before WWII broke out.  It's great, so far.  And, then I read a bit more of Firefly Island, today.  Page 64 and it's still not grabbing me.  I think I may have to give up and do a DNF post, but I'm going to give it at least till page 75.  Usually, I love Lisa Wingate's books so I keep hoping it'll pick up.

Recent Arrivals:

• The Pope's Last Crusade: How an American Jesuit Helped Pope Pius XI's Campaign to Stop Hitler by Peter Eisner - from HarperCollins for review.  That one actually just arrived on Friday and I found myself promptly drawn to it.
• NOS4A2 by Joe Hill - from HarperCollins for review.  It'll be interesting to see if I survive Hill's latest. I loved his first book, 20th Century Ghosts (short stories - link leads to my review) but after reading it I was honestly too terrified to read a full novel by him, at first.  I guess if you wait long enough between horror reads, even if you're a wienie like me you can built up some guts.  
• Little Chipmunk's Wiggly, Wobbly Tooth and Little Raccoon Learns to Share, both by Mary Packard and illustrated by Lisa McCue, who has long been a favorite children's book illustrator - from Sterling Children's Books, unsolicited.  I'll have a Children's Day in a few weeks.  I'm always up for unsolicited kids' books.  They make me happy.
• The Secret of the Nightingale Palace by Dana Sachs - from HarperCollins, just arrived today.  I'm pretty sure I didn't request this one, although I might have and just don't recall. I'll look in the files to make sure I don't have a tour date I've forgotten about.  Either way, I'll give it a go.  

We had snow flurries on Saturday!

And, today it hit 70.  Wild weather.  It was so gorgeous out (sunny, dry with little puffball clouds and a brisk wind) that I took a nice, long walk in the neighborhood, today, and then sat on the deck reading and taking photos of birds for a couple hours.  We had a flock of cedar waxwings come through!  Very exciting.  I've only seen them one other time.  They're so stunning that I've been hoping to see them again, ever since.

And, about that book by Kate Atkinson . . . 

I honestly didn't even think about Life After Life much, most of last week, but I've decided that since I got stuck when I tried to review it, I may just default to the old "self-interview" concept.  That is my one blogging block-breaker that never seems to fail.  Not sure who I'll use as my fake interviewer.  The goofier I get with self-interviews, though, the better they seem to work.

Since I cruelly deprived you of cat photos on Friday . . . 

 . . . a second dose of kitty joy for today.

Happy Monday!

©2013 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Fire Season by Philip Connors

Fire Season: Field Notes from a Wilderness Lookout

By Philip Connors

Copyright 2011

HarperCollins - Nature/Memoir/History

256 pages

I started out writing down quotes only, thinking I'd break up a review of Fire Season into 2 parts because it is the most Post-it filled book I've read in a long time. And, then I got overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of quotes that I loved and couldn't figure out how to narrow down so I thought, "Okay, I'll skip on to the review."

Let me just say this: Fire Season is now my #1 read of 2011. I loved it so much that I am ridiculously intimidated by the prospect of reviewing it and I've been putting it off for over a week. I've decided there's little hope unless I shoot for the self-interview, my salvage method of choice. Today, I will be interviewed by Isabel because she's handy. For anyone who happens to be dropping in and who may be unfamiliar with Isabel, she's the youngest of my two cats.

Bookfool: Welcome, Isabel. I hope you've recovered from playing with your bird-on-a-stick.

Isabel: Y-A-W-N. It's very possible that was not "play" but "torment". Okay, human, on to the interview. Tell us a little about Fire Season.

BF: Fire Season is the memoir of a man who has worked as a lookout in the Gila National Forest for 8 summer seasons, watching for fire. But, it's not just about what it's like living alone and keeping watch in the tower, why he has chosen this job and what he does to fill his time.

Isabel: What else is Fire Season about?

BF: It's also about the history of wilderness preservation and fire suppression, the beauty of nature (including how we humans have, a.) screwed it up and b.) made a lot of excuses about people needing what's in nature for our use to justify destruction), people who have fought for nature or worked as lookouts in the past, how the author spends his time off in the wilderness, and the kind of people who hike through his remote lookout area.

Izzy: How is the book laid out?

BF: Each section of the book is divided by month, beginning with April and ending in August. While you're learning about all that other nature/history/bio jazz, you're also spending a season in the Gila with the author.

Izzy: Must take bath.

BF: Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Back?

Izzy: Yes. How about a quote or passage to show what it was that you loved about the book?

BF: Okay. Here's one:

In early afternoon I follow the formation of dust devils through my field glasses. Their manic life and sudden death seem to me a fruitful field of inquiry when the mind bogs down in solipsism. Far off on the desert floor, where once a great inland sea bubbled, the earth rises to the dance. Scorched by sun and scoured by wind, the ancient seabed surrenders itself to points east, eventually to be washed to the Gulf in the current of the Rio Grande.

Amid a forest that burns and a desert that dances -- 20,000 square miles of cruel and magnificent country -- I turn back, at the end of the day, to the earth beneath my feet. As May begins, wild candytuft bloom beneath the pine and fir, the first of the season's wildflowers to show their color. A relic turns up one evening in the dirt, not far from the base of my tower: a Mimbres potsherd, white with black pattern, well more than 800 years old. I am given to understand that the people once gathered in the high places and brought with them their crockery. They sacrificed their pots by smashing them to earth in hopes the sky gods would grant rain. Clearly I am not alone in my communion here with sky. Far from it. The ravens and the vultures have me beat by 200 feet, the Mimbrenos by most of a millennium. And who's to say the motes of dust don't feel joy, if only for a moment, as they climb up into the sky and ride the transport winds.

--from p. 68 of Fire Season (Uncorrected Proof - some changes may have been made to the final print version)

See how he seamlessly places you in the wilderness, blending his experience with a little nature, a little history? There is such a vivid sense of place. Wait! One more paragraph . . . the next one, actually:

Like all lookouts, I pursue diversionary measures, little games or physical routines or time-devouring hobbies that give form to the days and let me escape the holding cell of my own thoughts, particularly when those thoughts begin to circle on the metaphysics of whirling dirt. Gary Snyder practiced calligraphy and meditation. Edward Abbey pitched horseshoes with his pa on the rim of the Grand Canyon. Jack Kerouac studied the Diamond Sutra, wrote an epic letter to his mother. If I were a more dutiful son I'd do the same. Instead I shoot Frisbee golf.

--pp. 68-69

Don't you love the author, already? He somehow not only manages to give meaning to every flower, tree, fish, mammal and puff of smoke; he also has a sense of humor. Also, I need to go back and write down a few vocabulary words, which is always a positive. I think most of us love it when an author challenges us with a higher-minded vocabulary, don't we? Care recently mentioned and defined the word "sinecure", which she found in a book she read, The Doctor's Plague; and, I was surprised to see it on page 99 of Fire Season:

How could I refuse such a sweet summer sinecure? Sinecure means (in case you're too lazy to hit the link), "A position requiring little or no work but giving the holder status or financial benefit."

Izzy: Tell me the worst-best thing about the book.

BF: For you: the dog. The author's dog, Alice, accompanies him to his lookout job. It's great fun to read about Alice's adventures, how she becomes an entirely different creature from the dog that she is at home when she leaves her house for life in the Gila. She does a lot of exploring, sometimes getting a little too close to creatures like bears, but no harm comes to her. She's a great character. Unless, of course, you're a cat.

Izzy: Ewww. Dogs. Uck.

BF: You'll like this quote:

Experience with the dogs of family and friends indicated that they were odoriferous, overbearing beasts, dedicated to immediate gratification of whatever urge bubbled up in their tiny little brains, their owners perversely in need of unconditional love and mindless diversion. But Martha [the author's wife] kept telling me her existence felt unnatural without a dog -- she'd had one all through her childhood and most of college -- and what kind of husband would I be to force an unnatural existence upon my wife, or at least more unnatural than the one I've already foisted on her? My hundred-day sojourn on a mountain each summer makes our marriage unusual enough. I suppose in some way Alice represented a compromise, whereby I'd continue to be that rare creature, a married lookout, and Martha would be compensated with a canine companion in the family unit. Now that Alice has been in our lives for three years, I see her for what she truly is: an odoriferous, overbearing beast dedicated to immediate gratification of whatever urge bubbles up in her tiny little brain, and a reliable and even comforting source of unconditional love and mindless diversion.

Also, she's pretty cute.

--pp. 109-110

Izzy: It was great until he said she's cute. So, what's the bottom line? Your brief opinion of the book?

BF: Deep breath. Sigh. Wonderful, beautifully written, informative, entertaining, often humorous . . . a book I love so much that I want to buy the hardback and put it on the good shelves.

Izzy: Confessions?

BF: While I am not good with the great outdoors because of allergies and a distaste for bugs (they like to eat me!) and therefore am a Camping Failure and could not possibly fathom doing Philip Connors' job -- apart from the solitary aspect, which I'm pretty good at handling -- I loved being there with him, experiencing the beauty through his eyes. And, I appreciate the fact that I didn't have to smell awful to do so.

Also, I am a nature freak; let's face it. I love his philosophies about nature and life. I have no trouble putting aside my cell phone (this is, according to husband and Kiddo, "a problem") and I don't even like television. I'd much rather be in a cabin in the mountains -- taking photos and dipping into nature, taking long walks . . . and then sleeping in a bed at night -- than hopping in a car to go everywhere. So, Fire Season is a book I can embrace not only because of the wonderful blend of history, memoir and nature, but also because I agree with just about every word the author has to say about conservation.

I am, at heart, a tree-hugger. I'm all for preserving what little is left to save and people who have no interest in saving nature frankly baffle me.

Izzy: Wow, opinionated, aren't we? Also, thank you for letting me use your toes as a boost to climb into the window when you bored me, during this interview.

BF: You're welcome. Thank you for letting me use your fuzzy belly to photograph my copy of Fire Season for the sake of showing why my readers would be here all night long if I copied every quote I love.

Izzy: Oh, dear. That looks kind of rude. I forgive you. And . . . I have to go chase rattle balls, now. Goodbye!

BF: Bye, tiny kitty. Closing words: If you like solidly written nonfiction about nature or history, memoirs (the good kind, lacking arrogance), or can think of any other excuse . . . buy this book!!!

©2011 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery and Babble or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Flyaway by Suzie Gilbert

Flyaway: How a Wild Bird Rehabber Sought Adventure and Found Her Wings by Suzie Gilbert
Copyright 2009
HarperPerennial - Nonfiction/Memoir/Nature
340 pages
Author's website

I carried the duckling into the kitchen, where John and the kids had materialized. The tiny duckling's appearance caused a waterfall of elongated vowel sounds, with only one family member withholding approval.
"Aaaaaaaaaah!" breathed Skye.
"Oooooooooohh!" sighed Mac.
"Awwww!" crooned John.
"War!" shouted Mario.
We all looked at each other.
"I've never heard him say that before," said Mac.
"Maybe African greys [parrots] don't like ducks," said Skye.

My friend India Howell, with whom I lived on the farm in Maine, took a trip to climb Mount Kilimanjaro when she was in her mid-forties. She had never been to Africa and knew little about the Tanzanian people, outside of the occasional news reports of villages devastated by poverty and AIDS. But while she was on vacation she was offered a job as manager of a safari company, and when she moved to Arusha she began to encounter the street kids mentioned in the news reports. Once befriended they were no longer nameless and faceless, and no longer the blurry part of a problem too large to address. India founded and now runs the Rift Valley Children's Village, an orphanage outside Keratu, and she channels certain donations to help the surrounding villages.

Wildlife rehabilitators find themselves in the same position but faced with a more skeptical public, many of whom seem to believe that wild animals are little more than programmed robots. Some loudly and indignantly question why rehabbers "waste" their time with animals when they could be helping people, a query even more absurd than asking a pilot why he or she is not a firefighter. Just as India saw something in the children of Tanzania that she could not turn away from, so rehabilitators see something in a wild animal that can be found nowhere else. We crave a connection--no matter how brief or tenuous--with a wild creature, and we are willing to play by rules that seem designed to break our hearts in order to do it.

We clean, feed, study, attend conferences, amass arcane knowledge, and learn to handle the creatures who fear us. Our triumph is to accept an injured wild animal, treat its injuries, carefully learn each one of its quirks and preference, help it heal, and then let it go. If things go according to plan, we will never see it again.

Somehow, this is enough.

I'm going to use my old Q/A format for this one because I made the mistake of stepping onto the treadmill and wore myself to a frazzle. I need prompting.

What led you to pick up this book? I asked to review it for TLC Book Tours because I'm a nature freak (see bluebird header and evil, bird-killing, outdoor, not-my-cat footer) and there was a wildlife rehabber in one of my online writing groups, many years ago. She told some great stories and I found her life fascinating, so I figured the book would be interesting. I was right.

Describe the book without giving anything away. Flyaway is the memoir of Suzie Gilbert, who rehabilitates and re-releases injured birds in New York. Flyaway, Inc. is the name of her nonprofit organization. Suzie gives the reader a little background about not fitting in the regular job world and how she ended up finding her passion. Then, she skips ahead to finding herself married with two children, considering whether or not to build a couple of large flight cages to take on birds that just needed to be moved to a flight cage before being released back into the wild. She had the flight cages built and began taking in birds (in New York, rehabbers cannot profit from the treatment of wild animals).

What she didn't bank on was her inability to say "no" -- which led to taking on a lot more than mostly-healed birds -- and the time commitment involved in rehabbing, particularly in the job of raising tiny nestlings that had lost their parents. Nestlings have to be fed every 30 minutes, so Suzie got help from her two young children and carried a basket of nestlings with her whenever she had to leave her home. She describes the birds she treated, their personalities, how she dealt with the occasional deaths, and how rehabbing impacted her family life.

What did you think of the real-life characters in this book? I thought they were, for the most part, amazing. Suzie is a deeply caring person who describes the birds she cares for in ways that might startle you. I read Enslaved by Ducks, a few years ago, and what really jumped out at me when I read Enslaved was author Bob Tarte's descriptions of individual bird personalities. Truly, we do tend to lump wildlife into the "just an animal" category and overlook the fact that wild animals have very distinctive, individual personalities, just like humans and our pets.

Like the author of Enslaved by Ducks Suzie Gilbert describes the birds she treated as individuals. Most of the people she worked with were also pretty amazing -- other rehabbers, veterinarians, friends -- even her family members, who were infinitely patient and good-humored. The only people I found that I disliked were one woman who badgered Suzie into taking on birds she'd specifically said she couldn't handle and the ignorant and/or cruel people who harmed birds.

What did you like most about the book? I enjoyed learning about the process of rehabbing and the personalities of the animals, but what I loved most was the fact that the book is hilarious. At times, I laughed so hard I had tears streaming down my face. There are some really sad moments, horror stories of humans abusing animals and, in the end, the author had to ease up or go nuts. But, I adored her sense of humor. Flyaway is a really funny book.

Was there anything you didn't like about the book? No, there was nothing I disliked about the book at all, but it's always such a bummer to read about animals that have been deliberately shot, run over or in some other way harmed for no reason whatsoever. That's a mentality I simply cannot understand. When I stand beneath a tree, looking up at a red-shouldered hawk or watching a redtail fly, I am awestruck. The idea that people would deliberately harm such amazing animals baffles and angers me.

What, if anything, did you find surprising about the book? I had no idea outdoor cats kill such a huge quantity of bird life and are, in fact, one of the leading dangers to dwindling songbird populations. Thank goodness Fiona is an indoor cat (for her safety and longevity; the fact that she isn't killing birds is a nice bonus).

Recommended? Absolutely. In fact, I think everyone should read this book, if only to step outside of their comfort zone and learn about the creatures we often dismiss as background noise -- that's if you're even lucky enough to live somewhere that you can see and hear a variety of bird life (I am).

5/5 - Excellent writing, fascinating stories, an educational, entertaining, engaging, laugh-out-loud funny, touching and sometimes sad book. Just as a side note, I picked up the book on Sunday night and read 200 pages in one sitting. And, then I realized I'd better get some sleep or I was going to be a zombie, so I put it down and finished it up on Monday.

I love that cover, don't you? Thanks to TLC Tours, HarperPerennial, the author, and the U.S. Postal Service (because it arrived safely) for my copy.