At the Pitch • Poetry Wednesday

At the Pitch If I could only live at the pitch that is near madness, Eberhart wrote but there was his wife Betty hanging onto his coattails for dear life to the end of her life. No one intervened when my mother’s brother’s wife ran off with the new young rabbi every woman in the congregation had a crush on. They rose unleashed, fleeing west into the sooty sky over Philadelphia in a pillar of fire, at the pitch that is near madness touching down in the outskirts of Pittsburgh. Cleveland. Chicago. O westward! O fornication! I was sixteen. Eberhart had written his poem before he sailed off to World War II and a boy had just put his tongue in my mouth which meant he could make me do anything. No one holding onto his coattails, no one onto my skirt until my father switched on the back porch light. by Maxine Kumin from Where I Live: New & Selected Poems courtesy The Writer's Almanac

Summer Reading: Karen's List

Summer reading has begun! Are you as excited as I am? 

The Summer Reading Club is in full swing. It means days full of reading books: hopefully good ones, of course, but take a risk from time to time. Go out on a limb and reach for a book that may be different from your usual fare. Try a different media: try recorded books, or print, for a change of pace.

Ambitious Reader Karen has shared her reading list with us, and I'm very pleased to see a couple of books she and I both own. I will have to make sure she and I synchronize our Kindles to activate extra fun reading!

Here are her summer reading books, in no particular order:

• A Second Daniel
  
• The Haunting of Ashburn House
• Stirrings in the Black House
• The Miniaturist
• The House
• Little Red
• Switching Hour
• Darcy's Ultimatum
• The Templar's Cross
• Georgianna Darcy's Diary
• Secrets and Sensibilities
• Indiana Belle
• Crossings
• Nothing to Croak About
• The Chocolate Cure
• Evil Librarian
  
• Rising Sun
• Wobble to Death
• Servant of the Crown Mysteries: Lost Innocents, Season of the Raven, Season of the Fox
• Tempest at Dawn
• Glorieta Pass
• Collide
• Tequila and Tea Bags
• The Passage
• Chocolate Shop in Paris
• Freedom's Sword
• A Spell of Trouble
• The Bees
• Troublemaker
• Never Broken: Songs Are Only Half the Story
• A Night Without Armor: Poems
  
  
• Chasing Down the Dawn: Stories From the Road
• A Strange Beginning
  
  
• Beautiful Storm

Do you see any books that look good to you? Check them out from the library, or see if they're in your Kindle Prime or Unlimited reading bank.

By the way, did you know that Kindle Prime readers have some great options open to them for free reading? Check out the list, which includes modern classics 1984, Animal Farm, and The Handmaid's Tale.

If you don't want to make a list, that's cool, too. Just start reading — and feel free to drop me a line to let me know what pages you are turning.

Library Loot: Print and Audio, Plus Drama

I went to the library this week and got some loot: I borrowed two books and purchased a third, only one of which is on my original summer reading list. 

(Like that's a surprise. We all know I make the list, I chuckle, and then a I reach for whatever I darned well please. Hey, it's summer reading: no rules, just reading! Plus, can you blame me if I stray with so many great choices?)

I shall read at least one this weekend, possibly two (if I am ambitious). 

I am excited that one is Ruined, a Pulitzer Prize-winning play by a playwright new to me, and the others are by authors I know and enjoy. I have encountered Lynn Nottage in numerous articles lately, so it's really a sort of sign that she is in my loot today.

I also am excited about listening to Eric Weiner's new book. I so enjoyed his Geography of Bliss and I can't wait to see what he has to say about "genius."

As for Cristina Henríquez's book, I almost didn't leave the library before starting it. Her novel made my Favorites of 2014 List, so I am very hopeful about this tome.

The book I purchased at the ongoing Friends of the Library book sale, Being Mortal, is one I'm rather intrigued to read. I have read Atul Gawande's  The New Yorker articles and enjoyed them immensely. I heard his interview on Fresh Air about aging and medicine. 

Thanks to Clare, the Captive Reader, for such an inspirational column! I love my library, and what it gives me, and it's nice to share that love.

So, tell me: what did you get from the library this week?

Summer Reading: Making a List!

Summer means reading — and summer reading club! 

Remember back in the day, when reading came with rewards? In my local library, readers would have their names posted with the number of titles read during the summer. One year, I read 4o books. My librarian was skeptical — then she remembered how I sat in the library for hours at a time, reading. Forty it was.

Getting a shout-out on Hedgehog Lover may not be as cool as having your name posted on the Norwalk Library children's section activity board, but it's still not bad. 

Visit your library (public or private), your local bookstores and thrift shops, yard sales and online book suppliers, friends and family, and choose what books look like they need to be read this summer.

So here's what I hope to consume this summer between the Memorial Day weekend and the first weekend in autumn. This year, that date is Friday, May 26 through Sunday, September 24.

First of all, please take a moment to think about Memorial Day, and understand what it really means, 149 years after it began as Decoration Day in an Illinois town. May we strive for peace, and love, and the things that bring us together.  

In that vein, we may want to add a book to our list that reflects Memorial Day, and an article published by the Los Angeles Times may be a good place to start. 

My list is more a "wish" than carved in stone, but here it is, in no particular order:

1. Hamilton: The Revolution
2. Evicted
3. Anna Karenina
4. Lady Cop Makes Trouble
5. The Burning Pages
6. Dark Money
7. Map of the Sky
8. The Intuitionist
9. Ready Player One
10. The Labyrinth of Dreaming Books
11. The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu
12. Me Before You
13. Yesternight
14. The Fall of the House of Cabal
15. The Descent
    
16. The Book of Harlan
17. At the Water's Edge
18. Thank You for Your Service
19. The Glass Sentence
20. The Keeper of Lost Things
21. The Lost City of Z
22. Wicked
23. Bone Season
24. The Gun Seller
25. Wolf Hall
26. The Lowland
27. And the Mountains Echoed
28. Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter 
29. The Sixth Extinction
    
30. Revival
31. Bellman and Black
32. Just Mercy
33. Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits
34. Redeployment
35. The Handmaid's Tale
36. The Case Against Sugar
37. The Magicians
38. The Unbanking of America
39. The Inexplicable Logic of My Life
40. Welcome to Night Vale
41. Hidden Figures
42. Speaking from Among the Bones
    
43. Ruined
44. The Bear and the Nightingale
45. Uprooted

I suspect this list will change. As soon as something looks or sounds good, it will be on the list. I can't help it!

Join the Summer Reading Club and put yourself in the running for a new book. Read as much as you wish from Friday, May 26 through Sunday, September 24, and if you read the most books, you will win a book of your own.

To join the club, just send me an e-mail or leave a message below. Then, at the end of the summer reading period, send me a message or include your reading list in a blog comment. If you read the most, congratulations! If not, you still are a winner because you spent your summer reading.

I've already had a few e-mails from eager readers, and I can't wait to read your list!

I make sure summer reading is beneficial to my community. As I have done in years past, I will  donate $5 per book I read to Main Street Child Development Center (minimum $150) (I know, no sweat, right?), and I will buy three new books for the Fairfax County Public Library from its Amazon Wish List. 

Hopefully, reading club members also will find a way to help their communities through their reading, or to help share the love of reading with their communities. It's not a requirement, of course, but it certainly is a worthy effort. It doesn't have to be financial support, either — think of what the community wants and needs. Every reader can determine what is within her or his power to bestow.

Even if you don't join the reading club, I still would love to know: what's on your summer reading list? Tell me!

Essentially, Oils Can Make a Difference

My friend and co-worker Melanie has good ideas. She is the one who introduced me to audiobooks, and I'm forever grateful. I'm trying out a standing desk now, which is a good option (but never for the whole eight hours at work), and I've begun using essential oils in a diffuser.

I was skeptical. I understood how sniffing a pungent smell could affect my sinuses (thanks, Passover horseradish!), but it never occurred to me that they could change my environment.

Until both Melanie and I came down with the flu within about 48 hours.

Melanie had essential oils in her office, and she dabbed some eucalyptus on a tissue and taped it to my blowing heater. The smell emanated through the small room and my sinuses felt the relief. At lunch, I picked up a diffuser at lunch and some essential oils, and set up the diffuser in my bedroom.

Alas, diffusers all feature lights — and no matter the claims, there is no true "unlit" phase of any diffuser I've reviewed or purchased (and I've purchased a few). I prefer a dark bedroom at night, so I have rigged a cover for the lit area. It doesn't quash it, but it does tap it down a bit. Additional light tip: darker lights are less bothersome at night.

I was a little overwhelmed by the oil choices. At work, I wanted to be calm but alert. At home, I wanted to go to sleep. How should I combine oils to do that, and more, without earning certification in aromatherapy? Well, choose a couple of websites or books, decide what you think will work for you, and experiment.

I like Valerian root, but I sent a floral, citrusy mix to my granddaughters. My friend in a new home got tea tree oil and lavender. I have Rosemary in the office, and mix lavender with everything. So far, so good. Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble, nothing has wilted, exploded, or melted.

(You do want to keep an eye on furniture and books near the diffuser. I have a marble nightstand, and dust stuck better to the surface after the diffuser went into action. At work, my diffuser aims up toward the ceiling, and my desk and accessories haven't changed texture — but I attribute that to the cleaning staff, rather than the oils.)

Apparently, I am the last person to this party: a few other friends also were in the know. A friend had just met an essential oil expert before we began discussing it, and another had thought about using them but didn't know where to begin.

Essential oils have been around for a while, and I have found they they can help me accomplish my physical goals, whether it's sleep, alertness, calm, creative thinking, cleansed air, open sinuses, clear skin — or more.

I recommend choosing a reliable resource for information, and making sure the oils are good quality. Use oils only as directed, and read the instructions: if they alert you to photosensitivity or skin sensitivity, take the alert seriously. Do not be subject of the horror story of the person who uses oils right before hopping into a tanning bed, or doesn't add them to the proper base materials, or just pours them into a cleanser off the drug store shelf.

Sure, the current commercial focus on essential oils and diffusers may fade, but remember that oils have been around for centuries, and will be around long after any "fad" fades. Much like acupuncture and meditation, good practices will remain, and will work for you, for years to come. Try something new, or old — or new to you, and learn something about yourself and your environment.

On Alcohol • Poetry Wednesday

On Alcohol

my first drink was in my mother

my next, my bris. doctor spread red

wine across my lips. took my foreskin

•

every time i drink     i lose something

•

no one knows the origins of alcohol. tho surely an accident

before sacrament. agricultural apocrypha. enough grain stored up

for it to get weird in the cistern. rot gospel. god water

•

brandy was used to treat everything

from colds to pneumonia

frostbite to snake bites

tb patients were placed on ethanol drips

tonics & cough medicines

spooned into the crying mouths of children

•

each friday in synagogue a prayer for red

at dinner, the cemetery, the kitchen

spirits

•

how many times have i woke

strange in an unfamiliar bed?

my head neolithic

•

my grandfather died with a bottle in one hand

& flowers in the other. he called his drink his medicine

he called his woman

    she locked the door

•

i can only half blame alcohol for my overdose

the other half is my own hand

that poured the codeine    that lifted the red plastic again & again &

•

i’m trying to understand pleasure     it comes back

in flashes    every jean button thumbed open to reveal

a different man     every slurred & furious permission

•

i was sober a year before [          ] died

•

every time i drink     i lose someone

•

if you look close at the process of fermentation

you’ll see tiny animals destroying the living body

until it’s transformed into something more volatile

•

the wino outside the liquor store

mistakes me for his son

by Sam Sax

(Listen to the poet read this poem, courtesy Poetry Foundation)

Nightstand Reading; Or, Taking My Time and Restarting, Often

As I was dusting my nightstand, I found myself rather impressed by my stack of books to be read.

I think I need to have my head examined because I haven't finished Hamilton: The Revolution. I even have it on Audible. And yet. Unlike any other Hamilton-related experience, I am savoring the book. Plus, I just finished the chapter about Christopher Jackson, my Washington, and I want to spend an extra moment with him. I think I'll make it a summer read.

Interestingly, the book I am reading on my Kindle I also own in print — the latest translation of Anna Karenina, translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. I hadn't really pondered translations until recently, when Oprah Winfrey's embrace of the new translation was chosen for her book club, and I heard a podcast featuring a strongly praised audiobook version of Don Quixote.


I have another translation on my Kindle, and whenever I read a delicious line in the newer book, I pull up the other translation to compare. So far, I have always, always preferred Pevear/Volokhonsky's translation. I may download the recorded book of the older translation that was so well-received last year, just to compare the page to the ear.

I actually read the first 300+ pages in January, but chose to start over this month so the entire book is fresh in my mind for my discussions next month with Carole. (This is our current Weighty Read.)

I have taken a bit of a break from Anna to read another book with Carole, The Persuasion of Mr. Cave. We read The Humans a couple of years ago, and it was one of the best books I had read in a while — so we decided to give this modest little tome a try. The foreshadowing is intense.

Of this list, I'm surprised that I have read some of every volume, except for one. I have started, put down, started another, put down, and re-started more than usual.

I must blame it on Elizabeth Kostova.

Her latest, The Shadow Lands, was not the book I expected. It's a love letter to Bulgaria, which isn't a bad thing, but the book jacket focused on what I consider the weakest storyline of the book. Had it been more aptly characterized, I would have liked it better; instead, I have to adjust my notions now the book is finished. I would have read it, anyway, mind you. I just prefer when the jacket blurb relates to the story more directly.

To be fair, she used her tools wisely, weaving between media and characters, which has served her well in the past, so the novel wasn't a disappointment. It was, however, a surprise (and not in the more pleasant way).

I am a huge fan of Cat Winters, but I don't think Yesternight is her strongest novel, either. Post-WWI America, West Coast, supernatural (but maybe not), women nearly thwarted, and trusting your own instincts — they're all interesting, but it doesn't get to where it should quickly enough, and there seems to be a stronger story not being told in the novel. (It's another I've put aside, just for a while.)

I started The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu a few times, but my mind wanders during the history portion of the book. I've tried the print and electronic books, so I think I'll give the audio a try next. (The library will come through soon, so I'll keep you apprised.)

Finally, I am working on two series: Johannes Cabal and Flavia de Luce. (Ne'er the twain shall meet, thank heavens, except on my nightstand.)

What are your reading challenges? Are you stopping and starting books? Or are you plowing through everything immediately, no holds barred? Let me know!

Get Excited About Summer Reading in 2017!

Memorial Day is right around the corner, which means...

 ...summer reading!

If you're anything like me, you've been perusing your own bookshelves, reviewing your library wish list, pondering the bookstore inventory, and just thinking about books.

I also am pondering summer reading lists of the past. Every year, I come up with a list, and every year I veer off-course almost immediately. (I mean, 2016. And 2015!)

Want to join the fun? Join the Summer Reading Club! (You may even win a new book.)

The "rule" of the Summer Reading Club, if any summer fun can have real rules, is this: read as much as you wish from Friday, May 26 through Sunday, September 24. If you are the club member who's read the most book, you will win a book of your own. 

To join the club, just send me an e-mail or leave a message below. Then, at the end of the summer reading period, send me a message or include your reading list in a blog message. If you read the most, congratulations! If not, you still are a winner because you spent your summer reading.

I've already had a few e-mails from eager readers, and I can't wait to read your list! I will publish mine this month.

I make sure summer reading is beneficial to my community. As I have done in years past, I will  donate $5 per book I read to Main Street Child Development Center (minimum $150) (I know, no sweat, right?), and I will buy three new books for the Fairfax County Public Library from its Amazon Wish List. 

Hopefully, reading club members also will find a way to help their communities through their reading, or to help share the love of reading with their communities. It's not a requirement, of course, but it certainly is a worthy effort. It doesn't have to be financial support, either — think of what the community wants and needs. Every reader can determine what is within her or his power to bestow. 

Even if you don't join the reading club, I still would love to know: what's on your summer reading list? Tell me!

I am Waiting • Poetry Wednesday

I Am Waiting

I am waiting for my case to come up   

and I am waiting 

for a rebirth of wonder 

and I am waiting for someone 

to really discover America 

and wail 

and I am waiting   

for the discovery 

of a new symbolic western frontier   

and I am waiting   

for the American Eagle 

to really spread its wings 

and straighten up and fly right 

and I am waiting 

for the Age of Anxiety 

to drop dead 

and I am waiting 

for the war to be fought 

which will make the world safe 

for anarchy 

and I am waiting 

for the final withering away 

of all governments 

and I am perpetually awaiting 

a rebirth of wonder 

I am waiting for the Second Coming   

and I am waiting 

for a religious revival 

to sweep thru the state of Arizona   

and I am waiting 

for the Grapes of Wrath to be stored   

and I am waiting 

for them to prove 

that God is really American 

and I am waiting 

to see God on television 

piped onto church altars 

if only they can find   

the right channel   

to tune in on 

and I am waiting 

for the Last Supper to be served again 

with a strange new appetizer 

and I am perpetually awaiting 

a rebirth of wonder 

I am waiting for my number to be called 

and I am waiting 

for the Salvation Army to take over 

and I am waiting 

for the meek to be blessed 

and inherit the earth   

without taxes 

and I am waiting 

for forests and animals 

to reclaim the earth as theirs 

and I am waiting 

for a way to be devised 

to destroy all nationalisms 

without killing anybody 

and I am waiting 

for linnets and planets to fall like rain 

and I am waiting for lovers and weepers 

to lie down together again 

in a new rebirth of wonder 

I am waiting for the Great Divide to be crossed   

and I am anxiously waiting 

for the secret of eternal life to be discovered   

by an obscure general practitioner 

and I am waiting 

for the storms of life 

to be over 

and I am waiting 

to set sail for happiness 

and I am waiting 

for a reconstructed Mayflower 

to reach America 

with its picture story and tv rights 

sold in advance to the natives 

and I am waiting 

for the lost music to sound again 

in the Lost Continent 

in a new rebirth of wonder 

I am waiting for the day 

that maketh all things clear 

and I am awaiting retribution 

for what America did   

to Tom Sawyer   

and I am waiting 

for Alice in Wonderland 

to retransmit to me 

her total dream of innocence 

and I am waiting 

for Childe Roland to come 

to the final darkest tower 

and I am waiting   

for Aphrodite 

to grow live arms 

at a final disarmament conference 

in a new rebirth of wonder 

I am waiting 

to get some intimations 

of immortality 

by recollecting my early childhood 

and I am waiting 

for the green mornings to come again   

youth’s dumb green fields come back again 

and I am waiting 

for some strains of unpremeditated art 

to shake my typewriter 

and I am waiting to write 

the great indelible poem 

and I am waiting 

for the last long careless rapture 

and I am perpetually waiting 

for the fleeing lovers on the Grecian Urn   

to catch each other up at last 

and embrace 

and I am awaiting   

perpetually and forever 

a renaissance of wonder

by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

from These Are My Rivers: New and Selected Poems

courtesy The Poetry Foundation