My curiosity in a wide range of topics shows up in my reading lists. I’m not always able to explain why something is on the list, but I’m working on doing better since I believe the “why” can be relevant to me in understanding the book itself.
Southern Upland Way
In late August 2022, my youngest son and I hiked across England (west to east) following Hadrian’s Wall. We had built in a day to take the train into Scotland simply so we could say we’d been there. (Merely looking at Scotland across the salt-flats at Solway Firth wasn’t enough.) The night before we were to walk into Carlisle and scoot across to Gretna Green, my son schemed up a trip to Sanquhar, then Wanlockhead (Scotland’s highest village) so we could hike up to Lowther Hill and then Green Lowther.
In doing so, we unintentionally found ourselves on a segment of Scotland’s Southern Upland Way, another coast-to-coast footpath. The eighteen hours we spent in the heather above Wanlockhead among the red grouse and the silence of the hills gave me a new experience for “remote” and “wilderness”. When we returned home, I began researching what it would take to walk and complete the Southern Upland Way.
Bowden’s Secret Coast to Coast consists of journal entries from his SUW hike, providing some flavor for the trail. Coupled with a good map and a guidebook (and a couple of weeks of time off), I think I’ll give this trek a try someday.
Maple Syrup Chapter
One of my sisters suggested I read Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass, so I borrowed it as an audiobook for my 90-minute (round-trip) commute. The chapter that stuck out to me the most was the one on maple syrup. The introduction of the legend followed by her own experience tapping trees and boiling the sap convinced me to find a used copy and add it to my collection. She invites the reader to explore their own relationship of their daily experiences to the plants, animals and land we encounter every day.
Station Eleven
My future fascination with Heinlein brought me into contact with Emily St. John Mandel in early 2022 when reviews for her Sea of Tranquility came out. I couldn’t get the book, so I turned to The Glass Hotel first and followed up with SOT when it became available. While talking about these two books with others, I was frequently asked what I thought about Station Eleven, which I had not read, so I decided to fix that.
Originally published in 2014, significantly before the 2020 pandemic, it feels that Station Eleven negatively influenced our own pandemic response in two ways: extreme isolationism and commodities hoarding. What’s ironic is that her pandemic isn’t even fully relevant to the story—Mandel needed a societal collapse that would leave a remnant and this is what she picked.
Mandel blends multiple timelines and characters into this story of exploration as her Shakespearian troupe travels the upper midwest inquiring into the interwoven ideas of family, culture, technology and society.
Watterson Returns
I suspect that Watterson’s first book since retiring from Calvin & Hobbes, The Mysteries, disappointed many. Both the art and the story are a radical departure from what we came to expect from him and that’s probably the point. I look forward to reading more of this new Watterson, however.
Others
I picked up Colette’s Chéri for some December/May novel outline research but didn’t finish. I picked up Newman’s Julia: A novel, but didn’t finish, in spite of believing that Orwell’s 1984 is a defining text in helping to understand our world today. Miluch’s Deadlands I did finish, but probably shouldn’t have.
Montgomery’s Emily series tells the story of a young woman exploring what it means to become a writer in the Canada of the early twentieth century.
Is there ever a month when it’s not appropriate to re-read Tolkien’s The Hobbit? I doubt it.
Books read/finished in November:
Bowden, A. P. (2011). Secret Coast to Coast: Walking Scotland’s Southern Upland Way. Createspace.
Colette. (1955). 7 by Colette. Farrar, Straus and Cudahy.
Kimmerer, R. W. (2013). Braiding Sweetgrass. Milkweed Editions.
Mandel, E. St. J. (2022). Station Eleven. Alfred A. Knopf.
Miluch, V. (2023). Deadlands: A novel. Lake Union Publishing.
Montgomery, L. M. (2014a). Emily Climbs. Tundra Books.
Montgomery, L. M. (2014b). Emily’s Quest. Tundra Books.
Newman, S., & Orwell, G. (2023). Julia: A novel. HarperCollins.
Tolkien, J. R. R. (1997). The Hobbit. Houghton Mifflin Co.
Watterson, B., & Kascht, J. (2023). The Mysteries. Andrews McMeel Publishing.
