DECEMBER 2010 BOOK REPORT, PART I.

It’s been quite a while since I’ve used Millstones to post an annotated, recent reading list. Thanks to a couple of my favorite bloggers who have jostled my literary elbows lately, here is a rundown on the current stack(s) nearly done or recently finished. (Note: don’t try to analyze the order of the following books or imagine there is any sort of meaning to their arrangement. Except for the way some of them were presently stacked, there is none. It’s purely random.) Enjoy, and should you read any of these titles because you saw it here first, you have to let me know what you thought about that book when you finish. Fair enough? OK, we’ll do this in Parts I & II.

PART I.
The 10-Minute Total Body Breakthrough. Sean Foy, M.A. (2009). A precious couple of friends who once lived with us, and who were just visiting in Vancouver briefly recently, dropped by and gave us this interesting text. So far I’ve read over half of the chapters and am motivated (sufficiently intrigued?) to read the rest. The premise is that done in a specific way, a vigorous, 10 minute, “go-all-out” exercise blitz daily can provide much the same benefits as more traditional, time consuming, programs of calisthenics and physical training. The claims (and testimonies of our friend) were impressive, and I too would like to feel better and begin shedding excess pounds. The book is easy reading, and frankly, it makes more practical sense than other literature which offers sure-fire weight loss, hair restoration, and other instant riches. Seriously, the only way to “proof this pudding” is to give it an honest personal trial over a several month time span. If that should happen, you will learn the results here. Check this one out for yourself in your favorite bookstore by thoroughly scanning the book and learning its promises; chances are, you may buy your own copy. If so, maybe we’ll compare results next Spring, OK?

Painting Methods of the Impressionists. Bernard Dunstan (1976). Some books are not meant to be read quickly, nor are they supposed to be read in serial fashion, hurtling from chapter to chapter willy-nilly. Here’s an example. I had noted this title often mentioned in other art books but had never laid eyes upon it until, lo, and oddly, there it was in a Goodwill store. It’s a Watson-Guptill publication, so one knows it’s good, and I snatched it up. This text covers only some of the classic impressionists, but tells much about their approach to composition, the changing paint mediums, the artistic counter-culture in which they worked, their individual solutions to canvas size, the changing and sometimes political theories of color and value and perspective which influenced each painter’s work, and, of course, plenty about the individual lives and behaviors of these unique individualists. Dunstan is good to spend some time with each artist revealing secrets or characteristics of brushwork, and technique which are still a mystery to me, but which make me want to know more, by experimentation, than I know now. One at a time, compare the paintings illustrated to the text and look back from time to time for comparison. This is one writer’s account of an art revolution in the making. It may take a year to finish this 180 tome, and that’s all right.

Yellow Dirt. Judy Pasternack (2010) Ooooooh. I had to return this book to the library already; in fact, to get the book, I had to convince the local library system to buy it; I was, therefore, the first in my community to read the library copy, and maybe the first in this town since even the library had to wait to get an early copy! Anyway, it’s a fascinating and compelling read. It is the documentation of an American tragedy which began in the late 1930s, peaked in the 1940s and 50s, and which, amazingly, has only slowly come into the fringe of public knowledge over the past half-century. When world supplies of fissionable materials were insufficient originally to support the Manhattan Project and later to maintain the demands of producing U.S. nuclear weapons during the Cold War, the domestic uranium ores found almost exclusively on the lands of the Navajo Nation in the Four Corners region of the Southwest were savagely mined in ways which then and since have catastrophically affected those peoples and lands with death, disease and decay. Untold cases of cancers and related damage caused by unchecked radiation over decades of exposure, and unique neurological abnormalities and other pathological diseases have stricken not only the Navajo miners but their families and unborn children as the unsuspected, radioactive contamination surrounded them in polluted waters and even in the concrete floors and stucco walls of their houses which contained the deadly sands, a byproduct of the refining process of creating the concentrated uranium product called yellowcake. Of course, neither the mining companies nor the government accept(ed) any responsibilities for the damage done to so many. In fact, the truth about the effects of radiation poisoning was repressed repeatedly over the decades in which the increasingly obvious effects and causes were becoming apparent as irrefutable fact. Only in recent years have the beginnings of relief and reparations begun to bring a small degree of repayment to Navajo peoples who lived and worked in the middle of the greatest nuclear tragedy in our nation’s entire history (Yes, greater than the Three-Mile Island incident), one that rivals and may yet surpass the horrors of Chernobyl (Ukraine) in 1986. What makes this story even more shocking is that so few Americans are even aware of what has occurred in Navajo country over the past sixty or so years. The book is relatively easy reading; however, grasping the scale and absorbing the magnitude of the personal devastation to health and longevity is nearly impossible. A most sobering read indeed.

The Grapes of Wrath. John Steinbeck (1939). One Hundred? One fifty? I don’t know how many times I have read and taught this American classic over the years. I do know the last time was in 1990 when it was briefly a part of the Senior English class literature unit at Columbia Christian H.S. That was the year I taught in the private school in Portland after I retired from public education in Alaska. The plight of the migrants and the nature of the hard times they suffered was only a small part of the economic crunch the nation was experiencing in the mid- and late 1930s. This too is an account of the trials, temptations, and tribulations of an oppressed people. Steinbeck’s masterfully woven tale with its theme family, the Joads, and its dramatic inter-chapters telling the counter-story in the vernacular of the various social classes, is a kaleidoscope of character textures, insights on the era’s grinding circumstances, and a host of emotions that still draws me to tears. The good hearts and willing spirits of the poorest who continue to help one another to and beyond the last extreme makes this giant story stand tall over all the others in historic American regional literature. I might have a chance to walk through the text with a couple of grand-daughters soon, and that will be extra special for me.

Borderline. Nevada Barr (2010) I’ll tell you what. I am learning to enjoy a well written mystery, a type of literature a rarely read before we moved to Vancouver. My Brother-in-Law got me started with Hillerman, among others, and I am still exploring this interesting genre. After decades of living in Alaska (another of my passions) Alaska mysteries are particularily fascinating. Sue Henry and Dana Stabenow are my favorite writers, and one of their “buddies” is the equally readable Nevada Barr. Well, OK, so she’s not an Alaskan writer, but she’s good. Her books place a National Parks ranger, Anna Pigeon in various situations as she works and serves in different National Parks, both those well known and popular and those lesser know and less frequently visited. "Borderline" occurs in Big Bend National Park on the Rio Grande (river) which delineates the border with Mexico. Several contemporary issues which reflect some of the daily news are woven into a story which touches on the loyalties of some people to a geographic and cultural region more than to an arbitrary political division of territory. The power of corrupted border politics also raises it ugly head in this tale. It’s just today’s headlines in pulp fiction in a paperback, but Barr is very readable and drops enough fodder for thought that this reader seldom notices if the pace of action or the level of suspense slows down between crises. Nevada Barr is among a score of favorite mystery writers whose paperbacks I keep against the day I get to reread them all again.

Plant Them Deep. Aimee and David Thurlo (2003) Once again I am touting a recently read mystery, this one by the Thurlos, and yet again it involves the Indian characters and cultures of the Southwest. This book is the eighth in the Ella Clah series, although it is actually more about her mother, Rose Destea, a wise elder of the clan who is an expert in the medicinal and ceremonial plants and herbs which grow naturally across Navajo lands. Someone has been removing – stealing – these valuable resources to the point that many species are becoming scarce. The suggestion to replace the missing plants with genetically engineered substitutes is not welcome news as that solution conflicts with cultural values and expectations of the traditional society. This problem offers an interesting look at the ethics of botanical manipulations, especially when the products are presented a safe for human consumption – physically and spiritually, but may not be as safe as claimed. The investigation intensifies when random murders begin to occur. These authors have several similiar series in the same settings, but I find only the Ella Clah books have a completeness and flavor that makes them much like and as good as Tony Hillerman’s stories of Jim Chee and Joe Leaphorn. Read the series in the order in which they were written for the best experience.

Watch for Part II in a week or so. As always, I'm interested in your feedback if you have read any of these same books. We have plenty of short days and long nights now to devote to reading, and most of us should probably do more reading and less watching (tolerating) the drivel offered in TV programming these days. Cheers.