TALKING ABOUT BOOKS #2

**One of the follies of trying to do current lists is that the lists are always changing: I finish a book, or my interests change before I obtain the book (or get around to reading it), or newer or more urgent titles bump a book way down the list. One thing that rarely happens is that I do not finish a book I start. Once in a while a book is so disappointing or so poorly written, or offensive that I bag it midway, but that's unusual. I might stop reading a book that is not as advertised, or not what I am seeking in terms of useful content, but that's rare too.

**So when do I read? Many mornings each week begin with a few minutes of reading the newspaper and a few pages in a current book before spending some time in Bible study. On and off during the day, when I stop to rest, it's usually with a book in hand. In the evening, from the news to bedtime, most "dull" TV moments are redeemed by reading the book in hand. Finally, after all other lights are out and my home companion (who gets up every morning at 5:00 am) is dozing at last, I may read in one or two more books until 1:00 am.

**Books Currently Being Read:
1. Salt. – Mark Kurlansky. [Long on the best-seller lists, this is a well seasoned look at world history through the impact of salt in economies, food preservation, and politics.] ** Just finished this one Tuesday the 8th. Change lists again (-:
2. Oil Painter’s Solution Book: Landscapes. – Elizabeth Tolley. [After benefitting from books on color theory and technique, I finally found an instructional text that speaks to my perceptions of plein air art and what I always feel I am seeing in what I am trying to paint. Just what I need at this point in my learning curve. It's ideas were quite helpful in painting class this week.]
3. Color Choices. – Stephen Quiller. [ One of the tomes that is more for the watercolorist, but which includes the names commercial paint companies assign their colors and put on their paint tubes. Best of all, the book displays this data on a huge, and very useful color-wheel.]
4. Alaska; Tales of Adventure from the Last Frontier. – Edited by Spike Walker. [ More wonderful Alaskan literature. These selections are passages from the complete works which have held readers of Alaskan stories in thrall and astonishment over the years.]
5. Chicken Soup for the Surviving Soul; 101 Healing Stories About Those Who Have Survived Cancer. – Jack Canfield, et.al. [I have so many friends fighting cancer; this is for my own insight. It is helping me know how to talk, and what I can say to a person who has this wicked disease.]
6. Plein Air Painters of California; The Southland. – Ruth Lilly Westphal. (History of 1880 to 1940) an inter-library book on loan. [ The leading painters of the era are presented with selected works and an essay of their specific contribution to the plein air movement in California.]
7. Plein Air Painters of California; The North. – Ruth Lilly Westphal. (History of 1880 to 1940) also an inter-library book. [This second volume continues and expands upon the first with additional artists from Santa Barbara to San Francisco and more essays explaining the development of color and techniques they employed.]
8. In Search of the Old Ones; Exploring the Anasazi World of the Southwest. – David Roberts. [Modern awareness of the American Indian dwellings of the Southwest is still less than 150 years old, and understanding these cultures and their histories is still a developing revelation. For example, the Mesa Verde of my childhood visits in the early 1950’s is a vastly different experience and set of understandings than an encounter today.]
9. Wings of Madness; Alberto Santos-Dumont and the Invention of Flight. - Paul Hoffman. [ Son David shared this book with me. Balloon flight was common before the Wright Brothers and this pioneer, a truly unique and eccentric genius, had experience and insights that lent much to modern manned flight.]
10. National Geographic Magazine; May 2008. [OK, I know it’s not a book, but it is the only magazine left now of which I have read every published edition. Some years ago I finally had to drop Reader’s Digest because I just could not find the articles any more hidden among the advertisements. NGS, be warned!.]

**Again, I challenge you to share your own lists. Examine your current reading and post the titles of your books in progress, and tell me where to find them. (At least e-mail me your findings.) Watch for the remaining list, #3, my "Read Soon" list, which will be posted in three or four days.

**I can see already that I will be seeking out some of the same books you have been enjoying.

**Thanks.

TALKING ABOUT BOOKS: #1

**My daughter, among others, never seems to have difficulty finding a new topic for her blog (look for her blog in the side-bar.). I agonize every time. What can possibly be interesting enough for me to impose upon potential readers? Half the time it’s based on whatever is in my camera and the rest of the time from suggestions or recent conversations. Now someone says, “Write about yourself”.

**OK. Well, I’ve always been a reader. I even took on the Public Library and the city council (with Mom’s help) when I was eight or nine years old because there was an unfair six book per week limit on children’s books. I could read six books a day plus the newspaper, some Bible, part of an encyclopedia, borrowed magazines, or anything else I could find in print. After a few challenging meetings that limit was lifted and I began to check out ten or fifteen books a couple of times a week, and continued at that rate for years. Overall, I probably have averaged reading at least two or three books a week for nearly 65 years. I love all kinds of book collections, book stores, book sales, and gravitate bookward whenever possible. I've had a library card since I was five and sometimes have carried several at once.

**In recent years however, I think I have slowed down somewhat, being busy with a lot of other interests and responsibilities. To compensate, I have taken up reading multiple books at the same time. I’ll pick up a book, read a few pages or a chapter, or for an hour or two and set it down to continue later. Consequently, there are books at bedside, by my easy chair, in the garage, upstairs, and sometimes in the cars. A few here, a stack there, another tucked on a tool shelf and a couple in my barrister case. As I finish one, it is soon replaced by another keeping several going at the same time. It’s sort of a parallel, time-conservation approach to deal (1) with many conflicts, interruptions, and a busy schedule, (2) with an attention span which gets shorter every year, and (3) with soooooo many books.

**Over the next three blogs I’ll share an annotated inventory of books recently read, currently being read, and on the “Read Soon” list. I limited the lists to ten each or this blog would never end. Besides these texts, I have hundreds of books in boxes and on shelves in the attic which I have read and liked and kept, and books I plan to read or reread someday, or books I keep handy for research on topics of interest. The following lists are in no particular order.

**Books Recently Read:
1. The Sierra Club Guide to Sketching in Nature. – Cathy Johnson. [I’m taking oil painting classes now so I’ve been reading a lot of art books lately.]
2. Flags of our Fathers. – James Bradley. [ This book, like “Flyboys” proves war is truly hell, which makes the accounts of heroism in it even more poignant.]
3. The Art of Gaman – Arts and Crafts from the Japanese-American Internment Camps 1942-1946. - Delphine Hirasuma. [We saw these beautiful, ingenious and practical artifacts made from junk, cast-off, and found materials at a recent exhibition, and I had to buy the book because photographs were not allowed.]
4. Galileo’s Daughter. – Dava Sobel. [Anything written by Dava Sobel is a rich read.]
5. The Bonsai Art of (Mashike) Kimura. – Kashito Onishi. [My collection of bonsai books now numbers about seventy texts. This is a wonderful addition.]
6. The first seven of twenty (Alaska) Kate Shugak mysteries by Dana Stabenow. [Well written and full of Alaskan culture, places and experiences. I've got the other thirteen and I'm eager to read them all.]
7. All the (Alaskan) Sue Henry mysteries about Jessie Arnold and Maxie and Stretch. [This is another great series also pointed out to me by my book-loving friend Ted P.]
8. Fearless Men and Fabulous Women; A Reporter's Memoir of Alaska and the Yukon. – Stanton Patty. [An awesome book about remarkable pioneer Alaskans. Unfortunately, it’s Out of Print, but hunt for it in on-line bookstores. It will be worth the effort!! I know the author, a retired and revered newspaper journalist whose beat was Alaska, so if you would like to pass along your appreciation, I’ll get your comments to him.]
9. Looking Like the Enemy; My Story of Imprisonment in Japanese-American Internment Camps. - Mary Matsuda Gruenwald (Family #19788) [An intense personal diary of living through a terrible experience when 120,000 Westcoast Americans were imprisoned and banished to concentration camps just for being Japanese during WWII.]
10. Proverbs. [I should also mention this Old Testament book which has been this year’s study in the Senior Saints Class I teach.]

**Now, What books have you read recently? Either e-mail me your list or tell me where to find it on your own blog.