Last week I put out an article with my bottom lip stuck out so far I practically tripped over it. I wasn’t subtle about it either. I pouted, I pleaded, I all but waved an empty inbox in the air. The guilt trip was strong enough that even our editor felt it. But when it comes to books and the North Shore Reading Roundup, I’m not too proud to beg.
And wouldn’t you know it, four emails rolled in. Four. Two old friends, two new voices. All from different walks of life, all with something worth sharing. It felt like someone cracked open a window and let the breeze back into the room.
I’m still working my way through a book of poetry by a local author. You can’t exactly speed-read good poetry. You have to sit with it, let it settle, let the lines do their work. I’ll share more once I am able to talk with the author, but for now I didn’t have any fresh reading of my own to bring to the table.
So I’m grateful, truly and deeply grateful for those who responded. Readers like Micky McGilligan, who wrote to say she enjoys our column and heard my plea for more suggestions.
McGilligan credits Emily at the Two Harbors Public Library for introducing her to author T. Kingfisher, who writes, according to her bio, “fantasy, horror and occasional oddities.” McGilligan is currently reading Thorn Hedge, a telling of Toadling, a girl stolen from the fairies at birth.
“She adds in humor,” McGilligan said of the author. “She reweaves some familiar fairy tale characters into new, exciting and thoughtful stories.”
She added, “I’m hooked on these escapes from the ‘real’ world. She has written many books, so I look forward to enjoying her work whenever I can get my hands on one.”
I hadn’t heard of Kingfisher, but I do love a good retelling of a classic tale, and I have always had a soft spot for fairy tales and myths. I told McGilligan I would be adding these to my TBR, and I meant it. Thanks to Emily at the library, too.
A friend of our column, Anne Deneen of Grand Marais, also wrote in. She heard my plea as well and had just finished listening to The Quiet Librarian by Allen Eskens, a thriller set between St. Paul and Bosnia during the Bosnian War.
“The librarian is a very smart and strong character,” she said.
Deneen must run into the same problem I do with bad narrators. I have stopped listening to audiobooks because of poor narration or even just grating voices. But The Quiet Librarian had exceptional narration.
“Ilvana Muratovic was excellent in her interpretation of the characters’ voices,” Deneen said.
She added that she is ten deep on her hold list and always looking for good stories. She is hoping to fit in more audiobooks while doing fall yard work and while heading out of town.
Again, I was unfamiliar with this recommendation, which is exactly what makes this column so wonderful. I work with a woman who escaped the Bosnian war, and I have always wanted to know more about the history and conflict. Thanks, Anne, and please check in again once the chores are through to tell us what you were listening to!
Next, I heard from two talented writers who contribute to this paper. I don’t know if it is because I fancy myself a writer or what, but I am always curious about what other writers are reading.
And, as if I couldn’t adore Steve Fernlund any more, he wrote in to tell me he had finished My Friends: A Novel by Fredrik Backman, who I also very much adore. I have read all of Backman’s books outside of this newest release, and I have loved every single one.
“Waited a good four months for it from the library,” Fernlund wrote. “A mesmerizing look at friendship, love, and art by a slightly off-center author.”
Fernlund first found Backman through A Man Called Ove and earlier this year read Beartown. I, of course, enjoyed both titles, and not just because Beartown has hockey in the story.
“He’s a Swede, which may explain my reaction to him,” said Fernlund.
I’d better get on that added to my holds. I am not sure I can wait four months. I hope to hear from more Backman fans, and I am grateful to know my friend Fernlund is on that list.
And though Grand Marais’ Joe Friedrichs and I have appeared on opposite pages of the paper from time to time, we had yet to connect one-to-one. So it goes with freelancers sometimes, but I am so glad this column finally brought us together.
Friedrichs happens to be reading Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy for the fifth time, cover to cover. I had heard of McCarthy, and I have The Road on my bookshelf waiting its turn, but I wasn’t familiar with the 1985 novel set on the Texas-Mexico border in the 1850s.
“Blood Meridian is a reminder to me that we have things pretty good here on the North Shore. Indeed, the novel is a far cry from a locale rooted in tourism, craft, and community,” Friedrichs said. “The book gets to the marrow of the westward expansion, one full of violence, greed, lust, and harsh uncertainty.”
The book’s characters drew him in.
“One character in the story, Judge Holden, who McCarthy often refers to simply as ‘the judge,’ is arguably the most memorable literary character ever to grace the pages of a novel,” he said. “He certainly left an impression on me.”
But it is not the plot or the characters that keep Friedrichs returning to the same pages.
“It’s McCarthy’s writing style,” he said, and included the following favorite excerpt as an example:
“All night sheetlightning quaked sourceless to the west beyond the midnight thunderheads, making a bluish day of the distant desert, the mountains on the sudden skyline stark and black and livid like a land of some other order out there whose true geology was not stone but fear.”
He also believes a sentiment of the story checks out: “What joins (people) together is not the sharing of bread but the sharing of enemies.” Hard to argue that.
“Literary gold, that’s what this book is,” said Friedrichs. “If you enjoyed the film No Country For Old Men, then you will appreciate the writing in Blood Meridian. Readers should expect to be awed by McCarthy’s descriptive language. Blood Meridian is something worth settling into during the cold, dark, and damp days coming our way in November.”
Currently, Friedrichs is reading Is a River Alive by Robert Macfarlane while he rereads Blood Meridian. He said he might send an update about the nonfiction, environmental journalism, New York Times bestseller down the road. I really hope he does.
I was grinning ear to ear as I updated my new North Shore Reading Roundup TBR spreadsheet this week, which has to be the only time I have ever grinned while working in Excel. I am a Word girl, if you can imagine that.
BIG THANK YOU IN ALL CAPS to all who wrote in over the weekend. Sharing books and stories about books is such a fun way to get to know all of you. And as much as I like to share what I am reading, this column can only stay well-rounded if many voices contribute.
So, shoot me an email at sarahwritesnsj@yahoo.com and tell me what book you have read five times. Or what author you turn back to again and again. What book were you willing to wait for at the library? How many holds deep is your list? Let me know all your bookish thoughts this week so I will be able to reel in my bottom lip again next week. And please remember, all of these titles are available or available to be ordered from your favorite local bookstores!
