It was fitting that Carol Bosman missed my call because she was out in the woods. The book we were talking about, Crazy White Man by Richard Morenus, is all about adventures in the bush, and she had just come back from her own, where the mosquitoes were terrible, the black flies worse, but the quiet was worth it.
“It’s so peaceful and quiet,” she said.
I had reached out to let Bosman know that I had finished her recommendation, which we featured in a previous edition of NSRRU, and I was eager to tell her what I thought.
Bosman first read Crazy White Man in 1970, after a coworker handed it to her. Two years later, on a trip to Sioux Lookout, which is featured in the book, she spotted “a whole bunch of copies in the store window” and bought her own. She’s read it many times since.
“I know what’s going to happen, but you got to read it anyways,” she said.
Even after four or five rereads, she still finds new details. The book’s age doesn’t bother her.
“I think it could almost take place again this year,” she said, and we agreed that true Wilderness challenges don’t change much.
She was glad to hear I’d devoured it. I told her I was sad when it ended, I hadn’t wanted him to (spoiler alert) leave his island.
“You really get involved in it, don’t you?” she laughed, and we talked about how concerned we were for the author when he would get himself in predicaments, while fully realizing he lives to tell the tale.
I admitted I’d already picked up another Morenus title, *Alaska Sourdough*, because I wasn’t ready to leave his world.
Bosman reads widely, and she had a few current picks to share. She had just finished Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt. I had nearly forgotten about this wonderful story I had read years before.
“I liked it,” she said and told me how she once touched a real octopus at an aquarium in Oregon, and “it turned pink.” Bosman wasn’t convinced they’re as brilliant as the novel suggests, but the story worked for her.
She’s currently reading Virgil Wander by Minnesota writer Leif Enger.
“It’s sort of written up here in an imaginary town,” she said. That sense of place appeals to her. So does William Kent Krueger, whose books she’s read “almost all” of.
“He writes it so clear where you almost want to go looking for that place,” she said of Krueger’s work.
Before we hung up, she encouraged me to keep her posted on what I read next. I promised I would. Conversations like this, which are rooted in place, memory, and the books that carry us through, are exactly why this roundup exists.
Help keep North Shore Reading Round Up alive! Write to sarahwritesnsj@yahoo.com and tell me what book you’ve read 4 or 5 times. What kind of books are best for summer reading? What are you picking up or putting down? All bookish topics are welcome! You can remain anonymous if you’d like.
