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I'm not a sentimental reader. I get autographed books at book events. I read them. I give them away. I have books from my teens. I read them. I give them away. I get books for my birthday. I read them. I give them away. But I have about five hundred books on my shelves. I've read them. And I will give them away.. One day. When I am ready. But not yet. What kinds of books are the Not-Yet sort?
A collection of books-about-books
Books about writing
Books about happiness
Poetry books
A book my dad's neighbor wrote and gave to my grandma
(who then gave it to my dad, who gave it to me)
A family Bible, smuggled out of Nazi-occupied Norway during the war
(It was completely submerged in water during a tropical storm in 1979).
Books my cousin, Frankie Frankeny, has done the photography for
Magazines in which I've published poems
What books do you keep?
Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girlin January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together. Each Tuesday That Artsy Reader Girl assigns a topic and then post her top ten list that fits that topic. You’re more than welcome to join her and create your own top ten (or 2, 5, 20, etc.) list as well. Feel free to put a unique spin on the topic to make it work for you! Please link back to That Artsy Reader Girl in your own post so that others know where to find more information.
The Forest for the Trees: An Editor's Advice to Writers by Betsy Lerner
Friday's Tunnel by John Verney
The Gold Bug Variations by Richard Powers
A Place to Belong by Cynthia Kadohata
Wilderness Essays by John Muir
I wrote more blog posts in one week than I ever have before. I focused much of my time this week on writing What Happened to My America? I love to hear your thoughts about everything I post, but I'd especially love to hear your thoughts on this (very long) essay.
What Happened to My America? And How Can We Fix Things? Thoughts about Our Towns, Alienated America, and Love Your Enemies
I celebrated Mother's Day all weekend, remembering my mom who passed away nine years ago; getting my toes done with family; going to church; and enjoying a meal.
...
I Vanna-White-ed with my husband as he shared his mineral collection this week with a local group.
How did your week go?
Did you finish any good books?
Have you run across anything book-ish that you would like to share with us?
I invite you to link up here and/or at the Sunday Salon page on Facebook each weekend (Friday-Saturday-Sunday-Monday) and let us know what you have been doing. Visit other blogs and join in the conversations going on there.
Other places where you may like to link up are below. Click on the picture to visit the site.
My linkup for Sunday Salon is below. If you wish to also post a link at Facebook, you can also do that.
A teacher, nearing retirement, is unexpectedly invited to a party celebrating the art of a former student. Louis Claret is puzzled for the invitation; what could a celebrity like Alexandre Laudin gain by inviting a tired high school instructor who barely remembers Laudin to this showcase for his work? Claret goes, and meets up with Laudin, and somehow finds himself agreeing to pose for his former student. What is this all about?
I love the tension Jean-Philippe Blondel brings to his stories, the uncertainty, the ambiguity inherent in life. Because the author is French, and because I have read and loved his earlier novel, The 6:41 to Paris, I felt confident that the author would lead me again into a place where I could closely see the emotional resonances of the world that we sometimes avoid, and that he did. I loved the genuine feel of the story, the use of nuance, playing with complexities of life, that the author gave me.
Be warned that this story is not for those who like a big American fireworks ending. No, it's just a story of two lives and the ways they intermingle and weave together and grow apart, lives that interconnect with each other and with others, the way people flame and burn out. It's vivid and compelling, and it's beautiful writing.
A French teacher on the verge of retirement is invited to a glittering opening that showcases the artwork of his former student, who has since become a celebrated painter. This unexpected encounter leads to the older man posing for his portrait. Possibly in the nude. Such personal exposure at close range entails a strange and troubling pact between artist and sitter that prompts both to reevaluate their lives.
Blondel, author of the hugely popular novel The 6:41 to Paris, evokes an intimacy of dangerous intensity in a tale marked by profound nostalgia and a reckoning with the past that allows its two characters to move ahead into the future. [provided by the publisher]
NB: this is NOT erotica!
“Exposed deals with the joys and uncertainties of youth, as well as aging and regret, thwarted friendships and loves, and nostalgia and searching for renewal. It’s beautifully written and sensitively translated from French, highly engaging and accessible to a wide array of readers. It contains no explicit sex or anything that would put off a reader open to the experience of good literature.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jean-Philippe Blondel
was born in 1964 in Troyes, France
where he lives as an author and English teacher.
His novel The 6:41 to Paris has been acclaimed
in both the United States and Europe.
You can enter the global giveaway here
or on any other book blogs participating in this tour.
Be sure to follow each participant on Twitter/Facebook,they are listed in the entry form below.
Back in 2001, I worked for the U.S. Census Bureau. Many people don't know that the Census Bureau does much more than simply count the number of people in the US every ten years. There are ongoing surveys that Americans are asked to participate in. During my years with the Census Bureau, I went to people's homes and asked a list of questions for various government surveys about employment, housing starts, income, health, and many other important topics. The specific data about each person is confidential and I took an oath to always keep the data confidential, and, of course, I will always do that.
But the responses to one question on one health survey have always stuck with me. The question was: "Outside my immediate family, I have few close friends. True or false?" I administered this survey to exactly one hundred people and ninety-five said that statement was true.
Let me restate this to clarify: Ninety-five percent of the people I interviewed said they have few close friends.
This was astounding to me. I grew up in a small town, and, after I married, I raised my children in the same small town where my parents and in-laws and siblings and all of their extended families lived. I still live in this town. Over the years, I have met many, many people outside my town as well, through my volunteer activities and work and church and my love of books, and I talk often to these people and I try to get together whenever I can. In short, I feel like I have many, many close friends.
But most people do not feel this way. Most people in America feel alienated, friendless, lonely, alone.
This continued to stick in my mind. In 2002, I read a book called Bowling Alone by Robert D. Putnam. Putnam gathered data from all across America and came to the same conclusions I'd come to after my stint with the Census Bureau:
Most people in America feel alienated, friendless, lonely, alone.
In more recent years I've become deeply disturbed by the climate here in America. During and after the last national election for president, I've been dismayed at the behavior of our leaders, especially our elected president. I was shocked when Donald Trump was elected as our president, and I've been horrified by the words he has spoken to others during his time as president. I don't watch television, but the bits of public life that have filtered down to me fill me with sadness and trepidation.
What is going on in my America?
I picked up three books at the recent library conference in Austin that I've been reading in tandem over the past weeks. These books have helped me understand the malaise of the American people. They have helped me think through ways that we can work to change the mood and behavior of the people of our country.
The three books I read are:
Alienated America: Why Some Places Thrive While Others Collapse by Timothy P. Carney
Our Towns: A 100,000 Journey Into the Heart of America by James M. and Deborah Fallows
Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt by Arthur C. Brooks
What have I learned from reading these books?
Timothy P. Carney looks at the hard, cold facts about America today, especially those who brought Trump into power. The places where Trump scored big are key to understanding why he was elected, Carney tells us. What are those places like?
"Death rates, especially death by suicide and overdose, correlated with Trump's best counties....Educational attainment is lower in Trump Country. More people are on unemployment. More people are on disability. These economic indicators are devastating, and crucial. But more telling are the social indicators. More men have dropped out of the workforce. Marriage rates are lower. Illegitimacy is higher. Divorce is higher....(Members of this group) said religion was very important to them, but...they were the least likely to go to church."
I found this absolutely fascinating stuff. Trump scores well in places where people are unhappy and communities are weak.
To add to the problems, the right, Carney tells us, has steadily worked for big businesses over small businesses, deeply weakening community bonds.
On the other side, according to Carney, the left has been promoting ideas for years that also build community alienation, stressing overcentralized government programs that provide for the poor at the expense of individuals and local efforts to help the poor, and emphasizing individual freedoms at the expense of the stabilizing effects of marriage and family and church and community on each person.
Arthur C. Brooks, in Love Your Enemies, shares the destructive power of contempt by citing the work of social psychologist and relationship expert John Gottman. Gottman, Brooks tells us, has studied thousands of married couples. After watching a couple interact for just one hour, Gottman can predict with 94 percent accuracy whether a couple will divorce within three years. What is this based on? It isn't the amount of anger a couple expresses, but, instead, it is the amount of contempt one member shows for another. And it is this contempt for one another in political matters that is currently making it impossible for opposing political parties to work together.
So where are we now? Yelling and screaming at each other from positions far to the left or right of our common ground. Cutting off friendships and family connections based on these extreme political positions.
In short, a mess.
Here is where Arthur C. Brooks takes up the struggle. In his book, Love Your Enemies, Brooks writes: "Deep down, we all know that the polarization we are experiencing in our politics today is toxic. We hate the fighting, the insults, the violence and disrespect."
Brooks shares a powerful story of the rare coming together of political opponents. Black Lives Matter protesters found themselves near a group of Trump supporters in Washington, DC. Confrontation was rapidly accelerating into possible violence.
But then the organizer of the rally unexpectedly offered two minutes of time to the leader of Black Lives Matter. And everything changed. See for yourself what happened.
Wow, I thought. Wow. There is hope.
Brooks shares four rules Gottman offered for bringing people back together. Because we are in such a desperate situation, and because these rules can have a dramatic effect on changing things, I'm sharing them here:
"1. When others are upset about politics, listen to them respectfully. Try to understand their point of view before offering your own. Never listen only to rebut.
2. In your interactions with others, particularly in areas of disagreement, adopt the 'five-to-one rule,' which he gives couples. Make sure you offer five positive comments for every criticism.
3. No contempt is ever justified, even if, in the heat of the moment, you think someone deserves it. It is unjustified more often than you know, it is always bad for you, and it will never convince anyone that she is wrong.
4. Go where people disagree with you and learn from them. That means making new friends and seeking out opinions you know you don't agree with. How to act when you get there? See rules 1 to 3!"
Brooks uses the rest of the book to expand upon these rules and share oodles of great advice for our world, and I'd encourage you to get the book and read it carefully for yourself.
How does Our Towns fit into my study of America? James Fallows and Deborah Fallows spend four years and travel 100,000 miles to visit towns and cities across America to see what is going on in our country. Their book is also a book of hope. In every town and city where they find good things going on, they first see people working together for common goals, both economic and social, building up local businesses, building up local communities, building up schools, rethinking the whats and hows but keeping the whys, and taking pride in what is happening. The two Fallowses offer "10 1/2 Signs of Civic Success" as their takeaway from this adventure. Key to a local community's success is that "people work together on practical local possibilities, rather than allowing bitter disagreements to keep them apart...."
So I've ranted long enough, I think, and it's time for me to start working in my local community to make things better. I feel like I have some solid ideas to work from after reading these three books.
I welcome any thoughts you have about my thoughts here; I'd love to open this into a conversation. Let's move forward, shall we? And can we please move forward together?
Each day during the month of April, birders are welcomed from all around the world at the Gulf Coast Bird Observatory on Quintana Beach in Texas. A tally is kept for each day of all birds sited by birders. During my time there as a volunteer manning the booth at the site, I was delighted to spot a Baltimore Oriole, an Orchard Oriole, and a Cape May Warbler (pictured with orange).
And because I'm a reader, I have to share a couple of great narrative nonfiction reads on birding with you:
Saturday Snapshot is hosted by A Web of Stories. To participate in Saturday Snapshot: post a photo that you (or a friend or family member) have taken and then leave a direct link to your post in the Mister Linky at A Web of Stories.
