Monday, April 06, 2009

On the Bookshelf

Never lend books, for no one ever returns them; the only books I have in my library are books that other folks have lent me. -- Anatole France

Faulkner, Dillard, Rowling? What's on your nightstand? Your "To Read" list on goodreads? What's stored away, almost lovingly, waiting to be plucked with relish from your bookshelf?

At some point in my life, I must read Moby Dick. Right now, I've got more urgent, educational things on my mind, such as growing the perfect tomato and identifying a squash bug. Spring is a good time for taking on a challenge, for studying, and for kicking up the sediment of winter. To learn is to come alive; to philosophize, as Novalis says, is to cast off inertia.

The following books, I believe, will occupy a predominant part of my life in the next few months. They shouldn't expect a restful place, presiding over the living room from some prominent, decorative position. Rather, a reference guide understand it's no sinecure. And as with any truly great book, wear--dirt, rips, blood--is a testament to value.

Posted by at 6:44 PM
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7 comments:

  1. I read that companion plants which act as a natual repellent of the Tomato Horn Worm are Borage and Pot Marigold (a perennial herb). I have no idea if this is correct. Check with the Master Gardener in the family -hint - she lives in ID.
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  2. Right now on the nightstand I actually have a book you mentioned a while back, The Good Life by Helen Nearing. Just finished the Vermont project book and starting on the the Maine project. I'm enjoying it quite a bit. I'd take you up on the books above too, but sadly I have little more than four windowsills to grow anything here in NYC. The other book is called Solitude: seeking wisdom in extremes by Robert Krull who spent a year alone in the wilds of Patagonia. Its mostly a journal with slatherings of hermit philosophy to bind the bits together. Honestly, I find the author a bit tiresome, but the task itself is compelling enough to keep reading.
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  3. You forgot coffee stains..another testament. Another books that might like to crowd your nightstand: Euell Gibbons' Stalking the Wild Asparagus (Stalking the Wild Herbs is great, too). The greatest foraging guide that reads like a set of essays...I love anything that meets the demands of both practicality and poetry.

    The book club is reading Salt right now, by Mark Kurlansky.
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  4. Well, to plant alongside the tomatoes, I've got borage, oregano, parsley, carrots, and peppers--along with marigolds, geraniums, petunias, and nasturtiums. I've got a separate, small garden of raised beds to attract pollinators, enhance my compost pile, and ward off pests, like squash bugs: including tansy, pyrethrum, phacelia, yarrow, lavender, lemon balm, peppermint, chamomile, echinacea, and evening primrose. All of that being said, I still think I need Louise Riotte's book. I've had to cobble all of my information together from a collection of different websites.

    CW, I really enjoyed The Good Life, but some of the Maine portion is rehashing Vermont. I'm picking through Helen's autobiography, written after Scott's death at 100, Loving and Leaving the Good Life. (I think Scott Nearing may have starved himself to death, but I haven't got to the reason.) Helen's book is much warmer and more digressive. She has a quote from Robert Louis Stevenson about solitude that I think you may like:

    "And yet even while I was exulting in solitude I became aware of a strange lack. I wished a companion to lie near me in the starlight, silent and not moving, but ever within touch. For there is a fellowship more quiet even than solitude, and which, rightly understood, is solitude made perfect. To live out of doors with the woman a man loves is of all lives the most complete and free."

    I haven't heard of Salt, but I love those forensic books that investigate the rise of some commodity and how it effected history. Salt seems to be a foundational inquiry. I remember there was a book that came out a few years ago about rum. Of course, I could go on and on about bananas.

    Coffee is a great a sign of use. My favorite books are all encyclopedic. They're big and discursive, and you can open up to any page and be delighted. Practicality is couched in poetry. And the margins are wide enough for my own marks. As you would imagine, a really great example evades me right now.

    By the way, Brooke, I've learned to ask questions in my posts from AficioNada. You really do a wonderful job of engaging your readers.
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  5. Not that it matters, but I meant "affected," not "effected," although maybe subconsciously I was getting at some deeper meaning. More than likely, I just screwed up.

    Of the encyclopedic books, I love chrestomathies and anything by Thomas Browne, which I've just discovered makes me "the salt of the earth" according to Virginia Woolf.
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  6. Animal, Vegetable, Mineral by Barbara Kingsolver; Ecology of a Cracker Childhod by Janisse Ray (or anything else she wrote); a mystery by Sarah Graves and one by Allingham or Rex Stout. An old book that Louisa May Alcott wrote and wasn't published until 100 years later: A Long Fatal Love Chase (very dated); The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho.
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  7. Patty, I was able to meet Janisse Ray three weeks ago. She is a remarkable woman. When you speak with her, you feel, almost, that she's listening to you in a deep, absorbing way that no one has ever listened to you before. It's hard to describe her without reaching for one of the "life" words: vigor, vitality, vivacity.

    I've just finished Pinhook, and I really loved it.
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