Category: Books

Maine coast

Coastal Maine: Reading & Eating

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In summer, we’re given permission, as if it’s really needed, to read whatever we want, and to eschew serious tomes.  Or to decide that that heavy book you’ve been meaning to tackle is just perfect for long stretches of SSR or “sustained silent reading.”  When I was in 4th grade, we did a lot of reading comprehension exercises.  Read a passage from the Power Builder, then answer questions about it, then, when you’d finished some requisite number of Power Builders, you were rewarded with a period of sustained silent reading.  I loved that latter!  And still do.

Here are two books that are simply pleasurable reads.  Enjoy!

Who am I?

The Woman in the Photo by Mary Hogan

I’d classify this novel as an airplane read. It’s engaging, but is somewhat overwritten and feels a bit as if Ms. Hogan just dashed it off. It follows a now standard practice for historical novels of linking characters and events of the past with a parallel modern-day story. In this case, the event is the Johnstown, Pa flood (not really a flood but a wall of water from a burst dam) and the main character is Elizabeth Haberlin, a rich young lady who’s preparing for her society debut. In the present, adoptee Lee Parker, eighteen, is finally old enough to receive a bit more information about her genetic heritage which propels her on a search for her birth mother.

The best sections deal with the aftermath of the Johnstown tragedy in 1889 and Lee’s initial meeting with her birth family. A more elegantly written novel about this historic event is In Sunlight, In a Beautiful Garden by Kathleen Cambor.

Whodunnit?

The Poacher’s Son by Paul Doiron

Doiron is the former editor of Downeast magazine so it’s no surprise that this, his first mystery, is set in northern Maine. What one might find unusual is that the main character is a state game warden, and in this wild woodsy setting, represents the law and is, in essence, a cop. Mike Bowditch is a rookie warden, still learning the ropes, and is shocked when his father is a fugitive murder suspect and the object of an intensive manhunt. Jack Bowditch is a longtime brawler and heavy drinker with a long string of girlfriends, and he and his son have been mostly estranged since his parents divorced when Mike was nine. Seemingly bent on self-destructive actions that will destroy his young career, Mike is caught up in the search for the killer, all the while proclaiming his father’s innocence. Engrossing and suspenseful, this will appeal to mystery lovers, especially those also fond of Maine. This book was published in 2010 and there are now six additional Mike Bowditch mysteries.

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Casual Dining

To match the easygoing quality of the two books, I’d suggest Oliver’s on Cozy Harbor.  With both inside and outside seating, Oliver’s offers lobster rolls, chowder, and fresh haddock plus a number of salads, sandwiches and daily specials.  And an indulgent cheddar and blue cheese spread with pita chips that’s positively addictive!  Open for lunch and dinner, it’s also a good place to take the kids.

Photos by JWFarrington (some rights reserved)

 

Summer Reading #1

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When we first get settled into our Maine digs, our pattern is to hunker down for the first few days.  We go almost nowhere and we spend hours on end just reading!  I have time to read at home, but somehow, this is a change of pace without a fixed routine and so it’s vacation.  Here are three novels that easily kept me immersed in the world of fiction.

The Mapmaker’s Children by Sarah McCoy

Sarah Brown, John Brown’s daughter, was an accomplished artist, abolitionist, and a very independent woman, particularly for the 19th century. Using her as one focus of this novel, Sarah McCoy recreates the events leading up to John Brown’s raid at Harper Ferry and his ultimate hanging from the perspective of his daughters and wife and his close friends the Hill family. His death is just the beginning as McCoy follows Sarah throughout the next twenty plus years using straightforward narration plus letters and newspaper articles.

Linked to Sarah’s story is that of a contemporary couple Eden and Jack Anderson who have purchased an historic home in New Charlestown, West Virginia, not far from Harpers Ferry. The Anderson marriage is on the skids, Eden is desolate over several failed attempts to have a child, and initially she is bent on selling this house and getting out fast. Without going into elaborate detail, suffice it to say that some strange artifacts turn up in the house that set Eden and 11-year old neighbor Cleo on a quest to document the house’s history.

I found this a totally absorbing novel. The writing is wonderfully picturesque and McCoy skillfully and poignantly involves you into these two women’s lives. Even the secondary characters, Cleo, Freddy Hill, his sister Alice, and Ms. Silverdash, the bookstore owner, come alive on the page.  I also gained some new insights into how the Underground Railway operated.

The Summer Before the War by Helen Simonson

Charming and heartfelt, this novel about life in a small English town in 1914 made me misty. Going against tradition, Agatha Kent, board member and part of a prominent family, advocates for hiring a woman, Beatrice Nash, to replace the school’s Latin teacher. But she is younger and prettier than everyone expects and her independence and somewhat advanced views are a threat to a society that is content with the status quo.

With Beatrice’s arrival in town, I wondered where this novel was going as there are a lot of characters who initially seem secondary: Agatha and John Kent’s nephews Hugh (studying to be a doctor) and Daniel (a poet); Celeste, one of the Belgian refugees the town takes in after the Germans invade their country; Snout (Dickie) Sidley, one of Beatrice’s students; and Mayor Fothergill and his busybody, self-important wife. But Simonson captures the ordinariness of daily life which ceases to be so once young men enlist and go off to fight in France and weaves together the fabric of the town’s divided social classes in a time of changing roles and more relaxed mores.   Recommended!

Blueprints by Barbara Delinsky

Delinsky is a bestselling novelist of women’s fiction, stories of romance and family relationships. This, her latest, is a hefty tome that I devoured in a matter of hours. It’s a great beach read, a treat that requires little effort, and yet is very satisfying. You know from the get-go that everything will come right in the end, and the fun is in the getting there. It’s fiction after all and, in this kind of fiction, life gets smoothed out more readily than in real life with no rough edges remaining.

The focus here is on a mother-daughter team who are the leads on a TV show called Gut It! that features homes their family company has rehabbed. When the producers want to replace host Caroline (Mom) with daughter Jamie, hurt feelings and anger ensue and each must reflect on and assess her role and decide who she wants to be. Add in some other complications and two attractive men and life gets mixed up and spiced up!

Tidy Tidbits: Mostly Books

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VIEWING

Dr. Thorne.  This adaptation of Trollope’s novel on Amazon Prime was written and produced by Julian Fellowes of Downton Abbey fame.  It’s a short series, only 4 episodes, but each one is introduced and closed by Mr. Fellowes.  Formally dressed sitting in a chair in what appears to be a library, his remarks are engaging and informative and delivered with a twinkle.  Mr. Fellowes is a talented man, witness the wild success of Downton, and recently his latest novel, Belgravia, was issued in hardcover, but first  serialized a la Charles Dickens on a downloadable app.  Pushing the envelope, as they say.

I don’t think Dr. Thorne is great television, but it was diverting and fun to watch while being on the treadmill.

READING

The Rainbow Comes and Goes:  A Mother and Son on Life, Love, and Loss by Anderson Cooper and Gloria Vanderbilt.  I had eyed this book in the store and was pleased when my friend Sue sent it on for me to read.  Gloria Vanderbilt is a famous name, but I didn’t know much of anything about her life, particularly her early life.  In this book, the sharing of a year-long e-mail correspondence between her and her son, she unloads about her lovelorn and tumultuous childhood and her rootless adulthood before her successful marriage to Wyatt Cooper.  You learn much more about her than you do about him, although he shares his feelings about the premature deaths of his father and his brother and about his coming out as gay to his mother.  What is remarkable about this book is that mother (at 91) and son (48) were able to have this frank discussion and to make themselves vulnerable in this way.

LOADED UP

As I get ready to be in Maine, I’m pondering which paper books to take as well as loading up my Kindle.  I will have far more books at hand than I will ever get to, but I relish having choices and never want to be without enough reading material.  You’d think there weren’t any bookstores in Maine!  Actually, there are branches of Sherman’s, an independent regional store, in Portland, Boothbay Harbor, and Damariscotta.

Anyway, here are a few of the titles I have waiting on my Kindle, all novels plus two mysteries and none looking to be too heavy.  Perfect for summer!

Heat & Light by Jennifer Haigh.  A new novel about fracking by this talented author set in a small Pennsylvania town.  She also wrote Baker Towers and Mrs. Kimble, both excellent.

The Last Painting of Sara de Vos by Dominic Smith.  A 17th century Dutch painting is the focus of this novel spanning several decades by native Australian Smith, who now lives in Texas.

Everyone Brave is Forgiven by Chris Cleave.  He’s the author of one of my all-time favorite best books, Little Bee.  This is his new novel set during WWII.

The Summer before the War by Helen Simonson.  She wrote the very popular novel, Mr. Pettigrew’s Last Stand, about intercultural relationships.  This one is set in 1914.

The Cruelest Month by Louise Penny.  An early Inspector Gamache mystery, as always set in Three Pines, Quebec.

A Pattern of Lies by Charles Todd.  This is the 7th in the Bess Crawford mystery series written by a mother-son team.

Tidy Tidbits: Of Books and Burgers

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SUMMER READING

I generally ignore the Parade magazine that comes with our local Sunday paper.  Last week, though, the “Summer Reading Issue” note in the top corner piqued my curiosity.  Parade asked Ann Patchett to come up with a list of the 75 best books of the past 75 years in celebration of the magazine’s anniversary.  Patchett is an author I respect and whose novels I’ve enjoyed.   I admire her for being the force behind the launch of an independent bookstore in Nashville.  She and her staff devised the list and the titles are arranged by decade from the 1940’s to the present.  Liking lists, I went through it and discovered that I’ve only read about a third of them.  Here’s a link to the list and her rationale for several of the choices.

WHAT I’M READING

Their Promised Land:  My Grandparents in Love and War by Ian Buruma.

As you know, I’m a fan of memoirs.  This one was given to me by my friend Patricia.  I had set it aside for a bit and finally decided I need to give it a go.  It’s a charming and complex love story and a peek into personal and societal emotions and actions during the two world wars.  Buruma’s grandparents, Bernard and Win Schlesinger, were very English, yet the generation before them, his great grandparents were German Jews who immigrated to Britain.  Win and Bernard were not actively practicing Jews, yet he faced discrimination when he sought positions as a doctor at various London hospitals (“the old 45,” the family called such prejudice).

During a very long engagement and while separated during the wars, they wrote numerous letters to each other.  Their correspondence is a starting point for Buruma’s personal reflections and his affectionate, yet candid, interpretation of their lives.  My own paternal grandparents, although living quite a different life in Ann Arbor, Michigan, were roughly the same age as his and this added to my interest in the Schlesingers’ story.

GRILLING

This is the 4th of July weekend.  I hope you are celebrating somewhere with hamburgers or hot dogs and perhaps a parade.  Throughout my growing up, my folks belonged to the local yacht club—some members had sailboats (not yachts), but for us, it was really just a swim club.  Almost every warm summer evening, we’d pack up the picnic basket and head to the lake for a swim and then meat (often hamburgers) done on the grill.  Upstate NY has a limited supply of perfect days so you have to take advantage of them.  Watching the sun set over the lake was also required and lovely, provided you remembered your sweater.  It took me a long time to break that habit when I moved to warmer, humid Philadelphia.  I had to re-learn it—never leave home without a jacket—when I lived in cool, foggy San Francisco.  GCF grill

Over the years, the Chief Penguin and I have had a sporadic relationship with grilling.  Very early on, we owned one of those small hibachi grills which fit on our apartment balcony.  Later we graduated to a Weber grill with a cover and then in San Francisco we indulged in a modest gas grill.  That gas grill got very little use, I confess, as the C.P. said it produced a wimpy amount of heat.

Now, after a year of long discussion with our grilling neighbor and a lot of dithering around, we’re the proud owners of a charcoal kettle grill—not the fancy, very expensive green egg, but a black one that, nonetheless, will reach temperatures up to 600 degrees.  My master griller (and this is definitely a masculine role) is enthusiastic about this new project and has acquired the essential equipment (gloves, racks and trays, and best of all, a wireless thermometer) as well as several new cookbooks.  He is now checking off his list of “must-trys.”  Everything from pizza to lamb chops to shrimp to steak and a whole roast chicken.  And, of course, hamburgers!

Header photo:  reallytimes.com