One of my most cherished pre-beach rituals since childhood has been stocking up on books. I’m talking going to the library and gathering up a good 10 or 15 books I’d read over a two week span of near constant reading. Wake up, read. Go to the beach, read. Come home, read. Eat, read. Go to bed, read. My family might not be the largest, the craziest, or even the most adventurous, bud goddamnit we can read anyone under the table.

I had planned to gather my beach reads for this year from my own “library” of a good 40 or so books I haven’t read yet (I counted once a few years ago after spending those first few years after college haunting Boston’s used book stores and buying books way faster than I could possible read them). The only book I had really wanted to buy new was Tina Fey’s Bossypants, which I have heard only hilarious things about (so if you know otherwise please don’t tell me). I always find it kind of amazing when a book can make you truly laugh out loud and that’s what compelled me to get myself to a bookery and shell out the $26.99 for it (and that is the main reason I typically buy books used, the astronomical fees for new ones, particularly the hardcover bestseller kinds).

But then I went here. And lost my head a bit.

Literally 20 minutes later, I walked out of there $88 poorer and six awesome (I hope) books richer. Other than Tina Fey’s book, my haul included:

*Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values (P.S.) by Robert M. Pirsig – I’ve heard lots about this book over the years but never came by a copy.

*The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot – Heard good things, got great reviews and it’s my only non-fiction of the bunch.

*The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins – Supposedly this is the first book of heavy and somewhat dark “children’s” trilogy. Say no more, I’m in.

*The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa – The L.A. Times compared it to Ishiguro and Murakami. Once again, say no more.

And finally, this little Pulitzer Prize winning gem which I’ve already started:

Tinkers by Paul Harding has me hooked 30 pages in and totally mesmerized by Harding’s language and way of describing things. Check out this lovely, lovely description of dusk I just read last night as I was off to bed:

To Howard this was the best part of the afternoon, when folds of night mingled with bands of day. He resisted the desire to stop the wagon and give Prince Edward an apple and crawl into the shadows and sit quietly and become a part of the slow freshet of night, or to stop the wagon and simply remain on the bench and watch the shadows approach and pool around the wagon wheels and Prince Edward’s hooves and eventually reach the soles of his shoes and then his ankles, until mule, cart, and man were submerged in the flood tide of night, because the secrets gathered in the shadows at the tree line that rustled and waited until he passed, and which made the hair on his arms and the back of his neck stand on end and his scalp tighten when he felt them flooding, invisible, the road around him, were dispelled each time he turned his direct attention to them, scattered just beyond his sight.

Passages like that just make me go, “YES.” Thank god there are good writers out there who are published and recognized and put into books for me to read. Thank god it’s not all cotton candy fluff that makes it mainstream. I know I sound like a book snob and I guess I probably am. And you know what? I’m okay with that. I’ll listen to just about any kind of music, eat almost any food that’s good, but I cannot stomach just any book or kind of writing unless there’s some sort of genuine quality to it.

Anyways. Reading rocks. And reading at the beach rocks even harder. And I’ll be rocking out in about three days. And I can’t wait.

The end.

I don’t know if it’s coincidence or merely convenience, but I’ve been crushing on a bunch of different cookbooks lately. (Hmm… just in time for the holidays.) Methinks any (or all?) of these would look perfect on my new cookbook bookshelf.

First up, Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child. After Julie & Julia spurred me to read My Life in France, I feel as if I’ve practically read this already. Plus, not only does this classic cookbook from the woman who introduced French cooking to mainstream America and invented the television chef include all types of basic French recipes, it also teaches all the basic kitchen skills that any good cook should know!

Next, this enormous book of recipes from the late Gourmet magazine (may it rest in peace) has been taunting me from the shelves every time I step into a bookstore these days. It just looks so complete and the shuttering of the magazine makes this collection of recipes seem all the more special.

This next one needs no introduction, except to say, I just got married to a bottomless stomach with a man attached to it. ‘Nuff said.

Finally, this baking book I saw covered on Design*Sponge. I love the story behind it and the cakes look delicious! I’d love to work my way through this book one cake at a time!

Any cookbooks you’d recommend I add to my wish list?

You see, we’re moving in a couple weeks. This time it’s really happening. And so there’s de-cluttering to do and a moving company to book and utilities to notify and address changes to make and as I usually do when faced with an overloaded to-do list, I started to get anxious.

But instead of pushing myself to start cleaning out the closet, I put my boots on and let myself wander down the street with my camera in hand. It was a pretty fall day and I wanted a chance to appreciate our happy little neighborhood before we leave it.

{By me, taken with Nikon D60 – 55-200 mm lens}

Grabbed some coffee.

Stopped into my favorite place in all the land.

And let myself stay.

And play.

(By the by, is there any sight in the world more beautiful than shelf upon shelf of books?)

Then I treated myself to some shopping.

And even let myself bring some things home (these beauties are from the Gap).

It was somewhat bittersweet. Coolidge Corner is one of the most fun, lively neighborhoods in the Boston area, and it’s only as I’m leaving that I find myself really appreciating it. The convenience of having shopping, grocery stores, a movie theater, coffee shops, restaurants, and of course, my favorite bookstore, all within walking distance, can’t be matched.

But for us, it’s time to grow up and move on. Time to buy. Time to exchange location for space. Delicious space. Wonderful space.

Still. I’m going to miss it.

]]> http://www.thespottedduck.com/2009/10/12/so-long-coolidge-corner/feed/ 5 http://www.thespottedduck.com/2009/02/23/at-the-poetry-shop-in-harvard-square/ http://www.thespottedduck.com/2009/02/23/at-the-poetry-shop-in-harvard-square/#comments Mon, 23 Feb 2009 20:01:02 +0000 Shelley Senai http://www.thespottedduck.com/?p=667 I stopped by a poetry bookshop in Harvard Square this past weekend and searched out this old favorite.

I studied Philip Larkin in the English class I took while studying abroad in London. It was dissecting this poem that showed me how beautiful, how intricate, how artful, poetry can really be. I love to read this poem out loud. Hear how the words float from my lips. I love the meaning, haunting and simple and yet you go, “Hmm. Never thought of it that way before.”

Ambulances
by Philip Larkin

Closed like confessionals, they thread
Loud noons of cities, giving back
None of the glances they absorb.
Light glossy grey, arms on a plaque,
They come to rest at any kerb:
All streets in time are visited.

Then children strewn on steps or road,
Or women coming from the shops
Past smells of different dinners, see
A wild white face that overtops
Red stretcher-blankets momently
As it is carried in and stowed,

And sense the solving emptiness
That lies just under all we do,
And for a second get it whole,
So permanent and blank and true.
The fastened doors recede. Poor soul,
They whisper at their own distress;

For borne away in deadened air
May go the sudden shut of loss
Round something nearly at an end,
And what cohered in it across
The years, the unique random blend
Of families and fashions, there

At last begin to loosen. Far
From the exchange of love to lie
Unreachable insided a room
The trafic parts to let go by
Brings closer what is left to come,
And dulls to distance all we are.

Well, kind of. I didn’t grow up in city. I grew up in a very suburban neighborhood in Maryland, about 15 miles from Washington D.C. But if the choice comes down to city kid or country kid, then yes, I’m definitely a city kid.

There’s a lot that’s good about being a city kid. Like how I feel comfortable navigating public transportation systems just about anywhere, or how I’ve always had access to fine art museums, or how everything I could possibly need wasn’t a far drive (or now, walk) away, or how I can be as visible or invisible as I want to be.

But because I’m a city kid, there’s lots I don’t know. Like how to grow my own food, or what an asparagus plant looks like, or what it would be like to know every single kid in school and what their family grows.

Okay, I’m making a lot of generalizations right now. I realize that. Lots of country kids probably have no trouble getting around on public transit, and likewise, plenty of city kids probably know what an asparagus plant looks like. But the point is, I don’t. I have no clue. I know how to find out, sure, but to country kids this is practically common sense.

Right now I’m reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver, and she has really opened my eyes to all I DON’T know about where our food comes from, what living on a farm is like, and the importance of buying locally grown meat and produce. I keep finding myself turning to Andreas and saying things like, “Did you know that each food item on an American dinner plate traveled an average of 1,500 miles to be there?”

One of the most useful things I’ve learned is a trick for knowing whether or not something is “in season.” I always had a vague sense that fruits and vegetables go in and out of season and that if you can catch something when it’s in season, it’s likely going to be cheaper and taste better.

I remember trips to the grocery store as a kid, asking my parents if such and such a fruit or vegetable was in season. (“Hmm, I don’t know. Squeeze it.”)

Kingsolver points out how ridiculous the notion of being able to have any fruit or vegetable, any time of the year, really is. I had never stopped to think about this before but now it gives me pause every time I go to the grocery store. Way back before transporting food was an ordinary thing, before it was even a luxury, people ate what they grew, when they grew it.

The example Kingsolver gives is that it takes a watermelon about three months to grow, so if you find yourself eating one in April, count back three months to January and imagine what place on earth was warm enough to grow a watermelon then. California? Mexico? Chile? Then imagine the cost of transporting a “finicky fruit the size of a toddler” to your door. Yeah.

Most of the produce we now eat has been bred for transport, genetically tweaked and tinkered with to the point that the original fruit is lost altogether. In order to be able to have any fruit or vegetable we want, whenever we want it, we’ve modified our crops for uniform appearance and ease of packaging and sacrificed taste in the meantime.

The trick Kingsolver uses for knowing when something is in season starts with picturing the Mother of All Plants (she calls it the “vegetannual” but I prefer the Mother of All Plants, or the MOAP). Like any plant, the MOAP starts with small leaves in the spring, then bigger leaves, then flowers appear, followed by small green fruits. By summer, the fruits grow “larger, riper, more colorful,” then by fall, they mature into “hard-shelled fruits” with seeds inside. Finally, in late fall, the MOAP hoards it sugars into storage, in the form of tubers, bulbs, and roots.

Now, picture an entire season of foods coming from the MOAP. Start with early spring (April-May), when the leaves start to appear (that’s your lettuces, your kale, your spinach, your leafy greens); then the flowers bloom in May and June (your cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower); come mid-June you have your “tender young fruit set,” (snow peas, baby squash, cucumbers), followed in July by more mature fruits (green beans, green peppers, small tomatoes); by summer you have your colorful fruits (fully grown tomatoes, eggplants, red and yellow peppers); in August and September, the harder fruits and squashes with seeds inside (cantaloupes, honeydews, watermelons, pumpkins); and finally, your root crops.

Granted, there are some exceptions to this model (Kingsolver mentions onions and carrots) but in general, it works, and when I read this, something about it just clicked in my brain. Can it really be that simple? I don’t know why I was thinking that every individual fruit and vegetable had it’s own special time of year in which it matured. Seems like common sense now, but I had just never put two and two together. OH. All leafy greens come into season at the same time. OH, and it coincides with when the trees are pushing out their green leaves in the spring. Of course. Nature isn’t that complicated.

I’m only about a quarter of the way through Animal, Vegetable, Miracle but already there have been several other “a-ha!” moments like this. (By the way, part of my fascination stems from Kingsolver’s incredible writing. If you haven’t read any of her fiction, you’re missing out. Start with The Poisonwood Bible and tell me she’s not a master in character development.)

The only downside here is that all this newfound food knowledge makes me think twice far more often at the grocery store. And while it makes me a more informed consumer and probably a more environmentally friendly one as well, it has also made me feel incredibly guilty about buying out of season. I see fresh asparagus at Stop and Shop now and I think, “Hmm. Asparagus. Well, the MOAP grows asparagus in the spring, so where did this come from? Some place with spring-like temperatures in mid-November. It certainly wasn’t a farm in New England.”

And I know, it’s a good thing. Still, I’m going to miss asparagus.

p.s. I’ll save the lessons I’ve learned about turkey until after Thanksgiving. Suffice to say that nothing, not even knowing now the goings-on in the turkey-making business here in the U.S., will keep me away from my Thanksgiving turkey.

Okay, that’s an understatement.

I’m obsessed.

With reading, with books, bookstores, all of it. There’s no one reason why. I like the look of books, the feel of books. I like the way they look sitting on my shelf. I like the way they look all neat and stacked in the bookstore.

It’s hard for me to walk past a bookstore without going in, and then, it’s hard for me to leave a bookstore empty handed.

I’m particularly fond of used book stores. A day that includes a trip to the used bookstore is probably going to be a good one for me. I could spend hours grazing the shelves, searching for books I’ve heard good things about, books by authors I like, or rare or first editions of books I already know and love.

Then there’s used book store magic. Finding a book you’ve been hunting for for months (happened last year with “Blue Highways” by William Least Heat-Moon. Recommended, by the way). Or discovering a book you’ve never even heard of but that you’re psyched to read (happened recently at Harvard Book Store with a little book called “The Feast of Love” by Charles Baxter. I’ll let you know how it turns out.).

With used books there’s always the possibility of coming across a little piece of the person who spent time with that book before you. Like a plane ticket to Tulsa that flutters to the floor when you’re halfway through. Or a friend of mine, who had a used copy of ‘High Fidelity’ with a love letter scribbled on the inside cover. It was quite extensive but essentially, this girl was proclaiming her undying love for this guy, who presumably used to own the book. No need to wonder how that relationship worked out.

Last week I had the pleasure of visiting The Strand bookstore in New York City. The Strand is one of the oldest book stores in America. Their motto is “18 miles of books,” and they’re not kidding. It was like walking in to a dream. Their fiction section went on for hours. You had to crane your neck to see the top of the shelves. They not only had a copy of every book I had on my list, but several. Different sizes, editions, prices.

Because I had a long walk back to my hotel (and I was already spending enough just being in the city, as it was), I had to limit myself to two books. Wound up taking home ‘Catch-22′ by Joseph Heller, and ‘Everything is Illuminated’ by Jonathan Safran Foer. And a nifty tote bag because, c’mon, it’s THE STRAND.

Who knows when I’ll actually get around to reading these. At last count I had about 30 books on my shelf that I hadn’t read and was planning to. I’m scared to count again but I’m guessing it’s closer to 50 now.

But that’s what I love about books most of all: they’re always there, patiently waiting for me. It’s comforting. “When you’re ready,” they say, “we’re here.”