Category Archives: Book Reviews

Vintage Nature Illustrations

Book Reviews,

When I think of books, I think of a story told in words between a front and back cover. But recently, Diane, owner of East Side Books, turned me on to a whole new genre: vintage books that feature remarkably beautiful illustrations, drawings, and color plates.

Without Diane’s tutelage, I never would have stopped and looked at a book entitled Mushrooms by Albert Pilat. But once Diane showed me the full page color illustrations rendered by artist Otto Usak, I immediately got lost in the gorgeous colors and contours of exotic species of fungi. Along those same lines, The Book of Fish published in 1924 features “92 color plates of familiar salt and fresh-water fish” as beautifully painted by artist Hashime Murayama. The Handbook of Nature-Study by A.B. Comstock is a vintage textbook of quite innovative teaching lessons, but it is the utterly charming black and white illustrations that kept me turning the pages.

Once Diane had piqued my interests in vintage illustrations, she moved me over to our Nature Section and shared with me the books of Ernest Thompson Seton. Seton was a turn-of-the-century nature writer and wildlife artist. It was Seton’s book The Birch Bark Roll of the Woodcraft Indians that was the initial inspiration behind formation of the Boy Scouts of America. East Side Books carries a shelfful of Seton’s classics such as Wild Animals I Have Known, Arctic Prairies, Rolf in the Woods, The Book of Woodcraft, and The Biography of a Silver Fox. Not only are the stories wonderful, but the borders of the pages are filled with delightful black and white illustrations by Seton that give his books the feel of a naturalist’s journal.

We also have a number of books by naturalist Edwin Way Teale. His books often rely on photos as well as drawings, but the illustrations by Edward Shenton are spectacular. Especially his work for the book Dune Boy including the lovely cover art.

Other turn-of-the-century vintage natural histories used not one but several, sometimes dozens, of illustrators and artist to complete their volumes. One of the better known nature books is The American Natural History by William T. Hornaday.  East Side Books houses several editions of this book and the original drawings are not to be missed.  Also excellent is The Library of Natural History by Richard Lydekker. This 1904 edition features beautiful black and white illustrations of birds and an introduction by Ernest Thompson Seton.

One of Diane’s favorite examples of color illustration come from a 1941 edition of Webster’s Encyclopedia Dictionary. Although this thick tome is a bit battered and torn, the pictures burst from the page with resplendent vitality. This classic is a real steal at only $5.

My favorite illustrations come from a 1932 Atlas of Human Anatomy with original drawings by K. Hajek. I have taken a number of anatomy classes over the years and bought several different anatomy textbooks, but none have been as detailed and as thorough as this edition by Dr. Johannes Sabotta. I’m not sure that I will be able to resist adding it to my pile of books during my next visit to East Side Books.

And you don’t have to be afraid that getting hooked on vintage nature books will take toll on your checkbook. Most of these volumes are reasonably priced between $8-$25.

If you like a little something besides words between your covers, I suggest you check out the display of vintage illustrated books that Diane and staff have created on top of the glass case in the Nonfiction Room. If you are looking for illustrated books in other areas of interest, please don’t hesitate to ask Diane for assistance. She is the best at unearthing hidden treasures and piquing interests you didn’t even know you had.

A Clue About Nancy Drew

Book Reviews, Rare Books,

“Bluffing about questionable information can often lead to people revealing juicy secrets.” –The Clue in the Old Stagecoach

I love Nancy Drew.

As a kid, nothing was better than crawling under the covers with a flashlight and a new Nancy Drew mystery. I started collecting the girl detective series written by Carolyn Keene for my own daughter shortly after her birth. I’ve dressed as Nancy Drew three times for Halloween–twice as a child and once as an adult. And I am not ashamed to admit to rereading a Drew mystery now and again. (I am still scared silly when Nancy heads into dark alley to follow the shadowy figure who may or may not be selling fake jewels to the housewives of River Heights. “Don’t go, Nancy! For once in your life be a coward and dial 911!”)

So, it came as a blow when I discovered that there is no Carolyn Keene. All these years I have imagined Keene at her typewriter–an older version of Nancy–tapping out the adventures the titan-haired sleuth. The truth is this: the Nancy Drew mystery series have been penned by no less than sixteen different authors.

“When confused, sit back and try to arrange the facts into some kind of order.”  —The Ghost of Blackwood Hall

Nancy Drew is the brainchild of Edward Stratemeyer. Stratemeyer was one of the first publishers to print books marketed for children. In 1926, he created the popular Hardy Boys series. Even though Stratemeyer believed that a woman’s place was in the home, he was savvy enough to realize that a series featuring an amateur girl detective might be a success as well. The first four Nancy Drew mysteries, published in 1930, were an instant hit.

“When forging a letter to nab a perp, be sure to use grammar and spelling appropriate to the education level of the person you’re impersonating.” –The Ghost of Blackwood Hall

The initial manuscripts featuring Nancy Drew were plotted by Stratemeyer himself, and written by hired writer Mildred Wirt. Wirt wrote the majority of the early Nancy Drew books along with Stratemeyer’s daughter Harriet Adams who eventually took over her father’s publishing company. The later Nancy Drew mysteries were written by numerous ghostwriters, but the characteristics of the girl detective remained consistent throughout the years.

“Lipstick is not just for looking glamorous; it can be used to signal for help on windows or other surfaces.” –The Mystery of the Fire Dragon

Growing up, Nancy Drew was the girl I wanted to be. She’s the girl I want my daughters to be. Not only is she attractive and slim, but she is smart and talented as well.  She speaks French, paints, can drive a motorboat, skies, swims, ice skates, sews, plays golf and tennis, is a gourmet cook, and can hold her own at bridge. When in a jam, the amateur sleuth keeps her cool and relies on her nerve, intellect, and intuition to find a solution. Nancy is a loyal friend, an adoring daughter, and has a handsome and supportive boyfriend. Despite the many trials she undergoes during her investigations, she has never taken any monetary compensation. Plus, she drives a convertible. It doesn’t really get any better than that.

“If you can prevent it, do not chase after thieves when you are clad only in a leotard. It’s unseemly.” –The Scarlet Slipper Mystery

I’m not the only one who admired Nancy’s calm, intelligent demeanor. Powerful women such as Supreme Court Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Sandra Day O’Connor along with Hillary Clinton and Laura Bush all cite Nancy Drew as their girlhood hero and looked to her as a role model. Over 80 million copies of her books have been sold world wide, and her mysteries have been translated into more than 45 languages.

“No one is so jaded that they don’t appreciate praise for mysteries solved or jobs well done, no matter how small.” —The Hidden Window Mystery

My girls are now old enough to enjoy Nancy Drew, and they have fallen in love with her as well. As disappointing as it is to learn that the author of Nancy Drew is really just a pseudonym, I realize that Nancy is still as timeless as ever. . .with or without Carolyn Keene. If anything, the veiled authorship might even add a bit more intrigue to the aura of Nancy Drew.

East Side Books is always well-stocked with the Nancy Drew mystery series. Her books are located in on the Children’s Mystery Series shelves adjacent to the Vintage Children’s Books section.

(The italicized quotes are from the book Nancy Drew’s Guide to Life by Jennifer Worick.)

Time to Bake Bread

Book Reviews,

Although the days are still warm, the night are getting cool and a hint of autumn is in the air. It’s time to retrieve the long pants from the back of the closet and try winter coats on the kids to see if they still fit. Around this time, I start looking forward to abandoning my backyard barbeque grill for my indoor oven, and begin to flip through my cookbooks in search of my favorite bread recipes. Nothing welcomes the first cool days of fall like the aroma of fresh baked bread.

I first learned to make bread while working as a cook at a retreat center in Washington. Nestled in the woods alongside Lake Chelan, the retreat center was accessible by boat only. Supplies, including food, were shipped up once a week. The quantity of bread needed to serve 500 people per meal during the high season was more than the allotted storage space, which meant we made our own bread, every day, sometimes thirty loaves at a time.

We had a recipe taped to the wall, and a huge, floor standing Hobart mixer with an enormous bread hook. The cook assigned to bread making would stand at the mixer, the bowl large enough to hide an average size person, and thrown in handfuls of salt, gallons of water, and scoopfuls of flour. Once we got the hang of it, most of us didn’t even measure.  After the bread was mixed, the bread cook would grab a couple fellow workers to wrestle the large bowl full of dough onto the counter. The bowl would then be cover it with plastic, and the dough left to rise until mid-morning. When the time was right, everyone working in the kitchen would meet at the bread table and together we would shape the loaves.  After a half an hour more of rising time, our bread was ready to go in the oven. It was that simple. What kind of bread was made depended on the cook on duty that day. Some bakers threw in seeds or oats while others used leftover bean soup or peanut butter. Some cooks preferred almost all whole wheat flour while the more popular cooks were heavy on the white flour. But in the end, it didn’t really matter what went into the dough, the final product that graced the tables in the dining room was fresh, delicious, and usually just the slightest bit warm.

Robert Browning wrote, “If thou tastest a crust of bread, thou tastest all the stars and all the heavens.” I definitely agree with Robert on that one, but I am often surprised how many people have confessed to me that they have never made bread from scratch.  Although the best bread can be made with just a few simple ingredients–flour, yeast, salt, and water–people are often intimidated by bread recipe terms such as “proofing” and daunted by the long rising times. But like anything else, bread making is doable when broken down into manageable steps and with a bit of practice.

One way to insure your bread baking success is to check out some of our excellent cookbooks in the Baking Section of East Side Books. A reliable source to start with is the Sunset Cookbook of Breads. This book covers all the basics such as white sandwich bread, hearty rye loaves, and even gives simple instructions for making your own sourdough starter. I have several other cookbooks put out by Sunset, and I have found the recipes to be reliable and easy to follow. Another book that breaks down bread baking to a manageable level is Homemade Bread put out by Farm Journal. I especially love their recipe for Easter Egg Bread which features a colored egg in the center.

If you are already a seasoned bread baker, you should snatch up our copy of Flavored Breads by Linda Collister. This baking book not only has beautiful color photos, but has wonderfully interesting recipes such as Chile Pepper Bread, Sour Cherry Loaf, Poppyseed Loaf, and Olive Oil Bread made in a wreath shape. The Pillsbury Bake Off Bread Cookbook was published much earlier than Collister’s book, but also features some unique and delicious sounding recipes that stretch the concept of what bread is. Check out the mouthwatering recipe offerings such as Coffee Time Bread Rolls, Maple Butter Twists, and Cherry Rings. If you have a bread machine that helps you take a bread-making shortcut, check out our selection of bread machine cookbooks.

I love searching through the cookbooks at East Side Books for the perfect bread recipe. A few years ago, I stumbled on a quick yet tasty recipe in the wonderfully handy book The Tightwad Gazette II by frugal living expert Amy Dacyczyn. Although some of the ideas in her book are wacky–my husband said a big N-O to drying and recycling coffee grounds for a second use–the recipes are always excellent, cheap, and easy.  The “Faster Than A Speeding Bread Machine” recipe is no exception. All that is needed is a few ingredients and a cold oven. I experimented with the original recipe until I came up with my own moister version.

Bread So Fast It Will Make Your Head Spin

 

5-6 cups all purpose flour (I use a combination of white and wheat flour.)

2 tablespoons of yeast

2 tablespoons of sugar

3 teaspoons of salt

2 cups of hot water

2 tablespoons of oil

 

Mix four cups of flour with yeast, sugar, and salt. Pour in hot water and beat vigorously 100 strokes, or three minutes with a mixer. Stir in the remaining flour until the dough is no longer sticky. Knead eight minutes, or if your mixer has a bread hook attachment, mix until a well-kneaded ball forms. Place the dough in a greased bowl, and cover with a damp towel. Let rise 15 minutes. Punch down. Divide into dough two. Shape into two round loaves and place on a greased cookie sheet, or shape into rectangles and place in greased bread pans. Place on the middle shelf of a COLD oven. On the lowest rack of the oven, place a muffin tin pan filled with hot water. Turn oven to 375 degrees, and bake 40 minutes or until golden brown on top and bottom. (If the loaves sounds hollow when you thump on the bottoms, they are done.) Remove loaves from pans immediately and let cool thoroughly on a wire rack before cutting.

This recipe is so foolproof that I have used it for a baking lesson in a class of 4th through 8th graders. In groups of three, they measured, stirred, and kneaded their dough. In fact, they kneaded their dough with so much gusto that their loaves rose higher than any I’d ever made before. The students were beyond pleased with themselves as they admired their golden loaves cooling on the wire racks.  After eating several slices at snack time, delicious even without butter, each student took their leftover bread and a copy of the recipe home with them to try on their own.

If you have never baked bread before, or if it has been a few years since you filled your home with the aroma of fresh bread, stop by East Side Books and pursue our cookbook shelves for some baking inspirations. Pick up a packet of yeast and a bag of flour on your way home, and before you know it, you will too can be tasting the stars and heaven just like Browning.

When Did You Last Read a Play?

Book Reviews

The other day my friend Ron sent me an email suggesting I read The Man Who Came to Dinner written by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman. He’d just finished it and found it delightfully funny. The title rang a bell, and on further investigation I discovered that it is a three act play first staged in 1939. Ron’s recommendation got me to wondering: when was the last time I’d read a play, and more importantly, why had it been so long.

I probably haven’t read a play since college when I was a more adventurous reader, jumping between all forms of writing in all genres. Another reason I haven’t picked up a play for awhile is the misconception that plays are a lot of work to read–all those stage directions and a story told in dialog only. It is kind of like why I hesitate to pick up a foreign film for a Friday night flick. Too much work to read those subtitles.

But the reality is that after the first couple minutes of a foreign film, I become so absorbed that I forget the subtitles are there. It is the same with plays. Once I get started, it’s like the form disappears and I am within the action. Another advantage of plays is that they are generally short, which means I can read them without a huge time commitment.

I decided that I must reinvite plays back into my reading repertoire. With that in mind, I headed down to East Side Books and was happy to discover that they have an extensive Play section that I have been neglecting for years. Among the volumes, I found some old favorites such as a collection of six plays by Lillian Hellman who wrote the highly acclaimed and controversial The Children’s Hour. Hellman was quite an important figure during her reign. I suggest after reading her plays, that you check out her memoirs in our Biography section, Pentimento and An Unfinished Woman.

I was also happy to find several volumes of plays by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. He has been called the “father of prose drama” and it is widely acknowledge that he is the best playwright of all time after Shakespeare. I remember being memorized by The Doll’s House and Hedda Gabler, two of his more famous works. I was also moved greatly by A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry when I read it in high school, just as Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller was an intriguing read for a college seminar.

Speaking of Shakespeare, East Side Books has no shortage of works by the master. In fact we have two whole shelves devoted to his work. Although best known for Romeo and Juliet, I would have to recommend the chilling MacBeth as a must-Shakespeare-read. It is said that MacBeth carries a curse that is invoked if cast members in the play speak the title of the play within the theater. To do so brings down a hail of misfortune upon the production. This legend is so widely believed that many MacBeth cast members don’t tempt fate and refer to the darkest of Shakespeare’s work as only “the Scottish play” or “Lady M.”

As much as I like to revisit old favorites, I was pleased to find a number of plays and playwright that I’ve never read before. Some names were familiar and moved quickly up on my must-read list such as Irish playwright Bernard Shaw who penned Major Barbara,  Man and Superman, and Pygmalion upon which the movie My Fair Lady is based. American Eugene O’Neill ranks high on my list also as I frequently hear references to A Long Day’s Journey Into Night and The Iceman Cometh. If I wanted to go way back, we have half a shelf of work by Sophocles as well as Shakespeare’s contemporary Christopher Marlowe, an excellent playwright in his own right, and John Milton of Paradise Lost fame. Some of the more contemporary names that tempted me were Harold Pinter, Noel Coward, and Neil Simon.

After perusing the Play section of East Side Books, I decided that there were just too many excellent plays beckoning that I couldn’t neglect them any longer. I have vowed to read at least one play a month in an effort to include this wonderful genre into my reading rotation. I’m going to start with The Man Who Came to Dinner.

If the last time you read a play was too many years in the past to count, make a stop at East Side Books today and pick up a play.  Our Play section is located next to Biographies across from General Fiction.  If you need assistance finding one of the titles mentioned above, please ask one of the East Side staff for help.

I Spy Great Espionage Novels at East Side Books

Book Reviews,

This summer I happened to pick up a book by bestselling author Dan Silva. I’d never read him before, and didn’t know what to expect, but I was pleasantly surprised. The writing was smooth and held my attention. I had never read a spy thriller before with the exception of the work of Dan Brown, and even though Brown comes up with interesting premises and touches on fascinating ideas, I find his writing to be uneven at times. But not so with Silva, which made me wonder: Is there anyone better than Silva in the spy-thriller genre?

I googled “best espionage novel of all time” and found that there was no limit to the number of people willing to throw their two cents in about the best spy thrillers to date. But again and again, John le Carre’s The Spy Who Came in From the Cold kept rising to the top. I knew that East Side Books had a shelf full of his work, so I ran down and purchased a copy.

I’d been under the impression that le Carre was like Silva, a modern day bestseller who’d been around for maybe twenty years or so. I was surprised to discover that The Spy Who Came in From the Cold was le Carre’s third novel, and was published in 1964. Intrigued, I started reading the story of agent Alec Leamas and post-WWII relations with East Germany. It was a fascinating book, skillfully written and intensely plotted. I hadn’t read anything like it in a long time. I really felt like le Carre knew what he was writing about, which I discovered he actually did because The Spy Who Came in From the Cold was written while he worked for the British foreign-intelligence agency. (John le Carre is a pseudonym.) le Carre is now almost eighty years old, and writes to this day, recently publishing Our Kind of Traitor.

Flush with my success at discovering le Carre, I compiled a list of recommended topnotch spy thrillers, and returned to East Side Books. Espionage novels are shelved under Mystery/Thriller/Suspense, and I was excited to find that East Side has quite a deep collection.

AlthoughThe Spy Who Came in From the Cold was a run away favorite among espionage novel lovers, le Carre’s hit was closely followed by The Eye of the Needle by Ken Follett (who also wrote Pillars of the Earth, a historical novel picked as an Oprah Book Club book), and The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth. I was pleased to see that East Side has a wealth of novels written by both of these authors. There is also a large supply of work by Tom Clancy and Len Deighton, two other authors that were frequently mentioned as the best of the best. There was even some Dan Silva who first piqued my interest.

Unlike the mystery genre, there are few women writing in the area of espionage with the notable exception of Helen MacInnes who’s book Above Suspension was mentioned often in my Google search. Margaret Truman also tries her hand at spy thrillers, and there are a number of her novels on East Side Books’ shelves.

The most surprising discovery during my “best of” spy thriller search was discovering authors I’d known only as writers in other genres, such as Graham Greene who wrote the notable thriller The Quiet American, which is next on my list. And also, one of my favorite writers, W. Somerset Maugham, author of Of Human Bondage, who wrote a collection of loosely connected short stories about the spy adventures of a playwright named Asheden. The book is also entitled Asheden. It turns out that Maugham, like le Carre, worked for British Intelligence. Norman Mailer also wrote a spy thriller called Harlot’s Ghost that was published in 1991.

Invite a little intrigue into your life. Stop by East Side Books today and explore the world of espionage one page at a time. As always, if you need any assistance finding any of the titles mentioned above, please ask one of the staff for help.

Zucchini Bounty

Book Reviews,

There isn’t much produce to be had in the Owens Valley this summer. A late April frost wiped out most of the fruit tree blossoms, and due to a long cool spring, gardens got planted late. Regardless, Diane, dedicated gardener and owner of East Side Books, is up to her ears in zucchini. So much so that she is sharing bagfuls with her staff at the bookstore.

This unexpected bounty of zucchini had me running for the Cookbook Section. After all, there is only so much fried zucchini, the only recipe I know for squash, that one can eat. Luckily, East Side Books has a number of excellent sources for zucchini recipes. For example, Jeff Smith, former PBS cooking master, includes recipes for Cold Zucchini Soup and Zucchini Quiche in his book The Frugal Gourmet Whole Family Cookbook. I have never misfired with a recipe by Smith and use his cookbooks often. (East Side Books has a number of his cookbooks, including a not-to-be-missed The Frugal Gourmet Celebrates Christmas.)

A number of cookbooks in our Italian Cooking Section includes zucchini recipes. An especially beautiful cookbook on this shelf is Lidia’s Family Table by Lidia Matticchio Bastianich. She features squash recipes such as zucchini lasagna and zucchini white bean soup as well as lots of photos.

But I really hit the mother lode of zucchini recipes when I moved over our excellent Vegetarian Section. The cookbook American Vegetable Recipes put out by the Farm Journal had sixteen zucchini recipes listed in their index. I was hungry after scanning the cooking instructions for Zucchini Corn Bake and Zucchini Casserole with Sour Cream.

While main and side dishes featuring zucchini are well and good, I found myself most interested in the zucchini desserts.  A zucchini is a vegetable, right? So, I figure adding a vegetable to a dessert automatically turns a treat into a healthy snack.  Are you following my logic?

Regardless, after perusing a number of excellent cookbooks on our shelves, one being a 1960 edition of the Fanny Farmer Cookbook, I cobbled together enough information to figure out how to make a zucchini cake. I added applesauce, allspice, cinnamon, and chopped dried dates to give my zucchini a little twist. An hour later, my family was enjoying a moist, flavorful, and healthful treat. Just to make sure that the zucchini cake was as good as it seemed, and to meet my vegetable quota for the day, I ate about half the pan myself.

Healthful Zucchini Date Cake

1/2 cup oil

1/2 cup applesauce

3/4 cup brown sugar

1 cup white sugar

3 eggs

2 tsp vanilla

2 cups flour (I used 1 c. wheat and 1 c. white flour)

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

2 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. allspice

pinch of salt

3/4 c. chopped dried dates

2 cups grated zucchini

cinnamon sugar mixture

Mix oil, applesauce, and sugars. Add eggs and vanilla, and beat well. Mix in dates, spices, soda, salt, and baking powder. Alternate flour and zucchini, mixing well after each addition. Pour into greased and floured13x9x2 inch pan. Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar. Bake at 350 degrees for 50 minutes or so.

Encouraged by my zucchini cake success, I tried my hand at zucchini cookies. With the addition of raisins, these tasty treats are sweet enough to appeal to my children yet healthy enough to send to school for their morning snack.

Zucchini Cookie Treats

1/2 cup butter, melted

1 cup brown sugar

1 egg

1 cup grated zucchini

2 cups flour (I used 1 c. wheat and 1 c. white flour)

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. cloves

1 cup raisins

Cream together butter and sugar.  Add egg. Mix well. Add zucchini. Mix in the dry ingredients. Stir in raisins. Drop by teaspoonfuls on a greased cookie sheet. Bake at 375 degrees for 8 to 10 minutes.

The zucchini on my counter has dwindled to one small squash. I am hoping Diane comes in soon with another load.  In the meantime, I am thinking about trying out a Zucchini Latka recipe I spied in one of the cookbooks at East Side Books.

What are you doing with all your zucchini? We’d love to know. Post your favorite recipe in the Comments section below. If you are searching for new squash recipes, or any other recipes, drop into East Side Books and check out our great cookbook selection.  You are sure to find a recipe that makes you want to run home and fire up your oven.

As always, if you need any help, please ask one of our staff for assistance.

Local Foods, Local Gardens, Local Books on all of them!

Book Reviews, Events, Latest Finds

I was thrilled last Friday evening after closing the store to actually remember and then to not have other obligations that required scurrying off somewhere – I  got to shop our new Friday Farmer’s Market!  Still small, but wonderful all the same. I am glad it is on Friday’s now!  I bought beautiful beets from Bishop Creek Farms and spinach from Banner Springs.  Their arugula looked great too, but that is flourishing in my garden.   I also tasted salad offerings from TheSecretSandwichSociety, yummy.  If that society is still secret to you, you need to check out their website and order some lunches to be delivered in Bishop via bicycle.  Their menu has vegan choices and is all healthy and conscientious, as well as delicious. Make sure to use The in the web address or you will be ordering from New Hampshire or someplace, which defeats the whole local concept!

We had such a late spring that my own garden is slow and looking a little stunted.  Just last night though, we ate our first little squash in a quiche also made with our own ham and eggs. We also had a nice arugula salad, which my kids were not crazy about, but I liked.  I get tired and frustrated with my gardening efforts sometimes, but when most of the meal was produced by me or people I know, it really does make me feel happy and a little virtuous.  I am also happy, ecstatic actually, to see more and more local food options popping up around the Owens Valley.  Check out the UCCE Master Gardener’s of Inyo Mono handbook for a nice list if you’ve missed them.  Bishop Creek Farms mentioned a Facebook page as well to check out.  Of course you can come by the Farmer’s Market tomorrow night and talk to Master Gardeners in person (you can get started on a fall garden you know) and the other producers as well as craftspeople.  Mammoth’s Farmer’s Market is on Wednesday nights if you live to the north.

Do I have a book tie-in?  Of course I do!  If you have not yet read Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal Vegetable Miracle, come pick up the one copy we still have on the shelf.  She is just a wonderful writer, and even vegans I know loved her chapter on butchering turkeys!  While her current location in rural Virginia makes eating locally (food produced within 100 miles) a little easier than in the Owens Valley, she makes the effort seem worthwhile, or more like essential, and very doable.  Plus she includes recipes! Another writer who beautifully inspires us to treasure those heirlooms and regional specialties is David Mas Masumoto, a peach grower in the Fresno area (Fresno is within 100 miles as the crow flies…..).  He wrote the classic An Epitaph for a Peach, as well as Letters to the Valley (signed copy on the shelf now) and Harvest Son.  Well worth reading.  Also pulled from the shelf, Fading Feast by Raymond Sokolov looks fascinating as well.  It is “a compendium of disappearing American regional foods”,  things like Smithfield Ham, Minnesota Wild rice and abalone from La Jolla.  It has recipes and pictures, and is part travel memoir to boot!  The Omnivore’s Dilemma  by Michael Pollan has been making news for quite some time on the scary science behind the other end of the food spectrum, we also have High Tech Harvest by Paul Lurquin and similar titles if you need more convincing.  More fun reading looks like Blithe Tomato by Mike Madison, “an insider’s wry look at farmers’ market society”.  I don’t think our Bishop Farmer’s Market has quite reached society status yet, but it is fun and shopping feels like joining a burgeoning movement.

Don’t forget all of the excellent gardening books on our shelves as well, from Sunset Western Gardening to classics on pruning and JI Rodale’s Earthworm’s are Our Friends.  I am sorely tempted to take that one home every time I see it, so please come rescue it !

Not sure what to do with some of those beautiful beets?  Here is a favorite recipe from Nigella Lawson’s Forever Summer cookbook.  Her cookbooks are a pure joy to read, and laugh-out-loud funny at times.  (We have her memoir on the shelf too, did I mention that?)  She says this recipe is vaguely Scandinavian, to be served with Hasselback Potatoes and salmon, which I of course do.

Raw Beet, Dill and Mustard Seed Salad
 
big bunch fresh dill (apx 6 T when chopped)
18 oz raw beets ( I have no idea how much  is 18 oz of beets, I use about 4-5 med to large beets per recipe)
juice of 1 lemon
2 Tbs extra virgin olive oil
2 TS mustard seeds
a spoonful or so of chopped fresh flat leaf parsley for garnish
 
 
Blitz dill in food processor to chop.  Use julienne or grating disc in food processor to grate peeled, raw beets.  (Nigella’s quote here on peeling beets – “I use rubber gloves for this, so I’m not like Lady Macbeth with my incarnadined hands forever.”  Personally I never have rubber gloves handy, so live with red hands, it does not last forever!)
 
Turn beets into bowl with dill and toss.  Squeeze the lemon juice over, drizzle in the olive oil and toss again.  Use a nonstick or heavy frying pan (cast iron works great) to toast the mustard seeds for a couple of minutes.  Add to beet and dill salad and toss again.  Sprinkle with some reserved dill and/or parsley for a “final uplifting hit of more vibrant green”.  (Gotta love Nigella’s use of language!:)
 
She says you can use parsley or any herby combination you are in the mood for if you can’t find fresh dill, but I would not give up the dill.

Garden fresh, it is one of the best parts of summer.  Along with reading a great book, or reading a great book about gardening.    And do you have any ideas for arugula?  Come see us.

Open Your Heart to Poetry

Book Reviews, Sales

“A poem begins with a lump in the throat; a homesickness or a love-sickness. It is a reaching out toward expression, an effort to find fulfillment. A complete poem is one where an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found the word.” –Robert Frost

April is National Poetry Month, and although I am not an expert when it comes to poetry–in fact, I barely muddled through my college literature classes–I have a euphoric love for certain poems. As poet Nikki Giovanni explains in her poem “Art Sanctuary”: “Art offers Sanctuary to everyone willing/ to open their hearts as well as their eyes.” (Please read complete poem here. http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2011/02/17)

East Side Books has an exceptional Poetry section that is overflowing with volumes of poems that will crack your heart wide open. Whether you’re into Shakespeare and Milton, or prefer Dickinson and Whitman, or don’t really know a thing about poetry, you are sure to be moved, inspired, and changed by exploring the amazing breadth of our poetry shelves.

In the movie “Bright Star,” about the intense but brief love affair between poet John Keats and Fanny Brawne, there is a brilliant exchange between the two on the subject of reading poetry.

Fanny Brawne:  “I still don’t know how to work a poem.”

John Keats: “A poem needs understanding through the senses. The point of diving into a lake is not immediately to swim to the shore, but to be in the lake, to luxuriate in the sensation of the water. You do not work the lake out, it is an experience beyond thought. Poetry soothes and emboldens the soul to accept mystery.”

Keats died tragically at the age of 25, when he was just beginning to produce work that allows readers to reach beyond thought and accept that which was previously unknown or unseen.  As Robert Frost, one of the most well-known and well-loved American poets, said, “Poetry can make you remember what you didn’t even know you knew.”

Frost calls his poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” his “best bid for remembrance.”  After staying up all night to work on a poem entitled “New Hampshire,” Frost wandered outside and waited for the sun to rise.  He suddenly had an idea and rushed back inside to write the lovely lines; “Whose woods these are I think I know./ His house is in the village, though;/ He will not see me stopping here/ To watch his woods fill up with snow.” (Please read complete poem here. www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/20519)  Frost completed the rest of the poem without pause, “as if having a hallucination.”  What was it in that June summer morning over 90 years ago that inspired Frost to write the lines that so easily plunges readers into the depth of winter?

W.S. Merwin says that “If a poem is not forgotten as soon as the circumstances of its origin, it begins at once to evolve an existence of its own, in minds and lives, and then even in words, that its singular maker could never have imagined.”

Sharon Olds and Mary Oliver are two poets who create poems that take on an existence of their own in my life. For years I have kept a copy of “Wild Geese” by Oliver on my bulletin board, and turn to it whenever necessary. The first lines begin:  “You do not have to be good./ You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting./ You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves./ Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine./ Meanwhile the world goes on.” ( Please read the complete poem here. www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/m_r/oliver/online_poems.htm)

Poet Charles Bukowski agrees that we only have to love what we love. He says, “There is nothing wrong with poetry that is entertaining and easy to understand. Genius could be the ability to say a profound thing in a simple way.”

A poem that displays simple genius most beautifully is “Oranges” by Gary Soto. “The first time I walked/ With a girl, I was twelve,/ Cold, and weighted down/ with two oranges in my jacket./ December.” (Please read complete poem here. http://www.Akoot.com/garysoto10.html ) Soto’s description of adding an orange to his nickel on the store counter when the chocolate bar the girl picks out cost a dime is pitch perfect writing.

I also love, even though I can’t say exactly why, the poem “This Is Just To Say” by William Carlos Williams. It is just a few lines that read like a note taped on the refrigerator about why he ate all the plums, but it is perfect. “Forgive me/ they were delicious/ so sweet/ and so cold.”  (Please read complete poem here. www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15535) Williams was not only a poet, but a pediatrician. He said that he could not have had “one without the other,” and that his two professions complimented each other.

Poetry does compliment our lives, whether we are reading it or writing it. I am a huge fan of The Writer’s Almanac on National Public Radio. Every morning Garrison Keillor of Prairie Home Companion fame reads a poem. Since my early hours are now busy with getting lunches packed and children off to school, I often miss hearing the Writer’s Almanac, but have discovered that I can have it delivered daily by email. (Go to http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/)

Now, each morning, I turn on my computer to find a new poem waiting for me. Sometimes I skim the first line, feel like I am back in my college lit class, and hit the delete button. But more often, I find myself reading the first few lines and then returning to the beginning, to read the whole poem through more carefully. As I sip my coffee and the first light of the day touches the windows, I savor lines such as these:

“If you stare at it long enough/ the mountain becomes unclimbable./ Tally it up. How much time have you spent/ waiting for the soup to cool?” (“Against Hesitation by Charles Rafferty. www.laferle.com/2010/02/against-hesitation/)

“But I didn’t know I loved the clouds,/ those shaggy eyebrows glowering/ over the face of the sun.” (“Things I Didn’t Know I Loved: After Nazim Hikmet” by Linda Pastan http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2010/05/27)

“You are a warm front/ that moved in from the north,” (“You and I” by Jonathan Potter http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2011/02/28)

“I don’t know why so much sweetness hovers around us./ Nor why the wind blows the curtains in the afternoons,/ Nor why the earth mutters so much about its children.” (“The Blind Old Man by Robert Bly http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2011/02/16)

“I love mankind most/ when no one’s around./ On New Year’s Day for instance,/ and I’m driving home on the highway alone/ for hours in the narrating rain” (“Be Mine” by Paul Hostovsky http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2010/12/30)

Billy Collins, crowned by the New York Times as “the most popular poet in America,”  says that “I don’t think people read poetry because they’re interested in the poet.  I think they read poetry because they’re interested in themselves.”

Come on into East Side Books and find yourself in our Poetry section. If you need help finding any of the above mentioned poets, please ask our staff for assistance.

Oliver concludes in “Wild Geese”: “Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,/ the world offers itself to your imagination,/ calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting–/ over and over announcing your place/ in the family of things.”

Explore Nature Writers

Book Reviews, Sales, Uncategorized

This month at East Side Books, our Nature books are on sale. Our shelves are overflowing with amazing writing by some of the top nature writers around.

Here is a short list of some of my all-time favorite nature books:

The Country Year by Sue Hubbell

Hubbell, former librarian turn beekeeper turn writer, lives and works on a 100 acre farm in the Ozarks. There she tends 200 beehives and produces honey on a commercial scale.  Her book, A Country Year, is a beautiful collection of short vignettes arranged by seasons that give a glimpse into her work and landscape. The descriptions of beekeeping are engrossing, the writing is simple and lovely, and finishing the last page will leave you longing for more.

The John McPhee Collection by John McPhee

I first read John McPhee in a college seminar on writing. We were given an essay he wrote about oranges. At the time, my classmates and I couldn’t imagine anything more boring that a handful of pages dedicated to a fruit. Wisely, our professor made us read McPhee’s essay in class.  I was blown away; I had never read anyone who wielded the English language more deftly.  From that moment on I was a McPhee convert.  One of his very best books is Coming Into the Country–copies can be found in our Alaska section.   If you have yet to experience McPhee, you might want to check out The John McPhee Collection, a book comprised of selections from the first twelve books he published. But really, you can’t go wrong no matter which book of McPhee’s you pick up.

Dakota: A Spiritual Geography by Kathleen Norris

Perhaps I am biased by my Midwestern upbringing, but I found Dakota by Kathleen Norris to be one of the most powerful nonfictional accounts of the Plains on record. (The best fictional exploration of the Midwestern landscape is far and away the work of Willa Cather. Her books can be found on our General Fiction shelves.) Norris moved from New York to an isolated town in northwestern South Dakota, and explores her inner and outer landscapes in this personal account of that transition. I was not surprised to read that Norris is also a poet–her writing is at once lyrical and moving. Her later works delve more into her spiritual quests. The Cloistered Walk, her account of the time she spent living at a Benedictine monastery, can be found in our Christianity section.

Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place by Terry Tempest Williams

Although I first read Refuge over 20 years ago, it has remained one of my top five favorite books of all time. In one slim volume, Williams tells the story of her family history of breast cancer, governmental nuclear weapons testing in the Nevada desert, and the destruction of bird habitat along the shores of the Great Salt Lake in Utah. Williams weaves the bits and pieces of these heartbreaking stories into a lovely tapestry using language that is spare yet gorgeously crafted. It is a book you have to discover and experience for yourself.  When I closed the cover for the last time, I felt that my life was enriched and changed by the story William so masterfully told.

Woodswoman by Anne LaBastille

In the 60’s, Anne LaBastille purchased a bit of land in the Adirondack Mountains and built a log cabin where she lived in a Thoreau-like fashion. She chronicled her adventures, lifestyle, and personal relationship with the land in her books Woodswoman, Beyond Black Bear Lake, Woodswoman III, and Woodswoman IIII. Reading the books by LaBastille years and years ago sent me on a lifelong exploration of homesteading. My personal shelves teem with books on living off the land, cabin building, and survival manuals. I may never live like LaBastille, but her example of living in harmony with her surroundings still effects the decisions I make in my daily life.

Some other titles you might not want to miss are: Living by the Word by Alice Walker; Crossing Open Ground by Barry Lopez; Teaching a Stone to Talk and Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard; Silent Spring by Rachel Carson; and The Good Rain by Timothy Egan.

Come on down to East Side Books and discover your own favorite nature writers by browsing through our extensive collection. If you need any help locating the books mentioned above, please ask our staff for assistance.

What is a Regency Romance?

Book Reviews, Latest Finds

East Side Books owner Diane and I stand in the Romance section and look at a new display of books.

“These are called Regencies,” Diane says. She shows me the word “Regency” on the spine of a book she plucks from a wire rack. “I thought it was a publisher, but then I discovered that it is a specific type of romance novel written in the Regency period in England.”  She flips through the pages.

Feeling slightly ignorant, I ask, “When was the Regency Period?”

“Jane Austin’s time–1830 to 1850 or so.”  She straightens a couple books on the rack, and whispers, “When there is a woman on the front cover in an empire dress, I know they are a Regency.”

I look at the rows of books.  A high waisted dress, gathered just under generous breasts, on every single cover.

“Oh,” says a customer sitting not far from us, holding a couple romance novels in her hand.  “I use to read Regency novels all the time. I loved them! Especially Georgette Heyer.  She was absolutely wonderful.  Barbara Cartland wrote some Regency romances also, but Heyer was the best.”  She sighs happily and smiles.  “How I loved those books.”

Curious, upon returning home I googled “Regency romance novels.” It turns out that Regencies are actually a subgenre of romance novels. The requirement to be a Regency is that it be set during the early 1800’s and be a “novel of manners” in the tradition of Jane Austen. Of course, the heroines have to wear empire dresses.

And our customer was right. Georgette Heyer (1902-1974) was the master of Regency novels.  In fact, she invented the genre of historical romances and the more specific Regency romances with the release of Regency Buck in 1935. It became a instant bestseller, and Heyer went on to publish over fifty more novels.

Heyer’s claim to fame was the enormous amount of detail that she included in her stories that aided in setting a mood and tone. Since Austen was writing within her time period, she could eliminate the minute details of dress and decor, but Heyer had to include great descriptions to set the Regency atmosphere. Attention to detail became her passion, and it is said that at the time of her death she owned over 1,000 historical reference books.  Despite the popularity of her books and accuracy of historical detail, Heyer was ignored by the critics.  She, herself once said, “I think myself that I ought to be shot for writing such nonsense…But it’s unquestionably good escapist literature and I think I should rather like it if I were sitting in an air-raid shelter or recovering from the flu.”

Barbara Cartland (1901-2000), “Queen of Romance,”  is also well known for her Regency novels although she did not limit her romances to that time period as Heyer did. Cartland, who died in 2000, formerly held the Guinness World Record for the most novels written in a single year–23 in 1983 at the age of 82.  She published 883 manuscripts, and over a billion copies of her books have been sold.

Beginning in the 1990s, Recencies began to lose popularity among the romance reading set. These days only a handful of “traditional” Regencies are still published.  To help increase readership, current Regency authors throw in a bit more sexuality–an addition that would have shocked Heyer and Cartland, and definitely not fallen within the permissible boundaries of Jane Austen’s world.

But just within the last year or so, Regencies have made a big comeback.  Their popularity is on the upswing, and Regency writers such as Mary Balogh, Cathy Maxwell, and Eloisa James as well as Heyer and Cartland are being rediscovered and enjoyed. Since Regency publication has dwindled, the best place to find Regency romances is at your local used bookstore.

So all you romantics, come on down to East Side Books and browse our new Recency rack located in our Romance section.  You can’t miss it, just look for the empire dresses, but if you need help, ask one of our staff for assistance.