There is great variety in my latest escapes:
On Animals by Susan Orlean
“How we interact with animals has preoccupied philosophers, poets, and naturalists for ages,” writes Susan Orlean. Since the age of six, when Orlean wrote and illustrated a book called Herbert the Near-Sighted Pigeon, she’s been drawn to stories about how we live with animals, and how they abide by us.
These stories consider a range of creatures—the household pets we dote on, the animals we raise to end up as meat on our plates, the creatures who could eat us for dinner, the various tamed and untamed animals we share our planet with who are central to human life. In her own backyard, Orlean discovers the delights of keeping chickens. In a different backyard, in New Jersey, she meets a woman who has twenty-three pet tigers—something none of her neighbors knew about until one of the tigers escapes. In Iceland, the world’s most famous whale resists the efforts to set him free; in Morocco, the world’s hardest-working donkeys find respite at a special clinic.
A Line to Kill: A Novel by Anthony Horowitz
When Ex-Detective Inspector Daniel Hawthorne and his sidekick, author Anthony Horowitz, are invited to an exclusive literary festival on Alderney, an idyllic island off the south coast of England, they don’t expect to find themselves in the middle of murder investigation—or to be trapped with a cold-blooded killer in a remote place with a murky, haunted past.
Arriving on Alderney, Hawthorne and Horowitz soon meet the festival’s other guests—an eccentric gathering that includes a bestselling children’s author, a French poet, a TV chef turned cookbook author, a blind psychic, and a war historian—along with a group of ornery locals embroiled in an escalating feud over a disruptive power line.
When a local grandee is found dead under mysterious circumstances, Hawthorne and Horowitz become embroiled in the case. The island is locked down, no one is allowed on or off, and it soon becomes horribly clear that a murderer lurks in their midst. But who?
The third book featuring the real author as a character and his fictional detective Hawthorne is set at a book festival, which made it even more fun for me!
The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times by Jane Goodall, Douglas Abrams
Looking at the headlines--a global pandemic, the worsening climate crisis, political upheaval--it can be hard to feel optimistic. And yet hope has never been more desperately needed.
In The Book of Hope, Goodall focuses on her “Four Reasons for Hope”: The Amazing Human Intellect, The Resilience of Nature, The Power of Young People, and The Indomitable Human Spirit.
Told through stories from her remarkable career and fascinating research, The Book of Hope touches on vital questions including: How do we stay hopeful when everything seems hopeless? How do we cultivate hope in our children? And for the first time, Jane tells the story of how she became a messenger of hope: from living through World War II, to her years in Gombe, to realizing she had to leave the forest to travel the world in her role as an advocate for environmental justice. She details the forces that shaped her hopeful worldview, her thoughts on her past, and her revelations about her next--and perhaps final--adventure.
This book was a pleasant surprise because I now feel there is still hope.
The Italian by Shukri Mabkhout, Translated by Miled Faiza and Karen McNeil
At his father’s funeral, to the great consternation of all present, Abdel Nasser beats the imam who is celebrating the funeral rite. The narrator, a childhood friend, retraces the story of Abdel Nasser from his days as a free and rebellious adolescent spirit to the leader of a student movement and then affirmed journalist.
The 1980s and 90s were crucial years in Tunisia, with great tensions and changes coming: the growth of Islamism fighting against the strong repression by the government. Against this background full of revolutionary ferments, struggles against Islamists and demonstrations against state power stands the tormented love story between Abdel Nasser and Zeina, a brilliant and beautiful philosophy student who dreams of a career in academia.
The dreams of Zeina and Abdel Nasser will unfortunately end up being wrecked under the ruthless gears of a corrupt and male chauvinist society, in which values are only a facade, ending up crushing the individuality, hopes, and aspirations of individuals. Abdel Nasser’s transformation from a young idealist with high hopes to a successful, but disillusioned and tired journalist is masterfully narrated in a stream of stories, digressions and flashbacks in which the narrative tension is always high.
Shukry Mabkhout tackles xenophobia, religious extremism, and bigotry by weaving them into a deeply human story of love, loyalty, family, and fate in Tunisia.
Wild Spectacle: Seeking Wonders in a World beyond Humans by Janisse Ray
Looking for adventure and continuing a process of self-discovery, Janisse Ray has repeatedly set out to immerse herself in wildness, to be wild, and to learn what wildness can teach. She questions what it means to travel into the wild as a woman, speculates on the impacts of ecotourism and travel in general, questions assumptions about eating from the land, and appeals to future generations to make substantive change.
Anchored firmly in two places Ray has called home—Montana and southern Georgia—the sixteen essays here span a landscape from Alaska to Central America, connecting common elements in the ecosystems of people and place. One of her abiding griefs is that she has missed the sights of explorers like Bartram, Sacagawea, and Carver: flocks of passenger pigeons, routes of wolves, herds of bison. She craves a wilder world and documents encounters that are rare in a time of disappearing habitat, declining biodiversity, and a world too slowly coming to terms with climate change.
Wild Spectacle explores the wild earth, and invites us to question its known and unknown beauties and curiosities. Janisse shares stories of people and places that also have special meaning to me, especially the Montana essays.
The journey begins:
Legion: a vision of the building from on high. To the west: trees. To the east: a mall. North: fast food. South: darkness. The building housed hundreds of people. They worked day and night, as restless and constant as the seasons. The first four stories lay open to all, but no one could visit the fifth floor without a special key. Few have seen the roof. The Stairs were for emergencies only.
Several factions vie for dominance in the workplace. A woman plants a seed of insurgency that quickly permeates every corner of the building. A mischief of mice learns to speak English. Something eerie happens once a month on the fifth floor. Second floor personnel develop their own tongue, incomprehensible to all other occupants. Custodians, too, form a cult around the head of their department.
Theo is a graphic artist from Missoula, who every Fall has an amazing Harvest Monster in his front yard!
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