Houseboat Book Shop

Books?  On a boat?  Pretty much my two favorite things?!  Ayuh.  This houseboat book shop, called Word on the Water, meanders the island's numerous canals looking to woo landlubbers and old salt readers alike.  Sometimes you may hop on and start browsing in one village only to end up several villages downstream after getting lost in the Ancient Irish Biographies section (Andrew).  When it's chilly you just fire up the stove and cozy around it with your favorite pile of browsed books.  Ther's even poetry nights up on deck.  Man overboard?  Throw him a good book, as the sign says.    

A Street I Used to Live On

 Recently got to take a walk around some favorite places of mine, including the street I used to live on.  Things looked the same.  Sure I'm sentimental.  I had a wicked Peugeot 10-speed, but this ain't bad.

 Jabberwocky

 Punting, or messing about in boats

 Jogging in the deer park

The Rad 

The Wild Braid - Stanley Kunitz in the Garden

One of our beloved poets on the island was Stanley Kunitz, who lived from 1905-2006.  His garden was, and is, a quiet place of solace, reflection, and meditation.  One of the books I'm reading this spring is The Wild Braid - A Poet Reflects on a Century in the Garden.  The book contains conversations that he had with Genine Lentine, a "bouquet" of poems, and 26 gorgeous photographs by Marnie Crawford Samuelson.  It is very inspiring to read about a man who had passion for his craft and knew that to get anything done, to plant a native flower and harvest a poem, you have to get your hands dirty and continue to nurture with light and water--each day, each day. 

 photo by Marnie Crawford Samuelson

The Round by Stanley Kunitz

Light splashed this morning
on the shell-pink anemones
swaying on their tall stems;
down blue-spiked veronica
light flowed in rivulets
over the humps of the honeybees;
this morning I saw light kiss
the silk of the roses
in their second flowering,
my late bloomers
flushed with their brandy.
A curious gladness shook me.

So I have shut the doors of my house,
so I have trudged downstairs to my cell,
so I am sitting in semi-dark
hunched over my desk
with nothing for a view
to tempt me
but a bloated compost heap,
steamy old stinkpile,
under my window;
and I pick my notebook up
and I start to read aloud
the still-wet words I scribbled
on the blotted page:
"Light splashed . . ."

I can scarcely wait till tomorrow
when a new life begins for me,
as it does each day,
as it does each day.

 

  photo by Marnie Crawford Samuelson 

  photo by Marnie Crawford Samuelson

 

 photo by Marnie Crawford Samuelson

On the Street... An Island Reader

A Miles Island reader...  and yes, it's a book. 

It's a Book - By Lane Smith

 It's a Book is by Lane Smith.  I first read about it in a newspaper.  (Newspaper?  Can you blog with it?  No.  It's a newspaper.)  I still haven't managed to read the hardcopy yet, but it's somewhere on this island.  I know it's a bit ironic to be blogging about this, but I couldn't resist the ape-reading monkey.  And continuing with the irony, check out the trailer for the book below.  Lane Smith also runs a pretty cool blog about 'recommended inappropriate books for kids'.

 

(page shots from Lane Smith's blog)

The Native Trees of Canada

 Here on the island, many of our trees resemble those of Canada.  We've also got a tropical side of the island, but I'll talk about that at another time.  These wonderful paintings by Leanne Shapton from her book Native Trees of Canada depict the simplicity and lushness of our forests.  She recently had a short piece in the New York Times Sunday Book Review in which she pairs her paintings with some favorite passages from her bookshelf that include trees--worth checking out.  I just love the colors in her work.  Now for a walk in the woods!

The Whale by Philip Hoare

 

This book by Philip Hoare should be coming in the mail soon, and I thought I'd just share the cover with you...Allison Saltzman designed the cover for 'The Whale' and Leo Nickolls designed the cover for the UK edition entitled 'Leviathan'.  I love judging books by their covers!  I used to work in a book store and I developed a bit of a fixation on book covers and the way pages and covers feel.  I can tell already, this book promises to be excellent.  Here's a cool website archiving book covers.  What are your favorite book cover designs? 

Common Good Books

Last week we went to Common Good Books in St. Paul.   It is of course Garrison Keillor's book store, and one of the best I've ever been in.  Lots of helpful notes placed around the store, a new poem by Garrison on the white board behind the checkout (frequently updated), and lots of books that are hard to find elsewhere.  I bought a book by Bill Holm, which I'll talk about soon...

Garrison's typewriter from the 50s.

What are you reading?

I'm reading Virginia Woolf's masterpiece Mrs. Dalloway.  It takes place over the period of a single day and Woolf explorations of consciousness and human thought are absolutely spot on.  It's a wonderful read...what do you recommend?