Book Squirrel

Since I've been back at work, I've been squirreling books in my bike panniers and taking them home against a lean season.

I was traumatized by the closing of libraries at the start of this pandemic. Now a few branch libraries are open again, but only for "grab and dash" check outs. Most are still closed.

Not only did library closures leave me half-bookless, they frightened me. Please don't let them be forerunners of times to come.  Libraries are community resources that rely on taxes--vulnerable. 
I haven't heard our puffed-up president go after libraries, or I missed it if he did––or, perhaps he doesn't know they exist, since they are places people go go read...

Anyway, here are some of the books I've brought home.
I'm usually reading several books at a time. 

This year I keep being drawn to stories about people living in times of upheaval or surviving trauma. Wonder why...

I'm feeling dark, but I'm not depressed. I take Andrew Solomon's point, from his TED talk "Depression: The Secret We Share":

"The opposite of depression isn't happiness, but vitality."

If anything, my vitality is up this year--activated by being in the middle of history in the making. I'm looking to other people's stories to see how they handled dark times.

BELOW: I just started the novel Warlight--about a boy and his sister in England during WWII, whose parents have left for Singapore.

Not about darkness...I took home the Joseph Wambaugh novel because I'd remembered how he inspired twenty-year-old me to have a meal of enchiladas and a strawberry shake, but the book instantly felt dated.

 Dorothy Dunnett ^  is going right back to the store. 

BELOW: In a Dark Wood is a memoir of grief--a professor of Italian turns to Dante after his wife is killed in a car accident. 
So far, it's only okay.

Tove Jansson's letters vary, depending who she's writing to. Some are recitals of daily doings--like my emails to my auntie. 
I'm most interested in Jansson's letters to a Jewish friend who moved to the US at the start of WWII, especially the glimpses of how horrible life in wartime is-- Jansson fights with her father who was pro-Nazi: "Faffan [father] and I said we hated each other."

 I've been wanting to read Amos Oz's fiction (above ^ far right) after being intrigued by his memoir of growing up in Israel with a depressed mother, A Tale of Love & Darkness.

Bits and bobs...

BELOW: Each doll is unique. Dictators are all the same.

 

I'd never seen James Castle's art until this book came into work--

he uses paper ephemera, small things, and the alphabet makes me happy.

"James Castle (1899-1977) was an American artist who found inspiration in the detritus of everyday life, primarily in the materials he collected from his family’s home such as envelopes, packaging, advertisements and matchbooks.
Working mostly with soot, spit and homemade tools, he was able to create a rich, complex style that was wholly his own. 

Castle was born deaf and had limited means of communication. However, thanks to the support of his "family, he had dedicated space, supplies and plenty of time to make art. Though he did not gain recognition for his art until the 1950s, Castle’s work is now exhibited in museums and galleries across the world."