I'm reading Wickerby: An Urban Pastoral by Charles Siebert, which begins in that effortlessly melodious way that looks easy, but when you let your eye linger a bit you realize it is much more than that. Siebert opens with an epigraph from Thoreau, that great but ascetic mind: "We soon get through with Nature. She excites an expectation which she cannot satisfy." And then he begins:
Just across the street from my sixth-story Brooklyn apartment, there's an abandoned apartment inhabited by pigeons. Like me, they have the top-floor place, and looking from my living room, I can see them returning to theirs--hundreds, near dusk, clapping about the windows, resisting the sills in order to land upon them, softly, and then gather themselves into darkening rooms.
All I see here this evening, back now after so many months alone in the woods, are the rooms stacked everywhere into the air around me--millions of windowed squares about to come forward in the twilight for another brief stalemate with the stars. When night fell at Wickerby, the only lights for miles were the cabin's, and I had to be careful then about moving around too much inside because Lucy, my dog, would bark at my reflection in the windowpanes, and I'd be left paralyzed with fear at the thought of who or what in all that darkness might be out there.
Oh, the terror of reflection. I love it.
-Mara Naselli
7/24/06
7/21/06
IDT Staff Reading: July
Christian Bauman: Just finished a biography of Edward III, he who (along with his French counterpart) began the 100 Years War. Now beginning the latest John Irving, the highly autobiographical one about the tattoo artist. I actually skipped his last one (The Fourth Hand, I believe) and resisted this one because the reviews were so bad. And then just the other day I woke up and said to myself: "Self, you idiot, how can you of all people, who also has to suffer the whims and fancies of reviewers, actually base your reading on what a reviewer had to say?" Properly self-slapped, I'm cracking the binding tonight and digging in.
Summer Block: I just finished John Updike's Terrorist for review, and now I'm working on two books for IDT, Empress and The Week You Weren't Here. And last night, I stayed home and shamelessly worked my way through Martha Stewart's Weddings magazine, summer issue.
Robert Birnbaum: Gallintin Canyon by Thom McGuane, The Places in Between by Rory Stewart, Friendship by Joseph Epstein, The Creationists by EL Doctorow (forthcoming literary essays), Best American Essays 2006 ed by Lauren Slater, The Lost by Daniel Mendelsohn, The Plot Against America
Ross Simonini: Carnivore Diet by Julia Slavin, Pnin by Nabokov, A couple Joseph Beuys biographies, The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker, Charity by Mark Richard, The backs of cereal boxes
Matt Borondy: Not Always So and Branching Streams Flow in the Darkness -- a couple of collections of talks by Shunryu Suzuki (the late founder of the San Francisco Zen Center), Jesusland by Julia Scheeres, Remember Me by Lisa Cullen
Summer Block: I just finished John Updike's Terrorist for review, and now I'm working on two books for IDT, Empress and The Week You Weren't Here. And last night, I stayed home and shamelessly worked my way through Martha Stewart's Weddings magazine, summer issue.
Robert Birnbaum: Gallintin Canyon by Thom McGuane, The Places in Between by Rory Stewart, Friendship by Joseph Epstein, The Creationists by EL Doctorow (forthcoming literary essays), Best American Essays 2006 ed by Lauren Slater, The Lost by Daniel Mendelsohn, The Plot Against America
Ross Simonini: Carnivore Diet by Julia Slavin, Pnin by Nabokov, A couple Joseph Beuys biographies, The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker, Charity by Mark Richard, The backs of cereal boxes
Matt Borondy: Not Always So and Branching Streams Flow in the Darkness -- a couple of collections of talks by Shunryu Suzuki (the late founder of the San Francisco Zen Center), Jesusland by Julia Scheeres, Remember Me by Lisa Cullen
7/10/06
Four Books from the Wessex Collective
Thoughts on R.P. Burnham's novel, Envious Shadows; Sandra Swayder Sanchez's novel, Stillbird; Ita Willen's memoir, The Gift; and Brian E. Backstrand's collection of short stories, Little Bluestem.
All books are published by The Wessex Collective which "[has] discovered that non-fiction makes people aware of the problems in our world but fiction is the best way to get folks to care about those problems."
Brian E. Backstrand's collection of short stories from rural America, Little Bluestem, captures the forgotten complexities of the simple life. Many of the stories in this collection poignantly recollect the experiences of the hardworking yeoman in the midst of life's milestones and turning points. Backstrand recounts these stories from the perspective of that rural America which serves as the backbone of America and is too often neglected. Thus, Backstrand creates a microcosm of our America and memorializes it with unique voice and succinct collection of stories.
Ita Willen's memoir, The Gift, follows the passage of a year and two winters in its retelling of the Holocaust and its aftermath from the perspective of a child of Holocaust survivors. The beauty, pain, and courage displayed throughout the account proffer a lesson not only about war but about the lingering effects and residue of war that creeps into humanity even after bombs and guns are no longer visible.
R. P. Burnham demonstrates his knack for storytelling in his novel, Envious Shadows. He keeps the reader interested in the plotline while also managing to interweave a penumbra of moral lessons about love, prejudice, and judgment in a modern context. Envious Shadows is filled with a high-wit and a talent for creating relatable and realistic characters. For those looking for a strong plot with an accompanying wisdom for modern life, Envious Shadows is a must-read.
Stillbird by Sandra Shwayder Sanchez is an epic story encompassing an epic's worth of powerful emotions. Showcasing a versatility and sensibility for raw sentimentality, Sanchez creates three seemingly-discrete, yet supremely connected sections. Sanchez powerfully expresses the bittersweet realities of humanity in a style that combines magical realism with post-modern disconnection. The novel is at times sad, at times supremely beautiful while handling its characters with the ease and grace of a young mother. The unique strand connecting these three disparate sections; however, is the depth of emotions present in each section as if it is this depth that transcends space, time, and individuality, uniting us all in our humanity.
-Jesslyn Roebuck
All books are published by The Wessex Collective which "[has] discovered that non-fiction makes people aware of the problems in our world but fiction is the best way to get folks to care about those problems."
Brian E. Backstrand's collection of short stories from rural America, Little Bluestem, captures the forgotten complexities of the simple life. Many of the stories in this collection poignantly recollect the experiences of the hardworking yeoman in the midst of life's milestones and turning points. Backstrand recounts these stories from the perspective of that rural America which serves as the backbone of America and is too often neglected. Thus, Backstrand creates a microcosm of our America and memorializes it with unique voice and succinct collection of stories.
Ita Willen's memoir, The Gift, follows the passage of a year and two winters in its retelling of the Holocaust and its aftermath from the perspective of a child of Holocaust survivors. The beauty, pain, and courage displayed throughout the account proffer a lesson not only about war but about the lingering effects and residue of war that creeps into humanity even after bombs and guns are no longer visible.
R. P. Burnham demonstrates his knack for storytelling in his novel, Envious Shadows. He keeps the reader interested in the plotline while also managing to interweave a penumbra of moral lessons about love, prejudice, and judgment in a modern context. Envious Shadows is filled with a high-wit and a talent for creating relatable and realistic characters. For those looking for a strong plot with an accompanying wisdom for modern life, Envious Shadows is a must-read.
Stillbird by Sandra Shwayder Sanchez is an epic story encompassing an epic's worth of powerful emotions. Showcasing a versatility and sensibility for raw sentimentality, Sanchez creates three seemingly-discrete, yet supremely connected sections. Sanchez powerfully expresses the bittersweet realities of humanity in a style that combines magical realism with post-modern disconnection. The novel is at times sad, at times supremely beautiful while handling its characters with the ease and grace of a young mother. The unique strand connecting these three disparate sections; however, is the depth of emotions present in each section as if it is this depth that transcends space, time, and individuality, uniting us all in our humanity.
-Jesslyn Roebuck
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