Calgon, Take Me Away

Well this has been an especially hard winter for us here in the Northland.  The Polar Vortex has retreated but may very well return this week. The weather has left us battered and tired. Some of our cars couldn't handle it. Maybe your water pipes burst.  Our muscles are tense from walking hunched up in the cold.  Our backs are tired from shoveling. We walk gingerly over the ice, dreading a fall. The holidays are over, it is cold and dark.  Time to get away-someplace warm, and sunny, with feet in the sand and a beverage in hand.

Do a Google search for "books set in warm climates" and you will get all kinds of hits. Lots of us can't get away so we become armchair travelers. I enjoy a book that immerses me in its location. I want heat, heat and more heat.One of my favorites for this is Ann Rice's 'The Witching Hour'.Anne Rice is from New Orleans and she does a perfect job of bringing the reader there.  The humidity, the lush foliage, a decaying house in the Garden District.  After reading this book I decided I would like to go to New Orleans.  When I got there, I was not disappointed.  It is just as she describes it.

'The Windup Girl' by Paolo Bacigalupi takes place in a futuristic Thailand where "calorie companies rule the world, the oil age has passed, and the side effects of bio-engineered plagues run rampant across the globe." A noir-ish sort of sci-fi read set in gritty, hot and humid Bangkok.

For a more familiar story, I love the classic 'To Kill a Mockingbird'.  Harper Lee immediately puts you in that small town in Alabama during the Depression.  It evokes childhood memories of playing hide-and-seek as dusk falls,or sitting on the porch into the evening, listening to the grown-ups talk over things you did not understand.

Any of M.M. Kaye's books set in India will take you to exotic places.  Jimmy Buffet writes books set in the Islands. Isak Dinesen's 'Out of Africa' , both the book and the movie, if you crave a safari. 'The Descendants', book and movie, if Hawaii is more your thing.

So brew a cup of tea, take a hot shower, or better yet bath.  Soothe those cold, aching muscles.  It will all be over soon, and in the meantime, you can go wherever you want.  Just stop at the library first.

It's the New Year-Try Something Different

                                       

                                           'Well, so that is that.  Now we must dismantle the tree,
                                            Putting the decorations back into their cardboard boxes-
Some have got broken-and carrying them up to the attic.
The holly and the mistletoe must be taken down and burnt,
And the children got ready for school.  There are enough
Left-overs to do, warmed-up, for the rest of the week-'

That is an excerpt from one of my favorite poems, W.H. Auden's "For the Time Being".  I think it captures the post-holiday mood perfectly-back to routine, which is somehow depressing and reassuring at the same time. This poem speaks to me.

 For whatever reason, many of us never get past Shel Silverstein in the second grade so far as reading poetry goes. But if you scan the library's poetry section (which is rather vast), you will find some interesting items.

I recently found this little gem on the library shelves:

It may say 'Minnesota' in the title, but any Northlander will appreciate these lines from "Spring in Duluth" by Elvira T. Johnson:

                                   I cry aloud that wind and sleet and storm
                                   Have been my bosom cronies much too long!

This is exactly my mood come April.

If you're a hip cat you might prefer the Everyman's Library Pocket Poets anthology 'Beat Poets'.  How about this by Lew Welch-
                               
                          I know a man's supposed to have his hair cut short,

                          but I have beautiful hair.
                          I like to let it grow into a long bronze mane.

Well, I can hardly blame him! Hard to believe that this was once counter-cultural.  How the times have changed. The Everyman's Library Pocket Poets is a nicely edited series with poems on lots of subjects-you may have seen the Christmas Poems edition in my last post. Also they have nice covers. (Yes, I know I shouldn't, but sometimes I do judge a book by its cover.)

For a nice selection in one volume, Garrison Keillor's 'Good Poems' is very accessible.  You may have heard some of these poems on The Writer's Almanac on NPR.

So give poetry a chance.  Ask any of the librarians where the poetry section is. Hopefully you will spend some happy time browsing the shelves on your next visit to the library. I hope you find something that speaks to you. 

                         by Librarian Mary