The right note for the hour
On some unread books; and, what makes a good day?
Dear friends!
First, a warm welcome to the marvelous new subscribers who have decided to take a flyer on this newsletter—and a word of thanks to everyone who’s still subscribed and still reading. I’m grateful, I’m thrilled, and wow, do I feel vulnerable today! Sheesh.
I’m going to be even more vulnerable and share a secret: Some time ago, my stack of to-read books became so tall that I turned it on its side, and it became a shelf. Then it became two shelves. Now it is eight or nine shelves split between two rooms.
Is this a problem? It is probably a problem. But I do get around to reading just about everything sooner or later. Except for these three:
I bought this trio of novels—Bill Gaston’s Sointula, Bruce Wagner’s Memorial, and David James Duncan’s The Brothers K—on a single rushed trip to a bookstore in Park Slope. The weather was gray and cold, and I was in a rush because I was packing our house in preparation for our move to Providence, where I was chasing a dream of home and family that somehow also involved a steady stream of increasingly lucrative book contracts supplemented with income that I intended to earn by writing regular features for the New Yorker.
Also I was renovating a carriage house built in 1910 by someone who was clearly also crazy, as evidenced by the steel beams unconnected to anything that we discovered behind the sheetrock as well as the rear wall that was ten degrees off plumb yet somehow went undetected by our home inspector, who surely must have been drunk at the time of his visit.
In other words, I was in the grip of multiple delusions.
Anyway. These books. Sointula: A family saga a woman who steals a kayak and slips away to an island, with long digressive passages about the island’s lost utopian community. The Brothers K: A family saga with long digressive passages about baseball. Memorial: Another family saga, this time with long digressive passages about architecture.
With the advantage of hindsight, it’s clear what I was looking for: examples of thematically rich big books, books that offer plenty of lenses through which to consider, probe, and understand the main action.
I was working on a manuscript with similar ambitions that ultimately became Ready, Set, Oh. So I can see my own purchasing logic. It’s all research, right? But why leave them on the shelf for so long? Why not find other homes for them, give them away?
Part of me is still caught up in that dream of 2006, maybe. But the light is elongating even as I type, reminding me to get on with it, whatever it is—like sending this update…
Now for today’s good things: Craftsmanship Magazine—one of my secret faves—has removed the paywall for “How to Make a Good Day,” a profile of a married pair of sculptors who explain how they balance focusing on what needs to get done today with awareness of their larger purpose as artists. I found myself resisting bits and pieces of their story, yet I keep coming back to it—always a sign that something interesting is going on.
Bonus! Here’s a second good thing: Via Emily Herring, Current Rothko gathers your location and local weather data to serve you up a corresponding Rothko painting. YMMV, of course, but my result (below) does seem appropriate for today in my area.
ICYMI: Picking up on a theme from The Great Houses of Pill Hill, which features an interior decorator with a side hustle in forensic miniatures, I wrote about “Six Mysteries Featuring Miniatures, Effigies, and Tiny Scenes” for CrimeReads.
Where to find me: I’ll be in NYC on July 18, reading with the good folks at Indirect Books, publishers of the litmag L’Esprit as well as other wonderful things. Stay tuned for details!
I do still have some availability for June and July, and I’d be delighted to visit your book group, club, library or bookstore. Drop me a line (ping.diane@gmail.com) and let’s talk.
Until next time,
Diane
Does Current Rothko have a legal right to use the artist's works or style or is it an AI-generated ripoff?