Have You Heard The One About The Farmer's Daughter?

Jim Harrison is nothing if not prolific, no doubt owing to his Scandinavian heritage. So here comes his new collection of novellas, The Farmer's Daughter. A form little practice, the novella is essentially a mini novel, and Harrison's tend to run to a hundred pages, give or take. And the collection brings back old favorite Brown Dog, as well as introducing new settings and new characters.
In the opening selections, Harrison once again adopts the point of view of a woman, this time a comely young woman whose body belies her small town upbringing. Her blossoming outline and burgeoning awareness of the world outside her cramped family is appropriately tense while also providing the typical measure of Harrison optimism.
Set for release just after the first of the year, this collection finds Harrison covering familiar ground, though in ways that will further endear him to his loyal readers, if not winning him new book buyers.

Merry Christmas

Joel Waldfogel would have us take Black Friday and turn it back into the start to just another weekend, just another season. In his new book Scroogenomics, Waldfogel explains in plainly understood economic language why binge shopping, the sort that drives most folks' holiday surge, is indeed bad for the economy. In Waldfogel's equation, the pleasure derived from a gift received must at a minimum equal if not exceed the price paid for said gift. But when you tear open that lovingly wrapped box from Aunt Betsy to find an argyle sweater, the equation swings wildly out of balance. Aunt Betsy would have been better off spending that money on herself or asking you specifically what you had wanted.
Christmas shopping isn't likely to suffer much from the echo of Waldfogel's publication, but for those who pay attention, there might be a tad more thought given before buying those golf themed pajamas.
Waldfogel won't earn any nods from toddlers or parents intent on out doing the neighbors. Where he will earn some attention, perhaps, is with those who need a poke to push them away from senseless gift giving and toward a more thoughtful approach to sharing with others.

National Winner?

She might not win the National Book Award next week, but Bonnie Jo Campbell's American Salvage won't lose to a better book. Set in rural southern Michigan, the collection of short stories is a testament to the bittersweet combination of small town loyalties and limited opportunities. Campbell's characters are tainted by the stink of meth addiction, while at the same time marked by the full range of human emotion.
Campbell, author of Women & Other Animals, as well as Q Road, again traffics in damaged lives weighted by unemployment, family dysfunction, and small town sensibilities. The result is an alchemy of powerful disappointment.

Higher Education

No doubt I'll hear it from colleagues, but the most intriguing new book I've encountered is Blake Boles' College Without High School, where in the author suggests that high school might not be for everyone, and that attending college, even highly sought after competitive colleges, does not require a high school diploma. I think Boles might have something here.
While I don't have experience with high school dropouts attending college, I do have experience with bored high school students. I also know that as Boles suggests, high school is structured to suggest one size fits all, but this is not the case. All manner of bright students are bored to tears by the institutional organization of high school. The daily routine, the class structure, the curricular offerings are all tailored to accommodate a broad swath of students, but this means that little thought is given to allowing students to custom fit their education.
I believe it is important to provide students a broad experience, much as is the case at liberal arts colleges. What I don't believe works is pigeon holing students into taking classes they are uninterested in, or requiring them to simply complete standardized tests to show competence or mastery.
I think, as Boles argues, students should engage in greater adventures while learning where their interests genuinely lie. I think students need more input in their education, and I think high schools must be better able to adapt to the needs of students, rather than the other way around.

The Drug Problem

While it's been sitting on my reading table for a month now, I've finally started Nick Reding's Methland. What I've discovered is a riveting account of the slow decline of one corn belt town in Iowa, largely due to an abundant supply of illegal methamphetamine. Reding, a working journalist, travels to Oelwein, Iowa to look into the many ways the drug has unraveled the towns folk, regardless their socio economic status.
Just as revealing but equally vexing is the revelation that methamphetamine was at one time legal, manufactured to help soldiers in combat as well as housewives overwhelmed by the doldrums of suburban living. From here, the drug has jumped all manner of societal firebreaks to land on the short list of most damaging narcotics, right up there with heroin and crack cocaine.
Reding interviews law enforcement officials, as well as those who found dealing crystal meth more rewarding, in more ways than one, than working at Wal Mart.
The reporting is incisive, the conclusions disturbing. Crystal meth has enjoyed unhealthy popularity in northern Michigan so this examination of small town Iowa hits closer to home than I'd like to think.

Favorite Read

A student approached yesterday after class to ask me what my favorite book is. I was unable to answer with anything more than a response about what I've been recently reading. As those who read often know well, singling out one book is nearly impossible. I have had many favorites over the years, starting in high school when I might have said Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo, or Catcher In The Rye by J.D. Salinger. In college I might have quickly responded with titles like Fear and Loathing On The Campaign Trail '72 by Hunter S. Thompson, or Love is a Dog from Hell by Charles Bukowski.
These days it's more likely to be a recent read. I've lauded Born To Run by Christopher McDougall and Going Out Green by Bob Butz. Right now I'm reading The Truth About Love by Josephine Hart and I'm being drawn in completely. Hart, like so many of her Irish and British counterparts has a lyrical style that relies as much on the influences of verse as it does on the twists of fiction. There are several others waiting on my reading table, so no doubt the answer about what is my favorite book will change by degrees in the coming days.
The more important question for me is "what are you reading now?" Because if you're not reading something, always, there won't be any growth in the possibilities.

School's In Session

School started today, so my classroom is once again filled with students hoping to manage their way through what I throw at them, whether it be the simple tale Of Mice and Men in English I, or the more challenging Inferno of Dante in Advanced Placement Literature. What they also seem to hope is to get by with as little reading as possible. I fully recognize that a sizeable portion of my seniors cut corners on their summer reading. They rely on Sparks Notes, Cliff's Notes, and Wikipedia to find the answers they could find as easily in the actual reading.
I'm always at a loss this time of year wondering why so few students don't take to reading as productive passtime.
My loosely and anectdotally based observations come down to what is practiced at home, and what is promoted in the popular media. There is no denying that booksellers are hurting as people turn away from books. But what are they turning toward? Are the absences left with the loss of literature being adequately filled by television, the internet, or other electronic media? I believe they are not. I believe the dumbing down of our students is largely due to their lack of appreciation for reading. No one ever learned while talking, something many of my students are quite good at. But everyone who reads learns something, whether it be how to make popcorn int the microwave, or how to investigate the relationship between medicine and history. Reading is essential to growth, but alas too many students, at least at high school, are less interested in growth than they are in gain.

Running Hard

Chris McDougall draws several conclusions in his book Born To Run. He states that running shoes are the most damaging piece of athletic equipment to ever come along, ruining knees and feet in the name of comfort. He suggests that ultra marathon running lowers the risk of cancer, and he even believes that he has proven the existence of persistence hunting, or running down the meat with superior strategy. He argues that Neanderthals gave way to Homo Sapiens because the Neanderthals refused to adapt, refused to take to the run when their large, less mobile quarry were no longer available.
The one conclusion I was waiting for was the connection between the Mexican Tarahumara Indians and the fountain of youth. McDougall shows how the Tarahumara, fueled by a mixture of corn and beans, run great distances with regularity, even into their sixties and seventies. He believes their combination of diet and exercise, along with a tradition born of necessity and resolve, allow them to avoid cancers, heart disease, even arthritis. What he doesn't conclude, though, is that this combination can lead to long life for everyone else. He stops short of claiming this lifestyle is the elusive fountain of youth, but it is a conclusion many of his readers might make. I know I do every time Odin and I take off on a trail run these days, pushing up hills and leaping over dead-falls. We will keep running because as McDougall does conclude unequivocally is that we were all "born to run."

Mystery Solved

Mardi Link's new true crime thriller Isadore's Secret will be out this week or next, and I've recently finished reading the advance copy. I admit I was captivated right to the end, wanting not only to know if the murderer would be found, but what motive might ultimately be proved, how the tiny Leelanau town of Isadore would recover, and what might become of the several Catholic priests implicated as knowledgeable about the sordid mess. Link, who previously wrote about the murder of the Robison family near Good Hart in 1968, did not let me down. By the book's end I was shaking my head at the unlikely conclusion to the long unsolved crime. My hope now is that others will read the book too and Link will earn some measure of success on her new project. I had never before heard of Isadore, let alone the murder and burial of a pregnant nun under the tiny burg's only church. Link has used her source material well, culling from archives as wide as The New York Times, and as close as the Traverse City Record Eagle. More importantly, she has recreated believably the sleepy hamlet of 1907 and after where the crime occurred.
Smart readers will find this book informative, well written, and disturbing. All good responses to good writing.

Browsing History

Book lovers are also necessarily bookstore lovers. My two favorites have long been The Island Bookstore on Mackinac Island and McLean and Eakin in Petoskey. That I live in these two locations has seen me visit these two outlets far more than any others.
A good bookstore should have a knowledgeable staff, a varied selection, and a purpose. The de facto purpose of these two notable shops is to offer the widest array of books to the most discerning readers, while also providing an opportunity for education to those less well read. The difference between Island Books and McLean and Eakin and their less successful competitors is the quality of the staff.
Regardless of what I might be looking for, and I rarely have to buy books any more, I know there are folks at either location, such as manager Tamara at Island Books, or my former student Katie at McLean and Eakin, who can both suggest interesting reads and help me find something I might have already zeroed in on.
When I was a student in Ann Arobr I frequented the flagship Borders location on State Street. When it opened, the store generated a buzz because of its size and its determination to provide an unlimited array of choices for the largest possible audience. Borders has, unfortunately, fallen victim to the culture of corporate anemia. Their bottom line became more important than their lofty mission. Just down the street from Borders was Shaman Drum, which was actually more like a neighborhood bookstore should be; a bit smaller, more compact, more ready to adapt when necessary.
This ability to adapt is what has kept Island Books and McLean and Eakin in business and prospering. There are no coffee bars in these stores, no internet cafes where pseudo intellectuals can be seen working on their great works, or where they can hang out all day, being seen but doing nothing.
If you want books and an informed bookstore staff, visit McLean and Eakin in Petoskey or The Island Bookstore on Mackinac Island.

Harrison Bibliography

Some days feel like Christmas. Such is the case when I get a call from the News Review telling me there are books waiting. Last week one of the titles waiting, and which I was most anticipating was Jim Harrison: A Comprehensive Bibliography. Newly published by the University of Nebraska Press, the heavy volume contains notes on more than 1600 Harrison publications, ranging from his major novels and novella collections, to single poems published in now defunt magazines. In between, are all the works that Harrison fans have come to appreciate. There are the food columns, the book reviews, the politically slanted essays, even lecture notes.
Edited by Gregg Orr and Beef Torrey, the collection, spanning 1964-2008, takes readers through The English Major, Harrison's most recent novel. His newest collection of poetry, In Search of Small Gods, is in here in fragments, but not as an entire work. Included as well are rare book jacket art, hand signed copies of texts, and most importantly explanations of the arc and history of each published piece. Harrison's and DeMott's introduction and preface are nearly worth the effort alone.
This is not going to be a book of interest to the casual Harrison reader. Most folks indeed will struggle to find a use for the collection. But with an introduction by Harrison and a preface from scholar Robert Demott, a long time Harrison friend, those who read all things Harrison will find insight and entertainment here. Oh, and the cover illustration is from Russell Chatham.

Up North Mystery

Another recent read is Mardi Link's new book Isadore's Secret, set in Michigan's Leelanau peninsula in the little backwater town of Isadore. Link, whose previous novel When Evil Came To Good Hart detailed the unsolved murders of a Detroit area family, has this time turned her attention to the disappearance and then grusome discovery of a Felician nun in 1907. I liked Link's first book, but primarily because I was familiar with the story. Her new mystery, also published by the University of Michigan Press, demonstrates how her writing has matured. The sentences are more precise while also more complex, a feat not easily accomplished. If the story line is less well known, the book, which debuts on September 1, will help shed light on a longtime disturbance in one of the region's most beautiful locations.

What I'm reading now

I've recently started two new books. The fist is Bob Butz's Going Out Green. Butz, author of Beast of Never: Cat of God begins the new book with an intriquing premise: plan his own green funeral over the course of just twelve weeks. The fact that he is not dying makes the premise a bit of an oddity, but he is a journalist so the story works. Butz is a journalist with a sense of humor. The story's backdrop is mostly northern Michigan, where Butz lives, so many of the locations and sentiments are recognizable to those of us who live here.
The other book I've begun is Born to Run by Christopher McDougall. Also a journalist, McDougall sets off for Mexico in search of the mythical Tarahumara Indians, a tribe from the Sierra Madre mountains said to parley their diet of barbequed mouse and corn beer into an ability to run hundreds of miles at a time over rough desert and mountain terrain wearing little more than sandals and skirts. McDougall predictably finds, so far anyway, that the story is both more and less than advertised. Stay tuned and more importantly, keep reading.

Welcome

Welcome to the initial entry on the Literate Matters blog. I've been writing a column of the same name for nearly 10 years and can now share more material more often. The purpose of the blog is to talk about what I'm reading and what you should be reading. I'm keenly interested in what you're reading, so please share your thoughts with me as well. Look for my column the second and fourth Thursday of each month in the Petoskey News Review. The last column was about Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, a terrific road novel celebrating its 35th anniversary. Next week's column will be about The River Why, another cult classic that is worth a look more than 25 years after its publication.
Until then, keep reading and keep writing.
Glen