Book of the Week #52

Snow Island by Katherine Towler (San Francisco: MacAdam/Cage Publishers, 2002)

Snow Island is the story of two strangers who inhabit the same remote island off the New England coast and who find their lives shaped by events that happen far from their small community as America is drawn into World War II. This was Portsmouth resident Katherine Towler's first novel.

"Graceful... Towler's strength is her deft rendering of time and place. Lyrical and gentle, Alice's wartime coming-of-age - and the island itself - continues to resonate after the last page." — Publishers Weekly

Book of the Week #51

Life at the Top: Tales, Truths, and Trusted Recipes from the Mount Washington Observatory. By Eric Pinder. (Down East Books, 1997)

Do you know where the coldest, windiest place in the world is?

Personally, I was not surprised to learn that it is in New Hampshire.

This book describes what it's like to live at the Mount Washington Observatory, why it is so cold there, and what the people who live there eat (Spring Thaw Soup anyone?). A little basic meteorology is thrown in for good measure.

Book of the Week #50

The 2008 Poets' Guide to New Hampshire. Edited by John-Michael Albert on behalf of the Poetry Society of New Hampshire. (2007)

In October 2006 the Poetry Society of NH sent out a call for "strong, short poems (one page) addressing some aspect of the life, history, and/or geography of the State of NH. All poets in and out of NH are encouraged to submit their best personal effort, along with a favorite poem on NH by a published poet (we're calling that the 'entry fee')." The result is this collection which arranges poems -- including several by New Hampshire's past poets laureate -- geographically. There are also indexes by subject, poet, and first line and a listing of regular poetry readings held around the state.

Copies may be available at your local bookseller, or they may be obtained for $20 each plus $2 packaging and postage by mailing your request and payment (checks payable to Poetry Society of NH) to:

John-Michael Albert, editor
The 2008 Poets' Guide to New Hampshire
19 1/2 Snows Court
Dover, NH 03820

Book of the Week #49

Let's Steal the Moon: Jewish Tales, Ancient and Recent. Retold by Blanche Luria Serwer; illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman. (Little, Brown, and Company, 1970)

I chose this book in honor of Hanhkkah, which began this week. Trina Schart Hyman, who lived in New Hampshire from 1968 until her death, illustrated this collection of folk tales based on actual people -- her friends, family and neighbors. This is the first book she illustrated where the pictures were not entirely from her imagination.

Book of the Week #48

Still to Mow: Poems by Maxine Kumin. (W. W. Norton, 2007)

The latest volume of poetry by former NH Poet Laureate (and Pulitzer Prize winner, and Robert Frost Medal recipient, and Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, and ...) Maxine Kumin begins with "Mulching" which sets the tone perfectly for the combination of poetry included in the book. Poems expressing powerful outrage at the outrages of today's world are balanced with meditations on life, friendship, and life on a New England farm.

"When you look back there's lots of bales in the field, but ahead it's all still to mow." -- John Gardner

Book of the Week #47

Run, Turkey, Run! by Diane Mayr, illustrations by Laura Rader (Walker & Co. 2007)


Can turkey outwit the farmer or will he end up as Thanksgiving dinner? New Hampshire author and librarian Diane Mayr takes us along for the chase in this charming picture book.

Book of the Week #46

A Century of November by W. D. Wetherell (Ann Arbor, Michigan: 2004)

This novel by Lyme, NH resident W. D. Wetherell was the winner of the 2004 Michigan Literary Fiction Award:

"A Century of November is an elegant, moving, and utterly convincing account of a father's attempt to understand the death of his only son in the trenches of Belgium during the very last days of World War I. In a strangely timeless and
hypnotic narrative reminiscent of the best poetry of Wilfred Owen or Rupert Brooke or Timothy Findley's haunting novel The Wars, the author evokes the unvoiced grief and rage of a man who has recently lost his wife to the Spanish
Influenza and his son to a battle in a town whose name he can't pronounce. Impulsively boarding a ferry, then a train, then a steamship, Charles Marden travels from his farm in Vancouver to the killing fields of Europe. Following the shadow of the first and only woman his son ever loved, Marden stumbles across a chaotic landscape so recently drenched by blood and poison gas that the truth seems not only difficult to ascertain, but ultimately unknowable and irrelevant."
-- Eileen Pollack, a MLFA judge.

Book of the Week #45

Running on the Record: Civil War-Era Politics in New Hampshire by Lex Renda. (University Press of Virginia, 1997.)

In honor of Election Day I chose this volume which looks at the connections between voters' judgements and public policy in New Hampshire during a time when elections were entertainment and party loyalties were young and vigorous.

"In an age when organized forms of entertainment were scarce, politics was an exhilarating experience, marked by parades, gambling, shouting, and bravado. People flocked to the polls on election day. Observers could easily distinguish
the ballots of each party, and voters cast them in a manner which exclaimed their loyalties. People eagerly awaited election results, even for days on end. The nineteenth century often seems a golden age of politics when elections were exciting, voters participated in droves, party loyalties were entrenched, and 'independent' voters were scorned. "

Book of the Week #44

Pumpkin Shivaree by Rick Agran; illustrated by Sara Anderson (Handprint Books, 2003)

This book begins "Well, I bet you never considered what its like to be a pumpkin..." and I bet you never have. But Rick Agran, a NH poet, considered it and the result was an inventive, boldly illustrated story of the life of a pumpkin.

Happy Halloween!

Book of the Week #43

Also the Hills by Francis Parkinson Keyes (Julian Messner, Inc., 1943)

Set in a village in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, probably based on North Haverhill, this is one of over 50 novels written by Francis Parkinson Wheeler Keyes (7/21/1885 - 7/3/1970). Keyes was married to U. S. Senator and Governor of New Hampshire, Henry Wilder Keyes. She published her first novel in 1919 and for over a decade she wrote a monthly column for Good Housekeeping called "Letters from a Senator’s Wife" and from 1923 to 1936 was a contributing editor. She is probably best known for the novel Dinner at Antoine's which is set in New Orleans where she lived for many years in what is now known as the Beauregard-Keyes House. She is buried in Newbury, Vermont which was the home of her maternal grandparents.

Ms. Keyes correspondence, much of it with Eleanor Roosevelt, is held by the New York State Library.

Book of the Week #42

The Voice at 3:00 a.m.: Selected Late & New Poems by Charles Simic (Harcourt, 2003)

This volume from the current U. S. Poet Laureate provides a good selection of his recent work. Simic begins his official duties as Poet Laureate this week when he opens the Library of Congress’s annual literary series on October 18 with a reading of his work.

Book of the Week #41

New Hampshire Patterns Photographs by Jon Gilbert Fox; text by Ernest Hebert. (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 2007)

Beautiful photographs of New Hampshire -- from Shaker fence posts to NASCAR pit stops -- are complimented by ten essays by New Hampshire native and novelist Ernest Hebert.

Book of the Week #40

A Hundred White Daffodils by Jane Kenyon (St. Paul, MN: Graywolf Press, 1999)

Jane Kenyon is best know as a poet, but she wrote prose as well and this volume collects this work along with the Akhmatova translations, interviews with Kenyon, and the poem "Woman, Why are you Weeping?"

I have been planning new gardens recently, and phrases from the essays Kenyon wrote for the end page of Yankee keep popping into my mind.

"Sensible people grow beans. I grow peonies, campanula, roses, lilies, astilbe, bee balm. No matter how many flowers, there are never enough, and I harbor Napolionic tendencies toward floral expansion." (p. 48)

As New England begins thinking about saying "Good-bye and keep cold" to its gardens, these essays describe the experience beautifully. "Bulbs Planted in the Fall" originally appeared as a column in the Concord Monitor and is another good choice from this volume for this time of year.

Book of the Week # 39

Evangeline Mudd and the Great Mink Escapade by David Elliott (Cambridge, MA: Candlewick Press, 2006)

Returned from her adventures in the Ikkinasti Jungle, Evangeline Mudd is ready to keep the promise she made to Pals United for Furry Friends and keep Melvin Mudd's Marvelous Minks from becoming costumes. In the process she will make a new friend and learn to ride a unicycle (it's kind of like brachiating).

This delightful book was selected by the Center for the Book at the New Hampshire State Library to be included on the 2007 Pavilion of the States map produced as part of the National Book Festival.

Book of the Week #38

Franklin Pierce: Martyr for the Union by Peter A. Wallner. (Concord, NH: Plaidswede Publishing, 2007)

This is the second volume of Wallner's biography of Franklin Pierce and covers his Presidency and the role he played in the fight over the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Historian Peter Wallner is the Library Director for the New Hampshire Historical Society.

Wallner is among the authors who are scheduled to be at the New Hampshire Antiquarian Book Fair in Concord on Sunday, September 23, 2007.

Book of the Week #37

Kerouac's Nashua Connection by Stephen Edington. (Nashua, NH: Transition Publishing, 1999.)

This week marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of On the Road, one of Time Magazine's 100 All Time Best Novels. The original manuscript -- a 120 foot scroll -- is on exhibit in Lowell through mid-October and there was an interesting discussion on The Exchange this morning about the significance of On the Road. It was also featured as part of Present at the Creation from NPR's Morning Edition a few years ago.

Kerouac (1922-1969), was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, into a Franco-American family which had come to Lowell by way of Nashua, New Hampshire. Kerouac's Nashua Connection traces the Kerouac ancestry and provides an interesting guide to the New Hampshire landmarks to be found in Kerouac's work. The author, Stephen Edington is a member of the Lowell Celebrates Kerouac Committee which puts on an annual Jack Kerouac festival.

Book of the Week #36

Sugar Baron: Manuel Rionda and the Fortunes of Pre-Castro Cuba by Muriel McAvoy-Weissman (Contoocook, NH: YBP Library Services, 2003.)

Sugar Baron takes us on a journey through the rise of Manuel Rionda and the establishment of the Cuba Sugar Cane Corporation as well as the history and economics surrounding the relations between the Cuban and United States sugar trade.

The author, Muriel McAvoy-Weissman, a resident of Concord, and a patron of the NH State Library, passed away last Tuesday.

Book of the Week #35

The Weight of Water by Anita Shreve (Boston : Little, Brown and Company, 1997. )

Anita Shreve is a part-time resident of New Hampshire, and the New Hampshire seacoast provides the setting for this story of a photographer who immerses herself in the lives of two women who were brutally murdered by an unknown assailant in 1873 and a third woman who survived the attack by hiding in a sea cave. The modern tale of the photographer's troubled marriage is interwoven with the historic tale of the women who lived and died on Smuttynose.

Book of the Week #34

The Vision of Emma Blau by Ursula Hegi (Simon & Schuster, 2000)

If you knew that you could experience a significant love once in your life, would you want these years at the beginning or at the end? That question is at the heart of this companion novel to Stones from the River.

Lake Winnipesaukee provides the setting for parts of this novel which was recommended to me by Trisha Lindner, a co-worker here at the NH State Library.

Book of the Week #33

The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy and the History of Christian Science by Willa Cather and Georgine Milmine (University of Nebraska Press, 1993)



The Canadian newspaperwoman Georgine Milmine was credited as the author of this controversial biography of the founder of the Christian Science church when it was first serialized in McClure's Magazine in 1907-1908. It was actually written, however by Willa Cather who was the magazine's editor at the time.


There are two Granite State connections here: Mary Baker Eddy was born on a farm in Bow and died in Concord. Her portrait hangs in the NH State House. Willa Cather visited New Hampshire for the first time in 1917 and returned to Jaffrey many times after that. Cather died in 1947 and as she had requested, was buried in the Old Burying Ground behind the Meeting House in Jaffrey.