I've decided to quit trying to classify these books into a particular theme, or a book trail, and just put them all together. It's enough that they are special favorites of mine. :-)

One of the best books on riding (English) is A Leg at Each Corner: Thelwell's Complete Guide to Equitation. (The author/illustrator just uses Thelwell). It covers all the basics: finding the best pony, grooming, schooling, various breeds and so on. Delightfully illustrated and cleverly captioned, it's a book that is sure to make you chuckle even if you don't ride.

My beverage of choice for many decades was Dr. Pepper. Many years ago I sent away for Cooking With Dr. Pepper, a very strange thing to do since I don't cook! There are recipes for sauces, salads, rice, burgers and more. I'll be honest here, I've never tried any of them, but it's fun to read. My friend, the one who is so good at finding perfect books for me, spent some time in Texas. During that time she visited the Dr. Pepper museum (it's huge, takes up a whole block) and returned with an assortment of gifts for me. There was a mouse pad, a few magnets, and (drum roll, please) Dr. Pepper: King of Beverages by Harry E. Ellis. It had been published before and this was the Centennial Edition. Everything you'd ever want to know about Dr. Pepper is here so it's probably for a limited audience .... ;-)

There were hundreds of books published about the events of September 11, 2001. Of the ones I read, this was the one that touched me the most . The Day the World Came to Town: 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland by Jim Defede. When the airspace above the United States was closed, planes in the air had to land elsewhere. Thirty-eight of them landed in Gander, Newfoundland. For the next several days the citizens of this small town and the surrounding communities took care of the passengers, which included animals, feeding them, housing them, filling medical prescriptions, helping them get in touch with family .... basically anything they needed. It is heart-warming and heart-breaking and I still tear up even just reading the book jacket.

It all started in Santa Fe ... a simple enough project designed to promote tourism, showcase local artists, and raise money for a few philanthropic organizations. It did that and more. The Trail of the Painted Ponies Collector's Edition is the story of this project (to date, it continues ....). There were two styles of horse, one running, one standing. The artist could paint or decorate it anyway he or she wanted, which lead to a diversity of results: there are dream horses, music horses, Native American Ponies, patriotic ponies ... the list goes on and on! This is a fun and inspiring book.

I hope you all have some quirky favorites, too!

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A recent segment on a TV show (one of the ones about mysteries in museums) lead me back to my CSI trail. Frances Glessner Lee was born at the wrong time. Intelligent and creative, there wasn't much for her to do, due to her gender, and her father refused to let her get any 'unnecessary' schooling. She spent some time making miniatures, the kind one might see in a doll house, only much more detailed. The one she made of a local music group featured accurate music on the stands, and instruments that actually produced music. At some point she started going to crime scenes with a friend of her brother. He explained how they were investigated (is it murder? suicide? natural death?) and this would lead to what became known as 'Nutshells'. (So called so they could never be confused with something for a doll house). Naturally, I had to find a book!

The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death by Corinne May Botz has photographs of these miniatures as well as a nice biography of Lee. Each scene may be studied and conclusions drawn but only a few answers are provided as the miniatures are so well done they are still being used to train investigators today. They were the inspiration for several episodes of the original CSI show. (The one set in Vegas).

Hidden Evidence: 50 True Crimes and How Forensic Science Helped Solve Them by David Owen is a detailed 'how it's done' book on crime scene investigations interspersed with the 50 crimes from the subtitle. I'll admit, it was almost too much information! All in all, though, a most interesting read, and included the first murderer caught using the telegraph! (Which earned the ! there because I'd read about it in The Victorian Internet so recently). :-)

While I'd learned some time ago that many of the dead bodies you see in shows such as 'Law & Order', 'CSI' and so forth are really people, it had pretty much slipped my mind until I saw the episode of 'Castle' where the body was found in the wall safe ... and learned that it was a real person! (A contortionist). That took me back to Law & Order: Crime Scenes by Dick Wolf with photographs by Jessica Burstein. It includes a history of the show, a behind the scenes look at how an episode is created and filmed, (and the folks who do so), and descriptions of the main characters, as well as the photographs of many of the opening scenes, the one with the body. As odd as it might sound, I really enjoyed this book.

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For now the PNW is having a gentle, cool summer. Personally, this is just fine with me! Here are some books about less than gentle weather.

In Nebraska and the Dakotas the morning of January 12, 1888 started out calm and unusually warm for the season. So warm that children went to school without their coats. That would change ... suddenly and violently ... the temperature dropped, the wind picked up to near gale force speed and snow blew in sideways. The Children's Blizzard, by David Laskin follows five families as they dealt with the worst blizzard that ever hit the Prairie states. (It is still talked about today). Laskin did a great job with his research, and his writing was so compelling I'd be surprised to look out the window and see sunshine.

The White Cascade: the Great Northern Railway Disaster and America's Deadliest Avalanche by Gary Krist takes place closer to home. In 1910 a huge blizzard hit the Cascade mountains. Two passenger trains were stranded near Wellington. For days rescue crews worked to clear the tracks but just as that seemed near completion the avalanche rolled down the side of the mountain. No spoilers here, read the book, it's amazing!

I found The Johnstown Flood to be both good and depressing. Good because I like David McCullough's writing. Depressing because it was a disaster that could have been avoided. A lake (for the pleasure of the wealthy) was created above the small town of Johnstown by repairing an old earthen dam. Repeated warnings that it would not hold if there were heavy rains were ignored. Again, I won't say more here, well, maybe two things .... the result was a national scandal, and, it was the first test for Clara Barton and the Red Cross.

I've been meaning to read The Worst Hard Time: the Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl by Timothy Egan, and finally did so this spring. I've seen the PBS special twice. I found I liked the PBS show for the dramatic visuals and the book for the dramatic writing. I am amazed that people actually survived. As we understand now, this too, was a man made disaster. I was surprised to learn that there were folks who knew then that plowing up all the prairie grass would cause problems.

I'm glad I live far enough north to get a long, lingering sunset this time of year.

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Back in 1970 Alvin Toffler wrote a book titled Future Shock. I remember two things about it: that it was the first time I'd seen a cover (just the title, there were no pictures) offered in different colors (!) and, that it was very interesting. He wrote about how fast the world was changing, and how humans were responding. The technological changes caused social changes which left folks feeling overwhelmed and stressed, that is, "future shock." Toffler popularized the term "information overload." If it was fast then, what is it now?

We've always wondered what the future might be like and some have even made predictions (educated and otherwise) as to what we might expect. Your Flying Car Awaits: Robot Butlers, Lunar Vacations and Other Dead-Wrong Predictions of the Twentieth Century by Paul Milo is a great collection of some of the craziest predictions from the last 100 years. (My favorite: "Weather will be as predictable and controllable as a train schedule.")

The Future Remembered: the 1962 Seattle World's Fair And It's Legacy, by authors Paula Becker and Alan J. Stein is the oficial 50th anniversary celebration of the fair that changed Seattle from a frontier town which few had even heard of, to a first class city. With the Space Needle, the monorail, and Elvis (!) it was an optimistic look forward to what the future might hold. Because of the long lnes, it was several years before I finally made it to the top of the Space Needle, but I do remember the Bubblelater, the Fountain ... and Belgian Waffles. :-) The men who planned the fair were determined that when the Fair closed the city would be left with something useful .... a civic center. They succeeded! Lots of wonderful pictures!

It will connect with those faraway for business and fun, people can get married using it, play games, pass secrets, create codes, worry about security .... ladies and gentlemen, I give you .... The Telegraph! It was absolutely revolutionary when it first became available, before, the fastest a message could get anywhere was by a man on a horse, train, or boat. The Victorian Internet: the Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century' On-Line Pioneers, by Tom Standage is the riveting history of the telegraph and how it changed the way we communicate. I loved the comparisons to the internet, especially the description where the world would now be connected by a web of wires.

This book is sort of a 'side-trail' here as it focuses only on telegrams, but it ties in nicely with The Victorian Internet. Thanks go to Constant Reader for the recommendation! Telegram! Modern History As Told Through More Than 400 Witty, Poignant, and Revealing Telegrams by Linda Rosenkrantz. This is a well researched collection of telegrams concerning life and death, war (Lincoln conducted much of the Civil War over telegraph wires), business and more. There are telegrams about Hollywood movies, Broadway openings, authors needing money ... all interspersed with bits about the history of Western Union. The entries are short so it makes for easy reading during all those ads on TV. :-)

"Dreams about the future are always filled with gadgets." -- Neil deGrasse Tyson --

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"Were you aware that 75% of the population of Canada lives south of the geographic location of Bellingham?" This was how a WWU professor of Canadian History liked to start each new class. He would then pull down a map and prove it was true.

A wise woman, the one who sold me my first horse and taught me how to ride, gave me a copy of Nothing Too Good for a Cowboy by Rich Dobson. It's the true story of the men who brought cattle to the Chilcotin area in British Columbia. One summer my mother and I went to a dude ranch in the area which furthered my love of pack trips into the mountains, a love that would last a life time. Great reading! And, there are two more in the series. :-)

Margaret Craven's book I Heard the Owl Call My Name was rejected by American publishers, so was first published in Canada. It was a huge success, and was finally published in the U.S. where it reached #1 on the NY Times best seller list. A young vicar has been sent to work at a First Nation village in British Columbia. (He is terminally ill, but his bishop has not told him this). It is a story of conflict: old religion and new, age and youth, old traditions and a new way of life, and of acceptance.

I've read a lot of Farley Mowat. His writing could make me cry, as in And No Birds Sang (mentioned in an earlier blog) or laugh, as in The Dog Who Wouldn't Be. When he was mocked by cats on the picket fences too many times, Mowat's dog learned to walk along the top most supporting rail so he could chase them. Needless to say, the cats were very surprised! One of my favorite bits is about how Mowat, who did not want to move to the Saskatoon and was determined to run away as soon as possible. They arrived late at night so it was not until the morning when he realized how pointless that would be. The land in their new home was flat and barren. He'd be visible for days!

I had a hard time deciding where to include Callahan's Crosstime Saloon by Spider Robinson as it fits nicely into Canadian authors, science fiction, or, with my all time favorite books. (I've decided to divide these up, as listing them all at once might just be too much)! ;-) Callahan's is a neighborhood pub. Sort of. The regulars include ET's, time travelers, vampires .... but everyone is welcome. A patron may talk, or not, as they wish. Problems are solved, sympathy is given, and the puns are many (consider yourself warned!) Be sure to check out 'The Time-Traveler' for an unexpected twist.

My introduction to the Vinyl Cafe was as a radio show on CBC FM. Hosted by Stuart McLean, it included a section about Dave and Morley and their kids and how they deal with the events of everyday life. I'm not doing it justice here, this is story telling at it's best as they cope with a sick guinea pig, Dave tries to toilet train the cat, and Morley deals with buying her son hockey equipment (including his first jock strap). Funny, sad, heart-warming, and sometimes all too familiar. I love both the radio show and the books. Be sure to get the books from Canada, at least one of them was published by a U.S. publisher who opted to 'americanize' it a bit, which was not only unnecessary, but removed some of the Canadian charm that makes the stories so good. Titles include Stories From the Vinyl Cafe, Home from the Vinyl Cafe, and Vinyl Cafe Unplugged.

Nancy Pearl (author of Book Lust) has put forth that there are four elements in a good book: story, character, setting, and language. All books have one or more of these, and how you respond to them depends on the balance, and, obviously, what you like (strong characters, powerful language, etc.) For me, Louise Penny has them all. Some of her writing has been so moving that I've photocopied the paragraph and tucked in it my collection of favorite quotes. The first in the series is Still Life. Here you meet the characters you'll come to know and love, lead by Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Surete du Quebec. The village of Three Pines seems to be one of those places that folks stumble upon when they most need a refuge and so is populated with diverse, interesting people. Penny is another of my all time favorite authors.

Max Ferguson used to be a regular on the CBC FM every Saturday morning. He retired years ago so I was surprised and pleased to recently discover he'd written a book! Just like the radio show, And Now .... Here's Max: an Irreverent Memoir of the CBC by Max Ferguson has an introduction from Shelagh Rogers. It really is an irreverent memoir all right, about the early days at the CBC, but sadly only covers about the first 20 years or so. I would have enjoyed learning more about the show of his I loved so much. This new reprint has a nice appendix that explains who many of the people he knew and worked with were, including Lorne Green, best known to many of us as 'Pa Cartwright' , who started as a radio announcer.

When my Canadian friend comes for a visit later this year, she has to come North to get here!

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Francois de la Rochefoucauld said "The only constant in life is change." The older I get, the more I realize just how true that is! Here are a few books about life changes.

If I ever wanted to say no to something, my mother always expected be to have a reason ... a good reason. When I Say No I Feel Guilty, by Manual J. Smith taught me that it is okay to simply say "No", that's it, that's all, no reason necessary. What a relief!

There are now lots of books out on how to simplify your life, but by far the best one, to me, is the first, Simplify Your Life: 100 Ways to Slow Down and Enjoy the Things That Really Matter, by Elaine St. James. No broad, sweeping commands here, her suggestions are reasonable, and easily customized for various life styles.

My folks and siblings were highly motivated, high achievers, and extremely intelligent. I was quiet and reflective, did not seek the limelight, was not fond of a loud party or crowds. I had a hard time fitting in. Not until 2002 did I find something that explained this to me. The Introvert Advantage: How to Thrive in an Extrovert World, by Marti Olsen Laney was a revelation! Again, there are several books out on this subject, but again, I like this first one.

Everyone has their own life changing moments and/or events, some are by choice, others from circumstances beyond their control. Heart in the Right Place: a Memoir by Carolyn Jourdan tells how Carolyn left her job as an attorney on Capitol Hill to return home to the small community in Tennessee to help out her father (the only doctor in the area) when her mother has a heart attack. She comes to see her folks in a new light.

Jenna Woginrich, author of One Woman Farm: My Life Shared with Sheep, Pigs, Chickens, Goats, and a Fine Fiddle, made the choice to change her life. She goes from a high stress, mostly indoor life to one based on farm work and seasons, and the responsibility of caring for her animals. She takes joy in everything from the birth of lambs to a house warmed by a wood fire.

Embrace change!

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I'm pretty sure my 'Critter' reading started with the Mother West Wind stories by Thornton Burgess. I loved Grandfather Frog and his 'chug-a-rum'. These stories explained why the skunk has a striped tail and so on. They are also wonderful when read aloud. Titles include Mother West Wind Why Stories and Mother West Wind How Stories.

For some of my critter books all that is left are fond memories: Won Kim's Ox by Philip Eisenberg, Rascal, by Sterling North and The Little Cow and Turtle, by Meindart Dejong.

Like so many other readers, I loved the James Herriot (the pen name for James Wright) books and have reread them several times. Starting with All Creatures Great and Small the series is about a veterinarian in Yorkshire and the animals in his care. Touching and heartwarming, the animals and their owners become like family and you will laugh and cry at their escapades.

James Herriot's Yorkshire is an armchair walking tour of the area where Herriot practiced. The photographs are by Derry Brabbs and the commentary by Herriot.

The brief text from the picture book, Noah's Ark, is translated from a poem by Jacobus Revius and illustrated by Peter Spier. Spier does wonderfully detailed drawings. Check in the corners of the ark for the spiders, look for the laundry on the line on the roof, see Noah mucking out the stalls!

My most recent critter read was actually called Critters! It came from a recommendation from Char. Critters: Adventures in Wildest Suburbia by A.B.C. Whipple and illustrated by John T. Burgoyne is a humorous and educational romp through the wildlife that has adapted to life in the 'burbs.' Read about the raccoon who enjoys Beethoven (especially the 9th Symphony) and learn how squirrels helped us when the war for Independence.

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Recently friends of mine came to town for the memorial service for Dr. Flora and it started me down a trail of Bellinghamsters who are authors.

Mostly I remember Dr. Flora from a tv show on KVOS TV called 'Tide Pool Critters', but he also wrote a book titled The Sound and the Sea: a Guide to Northwestern Neritic Invertebrate Zoology. The photographs were taken by another local, Eugene Fairbanks, M.D. It is an easy-to-read reference book.

Joann Roe has written several books, but I think my favorite is The North Cascadians, the history of our nearby mountains and the people who settled there.

There are several books written about the Pig War on San Juan Island, but the one written by Keith Murray is the one I'm listing here since I knew Dr. Murray. Simply called The Pig War, it is a carefully researched, easy to read history of small event that could have escalated out of control, but didn't. The (British) pig in question had pushed down a fence into the (American) vegetable garden and helped himself to the potatoes. The landowner chased the pig and shot him. He reported what he had done and offered to pay, but tempers flared between the unstable American General and the Governor (in Victoria) who did not like Americans who could not agree on what to do. Fortunately wiser minds prevailed and the situation was resolved without further shots being fired.

What I remember most about Don Walter is him playing ukelele at an end of the summer barbecue and salmon feed out at Birch Bay. He taught music at Western Washington University (then a State College) and wrote this book to go with the lectures given on Music History in a General Studies class offered to freshman. Men and Music in Western Culture is a great introduction to classical music.

When a body is found in the library, stabbed by a rod from the card catalog, Miss Zukas helps the local police find the killer. Miss Zukas and the Library Murders, by Jo Dereske, is the first in a series of cozy mysteries filled with engaging characters, unexpected plot twists, and a great cat. The series is now complete, which means there is No Waiting for the next book!

Pacific American Fisheries, Inc.: History of a Washington State Salmon Packing Company, 1890 - 1966, by August C. Radke. I had many wonderful professors when I was in college, but two were absolutely outstanding. One of them was Dr. Radke. Here is the story of a once thriving, local business, from the day it opened until the day it closed, thoroughly researched and written by "Rad" and then edited by Barbara S. Radke. (Dr. Radke died before the final revision).

For the story of a business of a different nature, try The Brothels of Bellingham: a Short History of Prostitution in Bellingham, WA by Curtis F. Smith. While admittedly not a 'scholarly work', it does have a nice little source list at the back. The author did a nice job discovering records and other information about an overlooked (probably intentionally) time in our past. From a quote on the back of the book from the author I learned that he wanted to produce a "readable, perhaps amusing, easily accessible record." I say he did so with great success!

In times past the Bellingham Herald had an amazing photographer by the name of Jack Carver. Archival Revival: Delivered Daily & At the Blossom Time Parade: the News Photography of Jack Carver is the companion booklet to an exhibit of many of his photographs that was held at the Lightcatcher building of the Whatcom Museum. It is well worth a look.

Aliens on Vacation (The Intergalactic Bed and Breakfast) by Clete Barrett Smith, illustrations by Christian Slade. Young David is not thrilled to be sent to soggy Washington from sunny Florida to spend the summer with his grandmother. Turns out, Granny has a surprise .... her Bed and Breakfast is for intergalactic tourists! I loved the settings, some so familiar I could practically smell a damp morning in my dad's old canvas tent. Funny, quirky, and a delight to read, this book is the first in a series. Aimed at readers ages 8 - 12 I enjoyed it so much that when I finished, I went back to the beginning and read it again immediately.

Buy local, read local!

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