The North Texas weather is generous to those of us too broke for a road trip over spring break. We get to savor the best that Texas weather has to offer, so nanny-nanny-boo-boo to everyone on the slopes or the beaches.
Read out on the patio for hours this week. It's not quite warm enough for the little lizards to wake up and sunbathe on the fence, but quite pleasant in shirtsleeves if you are out of the wind. I'm so glad I got bifocal sunglasses this time!
I've been spending my time off in Maine, Nebraska, and North Dakota, letting cold winds clear my mind, and acts of human kindness warm my heart. These books each have their own delights:
Once Upon a Town: the Miracle of the North Platte Canteen, by Bob Greene. Greene interviews those vets who experienced the generosity of a community who greeted and fed every soldier on every troop train crossing the U.S. during WWII, as well as the community members who showed the very best of the American war effort on the home front.
Daniel Plainway: or the Holiday Haunting of the Moosepath League, by Van Reid. The third installment in this wonderful series continues to satisfy in the manner of James Herriott's stories or The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series. These books have healing voodoo. Get well soon!
The Master Butchers Singing Club, by Louise Erdrich. I hope that Master Butchers is the beginning of a new set of novels intertwining Delphine, Fidelus, and Cyprian's families in the way Erdrich wove and embroidered tales of her Ojibwa ancestors in earlier books. That the writing is by turns stark, poetic, and convoluted fits with my own experiences of family story-telling and family secrets of the Great Plains and the Great Depression. The book may not be for those who lack the patience and curiosity to listen at family reunions.
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