The Stack of Books

Wheels of Fortune, The Story of Rubber in Akron, Steve Love and David Giffels

The Odd Woman and the City, Vivian Gornick

The Old Ways, a Journey on Foot, Robert McFarlane

A Walk in the Woods, Bill Bryson

Negroland: A Memoir, Margo Jefferson

H is for Hawk, by Helen Macdonald

Travels in Siberia, Ian Frazier

When I moved into this unit last June, there was a lot to keep me busy, indoors and out. I had a loom and recorded books; who could ask for much more? I was listening to “The Salt Path”, by Raynor Winn. I was captivated, so captured by the book that at its end I backspaced to the beginning—four times. My wonder spilled over into the blog, so awkwardly I had to figure out how to attempt a review.

Everything about books now is also about brain injury. Someday I may lock myself in a room for a month and attempt an analysis of mine.

In the local paper I came across mention of “Wheels of Fortune”, edited in part by Dave Giffels. Anything Dave writes, is on my book shelf. He writes about Akron, our home town. I could say only “home town”, irrespective of its name or place, and anyone could make a place connection.

Then, NYT published a list of books to read before one died. Because my list "left me", I went through and made a list of books to buy, after “Wheels of Fortune”. The list also represents the order of the intended reading sequence, after all came in.

The sequence changed once, when my daughter asked for “Negroland”, and I was working on “The Odd Woman”, the second time. Beth was accumulating books to read with one foot in the air, following meniscus repair of her knee.

Every one of these books is about a journey. As is every book, you say. But, there is a physical journey in each book, as well as mental. Almost as if I picked right up from “The Salt Path”.

“The Odd Woman” is me, a solitary person, in fact, not by choice. It also is a memoir of a woman whose mornings are spent writing, afternoons and evenings spent walking the New York, threading transit passengers and footpaths of her city.

Two thirds through this book, Beth told me she couldn’t find what I saw in it. I didn’t tell her I read it twice, but  to pass it along, together with the other books I sent.

Then I read “Negroland”, Margo Jefferson’s memoir. Beth really wanted the book, so I only read it once. I didn’t “get it” until two thirds through, when the whole tone of the book purposely changed and the author made her point. I don’t know that it deserved a second reading; the first two thirds were tough to get through.

It is an autobiography of growing up in the fifties and sixties, in the black upper class. It was another childhood, during my childhood, and about characters I might have known in my own neighborhood. I knew white girls like the black girls in the book, but was not accepted by them. I knew black girls, not like the black girls in the book. The book, in the end, is about coming of age in this country at that time.

Next I picked up “The Old Ways”. I found the author’s pretentious presentation rather similar to Margo Jefferson’s childhood, and that condensed into the chapter I managed before I put “The Old Ways” into the stack of books for Beth. When she asked a reading order, I put it on the bottom, and indicated it might interest France.

Next, “A Walk in the Woods”. Bill Bryson is gearing himself to walk the Appalachian Trail, bottom to top. He pulled me into mental exertion of facing one’s unfilled goals and the physical exertion of attempts to execute. Bill decided he could use a companion, and could solicit only one, Steve Katz. He’d travelled Europe with Katz in college days, and remembered Katz nearly drove him nuts.

Nevertheless, they set off. Bryson remains seriously mentally engaged, and so does Katz, in his way. Several weeks into Virginia they split up; Katz to keep a summer job engagement and Bryson to hike on alone. Bill finds ‘alone’ seriously unfulfilling, and his wife gives him a lift home. After Katz’ summer job, the two meet up again. They decide they have hiked the best and the worst of the trail, and if they tackle the brutal end of it, ‘The Hundred Mile Wilderness’ in Maine, they could claim victory.

A life or death experience there in the Hundred Mile Wilderness cinches it. Katz is horrified, Bryson mentally crushed. With so many months, miles and experiences past their feet, they say the important is done. They tried.

And so I picked up “H is for Hawk” by Helen Macdonald. The book is exhausting, mentally and to the imagination. Macdonald purchases a goshawk, intending to train it, as she has trained many hawks in the past. She runs for miles across English hills, training the hawk, and coming to what peace she can with the unexpected death of her father. It is a book I will read again, but for now it is on the bookshelf.

And to the bottom of the pile, “Travels in Siberia” by Ian Frazier. I believe there are five or six hundred pages in this book. I have probably a hundred fifty down. I am finally settling into what this book is.  So far I've read about Russian and Siberian history; Frazier learning it and the language; then applying history and language in excursions to the country to experience what he read.

The book is not a tough slog if one does not bog down in the extensive history and languages of the countries that I do take as fact, being no expert. Several times I’ve felt I could doze away and am slapped awake by discussions of what he is seeing resembling Akron, Cleveland, Ohio during my and his childhood. He is a native of Hudson, Ohio.

My bookmark is left at Frazier’s meeting of the two guides who will accompany him across Siberia, in a rickety van. He does not like the first, and the second even less.

If I were to write about the books, it’s now or never. Who know when I will finish “Travels in Siberia”. The first time.