If I mention the American Dust Bowl to you (if you are American) you probably have some basic information that you learned in school. A few photos flash through your mind of families looking poverty-stricken and depressed. You think of dust storms and droughts and bleak landscapes. As with much of history, however, our common knowledge tends to be simply the tip of the iceberg. The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan was enlightening, depressing, and absolutely fascinating. The dust storms that took over the Great Plains in the same years as the Great Depression were unlike anything seen before. People had flooded into the Plains and wheat became a…

I requested Jane Austen’s Bookshelf from the library with no intention of writing about it. Frankly, I am doing an absolutely terrible job of reviewing books these days. However, I read it, I loved it, I bought my own copy, and I am here to tell you to do the same. Rebecca Romney is a rare book dealer and a devoted fan of Jane Austen. As with many of us who love Austen’s works, she read them over and over and yearned for more. This sparked her curiosity about the books Austen herself would have read. What books would have been on Austen’s own bookshelf? Some authors are easy to…

When I was a kid I was fascinated by the gold rush. I think this fascination might have been sparked by a book I read (of course) called The Golden Venture by Jane Flory. It is the story of a young girl who stows away in her father’s wagon when he heads off for the California gold fields. I don’t remember the book too clearly anymore but I know she had lots of adventures and, at one point she made her home on an abandoned ship. I have requested a copy of the book from the library. It is always a risk rereading books you loved as a child but…

Have you ever taken a walk with a small child? Maybe it was a walk with a particular destination but your child companion does not care how long it takes to get there and is utterly fascinated by every tiny thing along the way. The walk is long, detail-oriented, and utterly fascinating but not quite what you expected. That is how I felt reading Papyrus by Irene Vallejo. I went into it expecting to read about the actual making of books. Instead, I read a book that was part history, part memoir, and wholly about the love of books and reading. I started this book months ago when I was…

I have a new life goal. I shall buy a little house on a river in the Maine woods and move my family there. We shall be isolated from the world in general but completely happy with our own company. We will be surrounded by woods and water and nature. And obviously I will write a book in my spare time. Louise Dickinson Rich beat me to this life plan and I have just had the joy of reading all about it. We Took to the Woods was published in 1942 and became an instant bestseller. Rich’s conversational style and forthright descriptions of her life are eminently readable. Each chapter…