Lady Chatterley's Lover

D.H. Lawrence. Lady Chatterley's Lover. 1928. Arcturus, 2010.

Found this beautiful slip-covered edition at a Value Village and just the feel of it inspired me to re-read this classic. 

Summer re-reading. What will be different when I re-read this, DHL's last novel, fifty years later? 

I still find his language a bit wordy, but so sincere. Sincerely averse to industrial ugliness and its ravages on the land and the workers. Sincerely passionate about the beauty of nature and about our human place within that flower-strewn green natural world. So sad that the public were blinded by the sex and oblivious to the true obscenities which Mellors was trying to hide from, and Lawrence was trying to raise awareness about. 

Wiener Dog Art: A Far Side Collection

Gary Larson. Wiener Dog Art: A Far Side Collection. 1990.

I do miss Gary Larson.

Thanks to the free shelf, Nuggets Books, Chilliwack, BC.

Mud Woman: Poems from the Clay

June 21, 2017
Nora Naranjo-Morse. Mud Woman: Poems from the Clay. U Arizona, 1992.

A delightful collection of poetry and art, about creativity and identity.

The Chilliwack Story

The Chilliwack Story. Ron Denman, Editor. Chilliwack Museum and Historical Society, 2007.

Very well organized, with a focus on archival photographs. Very interesting local history coffee table book, encompassing some of the First Nations reserves as well as the villages and communities which grew into a city surrounding them. 

Ireland In Poetry

Ireland In Poetry: With Paintings, Drawings, Photographs, and Other Works of Art. Charles Sullivan, Editor. Abrams, 1990.

An incredibly beautiful collection. 

Carrying the Shadow

June 10, 2017

Patrick Friesen. Carrying the Shadow. Porcepic, 1999.

Reading Carrying the Shadow is like walking through a graveyard with Patrick and eavesdropping on the conversations he has. It is wonderful. I like it almost more than You Don't Get to Be a Saint. And I think I have found in it a poem that gave me goosebumps when I heard Patrick read it at a Word on the Street, about a dead man with an open blue eye--"the man who licked stones." But it is these lines, from "poem for a father" which make me want to quote and re-read: 
    
     I've watched him [a boy] on the beach
     digging among the rocks
     stopping to stare across the water

     he doesn't know what he's looking for
     it'a a code in his bones
     that drives him toward memory (p. 64)

The Illuminated Life of Maud Lewis

June 6, 2017
Lance Woolaver and Bob Brooks. The Illuminated Life of Maud Lewis. Nimbus, AGNS, 1996?

Had to find out more about Maud Lewis after seeing Ethan Hawke's Maudie. This book answered most of my questions -- the usual hesitation about biopics -- with a respectful personal adulation, additional information about Everett, and great colour photos. I wish I had one of her happy cat pictures, or the team of oxen. 

The Knife Sharpener's Bell

June 4, 2017
Rhea Tregebov. The Knife Sharpener's Bell. Coteau, 2010.

An interesting coming-of-age tale of Annette, born in Winnipeg, who, with her idealistic parents, returns to the homeland, the new USSR, to Odessa, in the 1930s. Through the eyes of an outsider who knows only Canadian ways, we see details of growing up as a secular Jew in Odessa/Moscow/Russia through the Depression, World War II, and the remaining years of Stalin's rule. The language is beautifully poetic in a way which does not distract from the story. The challenges of human rights and prejudice/discrimination/racism are eerily too familiar these generations later. 

At Home: A Short History of Private Life

May 31, 2017
Bill Bryson. A Short History of Private Life. Doubleday, 2010.

This is my third Bryson, 450 pages of information about the development of "private spaces" (would I think be more accurate). He starts and ends with the 1851 rectory he purchased in Norfolk to explore the design of private houses in England and America, and the technological changes which impacted upon the way people could and/or chose to live. Income. Infrastructure. Attitudes. Almost free associating, as he walks us through each room. Interesting.