What I Have Been Reading...

A few weeks ago I was at Bonner’s Book in Bonner’s Ferry Idaho. For longer than I have lived here this has been a place of pilgrimage. It remains for me an essential cultural feature of North Idaho. I had finished my previous pick from that trip…

What I Am Reading...

Mollie, the dog, and I went up to Bonner’s Ferry to visit Bonner’s books. Well I went for the books, she had to stay in the car as they have a resident black cat. I go there frequently because it is the best bookstore in the area and one of the best anywhere. It is well curated with a wide range of topics.

Morse Brothers StudiosDoug Morse

and am reading a book of poems from that trip (so good I hold off finishing that slender volume), a Christmas gift, and another book I pre-ordered before Christmas.

This book I finished recently was a typical selection. That is to say a random one. I rarely have a genre or topic in mind when visiting a book store and prefer to wander and discover. So it was with Plainsong by Kent Haruf. Never heard of the book or author but the summary sounded interesting enough.

The story is a kind of everyday story of a small eastern Colorado agricultural town. If I were to describe the events they would perhaps seem unexciting and commonplace. The way the story unwinds and the characters are drawn makes it an engaging read which I thoroughly enjoyed. There is a sequel involving the same characters called Eventide. When informed of this by the person at the register I thought to myself ‘unlikely’.

I now will be forced to break my rule and my next visit to Bonner’s Book will have at least Eventide as a premeditated purchase.