Books

The Summer He Didn't Die
Jim Harrison

Pretty Birds
Scott Simon

Safekeeping: Some True Stories from a Life
Abigail Thomas

The Trouble with Poetry and Other Poems
Billy Collins

Parliament of Whores: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U. S. Government
P. J. O'Rourke, Andrew Ferguson

Tracks
Louise Erdrich

The Grace of Grass and Water: Writing in Honor of Paul Gruchow
Thomas Dean (Editor), Carol Bly, Mark Vinz, Paul Gruchow, Bob Artley

A Thousand Years Over a Hot Stove: A History of American Women Told through Food, Recipes, and Remembrances
Laura Schenone

Regis bought me a gift certificate to Barnes and Noble again this year. I don't know of a present I enjoy more. I usually spend an afternoon after Christmas looking at the lists of award winners, new books by favorite authors, picks by staff at favorite bookstores, and online reviews. I have a list of about twenty books at the end and then I go to the store and spend an hour picking out what I want.

This year I got them online because I got irritated at the new Barnes and Noble store. I won't go into the reasons (see cranky post below). The list is above and I think it's one of my better years. I got some fiction, some non-fiction, some memoir, and a book of poems although I made a mistake and bought the paperback instead of the hard cover. That's my feeble attempt at supporting poetry and poets...buying one hard cover book a year.

Our neighbors Mike and Erin had a baby on New Year's Eve Day. They named her Katherine Nova, as in supernova. Cool name. Not like saddling a baby with a bizarre first name like Sandlot but a cool middle name.

My friend Jan Bjorling died last Friday night. I'm pretending that she hasn't passed, but is just busy somewhere else. I guess that's true in a way...anyway it's a nice way to think about her. She's reading at the library or looking for new stuff for the garden or tossing milkweed fluff off the deck into the wind or drinking tea at the River Rock...or Manhattans at Whiskey River. Any of those things. But not gone.

Regis is going out to blow the one inch of mucky snow we had today. It was pretty coming down but it didn't amount to much but a nuisance snow. He likes to blow snow especially in the dark. Our snow blower has a halogen headlight so it's a manly sort of task. Grab that thing by the horns and off you go.

Here I go...new books and a glass of wine and some of that Dark Chocolate with Intense Orange.