Arboretum Library: Book Club Reads from 2014

Jan Bowers lives in the right place. A lover of nature and the outdoors, an avid hiker and backpacker, she is surrounded by mountain ridges, peaks, and canyons of almost every description. In this book, she invites us to come along and find out why some of these places are special, why some of them stay in her mind long after she has returned to the workaday world of the city. Readers have come to expect the best from this writer, termed "a rare talent. . . uncommonly good at the craft" by Wilderness magazine. Her new book is filled with creeks and meadows, tiny ferns and towering oaks, bears and butterflies and Red-tailed Hawks. We see gray clouds clogging the sky in a canyon, "wildly, almost tastelessly romantic, as full of clouds as a tea kettle with steam," and we startle a female grouse and her half-dozen fuzzy chicks "exploding from underfoot like billiard balls scattered with a cue stick." Faced with the prospect of moving to another place, Bowers finds herself thinking about the familiar world in new and unfamiliar ways. Through her eyes, too, we see how an interest in nature and the outdoors developed from early childhood and how simple curiosity has led her to the most surprising discoveries. At odd and unexpected moments, her work also seems to bring new insights into herself and her life as a writer, a wife, and a mother. These pages promise a new adventure at every turn in the trail. For sheer terror, there's a climb up the face of Baboquivari, for laughs, there's the great bagworm caper, and for some quiet truths, there are themes of gain and loss, of connection and reconcilliation. Crunching through winter snow or sweating under summer sun, we know we're in the hands of an experienced guide. And we know we couldn't ask for a better companion.

“[...] naturalist Bowers […] simply loves the wilderness of southern Arizona […]. The collection also chronicles a year in the life of the author during which she hiked her favorite mountains. […] By mixing memoir and botany, [she] has transcended dry nature writing. […] Bowers adroitly translates her science into a moving prose that will assist desert rat and city dweller alike in coming to a greater understanding of how it's possible to cherish this inhospitable land. “— Publisher's Weekly

Here are the questions we discussed at Book Club:
• What effect did the mixing of memoir and nature have on your reading of the story?
• Was the author clear about her nature writing? Can you picture and understand the environment?
• What was your favorite quote or research from another author that she wrote about?
• What do you think about the perennial technique of writing nature books centered around a year’s time?
• What has lingered in your mind since you finished the book?
• What was your favorite fact?
• If there was one thing you would change about the book, what would it be?
• Did the notes and bibliography help with your understanding of the book? How?
• Did you think while you were reading the book that the move was really going to happen? Why or why not?
• What did you think about her relationship to mountains? Do you have that kind of relationship with any landscape feature?

The magnificent Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of a stranger in his native land A young Native American, Abel has come home from a foreign war to find himself caught between two worlds. The first is the world of his father's, wedding him to the rhythm of the seasons, the harsh beauty of the land, and the ancient rites and traditions of his people. But the other world -- modern, industrial America -- pulls at Abel, demanding his loyalty, claiming his soul, goading him into a destructive, compulsive cycle of dissipation and disgust. And the young man, torn in two, descends into hell.

“The haunting descriptions of the always acutely present landscape contained in the novel spring from [his] back ground. ‘I am [says Momaday] inclined closely to associate events with the physical dimensions in which they take place. . . my existence is indivisible with the land.’ His novel is a complex, symbolic expression of how language and culture tend through their own territorial imperatives to encompass one, […] . If one voluntarily or forcedly intermixes with another culture and its language, he may find that in the interim he has lost both.’ — Martha Scott Trimble, Western Writers Series

Here are the questions discussed at the Book Club:
• What happened in this book?
• Was the woman staying in the house pregnant?
o Were there other unresolved loose ends? How did that affect your reading of the books? What was the purpose of them?
• How did the style of writing in this book differ from other things you have read and enjoyed?
• How do you think this book was received when it was first published?
• What has lingered in your mind since you finished the book?
• What did you learn in the reading?
• Could you readily imagine the Los Angeles parts?
How did it compare to our others books in Los Angeles from that time period?
• What did the date headings for the “chapters” do for the story?
• How did the prologue relate to the rest of the book?
• Were there any parts where you couldn’t figure out who was speaking?
Did that matter? What did that mean? Did you go back to try to figure that out?

Discussed October 1, 2014.
In Echo Park, a neighborhood at the wrong end of Sunset Boulevard, Joe, a cool cynic, lives marginally. Ironically, he finds himself becoming more involved than he'd planned in the lives of his clients, linked to their dreams and to their despair, and in some cases to their dirty secrets. His financial reliance on a sleazy character who needs pornographic letters to send mail-order brides soon complicates his relationship with his girlfriend, the beautiful Clio. This noir-style novel vividly brings to life an embattled community of mostly have-nots who attempt to survive city corruption, police harassment, and the daily grind with humor and sheer grit. Elizabeth Stromme has published two noir novels in Gallimard's Serie Noir in France. She also writes for Le Monde and the L.A. Alternative Press.

“The Joe […] is a writer for hire […]. He is an intricate part of his Echo Park neighborhood, connecting its odder characters & catering to their deepest needs. […] His nights there are like everyone else's, regularly transformed into "white nights" by police helicopters & requiring ear plugs. Joe is torn between Clio, the artist with the Jean Seberg haircut, and Corazon, the Filipina he lured to the U.S. by the sheer poetry of the letters he wrote for a client. Stromme knows how to find the beauty in the L.A. landscape: ‘In fact if you closed your eyes and let yourself drift, you might've thought you were in the tropics, the air was so perfumed. But I didn't. No one would. You had to keep your eyes open in Echo Park.’" — Susan Salter Reynolds, Los Angeles Times

Here are the questions we pondered:

• Did the book seem “noir” to you? How? Or how not?
• Did the author successfully convey a male voice? How? How not?
o Is that what all the writing about sex was all about? How did that focus contribute to or take away from the book?
• What was Beanie’s role?
• There seemed to be unresolved loose ends? What was the purpose of that?
• What has lingered in your mind since you finished the book?
• Tell us your take on the neighborhood? The helicopters?
• Were there any parts that you just couldn’t believe within the context of the story?
• Was there authenticity to the intermingling/stratification of the various economic strata within L.A.?
• Has anyone read Simenon? How does that fit into this story? Do you want to read him now? What did you think about the mapping of the places in his stories?
• Why did everyone just assume that the lotus smelled terrible instead of the body?
• Were there any misconceptions about L.A. that this book helps to perpetuate?
• Why did all the gardens die?

Mark Twain roars into San Francisco in 1863.  Pretty soon he''s drunk on champagne, oysters, and the city''s intoxicating energy.  Twenty-seven years old, fleeing the Civil War and seeking adventure, Twain finds a global seaport flush with new money and peopled by fortune seekers from five continents.  The war that is ravaging the rest of the country has only made  San Francisco richer: the economy booms, and newspapers and magazines thrive, feeding the city''s growing literary scene.  The bards of the moment are the Bohemians, a band of young eccentric writers seeking to create a new American voice at the country''s edge.  There''s literary golden boy Bret Harte; struggling gay poet Charles Warren Stoddard; and beautiful, haunted Ina Coolbrith, poet and protector of the group.  Twain joins their ranks, and the experiences that follow put him on the path to greatness.The Bohemians find inspiration in their surroundings: the dark ironies of frontier humor, the extravagant tales told around the campfires, and the youthful irreverence of the new world being formed in the West.  Harte is the group''s star, a rising figure on the national scene and mentor to both Stoddard and Coolbrith.  Young and ambitious, Twain and Harte form the Bohemian core, but as Harte''s reputation grows - drawing attention from eastern tastemakers such as the Atlantic Monthly - a young Twain flounders, suffering a crisis of confidence that almost leads him to abandon writing altogether.Ben Tarnoff''s elegant, atmospheric history reveals how these four pioneering western writers reinvented American literature by challenging the musty classicism of the eastern establishment.  The Bohemian  moment that began in San Francisco would continue in Boston, New York, and London, and would achieve immortality in the writings of Mark Twain.  San Francisco gave him his education as a writer and helped inspire the astonishing innovations that radically reimagined American literature.  At once an intimate portrait of an unforgettable group of writers and a history of a cultural revolution in America, The Bohemians reveals how a brief moment on the Far Western frontier changed our country forever. Praise for Ben Tarnoff''s A Counterfeiter''s Paradise''Ben Tarnoff captures the wild early years of America''s financial system . . . . It''s a colorful tale but also an enlightening one [that] helps us understand our financial culture back then - and even today.''  Walter Isaacson, author of Steve Jobs and Benjamin Franklin: An American Life''Fascinating . . . history as it should be written, brimming with the sort of vivid details that make the past come alive.''  Liaquat Ahamed, author of Lords of Finance''Tarnoff [is] the genuine article. I welcome his voice to that tiny chorus of writers who can make American history come alive without dumbing it down.''  Joseph J. Ellis, author of Founding Brothers and American Sphinx''What an ingenious idea for a book and what a rousing story!  A truly gifted writer, Ben Tarnoff has brought to life three unforgettable characters while at the same time providing a window onto the tumultuous financial situation that characterized early American life.''  Doris Kearns Goodwin, author of The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism and Team of Rivals''Lively and insightful . . . makes the most out of the entertaining tale of three master counterfeiters, using their careers to open an unexpected window on the making of the American economic imagination.''  T. J. Stiles, author of The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelous Vanderbilt and Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War''A rollicking good read.''  The New York Times''A delightful history lesson . . . admirable and altogether charming.''  The Washington Post''Engrossing . . . fascinating.''  The Wall Street Journal''Tarnoff, a first-time author, expertly sketches biographical vignettes . . . .[W]hat elevates [A Counterfeiter''s Paradise] from the novelty shelf is Tarnoff''''s skillful interweaving of the counterfeiter''s work and America''s revolving enchantment with a disapproval of paper money.''  The New York Times Book Review

“In 1869, the Transcontinental Railroad joined the country together and tore San Francisco apart. That's the conclusion [of this] fine book[. …Tarnoff’s] energetic attention [is] on a quartet of versatile writers, […]: Charles Warren Stoddard, […] Bret Harte, […]; Ina Coolbrith, […]; and Mark Twain, who decades later would mysteriously allude to a suicide attempt during his San Francisco years. [...Tarnoff’s] ultimate thesis is a strong one […] together these writers ‘helped pry American literature away from its provincial origins in New England and push it into a broader current.’" — David Kipen, Wall Street Journal

Discussed September 3, 2014.
• What did you like best about the book? The least? Were these the strengths and weaknesses of the book?
• What effect did the author achieve with his writing style?
• Who was this book written for?
• Did his revelations ring true for you? Did you agree with his premise?
• Did you read the notes?
• What has lingered in your mind since you finished the book?
• Do you think the publishing industry has improved in the intervening years?
• Too much on Twain? Or is it really his book?
• What kind of research happened for this book?
• Could you understand his inclusion of Ina Coolbrith? Why? Why not?

Discussed August 6, 2014
“[…] Pyle has synthesized three decades of life in a small community in southwest Washington into this exquisite portrait of place. Each chapter […] represents a month of the year in Gray’s River Valley; each brims with vivid moments and vignettes. […]This down-to-earth book hums with the details of country living, the intersection of the wild with the domestic. […It] inspires us to look for possibilities of grace close to home. ” — Colleen Mondor, Bookslut

Here are the questions we pondered:
• What did you like best about the book? The least? Were these the strengths and weaknesses of the book?
• What effect did the author achieve with his writing style?
• What was your favorite new fact?
• Were there any confusing facts for you?
• What did you think about all the quotes, chapter headings and within?
• What was the most encouraging aspect of the book? The least?
• What has lingered in your mind since you finished the book?
• What about the water? Did you feel it?
• Cats? Is that too easy?
• What aspects of the rural environment do we have in the city that you wouldn’t necessarily expect?
• Who was your favorite neighbor and why?
• Did this book help you become a nature lover? Why? Why not?

Discussed July 2, 2014
“An unusual epic, at once huge and intimate, about the settling of the West begins in 1855, when Ada Fishburn & her infant son, Glee, step ashore […] where the dark trees run straight down to Puget Sound, & it ends in the lean years of the 1890s, with Jim Hill's Great Northern having tied the state of Washington to the coming century and Glee a middle-aged man tending bar in Seattle. […W]hat gives the book its power […] the beauty and clarity of the writing and the author's sure sense of the pace, talk, and enthusiasms of other times, of the sadness of withered enterprise, of the violence and beauty of life.” — American Heritage

Here are the questions we pondered:
• What did you like best about the book? The least? Were these the strengths and weaknesses of the book?
• What effect the author achieve with her writing style?
• Were the characters believable? Did you care about them?
• How did Beal die?
• What can you pull from this book to help you live today?
• Did you think the swirl of people moved too fast for understanding? Why? Why not?
• Did you have to look anything up to figure out what the author was talking about? What?
• What has lingered in your mind since you finished the book?
• How does this story relate to where your ancestors were at that time?

Discussed on June 4, 2014.
Stanley Crawford has [. . .] turned the history of an acequia into a startling and lovely celebration of life. […His] artistry draws the reader [. . .] into the lives of those simple and strong people [. . . The] narrative technique effectively leads the reader through the past's mundane tasks of yearly digging and scraping ditches [and] illustrates the joy of 'living life deliberately' without modern conveniences--it reveals […] the strength and hardihood found only in those who live close to the land and depend on the environment for survival. It is a testament to the human spirit . . . -- Western American Literature

Here are the questions we pondered:
• How did the author’s writing style affect your reading of the book?
• What was the most astonishing fact you learned?
• Give examples of how this rural environment significantly differs from our urban one? Are there beneficial aspects of that environment that could be adapted to urban areas?
• Give an example of something interesting you learned from one of the various characters?
• What was the most encouraging aspect of the book? The least?
• Was there anything in this book that had you reflecting on your working style?
• Was there anything in the book you really didn’t understand?
• Do you have any tales to tell of water systems that you have interacted with?

Discussed May 7, 2014
“Cather is our quietest Modernist. That is to say, she was innovative in her approach to her work, but novels such as My Ántonia were written in such a deceptively plain prose style that their robust, formal originality, their delicious complexities can easily be missed. The story is told in the male-gendered voice of Jim Burden […]. Through Burden, Cather uses landscape not merely as backdrop, but as a kind of character, dynamically interactive with Ántonia's family as well as everyone else in Black Hawk.”
— Bradford Morrow, You Must Read This, NPR

Here are the questions we pondered:
• How did framework of the introduction set the stage for your reading of the story? How would your reading have been different without the introduction?
• Is Jim Burden a typical pioneer gentleman? Why? Why not?
• Do you think Cather’s writing is “modern”? Why? Why not?
• Is this book straight forward? Why? Why not?
• What did you like/dislike about Cather’s descriptive language?
• What did you learn from the characters?
• What did you think about Jim looking back?
• Did you tear up? When? Why?
• Did this book astonish to you? Why/ Why not?
• What do you think Cather was trying to do by blurring gender lines?

Discussed April 2, 2014
“Coplin’s mesmerizing debut stands out with its depictions of uniquely Western personalities and a stark, gorgeously realized landscape that will settle deeply into readers’ bones. In the early twentieth century, Talmadge lives alone amid his huge spread of fruit trees in Washington’s Wenatchee Valley. […] The prose abounds with poetic imagery, and the quotation-mark-free dialogue […] emphasizes the melding of these solitary characters with the vast, wild place they choose to call home.”— Sarah Johnson, Booklist

Here are the questions we pondered:

• Did you think there were anomalies in “facts” in the story?
• Why does Caroline Middey go by two names when everyone else doesn’t?
• Why does Angelene sell the orchard?
• How did the pacing affect the story?
• How did the change in the points of view affect your views of the characters?
• What did you learn from the characters?
• How did the style of the short chapters affect your reading of the story?
• Tell me about Clee?
• What authors does this writer remind you of?
• Was the landscape the best character in the book? True? Not True?
• What would you change about the book? Or what would you feel was absolutely necessary to the book?
• Were you able to bear the pain? Did you tear up? When?

Discussed March 5, 2014
“Like most of the characters in [Jack Kerouac’s] “On the Road,” “Terry” was based on a real person. Bea Franco was her name, and she was the daughter of farm-working Mexican immigrants. In his poignant new novel […] the San Joaquin Valley-raised poet […] reconstructs Franco’s life and her passionate, life-changing encounter with the famous writer in autumn 1947. […R]eading Hernandez feels like being transported into a time machine and being shown other textures in the California landscape that Kerouac, an outsider, could not possibly have seen.” — Hector Tobar, Los Angeles Times

Here are the questions we pondered:

• Do anomalies in logic or facts demean the story?
• Were you able work through the Spanish inserted in the story?
• Tell how the swift shifts in the point of view, (Beatrice or Jack within the same paragraph) helped or didn’t help tell the story.
• Was the author able to tell Beatrice’s story? Why or why not? What parts of her story seemed the most authentic?
• What are the actions driven by poverty?
• Who was your favorite character? And why?
• What do you remember about reading On the Road?
• What does the title mean?
• What did Beatrice learn through the story?
• What made the landscape the best character in the book? True? Not True?
• What would you change about the book?

Discussed February 5, 2014
“Wilkins nails the sense of this place dead-on with poet’s eyes […] and musician’s ears […] The snap shirts, feed store ball caps, Rainier beer cans, antelope breakfast steaks, Chinook winds and the opaque plastic sheets covering windows in the winter […]The [book] is another poignant lesson in reconciling ourselves with our natural environment. ‘We need to remember how it really was and is out West, and we need to tell those true new stories…’” Chris Bowman, Capital Public Radio

Here are the questions we pondered:

• Did Joe have a happy childhood?
• How does he process his father’s death or not?
• What was your favorite landscape interaction that Joe had?
• Is the landscape an adversary?
• Was the transition to the harrowing adolescence inevitable?
• How does the fathering (or his search for fathering) effect his adult life?
• Does his poetic language help the story; hinder; hide; sanitize?
• Who was your favorite father figure?
• How did the end fit with the rest of the story; or not?
• What is the “mountain” of the title?
• How did Joe's Catholicism influence his journey?

Discussed January 8, 2014
“Like a flash flood rushing along a normally meandering stream, […] Proulx’s most characteristic short stories move with a deceptive sort of sinister casualness, before the point of impact, and of disaster—but “disaster” [...] is likely to be tersely and ironically noted, as the fall of a sparrow might be noted, one more event in the hard implacable heart of Nature.[...C]haracters may be foolish, hardly more than puppets or ants seen from the ironist’s distance, but the prose in which they are rendered is likely to be sinewy, supple, tensely impacted, and “poetic” in the best sense of the word.”—Joyce Carol Oates, The New York Review of Books

Questions discussed during book club:

• What are the positive aspect in these stories?
• Why do you think the author used such unusual names?
• “The Half-Skinned Steer”
  This appears to be a retelling of a legend-like story, although it is set in the “present”. Why do you think the author combined these two genres?
• “The Mud Below”
  This is a long story about a profession most people aren’t familiar with. What about the story helped you understand the profession better?
• “Job History”
  What drives people to make such poor decisions?
• “The Blood Bay”
  What particulars made this story funny?
• “People in Hell Just Want a Drink of Water”
  Proulx’s language surrounding the landscape and environment is often exquisite even though the stories are brutal. How do you reconcile this juxtaposition?
• “The Bunchgrass Edge of the World”
  The stories seem a lot like Chekhov’s short stories, showing careful observation of the human condition. Often that observation is negative or joyless. What joy can you take from this story?
• “Pair of Spurs”
  There is significant portrayal of men being violent toward women in these stories. How did you process that portrayal?
• “A Lonely Coast”
  Did Josanna kill anybody?
• “The Governors of Wyoming”
  In this Proulx is making a point that the rural, ranching lifestyle is extraordinarily different from an urban environment and is changing rapidly. What twists did she give to this which were unexpected?
• “55 Miles to the Gas Pump”
  Why?
• “Brokeback Mountain”
  Do you have memories that turn into dreams? How is this story different from the others in the book?