Summer Reading...

  I remember in the fourth grade I was in Mrs. Walker's class and we kept a book list. That year I read 145 books. Only person that read more than me was some girl. I don't read that many books a year anymore and maybe I should say we read because some girl, my wife, Cathy probably still reads more than me.  Our book shelves around here sag from the weight and books are pretty much everywhere you can stash one. Magazines come too, literary stuff like the New Yorker and informational reading like Vintage Guitar. In an effort to cut the clutter we renewed library cards this spring and started trying to donate the mags and while we still buy a must have now and then I thought I would make a book report of sorts just like I did in Mrs. Walker's class. 

Chris Edwards is a local singer songwriter who I occasionally get to stand beside on a stage somewhere and yell the lyrics to a Guy Clark song into a microphone. He has also written a book. It's called "Nobody Comes to Visit Anymore." If you've lived in East Texas, listened to the stories of your paw paw, hung out around Nacogdoches or jammed with your buddies in a greasy loud band you might be in this book somewhere. I know I had the feeling of there but for the grace of God go I on some of it or hey, I think I knew that dude. I am not sure exactly where you get one of these since Chris fished my copy out of the trunk of his car and handed it to me in person but you may try the Bosslight in Nacogdoches.  

I checked Robert Stone's "Damascus Gate" from the Kurth Memorial Library. Stone is of the era of Kesey and McMurtry. His novels are action novels, frequently set in turbulent areas and times with politics, drugs, pop culture and music as the backgrounds. A common theme is a guy gets in a situation over his head, he drinks too much, clumsily falls for the girl, his actions confuse people and no one knows which side he's on or where he stands. I think this has happened to me a few times and that's why I like Stone. I have read most of his novels and I notice that a couple of the early ones I would like to reread seems to no longer be in stock at the library. 

The book I'm reading now is by Kim Stanley Robinson and is called "The Ministry of the Future."  I recently read his "New York 2140." Robinson is a "cli-fi" or climate fiction writer. Using the latest known science he writes near future speculative fiction dealing with climate, politics, economics and the stories of the people and populations affected by the ways these things interact as they change. If "Ministry of the Future" does not make you scared for your great grand children your mood stabilizing medicine is better than mine. I would say from information in the novel irreversible climate change is about five years away. Some have criticized the the political developments Robinson describes happening in the face of disaster as "too optimistic." I highly recommend. 

 I highly recommend all these books. I'll be making more trips to the library to save my sagging shelves and maybe a few trees if I borrow instead of buy. Read like you are in class. I did not know what I was doing way back there in the forth grade but I do now.