Warmer weather has finally come to Nova Scotia and, although it may not stay, I know it will soon be time to be getting out in the garden. With that in mind, I’ve been reading a lot of gardening-related “short stories”. Okay – they’re really essays, but I’m stretching this to give you some variety in Dead Book Darling’s Short Story Challenge.

Introducing the piece The $64 Tomato, The Gardener’s Bedside Reader says:
“Vegetables harvested from the garden have a freshness and fullness of flavor well above and beyond anything one can buy in a supermarket. But how does a homegrown tomato, for example, compare in price to one purchased at the local Piggly Wiggly? In this excerpt from the book The $64 Tomato: How One Man Nearly Lost His Sanity, Spent a Fortune, and Endured an Existential Crisis in the Quest for the Perfect Garden (…) William Alexander does the math, with surprising results.”

The results aren’t actually that surprising, given the title of both the essay and the book, but you get the picture. This was an entertaining excerpt of what promises to be an entertaining and down-to-“earth” book. (Sorry – the fresh air’s gone to my head.)

Kimbofo over at the great blog Reading Matters, runs a weekly series called Triple Choice Tuesdays, wherein she asks “some of (her) favourite bloggers, writers and readers to share the names of three books that mean a lot to them. The idea is that it might raise the profile of certain books and introduce you to new titles, new authors and new bloggers.”

I love this series and I’m honoured to be featured today on Kim’s blog. Go on over and have a look at my favourites.

What do you think of them? How would you have answered?

P.S. Today I’m using the ‘ou’ spellings I was taught in school as a ‘tip of the hat’ to Kim who is an ex-pat Australian living in London, UK. Enjoy – tomorrow I’ll get back to American spellings.

Subtitled Tuck into a slice of Andalucían Life, Chickens, Mules and Two Old Fools is a personal memoir written by (former) UK resident Victoria Twead.

Tired of the dreary British climate as she and her husband Joe neared retirement, they decided to sell in Britain and move to sunny Spain. The book begins with (Victoria’s) discontent with England, the process of their decision to make the move, and their search for the ideal piece of Spanish real estate (“The House”). Finding a reliable real estate agent was aided greatly by their serendipitous meeting with another ex-pat who had lived in Spain for some time.

The Tweads found a run-down terrace house with rudimentary bathroom facilities and less-than-that kitchen amenities, in a small village tucked into the mountains. They set about making (extensive) renovations and moving their worldly possessions. They made friends with their neighbours and became acquainted with the villagers and village life, all the while receiving what seems a steady stream of visitors from England.

With a fresh perspective and laugh-out-loud humour, Victoria shares all of this with us. I tremendously enjoyed reading Chickens & Mules because

• Victoria’s voice is down-to-earth. She finds the humour in village life and is not afraid to laugh at herself too. There are also no judgements as to superiorities of one culture over another. I believe this is a key reason the Tweads were successful and happy in their move.

• It was well-written and edited. There are no bumpy repetitions, badly constructed sentences, or annoying typos.

• There are photos! On my Kindle, they are in black and white. On a Kindle Fire, Nook Color, iPad, or other reading device with color graphics, you’ll see them in their full glory. BUT. Only a few of the books on my Kindle have a desk-top component – I’m not familiar enough with the technology to know why or why not—and Chickens and Mules is one that does. THAT desk-top copy of the book has colour photos. The paperback version of the book also has b&w pictures, but you can also view them (and MANY others) in colour on Victoria’s website.

• Victoria includes three dozen yummy-sounding recipes for everything from Spanish Spinach to English Sticky Toffee pudding, with the emphasis on Mediterranean dishes.

I recommend Chickens, Mules and Two Old Fools: Tuck into a slice of Andalucían Life to anyone who’s ever dreamed of moving someplace sunny (and who hasn’t it?!), anyone contemplating moving to another country and culture, and to arm-chair travellers, no matter how house-bound; in fact, to anyone who’d like to share a few laughs and a few dreams with a charming couple.

P.S. Victoria is kindly offering a free download of Chickens, Mules and Two Old Fools to anyone who’d like to read it. You can get the coupon code and/or subscribe to a free Village Updates newsletter here.

P.P.S. After spending this time getting to know Victoria and Joe, and having viewed the photo of their renovated guestroom, I’d visit too!

For Canadian readers:
Chickens, Mules and Two Old Fools: Tuck Into a Slice of Andaluc an Life

Kindle version:
Chickens, Mules and Two Old Fools

The Secret River by Kate Grenville is the highly touted first book in the Thornhill trilogy which centres on the settlement of the colony of New South Wales in Australia. While I enjoyed this book and recommend it, it didn’t knock my socks off.

Perhaps that’s because I read the back story about Grenville’s research, in the non-fiction Searching for the Secret River, before I read the novel.

It was a quandary: I signed up for Amanda’s Truth in Fiction Reading Challenge which requires me to  read  book pairs that are comprised of one fiction book and one related non-fiction book. Whispering Gums suggested that I try these two books and I immediately reserved them at the library. Unusually, they arrived the same day, so I had to make a decision: which would I read first? The non-fiction was an inter-library loan with no renewal allowed & $1 fine for overdues, so it won the toss.

When Grenville first considered the idea of searching her family history, she thought she would write a non-fiction book about her ancestors. However, she found complications in this concept. As she says “When you were a white Australian, investigating your own family history could lead you into some murky territory.”

Grenville is referring here mainly to the treatment of the Aboriginal people – a tragedy repeated as well in North & South America as white Europeans moved to those places to live, displacing the native peoples who occupied the land before them.  Grenville determined that she “might not be able to enter the Darug consciousness, but (she) could make it clear that there was one.”

This approach to the story required that she be able to imagine her great-great-great-grandfather’s attitudes and reactions, of which there was little record. It became apparent to her that a piece of fiction would allow her greater scope in telling the story and taking into account the windows into the cultures of both sides that she hoped to deliver.

Before I started Searching for the Secret River, I was afraid that I might be bored with dry facts and history. Indeed, not. Grenville’s writing is simple and lovely to read, both in fiction and in non-fiction. I particularly enjoyed the genealogy aspect of her search as I also have, in the past, traced my family tree. Her descriptions of the thrill of standing on the very dock on which her ancestor worked, or in finding the court records which contained his “voice, speaking directly across nearly two centuries! The actual phrase he used!” brought back similar elations in my genealogical investigations.

Knowing the “facts” then, I began the fictional account, The Secret River.  The story is told from the point of view of William Thornhill, born into poverty, and an apprentice riverman in late 18th century London. Grenville tells us of the temptations of his work:
“He loved the docks for their excess. So many casks of brandy, sacks of coffee, boxes of tea, hogsheads of sugar, bales of hemp.
With such a quantity, how could a little be missed?”

Thus, Thornhill is drawn into thievery which leads to a sentence of death – or exile in Australia. He & his wife Sal and their young son make the long journey down under. Once there, they face the challenge of building a new life in a strange climate and unknown country, inhabited by mysterious black people whose culture is unlike anything they have experienced.

The author has done an excellent job of providing insight into the lifestyle of the aboriginal people and the culture clash that occurred between them and the new settlers. She also helped me to understand how the British culture that the Thornhills and their countrymen tried to establish permutated into a new set of values – one that by necessity took into account the very land which they tried to subdue.

But, having read the back story, I knew how the novel ended and that compromised the suspense that other readers might feel in the plot. Having said that, I still maintain that it was a very good reading experience.

If you haven’t read either of these books and both interest you, you’ll probably enjoy the fiction account more if you read it first. There’s always the possibility that you’ll then be bored by the build-up to its writing in Searching. But if you enjoy history, genealogy, or just observing the birth of a really good story, you’ll still want to read the non-fiction as well. Four stars to both.

The Secret River qualifies for the Truth in Fiction Reading Challenge, as well as for the What’s in a Name Reading Challenge, the Global Reading Challenge as my Australian entry, and the Australian Women Writers Reading Challenge.

Searching for the Secret River qualifies for the Non-Fiction Non-Memoir Challenge, the Seconds Reading Challenge, the I Want More Challenge, and the Dewey Decimal Reading Challenge.

For Canadian readers:
The Secret River
Searching For The Secret River

Since the old library in the village closed on March 17th, we have been without library services, eagerly anticipating the opening of our new branch. What better way to celebrate National Library Week (April 8 – 14th) than with its official opening on Wednesday?

I was blown away. From one cramped room with barely room to walk, we have a two story light & airy open space complete with kids area, teens area, a community activity room, a half-dozen big screen computers with Wi-Fi, washrooms, staff offices, and two beautiful reading areas. One of those is in the second floor loft and looks out over Tatamagouche Bay and the Northumberland Strait.

I know that ultimately taxpayers funded this project, but I’m ever so grateful to the powers-that-be who allocated monies to this project. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

How are you celebrating your community library?

Our late winter storm: I don’t think there’s quite the 15 cm (6 in) they forecast, but there’s sure the ice pellets mixed with it, as they warned.

The bright side is, it’s been too cold (expected of this season) for many buds to have appeared so nothing’s been ruined by last night’s weather activity.

Let me guess: warm & sunny where you are?

Some of you may remember my post last year about the building of the new library in Tatamagouche.

I thought I’d show you a little bit behind the scenes of moving a village library to its new premises.

That old branch closed for good on March 17th.

The new premises are now complete and the official grand opening is next Wednesday. (April 11th). I can hardly wait to see inside!

No moving vans or professional crews – or even U-Hauls for us.

These are all volunteers.

For more photos of the move, click here.

I wasn’t able to help, but I love that community volunteers made this possible. It’s part of what makes rural living so great.

What do you think of our moving methods?

According to Wikipedia, Roald Dahl was a British novelist, short story writer, poet, fighter pilot and screenwriter. He is perhaps most popularly known today as the author of children’s stories such as James and the Giant Peach and Charlie & the Chocolate Factory.

He was a prolific short story writer, and his story The Landlady won the 1959 Edgar Award for Best Short (Mystery) Story. The Edgar is given by the Mystery Writers of America to honor excellence within the mystery-writing field. In 1980, the MWA sponsored an anthology of two dozen short stories that had won that coveted award between 1947 and 1978. My soft-cover copy of The Edgar Winners, edited by Bill Pronzini is literally falling to pieces from having been read so often over the years.

Just ten pages long , The Landlady is classic Dahl. Young Billy Weaver, newly-appointed apprentice salesman, is sent out from London to Bath on the “slow afternoon train”, and told to find his own lodgings. A Bed & Breakfast sign beckons to him from a brightly-lit window that Billy peeks into. He sees a brightly-colored parrot in a cage, a “pretty little dachshund (…) curled up asleep” in front of the fire burning in the hearth, and a room filled with pleasant furniture.

The landlady immediately answers the door, has Billy sign the guest register and offers him tea. All very cozy.

Of course, because it’s an Edgar winner and because it’s Dahl, you just know things aren’t quite what they appear. But despite the reader’s awareness of that (or perhaps because of it), Dahl manages to create suspense and a chill of horror from the moment Billy enters the house.

Breezy & cheery, dark & macabre. Masterfully suspenseful. Brilliant.

Have you read any of Roald Dahl’s short stories?

#2 for Dead Book Darling‘s Short Story Challenge

Y’all may have heard that C.B.’s TBR Double Dare is officially over as of April 1st. How’d I do?

As I’ve said recently, not as well as I’d hoped, even though I stuck to the rules. I did learn, though, what will make this more effective next year: a much smaller December 31st library holds list.

I also entered a number of other TBR challenges for this year. Here’s a quick update.

• I’ve successfully read two (of twelve) titles for RoofBeam Reader’s TBR Pile Challenge but have yet to post the reviews so they don’t qualify yet.

• I’ve counted six books for Evie’s TBR Challenge, but only three have been reviewed thus far.

• Bev helped me clarify what qualifies for the Mount TBR Challenge and I have six on that list, toward my goal of 50.

• And Bonnie’s Off-the-Shelf Challenge has easy-peasy rules, so I can count 13 titles completed there, out of 50.

The bottom line is: I’m off to a slow start on my reading and an even slower start on my reviews. I’m going to be drawing on my TBR pile for a while yet. Time for me to get cracking!

How are you doing?

I was busy this month with special volunteer work and so my reading list is relatively short. I did manage to read two full e-books on my Kindle, meaning I spent a little more time on the treadmill – and that’s a good thing!

How about you? Did you read anything exciting in March?

1. The Saturdays by Elizabeth Enright
NYC in 1941, when a ten-year-old girl could go out by herself for a special Saturday. How could I not be charmed? And I have been, ever since first reading this as a child. Five stars over & over & over again. 5 stars

2. Half-Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan

Winner of the Scotiabank Giller Prize, it has so many winning elements: jazz, Paris, WWII. Edugyan captures the voice of the American musician protagonist perfectly, but the plot could be a touch stronger. Four stars for the story and a half star for the FABULOUS cover (at least on the edition I read). I’m sure it’s the best I’ll see all year. 4½ stars

3. The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach
I wanted to LOVE this the way I love baseball. I did greatly enjoy it, being reminded with every word of John Irving. But at the end, I said “That’s it?!” 4 stars.

4. The Innocence of Father Brown by G.K. Chesterton
My first Chesterton, but not my last. I didn’t know Father Brown books were short story collections – or at least this one is. Naturally, some stories are better than others. I’m still undecided as to whether the stories are fairly clued. 4 stars overall.

5. The Return of Captain John Emmett by Elizabeth Speller
The first of what is promised to be a series featuring former WWI officer Lawrence Bartram. Solid mystery, great period detail. 4 stars

6. The Calling by Inger Ash Wolfe
First in the series introducing Hazel Micaleff, in charge of a provincial police detachment 3 hours north of Toronto. I had trouble putting this down. I’m rating this four stars which is high praise for me for a serial killer novel. 4 stars

7. White River Junctions by Dave Norman
White River Junction, Vermont was once a bustling community built around the railroad. With the decline of railroad transport, it’s met the modern fate of countless towns across North America. Dave Norman lovingly reconstructs the town in words, through the buildings, the people and the stories in White River Junction. 4 stars

8. Walden; Or, Life in the Woods by Henry David Thoreau
E.B. White says in a follow-up essay to this book that “To reject the book because of the immaturity of the author and the bugs in the logic is to throw away a bottle of good wine because it contains bits of cork.” I think there was some must in the bottom of the wine bottle too. I won’t throw it away, E.B., but I’m not rating it a five, either. 3½ stars

9. Broken Music: A Mystery by Marjorie Eccles
Definitely a WWI mystery, which is why I picked it up. But it’s also a romance and suffers from the untouched physical and mental health of the love interests, and a resulting happy ending. 3½ stars

10. A Small Furry Prayer: Dog Rescue and the Meaning of Life by Steven Kotler
The title wasn’t fooling. Kotler and his wife are deeply involved in dog rescue. I was prepared to hear about the difficulties of moving to the country & a new lifestyle, of the struggles of finding homes for the dogs, of dogs being sick and of dogs dying, but I wasn’t looking for metaphysical speculation and “deep ecology”. 3 stars

For my Canadian readers:
The Saturdays
Half-Blood Blues
The Art of Fielding
The Innocence of Father Brown
The Calling: A Hazel Micallef Mystery
White River Junctions
Walden; Or, Life in the Woods
Broken Music: A Mystery
A Small Furry Prayer

Kindle versions:
The Art of Fielding
Vanity Fair’s How a Book is Born: The Making of The Art of Fielding
The Innocence of Father Brown FREE
The Calling
White River Junctions
Walden ; or Life in the Woods – Enhanced .99 cents
Broken Music: A Mystery
A Small Furry Prayer

The catchphrase Keep Calm & Carry On has been appearing everywhere for the last couple of years.

I knew that it had been devised as a propaganda slogan in WWII Britain, but I did sometimes wonder how I had missed it for most of my life.

Well, now I know.

WATCH THIS SHORT VIDEO AND YOU WILL TOO

I have put Northumberland (in “the northeast corner of England”) and this bookshop very near the top of my “Most Want to Travel To” list. (You have one of those, right?)

I think Keep Calm and Carry On has become a mantra for today’s society because it applies in just about every situation. As Rudyard Kipling said: “If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs (…) you’ll be a man, my son.” What do you think?

Bev over at My Reader’s Block is calling for a mountaineering checkpoint – that is, progress on my Mount TBR Challenge.

Truth be told, although I stuck to the TBR Double Dare for these past three months, most of what I read were library books that had been on my Reserved list on December 31st.

Of the “owned” books I read, 3 were picture books, 3 were children’s literature for the Books That Made Me Love Reading challenge, 6 were e-books (do these count?) and 4 were review copies that I received in December. I may count these in this challenge or I may not.

But for now, the only books that I’m recognizing as “REALLY” part of my long-time mountain were:

1. My Financial Career and Other Follies by Stephen Leacock and
2. Walden by Henry David Thoreau

I’ve committed to the Kilimanjaro level of this challenge, which means I have to read 50 books from my TBR pile. Whether I count the picture books, children’s rereads, e-books & review copies or not, I clearly need to GET CLIMBING! Thanks for the check-in, Bev!

I’m guest-posting today over on Alyce’s blog At Home With Books. I hope you’ll visit me there and see what I consider the best and worst of Canadian author Richard B. Wright.

It’s the last Tuesday of the month, and time for the monthly poetry blog-along. Since Nova Scotia is shivering today in a frigid early-spring storm with strong northerly winds and blowing snow, I thought I’d make a call for spring by sharing this lovely classic of medieval poetry.

Westron wynde, when wilt thou blow,
The small raine down can raine?
Cryst, if my love were in my armes
And I in my bedde again!

Wikipedia says that this poem was used as lyrics to an early 16th century song which first appeared with words in a partbook of around 1530. Historians believe that the lyrics are a few hundred years older (‘Middle English’) and the words are a fragment of medieval poetry. (Here’s a sung version).

In a Globe and mail column several years ago, Fraser Sutherland pointed out that “twenty-five of [the poem’s] 26 words (the exception is “Christ”) have Old English, ultimately Germanic roots […] Twenty-four of the 26 words have one syllable, and the longest word has only seven characters.”

But, oh, what the poet did with those few letters! I have spent over 40 years wondering why these lovers were separated, and arriving at different conclusions at various times in my life.

What about you? Why do you think the author was apart from his (or her) love?

Last week marked the 160th anniversary of the publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe in novel form. This seems like an appropriate time to give you my thoughts on the book (which I read in January.) And will you think me an utter barbarian to mark this anniversary by saying that I didn’t think Uncle Tom’s Cabin was a great book?

Nearly everyone is familiar with most, if not all, of the plot and the characters of this classic. The main character Tom, a slave, is sold by his current owner, Kentucky famer Arthur Shelby, to pay debts. He is bought by Augustine St. Clair of New Orleans, a benevolent man who recognizes the evil in slavery but is not willing to relinquish the wealth it brings him.

Tom befriends St. Claire’s almost-too-good-to-be-true young daughter Eva, who dies, causing her father to determine to free his slaves. Before he follows through on this, he’s killed in a bar altercation. Mrs. St. Clair reneges on her late husband’s promise and sells the household slaves to a trader. Tom ends up with Simon Legree. Legree is a tyrant who eventually has Tom whipped to death because he stood up to Legree and refused to stop practicing the Christianity he was taught at the Shelbys’.

There is also a subplot involving Eliza, a fellow slave of Tom’s. who overhears the plan to sell Tom & her son Harry and makes an escape to Canada.

Harriet Beecher Stowe was a puritanical Christian and an active abolitionist, and Uncle Tom’s Cabin reflects her values. The main theme of the book is an anti-slavery message. Stowe felt that “the most dreadful part of slavery (…) is the outrages of feelings and affections—separating of families, for example”, and she portrayed slavery as evil and immoral and as fundamentally incompatible with Christian theology.

That theology provides the secondary theme for the novel. It is this ancillary subject that gives Uncle Tom’s Cabin a “preachy” feel. At times, Stowe changes the voice of the story to be able to insert sermons on the saving nature of Christianity, and the evils of slavery. I’m not opposed to either message but the preaching irritated me at times. Especially did her Christians Tom and Eva have their heads in the clouds—and both received ‘visions’ before they died. That aspect was overly melodramatic for my taste.

Therein lies the biggest problem. This book is written in the style of a nineteenth-century sentimental novel. These types of books are characterized by wordiness (extreme at times) and outrages of feeling, both traits ever present in Stowe’s masterpiece. In fact, some critics have gone so far as to say that, if it had not been for the anti-slavery theme, Uncle Tom’s Cabin would have been just another sentimental women’s-lit novel of its day.

A second problem with this novel is, of course, the stereotypes it helped to popularize – the loving, all-knowing mammy or the pickaninny image of black children, set by Topsy. Stowe makes such sweeping generalizations as “cooking (is) an indigenous talent of the African race”, “the negro is naturally more impressible to religious sentiment than the white”, and “they are a race that children will cling to and assimilate with”. Uncle Tom himself had been criticized for his long-suffering devotion to his white master, and accused of “selling out” to whites. To be fair, and in fact, it’s a different master-slave relationship that drives Tom to suffer stoically as he does—that of his master Jesus Christ.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin was the top selling novel in the US in the entire nineteenth century. It was second only to the Bible in total sales. A book read by hundreds of thousands, and that spawned plays seen by millions most certainly affected the overall thought of society, for good or for bad.

Whether Lincoln did or did not actually say to the author “so you are the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war”, it’s clear Stowe’s novel strongly influenced American society. It deserves to be read for that reason, if for no other.

This satisfies a whole passel of reading challenges including What’s In a Name, Classics with a Twist, Southern Literature, eBooks Reading Challenge, New Authors and Mammoth Book, as well as some alphabetical type challenges.

Kindle edition:
Uncle Tom’s Cabin FREE

Katrina over at Callapidder Days is hosting her sixth annual Spring Reading Thing. It’s a fun, low-pressure reading challenge open to anyone and everyone. It will take place March 20th-June 20th (which is, not-so-coincidentally, the spring of 2012).

To participate, I need to create a list of some books I’d like to read or finish this spring. I have to list specific books. I can feel free to set some additional reading, but that’s optional.

Until March 31st, I’m still participating in C.B.’s Double Dare where the rule is that from Jan 1 to April 1, 2012, I can read only books that were in my TBR pile on December 31st. (Library books were allowed only if they were in my possession or on my holds list at 12:00 A.M. on Jan. 1.)

But it’s that “Library Holds List Loophole” that’s kept this challenge from being as effective as I had hoped. I thought I thinned that list in December, but it seems that there’s always something (completely within the rules) from the library demanding my attention and keeping me from making any real headway on Mount TBR.

So for the Spring Reading Thing, I’m committing to read a number of books from my December 31st TBR pile. Two are chunksters; and since there are still a couple of books coming from the library, I’ve included those. AND I’m including some books that were wins since January and that I’ve been anxiously waiting to start.

Currently reading:
Half-Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan

From Mount TBR
White River Junctions by Dave Norman
The Saturdays by Elizabeth Enright
A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth
The Canadian Food Guide by Pierre and Janet Berton
Stephen Leacock: His Remarkable Life by Albert Moritz and Theresa Moritz
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
The Mapping of Love and Death (Maisie Dobbs, Book 7) by Jacqueline Winspear
One Lonely Night by Mickey Spillane

Library Books:
Broken Music: A Mystery by Marjorie Eccles
The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach
A History of the World in 100 Objects by Neil MacGregor
Th1rteen r3asons why by Jay Asher

New arrivals (wins, gifts & ARCs)
The Colony of Unrequited Dreams by Wayne Johnston
African Love Stories: An Anthology edited by Ama Ata Aidoo
Oxford Messed Up by Andrea Kayne Kaufman
Manners for Women by Mrs. Humphrey
Murder: A Crafty Business by Lila Phillips

I’m doing my level best to have these all read by June 20th. I’m also committing to keeping up with my personal Bible reading schedule. Let’s see how I do!

What about you? What are your spring reading plans?

If I had any wall space to hang a poster, I’d be sending hints about this out to all my friends and loved ones. As it is, I have to make do with recording it here on my blog and Pinterest. [sigh]

By Grant Snider, available as a poster. Via Bookshelf.

The Saturday Snapshot meme is hosted by Alyce of At Home With Books. Visit her blog to see more great photos or add your own.

My husband was on a business trip near Gros Morne National Park in Newfoundland last week and snapped lots of photos of caribou. I think they’re an unusual combination: they’re a type of deer, yet have the shoulders of a moose, and legs and a head that look like a horse (to me anyway).

What do you think?

More of the park. They don’t call Newfoundland “The Rock” for nothing.

The Classics Reading Challenge hosted by November’s Autumn is the one I’m calling “Classics with a Twist” – the twist being that on the fourth of each month, Katherine posts a prompt to act as a basis for my discussion of the classic I’m currently reading.

This month, the prompt is LOCATION – and the classic I’ve most recently finished is Walden by Henry David Thoreau.

In 1845, Thoreau spent two years living in a small cabin in the woods near Walden Pond, Connecticut Massachusetts. (oops! See comments.) In his classic discourse, Walden, the author discusses in some depth the economic theory behind his experiment in living, as well as minute observations about nature, including the pond itself.

After the introductory essays, Thoreau doesn’t so much introduce the location, as he does analyze it throughout the book. In fact, location seems inseparable to the book. It is, after all, called Walden.

This is how Walden Pond looked about the time Thoreau lived there. It would have been nicer to see this in summer when there were leaves on the trees – that is how I imagined it even though Thoreau talks in depth about winter and spring at the pond.

Would the book have worked as well if Walden had been located somewhere else? The southern US? Above the Arctic Circle? The Australian outback? Surprisingly (to me, once I started considering this), I think the basic premise of the book – which was Thoreau’s experiment in opting out of established society – would be as strong no matter where it was set. Certainly, the description of the changing seasons would have been replaced by other observations of the natural cycles.

What do you think? Is Walden Pond inseparable from the book Walden?

A former owner had this streetlight installed on our property. I’m glad he did because otherwise it’s awfully dark coming from the car to the house, especially on moonless nights.

I snapped this last night as the light shone through the snow-covered but otherwise bare branches of the tree.