12 December 2008

Top book picks for the season

My friends at Gallery Bookshop in Mendocino CA put together a quick list of "top gift picks" and presented it in person to shoppers the other night, along with timed 30-second presentations about each book. The list follows, and if you search the comments, you may find some of those 30 second recommendations here, too. Buona Festa!


GALLERY BOOKSHOP’S TOP GIFT PICKS

FOR BROTHERS & HUSBANDS
The Backyard Birdsong Guide by Donald Kroodsma
A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
The Cobra in the Barn by Tom Cotter


FOR SISTERS & WIVES
Vet Tails by Charlie Freed
Red Bird by Mary Oliver
Not Yet Drown’d by Peg Kingman
Beautiful Engagements Calendars from Paperblanks
Testimony by Anita Shreve


FOR MOMS & DADS
The Early Mendocino Coast by Katy Tahja
Mendocino by Janet Ashford
River of Doubt by Candice Millard
The Zookeeper’s Wife by Diane Ackerman
No Time for Goodbye by Linwood Barclay


FOR IN-LAWS & COLLEAGUES
How To Pick a Peach by Russ Parsons
Everyday Survival or Deep Survival
by Laurence Gonzales
Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks
The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick


FOR KIDS & TEENS
Gallop and Swing by Rufus Butler Seder
It’s Time to Sleep My Love by Nancy Tillman
There Are Cats in This Book by Viviane Schwarz
The Babymouse Series by Jennifer Holm
The 39 Clues series by Rick Riordan et al
The Percy Jackson Series by Rick Riordan
Graceling by Kristin Cashore
Slam by Nick Hornby

Superdove, or Columba livia

I've been reading about pigeons this week. I don't think we have them here. I don't remember seeing any in Mendocino, Caspar, Fort Bragg. Maybe they prefer Ukiah. Mourning doves, yes, fat city pigeons, no.

I'm thinking pigeon because "Superdove, How the Pigeon Took Manhattan... And the World" flew across my desk recently. Science writer Courtney Humphries spent time with pigeon fanciers, scientists, collectors, hunters, historians and other assorted folk in order to bring us this story of the ubiquitous bird.

As other monographs on salt, gunpowder, scurvy, coal, rats, what-have-you demonstrate, we are fascinated by things common and yet unknown.

Pigeons are rock doves, Columba livia, meaning "dove the color of lead." Long before they starred in Charles Darwin's "Origin of Species" they originated on cliffs near the sea. To this day they live on coastal rocks in obscure locations such as Capo Caccia on the island of Sardinia in Italy.

Whether fed on purpose or not, pigeons thrive in the urban scene. They eat our garbage and our discards. They nest on poles, window sills, arches, and any other convenient architectural refuges. Hawks and falcons, cats and raccoons, bother them very little.

When pigeons are regularly fed by hand they will begin to "structure their lives –where they nest, where they forage, and how often they reproduce – around their feeding schedule." As Humphries points out, they become dependent, and that's the first step to domestication. It's wrong, she says, to feed these urban birds without also giving them housing and cleaning up their mess.

The pigeon is so adaptable and so fertile that wiping out an entire airport or building of pigeons makes hardly a dent in the overall population. Food always is lying around, plus intrepid human life support from their surprisingly vocal fans.

"We create and destroy habitat," Humphries writes. "We shape genomes, we aid the worldwide movement of other species. And yet we seem disappointed and horrified when those plants and animals respond by adapting to our changes and thriving in them."

It was humans who cared for and spread pigeons to every continent but Antarctica. "Often they were brought for food, but not always. Decorative breeds of pigeons were swapped among breeders in different countries."

When settlers encountered America's vast flocks of native passenger pigeons, the birds were soon wiped out for food and sport. Passengers went extinct but the rock pigeons flourished. We cut down the forests in which the passengers lived and built great cities for the rock pigeons.

The merest glance through newspapers and the blogosphere turns up dozens of articles and comments on pigeons. They are not ignored, but neither have we come to terms with their presence.

In TV footage covering the recent Mumbai terrorist attacks you could see flocks of pigeons winging their way to and from the burning Taj Mahal Hotel. News reports ignored the plight of non-human creatures such as stray dogs and birds during the fighting. These comments from a Mumbai veterinarian:

"Ultimately, it is an ecosystem," said Dr. Khanna. "Everyone is connected to each other. If animals are not there, we are not there. So one must care for living creatures whether it is an animal or a human being."

The news continued, "By the end of the siege, the pigeons at the Taj (Hotel) had all but disappeared, adding to the anguish of many who saw them as a blessing. In India, pigeons are a symbol of peace. Within three days after the attack ended, they had returned.... hopeful signs for many here that Mumbai is returning to normal."

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NOTES:

"Superdove, How the Pigeon Took Manhattan... and the World" by Courtney Humphries. Smithsonian Books hardcover $24.95. ISBN 9780061259166.

Capo Caccia translates to something like "Cape of the Hunter" or "Cape Hunter" in Italian. In other words, a good place to go shooting birds, except it's a protected park these days with fences and 9-5 visiting hours.

The Mumbai pigeons: http://www.voanews.com/english/2008-12-10-voa40.cfm

Group Seeks to Preserve IDF Pigeons' Dovecote from 1948
by Noah Kosharek, Israel News
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1045636.html
It's been 60 years since Shaul Sapir, 81, and Aharon Landsman, 73, met. Sapir served during the War of Independence in a Negev unit and established the carrier pigeon unit of the Haganah, the pre-state Jewish militia. Landsman, in his early teens at the time, trained the pigeons, delivered by Sapir, in the Haganah's dovecote at Kibbutz Givat Brenner and later served in the Israel Defense Forces' carrier pigeon unit. Yesterday, the men met again at the kibbutz, to work toward conservation of the kibbutz's IDF carrier pigeon dovecote...

Pigeon Show Is a Coup for Pickering
http://www.gazetteherald.co.uk/news/3968330.Pigeon_show_is_a_coup_for_Pickering/
Hundreds of Britain’s top pigeons flew into Ryedale at the weekend when the British Pigeon Show Society staged its annual exhibition at the Pickering Showfield. The society, which also hosted the National Pigeon Society Show, attracted 2,000 pigeons.

Pigeon Control Efforts Increase
By Tom Schneider Current-Argus Staff Writer
http://www.currentargus.com/ci_11180695
Carlsbad Municipal Schools is stepping up efforts to control the harmful pigeon population on district campuses with help from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
CMS operations director Erich Francke said that despite the district's best efforts, the birds have become increasingly difficult to manage...

There are laws against pigeon netting/poaching: http://www.peopleforpigeons.com:

Pigeon poaching: http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/02/a-tip-off-a-reward-an-arrest-for-pigeon-poaching/

05 December 2008

And another thing or two...

Life is rich and good out here on the Pacific coast. This morning the feral cats out my office window were eating their breakfast (provided in little plastic dishes by the lovely Joselyn) while at the same time a herd of wild turkeys was about 15 feet away, watched over by a large Tom with extra wattles. Plus ravens (a neighbor feeds them) and a couple of other wild cats, some song birds, a squirrel or two, and probably deer peeking out Bambi-like from the foliage. It's a jungle out there....

Yesterday I drove to the Peter Temple sound studio in Albion CA and spent some time recording a cello part to add to Jim Thompson's song in progress "Bald Eagle." I was amazed not to sound too bad. Recordings are notorious for exposing intonation that's a bit off, or vibrato that's too fast, too wide, or not wide enough. I'm listening to the cut now, and smiling, so I have to admit I've got a nice tone and I'm not embarrassed. Mp3 version may be posted here when Jim gives his permission...

...it's fine with Jim, but I can't figure out how to post an Mp3 file here... can anyone help me figure this out?

03 December 2008

Learning Italian from the Calendar

(written in 1999; now updated for modern minds)....

I've been studying my Italian Word Each Day Vocabulary Enrichment Calendar, Advanced Level. I'm going to Italy next Spring and I want to talk to Italians.

So far, I've been taught the meaning of acclimate, riservato, assoggetabile, amichevole, amoroso, ammortizzare, anemico and analogo, not even to mention l'apatia, stupefacente, and furbo. I like furbo. In English it means astute. Or sly. Or cunning. Pick one. My voccabulario is growing fast-o.

In this particular calendar Italian words for January start with the letter "A." If February is "B" and so on, by the time we get to Italy I'll have mastered the Italian language all the way up to "G." For some reason, this reminds me of those A-Z mystery novels by Sue Grafton. You know, "A" is for "Alibi," "B is for Burglary," down to "Z is for Ze End."

Most of the words in my Italian calendar have no earthly use for Americans traveling in Italy. What am I going to do with acclimatize, aloof, amenable, amicable, amorous -- OK, I KNOW what to do with that word -- amortize, anemic, analogous, apathy, astute, or atrocious? For whom are these words intended? Bankers with love on their minds?

I need the words for "no" and "way" as in NO WAY I'm getting in that gondola.

I admit I'm having more fun planning this trip than I could possibly have being there. Since I was last in Europe everything has changed, friends tell me, and not for the better. Italy in May will be like Mendocino in May -- crowded with tourists all seeking the same thing -- ice cream. We plan to travel off the beaten track -- there's a new idea -- to places even travel book author Rick Steves wouldn't go -- places so ugly, so dirty, so dangerous that we'll have them all to ourselves -- just us and the 27 other Americans who arrived on the same bus.

In Mendocino in May you visit the miles-long beach at MacKerricher State Park north of Fort Bragg to get away from crowds. Or walk among the stately redwoods in Montgomery Woods State Reserve on the way to Ukiah. Or visit Ukiah. In these places you won't see many other tourists. Especially in Ukiah.

Don't misunderstand me -- there's nothing wrong with Ukiah. It's just that Ukiah does not register in a single California guidebook that I can find. It just is not there. I'm hoping to find places like Ukiah in Italy. Places that, spelled backward, mean "short meaningless poem in Japanese."

I have my own special way to figure out which guide books are the most accurate. I look up Ukiah. Since most don't mention Ukiah, I look up Mendocino. Most descriptions of my adopted home town are glib and brief. The most thoughtful is in Kim Weir's Northern California Handbook from Moon Publications. The most original is Mark William's Northern California Off the Beaten Path. Williams writes, "The town of Mendocino is quaint indeed and does a thriving tourist trade. But while every one talks about how it looks 'just like' a New England fishing village, it really does not. The streets are too wide and straight, and the houses are set too far apart and don't have shutters."

So there.

A travel book round up article by David Butwin in Publishers Weekly points out that most guides to Europe take for granted that all the great sights are -- just great. Butwin finds one exception. The Rough Guide to Florence allows that "after registering these marvelous sights, it's hard to stave off a sense of disappointment, for much of Florence is a city of ... dour, fortress-like houses, of unfinished buildings and characterless squares." We need more honest writing like that in our guide books.

Last week I praised the Eyewitness Travel Guides published by DK Publishing in Great Britain. A friend wrote to remind me about the Insight Guides distributed by Langenscheidt Publishing Group. The Insight Guides are very good. So filled with color photographs and printed on excellent, heavy paper that you might want to leave the book home when you go. Insight Guides are about the same size as other guide books, but they weigh too much to carry around. Publishers Weekly figures the "Insight Guide to Italy" comes in at "just three ounces under two pounds."

The weight and size of guidebooks becomes a packing problem. Some people copy pages they need and leave the books at home. Others tear their books apart as they travel and burn the pages to keep warm. There goes Spain, up in flames. There goes Portugal. When you get home what you have left is the cover, the index, and a custom out-of-date guide to the places you didn't visit.

I guess you could travel without all this guidance, but that would be like trying to learn Italian from a calendar. If you don't plan-plan-plan you might walk right by an important museum or miss another ancient cathedral. Come to think of it, who needs another museum? And if you've seen one ancient cathedral....

WOB covers everything

It's Pearl Harbor Day December 7, and that means nothing to most people under 67 years of age. So in the spirit of these more modern times, let's troll through the latest news on books.

It may be more interesting than reviewing "Superdove: How the Pigeon Took Manhattan... and the World." I'll get around to The Pigeons Who Ate Manhattan next week.

In The Cleveland Scene, Cleveland's News Arts & Entertainment Weekly, this rant: "The existence of a book called 'Spliffigami' is evidence that it's too easy these days to lay out books and print them on dead trees. Author Chris Stone (really?) doesn't even seem to be attempting humor with his manual on how to roll joints using multiple papers, twisting and folding them into elaborate shapes including, but not limited to, forks and flowers."

In Cleveland that's a putdown. In Mendocino, it's your invitation to buy a book with dope money.

Publisher Simon & Schuster bled with bad news this week. First, they eliminated 2% of their workforce. They also announced they will publish two books on Ted Kennedy. His terminal brain cancer will sell a lot of books for the company next spring. S&S also has a book on Obama in the works. It will tell the story of Obama's first 100 Days, which haven't happened yet. S&S is the publisher that got started during the last depression. Their innovation was to sell crossword puzzle books with a pencil attached.

The day before Simon & Schuster's announcement, Random House reorganized, not a happy word if you are employed there. They knocked off 54 jobs and disbanded Doubleday Publishing Group.

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has asked its editors to stop buying books. Not you. The editors. You keep on buying books, hear? Of course, with no manuscripts coming in they will eventually stop publishing. Houghton has a great plan to save money: Go out of business!

Houghton has the Curious George franchise. Will those execs take along the Man in the Yellow Hat when they plead for a Washington bailout?

To be clear, they're only temporarily stopping buying books. Maybe they'll start up again when the clouds of depression lift.

At the chain bookstores Borders Books & Music reported sales down by ten per cent. Barnes & Noble is down 7.4% and Books-a-Million by 9.9%. One of the largest book distributors, Baker & Taylor, laid off 80 workers.

Other straws in the hurricane: Random House will not attend Canada's biggest book show, but at the same time they are expanding their E-book offerings. That's electronic books, not ink on paper books with pages you have to turn. The Random House sales force already gets their catalogs and advance reading copies on E-readers, so why not you, too?

These publishers are drops in the financial bucket for the corporations that own them. Simon & Schuster is owned by Viacom. Random House is owned by Bertelsmann. Houghton Mifflin is owned by Vivendi International. Baker & Taylor is owned (formerly owned; see Comment below) by the Carlyle Group. The Carlyle Group is cutting 100 jobs, or ten per cent of its staff. Reuters calls the move "the first significant cuts made by a large U.S. private equity firm since the global economic crisis hit." The Carlyle Group also invests heavily in war related industries, and features George Bush senior, James Baker, and John Major as top consultants.

In happier news: Penguin Group financially assisted the United Nations Refugee Agency and author Khaled Hosseini to open a new school for young children in Arababshirali, 150 miles from Kabul in Afghanistan. The school serves 270 local children. Khaled Hosseini is the author of "The Kite Runner" and "A Thousand Splendid Suns."

Finally, evidence that the bookstore fantasy lives on: "Defying the economic downturn in order to live out their dream of having a bookstore, Liz Garo and business partner Claudia Colodro hosted the grand opening of Stories Books and Café in the Echo Park district of Los Angeles on Saturday, November 15."

Next Week: Pigeons. I promise.

(MUSIC) You too, can receive WOB scripts in your email and review episodes you may have missed. To be on the list, please send a note to amiksak@mcn.org. Those of you receiving Words on Books by email will find links to additional information.

NOTES:

"Spliffigami" by Chris Stone. Ten Speed Press paperback $12.95. ISBN 1580089372. Great cover. And yes, that is his real name. From the publisher: "Chris Stone has written several humorous trivia books on cricket and football, as well as edited or coauthored titles on various aspects of cannabis culture and golf fitness. He lives in London."