Beaks, Bones, and Bird Songs

Birds are amazing, and not just because of Roger Lederer’s (or my) bias. His new “Beaks, Bones, and Bird Songs” is a comprehensive book about birds, not limited to the elements mentioned in its title. In particular, he explains the evolved physical and behavioral characteristics of these animals and why they’re important in the face of threats ranging from the immediate to long-term. There is always a trade-off, a disadvantage for every advantage. However, it’s not a totally bleak picture: how adaptable birds can be comes up many times in many ways. Plus, there are many unknowns, meaning more areas for future research, which can help inform conservation.

Genesis

In jazz, the Real Book is the standard book of standards, where each song takes up one page, sometimes two. Here in “Genesis” Eduardo Galeano follows a similar layout, but rather than sheet music for popular songs, it is condensed history of the Americas. This is the first of three volumes in his Memory of Fire trilogy. The first part of this volume is only about a fifth of the whole. It begins with pre-Columbian myths, and with the history that follows, is neither fiction nor nonfiction. 1492-1700 are the years, up to the near-present by the end of the trilogy. Not everything happens in South America nor is even limited to the Western hemisphere: certain momentous occasions in Europe fit in the timeline as well. I found that if you only read one or two of these one-page stories at a time, it is not easy to follow, and perhaps a little too disconnected for one book. However, this is unlike anything I’ve ever read, and for a serious student of Latin American history, Galeano’s work is classic. Keep an eye out for these e-books, as they are sometimes on sale for significant discounts.

The Drawing Lesson

This is just what I needed. I read “The Drawing Lesson” in pretty much one sitting and will be reading it again and again. I draw birds and stuff – mostly birds. Like everyone else, I want to develop my own style, but I also needed more info on some of the basics in visual art. For example, what author Mark Crilley calls “negative space” (this is probably the common term in professional art), which is like the pieces of the picture that don’t really have interesting details yet hold the whole drawing together. One thing that makes this such a helpful book is how it summarizes each lesson and builds upon all previous lessons.

Chronicle of a Last Summer

“Chronicle of a Last Summer” stands out for its modern structure. Rather than writing about what happens in the book, I can write what is in the book, since events are secondary to periods of time. The narrator, whose name never surfaces, lives in Cairo in a family house she describes as being like a castle, in relative socioeconomic privilege. The house is unchanged through all the nameless revolutions and power turnovers from one dictator to the next, through all the family deaths and disappearances.

Country Editor's Boy

What struck me most in “Country Editor’s Boy” was how much this memoir read like fiction, in style. Because Hal Borland was a writer by profession, he might have had a tendency to notice and remember more than his peers – or, he could have done supplementary research to tell his own story, told somewhat removed, as if another person. Because it's not fiction, it's not quite as interesting, but has the elements of any coming-of-age story. Most notably owing to the dialogue, it doesn't feel like the distant past, but breathes as if you stepped back in time and got to see firsthand how things were in Flagler, Colorado, just about 100 years ago. Written when he was an adult, he'd had the time to see the perspective he may have lacked as a youngster.

Sweet As Cane, Salty As Tears

Thirty years after arriving as a 20-year-old in New York City, time rushes back towards Katherine Fontenot. She tried to run from her family in Louisiana, but if she loses her job, if her sister dies, what is she going to do? Her younger sister, “the sane” one, gets gored by a rhinoceros, which after escaping the zoo where Karen-Anne was looking after it, was shot and killed. Much more than her work, the Fontenot family is the heart of this book, and the family lore – the same stories that get told every time, but still make people laugh – get told yet again, for the younger generations to inherit. But more personally, about a third to half of “Sweet As Cane, Salty As Tears” is actually flashbacks, Katherine seeing something, hearing or smelling or sensing, remembering what she left behind.

A Buzz in the Meadow

Dave Goulson is a fine natural history writer, and an important conservationist. His work centers around the less glorious taxa, the insects that underlie the world’s ecosystems yet receive less attention. He has a talent for expressing scientific results, when too often the findings are confined to a bubble where only people specializing in a certain field will read and understand the results. Books like “A Buzz in the Meadow” are needed if you feel you don’t know enough about large groups of life forms like plants and insects. However, if you don’t like thinking about insect parts and reproduction (or that of animals in general), know that this is not for everyone. Still, Goulson is a very good communicator, and this is an excellent book.

Dog Gone, Back Soon

When you need something light and entertaining to read, a book like “Dog Gone, Back Soon” is sure to do the trick. Set in a small town in Vermont, the story of veterinarian Cyrus Mills returning to take over his late father’s practice fits the bill – funny and a good time. There are a lot of subplots that get the narrator into more and more of a pickle. There’s the move to the cold winter from the South,  which can be enough for some people as-is; add to that the challenge of making a second date, a tight budget, a ridiculous and unnecessary threat of competition from the next-town-over’s vet practice, and of course all of the patients he takes on.

Creating Jazz Counterpoint

I love jazz. If you know me, you probably already knew that. I did not, however, know much about the origins of this music, in terms of the first musicians and early songs. “Creating Jazz Counterpoint” fills in some gaps in this knowledge through excellent research and effective communication. Although more of an academic book, Vic Hobson’s writing is clear and concise, and objectively reconstructs what may have happened, based on the sources available.

The Best Gig in Town

Following Edward Allan Faine’s “Ellington at the White House 1969,” “The Best Gig in Town” details the biggest jazz events held at the White House during the Nixon administration. Nixon is not the first president that would come to mind for making jazz a regular feature there, but he hosted several significant events for this genre. Relatively moderate by today’s standards, Nixon presented artists with political affiliations from both sides, always seeking political gain. Because these events had to be planned as carefully as possible, they are well-documented, allowing the author to tell about the lead-ups, the unfolding, and the reaction that followed, sometimes lasting years, as in the Ellington case.