Summer Days
The Nature of Reading Newsletter | Summer | Week 8
Dear readers,
I’m here with another quick note this week!
It has been a bittersweet week of much activity—preparing to leave the shop in the capable hands of fellow booksellers as I go on a summer holiday for a week, and saying goodbye to our most wonderful summer intern, Jo!
Friday was her last day, and there were a number of loose ends to tie up from ongoing projects we had undertaken and sad farewells to be said. I’m so grateful that we had Jo with us for 10 weeks this summer—without her, the shelves never could have been filled this quickly and there would still be much lingering chaos from the move across the street. She was the most wonderful addition to the shop as we found our bearings in the new space and we wish her all the very best as she heads back to Smith later this month!
The newsletter is brief today because I’m writing to you from the first day of my summer holiday. Fear not—the shop will remain open! We’ll be open normal hours today (Sunday), 11am-4pm. We’ll be closed Monday as usual, then we’ll just be operating on slightly limited hours this week—Tuesday to Saturday we’ll be open 10am-4pm, and Sunday 11am-4pm. Then I’ll be back with regular hours on Tuesday, August 19th.
Please stop by the shop and support the many wonderful people covering for me! Our lovely Sunday bookseller Alison will be there most often, otherwise you have a chance to see my mom or two dear friends watching over the store.
I hope you can find your next summer nature read at the shop and that you too are having a restful, magical summer.
All best wishes,
Hailey
I’m very excited to announce our crafting event for the month! This month we’ll be doing needle felting, making these sweet and highly whimsical moths. Each kit contains nine moths that you can then decorate with colorful wool roving however you’d like—it’s a great kit for beginners who are new to needle felting, and I’ll be there to teach you the foundations of the craft. Join us for one last summery crafting event before we enter fall!
What begins as a curiosity into the origins of the orange soon becomes a far-reaching odyssey of citrus for Katie Goh. Goh follows the complicated history of the orange from east-to-west and west-to-east, from a luxury item of European kings and Chinese emperors, to a modest fruit people take for granted. Like the story of the orange, Goh finds that simple and extractable explanations—even about a seemingly simple fruit—are impossible. The story that unfolds is Katie’s incredible endeavor to flesh out these contradictions, to unpeel the layers of personhood; a reflection on identity through the cipher of the orange. Along the way, the orange becomes so much more than just a fruit—it emerges as a symbol, a metaphor, and a guide. Foreign Fruit: A Personal History of the Orange is a searching, wide-ranging, seamless weaving of storytelling with research and a meditative, deeply moving encounter with the orange and the self.
Shade was once a staple of human civilization. In Mesopotamia and Northern Africa, cities were built densely so that courtyards and public passageways were in shadow in the heat of the day, with cool breezes flowing freely. The Greeks famously philosophized in shady agoras. Even today, in Spain’s sunny Seville, political careers are imperiled when leaders fail to put out the public shades that hang above sidewalks in time for summer heat. So what happened in the U.S.? The arrival of air conditioning and the dominance of cars took away the impetus to enshrine shade into our rapidly growing cities. Shade examines the key role that shade plays not only in protecting human health and enhancing urban life, but also looks toward the ways that innovative architects, city leaders, and climate entrepreneurs are looking to revive it to protect vulnerable people—and maybe even save the planet.
Rachel Carson's Wonder-Filled World: How the Scientist, Writer, and Nature Lover Changed the Environmental Movement by Kate Hannigan
Rachel Carson wasn’t always the Rachel Carson, renowned environmental activist. From her earliest years, Rachel had a passion for nature—to her, it was a fairyland, and she loved to write about her adventures and the creatures she saw. Desperate to protect nature for future generations even as her health declined, she penned the famous book Silent Spring—a call to action against the threat of the deadly chemicals. The book is anything but quiet, selling more than 2 million copies and leading directly to changes like the Clean Air Act of 1963 and the Clean Water Act of 1972. Kate Hannigan, the author of several award-winning children’s books, joins her talents with Katie Hickey, a longtime illustrator of popular picture book biographies, to bring the mother of the environmental movement to life for a new generation of readers.
August’s book for The Nature of Reading Book Club is The Place of Tides by James Rebanks. This beautiful memoir takes place on a remote Norwegian island where James befriends an old woman who practices the ancient trade of caring for Eider ducks and gathering their down. Get your ticket for the book club meeting and pick up the book at the shop or have it shipped to you.
We’ve been on a break due to the shop move, but fear not—Attending Together will be resuming soon with the release of our discussion of Jenny Odell’s works! Order your copies of How to Do Nothing and Saving Time and read along with us.
Since Friday was her last day, I asked our intern Jo to put together some book recommendations from the shelves of the shop—read what she has to say about these titles below.
Past Favorite: “I read There There by Tommy Orange late last year, but it’s a book I think of frequently. Orange’s debut novel follows a chorus of 12 different people, as they all prepare to attend the Big Oakland Powwow. The writing is beautiful (my copy is full of underlines and annotations) and the story is gripping, as you learn how all the characters are connected. This novel spirals tighter and tighter into itself, before an intense and shocking finish.”
I Gave You Eyes and You Looked Toward Darkness by Irene Solà
Current Read: “I’m a little under half-way through this book, and really enjoying it so far. I Gave You Eyes and You Looked Toward Darkness is about a farmhouse called Mas Clavell and all the women who have lived and died there. The house itself is described as it’s own character within the story and Solà’s writing makes you feel as though you’re living through the story. With wolf-hunters, curses, and deals with the devil, this novel feels like a dark fairy tale that should be told aloud around a fire pit.”
Theory of Water: Nishnaabe Maps to the Times Ahead by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
Top of TBR: “I read and loved some of Simpson’s poetry earlier this year, so when I say this book come into the shop around the time we were reading Is A River Alive? for book club, I got super excited. In Theory of Water, Simpson comes to think of water through her time spent skiing and uses this book to examine the many relationships one can have to water. Some of my favorite books have been written by poets, so I cannot wait to pick up this one!”
One of the new sections at the shop is our Folklore section! Come by the shop to check out folktale collections from around the globe or browse our selections online here.
The Celtic cultures of the British Isles—Ireland, Scotland, and Wales—have produced some of the richest traditional tales in Europe. Three words best sum up their themes and flavor: adventure, enchantment, and romance. In this book, Rosalind Kerven has revived the best Celtic fairy tales for a new generation. The stories are sourced from old folk tale collections from all three regions, alongside selected medieval Welsh and Irish texts. This book complements the stories found in English Fairy Tales & Legends.
Tales of Polynesia: Folktales from Hawai'i, New Zealand, Tahiti, and Samoa illustrated by Yiling Changues
A woman falls in love with the king of the sharks. Two powerful sorcerers compete in a battle of magical wits. The king of Maui's fastest messenger races to bring a young woman back from the dead. In these traditional tales, the borders blur between life and death, reality and magic, and land and sea. This volume includes legends from Hawai'i, New Zealand, Tahiti, and Samoa, showcasing the rich narrative tradition of the Polynesian islands. You'll encounter awe-inspiring warriors, tricky magicians, and fearsome creatures of the deep. Each tale is paired with evocative contemporary art, creating a special illustrated edition to read, share, and treasure across generations.
A collection of stories from nations and cultures across our two continents—the Sea-Ringed World, as the Aztecs called it—from the Andes all the way up to Alaska. Fifteen thousand years before Europeans stepped foot in the Americas, people had already spread from tip to tip and coast to coast. Like all humans, these Native Americans sought to understand their place in the universe, the nature of their relationship with the divine, and the origin of the world into which their ancestors had emerged. The answers lay in their sacred stories.
Our garden amidst the many plots of overflowing greenery! It will be sad to be away from it for a bit, but I look forward to seeing how everything has grown when we return.