Saturday, March 10, 2012

Where are You?

I'm home having a great evening at the Read-a-Book Ball. I settled on two companions for the evening......Barbara Kingsolver's book of essays, High Tide in Tuscon for the early evening, and a grand finish with the first book in the Game of Thrones series.

What are you reading? Don't forget to click that Paypal button to make a donation!!
Happy "dancing" !

If you are going to be late to the party, here's another recommendation from Board Member and Memoirist Pam Royse:

I am just finishing up two memoirs by Mary Karr; Liar's Club and Lit. Review for Liar's Club- "Roll over in the pure luxury of a good book, sucking this story up through the straw of clean-to-the-bone writing. Karr's is a childhood remembered without sentimentality, written with a songwriter's ear
for cadence, dialogue, place and time. Karr stops your heart in less than five pages...the reader won't forget this soon." -The Denver Post

Tonight's the Night....or Not

Tonight is the official Read-a-Book Ball, but if you have other commitments, you can pick any night this month to stay home with a good book. Instead of spending money going out, offer those funds to Fishtrap in a tax-deductible donation. Whether you join us tonight or later, please let us know what you're reading!

Still on the fence about what to read? Here are a few more suggestions:

Board member Jim Shelly shares:

I have just re-read the first six books of Patrick O'Brian's 16-book long Aubrey/ Maturin series: Master and Commander, Post Captain, H.M.S. Surprise, The Mauritius Command, Desolation Island, and The Fortune of War. This will be my third time through the whole series. Why? Because O'Brian creates, recreates, a completely believable world of sailing ships and the events of the Napoleanic era. He's leagues beyond any other tales of the sea.

The New York times Book Review calls them "The best historical novels ever written." And Kevin Myers in The Irish Times says "No writer alive can move one as O'Brian can; no one can make you laugh so loud with hilarity, whiten your knuckles with unbearable tension or choke with emotion. He is the master."

Board member and Storytime storyteller Kathy Hunter suggests:

The Sudden Country, by Karen Fisher. A novel of the Westward movement, beautifully, poetically written. Karen Fisher taught at SFT and did a year-long. She has Nez Perce horses.

Cutting for Stone, by Abraham Verghese. A gripping story of twin boys and the trials of a doctor in Ethiopia. The author is a genius!




Friday, March 9, 2012

Tomorrow is the Big Day!

Have you chosen your book? Picked out your PJ's? Thought about your donation to Fishtrap? Your evening at home and your gift, no matter how small, helps us bring great writing and clear thinking about the West to life in many ways. Here are just a few of the programs YOU help us provide: The Big Read, the Local Lecture Series, The Imnaha Writer's Retreat, the Fishtrap Fellowship Program and, of course, the Summer Fishtrap
Writer's Workshops and Gathering.

If you haven't chosen your date yet, here are a few more recommendations.

First, from Fishtrap's Executive Director, Ann Powers:
I just finished reading The Hummingbird's Daughter by Luis Alberto Urrea: A vibrant, magical book. Rich with Mexican politics, history, and mysticism; compelling characters and a riveting plot. Love it!

I've just begun the second book in Ursula Le Guin's Earth Sea series. Pulls you right in!

Board Member Pam Slinker adds:
At Ben's suggestion, I read Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford, who is a presenter at Summer Fishtrap 2012 in July. It is a beautifully written novel, set in Seattle during WWII and the present (or at least in the 1980s).It is about love, family relationships, cultural and historical differences and similarities. I couldn't put it down, and on a recent trip to Seattle, found myself looking for Chinatown and any remnants of the Japanese who raised their families, worked, went to school and lived there 60 or more years ago. It also continued the theme of this year's Big Read. I am now reading Luis Alberto Urrea's The Hummingbird's Daughter, another presenter at Fishtrap!

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Three More Days...

And counting. Have you chosen your book or books yet? If this Saturday doesn't work for you, have you picked an alternate night? Do you have any suggestions for great reads? Let us know here or on our Facebook page.

Here are some thoughts from Board member Stanlyn Daugherty.

Galore by Michael Crummy was one of my favorite books last year. Who can resist a book that begins with a mute albino being pulled from the belly of a dead whale on the beach of a remote New foundland village? Think One Hundred Years of Solitude meets The Shipping News.

The book I've enjoyed most in the last year was The Hare with Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal. Mr. de Waal is a noted British ceramicist who inherited a collection of Japanese netsuke, small ivory carvings. In this book he tells the story of how these objects came to his prominent and colorful family, their journey across Europe, barely surviving destruction during WWII, then back to Japan prior to his inheritance
.

Monday, March 5, 2012

More Good Reads

Donations are already coming for the Read-a-Book Ball - thank you, early contributors! Here are more book recommendations to help you get ready:


Cameron Scott, Fisthrap's Writer-in-Residence is currently knee deep in the Game of Thrones series by George R. R. Martin. When asked why he isn't reading Rilke, Roethke, or Rimbaud instead, he
replied "These books have the craziest character arcs ever. And who says I'm not reading Rlke, Roethke, and Rimbaud as well!"




Susan Badger Jones, member of Fishtrap's Board of Directors enjoys "anything by John McPhee...I'm jumping between The Founding Fish and Pieces of the Frame (a collection of essays). I'm also especially fond of Giving Good Weight and Birch Bark Canoe.

Thursday, March 1, 2012

So many books, so little time.......

I always seem to have a "to be read" stack of books sitting on my shelf and often have two or three books going at once. Of course, the Read-a-book Ball provides a great excuse to find something new, so I polled Fishtrap's Board and staff to see what these literary-minded folks have been reading. As the Ball approaches (and probably afterward) I'll share some recommendations with you, but be warned! After reading these suggestions, I now have two "to be read" stacks!

Here's what Fishtrap Board President Nick Lunde had to say:

I'm just finishing "The Warmth of Other Suns" by Isabel Wilkerson. it is the story of America's black migration from the south to cities in the north and west during Jim Crow, from about 1915 through 1970. It is incredibly well-resear
ched, but more than that the writing is an exquisite piece of narrative nonfiction. She chronicles the lives of three migrants who left the south in different decades, while weaving in important histo
rical events with pacing and skill that is truly stunning. Wilkerson conducted around 1,000 interviews to collect stories before writing the book. It won the National Book
Critics Circle Award for nonfiction. A very significant read in my opinion.

Thanks, Nick!

Sandy Ryman said...

I just read the Flight of Gemma Hardy by Margot Livesey and loved it. It is possible to get through most of that big book that night. "See" you on March 10th but I will be reading The Help.