For eleven of the twelve years since I started this blog, I have made a short post about the books (and sometimes music) I received as gifts for Christmas. (And in this case, also the used books I found in my post-Christmas shopping.) In addition to being fun, it also serves as a teaser for the reviews to be written in the upcoming year. As usual, I try to link the reviews to these posts as I write them.
Here are the past editions:
***
I’m not sure any year will ever top 2021 for Christmas books, because of a perfect storm of circumstances, including a trip to Reno (and thus Grassroots books), but I still got some cool stuff this year.
1. Jazz Poems (Everyman’s Library)
A nice addition to my poetry collection. Jazz lyrics, particularly from the classic era, are often quite poetic - some of them can be found in my Library of America anthologies - so this should be a fun read. My wife found this for me.
2. A Pocket Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue by Captain Francis Grose
My eldest kid got to take an epic trip up to San Francisco to hang out with my wife’s brother and sister-in-law (and their dog babies) for a week. While there, he went to a pair of historic indie bookstores - City Lights, of course, and also Green Apple Books - and came home with fun presents for all of us. This one is the classic 1785 collection of slang, vulgarities, and curse words that the author compiled during his late night visits to the underbelly of London. Booze was almost certainly involved. This is the sort of book that our family will undoubtedly find amusing.
3. Woman Without Shame by Sandra Cisneros
Another gift from my eldest. We share a love of poetry and of Sandra Cisneros, so I suspect he may be borrowing this one. I am not particularly familiar with Cisneros’ poetry, just her prose. Should be a fun read.
4. Slow Birding by Joan Strassmann
A gift from my in-laws (well, from my M-i-L, I’m sure, given that she tends to shop for the books, while he gets the gadgets and outdoor stuff.) We both enjoy birding, hiking, and nature generally. And yes, if you check out my birding page, there are birds I shot in their backyard, and many more on our camping and hiking trips together.
5. Collected Poems by Gary Snyder
This one has some history behind it. My brother-in-law and I have enjoyed hiking together for many years. We were able to meet up in Grand Teton last summer, and did some pretty epic treks in the national forest just outside the park (so that dog baby Bernie could join us.) A number of years ago, he duplicated Jack Kerouac’s hike with Gary Snyder up the California Matterhorn as described in The Dharma Bums. (There is a link to his photos in that post.) In 2020, the kids and I did the first part of that trek as a day hike, eating lunch at the famous rock, then returning. A few years back, he also gave me The Voice Is All, so there is a definite nexus of Kerouac and Snyder going on with us. I already own a Snyder collection that has some poems (and a lot more of his prose), but the complete poems in a Library of America edition is a great addition to my growing poetry collection.
Update: My post about Regarding Wave.
6. The Seven Basic Plots by Christopher Booker
This book has been on my list, because I am a total nerd about this sort of stuff. I loved The Hero With a Thousand Faces, so this would be a natural counterpart. I used my Barnes and Noble gift card from my wife to purchase this one for the collection.
7. Selected Poems by Amy Lowell
My wife got this for me, but forgot about it until about a month after Christmas. So, here it is, added late. I haven’t read much by Lowell, but she is an important Imagist poet, so I look forward to exploring her poems in the near future. Also, can you ever have too many lovely small hardbacks of poetry?
As usual, check back on this page to see how many of these I manage to read this year - I add the links in as I write about the books.
No comments:
Post a Comment