Summer Reading So Far

"Home and Away" by Scott Simon, NPR journalist and avid sports fan. I found this at a used book shop and for $2, thought it might give me insight into the man who dared to say that as a Chicagoan he knew that fellow Chicagoan Barack Obama was a politician who knew how to play the system. What I discovered was that like politics, Sports is part of the DNA of the people from the Second City (that's what they call themselves -NYC is the first), but unlike politics, a conversation about the Cubs, the Bulls or the Bears levels the playing field no matter where in the world one is. Growing up, my brothers loved the Yankees and the Dodgers, Mom was a die-hard Red Sox fan, and I pretended not to care. Mr. Simon's life experience, especially his years as a war correspondent, seen through the lens of his passion for sports helped me understand them all. A great read (except for the last few chapters which were all about Michael Jordan and Basketball had lost it's charm for me when Larry Bird retired.)   A Land Remembered by Patrick Smith This novel, nominated for the Pulitzer prize in 1984, does for Florida what the Zane Gray novels did for the west. We follow the lives of one pioneer family on cattle drives from the east to west coast of Florida, through mosquito breeding areas so deadly that even the cows die, into the Everglades and the hidden settlement of the Seminole. As the wealthy in the north discovered the warmth of Florida winters and the sweetness of its produce, free range cattle became extinct as pasture turned to farm and resort land, This novel is peopled by simply drawn folk who didn't understand the "progress" happening around them, and one can understand why the term "Cracker" became a pejorative term for ignorant, violent people. However, as one comes to understand the main character, the complex land itself, one comes to respect the "Florida Crackers", so named because of the sound their whips made as they moved the wild herds men and women, survivors in an unforgiving wilderness.   The Mighty Queens of Freeville by Amy Dickinson   A childhood on a farm lost to creditors when her father abandons the family, a single mother, in a foreign country – these are the circumstances that make memoirs a popular genre with my generation. Memoirs make for good book club discussions, for someone is bound to recognize the story as her own, or belonging to someone we know. What makes this little book different is that Ms. Dickinson tells her story with a self-deprecating humor that gives the reader permission to find the humor in her own. The mighty queens of Freeville, named by Ms. Dickinson's daughter, are the women in their extended family who raise each other up with integrity and practical sense in a small town in upstate NY. Here's to the mighty queens in my own circle!