Oct 9 - United Way

Stupid United Way booksale. A simple "Last day - by donation!" sign shouldn't have such power:
  • Doug Cuthand, Tapwe: Selected Columns of Doug Cuthand (the thoughtful and provocative Cree journalist from Saskatchewan, whose colums I so often appreciate on the rare times I see them in the Times-Colonist)
  • Ivan Doig, Dancing at the Rascal Fair
  • Brian Fawcett, Local Matters: A Defence of Dooney's Cafe and Other Non-Globalized Places, People, and Ideas (sample line: "Siding with environmentalists doesn't fool me into trusting them, or, for that matter, liking them" [92])
  • The Best of Granta Travel (1991)
  • Vid Ingelevics, Hunter : Gatherer (exhibition gallery from the Southern Alberta Art Gallery & the Tom Thomson Art Gallery -- mostly photos of woodpiles!)
  • Hugh MacLennan (text), The Colours of Canada (another entry in my growing pile of 60s/70s coffee-table books about Canadian nature, to set against my similarly growing pile of Sierra Club photo-books)
  • ed. Wells, Velie, & Walker, Appleseeds and Beercans: Man and Nature in Literature (a 1974 anthology)

Comments

David L. said…
Ha! That was my copy of Ivan Doig -- a book I've dragged across the country several times, but never got around to reading! Let me know if its any good.

I managed to avoid the temptation of checking out the United Way sale and just gave away books this year. Liberating... until I see the stacks of unread magazines and books scattered across the house and office.
Anonymous said…
I wonder what you'll think of the Doig. I love his non-fiction -- This House of Sky, Winter Brothers (wondrous), the sequel to This House of Sky (title escapes me this moment) which I didn't like as well, mostly because it covered the same ground THOS but didn't manage to sustain the latter's highly original perspective and tone. But I find the fiction a bit silly. The settings are great -- Montana for the most part -- but somehow the characters are dumb. But maybe they're intended more for a male readership. Is this an incendiary thing to say?
tk
richard said…
Damn you, Leach!

Theresa, I've heard great things about Doig's nonfiction as well, but not all that much about the fiction. With the roaring success of A River Runs Through It, I thought that I'd've heard more about Doig's Montana fiction if it was something really wonderful. But characters being dumb because they're for a male readership? Good heavens. You must have had your coffee this morning without the usual helping of tact! :-)
Anonymous said…
Oh, gosh. What I meant was was something like this: the fiction is about guys who seem as though they've stepped from the pages of a hurtin' song. Lonesome dove guys. Sam Shepherd guys. I don't know men like them, though I guess they're out there. And maybe they're reading Ivan Doig's novels and having moments of recognition. Somehow the nostalgia that suffuses the non-fiction is of a different order. (Odour?) And I didn't mean to offend your male readers, Richard...
richard said…
Oh, I was just teasing, Theresa! I read enough Westerns as a kid to know what you mean. The hurtin' song has an enormous appeal to listeners of country music; I don't know that it's mostly a male listenership for that particular strand of country song, mind you, but I've always liked it myself.

Guess I'll have to give one of them a read, now -- unlike that wastrel Leach....
Anonymous said…
Whew. Glad you're still talking to me...Try the rascal fair one. The main character is actually quite dear but there's more than a whiff of high lonesome in those pages too. And yes, like you, I confess to liking the music myself. On a recent road trip to Boundary country, I think I drove my husband crazy by playing Ian Tyson's "Road to Las Cruces" over and over again. But somehow the idea of a novel about that brooding spurned cowboy lover doesn't have the same resonance for me.
richard said…
I suppose "Road to Las Cruces" will do, if you don't have handy a copy of "Irving Berlin (Is 100 Years Old Today)"!

Sure, I'm still talking to you. And I hope to meet you on the 20th, when you're here reading with Anik See and Des Kennedy, at the Cornerstone Cafe.
Anonymous said…
Oh, yes. Introduce yourself for sure! I agree about the Irving Berlin song and of course "Summer Wages" and a handful of others. I always buy my Ian Tyson cds at the Quilchena Store...
tk

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