Tag: books

Dig In

Chris Parsons' magical art glistens in the early morning dew.

My current fave nightstand book is a small square chunk titled “The Garden Book,” which might seem unimaginative as titles go, but trust me, like the library in Terry Pratchett’s Unseen University, it’s much bigger on the inside.

The book (published by Phaidon) offers an illustrated survey of 500 of the world’s most influential gardeners. There are 500 photos, each accompanied by a tantalizingly brief paragraph about the designer or the garden.

Those who have never attempted to make a garden from scratch might be bored already, but for those of us with calloused hands and dirt under our fingernails, this book offers a stunning, inspiring, and humbling glimpse at the breathtaking scope of gardening ambitions.

Some of the gardens included are famous, others not so much. Some are modern, severe and tightly controlled. Some are wildly romantic, lush and drunk with blooms. There are examples of amazing artistry, such as Chris Parsons’ dew garden, a work of ephemeral beauty created by brushing a design on a dew-soaked lawn. Other effects take years to achieve, such as the cloud hedge at Schoten Garden in Belgium.

The cloud hedge in Schoten Garden, Belgium.

Anyone who has waited years to see a particular plant reach its peak will marvel at the patience and vision of some of these gardens. Of course, not all of us have the resources to produce anything on the spectacular scale of La Reggia di Caserta, with its nearly two-mile-long canal and water-staircases in Naples. But then, that garden was built to impress kings. We who simply aspire to produce a pleasant spot for an al fresco lunch may be content with more modest achievements.

I’ve been gardening so long, I sometimes wonder why I can’t seem to do a better job of it. Yet no matter how boldly I start out in January, planning and plotting, by September the decline is unmistakable. Some years it’s drought. Other years bugs, or blights, or heat, or cold, or  fill in the blank with the personal melt-down of your choice. And, of course, the clock is ticking the whole time. You can tell yourself there will be another spring, another summer, but, you know, immortality isn’t as easy as it looks on the big screen.

Yet, in this respect, my little garden book offers a kind of sustaining perspective. Among the many gardens depicted are some whose best days were many centuries ago. Not much is left of Apadanus Palace, the once-magnificent garden showcase of Darius the Great in Persepolis. Around about 1450 B.C. Darius’s terraces and reflecting pools were the talk of Persia, yet now only the stone stairs and a few pillars remain as evidence of his personal paradise.

The fleeting nature of, well, Nature, is both its charm and its ineffable mystery. And now it’s September. The days grow shorter. The angle of the sun casts long shadows across the garden, gilding the bright leaves, the russet grasses. There’s a different kind of energy in the air as autumn begins its mellow drawing in. Somehow, even though the garden is winding down, I feel excited already about the next season.

It’s like baseball, only better. In gardening, everyone wins.

Whose Woods These Are

Berkeley artist Deborah Harris created the block print for the covers of The Greening trilogy.

Leaves have already begun to fall in my backyard. The sunflowers are still smiling on their ten-foot-stalks, seemingly unaware of the change in the tilt of the planet, yet the leaning season has begun, when autumn exerts its downward pull on all the growing world.

There’s something strangely invigorating about the autumnal shift. Perhaps the shortening days, the cooler nights, are meant to remind us that the clock is ticking.

Mother Nature’s countdown is stately and subtle, but the message is clear. Our time on Earth is finite. Whether or not Earth itself is finite is another question, one hotly debated in environmental and scientific circles. But for those of us who take a more abstract, romantic view of life, the possibilities for Earth’s future offer a ripe area for speculation.

In my new alt-fantasy series The Greening, I imagine a slightly less dystopian vision than some. I’d like to think that future generations won’t be condemned to live in a dark dank world overrun with mutant cyber-human hybrids whose idea of a good time is drinking themselves to death in some seedy bar. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, if that’s your cup of tea. But as for me, I’ll take the road where the jolly innkeeper isn’t a psychopath.

The first volume of The Greening trilogy starts At The Root, where all forests begin. The tale centers on the struggles of a young woman who sets off on a quest to find her missing father and stumbles into a world of magic and mayhem. But really, at its heart, it’s about growing up and finding your way through the forest. And, like a ten-mile hike in the great Northwest, it’s more fun than it sounds.

I floated an earlier version of this story out on the web for free last fall, as an experiment. I learned some things from it. One of which was that the story I wanted to tell was too big for one volume. And that I wasn’t content with an e-book only project. This slowed the process considerably, as it led to more extensive editing and design considerations, but now, here we are, and the paperback is in stock at Amazon. An e-book version will follow in the coming months.

So, if you’re looking for something leafy, green and not too filling for your leisure reading, consider a walk in the Green Wood.

Escape Route

You can escape into art, even if it's not.

It’s always good to have a way out. Even if you are lucky enough not to live in a war zone or a country where paranoid folks can walk the streets carrying concealed weapons, there comes a time for most of us when we wish we could just get out of Dodge.

For me, that time is now. It’s not just the headlines. There’s really no getting away from those anymore. It’s not even the weather. There’s no place without it.

I yearn for a vacation from the internal critic that mutters constantly inside me, noting with disdain how I could have done better, should have done more, and definitely should have known better.

Be that as it may, I need to recharge my aged batteries if I hope to finish strong in this human race. And while a trip to Paris or Tahiti is out of the question, a dive into my favorite authors’ works is nearly as refreshing, and certainly less expensive and exhausting.

So, Jane Austen it is. Also P.G. Wodehouse, Tom Holt, Terry Pratchett and Christopher Moore. Such a list will not impress the heavy heads in the audience. But escape reading isn’t an ego contest. It’s a prescription to remove gloom, to reduce leaden anxiety.

Millions of people enjoy reading murder mysteries, and who am I to blame them? The accepted fantasy of the murder mystery genre is that murders get solved, that murderers get what’s coming to them. In reality, I suspect this is less often the case. To me here’s nothing “cozy” about murder.

However, that’s why we love fiction, right? Only in fiction can you be relatively certain that the good guys will triumph, even in the most noir pulp fiction. And if, for some annoying post-modern reason, they don’t, you can always throw the book across the room, or out the window “Silver Linings Playbook” style, and go do the crossword puzzle.

My advice is: take your time, enjoy a break when you can. Because reality will still be there, snarling and scratching, whenever you’re ready to return to the fray.

Happy holiday!

Only Make Believe

Be your own Buddha

When you tell people you’re a writer the first thing they ask is, “Oh, what do you write?”

Then, after you tell them you write fiction, they tell you what kind of book they read, if they read at all. If you don’t write the sort of book they prefer, that pretty much ends the conversation. Occasionally you run into an omnivore—someone who reads anything and everything. This sort of reader will usually be kind enough to make an attempt to appear interested in whatever it is you write.

Generally speaking, I try to avoid talking about what I write beyond saying that it’s mostly fantasy. This isn’t strictly true, but it makes for a simpler interface with the non-reading public.

I’ve been a daydreamer all my life. As a child I did it to escape the casual cruelty and numbing boredom that fester in the savage wilds of public school. As an adult I’ve learned to channel my daydreaming into imaginary worlds which offer some respite from the daily horror stories that flood the news channels.

Apparently I’m not the only one looking to escape.

These days fantasy is big business. Books in the sword and sorcery genre abound, dragons are a growth industry, and butt-kicking heroines with paranormal powers have become a genre unto themselves. Yet still the fantasies that thrill me are the ones that lurk on the edges of the mainstream fantasy realms. There aren’t many writers like Tom Holt, Terry Pratchett and Christopher Moore, who write wildly imaginative fantasy replete with humor and philosophy.

I’m not a big fan of fantasy in which writers rely on the trappings of violence and creepy gore to make up for lack of imagination and humor.

I yearn for the Buffy factor. What made that landmark show so remarkable wasn’t simply the “girl kills monsters” theme, but the way humor was woven into every aspect of the show, from the romantic plotlines to the apocalypse scenarios. Joss Whedon understood that a good apocalypse needs more than a few laugh lines.

And this is where I draw my own personal line in the sand when it comes to fantasy. I will put up with a lot of gore and violence if I can trust the writer to punish villainy in the fullness of time and to make sure that everyone has a few laughs before the lights go out.

Many very intelligent and thoughtful readers have no interest in fantasy, or even fiction of any kind. They view reality as the whole picture. They consider history and science the only worthwhile detours from the serious business of Life. And, of course, such readers are essential to us all.

But I believe fantasy matters. And here’s the point of the sword: There’s no wall between fantasy and reality. Gravity may seem inescapable here on Earth, but if humans hadn’t imagined flight we’d never have walked on the moon.

It takes courage to be a dreamer in this rough and rude world. Not everyone will respect you for it. But you have to decide if you want to live your own life. You have the choice to be the hero or the villain or the comic relief in your own story. Whether you write it down or not is also up to you.

Be your own hero. You may never make your parents proud, but you can be proud of trying. Whether you walk through walls or into them, the important thing is to keep going. Even make believe wings can give you a lift.

Slow Burner

Every tree contains stories waiting to be told.

On a recent episode of “The Big Bang Theory” Raj Koothrappali, the cute astrophysicist who can’t utter a word to a woman without an alcoholic drink in his system, surmounted the challenge of talking with an equally shy woman by arranging for them to meet in a library for a face-to-face texting date.

It was adorable.

But what I liked about most about the episode was how it illustrated the way bold new technologies that seem to diminish the need for human contact can also be used to create new and imaginative ways to connect.

With that in mind, I’ve finally overcome my resistance to e-publishing. As a lifelong book lover, I was slow to warm to the idea of electronic pages. However, the tree lover in me can see the virtue of virtual pages. And now that I’ve embraced the world of self-publishing, e-books simply make too much sense to ignore.

So this month I’m launching into the epub world with a will, starting with a new edition of Alice and The Green Man. This restored edition includes portions of the original book that were edited out of the first edition in a misguided attempt to qualify for “Publisher’s Choice” designation, an honor supposedly designed to open marketing doors.

This time around I’m driving, and the trip may be a little longer, but for me it’s worth it for the scenery. Call me a control freak. Or just a freak. The point is, in the last six years I’ve learned that no one else will defend my work if I don’t. So I’ve restored Alice to its original giddy green luster and sent it out there to play with the other e-books.

True, there was an e-book version out there before, if you hunted for it. Trust me, the second edition has more spring in its step.

And now it’s available on Kindle. It may take a while to catch, but I’m already feeling a warm glow.

The Pinch of Time

Leave your worries behind, all ye who enter here.

One of my early favorite books was “The Secret Garden” by Frances Hodgson Burnett. Like many a soft-hearted young girl, I was moved by the story of a hidden garden in which a lonely girl and a crippled boy find inspiration and joy.

I wanted a garden like that.

All through my life I’ve been drawn to such places. While many public gardens put on lavish displays of horticultural artistry, those which retain that “Secret Garden” sense of magical reprieve from the harshness of modern life are rare.

The All Hallows Guild of the National Cathedral has nurtured and sustained one such garden in Washington, D.C., for nearly eighty years. The AHG, an all volunteer group which raises funds and helps maintain the Bishop’s Garden, also puts on the wildly popular annual Flower Mart on the Cathedral grounds each May, and offers many education programs including tours of the extensive grounds.

Since 1934, one of the Guild’s most beloved projects has been The Herb Cottage, a little slice of old English charm nestled in the shadow of the Cathedral. The cottage actually predates the Cathedral and has a fascinating history of its own. However, the march of time trod rather heavily on the charming old building during the aftermath of the earthquake which shook Washington in the summer of 2011.

While the earthquake itself left the cottage untouched, not long after repair work began on the Cathedral’s towers, a giant crane fell on the cottage, damaging the roof and some of the surrounding plantings. Since that time the AHG has been soldiering on, offering The Herb Cottage’s wares in the Cathedral’s underground garage while repairs began on the cottage.

But the shake up at the Cathedral seems to have affected more than the architecture. Apparently some in the church leadership viewed the crane accident as an opportunity to “repurpose” (yes, I loathe such words—can you tell?) The Herb Cottage and turn it into a café.

Ah. Where do I start?

I like cafés. Who doesn’t? Coffee, tea, muffins and whatnot. But is this the best place to locate a social hub? The Herb Cottage is only a few feet from the entrance to the Bishop’s Garden. It’s a landmark and a treasure. And what is more fitting than for it to be used as it always has been, as a place for gardeners and those who love them to buy souvenirs and gifts that celebrate the sublime serenity and grace of gardens in general and the Bishop’s Garden in particular?

A café somewhere on the Cathedral grounds is a fine idea. But it needn’t be housed where the clatter of cups and the chatter of customers would inevitably overflow into the sanctuary of the garden air.

I first stepped into the Bishop’s Garden more than forty years ago. It was a thrilling discovery, happened upon by accident. I’ve returned many times in the years since, though I lived far from the city for much of that time. Now I’m back, and they’re going to replace the Herb Cottage with a coffee shop?

I’ve been told that you can’t fight progress. And I’m all for progress.

But I’m not convinced that all change is progress. Some things are fine just the way they are, or, in the case of The Herb Cottage, the way it was.

Pix Elated

Lichtenstein's pop eyes speak volumes.

Perspective is everything.

The first time I ever read Moby Dick it was a Classic Comic. It cost ten cents. I thought it was a fairly gripping yarn, but it lacked the love interest which, at the time, I felt was an essential element to any story.

Years later in high school, when I was compelled to read the actual unabridged novel, I realized that there was much to be said for the comic book format. So much less blubber, for one thing.

Suffice it to say, the appeal of Moby Dick remained an enigma to me until I read it again in college, guided by an inspired professor who confessed that it was Melville’s sense of humor which really got to him.

This was news to me. Yet as I voyaged once again into Melville’s foaming prose, I found not only amusement, but moments of transcendent wonder. Go figure.

No doubt the passage of time had changed my perspective on whales, men, and the heartless workings of Fate. And, as time went on and I revisited other great works of literature such as A Tale of Two Cities and Les Miserables which I had first read in comics form, I came to appreciate the pleasures of the long slow read.

However, while my admiration for comics has held steady, in the last few decades graphic comics have sparked a kind of cultural renaissance of their own, with highbrow artists producing a whole new world of thoughtful, groundbreaking works suffused with drama, humor and the whole existential enchilada that is modern life.

On a recent trip to the East Wing of the National Gallery we took in a retrospective of works by Roy Lichtenstein. His brilliant conceit, to put comic style art on the wall, large and in-your-face, challenged centuries of traditions built on classification and exclusion. Seen larger than life and bolder than Iron Man, the artful appeal of this comic art is irresistible.

To me, anyway. But then, I’m a sucker for Melville, so perhaps not the most reliable source.

Lord Plushbottom of the old comic strip Moon Mullins lent a philosophic tone to the Sunday funnies.

My Back Pages

The Library of Congress has room to read and no end of books.

My resolution for this new year is simple: less time on Facebook, more time with real books.

It’s not that I hate Facebook. It’s more a mild sort of cringing from the whole leap into the virtual social pool. Inside, you see, I’m still that shy nerd I was at age six, 12, and pretty much always.

I’ve learned to mask it, of course. One can’t function in the push and shove of modern life without developing a crust of some thickness. But, given a choice between entering a room full of laughing talking humans or a meadow full of sky, I would head for the sky. Space. The final frontier, as the fellow said.

Actually, I’ve never had the slightest desire to go to space. I’m an earth sign, after all. Even if I give no credence to astrology, I enjoy the poetic symbolism of its design. But I’m more a burrower than a flyer. And nothing completes the cozy burrow like a shelf of books. Or a wall. Perhaps a room. Or two. It could be a long winter.

Libraries are my spiritual home. The hushed atmosphere of a reading room seduces me. It was one of the many, many, things I loved about Buffy the Vampire Slayer – how so much of the story took place in the library, and how Giles, the librarian, was heroic, geeky and adorable.

But I digress. The point is, the task of keeping up my Facebook appearances – liking this, commenting on that, posting proofs of my existence to the universe – is taking away from the time I need to read, write and daydream.

Daydreaming is a key component of the writing thing for me. I need that staring into space part of each day. Although sometimes a baseball game works almost as well – there’s something mesmerizing about watching a ballgame. Anyway, that’s the kind of space to which I do relate – the kind in my head. Without it I begin to feel trapped in ye olde burrow.

Books are a wonderful way to create space inside your mind. But sometimes you need to step out of the page and into a world of your own.

So that’s my plan for the New Year. How long will it last? Well, it’s only a hundred days till opening day. I think I can make it. After that the sky’s the limit.

Words cast a timeless spell.

Shrink Wrap

Have houseboat, will travel.

So now that I’ve moved across country again, I’m sifting through stacks of boxes, most of them filled with paper – letters, photos, books, clippings and articles – and I’ve come to the realization that it’s out of control. I’d like to think I’m not a bona fide hoarder. But the argument could be made.

I trace the beginning of this to sometime after the birth of my first child, when, like so many first-time parents, I shot a lot of photos. A lot. And this was back in the days before digital cameras, so the piles of prints and negatives grew at an alarming rate.

Now that my kids have grown and moved out into the world, I’m left with these boxes of images of the little people they used to be. I also have their report cards, certificates, drawings, letters, etc. etc. I did winnow the piles before we moved. But not enough.

As another season of irrational consumption unfolds in our complacent nation, I find myself thinking perhaps this will be the year I try to be more creative and less acquisitive. I’m dreaming of a small Christmas.

In truth, we’ve been on a down-sizing arch for several years now, starting when we left the wide open spaces of rural Virginia and headed for urban Seattle, where tiny bungalows and cottages abound. The charm and practicality of making do with less is that it makes life simpler. With less to clean, less to maintain, less to heat and cool, there’s more time for the simple pleasures of life.

For me, that means gardening, and I’m downsizing there as well. There was a time when I thought I could manage ten acres of wild and wooly nature. Nature soon set me straight on that idea. Now my goals are more modest. A tiny backyard with a few flower beds, perhaps some beans and a contented cat, and I’ll be a happy camper.

The trend toward downsizing is catching on in these economically challenging times. A recent article in The Washington Post took note of the “tiny house” movement, which has been gaining popularity in the last ten or fifteen years. Most of these petite charmers come in under 200 square feet. I’ve seen bathrooms bigger than that in some of the more grotesque MacMansions blighting once-open spaces outside the Beltway.

Lovely old homes have their place in the architectural landscape. But the rash of blimped-out super-sized dwellings that have become standard in so many areas in the last twenty years has produced vast tracts of unwalkable “neighborhoods” where life without a car is unthinkable, and where there’s more empty space inside the houses than outside them.

In his landmark book 1973 book Small is Beautiful British economist E. F. Schumacher wrote:

“The modern economy is propelled by a frenzy of greed and indulges in an orgy of envy, and these are not accidental features but the very causes of its expansionist success. The question is whether such causes can be effective for long or whether they carry within themselves the seeds of destruction.”

Schumacher’s wisdom inspired many of the environmental projects that have helped to raise awareness of our dependence on Earth’s natural resources. Our willingness to make changes in our own lives remains a critical part of the mission.

No one ever said it would be easy. Just thinking about it makes me tired, I’ll admit. But at least now that I have a much smaller house to clean, I have a little more energy to put to better uses.

I don’t know if I’ll ever have the discipline to whittle my stuff down to the point where it can fit in 200 square feet. But at least I’m trying to lighten the load for the next move, wherever it may take me.

Burning Blight

So I see that Ang Lee has made a movie out of Yann Martell’s brilliant fantasy The Life of Pi.

This seems a bit ambitious to me, but then, Ang Lee is a genius, so perhaps he can handle it. Yet when I read the book about a boy who survives 227 days in a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger, I heard much discussion about what, if anything, the tiger symbolized. Was it a metaphor for death? A figment of the boy’s fevered imagination? Or some divine manifestation of the power and majesty of God?

I wanted to believe the tiger was real. You know, like Calvin’s Hobbes but with claws and teeth.

Friends told me I was hopelessly naive. No doubt they were right. Yet now I’m curious to see how my reading of the novel compares with Lee’s visualization.

In fiction, as in life, point of view can clarify or obscure. When you’re high up, looking down, the patterns of human behavior are easier to observe, but only when you’re down on the ground, in the boat with the tiger, can you get a feel for the hunger, the anger, the despair in people’s eyes.

For most of us, our point of view limits our ability to understand one another, and, as history and the daily news remind us, the inability to empathize can be fatal. When point of view provokes point of gun, everyone loses.

This is what the tiger means to me.

The tiger is the cornered beast, the itchy trigger finger that lurks deep in the psyche of every soul. And we are all in this boat together.

Unless we tame our tigers, the outlook is bleak. As the fires of bigotry and religious fervor rage hotter across the world, we would do well to remember that absolutes rarely are. Everything depends on perspective. Now more than ever, as the world tilts toward chaos, it’s imperative that cooler heads prevail.

It’s harder to make peace than to provoke war. But to stir up hatred for political gain is the lowest form of evil – the methodology of fascists.

So let’s all take a deep breath and look this tiger in the eyes and try not to make any sudden moves. We could still make it to the shore if we don’t panic.

But never forget, tigers can swim.