Mid-Winter Reading

In the last few weeks, I've been in Western Massachusetts, New York, and Blue Hill. I can authoritatively say, it's coldest here and those of us in Maine can talk about the weather lots longer than those other folks! We've had amazingly cold nights but days filled with sunshine. I finally got out on my snowshoes and will not be annoying about it as I try to get everyone else out on theirs. This lovely scene is just over a mile from the inn.

If it's that cold outside, you know it's time to be reading inside. I adored Ellen Booraem's The Unnameables.She is just such a delightful writer, as you will see in her piece about her messy desk. Kirkus Reviews says, "Booraem's debut is an ever-surprising, genre-defying page-turner." I just sent it home with Matthew, 11, Lorna, 13, and Paige, the mom, and I suspect they will all love it.

As always, Blue Hill Books will have autographed copies of it for you. While I was in there checking out the latest in the Maine section, I came across Days in the Life of a Fisherman's Wife, by Rusty Warren, and More than Petticoats: Remarkable Maine Women, by Kate Kennedy. Remarkable Women has great photographs and description of hard Maine living that leaves me very happy to be getting through the winter with all the various heat sources we have, including heated seats in our cars. Also on my docket is Notes from an Innkeeper's Journal. Has the book everyone keeps telling me to write already been done? I'll let you know.

Although the book pile is plenty deep enough to keep me busy, I do like to keep up with the Sunday papers. In the Globe recently was a column that answered an old, old question for me. "Make a Joyful Noise," written my Sam Allis, suggests "classical audience should loosen up and applaud at will." I came to classical music late in life, having grown up on an unhealthy diet of 70s and 80s rock and roll, Barry Manilow and Ricky Nelson, and, during those most formative years, mariachi music and folk songs played on the accordion. Allis suggests going with our instinct to clap at the end of a movement, rather than staidly waiting until the very end (which neophytes never recognize anyway, and have to wait until others applaud to finally, at long last, get to show their awe).

Although it sometimes feel as though we will never again be able to throw open the windows to the ocean breezes, we have to get out and enjoy the snow now. It really will melt, it always always does.