2023 Pleasures
by Eleanor Arnason
I think I have mentioned before that I have had trouble reading fiction for the past several years. What am I reading then? Way too much news. The war in Ukraine disturbs me. The attack on Gaza horrifies me. I take refuge in some rereading: the fantasies of Diana Wynne Jones, for example. She is clever, fun and comforting.
I also read nonfiction. Recently I read Portable Magic, A History of Books
and Their Readers by Emma Smith. This is about books as physical objects. It’s
interesting enough so I plan to reread it.
I followed it with Dinosaurs: New Visions of a Lost World by Michael J.
Benton. This is basically a picture book with a scholarly commentary. I like
paleontological art, and this has plenty. And I like dinosaurs, including the living
dinosaurs, aka birds. I followed the Benton book with The Genius of Birds
by Jennifer Ackerman. As the title suggests, it is about birds, the tiny
dinosaurs that chirp in trees. I would describe this as pleasant pop biology.
What next? A book on volcanoes, which didn’t give me what I wanted to know
about volcanoes. Then Of Time and Turtles: Mending the World, Shell by
Shattered Shell by Sy Montgomery, which is about a wildlife rescue
organization that treats injured turtles. Most have been hit by cars. Be
careful when you drive. This was an encouraging book, about people doing good
work.
Finally I am reading a book on grass. Grassland: The History, Biology, Politics and Promise of the American Prairie by Richard Manning. Grass is amazing stuff, and Minnesota is at the edge of the great American prairie. I am a fan of rewilding much of it and bringing back bison. They evolved with the prairie. Unlike cattle, they have no trouble surviving on the prairie, and they do not harm it. They are huge and splendid and belong.
We don’t watch many movies or TV series, but we have watched the Good Omens series, based on the Terry Pratchett-Neil Gaiman book. I love it. The actors, especially the two leads, are wonderful. We live in a time of catastrophe. A funny, well-acted, moral show about the end of the world is useful.
We have a classical radio station on all the time. I listen to classical music and read about life forms, some alive now, some long gone. And I write some poetry as a way of coping with a world that seems difficult right now.
Maybe when this is all over
grass will grow
among the shattered buildings,
and birds nest and sing.
But will there be people?
Will children grow here
like the world’s grass,
which survives everything?
Eleanor Arnason has written several novels and many short stories. Her fourth novel, A Woman of the Iron People (2001), won the James Tiptree Jr. award for gender-bending science fiction and the Mythopoeic Society Award for adult fantasy. Her fifth novel, Ring of Swords (1995), won a Minnesota Book Award. Aqueduct Press published her collection Big Mama Stories in 2013, her Lydia Duluth adventure, Tomb of the Fathers, in 2010, and her collection, Ordinary People, in 2005. In 2016 Aqueduct released e-book editions of The Sword Smith, To the Resurrection Station, and Daughter of the Bear King. In 2017, Aqueduct published a collection of her Hwarhath stories, Hwarhath Stories, which was nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award and was named to the James Tiptree Award's Honor List. Next year, Aqueduct will bring out a new edition of Eleanor's Ring of Swords, with an introduction by Ursula K. Le Guin, as the fifth volume in its Heirloom Books series.
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