Being that today was a holiday and it is ten below outside, I settled in with Patty Jane’s House of Curl by Lorna Landvik, a local Minnesota writer. It was published in 1995 and is still the author’s best-known work. The story of two sisters growing through various stages of their lives in the ’60’s and 70’s is nostalgic for those of us who have seen the Twin Cities grow over the last four decades.
The book is rich in geographical references as Landvik describes where her characters’ lives play out above bakeries or small shops, on parkways that front the Mississippi River. Some of those small-scale brick commercial buildings have fallen to make way for larger apartment buildings, as a city ages, grows and changes. But the relationships that are made between people of different backgrounds who live in close proximity stays the same.
Lorna Landvik will walk you down the sidewalks of the predominantly Scandinavian community and out to Lake Nokomis and over to Minnehaha Falls. She’ll show you where the wealthy live and the corner bar where the not so wealthy enjoy a brew or two. If you’re curious about passive aggression or how families simply keep plugging along through adversity, you will find it a good read.
Reading Like a Writer, A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them, by Francine Prose, is a book which will slow you down as it is caulk full of wonderful references to all sorts of rich texts. Some I had read; some are now on a list. I first took note of Francine Prose when I was perusing an article in the Atlantic her words lulled in my ear. The crispness and informative conveyance of material is in high gear in this book about writers. It’s like someone has taken you into one of those amazing libraries stacked high with books, and as you walk along together in front of the stacks, she feeds you a stream of choice bits from each one.
She’s broken the book into paragraphs entitled in a manner to suggest her intended audience is composed of those who aspire to write a novel: Words, Sentences, Paragraphs, Narration, Character, Dialogue and so on. But you can ignore all that. The absolute best part of this book (for book lovers that is) is that she plucks out the loftier parts of a work and shines a light on the sheer beauty of it. She pulls a bucket out of a deep well of knowledge and has you take a sip. The book closes with a reading list of BOOKS TO BE READ IMMEDIATELY.
Now I have my check list for 2022. Happy reading.
Home Economics 