A Progress Report

What I am reading now:

Carl Sandburg Home - The Official Historic Site Handbook:
This was a pleasant surprise. The text of this this book, about Connemara, the home of the poet and Pulitzer Prize-winning author, is written by Paula Steichen, Sandburg's granddaughter. Lots of insight into the writer and his family.

The Bedside Guardian 28 (1978-1979) - introduced by John Cleese:
I love this collection of articles, profiles, and reviews published in the British newspaper, The Guardian. Even the stories about rugby or politics I find to be so well written that they are a pleasure to read even though I am not quite sure what is going on. 

Hit List by Lawrence Block: 
Professional hit man Keller is back. In this second book of tales from the world of the stamp-collecting killer for hire, an unknown rival is out to eliminate his competition. Keller, it turns out, is on that guy's Hit List.

What I just finished reading:

My Connemara by Paula Steichen:
A sweet look at life growing up in the household with her grandfather Carl Sandburg. I will write about this soon.

Bloodhounds by Peter Lovesey:
This is the fourth in the series about police detective Peter Diamond of Bath. This is an especially entertaining one as The Bloodhounds are a group of mystery novel fans who get together to discuss crime writers and their books. That is, until the real-life, locked-room murder of one of the members happens. It was fun to mark Lovesey's many, many references to authors, book titles, and fictional detectives. 

The Frozen Thames by Helen Humphreys:
See my review here.


What I will probably read next:
I have two Bill Bryson books, At Home and A Short History of Nearly Everything to begin. And a P.G. Wodehouse, Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit which I bought on my recent book-buying spree. These should keep me laughing for a bit.

 What does your progress report look like?

The Frozen Thames by Helen Humphreys

I love a book that takes a central theme and imagines it in different ways. For example, Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman looks at Time (I wrote about it here), and his Mr. G (here) mulls over the creation of the universe. In Sum (here), David Eagleman writes variations on afterlives. 

In The Frozen Thames (2007), author Helen Humphreys offers up dreamy, brief stories - part real, part imaginary - of the forty times in history that the river Thames was frozen solid.

The tales begin in 1142 with the escape in a snowstorm of Queen Matilda, daughter of Henry I, from her besieged castle. Then come stories of lovers and hunters and skaters. There are the Frost Fairs -  whole cities built upon the ice. Merchants have set up booths, fashioned from blankets, filled with slabs of roast beef for sale; a printing press cranks out souvenirs of the event; coffee house and tavern owners serve customers on the solid ice that just months before was a sweeping river. 

The ice some years is smooth and is fine for skating and walking; other times, deadly ice floes crunch and move about with malice. It is so cold that frozen birds fall from the sky; wine freezes in its barrels; water turns to ice in a glass left on one's bedside table.

And so it goes through plague years, the deaths of kings, the Great London Fire, until in 1895, the river froze for the final time. The deepening of the channel and the reconstruction of the London Bridge all contrived to keep the Thames flowing swiftly preventing ice from calling a halt to her current.

This is a small book (5-inches by 6-inches, 180 pages) that contains big meditations on love, loss, ice, water, nature, and the lives of everyday folks. There are wonderful images that accompany the text. It is a treasure and one that I will reread, I am sure. A true keeper.