Check out the programming on KZYX, Mendocino county's own public radio station.
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You Cannot Put a Price on That Advice |
A beautiful, windy day a mile from the coast. I'm reading a new book. I get up and go into the garden to take a break out where Joselyn is gardening.I've been reading for a couple of hours, I tell her, and I still don't think I have a subject for this week's column. The book is very interesting, but it will take me a long time to finish.
"I don't think you should have to read a book every week and report on it," she says. "Well, I know it says "words on books" but that doesn't mean "books Tony's read every week."
I know that, I say. Usually when it's time to write and I haven't finished anything I write about something else, like wind and squirrels and people going to jail in Kansas for unpaid library fines.
"You can report on books you know about," she says. "Books you've heard about. It's like when you were working at the bookstore and someone came up to you and asked for something to give for graduation and you said Dictionary and everyone was happy about it.
"You're in the know. You get Publishers Weekly every week, you still go into bookstores and look around. You don't have to read every book, because it might not interest you. It might be great, but not something you like, but you can mention it because it might interest someone's daughter."
You cannot put a price on advice like that. It's gold. And suddenly, out there in the wind, where squirrels have to be chased off bird feeders and dead branches are hitting the ground like dandruff on a blue blazer, the world suddenly is OK again.
So this is what I've been reading, among other things:
Walking Tractor & Other Country Tales originally was self-published by Bruce "Pat" Patterson, who lives in Anderson Valley. I talked with him the other day at the KZYX Member Appreciation Party, Board Meeting & Lasagna Chomp. He reminded me that his book recently was re-published by the excellent not-for-profit Heyday Books in Berkeley.
When Pat's book first arrived at the bookstore it didn't just arrive, in a box, like most books. It was carried in by a talkative, bright-eyed semi-old-timer with a beard, glasses and cap, who couldn't stop showing around and talking about his new book.
Right. Another "local" author full of himself and you have to be nice because you appreciate the hard work, because he's "local" and well, being "local" doesn't always mean the writing's any good.
Except it is. One time at the Writers Conference in Fort Bragg Patterson paid fifty bucks for a half-hour writing critique with famed Heyday publisher Malcolm Margolin. The publisher was taken aback when instead of a writing critique the meeting became a pitch party for Walking Tractor.
Happily, Margolin drove Tractor back to his office and ended up publishing it in what Patterson calls a "cleaned up edition." Instead of hand-copied and bound pages with photos, we have a clean trade paperback with professional editing. All the good stuff is still in the book, however.
So far I've read parts in the front and in the back, and I'm still working on the stories in the middle. Walking Tractor is a personal history of living and working in Anderson Valley: Stories about the heat, talking crows, elderly widows with cats, surfing a 60-foot log down a canyon, Leon's Buick, Ireland's wildgeese, the Blue Redwoods, and more.
It's a good read, and I recommend it. Even if I haven't yet finished.
Aired Sunday May 25, 2008 at 10:55 am and Wednesday May 28, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Orders/Information:
Walking Tractor & Other Country Tales by Bruce Patterson. Heyday Books paperback $14.95. ISBN 9781597140829.Meet the author at Gallery Bookshop in Mendocino on Wednesday, July 2 at 6:30 pm. Click here for more information: http://www.gallerybooks.com/bookevents/bookevents.html#patterson
Heyday Books: http://www.heydaybooks.com/public/about.html
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Check out the programming on KZYX, Mendocino county's own public radio station.
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Copyright © 2008. All materials posted here are copyright protected. Please do not copy or distribute without contacting Tony Miksak for written permission.