souldare

from the Intuition, still enjoying the marina in Mississippi

 The Word was first,
the Word present to God,
    God present to the Word.
The Word was God,
    in readiness for God from day one. (John 1:1-2 The Message)

“It’s always better to have too much to read than not enough.” (Ann Patchett)

After a day of recuperating from the big shuffle, I was ready to do some minor shuffling inside the boat. Part of living in a small space means you’re always moving things around to find other things, which is actually part of the charm. We’ve been aboard about a week now, and today seemed like a good day to reorganize and take stock of what we have and what we need for the next phase of our journey.

And since I told you that I had stowaways on board, I gathered them in one place to sort through which ones would stay on the boat, and which ones I would store in the truck. I am fairly pleased that as of right now, I have completed three books. (I love to start books, and then another book beckons, and I leave the one for the other. It’s not that I don’t want to finish, I just like grazing when it comes to books.) For this journey, I made it my intention to savor a whole book at a time, while still browsing others at my leisure. And if you look closely at the titles, some of the books are more for reference than reading.

Instead of typing in all the titles and authors here, you can zoom in on the photo and see what catches your eye. I will share a little about the three that I completed this past week. I’ve already mentioned the first book that I read, which was Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. A classic that I started and put down a number of times over the years. I’m glad that it was my first pick, because of several reasons, but the main one being that it is a book about books.

It’s a story about meaning and happiness and life. And as you can tell I was really impacted by the conversation between Faber and Montag. It’s not light reading, but it will ignite new thoughts and possibly even clarify some old ones. If you decide to read it, I encourage you to just read it for itself. It will be hard to not make connections to the time period it was published, post World War II and the early 1950s. However, there are elements that resonate with our current technology and especially how we entertain ourselves.

Prayers for Sale by Sandra Dallas, was recommended by and borrowed from my friend, Carol. I am so glad, this little nugget of gold found its way into my stash. The setting is in a small Colorado mountain town (the introductory notes say that it is loosely based on Breckenridge) during the gold mining era  through the great depression.

Hennie Comfort, the main character has lived in the town most of her life and she has stories to pass on, and a secret that haunts her. She is about to retire from the mountain to live with her daughter in Iowa. Before she does she meets Nit Spindle, a young bride who has a lot in common with Hennie.

The way the author quilts together the stories, and the lives of these two courageous women, makes me want to move to the mountains despite the cold winters, so I could pick raspberries in the summer and enjoy the jam on homemade bread in the winter. This piece of historical fiction kept me riveted and fascinated. The storytelling is first rate. And the story pieces together to a satisfying conclusion, just like a comforting quilt on a cold winter’s morning.

The next book that I decided to read was another story set in the wild west. I had never read anything by Louis L’Amour. During one of my ramblings through the used book section of Goodwill, I picked up this gem called Conagher. A short read, but packed with everything that we have come to expect from a good western. My experience with westerns include Bonanza, Gunsmoke, Clint Eastwood flicks and the spaghetti westerns of the Sunday afternoon movie ilk.

The hard, gun-slinging characters of the West appear in this story, and L’Amour sketches graphic gunfight scenes with his words. The one thing that surprised me was a romantic note that rustles through the narrative like a tumbleweed on the prairie. If you haven’t read any L’Amour yet, this is a great introduction. I kind of hope some more of his books try to sneak on the boat, while we travel south.

As I read more of the stowaways, I’ll try to remember to give you a little synopsis along the way.

I leave you with a quote that my friend, Janet, sent me today. Very fitting with the musings of my soul on this trip.

. . .words, like Nature, half reveal

And half conceal the Soul within.

-Alfred, Lord Tennyson

And a few photos from the day:

How would you describe your reading habits in one word?