How to Read a Book
Hup-one, hup-two. A poem about hiking. Over hill and dale. Not because she liked it — she hated hiking — but because she could. Hup-two, the poem concluded to anywhere but here.
This poem was written by a woman in prison near Portland. Monica Wood hits another ball out of the park and over the moon in her newest novel How to Read a Book.
Belgrade Public Library has had Monica Wood present twice as her writing career continues to blossom. Our book group enjoyed two of her novels: When We Were the Kennedys — yes, Catholics in Mexico, Maine during JFK times — and The One-in-a-Million Boy. Both novels riveting reading and Maine stories by our very own readable Monica Wood.
One character in this new novel states, “The Irish pretty much cornered the market on beautiful writing.” Now that sums up my belief and Wood puts it into such succinct words for me.
Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann began my hunger for more Irish books and poems. It is the New York story about the French trapeze artist who walked between the Twin Towers before they were completed.
Yeats hit me in the heart while touring Dublin for five days, walking and seeing sentences on cement sidewalks from Ulysses, James Joyce impossible read.
Back to the prison near Portland. Book Club was frank and fierce by convicted women serving their time. Thank goodness this volunteer activity was provided in prison by a sensitive Harriet. She knew how to let each woman participate and share.
The streets of Portland come alive when a prisoner is finally out and visits a bookstore so she can finish reading what was begun in her book club while incarcerated. Want to know the title? Borrow Wood’s newest from Belgrade Library.
Interested in parrots and their genius learning styles? Follow the scientists in this novel about a Portland lab which is very tricky to find. But wait, the ex-con out of prison woman changes all that. Yes she does. Monica weaves a tale of characters you just cannot forget. The retired elderly man who finds new life repairing odd corners of the Portland bookstore certainly pulls the reader along. He is so very creative in making metal bookends for two special friends and seeing the good in the woman out of prison.
Parrots studied in a Portland lab, women prisoners learning to love literature and each other, Harriet the heroine holding the ins and outs of prison so very gently…
What a tale to tell, just like Monica Wood’s other unforgettable novels. Now, I wonder, why haven’t I read Any Bitter Thing, Ernie’s Ark, My Only Story (intriguing title, don’t you think?), and Secret Language? Another enticing title to search for at Oliver and Friends in Waterville, or Bull Moose discount near J.C. Penny or Lithgow Library in Augusta (great building to tour, stained glass windows!), or wherever good books can be found.
A reading selection for a rainy day by the lake…or maybe fishing in the rain is more fun for you? Get outside in the drizzle and let the reader alone inside.
From Wood’s new novel, “Maya Angelou: You alone are enough.”
Download Full Newspaper: High Res | Low Res (Details…)
<— Previous Article • Summaries • Next Article —>
©2024 by Summertime in the Belgrades. All rights reserved.