Harper Lee

I happened across a photo of Harper Lee being awarded The Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2007 by George W. Bush, probably the President way on the other end of the literary spectrum from say Thomas Jefferson. I did an earlier post about Ray Bradbury and "W" - see post of April 29, 2013.

Curious as to what this medal signifies I found: The Presidential Medal of Freedom is an award bestowed by the President of the United States and is—along with the comparable Congressional Gold Medal, bestowed by an act of U.S. Congress—the highest civilian award of the United States. It recognizes those individuals who have made "an especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States, world peace, cultural or other significant public or private endeavors".^[3] The award is not limited to U.S. citizens and, while it is a civilian award, it can also be awarded to military personnel and worn on the uniform.

So Harper Lee joined a strange and varied group that includes such previous award winners as: Tony Blair, Whittaker Chambers, Dick Cheney, Alan Greenspan, Andy Griffith, Richard Petty, Nancy Reagan, Donald Rumsfeld, and very ironically, Strom Thurmond. George W kept out of Cheney's way partly by awarding many of these medals - shown below is his presentation to Arnold Palmer!

Hemingway, Big Two-Hearted River, and Beer

I was putting together a mixed, six-pack of craft beer the other day and saw a bottle of “Two Hearted Ale.” I thought, ah ha, a literary brew and saw that the beer was indeed from a brewery in Michigan. Of course, I added it to my six–pack. The name and label, showing a flashing trout, were clearly referencing Hemingway’s short-story “Big Two-Hearted River.”

The story is outwardly about Nick Adams hiking along and fishing in the river, located in Upper-Michigan. The story has underlying, subtle implications about war and Hemingway’s experiences in WWI. It is outwardly a simple, but actually, very complex story. I had first read the story, I think, in the book The Nick Adams Stories, which was published by Scribner’s in 1972 after Hemingway’s 1961 death. I liked the story and have re-read it a number of times since.

The background and geographical aspects are interesting. Although the river of the story was in Upper-Michigan, the brewery (Bells Brewery, Comstock, Michigan - below) is actually located far away from the Michigan Peninsula,  just east of Kalamazoo, in southern, Lower-Michigan. So, the Michigan link to Hemingway’s story is there, even if a bit remote from the setting of the story.

The story has its roots in a fishing trip Hemingway took with two friends in Upper-Michigan. This was after WWI and Hemingway was still recovering from injuries he suffered from a mortar explosion near the front lines in Italy.  Hemingway and his friends were actually fishing the Fox River (below), but the nearby (above) Two-Hearted River’s name better fit the themes Hemingway was developing in the story. Early drafts had Nick Adams fishing with friends, but subsequent versions ended with Adams hiking the river and camping on his own.

This story originally appeared in In Our Time, which was Hemingway’s first book to be published. The book was printed in 1924 by Three Mountains Press of Paris and was issued in a numbered, limited edition of only 170 copies. Copies of this edition are available on the collectors market, commanding hefty prices of around $50,000.

Other editions of In Our Time quickly appeared. Boni & Liveright published a U.S. edition in 1925; a UK edition was published by Cape in 1926; the first edition published by Hemingway’s long-time publisher, Scribners, appeared in 1930. All of these editions are quite collectible.

Amazing what a simple trip to the liquor store can trigger.

Updates Re Catalogues and Web Page

We have been struggling to keep our web page updated and are trying a different approach. We are adding special lists and catalogues to the web page with buy buttons so that books can be purchased directly from these. Catalogue 27 and the special list, Swamps, Keys, and Rip Tides, have been combined and its header is shown above. This list is available at the web page.

Our Holidays catalogue (header below - note I got a bit ahead of the calendar) will be mailed out during the coming week. If anyone would like a hard copy via snail mail, drop me an email at                                                                         bob@squidinkbooks.com
The new catalogue will be up on the web page, with buy buttons, in a couple of weeks.

Found While Internet Browsing

New Ad For Jul-Aug Issue Of Firsts

We have a new ad in the July-August issue of Firsts The Book Collector's Magazine - see above. The ad was designed to mesh with the article on collecting author Ross Thomas. Cover of the issue of the magazine is shown below. Info about the magazine is at:  www.firstsmagazine.com

The special list of titles mentioned in the ad is up on the Squid Ink webpage and this link should take anyone interested in viewing it directly to the list: 
            http://www.squidinkbooks.com/PDFs/Special-List-Summer-2014-June-22-update.pdf

Recent Reads - Winter's Bone and Tree of Smoke

Have been reading many books, as usual. I typically am going through both a fiction title and a nonfiction title simultaneously. Here are my brief reactions to two recent reads.

First, I have to admit that we rented the movie before I read the book. Woodrell's book is set in winter in the Missouri Ozarks and focuses on extended families living rough and hardscrabble lives, many of them resorting to cooking meth to survive in the grim economy. It is a gritty, harsh story that involves a missing father and his daughter's frantic search for him, when it seems he's jumped bail. The book is beautifully written and captures the tone of the Ozark's - the hill country Ozarks, not Branson. I enjoyed reading it and it was over too soon.

The Indie movie was well received; introduced Jennifer Lawrence; won a Sundance Grand Jury Prize in 2010; and was nominated for four Oscars. The movie captures the Ozark country in winter tones of brown and gray, rather than the snow and ice and bitter cold that feature prominently in the book.

I recommend the book and the movie, although neither are for the squeamish or faint-of-heart.

I managed to make it through Johnson's lengthy novel of the CIA and Southeast Asia, but just barely. This novel was the winner of the National Book Award; I was left wondering "Why?" I found parts of it quite interesting and relevant to the sad history of the Vietnam War. But interesting and readable segments seemed to be separated by tens of pages (the book is a heavy 600+ pages long) of hard-to-read verbiage. It is clear from reviews and reactions online that readers' reacted to the book in a very binary way, either loving it or struggling to read the thing. I wouldn't recommend it but clearly many others would.

Dickens Alley, Loveland, Colorado

I have recently visited a very interesting store in Loveland, Colorado. Dickens Alley is located in Loveland's old downtown and carries an eclectic range of collectible books, art, and antiques. Some information about the store is online at  http://www.dickensalley.com/  and the owner, Don Pierce, can be contacted at
dickens.alley@comcast.net. Don was very hospitable during my three visits to his store - since his store is filled with a large variety of books, it took visits on three days to decide what interested me.

Some of the books that returned with me to Tucson are shown above and below.

    Finally, two shots I took inside the store are shown below. all-in-all an interesting an enjoyable visit.