Rural Routes, Blog Version

      Montana 1978 Thirty-nine years ago, my husband and I drove through northern Montana on our honeymoon, spending nights in Havre and East Glacier Park. Along the way we stopped at Malta and did some shopping in a western wear shop. My husband bought himself a lined denim jacket that he wore for…

Until yesterday, I boiled up four cups of hummingbird nectar every day. Once it had cooled, I poured the liquid into the six-station feeder and re-hung it under the eave above the deck. Every day the birds drank those four cups and asked for more.   The babies had grown and fought with the adults for…

  ‘Bearly’ there Leaving town after a community event, I approached the curve that would take me past the elementary school. I was about a block away when I spotted a black bear rounding the curve and heading west on the street. He/she (I wasn’t close enough to determine gender and had no wish to…

“Moral Disorder” – by Margaret Atwood. McClelland and Stewart, 2006. 1st edition. I purchased this hardcover book at Black’s Book in Winnipeg during their 80% off closing sale in June. While recognizing her undisputed talent and international success, I have never loved Margaret Atwood in the same way that I love the writing of Margaret…

  “Americanah A Novel” by Chimanda Ngozi Adichie, Anchor Books, A Division of Random House LLC, New York, 2014 I borrowed this book from one of my children, who picked it up in the U.S. a while back and recommended it to me. Adichie, who grew up in Nigeria, is the award-winning author of “Half…

  “Dance on the Earth: a memoir” by Margaret Laurence, McClelland and Stewart, 1989. I found this hardcover book, still in its book jacket, at Nerman’s Books on Osborne, one of our favourite places to go (along with Black’s Books, which is sadly closing this month). A handwritten notation on the inside cover states that…

HERE TODAY….. …  AND GONE TOMORROW Best to enjoy them while you can. WHAT I’VE BEEN READING: “White Settler Reserve: New Iceland and the Colonization of the Canadian West” by Ryan Eyford, UBC Press, 2016  My son says he saw this book on the shelves at the University of Manitoba bookstore. It would, I think,…

My apologies for plagiarizing Dr. Seuss. But he is always so right. WHAT I’VE READ: “A Climate of Fear” by Fred Vargas, translated from the French by Sian Reynolds, Harville Secker, 2016 Fred Vargas is one of my favourite crime writers. A historian and archeologist by profession, she has four times won the CWA International…

What I’ve Read Since Last Time  “The Crescent Onion” – by Val Pattee Retired Major-General Val Pattee says in his note to readers that he wanted “his plots and characters to be believable, grounded in real world events and people, with actions that paralleled the daily news”. Pattee says that the daily intelligence that crossed…