Staff Reviews: Books, Films, Music, and More

Book Review: A Walk in the Woods

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Gold Mine Processing Associate Peter Matschek recommends A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson.

In short, this book is about the Appalachian Trail.  As a backpacker in my youth, I was interested in the long hiking trails in the country such as the Pacific Crest Trail and the Appalachian Trail, but I didn’t know much about the AT (as it is known by).  The author had lived the previous 20 years in England and when he returned to New England, he decided to hike the trail. 

He didn’t let his lack of experience get in the way of doing this trip. 

He started out by researching the history and discovering that it might not the cakewalk he had envisioned.  “Nearly everyone I talked to had some gruesome story involving an acquaintance who came stumbling back two days later with a bobcat attached to his head or dripping blood from an armless sleeve and whispering in a hoarse voice Bear!  Bryson goes on to list a variety of wildlife that inhabits the woods:

“… rattlesnakes and water moccasins and nests of copperheads, bobcats, bears coyotes, wolves … looney hillbillies destabilized by gross quantities of impure corn liquor and generations of profoundly unbiblical sex.”

Bryson lists the diseases one can develop while in the woods with Lyme disease being “for the person who wants to experience it all.”  He also mentions the killings that have occurred on the trail and people who come up missing without a trace. 

You would think that all this information would discourage him from actually hiking the AT, but no, he was bound and determined. He asked a friend to join him who was even more clueless about what they were getting into (not to mention “gloriously out of shape”).  They wound up hiking over 800 miles of the trail in different sections and met “a bizarre assortment of hilarious characters.”

Bryson also describes the history of the AT and all the areas that the trail traverses.  It’s a very entertaining and informative book and I recommend it to anybody who is interested in the Appalachian Trail. 

Find it in our collection in print, large print, ebook, CD, and DVD here.

Book Review: Four Treasures of the Sky

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Director of Programs and Education Martha Williams recommends Four Treasures of the Sky by Jenny Tinghui Zhang. 

Martha Four Treasures book review

Zhang’s beautifully written historical novel begins in 1880s China, where a thirteen-year-old girl named Daiyu’s life is turned upside down by circumstances beyond her control. Her loving parents are mysteriously arrested, her grandmother instructs her to dress as a boy and disappear in the crowded city of Zhifu, and she begins making her own way, completely unprepared for what lies ahead.

In Zhifu, Daiyu begins building a new life as a boy named Feng who cleans a calligraphy school for room and board. Daiyu secretly studies the enchanting characters, and Master Wang notices her hunger for learning. He takes on this new pupil, imparting that…

…calligraphy is “not only about the methods of writing but also cultivating one’s character.”

Daiyu’s time at the school is brief and illuminating. Then one day at the fish market, Daiyu is tricked, kidnapped, and trafficked to the United States by brutal means. She alights in San Francisco, where she is sold to a Chinatown brothel. Daiyu will ultimately escape this entrapment and run away to Idaho. There she will find both new freedoms and new terrors in the mining town of Pierce, while continuing to present herself as a boy, now named Jacob and working in a grocery run by two kind Chinese men.

Daiyu’s saga is heartbreaking. She will endure what many Chinese immigrants to the U.S. in the late 19th century experienced: both invisibility and visible hatred. She is in danger many times throughout the book because of her gender or her nationality, seen by some as a threat to American workers and prosperity. And all Daiyu wants is to return home, to find her family, and to reclaim the safety she once knew.

As she encounters new geographies, caring friends, and those who choose to be foes, Daiyu carries with her the mythology of her name and the calligraphy practice learned from Master Wang. She keeps searching for her own way in an unkind world and for ways to understand the bewildering and sometimes frightening circumstances she finds herself in. 

Inspired by a real 1885 event in Pierce, Idaho, Jenny Tinghui Zhang’s masterful novel makes real and vivid the discrimination Chinese people faced leading up to and in the wake of the Chinese Exclusion Act…

…and the longstanding effects of this law on the landscape of the American West: the violence Chinese people faced from neighbors and once friends, their absence in present-day communities, and the erasure of their contributions to this place. 

We selected Four Treasures of the Skys our annual Winter Read, a community-wide read in partnership with valley libraries, to bring attention to this history—our shared history that affects how we live today and offers to inform how we act in the present. More about Winter Read 2025 here.

Join us for Winter Read events throughout the month of February, from speakers to exhibits to book discussions. Zhang will join us for the closing keynote, here at The Community Library on Thursday, February 27, 2025.

Find Four Treasures of the Sky in all formats at The Community Library here.

Book Review: The Mighty Red

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Information Systems Manager Will Duke recommends The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich.

Will Duke The Mighty Red

One of the many things I enjoy about the Erdrich universe is the way she shifts between characters from book to book, each presenting unique and often opposing points of view. For the past few decades, she has bounced around the communities of Argus, Pluto, and Hoopdance, generally with the Turtle Mountain Reservation as a backdrop. Her novels explore these towns through the eyes of different inhabitants. The often-opposing perspectives of the characters are a delight for attentive readers.

It’s world creation on a grand scale. 

In The Mighty Red, Erdrich takes us to a new fictional town, Tabor, in the Red River Valley. This time, she doesn’t make us wait for the next novel to give us these different perspectives. Whether it’s the daughter, the mother, the father, the boyfriend, the other boyfriend, the mother-in-law, or the friend – who plays a dual role as both her friend and her boyfriend’s friend – these characters have a lot to say and do. While Erdrich turns these characters loose on each other, literally, she uses each one to build the community of the novel. 

She gets each of them to divulge a piece of the hidden event, because it’s a small town, and everybody knows everyone else’s business. 

As the plot unfolds, so too does the complexity of the characters’ – and humanity’s – relationship with the land itself. These characters wrestle with the financial and health realities of farming, but Erdrich also brings in the wildlife around them, and the very dirt under their feet. This is no utopian or dystopian view of farming. Erdrich presents a nuanced, multifaceted exploration of its realities. 

And as if that weren’t enough, this all happens in the midst of the 2008 financial meltdown.   

Now, I’m not going to reveal the event at the center of the story – that’s the highest of crimes in my book – but I will say you might want to plan for a second pass through this novel. There are a lot of characters, relationships, and philosophies. And a lot of plot. A second read will treat the reader to all the subtle hints that were there all along, but also the sheer joy of reading Louise’s prose. Yes, I’m going to use her first name. With an author of this caliber, you just know them by the way they write, and Louise clearly wants to be on a first name basis with her readers – or at least, that’s how it feels to me. 

The overall effect is a wonderful mosaic of the complex interconnectedness of a small-town community.  Looking back, I feel like I’m seeing the town and its denizens through a stained-glass window. 

I have been reading Louise Erdrich since college. I will never be able to thank her enough for the amusement – and wisdom? – old Nanapush has given me. Nanapush doesn’t show up this time, but I always feel like he’s hiding in each shadow and behind every rock. 

Finally, every time I talk about Louise, everyone in the room wrestles with how to pronounce her name.  I recently watched an interview where Louise explained it herself. Her name comes from her German father and is pronounced Ur-drik.  You’re welcome. 

Note: Will Duke will be leading a discussion of The Mighty Red for the Library’s Book Club on Wednesday, April 2, 2025, at 5:30 p.m. in the Programs Studio. More/register here.

Find it in our collection in print, ebook, eaudiobook, and on CD here.

Magazine Review: National Geographic

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Circulation Supervisor Cándida Miniño recommends National Geographic.

Candida Nat Geo LR

As I found myself browsing through the pages of the December 2024 issue of National Geographic, I remembered how I used to look at this magazine when I was a kid. Up to the present, I love pictures of animals from all over the world. Today, however, what caught my attention was an archaeology article titled: “Why scientists are rethinking ancient gender roles.”

A tomb was found in Spain in 2008 filled with riches from around 5,000 years ago. Experts were convinced that this was the grave of an especially important man. Turns out that in 2023 a team of researchers used protein in a tooth to conclude that the man was a biological woman.

Proteomics is the new tool used to study proteins made by either an X or Y chromosome. It is a cheaper technique than DNA analysis that can save the more expensive tests to answer more specific questions.

In this case, the finding led the scientists to see that women could have been leaders in the Copper age in Iberia, changing conventional assumptions.

You can find this and other issues of National Geographic in our Learning Commons. You will also find 4,000 other magazine titles with back issues immediately available ion the Libby app in our Digital Collections.

Book Review: Sharp Suits

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Gold Mine Processing Manager Kelly Noble recommends Sharp Suits: A Celebration of Men’s Tailoring by Eric Musgrave.

Kelly Sharp Suits

I am a suit guy. And when a colleague gave me this book, I was excited to look through the pictures and get a grand overview of the history of suit making. Musgrave’s book is an excellent overview of suits and their place in western culture. From its basic conception in 1860 to modern versions, the suit says a lot about the person wearing it.

Suits are known to be the standard wear and calling card for gentlemen around the world.

The suit has evolved over the last century but has maintained its current two-piece form since about 1920. It takes three meters of cloth and 52-man hours to make a basic suit. The more expensive the suit the more man hours involved. In today’s marketplace, suit prices range from $200 dollars to $13,000 dollars. And yes, that is one suit.

At the beginning of the 20th century fashion was driven by royalty throughout Europe. The Prince of Wales, later Edward the VII, was well known for his love of clothing, and is reported to have changed up to six times per day. As history moved forward, in the 1920s, men were insisting on suits to be as comfortable as their military uniforms. World War II and the rationing of cloth had a major influence on suit making. All extraneous details were removed, and even turn ups, also known as cuffs in America, were banned. And how can anyone forget the early days of rock and roll? The Beetles and The Rolling Stones all in suits.

Oh, how I long for the time before yoga pants!

By the 1970s, wide collars and large cuffs were back in style. In the 1980s and 1990s, suits were influenced more by rock stars and television actors. It was nothing to see rappers in stylish suits. In the world of politics, we still need men and women in power suits to project calm and stability. Think Reagan, not Trump.

And I do believe suits still project an atmosphere of formality and politeness that can be useful in today’s chaotic world.

In modern culture where more people are opting for yoga tights and tee shirts; check out any American airport, it is calming to know that some men and women still finding wearing suits enjoyable. The two-piece fashion statement says a lot about those wearing it. For any reader in the Wood River Valley in need of a suit, check out the Goldmine Thrift store or our sister store, Goldmine Consign. We have an excellent selection.

I recommend Eric Musgrave’s book. It is a conversation piece. Books have profound influence in the world and Musgrave’s book illustrates clearly that some things in history are worth preserving.

Request this title through interlibrary loan here.

Book Review: The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating

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Director of programs and education Martha Williams recommends The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Tova Bailey.

Martha Sound of a Wild Snail Eating

I have found this little memoir to be the perfect companion on days that keep me indoors. It’s a quiet book that invites us to observe what’s right around us, even as we dream about the wide world beyond our window.

In her mid-thirties, Elisabeth Tova Bailey finds herself struck with a mysterious illness that damages her nervous system, sending her into years of horizontal inactivity. Harsh sounds and lights are too much for her body, and her once-active life becomes one of solitude and quiet. She spends countless days lying in a studio with short visits from caretakers and friends to sustain her still-active mind.

One day, a friend brings her a pot of wild violets, and with them, a small snail. With little else to do, Bailey begins observing the snail as it surveys its own new, strange, and unasked-for surroundings. As she watches the snail’s movements around the pot, and later within a terrarium another friend creates for her, Bailey brings us into the calm and miniscule world of this tiny creature.

She finds comfort and companionship in its serene world full of wonder and possibility.

Bailey pours what energy she has into reading about snails – from 19th century naturalists, to poets Elizabeth Bishop and Rainer Maria Rilke, and writers like E.O. Wilson and Patricia Highsmith. (Some of my favorite poems that she includes in the book are haikus by the 18th century Japanese poet Kobayashi Issa: sleeping and rising / always with your shell! / oh snail).

Remarkably, Bailey resists anthropomorphizing her new friend. Rather, she often imagines what humans might learn from snails, or what we would be capable of with their skills and adaptations. Sometimes, she is envious of the snail, especially as her own body threatens to fail her.

What if she, too, could go dormant for months at a time, closed up from the world’s challenges for a little rest?

What Bailey shows us most is how observing, learning about, and imagining the life of another creature (big or small) opens our own world and helps us to better understand ourselves and our place on this planet that we all share.

In a post-COVID world, I think we all may have greater appreciation for Bailey’s story about diseases beyond our knowledge and control. In a world rife with division and fear, stories such as this remind us where curiosity and wonder can lead us, when we let it. And in a world moving ever faster, Bailey’s words are a reminder to slow down, to observe the beauty and mystery right around us.

Find it in our collection here.

Note: Martha Williams will host The Community Library Book Club at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, February 5, with a discussion of The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating. More/register here.

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