So, it's been a long time since we've last been to Seattle's best independent book store. And by 'long time' I mean pre-pandemic --at first because we were minimalizing social contact as per the directives. Then after the vaccines came and the threat eased because we'd gotten out of the habit of going into places in Seattle. Recently I've been resuming old habits one by one --renewing my university library card, going down to Pike Place Market, and now visiting Elliott Bay up on Capitol Hill.
It being an Occasion, I spent plenty of time poking around. I used to visit this bookstore about once a year; today I wound up getting five books, roughly one per each year I missed.
1. AERIAL ATLAS OF ANCIENT BRITAIN by David R. Abram. A roughly 10 x 10 square book full of beautiful overhead pictures of Megalithic monuments. This one joins my v. short shelf of similar books.
2. HOW TO BUILD STONEHENGE by Mike Pitts. Another in a long line of people putting forth theories. I consider the issue was solved decades ago by Heyerdahl, but this one looked like a good summation of the current thinking.
3. URSULA K. LE GUIN: THE LAST INTERVIEW, ed. David Streitfeld. This one might be useful in a piece I'm working on. Pity it doesn't have an index. This is the one I dug out of the bag and read on the light rail ride home.
4. WORDS ARE MY MATTER: WRITINGS ON LIFE AND BOOKS by Ursula K. Le Guin. This one promises to be even more helpful than the proceeding; it too fails to provide an index.
5. TURTLES OF THE WORLD: A GUIDE TO EVERY FAMILY by Jeffrey E. Lovich & Whik Gibbons. I'll admit that this was an impulse buy spotted as I was wrapping things up. I knew I'd think back and regret it if I left it behind. Beautifully illustrated (which seems to be a theme for this batch of books).
A book I didn't pick up but made a note for future reference is GHOST AT THE FEAST: AMERICA AND THE COLLAPSE OF WORLD ORDER, 1900-1941 by Rbt Hagan. Even from just the subtitle I can tell this one starkly contrasts my understanding of this period, so I think I might pick this up as a browse-y sort of background reading. Plus it might go well with the Warnie Lewis biography, (currently stalled out halfway through his Great War experiences (in France the whole war long, prob. survived because he was in a Supply unit).
--John R.
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Megalith (aerial photos)
how to build Stonehenge
LeGuin interviews
LeGuin essays
impulse buy: Turtles.
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