a journey through landscapes real and imagined
Brooklyn on Fire by Lawrence Levy
I enjoy mysteries, but I find that I rarely choose a mystery on my own. My reading project has resulted in a nice selection of mysteries that I will be reading. I was interested in this book because I really enjoyed reading The Gods of Gotham by Lyndsay Faye and learning about Brooklyn in the 1800s. Brooklyn on Fireis set a few years after The Gods of Gotham. There is no comparison.
I am not reading books in any particular order for this project, so I have been delighting in the themes that emerge across seemingly unrelated books. As I read Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell, Telling Secrets by Frederick Buechner, and Tattoos on the Heart by Gregory Boyle I found myself reflecting on compassion.
I’m going to start with secrets – a bit of my life story. When I was in the 8th grade, I was sentenced to what turned out to be 2 ½ years wearing a Milwaukee brace for scoliosis. Life with the brace was very different than life before. I wish I could say that it wasn’t really bad (I know my parents still feel bad about this), but it was terrible. People constantly stared at me or asked inappropriate questions. My “friends” disappeared or began to bully me. You know it’s bad when you can’t even go to church without hearing nicknames or being pushed to the ground “because it’s funny to watch a kid in a brace try to get back up.” There were really only a few people that made fun of me (loud enough that I could hear), but their banter was constant. My nicknames included “hunchback”, “neck”, “crip”, and “old ironsides” (which I have to admit is fairly creative). What hurt more than the people who made fun of me, were the “friends” who never stood up for me. Even when my PE class spent an hour spitting on my back! Not a single person suggested that they stop – and certainly no one told me that I was being used for this foul target practice. Even as horrible as all of this seems, I don’t regret it. It sounds cliché, but it really did shape me. Compared to the experiences of many, these experiences are nothing! Why bother sharing these secrets?
Sabbaticals are time to renew. Of course, I have time out of the classroom to pursue scholarship, but I also have time to slow down and pursue other interests. Last semester as I was approaching my sabbatical I kept wishing for more time to read, and from this my “unofficial sabbatical project” was born. I am going to try to read 100 books selected by my friends and people I respect. The project officially started on “Reading Day” of Fall Semester (12/15/15). I thought that was appropriate! I will end on 8/23/16 (the day before the Fall 2016 semester begins). I’ve been compiling my list, and I am really excited about reading through all of the recommendations. This blog is a place to reflect on what I am reading and share my list with those who are interested. Because most people suggested more than one book, my list is much longer than 100 books. Each month, in a short post, I will provide a list of the books that I have read. Here are the books I read in the first month of my project (12/15/15- 1/17/16):
I love to read. I read books, of course, but I also read landscapes. As an ecologist, I am always considering the ecology of the places I go. Ecology requires an understanding of relationships and how these relationships impact the development of communities and ecosystems. Each place has an ecological story – a story of the non-living forces that acted to create soil, how seeds found their way to those small patches of soil, how the plants grew, changed the light reaching the soil and how the types of plants and animals changed over time.
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