Jenifer’s Journal: Shelter Island shelf life

This may be a good time to breathe deep, curl up, and, in the shank of a cold, leafless January, consider good books that might deserve a read.

Not to mention the fact that it’s a month that simultaneously faces forward and backwards, and would probably prefer a  warm and secure environment in which to affect such a tricky maneuver.

Besides, don’t we all need a cozy nest to snuggle down into while the ponderous double doors of this intimidating new year swing fully open to the bloviation, bluster and all manner of unknown perils and pitfalls that are rushing towards us?

Where better to begin investigating the available “shelf life” than at our redoubtable public library wherein the selections, not to mention recommendations, are truly top shelf, so to speak. 

What follows is a combination platter of suggestions solicited from the wonderfully knowledgeable staff and a couple of well-read patrons who happened by on a recent January morning. The former contributors will remain incognito because some of them prefer it. The latter group-of-two will be identified because you’d probably guess them anyway. Also included are brief descriptions of each work culled from goodreads.com. 

And one more thing. Writing on this MLK weekend, it’s heartening for this writer to note that half of the books recommended grapple unflinchingly with the wages of prejudice and inequality in some of our communities, and in our nation as well.

Suggestions from the Library staff include: “The Comfort of Crows,” by Margaret Renkl, who, according to Goodreads ”… presents a literary fifty-two chapters that follow the creatures and plants in her backyard over the course of a year … what develops is a portrait of joy … joy in the ongoing pleasures of the natural world, and grief over winters that end too soon and songbirds that grow fewer and fewer …”

Goodreads describes, in part, the next recommendation, “Small Mercies,” by Dennis Lehane, this way: “[One night] in the summer of 1974 … Mary Pat’s teenage daughter Jules stays out late and doesn’t come home. That same evening, a young Black man is found dead, struck by a subway train under mysterious circumstances. The two events seem unconnected. But Mary Pat, propelled by a desperate search for her missing daughter, begins turning over stones best left untouched … ‘Small Mercies’ is a superb thriller, a brutal depiction of criminality and power, and an unflinching portrait of the dark heart of American racism …”

Of a third staff suggestion, “The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store,” by James McBride, Goodreads says this: “In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared ambitions and sorrows …

“When the truth is finally revealed about what happened on Chicken Hill and the part the town’s white establishment played in it, McBride shows us that even in dark times, it is love and community — heaven and earth — that sustain us”.

When accosted by this columnist, library patron David Ruby was cradling two non-fiction books. Goodreads describes the first, “The Invisible Generals,” by Doug Melville, as: “ …the amazing true story of America’s first Black generals, Benjamin O. Davis, Sr. and Jr., a father and son who helped integrate the American military and created the Tuskegee Airmen. Perfect for fans of ‘Devotion’ and ‘Hidden Figures.’

‘Invisible Generals’ shares Melville’s incredible trip across three centuries, a journey from post-Civil War America to modern-day Europe. He uncovers the lives of two great men who sacrificed much for the country they always believed in, regardless of the hardships they endured. These trailblazers never received the recognition and fame they deserved in their lifetimes because they humbly prioritized service over self.”

“Dinner With the President,” by Alex Prud’homme, was the second volume in Mr. Ruby’s protective grasp. Goodreads describes it as: “A wonderfully entertaining, often surprising narrative history of presidential food: from Washington’s lack of it at Valley Forge to Trump’s well-done steaks with ketchup — what they ate, why they ate it, and what it all means — from the co-author of ‘My Life in France’ … The individual stories are fascinating in themselves, but taken together — under the keen and knowledgeable eye of Prud’homme — they reveal that food is not just food when it is desired, ordered, and consumed by the president of the United States.”

Library patron, Frank Emmett, is presently reading a translation of an impossibly esoteric Pakistani tome, but suggests that if you haven’t yet read “A Hundred Years of Solitude” by Gabriel Garcia-Marquez, you should.

Thanks to all, for my new lease on shelf-life!