Back in civilization

We just got back from a week of camping in Maine! Sun, chipmunks, and lots of books.

One of our first stops in Freeport was Sherman’s books. They have a whole wall of Maine writers, and it was fun to see the names of so many folks I know, including Richard Cass, Maureen Milliken, and Dale T. Phillips!

We’re not deep backwoods campers, and we like to be comfortable. A lot of our time is spent looking out over Casco Bay, watching the tide roll in and out, listening to the juvenile osprey circling and diving overhead. This year, we had many more sightings of bald eagles, as well. Meanwhile, the chipmunks chitter at our feet.

None of that slows down the reading, though!

I drank down the gripping debutFalling by T. J. Newman.

A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes, is a great retelling of the Trojan War story from the women’s point of view.

Unsettled Ground, by Claire Fuller, is a beautifully written tale of characters who aren’t always very likable.

For a fun Scoobie-gang vibe of a mystery, Elly Griffiths’ The Postscript Murders can’t be beat.

That got me through only part of the week, though. A trip to the Freeport Book Shoppe, one of my favorite used bookstores, yielded some vintage Chandler, Hammett, and Mosley paperbacks. I had never read Killer in the Rain, a collection of Chandler stories that he had “cannibalized” into his novels. Comparing those stories to the repurposed, more famous versions in The Big Sleep and the rest is fascinating. It’s like my obsession with listening to Dylan’s outtakes and alternate versions, giving a glimpse of the writer’s process. Some great lessons are to be had here.