Book Report – Page 2 – The Hermits' Rest

Book Report: The Tree Collectors

This is the book I needed right now. I needed sweet stories of people who love trees and are willing to go to great lengths to show that love. I also needed simple but beautiful watercolors of trees and the people who love them. The Tree Collectors: Tales of Arboreal Obsession, by Amy Stewart (2024) gave me just what my fascism-weary brain needed—a beauty break.

First, the book is beautiful. Even the cover hiding underneath the dust jacket is a watercolor painting.

And the section headers are so fun that I just want to go try to make a painting like them. All the art is by Amy Stewart, including portraits of each of the people she profiles in the book (either their favorite plants) and all the other illustrations. (Oh yes, the headings are also in a fun font.)

This visual extravagance might be enough to enjoy, but the words in the book are very enjoyable and encouraging as well. It feels so good to read about people around the world who collect trees in many different ways, from embroidering holes in leaves to scientific DNA manipulation. There’s a lot in between, too.

Some of the people Stewart profiles seem so kind and dedicated that I just want to hug them. The best part is that she uses the words of the collectors themselves to explain their obsessions. I got a real kick out of the way an urban man with a checkered past described his passion for planting trees surreptitiously around neglected overpasses. His street vocabulary doesn’t diminish his love of trees and of beautifying his neighborhood.

No watercolors, but I used colored pencils to do this Autumn Buttercup from *Renaissance Botanical Coloring Book.*

The Tree Collectors would be a great gift for any tree-hugger you know. There are so many ways you could enjoy it and savor it over time. The chapters are short enough to read aloud before bed, but you’d have to show the photos. It would also be a fun book to leave in your guest bathroom for entertainment.

Book Report: Coming Up Short

Full disclosure: Robert Reich is the American I admire most. So it’s no surprise that I hoped to enjoy his new memoir, Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America (2025).

Wow, this is an insightful book, both from a historical and philosophical standpoint. I think that, at last, I have a grasp on what was going on in the United States during my lifetime. I think I only had a superficial understanding of who won elections and who promoted wars, improved lives, made rich people richer, etc.

Robert Reich has known so many important political and intellectual figures in his lifetime, from all parties and perspectives. His first-hand accounts of historically significant events clarify my understanding of turbulent times and remind me that ours isn’t the only time of upheaval in the US. He freely admits where he made errors, too, which makes him much more credible than someone who’d claim to have never made mistakes.

I found his detailed analysis of how we got where we are today fascinating. I can see the current US leader’s appeal to disenfranchised citizens and how those folks have been distracted from their actual enemies, which are corporate interests out only for their own profit. I think we educated elites are also being distracted into thinking the enemy is Christian nationalism rather than corporate greed. Yikes.

Reich is someone whose thoughts and commentary I read daily, even though I get pretty alarmed sometimes. He does also try to point out where people are doing good work, speaking out, and standing up to bullies. It’s good to have a little hope. In that spirit, I give you this passage on patriotism from Coming Up Short:

“White male Christian nationalism has nothing to do with patriotism. True patriots don’t fuel racist, religious, or ethnic divisions.

“Patriots aren’t homophobic or sexist, nor are they blind to social injustices, whether ongoing or embedded in American history. They don’t ban books or prevent teaching about the sins of the nation’s past. They don’t censor truths that may make people uncomfortable, facts that are inconvenient, realities that people would rather not face.

“True patriots are not uncritically devoted to America. They are devoted instead to the ideals of America- the rule of law, equal justice, voting rights and civil rights, freedom of speech and assembly, freedom from fear, and democracy. True patriots don’t have to express patriotism in symbolic displays of loyalty like standing for the national anthem and waving the American flag. They express patriotism in taking a fair share of the burdens of keeping the nation going, sacrificing for the common good. This means paying their fair share of taxes rather than lobbying for lower taxes or seeking tax loopholes or squirreling away money abroad. It means refraining from making large political contributions that corrupt American democracy. It means blowing the whistle on abuses of power even at the risk of losing one’s job. It means volunteering time and energy to improving one’s community and country.”

P. 317

In summary, this is an important book for anyone who still cares about truth and ethical behavior. It’s also full of enjoyable anecdotes from a brilliant yet humble man. He will go down as a great American.

Book Report: How the Hell Did I Not Know That?

I needed some light and humorous reading this week, so I picked up this book to read before bedtime rather than the depressing memoir I’m reading at other times of the day. How the Hell Did I Not Know That: My midlife year from couch to curiosity, by Lucie Frost, certainly provided me with laughs and gave me other things to think about than cults of personality and so on.

One of my friends from when my kids were younger recommended the book, and I believe most everything this friend says, so I bought it. Lucie Frost lives in San Antonio and is an actual Native Texan (who lived in Mexico for some time as a child, so also speaks Spanish). She is also sort of foul-mouthed in an endearing way, so if you don’t like curse words in your books, skip this one.

The idea here is that Frost retired early, in her 50s, then didn’t know what to do with herself. She came up with the idea of trying to learn new things to get herself to stop bingeing on reality television and wine. Spoiler: she got better.

The fun of the book is going along with Frost’s journey of knowledge, in which she freely admits to being ignorant about things many people know about, but also bravely provides a peek at how her mind functions in coming up with questions to ask. She has a pretty funny mind. My favorite of her discoveries is what the balls for different ball sports were made of when the sports were invented. Hint: animals.

While this may not be the most well-written book on earth, it’s quite entertaining and worth spending some pre-snooze time on. Since she and I have much in common spiritually and philosophically, I probably got more out of the book than some folks I know. But if you’re “a person like Suna,” you can get a good chuckle or two from Frost’s stories, and you’ll heartily agree with her conclusions that by keeping your senses open to new things and living in the world with a curious mindset, you’ll feel a lot better.

Example of Vicki’s extremely cute Sheltie puppies. Don’t tell Lee his hair is thinning.

Let me know if this was too controversial and I’ll try harder next time. I’m now limiting Facebook/Instagram posts to cute little animals, except for blog links, which mostly will be cute little animals and book reviews for the near future.

Book Report: Braiding Sweetgrass

People who know me well may find it odd that I only just finished reading Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer (2015). After all, as I mentioned a couple of days ago, it’s a Suna kind of book.

Certainly, Kimmerer and I are kindred spirits, both of us seeing the natural world as a part of us, and humans as ones who should learn from nature. She has some real advantages over me in that she actually got to become a botanist and she was born into a Native American tradition. She gets to learn firsthand about things I can only read or hear stories about. I’m so glad she has shared her insights with other humans!

This is one of those books you read slowly, so you can let the ideas and images sink in and process the poetry, science, and memories within each chapter. The ideas of a giving society, generosity, and shared resources that she shares ease my worries and make it harder to believe that the Ayn Rand adherents of the world are going to prevail. There ARE ways to live that aren’t all me me me.

I’m very strongly drawn to the ideas of the various indigenous traditions Kimmerer shares, but I’m also very aware that they aren’t my traditions to assimilate and take over. She gently points out that she’s sharing examples, but it is up to people like me to make ourselves a part of the land we now steward, to make our own traditions, and to tell our own stories.

I noticed today that the Cedar Elms are putting out flower buds. Is this late? What is the tree telling me?It turns out they are late bloomers, but sometimes late summer rains can inspire a second bloom. I observed this before looking up the answer.

I’m up for this. I think people who feel attached to the life and land around them can show their gratitude to their adopted homes, enjoy the gifts they are given, and return the favors by caring for their neighbors.

Have you read this book? How has it affected you? I was already fairly entrenched in the mindset Braiding Sweetgrass promotes, but now I have more of a framework to go forward in. Your ideas are appreciated!

Regressing to Childhood?

Maybe. I was a bit too tired to do much after I finally finished a long work day, plus it was suddenly 100° outside after a break in the weather.

So I sat in my chair this evening and colored in my coloring book. It took me a few evenings to do this one, because I only do it when my hands get tired of crocheting.

Design, colored in markers and gel pens.

The design is from a book in a series a friend of mine writes, where she re-draws art to color, but also includes information on the source of the designs.

This is the book. Note the tasteful version of the image I did.

I have a couple of other books in Sugar’s series, too. She is a very fun jewelry designer and often teaches classes. I met her in the waiting room when each of our husbands was having oral surgery. Check out the series if you like adult coloring books.

I also find the bleed-through on the back fun to look at. The book contains blank pages to blot up excess ink.

I also got a coloring book by another friend’s daughter, which has lovely Art Deco and Art Nouveaux images, with lots of space. I may try different techniques on those. Once I get the motorhome opened up again, I’ll have access to my pencils and crayons.

I’m glad to have this throwback activity to ease my mind. I loved coloring when I was little. It’s one of the things that kept me quiet (along with reading, but I read too fast and often ran out of books). I often colored outside in my treehouse. I’m pretty much the exact same person I used to be, only less anxious.

Another Lee photo. He likes to crop them this way.

Time to conk out. Thanks for enjoying my activity.

Book Report: Where the Forest Meets the Stars

My friend Carolyn M recommended this book to me, because she said I had so much in common with the protagonist (and with the author). I’m glad she did, because the book is very sweet and took me down some literal memory lanes.

Where the Forest Meets the Stars (2019) is the first novel by Glendy Vanderah. She worked as an endangered bird specialist and apparently attended the same graduate school I did, in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois. This also describes the book’s protagonist, Joanna. That’s where the memory lanes come in. I was taken back to my twenties when I, too, traveled up and down Interstate 57 and wandered Urbana’s “state” streets, admiring the gracefully aging Tudor-style homes of my professors.

Illinois, too, has sunflowers on the roadside, out of the reach of pre-emergent herbicides.

The novel isn’t entirely about driving through east-central Illinois and its endless miles of corn and soybeans, though. There’s a mysterious young girl who claims to be from another galaxy, Indigo Buntings, cancer survival, and (of course) a love interest.

No, this isn’t the greatest novel ever, but it’s an enjoyable read and the plot twists are fun. It was perfect for making a long plane flight feel short! And I have to say I ended up fond of all the characters, both major and minor.

I’m happy to share this book with someone local, but it would cost less to order a used copy than for me to mail it. You might find that the little girl from space provides a nice respite from whatever is burdening your mind, plus you’ll get a glimpse into the place I lived from 1980-1998.

Good night from the land of heat and humidity.

Reacquainting with Music of My Past

In the last few months, Lee and I have been watching documentaries on musicians from our formative years. We have similar musical tastes, so it’s easy to choose. We’ve seen some “biopix” as well, like Freddy Mercury and Elton John. Of course we saw the Bob Dylan movie, which I e mentioned that I enjoyed. I prefer actual documentaries, though, with historical footage, music by the performers them, and insights from other musicians/friends/scholars.

The 2025 HBO two-part documentary on Billy Joel was meaningful to me in that it confirmed why I always liked him and his music. I like musicians who are willing to grow and change and who are true to themselves. I remember saying, “See, see, he really WAS funny, talented, and energetic!” when they played footage of when I saw him in my undergrad years. I remember we were pretty flabbergasted by his talent before he was super famous.

His honesty about himself as well as his admission of his mistakes made me unsurprised at how kindly his ex-wives and former associates talked about him.

He’s not someone you can put in a particular musical “box,” and is a real person, which the documentary makes clear. Listening to his music as an older person also let me see more nuances. I’m glad to have re-experienced it from a new perspective, both musically and emotionally.

Today we watched the 2020 HBO documentary on The Bee Gees. I was surprised at what I did not know about the Gibbs family and how hard the brothers worked on their songwriting and musicianship. I admit to having liked their early music but not paying all that much attention to it, because it seemed too “pop” to rock-n-roll Suna.

I also confess to actually liking the Saturday Night Fever music. It was good. I was simply tired of the thumpa-thumpa disco beats emanating from our gay roommate’s headphones 24/7 (it seemed, though Bobby really liked all music).

What impressed me most about the Gibbs brothers was that they were driven to write music even more than to perform it. There were songs I didn’t realize they’d written for others! Honestly, you can just watch this film for the soundtrack.

In the end, though, Barry Gibbs said he’d trade all the hits to have his brothers back. Yes, their close family (parents, wives, etc.) were also a hint about their character.

Both Joel and the Gibbs brothers come through as flawed, talented, and smart people. They are famous due to hard work. I like that.

Now I need to go find some more good music documentaries about artists who started when I was young. Some would be sooo long, if they hit all the highs and lows (the Who?). I will go look for more. I encourage you to find documentaries on musicians you enjoy. I guess you will end up depressed or impressed, considering the subject. But at least you’ll get to hear the music from a new perspective, which I do not get when I read biographies and just play music in my head as I remember it.

Anyway, tarot card of the day was 6 of wands. Ooh, fire. It means, in the Gaian deck, that I’m contributing to communal efforts with energy.

Welp, I sure hope to do this next week when I fly to Oregon to meet with coworkers in person. I have an early flight, so I’ll type to you later!

Book Report: Forest Euphoria

Have you ever read a book and loved it so much that you just want to carry it around and share with others like yourself? I have, and it’s Forest Euphoria: The Abounding Queerness of Nature (2025), by Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian. It’s like someone wrote a book just for me about who I could have become if I were of my children’s generation.

The dust jacket is wonderful textured paper, and the vivid images are smooth and shiny. A quality book.

Kaishian (obviously of Armenian descent!) has created a jewel of a book that’s partly memoir, partly philosophy, and partly science. That’s just how I like my book jewels by people who are more comfortable in nature than with people and who see the world as consisting of networks and gradients, not disconnected dichotomies.

The memoirs about her embrace of her uniqueness and “other”-ness as she grew up are fascinating and so liberating. She figured out (after trial and error) who she was and got to be that person! Life goals! She accepts her queerness and fluid gender identity and loves it. Oh how I wish we’d had opportunities to explore options when I was younger. We got to be girls and boys, and a bit later could be gay or straight, but not anything in between. I’m happy for Kaishian!

She knows her Hudson Valley flowers as well as I’m getting to know Texas ones. This is camphor weed.

I’m also happy that she got to become a mycologist and share how fungi are connected and reproduce, because I think there’s so much more to learn. In the book, she also explains how many life forms on earth have options other than heterosexual relationships. I knew a lot, but it was fun learning how many options there are in the world! Really interesting stuff with excellent end notes, too.

Tonight’s moon. Just because it’s pretty.

A word of warning. I know people who will find the vocabulary and style of this book a little too woke. She does refer to North America as Turtle Island and prefers to use Native American names for bodies of water. I enjoy it, as do I enjoy the narrative about how awful European settlers were to the land and people here. But I know some readers would be put off by her choices.

You can’t help but feel a kinship with Kaishian if you were ever a wild child of the woods and fields or, perhaps, have your own woodland “sit spot” to return to regularly for grounding and peace. You know, if you’re me.

Finishing this book today soothed my soul, helped me feel less alone, and reminded me, as I often need to be reminded, that we’re each a little weird, a bit different, and our own kind of person. I’m so glad.

Today’s tarot card is a familiar face.

It’s a good reminder that I have all I need in life. I think it’s time to share.

Book Report: Gaian Tarot

I haven’t been buying many tarot decks in the past few years. I’ve been happy with my favorite old friends, mostly Robin Wood. But last month I was intrigued by a deck my tarot friend Cat Dancing was using. I liked the nature images on the cards and the artistry of Joanna Powell Colbert, the author of The Gaian Tarot: Healing the Earth, Healing Ourselves (2nd edition, 2025).

I’d heard of Colbert before, as she’s well known in the community, and I knew she was well respected, but I never got around to getting the earlier edition of this deck and book. I’m glad I was encouraged to do so!

I always like it when the book accompanying a deck has original insights and explanations of why each card depicts its components, and Colbert doesn’t disappoint. She weaves her nature themes skillfully through the traditional Fool’s Journey, court, and pip cards, creating a deck you can easily read from but gain new insights as well. I’m not finished reading all the text for each card, but appreciate that she gives a description, a positive and negative interpretation, and helpful keywords for each card. Her perspective is wise and novel enough to make me think differently about familiar archetypes.

This archetype of transformation showed up today, a roseate skimmer

I admit that any deck with salmon of knowledge and holy wells in it makes me happy. That’s my little Cups suit bias. I realize this makes no sense to most readers. Indulge me.

So this evening I spent some time breaking in the cards, which have lovely gold edges. They are somewhat less stiff now. Then, because I’m having some difficulty dealing with some interpersonal challenges, I did a simple three-card reading.

The past was 5 of Air (swords). Here eagles are squabbling, birds and sky representing air. There is some squabbling going on around me, and it feels like some parties have their talons out. I was glad to see this in the past—maybe it will settle down soon.

The present was the 4 of Earth (pentacles) with squirrels gathering up nuts for the winter. I like Colbert’s interpretation of this card as meaning to gather resources for the future, rather than the greed and miserliness Robin Wood depicts, which I always thought was more the dark side of the card. Anyway, right now I am actually saving up for the future with this short-term job. I’m reminded not to let myself get drawn into work drama. I’m there to help out and give myself a nest egg. But I’ll remember to share!

The future card is the 10 of Water (cups). Here we have the salmon! The Gaian card depicts their lifecycle, ending with their return home to die. Here I prefer Wood’s happy family gathered together. But both are about gathering at home, a completion of a cycle, and a happy one at that. I’m not sure what this portends for my future, though I have been thinking about how I have all I need now, and that I’m happy with those close to me—nice to think it will continue after the squabbling and saving.

Wake up or the archetypal vultures of decay will get you! No snoozing at my tarot babble!

Ha. I used to blog my tarot readings all the time. It’s been so long most readers are probably shaking their heads. Maybe I’ll do a card of the day again for a while, as I get used to this deck.

Or I’ll just gaze at clouds and see what I can gather from them.

Remember, you all, I use tarot to help me see things in a different light, to reach into areas I might be inattentive to, and to keep me centered. It’s a tool. Use the tools that work for you as we navigate these unprecedented times.

Book Report: How to Lose Your Mother

Resilience. That’s the first concept that comes to my mind when I think about Molly Jong-Fast, the author of How to Lose Your Mother: A Daughter’s Memoir (2025). To have made it to adulthood as a functioning human being after experiencing her childhood defines resilience. Some people wouldn’t have made it. Sure, Jong-Fast is a bit messed up, but by gosh, she’s here analyzing the heck out of politics with her inimitable New York accent (Lee loves her podcast).

This memoir covers a pretty crappy year in her life, during which she spent any time not dealing with sickness or death of those around her mulling over the truly baffling history of her relationship with her mother, Erica Jong, author of semi-autobiographical books that were shocking in their time (Fear of Flying, etc.). Jong-Fast spends many pages going over how famous, talented, and interesting her mother was or wasn’t. Mostly, Jong-Fast believes she wasn’t any of those things.

What I found most interesting about this book was that although we have much in common mother-wise, I really had a hard time emphasizing with Jong-Fast. I think I like her, but her negative attitude towards herself got under my skin. I can’t tell you how many times she says she’s a bad daughter or how insistent she is that Jong is a bad mother. She is unable to give either her mother or herself the benefit of the doubt other than a few token attempts.

I guess I’d hoped that all the AA meetings she’s been at would have helped Jong-Fast be kinder to herself, but here she is, still berating herself for not making her mother happy. Sigh.

Yes, Jong was not your average mother. I don’t think she could have been, because other than her final husband, she really only liked or was interested in herself. I honestly can see how her daughter would end up unable to love her like other daughters love their mothers. They both have tried their best, for who they are.

Boundaries. Yeah. They both have problems with boundaries. Jong can’t separate her consciousness from her unconscious self, and Jong-Fast can’t let herself stop trying to get in there with her mom.

Who am I, a therapist? No. So I will stop. Everyone in the book has a therapist of their own anyway, right down the block, like every other service they need. New York is so foreign to me!

So…how to conclude this? The people in this memoir are fascinating and (to me) not like people I know. They live in a world new to me and have experiences unlike mine. Quite educational! And you will certainly find Jong-Fast to be a fascinating human. I just can’t quite figure out the moral to the story unless it’s that you never do know your parents and you certainly can’t fix that when they have dementia.

Cheerful stuff it is not. Well written, though!