Books, Lines & Thinkers

03/06/2025

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04/09/2022

And, suddenly, we're almost 10 days into April, the slowest business month of the year. Yesterday, Friday the 8th, not one customer entered the shop. As such, our hours of operation will be entirely by chance the remainder of this month and at least part of May, which is exactly the way we've operated for years during the Mud Season doldrums. But, if you need a book or a piece of art, we're just a phone call or an email away. Speaking of which, the BLT Book of the Month for April is a selection with Earth Day (the 22nd) in mind -- The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming by David Wallace-Wells ($18 paperback). Writer Andrew Soloman says "Wallace-Wells has produced a willfully terrifying polemic that reads like a cross between Stephen King and Stephen Hawking," and a review in The Washington Post says "the book has the potential to be this generation's Silent Spring." If nothing else, it will provide you with food for thought as this season advances toward summer. At this moment the lakes of our region are still covered in ice. The ponds are opening, though, and the rivers and streams are running with snowmelt -- beautiful sights and sounds. Attached is a photo I took March 23rd from the the Bemis Causeway, at Mooselook. In the crown of the tallest white pine is a bald eagle's nest. The residents have not yet returned.

03/03/2022

March in Maine, of course, is just another winter month of days that begin at zero or below, some mornings well below. But the angle of the sun, when it's not snowing like it's mid-January, and noticeably later sunsets, brings on the first inklings of spring fever, and that means mud season -- real spring in Maine -- is not too far distant. Since the hours of daylight are increasing, BL&T will (usually, but not always) be open Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, around 11:00 a.m. until at least 5:00 p.m. The BLT Book of the Month (no discussion meeting) is Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover. Four years after its publication, it is finally available in a trade paperback edition. While you're waiting for mud season, stop in for a copy. (Attached photo: "Writing on a Page of Snow")

02/02/2022

Happy Groundhog Day! FYI: The February schedule for BL&T will be the same as it was for January: by-chance (best chance -- Fridays and Saturdays). One exception to that will be school winter-break week (Feb. 20th through the 26th). Chances are we'll be open much of that week. What to read: In January, I read Second Sleep, a novel by Robert Harris. Now, I'm reading Alfred Stieglitz, an out-of-print biography by Richard Whelan, as well as The Power of the Dog, a novel by Thomas Savage. All three of those works are well worth your time. Keep in mind that we're happy to order for you, if you come looking for a particular title that isn't in-stock. The best way to reach us when we're not open is by email: [email protected]. And, just so you know, Pongsiri and I are not on vacation. We're on hibernation. We stepped outside our little house in the big woods this morning and saw our shadows. You know what that means. Stay safe and warm. . . . Attached photo: "The New Year, One Month Old"

01/05/2022

Attention Customers: Happy New Year! For the month of January, our hours will be entirely by chance. Best chance: Fridays and Saturdays. If you have any questions or wish to place an order, please send us an email at [email protected].

09/11/2021

In remembrance, twenty years on.

WISHFUL THINKING
-- by Wess Connally

You were husbands and wives.
You were mothers and fathers.
You were sons and daughters.
You were grandparents.
You were grandchildren.
You were aunts and uncles,
nieces and nephews and cousins.

You were our brothers,
and you were our sisters.

And I wish you could have been here that morning.
It was a beautiful morning in these old, old mountains.

I remember the sky that morning.
It was a liquid blue.
It looked as though you could fill a glass with it,
then drink it down.
And if you did you would live forever.
It was that full of promise.

I remember the air that morning;
crisp, as though autumn had arrived overnight.
And, indeed, as if to prove that point,
some of the maple leaves had already gone bright red;
the wild apples, too,
hanging heavy from their wild branches.
If you picked one and ate it,
you would live forever.

I remember the birds that morning;
chickadees and nuthatches,
busy with their harvesting of insects
from the wild branches of fir and birch,
conversing all the while.
And if you understood their language,
they would tell you all the secrets of life.

And I remember having the morning free,
and pulling on an old sweater,
and sitting outside in the Adirondack, reading,
the sun warm at my back.

I wish you would have been with me that morning.
And I wish you were here now,
all of you, with all of us,
sitting in the warm sunlight,
in the beauty of these old, old mountains.

I wish you would have been here that morning.