Drifting Into Darien: A Personal and Natural History of the Altamaha River / Janisse Ray

The Altamaha River drains the southern part of Georgia ending in the salt marshes around the Golden Isles near Brunswick on the Atlantic. It is sometimes known as the Little Amazon. Undammed, it still retains a wildness and a relatively unblemished ecology that most “tamed” rivers have lost. There are no major population centers on its banks. There are very few bridges that span it. Of course, there are industrial intrusions, and it is a constant battle to keep development at bay and preserve its unspoiled beauty for future generations. Janisse Ray, the author of Ecology of a Cracker Childhood, describes it so lovingly that it almost seems like paradise on Earth. To her it is, but she succeeds in imparting its uniqueness to the reader—its nature, its mystery, its allure.

A few factoids I found on Wikipedia that quantify the Altamaha’s extraordinary status: At least 120

Franklin tree

species of rare plants and animals live in its watershed, including eleven species of mussels, seven of which are found only in the Altamaha. The river basin also supports the only known example of old-growth longleaf pine and black oak forest in the US. Other notable species include the shortnose sturgeon, Atlantic sturgeon, West Indian manatee, Eastern indigo snake, greenfly orchid, and Georgia plume (a plant in the Heath family). The unusual Franklin tree (Franklinia alatamaha), now extinct in the wild, was found by John Bartram along the Altamaha River basin in 1765.

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Here we are / Graham Swift

This short novel offers a nostalgic look at England in the 1940s and 1950s. Evie, having just lost her husband after a long marriage, looks back at the fateful summer when they met up at the pleasure palace at the end of the Brighton pier. Evie was meant to marry someone else, Ronnie Doane, aka “The Great Pablo,” a magician whose talents really pull in the crowds in the days before television kept people in their front rooms (and to whom she serves as the feather-plumed magician’s assistant). The novel tells of Ronnie’s back story as a London child war evacuee, whose second family in Oxford is so nurturing and loving that he is conflicted about going back to his real home when the war is over. But Evie marries Jack instead and is ghosted (quite literally) by Ronnie even in her final years of life. A wonderful story about people and relationships.

Addie Pray / Joe David Brown (more recently published as Paper Moon ) Click here to check for availability at AFPLS This 1971 novel was the inspiration for the Peter Bogdanovich movie Paper Moon . Eleven-year-old Addie and her maybe-father “Long Boy” Moses Pray crisscross the Deep South “ramifying” (scamming) people during the Great Depression. Addie’s street smarts and perceived girlish innocence, along with Long Boy’s cleverness and shrewd business acumen build their operation until they are dealing in millions. The movie remained pretty true to the first half of the book (though it moved the location from Alabama to Kansas), but the adventures continue far beyond where the movie left off. The decades haven’t dimmed the magic of this rollicking adventure, either in the film or the book. ©Ken Vesey, 17 June 2010

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie / Alan Bradley

Pippi Longstocking meets Miss Marple in the character of precocious 11-year-old Flavia de Luce, the youngest of three daughters in a once well-to-do family in early 1950s rural England. This first mystery in an intended series finds Flavia beating the local police inspector at his own game in solving the mystery surrounding the murder of an old school mate of her father's in their back garden (in the cucumber patch no less). Clues include a bird indigenous to Norway, a rare stamp, and a bit of flaky pie crust. This nostalgic and innocent whodunnit will have you at the edge of your seat by its suspenseful climax. I can see BBC/PBS picking up on the popularity of this charming mystery. The second in the series has already been published and the third is soon to follow. And by the way, here's a great library quote from Flavia on page 50: "... it occurred to me that Heaven must be a place where the library is open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. No

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