My favorite book from January

My plan to read slim books in the month of January so as to start off the year by making a good dent in my "to read" list backfired to a certain extent, as I didn't find that many books that I'll remember or that had a great impact on me.  My favorite book from this past month was Larry Watson's Montana 1948, a short but great read that reminded me both of Ivan Doig and Richard Ford's writing. Told from the perspective of David Hayden, a boy coming of age in fictional Bentrock, Montana, the book explores themes of loyalty - to one's values, one's family, and one's job, and how these can create conflict within a nuclear family and a town.  I'm officially a Larry Watson fan now!

Not Under Forty

Willa Cather's collection of essays, Not Under Forty, starts off with a caveat that the essays would likely not appeal to those "under forty."  Nonetheless, I took a stab at it. Enjoyable and interesting of course, but not as wonderful for me as Cather's fiction. There was one quote that resonated with me:

"The unique charm of Mrs. Fields' house was not that it was a place where one could hear about the past, but that it was a place where the past lived on - where it was protected and cherished, had sanctuary from the noisy push of the present."

This last sentiment captures why I love Willa Cather so much, because when I read her work, it is indeed a sanctuary for me, as her writing hearkens back to an earlier time stripped away of distracting modernities, and instead focuses on the essence of relationships with oneself, others, and the landscapes that define us.