Books

There is just nothing like a small New England Town. I am sitting in a coffee shop in Damariscotta Maine. This particular coffee shop is attached to a book store. The book store, though relocated, is the same one that got me hooked on reading as a kid. The first memory I have of reading is a summer memory. It was June or July and we were staying at my grandparents’ cottage. I tore through the ancient Hardy Boys anthology that seemed to have been read by generations of Bradford boys. When I got through with the last one a peculiar melancholy overtook me. My mother, wise parent that she is, took me into town to the Maine Coast Bookstore and introduced me to Ewan Walker, the owner. He asked me a few questions and started to recommend books. ...

“Mom, can we read a story about someone who knows something is scary or hard and does it anyway?” Ruby and I have been reading from “Bringing Out Their Best: Values Education and Character Development through Traditional Tales,” by Norma J. Livo. The book is organized in groups of stories about love, responsibility, compassion, cooperation and more. In it are traditional stories from around the world written in the most basic way with no embellishment and no pictures or illustrations. I know that Ruby can’t be told what to do or how to act but I’m pretty sure that she can learn these values through story telling. Tonight we read about perseverance. ...

I just went over to Amazon to rate to the new Toshiba drive I purchased and saw to my excitement that a book by Joshua Slocum was free on Kindle. I snapped it up and then noticed that another of his book and, lo a metric ton of other sailing books were also there for the taking. Many of these are in the public domain, and I’ve discussed how to search for and download them in my last post on the subject. Some however are either new to the public domain, or just lucky finds. I’ll post links at the bottom. ...