For the third year in a row, Andy and I spent the last 10 days of September up in Maine! It's our favorite time of year to go because everything is still open but the crowds are gone. Even before covid, I was never nuts about being in a crowd, but it's even more the case now. I don't like walking down crowded streets and I really don't like being shoulder to shoulder with people on the beach, like those old photos of Jones Beach. I'm also not a fan of hot weather and am smart enough not to want to expose myself to too much sun ... but I love the beach and the ocean! So the solution is to go in the fall. The weather was glorious—we had on jeans and T-shirts and bare feet every day and maybe a hoodie later in the afternoon. And what did we do there? A whole lot of nothing. Read. Snoozed. Ate lunch. Watched the waves. Watched a few people walk their dogs. Watched the occasional surfer, and one guy kiteboarding (check out this 9-second video—sorry I couldn't figure out how to embed it), which we'd never seen! That was the only very windy day (remnants of Hurricane Lee, apparently), and it was thrilling to watch. One day we met up with friends and had an epic bocce tournament—we practically had the whole beach to ourselves to play in any direction! We had lots of good meals, including the requisite lobster rolls and mountains of fried clams. One day we drove up to Portland and poked around in the little shops and then had some splendid Belgian fries at the aptly named Duck Fat. I did have to do a couple of hours of work each day, but that was OK.
I read two books that I recommend. First was Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt (recommended by Elena, I think?). I don't know how to describe it in a way that will make you want to read it, but it's about an older widowed woman who works as a janitor at an aquarium in Washington State and becomes friends with a giant octopus. No, really! It is a terrific book—sweet and touching but not at all sappy. I enjoyed every minute of it.
The other was Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver, which was for my book group, but then I missed the meeting because I was still away. You may remember that I enjoyed Trust but did not feel that it quite deserved its Pulitzer; well, this one sure did. A modern retelling of David Copperfield, it's the story of a boy born to a teen mom who lives in a trailer in Appalachia. He is smart and resilient, but the world seems to be throwing everything it has at him in the way of poverty, bad schooling, disastrous foster care, opioid addiction, and loss after loss after loss. It's on the one hand crushingly sad but on the other hand somehow uplifting and even funny at times. I really loved it and found it to be an important, powerful read.
Next up is Somebody's Fool, Richard Russo's third Sully book (after Nobody's Fool—yes, the one that was made into a movie starring Paul Newman—and Everybody's Fool). What have you read lately?