BOOKS
3C
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, DECEMBER 18, 2015
WHAT ARE THEY READING?
T
he Daily Astorian invites people to submit titles of books they are read-
ing and share a few thoughts about the work. This week, Nancy Bass
Wyden, the co-owner of the popular Strand Book Store in New York
City, shares some of her favorites. Wyden is married to U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden,
D-Oregon. To submit, send to news@dailyastorian.com
A
s a bookstore owner, one of the most
common questions I field is, “What are
you reading?” As you can imagine, I
have a stack of books in a wide variety of in-
terests for consumption on my nightstand. I’ve
often newly finished something enjoyable and
would love to recommend it versus whatever
title might be a best-seller at the time.
To kick off, the book for 2015 that I would
highly recommend is Oliver Sacks’ memoir
“On the Move: A Life.” The late brilliant neu-
rologist was a remarkable polymath and pro-
lific author, but he led an invigorating life of
discovery outside the laboratory. The insight
and charm and curiosity that shone through
his best-selling books, such as “The Man Who
Mistook His Wife for a Hat,” “Awakenings,”
and “Musicophilia,” are fully present in his
autobiography, which should be considered a
high-water mark for the form.
Another worthwhile recent read of mine,
Mary Karr’s “The Art of Memoir,” has me
inspired to take a shot at writing a memoir. A
wonderfully accomplished memoirist herself
(“The Liars’ Club,” “Cherry,” “Lit”), Karr’s
advice to fellow writers is as entertaining
and funny as you would expect from her own
work. Its appeal stretches much further than
the premise; you do not need to be planning an
autobiography to be delighted by its perceptive
grappling with the acts of reading and writing.
A weak spot for biographies
I have a weak spot for biographies. It’s
something my husband, Ron, and I share —
our love and fascination for history. Ron Cher-
now’s “Alexander Hamilton” is one of my
favorite recommendations. Chernow writes
powerfully about how Hamilton drew himself
up from an orphaned childhood in the Caribbe-
an to become the first Treasury secretary of the
United States, and how he embodied and ar-
gued for many political ideas that would seem
more comfortable in the modern world than
the 18th century. It’s the perfect subject for a
writer as keenly attentive as Chernow, who il-
lustrates the human desires that drove Hamil-
ton while never allowing the reader to miss the
grand shift his actions influenced.
Additionally, there is Stacy Schiff’s “The
Witches: Salem, 1692” that I’m currently en-
thralled with and can’t put down. Schiff’s bi-
ography of Cleopatra a few years ago surprised
me: a subject who had been endlessly analyzed
(for centuries!) was given a tremendous new
life in that compelling book. I’m already hav-
ing a similar reaction to “The Witches.” Thrill-
ingly written, the unfolding hysteria and mad-
ness she describes is as gripping as any mystery
novel. Her effortless narrative reminds me of
the great David McCullough’s titanic works
like “Truman,” “The Great Bridge,” and of
course “John Adams.” Those deep dives into
American history are books I have given as
gifts time and time again because I haven’t
found many readers who are not bewitched by
them.
Deep dives into history
Of course if you’re interested in deep
dives into Oregon history, Mason Drukman’s
“Wayne Morse: A Political Biography” and
Brent Walth’s “Fire at Eden’s Gate: Tom Mc-
Call and the Oregon Story” are classic book-
ends for any collection. And, more recently,
Peter Stark spins a rollicking historical yarn of
Oregon’s northwest corner with “Astoria: John
Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson’s Lost Pa-
cific Empire: A Story of Wealth, Ambition and
Survival.”
I’m also an enthusiastic fiction reader. Re-
cently I picked up Anthony Doerr’s Pulitzer
Prize-winning “All the Light We Cannot See”
after hearing many rave reviews, and it lived
up to all of my expectations. Doerr’s debut
collection of stories, “The Shell Collector,”
demonstrated incredible promise, and “All
The Light We Cannot See” has delivered on
it. Gorgeously written, the book is set in oc-
cupied France during World War II and cen-
ters around a blind French girl who has fled
Paris to the walled city of Saint-Malo, and a
German boy who has been tasked with root-
ing out the resistance, as he begins to question
the moral consequences of his assignment.
Doerr has a masterful sense of character, and
his creations here are full embodiments of the
human struggle against even the darkest tides
of history.
Interesting picture books
But reading isn’t just a solitary enjoyment
Julie Adams Photography
Nancy Bass Wyden in Cannon Beach.
for adults — I have three children and to make
sure I pass on the book-loving gene, I give
them a fair amount of my reading life. There
is a unique series of picture books from Work-
man Publishing built around a technology
called Photicular. They contain sliding lenses
laid over nature photography, creating an ar-
resting sense of movement on the page. It is a
magical effect for kids, and those books are al-
ways in high demand at home. There are three
terrific entries in the series: “Safari,” “Ocean,”
and “Polar.” Another picture book on regular
rotation is “The Day the Crayons Quit,” writ-
ten by Drew Daywalt and illustrated by Oliver
Jeffers, alongside its recent sequel “The Day
the Crayons Came Home.” Both titles contain
the perfect mix of subversion and silliness, and
somehow pull off the difficult feat of not ag-
gravating adult readers on the 20th telling.
The bottom line of all these recommenda-
tions? You simply can’t go wrong when you
pick up a book.
Williams: Her books on mushrooms sell well locally
Continued from Page 1C
A field guide and
cookbook
The main author of two
books on mushrooms — a
field guide and a cookbook —
Williams said she can identify
a mushroom over the phone
by its origin and description.
In October, she led a group
of more than 40 students on a
mushroom foraging adventure.
“Her knowledge is really
vast,” said Karmen Hughes,
an owner at Blue Scorcher
Bakery & Cafe who has gone
mushrooming with the Mush-
room Queen.
Williams’
handpicked
kings, oysters, turkeys, chante-
relles and matsutakes find their
way into the soups, sautés,
scrambles and other entrées
served at prominent North
Coast and Peninsula diners
and restaurants.
Patrons who have eaten a
meal containing mushrooms
at, say, Blue Scorcher, Street
14 Coffee, Astoria Co-op Gro-
cery, Pickled Fish at the Adrift
Hotel and Astoria Coffeehouse
& Bistro in recent years may
well have enjoyed a speci-
men from Williams’ unoffi-
cial one-woman business, All
Wild.
“She’s just kind of like a
gypsy. She comes in with a
FREE
PUBLISHED THE FIRST FRIDAY
OF EACH MONTH
January 2015
basket of goodies from her
little car and offers us some,”
said Jim Defeo, the owner
of the bistro, who has known
Williams for about eight years.
“She’s been a great part of the
restaurant community.”
agers into the woods for pri-
vate lessons, she tells them:
“Leave it the way you found
it. You don’t trash it. You
don’t upturn the moss and
leave it there.”
Normally, she would sell
the fresh loot to her clientele
and take home the remainder
to dry or pickle, which, along
with her other edibles, she
calls “money in the bank.”
For Williams, though, gath-
ering mushrooms has never
been about making money.
“I do it for fun. I only do it
for fun, because I enjoy it. The
money is extra; it’s a bonus,”
she said. “I’d do it anyway.”
‘Mushroom eyes’
Williams lives close to the
earth, content to spend hours
in the soil.
“I have picked in pouring
down rain, and I don’t care,”
she said. “You know what?
When there’s mushrooms, I
don’t even notice the rain.”
During a recent mushroom
hunt — which took her to the
private driveways of second
homeowners who gave her
permission to pick on their
property — Williams stumbled
upon a chanterelle bonanza in
a shaded forest between Long
Beach and Ocean View. With
the growing season almost
over, the discovery came as a
“happy surprise,” she said.
“My adrenaline is go-
ing wild!” she cried, slicing
through stems and emitting
her high, merry laugh. “All
I can say is, we’re sh--house
lucky!”
Many people wouldn’t
know where or how to look;
they would scan the brush and
move on, blind to the feast at
their feet.
ess
Chronicling the Joy of Busin
in the Columbia-Pacific
Region
‘A little Old Europe’
Submitted Photo
Beau Hogge, the chef at Pickled Fish restaurant at the
Adrift Hotel, with a giant mushroom Williams found.
“You have to have mush-
room eyes. That’s all,” she
said, gathering her loot and
preparing to clean them with
a cloth. (Those “mushroom
eyes” can spot a roadside
mushroom while cruising
by at several dozen miles
per hour — a skill Williams
striverbusinessjournal
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Volume 10 • Issue 1
stry spo
allenges
Inside: Indu
copes with ch
Shellfish farm
an conditions
oce
nging
s optimistic despite cha
tlight:
Taylor remain
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County makes a splash
passed on to her grandchil-
dren.)
Satisfied with her haul, she
removed the most obvious
traces of her presence, loaded
the bounty into her hatchback
and drove off, thanking Moth-
er Earth.
When she takes rookie for-
Williams, who emigrated
with her family to Oregon
in 1949, remembers feeling
stunned at how many differ-
ent varieties of mushrooms
she could find in the state.
“All I knew from Hun-
gary was the king mush-
room, the big one. That’s the
only thing we ever picked,”
she said. “My god, there
are so many mushrooms!”
She started out by selling
mushrooms to ethnic restau-
rants near Portland and man-
aged a restaurant in Tokeland,
Washington, for five years.
Her books — “Coastal
Bounty: A Guide for Gather-
Now inserted into
The Daily Astorian and
Chinook Observer
For more information call 503-325-3211
PacifIc
in the pot biz page 10
NEWS
Seaside Muffler and Off-Road
21
revs up its reputation page
BOAT OF THE MONTH
The Sadie out of South Bend,
Wash. page 24
ers” and “Woodland Boun-
ty: Mushroom Delights for
Gatherers & Gourmets” —
sell well locally. At the Blue
Scorcher, they don’t last long
on the shelves, Hughes said.
A member of the Myco-
logical Society of America,
Williams said she has picked
mushrooms in every state in
the union except Texas, and
in British Columbia. “That’s
how I learned,” she said.
David Campiche, owner
of the Shelburne Inn in Long
Beach and one of Williams’
former students, shares her
abiding love for all things nat-
ural, healthy and wild.
“She is eccentric in a won-
derful way: She’s all herself,
and that’s a hard thing in the
world, to be eccentric when
all the pressure from cell-
phones and social media have
kind of overtaken everyone,”
said Campiche, a friend of
Williams’ for about 40 years.
“She hangs onto something
that’s a little Old Europe.”
“She just likes to be active
and alive,” he added, “and
‘alive’ is maybe the best word
you could pin on her.”
Even if she doesn’t collect
anything worth eating or sell-
ing, Williams feels her time
outdoors is well spent. “I had
my woods for the day,” she
said. “I’m happy as can be.”
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