Spring Reading

A long, long time ago, when I lived on a farm in Door County, Wisconsin, I tried to read my way through the Sturgeon Bay Library. I walked in one day with no idea of what I wanted to read. So I started in the A's. And once I got started, well. Yes. I'm that kind of OC.

So I read Chinua Achebe's , Kobo Abe's , re-read Louisa May Alcott and Jane Austen, and found a wonderful prairie novel.

, by Bess Streeter Aldrich is a bittersweet romance about prairie life and prejudices that covers the years from the late 19th century to the 1930's. It doesn't have the exoticism of Achebe or Abe, nor the sweet familiarity of Alcott and Austen. I wonder if libraries even stock Aldrich these days.

But I came from Iowa stock, as did she, and I loved it. I can barely remember the plot now, but the title, Spring Came On Forever, is a phrase that sticks in my memory and resurfaces with the bluebells every year.

Tags: