CITY LIGHTS - Key Persons
David Quammen's third "big idea" book sticks to the ecological focus that informed his previous classics, Song of the Dodo and Monster of God. In this instance he's surveying the ecology and evolution of diseases we humans acquire from other animals. Whether he's tromping through the Congo after a chimp-darting Ebola researcher, or trying to keep up with the math as molecular phylogeneticists place the date of the original SIV/HIV spillover to humans circa 1908(!), Quammen is a consitently entertaining and informative writer who is able to bring the research to life and make it understandable to non-scientists. And, even though part of what he's writing about is the next big pandemic, he's never a sensationalist. Throughout this facinating book he reminds us that we humans -- the ulimate outbreak at 7 billion and counting -- are going to be exposed to novel microbes that will challenge our immune systems as we encroach on the remaining wilds.
Job Titles:
- BOOKSELLER EMERITUS - Joyce Shaped and Nurtured City Lights Bookstore for over 23 Years before Selling the Business in January 2010. She Remains Our Mentor and Landlord
BOOKSELLER EMERITUS - Joyce shaped and nurtured City Lights Bookstore for over 23 years before selling the business in January 2010. She remains our mentor and landlord.
Voracious reader, Master of Library Science (University of North Carolina- Chapel Hill), Little Canada homesteader, wife of Allen, mother of Adrienne and Megan, fiber artist and owner of City Lights Bookstore from 1986 through 2009. Here's a small selection of Joyce's favorite books.
BOOKSELLER EMERITUS - As Joyce Moore's husband, Allen is one of our landlords. Joyce shaped and nurtured City Lights Bookstore for over 23 years before selling the business in January 2010.
Polyglot, ecologist, writer, Mac Wizard, multitalented musician, electrician, plumber, accountant, analytic reader - the list goes on. Allen is a good guy to have around when we get him away from a very busy retirement that includes bag piping, diatom research and writing science fiction.
Margaret enjoys a wide variety of fiction and non-fiction but is particularly well read in natural history. While Webster Enterprises has lured her away from her old job at the bookstore she still helps out (with this web site for instance) and we still claim her as part of our family. Here are some of her recent and all time favorite books.
BOOKSELLER EMERITUS A part-time bookseller from 1987 to 2011, Peggy is also a mom of steel, observer of nature and great reader.
Keeping the financial books for an active independent bookstore is a pretty daunting task to which Margot has applied her considerable skill and attention to detail. As a voracious reader with a lively and curious mind she is also helping to further broaden the collective reading experience of City Lights' booksellers.
Reading Pat Conroy is like smelling honeysuckle on a warm summer night. SOUTH OF BROAD, his first new novel in some years, is a welcome return to Charleston and to the complex characters that live there. Leo King, son of an ex-nun and a gentle father, is a senior in high school in 1969, nearly 10 years after the devastating death of his beloved older brother and he's finally ready to put his shattered life back together. The friends that are a part of this rebirth, remain an important part of his life for the next two decades and it is the story of these friendships that provides the foundation of the book. I really enjoyed this book, both for the story and for Conroy's incredibly lush narrative. --Joyce
Here's a wonderful way to start the week: come by City Lights Bookstore on a Monday morning to visit with Sara and get her recommendation for a great read. Sara was a founding partner of City Lights here in Sylva in 1985; she returned to the bookselling fold in 2015. Sara has been a writer and editor for much of her career. Her book Teaching by Heart: The Foxfire Interviews was published in 2005.
Susan Wittig Albert, author of the popular China Bayles series, is off on a delightful new tack. Her book, The Tale of Hill Top Farm, is a gentle mystery featuring Miss Beatrix Potter, best known perhaps as the author-illustrator of The Tale of Peter Rabbit. The story is just good fun! And if you value a well-told story with a strong sense of place, this book is a must-read. Having recently returned from a trip to the English Lake Country that included a visit to Hill Top Farm, I reveled in Ms. Albert's depiction of the farm, the village and the surrounding countryside, as well as the details of Miss Potter's amazing life.
Tracy Kidder's Mountains Beyond Mountains is a compelling read. Through Kidder we meet and get to know Dr. Paul Farmer, a most engaging person, caring physician, a husband and father, medical anthropologist, infectious disease specialist, and tireless warrior for the poor. His life is formed by his belief that 'the only real nation is humanity.' The hospital he has built in Haiti would be an amazing lifetime accomplishment for anyone, but Farmer's boundless energy and passion for serving the underserved have lead him also to Peru, Cuba, and Russia, where he has worked to improve the treatment of drug-resistant TB and AIDS in slums and prisons.
Wild Trees is a nice mix of biographical sketches and natural history. Preston got interested in recreational tree climbing and canopy travel, and then connected with a group of scientists and enthusiasts that are pushing the envelope of tree climbing by ascending some thirty stories off the forest floor into the canopy of Coastal Redwoods. Preston tags along with them and gets to know the individuals who have made careers and hobbies in the temperate rain forest where this threatened giant grows. His portraits are humane and insightful. When I picked up the book, I was expecting a little more natural history, but the sociological and psychological stories made for an unexpected treat.