F4 Sunday, June 5, 2011 • THE BULLETIN
B B E S T- S E L L E R S Publishers Weekly ranks the bestsellers for the week ending May 28.
HARDCOVER FICTION
Solitude atop the fire lookout’s perch By Steven Kurutz New York Times News Service
1. “Dead Reckoning” by Charlaine Harris (Ace) 2. “10th Anniversary” by James Patterson & Maxine Paetro (Little, Brown) 3. “Star Wars: Conviction” by Aaron Allston (Del Rey/LucasBooks) 4. “Buried Prey” by John Sandford (Putnam) 5. “The Jefferson Key” by Steve Berry (Ballantine) 6. “The Sixth Man” by David Baldacci (Grand Central) 7. “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest ” by Stieg Larsson (Knopf) 8. “The Land of Painted Caves” by Jean M. Auel (Crown) 9. “The Final Storm” by Jeff Shaara (Ballantine) 10. “Sixkill” by Robert B. Parker (Putnam) 11. “The Snowman” by Jo Nesbx (Knopf) 12. “The Fifth Witness” by Michael Connelly (Little, Brown) 13. “Caleb’s Crossing” by Geraldine Brooks (Viking)
HARDCOVER NONFICTION 1. “Those Guys Have All the Fun” by James Andrew Miller & Tom Shales (Little, Brown) 2. “Prescription for Excellence” by Joseph A. Michelli (McGraw-Hill) 3. “In the Garden of Beasts” by Erik Larson (Crown) 4. “The Greater Journey” by David McCullough (Simon & Schuster) 5. “The 17 Day Diet ” by Dr. Mike Moreno (Free Press) 6. “The Dukan Diet ” by Dr. Pierre Dukan (Crown), $26 7. “Bossypants” by Tina Fey (LB/Reagan Arthur) 8. “Lies That Chelsea Handler Told Me” by Chelsea’s Family, Friends & Other Victims (Grand Central) 9. “Does the Noise in My Head Bother You?” by Steven Tyler with David Dalton (Ecco) 10. “TouchPoints” by Douglas Conant & Mette Norgaard (Jossey-Bass) 11. “Seal Team Six” by Howard E. Wasdin & Stephen Templin. (St. Martin’s) 12. “Unbroken” by Laura Hillenbrand (Random House) 13. “Love Wins” by Rob Bell (HarperOne)
MASS MARKET 1. “Frankenstein: The Dead Town” by Dean Koontz (Bantam) 2. “Game of Thrones” by George R.R. Martin (Bantam)
In addition to an incredible view and a few months of monklike solitude, one of the perks of Philip Connors’ job as a fire lookout in the New Mexico wilderness is a summer house. Around this time of year for the last eight years, Connors has left his home in Silver City, N.M., and his wife, and moved into a two-room cabin on a mountaintop in the Gila National Forest, where he spends several hours a day in a 45-foot tower surveying his surroundings through binoculars, ready to radio in the location of any suspicious-looking billows of smoke. The salary is nothing to retire on, but the job offers ample downtime, which Connors fills by hiking with his dog, Alice; fishing; reading and playing robust one-man games of disc golf. He also makes repairs to the cabin. “It’s a place more than 10,000 feet above sea level that sees extreme weather and is unattended seven or eight months a year,” he said. Although Connors eagerly anticipates the beginning of his stay every April, this year he’s getting a late start; he’s been on the road promoting “Fire Season: Field Notes From a Wilderness Lookout” (Ecco), his new book that muses on his years as a fire lookout and the job’s literary tradition (Jack Kerouac and Gary Snyder also worked as lookouts). One afternoon in mid-May, before leaving for the cabin (which he traveled to on horseback), he spoke about his summer retreat.
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How do you decide what to take with you to the cabin? It all comes down to extensive and thorough listmaking. You think of things like sunscreen, ibuprofen, allergy medicine, extra typewriter ribbon. I take a bunch of canned food, pasta, rice, beans — any kind of food that won’t spoil. I take a bunch of double-A batteries to operate my two-way radio, which is my link to the outside. I have no telephone, no Internet connection. I bring boxes of books.
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I’m envious of all the time you have to read. I’ve amassed a library that I inspect as I ponder a summer’s worth of reading
Rick Scibelli Jr. / New York Times News Service
Philip Connors, a fire lookout, stands on the frame of a fire tower in the Gila Wilderness outside Silver City, N.M. Connors recently released a book on his years as a fire lookout and the job’s literary tradition titled “Fire Season: Field Notes From a Wilderness Lookout.” and try to anticipate what I’ll want to read over the course of a season. This year, I’m bringing some Virginia Woolf — “To the Lighthouse,” which I’ve never read — half a dozen issues of the London Review of Books and New York Review of Books, a collection of Balzac novellas, “Mating” by Norman Rush, Terry Castle’s new collection of essays, “The Professor.”
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After spending so many years there, do the cabin and tower feel like a second home? By now it does. It’s only occupied by me and the relief lookout each summer, and we lock it up when we leave. I move out in August, and the rodents move in. It’s like we have a time-share, me and the deer mice.
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Do you decorate it? The bed was there when I got there. It’s the same bed.
The table was there when I got there — same table. I have not upgraded in any way, shape or form. I tend to be pretty ascetic about these things. Also, to get anything big there, it has to be flown in by helicopter. The one thing I’ve done is hang a few maps of the area.
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You also have an old stove. Is that for cooking or heating? It’s a little pot-bellied wood stove for heating, which, if you fill it to the brim, will burn for two hours. Getting firewood is one of the major manual projects every summer. I like to get it done at the beginning of the season and establish a good pile while the weather is dry.
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What about cooking? Are you stuck eating out of a can or can you whip up more gourmet meals? I get a base of dry and canned food, and then that
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3. “Foreign Influence” by Brad Thor (Pocket) 4. “Water for Elephants” by Sara Gruen (Algonquin) 5. “Worth Dying For” by Lee Child (Dell) 6. “Something Borrowed” by Emily Giffin (St. Martin’s) 7. “The Search” by Nora Roberts (Jove) 8. “A Clash of Kings” by George R.R. Martin (Bantam) 9. “A Storm of Swords” by George R.R. Martin (Bantam) 10. “Storm Prey” by John Sandford (Berkley) 11. “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” by Stieg Larsson (Vintage) 12. “Something Blue” by Emily Giffin (St. Martin’s) 13. “A Feast for Crows” by George R.R. Martin (Bantam)
TRADE 1. “Heaven Is for Real” by Todd Burpo with Lynn Vincent (Thomas Nelson) 2. “The Help” by Kathryn Stockett (Berkley) 3. “Water for Elephants” by Sara Gruen (Algonquin) 4. “Room” by Emma Donoghue (LB/ Back Bay) 5. “Thank You Notes” by Jimmy Fallon (Grand Central) 6. “A Visit from the Goon Squad” by Jennifer Egan (Anchor) 7. “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” by Rebecca Skloot (Broadway) 8. “Cutting for Stone” by Abraham Verghese (Vintage) 9. “Messenger” by Jeni Stepanek with Larry Lindner (NAL) 10. “Life” by Keith Richards (LB/Back Bay) 11. “Something Borrowed” by Emily Giffin (St. Martin’s Griffin) 12. “The Passage” by Justin Cronin (Ballantine) 13. “One Day” by David Nicholls (Vintage)
— McClatchy-Tribune News Service
Young quarterback outlines his loves in new autobiography By Lindsay H. Jones The Denver Post
DENVER — Tim Tebow has penned a 257-page love letter. Not to a woman — the Broncos’ 23-year-old quarterback remains quite single. But his autobiography, “Through My Eyes,” is devoted to his three great loves: his faith in God, his family and Florida football. Tebow’s first book, released this week by HarperCollins and co-authored by Nathan Whitaker, details Tebow’s childhood in the Philippines and Jacksonville, Fla., his high school football career and his legendary career at the University of Florida, where he won the Heisman Trophy in 2007 and played on national championship teams in 2006 and 2008. Tebow, a first-round pick by the Denver Broncos in the NFL’s 2010 draft, and Whitaker began writing the book last September and finished the rough draft in midDecember. They added a closing chapter about Tebow’s three starts that completed his rookie season with the Broncos. Reading his book is almost like having a conversation with him. Tebow shares personal family stories, including several pages about the now-well-known story about his mother Pam’s difficult pregnancy when she was advised by doctors to get an abortion. But there are funny stories, too, mostly at the expense of Tebow’s
older brothers, Robby and Peter, or at himself, in a rarely-seen selfdeprecating sense of humor. Tebow’s Christian faith is weaved throughout the book’s 21 chapters, each starting with a different Bible verse. The stories about football and faith are intrinsically intertwined. Tebow wrote that he leaned on his faith in December when the Broncos fired coach Josh McDaniels, whom Tebow called his “biggest supporter” in Denver. Tebow revealed in the book that he was at times discouraged by not playing while the Broncos were struggling last year, and that the plan was for him to start only the final two games — both in Denver. The most salacious tidbits come late in the tome and are quite tame. In the book, Tebow reaffirms his plan to abstain from sex until marriage. He was asked a question about that in front of 700 reporters at the Southeastern Conference football preview in 2009, before his senior season at Florida. While admitting in the book that he found the question inappropriate, he wasn’t ashamed to answer it. Tebow also admitted to playing despite having headaches two weeks after a severe concussion in 2009. Tebow said Gators coach Urban Meyer told him not to play, but Tebow lied by saying he wasn’t having headaches anymore.
gets packed in on mules. I supplement that with fresh food on my every-otherweek hike back to town; I’ll hike in with fresh vegetables. I have a propane stove and a propane refrigerator, so I can have meat, too.
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What do you miss most about your house in town? Nothing, really, except my wife. Does she visit?
Yes, she does. At least for a few days. She doesn’t have the deep tolerance for sitting around all day like I do. And I have a legitimate purpose: I’m paid to keep watch. For Martha, it’s sort of a vacation, so she does enjoy it. But maybe by day three or four she gets anxious for something more exciting.
BendSpineandPain.com Bob Schumacher 541.280.9147 www.schumacherconstructioninc.com
(541) 647-1646
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Do you find it liberating to live so far away from other people? You can bathe or not bathe as you see fit. You can wander around shirtless if you feel like it. There’s a certain amount of freedom and liberation involved in detaching yourself, at least temporarily, from anyone’s expectations of you.
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Do you think readers of your book will hike up to visit you this summer? I hope not. I hope the book is its own self-contained world and it won’t need ratification with a visit. My joy in solitude should be self-evident, and the book is not a cry for visitors. Plus, I changed the name of the mountain to at least attempt to confuse the curious.
get a room