Books and Islands in Ojibwe Country by Louise Erdrich (2003)

Picked up this summer at Wall Drug in South Dakota. I have always like Erdirch's work. This non-fiction piece was something I read slowly over a few months. I enjoyed her story of going to northern Minnesota, into Canada, looking for Ojibwe rock paintings. There was one moment when she would have needed to do some dangerous climbing to see the rock paintings up close. She thought of the baby waiting for her below and decided she could not risk it. I have had those thoughts. Pre-child I was willing to do a lot of crazy and maybe not so safe things, now I think twice. But my favorite part of this story was all the references to books and libraries. It was fun to find out that she runs a bookstore. One story was of a man who returns to the reservation with an education and tells his people that they need a library: "Books. Why? Because they are wealth, sobriety and hope." (p. 99) Another passage: "I had a strange, covetous, Golum-like feeling as I held the book, my precious. I suppose it was the beginning of the sort of emotional response to books that drives those collectors you hear about, occasionally, to fill their apartments with books until there are only book tunnels to walk through..." (p. 120) And she ends the book with: "Books. Why? So I can talk to other humans without having to meet them. Fear of boredom. So that I will never be alone." (p.141)