Local Lowdown: Books of Local Interest

Tis the season … for reading! Here are a few books you’re sure to enjoy this summer!

Title

Moonlight Sonata at the Mayo Clinic

Author

Nora Gallagher

What

A lyrical and honest memoir of a woman who almost loses her vision and the surprising ways it changes her life.

Favorite Quote

“Vincent and I decided not to use certain metaphors. Blind drunk. Blind as a bat. We don’t see eye to eye. We used deaf as a bat, until I started to lose my hearing.”

Title

A Pig for Friendship

Author

Mukta Cholette, illustrated by Sommer Roman

What

A playfully illustrated children’s book about a young girl and her relationship with her family, the environment and her barn-loving animal friends.

Favorite Quote

“All the animals will be our friends! We will always treat them well and be grateful for their contribution to our farm.”

Title

The Beauty of Zentangle

Author

Suzanne McNeill and Cindy Shepard

What

A look at the Zentangle method of mindful pattern drawing, which is designed to calm the mind and spur creativity.

Favorite Quote

“Anything is possible, one stroke at a time.”

Title

Dark Venus

Author

Jinny Webber

What

Volume two of a trilogy of historical novels set in William Shakespeare’s England teams series protagonist Sander Cooke with Amelia Bassano Lanyer, the presumed dark lady of Shakespeare’s sonnets.

Favorite Quote

“Mischievous Will Shakespeare…He and she have a confederacy that has served them well, creating ever more varied women in his play scripts, ever more complicated roles for her to play.”

Title

Salade, Recipes From the Market Table

Author

Pascale Beale, photographs by Mike Verbois

What

A beautifully photographed cookbook made up of deliciously lovely studies on the salad in its countless forms.

Favorite Quote

“There are few foods I would happily eat every day of the year. Salad is one of them. I enjoy the ease with which they can be put together, the endless variations—from light mixed greens to more substantial salad-as-a-meal types, and the fact that I always feel so good when I eat them.”

Title

Broad Assumptions

Author

Starshine Roshell

What

Whether attempting naked yoga, exalting hot soccer dads or critiquing 50 Shades of Grey, this book of columns is insightful and audacious, playful and literate.

Favorite Quote

“I don’t love yoga. But I’m supposed to. Women my age, in my town (and let’s just say it, with my name) are supposed to swear by the practice’s tush-tightening, mind-loosening properties. …But yoga mostly makes me…uncomfortable.”

Title

Healing Afghanistan: Hope for the Children

Author

Judy Duchesne-Peckham

What

Local photographer and teacher Duchesne-Peckham shines a light and a lens on one of Afghanistan’s bright spots, a small Montessori-based orphanage school called The House of Flowers.

Favorite Quote

“(The House of Flowers) was beautiful and quiet and peaceful. I just fell in love with the kids. If they had let me take them home I probably would have been an instant mother of about seven children.”


Title

Say This Prayer Into the Past

Author

Paul J. Willis

What

A thoughtful book of poems from former Santa Barbara Poet Laureate Willis that reckons with cadavers in the family closet, a house lost to wildfire, the beauty of the Sierra Mountains and more.

Favorite Quote

“Since I saw your grandpa die/I like to watch you breathe. Mornings especially, /to see the air move easily/across your lip hung down in slumber, /poised to waken, ripen, bleed.”

Title

Trash Can Days

Author

Teddy Steinkellner

What

The middle school adventures of four very different kids.

Favorite Quote

“If you’re not checking Facebook every five seconds, you’re going to miss something huge. And if you’re the last person to hear the big news, you’re going to look like an idiot.”

Title

The Inner Traveler’s Guidebook to MOYO

Author

Linda Newlin

What

Moyo, the Swahili word for “heart,” is the focus of this workbook, which inspires people to discover their hearts’ desires and make their dreams a reality.

Favorite Quote

“Everywhere we go, there are people who are making rainbows as they shine their unique light that was woven into them.

Title

The Shadow Tracer

Author

Meg Gardiner

What

Gardiner’s mystery about a woman accused of murdering her sister is a page-turner of a plot-driven cat-and-mouse game.

Favorite Quote

“Sarah had found that, with effort, she could remain comparatively anonymous. Nobody got suspicious if she protected her privacy.”

—Leslie Dinaberg

Originally published in Santa Barbara SEASONS on August 2, 2014.

Santa Barbara Spotlight: Local Photographer/Teacher Judy Duchesne-Peckham Shines a Light on One of Afghanistan’s Bright Spots

A welcome sight, girls returning home from school, Kabul, photo by Judy Duchesne-Peckham

A welcome sight, girls returning home from school, Kabul, photo by Judy Duchesne-Peckham

Though she had traveled extensively around the world, when Judy Duchesne-Peckham first traveled to Afghanistan in 2003, she was amazed at what she saw. “Seriously, it was like being in another planet. … I’ve been to a lot of poor places and I photographed in Vietnam and I kept thinking how can this be different,” says Duchesne-Peckham, taking a short break from her work as a photography and French teacher at San Marcos High School.

 

“I had never been to a country that was currently at war before and it was very different. I had just never seen so much suffering and trauma in people’s faces,” she says. “But I had never met such a generous and sweet and loving group of people. They were so hospitable.”

 

Original residents at House of Flowers, photo by Judy Duchesne-Peckham

Original residents at House of Flowers, photo by Judy Duchesne-Peckham

Throughout her multiple trips to Afghanistan, Duchesne-Peckham documented much despair, but also found many images of hope, particularly in a small Montessori-based orphanage school called The House of Flowers, founded by Dr. Mostafa Vaziri and Allison Lide, both of whom contribute essays in the book, along with family therapist Casi Kushel and educators Dr. Inayatullah Majaddiddi, Amanullah Nasrat and Faheem Abrahimi.

 

It’s this positive light in country of darkness, which Duchesne-Peckham has chosen to spotlight in her new book, Healing Afghanistan: Hope for the Children, a high quality, coffee table photo and essay collection containing the faces and stories of “a small number of people and children who represent the dazzling spirit of this country.” She is donating 100% of the profits from book sales to The House of Flowers orphanage.

 

The contrast between what she describes as “the prevailing despair in the large government orphanages and the beginning of hope in one small Montessori-based ophanage/school” is what really struck Duchesne-Peckham, who describes her work as documentary photography.

 

Zacki welcoming visitors to House of Flowers, photo by Judy Duchesne-Peckham

Zacki welcoming visitors to House of Flowers, photo by Judy Duchesne-Peckham

 

“I always teach my students lessons about what an amazing impact documentary photography has had on the world and how people need to see it. It’s not always easy to see it, but they need to know and a picture is worth a thousand words as they say, so you want your photography to have an impact on people,” she says.

 

Her work has already had an impact on donations to the school, and she’s just getting started.

 

“(The House of Flowers) was beautiful and quiet and peaceful. I just fell in love with the kids. If they had let me take them home I probably would have been an instant mother of about seven children. … Everything was just well cared for. All of the kids had jobs to do. They cleaned up and they prepared the meals they roll the tablecloth off the floor and sweep the crumbs up afterward and recite poems by Rumi,” says Duchesne-Peckham. “They are learning English they were learning Farsi and their letters. It was fabulous. I just want to do what I can to help.”

 

Duchesne-Peckham will sign and discuss Healing Afghanistan: Hope for the Children on Thursday, January 9, at 7:30 p.m. at Granada Books, 1224 State St. For more information about The House of Flowers and its parent nonprofit MEPO (Medical, Education and Peace Organization) visit mepoonline.org.

Originally published in Santa Barbara SEASONS on January 8, 2014.