Peak of popularity

By Jan Gardner  |  August 26, 2007

At 3,165 feet, Mount Monadnock is hardly a giant. Yet it has been a muse and a motif to writers and artists as well as a favorite with hikers for hundreds of years.

In the newly published "Monadnock: More than a Mountain," Craig Brandon offers a sweeping and colorful history of what is the most climbed peak in North America.

The popularity of Monadnock has long been an issue. Back in 1860 Henry David Thoreau complained there were too many hikers. To protect Monadnock from developers, the town of Jaffrey, N.H., acquired part of the mountain in 1883.

Brandon, who can see Monadnock from his home in Surry, N.H., weaves legend, old accounts, and fresh interviews in writing about hidden caves, plane crashes, and extreme hikers, like Larry Davis, who climbed the mountain every day for almost eight years.

Monadnock has inspired painters and composers as well as poems by Ralph Waldo Emerson and H.P. Lovecraft.

Among the most unusual traditions is Dianne Eno's annual Celebration of Dance, this year at 1 p.m. Sept. 22. Volunteers haul audio equipment to the summit where dancers perform on the rocks.

New Hampshire is a land of contrasts: Motorcyclists gather every year in Laconia. The Shakers are remembered in Canterbury. Loudon is home to NASCAR races, and Dublin to Yankee magazine. "New Hampshire Patterns" highlights these contrasts with 80 photographs by Jon Gilbert Fox and 10 essays by Ernest Hebert.

Hebert is at his best writing about the "wake" after the Old Man in the Mountain was reduced to rubble in 2003. He and his wife joined dozens of other New Hampshire residents gazing at what was missing. "It's comforting," he writes, "knowing that we're not the only ones mourning a rock."

Thirty-six years ago, Beacon Hill was home to bohemians such as Jack Powers. There he founded Stone Soup Poets, a venue for readings, activism, and publishing. Over the years, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and scores of unknown poets have read their work under the aegis of Stone Soup. Today, Stone Soup is going strong, with readings every Monday at Out of the Blue Gallery in Cambridge.

In addition to being a friend to poets, Powers has published 80 books, including Ferlinghetti's "Jack of Hearts." Powers's 70th birthday and his long years of literary outreach will be celebrated at 5 p.m. Sept. 15 at International Community Church, 30 Gordon St., Allston, with a potluck dinner, music, and readings. Bring a dish, a poem, and a friend.

"Letters to a Young Teacher," by Jonathan Kozol (Crown)

"Burnt House," by Faye Kellerman (Morrow)

"Ike: An American Hero," by Michael Korda (HarperCollins)

Chad Avery of Bear Pond Books in Montpelier, Vt., recommends "The Terror" by Dan Simmons (Little Brown): "Based on the true story of two ice ships that disappeared in the Arctic Circle during the Sir John Franklin Expedition in 1845, this novel by the bestselling author of 'llium' and 'Olympos' transforms that story into a thriller worthy of Stephen King or Patrick O'Brian."

Jan Gardner can be reached at JanLGardner@yahoo.com.