James Russell Lowell

Everyone remembers the famous line by Pogo Possum, the character in Walt Kelly's comic strip, "Pogo": "We have met the enemy and he is us." But only the aficionados remember that every year on June 1, Pogo would say to someone, "What is so rare as a day in June?"

It's a quote from a Victorian poem of the search for the Holy Grail, by Boston's James Russell Lowell, "The Vision of Sir Launfal." Ever since Kelly died in 1973, I've said those words to someone, whomever was near, each year on June 1. The website, "Mr. Gradgrind's Literal Answers to Rhetorical Questions," has a tongue-in-cheek answer to the question:

"June having 30 days, it is clear that days in April, September, and November are precisely as "rare,"or as common, though they are slightly less common than days in January, March, May, July, August, October, and December. Days in February are the least common, of course, so it is nonsensical to consider June days as particularly rare."

Dear old Pogo would have had none of this nonsense, of course, nor would I. Now that I'm a bloggonaire, I send the classic words (adding a few following lines) out on the Internet this date each year, as a charm to make sure that winter doesn't come back. Here they are, from the prelude to the first part of "The Vision of Sir Launfal," by James Russell Lowell:

"And what is so rare as a day in June?
Then, if ever, come perfect days;
Then Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune,
And over it softly her warm ear lays:
Whether we look, or whether we listen,
We hear life murmur, or see it glisten;
Every clod feels a stir of might,
An instinct within it that reaches and towers,
And, grasping blindly above it for light,
Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers;
The flush of life may well be seen
Thrilling back over hills and valleys;
The cowslip startles in meadows green,
The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice,
And there 's never a leaf or a blade too mean
To be some happy creature's palace...."

Gordon Brown (AP photo)

If you should notice a man with salt-and-pepper hair on a Cape Cod beach this summer, wearing a kilt and with his nose in a book, it might be British prime-minister-to-be Gordon Brown.

OK, he probably won't be wearing a kilt -- they're kind of hard to swim in -- and it's not clear where he rents a cottage (presumably a Scot would rent a cheap place) but Mr. Brown has revealed some of his summer reading list to Joanna Bale, blogger at the Times of London. Topping the list is Al Gore's "The Assault on Reason," followed by Alan Greenspan's "The Age of Turbulence." The third item on the list is a novel by Sebastian Faulks, "Engleby."

Such an odd world. Here we have President Bush inviting Russian president Vladimir Putin to a high-level meeting at the Bush family's Walker Point estate in Kennebunkport, Maine, in hopes of cooling the steamy rhetoric coming out of the Kremlin lately. We can imagine the president of the United States, the former president of the United States, and the president of the Russian federation zipping about in Papa Bush's boat in hopes of hooking a striper. Meanwhile, a few miles to the south, the prime minister of England is gazing out at the same ocean, pondering former vice president Al Gore's thoughts on reason and the former Federal Reserve chairman's cogitations on turbulence. While he's on the Cape, Mr. Brown reportedly also pals around with John Kerry and Ted Kennedy.

If all of this leads to an increase in reason, and a reduction of turbulence in the world, we may need to switch the names of oceans, and call ours the Pacific.

The Boston poetry community has lost one of its own, Sarah Hannah. Her obituary in the Globe today notes that she played in a heavy metal band, loved the Monkees, and was among a handful of students accepted to a poetry class taught by Annie Dillard at Wesleyan. Fellow poet Doug Holder has called up excerpts from an interview he did with her. According to him, Emerson College (where Hannah taught) will hold a memorial service in her honor in the fall.

Heavy coverage of two new books about Hillary Clinton mostly address the question of whether their revelations will hurt Clinton's presidential campaign. The books -- "A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton," by Carl Bernstein and "Her Way: the Hopes and Ambitions of Hillary Rodham Clinton," by Jeff Gerth and Don Van Natta Jr. --- report, among other things, details of the Clintons' marital woes. Bernstein writes that Bill contemplated divorce in 1989 so that he could be with a paramour, and that Hillary was so mad at Bill over his wandering eye that she contemplated leaving him and running for governor of Arkansas in 1990. Gerth and van Natta paint her as brilliant, ambitious, and controlling.

No one knows, of course, if this stuff will hurt her campaign. But you have to wonder why it would. Those who can't stomach the Little Rock duo would never vote for her anyway. As for everyone else, do these revelations change what we know about that marriage, that it was, at least as recently as the late 1990s, both stormy and rocky? Some people might say, "Well, obviously it's not a marriage at all, but just a convenient arrangement that supports two political careers."

Perhaps there's something a bit naive in that, however. History is full of real marriages between people who love each other, but whose joint history is also beset with strife and infidelities. John F. Kennedy was a shameless rake, and his wife apparently knew it, but does that mean he did not love Jacqueline, or that she did not love him? She did not dump him, it's true, and neither did Eleanor Roosevelt dump Franklin when she found out about his adultery in 1919. Sometimes people are calculating and cynical, but sometimes they think, "Maybe we can fix this. Maybe we can get it together. I don't really want to lose her/him."

Barbara Kingsolver was in town last week, regaling a sold-out crowd with tales from the book, "Animal, Mineral, Miracle,'' she co-authored with her husband and daughter about eating only locally-grown food (with a few exceptions) for a year.

The review that ran in the Globe a few weeks ago was one of the most effusive I have read in a long time. And the book itself seems to be changing people's lives. (Case in point: a friend who is reading it dug up a plot and planted some tomatoes yesterday, her landlord's ban on gardening be damned.)

Another friend who was at Kingsolver's talk said she started out by saying that food is one of the two most important subjects, then immediately backtracked: “Try going without [sex] for a week, then try going without food for a week and get back to me.”

One of the most striking facts Kingsolver offered was that the average food item travels 1,500 miles to reach us. According to Kingsolver, we spend as much on fuel for our food as we do on fuel for our cars. I will think about that next time I'm at the gas pump -- and I'm going out to water my own tomatoes right now.

Before May flies away, let me get the Boston Authors Club awards on the record.

The Boston Authors Club, founded in 1900, makes annual awards to authors who live or have lived within 100 miles of the city. Pulitzer and National Book Award winners and a Nobel Prize recipient were among the authors of the 200 books under consideration for this year’s awards.

Earlier this month during a ceremony at the BPL, the club recognized James Carroll for “House of War: The Pentagon and the Disastrous Rise of American Power’’ and M.T. Anderson for his young adult novel, “The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing,’’ about a slave in 18th-century Boston. Carroll lives on Beacon Hill, Anderson in Cambridge.

In addition, the club recognized Robert D. Richardson for his biographies of Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and, most recently, William James. Richardson lives in Key West now, but, like James, he once lived in Cambridge.

By Judith Maas

SUNDAY: Carrie Brown reads from ‘‘The Rope Walk,’’ at 3 p.m., at the Concord Bookshop, 65 Main St., Concord. ... Compost magazine poets read at 3 p.m., at the Carriage House, Longfellow National Historic Site, 105 Brattle St., Cambridge.

MONDAY: Michael Ondaatje reads from ‘‘Divisadero,’’ at 7 p.m., at Brookline Booksmith, 279 Harvard St., Brookline. ... Morgan Hunt discusses ‘‘Sticky Fingers,’’ at 6 p.m., at Kate’s Mystery Books, 2211 Mass. Ave., Cambridge. ... Ellen Miller, Dorothy Dahl, and Ilse Heyman discuss ‘‘The Window Shop,’’ at 7 p.m., at the Harvard Square Coop, Cambridge.

TUESDAY: Andrew O’Hagan (‘‘Be Near Me’’) and Claire Messud (‘‘The Emperor’s Children’’) read at 7 p.m., at Brookline Booksmith. ... Elizabeth Berg reads from ‘‘Dream When You’re Feeling Blue,’’ at 7:30 p.m., at Newtonville Books, 296 Walnut St., Newtonville. ... Ellen Bravo discusses ‘‘Taking On the Big Boys,’’ at 6 p.m., at the Boston Public Library, Copley Square. ... Alan Dershowitz discusses ‘‘Blasphemy,’’ at 7 p.m., at the Harvard Square Coop. ... Claire Cook signs ‘‘Life’s a Beach,’’ at 6 p.m., at Front Street Book Shop, 165 Front St., Scituate Harbor.

WEDNESDAY: Claire Cook reads from ‘‘Life’s a Beach,’’ at 7 p.m., at the Brookline Booksmith. ... Cathy Walthers discusses ‘‘Raising the Salad Bar,’’ at 7 p.m., at Porter Square Books, 25 White St., Cambridge. ... William Martin reads from ‘‘The Lost Constitution,’’ at 7 p.m., at the Harvard Square Coop. ... Tom Clark reads from ‘‘Encountering Naturalism,’’ at 7:30 p.m., at McIntyre & Moore, 255 Elm St., Davis Square, Somerville.

THURSDAY: Sherman Alexie discusses ‘‘Flight,’’ at 6 p.m., at the Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle St., Cambridge; tickets ($2) available from Porter Square Books. ... Globe writer Ty Burr discusses ‘‘The Best Old Movies for Families,’’ at 7 p.m., at the Framingham Public Library, 49 Lexington St., Framingham. ... Audacia Ray discusses ‘‘Naked on the Internet,’’ at 7 p.m., at Brookline Booksmith. ... John Connolly signs ‘‘The Unquiet,’’ at 6 p.m., at Kate’s Mystery Books. ... Howard Chislett discusses ‘‘From This Place and Time,’’ at 6:30 p.m., at the Jamaica Plain Branch Library, 12 Sedgwick St., Jamaica Plain. ... Louise Limerick (‘‘Friends and Mothers’’) speaks at 7 p.m., at the West Roxbury Branch Library, 1961 Centre St., W. Roxbury.

FRIDAY: Adam Gussow discusses ‘‘Journeyman’s Road,’’ at 7 p.m., at the Harvard Square Coop. ... Susanna Moore reads from ‘‘The Big Girls,’’ at 7 p.m., at Jabberwocky Bookshop, 50 Water St., Newburyport.

Announcements must arrive at globebookmaking@hotmail.com two weeks before publication date. Events are subject to change.

1. Eat, Pray, Love
By Elizabeth Gilbert. Penguin.
2. Blink
By Malcolm Gladwell. Back Bay.
3. Mayflower
By Nathaniel Philbrick. Penguin.
4. Brutal
By Kevin Weeks and Phyllis Karas. HarperCollins.
5. A Death in Belmont
By Sebastian Junger. Harper.
6. Three Cups of Tea
By Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin. Penguin.
7. The Book of Useless Information
By Noel Botham. Perigee.
8. 2006/07 Boston Restaurants
Edited by Ruth Tobias. Zagat Survey.
9. Dreams From My Father
By Barack Obama. Three Rivers.
10. The Year of Magical Thinking
By Joan Didion. Vintage.

Compiled by Borders Books & Music, Brookline Booksmith, Concord Bookshop, Harvard Book Store, New England Mobile Book Fair, Newtonville Books, and Porter Square Books.

1. Suite Française
By Irène Némirovsky. Vintage.
2. The Road
By Cormac McCarthy. Vintage.
3. Water for Elephants
By Sara Gruen. Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill.
4. The Memory Keeper’s Daughter
By Kim Edwards. Penguin.
5. Baby Proof
By Emily Giffin. St. Martin’s.
6. Intuition
By Allegra Goodman. Dial.
7. The Inheritance of Loss
By Kiran Desai. Grove.
8. Absurdistan
By Gary Shteyngart. Random House.
9. Everyman
By Philip Roth. Vintage.
10. Love Walked In
By Marisa de los Santos. Plume.

Compiled by Borders Books & Music, Brookline Booksmith, Concord Bookshop, Harvard Book Store, New England Mobile Book Fair, Newtonville Books, and Porter Square Books.

1. God Is Not Great
By Christopher Hitchens. Twelve.
2. The Secret
By Rhonda Byrne. Beyond Words.
3. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle
By Barbara Kingsolver.HarperCollins.
4. Einstein
By Walter Isaacson. Simon & Schuster.
5. Better
By Atul Gawande. Metropolitan.
6. A Long Way Gone
By Ishmael Beah. Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
7. The Dangerous Book for Boys
By Conn Iggulden and Hal Iggulden. Collins.
8. The Black Swan
By Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Random House.
9. Presidential Courage
By Michael Beschloss. Simon & Schuster.
10. Big Papi
By David Ortiz. St. Martin’s.

Compiled by Borders Books & Music, Brookline Booksmith, Concord Bookshop, Harvard Book Store, New England Mobile Book Fair, Newtonville Books, and Porter Square Books.

1. Falling Man
By Don DeLillo. Scribner.
2. The Yiddish Policemen’s Union
By Michael Chabon. HarperCollins.
3. Rant
By Chuck Palahniuk. Doubleday.
4. The Sixth Target
By James Patterson and Maxine Paetro. Little, Brown.
5. Bad Luck and Trouble
By Lee Child. Delacorte.
6. Invisible Prey
By John Sandford. Putnam.
7. After Dark
By Haruki Murakami. Knopf.
8. Simple Genius
By David Baldacci. Warner.
9. The Children of Húrin
By J.R.R. Tolkien. Houghton Mifflin.
10. The Good Husband of Zebra Drive
By Alexander McCall Smith. Pantheon.

Compiled by Borders Books & Music, Brookline Booksmith, Concord Bookshop, Harvard Book Store, New England Mobile Book Fair, Newtonville Books, and Porter Square Books.

John F. Kennedy

My interview with author Vincent Bugliosi (see my May 28 story here) took place at Mother Anna's restaurant, a North End institution founded 70 years ago. As we walked in, we were both startled to see an enlarged inscribed and autographed photo of President John F. Kennedy, who obviously took at least one meal there in his political career, framed near the entrance. I told Bugliosi that I found the first part of his book, "Reclaiming History: the Assassination of John F. Kennedy" -- focused on the shooting -- very hard to read, and the sections on the wounds almost impossible to read. I said, "It's just that I remember it so well, and it still feels like a horrible, personal catastrophe, not just an event far back in history."

We got to talking about history then, and about his unusual dedication: "To the historical record, knowing that nothing in the present can exist without the paternity of history, and hence, the latter is sacred, and should never be tampered with or defiled by untruths." I asked him, "Do you believe that?" He answered:

"Absolutely. If you don’t have history, what do you know? History is the facts; how do you build the future without the facts? You don’t have any basis to build the future because you don’t know what the past is." The title, "Reclaiming History," he said, "is what this book is about from the first page to the very end. My whole orientation as a true-crime writer and as a lawyer is the facts. You do not distort anything. Both sides, particularly the conspiracy theorists, have distorted the record in this case. Whenever conspiracy theorists are confronted with something that is antithetical to their position, they do one of two things -- ignore it or twist it. What this book is about, if you call history facts, is to reclaim the facts, the facts of history."