JIGSAW PUZZLING: ESSAYS IN A TIME OF PESTILENCE by Denise Low, Meadowlark Press. Games/Essay/Memoir
The 15 essays in this book explore the pop culture of jigsaw puzzlers while reflecting on art, geography, history, and more. Denise Low considers mosaics, reassembled pottery shards, play as rehearsal for life, and more. She quotes other literary jigsaw authors like Susan Sontag, Gaston Bachelard, Margaret Drabble and poets James Merrill and Dick Allen. “I never underestimate the power of a single puzzle piece. It fits within a whole, like each moment of my unfolding life story.” —Denise Low
Online discount 20% off. Click on this link: PAYPAL LINK Also available on Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and the publisher’s page Meadowlark Books. Paperback, retail $20. 122 pages, ISBN 978-1956578263, 6.2 ounces, 5.98 x 0.28 x 9.02 inches.
PRAISE FOR Jigsaw Puzzling
What is a sane, reasonable response to an insane, unreasonable Pandemic? Unlike some of us who lurched into bread baking, home renovation, or exploring the life of the hermit, Denise Low instead challenged a world of logic and symmetry by setting out to master the domain of the jigsaw puzzle. This is a realm of surety: logic within defined boundaries. Solving a puzzle demands concentration and leads to a higher contemplation of morality and ethics, as well. Denise Low has brilliantly accomplished this unfolding of the simple into the multifarious with insight and charm. —Sandy McIntosh, author of Plan B: A Poet’s Survivors Manual
Obsessions never fail to get my attention, especially when they concern things I completely overlook. Jigsaw Puzzling is a dive down unsuspected rabbit holes of jigsaw culture and plague history, lessons in art, geography, and much more. If you know Denise Low’s books–I do, I’ve read them all–you know her as a sharp, droll observer of the natural world, including the world of human nature. Her quiet, poetic voice leads a reader into hidden rooms filled with surprises, striking notes that resonate deeply with the world we live in. A wonderful read with or without a pandemic! –Jim Gilkeson, author of Three Lost Worlds: A Memoir.
