Redding up is a term used to define cleaning and making neat--eliminating extra stuff, as in my mother saying: "Go redd up your room." It is a Pittsburgh term, way popular before feng shui and minimalist design. Redding Up, a collection of episodes, centers on making life neat. Many photographs accompanying the stories focus on older buildings in the Pittsburgh area. Redding Up is a good addition to place-based fiction collections and it is also perfect for discussion.

The final (sadly) volume in the wonderfully immersive Books of Furnass, in which we meet again some of the characters from earlier volumes in a series of linked short stories, in which they try to come to terms with a post-industrial world set against the declining fortunes of the previously prosperous mill town of Furnass. It’s a melancholy read, accompanied by some sad and evocative photographs, and a fitting end to the Furnass books.

Redding Up
by Richard Snodgrass

I thought the book was ok. It seemed to go very slowly for a bit. Just as I tried to get to know the people and their stories, I found it became difficult for me to sort it out. I am sure it was me and not the writer, as some of the books popped with deep moments. All in all, Redding up was a back story and into Redding up and making amends.