Saturday, June 09, 2018

June (second week) 2018 Reads & Day Trips

There was lots of meandering this week:
   Sunday drive - This time in Fairfield County, CT. with lunch Easton Village Store and ice cream at Holy Cow in Newtown.
   Wednesday picnic - Harkness Memorial State Park, Waterford, CT. A gorgeous day to view Long Island Sound and the islands. Did not tour the house, it's open on weekends only.
   Thursday Shopping - three specialty food markets.
      The Olive Bazaar in Berlin, CT - Middle Eastern specialties, halal meats, fresh produce & bakery,  frozen ingredients and entrees, dairy, bulk and packaged staples, lots of special treats. Clean and roomy, a fun place to shop. Owners very helpful and friendly.
      Asia Grocers in Cromwell, CT - large, clean, well stocked with a beautiful produce section. Plenty of Asian foods (mostly Indian). The most "supermarket-like" place of the three.
      Euro Grocery, Rocky Hill, CT - Mostly Greek, but they do have some other European foods. A small shop with a good cheese selection.
  Friday Picnic - This time by the Connecticut River at Haddam Meadows State Park, Haddam, CT
  Saturday Picnic - Picked up picnic stuff at Highland Park Market in Farmington and drove to Topsmead State Forest, Litchfield, CT for picnic and house tour.

There was also a library trip in there somewhere, Wednesday? No, it was Thursday. Picked up 5 books I had requested + 5 from browsing. 

The reading this week...

This week the "Deal Me In" card is the Four of Spades; the selection is Together With Chicken by Jung Young Moon; translated from the Korean by Jung Yewon (in A Most Ambiguous Sunday, and Other Stories)
I'm enjoying these offbeat stories.

online... 
What better reading for our day trip season than this?  An Illustrated History of the Picnic Table by Martin Hogue. 

I've been exploring the first issue of Panel Magazine. This Budapest based magazine looks promising.

I love this house! One of my recent enthusiasms is looking at houses with indoor swimming pools. This pool isn't exactly indoor, but then it's not exactly outdoor either.

Issue 52 of The Quarterly Conversation is full of good stuff: Emma Ramadan on being a translator;  Chad Post makes me want read a 640 page book I would never have considered if I hadn't read his review of Lost Empress* by Sergio de la Pava; and J. Daniel Elam reviews Alan Hollinghurst's The Sparsholt Affair makes me so glad I read the book. I'm hesitant to read more of this issue--my TBR list is already so long....
*am delighted to find I can get this at my local library.

Speaking of Chad Post, The Reykjavík Grapevine has a good post about Chad's Open Letter Books.
Ten Years in Translation: US Publisher Of Icelandic Fiction Open Letter Books Fills A Decade

I spent a lot of time browsing at The Reykjavík Grapevine, which bills itself as "Your essential guide to life, travel and entertainment in Iceland." 

from the library...

The People in the Photo by Hélène Gestern; translated from the French by Emily Boyce and Ros Schwartz. A fun read.

Black Vodka: Ten Stories
by Deborah Levy 
Can't go wrong with Levy.

from my shelves...

The Tidings of the Trees by Wolfgang Hilbig; translated from the German by Isabel Fargo Cole

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