June 2021

I wasn't planning on listing my non-reading, used to be routine, activities but getting my hair professionally cut for the first time in sixteen months was a really Big Deal! I cut it myself three times (with in between trims on the bangs) during quarantine: the first time I did a really good job but who could see it? the second time was so-so but it looked OK for a medical visit; the third time was a real mess and by the time I was fully vaccinated it looked terrible! 

Another biggie! I resumed my water exercise class. Ahh, did it feel good to be back in the pool! 

As for the reading...some surprises, a couple of disappointments, but mostly good reading.

Fiction:

 Abide with Me by Strout, Elizabeth
  Always reliable Ms Strout

The Lost Book of Adana Moreau by Zapata, Michael

 I loved this!

Summer : a novel by Wharton, Edith 

  One of my "Twenty Books of Summer 2021"

  Unusual Wharton - it's not about the gilded privileged set.

Checkmate to Murder: A Second World War Mystery by Lorac, E.C.R.
 So enjoyable to read the classic mysteries from the British Library/Poisoned Pen Press. Ah the world without smartphones!

Maids by Skelly, Katie
  A graphic interpretation of a real crime (murder) that took place in France in 1933. Grisly but good. 

They Were Found Wanting - They Were Divided (The Writing on the Wall: The Transylvania Trilogy #2-3) by Bánffy, Miklós; translated from the Hungarian by Thursfield, Patrick and Bánffy-Jelen, Kathy
   The Trilogy has been on my to-read list for ages, I'm glad I finally got to it.

 

Turbulence by Szalay, David 

 Linked short stories. One of my favorite reads this month.

A Passage North  by Arudpragasam, Anuk
  I really liked the author's The Story of a Brief Marriage so I was looking forward to this. I received an electronic review copy from the publisher and it was a real struggle to read in that formatI think I need to get a print copy and read it again.

The Charmed Wife by Grushin, Olga  

 I enjoyed this modern day look at the aftermath of the Cinderella story, but I liked Grushin's Forty Rooms more.

Migrations by McConaghy, Charlotte  

 An Irish/Australian woman breaks her parole to follow the migration of arctic terns from Greenland to Antarctica. 

How Beautiful We Were by Mbue, Imbolo 

 An African village vs American Oil interests. This one fell flat for me.

Christmas at The Mysterious Bookshop edited by Penzler, Otto

 Seventeen short mystery stories, each by a different author, set in and around Penzler's Manhattan bookshop.  A fun "summer" read.

 Authors:  Charles Ardai, Lisa Atkinson, George Baxt, Lawrence Block, Mary Higgins Clark, Thomas H. Cook, Ron Goulart, Jeremiah Healy, Edward D. Hoch, Rupert Holmes, Andrew Klavan, Michael Malone, Ed McBain, Anne Perry, S. J. Rozan, Jonathan Santlofer, Donald E. Westlake.

 

Juvenile fiction:

A Tale of the Summer Holidays by Mockler, Geraldine

  One of my "Twenty Books of Summer 2021"

  I was surprised. This was written in the 1890s. I expected tame and sedate. I got a contest the resembled the grass-bomb wars we had defending our "forts" in 1940s rural California.  Good fun.

 

Poetry:

Mortal Summer by Van Doren, Mark

 One of my "Twenty Books of Summer 2021"

 What a mishmash! Greek deities and Christian archangels journey to America and mess with rural (hillbilly?) society. Why? Not Van Doren's best effort.  It made little sense.

Nonfiction:
Footnotes: The Black Artists Who Rewrote the Rules of the Great White Way by Gaines, Caseen

 A learning experience.

 

The Battle of Versailles: The Night American Fashion Stumbled into the Spotlight and Made History by Givhan, Robin 

  High fashion never made much sense to me. Still doesn't.

 

Letters to Camondo by Waal, Edmund de 

  Well worth the read..

 

Free the Beaches: The Story of Ned Coll and the Battle for America’s Most Exclusive Shoreline by Kahrl, Andrew W.

 Some Connecticut history. Wish it had been better organized because it's an important story.

 

Bounty from the Box: The CSA Farm Cookbook by Lipe, Mi Ae 

 Great book but its 4.1 pound weight overwhelmed me even more then the overabundance of collards, chard, lettuce & other greens in our very own CSA box!

My Summer in a Garden, and Calvin: A Study of Character by Warner, Charles Dudley 

  One of my "Twenty Books of Summer 2021"

  Warner was a neighbor of Stowe and Twain in the Nook Farm area of Hartford. Similar writing style to Twain. Fun to read. Gardening is not easy in these parts which is why I don't do it.

Online:

Enough with Copenhagen! It is Time for U.S. Cities to Learn From Models Closer to Home by Juan Miró 

Six Degrees of Wikipedia: Find the shortest path between any two Wikipedia pages

 

Several short pieces at New World Writing (published on June 11):

 

   Mary Grimm ~ Her Sketchbook, Found Among Her Things
   Maria Robinson ~ The Requirement
   Mike Itaya ~ Rasthole Flats
   Laurie Blauner ~ Four Pieces
   Daniel Adler ~ The Lion Tamer

 

The Filing Cabinet by Craig Robertson "The filing cabinet was critical to the information infrastructure of the 20th-century. Like most infrastructure, it was usually overlooked."

 

20 Best Zucchini Recipes We signed up for a CSA subscription and expect the zucchini will soon be filling the box. I do know lots of zucchini dishes but more is more. In addition to the recipes, this site has tips for handling (including freezing) the squash.

Mary Grimm ~ Her Sketchbook, Found Among Her Things

Maria Robinson ~ The Requirement 

Mike Itaya ~ Rasthole Flats

Laurie Blauner ~ Four Pieces

Daniel Adler ~ The Lion Tamer

High Voltage

Mary Grimm ~ Her Sketchbook, Found Among Her Things

Maria Robinson ~ The Requirement 

Mike Itaya ~ Rasthole Flats

Laurie Blauner ~ Four Pieces

Daniel Adler ~ The Lion Tamer

May 2021

Now that I'm vaccinated I probably can stop logging all these little errands and such. So here's the activities list for what I hope is the last time:

5/3  Verizon store for new Smartphone

5/4   Mah Jongg

5/11 Mah Jongg; Mazzicato Bakery (Middletown): Library

5/18 Mah Jongg; brief walk downtown.

5/25 Picnic; Library

Weather has been cold and rainy so I haven't been out and about as much as I'd like but I've had plenty of time to read some really good books this month. (Nice to be able to browse in the library again!)

Fiction:

They Were Counted (The Writing on the Wall: The Transylvania Trilogy #1) by Bánffy, Miklós; translated from the Hungarian by Thursfield, Patrick and Bánffy-Jelen, Kathy; foreward by Fermor, Patrick Leigh 

Abigail by Szabó, Magda; translated from the Hingarian by Rix, Len

Silence Is a Sense by AlAmmar, Layla 

Oraefi: The Wasteland by Sigurðsson, Ófeigur; translated from the Icelandic by Smith, Lytton 

Miss Mole by Young, E. H. (Emily Hilda) 

Send for Me by Fox, Lauren

Gonzalez and Daughter Trucking Co.: A Road Novel with Literary License by Escandón, María Amparo 

Aviary by McNamer, Deirdre

The Sicilian Method   (Commissario Montalbano #26) by Camilleri, Andrea; translated from the Italian by Sartarelli, Stephen 

The Children's Blizzard by Benjamin, Melanie 

The Performance by Thomas, Claire 

Amy and Isabelle by Strout, Elizabeth

Improvement by Silber, Joan

 

Verse:

More About Teddy B. and Teddy G. The Roosevelt Bears by Seymour Eaton (Paul Piper)

 Audio recordings of this and other Roosevelt Bear books can be found at LibriVox

  

Nonfiction:  

American Covenant: National Parks, Their Promise, and Our Nation's Future by Soukup, Michael A Book Arts of Isfahan: Diversity and Identity in Seventeenth-Century Persia by Taylor, Alice 

Cult Writers: 50 Nonconformist Novelists You Need to Know by Smith, Ian Haydn

 Short (one page) bios, very basic 

Life of James Mars, a Slave Born and Sold in Connecticut by James Mars; first published in the 1860s.

Online:

A Glance at the Life and Times of Miklos Banffy some background material on the author and setting of   The Transylvanian Trilogy which I started this month

Highway of Darkness: A Mystery Reader’s Road Trip Up California’s Highway 99 by Jane Rosenthal

May 2020 Reads

Still in "Stay Safe at Home" mode. Read nine books four of which I found engrossing, three were pleasant enough to distract me from the news, and two fall into the "boring but I sort of finished them" category (there was much skimming involved).

Other than the five walks listed below, I left the house only for a curbside pickup of a produce box.

Reading
Fiction:

5 stars
The Dreamed Part (Trilogía las partes #2) by Fresán, Rodrigo; translated from the Spanish by Will Vanderhyden (Read along with Season 11 of the Two Month Review)
Spiritual Choreographies by Labbé, Carlos; translated from the Spanish by Will Vanderhyden
 The author is also a musician and composer. He has created a playlist for this novel on Spotify

4 stars
Night School: A Reader for Grownups by Bán, Zsófia; afterword by Péter Nádas; translated from the Hungarian by Jim Tucker

3+ stars 
The Better Liar by Jones, Tanen

3 stars
Redhead by the Side of the Road by Tyler, Anne
 Anne Tyler: “I am a seat-of-the-pants reader”  author is interviewed by  Leo Robson
The Sun Down Motel by St. James, Simone

2 (generous) stars
Simon the Fiddler by Jiles, Paulette
New Waves by Nguyen, Kevin

Nonfiction:
4+ stars
Hell and Other Destinations: A 21st-Century Memoir by Albright, Madeleine K.

Online stuff:

A fun Basketball Shot on Twitter

A lovely Massachusetts garden Boulderwoods: A Celebration of Rhododendrons

Readings from all 15 finalists for the 2020 Best Translated Book Awards! BTBA 2020 Readings
  (This was originally done on Zoom and was my first time using the Zoom App.)


Socially Distanced Out-of-the-House Exercise:
5/2 walked 2.7  miles (neighborhood)
5/5 walked 1.5 miles (Crystal Lake)
5/11 walked 1.2 miles (River Highlands)
5/13 walked 1 mile (Haddam Meadows)
5/19 walked 1 mile (Long Hill Estate) 

August (first week) 2018 Reads

This week the "Deal Me In" card is the Queen of Hearts; the story The Taxidermist by David Abrams (in Watchlist: 32 Stories by Persons of Interest)
A taxidermist with a unique, unsettling paranormal gift. One of my favorite stories from this anthology.  Here are some links to a few of Abrams' works online. He also has a great blog: The Quivering Pen

elsewhere online...
Treepedia: Exploring the Green Canopy in cities around the world 
from MIT Senseable City Lab - a source worth further exploration.

and from the library...

Two excellent short story collections:
A Thousand Morons by Quim Monzó; translated from the Catalan by Peter Bush
Awayland by Ramona Ausubel

...and an ok collection:
Tell Tale: Short Stories by Jeffrey Archer

a good novel;
A Boy in Winter by Rachel Seiffert

...and two novels that I found disappointing (because I've liked everything else I read from these authors):
The Neighborhood by Mario Vargas Llosa; translated from the Spanish by Edith Grossman
The End of a Family Story by Péter Nádas; trhanslated from the Hungarian by Imre Goldstein

a non-fiction that I enjoyed:
The Ninth: Beethoven and the World in 1824 by Harvey Sachs

as for my shelves...I didn't touch them except to add some things that came in the mail.

July (third week) 2018 Reads & Day Trips

Beautiful weather for outings this week.
Wednesday - Picnic & Swim - Chatfield Hollow State Park, Killingworth CT
  Followed by ice cream at HK Dairy Barn, 986 Killingworth Rd (Rt 81), Higganum, CT
Friday - Picnic - Indian Well State Park, Shelton, CT Sandwiches from See More Sandwich Shoppe, 130 New Haven Road (Rt 67), Seymour, Ct. 
 Ice cream later at Whittemore Ice Cream, 114 So. Main (Rt. 115), Seymour, Ct.
Saturday - Lunch and walk at Lavender Pond Farm, Killingworth, CT.

Also, a good reading week...
  but not for writing...
This week the "Deal Me In" card is the Ten of Hearts; the selection is Strava by Steven Hayward (in Watchlist: 32 Short Stories by Persons of Interest).

from the library...

A Book of Memories by Péter Nádas; translated from the Hungarian by Ivan Sanders and Imre Goldstein

The Hare by César Aira; translated from the Spanish by Nick Caistor


An Invisible Country by Stephan Wackwitz; translated from the German by Stephen Lehmann

from my shelves...
  
The Best of Adam Sharp by Graeme Simsion
Advance review copy. I choose not to review.

July (first week) Reads

No day trips during the beastly heat wave--just a quick trip to the library.

This week the "Deal Me In" card is the Three of Diamonds; the story is De Amicitia (in Orientations by W Somerset Maugham)

Online... 

The Guardian's Poem of the week: Typewriter by Matthew Francis 
Loved the poem; the commentary (by Carol Rumens) following was OK even if it did remind me of those dreary lit classes where we picked at a writing until it was completely dead. 

'My daring grandfather took a bit of East Berlin for himself' by Elaine Chong
The story of  the Treehouse on the Wall, das Baumhaus an der Mauer.

from Project Gutenberg... 


Cliff Dwellings of the Mesa Verde by Don Watson
Published in 1954 by the Mesa Verde Museum Association, Mesa Verde National Park. Colorado
Many photographs. I think I used this as a source for one of my junior high term papers.




from the library...

Fire and Knowledge: Fiction and Essays by Péter Nádas; translated from the Hungarian by Imre Goldstein

 from my shelves... 

Just Call Me Superhero by Alina Bronsky; translated from the German by Tim Mohr 

Lion Cross Point by Masatsugu Ono; translated from the Japanese by Angus Turvill 

Dreaming in Cuban by Cristina García

January (fourth week) 2018 Reads

Oops, went to the library, found some good stuff. In addition to the Hungarian novel (see below), I picked up a book of short stories by Constance Fenimore Woolson which I had requested and a non-fiction on Istanbul.

The "Deal Me In" card this week is the 7 of Diamonds so once again I head to Project Gutenberg for  The Excursion by Edwina Stanton Babcock (1875-1965) (in The Best Short Stories of 1917)
A snooty woman gets her comeuppance on a steamboat excursion.

A brief bio from The Best Short Stories of 1917:  "Babcock, Edwina Stanton. Born at Nyack, N. Y. One of eleven children. Academic experience up to age of twenty-three, one year in private school. Attended extension classes in English, Teachers' College, Columbia University. Author "Greek Wayfarers," a volume of verse. First short story, "The Diary of a Cat," Harper's Magazine, August, 1904. Her deepest enthusiasms are children, the mountains of Greece, the French Theatre, and the Irish imagination. She lives at Nyack, N. Y., and Nantucket, Mass."

from the library...

Katalin Street  by Magda Szabó; translated from the Hungarian by Len Rix
Excellent!

from my shelves...

The Odyssey  by Homer: translated from the Greek by Emily Wilson

Bartleby & Co. by Enrique Vila-Matas; translated from the Spanish by Jonathan Dunne
This was so much fun. I didn't want it to end.

December (fifth week) 2017 Reads

Four novels, two books of short stories, and some online reading...

The stubborn second Joker in my Deal Me In deck didn't appear until the final week of the 2017 challenge. So I have been looking at a bunch of rosters. Lot's of tempting stories, several I'd like to read but can't access. I finally settled on a ghost story from Nick's roster.

Nick lists this as being in  Alfred Hitchcock Presents: 12 Stories for Late at Night, but I found that is also available on Gutenberg.

Deal Me In

Extra (Joker) Story: The Ash-Tree (in Ghost Stories of an Antiquary by M. R. James
Classic tale of something that haunts several generations of an English country manor family. Sufficiently creepy for late night reading. I'll be reading more from this collection.

A creepy Joker for a creepy story.  
                                                                  
The King of hearts for my weekly story is from Polaris "a celestial-themed deck with modern woodcut-style illustrations."  The story is not celestial but this figure with parts missing reminds me of how seriously the battle wounds messed up the veteran in the story.            



Weekly Story: Outside Kandahar by Lucas Flatt (on Pithead Chapel an online literary journal)
A tough story in which a veteran of Afghanistan action is caretaker for his brother-in-law, a disabled veteran of the same war.

online....

Ælfgyva: The Mystery Woman of the Bayeux Tapestry – Part I; Ælfgyva: The Mystery Woman of the Bayeux Tapestry – Part II; Ælfgyva: The Mystery Woman of the Bayeux Tapestry – Part III; Alfgyva: The Mystery Woman of the Bayeux Tapestry – Part IV to come. By Paula Lofting

Judith Sollosy: No flotsam and jetsam blowing in the wind
An interview with a translator (Hungarian/English)

[A Conversation with Jung Young Moon] Writing for Skeptics: Navigating Meaninglessness
The Korean author is interviewed by Justine Ludwig.

Gutenberg find....


The Rubáiyát of a Persian Kitten by Oliver Herford
Charming 1904 parody. Here's a sample:

"Sometimes I think perchance that Allah may,  
 When he created Cats, have thrown away
 The Tails He marred in making, and they grew  
  o Cat-Tails and to Pussy-Willows grey."


from my shelves....


No One Writes Back by Eun-Jin Jang; translated from the Korean by Jung Yewon
This first person tale of a postman who quits his job to travel was really fun to read. He travels for about three years and most nights he lays on the floor of his motel room and writes a letter. Sometimes he writes to family members, other times to people he's met on his journey. As we follow his trip and read some of the letters we learn about his former life. 

The Story of Arthur Truluv by Elizabeth Berg
A sweet story of three lonely people putting together a shared household. The three --a elderly widower, a retired spinster teacher, and a teenage girl--manage to become an unconventional (at times unconvincing) family. This almost crosses the line from "heart warming" to "sentimental slop" and, appropriately, I read it on Christmas day.  'nuff said.
Advance review copy through Goodreads giveaway. 

Krik? Krak! by Edwidge Danticat
Short stories of the Haitian experience (both in Haiti and New York).  Some of these (especially Night Women) can almost be read as poems . Excellent.
Contents: Children of the sea; Nineteen thirty-seven; A wall of fire rising; Night women; Between the pool and the gardenias; The missing peace; Seeing things simply; New York day women; Caroline's wedding; Epilogue: Women like us.

Man V. Nature by Diane Cook (Kindle ed)
Excellent debut collection of edgy short stories.
Contents: Moving on; The way the end of days should be; Somebody's baby; Girl on girl; Man v. nature; Marrying up; It's coming; Meteorologist Dave Santana; Flotsam; A wanted man; The mast year; The not-needed forest.

The next are both told from the point of view of a teenage boy. Both are interesting coming of age tales but both are somewhat flawed in getting the authentic voice of a young person.  Of the two Mozley was more poetic, but Freud's boy was more convincing. The "Mr Mac" is Charles Rennie Mackintosh and I enjoyed that aspect of Freud's book.
  Mr Mac and Me by Esther Freud
  Elmet by Fiona Mozley(Kindle ed)

June (fourth week) 2017 Reads

Still working through those slow reads. This weeks section of The Invented Part  was a short one so I  found plenty of time for a lot of other reading, most of it very good.

and, of course, the Deal Me In story.

 “Deal Me In 2017!”

The card this week is the two of hearts which turned out to be impossible to use to illustrate the story of isolation, abuse, and anger that was somewhat randomly assigned to it when I set up my roster. So here's the story and the collection that contains it.


The Pedersen Kid by William H. Gass (in In the Heart of the Heart of the Country, and Other Stories)
Wow! This story left me more confused than anything I've read so far this year. And that's saying something since I'm currently reading Ricardo Fresán's thoroughly confusing The Invented Part.
So to help me figure out just what happened in this story (or find out if I missed something) I searched for some commentary on it. Here are a couple of things I found, both pretty thorough and both convinced me that I actually "got" the story. 
Let Me Make a Snowman: John Gardner, William Gass, and “The Pedersen Kid”  by Nick Ripatrazone
The True Intruder in William H. Gass’s “The Pedersen Kid”  by Ted Morrissey

Then I reread it for the writing: the amazing complex sentences that often lead to surprises; the sometimes devastating character descriptions; and the poetic, masterful prose.
I followed up by reading the other four stories in the collection: Mrs. Mean, Icicles, Order of Insects, and the title story. The Pedersen Kid appealed to me because of the interactions among the characters and its puzzling aspects. The title story had the richest language and was spot on in its descriptions of a dinky town. Mrs. Mean was, well, mean with a passel of (justifiably) ill behaved children and odd-ball neighbors (including the narrator). Icicles was cold and lonely. Order of Insects about a housewife and her fascination with an infestation of bugs was my least favorite.

The card: Can I find a Two of Hearts that fits a post modern story about a strange journey in the icy cold of North Dakota? Not really.  But I did find an interesting deck. 

MADDECK Playing Cards By Ozlem Olcer. "a series of playing cards which feature cubist illustrations..... The deck was created for PAG, an Istanbul based design company developing projects and manufacturing products in collaboration with graphic artists and illustrators."
"The name Maddeck - short for ‘Magicians, Astronauts & Dancers’ - is given after the first 3 dream jobs of the designer as a child."

The two of hearts is typical of the number cards in the deck, but the face cards are quite different in design--almost as if they are from a different deck.



more reading from my shelves.... 

Two Lines 23, by C.J. Evans (editor) The Fall 2015 edition of this bimonthly journal of The Center for the Art of Translation. It has fiction and poetry translated into English from eleven different languages. My favorite from this issue is The Piper by Yoko Tawada; translated from Japanese by Margaret Mitsutani. It is a retelling of the legend of The Pied Piper of Hamelin told from several points of view. The author is a Japanese writer currently living in Germany. She writes in both Japanese and German. Here is a link to the full Table of Contents for this issue.


The Genius of Birds by Jennifer Ackerman
An interesting survey of recent worldwide research in ornithology with particular attention to the function of the brains of birds. Not too technical, she is an entertaining writer.
Advance review copy.


Coincidentally, I ran across this online article  Power to the Bower: A Bird’s Architectural Method of Seduction by Osman Bari. Bowerbird (family Ptilonorhynchidae) building habits is one of the topics Ackerman discusses.


 
The Reader by Bernhard Schlink; Carol Brown Janeway (Translator)
Coming of age in Post World War 2 Germany. A young man is scarred for life by an inappropriate first affair. In later life he must face the collective guilt of his nation as his former lover is tried for war crimes.

(A library book sale bargain from their clear the tables day-- Five bucks for all the books you can fit in a large paper grocery bag. Yes, sir, yes, sir, two bags full.)






Journey by Moonlight by Antal Szerb, Len Rix (Translation)
A Hungarian on his honeymoon in Italy leaves his wife and wanders off perhaps to find some companions from his lost youth. Or maybe he's trying to escape the bourgeois life that is closing in on him. While he slinks around Italy (ending up in Rome) his abandoned wife joins a friend in Paris and tries to restart her life. All this is set in the period between the two world wars. A good story with lots of angst, strange characters, and touches of wry humor




What are the Blind Men Dreaming? by Noemi Jaffe, Julia Sanches (Translation), Ellen Elias-Bursać (Translation) 
I'll admit to being a bit disappointed when this came with my Deep Vellum  subscription in September (2016). I just didn't want to read another concentration camp diary, so I set it aside (for nearly a year). I picked it up the other day and I'm glad I did; it is such a great book. Jaffe presents her mother, Lili Stern's diary which is brief and was not written in the camp. She wrote it immediately after she was liberated and was living in refugee camps in Sweden.

The real strength in the book is the daughter's commentary on the diary. She treats it as a memoir and as a springboard for a discussion on how her mother's ordeal affected her own life. But what I really found valuable was how she expanded the personal and specific into a more general discussion of how human traits and activities survive and are altered by horrific experiences. This is presented in a series of essay style entries on such topics as fate, cold, hunger, love, anger, desire, money, memory, desire, and others. She draws both on her mother's diary and writings of other survivors.

The book finishes with an essay by Jaffe's daughter Leda Cartum on how the legacy reaches into yet another generation.


 
The Last Boy and Girl in the World by Siobhan Vivian
A teenage girl copes with with family, boyfriend, and BFF troubles against the backdrop of a community that must be abandoned because of a new dam. An uneven read. The characters were fairly well drawn. Unfortunately at the end everyone behaved totally out of character. The wrap-up was too simplistic for a complicated situation.
My least favorite read this week, but not a total waste of time.

Advance review copy.


And Only One Library book.... 

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles (Kindle edition)
What a great way to survey the history of Communist Russia! This novel begins in 1922 when Count Alexander Rostov is sentenced to house arrest for life--in the elegant  Moscow Hotel Metropol and ends in 1954. Although he can't leave the hotel, a cast of interesting characters--hotel employees and guests--keep him well informed about the goings on in the world. Rostov is a charming fellow and this is a charming book. 

Shortly after I finished this book I found this delightful art work in The Calvert Journal. Witnesses to history: The turmoil of 1917 captured in children's drawings Text by Samuel Goff; Images taken from the book Moscow, 1917: Drawings by Child Witnesses. From the collection of the State Historical Museum in Moscow. 

         Other online reads...

Imagining the Future of Suburbia, From “Freedomland” to “McMansion Hell” by Kate Wagner

Georgia wins at Cannes for 6 Millionth Tourist Campaign
A great video from Georgia the country, not the US state.

Come for the Obscure Canadian Sport, Stay for the Buffet by Julie Stauffer
Who knew there is a sport called  Crokinole?

The 'Mystery Boats' of Tresco Island  essay by Mike Williams.
A bit of British WW2 espionage.

January (first half) 2016 Reads

Some excellent fiction, an interesting memoir, a really fine non-fiction, and a picture book are the highlights this month.



Our Souls at Night; Haruf, Kent

Very low key and very much on the mark about the choices we have to make as we grow old. Library book. 

Jacket photo: Gareth Munden  / Glasshouse

Jacket design: Carol Devine Carson

 

The Door; Szabó, Magda; Len Rix (Translator)
Loved this book! Emerence has become one of my favorite literary characters.
My personal copy. (actually I started to read a library not realizing I owned a copy. Found it when I started organizing after the cart arrived)

Cover: Eva Hess, Accession, 1968 (I've been Googling Hess and I'm fascinated)
Cover design: Katy Homans

 

The Occupation Trilogy: La Place de l'Étoile – The Night Watch – Ring Road; Modiano, Patrick; translated from the French by Caroline Hillier, Patricia Wolf, and Frank Wynne. 
Early Modiano works from the late 1960s. Library book.

Pedigree: A Memoir; Modiano, Patrick
Wish I'd read this before I read the The Occupation Trilogy, it explains so much. Library book.




 

God Loves Haiti: A Novel; Leger, Dimitry Elias

A love triangle is interrupted by the massive earthquake of January, 2010. This excellent novel follows the actions and thoughts of the three involved.

Library book.



 

The Story of Lucy Gault; Trevor, William

Finally! An Irish story that I really like! Must read more William Trevor.

My copy.

What the Eye Hears: A History of Tap Dancing; Seibert, Brian
I really enjoyed this book that covers not just the history of tap, but also discusses the future of the art. Excellent!  Library book.
Jacket photo: Zigy Kaluzny / Getty Images
Jacket design: Jennifer Carrow

Belzhar, Wolitzer, Meg

One of the best YA novel's I've read. 

Advance review copy

Dueling covers:
The US cover (left) is perfect. Not crazy about UK one.
US Cover photo: Michael Miranda
US Cover design: Kristin Smith

Plotted: A Literary Atlas; DeGraff, Andrew

This was a lot of fun. The maps are clever, but at times a little hard to "read."  I wish the format were slightly larger (it is about 10 x 8 inches). For a little more about this book see my Bout of Books post of Jan 10. Library book.

Good, but not as good as those above

Queen Victoria's Mysterious Daughter: A Biography of Princess Louise; Hawksley, Lucinda
I slogged through this, but it was really more than I wanted  to know...
Library book.

All the Light There Was; Kricorian, Nancy
This suffers because of its similarity in title and subject with Anthony Doerr's All the Light We Cannot See. This is also set in Paris during the Nazi Occupation and it also is about a  young girl. End of similarities. This story is about an Armenian family, the parents are refugees from the Armenian Genocide. The book is much less complicated than the Doerr book. Its straightforward telling is like a grandparent might talk to young family members. "How I met your grandfather during the war." Its really a YA novel and as such it is a good introduction to how life goes on in difficult times.  I received a finished copy from author through a Goodreads giveaway.

Letters from Skye; Brockmole, Jessica
A pleasant romantic epistolary story that starts with a fan letter from an American student to a poetess on the Isle of Skye.  Set during WW1. Later, in 1940, the poetess' daughter tries to find out what happened all those years ago and the story continues with her correspondence. A fast read, ok for a diversion but sort of Enoch Ardenish but with a different ending. A bit more about this book on my Bout of Books post of Jan 10.  Library book.

Beatrice and Benedick; Fiorato, Marina
This backstory of the couple from Much Ado About Nothing was a good idea but lacks something in its execution. The witty dialogue between the pair is too forced, the villainy not forceful enough. I was put off by the introduction of a character named Michelangelo Crollalanza, supposedly a poet/playwright Sicilian born.  Hint: he writes sonnets. Really! I struggled to finish this and admit to a lot of skimming. Library book.

 Did not Finish

The Guest Room; Bohjalian, Chris
For some reason I found this thriller about sex trafficking boring. I read 25 0/0 but I just couldn't hang around to see what happened. It was like a not very good episode of CSI. I changed the channel and did not finish. Library book.