Slowing Down

Doing some very slow reading recently because:

 1. Back in October I won a lovely book from the Columbia University Press Blog
The book is Remains of Life by Wu He, translated from Chinese by Michael Berry. I started it this week and it's a slow go for me partly because it concerns an incident in Taiwanese history and my knowledge of the topic is thin. Lots of Googling necessary. Adding to that is the format of the book. A stream of consciousness novel with no sentence, paragraph, nor chapter breaks. It is well punctuated with commas, semicolons, dashes, etc. so it actually reads rather smoothly. So smoothly that I didn't actually realize it was all one sentence until about page 45 when I started looking for a place to break, turn off the light, and go to sleep. I finally stopped at a semicolon and had no trouble at all when I picked it up again the next day.

2. The current selection for Chad Post's Two Month Review is Radiant  Terminus by Antoine Volodine, translated from French by Jeffery Zukerman. (Open Letter books) I read this last spring and I'm enjoying this review.

3. When I got the forthcoming notice for Sergio Pitol's Miphisto's Waltz from Deep Vellum I was sure that the moment it arrived I would pop it out of its package and start reading. But it arrived just after I started the Taiwan novel...but I want to read this soon!

4. I also started The Gray House by Mariam Petrosyan, Yuri Machkasov (Translator) at about the same time I started the Taiwan epic sentence. I figured I might read them concurrently. That's not happening.

Too much going on. I should make some progress today & tomorrow since its 5℉ (feels like -8) and there is a thin layer of snow/ice from yesterday's squall. Stay inside and read, read, read!

Online
For some breaks from all of the above there's always my daily shot from Bloglovin...which leads to some interesting reading:

Nice profile of one of three presses where I have a subscription (the other two are Open Letter and Deep Vellum)  Small Press Profile: Two Lines Press  by Liz Button

This one struck a chord taking me back to my ex-pat days...Grocery-store Nationalism

All Over the Map

Six books in the second fourteen days of the year. Excellent reading and mapping them was fun. Last year's World of Reading map has no markers in Africa and the 2019 map already has three!

All of these were from my "owned-but-unread" shelf. The last two on the list were Christmas presents. 🎁

Sydney Noir edited by John Dale
This is one of the Akashic Noir Series so there is a map showing the fourteen sections of Sydney where the crimes are committed. Review Copy through LibraryThing giveaway

Adua by Igiaba Scego; translated from the Italian by Jamie Richards
This story of a Somalian emigrant takes place in Rome with flashbacks set in Somalia and Ethiopia.
   
Gesell Dome by Guillermo Saccomanno; Translated from the Spanish by Andrea G. Labinger
Only one place in this one--a small, corrupt, Argentine resort town.
   
The Elusive Moth by Ingrid Winterbach; Translated from the Afrikaans by Iris Gouws
Set in the Free State Province of South Africa

🎁The Flying Mountain by Christoph Ransmayr; Translated from the German by Simon Pare
The author is Austrian, the story is set in Ireland and Tibet.
   
🎁The Sad Part Was by Prabda Yoon; Translated from the Thai by Mui Poopoksakul
Short stories set in modern Thailand.

Fourteen days, fourteen books?

I set my Goodreads goal at 200 books--the same as last year even though I didn't meet it last year. Today it shows that I have already read 14 books this year. That's a book a day, right? Uh, not quite. Three of these are ones I started before the year started; two of the nonfiction ones were highly pictorial; and one of the novels (by McGregor) was short with lots of white space.

All of this was good reading with the exception of the disappointing Italian food one (some of the pictures were good).


Short Stories:
The Future Is Not Ours: New Latin American Fiction by Diego Trelles Paz (Editor), Janet Hendrickson (Translator) I've been reading this anthology off and on for a couple of years.
Vertical Motion by Can Xue; Karen Gernant (Translator), Chen Zeping (Translator) I started this one in December 2018
Florida by Lauren Groff

Poetry:
Whipperginny by Robert Graves
New Hampshire--A Poem with Notes and Grace Notes by Robert Frost
Read both of these on Project Gutenberg

Fiction:
Anniversaries: From a Year in the Life of Gesine Cresspahl by Uwe Johnson; Damion Searls (translator)  This is over 1650 pages long--I started it in October 2018
She Would Be King by Wayetu Moore
Three Things About Elsie by Joanna Cannon
The Reservoir Tapes by Jon McGregor
Disoriental by Négar Djavadi; Tina Kover (Translator)
Bitter Orange by Claire Fuller

Nonfiction:
The Push: A Climber's Journey of Endurance, Risk, and Going Beyond Limits by Tommy Caldwell
Why did I read a book about rock climbing? Because it was reviewed on that curious wrapping paper I received a couple of weeks ago. (That wrapping paper may have been the last thing I read in 2018.)
Pasta, Pane, Vino: Deep Travels Through Italy's Food Culture by Matt Goulding
Actually this wasn't especially deep.
City Farmhouse Style: Designs for a Modern Country Life by Kim Leggett
I really enjoyed the pictures, but my farmhouse will never classify as a city one.

End of Year and all that

I didn't meet my Goodreads goal of 200 books and I don't care because I have cookies!

I got behind on my "Deal Me In" short story challenge so have been trying to catch up. (I also had to fill in some dates.)  I finished this morning with the Queen of Clubs: Bernard Hœpffner, Portrait of the Translator as Chameleon
I didn't enjoy this challenge as much in 2018 as I did in 2017. The randomness began to get to me toward the middle of summer. I don't know if I'll do it again this year. I still read plenty of short stories, but on a different schedule.

Some things that cut into my reading time were the day trips and generally being more physically active this year (a big plus especially if you have cookies).

Goals for next year?  A smaller Goodreads challenge, continue exploring the Northeastern neighborhood, try to reduce the "owned-but-unread"* list, and eat a few cookies.

*had 331 books on it at the beginning of the year, it now has 341.

"There's a book in the mail!'

Yesterday's snail mail (slight misnomer, see *note below) had a book for me. Naturally I stopped what I was doing (reading my email) and rushed downstairs to grab it.

 Opening book mail is always a bit of an enjoyable mystery. Is it a subscription book from Open Letter, Deep Vellum, or Three Lines? Or my win from LibraryThing, Goodreads, or some blog? A late Christmas gift? It all flashes through my mind as I hobble (I stubbed my big toe something awful on Christmas Eve--it's not broken but it is bruised and cut) to the stairs.

 My housemate is holding a rather thin book mailer and hands it to me when I'm halfway down the stairs. It's too thin for what's I'm expecting from subscriptions and I'm puzzled.

 Oh boy it's from Archipelago Books! I did win something from them on LitHub but I can't remember what it was. Hum...what is it?  I slide the item out of the mailer and--It's Wrapped! The mystery continues...what fun!

 And the "wrapping paper" is an unmutilated four page section of TLS from July 27, 2018. I carefully remove it because I want to read the exposed review of two climbing books. (Later I place a hold on The Push by Tommy Caldwell.) I smooth the paper and set the bonus reading matter aside and get to the meat of package.

 Of course! It's The Barefoot Woman

Fine book with its nifty 'wrapping paper'
Is this accidental or is it a feminist message?

  
Thank you Archipelago, LitHub, & USPS!

*note:  The email informing me of the win and requesting my address came on the afternoon of Dec 19. I replied two hours later.  Note saying "book is in the mail" came around noon on the 20th. Book arrived on the 26th. Not so "snail" considering weekend, holiday, and Christmas mail crunch.