October 2014 Reads, Post Readathon

Here is what I read in October after I crashed out of Dewey's Readathon (hey, I lasted 17 & 1/2 hours). I continued my delight in the works of Pascal Garnier and Eduardo Halfon, got a head start on German Lit Month, made a stop in Montana, and revisited Iran in two very different books set in two different eras (but both from the amazing Akashic Books).

Moon in a Dead Eye; by Pascal Garnier; Emily Boyce (Translator)

 Library book. Another fine story from Garnier. This one shows the retirement community from hell. Really rather funny in a horrible way.

In My Brother's Shadow: A Life and Death in the SS; by Uwe Timm; Anthea Bell (Translation).
 Library book. This is as much about Timm's relationship with his father as it is about his brother. Interesting look at the attitude toward the war of children who came of age during the 1950s (Timm was born in March 1940).

The High Divide by Lin Enger
 Library Book. Set in Wisconsin and Montana Territories in 1886. A man leaves his family to travel to Montana to try to seek redemption for acts committed during the Indian wars. His young sons, and later his wife, set out to find him. The library I borrowed this from labeled it "Western" which highlights the problems with genre labeling. This puts it on the shelf where a large number of users do not browse. Its appeal is much broader than one genre.

Monastery; by Eduardo Halfon, Lisa Dillman (Translation), Daniel Hahn (Translation)
 Uncorrected proof from publisher through LibraryThing Early Reviewers program. More delight from Halfon. Breif review posted on LibraryThing and Goodreads.

Tehran at Twilight; by Salar Abdoh
 Advance review copy from publisher through LibraryThing Early Reviewers program. Double-dealing and intrigue in Tehran in 2008 as an Iranian/American man deals with loyalties to friends, family, and country. Brief review posted on LibraryThing and Goodreads. 

The Luminous Heart of Jonah S.; by Gina B. Nahai
 Library book. This stunning saga of Iranian Jewish refugees in Los Angeles is one of the best books I've read this year. A story of rejection, revenge, and a kind of redemption, told with passion, compassion and a lot of wit, wisdom and a touch of magical realism. I loved it. Gina Nahai is from the Iranian Jewish community of Los Angeles--her family left Tehran shortly before the Revolution when she was a teenager. Brief review posted to Goodreads and LibraryThing. Note: I am not Iranian, nor am I Jewish, but I did experience Iran in 1977-78.

Online I explored French poetry (bilingual editions), Japanese art of 1950s, and browsed some nostalgic clothing. 

A post on France Book Tours announcing a blog tour for the book Delirium: The Rimbaud Delusion; by Barbara Scott Emmett led me to search for some Rimbaud poems online. Which resulted in a great find: beautiful online excerpts from bilingual editions of French poetry from the University of Chicago Press.

Five Poems by Rimbaud; from Rimbaud: Complete Works, Selected Letters, a Bilingual Edition, Translated by Wallace Fowlie and revised by Seth Whidden.

Four poems, from One Hundred and One Poems by Paul Verlaine, A Bilingual Edition, Translated by Norman R. Shapiro. 

Three poems; from Selected Poems from Les Fleurs du mal, A Bilingual Edition; Charles Baudelaire, Translated by Norman R. Shapiro with engravings by David Schorr.

Four poems, from Selected Poems of Victor Hugo A Bilingual Edition, Translated by E.H. Blackmore and A.M. Blackmore.

Protest Art in 1950s Japan: The Forgotten Reportage Painters; by Linda Hoaglund with an introduction by John W. Dower.

 Essays with rich visuals. This is part of the excellent MIT Visualizing Cultures project.

Worn Stories; edited by Emily Spivack since 2010. "... a collection of stories about clothing and memory...." There is a picture for each story. There is also a place to add your own picture and story. This is a kind of a "coffee table book" web site. You can't read the whole thing at one sitting, but it's fun to browse.
The stories Spivack originally collected (not the shorter reader submissions) have been made into a book published on August 26, 2014 by Princeton Architectural Press.