July (first week) 2017 Reads

We actually had a couple of really nice weather days--nice enough on Monday to go for a drive to a library we usually don't visit, combined with an outdoor lunch at a favorite seafood place.  And on Wednesday another outdoor lunch at a place closer to home. Then on Friday it poured all day so I got some reading in.

 “Deal Me In 2017!”

The Deal Me In story this week is non-fiction
 Life in the Qandil Mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan by Linda Dorigo
A photo essay on this disputed region. Brief, but informative.

The card I found has nothing to do with the essay.  It's so silly. Yep, it's Freddy Mercury! It's part of Long Live Queen Freddie!.  This series by artist, illustrator/cartoonist, and game designer Chuck Knigge features Freddie as various other famous queens. Knigge has other fan art and some comics on the site. Fun to explore.

 




Elsewhere Online...

The Story of the Girl Whose Birds Flew Away, by Bushra al-Fadil; translated from the Arabic by Max Shmookkler. This is the winner of The Caine Prize for African Writing. There are links to both text (pdf) and sound (soundcloud) files of this and the other four shortlisted entries on the Caine Prize Shortlist website.


Home is a Cup of Tea by Candace Rose Rardon
The story of a search for the meaning of home told through words and sketches of habitations and teas. This illustration is from her first stop in England. Her travels also take her to New Zealand, India, Canada, Spain, Guatemala, Norway, and Uruguay where she now lives.






From the Library...

Varieties of Disturbance: stories by Lydia Davis
A good collection. Many are super short, there are a few longer ones.
The cover doesn't display very well, but that fly on it really bugged me. Whenever I put the book aside, I put it with the front cover down.

Loved the stories--Hated the fly...







From my Shelves...

Killing the Second Dog by Marek Hłasko; translated from the Polish by Tomasz Mirkowicz; introduction by Leslie Chamberlain

The woes of two Polish con men in Tel-Aviv. Their mark is an American tourist. Problems ensue when she turns out to have a bratty son and a (possibly) dangerous brute of an ex-husband.

My copy through New Vessel Press subscription.




 
The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmao by Martha Batalha; Translated from the Portuguese by Eric M B Becker
A bored Brazilian housewife tries to find interesting ways to amuse herself but is stymied by her "no wife of mine is going to..." husband. Things get better when her run-away sister returns to the fold with a son and tales of a marriage gone bad. Not great literature but an interesting look at Brazilian life from the point of view of women. 

Advance review copy through LibraryThing giveaway.
 



The Private Lives of Trees by Alejandro Zambra; translated from the Spanish by Megan McDowell
This short novel (104 pages) takes place in a single night while a Chilean man and his step-daughter wait for the mother to come home. Once the bedtime story is done and the child is asleep the man becomes increasingly anxious about his wife's lateness and begins examining the familial relationships in detail.