September (fourth week) 2017 Reads

Once again I have several "readings in progress." I finished only one book this week but it was a good one.

This week for the short story challenge I drew a joker which means I read a story from another participant's roster. It also means I drew a second card and read two stories this week. I selected my joker story from Dale's roster

“Deal Me In 2017!”

Story: The Cafeteria by Isaac Bashevis Singer; translated by the author and Dorothea Strauss. (page 68-84 in Library of America's  Isaac Bashevis Singer: Collected Stories: One Night In Brazil to The Death Of Methuselah)
A successful writer occasionally eats in a neighborhood cafeteria where many immigrants (mostly elderly men) gather to eat and gossip. Here he meets Esther, also an immigrant but younger than most of the usual group. Over the years they see one another off and on. The final time they talk is at his place and she tells him she saw Hitler and a group of Germans meeting in the cafeteria after closing time. Was it a vision? a memory? a separate reality? or is she insane? Some time later he sees her on the street with another man from the old cafeteria crowd. Or does he?

Singer never disappoints. The Library of America three volume boxed set of his collected stories may be my best blog win ever. 


Card: Joker
Dale's roster is set up is geographically with stories from Appalachia  for spades and clubs and stories from New York City for Hearts and diamonds. The singer story is the the ♥10♥ on the roster so I chose a joker representing the city.







Story from my roster for the second card I drew (♥8♥): The Story of Kao Yu by Peter S. Beagle (online at Tor.com, a great source for "Science fiction. Fantasy. The universe. And related subjects.")

A fantasy story of an aging traveling judge in rural China;  the chi-lin, the Chinese unicorn who sometimes appears in his court, and a female criminal. The author describes it as "....a respectful imitation of an ancient style, and never pretends to be anything else. But I wrote it with great care and love, and I’m still proud of it." He certainly met his goal with this story.
I did not look for a card to represent this story because there is a marvelous illustration accompanying the story.  Alyssa Winans is the artist. She a San Francisco based fantasy illustrator and game artist. She is also a member of the Google Doodle team.


from my shelves...



The Signal Flame: A Novel  by Andrew Krivak
 An elegantly told family story of love, waiting, and loss. Krivak gives us an astonishing sense of time, place, and character.
Free copy from publisher via Goodreads 






online...
The Romance of the Skeleton
"... a two-and-a-half minute, weird and wonderful animation depicting “the lows and lower lows of love in the afterlife.” Equal parts funny and touching, the short is the result of a collaboration between Brazil-born Vitoria Bastos and Adele Davies from Devon...."

 (Read Me)  by Helen McClory
A great essay on reading, worth reading and re-reading. "...you don’t have to read simpler or popular books because they give you ready currency online, or because lots of people keep talking about them. You can read obscure, weird, or difficult stuff without feeling awkward. Because you don’t have to present your opinion to the world on the books you read in a digestible, effusive tweet or a picture of the book next to a mug of tea and an aloe plant. I know you know this, that you don’t have to have an opinion at all. Many voices make reading one type of book or another a performative act that marks you as a member of a particular tribe. But all that needs to exist is you and the words. Because they are yours if you want them."

September (third week) 2017 Reads

Another week of eclectic reading...

“Deal Me In 2017!”

Story:   In Our Forties by Kojima Nobuo (in Long Belts and Thin Men)
A forty-something man can't seem to be content with his family's house. He continually renovates it in fact and in his mind but the real problem is not the house.




Card: 6 of Spades
I picked this card by C.J. Freeman because it shows a ruin--which is pretty much what the protagonist of the story ended up with.

Information about the card and the deck it comes from can be found on Bonnie Cehovet's Tarot site in her Review – Playing Card Oracles




from my shelves...

 
Long Belts and Thin Men: The Postwar Stories of Kojima Nobuo by Nobuo Kojima; compiled and translated by Lawrence Rogers
I am drawn to works set in the post WW2 period of Japanese history--especially those written at the time. This excellent collection had an added bonus with three of the stories being the adventures of a Japanese man visiting in the post war USA.  

contents: The rifle -- The American school -- The smile -- Voices -- The black flame -- Buffoon in an alien land* -- The house of the hooligans*-- A certain day*-- In our forties.
*set in USA 




The Gurugu Pledge by Juan Tomás Ávila Laurel; translated from the Spanish by Jethro Soutar

A tale of people from all over Africa living in a camp in northern Morocco hoping to get to Europe. Told with warmth and compassion, this is an excellent read. 







The Long Haul: A Trucker's Tales of Life on the Road by Finn Murphy
Not high literature, but an oddly compelling read. It was fun to ride along with Finn Murphy and see how he grew and developed a professional attitude toward his craft. His stories about his colleagues and customers reveal a world most of us only see from one side. I've moved over twenty times (about two thirds of those using professional movers) and I really appreciate guys like Finn.
Advance review copy






Radio Free Vermont: A Fable of Resistance  by Bill McKibben
A rather simplistic story about a secessionist movement. Sorry, this just doesn't make it as a movement. It's a rather elitist view to think that drinking locally brewed beer, shopping at farmer's markets, and boycotting Walmart and Amazon in favor of local small business is going to make things better.
Advance review copy





from the library...

Miraculous Mysteries  by Martin Edwards (Editor)
Interesting anthology of classic British locked room mysteries.
Contents: The lost special / Arthur Conan Doyle -- The thing invisivble / William Hope Hodgson -- The case of the tragedies in the Greek room / Sax Rohmer -- The aluminum dagger / R. Austin Freeman -- The miracle of moon crescent / G.K. Chesterton -- The invisible weapon / Nicholas Olde -- The diary of death / Marten Cumberland -- The broadcast murder / Grenville Robbins -- The music-room / Sapper -- Death at 8:30 / Christopher St. John Sprigg -- Too clever by half / G.D.H. and Margaret Cole -- Locked in / E. Charles Vivian -- The haunted policeman / Dorothy L. Sayers -- The sands of thyme / Michael Innes -- Beware of the trains / Edmund Crispin -- The Villa Marie Celeste / Margery Allingham.






Goodbye, Vitamin by Rachel Khong (Kindle edition)
Very good story about a thirty-year old woman coping with her father's dementia.








online...
I found these three because of  references in  Tómas Jónsson, Bestseller (p 202) Búkolla the Magic Cow by  Nanna Árnadóttir, The Loa is here! [Lóa, but I'm not sure this is what was being referenced] and Kjölur highland route interior F35 in Iceland (Gullfoss to Varmahlíð - Blönduós)
And this because of p 204 Bladderwrack and from p. 211 Informational plaque about Jón Eiríksson

elsewhere online...
The Fortean Limes  a short story by Yoss: translated by Lawrence Schimel.

Top 10 contemporary short stories 
 "Ahead of 2017’s National short story prize, Jon McGregor reluctantly chooses ‘swoony’ work from recent years...."  Of course the Guardian asked the impossible of McGregor and everyone faced with the task would chose a different set of stories. But these all look good and there are links to where they can be read online.

Spotlight: Renzo Piano by Rory Stott
A look at the works of the Italian architect. Includes an interview.

September (second week) 2017 Reads

“Deal Me In 2017!”

Story: The Fair Imperia from Balzac's Contes drolatiques. Droll stories collected from the Abbeys of Touraine. Translated into English, complete and unabridged. Illustrated with designs by Gustave Dorʹe. [no translator credit given]
A delightful farce involving an innocent young priest, a courtesan, a bishop, and a cardinal. Churchmen behaving badly.


Card: Jack of Diamonds
The Jack is a fit for the story since the young priest becomes a knave.
However, this particular card has little to do with the story which takes place in Germany (they are at the Council at Constance). The card is from a Russian deck which I purchased in the USSR in 1979.






I didn't read much this week. Well, I did read quite a bit but I only finished one book. I continued with an especially difficult part in the Two Month reading of Tómas Jónsson, Bestseller
and I have a stack of other things "in progress."

from my shelves... 


Two or Three Years Later: Forty-Nine Digressions by Ror Wolf, translated from the German by Jennifer Marquart
Many of these very short stories (or "reports") concern observations of men who appear here or there or maybe somewhere else. Nothing much happens, but when there is action it is fabulous with improbable rescues at sea, a trek across Africa (but the narrator doesn't remember whether it was from East to West, or West to East) and exploding things. Goofy, surreal, whatever--I loved it.

September (first week) 2017 Reads

There are more August days than September ones this week but I'll call it September since it posts on the 2nd.

“Deal Me In 2017!”

Story:   Prah by György Spiró (short play); translated from the Hungarian by Szilvia Naray-Davey
A man comes home early from work--not because he is ill, not laid off, not fired, but because....he is a lucky guy. You might say "on Cloud Nine."



Card: 9 of Clubs by Lisbon artist António Segurado
This work is titled I Am on Cloud Nine
The source page has detailed images of the card and a somewhat poetic explanation of the project.




from the library...





The Man Who Spoke Snakish by Andrus Kivirähk, translated from the Estonian by Christopher Moseley
I really liked this fantasy/allegory with its combination of reality and flights of fantasy.






Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate (kindle edition)
Novel of a family of 5 fictional siblings who were victims of the  Tennessee Children's Home Society scandal 

It is one of those intertwined stories where we see things from the point of view of a granddaughter of one of the children and from the memories of two of the children now in nursing homes. The story of the children is chilling. The contemporary story of the granddaughter is weak and chick-litish.



 
 from my shelves... 


My Heart Hemmed In by Marie NDiaye; translated from the French byJordan Stump (Translation)
Absolute perfect allegorical novel about a woman who, along with her husband, is a "perfect" teacher. But everything goes wrong for these two and they begin to lose their lofty opinions of themselves and begin to see themselves as others see them.