May (fourth week) 2018 Reads

Finished two really good books this week and a third one that I'm not so sure about. Also had a very pleasant picnic at the Hampton Reservoir Boat Launch. The picture shows that this a place for launching canoes, kayaks, and other small craft.
It's a really pleasant and restful place.
Saw some families of geese and some other birds. 

This week the "Deal Me In" card is, oops, cards are, a Joker and the Five of Spades.
The story for ♠5♠ is Way of Remembrance  by Jung Young Moon; translated from the Korean by Jung Yewon (in A Most Ambiguous Sunday and other stories)
A story of mourning and remembering. Weird and I liked it.

The Joker is a wild card...so here is something I came across this when I was looking at Lev Parikian's blog (see entry for his book below) Reasons to be cheerful

from my shelves...

Why Do Birds Suddenly Disappear? 200 birds, 12 months, 1 lapsed birdwatcher by Lev Parikian
I doubt that I will ever go bird watching in the UK (or anywhere else), still I thoroughly enjoyed this account of attempting to spot 200 species in one calendar year. It was really fun to look over Parikian's shoulder while he indulged his passion.

Actually I occasionally watch a few birds in my backyard--robins (our state bird), cardinals, some sort of woodpecker who drilled a hole in the eaves, a wild turkey, some migrating geese who liked the big puddle in the back yard, and an unidentified little bird that has set a nest in our hanging flower basket. And then those aquatic thingies (geese? ducks? loons?) at the reservoir. I enjoy looking at them without knowing details. Quoting the author (from his blog entry  Reasons to be cheerful) "Resisting the temptation to photograph the above and put it on Instagram, but just drinking it in and remembering it."

I also enjoy the author's blog where he talks about birds, music, cook books and other stuff.   

 I participated in crowdfunding this book through Unbound.


Radiant Terminus by Antoine Volodine; translated from the French by Jeffrey Zuckerman

Stunning!







 

The Attempt by Magdaléna Platzová: translated from the Czech by Alex Zucker
Not sure how I feel about this novel about anarchists. I thin it deserves a reread before I comment or rate it.
Free from the publisher as a sort of "bonus" along with a book I requested through LibraryThing.

May (third week) 2018 Reads

I really have been reading, writing has been the problem. Just haven't been in the mood to blog, plus I've been juggling several books and only finished one. Had auto work, a medical appointment, and took a friend to her med appt, so I spent a lot of time in waiting rooms.thus, the Kindle book got my attention.

This week the "Deal Me In" card is the Six of Clubs; the selection is The Old Meeting-House: Sketch from the Note-Book of an Old Gentlemen (from The Oxford Harriet Beecher Stowe reader)
A glimpse of old New England when everyone in the household (even the dogs) went to meeting.

Carry over from last week: the card was the Jack of Hearts; the selection was Second Chance by Etgar Keret (in Watchlist : 32 stories by persons of interest).
This was very short and fun. What if we had a way to go back and take the road not taken?

from the library...
The Sparsholt Affair by Alan Hollinghurst (Kindle edition)
Liked this a lot,  Hollinghurst is one of my favorite writers. I wish he'd given this father and son a different surname--I keep forgetting "Sparsholt" when people ask what I'm reading.

May (second week) 2018 Reads

This wasn't much of a reading week. I've been reading steadily in several books and I'm enjoying the slow reading process. I've also enjoyed the better weather and have taken several day trips including a picnic on the Farmington River and a lunch at seafood place over in Rhode Island. On the way home from RI we stopped and had fabulous ice cream at Buttonwood Farm. Not a great weather day. It was drippy and chilly so we ate our ice cream in the car and watched the cows munch on bright green grass.



I did not get to this week's "Deal Me In" story. The card is the Jack of Hearts; the selection is Second Chance by Etgar Keret (in Watchlist : 32 stories by persons of interest). I'll pull another card and report on two next week.

May (first week) 2018 Reads

This week the "Deal Me In" card is the Jack of Clubs; the selection is On the Threshold, an excerpt from The Diaries of Emilio Renzi by Ricardo Piglia; translated from the Spanish by Robert Croll
Well, all these little bits made me add the source to my wish list.

"But he had realized he must start with the leftovers, with what had not been written, to move toward things that had not been recorded but persisted and twinkled in his memory like dying lights. Minuscule events that had mysteriously survived the nighttime of forgetting. They are visions, flashes sent from the past, images that endure, isolated, without frames, without context, cut loose, and we can’t forget them, right?"


from the library...

Sundays in August by Patrick Modiano; translated from the French by Damion Searls
Good, but I didn't like it as much as some of his other work. Maybe because it's set in Nice, not Paris?

The Little Stranger (Kindle Edition) by Sarah Waters
Set in England shortly after the end ow World War 2. Kind of a Gothic novel with mysterious things happening in a crumbling manor house. I kept at it, and was sort of rewarded in the end.

Quickening Fields by Pattiann Rogers
These fifty-three lyrical poems  made me reconsider the world around me with an altered vision.

 read online...


Jazz Owls: A Novel of the Zoot Suit Riots by Margarita Engle, Rudy Gutierrez (Illustrations)
A middle-grade poem about the Los Angeles Zoot Suit Riots (1943). Excellent.
Read free online at Rivited.