October 2001

Quite a few books considering blurry vision and eye surgery. One (by Jeffers) was 800 pages and well worth the time and energy spent reading it. Cuba, another good read, was over 550 pages.  The first four on the fiction list were outstanding. The next pretty good. I enjoyed the poetry. I also had some fun exploring on Gutenberg. Only dud this month was Maud Dixon.

Fiction:

The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois by by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
Four Minutes by Nataliya Deleva; translated from the Bulgarian by Izidora Angel

Olga by Bernhard Schlink; translated from the German by Charlotte Collins

Oh William! by Elizabeth  Strout

Lean Fall Stand by Jon McGregor

The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams 

Who Is Maud Dixon? by Alexandra Andrews

  the least of the bunch, I can't figure out why I bothered to finish it.

The Liberry by Ian Hay

 Fun short story

 

Poetry:

Two Half Faces by Mustafa Stitou; translated from the Dutch by David Colmer

Childrens:

The Woodcutter's Dog by Charles Nodier; translated from the French (unnamed translator); illustrated by Claud Lovat Fraser

 

 

Nonfiction:

Cuba: An American History by Ada Ferrer

Modern Dancing and Dancers by J.E. Crawford Flitch

 Love the pictured in this 1912 publication.

Isadora Duncan

Regina Badet

The Book Collector essay by Charles Nodier; translated by Barbara Sessions; foreword by Philip Hofer

 

September 2021

A mixed bag for September. Having eye problems so not reading much at night. (Surgery Scheduled for late Oct-early Nov.)

Fiction:

Slipping by Mohamed Kheir; translated from the Arabic by Robin Moger

The Last Debutantes by Georgie Blalock 

 Gossipy London on the eve of WW2
Season of Ash by Jorge Volpi; translated from the Spanish by  Alfred J. MacAdam
Monkey Hunting by Cristina García
The Island  by Victoria Hislop

 Life in a Greek (Crete) leper colony
Indiana, Indiana by Laird Hunt
The Temple House Vanishing by Rachel Donohue

Love Like Water, Love Like Fire by Mikhail Iossel
 Meh. Advance Review Copy via LibraryThing

Nonfiction:
Eye to Eye: Photographs by Vivian Maier by Richard Cahan

 Didn't care much for this collection.

Europe in Sepia by Dubravka Ugrešić: translated from the Croation by  David Williams

 Essays

The Field House: A Writer's Life Lost and Found on an Island in Maine by Robin Clifford Wood 

  Liked the biographical part about Rachel Field; did not like the Robin Wood memoir part written as letters to Field.

Far Away from Close to Home: A Black Millennial Woman In Progress by Vanessa Baden Kelly
 Essays to make you think. Advance Review Copy via LibraryThing

Online:

Mancala, the National Game of Africa by Stewart Culin 

 If one can get past the notion in the title that "Africa" is a nation, this is an interesting study of a game that has (and was in 1894 when this was written) a distribution far wider than Africa.

The History of Coffee in France by Sue Aran