Friday, January 07, 2022

End of Old Year & Start of New

The best I can say about 2021 is that it came closer to actually happening than 2020 did! At least I managed to squeeze  eye surgery in between Covid spikes. Thus I could say:

Goodbye to

Prescription glasses (bi-focal)

Hello to better vision...
  ....and onto more reading!

I won't name any "best books" of 2021. Because of vision problems (cataracts) I was very selective in what I read so most were "best." There were a few duds and a few DNFs, but on the whole it was an excellent reading year.

The big adventure was the eye surgery in late October (left eye) and early December (right eye). The biggest reading challenge was the interim between the two surgeries when the eyes didn't work together. I had to read with magnifying glasses with one eye closed or covered because I couldn't focus close up. But read I did! In fact, I read quit a lot--seventeen books including one coincidentally titled The Interim (Wolfgang Hilbig). Of the 17 there were three that I more or less skimmed (above mentioned duds).

I've been making steady progress on my "owned-but-unread" shelves. Hard to count as I did no stats on it for 2019  & 2020. At the start of 2019 there were 341 titles. Now there are 113. Some of the reduction came from weeding out a few titles that I realized I would never read.

I also dropped my subscriptions to Open Letter, Two Lines, and Deep Vellum. I still like what they publish and will continue to buy their books, but on a self-selective basis.

I had no problem with my Goodreads goal of 150 books, I read over 200. Set it to 175 for 2022.

Actually did one challenge: "Twenty Books of Summer 2021"  which I really enjoyed. Selected all my titles from a search for "summer" on Project Gutenberg.

Some of the new (to me) authors that I liked enough to read more (in no particular order): 
 Romy Hausmann (Dear Child  and Sleepless
 Sarah Winman (Still Life  and Tin Man)
 Edmund de Waal (Letters to Comondo and The White Road)
 Peter Geye (Northernmost and The Lighthouse Road)
 Miklós Bánffy (They Were Counted, They Were Found Wanting, and They Were Divided) Also put    
  The Enchanted Night: Selected Tales on my wish list and, thanks to one of my daughters, it's now on  my owned-but-unread list.
 André Hellé (L'Arche de Noé and Histoire de Quillembois Soldat) two picture books which I found on Project Gutenberg. Was curious enough to read them in French (with a lot of aid from Google translate).
 
There are several more new to me authors that I am likely to read again...too many to list.
 
And some old favorite authors whose books I read in 2021 didn't disappoint (alphabetical order and not a complete list):
 Rabih Alameddine
Anuk Arudpragasam
Kira Buxton
Edwidge Danticat
Anthony Doerr
Claire Fuller
Yaa Gyasi
Wolfgang Hilbig
Ha Jin
David Mitchell
Minae Mizumura
Patrick Modiano
João Gilberto Noll
Francine Prose
Scholastique Mukasonga
Guillermo Saccomanno
Elizabeth Strout
Gonçalo M. Tavares
Dubravka Ugrešić
Enrique Vila-Matas
Helene Wecker
Edith Wharton

 Just for fun: Three memes on My Year in Reading:
 
– When I was younger I was Queen Summer
– People might be surprised to discover that I’m Miss Mole
– I will never be Stranger in the Shogun's City:
– At the end of a long day I need  Joseph Walser's Machine   
-- Right now I’m feeling The Gift of Rain
– Someday I want to Leave Only Footprints
– At a party you’d find me Fencing with the King
– I’ve never gone After Icebergs with a Painter
– I really don’t enjoy The Killing Tide
– In my next life I want A Song Everlasting
~~~~~~~
– If you could go anywhere, where would you go: Cloud Cuckoo Land
– Your favorite form of transportation: A Thousand Ships
– Your best friend is Olga
– You and your friends are All You Could Ask For
– What’s the weather like: Winter in Sukcho
– Favorite time of day: The Evening and the Morning
– If your life was: The Soul of Genius
– What is life to you: The Interim
– Your fear: Lost Girls
– What is the best advice you have to give: Lean Fall Stand
– Thought for the Day: Life Went on Anyway
– How I would like to die: Before the Coffee Gets Cold
– My soul’s present condition: Still Life
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I began the day with Eleven Sooty Dreams
On my way to work, I saw The Temple House Vanishing
and walked by The Mission House
to avoid The Appalachian Trail,
but I made sure to stop at The Dark Library
In the office, my boss said, They Were Counted,
and sent me to research A Passage North.
At lunch with The Caretaker,
I noticed Vivian Maier
Facing the Bridge,
then went back to my desk At the Edge of the Haight.
Later, on the journey home, I bought Abide with Me
because I have Turbulance.
Then settling down for the evening, I picked up The Reading List
and studied The Ancestry of Objects
before saying A Prayer for the Living.

Saturday, January 01, 2022

December 2021

This month:
 Started the month off with vision still blurry. Finished two books I started last month. The Curie/Einstein one was a waste of time--once I skimmed the parts that were a rehash of the history of physics there wasn't much left. 
 Had second eye surgery on the 8th & vision greatly improved. Still using readers (magnification 1.5) but eyes working together! Do everything (except reading) without glasses.
 By end of month I could read some things without aid. Still using readers for paperbacks, italics, and when light is bad or eyes are tired.
 So I read lots!
 
Juvenile: 
Legends for Lionel by Walter Crane
 Wintry, with just a hint of Christmas...

Fiction:
Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr
 Loved it!
Slade House by David Mitchell
 This was an Advance Review Copy that I received back in 2015! A small book that got shoved to the back of a shelf. I really liked it, sorry I didn't read it sooner.
The Illogic of Kassel by Enrique Vila-Matas; translated from the Spanish by Anne McLean and Anna Milsom 
 I've been reading (savoring) this off and on since August.
Rizzio by Denise Mina 
 Historical true crime. I read this in one sitting.
Sleepless by Romy Hausmann; translated from the German by Jamie Bulloch
  Loved it! Lots of jumping back and forth in time & POV & unsent letters. The last in blurry italics which required reading glasses. Should have waited until eyes were better but it's a library book and due soon. Not to mention that I had a hard time putting it down!
Unsettled Ground by Claire Fuller
 OK, but I liked her earlier novels much better.
Fencing with the King by Diana Abu-Jaber 
 Advance reader copy via GoodReads. Good, but not great. Jordanian/American woman travels to Jordan for the first time with her father who is returning after many years. She is looking for her roots, he is going for a ceremonial match with his old fencing partner the King.
Tin Man by Sarah Winman
 How delightful to read another book by the author of Still life (which I read last month). Great to find another author who doesn't keep writing the same book. 
Gasoline by Quim Monzó; translated from the Catalan by Mary Ann Newman 
 Catalonian artists in NYC.
The Mussel Feast by Birgit Vanderbeke; translated from the German by Jamie Bulloch 
Narrator by Bragi Ólafsson; translated from the Icelandic by Lytton Smith
Klausen by Andreas Maier; translated from the German by Kenneth Northcott
The Translator's Bride by João Reis; translated from the Portusuese by the author
Loquela by Carlos Labbé; translated from the Spanish by Will Vanderhyden
Mrs. Murakami's Garden by Mario Bellatin: translated from the Spanish by Heather Cleary
Arsenic and Adobo (Tita Rosie's Kitchen Mystery #1) by Mia P. Manansala
 Picked this up hoping it would be something lite like Andera Camilleri's Montalbano series. Not as polished as Camilleri but not too bad for a debut. I may read another in the series when I want a cozy...
The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray 
 Bio-fic of Belle Da Costa Green who was instrumental in the development of the Pierpont Morgan Library. Fascinating woman and I'm glad I read it.

Nonfiction: 
Fanny von Arnstein: Daughter of the Enlightenment by Hilde Spiel; translated from the German by Christine Shuttleworth
 Excellant!
The Soul of Genius: Marie Curie, Albert Einstein, and the Meeting that Changed the Course of Science by Jeffrey Orens
 Not much about soul or the relationship between Curie & Einstein. A lot about genius and the history of physics--all of which I already knew. Only part that was new to me was the info about Ernest Solvay (who sponsored the meeting mentioned in the title) and the Solvay Chemical company (which sponsored the writing of this book). Meh...