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.