Another month of good reading--all from the library or online. No dent in the Owned-but-unread shelves. No real duds this month
Apart from the reading is was a month of mini disasters. I was exposed to Covid and had to quarantine again. Fortunately I tested negative. Then there was a mysterious crash in the night. We wandered all over the place trying to figure out what happened. Alas, it was our favorite bathroom mirror. Not too mush glass to clean up but it's no longer usable. Then the air conditioner stopped working properly. It's now fixed - we hope! It's getting old so....
Fiction:
I Will Die in a Foreign Land by Pickhart Kalani
UkraineFamily of Liars by Lockert, E.
Bitter Orange Tree by Alharthi, Jokha; translated from the Arabic by Booth, Marilyn
Quantum Girl Theory by Ryan, Erin Kate
missing girls
True Biz by Nović, Sara
Glad Ghosts by Lawrence, D. H.
on Project Gutenberg
Marrying the Ketchups by Close, Jennifer
The Saints of Swallow Hill by Everhart, Donna
The Nakamo Thrift Shop by Kawakami, Hiromi; translated from the Japanese by Powell. Allison Markin
High Spirits by Gomera-Tavarez, Camille
short stories from the Dominican diaspora
short stories from the Dominican diaspora
This Time Tomorrow by Straub, Emma
Nonfiction:
Letter to a Stranger: Essays to the Ones Who Haunt Us edited by Kinder, Colleen
The Ride of Her Life: The True Story of a Woman, Her Horse, and Their Last-Chance Journey Across America by Letts, Elizabeth
The Address Book: What Street Addresses Reveal About Identity, Race, Wealth, and Power by Mask, Deirdre
Online:
Two inspired by The Address Book:
I never would have known this exixted if I hadn't read Mask's book!
Directions Essay by Robert Sullivan. Photographs by Elizabeth Felicella
Serendipity - this came up in my Bloglovin' feed when I was reading Mask's book.
Other online stuff..
An Illustrated History of the Picnic Table by Martin Hogue
I'm such a picnic person....
Why Did the U.S. Government Amass More Than a Billion Pounds of Cheese? The long, strange saga of government cheese. by Diana Hubbe
I remember this...my mother-in-law volunteered at a senior center for a government food distribution. Many of the eligible recipients wanted "that damned cheese!"
Bib Ballads by Ring Lardner
Some poems in anticipation of Father's Day. We had BooWoo Got Left in Orosi and The Samantha Bear Stories, the Lardner family had:
His books and his blocks made him tired,
And so did his games and mechanical toys,
And the songs he had always admired;
So I told him a story, a story so new
It had never been heard anywhere;
A tale disconnected, unlikely, untrue,
Called The Grocery Man and the Bear.
I didn't think much of the story despite
The fact 'twas a child of my brain.
And I never dreamt, when I told it that night,
That I'd have to tell it again;
I never imagined 'twould make such a hit
With the audience of one that was there
That for hours at a time he would quietly sit
Through The Grocery Man and the Bear.
To all other stories, this one is preferred;
It's the season's best seller by far,
And out at our house it's as frequently heard
As cuss-words in Mexico are.
When choo-choos and horses and picture books fail,
He'll remain, quite content, in his chair,
While I tell o'er and o'er the incredible tale
Of The Grocery Man and the Bear.
And so did his games and mechanical toys,
And the songs he had always admired;
So I told him a story, a story so new
It had never been heard anywhere;
A tale disconnected, unlikely, untrue,
Called The Grocery Man and the Bear.
I didn't think much of the story despite
The fact 'twas a child of my brain.
And I never dreamt, when I told it that night,
That I'd have to tell it again;
I never imagined 'twould make such a hit
With the audience of one that was there
That for hours at a time he would quietly sit
Through The Grocery Man and the Bear.
To all other stories, this one is preferred;
It's the season's best seller by far,
And out at our house it's as frequently heard
As cuss-words in Mexico are.
When choo-choos and horses and picture books fail,
He'll remain, quite content, in his chair,
While I tell o'er and o'er the incredible tale
Of The Grocery Man and the Bear.
