January 2024

Lots of good stuff this month plus a couple of not-so-good ones.  Fun with The Raven .

Gustave Doré (Illustrator)

Fiction:

The Fury by Michaelides, Alex

Twists and turns among seven people on a Greek island. A most inreliable narrator. A great read.

Vengeance Is Mine by NDiaye, Marie; translated from the French by Stump, Jordan 

Vague, meandering...just what's really going on here?

The Ascent by Hertmans, Stefan; translated from the Dutch by McKay, David

Based on a true storyof a Flemish Nazie collaborator and his family.

The Wide World: A Novel by Lemaitre, Pierre; translated from the French by Wynne, Frank

I liked this Fremch family saga set in post-war Paris, Beirut, and Saigon.

The Book of Fire by Lefteri, Christy 

Aftermath of a wild fire in Greece; it's effect on a marriage and family. A good read.

California Bear by Swierczynski, Duane

Assorted characters (The Killer, The Bear, The Girl Detective, a geneologist, an excop, and more...) unite (more or Less) to solve a couple of cold cases. There are many mishaps due to alchol and/or incompetance and some successes due to accident and/or solid reasoning. A fun read.

Call and Response: Stories by Moeng, Gothataone 

A nice debut collection of stories about women and families in Botswana.

Contents: Botalaote -- A good girl -- Small wonders -- Bodies -- Homing -- When Mrs. Kennekae dreamt of snakes -- Early life and education -- The first virginity of Gigi Kaisara.

Holiday Country by Atrek, İnci 

A Turkish/American young woman  spend each summer on the Aegean coast of  Türkiye with her Turkish mother and grandmother. But now she is nineteen, a college student in California, and she knows this may be the last year she can have a long vacation. A nice coming of age story with family secrets being reavealed. 

Half a Cup of Sand and Sky by Bjursten, Nadine

Iranian Revolution of 1979 and the country's politics afterward. Protaganist is a young university student in 1977, she marries a somewhat older man they have two children. while struggling to come to terms with the new regime.  A lot about  nuclear arms and disarmament so that part was new to me.

A review copy from publisher via LibraryThing Early Reviewers program.

Horse by Brooks, Geraldine

Not a good book. All that complicated stuff about horse skeletons and horse paintings and the simplistic treatment of racism in the USA just didn't fit together. 

The Wildest Sun by Lemmie, Asha 

Seventeen year old French girl runs off to New York to try to connect with Hemingway because she thinks he's her father. An easy book to set aside. Also easy to skim. Language that didn't fit the times. Meh.

Nonfiction:

Unique Eats and Eateries of Connecticut by Urban, Mike 

Over 80 restaurants are covered and, judging from his descriptions of the ten I've eaten in, this is an excellent selection. 

Cinematic Places (Inspired Traveller's Guides, 7) by Baxter, Sarah; illustrated by Grimes, Amy

Short essays with synopses of movie and suggestions on how to visit the selected locales. Fun to read whether you've seen the movie and/or visited the place. Nice, moody illustrations. 

A White House Diary by Johnson, Lady Bird 

I admit to not reading all 858 pages. I jumped around and read the parts that most interested me or that I didn't know much about. Lady Bird is thorough making this a great historical resource.

Following Caesar: From Rome to Constantinople, the Pathways That Planted the Seeds of Empire by Keahey, John

So,so travelogue. Not sorry I read it but....it's kinda shallow.

Gutenberg:

William Ladd Taylor (Illustrator)

Not that I haven't read this poem before (aloud, in class, in the seventh and/or eight grade). This time I was "reading" for the illustrations (and, incidently, the introductory essays).

The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe (Author), Gustave Doré (Illustrator), With Comment BY Edmund C. Stedman (Published by Harper Bros. 1884)

The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe, illustrator William Ladd Taylor (Published by Dutton, 1884)

The Raven, and The Philosophy of Composition by Edgar Allan Poe, illustrated by Will Jenkins, Galen J. Perrett. (Quarto Photogravure Edition, published by Paul Elder, 1907)

Will Jenkins (Illustrator)

Le Corbeau = The Raven by Poe, Edgar Allan; in English and with a French translation by Mallarmé, Stéphane; illustrated by Manet, Édouard. (Published by Richard Lesclide, Paris, 1875)

Édouard Manet (Illustrator)

Other Online Reading:

Cookie Jar by By Stephen King: Illustrations by Pat Perry

Also, the Cat by Rachel Swirsky; illustrated by Rovina Cai

River Runner by Sam Learner

I played with this for a while. You drop a raindrop anywhere in the world and this tracks it to the sea, Or not. One of my raindrops ended up in Tulare Lake.

The Appian Way: From Its Foundation to the Middle Ages edited by Ivana della Portella, photography by Franco Mammana; Authors: Ivana Della Portella, Giuseppina Pisani Sartorio, and Francesca Ventre.

Translator: Stephen Sartarelli

Much more detailed and, to me, far more satisfactory, the the Keahey book (listed above under nonfiction).