September (first week) 2018 Reads

This week the "Deal Me In" card is the Four of Clubs; the selection is Elizabeth Strout: ‘If I ever return to a small town, I want you to kill me’ 

from my shelves...

Her Mother's Mother's Mother and Her Daughters by Maria José Silveira; translated from the Portuguese by Eric M.B. Becker

Rochester Knockings: A Novel of the Fox Sisters by Hubert Haddad; translated from the French by Jennifer Grotz

The Unmapped Country: Stories and Fragments by Ann Quin; Jennifer Hodgson (Editor)

from the library...

Circe by Madeline Miller (Kindle edition)
 

August (second week) 2017 Reads

This week we started Two Month Review #2.1: Introduction to Tómas Jónsson, Bestseller

This Icelandic novel promises to be a challenging (and rewarding) book. I will try to resist the temptation to read too far ahead.

The first read is a short one (pp 1-31) and the podcast is an informative one with the translator, Lytton Smith, as Chad's guest.

Last week I fell behind on my  “Deal Me In 2017!” short story challenge so I have two this week.

Last week's Story: The Facts Concerning the Recent Carnival of Crime in Connecticut by Mark Twain (on my Kindle)
A clever story about a man who comes face to face with his conscious, there is a verbal duel, the man wins, society loses.

Card: The Ace of  Clubs from the Game of Authors. 



This week's Story: Egyptian Puppet by Vicente Molina Foix, translated by Frank Wynne (in Lunatics, Lovers and Poets: Twelve Stories after Cervantes and Shakespeare, edited by Daniel Hahn and Margarita Valencia; introduction by Salman Rushdie)
This anthology was put together to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the deaths of Shakespeare and Cervantes. Six English speaking authors were asked to contribute original stories inspired by Cervantes. Six Spanish language authors contributed stories inspired by Shakespeare.

This story was inspired as much by Shakespeare's times as much as by his works. It is not a retelling of any work, it is a telling of what life might have been like for one of the theater goers who attended one of the plays. Margaret attends a performance Antony and Cleopatra with her husband, a prison guard. The next day the husband disappears and this is the story of Margaret after that. It involves a meeting with a performer and a look backstage at the Globe.

As with all such projects, the quality and appeal of the stories vary. I suspect that I didn't start with the best although I appreciate the approach the author took with it. I look forward to reading the other stories.  The other authors are Ben Okri,  Kamila Shamsie, Juan Gabriel Vasquez, Yuri Herrera, Nell Leyshon,  Marcos Giralt Torrente, Hisham Matar, Soledad Puértolas, Deborah Levy, Rhidian Brook, and Valeria Luiselli.

The card was the Two of Spades: According to Rushdie in the introduction "We don't know if they [Shakespeare and Cervantes] were aware of each other...."

Perhaps they will meet in some future or alternate world and will be joined at the hip and collaborate on some wondrous, Spanglish, steampunk classic.

The card, appropriately, is from a sort of art anthology--the Collective Art Project (CAP) Deck: 52 Aces Playing Cards by Zeixs [2nd Edition] The 2♠ is by Argentine artist  Diego Hernan Mazzeo



And while I am on the subject of anthologies, here is an ambitious project: the Global Anthology "an initiative that highlights a work of prose from every country on Earth, as well as many nations, states, sovereignties, territories, and flag-less regions."  These are links to material in various online publications. Each piece is written in or translated into English and each writer is native to the country represented. Worth exploring.


And I finished this from my shelves...

Nowhere People by Paulo Scott, translated from the Portuguese by Daniel Hahn
Not much to say about this fine novel. The info on Goodreads says it all. 

July (first week) 2017 Reads

We actually had a couple of really nice weather days--nice enough on Monday to go for a drive to a library we usually don't visit, combined with an outdoor lunch at a favorite seafood place.  And on Wednesday another outdoor lunch at a place closer to home. Then on Friday it poured all day so I got some reading in.

 “Deal Me In 2017!”

The Deal Me In story this week is non-fiction
 Life in the Qandil Mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan by Linda Dorigo
A photo essay on this disputed region. Brief, but informative.

The card I found has nothing to do with the essay.  It's so silly. Yep, it's Freddy Mercury! It's part of Long Live Queen Freddie!.  This series by artist, illustrator/cartoonist, and game designer Chuck Knigge features Freddie as various other famous queens. Knigge has other fan art and some comics on the site. Fun to explore.

 




Elsewhere Online...

The Story of the Girl Whose Birds Flew Away, by Bushra al-Fadil; translated from the Arabic by Max Shmookkler. This is the winner of The Caine Prize for African Writing. There are links to both text (pdf) and sound (soundcloud) files of this and the other four shortlisted entries on the Caine Prize Shortlist website.


Home is a Cup of Tea by Candace Rose Rardon
The story of a search for the meaning of home told through words and sketches of habitations and teas. This illustration is from her first stop in England. Her travels also take her to New Zealand, India, Canada, Spain, Guatemala, Norway, and Uruguay where she now lives.






From the Library...

Varieties of Disturbance: stories by Lydia Davis
A good collection. Many are super short, there are a few longer ones.
The cover doesn't display very well, but that fly on it really bugged me. Whenever I put the book aside, I put it with the front cover down.

Loved the stories--Hated the fly...







From my Shelves...

Killing the Second Dog by Marek Hłasko; translated from the Polish by Tomasz Mirkowicz; introduction by Leslie Chamberlain

The woes of two Polish con men in Tel-Aviv. Their mark is an American tourist. Problems ensue when she turns out to have a bratty son and a (possibly) dangerous brute of an ex-husband.

My copy through New Vessel Press subscription.




 
The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmao by Martha Batalha; Translated from the Portuguese by Eric M B Becker
A bored Brazilian housewife tries to find interesting ways to amuse herself but is stymied by her "no wife of mine is going to..." husband. Things get better when her run-away sister returns to the fold with a son and tales of a marriage gone bad. Not great literature but an interesting look at Brazilian life from the point of view of women. 

Advance review copy through LibraryThing giveaway.
 



The Private Lives of Trees by Alejandro Zambra; translated from the Spanish by Megan McDowell
This short novel (104 pages) takes place in a single night while a Chilean man and his step-daughter wait for the mother to come home. Once the bedtime story is done and the child is asleep the man becomes increasingly anxious about his wife's lateness and begins examining the familial relationships in detail.

May (third week) 2017 Reads

Lots of online foodie stuff this week, then a few poems, a book of stories, and some journeys.
Whew! Unlike last week, the story this week is totally readable. And the card search was fun.

 “Deal Me In 2017!”

This week's story: Why I Can No Longer Look At A Picnic Blanket Without Laughing by Yukiko Motoya, translated from the Japanese by Asa Yoneda
What can a clerk in a trendy boutique do when a customer spends over twenty-four hours in a changing booth? a fun story that comes complete with diagram.

This week's card: the Three of Clubs  was a challenge--I wanted something innovative and possibly a little bit silly. It would have been a lot easier if it had been a face card or an ace. Maybe I could go with a pack design?


Here is one from Fashion Playing Cards by Connie Lim Pt. 3 but it's not right because there was only one customer in the changing room...so I looked some more..

...perhaps she was trying on these items
from Redbubble Ltd.




...but, then again, these are rather ordinary selections and by the end of the story...

... we aren't sure just who (or what) that customer was, but she certainly wasn't ordinary, so maybe this one from Hachimitsu Ink, which specialize in creating artwork featuring Djinns and Mermaids, will better illustrate the story.  

(Image is from PlayingCardCollector.net  I couldn't find the image on the Hachimitsu Ink site, but I had fun looking)


elsewhere online...

My current MOOC course: Food Security and Sustainability: Food Access  From Wageningen University & Research (The Netherlands); a collaboration between Wageningen University and the Wageningen Research foundation.
Course goals:

• understand the basic principles of food access
• understand actors’ choices influencing food access
• discern dilemmas at household, local, national and international levels get the big picture when the connections between levels and actors regarding access to food have been unraveled.

This article seemed to go along with the course goals. Dining in the Wilderness: The Restaurants in America’s National Parks by Amy McKeever
The regulations, guidelines, and traditions for providing food services at USA National Parks.  How concessionaires strive to create menus that appeal to diners tastes and use healthy and sustainable food.

and more foodie stuff...

The Global Feast: Writing about Food  in the May issue of Words Without Borders:
 "This month we welcome you to a banquet of international food writing.... Forced to cook in her father's dive restaurant, Ananda Devi's young girl finds revenge is a dish best served hot.  Argentine sensation Mariana Enriquez gets to the meat of the national dish. Jeon Sungtae meditates on meals turned sacramental. Greek cooking authority Diana Farr Louis reports on sustenance both figurative and literal in refugee camps. Kanako Nishi has a bone to pick with table manners. Manuel Vázquez Montalbán channels a gourmand Robinson Crusoe. In two nostalgic memoirs, Prasanta Mridha remembers that Bangla street food is right up his alley, and Moshe Sakal recalls one happy childhood in two culinary traditions"

Foods the Romans brought to Britain by Cindy Tomamichel. A brief survey of the changes in diet, agricultural practices, and food distribution that came with the Roman occupation of Britain.

How army rations helped shape food by Veronique Greenwood

not foodie, but fun...
The Fine Art of Cheating in Baseball : Remembering Red Faber, One of the Last Great Spitballers. An excerpt from Off Speed: Baseball, Pitching, and the Art of Deception by Terry McDermott.

from the library...

 
The Other Language by Francesca Marciano
Excellent collection of short stories, most featuring Italians in international settings.


Contents: The other language; Chanel; Big island, small island; The presence of men; An Indian soirée; The club; The Italian system; Quantum theory; Roman romance.


 



Wintering by Peter Geye 
A father/son family saga set in the northern borderlands of Minnesota. Quite an adventure, quite a read.

The cover, while appropriate,only tells a part of the story. The trip wasn't as tranquil as the photo suggests.




from my shelves...
Moving the Palace by Charif Majdalani, Edward Gauvin (Translation from the French)

A magnificent road trip! A Lebanese adventurer leaves his assignment with the British army to take over a perilous venture abandoned by another Lebanese adventurer. It's nothing less than moving an entire palace (in pieces) across deserts and seas from Tripoli to Beirut. By camel, mule, horse, and boat. In 1908. When the region is filled with unrest and feuding tribes. Not all is fighting--there are luscious banquets, merry story telling sessions, and a host of eccentric characters.
From my subscription to New Vessel Press.



Atlantic Hotel by João Gilberto Noll, Adam Morris (Translation)
In this short novel a man wanders around Brazil, sometimes by bus, sometimes by car, and sometimes by foot. He seems to encounter misfortune at every stop. Who is he? Why does he wander?

From my subscription to Two Lines Press.




The Last Days of Café Leila by Donia Bijan
When Noor was eighteen her father sent her and her brother out of Iran to the United States. He felt they weren't safe in the Islamic Republic. Thirty years later Noor, with her reluctant teenage daughter Lily, returns to Tehran for a visit. Noor's marriage has fallen apart and when she arrives at her childhood home, she finds her father is ill. Noor must cope with the changes in her homeland and her rebellious daughter. It's a difficult story,  well told but just a tad simplistic. It is a coming of age story for both Noor and Lily. Both make potentially disastrous decisions. At times Noor seems immature but she really doesn't seem to belong anywhere. The novels leaves us with that old question: Can you go home again?          Advance review copy via LibraryThing.
 
 
Can you go home again? For me, the answer has often been "No." But sometimes you can visit your childhood in someone else's poetry...

So Sweet Against Your Teeth: Poems from Childhood's Fall (Woman Song Book 1) by June Gillam (Kindle ed.)
"A chapbook of 15 poems looking back on struggles and joys of childhood." These certainly reached me. A step back in time to the house next door.

April (first week) 2017 Reads

This week I read two superb novels, a mystery, a classic short story anthology, a couple of online things, and, of course, my weekly story for Deal Me In...

 “Deal Me In 2017!”

Story: Cosmo Girl by Nadia Villafuerte; Translated from the Spanish By Julie Ann Ward
"She picks up her suitcase. Gets in line. Shows her ticket without letting her fist tremble. Checks her luggage. They’re not going to stop me, she repeats silently until she finally settles into seat twenty-nine." Elena is on her way north to Juárez. She doesn't plan to cross the border--until the time is right. But even while still far south in Mexico the bus is stopped at internal checkpoints...

Card: Three of Spades from metrodeck a card deck "Printed on found and repurposed New York City subway fare cards, metrodeck attempts to visually capture the common thread between commuters, public transportation, and chance.
Every card has been gathered at random, after having been purchased, used, and discarded by either a visitor or resident of New York City. Some have been signed or otherwise marked, making each card unique with its own narrative potential."
OK so our story is set in Mexico, not New York City, and it's on a bus, not a train...but still the cautions on this card could apply to many forms of transportation. A bit of a stretch for a connection, but it's a cool concept deck. Follow the "process" link on the metrodeck site menu for some neat pictures of how the cards are made.

from my "owned-but-unread" shelf...


Eve out of Her Ruins by Ananda Devi, J.M.G. (Introduction), Translated from the French by Jeffrey Zuckerman
An absolutely stunning, crushing story of four teenagers in an impoverished area of Port Louis, Mauritanius. Lyrical first person narrations alternate between two girls and two boys as they tell a tale of sex and violence that can only end in tragedy. 
My copy from Deep Vellum subscription.
Cover design by Anna Zylicz
On the Best Translated Book Award (BTBA) Longlist 2017



 
Chronicle of the Murdered House by Lúcio Cardoso,  (Translated from the Portuguese by Margaret Jull Costa and Robin Patterson; Introduction by Benjamin Moser
A classic family tragedy played out in a crumbling villa. Beautifully told through multiple points of view in a series of documents (letters, diaries, statements, reports).
My copy from Open Letter Press subscription.

On the Best Translated Book Award (BTBA) Longlist 2017



A note about Best Translated Book Award (BTBA) Fiction Longlist 2017:
It's a terrific list. So far I have read five -- the above two and A Spare Life, Umami, and Oblivion. 
No way can I say one of these is better than the others.



After the Crash by Michel Bussi, Translated from the French by Sam Taylor
A plane crashes, an unidentifiable infant is the only survivor, not an easy identification to make because there were two babies on board and this was in 1980 before DNA....So two families go to battle for custody, a private investigator spend eighteen years trying so solve the dilemma (and pocket plenty of cash)....Plenty to keep me reading. A couple of times I thought I had it figured out, but I was wrong--sort of.

Advanced review copy I rec'd a couple of years ago--sorry I just got around to it. It was a good read.

  
Gutenberg find... 

Brazilian Tales by Albuquerque, Coelho Netto, Dolores, and Machado de Assis Translation and Introduction by Isaac Goldberg (Published in 1921 by The Four Seas Company, Boston, Massachusetts)

Contents: Preliminary Remarks: An overview of the state of Brazilian literature (in 1921) as well as information on the writers in this collection.
  The Attendant's Confession By Joaquim Maria Machado De Assis: Murder of self-defense?
  The Fortune-Teller By Joaquim Maria Machado De Assis: a story of a love triangle.
    Life By Joaquim Maria Machado De Assis: a dialog between Ahasverus (The Wandering Jew) who is the last mortal on Earth and Prometheus.

    The Vengeance Of Felix By José Medeiros E Albuquerque: "Old Felix had followed his trade of digger in all the quarries that Rio de Janeiro possessed. He was a sort of Hercules with huge limbs, but otherwise stupid as a post." Or was he?
    The Pigeons By Coelho Netto: "When the pigeons leave, misfortune follows.—Indian superstition."

    Aunt Zeze's Tears By Carmen Dolores: An old-maid faces reality.

online...

Build Your Own Pizza Oven: The Crust-Worthy Guide You Didn't Know You Kneaded an exercise for architecture students, complete with plans and instructions.
I'm not going to build one, but if I were ever build anything out of brick and mud this is a thing I would build...

But I wouldn't drink Bone Sake with my pizza...


Bone Sake Michael Pronko, a long time resident of Japan, meets his match in a drink that "...brought me closer to the essence of bone, a place I wasn’t sure I wanted to be."

Pronko is the author of three mystery/thrillers (set in Tokyo) and three collections of essays on Japan. In addition to his writer blog, he (along with Marco Mancini) runs the blog Jazz In Japan which features news, reviews, articles, club and venue information, and other related things.

February (first week) 2017 Reads

While there was still a little bit of January left I tried to trim my "owned-but-unread" shelf but too much came in the mail. Actually the shelf now has 409 books which is exactly one less than it had on the First of January.

I read my fifth short story for the  “Deal Me In 2017!” challenge; in fact, I ended up reading the entire collection that contained it. I also picked up a couple of library books, surfed a bit, and started a couple of books.

From the library...

Mister Monkey by Francine Prose (kindle edition)
We get to go not only backstage, but all the way home with a theater troupe (and audience members) trapped in a really awful production of a really terrible musical for children. It moves from character to character and it's almost like reading linked short stories. I loved it!


The Tree by John Fowles, Frank Horvat (Preface, Illustrations)
This is an astonishing long essay discussing attitudes towards nature in general and trees in particular. Fowles rejects the carefully tended fruit trees in his father's garden in favor of the tree in its more natural state. I got very engrossed in Fowles various arguments and his spectacular writing. Frank Horvart provided over fifty full-page color photographs to accompany the text. There are about a dozen that I really like. Too many are of free standing trees--I prefer to see my trees in relation to other trees in woods, forests, and even orchards. 


 from my "owned-but-unread"shelf...

Party Headquarters by Georgi Tenev; Angela Rodel (Translation) 
A very difficult book both in subject and format. It has a fictional plot based on the actual official Bulgarian reaction to the Chernobyl disaster, when the Party leaders acted in their own self interest and left the populace in ignorance of the event. In a more fictional scenario, the Party leaders stash briefcases full of cash around Europe as they flee the collapse of the USSR. The narrative wanders in time and point of view and is hard to follow. I read a lot of it twice.    

My copy via a subscription to Open Letter Books.

On the Run with Mary by Jonathan Barrow
Read halfway through...skimmed the rest...not going to spend any more time on this. Overkill, a little bit was kinda amusing (almost), but 100+ pages of shit in the face? No thanks. (The same way I felt about  Paul Beatty’s The Sellout.)

My copy via subscription to New Vessel Press.

 
Whispers from the Tree of Life by Frances L. O'Donnell
A book of quiet poetry, nothing spectacular, only a few of the poems spoke to me. It's worth hanging onto because next time I open it, it might be different. Nice illustrations (black and white). 

Free copy from author through a blog win.

The Collini Case by Ferdinand von Schirach; Anthea Bell (translator)
An excellent read. The mystery in this crime novel isn't who did it, we know that from the beginning. But, even though he confesses, the murderer refuses to provide a motive. A novice lawyer is assigned to the case as public defender. He is able to discover the motive, but there is a larger question: it has to do with German law, war crimes, and the statute of limitations--all still serious concerns in today's Germany.

My copy from a library book sale

 “Deal Me In 2017!”

 This week's story:  Night drive by Rubem Fonseca (The Taker And Other Stories) Clifford E. Landers (Translator)
Once again I unknowingly selected a very short story. It is only two pages but it is complete with an interesting character, some suspense, and a dark surprise. I originally chose it because it is the first story in a collection I own.

Since the story was so short, I read the next story--the title story. It is about a rather vicious killer and I found it extremely unsettling (think American Psycho without the brand names--only this is set in Brazil).

I, somewhat reluctantly, read on thinking "I paid for this book!" The next story, Betsy, about a gentle death was easier to take. In Angels of the Marquees a lonely man tries to help homeless derelicts with dire consequences. In Enemy another lonely man seeks out his old high school buddies. It is both funny and sad. Account of the Incident concerns an accident between a bus and a cow. Pride is about a man who refuses to die because he has a hole in his sock. Notebook is a tale of seduction, with an amusing twist. Eleventh of May is the name of a terminal facility for the aging. In Book of Panegyrics a man becomes a live-in caregiver to a dying man in order to use the place as a hideout, but we don't know exactly what he is hiding from. Trials of a Young Writer is the story of a man more interested in his press image than he is in his writing or his live-in girlfriend. In Other a busy man is harassed on the street by a beggar. Things got (more) violent again in Happy New Year; Dwarf is about an unemployed bank clerk with woman trouble; and Flesh and the Bones didn't make much sense to me.
All in all, it turned out to be a varied collection, most on the dark side, some macabre, some noir, all very readable. I'm not sorry I bought it. I've highlighted the ones that worked best for me.
This is also from my "owned-but-unread" shelf.

This week's card - Nine of Spades is from Oracle - Mystifying Playing Cards created by Chris Ovdiyenko. I found it on their Kickstarter Page  but  the sale of their cards is on Dead on Paper. The Oracle deck seems to be sold out, but they have other interesting decks and also prints, books, and specially designed coins.

I selected this card because it is dark and mysterious like Fonseca's stories.





online
Continued auditing Modern Japanese Architecture: From Meiji Restoration to Today. This course is from Tokyo Tech.

A suggested reading from the above course:

Kiyonori Kikutake: Structuring the Future by Mark Mulligan
"In the postwar decades, young Japanese architects confronted the challenge of rebuilding the devastated nation. Kikutake was one of the most gifted." Mulligan looks at two of Kiyonori Kikutake's masterpieces: the Izumo Grand Shrine Administration Building and the Hotel Tōkōen.

The Record Company Headquarters that Revived 1950s Hollywood with Iconic Architecture by Alan Hess
Some background on the design and building of the Los Angeles landmark.








Essays from The Destruction of Cultural Heritage project
Artfare: Aesthetic Profiling from Napoléon to Neoliberalism by Kirsten Scheid
The Thing We Love(d): Little Girls, Inanimate Objects, and the Violence of a System by Talinn Grigor
Modernity as Perpetual War or Perpetual Peace? by Esra Akcan
Appendix: A Selection of News Articles on the Destruction of Cultural Heritage in the Middle East by Pamela Karimi