October (first week) 2018 Reads & day trips

Two neat walks this week
Thursday - revisited Chatfield Hollow to walk the boardwalk and picnic (food from home)
Friday - Picked up picnic stuff at The Cooking Company in Haddam and went to Ferry Landing State Park, Old Lyme for picnic and walk on boardwalk.

Reading this week:
The "Deal Me In" card this week is the Nine of Diamonds; the selection is Bartleby (in The Piazza Tales  by Herman Melville) 


from Project Gutenberg... 

The Orkneyinga Saga, edited by Joseph Anderson, translated from the Icelandic by Jón Andrésson Hjaltalín and, Gilbert Goudie 

from my shelves...
 
Bogotá 39: New Voices from Latin America,  introduction by Gaby Wood, edited by Juliet Mabey.
Excellent! I won this on LibraryThing.

An anthology of short stories by thirty-nine Latin American writers under forty, from fifteen countries. The featured authors are: Carlos Manuel Álvarez, Frank Báez, Natalia Borges Polesso, Giuseppe Caputo, Juan Cárdenas, Mauro Javier Cárdenas, María José Caro, Martín Felipe Castagnet, Liliana Colanzi, Juan Esteban Constaín, Lola Copacabana, Gonzalo Eltesch, Diego Erlan, Daniel Ferreira, Carlos Fonseca, Damián González Bertolino, Sergio Gutiérrez Negrón, Gabriela Jauregui, Laia Jufresa, Mauro Libertella, Brenda Lozano, Valeria Luiselli, Alan Mills, Emiliano Monge, Mónica Ojeda, Eduardo Plaza, Eduardo Rabasa, Felipe Restrepo Pombo, Juan Manuel Robles, Cristian Romero, Juan Pablo Roncone, Daniel Saldaña París, Samanta Schweblin, Luciana Sousa, Jesús Miguel Soto, Mariana Torres, Valentín Trujillo, Claudia Ulloa and Diego Zúñiga.

October (second week) 2017 Reads

Not much time for  blogging this week. Story from Project Gutenberg again...

“Deal Me In 2017!”

Story: The Red-headed Windego (in Old Man Savarin and Other Stories, by Edward William Thomson, published in 1895)
A team surveying in the Upper Ottawa encounter mysterious tracks in the snow. Is it the legendary Windigo?





Card: Two of diamonds. Nope these are not Windigos, they look nothing like the one in the story--they are much cuter.
From An Ace in the Pack by Lesley Barnes, an animator/illustrator from Scotland.







from my shelves... 
Tómas Jónsson, Bestseller by Guðbergur Bergsson,: translated from the Iclandic by Lytton Smith   
Finished the slow read.  See:
Two Month Review #2.10: 17, composition book (Tómas Jónsson, Bestseller, Pages 361-411)

Two Lines 27  by CJ Evans (Editor)
Another great issue.

 Malacqua: Four Days of Rain in the City of Naples, Waiting for the Occurrence of an Extraordinary Event by Nicola Pugliese: translated from the Italian by Shaun Whiteside.
Excellent!

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 (third week) 2017 Reads

Not much to add to the reading log this week. Continued with the slow read of  Rodrigo Fresán's The Invented Part with Chad Post's Two Month Review  by reading  "Meanwhile, Once Again, Beside the Museum Stairway, Under a Big Sky" (The Invented Part, Pages 405-440). Also reading Chad's comments and listening to the podcast about this section. And, as usual, spending a lot of time Googling because Fresán has so many literary and pop culture references. I'm lovin' it.
Next week will be the final section. The next slow read is Tómas Jónsson, Bestseller by Guðbergur Bergsson, translated from the Icelandic by Lytton Smith. My copy arrived in the mail on Monday.

This week...

 “Deal Me In 2017!”

Story:   Collection by Camille Meyer (flash fictions)
There are eight very short, interrelated stories in this collection. They read a bit like primitive attempts to explain how giants came to Earth or, perhaps, little stories made up by an older child trying to entertain a younger sibling. Or maybe those stories that develop from a party game in which one person says the first sentence and then each person in the circle adds to it. The results can be an interesting, but not very cohesive, story.

At Big Bridge, "a webzine of poetry and everything else...."  Fun to explore.



Card: Eight of Clubs from Demon Deck by Ukrainian artist Egor Klyuchnyk. I'm not sure that I'm seeing what was intended here, but this looks a bit like shrubbery and that fits the story because plants play an important part in the giant's adventures.








online...


Cartoons magazine. v.10:pt.2 (1916). Linen Islands Sea by Helena Smith-Dayton 
A light commentary on the dining habits and conversation circa 1916.
Smith-Dayton is particularly amused by the gentlemen.

I found this because of a comment  Katherine Nabity made on my post last week. I had a lot of fun with this and ended up reading more than the article  relevant to Katherine's comment. 

The "Cartoons" of the magazine title is used in the "political cartoon" sense--there are a lot of political articles and a lot of European war news and commentary. This was before the USA entered the war.



An Entire Family Disappears by Gunnhild Øyehaug; Translated from the Norwegian by Kari Dickson
Another excerpt from the story collection Knots. (I also read one of these last week.)

Three Principles of Architecture as Revealed by Italo Calvino's 'Invisible Cities'  by Osman Bari

These next two pieces discuss  Lima-based architect Karina Puente's  project to illustrate each and every "invisible" city from Italo Calvino's 1972 novel.
Italo Calvino's 'Invisible Cities', Illustrated  by James Taylor-Foster (6 images)
Italo Calvino's 'Invisible Cities', Illustrated (Again)   by AD Editorial Team (16 images)



This Drone Video Captures the Mesmerizing Geometries of The World's Most Vertical City  by AD Editorial Team
Presentation of an eight minute film from architect Mariana Bisti exploring Hong Kong by drone videography. "Not limited to vantage points accessible to humans, the video zooms and pans deliberately over, across and into the city’s enormous residential blocks..."


Seven Questions for Lytton Smith on Tómas Jónsson, Bestseller by Guðbergur Bergsson
Scott Esposito interviews Lytton Smith. Tómas Jónsson, Bestseller is the next book we will be reading for Chad Post's Two Month Review  project.

 from my shelves...



Summer Before the Dark by Volker Weidermann; translated from the German by Carol Brown Janeway.
Stefan Zweig reunites with his estranged friend Joseph Roth in Ostend, Belgium in 1936.  At the time Ostend was a quiet refuge where a group of exiles and soon to be exiles joined together in a fragile social circle. Lots of booze, affairs, and rivalries mixed in with the really serious decisions that they must make about their futures in a crumbling European society.
A must read for anyone interested in Zweig, Roth, or European culture in the interwar years.

May (fourth week) 2017 Reads

 “Deal Me In 2017!”

The card this week: Six of Clubs which means the "story" this week is not-a-story, it's an essay:

Identities in Motion -- My Mythomanias by Julia Schoch; translated from the German by Katy Derbyshire
How do we remember when the landscapes of childhood are gone? Schoch grew up in a town modernized in the Communist era and the made obsolete by the 1989 revolution.

  "They say the only things that count in life are the things we remember. That seems to be all the more important when there is no longer any evidence of the past.
   I no longer have any evidence of my past."


From Literature Across Frontiers (LAF) "a European Platform for Literary Exchange, Translation and Policy Debate."

Card is a stock image from dreamstime
It seems to go with the deterioration of the town (both the original and the new) and the hammer suggests the politics involved.

 



other essays online...and slow reading

Dorthe Nors on the best Contemporary Scandinavian Literature
The Danish author discusses Scandinavian Lit in general and specific authors:  Naja Marie Aidt, Yahya Hassan, Karolina Ramqvist, Lena Andersson, and Sjón.


 All Writing is a Kind of Realism: In Conversation with Rodrigo Fresán, author of The Invented Part
A conversation between Fresán and Will Vanderhyden, translator of The Invented Part. I am slowly reading this novel as part of Chad Post's Two Month Review  project.Chad has put together comments, podcasts, a Goodreads group, and more to help guide us through a difficult book. So far, we have read only the first 45 pages (which I loved).

 
I am also slow reading The Magician of Vienna by Sergio Pitol because that is the way I read Pitol. See: Pitol readings and More Pitol readings


Just because my card this week was for an essay doesn't mean I neglected short stories. In fact, I read some gems...

I read some of the O. Henry Prize Stories for 2017 that are available online:
Something for a Young Woman  by Genevieve Plunkett
The Buddhist by Alan Rossi 
Protection by Paola Peroni
Night Garden by Shruti Swamy
Paddle to Canada by Heather Monley
Mercedes Benz  by Martha Cooley
A Small Sacrifice for an Enormous Happiness by Jai Chakrabarti

Two other stories I read online...

An Affair Before the Earthquake by Samrat Upadhyay
Samrat Upadhyay is a Nepalese writer who writes in English. He teaches at Indiana University. This is from his collection of short stories, Mad Country.

The Great Disaster  by Alanna Schubach; with an introduction by Halimah Marcus
Young survivors of a community disaster play a Zombie game.


some novels from my shelves...


ME  by Tomoyuki Hoshino, Kenzaburō Ōe (Afterword), Charles De Wolf (Translation)
This started out as if it were going to be about telephone scams, but it turned into something else--a dystopian world of almost interchangeable ME's. Just when it seems to be headed in one direction, it makes a turn and is off somewhere else. A great read.

Advance review copy via LibraryThing

The Outlaw by Jón Gnarr; Lytton Smith (Translation)
The third volume of Gnarr's childhood memoirs covers his teenage years. Misunderstood and misunderstanding, Gnarr ends up in a remote boarding school in the Westfjords district of Iceland (a Google search shows that the school is now a hotel). After leaving school he returns home to face so many problems--drugs, alcohol, medical treatments, family--that one wonders how he ever go it together.

From my subscription to Deep Vellum Books


 
'Round Midnight by Laura McBride
It's always gratifying to see a second novel live up to the promise of the debut novel. This one does that without repeating the characters and plot of the first
(We Are Called to Rise). This one is also set in Las Vegas and, like the first, brings together a set of diverse characters and deals with immigrants and family problems. But the main characters are fresh and this one spans a long time period (about 1960-2010) as Vegas booms and busts. The four main characters are strong women in difficult circumstances. An absorbing read.

Advance review copy.

March (fifth week) 2017 Reads

So March had almost five weeks this year? No wonder I got so tired of it. It's Madness, I tell you!

Speaking of madness I'm watching NCAAW games so not reading as much as usual...
 ...but...
          ...somewhere in the madness...
               ...I read two very fine novels, a good short story collection...
                     ...and... 
                           ...found time to shuffle up and pull a card for the Deal Me In story challenge...

 “Deal Me In 2017!”

The story: It's me! by Ekaterina Togonidze (in Best European fiction 2015) Translated from the Georgian by Natalia Bukia-Peters and Victoria Field.
Iamze/Ia/Ianna/Yanna has her appearance changed through major and minor cosmetic surgeries--but does she still have a soul?


The card(s): The Queen of Spades: These are from a page of Queens of Spades on Playing Arts. Viewers were asked to vote for their favorite. The vote has ended but there are lots of neat card designs to view.  I had a difficult time choosing one for this story. The Pichardo one shows a dramatic transformation and the Mancini suggests the loss of soul. Googling for this card was a neat exercise during NCAA Women's Tournament game time outs--when I was supposed to be walking laps around the house. 

Fabio Mancini

Marco Pichardo

from the Library...

Swing Time by Zadie Smith

Two brown girls grow up in Northwest London dreaming about the dance. One has talent, the other does not. But it takes more than talent--luck also plays a part and these girls aren't lucky. As they grow their paths split and their friendship dwindles. One pursues a short mediocre stage career and single motherhood. The other, who is the narrator of the story, becomes personal assistant to a highly successful pop star. But there is much more here than the fluctuating friendship: racism, patronizing do-gooders, unintended consequences of charity, rich vs poor, parenting styles, exploitation, immigration--all packed into a smoothly flowing package.



from my "owned-but-unread" shelf... 



The Ambassador by Bragi Ólafsson, Lytton Smith (Translator)
An Icelandic poet makes a trip to Lithuania to attend a poetry festival. Our poet tends to overthink everything--the buying of an overcoat, a stain on a carpet, the return of a videotape, other small things. But when it comes to the big things like plagiarism he seems not to have thought at all. In spite of (or, perhaps, because of) his ineptness his adventures are fun to follow. At times  Inspector Clouseau in a new role as petty thief comes to mind.




Project Gutenberg find... 

Lotta Schmidt and other stories by Anthony Trollope; fourth ed., Chapman and Hall, 1876 (first ed was 1867)

I enjoy Trollope's novels of English life and was happy to find this story collection. In these stories Trollope turns his wry eye to the international scene, they are a delight to read.

Contents: Lotta Schmidt in which a Viennese girl chooses between two suitors; in The Adventures Of Fred Pickering a young aspiring writer must choose between starvation and pride; The Two Generals is a story of brothers on opposite sides during the American Civil War; the next story is a humorous one where an Englishman has a traveler's worst night ever in an Irish village "hotel" but he meets and becomes friends with Father Giles Of Ballymoy; Malachi’s Cove is a place near Tintagel in Cromwell where an old man and his granddaughter gather seaweed until a neighbor intrudes on their territory; The Widow’s Mite is about charity and what we are willing to try to give up for a cause; The Last Austrian Who Left Venice is the story of a Venetian woman who falls in love with an enemy Austrian soldier; the question asked in Miss Ophelia Gledd is "Can an American woman be considered a "lady" in London society?; and in the final story, The Journey To Panama, there is a shipboard friendship between a man planing on crossing the Isthmus of Panama (no canal in those days) and on to Vancouver and a woman who is to meet her future husband after crossing the Isthmus.

February (fourth week) 2017 Reads

This week I tried to limit myself to reading only from my "owned-but-unread" shelf. The exceptions were online and associated with the Deal Me In short story challenge and research related to the books I read.

Two novels of life in Russia in the post-Soviet era. These are lyrical and haunting, full of family and national myths. Both are from my subscription to New Vessel Press.


Oblivion by Sergei Lebedev, Antonina W. Bouis (Translation)
A man travels to a former prison camp in search of the story of an odd neighbor who was a sort of adoptive grandfather to him.

The Year of the Comet by Sergei Lebedev, Antonina W. Bouis (Translation)
Coming of age in Moscow as the USSR collapses. Impossible to put this down.


Some  background by Sergei Lebedev on the New Vessel Press blog:
A biographical essay North and East
A biographical poem Two Red Stars


Seeing Red by Lina Meruane, Megan McDowell (Translation)
In this (somewhat autobiographical) novel a Chilean writer becomes blind from a complication of Diabetes. While there is description of the clinical progression of her condition, it is much more about her sense of self and her relationships, particularly with her lover and her mother, as she becomes (or is perceived by them to become) dependent on them.
Another excellent book from my subscription to Deep Vellum Publications.





The Game We Play by Sooze Lanier
There is a lot of variety in these stories. There are a couple of misses, but most are quite good. Most are set in Washington, DC. How Tommy Soto breaks you heart is a girl-loses-boy high school story; In Cat and bird two college freshman girls get to know each other; Over Shell Drive is a puzzling father-daughter tale; Raz-Jan deals with an immigrant father-son relationship; Sophie Salmon has an eating disorder; Felicia Sassafras is fiction is about a writer bored with a character she has created; Night hawk is a drug deal gone bad; Selflessly, with pleasure is a mercifully short (two pages) bit about a sex toy; Now that all danger is averted has a couple dealing with loss; At bat tells of a crucial ninth inning at bat from two points of view: batter and fan. (I've highlighted my favorites.) My copy from a blog win at The Quivering Pen.


 
The Pirate by Jón Gnarr, Lytton Smith (Translation)
The second book in the three-part memoir of the Icelandic actor, comedian, and politician. This one deals with his teenage years when he tried to start an anarchist punk band, avoided school, and endured a great deal of bullying.
Gnarr is really fun to read although he deals with serious topics of a difficult childhood. The first book was The Indian which I read in August 2015. The final book is The Outlaw which should arrive any day now. (They have already sent me the ebook but I prefer to wait for the print edition.)
Another book from my subscription to Deep Vellum Publications.

Justine by Iben Mondrup, Kerri A. Pierce (Translation)
Justine is an artist who loses everything--her house, her work, all her belongings--in a fire. She has also recently split with her lover. As she tries to rebuild her life and prepare some pieces for a scheduled exhibition, her story is revealed in layers of out-of-sequence memories. This is a dark tale, with frantic sexual exploits, misogyny, jealousy, as she searches for artistic expression in the male-dominated world of Denmark's art scene.
One of my subscription books from Open Letter Books

Cutting Back: My Apprenticeship in the Gardens of Kyoto by Leslie Buck
The title almost says it all--except it doesn't explain that Leslie Buck was a thirty-five year old American woman serving as a tree pruning apprentice in an almost all male workplace. Adjusting to the cultural differences between being her own boss in California to taking orders from everyone on her work crew in Japan wasn't always easy. The tools were new to her so her body ached, there was no stopping work because of rain and snow, and it was a six day work week. She got through it with grim determination, a sense of humor, and a love for her art. A very enjoyable account.
I received Free advance review copy.

 “Deal Me In 2017!”

This week's story:  The Eyes Have It by Philip K. Dick
This was published in  Science Fiction Stories 1953 and is now free on Project Gutenberg. It is a tongue-in-cheek account of an odd group of alien life forms. The first sentence: "It was quite by accident I discovered this incredible invasion of Earth by lifeforms from another planet. As yet, I haven’t done anything about it; I can’t think of anything to do. I wrote to the Government, and they sent back a pamphlet on the repair and maintenance of frame houses."
Quite short and fun to read. Hard to say more without spoiling.



This week's card: Ace of Diamonds. This one is part the Odd Bods deck from Art of Play. "When they first appeared in 2012 for the exclusive enjoyment of members of the prestigious Folio Society, the design world fell in love. Odd Bods were playful, charming, elegant, and above all else, a joy for the eyes."
This woman on the ace catches the whimsical spirit of Dick's story, but a scroll through the samples provided by Art of Play brings up the Ten of Spades, which better illustrates the story.



The Faithful Soldier, Prompted by Saladin Ahmed
Much of the pleasure of the Deal Me In short story challenge is discovering what others are reading. I read this story because of a brief review by participant Katherine at The Writerly Reader.

February (first half) 2016 Reads

Oh boy! Seventeen books in fourteen days? Not exactly--some were holdovers from last month and a couple were not very long. Also it's been less than ideal weather for going out. Brrr. And today my internet/tv/phone was out for twelve hours. So reading was the way to spend the day.

Still it was a lot of reading, most of it excellent or very good. Three were so-so, one was pretty much a dud, and one went back to the library unread.

Finished the Hašek (a holdover from January),  made some progress on The Art of Flight by Sergio Pitol, and dipped in my "owned but unread" pile for five (it didn't make much of a dent as I rec'd five more books in the mail). Also read some good new books from the library (but sent The Portable Vleban back without finishing--just not my cuppa).



The Good Soldier Švejk; Hašek, Jaroslav; Cecil Parrot (Translator), Josef Lada (Illustrations)
The absurdities of the military during wartime. A thoroughly satisfying read. The book that inspired Joseph Heller's Catch-22
Library Book

Cover art: Josef Lada




The Vegetarian; Kang, Han; Deborah Smith (Translator)
Frighteningly beautiful. A young woman's descent into madness as viewed by her husband, her brother-in-law, and her sister. I'm glad it is only 188 pages because I had a hard time putting it down. Library book

Jacket design: Christopher Brand
Jacket photo: 100 / Moment/ Getty Images

Unspeakable Things; Spivack, Kathleen
Spivack dares to speak about the terrible things people do to one another. The telling is sometimes poetic, sometimes mythic, and often uncomfortably graphic and realistic. Hard material but well worth reading. Library book.







The Swans of Fifth Avenue; Benjamin, Melanie
Gossipy, bitchy, delightful fictional account of Truman Capote, Babe Paley, and their crowd. Library book.

Jacket design: Belina Huey
Jacket photo: Lillian Bassman, 1956







The Pets; Ólafsson, Bragi; Janice Balfour (Translator)
Very funny tale about a man sort of trapped under his own bed whilst an odd group of friends, acquaintances  and strangers have a sort of party in his flat. My copy.

Cover design: Milan Bozic


 
The Age of Doubt (Commissario Montalbano #14); Camilleri, Andrea; Stephen Sartarelli (Translator)
Camilleri is fun to read. Interesting plots, limited violence, a touch of romance, and food! My, my Inspector Montalbano eats well. He also manages to tell white lies in awkward situations--reminds me of the Judi Dench role in the Britcom As Time Goes By. My own copy, picked up at a library friends' sale.

Cover design: Paul Buckley Interesting Q & A with Paul Buckley, Penguin US  at The Casual Optimist
Cover illustration: Andy Bridge





New Islands And Other Stories; Bombal, María Luisa; Richard and Lucia Cunningham (Translators)
Five short stories about women. Magical realism. My copy.






 

Baboon; Aidt, Naja Marie; Denise Newman (Translation)
Strange (but good) short stories. Most start out as normal vignettes of everyday life--but then things happen. My copy.

Cover design: Gabriele Wilson

A Meal in Winter; Mingarelli, Hubert; Sam Taylor (Translator)
Three German soldiers face a war time choice. A difficult, disturbing tale told in simple, direct language. My copy.










Dreams of Dreams and the Last Three Days of Fernando Pessoa ; Tabucchi, Antonio;  Nancy J. Peters (Translator)
My reading of  The Art of Flight by Sergio Pitol led me to Tabucchi. Pitol discusses a different Tabucchi book (Pereira Declares) but I decided to start with this one. It's delightful! Tabucchi creates dreams for twenty great minds (writers, artists, etc.).  Highly recommended.

Cover design: Rex Ray






35 Sonnets; Pessoa, Fernando 
Written in English, self-published by Pessoa in 1918.
In the Shakespearean style. Worth reading & studying. Read on Project Gutenberg.



 


Pereira Declares: A Testimony; Tabucchi, Antonio; Patrick Creagh (Translator)
Politics in Salazar's Portugal. Library book.










Ginny Gall; Smith, Charlie
Growing up black in Jim Crow America.  Lovely, poetic writing. Makes me want to read more by this author. Library book.








Also read:

Where My Heart Used to Beat; Faulks, Sebastian
Kinda boring with some brilliant passages. Middle age Englishman remembering his career, his war, his life...When I can set a book aside in the middle of a sentence to go get a snack, the book isn't holding my interest. Library book.

Identity (Fina Ludlow #2); Thoft, Ingrid
Fina is a private detective working for her father's law firm. The case she is working on involves a woman who wants to sue a sperm bank to learn the identity of donor who is father to her seventeen year old daughter. There are lots of complications. The basic story is good, but at times it moves a little slowly. I didn't read the first Fina book, and I probably won't read the next. Advance Review Copy.

Slave and Sister; Waldfogel, Sabra
Jewish plantation owners and their slaves in Georgia. Interesting premise, characters and situations. Drags a bit in the middle. Wavered between two and three Goodreads stars, finally gave it three. My copy from blog win.

One More Day; Simmons, Kelly
I jumped all over the place--skipping sections, reading the end after I'd read about a third of the book, annoyed because of the paranormal elements, the teases about secrets, the uneven pace, etc. I think I actually read the whole thing. Generous with my stars (two).  Library book.

August 2015 Reading

Some really good fiction this month

It's hard to say which is best, they are all so different. Do they have anything in common? Yes: Family relationships. 

Killing Auntie; Bursa, Andrzej; Wiesiek Powaga (Translation)
Restless Polish student relates (unreliably) the the dark tale of killing his aunt and the difficulties of disposing of the body.
Personal copy.

Confession of the Lioness; Couto, Mia; David Brookshaw (Translation)
This reads a bit like mythology, but told from from two points of view: a man and a woman. He is a hunter hired to kill the lions that are terrorizing a village in Mozambique; she is a village girl who is a potential victim of the lions, but much more a victim of a society that marginalizes women. A haunting allegory. 
Library book.

The Indian; Gnarr, Jón;  Lytton Smith (Translation)

Childhood memoir of Icelandic actor, comedian, and politician (mayor of Reykjavik).

Personal copy. 

If I Fall, If I Die; Christie, Michael

A young boy tries to break free of restraints imposed on him by his agoraphobic, over protective mother. Set in Thunder Bay, Ontario.

Free advance review copy from the publisher.

The Marriage of Opposites; Hoffman, Alice

Love and family intrigue among the 19th Century Jewish population on the island of St. Thomas. The story of the family of French impressionist painter Camille Pissarro.

Library book.

No. 4 Imperial Lane: A Novel; Weisman, Jonathan

An American student in England takes a job helping with the care of an elderly paraplegic. The patient's sister tells the story of her life as a Portuguese doctor's wife in colonial Africa.

Library book. 

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 Good, but not as good as the ones above

The House of Hawthorne; Robuck, Erika

A novel, told in the first person, about Sophia Peabody Hawthorne and her marriage to Nathaniel Hawthorne.  It crosses the fine line between romantic and sentimental and at times the pair seems a bit sappy. Sophie suffered from migraine, so do I and I sometimes have a difficult time reading about it. It is presented realistically here and made me empathetic toward Sophie.

Library book.

Under the Persimmon Tree; Staples, Suzanne Fisher

Dual stories of a young Afghani refugee (from the Taliban) girl and the American wife of an Afghani doctor, set in Peshawar, Pakistan. Interesting, especially the perspective of the American who is a convert to Islam.
Personal copy.

Circling the Sun; McLain, Paula
This is a novelized biography or, rather, autobiography of the early life of aviatrix Beryl Markham. A rather sanitized version as can be expected in first person narratives. The voice is non-judgmental, she just tells it and doesn't often question her own morals. Probably pretty true to the way she saw herself.
Library book.

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Some short stories

 
In Another Country: Selected Stories; Constantine, David
Incredibly beautiful writing. Wish I owned this. It may be one of those rare occasions when I buy a book I've already read.
Library book.


Moments of an Explosion: Stories; Miéville, China
A mixed bag--I really liked some of these, bit some were a bit too weird for my taste.  
Library book.

The State We're In: Maine Stories; Beattie, Ann
I was a little disappointed at first, bit then the characters started reappearing and I really got into it. These must be read in order.
Library book. 

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 Some non-fiction

King John and The Road to Magna Carta; Morris, Marc
Not much here that I didn't already know, but well told. Sort of a refresher course for me.
Library book.