March 2021

Now that I'm fully vaccinated I've resumed some activities but I'm still sticking to essentials. Next month I'll have a dental check-up and resume my mahjong games. Also can do more as my housemate will also be vaccinated. I read plenty this week--lots of library books plus one off my "owned-but-unread" shelves. Once again I think I added more to the latter than I read...

Activities:

3/1   Library to pick up holds and browse! Yes, I went inside but only for about 5 minutes. 

3/4   Library (book drop only); JC Farms: Lyman Orchards 

3/10 Lab Work

3/11 CVS Cromwell

3/12 Eye Dr 

3/15 DR; Library; gas

3/16 Tree removal. I didn't leave home for this (other than moving the cars to neighbor's driveway) but I did have to interact with tree guy who was probably not vaccinated.

3/24  Library pick up & browse; Durham Dari-serv

3/24  Took E to Uconn (Munson) for 1st dose vaccine; Neil's Donuts

Reading:

 

Fiction (roughly in the order I liked them but The Rib King was the only real disappointment among the fiction):

Dear Child by Hausmann, Romy; translated from the German by Bulloch, Jamie
Lost Girls: Short Stories by Morris, Ellen Birkett 

 A fine collection.

Elemental International short stories by various authors and translators (my copy)
The Caretaker by Arbus, Doon
Indelicacy by Cain, Amina

Mona and Other Tales by Arenas, Reinaldo; translated from the Spanish bt Koch, Dolores M.
The Bass Rock by Wyld, Evie
Inheritance from Mother by Mizumura, Minae; translated from the Japanese by Carpenter, Juliet Winters
The Glorious Ones by Prose, Francine 

Archipelago by Roffey, Monique

The Last Garden in England by Kelly, Julia
The Rib King by Hubbard, Ladee

  Started out fine but bogged down...I admit to a bit of skimming...

 

Nonfiction (three good, one meh, and a bomb):

Finding Dora Maar: An Artist, an Address Book, a Life by Benkemoun, Brigitte; translated from the French by Gladding, Jody
The Chiffon Trenches by Talley, André Leon
A Most Beautiful Thing: The True Story of America's First All-Black High School Rowing Team by Cooper, Arshay

The Next Great Migration: The Beauty and Terror of Life on the Move by Shah, Sonia 

  this was kind of disjointed and, not exactly to the point (of the title), wish I hadn't bothered..

Leave Only Footprints: My Acadia-to-Zion Journey Through Every National Park by Knighton, Conor 

  Too much "I" more a memoir than a travelogue, he tried to give a thematic presentation but ended up just wandering. His skipping all over the place made me want to do the same with his book.  Didn't make me want to visit any park I haven't already visited (and some that I have visited were barely recognizable). 

 

Online:

 I somehow stumbled onto to the site Olive Oil Times which has a lot of good stuff of interest to the industry and the consumer, see:  Remains of 2,500-Year-Old Mill Discovered in Italy  and Volunteers in Italy and Spain to Track Spittlebug Activity both by Paolo DeAndreis. In addition to news there are producer profiles, health info, and a bunch of recipes.

 

Paolo DeAndreis

Paolo DeAndreis

The Mystery of New England's Gray Corned Beef  by Anne Ewbank

 I was wondering about this as we ate our boxed take-out St Pat's dinner.

Yaupon: The rebirth of America's forgotten tea by Matt Stirn

 Humm..wonder is this stuff will grow in Connecticut...according to the USDA apparently not...see  Plant Guide: Yaupon and Plants profile: Ilex vomitoria Aiton yaupon and Willis Orchard Company: Yaupon Holly Tree

 

Iceburger No, not some crazy frozen dessert. This is an oddly compelling site that lets you create an iceberg an see how it floats. 

How Cats Walk In case you were wondering...

10 Incredible Women of Route 66 by Candacy Taylor (Moon Travel Guides). Interesting sidelights for a road-trip. A couple of the links are broken but easily found by Googling. The hotel in Winslow, AZ is where I want to stay if I ever go to the area again. (We stayed at a Holiday Inn in Williams on our cross country trip in 2001.)

Evolution of the House Plan in Europe: from the Industrial Revolution to the Interwar Period

 by Hana Abdel & Christele Harrouk

January 2021

Another month of quarantine but maybe there's a little light coming--I got my first (of two) jab of the Pfizer  Covid vaccine. So here is the total of my outside contacts. Not impressive. 

Errands  etc.

1/2 Library to pick up holds.

1/8 Library returns; Lyman Orchards for produce & bread. 

1/12 ditto of 1/8

1/21 cvs

1/21-??? phone problem

1/25 covid vaccine dose 1

1/26 land phone repair (a stranger had to enter our house!)

Most of the  reading this month was good. A mixed bunch. Five from my shelves (first group), two Advance review copies (second group), and eleven from public libraries (third group plus the nonfiction). Of the fiction, Polar Vortex was the only one I didn't like at all. The Smiley, Moore, and Osman books were fun light reading. I needed that!

 

In nonfiction, The Dan Rather book was the weakest. I just didn't learn anything from it at all, certainly not what the title suggests.

 

Finally, I spent a lot more of my online time reading stuff other than the news. Still, it was such a pleasure to see competence that I became addicted to White House Press Briefings on CSPN.

 

Fiction
The Regal Lemon Tree by Saer, Juan José
That We May Live by Si'an, Chen and others, various translators (Short Chinese speculative fiction.)
Joseph Walser's Machine by Tavares, Gonçalo M.
Harmada by Noll, João Gilberto
Life Went On Anyway: Stories by Sentsov, Oleg

 

Here Lies a Father by Cassidy, Mckenzie (ARC via LibraryThing. Coming of age--surprised I liked it.)

Polar Vortex by Mootoo, Shani (ARC via LibraryThing. I didn't like it at all.)

Perestroika in Paris by Smiley, Jane
Facing the Bridge by Tawada, Yōko
Igifu by Mukasonga, Scholastique
Missing Person by Modiano, Patrick
The Gift of Rain by Tan Twan Eng
Hamnet by O'Farrell, Maggie
Shakespeare for Squirrels by Moore, Christopher
The Thursday Murder Club by Osman, Richard

Nonfiction

Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs by Townsend, Camilla
City Squares: Eighteen Writers on the Spirit and Significance of Squares Around the World edited by Marron, Catie
What Unites Us: Reflections on Patriotism by Rather, Dan
      

Online

Gamey Meat: Here’s the Deal by Hank Shaw

Shaw's blog -- Hunter-Angler-Gardner-Cook -- is always a good read even if one isn't into game meat, foraging, etc. 

 

The History of Esculent Fish By Roger North. 

Includes descriptions of several edible fish and an essay on the breeding of fish and construction of fishponds. There are notes on what the fish eat, where to find them and how to catch them, but nothing about preparation and cooking. The plates, drawn and engraved by Eleazar Albin are what made me want to keep going back to this. Here is his Haddock:

The Smoky Valley  by Birger Sandzén

 I found this on Gutenberg and it was a nice introduction to an artist I'd never heard of. However the works are all in black and white so it was nice to find a resource that has them in color.

Birger Sandzén Memorial Gallery 

December 2020

Activities - only one out of the house trip: 12/1 lab for blood work & on the way home stopped by Mazzicota's for pastry treat.

No real duds on the reading but Piranesi really stands out as the best of the fiction. Of the nonfiction, I was surprised at how much I liked the one on E. E. Cummings.

Fiction:

Piranesi by Clarke, Susanna
Pew by Lacey, Catherine
Miss Benson's Beetle by Joyce, Rachel
Down the Rabbit Hole by Villalobos, Juan Pablo
Butter Honey Pig Bread by Ekwuyasi, Francesca
Tyll by Kehlmann, Daniel
All the Truth That's in Me by Berry, Julie
The Secret of Lost Things by Hay, Sheridan
The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng
The Hour of the Star by Lispector, Clarice
The Wonder Garden by Acampora, Lauren

Poetry:
Every Day We Get More Illegal by Herrera, Juan Felipe
    
Nonfiction: 

The Beauty of Living: E. E. Cummings in the Great War by Rosenblitt, J. Alison

The Hidden White House: Harry Truman and the Reconstruction of America’s Most Famous Residence by Klara, Robert 

The Path to Power by Caro, Robert A.
Metropolis: A History of the City, Humankind's Greatest Invention by Wilson, Ben
Women in the Kitchen: Twelve Essential Cookbook Writers Who Defined the Way We Eat, from 1661 to Today by Willan, Anne 

Paper Bullets: Two Artists Who Risked Their Lives to Defy the Nazis by Jackson, Jeffrey H.
The 99% Invisible City: A Field Guide to the Hidden World of Everyday Design by Mars, Roman

 

Online:

Two with great illustrations from Gutenberg:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Christmas tales of Flanders Author: André de Ridder; Illustrator: M. C. O. Morris; Illustrator: Jean de Bosschere

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Paris pair; Their day's doings by Beatrice Bradshaw Brown 

 

 

 

 

 

Some local history:

Dams of Middletown, Connecticut: Past and Present

The day the Crystal Lake dam breached by Joraen Fenster

  This was before I lived in the affected area.

Some bookish things:

A Conversation with Patrick Modiano

  A brief interview focusing on the novel Invisable Ink (Yale; 2020) 

Mining the Dalkey Archive 

This is a new project of Chad W. Post whose states this purpose: "As a friend, former employee, and current editorial curator, I’m going to use this newsletter to explore Dalkey Archive Press: its history as a nonprofit press, its role in upending ideas about literature and the marketplace, and its ongoing impact on literary culture. Interviews, excerpts, investigations, anecdotes, analysis—this newsletter will go in a number of different directions, with each “episode” organized around a specific idea or set of books."

June 2020

 Books in the Time of Quarantine

Durham, Connecticut, June 2020

Even though the state is slowly reopening I continue, because of my age, to self quarantine. It's been warm and humid so I haven't been getting much exercise. Outings have been limited in June. Two for library curbside pickup which I combined with a trip to a farm market. Another was also a produce run combined with a stop at a fish market. Then, on the most comfortable day weather wise, we had a picnic!

Reading:

Lots of good books this month...

On Lighthouses by Barrera, Jazmina; translated from the Spanish by MacSweeney, Christina - 3 stars
I enjoyed these essays but this didn't give me much that was new to me.

Gathering of Waters by McFadden, Bernice L. - 4 stars
I liked this a lot but not as much as her The Book of Harlan which I read in 2016. I think when interlibrary loan opens up I'll be reading more of her work. I also enjoy following her tweets. 

b, Book, and Me by Kim Sagwa; translated from the Korean by Sunhee Jeong  - 4+ stars
A kind of  "almost coming of age story." It's worth a re-read.

Big Machine by LaValle, Victor - 5 stars
The Craft Is All the Same: A Conversation with Victor LaValle; Ayize Jama-Everett interviews Victor LaValle. Another author to add to my list of writers to read.

Conjure Women by Atakora, Afia - 5 stars
A Conversation with Afia Atakora, Author of Conjure Women

Auntie Poldi and the Sicilian Lions (Auntie Poldi #1) by Giordano, Mario; translated from the German  by Brownjohn, John - 4 stars
Fun, but not sure about following the series...

Sharks in the Time of Saviors by Washburn, Kawai Strong - 5 stars
How Kawai Strong Washburn Opened Up the Legends of Hawaii for Mainlanders author interview with Anderson Tepper (Vanity Fair)

The Man in the Red Coat by Barnes, Julian - 4 stars
Dr Samuel Jean Pozzi was the man in the portrait but this gossipy book is about so much more...

Berkeley Noir edited by Thompson, Jerry -  4 stars
One of the better anthologies in the Akashic Noir series.

Seven Samurai Swept Away in a River by Jung, Young-moon: translated from the Korean by Jung Yewon  - 4 stars
Korean writer Texas culture.

Online: 

Rayuela by Hugo Passarello Luna
"This is a series of portraits, taken in Paris, of friends and readers of Argentine writer Julio Cortázar to celebrate the 100th anniversary of his birth.

Depicting Writing
This was a double treat: a fine, nicely illustrated essay AND my discovery of The Crews Project! Thanks to The Literary Saloon (29 June 2020 blog) for leading me there.

Whonamedit? - A dictionary of medical eponyms
I found this when I was looking for more information about Dr. Pozzi. (See The Man in the Red Coat in my reading list above.)

New World Writing
I'm finding lots to like at this lit magazine.

Transformations
A new online site featuring narrative essays.

Breaching the Levee of Rage
A moving piece on taking a knee at a peaceful George Floyd protest/vigil. By David Abrams.

Joie de Vivre in Joyce's Garden
Another private garden tour by Jana Milbocker. This one, in Natick Massachusetts, is especially colorful.

Providence Pedestrian Bridge
A place I want to visit when I'm ready to expand my circle of comfort...

Collecting Guide: Wayne Thiebaud
Thiebaud turns 100 in November! That calls for cake and ice cream!

Cake Rows (1962)

 

Three Cones (1964)

May 2020 Reads

Still in "Stay Safe at Home" mode. Read nine books four of which I found engrossing, three were pleasant enough to distract me from the news, and two fall into the "boring but I sort of finished them" category (there was much skimming involved).

Other than the five walks listed below, I left the house only for a curbside pickup of a produce box.

Reading
Fiction:

5 stars
The Dreamed Part (Trilogía las partes #2) by Fresán, Rodrigo; translated from the Spanish by Will Vanderhyden (Read along with Season 11 of the Two Month Review)
Spiritual Choreographies by Labbé, Carlos; translated from the Spanish by Will Vanderhyden
 The author is also a musician and composer. He has created a playlist for this novel on Spotify

4 stars
Night School: A Reader for Grownups by Bán, Zsófia; afterword by Péter Nádas; translated from the Hungarian by Jim Tucker

3+ stars 
The Better Liar by Jones, Tanen

3 stars
Redhead by the Side of the Road by Tyler, Anne
 Anne Tyler: “I am a seat-of-the-pants reader”  author is interviewed by  Leo Robson
The Sun Down Motel by St. James, Simone

2 (generous) stars
Simon the Fiddler by Jiles, Paulette
New Waves by Nguyen, Kevin

Nonfiction:
4+ stars
Hell and Other Destinations: A 21st-Century Memoir by Albright, Madeleine K.

Online stuff:

A fun Basketball Shot on Twitter

A lovely Massachusetts garden Boulderwoods: A Celebration of Rhododendrons

Readings from all 15 finalists for the 2020 Best Translated Book Awards! BTBA 2020 Readings
  (This was originally done on Zoom and was my first time using the Zoom App.)


Socially Distanced Out-of-the-House Exercise:
5/2 walked 2.7  miles (neighborhood)
5/5 walked 1.5 miles (Crystal Lake)
5/11 walked 1.2 miles (River Highlands)
5/13 walked 1 mile (Haddam Meadows)
5/19 walked 1 mile (Long Hill Estate) 

July 2019 Reading

All good reading for July, with one exception.   

Fiction (in no particular order within the star ratings)

5 stars: 
If Beale Street Could Talk by Baldwin, James (public library)
War, So Much War by Rodoreda, Mercè; translated from the Catalan by Maruxa Relaño and MarthaTennent (my collection)
Hollow Kingdom by Buxton, Kira Jane (Advance Review Copy, Shelf Awareness)
Eight Stories: Tales of War and Loss by Remarque, Erich Maria (translators unidentified) (my collection)
The Most Fun We Ever Had by Lombardo, Claire (public library)
The Imagined Land by Berti, Eduardo; translated from the Spanish by Charlotte Coombe (my collection)
Solovyov and Larionov by Vodolazkin, Eugene; translated from the Russian by Evgenij Vodolazkin and Lisa Hayden (advance review copy, LibraryThing

4 stars:
L'Amour by Duras, Marguerite; translated from the French by Kazim Ali and Libby Murphy (my collection)
The City Where We Once Lived by Barnes, Eric (public library)
The Vagrants by Li, Yiyun (my collection)
San Diego Noir edited by Hart, Maryelizabeth (my collection)

3 stars:
The Beekeeper of Aleppo by Lefteri, Christy (Advance Review Copy, Shelf Awareness)
The Quest by Baroja, Pío; translated from the Spanish by Isaac Goldberg (my collection - Amazon freebie)
Smoking Kills by Laurain, Antoine; translated from the French by Louise Lalaurie Rogers(blog win)
The Evenings: A Winter's Tale by Reve, Gerard; translated from the Dutch by Sam Garrett (public library)

1 star
The Skin Is the Elastic Covering That Encases the Entire Body by Rasmussen, Bjørn; translated from the Danish by Martin Aiken
I did actually finish this but did not like it. Yes it was poetic, well written, etc. Best I can say about it is that it is short. (from my collection but I'm not keeping it!)

Nonfiction
 
5 stars:
The Man Between: The Life and Legacy of Michael Henry Heim by Heim, Michael Henry (and others) (my collection)

3 stars:
Memoirs of Gluckel of Hameln by Glückel von Hameln; translated from the German by Marvin Lowenthal (my collection)
On the Clock: What Low-Wage Work Did to Me and How It Drives America Insane by Guendelsberger, Emily (public library)
Fire and Ice by Mingle, Jonathan (Advance Review Copy--from ages ago)
Rough Magic: Riding the World's Loneliest Horse Race by Prior-Palmer, Lara (public library)
 

June 2019 Reading

An enjoyable bunch of books this month, only a couple I didn't much like. Only online reading was the Ibsen play.

Fiction 
Exposed; Blondel, Jean-Philippe; translated from the French by Anderson, Alison *****
City of Jasmine; Grjasnowa, Olga; translated from the German by Derbyshire, Katy***** (advance review copy through LibraryThing)
77; Saccomanno, Guillermo: translated from the Spanish by Labinger, Andrea G. *****

A Brightness Long Ago; Kay, Guy Gavriel ****
The Porpoise; Haddon, Mark ****

Lifelines; Diehl, Heidi **** (advance review copy through Goodreads)

Southernmost; House, Silas ***
The Spies of Shilling Lane; Ryan, Jennifer ***
The Electric Hotel; Smith, Dominic ***
All the Ever Afters: The Untold Story of Cinderella’s Stepmother; Teller, Danielle ***

Mistress of the Ritz; Benjamin, Melanie **

Short Stories
The Penguin Book of Japanese Short Stories; Rubin, Jay, editor*****

Orange World and Other Stories; Russell, Karen *

Play
The Lady from the Sea; Ibsen, Henrik ****  (on Project Gutenberg)


Nonfiction
Madame Fourcade's Secret War: The Daring Young Woman Who Led France's Largest Spy Network Against Hitler; Olson, Lynne ****
1941: The Year Germany Lost the War; Nagorski, Andrew ****
A Foodie's Guide to Tuscany: Places, Flavours, Itineraries, Must Do for the Epicurian Explorer ; 20 Fabulous Recipes; Lepore, Gabriella **   (Kindle freebie)

Slowing Down

Doing some very slow reading recently because:

 1. Back in October I won a lovely book from the Columbia University Press Blog
The book is Remains of Life by Wu He, translated from Chinese by Michael Berry. I started it this week and it's a slow go for me partly because it concerns an incident in Taiwanese history and my knowledge of the topic is thin. Lots of Googling necessary. Adding to that is the format of the book. A stream of consciousness novel with no sentence, paragraph, nor chapter breaks. It is well punctuated with commas, semicolons, dashes, etc. so it actually reads rather smoothly. So smoothly that I didn't actually realize it was all one sentence until about page 45 when I started looking for a place to break, turn off the light, and go to sleep. I finally stopped at a semicolon and had no trouble at all when I picked it up again the next day.

2. The current selection for Chad Post's Two Month Review is Radiant  Terminus by Antoine Volodine, translated from French by Jeffery Zukerman. (Open Letter books) I read this last spring and I'm enjoying this review.

3. When I got the forthcoming notice for Sergio Pitol's Miphisto's Waltz from Deep Vellum I was sure that the moment it arrived I would pop it out of its package and start reading. But it arrived just after I started the Taiwan novel...but I want to read this soon!

4. I also started The Gray House by Mariam Petrosyan, Yuri Machkasov (Translator) at about the same time I started the Taiwan epic sentence. I figured I might read them concurrently. That's not happening.

Too much going on. I should make some progress today & tomorrow since its 5℉ (feels like -8) and there is a thin layer of snow/ice from yesterday's squall. Stay inside and read, read, read!

Online
For some breaks from all of the above there's always my daily shot from Bloglovin...which leads to some interesting reading:

Nice profile of one of three presses where I have a subscription (the other two are Open Letter and Deep Vellum)  Small Press Profile: Two Lines Press  by Liz Button

This one struck a chord taking me back to my ex-pat days...Grocery-store Nationalism

All Over the Map

Six books in the second fourteen days of the year. Excellent reading and mapping them was fun. Last year's World of Reading map has no markers in Africa and the 2019 map already has three!

All of these were from my "owned-but-unread" shelf. The last two on the list were Christmas presents. 🎁

Sydney Noir edited by John Dale
This is one of the Akashic Noir Series so there is a map showing the fourteen sections of Sydney where the crimes are committed. Review Copy through LibraryThing giveaway

Adua by Igiaba Scego; translated from the Italian by Jamie Richards
This story of a Somalian emigrant takes place in Rome with flashbacks set in Somalia and Ethiopia.
   
Gesell Dome by Guillermo Saccomanno; Translated from the Spanish by Andrea G. Labinger
Only one place in this one--a small, corrupt, Argentine resort town.
   
The Elusive Moth by Ingrid Winterbach; Translated from the Afrikaans by Iris Gouws
Set in the Free State Province of South Africa

🎁The Flying Mountain by Christoph Ransmayr; Translated from the German by Simon Pare
The author is Austrian, the story is set in Ireland and Tibet.
   
🎁The Sad Part Was by Prabda Yoon; Translated from the Thai by Mui Poopoksakul
Short stories set in modern Thailand.

Fourteen days, fourteen books?

I set my Goodreads goal at 200 books--the same as last year even though I didn't meet it last year. Today it shows that I have already read 14 books this year. That's a book a day, right? Uh, not quite. Three of these are ones I started before the year started; two of the nonfiction ones were highly pictorial; and one of the novels (by McGregor) was short with lots of white space.

All of this was good reading with the exception of the disappointing Italian food one (some of the pictures were good).


Short Stories:
The Future Is Not Ours: New Latin American Fiction by Diego Trelles Paz (Editor), Janet Hendrickson (Translator) I've been reading this anthology off and on for a couple of years.
Vertical Motion by Can Xue; Karen Gernant (Translator), Chen Zeping (Translator) I started this one in December 2018
Florida by Lauren Groff

Poetry:
Whipperginny by Robert Graves
New Hampshire--A Poem with Notes and Grace Notes by Robert Frost
Read both of these on Project Gutenberg

Fiction:
Anniversaries: From a Year in the Life of Gesine Cresspahl by Uwe Johnson; Damion Searls (translator)  This is over 1650 pages long--I started it in October 2018
She Would Be King by Wayetu Moore
Three Things About Elsie by Joanna Cannon
The Reservoir Tapes by Jon McGregor
Disoriental by Négar Djavadi; Tina Kover (Translator)
Bitter Orange by Claire Fuller

Nonfiction:
The Push: A Climber's Journey of Endurance, Risk, and Going Beyond Limits by Tommy Caldwell
Why did I read a book about rock climbing? Because it was reviewed on that curious wrapping paper I received a couple of weeks ago. (That wrapping paper may have been the last thing I read in 2018.)
Pasta, Pane, Vino: Deep Travels Through Italy's Food Culture by Matt Goulding
Actually this wasn't especially deep.
City Farmhouse Style: Designs for a Modern Country Life by Kim Leggett
I really enjoyed the pictures, but my farmhouse will never classify as a city one.

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.

July (fourth week) 2018 Reads

Hot and humid this week so only outings were to the Y, some food shopping, and a successful library trip.

Lots of reading "in progress" but only finished to short novels.

This week the "Deal Me In" card is the Three of Hearts; the selection is  Sleeping where Jean Seberg Slept by Katherine Karlin (in Watchlist: 32 Short Stories by Persons of Interest)

from the library...

Down the Rabbit Hole by Juan Pablo Villalobos; translated from the Spanish by Rosalind Harvey
Quesadillas by Juan Pablo Villalobos; translated from the Spanish by Rosalind Harvey

July (third week) 2018 Reads & Day Trips

Beautiful weather for outings this week.
Wednesday - Picnic & Swim - Chatfield Hollow State Park, Killingworth CT
  Followed by ice cream at HK Dairy Barn, 986 Killingworth Rd (Rt 81), Higganum, CT
Friday - Picnic - Indian Well State Park, Shelton, CT Sandwiches from See More Sandwich Shoppe, 130 New Haven Road (Rt 67), Seymour, Ct. 
 Ice cream later at Whittemore Ice Cream, 114 So. Main (Rt. 115), Seymour, Ct.
Saturday - Lunch and walk at Lavender Pond Farm, Killingworth, CT.

Also, a good reading week...
  but not for writing...
This week the "Deal Me In" card is the Ten of Hearts; the selection is Strava by Steven Hayward (in Watchlist: 32 Short Stories by Persons of Interest).

from the library...

A Book of Memories by Péter Nádas; translated from the Hungarian by Ivan Sanders and Imre Goldstein

The Hare by César Aira; translated from the Spanish by Nick Caistor


An Invisible Country by Stephan Wackwitz; translated from the German by Stephen Lehmann

from my shelves...
  
The Best of Adam Sharp by Graeme Simsion
Advance review copy. I choose not to review.

June (first week) 2018 Reads & Day Trips

We dined at a castle this week, sort of.  Sandwiches: watercress and prosciutto on ciabatta. Dessert: strawberry shortcake. Castle: Gillette Castle State Park
Our picnic site was near one of the ponds and we strolled around the area without  actually going in the castle (been there done that). It was a beautiful day and a nice drive home exploring back roads.





Another outing this week combined a trip to the Wallingford Public Library with a lunch stop at Kayumangi, a Filipino grocery store/restaurant in Wallingford.  (Link is to a sample page, don't know if will keep.) We had delicious stews served with rice and a excellent flan for dessert. We'll be back!






 Oh yes this is a reading blog so here is what I read...humm, Filipino food and Peruvian lit. What's next? Look for a local Peruvian eatery? Filipino writing? The books waiting for me on the holds shelf are Iranian, French, and British!

This week the "Deal Me In" card is the Three of Clubs; the selection is Muqtatafat : a comics anthology featuring artists from the Middle East region: Part one: English language. Manal and Alaa : a love story / by Lena Merhej -- Breath underwater / by Mike V. Derderian -- Anomaly / by Omar Khouri --Time travel / by Maya Zankoul --Liberty gone wild / by Nidal El Khairy --Filsteezy / by Mahdi Fleifel and Basel Nasr --Birdie mania / by Ghadi Ghosn -- Noûs somme / by Sandra Ghosn -- The genie of the throne / by Wassim Maouad

online...
Mourning My Birthplace: On Immigration, Family, and the Distance in Between “When you’ve spent your life apart from a loved one, what prepares you for not knowing how to mourn?” by Natalia Sylvester.  
The author was born in Lima, Peru and  came to the U.S. at age four. In this essay she tell about going to Peru join family at her dying grandfather's bedside.

from my shelves...

 
Ten Women by Marcela Serrano; translated from the Spanish by Beth Fowler (Kindle edition)
Very good linked stories of Peruvian women. Nine are clients of a psychologist. Their stories are first person narratives. The tenth woman is the therapist. Her story is told by her assistant.
 

May (first week) 2018 Reads

This week the "Deal Me In" card is the Jack of Clubs; the selection is On the Threshold, an excerpt from The Diaries of Emilio Renzi by Ricardo Piglia; translated from the Spanish by Robert Croll
Well, all these little bits made me add the source to my wish list.

"But he had realized he must start with the leftovers, with what had not been written, to move toward things that had not been recorded but persisted and twinkled in his memory like dying lights. Minuscule events that had mysteriously survived the nighttime of forgetting. They are visions, flashes sent from the past, images that endure, isolated, without frames, without context, cut loose, and we can’t forget them, right?"


from the library...

Sundays in August by Patrick Modiano; translated from the French by Damion Searls
Good, but I didn't like it as much as some of his other work. Maybe because it's set in Nice, not Paris?

The Little Stranger (Kindle Edition) by Sarah Waters
Set in England shortly after the end ow World War 2. Kind of a Gothic novel with mysterious things happening in a crumbling manor house. I kept at it, and was sort of rewarded in the end.

Quickening Fields by Pattiann Rogers
These fifty-three lyrical poems  made me reconsider the world around me with an altered vision.

 read online...


Jazz Owls: A Novel of the Zoot Suit Riots by Margarita Engle, Rudy Gutierrez (Illustrations)
A middle-grade poem about the Los Angeles Zoot Suit Riots (1943). Excellent.
Read free online at Rivited.

February (fourth week) 2018 Reads

I enjoyed all this week's reading, but am just not in the mood to write comments.

This week the "Deal Me In" card is the Eight of Spades and the story is The Gentleman from Cracow by Isaac Bashevis, Singer (in Singer Collected Stories I, Library of America) translated from the Yiddish by Martha Glicklich and Elaine Gottlich. 

from my shelves...

Because She Never Asked by Enrique Vila-Matas; translated from the Spanish by Valerie Miles

The Proof by César Aira: translated from the Spanish by Nick Caistor

Lullaby Road (Ben Jones #2)by James Anderson
Advance review copy through Goodreads.

February (third week) 2018 Reads

This week the "Deal Me In" card is the Queen of Spades and the story is G-text by Răzvan; translated from the Romanian by Alistair Ian Blythe. (in Best European fiction 2015). Growing up in Ceausescu 's Romania. There is some word play with the letter G--mostly with proper names.

some online things...

This Medieval Walled Town with a Storied History Shows How Traditional Urbanism Can Support High Density by Kaley Overstreet at Arch Daily
Saint-Malo--one of my favorite places.

Plagiarism software pins down new source for Shakespeare's plays
by Alison Flood at The Guardian

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird by Wallace Stevens 
A poem on The Art Divas, the blog of author Rabih Alameddine
(no longer available)

The Other Middle East
Franck Salameh, Associate professor of Near Eastern Studies at Boston College, discusses Arab language based identity on the Yale University Press blog, Yale Books Unbound.

from the library...

Enchantress of Numbers by Jennifer Chiaverini
Bio-fic of Ada Lovelace told in the first person. Interesting but a bit slow moving at times. I think I'd rather read a biography.

The House at the Edge of Night (Kindle Edition) by Catherine Banner
Family saga set on an island off the coast of Sicily. Covers three generations beginning a few years before World War1 and ending around 2008. Very good read.

from my shelves... 

The Underdogs by Mariano Azuela; translated from the Spanish by Enrique Munguía; Introduction by Ana Castillo
A novel of the Mexican Revolution.

January (third week) 2018 Reads

Only brief notes and no images on the blog this week. But I have been reading.
 
The  "Deal Me In"  card this week is the 4 of Diamonds. It brings a nice, old fashioned ghost story: The Shadows on the Wall (in The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural,  by Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman).
Freeman (1852-1930) was an American writer. She lived in Massachusetts and Vermont and wrote about New England life. Much of her work is available on Project Gutenberg and also on American Literature.com. 

from the library...

Karate Chop: Stories by Dorthe Nors; translated from the Danish by Martin Aitken 
Loved these stories.

The Makioka Sisters by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki: translated from the Japanese by Edward Seidensticker 
If Jane Austin had been Japanese....

Reservoir 13 by Jon McGregor 
A beautifully written book that doesn't go anywhere. 

from my shelves...

The Golden Cockerel & Other Writings by Juan Rulfo: translated from the Spanish by Douglas J. Weatherford