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 

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 half) 2016 Reads

July reading got off to a fine start with two great books with strong women as central characters. Then a fun Mexican novel, the Jazz age in New York City, and a monumental epic of Canada and forestry. Then some ex-pat writers. Anthony Doerr, temporarily in Rome, tells a nice story of fatherhood and personal/literary growth. The story of Ernest H & crowd in Paris is not so nice but Blume tells it well.

If it seems that I haven't read at my usual pace this month, consider that the Annie Proulx novel is over 700 pages. 

A General Theory of Oblivion by José Eduardo Agualusa, Daniel Hahn (Translation)
One of the best books I've read this year. Portuguese woman shuts herself up in an apartment in Luanda during Angola unrest. Library book.

Elemental by Amanda Curtin
A strong saga of a Shetland Island fisher girl who emigrates to Australia told in the form of notebooks  addressed to her granddaughter. (1891-1932, with final chapters set in 2011). My copy.

I'll Sell You a Dog by Juan Pablo Villalobos, Rosalind Harvey (Translation)
I may never eat tacos in Mexico again. Very funny satire. My copy

A Certain Age by Beatriz Williams
Roaring twenties, NYC. I've read a couple of other books by Williams. This one didn't appeal to me as much as the others. An OK read. My copy, free ARC from publisher.

Barkskins by Annie Proulx
I liked it ...but. Too many throwaway characters and too much description of the tools of logging. Hard to tell just what was important. Library Book.

Some Non-fiction 

Everybody Behaves Badly: The True Story Behind Hemingway’s Masterpiece The Sun Also Rises
by Lesley M.M. Blume
Much to my surprise (because I'm not a fan of Hemingway) I really liked this. Library Book 

Four Seasons in Rome: On Twins, Insomnia, and the Biggest Funeral in the History of the World by Anthony Doerr
Good writing. A nice taste of the expat experience (and everyone behaves reasonably well).  Library Book

Pitol readings

 Some things I read because I read The Art of Flight by Sergio Pitol (George Henson, Translation), with a few notes. Most of these are also listed in my monthly reading log with comments.

The Court of Charles IV: A Romance of the Escorial; Pérez Galdós, Benito; Clara Bell (translation)
Read online at the Internet Archive  

 p.13, p.43 I was surprised to find the term "greenroom" in relation to the theater. I wondered when the term was first used. Found some info online. around 1600 or earlier..
 p. 105- Luciano Francisco Comella (1751–1812) was a Spanish playwright. Author of more than two hundred plays, he was one of the most prolific dramatists of the late eighteenth century. 
   Joaquina Comella: Spanish writer who lived in the last years of the 18th century and, perhaps, in the early 19th. Daughter of the famous playwright was the Luciano Francisco Comella, It is believed that...Joaquina - of which there are hardly any us biographical data - could collaborate with him in the writing of some of his works. http://thebiography.us/en/comella-joaquina 
  Manuel Godoy y Álvarez de Faria (May 12, 1767 – October 4, 1851), was Prime Minister of Spain from 1792 to 1797 and from 1801 to 1808. He received many titles including "Prince of the Peace" (Príncipe de la Paz) by which he is widely known.

The Maidens' Consent (Spanish: El sí de las niñas) is a play by the Spanish playwright Leandro Fernández de Moratín. It was written in 1801 and first performed in 1806. The play is a satirical commentary on Spanish social norms of the time and has since become part of the repertoire
The Young Lady's Consent
Author: Christopher O. Kidder
Publication: University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations
  This translation is the only one I could find. It has problems, but at least it gave me an idea of what Pitol and Galdós are talking about. 

The Good Soldier Švejk by Jaroslav Hašek
 While I was reading this I saw some pre-pub information for The Yid: A Novel  by Paul Goldberg which is recommended for people who like Catch-22  (that's me) which was inspired in part by Švejk. So I put in a request for the Goldberg book.

Dreams of Dreams and the Last Three Days of Fernando Pessoa ; Tabucchi, Antonio;  Nancy J. Peters (Translator) Pitol led me to Tabucchi. I checked the local library catalog and found three Tabucchi books. I decided to start with this one. It's delightful! Tabucchi creates dreams for twenty great minds (writers, artists, etc.).  
Pereira Declares: A Testimony; Tabucchi, Antonio; Patrick Creagh (Translator)
Set in Salazar's Portugal. Pereira unintentionally gets mixed up in some radical politics.
Letter from Casablanca  (more Tabucchi)  
Some short stories (translated by Janice M. Thresher). I really liked these and wish I owned this book--they call out for re-reading.

  Tabucchi inspired me to read some Pessoa (I read The Book of Disquiet some years ago)  I found this on Project Gutenberg:

  35 Sonnets; Pessoa, Fernando read online at Project Gutenberg
  The first sonnet concludes with the lines which fit nicely with Tabucchi's Dreams of Dreams:
      We are our dreams of ourselves, souls by gleams,
      And each to each other dreams of others' dreams.

 Can't wait to continue my Pitol reading with The Journey.

February 2015 Reads (week 2)

Skylight by José Saramago. translated by Margaret Jull Costa
Library book. An amazing first novel.

The Museum of Abandoned Secrets by Oksana Zabuzhko, Nina Shevchuk-Murray (Translator)
This is a huge, sweeping novel told in  straight narrative, dreams, and flashbacks. It is long (750 pages) and intense. It took me three month to read it. The amazing thing was that although it is complicated and covers a vast swath of Ukrainian history and contemporary politics, I never got lost in the many times I put it aside. Every time I picked it up I knew exactly where I had left off, even when I had set it aside for more than a week and read 4 or 5 other books in the interim. 

An amazing, rewarding, and essential read.

  
Frog by Mo Yan, Howard Goldblatt (Translation)
Free ARC from publisher through Goodreads First Reads program.
I liked this novel about a Chinese midwife who is caught up in China's population control policies. Gugu not only delivers babies, she must provide birth control information, insert IUDs, and perform abortions. The major part of the novel is told by her grand-nephew in a series of long letters. The final portion is a play based on Gugu's life. I found the play section tedious and really a slog to read.

Although the subject matter is serious and the characters struggle with difficult moral choices and tragedies, there is a warmth, humor, and sympathy in the narration. Definitely worth reading.

Online
The Wolf of Bordeaux  by Richard Lange a short story set in a French prison in 1899. Published online in The Summerset Review and included in his Sweet Nothing: Stories published this week by
Mulholland Books. Lange has links to two more of the stories on his website.

February 2015 Reads (week 1)

Bed Rest. Four days bed rest. I hate to admit it but I seem to be getting too old to shovel snow. So, gee, what do you do if you have to spend four days in bed, resting and getting waited on?

Reading, you say, Reading! you shout.

I did read, but it was sort of restless reading. I made some progress with The Museum of Abandoned Secrets by Oksana Zabuzhko--I'm now at 89 percent and, according to Kindle I have about an hour left. I also read a few more stories in Years of Red Dust, and a couple more in Pepperpot: Best New Stories from the Caribbean (a Christmas gift from my housemate/daughter).

Speaking of housemate/daughter, she did a library run between snowstorms. She was returning books for us both and getting books for herself. I didn't have any requests but, as frequently happens when she is browsing, something caught her eye that she thought I would like: Skylight by Saramago. It will have to go to the top of the pile because it's a 7-day, no renewal loan.

She also made several trips to the mailbox but that's another whole stack of books. In one of my sprier moments I went to the back door and there was a UPS package leaning against the stoop. "Stoop" was not in my orthopedic abilities, so I had to call for assistance. She rescued the package (an ARC) and sent me back to bed. So much for spry.
Light this week on the web surfing, it's a bit difficult with the sore back.


Finished this week:

A Paris Apartment by Michelle Gable
Read for French Bingo My Review

Vanessa and Her Sister by Priya Parmar
ARC from publisher via Goodreads First Reads program.
Where to begin? I loved this book, but why? 

 
The Love Book by Nina Solomon, Kaylie Jones (Editor)
ARC from publisher via LibraryThing Early Reviewers program
Just what I needed for this week of restless reading: High quality chick women's lit.
 
Bed rest is working. I can now stand from a seated position without the aid of a cane, I can stoop an pick up a book that has fallen to the floor,  and I can make my own lunch. I am in bed but because I want to be, not because I have to be.

Reading Saramago. Putting off reviews for another day or so because it's still uncomfortable to spend a lot of time with laptop.