October (third week) 2017 Reads

It's time to begin a new slow read project: Introducing Mercè Rodoreda [Two Month Review]  by Chad W. Post. Actually, I've already read the Selected Stories but it's been a while and I look forward to reading them again and hearing the podcast discussions from Chad & Co.

Meanwhile this past week's reads....

Story: Learn to Love the One Who Eats Your Porridge by Kristīne Ulberge: translated from the Latvian by Margita Gailitis (pages 108-119 in Best European Fiction 2015)
A patient in a mental hospital tells her story.




Card: Ten of Spades. This seems to go with the story, which features a young girl and a crow. It also seems appropriate that it comes from an artist that calls herself  psychobitchua.
(She also identifies as Lena from Kiev, Ukraine who says,  "I’m a rare combination of a bad temper and a good sense of humor. And I like merging photoshop layers."






from my shelves...
Red Dust and Dancing Horses: And Other Stories by Beth Cato
Loved these si-fi/fantasy/steampunk/apocalyptic stories and poems. Cato is a good writer who made me like things I wasn't sure I would like: Steampunk horses? They were great! Toilet gnomes? What fun! There are even five "Culinary Magic" stories for foodies.
One of my favorites in this collection, Roots, Shallow and Deep, is set in Hanford, California during the same period as a novel I've been struggling with for a couple of months --The Octopus: A Story of California by Frank Norris.  The amazing cover is by Kuzuhiko Nakamura.
Free advance reader copy via Goodreads giveway.
 

Gray areas : a short story collection by Carmen Burcea-Haber (Kindle edition)
Stories with a twist--some predictable and some with delightful surprises. The title is perfect with the "gray area"being what is between right and wrong, moral and immoral, the ordinary and the macabre.

 Contents:  Belleview hotel -- Earth like chocolate -- Afternoon tea -- The camera -- Headaches -- Hedda the wise -- Here kitty -- Roberta -- Driving home -- Lilac in blossom -- Rainy evening -- The party -- Lydia -- Grand finale -- The island -- The cavern -- The dinner date -- The dress in the window -- Welcome to the neighborhood -- Mood swings -- The coastal trail.



 


Blood of the Dawn by Claudia Salazar Jiménez; translated from the Spanish by Elizabeth Bryer
This short novel about the lives of three women during the "time of fear" in  1980s  Peru was a very hard read both because of the subject matter and the rather disjointed style. Difficult but worth reading.





 


The Tell-Tale Heart by Jill Dawson  by Jill Dawson
The stories of a heart transplant recipient and his donor.  Set in The Fens near Ely, UK. An OK read divided into several parts that didn't quite fit together.







from the library...
 

The Red-Haired Woman by Orhan Pamuk; translated from the Turkish by Ekin Oklap
Another good one from one of my favorite authors.

April (second week) 2017 Reads

This week I retried an author I didn't like when I was in school. Then I followed a link to a fun short story,  found a new online magazine and a couple of other online goodies,  went to the library (oops, shouldn't have done that), read a novel and a book of short fiction, and did some brain teasers....

 “Deal Me In 2017!”

The Story: In the Forests of the North (in Children of the Frost by Jack London)
I put this on my roster because I hadn't read anything by Jack London since a required reading in junior high school. Back then I hated London, but I thought it was time to give him another chance. I still don't like him.

The Card: Six of Diamonds: This card found at a stock photo site, 123RF, has nothing to do with the story I read except that it illustrates how I felt when I finished the story. Grrrr!




Here's a story I did like...

online...
“Bluebeard’s Wife”  a short story by T. Kingfisher
Found through Deal Me In participant Katherine Nabity,  The Writerly Reader

Freedom From Language by  By Merve Pehlivan
An essay on writing in a foreign language. In this case, it is a native speaker of Turkish writing in English.
This is from a new online journal the Bosphorus Review of Books which features "Words straight from the Bosphorus Strait: An online literary magazine about Istanbul." It has poetry, short fiction, and non-fiction. Reviews will come. The first issue was published in January, the second in March, and the third will be in May. For a more detailed profile see Leyla Yvonne Ergil's  Turkey's first English language online literary magazine.

52 Types of Wood and the Trees They Come From
A wonderful infographic from Alan Bernau Jr. of AlansFactoryOutlet.com

It's breakfast time someplace...Roads & Kingdoms Breakfast is a daily feature highlighting the morning meal around the world. Pretty pictures and foodie essays.

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

What Lies Within by Tom Vowler
A psychological suspense novel of a woman trying to put a traumatic event of the past behind her. The past catches up with her and she must struggle to save her family.
I liked it, but not as much as I liked Vowler's later book That Dark Remembered Day.





The Fata Morgana Books by Jonathan Littell; Translated from the French by Charlotte Mandell
I struggled with this one. Originally published separately by French publisher Fata Morgana, four short surreal works are translated and collected into one volume. I really liked the first--Etudes (the French was published in 2007). The next--A Story About Nothing was OK but a little more surreal (French edition published in 2009). Quarters (original 2010) and An Old Story (original 2012) just got too weird for me. Like listening to someone's boring dreams. These two were the longest pieces so I only liked about a quarter of the book.
From my subscription to Two Lines Press.




Project Gutenberg find...

The Santa Claus' Book of Games and Puzzles by John H. Tingley (published in 1864)
All kinds of brain teasers with plenty of illustrations. Riddles, acrostics, anagrams, rebus, mazes, etc.  Really challenging. Some use now obsolete language and/or refer to historical events long forgotten.  (For example here's one of the answers to a rebus puzzle: Ere long expect a great overturning and uprising in Europe.) It also helps to know Roman numerals (Puzzle 29: One thousand five hundred divided by one, Will express what a lamp is, compared with the sun. Answer: Dim.)
Even with these difficulties it's fun to try and, thankfully, they do give you the answers.

Next week will be a "mostly library books" read.
 

December (second half) 2015 Reading

According to Goodreads I more than met my goal of 200 books this year (read 209). Nice, but not too difficult--I do love retirement! The other goals, the challenges, reviews, blog entries, etc. pretty much fell by the wayside. I'm not especially concerned about that. I don't feel compelled to review or otherwise blog about every book I read. But I do try to make some brief comments. When I look back at this blog for March through June of this year, I'm sorry that I didn't say something about all those books. Spring was difficult this year. Sigh.

On to my final reads of the year and a kind of New year resolution: When I really like the cover art, I will try to give the artist credit and a link (if I can find one).


Paris Nocturne; Modiano, Patrick;Phoebe Weston-Evans (Translation) 
After the Circus; Modiano, Patrick; Mark Polizzotti (Translation)
Not going to attempt any mini-review or comment other than it's Modiano and Modiano's Paris, which I love.
Library books.
Left Cover Photo:  Ghislain & Marie David de Lossy/Stockbyte/Getty Images; Right Cover illustration: Paris at Twilight. Getty Images  Mel Curtis

My Documents; Zambra, Alejandro; Megan McDowell (Translation)
Short stories. I liked most of them. "I Smoked Very Well" is a gem. "Thank You" is a quirky tale about a kidnapping and theft in Mexico City.  The final story was the one I liked least, a good story but the sex element was too graphic. Library book.

Contents: Part 1. My documents -- Part 2. Camilo -- Long distance -- True or false -- Memories of a personal computer -- Part 3. National institute -- I smoked very well -- Part 4. Thank you -- The most Chilean man in the world -- Family life -- Artist's rendition.
  
An appropriate cover design by Sunra Thompson

 
 Blue Bamboo: Tales, Dazai Osamu; Dazai, Osamu; Ralph F. McCarthy (Translator)
The stories are good. Many are based on folk tales and other traditional literature--including a retelling/continuation of Rapunzel. My copy, from publisher via a win on Tony Malone's 2013 January in Japan event. It's about time I got around to reading it. Actually I started reading it in August; I often set story collections aside to intersperse with other reading.

Cover: 'Bamboo and chrysanthemum under the moon' by Hara Zaichū (1750–1837); Ota Collection, Fukuoka Art Museum.
Why does it bother me that the cover of a book with "blue" in the title is green? See note under online reading below.



Postcards from the Past; Willett, Marcia
After their respective marriages end, a brother and sister return to their childhood home to a comfortable retirement near friends. Their contentment is disrupted when postcards start arriving from a half-brother they haven't seen or heard from for 50 years. A nice story about good people facing unpleasant memories. There are also some nice dogs and maybe too much description of trivial objects and peripheral characters. Library book.

This charming cover is by Vitali Komarov, a Russian born artist who lives in the Czech republic.


Newport; Morrow, Jill
I didn't get much of a sense of place or time with this. It is set in Newport, Rhode Island during the 1920s but it could have been set in any wealthy enclave at any time. Secrets, seances, sinister siblings, and a few surprises. An OK read. Library book.


Cover has a soft gold sparkle which doesn't show up in the web image.  Photograph by Hungarian photographer Peter Zelei /Getty Images




Infinite Home; Alcott, Kathleen
I had no idea that I wanted to read this book. I picked it up from the library new book shelf the other day and devoured it! Perfect! Well developed characters and elegant writing. I am tempted to end my year with this one, but I picked up several other books that day and....Library book.

Jacket design by Alex Merto



Istanbul Noir (Akashic Noir); by Ziyalan, Mustafa (Editor), Spangler, Amy (Editor)
As with many anthologies some of these stories are better than others, but they all give a sense of place. Of course, because it's noir, the place can be bleak, scary, and downright creepy. I've had this book on my Kindle for over a year, reading it in various waiting rooms. Finally finished it the other day while my car was being serviced. This series is great waiting room stuff--makes the time go quickly. 
Contents: Lust & vengeance. The tongue of the flames / İsmail Güzelosoy; Hitching in the Lodos / Feryal Tilmac; The stepson / Mehmet Bilâl; An extra body / Bariş Müstecaplioğlu; Pushing limits, crossing lines. The smell of fish / Hikmet Hükümenoğlu; All quiet / Jessica Lutz ; Around here, somewhere / Algan Sezgi̇ntüredi; The spirit of philosophical vitriol / Lydia Lunch; In the dark recesses. One among us / Yasemin Aydinoğlu; Black palace / Mustafa Ziyalan; So very familiar / Behçet Çelik; The bloody horn / Inan Çetin; A woman, any woman / Tarkan Barlas; Grief & grievances. Ordinary facts / Riza Kiraç; Burn and go / Sadik Yemni; the hand / Müge İplikçi.
Cover Photo: Deniz Oğurlu


The Other Daughter; Willig, Lauren
Rachel, a young Englishwoman, is trying to make ends meet as a governess in France. Called home when her mother dies, Rachael discovers that she is not who she thought she was. She takes up a disguise in order to meet the man who she believes deserted her and her mother. Everything backfires but, of course, it all works out in the end. A pleasant, undemanding diversion with some interesting twists. A little bit better than the other book I read by this author (That Summer). Library book



Day Four (The Three #2); Lotz, Sarah 
I liked this, but not as much as I liked The Three. The cruise setting was great for a horror story (almost as good as the Ikea-like setting for Grady Hendrix's Horrorstör).  This is more a paranormal/disaster story than it is horror, but the whole genre thing is a mishmash of definitions. Another novel set on a drifting, lost ship is George Barr McCutcheon's West Wind Drift (1920, available on Project Gutenberg). A very different kind of story, but there are a few parallels--enough to make me think of it whilst reading this one.

Library book. 

didn't get cover info

 Non Fiction

Schubert's Winter Journey: Anatomy of an Obsession; Bostridge, Ian

This is an amazing discussion of a Schubert song cycle, about the meaning of the words (by Wilhelm Müller), the music, and the Romantic movement.

Library book.

Jacket design is by Peter Mendelsund -my favorite cover designer.







Building Art: The Life and Work of Frank Gehry; Goldberger, Paul
Interesting, but not critical either of Gehry's life or his work. Author is a friend of Gehry.
Library book.

Cover:  Photograph by Lionel Bonaventure/AFP/Getty; Drawings by Frank Gehry early sketch of Walt Disney Concert Hall; Cover design by Peter Mendelsund

Online reading 

The next two were read in conjunction with reading The Art of Flight by Sergio Pitol (George Henson Translator), which has a critical essay, "The Great Theater of the World," discussing the Galdós novel. The next essay is on Chekhov, it may take me a while to finish this book--one thing leads to another.

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

The Young Lady's Consent  Translator/Author: Christopher O. Kidder; Publication: University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations a translation of El sí de las niñasis a play by the Spanish playwright Leandro Fernández de Moratín.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.

From the BBC a fascinating piece on archaeology in the Orkney islands:  Were These Remote Wild Islands the Centre of Everything? Illustrated with beautiful photographs. Makes me want to go there.

My question about the cover of Blue Bamboo led me to this Wikipedia entry:  Distinction of blue and green in various languages

Arabic Literature (in English) offers links to some poetry in translation: 
A Holiday Gift: Ten Poems from Iman Mersal 

Stories from post World War II japan always interest me. Here from From The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus  is Muddy River by Miyamoto Teru; Translated and with an introduction by Andrew Murakami-Smith. This story won the Dazai Osamu (s Blue Bamboo, above) literary award in 1977. It is set in Osaka in the 1950s. The 1981 film Doro no kawa (Muddy River), directed by Oguri Kōhei, is based on it. There is a discussion of the film (illustrated with stills) on Cinema Talk. I'd like to watch this film, but it doesn't seem to be available with English sub-titles. It is on YouTube in Japanese. There are sub-titles available separately online, but coordinating them with a video is not ideal.

 New (to me) words:  
kintsuba: a regional name for a sweet treat made of a batter and filled with sweet bean past (or other sweet filling). More general term: Imagawayaki.
ragworms:  Nereididae, a family of polychaete worms, about 500 (mostly marine) species. They may be commonly called ragworms or clam worms. Used as bait.
 

November (first half) 2015 Reading

Once again I ignored my TBR stacks in favor of the public library collection. But what to do when you get notices that the latest by Albom, Allende, Eco, Hijuelos, and  Irving are waiting for you on hold shelf? And when you go to pick them up there is NeuroTribes on the new book shelf?  AND, you already have checked out Pamuk, Kundera, Thomson, Urrea, and others? You read like crazy, and NOT from your personal collection.

The month is off to a great start with two weeks of great reading (no duds here) :

A Strangeness in My Mind: A novel; Pamuk, Orhan
Wonderful! Once again Pamuk leads me through the neighborhoods of Istanbul. Library book.
  
 
Katherine Carlyle; Thomson, Rupert
Another fantastic read.  Coming of age of a girl born of IVF. Stunning, sparse, and utterly enchanting. Set in Rome Berlin and the Norwegian/Russian Arctic. Love the cover.  Library book.



The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto; Albom, Mitch
There is no way I can possibly select my favorite book from the first half of this month. What a spectacular (and varied) group of books. This one is pure magic. Library book.

The Festival of Insignificance; Kundera, Milan; Linda Asher (Translator)
Well, that was fun. Library book.

The Dream of My Return; Moya, Horacio Castellanos; Katherine Silver (Translator)
A short, sometimes humorous, very intense, surrealistic novel about a Salvadorian exile in Mexico. His life is a mess. He has decided that the fighting is almost over and it will be safe to return to El Salvador. Most of the novel is a rambling narrative of his anxieties about the trip, his deteriorating love relationship, and his memories of the deaths of family and friends caught up in political struggles. Library book.
 
The Never-Open Desert Diner; Anderson, James
This is Anderson's debut novel although he has worked in the publishing business. He has also been a trucker and chose a trucker as the protagonist of this book. It's set in the desert in Utah and is a delight. Library book.

The Water Museum: Stories; Urrea, Luis Alberto
Super collection of short stories with great characters and settings. Must read more by this author. Library book.

Non-fiction:

NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and The Future of Neurodiversity; Silberman, Steve
Outstanding discussion of autism. Includes history, research, diagnosis, activism, social acceptance, coping, and many other aspects of the condition. Library book.

Online Reading:

From Bomb magazine
The Poet's Ghost by Carmen Boullosa

Two short stories in the November 2015 issue of The White Review
Three Days in Prague by Naja Marie Aidt, translated by Denise Newman 
Wolves by Jeon Sungtae, translated by Sora Kim-Russell

July 2015 Reading

Two from British Library Crime Classic series (published in the USA by Poisoned Pen Press):

 
The Notting Hill Mystery; Adams, Charles Warren
Antidote to Venom; Crofts, Freeman Wills

 I read Crofts' The Hog's Back Mystery (also from this series) last month and enjoyed it. This one had a unique presentation, a little slower read, but an interesting read. The Adams book was more traditional. Am liking this series, hope to read more.

<---- a sample of the cool cover designs.


 Free advance review copies from the publisher.





Some family stories: 
Bonita Avenue; Buwalda, Peter; translated from the Dutch by Jonathan Reeder
 Another dysfunctional Dutch family (think Tirza  by Arnon Grunberg and Herman Koch's The Dinner and Summer House with Swimming Pool).
 Library book.

A Spool of Blue Thread; Tyler, Anne
 Anne Tyler delivers again. Her families are also dysfunctional, but much less violent.
  Library book.

Love May Fail; Quick, Matthew
  Liked this, but it didn't stay with me as much as his The Good Luck of Right Now stayed with me.
  Library book.

Dystopian (sort of):

The Gracekeepers; Logan, Kirsty
 The future where there is very little land and a lot of water.  This one is magical fantasy, with a floating circus. I was reminded (in a good way) of some of the stories in  Ben Marcus' Leaving the Sea. 
 Free advance review copy from the publisher.

Find Me; Berg, Laura van den
 Sometime in the future, a mysterious illness has decimated the USA.  First half of this book, set in a questionable research  hospital, was superb, The second half, telling about the adventures of one of the patients who walks away, was a bit of a mish-mash that didn't make much sense to me. Still, I'd like to read some of Berg's short stories.
 Library book,
 

Speaking of short stories:

Toronto Noir; Armin, Janine (editor)
 From the Akashic Noir series. I'm getting quite a collection of these nifty anthologies. My daughter selected this one for me with the comment that she chose it because she "never thought of Toronto as a noir kind of place."  Akashic is ably demonstrating that noir knows no boundaries.
 My personal copy (Kindle edition which has been to numerous waiting rooms in the six months it took me to read it,) 

Tales from a Mountain Cave: Stories from Japan's Northeast; Inoue, Hisashi;  translated from the Japanese by Angus Turvill     
 Linked short stories based on folklore. Interesting.
 My personal copy

The Book of Istanbul: A City in Short Fiction; Gürsel, Nedim (editor); various authors and translators.
 A very good anthology set in an intriguing city.
My personal copy

Two So-so Historical Fictions

The Price of Blood (The Emma of Normandy Trilogy, #2) Bracewell, Patricia
 A real slog to get through this. I didn't read the first book (nor will I read the third), but this one can stand alone.
   Free advance review copy from the publisher through Goodreads First Reads Program.

The Tiger Queens: The Women of Genghis Khan; Thornton, Stephanie
Less of a slog but not my favorite read. I liked it better than The Price of Blood. Could be that it held my interest because I'm less familiar with the time period of Gengis and company than I am with the era of Queen Emma. Also, Thornton is the better writer.
  Free copy from the author through a blog win.

 And one very good one:

 (Maybe I should skip this genre for a while? but the next one can be considered historical fiction and I really liked it.):

Villa America; Klaussmann, Liza
 The lost generation in the south of France--all (Hemingway, the Fitzgerald, Picasso, Dos Passos, Monty Woolley: that old crowd) behaving badly and gossiping about the ones (like the Porters) who are absent. 

  Free advance review copy from the publisher.
  

Did not finish, or, life is too short:

Mañana; Hjortsberg, William

  Drugs, murder, guy on the run searching for his missing wife....should be exciting, but I got bogged down by a lot of boring, unnecessary detail.
    Free advance review copy from the publisher through Goodreads First Reads Program