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."

November 2020

Activities:

 

Not much outside the house.

11/5 doctor 

11/16 lab; gassed car

11/24 pickup at libraries (2); jc farms for pie!

Books:

 Some good novels and lots of non-fiction this month.

Fiction:
Lovely War by Berry, Julie
Jean-Luc persécuté by Ramuz, Charles-Ferdinand; translated from the French by Baes, Olivia
How to Stop Time by Haig, Matt
Autopsy of a Father by Kramer, Pascale; translated from the French by Bononno, Robert
The Midnight Library by Haig, Matt
Forty Rooms by Grushin, Olga 

Poetry:

The Golden Goblet: Selected Poems of Goethe by Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von; translated from the German by Ozsváth, Zsuzsanna and Turner, Frederick  

Nonfiction: 
The Last Million: Europe's Displaced Persons from World War to Cold War by Nasaw, David
For the Love of Music: The Art of Listening by Mauceri, John
The Simpsons: A Cultural History by Fink, Moritz
A Promised Land by Obama, Barack 

Owls of the Eastern Ice: A Quest to Find and Save the World's Largest Owl by Slaght, Jonathan C.
Music to Eat Cake By: Essays on Birds, Words and Everything in Between by Parikian, Lev

The Truths We Hold: An American Journey by Harris, Kamala

Online:

Sabine Meyer

 While reading For the Love of Music and Music to Eat Cake By I wondered why I was reading about music but not listening to music?  So I put the books aside and went searching for music, specifically Mozart's Clarinet Concerto. As a result I've spent a least an hour a day on YouTube listening to Sabine Meyer play. Mozart, Schubert, Beethoven, Brahms,....

Sublime Swimming: 14 examples of custom pools by María Francisca González

  I sure do miss my swims ... sigh...

Wagenhallen Stuttgart Cultural Center ArchDaily article

Wagenhallen official site

 a part of Stuttgart I've never seen (because it was something else when I lived in Germany)

September 2020

Still staying home...

Activities outside the house:

9/2 Library curbside; JC Farms; Lyman Orchards; Lino's Deli

9/11 Lib returns; JC Farms; Lyman Orchards

9/18 JC Farms

9/22 library curbside; Gardener finally came and cleaned up tree debris from Isaias

9/24 bank (atm); gas (full serve); car maintenance  

Books Read (ratings don't seem to reflect much so I won't put them in. These are listed in reverse of order read. All were good but the Clapsaddle was my least favorite. Best is a tossup between Makumbi and NDiaye):

A Girl Is a Body of Water by Makumbi, Jennifer Nansubuga
Even As We Breathe by Clapsaddle, Annette Saunooke
The Cheffe: A Cook's Novel by NDiaye, Marie; translated from the French by Stump, Jordan
Bluebeard's First Wife by Ha Seong-nan; translated from the Korean by Hong, Janet
Time After Time by Grunwald, Lisa
Summer (Seasonal, #4) by Smith, Ali
Beethoven: Variations on a Life by Bonds, Mark Evan

 

Online:

Portuguese Landscapes: 12 Projects Exploring the Relationship Between Natural and Built 

 OK, this just makes me want to go back to Portugal and go for a walk.

 

A 16th-Century Portuguese Plan of a Moroccan Palace by Jonathan Bloom

 and this makes me want to read Bloom's book Architecture of the Islamic West: North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula, 700-1800. (Yale UP, 2020)

100 Essential Books by Iranian Writers: An Introduction & Nonfiction, by Niloufar Talebi

 Introduction to a five part series which includes "Poetry, Hybrid Works, Anthologies"; "Graphic Novels, Culinary Books, & Children’s Literature"; "Classics in Translation", and "Fiction."

I've read a few of these, mostly in the fiction category. A good resource from Asian American Writers' Workshop.