tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-81290575905719800392024-03-05T04:32:35.313-06:00Reading My Life AwayA blog of book reviews (and the occasional discussion of literary and other book-related events).Lilithcathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00165155867167277588noreply@blogger.comBlogger155125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8129057590571980039.post-17914936227212184772024-01-01T19:53:00.003-06:002024-01-01T19:56:48.293-06:00Non-fiction: 2022<p><span style="font-family: Libre Baskerville; font-size: small;"> </span><span style="font-family: Libre Baskerville; font-size: medium;">Oh, lord, I never did post the non-fiction books I read in 2022, and here it is 2024 already. I promise I'll do a post with all my 2023 books in less than a year. (joke)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Libre Baskerville; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-af841fcf-7fff-99bc-3c70-74c10e50318d" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Libre Baskerville; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>London Under: the secret history beneath the streets,</i> by Peter Ackroyd (I read fiction by him as well - see prior post - the only author with that distinction this year.)</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Libre Baskerville; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Big Bosses: a working girl’s memoir of Jazz Age America</i>, by</span></span><span style="font-family: Libre Baskerville; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Althea McDowell</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> Altemus</span></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Libre Baskerville; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>A Diary without Dates</i>, by Enid Bagnold</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Libre Baskerville; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>The Vanished Collection</i>, by </span></span><span style="font-family: Libre Baskerville; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Pauline</span> </span><span style="font-family: Libre Baskerville; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Baer di Perignon</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Libre Baskerville; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Black Diamonds: the downfall of an aristocratic dynasty and the fifty years that changed England</i>, by Catherine Bailey</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Libre Baskerville; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>At Home in Chicago: a living history of Chicago Architecture</i>, by Patrick Cannon and James Caulfield</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Libre Baskerville; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>In Praise of Good Bookstores</i>, by Jeff Deutsch</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Libre Baskerville; font-size: medium;"><i>T</i><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>he Dead Duke, his Secret Wife, and the Missing Corpse</i>, by Piu Marie Eatwell</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Libre Baskerville; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>The Greatest Invention: a history of the world in nine mysterious script</i>s, by </span></span><span style="font-family: Libre Baskerville; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Silvia</span> Ferrara<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Libre Baskerville; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Dress Codes: how the laws of fashion made history</i>, by Richard T. Ford</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Libre Baskerville; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>One Hundred Saturdays: Stella Levi and the Search for a Lost World</i>, by Michael Frank</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Libre Baskerville; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>The Missing Ink: the lost art of handwriting (and why it still matters)</i>, by Philip Hensher</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Libre Baskerville; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Truffle Hound: on the Trail of the World’s Most Seductive Scent</i>, by Rowan Jacobsen</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Libre Baskerville; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Judge This</i>, by Chip Kidd</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Libre Baskerville; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Come and Hear: What I saw in my seven-and-a-half year journey through the Talmud</i>, by Adam Kirsch</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Libre Baskerville; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Sabers & Suites: the story of Chicago’s Ambassador East</i>, by Rick Kogan</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Libre Baskerville; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>The Woman and the Car: a chatty little handbook for the Edwardian motoriste </i>[sic], by Dorothy Levitt</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Libre Baskerville; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>The House that Madigan Built: the record run of Illinois' Velvet Hammer</i>, by Ray Lond</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Libre Baskerville; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Chivalric Festivals at the Ferrarese Court of Alfonso II d’Este</i>, by </span></span><span style="font-family: Libre Baskerville; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Alessandro Marcigliano</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Libre Baskerville; font-size: medium;"><i>T</i><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>he Space Within: Interior Experience as the Origin of Architecture</i>, by Robert McCarter</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Libre Baskerville; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Kiss Myself Goodbye: the many lives of Aunt Munca</i>, by Ferdinand Mount</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Libre Baskerville; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Trade and Romance</i>, by Michael Murrin</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Libre Baskerville; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Back to Japan: the life and art of Master kimono painter Kunihiko Moriguchi</i>, by Marc Petijean</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Libre Baskerville; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Embroideries</i>, by Marjane Satrapi</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Libre Baskerville; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Final Report</i>, by the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol</span></span></p><span style="font-family: Libre Baskerville; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>I Will Judge You by your Bookshelf</i>, by Grant Snyder</span></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Libre Baskerville; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>The English Gentleman</i>, by Douglas Sutherland</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Libre Baskerville; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Renaissance Woman: the life of Vittoria Colonna</i>, by Ramie Targoff</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Libre Baskerville; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Poetry and Photography: exhibition catalog</i>, by the P2 collective</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Libre Baskerville; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Three Girls from Bronzeville</i>, by Dawn Turner</span></span></p><span style="font-family: Libre Baskerville; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>The Wordhord: daily life in Old English</i>, by Hana Videen</span></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Libre Baskerville; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>The Unpunished Vice: a life of reading</i>, by Edmund White</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><span style="font-family: Libre Baskerville;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Poet and the Murderer: a true story of literary c</span></span></i><span style="font-family: Libre Baskerville;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>rime and the art of forgery,</i> by Simon Worrall</span></span></span></p><p></p>Lilithcathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00165155867167277588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8129057590571980039.post-15039780115330278712023-01-14T14:26:00.002-06:002023-01-14T14:30:16.093-06:002022 books read<p>
<span style="font-size: medium;">Herewith my reading in 2022. It was more fiction than non- last
year. This list is basically alpha by author, with the occasional
comment. Works in translation listed separately. (Non-fiction in a separate post.)<br />
</span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>FICTION</b></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>The Clerkenwell Tales</i>, by Peter Ackroyd<br /><i>The Reading Lis</i>t, by Sarah Nisha Adams<br /><i>Black Plumes</i>, by Margery Allingham<br /><i>The Black Cap</i>, edited by Cynthia Asquith<br /><i>The Red Hat</i>, by John Bayler<br /><i>The Simple Art of Murder</i> and <i>The High Window</i>, by Raymond Chandler<br /><i>Sherbourne Street</i>, by John Cornish<br /><i>So Big</i>, by Edna Ferber<br /><i>Innocence</i>, by Penelope Fitzgerald<br /><i>The Appeal</i>, by Janet Hallett<br /><i>The Pages</i>, by Hugo Hamilton<br /><i>The Thin Man</i>, by Dashiell Hammett<br /><i>Clark and Division</i>, by Naomi Hirahara<br /><i>Search</i>, by Michelle Huneven Loved this book about a Unitarian-Universalist congregation looking for a new minister.<br /><i>The Kindest Lie</i>, by Nancy Johnson<br /><i>The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections</i>, by Eva Jurczyk<br /><i>Riviera Gold</i> and <i>Castle Shade</i>, by Laurie King<br /><i>When the Angels Left the Old Country</i>, by Sacha Lamb - probably the best fiction read of the year, I am recommending it far and wide. <br />For some reason, it was marketed as a "Young Adult" book, and I'm sure young adults would enjoy it, but that's too restrictive a description.<i><br />Give Unto Others</i>, by Donna Leon<i><br />A Little Yellow Dog</i>, by Walter Mosley<i><br />Overboard</i> and <i>Love and Other Crimes</i>, by Sara Paretsky<i><br />At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances</i>, <i>Love in the Time of Bertie</i>, and <i>The Perils of Morning Coffee</i>. by Alexander McCall Smith<br /><i>A Coat of Varnish</i>, by C.P. Snow<br /><i>A Far Cry from Kensington</i>, by Muriel Spark<i><br />Barnett Frummer is an Unbloomed Flower</i>, by Calvin Trillin<br /><i>All Souls' Night</i>, by Hugh Walpole<br /><i>Tales from the Red Lion</i>, edited by John Weagly and Andrea Dubnick<br /><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><u><b>Works in translation </b></u></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>L'Assassinio sull'Orient Express</i>, by Agatha Christie. Because I took the Orient Express from London to Venice this summer and what else would I read?<i><br />The Sect of Angels</i>, by Andrea Camilleri<br /><i>A Small-town Marriage</i>, by the Marchesa Colombi<br /><i>Bread for the Bastards of Pizzofalcone</i>, by Maurizio de Giovanni<i><br /></i><i>A Sister's Story</i>, by Donatella Di Pietrantonio (also read in the original Italian)<br /><i>Portrait of an Unknown Woman</i>, by Maria Gainza<br /><i>The Old Woman with the Knife</i>, by Byeong-Mo Gu<i><br />Egyptian Short Stories</i>, edited by Denys Johnson-Davies<br /><i>People from my Neighborhood</i>, by Hiromi Kawakami<br /><i>Tales from the Café</i>, by Toshikazu Kawaguchi<br /><i>And the Bride Closed the Door</i>, by Ronit Matalon<br /><i>Nives</i>, by Sacha Naspini<br /><i>Baltasar and Blimunda</i>, by Jose Saramago</span></p>Lilithcathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00165155867167277588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8129057590571980039.post-59653284307398415422022-01-03T12:02:00.005-06:002022-01-03T12:02:24.779-06:00Non-Fiction reads of 2021<p><span style="font-size: medium;">Vaguely broken down by category, but quite a few of these books could be in more than one. <br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Read for my "Chicago books" book club:</span></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Chicago: City on the Make</i>, by Nelson Algren</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Campaign! the 1983 Election that Rocked Chicago</i>, by Peter Nolan</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>American Warsaw: the rise, fall, and rebirth of Polish Chicago</i>, by Dominick Pacyga</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Other Chicago-related books</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>The Great Chicago Fire</i>, edited by Paul M. Angle</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Disposing of Modernity: the archaelogy of garbage and consumerism during Chicago's</i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><span> </span>1893 World's Fair</i>, by Rebecca S. Graff</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>The Jewel of the Gold Coast: Mrs. Potter Palmer's Chicago</i>, by Sally Sexton Kalmbach</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>A Shopper's Paradise: how the ladies of Chicago claimed power and pleasure in the new</i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><span> </span>downtown</i>, by Emily Remus</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Chicago's Great Fire: the destruction and resurrection of an iconic American city</i>, by</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span> </span>Carl Smith</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Books on books:</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Seven Kinds of People You find in Bookshops</i>, by Shaun Bythell </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>The Afterlife of "Little Women"</i>, by Beverly Lyon Clark</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>The Bookseller of Florence: the story of the manuscripts that illuminated the </i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><span> </span>Renaissance</i>, by Ross King (way longer that it needed to be)</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Shelf Life: Chronicles of a Cairo Bookseller</i>, by Nadia Wassef</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>The Gilded Page: secret lives of medieval manuscripts</i>, by Mary Wellesley</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Britain:</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>These Ruins are Inhabited</i>, by Muriel Beadle</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>The Very Best of British</i>, by Nicholas Courtney</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Terms & Conditions: Life in girls' boarding schools: 1939-1979</i>, by Ysenda Maxtone</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span> </span><span> </span>Graham</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Lions and Shadows: an education in the Twenties</i>, by Christopher Isherwood</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>What Matters in Jane Austen: Twenty crucial puzzles solved</i>, by John Mullan</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>C. F. A. Voysey: Architect, designer, individualist</i>, by Anne Stewart O'Donnell</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Behind Closed Doors: at home in Georgian England</i>, by Amanda Vickery <br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Race:</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Fire in the Hole: the Spirit Work of Fi-Yi-Yi and Mandingo Warriors</i>, by Fi-Yi-Yi</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>The Color of Love: a story of a mixed-race Jewish girl</i>, by Marra B. Gad</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>All that She Carried: the journey of Ashley's sack, a Black family keepsake<b>, </b></i>by Tiya Miles </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity</i>, by</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span> </span>Monica L. Miller</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Caste: the origins of our discontent</i>, by Isabel Wilkerson</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Asia:</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>The Sakura Obsession: the incredible story of the plant hunter who saved Japan's cherry</i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><span> </span>blossoms</i>, by Naoko Abe</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Winter Pasture: one woman's journey with China's Kazakh herders</i>, by Li Juan</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>African Samurai: the true story of Yasuke, a legendary black warrior in feudal Japan</i>, </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span> </span><span> by Thomas Lockley & Geoffrey Girard</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><i>The Spirit of Japanese Poetry</i>, by Yone Noguchi </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>Art/architecture/design/fashion: </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><i>Sisters in Art: the biography of Margaret, Esther, and Helen Bruton</i>, by Wendy Van Wyck <span> <span> </span></span>Good </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><i>Marion Mahony and Millikin Place</i>, by Paul Kruty & Paul E. Sprague</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><i>Dandies</i>, by James Laver</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><i>Brolliology: a history of the umbrella in life and literature</i>, by Marion Rankine </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><i>Patch Work: a life amongst clothes</i>, by Claire Wilcox</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><i>The Unfinished Palazzo: Life, love and art in Venice</i>, by Judith Mackrell</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><i>Portrait of Dr. Gachet: the story of a Van Gogh masterpiece</i>, by Cynthia Saltzman </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>Memoirs/biographies/diaries</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><i>Two Memoirs of Renaissance Florence: the diaries of Buonaccorso Pitti & Gregorio Dati</i>, <span> </span><span> </span>(edited by) Gene Brucker</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><i>Dante and the Early Astronomer: Science, adventure, and a Victorian woman who opened </i></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><i><span> </span>the heavens</i>, by Tracy Daugherty</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><i>'Dangerous Work': Diary of an Arctic Adventure</i>, by Arthur Conan Doyle</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><i>Fillets of Plaice</i>, by Gerald Durrell</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><i>Still Alive: a Holocaust girlhood remembered</i>, by Ruth Kluger</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><i>Lear's Italy: in the footsteps of Edward Lear</i>, by Michael Montgomery<br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><i>Fred in Love</i>, by Felice Picano</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><i>Confessions of a Cineplex Heckler</i>, by Joe Queenan</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><i>Memories: from Moscow to the Black Sea</i>, by Teffi</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>Jews/Judaism:</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><i>Plunder: a memoir of family property and Nazi treasure</i>, by Menachem Kaiser </span></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><i>Letters to Camondo</i>, by Edmund de Waal </span></span> </span></span> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><i>Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean</i>, by Edward Kritzler<br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><i>Jews and Shoes</i>, (edited by) Edna Nahshon <br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>Other:</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><i>Elderhood: redefining aging, transforming medicine, reimagining life</i>, by Louise Aronson</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><i>An Atlas of Extinct Countries</i>, by Gideon Defoe</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><i>The Writing of the Gods: the race to decode the Rosetta Stone</i>, by Edward Dolnick</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><i>The Ring of Truth and other myths of sex and jewelry</i>, by Wendy Doniger </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><i>Dante and the Early Astronomers</i>, by M. A. Orr<br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><br /></span></span></div><br />Lilithcathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00165155867167277588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8129057590571980039.post-50261784882428739492022-01-02T11:44:00.001-06:002022-01-03T11:57:51.557-06:00Books read in 2021 - Fiction<div style="text-align: left;"><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b490f2d5-7fff-57a0-cd15-edb93462bc6f" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Read for my Italian book club:</span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b490f2d5-7fff-57a0-cd15-edb93462bc6f" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b490f2d5-7fff-57a0-cd15-edb93462bc6f" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>Il Treno Dei Bambini</i>, by Viola Ardone </span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b490f2d5-7fff-57a0-cd15-edb93462bc6f" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>La Misura del Tempo</i>, by Gianrico Carofiglio </span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b490f2d5-7fff-57a0-cd15-edb93462bc6f" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>Cara Pace</i>, by Lisa Ginzburg </span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b490f2d5-7fff-57a0-cd15-edb93462bc6f" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>Vita</i>, by Melania Mazzucco </span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b490f2d5-7fff-57a0-cd15-edb93462bc6f" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>I Colibri</i>, by Sandro Veronesi </span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b490f2d5-7fff-57a0-cd15-edb93462bc6f" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b490f2d5-7fff-57a0-cd15-edb93462bc6f" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">For my "Chicago books" book club:</span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b490f2d5-7fff-57a0-cd15-edb93462bc6f" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b490f2d5-7fff-57a0-cd15-edb93462bc6f" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>Rose of Dutcher's Coolly</i>, by Hamlin Garland </span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b490f2d5-7fff-57a0-cd15-edb93462bc6f" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>Death on the Homefront</i>, by Frances McNamara </span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b490f2d5-7fff-57a0-cd15-edb93462bc6f" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>Into the Beautiful North</i>, by Luis Urrea </span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b490f2d5-7fff-57a0-cd15-edb93462bc6f" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b490f2d5-7fff-57a0-cd15-edb93462bc6f" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Mysteries, ghosts, and the like:</span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b490f2d5-7fff-57a0-cd15-edb93462bc6f" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b490f2d5-7fff-57a0-cd15-edb93462bc6f" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>The Poisoned Chocolates Case</i>, by Anthony Berkeley</span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b490f2d5-7fff-57a0-cd15-edb93462bc6f" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>Buffet for Unwelcome Guests</i>, by Christianna Brand </span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b490f2d5-7fff-57a0-cd15-edb93462bc6f" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>The Charing Cross Mystery</i>, by J. S. Fletcher </span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b490f2d5-7fff-57a0-cd15-edb93462bc6f" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>Woman in the Dark</i>, by Dashiell Hammett </span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b490f2d5-7fff-57a0-cd15-edb93462bc6f" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>The Talented Mr. Ripley, </i>and <i>Tales of Natural and Unnatural Catastrophes</i>, by Patricia Highsmith </span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b490f2d5-7fff-57a0-cd15-edb93462bc6f" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>The Story of a Disappearance and an Appearance</i>, by M. R. James </span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b490f2d5-7fff-57a0-cd15-edb93462bc6f" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>Transient Desires</i>, by Donna Leon</span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b490f2d5-7fff-57a0-cd15-edb93462bc6f" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>Pretty Monsters</i>, by Kelly Link </span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b490f2d5-7fff-57a0-cd15-edb93462bc6f" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>Sisters of Sorcery</i>, edited by Seon Manley and Gogo Lewis </span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b490f2d5-7fff-57a0-cd15-edb93462bc6f" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>Widdershins: first book of ghost stories</i>, by Oliver Onions </span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b490f2d5-7fff-57a0-cd15-edb93462bc6f" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>The Day of the Owl</i>, by Leonard Sciascia </span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b490f2d5-7fff-57a0-cd15-edb93462bc6f" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>Tears of the Giraffe</i>, by Alexander McCall Smith </span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b490f2d5-7fff-57a0-cd15-edb93462bc6f" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>Mrs. Mohr Goes Missing</i>, by Marla Szymiczkowa </span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b490f2d5-7fff-57a0-cd15-edb93462bc6f" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>No Happy Ending</i>, by Paco Ignaicio Taibo II </span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b490f2d5-7fff-57a0-cd15-edb93462bc6f" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>The HIdden Palace</i>, by Helene Wecker</span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b490f2d5-7fff-57a0-cd15-edb93462bc6f" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>The City of Mist</i>, by Carlos Ruiz Zafon </span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b490f2d5-7fff-57a0-cd15-edb93462bc6f" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>Body and Soul Food</i>, by Abby Collette </span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b490f2d5-7fff-57a0-cd15-edb93462bc6f" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>Tales of the South Carolina Low Country</i>, by Nancy Rhyne </span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b490f2d5-7fff-57a0-cd15-edb93462bc6f" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b490f2d5-7fff-57a0-cd15-edb93462bc6f" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Some British humour:</span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b490f2d5-7fff-57a0-cd15-edb93462bc6f" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b490f2d5-7fff-57a0-cd15-edb93462bc6f" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>A Breath of French Air</i>, by H. E. Bates </span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b490f2d5-7fff-57a0-cd15-edb93462bc6f" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>Holy Deadlock</i>, by A. P. Herbert </span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b490f2d5-7fff-57a0-cd15-edb93462bc6f" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>The Eliza Stories</i>, by Barry Main </span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b490f2d5-7fff-57a0-cd15-edb93462bc6f" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>Portuguese Irregular Verbs</i>, by Alexander McCall Smith </span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b490f2d5-7fff-57a0-cd15-edb93462bc6f" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>Leave it to Psmith</i>, by P. G. Wodehouse </span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b490f2d5-7fff-57a0-cd15-edb93462bc6f" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b490f2d5-7fff-57a0-cd15-edb93462bc6f" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">New (for me) books from favorite authors:</span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b490f2d5-7fff-57a0-cd15-edb93462bc6f" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b490f2d5-7fff-57a0-cd15-edb93462bc6f" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>A Single Rose</i>, by Muriel Barbery (not up to her usual standard, I'm afraid) </span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b490f2d5-7fff-57a0-cd15-edb93462bc6f" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>French Rhapsody</i> and <i>The Portrait</i>, by Antoine Laurain </span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b490f2d5-7fff-57a0-cd15-edb93462bc6f" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>The Magician</i>, by Colm Tóibín </span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b490f2d5-7fff-57a0-cd15-edb93462bc6f" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>The Vicar of Bullhampton</i>, <i>Ralph the Heir</i>, <i>Castle Richmond</i>, and <i>The Three Clerks</i>, by Anthony Trollope</span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b490f2d5-7fff-57a0-cd15-edb93462bc6f" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b490f2d5-7fff-57a0-cd15-edb93462bc6f" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> and a variety of others:</span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b490f2d5-7fff-57a0-cd15-edb93462bc6f" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b490f2d5-7fff-57a0-cd15-edb93462bc6f" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine</i>, by Alina Bronsky</span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b490f2d5-7fff-57a0-cd15-edb93462bc6f" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>God's Mountain</i>, by Erri De Luca</span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b490f2d5-7fff-57a0-cd15-edb93462bc6f" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>The Vietri Project</i>, by Nicola DeRobertis-Theye</span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b490f2d5-7fff-57a0-cd15-edb93462bc6f" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>Lady into Fox</i>, by David Garnett</span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b490f2d5-7fff-57a0-cd15-edb93462bc6f" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>In a Dark Wood Wandering</i>, by Hella S. Haasse</span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b490f2d5-7fff-57a0-cd15-edb93462bc6f" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>The Fall of a Sparrow</i>, by Robert Hellenga</span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b490f2d5-7fff-57a0-cd15-edb93462bc6f" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>The Slaughterman's Daughter</i>, by Yaniv Iczkovits</span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b490f2d5-7fff-57a0-cd15-edb93462bc6f" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>The Europeans</i>, by Henry James</span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b490f2d5-7fff-57a0-cd15-edb93462bc6f" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>Einstein's Dreams</i>, by Alan Lightman </span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b490f2d5-7fff-57a0-cd15-edb93462bc6f" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>The Cat who saved Books</i>, by Sosuke Natsukawa</span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b490f2d5-7fff-57a0-cd15-edb93462bc6f" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>Yours Cheerfully</i>, by A. J. Pearce </span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b490f2d5-7fff-57a0-cd15-edb93462bc6f" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>Bride of the Sea</i>, by Eman Quotah</span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b490f2d5-7fff-57a0-cd15-edb93462bc6f" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>Lamberto Lamberto Lamberto</i>, by Gianni Rodari </span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b490f2d5-7fff-57a0-cd15-edb93462bc6f" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>The Liar's Dictionary</i>, by Eley Williams</span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-b490f2d5-7fff-57a0-cd15-edb93462bc6f" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>The Dictionary of Lost Words</i>, by Pip Williams </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><br /><br /></div>Lilithcathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00165155867167277588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8129057590571980039.post-51678104995949541192022-01-01T13:29:00.003-06:002022-01-01T22:01:41.083-06:00NON-Fiction read in 2020<p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">It was a year of "one thing leads to another", one book to another.</span></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">A good example: I took an online course about Ashkenazi cooking, which led to cookbooks and memoirs, and why let it be all about Ashkenzim, so books on Sephardic cooking and Sephardic history, etc., etc.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Matzoh Ball Gumbo: culinary tales of the Jewish south</i>, by Marcie Cohen Ferris</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>A Drizzle of Honey: the lives and recipes of Spain's secret Jews</i>, by David M. Gitlitz and Linda <span> </span>Kay Davidson </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Heretics or Daughters of Israel? the Crypto-Jewish women of Castile</i>, by Renée Levine <span> </span><span> </span><span> <span> </span></span>Melamed </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Family Papers: a Sephardic journey through the Twentieth-century</i>, by Sarah Abrevaya Stein</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>The Cooking Gene: a journey through African-American culinary history in the old South</i>, by <span> </span>Michael Twitty </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>The Cooking of the Jews of Greece</i>, by Nicholas Stavroulakis </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Donna Rifkind's biography of Salka Viertel, <i>The Sun and her Stars: Salka Viertel and Hitler's Exiles in the Golden Age of Hollywood</i>, led me to Viertel's own memoir, <i>The Kindness of Strangers</i>.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">A lot of books on race in America, several for my "Chicago books" book club:</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Ghosts in the Schoolyard: Racism and School Closings on Chicago's South Side</i>, by Eve L. <span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>Ewing</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>A Few Red Drops: the Chicago Race Riot of 1919</i>, by Claire Hartfield</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Another Way Home: the tangled roots of race in one Chicago family</i>, by Ronne Hartfield </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i><span> </span>neighborhood</i>, by Carlo Rotella</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>A Most Beautiful Thing: the true story of America's first all-Black high school rowing team</i>, <span> <span> </span></span>by Arshay Cooper</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Say I'm Dead: a family memoir of Races, secrets, and love</i>, by E. Dolores Johnson</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Fire Shut up in my Bones</i>, by Charles M. Blow (and I am SO SO SO looking forward to the opera at Lyric in the spring!) <br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Italy, of course:</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Dark Water: Art, Disaster, and Redemption in Florence</i>, by Robert Clark</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>The Politics of Washing: real life in Venice</i>, by Polly Coles</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Rawdon Brown and the Anglo-Venetian relationship</i>, edited by Ralph A. Griffiths and John E. <span> </span>Law</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Two Cities</i>, by Cynthia Zarin</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">and the two works by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa mentioned in my previous post.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Some memoirs:</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Confessions of a Bookseller</i>, by Shaun Bythell</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>The White Road: Journey into an obsession</i>, by Edmund De Waal</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Moab is my Washpot</i>, by Stephen Fry</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Making the Mummies Dance: inside the Metropolitan Museum of Art</i>, by Thomas Hoving</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Crossing: a transgender memoir</i>, by Derdre N. McCloskey</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Talking to Myself</i>, by Studs Terkel</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Night</i>, by Elie Wiesel</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>St. Trinian's Story</i>, by Kaye Webb</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Literary women in interwar England:</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>The Mutual Admiration Society: how Dorothy L. Sayers and her Oxford circle remade the <span> </span><span> </span>world for women</i>, by Mo Moulton (a good book, but a ridiculously over-the-top subtitle)</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Square Haunting: five writers in London between the wars</i>, by Francesca Wade </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Frauds:</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup</i>, by John Carreyrou (though the jury is <span> </span>literally, still out as I write this)</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>The Baker who Pretended to be King of Portugal</i>, by Ruth MacKay</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">And some odds and ends:</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Renaissance Invention: Stradanus' Nova Reperta</i>, by Lia Markey (exhibition catalog)</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>The Ghost: a cultural history</i>, by Susan Owens</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Daemon Voices: on stories and storytelling</i>, by Philip Pullman</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Gilgamesh: the life of a poem</i>, by Michael Schmidt</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>A Unified Theory of Cats on the Internet</i>, by E. J. White<br /></span></span></div><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></p>Lilithcathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00165155867167277588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8129057590571980039.post-13415763306317930112022-01-01T10:27:00.001-06:002022-01-01T22:02:21.327-06:00Books read in 2020<p><span style="font-size: medium;">Better late than never.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><u><b>FICTION</b></u><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-a5e386b4-7fff-787b-6662-1b2e6d022de2" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>Havelok the Dane</i> and <i>Gawain and the Green Knight </i>were both read for a class on food in literature.</span></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-a5e386b4-7fff-787b-6662-1b2e6d022de2" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> </span></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">My book club , which focuses on books about Chicago and by Chicago authors, read Carol Anshaw's </span><i><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Right After the Weather, </span></i><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Willa Cather's <i>Song of the Lark</i>,</span><i><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> </span></i><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">and Sara Paretsky's <i>Deadlock</i>.</span></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> </span></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">For my Italian class: <i>L'Arminuta</i>, by Donatella Di PIetrantonio; <i>La Vita bugiarda degli adulti</i>, by Elena Ferrante; <i>La mennulara</i>, by Simonetta Agnello Hornby; <i>Isola di Neve</i>, by Valentina d'Urbano</span></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> </span></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">I took a class about Giuseppe di Lampedusa. In class we read Steven Price's fictional biography, <i>Lampedusa</i>, and, of course, <i>The Leopard</i> (a re-read for me), but I also re-read <i>The Professor and the Siren</i>, as well as (for the first time) two non-fiction works by Lampedusa: <i>Places of my Infancy: a memory</i>, and </span><i><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-56083e25-7fff-bb96-f14c-8f63851f98fa" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Letters from London and Europe (1925-30)</span> </span></i></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;"><i><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> </span></i></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;">Due to the pandemic, theatre stopped in March. But <a href="https://www.courttheatre.org/" target="_blank">Court Theatre</a> did a lot of online "deep dives" into plays they had intended to produce. So I read Wole Soyinka's <i><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">The Bacchae of Euripides: a communion rite</span></i><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> and Tom Stoppard's <i>Leopoldstadt</i>.</span></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> </span></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Probably also due to the pandemic, I did a slew of very light reading - humor, mysteries, etc. </span></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">So:</span></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>This Undesirable Residence</i>, by Miles Burton </span></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>Give up the Ghost</i>, by Margaret Erskine</span></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>Unpunished: a myster</i>y, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman</span></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>The Leavenworth Case: a lawyer's story</i>, by Anna Katharine Green</span></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>The Second Man</i>, by Edward Grierson </span></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>Israel Rank: the Autobiography of a Criminal</i>, by Roy Horniman (this is the book on which "Kind Hearts and Coronets" was based)</span></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>The Plain Man</i>, by Julian Symons</span></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>Whose Body?</i>, by Dorothy L. Sayers (a re-read) </span></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>Rear Window and four short novels</i>, by Cornell Woolrich</span></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>Hunting Season </i>and <i>The Safety Net</i>, by Andrea Camilleri </span></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>Puppies</i>, by Maurizio de Giovanni (one of the <i>Bastards of Pizzofalcone</i> series) </span></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>Raffles</i>, by E.W. Hornung </span></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>Venice Noir</i>, an anthology edited by Maxim Jakubowski </span></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>The Thief of Venice</i>, by Jane Langton </span></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>Trace Elements</i>, by Donna Leon </span></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>Black Betty,</i> by Walter Mosley </span></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>Murder at the Frankfurt Book Fair</i>, by Hubert Monteilhet </span></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes,</i>by Jamyang Norbu </span></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>Revenge: Short Stories by Women Writers</i>, edited by Kate Saunders</span></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>The Lacquer Screen</i>, by Robert van Gulik </span></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><i>The Womansleuth Anthology</i>, edited by Irene Zahava </span></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> </span></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">P.G. Wodehouse amused me with <i>Ring for Jeeves</i>, <i>Ukridge</i>, <i>Tales of St. Austin's</i>, <i>The Small Bachelor</i>, and <i>Meet Mr. Mulliner.</i></span></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Other humor included Craig Brown's <i>The Marsh Marlowe Letters</i>, and Alexander McCall Smith's <i> The Geometry of Holding Hands</i> and <i>The Promise of Ankles</i>.</span></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> </span></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">I found some excellent new (to me) authors this year. I binged a bit on French author Antoine Laurain, reading first <i>The President's Hat</i>, followed by <i>The Red Notebook</i> and <i>The Reader's Room</i>. </span></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Two excellent collections of short stories were <i>Lost in the City</i>, by Edward P. Jones, and <i>The Bus Driver who wanted to be God</i>, by Etgar Keret. </span></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> </span></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">I also returned to old friends, such as Anthony Trollope (<i>He Knew he was Right</i>, <i>The Belton Estate</i>, <i>Lady Anna</i>), Wilkie Collins (<i>No Name</i>), Sharyn McCrumb (a re-read of <i>Ghost Riders</i>), and Edith Wharton (<i>The World Over</i>).</span></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> </span></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Other fiction reading included:</span></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Hilary Mantel's <i>The Mirror and the Light</i>, ending the story of Thomas Cromwell</span></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Emily Danforth's <i>Plain Bad Heroines</i> (longer than it should have been!)</span></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">F. Scott Fitzgerald's <i>Babylon Revisited</i> </span></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Arthur Phillips' <i>The Egyptologist</i></span></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;">Nancy Springer's <i>Fair Peril</i></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;">Paul Theroux's <i>The Greenest Island</i></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;">Lisa Wingate's <i>The Book of Lost Friends</i></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;">E.H. Young's <i>Miss Mole <br /></i></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;"><i> </i></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;">I think I'll do a separate post for the non-fiction, and then get to 2021!<i> </i></span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span><br />Lilithcathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00165155867167277588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8129057590571980039.post-68844137962969759132020-01-01T20:53:00.002-06:002020-01-01T20:53:29.734-06:002019 Reading: Fiction Part 3<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Okay, this should be the last of the fiction.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">41. <i>An Elderly Lady is up to No Good</i>, by <span style="font-size: small;">Helene Tursten. "No good" doesn't begin to describe it! Maud is 88, living in a fabulous, rent-free apartment, which some no-goodniks would like to get their hands on. Maud takes care of them, all right. Great fun.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">42. <i>Fiori sopra l'inferno</i>, by Ilaria Tuti. A thriller set in a small town in Italy, close to the Austrian border. </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Teresa Battaglia is sent to Travenì to investigate a series of gruesome murders and mutilations. She has to work with a rather arrogant, much younger cop, and contend with a village that would rather not know and would rather not have the outside world know it. The narrative goes back and forth between the present, and events in an orphanage years earlier. The end is heart-rending.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">43. <i>Fox</i>, by Dubravka Ugresic. The fox is a trickster, a shapeshifter, and so is this book. Hard to describe its mix of fiction and history, invented characters and real people, its story told in several section jumping to different parts of the world. What's true and what's false? It's not an easy book, but it's worth the effort.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">44. <i>The Willow Pattern</i>, by Robert van Gulik. A Judge Dee story, with plague and murders. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">45. <i>Sperando che il mondo mi chiami</i>, by Mariafrancesca Venturo. The title is a bit of a pun. Carolina comes from a family of teachers, and is herself what we call in the States a substitute teacher. It's really hard to get a full-time position, and to get a temporary one, you have to be constantly on call and nearby. (You'll learn a lot about the Italian educational system and what it's like to be a teacher there from this book.) Carolina loves her work, and she has an amazing ability to establish rapport and understanding with her young charges, even when she's there a very short time. Her desire to figure out what's best for them <i>and</i> what's best for her is what drives the plot. Secondary characters are drawn really well. We understand her close connection with her grandmother, for instance, and her need to help a student in distress. The book does not appear to have translated into English (yet), which is a shame.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">46. <i>Little Novels of Sicily</i>, by Giovanni Verga, translated by D.H. Lawrence. More short stories than novellas, this volume includes the story on which the opera, <i>Cavalleria Rusticana</i>, was based, though there's a whole lot more to it. The stories reveal the lives of rural Sicilian peasants, corrupt clergy, and greedy landowners. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">47. <i>The Sole Survivor, and the Kynsard Affair</i>, by Roy Vickers. Two, two, two mints in one! Okay, two stories in the same volume. In the first, a group of men are stranded on an island following a shipwreck. One survives. What happened to the rest? Some were clearly murdered, but the last might have been a suicide. A judicial inquiry may or may not reveal the truth. In the second, the question is, who has been killed? A naked corpse is discovered, and there are two possible victims. Or are the women one and the same?</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">48. <i>Cakes for Your Birthday: a criminal extravagance</i>, by C. E. Vulliamy. </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The Liquidation Committee decides to perform a public service, and rid
their town of a nasty, malicious, slander-slinging biddy. The chair, a
retired headmaster, and his younger accomplices, take advice from a
dahlia-loving professional hit man. Things go wrong. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">49. <i>The Hound in the Left-Hand Corner</i>, by Giles Waterfield. Oh, funny! A </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">a satire on what goes on behind the scenes in museums, covering twenty-four hours in the run-up to the gala opening of an exhibition at "BRIT: the Museum of British History". If you've worked in a museum, if you go to museums, if you know anything about them, you'll enjoy the romp.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">50 and 51. <i>False Dawn</i> and <i>The World Over</i>, by Edith Wharton. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">In <i>False Dawn</i>, Lewis Raycie's father sends him to Europe to buy "great art", which will be the nucleus of a collection that will make Raycie's name echo down the ages. But in Italy Lewis falls under the influence of John Ruskin, and the art with which he returns is not what was expected. His father basically disowns him, and it is not until years later, when it is too late for him or his widow financially, that the paintings are truly appreciated. Read for a class and it engendered quite a good discussion about "what is art". </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><i>The World Over</i> is a collection of short stories, set in Wharton's usual worlds of Gilded Age New York and the Europe of wealthy American travelers.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">52 - 56. <i>The Code of the Woosters</i>; <i>Right Ho, Jeeves</i>; <i>Heavy Weather</i>; <i>Galahad at Blandings</i>; <i>Aunts Aren't Gentlemen (a/k/a The Catnappers)</i>, by P. G. Wodehouse, of course. What else needs to be said? If you like this kind of thing, this is the kind of thing you'll like. I do and I did.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">57. <i>Miss Blaine's Prefect and the Golden Samovar</i>, by Olga Wojtas. </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I picked this up because I thought the concept was interesting, but it goes horribly wrong.<br /><br />The protagonist, Shona McMonagle, is a librarian and a graduate of the Marcia Blaine School for Girls, snitched from <i>The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie</i>. But this connection goes nowhere, so what was the point? She
finds herself on a time traveling mission to tsarist Russia, but has not
been told where she's going, what year it will be (she never finds
out), or what her mission is, which is a strange way to go about things.
And this, naturally, contributes to her idiotic behavior, behavior that
one would not expect from a theoretically intelligent woman, one who
comments that being wrong was a new experience for her. She is
ridiculously dense, missing things that anyone with an ounce of common
sense would realize immediately.<br /><br />A note at the end of the book suggests that there will be more books featuring this woman. I will not be reading them.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">58. <i>Sorcery and Cecelia: the Enchanted Coffee Pot</i>, by Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer. An epistolary novel set in Regency England featuring Cecelia and her friend and cousin Kate. Wrede and Stevermer alternate the writing, so Cecilia and Kate each has her own distinctive voice. It's got fantasy, magic, wizardry, as well as a couple of feisty teen-aged girls. I enjoyed it.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">59. <i>A Coin in Nine Hands</i>, by Marguerite Yourcenar. This is a collection of short stories, culminating with an assassination plot against Mussolini, </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">linked by the "coin" of the title. Everyday lives, isolated, lonely, are connected as the ten-lira piece changes hands.</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /></span></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">To be continued . . . with non-fiction.</span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></span>Lilithcathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00165155867167277588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8129057590571980039.post-57644639275002531122020-01-01T18:13:00.003-06:002020-01-01T18:13:58.942-06:002019 Reads - Fiction Part 2<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I was listing books alphabetically by author, and discovered that I missed a few!</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">So . . . </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">21. <i>Flight of the Falcon</i>, by Daphne du Maurier. A rather odd book. The protagonist is a courier for a tour company in Italy. There's a murder of an old lady in Rome, and he might or might not know who she was. He returns to his home town, where his brother (whom he thought was killed in the war) is organizing a pageant about a dubious Renaissance duke. It's all very odd.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">22. <i>Eve's Ransom</i>, by George Gissing. A shorter Victorian. Maurice Hilliard, having unexpectedly come into a bit of money, goes (doesn't everyone?) to London to enjoy life, and not incidentally to track down a young woman with whose photo, shown to him by his landlady, he has fallen in love. She is not doing well financially, and so is willing to take what she can get from him, including a trip (accompanied by a friend) to Paris - rather compromising at that time. Things get complicated, but all works out in the end.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">23. <i>La Ragazza con la Leica</i>, by Helena Janaczek. This is a fictionalized account of the life of photographer Gerda Taro (the first woman photojournalist killed covering a war - the Spanish Civil War) and various of her colleagues and friends. It jumps back and forth in time, and is primarily other people's recollections of her. Interesting enough that I sought out non-fiction about Taro. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">24. <i>The Island of the Mad</i>, by Laurie R. King. A Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes mystery. Mary is asked by an old friend to track down her aunt, who disappeared with her nurse after being furloughed from Bedlam (a mental hospital) to attend her brother's birthday celebration. All clues lead to Venice, so Mary heads there with Holmes, whose brother Mycroft has charged with reporting on the political situation. While there, the two also become involved with "bright young things", like Cole Porter. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The island of the title is Poveglia, one of the lagoon islands, a place where in the late 1700s plague victims were sent, likely to die, and in 1922 a mental institution was built there. There are all sorts of stories of an evil doctor and hauntings, and the like. I was there once, in the dark, it's very spooky.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">25. <i>Chicago</i>, by David Mamet. </span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">1920s Chicago, the mob, newspaper men. I finished this only because my book club was reading it. I don't think
I've ever read such ridiculous, stilted, pretentious dialogue in all my
life. Seriously, after half a page, I threw the book down, yelling, "No
one talks like this!" And this man is a playwright (not that I've
ever thought much of his plays, either)! The narrative is pretty bad,
too.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">26. <i>Compulsion</i>, by Meyer Levin. A novel based on the Leopold-Loeb murder case. Not bad. It drags a bit once we get to the trial. There's a reason that books, films, television shows about trials are so unrealistic. They need to be dramatic, and, let's be honest, trial (in this case, sentencing) transcripts aren't, and Levin basically just parrots the testimony.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">27. <i>The Quiet Side of Passion</i>, by Alexander McCall Smith. This is one of his Isabel Dalhousie series. Isabel is coping with now two children while editing her philosophy journal, and sticking her nose into other people's business (in fairness, usually because someone asks her to do so). The usual secondary characters - housekeeper Grace, niece Cat - are their usual selves, and the always obnoxious Professor Lettuce also puts in an appearance.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">28. <i>The Peppermint Tea Chronicles</i>, by Alexander McCall Smith. A 44 Scotland Street book. This is my favorite series of his. It's always a joy when a new one comes out. Bertie and Stuart are reveling in the absence of the truly annoying Irene, who is off getting an advanced degree in Aberdeen. Bruce the narcissist is thinking of settling down(!), but his ego trips him up badly. Elspeth and Matthew continue to figure out how to raise triplets. Can't wait for the next!</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">29. <i>Speedy Death</i>, by Gladys Mitchell. Murder at an English country house, where one of the party, Mrs. Bradley, is a psychoanalyst and amateur sleuth. Very twisty and enjoyable.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">30. <i>Festa di Famiglia</i>, by Sveva Casati Modignani. Italian chick lit. A group of friends meets regularly for dinner, and support each other through life's trials and tribulations.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">31. <i>Charade</i>, by John Mortimer. Mortimer's first novel (it shows) is based on his experience in a film unit during WWII. The narrator is basically a "gofer" in the unit, the other people are all a bit odd, and there's a death that might be murder. A bit weak, but, I say, it's his first, and we know he'll improve.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">32. <i>Convenience Store Woman</i>, by Sayaka Murata. Keiko is definitely not leading the life expected of a young (well, not so young any more) Japanese woman. At 36, she has been working at a convenience store, where the prescriptive, rule-bound nature of the work suits her personality very well. Family members, though, try to get her have a more "normal" life. A bit quirky, and with some good points made about the difficulty of fitting in.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">33. <i>The Story of the Treasure Seekers</i>, by E. Nesbit. A re-read. There are some "children's books" that I still like to read, and E. Nesbit's are among them. When the family fortunes disappear, the children vow to restore them. Well, you can imagine! Fun.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">34. <i>The Pit: a story of Chicago</i>, by Frank Norris. </span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">This concerns a Chicago trader's attempt to corner the market on wheat, and the financial and familial consequences. The descriptions of trading in the old Board of Trade building are excellent, as are those of the social and business lives of the city. This is the second in what was intended to be a trilogy, The Epic of Wheat, but Norris died before writing the third.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">35. <i>Dear Mrs. Bird</i>, by A. J. Pearce. This is </span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">set during the London Blitz, and the protagonist is Emmy, a young woman
who would love to become a Lady War Correspondent, but finds herself as
dogsbody to an agony aunt, one who will answer only Acceptable problems.
Feeling that even (or especially) the writers of Unacceptable letters
need help, Emmy starts to write back. The book has its comic
moments, but it's also a very good picture of life during the Blitz, the
worries and the rationing, how the folks, particularly the young ones,
went on with life.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">36. <i>The Secret Commonwealth</i>, by Philip Pullman. The second of "The Book of Dust" trilogy focuses more on Lyra, now an adult, than did the first. Poor Lyra. She and Pantaleimon are at odds. Truly. That's not supposed to happen with your daemon. But, unlike just about everyone else, they can separate, and it's in part the circumstances that led to that that also caused Pantaleimon's sense of betrayal, their inability to communicate with each other in the old way. And now each must take a dangerous journey without the other.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">37 and 38. <i>Unnatural Death</i> and <i>The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club</i>, by Dorothy L. Sayers. These are both re-reads. In fact, I re-read <i>Bellona Club</i> because I'd acquired a new copy to replace one that was falling apart. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">39. <i>Oedipus the King</i>, by Sophocles, translation by Nicholas Rudall. Chicago's <a href="https://www.courttheatre.org/" target="_blank">Court Theatre</a> mounted a production of <i>Oedipus</i> this season, and will later do <i>The Gospel at Colonus</i> and (next season) <i>Antigone</i>. They used (mostly) the Rudall translation. In conjunction with the performance, they held a seminar about the play, facilitated by a staff member and classics professor from the University of Chicago. I liked doing a deep dive into the play, the discussions were thought-provoking and made seeing the production so much better. I told the artistic director that they should do this sort of thing more often!</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">40. <i>Daughter of Time</i>, by Josephine Tey. Another re-read, for the anniversary of the murder of Richard III. </span></span>Lilithcathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00165155867167277588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8129057590571980039.post-1594716501198756302020-01-01T14:00:00.000-06:002020-01-01T14:00:10.673-06:00Books read in 2019 - Fiction - Part 1I'm going to do this is multiple posts, as it would get crazy long if I didn't!<br />
<br />
One of my goals has been to lighten my overladen bookshelves by reading heretofore unread books that I doubt I'll want to keep. As a result, there are a fair number of older works of fiction on this list, including many detective/mystery books. But, of course, a lot of newer books as well.<br />
<br />
1. <i>The Piccadilly Murder</i>, by Anthony Berkeley. A "Golden Age" mystery, with the usual convoluted plot. A great deal of fun.<br />
<br />
2. <i>The Lawyer's Secret</i>, by M.E. Braddon. Braddon is best known for <i>Lady Audley's Secret</i>, but wrote absolutely TONS of "sensational" fiction. My copy of this novella also included a shorter work, "The Mystery at Fernwood". I must say that the "secret" was pretty obvious (at least to me) early on, but I nevertheless do enjoy these Victorian sensation novels, even when they aren't triple-deckers.<br />
<br />
3. <i>The Lake on Fire</i>, by Rosellen Brown. I had so looked forward to this book. It's Brown's first novel in many years, and is set in Chicago at the time of the World's Columbian Exposition. It follows a young Jewish immigrant, who leaves rural Wisconsin for Chicago, accompanied by her prodigy of a young brother. So it sounded pretty interesting. Unfortunately, it's surprisingly poorly written. The characters never came to life, and the ending is very weak. <br />
<br />
4. <i>The Pyramid of Mud</i>, by Andrea Camilleri. What can I say? If you enjoy the Montalbano series (which I do), you'll enjoy this book. Gosh, I'm going to miss Camilleri.<br />
<br />
5. <i>The Lady in the Lake</i>, by Raymond Chandler. An excellent bit of <i>noir.</i><br />
<br />
<i>6. La ragazza nella nebbia</i>, by Donato Carrisi. Read for my Italian book club. A murder mystery set in the small town of Avechot, it is also a commentary on the media and police work. A complex plot well worked out.<br />
<i> </i><br />
7. <i>The Cunning Man</i>, by Robertson Davies. I enjoy Davies work a lot, and, as usual, his characterizations are very well done. His last, and, though perhaps not his best (I think I'll always like <i>The Salterton Trilogy</i> the most, perhaps because that's where I first encountered him), worth reading.<br />
<br />
8. <i>Cold for the Bastards of Pizzofalcone</i>, by Maurizio de Giovanni. This series features a group of police officers, all of whom have not-so-stellar reputations, who have been sent to the Pizzofalcone station to replace a bunch of corrupt cops. The powers-that-be are always looking for a reason to disband the squad, but good police work stops that from happening. Here, a double murder provides the basis for the plot, but I always think that de Giovanni's strength is in creating the Neapolitan atmosphere, and creating fully-fleshed-out, interesting characters. (I also recommend his <i>Comissario Ricciardi</i> series, also set in Naples, but during the Fascist period, which is a character in itself.)<br />
<br />
9. <i>Optic Nerve</i>, by Maria Gainza. Not so much a novel as a series of connected chapters, in each of which a work of art becomes the trigger for memories and meditations. <br />
<br />
10. <i>Time for Frankie Coolin</i>, by Bill Granger. Set in Chicago in the '70s. Coolin is a white, blue-collar guy, who owns a couple of rundown apartment buildings in black neighborhoods. He's doing okay, working in the trades has got him and his family out to the 'burbs. Then favor for a relative lands him in hot water with the feds. This is such a great book! Really captures the flavor of the people and neighborhoods and culture of Chicago at the time, and will help you understand the impact that had on where we are now.<br />
<br />
11. <i>Goodbye, Piccadilly</i>, by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles. This is the first of a series of the author's "War at Home" series, following a family before and during World War I. I read it on the recommendation of a friend. It's not a bad read, but I guess I'm not really a "family saga" sort of person, as I am not inspired to continue the series.<br />
<br />
12. <i>The Tale Teller</i>, by Anne Hillerman. Tony Hillerman's daughter has continued his Chee/Leaphorn series, and in the more recent contributions she has started to make the series her own, by giving more prominence to Officer Bernie Manuelito, who is married to Chee. Leaphorn has been asked to track down a missing Navajo artifact, Manuelito stumbles on a body, while Chee and Manuelito are also looking into a series of burglaries. You'll not be surprised to learn that some of these things are connected.<br />
<br />
13. <i>Was it Murder?</i>, by James Hilton. Of course it was! This was rather a fun book to read, despite the
fact that I had the culprit's identity figured out very early on, and
also despite the fact that the author never grapples with the legal
impossibility of the supposed motive (the culprit may not have been
aware of the issue, but the detectives certainly would have been).<br /><br />
But
I really liked this quotation: "<i>Someone had actually tried to murder
him, to shoot him in cold blood as he sat at his typewriter; it was a
monstrous thing, and he experienced, though a hundred times more
intensely, the feeling that constrains so many Englishmen to write to
the Times.</i>" Ha!<br />
<br />
14. <i>Pictures at an Exhibition</i>, by Sarah Houghteling. A novel about a young man's attempt to recover his family's art collection, stolen by the Nazis. Because it's long, I'm linking to <a href="http://www.librarything.com/work/6417904/reviews/47482106">My review at LibraryThing</a><br />
<br />
15. <i>Keep it Quiet</i>, by Richard Hull. Another "Golden Age" mystery. Murder and blackmail at a staid London men's club. First published in 1935, it's quite amusing (intentionally so).<br />
<br />
16. <i>No! I Don't Want to Join a Book Club: Diary of a 60th Year</i>, by Virginia Ironside. An amusing account of just what the title says - a woman's 60th year. She's a bit of a curmudgeon, to which I can relate. Not great literature, but an enjoyable light read.<br />
<br />
17. <i>The Game is afoot! Parodies, pastiches, and ponderings of Sherlock Holmes</i>, edited by Marvin Kaye. Like all anthologies, some of the offerings are great, some are terrible, and most are somewhere in between. If you are a fan of Holmes, it's worth dipping into.<br />
<br />
18. <i>Unto Us a Son is Give</i>, by Donna Leon. A Comissario Brunetti mystery. Brunetti's father-in-law, Count Falier, is concerned about an old friend who wishes to adopt his much younger lover (basically to get around Italian inheritance laws). When the friend drops dead in the street, is it murder? A second death definitely is. Leon's are always enjoyable, if only because they take me back to Venice. And the food! <br />
<br />
19. <i>The House Sitter</i>, by Peter Lovesey. Nobody notices when a woman is strangled on a crowded beach. There's also a serial killer on the loose, and it turns out the dead woman was a profiler who worked with the police. Any connection? An okay book, but good enough to make me hunt up others in the series.<br />
<br />
20. <i>Under Cover: Death Stalks the Book Dealer</i>, by F. J. Manasek. Linked short stories of crime and murder in the antiquarian book world.<br />
<br />
<br />Lilithcathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00165155867167277588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8129057590571980039.post-7643578556544387952019-01-03T17:21:00.000-06:002019-01-03T17:22:18.966-06:002018: the non-fiction<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Here's the non-fiction for 2018. Again, bolding some of my favorites. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">LOTS of memoirs and biographies: </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><i>A Jewish Voice from Ottoman Salonica: the Ladino Memoir of Sa'adi Besalel a-Levi</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><i>Sacred Ground: the Chicago Streets of Timuel Black</i>, by Timuel D. Black, Jr.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><i>The Diary of a Bookseller</i>, by Shaun Bythell</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><i>Bookshops: a reader's history</i>, by Jorge Carrion</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><i>Fashion Climbing: a memoir with photographs</i> by Bill Cunningham</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><i>Julius Rosenwald: Repairing the World</i>, by Hasia Diner</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><b><i>My Family and other Animals</i></b>, and <i>Birds, Beasts, and Relatives</i>, by Gerald Durrell</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><b><i>Escape through the Pyrenees</i></b>, by Lisa Fittko</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><i>By Appointment</i>, by Sidney Berry Hill</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><i>Black Tudors: the untold story</i>, by Miranda Kaufman</span> </span></span> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><i>Can't Nothing Bring Me Down: Chasing Myself in the Race Against Time</i>, by Ida Keeling</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><i>The South Side: a portrait of Chicago and American segregation</i>, by Natalie Y. Moore</span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><i>Two Schools of Thought: Some Tales of Learning and Romance</i>, by Carolyn See and John Espy</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><i>Mad, Bad, Dangerous to Know: the Fathers of Wilde, Yeats and Joyce</i>, by Colm Tóibín</span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><i>The Girl with the Hat: Esther Mercy vs. Marion Talbot</i>, by Harriet Reynolds Tuve</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">History, too:</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><i>To Sleep with the Angels: the story of a fire</i>, by David Cowan and John Kuenster</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><i>Love and Death in Renaissance Italy</i>, by Thomas V. Cohen</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><i>Women and the Making of the Modern House: a social and architectural history</i>, by Alice T. Friedman</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"></span></span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><i>A Nervous Splendor: Vienna 1888/1889</i>, by Frederic Morton</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><i>Chicago Renaissance: Literature and Art in the Midwest Metropolis</i>, by Liesl Olson</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><i>Food and Cooking in Roman Britain: History and Recipes</i>, by Jane Renfrew</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><i>Shade: a Tale of Two Presidents</i>, by Pete Souza</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><b><i>The World that Made New Orleans: From Spanish Silver to Congo Square</i></b>, by Ned Sublette</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><b><i>Forever Open, Clear, and Free: the Struggle for Chicago's Lakefront</i></b>, by Lois Wille</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">And various other things:</span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><i> </i></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><i>New York è una finestra senza tende</i>, by Paolo Cognetti</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><b><i>The Pleasures of Japanese Literature</i></b>, by Donald Keene</span> </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><i>Maestros and their Music: the Art and Alchemy of Conducting</i>, by John Mauceri</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><i>Mutts Shelter Stories</i>, by Patrick McDonnell</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><i>Ciao, Carpaccio! an Infatuation</i>, by Jan Morris</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><b><i>Venice on a Plate: but what a Plate!</i></b>, by Enrica Rocca</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><i>Frank Lloyd Wright at Oberlin: the Story of the Weltzheimer/Johnson House</i>, by Athena Tacha</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><i>Quite Enough of Calvin Trillin</i>, by Calvin Trillin</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><i>The Man with the Sawed-Off Leg and other tales of a New York City Block</i>, by Daniel J. Wakin</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><i>Snobbery with Violence: English Crime Stories and their Audience</i>, by Colin Watson</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> </span> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> </span> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> </span> </span></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> </span> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /><span style="font-weight: normal;"></span></span>
<br />
<h4>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></h4>
<h4>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></h4>
Lilithcathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00165155867167277588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8129057590571980039.post-66188396186711876382019-01-03T16:41:00.001-06:002019-01-03T16:42:24.762-06:002017's Non-fiction<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Yes, I know. Really behind with this post, but I was doing the previous one and discovered this draft. I'm bad. So here you are. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">As promised, here are the non-fiction titles I read last year.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">1. Deborah Alun-Jones, <i>The Wry Romance of the Literary Rectory</i> A rather delightful book in which Alun-Jones discusses the effect of growing up, or living in, a rectory on some British literary figures, ranging from the Brontes to Dorothy L. Sayers to the various Bensons.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">2. Tim Anderson, <i>Japaneasy: Classic and Modern Japanese Recipes to Cook at Home</i> Anderson seeks to demystify Japanese cooking for the nervous westerner. The recipes are straightforward, but there's humor as well. Each recipe has a different description for the level of difficulty, ranging from "not at all difficult" to really bad puns like "soy not difficult" (for edamame). It's also a beautifully designed book, with lovely photographs and drawings. I haven't tried any of the recipes yet (hey, I just got it at Christmas), but I expect that I will.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">3. Anomymous, <i>Etiquette for Ladies and Gentlemen</i> For those who are "perplexed by doubtful points of Etiquette, or by the frequent changes in the fashions of Society". </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">4. Elif Batuman, <i>The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People who read them</i> A combination of memoir and literary criticism, with some travel writing thrown in. I enjoyed it, but then I spent one summer when I was in college reading nothing but Tolstoy and Dostoevsky.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">5. Pierre Berton, <i>The Dionne Years: a Thirties Melodrama</i> Gosh, it certainly was! Poor kids. Mom gives birth to quintuplets at home, and everybody thinks they know better than the parents how to raise them. The girls are basically put on show. They didn't do very well as adults, and it's no surprise.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">6. Stefan Bollman, <i>Women who read are dangerous</i> The title is misleading; it's actually a collection of images of women reading with short essays about those images. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">7. Timothy Brook, <i>Vermeer's Hat: the Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World</i> Globalism isn't new, kiddies! Brook uses the objects in a painting by Vermeer (fur hat, pottery, etc.) as jumping-off points for a discussion of the expansion of trade around the world. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">8. A.S. Byatt, <i>Peacock & Vine: on William Morris and Mariano Fortuny</i> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">9. Franco Cardini, et al., <i>The Medici Women </i>A collection of essays, and quite a collection of women</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">10. Katherine Reynolds Craddock, <i>Uncompromising Activist: Richard Greener, First Black Graduate of Harvard College</i></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">11. James Gleick<i>, Time Travel: a history </i></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">12. Daisy Hernández, <i>A Cup of Water under my Bed</i></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">13. Angela Jackson, <i>A Surprised Queenhood in the New Black Sun: the life and legacy of Gwendolyn Brooks</i></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">14. Dean Jackson, <i>Empire of Deception: the incredible story of a master swindler who seduced a city and captivated a nation</i></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">15. Michael Lenahan, <i>Much Ado: a Summer with a Repertory Theater Company</i></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">16. Ethan Michaeli, <i> The Defender: How the Legendary Black Newspaper Changed America</i></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i><br /></i></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">17. Craig A. Monson, <i>Habitual Offenders: a true tale of nuns, prostitutes, and murderers in 17th-century Italy</i></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">18. R.J. Nelson, <i>Dirty Waters: Confessions of Chicago's Last Harbor Boss</i></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">19. Paul Poiret, <i>King of Fashion: the autobiography of Paul Poiret</i></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">20. Leigh Eric Schmidt, <i>Village Atheists: How America's Unbelievers Made their Way in a Godly Nation</i></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">21. Vincent Scully, <i>The Meyer May House, Grand Rapids, Michigan</i></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">22. Edward Sorel, <i>Mary Astor's Purple Diary: the great American sex scandal of 1936</i></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">23. Hilary Spurling, <i>La Grande Thérèse: the Greatest Scandal of the Century</i></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">24. Wendy Welch, <i>The Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap</i></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">25. Frank Lloyd Wright, </span></span><i><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Japanese Print, an interpretation</span></span> </i><br />
<i></i><br />
<br />Lilithcathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00165155867167277588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8129057590571980039.post-75460676014827509932019-01-03T16:38:00.001-06:002019-01-03T16:40:18.825-06:00Fiction read in 2019<span style="font-size: large;">Looks like most of my reading this year was fiction (I'll do a separate post with the non-fiction titles). I've put my five favorites in bold type. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Quite a few mysteries/detective stories:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>The Sacco Gang</i>, by Andrea Camilleri<i> </i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Death at the Dog</i>, by Joanna Cannnan</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Who Killed Zebedee? </i>and <i>John Jago's Ghost</i>, by Wilkie Collins (in the same volume)</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Darkness for the Bastards of Pizzofalcone</i> and <i>Nameless Serenade (a Commissario Ricciardi mystery)</i>, by Maurizio de Giovanni</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>The Mystery of Edwin Drood</i>, by Charles Dickens</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>The Lost Stradivarius</i>, by J. Meade Falkner</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Death and the Pleasant Voices</i>, by Mary Fitt</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>The Glass Key</i>, by Dashiell Hammett</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>An English Murder</i>, by Cyril Hare</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Cave of Bones</i>, by Anne Hillerman</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Sleep No More: Six Murderous Tales</i>, by P.D. James</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>The Grand Complication</i>, by Allen Kurzweil </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>The Temptation of Forgiveness</i>, by Donna Leon</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Take Out</i>, by Margaret Maron</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>The Color of Fear</i>, and <i>The Breakers</i>, by Marcia Muller</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>The Great Impersonation</i>, by E. Phillips Oppenheim</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Shell Game</i>, by Sara Paretsky</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club</i>, by Dorothy L. Sayers (a re-read on Armistice Day)</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>To Each His Own</i>, by Leonardo Sciascia</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>The Labyrinth of the Spirits</i>, by Carlos Ruiz Záfon </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">It's an interesting variety, actually. A touch of noir, some classic English works, contemporary American (mostly by women), and some recent European authors. A few, such as the Záfon and the Falkner, have a touch of the supernatural about them.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Speaking of the supernatural:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>A Discovery of Witches</i>, <i>Shadow of Night</i>, and <i>The Book of Life</i>, by Deborah Harkness (her All Souls Trilogy)</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>The Rules of Magic</i>, by Alice Hoffman </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I read several short story collections:</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i>The Teeth of the Comb and other stories</i>, by Osama Alomar</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><i>The Coast of Chicago</i></b>, by Stuart Dybek</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><i>Night Hawks</i></b>, by Charles Johnson</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><i>The Logic of a Rose</i></b>, by Billy Lombardo </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>The Decapitated Chicken and other stories</i>, by Horacio Quiroga</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Chance Developments: Unexpected Love Stories</i>, by Alexander McCall Smith </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">A couple of children/young adult books:</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Little Women</i>, by Louisa May Alcott (another re-read)</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Pinocchio</i>, by Carlo Collodi </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>The Sixty-Eight Rooms</i>, by Marianne Malone (a bit of magic here)</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">In Italian:</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i>La Più Amata</i>, by Teresa Ciabatta</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Le Otto Montagne</i>, by Paolo Cognetti</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>L'arte della gioia</i>, by Goliarda Sapienza (read it in English, too: <i>The Art of Joy</i>)</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">and lots more:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>The Everlasting Story of Nory</i>, by Nicholson Baker</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Wish Her Safe at Home</i>, by Stephen Benatar</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Summer Crossing</i>, by Truman Capote</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>The Outcry</i>, by Henry James</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>The World Goes On</i>, by Lázló Krasznahorkai</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>To Kill a Mockingbird</i>, by Harper Lee (yet another re-read!)</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>A Guide for the Perplexed</i>, by Jonathan Levi</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Fludd</i>, by Hilary Mantel</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Summer's Lease</i>, and <i>The Narrowing Stream</i>, by John Mortimer</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><i>Malacqua: Four Days of Rain in the City of Naples, Waiting for the Occurrence of an Extraordinary Event</i></b>, by Nicola Pugliese</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Garments the Living Wear</i>, by James Purdy</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>The Stone Tide: Adventures at the End of the World</i>, by Gareth E. Rees</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><i>Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk</i></b>, by Kathleen Rooney </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Memento Park</i>, by Mark Sarvas</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Dear Committee Members</i>, by Julie Schumacher</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Hope Never Dies!</i>, by Andrew Shaffer</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>A Time of Love and Tartan</i>, by Alexander McCall Smith</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>The American Lover</i>, by Rose Tremain</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Orley Farm</i>, by Anthony Trollope</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>The Neighborhood</i>, by Mario Vargas Llosa</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Jeeves in the Morning</i>, and <i>Thank You, Jeeves</i>, by P.G. Wodehouse</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Some of these were by familiar authors, others by authors new to me. </span><br />
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<br />Lilithcathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00165155867167277588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8129057590571980039.post-80934237432019131322018-01-06T19:54:00.000-06:002018-01-06T23:28:05.415-06:00I'm back! With books read in 2017<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I don't know how consistent I'll be about posting, but this is a start! A long list of books read in 2017, with some commentary.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><u><b>FICTION</b></u> </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;">1. Peter Ackroyd, <i>The Trial of Elizabeth Cree</i> This has been sitting on my shelf for awhile, and I took it down because I'm seeing an opera based on it. It's about a serial killer in Victorian England, and has quite the twist!</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;">2. Laurent Binet, <i>The Seventh Function of Language</i> You don't have to be a semiotician to enjoy this book, though it doesn't hurt to know a bit about people like Michel Foucaut and Julia Kristeva. Roland Barthes really was killed when he was hit by a laundry van after lunching with François Mitterand, but this turns the incident into (perhaps) murder, and is also rather a send-up of the French intelligentsia.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;">3. Rita Mae Brown, <i>Cakewalk</i> I was happy to see the return of the Hunsenmeier sisters. Brown nobly resisted her tendency, notable in her recent Sneaky Pie mysteries, to put speeches into the mouths of her characters. In this book, they have actual conversations.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;">4. Mary Burns, <i>The Reason for Time</i> Historical fiction set in Chicago in 1919. Read for the Cliff Dwellers book club</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;">5. James Byrom, <i>Or Be He Dead </i>Mid-century British mystery novel</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;">6. Italo Calvino, <i>Se una notte d'inverno un viaggiatore</i> In English, <i>If on a winter's night a traveller</i>. I read this a few years ago in translation, and was happy that we chose to read it in my Italian lit class. I love it just as much (if not more) in the original.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;">7. Wilkie Collins, <i>Armadale</i> Lengthy, convoluted Victorian mystery, with coincidences abounding. Loved it.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;">8. Maurizio de Giovanni, <i>Glass Souls</i> A Commissario Ricciardi mystery. This series is set in Naples during the Mussolini régime. It's really good.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;">9. Pablo de Santis, <i>Voltaire's Calligrapher</i> Calligraphy, philosophy, and mysterious doings.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;">10. Raymond Chandler, <i>Farewell, My Lovely</i> Noir</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;">11. Theodore Dreiser, <i>Sister Carrie</i> Not the nun-type sister, not by a long shot! Another Cliff Dwellers book club read</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;">12. Edna Ferber, <i>The Girls</i> Why have I never read any Edna Ferber before? I loved this book! Three generations of the women of a Chicago family, changing as the city and the world changed. There's a lovely passage in which the change is made evident in the contrast between an older woman's clothing (corsets, whalebone) and the youngest's (wisps of cloth). Cliff Dwellers book club.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;">13. Joanne Harris, <i>Different Class</i> This follows up on Harris' <i>Gentlemen and Players</i>, which would be good to read first, though not necessary. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;">14 & 15. Susan Hill, <i>The Small Hand</i> and <i>The Woman in Black</i> Two ghost stories by a master. Very twisty, they remind me a bit of M.R. James.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;">16. Anne Hillerman, <i>Song of the Lion</i> An enjoyable mystery by Tony's daughter. She continues the Leaphorn/Chee series, but with a lot more emphasis on Chee's wife, police officer Bernie Manuelito.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;">17. Madeleine L'Engle, <i>A Wrinkle in Time</i> Nope. Don't care if it is a "classic", it's thinly plotted, little characterization. I was not impressed.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;">18. Donna Leon, <i>Earthly Remains</i> A Commissario Brunetti mystery, of course. And, as pretty much always, nothing is "solved", because the corruption that allows the <i>laguna</i> to be polluted and destroyed is, perhaps, unsolvable.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;">19. Penelope Lively, <i>The Purple Swamp Hen and other stories </i>I had a good time with this varied collection. Short stories are tough, and Lively knows how to write them.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;">20. Gabrielle Lyon, Devin Mawdsley, Kayce Bayer, Chris Lin, and Deon Reed, <i>No Small Plans</i> In 1909, Daniel Burnham and Edward Bennett wrote the <i>1909 Plan of Chicago</i>, a comprehensive approach to urban planning for the city. A simpler version, called <i>Wacker's Manual of the Plan of Chicago</i>, taught the plan to <i>eighth-graders</i> in the Chicago Public Schools. <i>No Small Plans</i> is a graphic novel inspired by that manual, launched by the Chicago Architecture Foundation with a Kickstarter campaign, and also aimed at Chicago teen-agers. In three main sections, set in past, present and future, teens think about the design of the city they live in, what they think it should be, and how to make that happen. Between these chapters are bits about Burnham, to make the connection with the city's history.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;">21. Kenneth Mahood, <i>The Secret Sketchbook of a Bloomsbury Lady </i>A hoot! Great drawings, funny satire on the Bloomsbury crowd.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;">22, 23 & 24. Dacia Maraini, <i>La Lunga Vita di Marianna Ucría</i>, <i>The Silent Duchess</i>, and <i>Bagheria</i> The first two are the same book, but I read it both in Italian (for lit class) and in English. Set in Sicily in the early 18th-century, it follows the life of Marianna Ucría, a deaf and mute noblewoman, through childhood, ridiculously (by our standards) early marriage to her uncle ("zio marito" she calls him), motherhood, widowhood. Her inability to hear and speak (the reason for which we will learn) actually gives her an "out", a way to have a substantial intellectual life, particularly after she is introduced by an English visitor to the work of David Hume. <i>Bagheria</i> is Maraini's memoir of life in Sicily, after her family returns there from Japan (they had gone to escape fascism, and spent time in a concentration camp there), and of her family's history. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;">25. Eric Charles May, <i>Bedrock Faith</i> Another CD read. Set in a middle-class African-American neighborhood on Chicago's south side (fictitious, but based on the area where the author grew up). The community's quiet ways are disrupted when a young man returns after a lengthy stay in prison. His odd behavior (he claims to have found God, but has he?) and the neighbors' reactions to him drive the story. May creates varied, interesting and believable folks.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;">26. Margaret Mazzantini, <i>Splendore</i> Another for Italian class</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;">27. Sharyn McCrumb, <i>The Unquiet Grave</i> Yet another of McCrumb's Ballad Series, based on the true story of spousal murder, and a mother who claims her daughter's ghost told her how she died.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;">28. Arthur Meeker, <i>Prairie Avenue </i>In late 1800s Chicago, on "the sunny street that holds the sifted few" lived folks like Marshall Field, George Pullman, John Glessner, and young Arthur Meeker, who grew up to be a writer and wrote this novel about the people in his neighborhood. His protagonist is a young boy who comes to live with the wealthy side of the family after his parents do a bunk, and, as an outsider (though very much treated as one of the family) has a clearer view of things. A bit of a roman-à-clef, and very well written. Not Meeker's only book, but the most well-known. CD book club.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;">29. Shion Miura, <i>The Great Passage</i> "The Great Passage" is a dictionary, a dictionary literally decades in the making. Young Mitsuya Majime is recruited from the publisher's sales department to join the dictionary department to work on the book. He's a bit of an odd duck, and fits so much better there. On the way to the final publication of this tome, he finds friendship, romance, and himself. Just a lovely book, particularly for those of us who get excited about words.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;">30. Audrey Niffenegger (ed.), <i>Ghostly: a collection of ghost stories</i> A varied bunch, in age and (like most anthologies) in quality. Audrey not only edited, she wrote one story and illustrated the book.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;">31. Sara Paretsky, <i>Fallout</i> A V.I. Warshawsky mystery</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;">32. I.J. Parker, <i>The Dragon Scroll</i> A mystery set in 11th-century Japan, the protagonist/detective being a government clerk sent to discover why tax convoys are disappearing.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;">33. Elizabeth Peters and Joan Hess, <i>The Painted Queen</i> The very last Amelia Peabody, begun by Peters and, after her death and at her request, completed by Hess.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;">34. Ann Petry, <i>The Narrows</i> Interracial romance goes very wrong in Connecticut. I wasn't familiar with Petry, but this was a very good book, read on the recommendation of Eric Charles May (see # 25)</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;">35. Raymond Postgate, <i>Verdict of Twelve</i> British courtroom drama, beginning with the life stories of each of the twelve jurors (and quite a curious collection they are).</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;">36. Philip Pullman, <i>The Book of Dust: La Belle Sauvage</i> Those of us who have been waiting not so patiently for Pullman's new trilogy will not be disappointed, if the first volume is any indication. The events here precede those of <i>His Dark Materials</i>, and we learn more of Lyra's origins, and how she came to live at Jordan College. Unusually for Pullman, the protagonist is a young boy (Malcolm, who rescues Lyra from the fire and flood and the Magisterium), not a feisty young girl, though there is one in the book. Perhaps we'll see more of Alice later on.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;">37. Michael Raleigh, <i>In the Castle of the Flynns</i> What a marvelous book this is! Daniel Dorsey is eight when his parents are killed in a car crash and he goes to live with his maternal grandparents, and a variety of aunts and uncles. It's an extended Irish family on both sides, with drunks and nuns and brawlers and policemen, very Chicago! Raleigh is a great storyteller, bringing his characters to life with vividness and credibility. You feel like you'd know these people if you met them. A CD book club read.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;">38. Ugo Riccarelli, <i>L'Amore graffia il mondo </i>Italian lit class.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;">39. Robert Rodi, <i>Edgar and Emma, a novel after Jane Austen</i> Rodi takes a four-page bit of Austen juvenilia and turns it into a full-fledged novel. And, boy, does he have her down (to be expected from the man who wrote <i>Bitch in a Bonnet</i>!). Every so often, we get something that seems a tad too contemporary, but then we're back in Regency England, at the manor house or parsonage, and all's right with the world. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;">40. Saki (H.H. Munro), <i>The Toys of Peace and other papers</i> Saki's great, a wonderful satirist, with a sly sense of humor and a jaundiced eye on the world. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;">41 and 42. Alexander McCall Smith, <i>The Bertie Project</i>, <i>A Distant View of Everything</i> A 44 Scotland Street story, and a Sunday Philosophy Club story. Both as you'd expect.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;">43. Colm Tóibín, <i>House of Names</i> Tóibín's usual astonishingly gorgeous prose, in service to a re-telling of the <i>Oresteia</i> from differing points of view. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;">44 and 45. Anthony Trollope, <i>Harry Heathcote of Gangoil</i>, <i>The American Senator</i> The first is set in Australia, unusually for Trollope, the story of a young man who goes out to make good. <i>The American Senator</i>'s descriptions of the contrast between the former colonies and the "old country" in light of Trollope's mother's writings about the U.S. But, as usual, the real focus here is on political reform and who's going to marry whom (and how and why).</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;">46. Jean Webster, <i>When Patty went to College</i> by the author of <i>Daddy-Long-Legs</i> and <i>Dear Enemy</i>, both of which had a lot more substance than this one, which is about Patty's senior year at a women's college. Probably based, at least in part, on Webster's experiences at Vassar.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;">47. Jeannette Winterson, <i>Christmas Days</i> Twelve stories, many with fantastical elements about them, interspersed with recipes.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;">48 and 49. P.G. Wodehouse, <i>Hot Water</i> and <i>Full Moon</i> Well, it's Wodehouse! Blandings, Jeeves and Wooster, what more do you need to know?</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Okay, that's the fiction. I'm leaving the non- for another day.</span></span></span>Lilithcathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00165155867167277588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8129057590571980039.post-83109595778295981342013-01-16T14:43:00.000-06:002013-01-30T22:54:25.986-06:00My 2012 reading, and some plans for 2013I wouldn't even attempt to discuss everything I read in 2012! It comes to close to 125 books. But here's a bit of an overview.<br />
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<b>FICTION</b><br />
<br />
I discovered some new (to me) authors this year.<br />
<br />
Where has Anthony Trollope <i>been</i> all my life? Why didn't anyone tell me? It all started with <i>The Way We Live Now</i>, which I later learned is often considered his best book. Figures I'd start at the top! But I can't say "it was all downhill from there", because it wasn't. I did the Barchester Chronicles (<i>not</i> in order, but that didn't seem to matter a great deal), and a couple of "stand-alones". One of my goals for 2013 is to read the Palliser novels. <br />
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Another author new to me this year is <a href="http://stewart-onan.com/">Stewart O'Nan</a>, who, unlike Trollope, writes about ordinary, working-class people, and does so beautifully. I had picked up a copy of <i>Last Night at the Lobster</i> at the Association of Writers & Writing Programs conference here back in January. It's set in a fast-food restaurant on its last night in business, which may not sound the most promising setting for a novel, but I was enthralled. Then I found <i>The Odds: a love story</i>, about a couple ready to divorce for financial reasons, and making one last throw of the dice (literally) at a Niagara Falls casino. Really fine work.<br />
<br />
Among the best I found were the Irish writer, John McGahern (<i>Amongst Women</i>), Carlo Lucarelli's detective stories, set in Italy at the end of WWII, and Amara Lakhous, an Algerian-born author now resident in Italy (we read his <i>Divorzio all'islamica a viale Marconi</i> in my Italian lit class).<br />
<br />
I did not neglect old friends, though. I read more Henry James and Wilkie Collins, as well as Alessandro Baricco's <i>Senza Sangue</i>, James M. Cain's posthumously published <i>The Cocktail Waitress</i>. There were new books by Donna Leon, Andrea Camilleri, and Sandra Cisneros, among others. Of course, the new book that I was most excited about was Hilary Mantel's <i>Bring up the Bodies</i>, the second in her trilogy about Thomas Cromwell. The Man Booker people liked it, too, because she won the prize for this one, just as she did for the first, <i>Wolf Hall</i>. And well-deserved, too, if you ask me.<br />
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<b>NON-FICTION</b><br />
<br />
As usual, my non-fiction reading was all over the map, but, also as usual, it was heavy on biographies, memoirs and history. One of my absolute favorites was Robert Rodi's <a href="http://www.librarything.com/work/12581551"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Bitch In a Bonnet: Reclaiming Jane Austen From the Stiffs, the Snobs, the Simps and the Saps</span></span></a>, an absolutely delightfully snarky work of lit crit. <br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Even before the news that Richard III's body may have been found (and if you don't know about that - where've you <i>been</i>? - you can read more at one of my new favorite websites, <a href="http://www.thehistoryblog.com/archives/19646">The History Blog</a>), I read a couple of older books about him, Clements R. Markham's <a href="http://www.librarything.com/work/381311"></a></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b id="internal-source-marker_0.6203131617512554" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Richard III: His Life & Character Reviewed in the Light of recent </span></b><b id="internal-source-marker_0.6203131617512554" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">research<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;"></span></span></b></span><br />
and Horace Walpole's <a href="http://www.librarything.com/work/1053040">Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of Richard III</a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; text-decoration: none;"></span>. I anxiously await the results of the DNA testing, but I'm pretty convinced by the circumstantial evidence that they have, indeed, found Richard's body. <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; text-decoration: none;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; text-decoration: none;">I was fascinated by Craig Monson's <a href="http://www.librarything.com/work/10391624">Nuns Behaving Badly: Tales of Music, Art and Arson in the Convents of Italy</a>. It has a delightfully tabloid cover, too:</span><br />
<a href="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/P/0226534618.01._SX140_SY224_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><img border="0" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/P/0226534618.01._SX140_SY224_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg" /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; text-decoration: none;">I plan to follow this up with his newest book, <a href="http://www.librarything.com/work/12273161">Divas in the Convent: Nuns, Music and Defiance in Seventeenth-Century Italy</a>. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; text-decoration: none;">I read Colm Tóibín's <a href="http://www.librarything.com/work/10554256">All a Novelist Neeeds: Colm Tóibín on Henry James</a> (which was in part what inspired me to pick up more James). His new book, <i>The Testament of Mary</i>, is on my list for 2013. I've just seen that it's going to Broadway (it was originally written as a monologue for theater), so I may need to plan a trip to NYC in the spring!</span>Lilithcathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00165155867167277588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8129057590571980039.post-30333814901536367792013-01-01T19:54:00.003-06:002022-04-17T18:37:52.343-05:00A new Seminary Co-op BookstoreFor 50 years, the <a href="http://www.semcoop.com/">Seminary Co-op Bookstore</a> could be found through the doors of the Chicago Theological Seminary:<br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mojosmom/2066754086/" title="Chicago Theological Seminary by mojosmom, on Flickr"><img alt="Chicago Theological Seminary" height="240" src="http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2248/2066754086_2338731010_m.jpg" width="176" /></a><br />
You went down a steep flight of stone stairs, from whence you emerged into a labyrinth of bookshelves, small rooms darting off the main ones unexpectedly, nooks and crannies, wherein you might trip over a fellow book lover, luring you to your wallet's doom. If you were tall and unaware, you might whack your head on a low-hanging pipe. And yet for 50 years, the store, with all its flaws, was beloved. Indeed, for many, those flaws were a large part of its charm.<br />
<br />
But then the Chicago school of economics, mother of many a Nobel laureate, reared its (to many, ugly) head, and the Becker Friedman Institute for Research in Economics was born, took over CTS' building, CTS moved to a brand new facility, and Seminary Co-op's days in the building which gave it its name were numbered.<br />
<br />
This being Hyde Park, neither the creation of the Friedman Institute, nor the building of the new CTS, nor Seminary Co-op's move, went without opposition. Friedman, ever controversial, ought not to have his name in academic lights. The University ought not to use their land, which had been lent for a community garden, to stage the building of the new theological seminary. And Seminary Co-op? Above ground? With natural light? What of those niches where one might hunker down and lose oneself in some esoteric tome? What would happen to the <i>ambience</i>?<br />
<br />
Not to worry. Hire this guy:<br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mojosmom/8202802873/" title="Stanley Tigerman by mojosmom, on Flickr"><img alt="Stanley Tigerman" height="240" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8206/8202802873_accab78d5e_m.jpg" width="180" /></a><br />
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Stanley Tigerman is not merely a major American architect; for decades, he has been a member of Seminary Co-op (as is the President of the United States). So he knew what to do. And he did it. The new store, in renovated space at McGiffert House, next door to Frank Lloyd Wright's Robie House, retains the feel of the old stand. You may sometimes still feel the need for Ariadne's ball of twine, or trip over a student ensconced in a pile of books. The exposed pipes are still there, though high enough that one must be very tall indeed to whack one's head. But there is light now, and space. The claustrophobic bibliophile need no longer fight the battle between fear of small spaces and love of book browsing and buying. And, by no means the least improvement, the person with disabilities is no longer required to call and be escorted down a freight elevator. One of the delightful new touches are the bookcase "windows". As one browses a shelf, one can peer through to shelves and temptations beyond:<br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mojosmom/8202787087/" title="Bookshelf Window by mojosmom, on Flickr"><img alt="Bookshelf Window" height="240" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8341/8202787087_2cb8eaa614_m.jpg" width="180" /></a><br />
Tigerman has married Gothic ambience with 21st-century practicality, and it's a match made in heaven.<br />
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Of course, the move could not be made without some slight fanfare. One of my favorite things about Seminary Co-op is the Front Table, home to recent scholarly titles. To have your book on the Front Table has been described by one person as "The Pinnacle of Academic Achievement". The new store would not be complete without one. So two days before the actual opening, there was a parade! Authors of books on the Front Table were invited to come to the doors of the old location and carry their books to the new one. And many did, led by a bagpiper:<br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mojosmom/8203873052/" title="Piper by mojosmom, on Flickr"><img alt="Piper" height="240" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8489/8203873052_4c3945f49f_m.jpg" width="180" /></a><br />
<i>Short</i> speeches were then made, cookies eaten and hot drinks imbibed, and tours given of the new space. I browsed taking note of a few titles for my return trip when they would be officially open and ready to take my credit card. I did, in fact, trip over a student in one of those nooks. And I shared a chuckle over some of the signage:<br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mojosmom/8202791493/" title="Mathematics (ends) Philosophy (begins) by mojosmom, on Flickr"><img alt="Mathematics (ends) Philosophy (begins)" height="180" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8346/8202791493_b58ee89594_m.jpg" width="240" /></a><br />
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Blake, I couldn't agree more:<br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mojosmom/8202786177/" title=""My new old home" by mojosmom, on Flickr"><img alt=""My new old home"" height="240" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8347/8202786177_1e75af7c82_m.jpg" width="180" /></a><br />
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Please visit <a href="https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/collex/exhibits/seminary-co-op-documentary-project-capturing-bookstores-distinctive-character-and-history/" target="_blank">The Seminary Co-Op Documentary Project</a>.<br />
<br />Lilithcathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00165155867167277588noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8129057590571980039.post-37784934181487372752011-01-01T12:43:00.003-06:002011-01-01T21:37:54.156-06:00Happy New Year!I have been extremely remiss in posting to this blog lately. I was pretty good in the beginning of the year, but then, I don't know what happened. I got behind, and then "behind-er"!<br />
<br />
So here is a list of all the books I read this year, only some of which have been reviewed here (the titles of those books are links to the reviews). I've included here comments* on some of the books that I feel merit it, but that I didn't review. I've also split the list between fiction and non-fiction, and then vaguely into other categories.<br />
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*Okay, I've realized that a lot of these so-called "comments" are getting rather lengthy. So I'm going to stop now! <br />
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<b>FICTION</b><br />
<br />
<u>Short Stories</u><br />
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Bierce, Ambrose: <i>The Moonlit Road and other Ghost & Horror Stories</i><br />
Burroughs, Augusten: <i>You Better Not Cry: Stories for Christmas</i><br />
Calvino, Italo: <i>Cosmicomics</i><br />
Finney, Jack: About Time: <i>12 Short Stories</i><br />
Lochhead, Marion (ed.): <i>Scottish Tales of Magic & Mystery</i><br />
Various: <i>I Do Two! An anthology in support of marriage equality</i><br />
<br />
<u>Graphic "Novels" and other stories in illustrations:</u><br />
<br />
Chwast, Seymour: <a href="http://joansbooks.blogspot.com/2010/07/dantes-divine-comedy-graphic-adaptation.html"><i>Dante's Divine Comedy: A Graphic Adaptation</i></a><br />
Gorey, Edward: <i>The Awdrey-Gore Legacy</i><br />
Lancaster, Osbert: <i>The Littlehampton Bequest</i><br />
Niffenegger, Audrey: <i>The Night Bookmobile</i> [<b>A perfect book for obsessive readers and library-lovers</b>]<br />
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<u>Mysteries:</u><br />
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Bidulka, Anthony: <i>Flight of Aquavit</i><br />
Greene, Graham: <i>The Third Man, and The Fallen Idol</i><br />
Grey, Dorien: <i>The Secret Keeper (A Dick Hardesty Mystery)</i><br />
Hammett, Dashiell: <a href="http://joansbooks.blogspot.com/2010/02/mysterious.html"><i>The Dain Curse</i></a><br />
Herren, Greg: <i>Bourbon Street Blues</i><br />
Herren, Greg: <a href="http://joansbooks.blogspot.com/2010/02/murder-in-rue-dauphine.html"><i>Murder in the Rue Dauphine</i></a><br />
King, Laurie R.: <a href="http://joansbooks.blogspot.com/2010/03/god-of-hive.html"><i>The God of the Hive</i></a><br />
Maron, Margaret: <i>Sand Sharks</i><br />
Maron, Margaret: <a href="http://joansbooks.blogspot.com/2010/02/mysterious.html"><i>Shooting at Loons</i></a><br />
McCrumb, Sharyn: <a href="http://joansbooks.blogspot.com/2010/05/two-that-dont-live-up-to-rest-of-their.html"><i>The Devil Amongst the Lawyers</i></a><br />
Muller, Marcia: <i>Coming Back</i><br />
Muller, Marcia: <a href="http://joansbooks.blogspot.com/2010/03/14.html"><i>Locked In</i></a><br />
Parris, S.J.: <a href="http://joansbooks.blogspot.com/2010/02/heresy.html"><i>Heresy</i></a><br />
Peters, Elizabeth: <a href="http://joansbooks.blogspot.com/2010/05/two-that-dont-live-up-to-rest-of-their.html"><i>A River in the Sky</i></a><br />
Taibo II, Paco Ignacio: <a href="http://joansbooks.blogspot.com/2010/02/mysterious.html"><i>Frontera Dreams: A Héctor Belascoarán Shayne detective novel</i></a> <br />
Twain, Mark: <i>A murder, a mystery, and a marriage</i><br />
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<u>Other fiction:</u><br />
<br />
Bryson, Ellen: <a href="http://joansbooks.blogspot.com/2010/06/transformation-of-bartholomew-fortuno.html"><i>The Transformation of Bartholomew Fortuno</i></a><br />
Cummins, Jeanine: <i>The Outside Boy</i><br />
Giordano, Paolo: <i>The Solitude of Prime Numbers</i><br />
Johnson, Todd: <i>The Sweet By and By</i><br />
Mantel, Hilary: <a href="http://joansbooks.blogspot.com/2010/10/wolf-hall.html"><i>Wolf Hall</i></a><br />
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Maupin, Armistead: <i>Mary Ann in Autumn</i> [<b>Not a bad book, but I had the sense that Maupin was going through the motions, sort of like "Okay, I've done Michael Tolliver all grown up, now it's Mary Ann's turn."</b>]<br />
<br />
Moore, Christopher: <a href="http://joansbooks.blogspot.com/2010/03/bite-me-love-story.html"><i>Bite Me: A Love Story</i></a><br />
Roché, Henri-Pierre: <a href="http://joansbooks.blogspot.com/2010/02/jules-and-jim.html"><i>Jules and Jim</i></a><br />
Rushdie, Salman: <a href="http://joansbooks.blogspot.com/2010/10/luka-and-fire-of-life.html"><i>Luka and the Fire of Life</i></a><br />
Simonson, Helen: <i>Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand</i><br />
Smith, Alexander McCall: <i>Corduroy Mansions</i><br />
Smith, Alexander McCall: <a href="http://joansbooks.blogspot.com/2010/03/las-orchestra-saves-world.html"><i>La's Orchestra Saves the World</i></a><br />
Smith, Alexander McCall : <i>The Lost Art of Gratitude</i><br />
Smith, Alexander McCall : <i>The Charming Quirks of Others</i><br />
Smith, Alexander McCall : <a href="http://joansbooks.blogspot.com/2010/02/unbearable-lightness-of-scones.html"><i>The Unbearable Lightness of Scones</i></a><br />
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Story, Roslyn: <i>Wading Home: a novel of New Orleans</i> [<b>One of my favorite books of the year, in which a jazz trumpeter comes home to New Orleans after Katrina to find his father. All about home and food and music and family. Lovely book.</b>]<br />
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Wallace, Carey: <a href="http://joansbooks.blogspot.com/2010/11/blind-contessas-new-machine.html"><i>The Blind Contessa's New Machine</i></a><br />
Waters, Sara: <a href="http://joansbooks.blogspot.com/2010/02/affinity.html"><i>Affinity</i></a><br />
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<b>NON-FICTION</b><br />
<br />
<u>Travel/Geography/Place:</u><br />
<br />
Dürer, Albrecht: <i>Dürer’s Record of Journeys to Venice and the Low Countries</i><br />
Theroux, Paul: <i>Sailing through China<br />
<a href="http://joansbooks.blogspot.com/2010/06/two-new-york-city-guidebooks.html">Forbes City Guide New York 2010</a></i><br />
Kanter, Evelyn: <a href="http://joansbooks.blogspot.com/2010/07/peaceful-places-new-york-city.html"><i>Peaceful Places: New York City: 129 Tranquil Sites in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island</i></a><br />
Wall, Diana diZerega & Cantwell, Anne-Marie: <i><a href="http://joansbooks.blogspot.com/2010/06/two-new-york-city-guidebooks.html">Touring Gotham's Archaeological Past: 8 self-guided walking tours through New York City</a></i><br />
Carniani, Mario: <i>Santa Maria del Carmine and the Brancacci Chapel</i><br />
Sinibaldi, Giulia: <i>The Palazzo Vecchio, Florence</i><br />
Anon.: <i>La chiesa di Santa Felicita a Firenze</i><br />
<i>Knopf Guides: Florence</i><br />
<i>Guida: Musei Scientifici a Firenze</i><br />
<br />
Grandin, Mme. Léon: <a href="http://joansbooks.blogspot.com/2010/04/parisienne-in-chicago-impressions-of.html"><i>A Parisienne in Chicago: Impressions of the World's Columbian Exposition</i></a><br />
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Greider, Katharine: <i>The Archaeology of Home: An Epic set in 1000 Square Feet of the Lower East Side </i>[<b>The author's co-op building was in the throes of rehabbing when she received a call in the middle of the night saying that everyone had to leave, that the house, which dated from the early 1800's, was likely to collapse at any moment. In trying to discover what went wrong, structurally, Greider delved into the history of the house, and, making lemonade from the lemon life handed her, wrote a book about the house, the history of the place where it stood, and the people who had preceded her there. Unfortunately, she intersperses this history with often incoherent philosophical musings on the nature of "home", and with descriptions of her aggravating co-owners and the trauma of not being a millionaire anymore (although still having a very large family home in a high-toned Virginia suburb to which to escape). Had she left the latter portions in a private journal, where they belong, this would have been a much better book.</b>]<br />
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Janowitz, Rebecca:<i> Culture of Opportunity: Obama’s Chicago: the People, politics, and ideas of Hyde Park</i><br />
James, Rosemary (ed.): <i>My New Orleans: Ballads to the Big Easy by her Sons, <br />
Daughters, and Lovers</i><br />
Masini, Giancarlo: <a href="http://joansbooks.blogspot.com/2010/05/how-florence-invented-america.html"><i>How Florence Invented America</i></a><br />
Nencini, Franco: <a href="http://joansbooks.blogspot.com/2010/03/florence-days-of-flood.html"><i>Florence: the Days of the Flood</i></a><br />
Bissinger, Buzz: <a href="http://joansbooks.blogspot.com/2010/07/prayer-for-city.html"><i>A Prayer for the City</i></a> <br />
<br />
<br />
<u>Biography/Memoirs:</u><br />
<br />
Canning, Richard: <a href="http://joansbooks.blogspot.com/2010/07/em-forster-by-richard-canning.html"><i>E.M. Forster</i></a><br />
Caws, Mary Ann: <i>Marcel Proust</i><br />
Cooke, Alistair: <i>Letters from Four Seasons </i><br />
<br />
Fraser, Antonia: <i>Must You Go? My Life with Harold Pinter</i> [<b>Taken straight from Fraser's diaries, the best parts are their early courtship and marriage, and the ending with his death. In between, they're just like any old married couple - except smarter and more famous!</b>]<br />
<br />
Glover, Jane: <i>Mozart’s Women: His Family, His Friends, His Music</i><br />
Green, Jesse: <i>The Velveteen Father: An unexpected journey to parenthood</i><br />
Jones, Judith: <i>The Tenth Muse: My Life in Food</i><br />
<br />
Kilmer-Purcell, Josh: <i>The Bucolic Plague: How two Manhattanites became gentlemen farmers</i> <br />
Lyon, Andrea D.: <a href="http://joansbooks.blogspot.com/2010/06/angel-of-death-row.html"><i>Angel of Death Row</i></a><br />
Mazaroff, Stanley: <a href="http://joansbooks.blogspot.com/2010/07/henry-walters-and-bernard-berenson.html"><i>Henry Walters and Bernard Berenson: Collector and Connoisseur</i></a><br />
Raymer, Beth: <i>Lay the Favorite: A Memoir of Gambling</i><br />
<br />
Reardon, Joan (Ed): <i>As Always, Julia: The Letters of Julia Child & Avis DeVoto</i> [<b>I just have to say, thank goodness Bernard deVoto wrote a column about knives, and thank goodness Julia read it and sent him one. Because from such small things sprang a correspondence and friendship that led to the publication of <i>Mastering the Art of French Cooking</i>, which led to Julia on television, and thus to my being able to cook halfway decently! But the letters are also quite an interesting account of America during the Cold War, with comments on the Eisenhower-Stevenson elections, and on Joe McCarthy, in particular how the rabid anti-communist witch hunts affected Paul Child's work.</b>]<br />
<br />
Spring, Justin: The Secret Historian: <i>The Life and Times of Samuel Steward, professor, tattoo artist,and sexual renegade</i> [<b>As the title implies, Steward led quite a varied existence! He grew up in a small Ohio town, got a Ph.D. in English lit, taught in a variety of institutions, including many years at DePaul University in Chicago. He began working as a tattoo artist while there, and when he was eventually fired, turned to tattooing full time. He was a good friend to Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas - indeed, he wrote a couple of mystery novels in which they feature. He was Thornton Wilder's occasional lover, had sex with Lord Alfred Douglas and Rudolph Valentino, and a lot of sailors, and kept records of all his encounters (and RV's pubic hair in a reliquary), which led to him becoming a key informant for Dr. Kinsey. Nevertheless, despite his active sexual life, he seems to have led a rather isolated and lonely existence from an emotional standpoint. Spring had access to a huge amount of material that had been stashed in the attic of Steward's executor, so this is really a definitive work, and a good read, as well.</b>]<br />
<br />
Steinberg, Avi: <i>Running the Books: the Adventures of an Accidental Prison Librarian</i><br />
<br />
Tomalin, Claire: <i>The Invisible Woman: the story of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens</i> [<b>Just as good as her bio of Jane Austen, and with the added difficulty of fighting off years of Dickens' admirers either defaming Ternan or trying to bury her existence. You will <i>not</i> look at Dickens the same way after this book, but you may well have a better understanding of why he couldn't write a well-rounded, psychologically full female character to save his life. As always, Tomalin tells us as much about the world in which Ternan and Dickens lived as she does about the people themselves. My edition is a later one, and has an added chapter which casts new light on the circumstances of Dickens' death. Tomalin's further investigations were spurred by the receipt of a letter she received following the book's initial publication, a letter describing a family story suggesting that Dickens did not die at Gad's Hill, but that his body had been transported there after his death. It is, of course, a story that at this juncture cannot be proved or disproved, but it is interesting to consider the steps that Tomalin took to investigate its plausibility, steps that show her to be a true scholar.</b>]<br />
<br />
Wills, Garry: <i>Outside Looking In: Adventures of an Observer</i><br />
<br />
<u>Art & Architecture & pop-ups:</u><br />
<br />
diBello, Patrizia: <a href="http://joansbooks.blogspot.com/2010/02/womens-albums-and-photography-in.html"><i>Women's Albums and Photography in Victorian England: Ladies, Mothers and Flirts</i></a><br />
Chiarelli, Caterina (ed.): <i>Fashion: A World of Similarities and Differences</i><br />
<br />
Joseph, Wendy Evans: <i>Pop up Architecture</i> [<b>There are a fair number of architectural pop-up books out, but most are historical, about famous buildings and/or famous architects. This one is different, because it is by the architect whose work it presents (in collaboration with the well-known paper engineer, Kees Moerbeek) and is intended as a presentation of her firm, an alternative to the usual monograph. The pop-ups are combined with photographs and texts describing the problem and process of designing each structure. A must!</b>]<br />
<br />
Mason, Christopher: <i>The Art of the Steal: Inside the Sotheby’s-Christie’s Auction House Scandal</i> [<b>Intriguing, well-researched book on devious doings in the art world.</b>]<br />
Sloman, Paul: <i>Paper: Tear, Fold, Rip, Crease, Cut</i> [<b>Altered books, and sculpture, furniture, clothing, etc. all made from paper, including a pop-up "book" that opens into a table lamp!]</b><br />
Sommer, Robin Langley: <i>Frank Lloyd Wright: a gatefold portfolio</i><br />
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor: <i>Kubla Khan: a Pop-up version of Coleridge’s classic</i><br />
Haines, Mike: <i>Wild Alphabet: An A to Zoo Pop-Up Book</i><br />
<br />
<u>Etiquette, manners:</u><br />
<br />
Bennett, Laura: <a href="http://joansbooks.blogspot.com/2010/03/didnt-i-feed-you-yesterday.html"><i>Didn't I Feed You Yesterday? A Mother's Guide to Sanity in Stilettos</i></a><br />
Gunn, Tim: <i>Gunn’s Golden Rules Life’s Little Lessons for Making It Work</i> [<b>Amazing how one man can manage to be charming and snarky all at the same time, and throw in a lot of good advice, and dish, along the way.</b>]<br />
Martin, Judith & Jacobina: <a href="http://joansbooks.blogspot.com/2010/09/miss-manners-guide-to-surprisingly.html"><i>Miss Manners Guide to a Surprisingly Dignified Wedding</i></a><br />
<br />
<u>Other non-fiction:</u><br />
<br />
Buckley, Christopher: <i>Wry Martinis</i><br />
Fornaciai, Valentina: <i>Toilette, profumi e belletti alla corte dei Medici: il tutto ben pesto, e incorporato con acqua di fior d’arancio</i><br />
Hillerman, Tony & Bulow, Ernie: <a href="http://joansbooks.blogspot.com/2010/02/mysterious.html"><i>Talking Mysteries</i></a><br />
Johnson, Marilyn: <a href="http://joansbooks.blogspot.com/2010/02/this-book-is-overdue.html"><i>This Book is Overdue! How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All</i></a><br />
Ogbar, Jeffrey (Ed): <i>The Harlem Renaissance Revisited: politics, arts and letters</i><br />
Pierce, Charles P.: <i>Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free</i><br />
<i><br />
</i>Wilkerson, Isabel: <i>The Warmth of Other Suns: The epic story of America’s Great Migration</i> [<b>Probably the best non-fiction book of the year. Wilkerson spent years interviewing people who had come up from the South to the North, over the period from just after World War I to after WWII. She alternates the stories of three of these people (a sharecropper's wife from Mississippi who came to Chicago, a citrus picker and union organizer from Florida who went to Harlem, and a doctor from Louisiana who ended up in Los Angeles) with historical data, data that shows that a lot of what we thought we knew about the people who came north just isn't so. They were generally better educated, harder-working and more stable, what some have called the "immigrant effect", for they were, indeed, immigrants in their own country. Like the folks who sailed steerage from Eastern Europe, Ireland, Italy, the African-Americans who came north had grit and determination, and weren't afraid to face a new life in an unknown bourne. It's interesting to see the different ways Wilkerson's informants handled the change, who shucked off the South and who kept it with them, how in escaping one form of racism, they found another, how they raised their children and coped with a strange, new world. Gorgeously written, too. <i>"Many of the people who left the South never exactly sat their children down to . . . tell them why they speak like melted butter and their children speak like footsteps on pavement . . ."</i></b>]Lilithcathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00165155867167277588noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8129057590571980039.post-33669169570970017602010-11-29T20:28:00.000-06:002010-11-29T20:28:46.860-06:00The Blind Contessa's New Machine<a href="http://images.amazon.com/images/P/067002189X.01._SX140_SY225_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://images.amazon.com/images/P/067002189X.01._SX140_SY225_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg" /></a><a href="http://www.librarything.com/work/9477992/book/67272924">The Blind Contessa's New Machine</a>, by Carey Wallace<br />
<br />
Carolina Fantoni is a young, upper-class Italian woman. Shortly before her marriage, she realizes that she is going blind. She tries to warn her fiancé and her parents, but they do not listen. The only one who does is her neighbor, the eccentric Pellegrino Turri, who is in love with her. As her eyesight dims, she learns to maneuver her way through her new dark world, both physically and emotionally. She flies in her dreams. One day, she tries to write a letter; ink stains her hands. On seeing this, Turri invents for her the typewriter. It changes everything.<br />
<br />
This small gem of a novel explores the world of a woman born into a rigid, upper-class society, a society with certain expectations and mores, that changes towards her and for her as she goes blind. The loss of that sense affects how she feels and thinks and reacts, and, in some ways, frees her.<br />
<br />
This book, based on historical fact, is Carey Wallace's first novel, and a most promising début it is.Lilithcathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00165155867167277588noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8129057590571980039.post-73054201208188402382010-10-17T20:38:00.000-05:002010-10-17T20:38:13.513-05:00Wolf Hall<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://pics.librarything.com/picsizes/c9/71/c971039e575ac26593838565867434d414f4541.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://pics.librarything.com/picsizes/c9/71/c971039e575ac26593838565867434d414f4541.jpg" /></a></div><a href="http://www.librarything.com/work/9209435/book/64573454">Wolf Hall</a>, by Hilary Mantel<br />
<br />
One might be forgiven for wondering whether the world really needed another work of historical fiction on the subject of Henry VIII and any of his wives. At a certain point, one has had enough of the Boleyn sisters. Mantel, however, approaches the subject from a less romantic, but more interesting, point of view, that of Thomas Cromwell, secretary to Cardinal Wolsey and advisor to the king. <i>Wolf Hall</i>, with the exception of a brief chapter relating to Cromwell's youth, covers the years of Henry's struggle to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon and most of his marriage to Anne Boleyn. It is quite a sympathetic portrait of a man who is oft-maligned, but whose administrative genius and reformist accomplishments cannot be doubted. Those whose knowledge of Cromwell and Thomas More is confined to <i>A Man for All Seasons</i> may be surprised to find quite a different view of the two here. This period of English history was one of great change. It was a period of reformation, both religious and political, and Cromwell was at the center of events. As he delicately weaves his way along the path to power, evading dangers at every turn, Mantel's Cromwell also reveals himself to be a generous man, a patron of the arts (particularly Hans Holbein), a financial whiz, a clever and detail-oriented politician, but one who always has his country's interests at heart, as well as his own. At bottom, he loves England and he serves his king.<br />
<br />
According to my <i>Encyclopedia Britannica</i>, "[i]f he had a private life, nothing is known of it." That isn't quite true. We know, for instance, whom he married, and that his wife and two daughters died, apparently of the "<a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1043971/">sweating sickness</a>", within a short time of each other, and that he had a son, who married Jane Seymour's sister. But that's the bare bones. Nevertheless, Mantel has imagined for Cromwell a very rich private life indeed, and she manages to make it ring true to what we do know of his history.<br />
<br />
Mantel writes beautifully, for the most part. Her dialogue is natural, and she has a fine eye for description ("gentlemen . . . wearing their fallen-fruit silks of mulberry, gold and plum"). My one quibble is that she generally uses "he" in place of "Cromwell", so that it is often difficult to know to whom she is referring, particularly when she is narrating conversations among multiple speakers. However, once one gets used to this quirk, all is well.<br />
<br />
Suggested further reading:<br />
<a href="http://www.librarything.com/work/1460964/book/541368">Letters of Henry Viii, 1526-29: Extracts from the Calendar of State Papers of Henry Viii</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.librarything.com/work/30855">The Lisle Letters: An Abridgement </a>(The Lisles are several times referred to in Mantel's novel. I won't suggest you read all six volumes!)Lilithcathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00165155867167277588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8129057590571980039.post-16143658996439461582010-10-16T20:29:00.000-05:002010-10-16T20:29:57.288-05:00Luka and the Fire of Life<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://pics.librarything.com/picsizes/14/b2/14b2b634e9d582e5932747058774141414c3441.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://pics.librarything.com/picsizes/14/b2/14b2b634e9d582e5932747058774141414c3441.jpg" /></a></div><a href="http://www.librarything.com/work/10092398/book/64915435">Luka and the Fire of Life</a>, by Salman Rushdie<br />
<br />
In the city of Kahani, in the land of Alifbay, lived the storyteller Rashid Khalifa, his wife, Soraya, and their two sons, Haroun and Luka. One day, the great circus called the Great Rings of Fire came to town. When the circus parade came by, and Luka saw the sad, mistreated animals, he cursed the Ringmaster, Captain Aag, and the animals stopped obeying and the fires burned the tents. So into the life of Luka came the dog, Bear, and the bear, Dog, from the circus. <br />
<br />
Then into Luka's life came sadness, because Captain Aag took his revenge, and the storyteller, Rashid Khalifa fell ill and was like to die. One early morning, Luka saw his father in the yard, but wait! It was not his father, but his father's death, come to claim him. But, as in all good fairy tales, Luka made a deal with death, also called Nobodaddy, and Luka, Nobodaddy, the dog called Bear and the bear called Dog go on a quest to steal the Fire of Life in the World of Magic.<br />
<br />
You will find in the story of Luka's quest reminders of the thousand and one nights and of video games. Rushdie has immense fun with puns and wordplay, and you will, too! Here in this world we find the old gods, from Greece and Sumer and Egypt and all the world, flying carpets and Fire Bugs. Nothing is what it seems, allegiances shift, and Luka and his companions must ever be on the alert, gathering and losing and regaining lives as they move on from level to level. Luka's love for his father causes him to defy Time, to risk his own life, and to conquer his fears. <br />
<br />
If you haven't read <a href="http://www.librarything.com/work/17930/848001">Haroun and the Sea of Stories</a>, don't worry. It's not necessary to have read that book to enjoy this one. But those who have read and loved the story of Luka's older brother will surely not want to miss the saga of the younger sibling.Lilithcathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00165155867167277588noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8129057590571980039.post-44232598172750371732010-10-12T22:00:00.000-05:002010-10-12T22:00:32.482-05:00Book sales and bookstores<i><b>Book Sale</b></i><br />
<br />
Every year on Columbus Day weekend, there is a <i>huge</i> book sale in my neighborhood. It's held outside, in the courtyard of a small local shopping center, so the weather, which can be problematic in Chicago in mid-October, is always a concern. This year, it was absolutely stunningly gorgeous, as though summer had made a brief reappearance to remind us of what we are going to miss in the coming months. It was sunny and the temperature reached the mid-'80s! Perfect for browsing books outside.<br />
<br />
The sale lasts three days, and the final day is "$4 bag, $5 box" day. I skipped the first day, but wandered by on Sunday (well, I <i>did</i> have other errands in stores in the shopping center!), and bought just a few books, including a couple to take to Casa Italiana for their library. Then I went back yesterday with a large tote bag, and stuffed it with another couple of dozen. The books ranged from nature writing (<a href="http://www.librarything.com/work/2276662/book/65622075">This Incomperable Lande</a>) and history (<a href="http://www.librarything.com/work/1128698/book/65622959">Agony at Easter: The 1916 Irish Uprising</a>) to short stories collections, biography, law and illuminated manuscripts.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br />
A good time was had by all, and money raised for the Hyde Park-Kenwood Community Conference, a worthy organization.<br />
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<i><b>Bookstore</b></i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2136/2065955215_494d60e3bb.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2136/2065955215_494d60e3bb.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br />
This is the "claustrophobic basement" that some people claim constitutes "part of the charm" of the Seminary Co-op Bookstore. Now, I like quirkiness as much as the next person, and it is rather fun to wander in and out of the narrow passageways and hidden rooms of this store that is housed in the basement of what is now the Chicago Theological Seminary (hence, the store's name).<br />
<br />
However, it's also down a steepish flight of stairs, which means it's not easily accessible to the handicapped, and those narrow passageways can be a bit of pain at times. Now that the CTS is being converted to the Milton Friedman Institute for Research in Economics, the bookstore is moving. It's going to first floor and basement space, that will be designed by well-known Chicago architects Stanley Tigerman and Margaret McCurry, in a University-owned building one block away from its current location, and next door to Frank Lloyd Wright's Robie House (below).<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/175/470694253_19e2dde6b4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/175/470694253_19e2dde6b4.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
The architecture critic for the <i>Chicago Tribune</i> did an article about the move, and one commenter (the same one whose remarks about the "charm" of the place I quote above) suggested that a one-block move "will make it much more difficult to draw customers". Well, if people are too lazy to walk one more block to what has been called one of the best academic bookstores in the <i>world</i>, then they are too lazy to be University of Chicago students. Bookstore manager Jack Cella sent <a href="http://www.semcoop.com/seminary-co-ops-move">a letter to members</a> (of which I am one, as are architect Tigerman <i>and</i> the President of the United States) in which he states: <i>The new store will have windows (imagine that!), will be completely accessible, and will have operational temperature and air circulation controls. </i>How is this bad? Cella also says <i>"We may bring a pipe along for the occasional customer who feels nostalgic for a place to bump his or her head." </i>I hope that satisfies the commenter.Lilithcathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00165155867167277588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8129057590571980039.post-75846667912745257792010-10-09T21:41:00.000-05:002010-10-09T21:41:37.072-05:00Art Book SwapToday, there was an <a href="http://www.artic.edu/aic/calendar/event?EventID=8113&Month=10_2010&Day=09">art book swap</a> at the Ryerson Library of the Art Institute of Chicago. It was sponsored by <a href="http://www.regencyartspress.org/">Regency Arts Press Ltd.</a>, and the <a href="http://www.newartdealers.org/">New Art Dealers Alliance</a>. People brought art-related books, and swapped on a one-for-one basis for books brought by others, as well as books donated by various organizations (there were a number obviously donated by the AIOC itself). <br />
<br />
Now, my <i>plan</i> was to bring my half-dozen books, but be restrained and take fewer than I brought. Ha! You can imagine how that turned out! Not only did I take home the same number, but they were bigger. In fact, if I hadn't been limited to that one-for-one basis, I'd have picked up a few more. As it was, I had a pile of six, and kept saying, "Hmm, this looks good, too. Which of this pile should I not take?" And so forth. So no bookshelf space has been saved. <i>Au contraire.</i> <br />
<br />
<a href="http://pics.librarything.com/picsizes/5b/95/5b954ca7d500761593747675877434d414f4541.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://pics.librarything.com/picsizes/5b/95/5b954ca7d500761593747675877434d414f4541.jpg" /></a>But it's not <i>my</i> fault there was this big, gorgeous slipcased book of albums and illuminated manuscripts from the Topkapi Museum in Istanbul! Or a very cool book of vertically aligned photographs of New York City, called, appropriately enough, <a href="http://www.librarything.com/work/461790/book/65569358">New York Vertical</a>. I picked up a biography of Peggy Guggenheim; a book of photos of Paris by Eugène Atget; Barbaralee Diamonstein's Remaking America: New Uses, Old Places, about the conversion of old and historic buildings to new uses; and <a href="http://www.librarything.com/work/3295850/book/65569644">Chez Elle, Chez Lui: At Home in 18th-Century France</a>, a catalogue of 18th-century French paintings that show home life in that time and place.<br />
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Altogether, a nice little haul!<br />
<br />
I asked the staff if they were going to do this on a regular basis, and they said they thought perhaps every other year. They'd had a <i>lot</i> of positive feedback, and I'm not surprised. There were several tables of books, and quite a variety of subjects, ranging from classical Greek art, through the Renaissance, to contemporary art, from paintings to glass to architecture, monographs and catalogues -- something for everyone! Lilithcathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00165155867167277588noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8129057590571980039.post-20994719323823391272010-09-19T22:25:00.006-05:002010-09-19T23:02:32.941-05:00Another day, another author event (and another book, of course!)For whatever reason, this week has been heavy on author events.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2nz98bioqKHyBLUck7mwhz2qmHg47DSW0r8mxBEA61tNRZqLXbfJChK4NnAKyP0iEToRLRQMiWaYo90i5i36W3QLNwNrXGjolD2VUB2035akgLNyj-sbaxX17_0kx96sizdSxP2e8_fw/s1600/fields.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a></div><a href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4127/4984120287_8b94e17664.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 375px; height: 500px;" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4127/4984120287_8b94e17664.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>It started last Sunday. The Chicagoans among you know that many of us (recent surveys suggest as many as 80% of us) have never been reconciled to Macy's having changed the name of Marshall Field's. Every year at this time, there is a demonstration under the clock at the State Street store.<br /><br />This year, following the protest, there was a book discussion and signing at the State Street Borders, just down the block, with Gayle Soucek, the author of <a href="http://www.librarything.com/work/10420558/book/64688628">Marshall Field's: the Store that Helped Build Chicago</a>. There was much reminiscing about the glory that was Field's, as most of the people there were either former employees, former customers, or both. Soucek is currently writing a book about Chicago catastrophes, and she commented that it was noteworthy how involved Field's was (the store and the man) in helping during a civic crisis. She also said that her publisher told her not to "bash" Macy's in the book, but put a blurb on the back highlighting the controversy!<br /><br />On Monday, I blew off my Italian class to go hear Tim Gunn talk about his new book, <a href="http://www.librarything.com/work/9377007/book/64688657">Gunn's Golden Rules: Life's Little Lessons for Making it Work</a>. This was at the Michigan Avenue Borders, and, boy, I think they are going to lose some customers over the way the event was organized, or, should I say, not organized. They were handing out wristbands starting at 9:00 a.m., with several different colors, only the first two of which got seats. But when people arrived, they lined up in order of arrival, so that when the first two colors were called to be seated, people dashed madly from all over. When the signing started, they gathered the various color groups in different parts of the store, but the employees who were doing so couldn't be heard, so people wandered about haphazardly. There was a huge long wait, but at least we had books to read!<br /><br />Gunn, of course, was charming, an oasis of graciousness and calm amidst the chaos and confusion. He really must have been exhausted, because he was signing books for a good three hours or more, way past the time the store normally closes. It's nice to see someone on a show like <i>Project Runway</i> trying to raise the level of discourse and maintaining decent grammatical and vocabular standards. Besides, he collects architectural pop-ups, so he clearly has good taste.<br /><br />On Thursday, it was Audrey Niffenegger at the Harold Washington Library Center, talking about her new graphic novel, <a href="http://www.librarything.com/work/9531300/book/64772818">The Night Bookmobile</a>. Technical difficulties prevented her from showing the photographs that she took, from which the drawings were derived, but she read the short story which was the basis for the <i>Guardian</i> serial which was the basis for the book. This is the first installment of a work to be called <i>The Library</i>; I'm definitely looking forward to the rest.<br /><br />Today I went to the 57th Street Children's Book Fair, and staffed the Friends of the Library table for a couple of hours. There were quite a few authors in evidence, but I didn't get any, though I was tempted by <a href="http://www.librarything.com/work/9086503">The Sixty-Eight Rooms</a>, by Marianne Malone, about strange doings in the Art Institute of Chicago's <a href="http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/thorne">Thorne Rooms</a>.Lilithcathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00165155867167277588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8129057590571980039.post-1071628114586276712010-09-11T08:43:00.000-05:002010-09-11T08:43:14.319-05:00Miss Manners' Guide to a Surprisingly Dignified Wedding<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0393069141.01._SX140_SY225_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0393069141.01._SX140_SY225_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg" width="127" /></a></div><i><a href="http://www.librarything.com/work/9554033">Miss Manners Guide to a Surprisingly Dignified Wedding</a></i>, by Judith Martin & Jacobina Martin<br />
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Miss Manners would definitely not approve of the most recent wedding invitation I received. Let me count the ways. It was addressed to me "and guest". It's a rather over-the-top tri-fold shiny invite with a photograph of the happy couple, all tied up with a ribbon. The enclosure, in addition to providing a map of the location and information on hotels (good), listed two registry websites, one of which was to donate to the honeymoon, and the URL to the couple's wedding website (bad).<br />
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From general principles ("value dignity above self-glorification", "choose guests through bonds of family and friendship and try to arrange matters so these people will enjoy themselves", "do not live beyond your means and do not expect to be reimbursed by the guests") to specifics of the wording of invitations in a variety of situations and on to troubleshooting, Miss Manners and her equally mannerly daughter have provided an essential guide to creating a wedding that will be enjoyed, and remembered fondly, by all. Not only that, but these principles have been tested, and not found wanting, first by Miss Manners at her own wedding, ten years ago at her son's, and most recently at that of her daughter and co-author.<br />
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The style of the book will be familiar to admirers of Miss Manners' column and previous books, combining narrative with responses to letters she has received. Much of the advice she gives is nothing she has not addressed before, but her usual witty style keeps it fresh, and it all bears repeating. It is, unfortunately, obvious that it is still needed. It is hard to decide which money grab mentioned was more astonishing, the bride who wanted people to pay for the costs of her adopting a child or the one who included her bank deposit slip in the invitation! <br />
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The minute you hear that someone you know is engaged, give her this book (note, however, that "engagement presents" are <i>not</i> obligatory!) and hope it is not too late for her to heed Miss Manners' words: "Behaving well has its own rewards."Lilithcathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00165155867167277588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8129057590571980039.post-57349844223594380612010-07-20T22:14:00.000-05:002010-07-20T22:14:03.419-05:00Peaceful Places: New York City<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0897327209.01._SX140_SY225_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0897327209.01._SX140_SY225_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg" /></a></div><a href="http://www.librarything.com/work/9887446/book/62443471">Peaceful Places: New York City: 129 Tranquil Sites in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island</a>, by Evelyn Kanter<br />
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New York City is noted for its hustle and bustle, its hurly-burly, its crazy energy. But sometimes, be you tourist or resident, you need a break, and Kanter will help you find it, wherever you are in the city. <br />
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I love the way this book is organized. The basic organization is alphabetical, from the African Burial Ground National Monument to the Yeshiva University Museum, but there is also a listing by area (the bulk are in Manhattan, but the other boroughs are well-represented) and another by category (such as "Enchanting Walks", "Quiet Tables" and "Spiritual Enclaves"). Kanter provides a short description of each place, accompanied by information about directions and hours, admission cost (if any, most of these places are free, though, when it comes to the shops she suggests, they are free, "but of course you are also free to purchase"!), websites, etc. She rates them on a "peacefulness" scale, and notes for some that they are not always serene, but tells you the best times to go. The High Line, a new park built on an abandoned elevated rail line, is a good example. I visited it on a weekday afternoon, and it was relatively tranquil, but at other times it can get quite crowded. <br />
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Kanter's narratives tell you why she recommends each place, what she likes about them herself, but also often include very personal memories. Knowing that the textiles of the Metropolitan Museum's Asian galleries remind her of her milliner mother's "pride in her precise stitching" or reading how a visit to Green-Wood cemetery and the grave of Charles Ebbetts brings back memories of listening to baseball games from her grandparents' home, makes this more than an ordinary guidebook.<br />
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Anyone who has spent time in New York will doubtless have her own special "peaceful places". Had I written this book, I would have included the Gubbio Studiolo at the Metropolitan Museum and the lovely little garden outside the Japan Society's galleries.<br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mojosmom/4680436931/" title="Japan Society garden by mojosmom, on Flickr"><img alt="Japan Society garden" height="240" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4042/4680436931_c3db39db48_m.jpg" width="180" /></a> <br />
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But I also found myself nodding in agreement with many of Kanter's choices, and making mental notes to visit others when I am next in New York.<br />
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I wish I'd had this book before I went to New York earlier this year! I'll definitely bring it next time I go.Lilithcathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00165155867167277588noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8129057590571980039.post-73703402349673580532010-07-10T14:45:00.002-05:002010-07-10T22:28:54.257-05:00Henry Walters and Bernard Berenson: Collector and Connoisseur<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://images.amazon.com/images/P/080189512X.01._SX140_SY225_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 140px; height: 210px;" src="http://images.amazon.com/images/P/080189512X.01._SX140_SY225_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><a href="http://www.librarything.com/work/9641873/book/57231473">Henry Walters and Bernard Berenson: Collector and Connoisseur</a>, by Stanley Mazaroff<br /><br />What are you going to do when <i>you</i> retire? When Mazaroff retired from the practice of law, he went to Johns Hopkins to study art history, wrote and article about Henry Walters' acquisition of the Massarenti Collection of Renaissance art, which became the foundation of Baltimore's Walters Art Museum, and conducted research at I Tatti, Berenson's villa in the Tuscan hills, reading a "treasure trove" of documents illuminating the relationship between Walters and Berenson. Then he wrote this book. So much better than golf!<br /><br />Henry Walters was the son of William T. Walters, banker and railway magnate, and inherited from him, in addition to wealth and business acumen, a passion for collecting art in the service of the public. Whereas the elder Walters concentrated on contemporary American and European art, his son, like many other Gilded Age millionaires, was particularly drawn to art of the Italian Renaissance.<br /><br />And you couldn't be a collector of Italian Renaissance art at that time without crossing paths with Bernard Berenson. Berenson was a most intriguing character, a self-made connoisseur and art expert, whose opinion was pretty much the final word on a work of art. If he said your painting was by Titian, it was, and if he said it wasn't, well,you sheepishly put it away. If in <i>Casablanca</i> everyone went to Rick's, in the world of late 19th and early 20th-century art collecting, everybody went to I Tatti.<br /><br />When Walters bought, basically sight unseen, the collection of Don Marcello Massarenti, he knew that the attributions were likely not all accurate. He was buying the whole to get some of its parts, and he hired Berenson to vet the collection, write a catalog, and help him acquire additional works.<br /><br />The relationship between the two was fraught. Walters was oddly uninterested in seeing his own collection, much of it remaining in its shipping crates for months. Berenson had lots of other fish to fry in addition to his work for Walters, When financial constraints began to limit Walters' buying, Berenson did something which damaged the relationship beyond repair.<br /><br />Dealer Joseph Duveen was known in the art world to be unscrupulous. Walters disliked him, as did Berenson. Nevertheless, driven by the need and desire to be on a firm financial footing, in 1912 Berenson entered into an agreement with him, under which Duveen had the right of first refusal of any "first class Italian paintings" Berenson found, and Berenson would provide him with an appraisal and certificates of authenticity. This, in and of itself, is not so bad. But the agreement further provided that Berenson would get a 25% commission on any sales Duveen made of the paintings that Berenson found for him, and, on top of this, Berenson's identity was concealed under the use of a fictitious name. The conflict of interest is obvious.<br /><br />We know now that Berenson's attributions, of Walters' acquisitions as well as those of other clients, were not always accurate. Many people have assumed that seemingly inflated attributions of Berenson's were due to venality, but Mazaroff makes the case that they were simply due to the manner in which attributions were made. Artists of the Italian Renaissance did not always sign their names. Contemporary copies, by the artists themselves, their assistants, and others, were common. What is known about an artist changes and affects attributions. Today, cconservators and appraisers have an arsenal of technical tools to assist them, chemical analysis of paints, X-rays to find underpaintings, etc. Berenson had his experience and his eye. It is noteworthy that his attributions wer not challenged <i>at the time</i>, despite the competition amongst collectors and dealers. And Mazaroff points out that the extent of Berenson's misattributions did not differ from that of other experts. <br /><br />Altogether, this is an instructive book about art collecting and connoisseurship in the Gilded Age, and a fasinating account of the relationship between two men, each powerful in his own field.<br /><br />Further suggested reading:<br /><a href="http://www.librarything.com/work/264590/book/1065623">Being Bernard Berenson</a>, by Meryl Secrest<br /><a href="http://www.librarything.com/work/1109285/book/46226103">An Illuminated Life: Belle da Costa Green's Journey from Prejudice to Privilege</a>, by Heidi ArdizzoneLilithcathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00165155867167277588noreply@blogger.com0