dchaikin part 4 - in Booker prize anticipation

I've become slightly Booker Prize obsessed this year. The longlist is (or was, depending on when you read this) released July 30. The announcement is 8am, my time zone (US CST)

Currently Reading


Currently Listening to

My themes through the years, including 2024
Themes
2012 - old testament
2013 - old testament and Toni Morrison
2014 - old testament
2015 - old testament, Toni Morrison & Cormac McCarthy
2016 - Homer, Greek mythology, Greek drama, & Thomas Pynchon
2017 - Virgil, Ovid & Thomas Pynchon
2018 - Apocrypha, New Testament & Gabriel García Márquez
2019 - Rome to the Renaissance & James Baldwin & Willa Cather and Shakespeare
2020 – Dante, Nabokov, Willa Cather, Shakespeare
2021 - Petrarch, Vladimir Nabokov, Willa Cather, Shakespeare, the Booker longlists, 2020 & 2021 - added Edith Wharton
2022 – Boccaccio, Robert Musil, Wharton, Shakespeare, Anniversaries, the Booker longlists, 2021 & 2022
2023 – Chaucer, Richard Wright, Wharton, Booker longlists 2022 & 2023, Naturalisty
2024 – Chaucer and medieval stuff, Faulkner, Wharton, Booker longlists

Read in 2024

Part 1 books - links go to the review on my part 1 thread

1. **** Soldiers' Pay by William Faulkner (1926) (read Jan 1-7, theme: Faulkner)
2. *** Taft by Ann Patchett, read by J. D. Jackson (listened Dec 18 – Jan 10, theme: random audio)
3. **** How to Build a Boat by Elaine Feeney (read Jan 7-14, theme: Booker 2023)
4. **** The Return of Martin Guerre by Natalie Zemon Davis, read by Sarah Mollo-Christensen (listened Jan 18-22, theme: random audio)
5. **** Arturo's Island by Elsa Morante (read Jan 14-28, theme: TBR)
6. **** Whale by Cheon Myeong-Kwan, translated from Korean by Chi-Young Kim, read by Cindy Kay (listened Jan 17 – Feb 1, theme: random audio)
7. ***½ Mosquitoes by William Faulkner (read Jan 21 – Feb 7, theme: Faulkner)

Part 2 books - links go to the review on my part 2 thread

8. **** The Mother’s Recompense by Edith Wharton (read Feb 7-19, theme: Wharton)
9. **** Pearl by Siân Hughes (read Feb 14-22, theme: Booker 2023)
10. **** Hemingway and Faulkner in Their Time edited by Earl Rovit and Arthur Waldhorn (read Feb 18-25, theme: Faulkner)
11. ***** White Teeth by Zadie Smith, read by Lenny Henry, Pippa Bennett-Warner, Ray Panthaki & Arya Sagar (listened Feb 1-26, theme: random audio)
12. ***½ Ammonites and Leaping Fish: A Life in Time by Penelope Lively (read Feb 23-29; theme: TBR)
13. **** The Brave Escape of Edith Wharton by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge (read Mar 9, theme: Wharton)
14. **** Flags in the Dust by William Faulkner (read Mar 1-15, theme: Faulkner)
15. ****½ How to Say Babylon: A Memoir by Safiya Sinclair, read by the author (listened Feb 26 – Mar 21, theme: random audio)
16. ***½ A Dictator Calls by Ismail Kadare (read Mar 23-26, theme: Booker 2024)
17. **** The Details by Ia Genberg (read Mar 29-30, theme: Booker 2024)
18. **** Twilight Sleep by Edith Wharton (read Mar 16 – Apr 3, theme: Wharton)
19. **** Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck, read by Lisa Flanagan (listened Mar 21 – Apr 5, theme: Booker 2024)
20. ***** Study for Obedience by Sarah Bernstein (read Mar 30 – Apr 6, theme: Booker 2023)
21. ***½ The Silver Bone by Andrey Kurkov (read Apr 7-13, theme: Booker 2024)
22. ***½ A Brief History of Japan: Samurai, Shogun and Zen: The Extraordinary Story of the Land of the Rising Sun by Jonathan Clements, read by Julian Elfer (listened Apr 7-16, theme: random audio)
23. **** Crooked Plow by Itamar Vieira Junior (read Apr 13-19, theme: Booker 2024)

Part 3 books - lilinks go to the review on my part 3 thread

24. ***** The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer (read Dec 30, 2023 – Apr 27, 2024, theme: Chaucer)
25. ***** The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner (read Apr 20-29, theme: Faulkner)
26. ***½ Lost on Me by Veronica Raimo, read by Carlotta Brentan (listened Apr 24-30, theme: Booker 2024)
27. ***** Western Lane by Chetna Maroo (read Apr 29 – May 3, theme: Booker 2023)
28. **** Undiscovered by Gabriela Wiener (read May 5-8, theme: Booker 2024)
29. *** The Children by Edith Wharton (read Apr 21 – May 14, theme: Wharton)
30. ****½ A Memoir of My Former Self: A Life in Writing by Hilary Mantel, narrated by a cast (listened Apr 16 - May 15, Theme: random audio)
31. **** Silence: A Thirteenth-Century French Romance by Heldris de Cornuälle, translated by Sarah Roche-Mahdi (read May 1-17, theme: Chaucer)
32. **** Asphodel by H.D. (read May 3-23, theme: TBR)
33. ****¼ The Years by Annie Ernaux (read May 17-25, theme: TBR)
34. ***** As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner (read May 25-27, theme: Faulkner)
35. *** Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder by Salman Rushdie (read May 27-31, theme: none)
36. ***** The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald, preface by Hermione Lee, Introduction by Candia McWilliam (read Jun 1-5, theme: Booker)
37. *** Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange (read Jun 5-14, theme: none)
38. **** Pearl : A New Verse Translation by Marie Borroff (read Jun 2-15, theme: Chaucer)
39. **** Eric by Terry Pratchett (read Jun 14-16, theme: TBR)
40. **** Sanctuary by William Faulkner (read Jun 16-23, theme: Faulkner)
41. ***½ Night Watch by Jayne Anne Phillips (read Jun 24-29, theme: none)
42. **** Not a River by Selva Almada (read Jun 29-30, theme: Booker 2024)

Part 4 books - links go to the review on this thread

43. **** Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: A New Verse Translation by Simon Armitage (read Jun 16 – Jul 3, theme: Chaucer)
44. **** Lost & Found: Reflections on Grief, Gratitude, and Happiness by Kathryn Schulz (read Jul 4-19)
45. *** The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk, narrated by Allen Lewis Rickman & Gilli Messer (listened May 16 – Jul 26)
46. **½ Above Ground by Clint Smith (read Jul 19-28, theme: TRB)
47. ***** Possession by A. S. Byatt (read Jun 30 – Jul 31, theme: TBR)
48. *** The Control of Nature by John McPhee (read May 16, 2023 – Aug 4, 2024, theme: TBR)
49. **** Light in August by William Faulkner (read Jul 20 – Aug 8)
50. ***½ The Little Red Chairs by Edna O'Brien, read by Juliet Stevenson (listened Jul 31 – Aug 12, theme: random audio)
51. **** This Strange Eventful History by Claire Messud (read Aug 3-17, theme: Booker 2024)
52. **** Ahead of All Parting : The Selected Poetry and Prose of Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Stephen Mitchell (read Aug 6, 2023 – Aug 21, 2024, theme: poetry)
53. **** Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, read by Elijah Wood (listened Aug 12-22, Theme: Booker 2024)
54. **** My Friends by Hisham Matar (read Aug 17-24, theme: Booker 2024)
55. **** Hudson River Bracketed by Edith Wharton (read Aug 5-28, theme: Wharton)
56. ***½ Enlightenment by Sarah Perry (read Aug 25-31, theme: Booker 2024)
57. *NR* The Blue Swallows by Howard Nemerov (read Aug 22 – Sep 3, theme: poetry)
58. ****½ Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood (read Aug 31 – Sep 4, theme: Booker 2024)
59. ***½ Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner (read Sep 4-10, theme: Booker 2024)
60. ***½ The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden (read Sep 11-14, theme: Booker 2024)
61. ***** James by Percival Everett (read Sep 14-18, theme: Booker 2024)
62. ***** Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent by Judi Dench & Brendan O'Hea, read by the authors and Barbara Flynn (listened Aug 23 – Sep 19, theme: random audio)
63. ****½ A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There by Aldo Leopold (read Sep 5-21, theme: TBR)
64. **** Orbital by Samantha Harvey (read Sep 18-22, theme: Booker 2024)
65. ****½ Held by Anne Michaels (read Sep 23-28, theme: Booker 2024)
66. **** Pylon by William Faulkner (read Sep 22 – Oct 2, theme: Faulkner)
67. ***** The Collected Poems of Wilfred Owen edited by C. Day Lewis (read Sep 4 – Oct 5, theme: poetry)
68. **** The Saddest Words: William Faulkner's Civil War by Michael Gorra, read by Joe Barrett (listened Sep 19 – Oct 8, theme: Faulkner)
69. ****½ The Vegetarian by Han Kang (read Oct 12-14, theme: 2024 Nobel)
70. **** The White Book by Kang Han (read Oct 15-16, theme: 2024 Nobel)

Read in 2024, listed by year published
(links are touchstones)

~1250 Silence: A Thirteenth-Century French Romance by Heldris de Cornuälle
~1390
Pearl
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
1400 The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
1884 Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
1918 The Collected Poems of Wilfred Owen
1922 Ahead of All Parting : The Selected Poetry and Prose of Rainer Maria Rilke
1925 The Mother’s Recompense by Edith Wharton
1926
Soldiers' Pay by William Faulkner
Asphodel by H.D. (published 1992)
1927
Mosquitoes by William Faulkner
Twilight Sleep by Edith Wharton
1928 The Children by Edith Wharton
1929
Flags in the Dust by William Faulkner (complete version: 1973)
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
Hudson River Bracketed by Edith Wharton
1930 As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
1931 Sanctuary by William Faulkner
1932 Light in August by William Faulkner
1935 Pylon by William Faulkner
1949 A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There by Aldo Leopold
1957 Arturo's Island by Elsa Morante
1967 The Blue Swallows by Howard Nemerov
1983 The Return of Martin Guerre by Natalie Zemon Davis
1989 The Control of Nature by John McPhee
1990
Eric by Terry Pratchett
Possession by A. S. Byatt
1994 Taft by Ann Patchett
1995 The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald
2000 White Teeth by Zadie Smith
2004 Whale by Cheon Myeong-Kwan
2005 Hemingway and Faulkner in Their Time edited by Earl Rovit and Arthur Waldhorn
2007 The Vegetarian by Han Kang
2008 The Years by Annie Ernaux
2010 The Brave Escape of Edith Wharton by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge
2013 Ammonites and Leaping Fish: A Life in Time by Penelope Lively
2014 The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk
2015 The Little Red Chairs by Edna O'Brien
2016 The White Book by Kang Han
2017 A Brief History of Japan by Jonathan Clements
2018 Crooked Plow by Itamar Vieira Junior
2020
The Silver Bone by Andrey Kurkov
Not a River by Selva Almada
The Saddest Words: William Faulkner's Civil War by Michael Gorra
2021
Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck
Undiscovered by Gabriela Wiener
2022
A Dictator Calls by Ismail Kadare
The Details by Ia Genberg
Lost on Me by Veronica Raimo
Lost & Found: Reflections on Grief, Gratitude, and Happiness by Kathryn Schulz
2023
How to Build a Boat by Elaine Feeney
Pearl by Siân Hughes
How to Say Babylon: A Memoir by Safiya Sinclair
Study for Obedience by Sarah Bernstein
Western Lane by Chetna Maroo
A Memoir of My Former Self: A Life in Writing by Hilary Mantel
Night Watch by Jayne Anne Phillips
Above Ground by Clint Smith
Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood
The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden
Orbital by Samantha Harvey
Held by Anne Michaels
2024
Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder by Salman Rushdie
Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange
This Strange Eventful History by Claire Messud
My Friends by Hisham Matar
Enlightenment by Sarah Perry
Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner
James by Percival Everett
Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent by Judi Dench & Brendan O'Hea

my list as a quilt = books read this year

books listened to this year

Some stats:

2024
Books read: 70
Pages: 15,428 ( 542 hrs )
Audio time: 182 hrs
Formats: paperback 25; hardcover 23; audio 14; ebooks 8;
Subjects in brief: Novels 48; Classic 19; Non-fiction 14; Memoir 8; Poetry 7; Autofiction 5; Essays 5; History 5; On Literature and Books 5; Religion/Mythology/Philosophy 3; Nature 2; Biography 2; Young Adult 1; Mystery 1; Short Stories 1; Fantasy 1; Science 1; Journalism 1; Thriller 1; Interviews 1;
Nationalities: United States 29; England 15; South Korea 3; Italy 2; France 2; Ireland 2; Canada 2; Jamaica 1; Albania 1; Sweden 1; Germany 1; Ukraine 1; Brazil 1; Peru 1; India 1; Argentina 1; Poland 1; Austria 1; Libya 1; Australia 1; Netherlands 1;
Books in translation: 18
Genders, m/f: 28/38; unknown 3; mixed 1;
Owner: books I own 56; Library books 11; audible loan 3;
Re-reads: 1
Year Published: 2020’s 29; 2010’s 7; 2000’s 5; 1990’s 4; 1980’s 2; 1960’s 1; 1950’s 1; 1940’s 1; 1930’s 4; 1920’s 10; 1910’s 1; 1800’s 1; 1400’s 1; 1300’s 2; 1200’s 1;
TBR numbers: +8 (acquired 62, read from tbr 54)

All stats - since I started keeping track in December of 1990
Books read: 1390
Formats: Paperback 704; Hardcover 293; Audio 228; ebooks 128; Lit magazines 38
Subjects in brief: Non-fiction 527; Novels 481; Biographies/Memoirs 234; Classics 226; History 200; Religion/Mythology/Philosophy 141; Poetry 108; Journalism 99; Science 97; Ancient 76; On Literature and Books 74; Speculative Fiction 70; Nature 70; Essay Collections 57; Short Story Collections 51; Drama 48; Anthologies 47; Graphic 46; Juvenile/YA 35; Visual Arts 28; Mystery/Thriller 17; Interviews 16
Nationalities: US 766; Other English-language countries: 314; Other: 303
Books in translation: 242
Genders, m/f: 852/434
Owner: Books I owned 1010; Library books 296; Books I borrowed 73; Online 10;
Re-reads: 28
Year Published: 2020’s 95; 2010's 283; 2000's 295; 1990's 186; 1980's 125; 1970's 62; 1960's 56; 1950's 36; 1900-1949 100; 19th century 22; 16th-18th centuries 38; 13th-15th centuries 17; 0-1199 21; BCE 55
TBR: 660

Recent milestone: 100 books that were published from 1900-1949. 200 books on history.

links to all my old threads:

2009 Part 1, 2009 Part 2, 2010 Part 1, 2010 Part 2, 2011 Part 1, 2011 Part 2, 2012 Part 1, 2012 Part 2, 2013 Part 1, 2013 Part 2, 2013 Part 3, 2014 Part 1, 2014 Part 2, 2014 Part 3, 2015 Part 1, 2015 Part 2, 2015 Part 3, 2016 Part 1, 2016 Part 2, 2016 Part 3, 2017 Part 1, 2017 Part 2, 2018 part 1, 2018 part 2, 2019 part 1, 2019 part 2, 2019 part 3, 2020 part 1, 2020 part 2, 2020 part 3, 2021 part 1, 2021 part 2, 2021 part 3, 2022 part 1, 2022 part 2, 2022 part 3, 2022 part 4, 2023 part 1, 2023 part 2, 2023 part 3, 2023 part 4, 2024 part 1, 2024 part 2, 2024 part 3

I'll open this thread with a delayed look at June - delayed care of travel, a hurricane, and my strangely and frustratingly restless unfocused mind of the moment. I've been reading a lot less.

June was an odd month. I read a lot (54.5 hours). But after starting with a wonderful novel, The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald, nothing really terrific came the rest of the month. To some extent I was so invested into TBF that it overshadowed the next books. But also, some books were just ok. My list of ok books, not bad, not wonderful experiences included Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange, Sanctuary by Faulkner, Night Watch by Jayne Anne Phillips, and, sadly, Gawain and the Green Knight, which pales after Chaucer. Pearl was more interesting, Eric was Discworld, and Not a River by Selva Almada would be worth a re-read (not a big commitment) - these three were better, but didn't alter that TBF shadow.

Audio feels like it's at a standstill. I got in 15 hours, all towards The Books of Jacob, which I started in May... and I'm not even enjoying it. :(

I'm on Pace to only read about 40 hours this month, July. But a lot of that is with Possession by A.S. Byatt, and I'm now a fully converted Byatt fan. I'm completely in love with this novel. Also, I've started Light in August by Faulkner and i'm pretty excited about it.

>9 dchaikin: seems like I’m not the only one having trouble focusing on reading this July. Apart from the extremes of weather and any personal or family issues, I put my lack of focus down to the state of the world, especially in regard regard to the US elections and the wars in the ME .

For a good audio read I recommend Dog Island which I reviewed on my thread. It’s short and well narrated. I was the same as you about The Books of Jacob on audio and ended up discarding it.

I reas Possession some years ago and thought it truly wonderful - a joy to read.

Hears hoping August is a more productive month.

Happy new one, Dan. Cheer up, the reading speed will come back. I'm not reading much at the moment either. There are too many other things going on. That's fine too. 😃

>10 kjuliff: maybe the state of the country and our outlook plays a role. I'll note Dog Island. What do you think was wrong with The Books of Jacob on audio? It seems read ok. I can't quite place my discomfort.

>11 Ameise1: yeah, I should cheer up. Not worried about my speed, but my inability to put time in, and to sustain it (except when reading Possession)

Sometimes there are more important things to invest your time in. This will be the case for me in July and August.

I generally read less in the summer, although this year is not as bad as last. Do you have seasonal variance or do you usually maintain your pace year round? I'm with Kate in that I also tend to read less in election years and when the political news is bad. The Trump years saw a decline in my overall reading quantity and quality.

43. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: A New Verse Translation by Simon Armitage
OPD: 2007, Sir Gawain is a late-14th-century poem
format: 198-page paperback with Middle English and modern English translation on facing pages
acquired: April read: Jun 16 – Jul 3 time reading: 8:05, 2.6 mpp
rating: 4
genre/style: Middle English poetry theme: Chaucer
locations:
about the author: The Gawain poet is unknown but wrote in a North-West Midlands dialect of Middle English. Simon Armitage is an English poet, playwright, musician and novelist. He was the 2019 Poet Laureate, and a professor of poetry at the University of Leeds. He was born in born in Huddersfield, West Riding of Yorkshire in 1963.

Apologies up front, I didn't fall in love with this. Scattered, hopefully useful, notes below.

Ok, some appreciation. This epic Arthurian poem makes for an interesting look at the history of English and its poetry. Armitage, in an excellent introduction, explains how the Germanic origins of the English language used alliteration, not rhyme, in the poetry. Whereas the romantic languages used rhyme. The poetry here stands between the two. It's a series of long stanzas, where every individual line is marked by alliteration. Then the stanzas close with four short rhyming lines, the first rhyming with last alliterative line.

This is a sort of adventure story, with what feels like pagan elements, and a very Christian tilt to the surface. There is some humor and romance, but also the cutting off of heads, our knight lost in the wilderness, and some dramatic hunting scenes. But the structure fronts description, not action. So we go slow, the poet happy to spend time on clothing, food, and the moment. The hunting scenes are described with relish, even if they have limited connection the overall plot. I was left with the sense that the author was happy to indulge in the language, in no rush to carry the plot anywhere.

And, maybe that's ok, considering. The plot is mild, and arguably undermines itself in its humor and conclusion. We think we're reading a story of adventure, but it turns out where actually reading a story of temptation. That's a little cute, but a little gimmicky too.

As a mostly spoiler-free plot summary, an unknown knight, glowing emerald green and on a glowing horse, comes to King Arthur's Christmas festival and challenges the knights to a competition. Sensing danger, they all remain silent. Gawain volunteers not because he is tough and brave, but because as a nephew of Arthur, he feels expendable. He is given an axe and offered one strike to cut off the green knight's head. This done, the green knight's headless body then picks up his head, laughs and gives Gawain the instructions. In a year, he must find the green knight, who will get one strike at his own head. Gawain spends a year as if it's his last, and then goes on his quest, struggling to find this mysterious, unknown knight. He lays up in a castle in the wilderness, one full of comforts, where his name is known and celebrated. He rests while the men of the castle hunt. He is offered bedding, clothes, food and the attention of the head of the castle's gorgeous wife. They spend a lot of time alone together. Eventually he finds a guide to the green knight.

The themes are Christian, but the green knight feels like a pre-Christian entity. Something mysterious and powerful from an unexplained other place. A hypbrid poem in many ways.

A note on the language: My edition has the original text side by side with the Armitage translation. I tried really hard to read the original, but I mostly failed. I tried very hard to listen to its sounds, but again, it was just very foreign feeling. The Armitage translation doesn't help, because he freely translates, meaning you can't match words or phrases together, only general meaning. The rest you need to figure out. I would like to comment on Armitage, but instead of enjoying him, I mostly used him as a comprehension life-support, which wasn't his design.

A note on why I didn't like this so much: Oddly it was not ideal to read this with Chaucer in mind. It's completely different, tying to other Arthurian themes, but lacking the extent of playful awareness found in medieval French Lais. It's poor match to Chaucer, lacking much of the joy of life in GC's work. I would recommend reading it in an isolation of a sort.

>13 Ameise1: I wish I could argue that

>14 labfs39: It's really random for me. Generally, the less real-world worries, the better my reading. So travel, hurricanes, bad political outlooks aren't helpful

>12 dchaikin: I don’t know why I couldn’t continue with Books of Jacob. I couldn’t get invested in it; my mind kept wandering and I couldn’t pull it back in. I thought at the time it was due to my own mental state. Maybe it isn’t suited to audio. Like you I can’t place what it was that made reading it a chore.

>17 kjuliff: Its a book I was very interested in; the time period and place are among my faves and I was so excited about it I bought when it first came out I tried and tried, several times, i just couldnt make headway. Pity

>15 dchaikin: ... the green knight feels like a pre-Christian entity. Something mysterious and powerful from an unexplained other place.

I haven't read Sir Gawain and The Green Knight, but usually when unexplained "green" people appear in earlier works, its a reference to a pre Christian world. They represent the forces of nature and often paganism associated with it. So slaying the green knight is a way of slaying the undercurrent of pre christian belief which was still present in the countryside.

As I said, I haven't read this work, so may be completely off in this case, but wondering if this idea works here.

>20 SassyLassy: interesting! If so, the meaning is a little more interesting and nuanced

>9 dchaikin: Adding another vote for Possession, which I loved.

>15 dchaikin: I didn't care for the Armitage translation either, and to be fair, I don't care for his original verse as well. There's something very stodgy about the way he writes. If I'm not wrong, the folklore around the Green Man is Celtic and probably does pre-date Christ. Did you know that Tolkien published a translation too?

>15 dchaikin: Interesting that you didn't like Simon Armitage's translation of Sir Gawain. It is now some years since I read it, but I thoroughly enjoyed it, but then I like him as a poet. I hear where your coming from in comparing the story with Chaucer's tales after you have been reading so much recently.

>22 rv1988: Possession - :) ... About the Green Knight, I did know of Tolkien's translation. I actually read the first couple pages of several different translations and liked Armitage the best. But I ultimately didn't pay too much attention to it, just used for meaning.

>23 baswood: thanks bas. I'm toying with reading Piers Plowman. I was sure I should read it, and now i'm less sure. Next on my little list that I used as a theme guide, after Chaucer, is Spencer. I have read the Fairie Queene, and loved it. I'm not sure I'm up for reading it again. But I could use Spenser as an excuse to read some other non-Shakespeare 1500's stuff, like Don Quixote. I could also Jump to Shakespeare. A play a month would take me three years...

44. Lost & Found: Reflections on Grief, Gratitude, and Happiness by Kathryn Schulz
OPD: 2022
format: 242-page paperback
acquired: April 1, 2023 read: Jul 4-19 time reading: 7:32, 1.9 mpp
rating: 4
genre/style: personal essays theme: TBR
locations: Cleveland Ohio, New York and the Maryland east shore.
about the author: an American journalist and author, and Pulitzer-Prize winning staff writer at The New Yorker. She is also Jewish and Lesbian (she won the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Memoir or Biography for this book.) She was born in Shaker Heights, Oh, a Cleveland “streetcar suburb”, in 1974.

Personal essays on the grief of Schulz's father's passing, on finding her lesbian partner, and on "and", or, maybe more, "&", a sort of tie-in to marriage. Schulz is a beautiful, thoughtful writer, the kind you want if you pick up the New Yorker, where she contributes. She's grounded, American, logical, restrained but with passion, an atheist with Jewish heritage. Her grandmother, sent as a child to Palestine, was the only survivor of her European family. Her father was born in Palestine. She's thorough and completes her thoughts to their logical conclusions.

She tries the difficult process of writing happy stories about a happy life. She was close to her father, and her family. She is very happy in her relationship. Her father's death is tragic mainly in the sense that death is inevitable, even if maybe he should have lived longer. He had a dynamic and successful life. This leaves Schulz thinking about life and our inevitable death; and the moment, now, in its beauty and happiness, and its impermanence, of how inevitably we lose everything. That's the kind of place her completeness ends up in, after death, love & marriage...or just &. She says there isn't an English word to capture this feeling, a more sedated, more reflective type of life-perspective bittersweetness.

I started this as I visited Philadelphia to unveil my mother's new tombstone. And that's in theory a good time to read this, and I did get a little out of it because of that. But I'm so much in a fictional mindset these days that its reach was little limited with me. It's better, I think, to check this out when you are in one of those nonfiction moods.

>25 dchaikin: As you are well aware, I always prefer to read books that have an element of suspense to them. Some time ago I came across a New Yorker article by
Kathryn Schulz about how much of literature and life depends on such suspense. You might find the article interesting to read. It is at:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/05/27/the-secrets-of-suspense

I hope your visit there was comforting for you. That book does look interesting but yeah like year of magical thinking a book that is read when its time

I realize that you have been reading Possession, and I just finished a somewhat similar book Enlightenment by Sarah Perry. Many media reviewers are comparing the two books for their composition and quality.

I realize that your reading focus is elsewhere, but I thought of you as I was reading the book

>26 JoeB1934: I glanced at this article. It's a time commitment. I might come back later and read it. Thanks for sharing!

>27 cindydavid4: The unveiling of my mother's tombstone was a nice event. Shulz book is nothing like Didion's soul-scarring experience. Shulz is very positive about everything.

>28 JoeB1934: I'm not familiar with it. I know Sarah Perry by name, and I think she does mainly historical fiction, or ties into history somehow. But I haven't read her. Thanks! My scattered focus is a little heavy on the upcoming Booker longlist. (I imagine Perry's new book is eligible, and she's been on the longlist before ... )

>28 JoeB1934: the internet ate my post. I was really happy to see Enlightenment on the Booker longlist today. I’ve been thinking about it since i read your comment. It’s ordered.

I am wondering what you think of the longlist. I think there are about half that I plan to read or have read. The others don't pass my interest level.
Are there favorites amongst the cognoscenti in the book world?

Not sure about overall favorites. My general opinion is the list is too American. And I’m wondering if that means weaker or less poetic prose than last year. And I’m wondering if social media has influenced these choices. But that’s all based on having read one book of 13.

>32 dchaikin: >31 JoeB1934: I am not yet impressed by any in this year’s list, apart from James which I didn’t have the cultural background to appreciate. But in general I love Percival Everett’s writing.

>33 kjuliff: I'll intrigued by several titles. Hopefully I'll like all of the rest of them...

45. The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk
translation: from Polish by Jennifer Croft, 2022
readers: Allen Lewis Rickman & Gilli Messer
OPD: 2014
format: 35:18 audible audiobook (992 pages in paperback)
acquired: May 15, listened: May 16 – Jul 26
rating: 3
genre/style: contemporary fiction theme: random audio
locations: 18th-century Poland
about the author: Polish writer, activist, and public intellectual, awarded the 2018 Nobel Prize in Literature. Born in 1962 in Sulechów near Zielona Góra, in western Poland

This giant book is fictional take on a Polish Jewish Messiah, Jacob Frank, who would later convert himself and all his followers to Christianity, with thousands of baptisms throughout Poland. It's a slow book, working the moment, taking it's time working the moment. And it's very much a history of Poland from the 1740's to just about 1800. The focus on Frank means the history comes through obliquely. But we see Polish small towns, the cultural diversity, and linguistic diversity, the scholarly diversity. We see Poland close up, and from a distance, Warsaw as an extravagant city, and the same Warsaw as an economically limited backwater capital. This Poland is a place where Jews who have spent a lifetime in deep study, becoming highly educated, could be oblivious to the Age of Enlightenment firing off sparks across Western European intellectuals, including right next door in Germanic states. This is the Poland of Eastern Europe, a cultural crossroads where ties to Germanic states, Austria, Russian and the Muslim Ottoman empire are practically equal, if not politically, and, per the Muslim world, culturally, certainly economically. The historical Joseph Frank began as a trader who moved through this world, trading in the Ottoman empire and then back home in Poland. Much of the novel centers around these itinerant Jewish traders. That's the large scope.

But, what to make of my experience with it? I had trouble buying in. The audio format may have been the issue, except I never could put my finger on anything wrong with the audio. Gilli Messer reads slow, but nicely.

One oddity, maybe just for me, is there are several aspects of numbness. Unfeeling. The Jewish characters didn't feel Jewish. At least they were nothing like my ingrained mythology, along the lines of Fiddler on the Roof and Yiddish exasperation. And characters oddly did not seem to express well their character strengths, or even their pains or anxieties or traumas. It felt me like characters were passive enough that there was always a remove from feeling; and the pain, which was clearly present, was outside the prose, at a distance that felt unbridgeable on audio.

But then there are a whole lot of characters and foreign names to remember, names that change. I couldn't follow. (and I can't take notes while driving). So, I got lost a lot, listening to characters whose history I couldn't remember, then following with another character dimly recalled, before back to some main character somehow seeming to be doing something entirely different from what I had recalled them doing previously. So maybe this was my issue.

Within the sense that listening is a performance, I just didn't do a good job listening. I got the plot of this book, and all these Polish towns, and these weird philosophical ideas; and I got a sense of these mixture of pure and manipulative figures, each accomplish good and terrible things; and I got a sense of the changing fortunes of Frank and his followers. But I didn't really get the experience of the book.

Ok, thats what I needed to know

>36 cindydavid4: hope I didn't kill a potential winner for you.

>37 dchaikin: hee mightve. edited because I got confused I will have to try it because every part of my jewish mind is telling me its good. Problem is a I have two other tomes that I havent read yet.......well see what happens

>38 cindydavid4: The Books of Jacob made the 2022 International Booker shortlist. :) The winner in 2022 was Tomb of Sand by Geetanjali Shree

46. Above Ground by Clint Smith
OPD: 2023
format: 107-page hardcover
acquired: June read: Jul 19-28 time reading: 1:32, 0.9 mpp
rating: 2½
genre/style: Poetry theme: TBR
about the author: An American writer, poet and scholar currently with The Atlantic, from New Orleans (born 1988)

Poetry, but, well, kind ho hum for me. I couldn't find much substance.

These poems are often barely poems, more like scattered ideas sketched out in stanza form. And often there didn't seem to be much to them, the kind of stuff you might sketch out and leave be. He has what felt to me like a bad habit wrapping his poems around a kind of thought gimmick. But, I mean, what do I know. I'm not poetry aware. His theme is parenthood (and this was a Father's Day gift from my daughter). He touches on other things, often relating to race. I thought it was interesting that the one poem previously published in Poetry magazine was about drones. But mostly these are about parenthood.

Of course, some poems are better than others. I liked a poem about dancing in the cereal aisle with his daughter, and some others seemed more abundantly playful or meaningful.

>39 dchaikin: I could not get through tomb of sand tho may try again some time

>41 cindydavid4: i don’t know anything about it (Tomb of Sand)

>39 dchaikin: The Books of Jacob may have made the 2022 International Booker shortlist, but it sounds dreadful.

>41 cindydavid4: >42 dchaikin: Tomb of Sand is a difficult read, even for someone better acquainted with the context, like myself. It's a big family saga from India, originally written in Hindi, and like most big family sagas in Hindi literature, it owes its intellectual and cultural ancestry to The Mahabharata, which is an epic from Hindu mythology (the equivalent of our Iliad, perhaps). It's also deeply grounded in the Partition of India and Pakistan by the British which caused the largest forced human migration in recent history and was marked by such widespread violence and trauma. The Partition itself is such a great historical and cultural moment that it is the genesis for an entire body of 'Partition literature,' most of which is in non-English languages. Tomb of Sand sits within these big literary traditions. In the original text, Shree's writing is very idiomatic and stylized. Even though I speak Hindi fluently, I had a bit of trouble reading it because I'm not actually a native speaker. So, the English translation, although very good, doesn't completely capture all the truly innovative and complicated things that she is doing with language. That doesn't mean it's not worth reading - I've heard the same said about English translations of Marina Tsvetaeva, for instance. It does help that the translator is American, and so able to work in some context that helps readers.

It might interest you to know that Shree's great success at the Bookers has been met with comparative silence in India. She has a decades-long career as a writer in Hindi, and was reasonably well-known before this. But she criticised the current Indian government publicly a few years, and so has been largely ignored, even though it is the first Indian-language book to win the Booker, and even though the present Indian government has been promoting the Hindi language over other Indian languages. Altogether unfortunate, because it's a wonderful book.

I didn't mention this in the other threads, but really, one of the many reasons why these 'best books lists' are absurd is that they often ignore entire bodies of literature that are significant for literary reasons across the world. Partition literature is one; scar literature, which addresses the Chinese cultural revolution, is another.

>43 SqueakyChu: it’s really popular in Poland. But read thorold’s review to get a positive thoughtful take

>44 rv1988: that’s such a beautiful post. So much interesting information. Now i really want to read Tomb of Sand. Thank you.

>44 rv1988: Another one now lining up to read Tomb of Sand.
I completely agree with your last paragraph, having a fair amount of scar literature.

>44 rv1988: Very interesting. I have only read Partitions by Amit Majmudar. Do you have a title or two you would recommend?

>47 labfs39: I would definitely recommend stories by Sadat Hasan Manto and Ismat Chughtai, both of whom are major literary figures in the subcontinent but almost completely unknown outside India. The most well-known Partition novel in Hindi literature is Tamas by Bhisham Sahni but I can't vouch for the English translation, as I haven't read it in English. This is actually a good list: https://www.penguin.co.in/25-must-reads-on-the-70th-anniversary-of-partition/ Given the subject matter of the Partition, it's probably worth noting that most of these books deal with a lot of physical and sexual violence, as well as religious conflict - a heads up for anyone thinking of reading them, as these are heavy topics.

>48 rv1988: Thank you, Rasdhar! I've started a list.

>48 rv1988: Thanks for that great list, Rasdhar!

>48 rv1988: Thank you, Rasdhar! Lots of titles that are new to me.

>44 rv1988: … Partition of India and Pakistan by the British which caused the largest forced human migration in recent history

Even though I know about the Partition, I did not know this fact. It’s hard to believe that this was allowed by the UN - or at least protested against by the general public in England

I have read a few books about the results of Partition but none set during the Partition itself obviously a huge gap in my reading that I will have to remedy.

There are readings—of the same text—that are dutiful, readings that map and dissect, readings that hear a rustling of unheard sounds, that count grey little pronouns for pleasure or instruction and for a time do not hear golden or apples. There are personal readings, which snatch for personal meanings, I am full of love, or disgust, or fear, I scan for love, or disgust, or fear. There are—believe it—impersonal readings—where the mind's eye sees the lines move onwards and the mind's ear hears them sing and sing.

Now and then there are readings that make the hairs on the neck, the non-existent pelt, stand on end and tremble, when every word burns and shines hard and clear and infinite and exact, like stones of fire, like points of stars in the dark—readings when the knowledge that we shall know the writing differently or better or satisfactorily, runs ahead of any capacity to say what we know, or how. In these readings, a sense that the text has appeared to be wholly new, never before seen, is followed, almost immediately, by the sense that it was always there, that we the readers, knew it was always there, and have always known it was as it was, though we have now for the first time recognised, become fully cognizant of, our knowledge.

47. Possession by A. S. Byatt
OPD: 1990
format: 555-page paperback
acquired: April read: Jun 30 – Jul 31 time reading: 26:46, 2.9 mpp
rating: 5
genre/style: Fiction theme: Booker legacy
locations: London, Yorkshire and French Britany in 1986 and in the 19th-century
about the author: 1936 –2023: an English critic, novelist, poet and short story writer born in Sheffield. Her sisters are the novelist Margaret Drabble and the art historian Helen Langdon.

It's little hard for me to adequately explain how much I enjoyed this book, was obsessed by it (possessed), and was so unrelentingly curious. I was aware of this while reading, from about page 7 when it fully struck that I wanted to be involved. And that feeling never spoiled. I adored this book. I want to tell you it's the best book written in my lifetime, and why. But I can't adequately express that. Nor do I know if that kind of evaluation makes sense. But, what's weird is that this was all fiction. It's just a book. My obsession was for information, fictional information about fictional characters. When characters discuss illegally digging up a buried dead body to find lost letters, my brain said, "dig! Justify it later. Just dig! I want those letters!" Although I can't say my brain used any words exactly.

Byatt's first really successful novel, a hugely successful one, was planned this way. She wanted to write about academic stuff, ideas she was interested in. And she thought that if she could hook readers on a mystery, then she could write anything she liked, and we would read it. So, she opens with 19th-century poetry (which she wrote herself, in time-period mimicry, stylistic flaws included), then has us sit with a meek research assistant to a professor studying this 19th-century author when he, the meek assistant, makes a little discovery of unclear meaning...he finds a draft of a letter hinting at...something... he steals the relic form the research library! I was hooked.

Then Byatt piles stuff on. More mystery, more discovery, romance, ancient and contemporary, and she can do romance gorgeously; but this romance is all newly found, layering the sense of discovery. oh. Mythology, standing stones. And poetry. Poetry everywhere. We learn about our researchers and their academic squabbles, and about their 19th-century subjects and 19th-century secret affairs. All this mad stuff works. I was fully possessed.

It's so strange to close this book and separate yourself from all that feeling. It's all fiction. It's just a book. But it's a magnificent book. I was obsessed, and it lasted and stayed with me a long time. I loved how reasonable the whole thing was. Just researchers acting crazy, and 19th-century poets acting like 19th-century poets. Ultimately, despite seance's and the quest for ghosts, there is nothing supernatural here. Except what occurs to the reader.

Byatt was very aware of what she was doing and how well it worked. She has talked about it. She also wrote about it here, giving us a beautiful section on the experience of reading, on what it does to the mind, on all the different ways we read (partially quoted above). And then immediately follows that with a pseudo-19th-century poem on hunger, which we all must process, at least in some mindset, as hunger for information. "we must have more... We are driven/By endings as by hunger. We must know/How it comes out...". This is curiosity, an obsessive form of it. These sections together near the end are not an accident. It's a compression of everything the book has just done to the reader, into a few pages. It's the author creating magic out of nothing, and aware of it, and taking time to tell her reader about it. That's just beautiful.

Recommended to anyone who likes post-1950's literature.

>53 dchaikin: This is such a masterful review of the book that changed my life forever. You have spoken so eloquently about this book that I am dumbfounded with the effect it has on me. Supremely jealous of your way with words and your emotions portrayed in so meaningful a manner. I have recommended this book to so many people and, to a person they loved it

Your speaking of what happened on page 7 and my sister-in-law called to tell me a similar emotion at an early start of the book.

Thank you, thank you as your review strikes me as a classic to be treasured forever.

>53 dchaikin: Great review, Dan. I think I've said before somewhere in your thread that I've always shied away from Possession because of the amount of poetry in it, but your review is pushing me towards adding it the TBR. I've only read The Children's Book by Byatt, but it was a standout book for me that year (will be interested in your thoughts in that one if you get to it - I felt she just made the period come so alive with detail. It was like colourising a black and white photo).

>54 JoeB1934: thank you! I sat on this a bit. Wrote up a plot summary. Tossed it. My "review" is really just a personal response, which felt astounding. I hope anyone who takes my recommendation feels rewarded!

>55 AlisonY: You might be interested to know that Byatt, in an interview, said that she was reading her book for the first time, she would skip the poetry. And she recommends readers to the same. If you're captured, come back and read. I think she was kidding.... but maybe not. Anyway, I did not skip anything. I was scratching the pages for more info. I did take it very slow.

So July

Despite my complaining up in >9 dchaikin:, I ended up having a good July. I read 52 hours and finished four books (Possession, Sir Gwain and the Green Knight, Lost & Found, and Above Ground). And I got through a good chunk of Faulkner's Light in August. I didn't love everything, but I did love Possession, and it, by itself, made July special.

On audio, I finally finished The Books of Jacob and started The Little Red Chairs by Edna O'Brien, who passed away in July. I got in 13.5 hours of reading, which is another low month.

August is Booker longlist obsession month. I'll obsess and not get very far. I plan to read This Strange Eventful History, the longest book on the longlist. And then I'll start My Friends. That should be it from the list. I'll also read Edith Wharton's Hudson River Bracketed, which turns out to be her longest book... so, not great timing. I've already finished Light in August and, after four sputtered attempts, The Control of Nature by John McPhee. On audio, once I finish The Little Red Chairs, I'll move to a The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn read by Elijah Wood (And free on audible). That will be my prep for James.

>53 dchaikin: Absolutely fabulous review of a marvellous book.

>58 SassyLassy: Thank you! It is a marvelous book. :)

48. The Control of Nature by John McPhee
OPD: 1989
format: 272-page paperback
acquired: my wife had this copy when we met read: May 16, 2023 – Aug 3, 2024 time reading: 10:26, 2.3 mpp (I read parts in May, Aug & Dec 2023, and then Jul-Aug 2024)
rating: 3
genre/style: literary nonfiction theme: none
locations: Louisiana, Iceland, Hawaii & Los Angeles
about the author: Nonfiction writing instructor at Princeton University. He was born in Princeton in 1931.

I've adored McPhee in the past. I found this one hard to get into. McPhee does topics by people, but I just wasn't captured by anyone he interviewed (until the end when he interviewed a local Los Angeles geologist and some of the homeowners of landslide-threatened homes...actually, debris flows). So, this was slow. I started and stopped three times - May 2023, August 2023, December 2023. Then finally on July 24 I picked up and slowly read through the second half.

It covers three topics, and all should be interesting:
1. Keeping the Mississippi River in its basin. It wants to switch course into the Atchafalaya river basin, which would bypass Baton Rouge and New Orleans.
2. Managing a volcanic eruption and lava spill on a small Icelandic island, with a short take on Hawaiian volcanoes.
3. Managing debris flows in suburban LA. The San Gabriel Mountains, made up of fault-blasted broken rock, are rising fast, and falling fast. But they make the best home sites in LA, for views and weather. Even the geologists studying the falling mountains buy homes there.

I loved Possession and I've been wanting to reread. I think your review is pushing me to get to it soon!

>53 dchaikin: Wow! Wonderful review. And book, apparently. I must get to it.

>53 dchaikin: I enjoyed it too

>35 dchaikin: Just catching up with your thread, finally. Great stuff as always. It seems The Books of Jacob would fit in well with the Singer I've been reading.

>61 japaul22: so day, I will reread it. I'm joining a fb group reading The Children's Book in January.

>62 FlorenceArt: Oh, you might love it. A bit France in there (Brittany)

>63 baswood: Have you read other by Byatt?

>64 rocketjk: It would be very interesting to compare Singer and Tokarczuk.

>65 dchaikin: I loved The Children’s Book also, though I didn’t think it was quite as special as Possession.

(This cover came with the book. My neighbor gave it to me, along with about 200 other books back in 2006 and 2007. This is a 1950 hardcover, with one uncut page (now cut). It clearly got damaged, probably wet. The pages were stiff; thin, wrinkled, but resilient. So, once, a very nice quality book. He must have pasted on this cover to hide some of the water stains. I've become very attached to this cartoon cover.)

49. Light in August by William Faulkner
Introduction: Richard H. Rovere (1950)
OPD: 1932
format: 454-page Modern Library hardcover from 1950
acquired: 2006 read: Jul 20 – Aug 8 time reading: 17:31, 2.3 mpp
rating: 4
genre/style: Classic novel theme: Faulkner
locations: Yoknapatawpha county, Mississippi
about the author: 1897-1962. American Noble Laureate who was born in New Albany, MS, and lived most of his life in Oxford, MS.

I'm a little spoiled after The Sound and the Fury, and As I Lay Dying, which were astounding to read this year for the first time. This more traditional narrative does some great stuff, but it's on a different, lower stage, occasionally lifting itself above that plain. Also sometimes making me very uncomfortable, as Faulkner's characterizations of racism in his county have no critical component to them.

My edition has an introduction by Richard H. Rovere, where he tells us with Faulkner, "we do not so much observe experience as undergo it". I think that's a terrific way to capture Faulkner. But it's not a blind compliment. It means to get the rewards you also have suffer more, suffer tangibly, through the parts that may not work for you.

Light in August has a wonderful opening section on Lena, a pregnant teenager from Alabama, wandering into Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha County, knowing no one, trusting everyone, and looking for the father of her baby. The book is her story in a way, except that Faulkner inserted within this the story of Joe Christmas, a restless orphan who suspects he is of mixed race. The two are loosely connected, but together they bring in several other stories, notably Byron Bunch, who falls in love with already pregnant Lena. Joe Brown, who helps Joe Christmas run liquor (this is the Prohibition era). Joanna Burden, the daughter of murdered abolitionists who spends her life working with African American communities across the south. And Gail Hightower, an ex-minister, ousted by his own church because of his wife's infidelity, now self-isolated in his own unkept home. Hightower's role seems curious but pointless, until suddenly we get his story, resulting in one of the best, and most moving chapters this book.

This is all just a mixed, imperfect bag. Lena is terrific. Joanna is also a wonderful character, and tragic. Hightower becomes a great character. But Joe Christmas does not. And yet, Christmas is most of the book. Strange choice. I can't help but feel that Faulkner gets lost in his narrative sometimes, and I think he just couldn't let Christmas go - not his past, present or future.

One of the themes in this book is how a character's heritage determines their fate. Hightower is doomed by his heritage of southern ministers and doctors, resistant to slavery in a slave state. Their personal principles condemning them. But Joe Christmas is doomed by his mixed blood. And that's an uncomfortable statement at any time period, including 1932. It's cruel. On the flip side is how Faulkner captures the kindness of black community. Joanna, who mainly interacts with the black community, has no fear of crime or any danger. No one would hurt her. Meanwhile we have a sheriff who beats information out innocent black men, and not only tolerates, but blesses a posse of armed white racists who will eventually carry out a kind of lynching. But the narrative hovers on the sheriff's interesting aspects and passes over the black characters as if they aren't worth the narrator's attention.

I'm not literary critic, and they like this book. I seemed to like it a lot when Joe Christmas wasn't the focus, especially the beginning and the end. But I didn't enjoy the Joe Christmas sections.

For those interested, I guess my advice is, have some patience. You may not like all aspects.

>66 japaul22: Interesting. And not surprising. I'm really looking forward to it.

>65 dchaikin: No one could compare with I B Singer.

>69 kjuliff: you might be right.

>53 dchaikin: This is such a fantastic review, and it really gets at the heart of what is so captivating about this book.

>71 rv1988: Ditto. It’s such an articulate review. Possession was such an amazing and almost perfect novel. I read it some years back and remember getting a number of Byatt’s books after that, Possession being the first of her books I’d read. But none were nearly as good as Possession for me.

>71 rv1988: >73 kjuliff: thank you guys! I love seeing all these fans of Possession. And not surprise, Kate, that she didn't match it. Still, I'll read more Byatt.

I read Byatt's The Children's Book and wasn't a great fan of it (I didn't hate it or anything, just wasn't for me or the timing was bad) but now you've tempted me with Possession.

I own both Possession and The Children's Book, but have read neither. Your review makes me think I need to get to Possession soon.

I am continually perplexed by the fact that Possession has been recognized by most reviewers as a classic since its publication in 1990 but a number of your readers still haven't read the book. I can understand why those who are only looking at contemporary works might do this, but your followers are all very literate and oriented toward classics.

Do you know why this seems to be true?

If anyone reads your review and doesn't immediately drop everything and start Possession I will be dumbfounded.

I've read both Possession and The Children's Book. Each was wonderful in its own way, but read very differently. If I had to choose between them, I think the edge would go to The Children's Book, despite my love for the nineteenth century and Byatt's wonderful recreation of so many of its concerns in Possession.
The Children's Book is told in a far more straightforward manner, which is not my reason for this choice. Rather, it is the evocation of the time in which it takes place, and the look at a class and world that had no idea what was coming next, and that life could never be like that again.
Then, too, there's that marvellous cover:)

>60 dchaikin: Had read Control of Nature as part of a course that made geo engineering far more interesting then it actually is. Certainly colored my overall impression of this McPhee, but I actually find a lot of his writing slow even boring at times, yet fascinating that turns it. I hesitate to start McPhee knowing how long it is going to take to read a relatively short essay.

Enjoyed your review of Possession. Sounds like a good reading month overall.

>76 labfs39: i made a plan with a fb group to start The Children’s Book on Jan 1. Want to join? 🙂

>77 JoeB1934: that’s beautiful, thank you. Possession is 34 years old now, and worrying over its biological clock. In 1990, the year it was published, I first began reading for fun. I picked up a copy a friend was reading called The Eye of the World, a fantasy book. Literature like Byatt was far from my awareness. It was a Booker Prize social group that finally got me to pick it up.

>78 SassyLassy: I’ve heard that, about how TCB does the time period better than P. Of course, that’s not my first appeal with Possession. But I’m very much looking forward to TCB.

>79 stretch: have you read McPhee’s geology book. He’s all about finding fascinating people and becoming fascinated by what they are fascinated by. 🙂 He’s really inspiring when it works. I still adore him.

>80 markon: because of Possession, July was a great month. Thanks. I’m reading a ton this month, but i over scheduled. Oops.

>81 dchaikin: Yeah I read his geology books way back in school or just after. Last year, I finally found a hardback of Annals of a Former World and the cover of my old copy was well loved, so having a hardback in my small actual library was a must. I still have to read Coming Into Country to finish the unofficial geology books.

I've read The Children's Book years ago and really liked it.

>78 SassyLassy: Yes, I have read both novels and preferred The Children's Book. It also has one of the most glorious covers I have ever seen.

>81 dchaikin: I might be tempted, Dan. I can't make any promises for a date so far in the future, heck I'm having trouble committing to a September group read of Zola! Can you tell I'm living in the moment these days? All this chatter is making me curious about Byatt, however.

>77 JoeB1934: If I may offer a defense, Joe, I would say that I don't choose my books by whether they are "classics" or not (whatever that means as it's a loaded term). I'm sure I miss lots of good books by not focusing on lists of classics or award winners, but I have read a lot of good books set in Asia or Africa or about war or memory (all topics of interest) that never made any list. Some of my favorite books (Too Loud a Solitude, Bloodlands, Matterhorn, In the Shadow of the Banyan, Translation is a Love Affair) are books you and Dan may not have read, and that's okay. I think they were amazing, and more widely read classics sometimes fall far short for me. I think it goes to show how every reader is different and values different books. I may not drop everything and read Possession immediately, but I will keep it in mind. Meanwhile, I will happily return to God on the Rocks and The Cultural Revolution.

>85 labfs39: Thank you very much for your defense of my challenging question. Like Dan's review it is a perfect example of the reality that we all are searching for books that bring maximum value to ourselves.

Your very long support of my efforts to find books I love has been very important to me, even though our interests don't often overlap. In many ways I think the way I 'review' a book has evolved because of that support.

Thank you.

The bottom line is that his review of Possession was perfect for ME. That review was my gold standard of a review that I will never be able to produce.

>77 JoeB1934: Joe, don’t confuse the review with the book. I agree it’s an excellent and deeply-considered review about an excellent book. But Dan’s tastes in books are not necessarily everyone’s. I for example consider myself well-read, but do not like all of Dan’s choices in novels.

I read Possession many years and I’ve forgotten most of it. I remember it as a well-written literary mystery, but it’s not in my top ten.

>87 kjuliff: Points well taken! Since you mention it as a literary mystery, but not in your top ten, I am wondering if you would be so kind as to list your top ten.

>88 JoeB1934: I will do that in time. Mine change every few years. I’m actually in a period of change right now, being introduced to new writers on LT. But I know Possession isn’t in it.

>87 kjuliff: “ But Dan’s tastes in books are not necessarily everyone’s.”

So many possible responses. … I’ll just say, thank goodness.

Joe - you’re my hero today!
Lisa - not that you should care, but i love your reading directions
Kate - you need to revisit Possession 🤣 And I would love to see your top ten.

>90 dchaikin: What were some of the other responses?

I will go with Lisa and I may not drop everything and read Possession {again} immediately, but I will keep it in mind.
You have indeed revived my interest .

Most interesting conversation about Possession! I hate to admit that I started it several years ago and dnf’d it, can’t remember what I didn’t like, and probably it was just the wrong book at the wrong time. I wish I had been keeping notes back then. As I’ve not read any of Byatt, I may give The Children’s Book a try (thanks, Sassy), and if it goes well, have another stab at Possession.

>67 dchaikin: Great review of Light in August, Dan. I’ve been meaning to reread it for some time now, as it is the only Faulkner novel I’ve read only once. I believe that like you, I liked some parts and not others. I remember especially liking Hightower’s visions/fantasies of charging cavalry, the poetry of those passages, and that the parts about Christmas were difficult to impossible to get through. You’re inspiring me to get to that reread, but just now, the Bookers are too tempting. A good sized list is growing into a “get to next” pile for after mid November.

>92 dianelouise100: Possession is very clever and very English. I remember loving it, but unlike other novels I read around the same time, I now think it may have lacked emotion. I do however remember not being able to put it down.

>91 kjuliff: my first response was, how did that ever become a sentence. I'm glad you'll reconsider Possession.

>92 dianelouise100: I'm struggling with my Booker obsession. I read too slow, and I want to read other books too. But I really want to read the list and see what's in these books. I finished This Strange Eventful History today, but it's my first since the longlist was released. I have started My Friends. I was mildly disappointed in Light in August, in the sense that I was imagining something less traditional. But I don't know I thought that.

>93 kjuliff: interesting. It's oddly a page-turner, Possession.

Hi, Dan—I didn’t realize that there were 2 threads for the 2024 Booker Longlist. I found your thread this morning scrolling through threads, and now I’ve lost it—could you send me a link? And here’s a link to Darryl’s thread: https://www.librarything.com/topic/362317#8587437

>95 dianelouise100: Thanks Diane, I had no idea either

>96 kjuliff: Could you send me a link to Dan’s Booker thread? I’d like to star it so I don’t lose it again! I’ve wondered where you all were.

>97 dianelouise100: I didn’t know he had one. I just found out about Daryl’s from you.

>97 dianelouise100: Found it - https://www.librarything.com/topic/362340#n8592494

My Booker thread sorta died on impact. I thought i should maybe let it go. But i might revive it when i finally review This Strange Eventful History

50. The Little Red Chairs by Edna O'Brien
reader: Juliet Stevenson
OPD: 2015
format: 9:40 audible audiobook (299 pages)
acquired: July 31 listened: Jul 31 – Aug 12
rating: 4
genre/style: novel theme: random audio
locations: Ireland, London and Sarajevo
about the author: 1930 –2024. She was an Irish novelist, memoirist, playwright, poet and short story writer. She was born in Tuamgraney in County Clare, Ireland, a place she would later describe as "fervid" and "enclosed". She was the youngest child of "a strict, religious family". She lived most of her adult life in London.

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***Spoiler warning*** => some mid-book plot points revealed.
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My first book by Edna O'Brien is an odd mixture beautiful writing, and beautiful setting, and humor, leading to and about very traumatic events. Critics love this book, and its deception, and the way handles its topic. This story centers on a Radovan Karadžić-like character, but a fictional one who goes to small town in Ireland under a false identity, as a general healer and "sex therapist", in order to hide and start a new life. The little red chairs represent the 11,541 citizens killed in Sarajevo during the 1990's Balkan wars. This book left me uncomfortable.

The town beauty, married childless Fidelma, decides, in something like innocence, that she wants this healer's help to have a baby. She doesn't know anything about him. This sin, to put a Catholic spin, doesn't do anyone any good, Fidelma ending up married but pregnant by a war criminal, and that's hardly the bad part. She must pay a penance that far exceeds her crime.

There is a long lead up to Fidelma's innocent-ish crime. Our monster, known as Vlad, is charming and mysterious, and lover of poetry, becoming popular in a town. Through him we meet several colorful characters, including many of the town's immigrants. Later, Fidelma will spend a great deal of time with displaced woman in London.

Reading this book, I was left very uncomfortable with all these immigrants, even as I know the book's intention was to humanize and develop sympathy with the immigrant experience, and even as I personally am warmly open to immigrants to the US. So, I had to wonder what was wrong with myself, what was the book doing to me, and was this the book, or just my own strangeness. The thing is our Vlad is a terrible immigrant, a monster from eastern Europe invading a pristine isolated Irish town - in a way. And O'Brien's focused on the bad immigrant experience, those suffering and struggling and being tough to get by, learn the language, find employment. This is certainly part of the tragedy of the refugee experience. But does wallowing in it generate sympathy, as in these poor people need help, or fear, as in I really don't want to find myself in that position. There was just something that bothered me a lot about the structure of the book.

I would very much like to blame the book for my discomfort. I have read a decent amount about refugees without having these kinds of uncomfortable feelings, so have a weak argument to say this book is different than those. And then I can wash my hands of all this and blame the author for undermining her own message. I would feel much better about myself. But I'm not sure how much sense I'm making, or where that all leaves me...well, it left me not wanting to confront these feelings and write this review.

Bringing myself back to the book, its elegant writing and rough impact, I can appreciate what the critics like. But I'm still left uncomfortable.

>101 dchaikin: As much as I want to read your review, I'm going to skip for now as I just bought this book.

>101 dchaikin: Interesting, but makes perfect sense, that Vlad is the name chosen for the monster from eastern Europe invading a pristine isolated Irish town. I can never here that name without mentally adding the sobriquet "the Impaler"

Dan, your review really makes me want to read Possession. It sounds like it hits a lot of my own personal notes. Library has it, but I'm going to hold off for now because I want to try and read a few of the Booker shortlist titles before my attention span for that runs out. I do have The Children's Book, lovely big thing that it is, and would possibly maybe be up for taking part in a January read.

I just finished My Friends, and I'll be interested to hear what you think.

>102 labfs39: i should have added some mid-plot spoiler warning. I’ll edit now.

>103 SassyLassy: does it make sense? And... that made me smile, the impaler.

>104 lisapeet: you will love Possession. And I just finished My Friends a moment ago. Caution is an oddly prevalent theme. Let me know about joining in on The Children's Books, and if your open to joining The Booker Prize Club facebook group.

51. This Strange Eventful History by Claire Messud
OPD: 2024
format: 428-page hardcover
acquired: August 2 read: Aug 3-17 time reading: 17:12, 2.4 mpp
rating: 4
genre/style: contemporary fiction theme: Booker 2024
locations: Algeria, New England, Florida, Cuba, Buenos Aires, France, Toronto…
about the author: American novelist and literature and creative writing professor. Born in Greenwich, Connecticut (1966), she grew up in the United States, Australia, and Canada, returning to the United States as a teenager. Her mother is Canadian, and her father is a Pied-noir from French Algeria.

This is my second from the thirteen book Booker Prize longlist. It's the longest one on the list. And I had to read it slowly, not because it's hard but because that's just the way it's paced. I ended up reading slower than the audio reader (16:33).

It's a nice book, in all the positive and negative connotations of the word "nice". This is an air-brushed family history, fictionalized, but largely based on Messud's non-fictional French grandfather's 1500-page handwritten memoir. Her grandfather and parents were pieds-noir - French who lived in Algeria, some since the French invasion in 1830, but had to flee permanently when Algeria gained independence in 1963. So they ended up feeling as permanent exiles, regardless of their Algerian sympathies.

Messud's an elegant writer and her lovely language has its power of recreation. Moments of time breathe. Of course, there's no plot other than the passage of time and the scope of lives lived, endured, experienced, wasted, misdirected. So, it's slow... like slow slow slow. I can't help having warm feelings for this. I enjoyed my time with it. But also mixed feelings. When we pretend to be a Booker jury and ask, what is this book doing to me, the answer here, not all that much. Just passing some time. But, back on the positive, its memorable.

For what it's worth, I adored Messud's 3-page preface. Here is a quote I loved:

"I’m a writer; I tell stories. I want to tell the stories of their lives. It doesn’t really matter where I start. We’re always in the middle; wherever we stand, we see only partially. I know also that everything is connected, the constellations of our lives, moving together in harmony and disharmony. The past swirls along with an inside the present, and all time exist at once, around us. The ebb and flow, the harmonies and dissonance—the music happens, whether or not we describe it. A story is not a line; it is a richer thing, one that circles and eddies, rises and falls, repeats upon itself."

>107 dchaikin: Thanks for this review Dan. I was very interested in what you had to say about This Strange Eventful History. It was the first of this year’s Booker long list that I acquired. Audio of course. I picked it as my first read because I’m very interested in 20th and 21st centuries Algerian history, as well as Algerians’ relationship with the French. Ever since I saw the excellent film, “The Battle of Algiers” I’ve been fascinated by Algeria. Camus’ The Outsider, my travels there have led to books by Algerian-French writers being added to my library for decades.

So I had high expectations of This Strange Eventful History, and I expected to enjoy it.

But yes it is extremely slow and I had so much trouble with its slowness that I moved on to other books leaving This Strange Eventful History unfinished.

I feel as Gypsy_Boy so succinctly put it in his LT profile that I am beginning to run up against Time as well. It's simply not possible to read it all in the amount of time the actuaries tell me I probably have left .

There are so many books I want to read and so little time to read them, that I am being more selective now. I tried the novel and had the incentive to read it, but 17 hours is a long time for me.

I’m wondering why it was chosen. I failed to see anything special about it during the three hours I spent on it.

So after reading your review I see it’s not just me who felt it over-slow and I now doubt I’ll be picking it up again.

>108 kjuliff: You last sentence encouraged me that I got something right in the review. :) I can appreciate being selective. This book is what it is. It certainly has its merits, but it has a low reward-to-time commitment ratio.

52. Ahead of All Parting : The Selected Poetry and Prose of Rainer Maria Rilke
translation: from German by Stephen Mitchell (1995, but originally much was translated in 1982, 1983, 1985 and 1989)
OPD: 1995 (The original German poems were published through 1922)
format: 600-page 1995 Modern Library hardcover (11th printing)
acquired: 2006 read: Aug 6, 2023 to Aug 21, 2024, time reading: 14:32, 1.5 mpp
(I read this in three stretches: Aug 6 – Sep 5, 2023, Dec 24-31, 2023, & Aug1-21, 2024)
rating: 4
genre/style: poetry theme: poetry
about the author: Rilke (1875-1926) was an Austrian poet and novelist born in Prague (modern Czech Republic). Mitchell (born 1943 in Brooklyn) is a poet, translator, scholar, and anthologist best known for his translations of the Tao Te Ching, the Epic of Gilgamesh, Rainer Maria Rilke, and Christian texts.

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It's an awkward experience when you kind of enjoy a major classic, but also realize that you just didn't really get it.

I read a chunk of this in Aug last year, and then another in Dec. I picked it up again this past Aug 1st to read the Duino Elegies and The Sonnets to Orpheus, which finish the book, and make up Rilke's last published collections, published in 1922. This is a nice edition, with the original German and Mitchell translation on facing pages.

I picked up some things. He had an obsession with the now, with taking in the moment, but with, at the same time, awareness and appreciation of death, of the temporariness of things. He seemingly wanted to embrace death. He also had a love of mythology that comes through, especially as an idea remembered, often returning to Orpheus to tie into a music in nature and in our deepest darkest mental spaces. But most of the stuff seemed swirling around unreachable places, and this left me with some feeling, but without much understanding. Sometimes it just seemed he just out there. Also, poetry in translation always seems to have lost something.

It was all together less enjoyable that I had imagined. It was never unpleasant, but it was a little strange and frustrating that I never really got Rilke. Curiously, my reading spiked up a lot when I last picked this up, reading it every morning for a bit as my 1st book of the day. That was nice. And I already miss that.

53. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
reader: Elijah Wood
OPD: 1884
format: 10:10 audible audiobook
acquired: free on audible listened: Aug 12-22
rating: 4
genre/style: classic fiction theme: Booker 2024
locations: pre-Civil War Mississippi River from Missouri down
about the author: Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835 –1910) was an American writer, humorist, and essayist. He was born in Florida, Missouri, and grew up in Hanibal, Missouri

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phew. I used an audio version read, wonderfully, by Elijah Wood. I don't know how people tolerate Twain. He was fun, but he drew things out far far beyond a normal person's tolerance. It just goes on too long. And I finished the audio exhausted. But this had a wonderful opening, and many terrific sections going down the river. And, as I was reading in prep to read James by Percival Everett, I spent the entire book thinking about Jim, and his perspective, and everything he must have thought behind what he actually says. There is a lot of mystery left to Jim, and his outward tolerance can be seen as a mask.

Anyway, good experience, but far too many long drawn-out scenes.

>111 dchaikin: I agree with you—the ending in particular is painfully (to me) drawn out. I’ve just started James on audio, and I’m struck by how different it will be to have this story told from James’ perspective rather than Huck’s. I think you’ll be glad to have read Twain first.

>111 dchaikin: I just started James without rereading Huckleberry Finn... we'll see how that goes. But I reread it (or probably re-skimmed it) in 2013 to write a review of Jon Clinch's Finn, so I'm thinking I might not need to do it again. And I have the book, if I want to check anything.

Clinch's book was a good re-take on the story, as I remember. Very dark—it focuses on Huck's Pap, who's a horrible character—but well done.

>113 lisapeet: i’m curious. Pap is so awful. I’m not sure i want to read Finn’

>106 dchaikin: It does indeed make sense!

>111 dchaikin: I think that in Twain's time, drawing things out was an appreciated skill, much like we still appreciate people who can "yarn". There wasn't the pressure to move on to the next bright shiny object.

>115 SassyLassy: I think that in Twain's time, drawing things out was an appreciated skill, much like we still appreciate people who can "yarn"

I fully agree. Reading was a pastime, not to be rushed. Like the embroidery undertaken in an Austen drawing rooms, to be read at leisure, stitch by stitch.

>115 SassyLassy: >116 kjuliff: I know that's true to an extent, but the beginning of the book is very well constructed. In comparison, the second half and the end feel directionless. And the same satirical point made several times over seems...a bit much. But that was Tom Sawyer at the end, and much of the Duke and King. But maybe it worked better in 1884.

>117 dchaikin: Everything worked better in 1884.

>115 SassyLassy: >116 kjuliff: I'm sure that's true, but there is also the fact that many of these novels were first published as serials in newspapers or magazines, and the writers were paid by the page. I don't know if this was the case for Twain but it seems likely. Someone once told me it explained the drawn-out descriptions in Balzac.

>117 dchaikin: Just thinking that books were read aloud to families in the evening, so the repetition, like the telling of a story (yarning), serves to reenforce what has come before, for those who may have missed it the first time around - sort of like the stories people tell again and again.

>119 FlorenceArt: Good point. I think that explains length more than repetition.

>118 kjuliff: >119 FlorenceArt: >120 SassyLassy: I feel terrible for their miserable lives 🙂

I’m kidding. It would be cool to have a family that read Shakespeare out loud to each other all the time. I might have still ducked out when this was read and the King and Duke appear.

Why not just put on his plays, then ;-)

re Twain: For what it's worth, one American author with a deep appreciation of Twain was Toni Morrison. Here's an essay on the subject posted on the occasion of Morrison's death on a Mark Twain Studies website:

https://marktwainstudies.com/put-the-reader-through-hell-in-memory-of-toni-morri...

A quote from early on in the essay: "In 1993, Morrison told The Paris Review that 'Mark Twain talked about racial ideology in the most powerful, eloquent, and instructive way I have ever read.'"

Dan, given your relatively recent read-through of Morrison's works, I though you might be particularly interested in her take.

>120 SassyLassy: "the repetition, like the telling of a story (yarning), serves to reenforce what has come before, for those who may have missed it the first time around"

A forerunner to modern daytime soap operas, perhaps, in which Thursday's episode has to remind viewers what happened on Wednesday because Mrs. Terwilliger might have been running errands or preparing dinner on Wednesday afternoon.

>101 dchaikin: I've read this book back in 2018. I also had mixed feelings. What I liked about this book was that the devilish is called by name. What I didn't like is that the second part (London) is a very own story - very valuable - but somehow too little linked to the first part.

>124 KeithChaffee: Never thought of it like that, but suspect it may be all too true!

>122 Dilara86: indeed

>123 rocketjk: Thanks Jerry. I'll look into Morrison's take.

>124 KeithChaffee: or maybe Mrs. Terwilliger's errands suddenly seemed a lot more interesting...

>125 Ameise1: I guess I understand some aspects of the London story. At the time I was thinking, "oye, more miserable people". But, of course, this is her penance. She's Catholic and she must pay a price for sins before she seeks true forgiveness. She's having a Dante moment, moving through some circles of, maybe Purgatory, experiencing some equivalent to being a suffering refugee herself. But, of course, it's a problematic parallel. And I'm still, now, not really ok with the serious problems in it. I don't think it actually works. But then, I'm thinking about it, and wondering what I'm missing.

>126 SassyLassy: I still her errands were more interesting, at times. :)

54. My Friends by Hisham Matar
OPD: 2024
format: 398-page hardcover
acquired: August 3 read: Aug 17-24 time reading: 11:49, 1.8 mpp
rating: 4
genre/style: contemporary fiction theme: Booker 2024
locations: London, Libya, Paris
about the author: An American born British-Libyan writer. His father, a vocal critic of Qaddafi, was working for the Libyan delegation to the United Nations, in New York, at the time of Matar's birth in 1970, so he was born in New York City. He grew up in Tripoli, Libya from 1973 to 1979, when his family fled to Cairo, Egypt. Eventually he settled in London. His father was abducted in Cairo 1990 and never seen again.

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Just my 3rd from the Booker longlist. This one got a lot of love early in August in the Booker Prize Book Club facebook group, and then that enthusiasm quieted down a bit. This is a warm gentle book that embraces the reader in kindness, while throwing history and violence at us, along with some magical hints of the beauty of Libya and the Mediterranean. It’s also a love story to London, where Khaled settles.

Matar's Khaled gets caught up in history in 1984 while a Libyan foreign student in Edinburgh in love in literature. At the time Libya's government, not secure, was assassinating members of resistance abroad. Khaled cannot go home, or even back to Edinburgh, since the Libyan government had been paying his tuition. He is 18, stranded without family, a permanent exile. The book follows his life, as a teacher of literature, his relationships, especially with male two friends, one in a similar situation to him, and another a slightly older exiled Libyan writer. They each struggle with exile in different ways, somewhat defined by their fathers. Khaled's is loving and humble. The writer was publicly condemned by his father, under force. And the other friend had a terrible, bitter relationship with his father.

Things change with the Arab Spring, when Khaled is nearing 50. Many exiles returned to Libya to finally see family and to fight against Qaddafi. But Khaled does not return. That's his oddity, whether wise or cautious, and it defines him and the book.

I took the book. I always enjoyed picking this up, even if I felt it faded towards the end. It was a pleasant place to spend time. And I highlighted several lines. The writing is beautiful at times, if not bold. It’s safe book on many levels. Khaled, after his moment of boldness teaches him to try not to stumble into history, becomes safe to fault. This affects the caution in all his relationships, his emotions, his prose as our narrator, and even the book's title.

This is a fictional memoir that reads as a memoir, with short chapters leaving the reader with many moments to pause and think, along with a feeling of speed and progress. (108 chapters over 400 pages)

I recommend this to readers who want a nice read and want time to spend time thinking about literature and relationship in a warm light.

>128 dchaikin: I recommend this to readers who want a nice read and want time to spend time thinking about literature and relationship in a warm light.

Yes. And also the pain and frustration of exile, though Mattar never pushes the knife in too deep on that one. But those same built-in pauses also allow for some reading between the lines, and I liked that about the book. It was a light touch on a weighty, personal subject.

55. Hudson River Bracketed by Edith Wharton
OPD: 1929
format: Kindle ebook
acquired: May read: Aug 5-28 time reading: 17:23
rating: 4
genre/style: classic novel theme: Wharton
locations: suburban Chicago, New York City and areas around NYC
about the author: 1862-1937. Born Edith Newbold Jones on West 23rd Street, New York City. Relocated permanently to France after 1911.

My latest Wharton. My Wharton group has almost read all her novels. This later volume is first of two volume series. The second part, The Gods Arrive, was published three years later (1932).

Advance Weston, who goes by Vance, is natural literary talent in a sterile world. He grows up in suburban Chicago, invents a religion without understanding anything about religion. Leaves his parents, and their questionable wealth based on inside-info real estate booms, to go to New York City. But his closest relation to the city, a distant impoverished cousin, lives upstate, a train ride from downtown. It's in upstate New York, along the Hudson, he meets Halo Speare, an irreverent well-educated girl who, moved by Vance's efforts at poetry, inspires him. This is not a romance. Vance will go on to become a professional author, working primarily for Halo's husband. But complications ensue. Vance marries but this salary is too low to support his wife, who doesn't like his literary world. Halo's husband wants to control people, including Vance. His own literary insight primarily a derivative of advice from his wife, Halo, who is careful to advise him without him realizing it's her ideas. Not a happy marriage. Vance's career stumbles as these relationships take their natural course, well Wharton style.

I don't know how to sum that up any shorter, and that's one of the issues with novel. It's looking at themes of wealth and substance, art and economics, and a writer's life, unhappy marriages, and various shams. There is a long side story on Vance's grandmother, who is basically selling a get-spiritually-rich-quick religious scam. The title of the novel comes from an old empty house full of classic literature that no one is allowed to read. It's a style of architecture that was outdated by the time of book. The house is kept up by Vance's distant cousins for the absent owner. That's just a lot. This is Wharton's longest book.

I've been stumbling through Wharton's later books. Her prose and wit are still here, and her characters interesting, but her sense of how to strike the reader with a deeper meaning is, well, it's less accessible. She's telling the themes she wants to tell, ranting, in her way, against the 1920's artistic and economic trends. Here it's Halo that grabs our attention, a special character that makes the book something a little extra. But Wharton strangles Halo into an unhappy marriage, and book roles on with her life compromised. It's a book that has its moments and its points, but the two aren't exactly aligned.

A book for Wharton completists.

>129 lisapeet: these are great additions. The short chapters leave lots of moments to pause and think. (and make note taking very effective)

>128 dchaikin: This might be perfect for me! I wish people stopped hitting me with Booker Prize/longlist book bullets: there aren't enough hours in the day ;-)

>132 Dilara86: we are relentless. I hope you enjoy it. It's quite lovely.

Dan, when are you going to enlighten us with your review of Enlightenment?

>134 kjuliff: some people love it, i thought it was ok. Done? 🙂 It’s probably a weekend project for me. Hopefully I can to Stone Yard Devotional too, which I’m really enjoying.

56. Enlightenment by Sarah Perry
OPD: 2024
format: 378-page hardcover
acquired: August 2 read: Aug 25-31 time reading: 12:33, 2 mpp
rating: 3½
genre/style: contemporary fiction theme: Booker 2024
locations: Essex 1997-2017
about the author: English author born in 1979 in Chelmsford, Essex, into a family of devout Christians who were members of the Strict Baptist church.

My fourth from the Booker longlist is one that I'm hesitant to admit I did not like. This is an Essex novel, trying to capture a small town feel in the flat muddy region, its history and present, and the feel of a local isolated religious group, the Strict Baptists. It's also a mystery novel with a ghost of sorts. The main character, Thomas Hart, lives at least two lives, one in the church, one in London where he can be openly gay. And arguably a third in his newspaper column where he can write along the edges for his lost faith, pondering the skies and the sciences. The secondary main character, Grace Macaulay, is a teenager in the community, without a mother, and with a kind of removed, Bible-toting but kindly father. She takes to Thomas as a father figure. She is faithful but will struggle with that. In the midst of them is an abandoned house, once owned by a church founder with an eccentric Romanian wife. There are a lot of mysteries and stories about this woman, who may have been an early astronomer. Comets, past and present, have some prominence. She, this Romanian woman, has a ghostly real presence in Thomas's mind.

The story as told lies somewhere between contemporary realism and tall tale remove. Much of real life is washed away, invisible - practical stressful realities are not just left off the page, they lie far far away. We can put all our attention on faith and community and a mystery. In tune with this is the way historical relics show up without effort, dropping on people's laps when needed, and disappearing just as carelessly. No one seems particularly concerned with where they go, or what's lost without them. So light and fun with a light-fun mystery and also some profound mixture of stars, comets and wavering faith. Some readers take to the book on this level. I admit, I tried the light and fun. But then I didn't want to take anything seriously. I had trouble trying to do both.

I have one bitter thought. It goes something like this: am I uncomfortable with the religious aspects, or with its presentation? Is this sanitized take all just a way to coddle the religious issues in a story: keeping things slightly removed from the necessary complications of reality; obscuring issues with a simple mystery, and by an, at best, surficial touch on astronomy and its vast possible meanings? I mean, when we look at our own divine perspectives and the vastness of space and blend them, why does it feel to me like Perry has filtered out so much?

Of course, it's not really a deep look at faith, since nothing doctrinal is mentioned, only church's rejection of homosexuality and many contemporary pleasures, like movies and fashion. So my thought is overkill. I do think the book is kind of love story of Perry and toward her Strict Baptist community, including all the discomfort she herself has had with it. I believe she broke with the church as some point (I haven't confirmed that).

There were things I liked. It has a charm, and complexity to it. The main characters are embraceable. It leaves a feeling of small town Essex, child of the medieval Battle of Malden, of its mud and sea-flooding, a sheltered train ride from materialist London. The book struggles amongst itself in interesting ways. It can compel. I wanted to see Thomas happy. And Grace go back in time and fill in the living part of life. I’m just way more stuck on the problems above.

Anyway, as I said above, I didn't take to this. It seems to be a divider among Booker readers, so I recommended mostly to the intrepid.

AUGUST summary

With my mind on the Booker Prize, I read more in this past month than any month since I have kept track, and probably ever. 74 hours of reading, and that doesn't include audio. On the flip side, nothing was amazing. I was just a little more driven than normal. My time went mainly into Hudson River Bracketed by Edith Wharton (17 hours), Light in August by William Faulkner (7 hours in August, 17 hours overall), This Strange Eventful History by Claire Messud (17 hours), My Friends by Hisham Matar (12 hours), and Enlightenment by Sarah Perry (12.5 hours).

I also got in 24 hours on audio (my 3rd most this year), listening to The Little Red Chairs by Edna O'Brien, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, read by Elijah Wood, and Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent by Judi Dench & Brendan O'Hea, with Dench read by Barbara Flynn. This last one, interviews of Dench, is truly wonderful and my best book experience this month. She is talking about each Shakespeare role she played, one by one, and she takes the character's side in discussions! It's fascinating, and fun.

September plans are more of the Booker Prize longlist. The Shortlist comes out Sep 16, but I'll just blindly keep reading the full longlist. I've already read Stone Yard Devotional, my favorite so far. And I'm reading Creation Lake by Rachel Kuchner. Also planned is The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden. Playground by Richard Powers is released Sep 24. So I may start that too. Also planned are A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold, Pylon by William Faulkner and Molokai by O. A. Bushnell.

57. The Blue Swallows by Howard Nemerov
OPD: 1967
format: 105-page paperback (printed 1969)
acquired: from my in-laws in 2015 read: Aug 22 – Sep 3 time reading: 2:34, 1.5 mpp
genre/style: Poetry theme: Poetry
about the author: (1920-1991) an American poet born in New York City, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants. He served as “Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress”, from 1963 to 1964 and again from 1988 to 1990.

I'm interested in mid-century poetry. However, this just ended up being an exercise, for me, in trying to read poetry. And I had at best a mild success. I was able to enjoy several, but most just slipped by. Poems are usually page length, several going to a second page. Many are conversational, some rant politics, one is presented as a fictional quote (I liked it). A couple are very short and compressed. But overall I can't tell you much about what he was doing. I didn't rate it.

>136 dchaikin: I think what you describe as your “bitter thought” is spot on. I thought the religious theme in the book seemed unimportant, inauthentic and it didn’t help whatever Perry was trying to say.

I kept falling asleep while listening to it, so it’s quite possible I missed the good bits.

None of the characters had depth. I’m getting sleepy just thinking about them.

>139 kjuliff: Maybe they were shallow characters. I thought they were interesting. And, within the context of a light-fun book with some attempt at serious stuff, I felt they had adequate depth. The pace wavers, though, sitting in place for pages. Ideally the reader is so into it by then, they don't care. : )

>136 dchaikin: I dunno, that makes me kind of want to read it, just to see what you're talking about.

58. Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood
OPD: 2023
format: 293-page paperback
acquired: August 17 read: Aug 31 – Sep 4 time reading: 7:01, 1.4 mpp
rating: 4½
genre/style: contemporary fiction theme: Booker 2024
locations: contemporary rural Australia
about the author: An Australian novelist born in Cooma, New South Wales in 1965. She currently resides in Syndey.

My fifth from the Booker longlist is very different from the other books. It has a depth and pace and complexity that stands out distinctly from the other four books i’ve read, and it offers more freedom to the reader in how to respond. It was a mind change for me. The previous four were long books. This slowed the heart but whipped by quick.

This one is spare. Like the narrator tells us she is, it's "stripped down to the bedrock". She visits an isolated monastery with eight nuns in part I. In part II she has left her life, including her husband, largely not telling anyone what she's doing, joined the monastery as a nun. We slowly work out she's about 60, but we learn early she lost her parents 35 years ago. She's not a believer, but she embraces the isolated life, taking responsibilities, doing her share, becoming a dedicated part of this quiet uncommunicative isolated nun community. Then come the mice, and problems from her past life.

If you really want to know what the mouse plague was like, in 2020, google and brace yourself. But Wood doesn't freak out our senses. Her text is more cerebral. But also the mice are there. The prose itself is always spare, and it drifts between our narrator's stark daily life, hinting at its symbolic implications, and her memories. She thinks back on all the traumatic, and sometime beautiful things that happened around her. The back and forth gives a nice pace, at least for me, taking me where I wanted to be. Between her history and this interesting Covid-mouse-plague year, there is a lot here.

The symbolism is worth thinking about, if not essential to enjoy the book. I've been thinking a lot about the mice. On our Facebook group one person suggested "To me, the mice are a metaphor for the constant anxiety about death lurking and surprising us at every turn. No matter how much we try to banish the thoughts, it's hard to eradicate them because life thrusts it in our faces over and over. It's omnipresent. Like the mice."

I like that idea so much. These mice are certainly constant and insistent reminders of something. Maybe anxiety about death. Maybe - also/or - anxiety about something else. And now that she highlighted that, I can see it throughout the texture of the book. Our narrator is hiding from something. Yet it’s always there scratching away, no matter what it is she is thinking about.

There's also some irony in how this mouse plague works out vs this narrator's history. Things go flipped around backward on her.

But what I most liked about this book was the opportunity to slow down and reflect. It's spareness means we can think about what we want. But it kept me involved at the same time. I found it moving and cathartic.

Recommended for the hectic reader who needs a moment of quiet.

>141 lisapeet: I'm taking that as a compliment! thanks.

>140 dchaikin: And, within the context of a light-fun book with some attempt at serious stuff,…

I didn’t get that it was meant to be a light-fun book. Maybe I misunderstood the whole thing. The religious aspect was a turn-off for me. I couldn’t see the point of that non-conformist church in the plots.

Grace and her weird clothes … why? I was really confused with many aspect of this book and I remain unenlightened.

>138 dchaikin: Nemerov was the professor for my required literature class when I was an undergrad. After all these years, the only book I have any specific memory of reading in the class is Vanity Fair.

>145 KeithChaffee: how interesting! What was he like? Formal? Fun? bored or inspired?

>144 kjuliff: the religious part is a turn off for me too. But it's ... it's possible to read the book without paying too much attention to that. Her clothes were homemade, I think, because that's what the religious community demanded. But then one member of the community has fancy fashionable "artificial" clothes. So... maybe she just didn't have the money for buying clothes. I don't know.

>147 dchaikin: In describing Grace a lot was made of her clothes made of old sheets and coming apart at the seams. I just didn’t get the point of this and found it bizarre. But then I found the book bizarre in an annoying way.

>148 kjuliff: perhaps it’s a heavy-handed metaphor on how much of a misfit she is into her or our world?

>149 dchaikin: I think you’ve nailed it.

>146 dchaikin: He was fine — knowledgeable, reasonably entertaining — but there was always a vague sense of boredom, an awareness that he’d taught this exact class twenty times before, none of us were saying anything he hadn’t already heard, and there was writing he’d rather be working on.

>136 dchaikin: I want to assure you that your statement about hesitating to admit that you didn't like this book is not disappointing to me. I raved about this book to you and wanted to draw your attention to it, but your honest review is what I was looking for.

In my extended review of Enlightenment, which can be read at https://www.librarything.com/topic/362017#n8592590, comes at the story from a different direction. Like most of my reviews I concentrate on seeing characters in the book that I can relate to.

My final post there was as follows:

I woke up again at 3:30 AM still thinking about Enlightenment and the impact it has had on me. As I laid there pondering the book the realization finally crystalized.

Within my extended family there are echoes, or shadows of every character in this book. Starting with being raised in a conservative religious group, the Seventh Day Adventists who have many characteristics like Methodists and Baptists. Many of my extended family belonged to the Catholic church.

I could go down every character in the book and think how such a person in my extended family could relate to that character. Not a duplicate, or a twin, but similar in some ways. These similarities are not 'pure' as most individuals have characteristics that blend with several of the characters. Just like the books I read, they contain multiple sub-genres.

I know for a fact that such is true about myself, and I am the only person who knows exactly who I am.

My final thought this morning as I laid in bed was:

This is a story about common elements of humanity as I understand them. Always searching for, who am I and where did I come from?

I certainly recognized the frequent 'fantastical' events that are told in the story. I knew that this was a book of fiction and not an accurate historical recounting. I interpreted them as the author's use of magical realism to tie the various themes together.

(By the way in my local time it is 2:00 AM and I awakened with the need to send this post to you after closing out yesterday with reading your review)

>152 JoeB1934: thanks. I appreciate your response and your relationship to the characters and their world.

In some ways it’s a book about disillusionment and coping, the things time can and can’t do. It’s also about forgiveness and coming home, if as a different person, with a sense of acceptance.

>153 dchaikin: That last sentence says it all, so much better than I can express. I'm sorry it wasn't in your review.

>154 JoeB1934: 🙂 I should add it. It needed your prompt

Sorry to hear you have covid yet again. I hope it's a mild case and the rest of the family stays well. I just got over something that my youngest niece brought home from camp. It took almost three weeks for the cough and fatigue to abate. And it's only September. Looking forward to getting my flu and covid boosters.

Oh Dan, I'm so sorry you have COVID again. I hope it's a mild form and that you recover quickly. I wish you a speedy recovery 💖.
I've had it twice this year and it's not funny. Take it easy with lots of good books. Luckily we have a great hobby with reading, that always works.
Sending lots of healing vibes.

>156 labfs39:, >157 Ameise1: glad to be passed it. But it's left me with a yucky sore throat. It was mild and I did get some reading done. Goodness, I hope I don't get it twice this year...

>158 dchaikin: Good to hear it was a mild case. I’m about ready for my 6th or 7th shot. I think this winter will have an increase in Covid cases.

59. Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner
OPD: 2024
format: 404-page hardcover
acquired: September 3 read: Sep 4-10 time reading: 11:55, 1.8 mpp
rating: 3½
genre/style: contemporary fiction theme: Booker 2024
locations: contemporary France Massif Central
about the author: An American author born in Eugene, OR (1968), who later grew up in San Francisco. She is the daughter of two scientists she has called “deeply unconventional people from the beatnik generation”

The book that isn't a thriller. But what is it? The opening is Sadie, her fake name, reading and presenting the emails a French anti-modernist radical, Bruno, who lives in a cave. He is writing about how Neanderthals were depressed and addicted to smoking tobacco - the first thing impossible to know, and the second impossible in any way. (Although studies not mentioned in the book show Neanderthals smoked various actually available plants). Sadie is working for a dark interest that is looking to undermine radical resistance to large agri-industrial, environmentally destructive effort to pool up ground water. She's spy, with a hidden past, weapons, technology, and fiancé she got engaged to, acting in her false identity, just to infiltrate a radical commune. She has a lot of sex for her job. Ok, was that all clear?

What's was interesting to me in this book was Sadie's backhanded practicality, and her sensitivity to fine details. She drives through France stopping at various awful quick-stop equivalents to try regional wines at plastic counters with disgusting packaged food. She has a tolerance and sensitivity of sorts. Bruno is also interesting, although never particularly deep or shocking. Sadie takes to his emails much more so than I did.

What was not interesting to me was about everything else. A lot of text going nowhere. A lot of descriptions of a commune, and its politics, that I didn't find very interesting. A discussion of pre-teen macho boys impregnating women. And an ending that seems to do nothing for the whole experience.

I liked the ambitious intent here, but for me this is another so-so Booker longlist book. It's been the norm.

60. The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden
OPD: 2023
format: 262-page hardcover
acquired: August 2 read: Sep 11-14 time reading: 8:35, 2.0 mpp
rating: 3½
genre/style: contemporary Fiction theme: Booker 2024
locations: 1961 Netherlands
about the author: A Jewish Dutch author born in Tel Aviv and raised in the Netherlands. She teaches in Utrecht. This is her debut novel.

I was little mixed on this because it's such gimmicky piece and that undermines a lot. It opens as a good character book, focusing on Isabella who is awkwardly and spectacularly honest about what she doesn't like about who ever she's talking to, or the position she's in. She one to say she doesn't like you and doesn't want to be here, not to drive you away, but to make conversation. She lives alone in a house she doesn't actually own, caring for it deeply, and has no other relationships other than the necessary ones of her two brothers, an aunt and, unrelated, an uncle. She puts all her love into the house and its garden.

I like this set up. And I liked her terrific gay brother, living with his boyfriend in 1961, and her problematic older brother who swaps girlfriends with the seasons, each time claiming he's found the one. He drops a particularly awful girlfriend, Eva, at the house with Isabella, and leaves the country for a job assignment. That's our setting, happily lonely Isabella and her loved house stuck with this platinum blond fake girlfriend of her brothers for an unspecified amount of time.

The book evolves in ways that are described with split affection or disgust in practically every review. I didn't mind the graphic stuff. But the book does get really slow in various points. Alas, there is a gimmick here. And I'm not a fan of gimmick and everything in the book that is forced to allow the gimmick to work. It's unfortunate to me because I liked the characters. They lived. Isabella is so difficult and stilted, that each character reveals themselves in how they respond to her challenging chilled persona. And it works brilliantly. They all come alive, in good and terrifically terrible ways.

But I'm left feeling meh. Another so-so Booker longlist book, if a promising debut. Perhaps van der Wouden has a great book in her, where the characters come off the page, and keep us thinking about them.

>160 dchaikin: Interesting. From what I’ve read and heard of Creation Lake I expect to like it. Still I don’t imagine it’s of the caliber of James which is the only one that I am confident of getting to the short list.

>158 dchaikin: Hope you're all better now! I enjoyed your reviews of Creation Lake and The Safekeep, although I don't think I'll get around to reading either of them.

>162 kjuliff: i hope you like Creation Lake

>163 rv1988: well, both made the shortlist today. Obviously they didn’t read my reviews. 🙂

61. James by Percival Everett
OPD: 2024
format: 349-page large print paperback
acquired: August 2 read: Sep 14-18 time reading: 6:47, 1.2 mpp
rating: 5
genre/style: Contemporary Fiction theme: Booker 2024
locations: Mississippi River
about the author: An American writer and Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Southern California. He was born in Fort Gordon, GA (1956), and grew up in Columbia, SC.

----

James is my eighth from the Booker longlist and recently made the shortlist. I recently posted on it on the Facebook Booker Prize Book Club. It was designed to generate some discussion there. It's a rant, but also kind of a review. I'm not sure I can do better. As long as you know James is Everett's take on Huck Finn, from the Jim's point of view, I think this will work as a review. Since I wrote it for that group, I've modified it here to be more universal. It's a bit of an imperfect fit here, of course.

----

Thoughts on James by Percival Everett

What is this book doing? What is this book doing to you, reader?

I recently finished this. It’s a quick thought provoking read. I’m finding it hard to boil down. I adored it and I’m trying to process it. It’s oddly different from what I guessed from the reviews I've read, although entirely in keeping with the mindset of the author who also wrote The Trees.

Here are some perspectives I come across that I think are crazy. I disagree with all these. Please forgive. Note that I appreciate various opinions. Just, I have strong ones. I have come across comments that say: it’s derivative of Huck and less because of that; it's not respectful of the literary qualities that make Huck such a great classic. (This opinion obviously comes from very dedicated Huck and Twain readers. I appreciate this, but still think you’re crazy.); It replaces Twain as a better book ‼️; It should be taught in school next to Twain’s Huck; It’s boring or fades? (!!): It’s not realistic that Jim could be so well read (this is true. But how relevant is this?)

James is, of course, satire. It’s fun on the surface, bitter underneath. (As is The Trees). It’s provoking the reader. You should be provoked and offended or you might not be reading it correctly. It loves and hates Twain. It loves and hates Huck. It loves and discards Jim. It loves and undermines justice, equality, fairness. It loves and undermines history and the wild Mississippi River. It hates, and lies in impotent, inadequate rage against slavery and its history. It stairs down hard at slavery and at your role in it, dear reader. Its hates and will not tolerate racism. This is all - fantastic. It’s what hard literature should do - keep your attention and make you uncomfortable. Make you aware you are flawed. And ask yourself what can you do better.

I have two (more?) rants. One is that calling this derivative is a comment deeply out of touch with the world of literature. IMO (not a humble opinion). Literature talks. Writers who want to sell spend a lot of effort trying to find ways to hold these literary conversations such that underread readers (That is - anyone who doesn’t read literature for a living) can appreciate. Subtlety is beautiful but doesn’t reach enough readers. Everett has gone big here. Unsubtle. He’s thrown down the gauntlet. He’s telling us with the title that he’s challenging Mark Twain’s most famous and iconic work. It’s not derivative. It’s bold. As bold as you can be. He’s claiming success with his title. As a critical reader, no one should be questioning whether he’s stealing or imitating. The question you should be asking is, is this challenge successful? Has he honored his title? Did he pull it off?

Second rant - this isn’t Jim. This James is worth some consideration. He’s not realistic. He’s not supposed to be. He’s also not nice or heroic. He’s angry. He’s contemporary. He’s practically a professor of literature at USC. This Jim/James is not simply defined. He’s a mixture of Percival, Twain’s Jim, every fictional and nonfictional slave narrative, Hollywood survival heroes, and a hot red anger at the history of slavery and the modern perception of slavery. He’s a composite, bursting. There is love in James. And what a wonderful Huck he creates. But James has many sides. Reading Locke and other philosophers, quoting logical and literary theories, playing with how to talk to who, and what our misappropriated assumptions are, murdering. These are all this James. And you, me, us, readers, may be the ones who are truly lynched, drowned, blown up, strangled, and shot in the heart. Be provoked. Be upset.

This - 👆- is what James has done to me. It’s maybe the boldest title we have seen in a while. And yes, I think he had pulled it off. It’s a terrific addition to the Booker legacy.

A little disclaimer: I do apologies to anyone offended by my comments. I think the book is terrific and I find myself a little overly passionate. Coming back down to earth, I’m actually open-minded, and playful with my literature, if seriously playful sometimes. And I’m always open to any critical responses, although I encourage anyone to have fun here in whatever you post. Cheers

>165 dchaikin: I think your comments were very apt. Everette in a recent interview said pt blank that he admired twains work and wasnt wanting to replace.James does have many sides which makes it such a wonderful book to read I do love this "He’s a mixture of Percival, Twain’s Jim, every fictional and nonfictional slave narrative, Hollywood survival heroes, and a hot red anger at the history of slavery and the modern perception of slavery. He’s a composite, bursting. There is love in James. And what a wonderful Huck he creates."

But James has many sides. thanks dan for clarifying that for people.

62. Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent by Judi Dench & Brendan O'Hea
readers: Barbara Flynn, Brendan O'Hea, and Judi Dench
OPD: 2024
format: 12:05 audible audiobook
acquired: August 22 listened: Aug 23 – Sep 19
rating: 5
genre/style: Interviews theme: random audio
about the author: Dame Judith Olivia Dench is an English actress. She was born in 1934 in the Heworth area of York. Brendan O'Hea is a British actor, the son of Welsh and Irish parents.

This is almost a must for Shakespeare lovers and gift for anyone who knows Dench's Hollywood roles, but not her Shakespearean past and deep connection. Judy Dench was first a Shakespearean actress. She played Hamlet's Ophelia in her first role. At twenty-five (1959) she played Juliet in classic performance. She was in numerous female Shakespearean roles throughout her long career, acting alongside a number of famous actors, maybe of whom had prominent Hollywood careers too. Many, of course, have passed, including her husband. Her garden has several trees planted and named for actors who have passed.

Here she covers her roles Macbeth, Twelfth Night, The Merchant of Venice, Coriolanus, As You Like It, Much Ado About Nothing, Lear, The Comedy of Errors, Antony and Cleopatra, Cymbeline, The Merry Wives of Windsor, The Winter's Tale, and Romeo and Juliet.

She's a passionate actress, passionate on Shakespeare, and that comes through so clearly in here in this book. It's interesting to have an actor's perspective. But this is more than that. She gets carried away and waxes on and on. She almost goes into character when talking about her roles, taking their side, sometimes unreasonably. And she's funny. She apparently cursed so much, that O'Hea was forced to edit some of it out.

I actually expected this to be brilliant and special, and it was at least as good as I expected. I loved it. Brendan O'Hea, the actual author, interviewed Judi Dench over 120 hours on her Shakespeare roles. Then he edited them down to this 12-hour audiobook. Her perspectives on acting these roles are rich and fascinating. She claims not to want to analyze from a literary perspective. And in some ways this makes sense. Play the role as it's written, let the viewer analyze. But she is in deeply touch with the lines and language. She quotes from plays she acted in 60 years ago. And she talks about how Shakespeare tells the actors how to act lines. The writing tells actors when to pause, how to perform, where to stress. And she also talks about staying in the moment, on the line. Not thinking ahead. They plays go very fast, so she was always focused on performing the line at hand.

audio note: Dench turned 90 this year. She reads tiny parts of the audiobook, but mostly her part is read by Barbara Flynn, an actress. Flynn does an exceptional job. It's a great audiobook, even if it's not the raw interviews. The audiobook does contain a very entertaining 40-minutes sample of a raw interview.

I can't recommend this highly enough to anyone who feels that Shakespeare connection. I actually think almost anyone would enjoy this.

>166 cindydavid4: thanks! I think Everett's admiration for Twain is clear in the book, I think. His selective attention to detail tells you he knows Twain and is it following or not by pointed choice, that he's really taken in the source work.

63. A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There by Aldo Leopold
Illustrator: Charles W. Schwartz
OPD: 1949
format: 226-page paperback from 1968
acquired: 2009 read: Sep 5-21 time reading: 8:20, 2.2 mpp
rating: 4½
genre/style: nature essays theme: TBR
locations: Wisconsin
about the author: 1887–1948: An American writer, philosopher, naturalist, scientist, ecologist, forester, conservationist, environmentalist and professor at the University of Wisconsin. He was born in Burlington, Iowa.

It was about time I finally read this naturalist classic. It's been in the house 15 years, and I've wanted to read it a lot longer than that. It reads oddly slow, or did for me. But it reads nicely. It's not turgid, but clean, simple, often with a poetic efficiency, and my edition was full of the original illustrations.

There are three parts. The opening is a long, sustained time track through a year on the author's property in a central Wisconsin, with its seasonal extremes. The second section, Sketches, lacks the continuous wholeness of the Almanac section, but has some beautiful natural and poetic moments. The last essay - on the western grebe in Manitoba - is especially poetic. The last section is a series of essays that are essentially a naturalist's manifesto, circa 1949. He's writing mainly to naturalists and wildlife experts. He's pleading for a naturalist morality, for us not to leave everything up to the government, for a look broader than the money-first perspective of landowners.

He's in tune with hunters, but not comfortable with the destruction wrought in the name of tourism - especially roads. And he takes time to think about purity vs the artificially created sporting environments where fish or other animals are supplied by stock. He foresees a lot that has actually happened, and actually I think things are worse than he predicts. His thinking is more or less common sense, if a common sense spun from extensive experience.

Recommended especially to those with an interest in the naturalist literary tradition, and anyone in Wisconsin.

You have been doing great with the Booker longlist. The only one I've read is Orbital - loved it. I am waiting for a couple of others from the library.

I share your love of Possession, one of my all-time favorite novels. I didn't admire The Children's Book as much.

>165 dchaikin: I enjoyed your review of James and have a couple of comments I’d like to make:
1) Re James and Huck Finn, I think Everett plays the reversed point of view beautifully and to advantage. An example is in the section when Huck and James are separated, and James endures some devastatingly brutal experiences at the hands of a sawmill owner who buys him in the big scheme of selling James, having him escape and reselling him. What a picture of slavery and what a statement! Meanwhile, remembering Mark Twain, Huck is also at this time of separation undergoing a violent and terrifying experience with the feuding aristocratic Shephardsons and Grangerfords. Twain presents us with the stupidity of the Southern myth of “honor” at this point, while Everett is underlining the total depravity of the economic system of slavery—and I guess James learns that it’s very unwise to sell yourself into slavery, because he and his friend abandon the scheme.

2) Re James’s being incredibly wide read—what I objected to in this was not that he is familiar with Rousseau and Locke etc., but that Everett chooses to subject the reader, or this reader,anyhow, to the philosophers’ lengthy discourses to James in his dreams and fantasies. To me, these scenes at such length was a poor decision on Everett’s part. I found so much political philosophy really tedious, and I hated to use my usual method of just skipping such passages in a book I’m thinking may win the prize. Just my personal opinion and certainly a minor quibble.

I agree totally with your interpretation of the book; I think that it is incredibly rich in imagination and theme, beautifully presented, and I would also give it 5*

Your list of books read and analysis of them is truly stunning! I ran across a relevant article in the NYTimes today that addresses an important point about many readers. Explore this gift article from The New York Times. You can read it for free without a subscription.

The article has the title The Plot Escapes Me

What’s the point of reading so many books when I can barely remember what’s in them?

The author linked to an interesting essay on that very subject which can be found at:

https://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/19/books/review/Collins-t.html?unlocked_article_...

>172 JoeB1934: I found that article interesting, Joe. One thing the article's author didn't mention is the difference between cold turkey recall and assisted recall. I write reviews on LT mainly so that I can reference them later. Although I may not at first remember a book, 9 times out of 10, my review brings it all flooding back. My reviews act as triggers for recall. I also take notes on nonfiction books whose information I'm particularly interested in retaining. Even if I never look at the notes again, simply the act of taking them help me remember.

This is why I reread books! I find I don't really remember things like plot, ending, character names, etc. unless I've read a book 3 times. But, like Lisa, even for books I will only read once, rereading my review usually jogs my memory. Not necessarily for plot points (those usually escape me quickly), but I almost always remember something concrete - like a theme, a character, the way the book made me feel, etc. - enough to be mildly conversant about the book. And I completely believe that even the books that I "can't remember" have influenced me and contributed to my overall understanding of the world.

But it still bothers me that I can forget the plot of a book almost immediately upon finishing it. :-)

>172 JoeB1934: interesting article! And I can completely relate. Like Lisa and Jennifer, my reviews to help me recall, but unlike them, I find the review only brings aspects of the book back, and mostly they bring my own thoughts about the book back. The book itself does not come flooding. I have a handful of key thoughts I associate with the book, and whole lot of vagaries. I can quote nothing. I don't remember beginnings and endings. But feelings then to come in flush. I've been puzzling over this for years. I treasure those feelings. And they impact what I think about my current reading.

64. Orbital by Samantha Harvey
OPD: 2023
format: 207-page hardcover
acquired: August 2 read: Sep 18-22 time reading: 6:01, 1.7 mpp
rating: 4½
genre/style: Contemporary Fiction theme: Booker 2024
locations: the thermosphere (250 miles elevation)
about the author: English novelist from Kent, born in 1975

Sustained wandering reflection. Harvey imagines an experience of being on the international space station and reflecting - on life, pasts & futures, practical realities in this tiny station where they will spend nine months, the earth out the window, existence. One astronaut is determined to reach the moon, another works a radio connecting to amateur radio operators on the ground within range. One has just lost her mother, yesterday. This whole book is one day, 24 hours, 16 rotations around the earth, crossing different paths in different directions. There is no true up and down in the space station, as the gravitational pull is balanced, the falling in orbit the same speed gravity would impact.

The book has a pace and evolution over the course of the false day. There is no true day and night on board, with sixteen sunrises and sunsets in their 24 hours. It begins with the astronauts awaking and thinking. Then it does one very political chapter (orbit 8) that I struggled with, attention-wise. Eventually it devolves in the astronauts' dreams and then leaves them behind for an imagined earth with no awake human viewer. A quietly pointed structure, maybe. Reviewers say it's poetic, it doesn't have a plot, and the characters get lost. I think the writing is excellent, paced. Not purple, but practical. The structure jumps around as thoughts do, leaving the readers mind floating in a semi-parallel metaphor with the astronauts. It doesn't have a plot, but I found the 16 obits plot enough to know where I was and where I was going. I never lost track of any of the six astronauts, but found them prominent. They are very human, sadly and elegantly so. Whereas their earth is vast and assailed by a ruthless destructive humanity. It's an interesting contrast, six close ups and the multitudes in the distance. I found this well worth all Harvey's reflection. And she only scratches the surface.

I enjoyed this. Recommend for a relaxed reader who not in a hurry. It doesn't take much time.

-----

Review appendix: A lot of readers say they didn't follow the astronauts, and didn't find them individual or their identities important. I found their identities both interesting and important. So, here, I'm providing a cheat sheet - a list of all six for potential readers:

Three have been on aboard six months
- Chie - "the conscience" - is a Japanese female who lost her mother yesterday
- Nell - "the breath" - is a British female meteorologist who helps in the space walk
- Pietra - "the mind" - is an Italian male obsessed with a spectrometer he installed on the space walk

Three later arrivals have been on board 3 months
- Shaun - "the soul" - is an American male, and only religious believer, a Christian. He ponders a painting, Las Meninas, a famous playful royal family portrait by Diego Velazquez (1656)
- Roman - "the hands" - is a Russian male who want to reach the moon
- Anton - "the heart" - is a Russian male who works the radio.

65. Held by Anne Michaels
OPD: 2023
format: 220-page hardcover
acquired: August read: Sep 23-28 time reading: 5:22, 1.5 mpp
rating: 4½
genre/style: Contemporary Fiction theme: Booker 2024
locations: France & England, 1908 to the present
about the author: Canadian poet and novelist born in Toronto, 1958

What an interesting book. I'll have to reread this. It's a splintered narrative and I tried to focus on where and when and who, enjoying the romantic touches and the drifty feel, overlooking the mechanical and scientific commentary. I was thinking this was a nice elegant heartfelt book on various sad lovers … until I saw two chapters titled “River Orwell…1984”. Then I started to look for something dark. It's a little buried and quiet, but pieces line up. A striking condemnation of our destructive society is built in here.

It opens during WWI with a just injured soldier lying in the field, his conscious wavering. (I thought of Bengy in The Sound and the Fury). He begins thinking abstractly, maybe contradictory "Perhaps the most important things we know cannot be proven." He has a lover at home, and she becomes, for me, the heart of the book, an unheralded, little-known artist. But the book jumps around in time and place, tossing new characters at us. Twelve chapters in 11 different times and places in France and England, many associated with water, especially rivers. We are in one place three times - River Orwell, Suffolk, in two different times, 1964 and 1984. Up until that 1984 chapter I thought I was reading a bunch of sad beautiful love stories. Afterward I had no idea what I was reading. But eventually I started rethinking this through - the WWI carnage. Marie Curie appears, with her radium trinkets. Michaels leaves out the neon arrows saying, look here. But she hints. Now I need to go back and revisit the hints.

This is my tenth book from the Booker longlist, and it completes the shortlist for me. It's not a book for every reader, but recommended for those with some poetic bent. It's one of the standout books in this year's longlist.

>177 dchaikin: I was thinking this was a nice elegant heartfelt book on various sad lovers … until I saw two chapters titled “River Orwell…1984”

Dan, there only one chapter with that name. Two do mention the Orwell River, but the first is River Orwell 1964. Many of the 12 chapters have River in the title as you point out.

I mention this as I really think you are making too much of a chapter name - one chapter , because you surely don’t see a hidden meaning behind Chapter V “River Orwell 1964”.

— Edited as a cut and paste of the quote from Dan’s post somehow got repeated in the middle of my reply. Now removed.

>178 kjuliff: you may be right in that I’m making too much of it. But then how else does it tie together? Why else bring in wwI carnage, radiation and perpetual warfare into a multigenerational story? Why John’s opening thoughts? There are a lot of aspects that are confusing, but make sense to me in that light.

chapters 4 and 6 are each titled River Orwell, Suffolk, 1984. Chapter 5 is titled River Orwell, Suffolk, 1964.

>179 dchaikin: I think many people are subconsciously influenced by the publisher’s blurb. When I started the book I thought it was an anti-war novel and we’d be following the John’s family through generations. I was quickly disabused of that notion.

Held is an experience and not a puzzle to be solved. Michaels is a poet and has written her book poetically. But it’s not a poem.

The chapters are snapshots loosely held together through recurring themes or motifs.

My review is here .

— edite to correct a typo.

>177 dchaikin: I came to almost exactly the same conclusion: it's not for everyone, but I loved it. Great review.

>180 kjuliff: i love your review and all you captured

>181 rv1988: so, it’s not just me?! Good, I think

>182 dchaikin: Thanks so much Dan. I’ve Dan. I’ve feeling so down and useless, your comment cheered me. :)

>183 kjuliff: I'm sorry you're feeling down. Wish you well.

>184 dchaikin: I’m beginning to think it’s my baseline! 😉

I’m trying to find the chapter number in Creation Lake which has the title “Lemon Incest”. It’s around page 77. My audio version only has chapter numbers. Perhaps if you have the Kindle or paperback version you could help me out?

Lemon Incest in my copy is page 139 (of 404 pages). So my copy is paged differently. The chew chee thing happens somewhere between meeting Jean Violane (after the vet tells how he shot the cow) and Nadia Derrain (the crazy lady). Roughly 43% mark.

>186 dchaikin: Thanks Dan. So annoying when Audible doesn’t use chapter names!

In print there is no easy way to count chapters. They aren’t numbered. And it’s not clear what’s a chapter break and what is just a small text break. Sorry.

>188 dchaikin: I understand. The chapters in the audio are of widely different lengths. I’m thinking of just rereading it as it’s enjoyable to listen to.

This conversation is making me feel that I really should read Creation Lake; what intriguing chapter titles!

>190 dianelouise100: I think you would like it. It’s very amusing.

>190 dianelouise100: ymmv 🙂 It has its humor.

>192 dchaikin: You Mileage May Vary? Idkwym.

>193 kjuliff: yes. Different readers will get more or less out of it.

>193 kjuliff: yup one of my favorite internet phrases. works for so many things!

>190 dianelouise100: me too!too much enabling around here!

>194 dchaikin: Oh I wasn’t familiar with that acronym. Thanks for the explanation.

Back to Creation Lake - it has my sort of humor. I am really wanting to review it but am finding it difficult to review. I thought Kushner was spot on about the Beats. They were a little before my time but I met some (what I considered) old at the time. As wel my own brother was in a commune/sect. So many of Kushner’s descriptions rang true.

And now we have the no oil lunatics in the UK - I forget the name of the group - chucking removable pain to masterpieces. I’m a firm believer in the climate crisis, but the “Eco Clowns” in CL were so on point.

I’m also tiring of fiction like Birnam Wood that feature eco warriors. They don’t make for god novels I’m not talking about the climate crisis, but some of the characters in novels.

Humor will always triumph ove wining or whinging as it’s called in Australia. And Kushner does it so well.

September

I read the entire Booker shortlist this month. That was kind of unplanned. When the shortlist was announced, I had read four of the six coincidently in the first half of September (three were short), and the remaining two were very short. My favorite was Stone Yard Devotional. But I also really enjoyed James, Orbital and Held. I read, but didn't take to, Creation Lake or The Safekeep. But obviously other readers have enjoyed them.

That was most of my reading this month, another good month, 68 hours of reading. On audio, where Covid-take-3 limited my listening, I finished the wonderful interview of Judi Dench about her long career playing Shakespeare roles: Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent

October plans include finishing my next Faulkner, Pylon (1935), which I did already. And I have four other books planned: The Gods Arrive by Edith Wharton (1932), Molokai by O. A. Bushnell (1963), and two more Booker longlist books: Playground by Richard Powers, and Wild Houses by Colin Barrett. I'm listening to The Saddest Words: William Faulkner's Civil War by Michael Gorra, which is interesting. I'm not sure what's next on audio. If I get ahead, my more fanciful reading goals include Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner, Headshot by Rita Bullwinkel & Fasting Feasting by Anita Desai.

66. Pylon by William Faulkner
OPD: 1935
format: 285-page paperback, 2011 edition
acquired: March from The Faulkner House in New Orleans read: Sep 22 – Oct 2 time reading: 10:53, 2.3 mpp
rating: 4
genre/style: classic fiction theme: Faulkner
locations: then-contemporary New Orleans
about the author: 1897-1962. American Noble Laureate who was born in New Albany, MS, and lived most of his life in Oxford, MS.

Yair. That word, which must occur a hundred times here, always in dialogue, is apparently a Faulkner neologism disguised as a local word in his heavily fictionalized not-New Orleans. It means roughly "yeah", but with its own sonic undertones, I guess. This is Faulkner's flying book. He was pilot himself, but he wrote this to get it published ASAP. He must have needed the money. He wrote it a furious pace while taking a break from Absalom Absalom! It was apparently written from scratch, edited and published all within a several months. It's a one-off, disconnected with Yoknapatawpha County. What comes out is a mostly, but not entirely, coherent drunk fest. It has distinct prose. Not careless, but weighted, and that is both slowed by its weight and energetic - its energy propelled by sentences and dialogues and points never concluding, but going on and on, ever expanding, the reader desperate to know where this thought will end. Sometimes the text just gets lost. A quote:

"And here also the cryptic shieldcaught (i n r i) loops of bunting giving an appearance temporary and tentlike to the interminable long corridor of machine plush and gilded synthetic plaster running between anonymous and rentable space or alcoves from sunrise to sunset across America...."

That's only the 1st 1/3 of that sentence. In his defense, it is Mardi Gras, and we must decorate Catholically.

The story itself is about a New Orlean reporter who falls for the mechanic-wife of a competitive pilot. This fictionalized New Orleans is here called New Valois, but there is plenty real New Orleans in the location and in the story of its then new airport, which also opened with a competitive air show to celebrate. The opening day death of a famous pilot is factual. Our reporter is covering the show and gets obsessed with Laverne, who he first sees in mechanic's overalls working on her husband's plane. The reporter ingratiates himself with the whole crew - the pilot, his wife, a parachute jumper, a mechanic, a six-year-old child, son of the pilot's wife, but with an unknown father. There is a quiet but widely known controversy around this boy. The reporter is probably more interested in what this means about Laverne's sex life than anything about flying. But he never says. When the crew lack a place to stay one night, he offers them his place, and then inappropriately gets everyone except Laverne, but including himself, sick-drunk. They have to dodge the parades to reach his bachelor pad in the French Quarter.

The book carries on to Tomorrow, And Tomorrow, these two Macbeth-like chapter titles taking us through a hungover Ash Wednesday and into Lent. The story is really about Laverne. But the telling is through the reporter. It makes for an interesting structure. Much of the book wanders without a clear direction, and with long dialogue paragraphs of backhanded storytelling. It's flush with the reporter's energy, and his confidence in whatever he's doing. But this is all a false confidence in that nothing the reporter says means anything. He knows a lot, and talks a lot, but the two don't overlap much. He's also careless, irresponsible, unreliable, bold, but full of energy and friendship, giving anything he has away without considerations, and causing a lot of problems. He is both cause and observer of this story, but a cause in ways he couldn't himself possibly understand.

The book is a mess. But it's a Faulknerian mess. And for all its flaws and pointlessness, it accumulates a meaning, it becomes fun and curiously strange and lingering at the same time. Recommended for Faulkner completists. But, if you're not that, and interested and wondering whether to take a look, I would of course say, "Yair".

67. The Collected Poems of Wilfred Owen
editor: C. Day Lewis; includes: “Memoir, 1931” by Edmund Blunden
OPD: 1963
format: 188-page 1965 Paperback
acquired: 2016 read: Sep 4 – Oct 5 time reading: 7:18, 2.3 mpp
rating: 5
genre/style: poetry theme: poetry
locations: WWI trenches
about the authors: Wilfred Owen (1893-1918), from Plas Wilmot, Shropshire, was an English poet and soldier and one of the leading poets of the First World War. His war poetry on the horrors of trenches and gas warfare was much influenced by his mentor Siegfried Sassoon and stood in contrast to the public perception of war at the time. He was killed in action. Edmund Blunden (1896- 1974), from London, was an English poet, author, and critic, and a friend of Siegfried Sassoon, He wrote of his experiences in World War I in both verse and prose. Cecil Day-Lewis (1904-1972), from Ballintubbert, Queen's County (now County Laois), Ireland, was an Anglo-Irish poet and Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from 1968 until his death in 1972.

---

Owen was young, probably secretly gay, and wrapped up in deep fighting in WWI, having already had some truly harrowing experiences when he met Sigfried Sasson while in a recovery in an Edinburgh hospital. Through Sasson (also gay, but that doesn't mean they had a physical relationship) Owen discovered he really was a poet. Writing between leading his troops through trenches with 2 feet of water, in holes in no-man's land in water up to his shoulders, under continuous fire, watching nearby similar holes get blown to bits, along with everyone inside, his troops, and between exposing himself in trench-to-trench charges under machinegun fire, only to find the enemy behind him shooting at him. It's a wonder he stayed sane, had any nerves left at all. And yet his injury came from a fluke non-combat concussion that field doctors eventually forced him to stop trying to fight through. He would later return to the front and was killed in action one week before the armistice.

He mainly had a year of wartime writing, under worshipful guidance of Sassoon, but also influenced by other (largely gay) literary figures that Sasson introduced him to. His poetry is about the mentality and experiences of fighting. It's oddly formal, carefully worked, and oddly not about the terror. But he confronts the dead, the nihilism, the necessary feelings of nonfeeling, the gas, injuries, and noises and visuals, constant barrage. Along with Sassoon, he was the first to really try to capture this, going hard against the patriotic work generally written then. But he was shining light, who died young, haunting forever everyone who knew him.

This is a thorough collection of his poetry - everything significant he ever wrote that we still have, almost all unpublished during his lifetime, although he had begun preparing a book. The book includes many of his experiments, things he wouldn't have published himself, but that provide insight into how he evolved. In place of rhymes, he uses matching consonant endings, to masterful effect, a style distinct then, and that he developed himself.

All those lists of books everyone should probably read before we die should include a collection of Owen's war poems. But of exceptional power here is a section titled "Memoir 1931" by Edmund Blunden. It's Blunden's memorial mini biography of Owen. And in it he quotes liberally from Owen's letters home about his fighting experiences. These letters, told with a probably necessary gung-ho optimism, are blood-chilling. They are experiences so uncomfortable, and stressful, and harrowing, even when no one gets killed, that I don't know either how to capture it without reading them yourself, or how anyone who experience them came out of any single one of them in any way normal.

>198 dchaikin: Hi Dan, I recently read and very much enjoyed Orbital. I was a little leery having seen some lukewarm reviews, but I quite liked it. I teach high school physics and we study a unit on universal gravitation and talk about the International Space station quite a bit so it was a topic that I am very interested in. I thought Harvey wrote interesting characters and liked their view of being in space, as well as the actual facts about being 'weightless'. I liked your summary of the different characters in >176 dchaikin:.
We don't read a lot of the same books so I like when we do overlap, and agree.

>200 dchaikin: I read a few poems by Owen after reading the Regeneration trilogy several years ago. I've been meaning to read a collection. It sounds like this might be a good one.

>106 dchaikin: Trying to get my bearings here after being off LT for a couple-few weeks... easier said than done. I never responded to this post, when you said

Let me know about joining in on The Children's Books, and if your open to joining The Booker Prize Club facebook group.

I think I just joined the FB group? If that's the same one you're talking about, anyway. Approval pending. And as for The Children's Book read-along... maybe? I always say I want to do these and then something else comes up. But do count me in, tentatively, because I have the book and would love to get to it. I also just got a copy of Possession because it was on sale, and I'm a sucker for a deal (plus everyone's enthusiasm).

Frustratingly, Stone Yard Devotional isn't available at NYPL. I was hoping to borrow rather than buy, but we'll see.

>203 lisapeet: Now that I'm in a smaller library system, if I make a suggestion for a purchase, I get a personal email letting me know what's going on. Regarding SYD, they told me that they couldn't get it as it is not yet published in the US. Riverhead will release the American edition in mid-February.

>204 RidgewayGirl: That's kind of what I figured, and I know once that happens NYPL will get it with no encouragement from me. I've gotten very spoiled, having such a great collection pretty much on call (other than hold periods, which are kind of a thrilling bit of suspense).

>201 raidergirl3: This is such a nice comment. Thanks for sharing. I’m happy to know you enjoyed Orbital…it’s a terrific book. And I love your connection to the story through your teaching.

>202 labfs39: I encourage you to get an edition with Memoir, 1931 in it, or something else that quotes Owens letters. Knowing his experiences really adds to his poetry and his story.

>203 lisapeet: oh, you’ll love Possession. Read it. I’ll count you in on The Children’s Book. Let me know if The Booker Prize Book Club let’s you in.

>203 lisapeet:, >204 RidgewayGirl:, >205 lisapeet: - yeah, mid February. Feb 17, i think. You can buy it now, import it, using Blackwells. Amazon is overpriced right now.

>198 dchaikin: The entire Booker shortlist in a month is impressive!

>200 dchaikin: This is a fantastic review. I read Owen in high school; I find myself revisiting him as an adult and understanding more than I could have at a young age. I have this book as well, but I haven't read the Blunden bio: I will now.

>199 dchaikin: Thanks for the excellent review, Dan. Not being a Faulkner completist, I’ll skip over Pylon and instead reread Absalom, Absalom. It’s so interesting to me that while writing this quickie because he needed money, Faulkner was working at the same time on the novel that many consider his masterpiece. I’m hoping to read Absalom toward the end of the year.

Oh wow, such a lot of 5 stars reading. I'm impressed. 😃

>177 dchaikin: Just finished Held today, and agree with everyone else that it will need several reads, but what a marvellous book!

>199 dchaikin: You have me intrigued with the idea of "a Faulknerian mess" - makes it sound so tempting. I think that may be one for next summer. Faulkner for me is summer.

>200 dchaikin: Haven't read Owen for a long time, but that can definitely be corrected. Your review makes it sound as if I should correct it.

>207 rv1988: thanks! After Blunden, reread Dulce et Decorum Est ( https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46560/dulce-et-decorum-est )

>208 dianelouise100: I was hoping to read Absalom Absalom this month, but now I'm hoping to begin in November. I'm looking forward to it! Seems is typically considered his best book, even though The Sound and the Fury and As I Lay Dying are more widely read. It may be one that must be read at least twice.

>209 Ameise1: some good ones. :)

>210 SassyLassy: yes, Held. I want to read it again soonish. Hope you take to rereading Owen. As for Faulkner...how did I not warn you off Pylon in my review? I did enjoy the thing.

Interesting readings - The Booker Prize 2024 Shortlist Short Films - here from the oficial Booker site.

>213 kjuliff: thanks!

New thread fun - my next thread is here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/362165