June 2025 books read

  • Brooklyn – Colm Tóibín, 2009. Second Monday book selection. This is the fourth Tóibín I’ve read with this group, and the first I actually enjoyed. But I only pulled one quote: “They knew so much, each of them, … that they could do everything except say out loud what it was they were thinking.” I’ll try the movie at some point.
  • Of Time and Turtles: Mending the World, Shell By Shattered Shell – Sy Montgomery, 2023. Nature Enviro selection, quotes TBD.
  • The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame, 1908. Great Books selection (multiple re-read), quotes TBD.
  • The Head of the House of Coombe (1922) and Robin (1922) – Frances Hodgson Burnett. I’ve read this two-part novel several times, and produced Robin for Project Gutenberg because it was missing. I found a bunch of typos in the first one, which led me to a brief adventure using Github repos to report PG errors, but that’s already rolled back, so I’ll submit the revised files – at least it got me to actually do it, thanks to Jonathan doing the research. I’ve always meant to figure out how to submit corrections, and now I’ll plan on making it a habit. It’s time-consuming but feels very worth it. I marked two things I looked up:
    • Liebig – beef extract
    • Scatterbrained nurse is absorbed in Lady Audley’s Secret. I read that a while back – don’t remember it but it was compelling!
  • The House of the Seven Gables – Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1851. The Massachusetts Center for the Book challenge was “A book that spans multiple generations.” I couldn’t think of one that appealed (and my rule is I must not have read it before), so I turned to their suggestions. My writeup: “I’m so glad I finally read this – it’s charming and not as dark as other Hawthornes, although plenty spooky. Hepzibah, Phoebe, and little Ned Higgins, insatiable devourer of gingerbread, are particularly endearing.” I found a bunch of typos in the Gutenberg edition, but fewer than in the Burnett, so they are already fixed for posterity.
  • Talking Turkey – Hilary Caws-Elwitt, unpublished mss (2014). I guess I’ll re-read my own book (it’s middle grade animal fantasy) every few years to make sure I still like it… and I do. I might self-publish at some point, I suppose, not under the illusion that anyone else will read it. (If you want to check it out, let me know!)
  • The Long Walk – Stephen King writing as Richard Bachman, 1978. I saw a trailer for the new movie and was prompted to pick this up again. It’s the most memorable of the Bachmans to me, and of course it led the way for the Hunger Games books and Squid Game show. Not great but readable.

May 2025 books read

  • Daddy Long-Legs: A Comedy in Four Acts – Jean Webster, 1912. Multiple re-read, this time looking for more of the Cinderella/orphan feel from A Little Princess. It’s also a great school story. I love the cartoons Judy draws of herself. I’m shocked this hasn’t turned up in previously-read; I’ve been keeping up with my monthly lists since 2016, but I’m more meticulous now so I suppose it might have slipped in years ago. But maybe I read it so many times when I was younger that it stuck with me?
  • Racketty-Packetty House – Frances Hodgson Burnett, 1906. More comfort re-reading, and another I’m surprised not to have listed since 2016. The family of jolly dolls who laugh through hard times always cheer me up.
  • The Magic Mountain – Thomas Mann, 1924. ABC selection, first read with Great Books in 2022. This time I had the Woods translation, which I liked better (but Settembrini and Naptha are still tarsome). Different quotes TBD.
  • Beyond the Door of No Return – David Diop, 2021. Second Monday; quotes TBD.
  • Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World – John Vaillant, 2023. Nature/Enviro, quotes TBD.
  • The Bridge of San Luis Rey – Thornton Wilder, 1927. Great Books, quotes TBD.
  • The Night Circus – Erin Morgenstern, 2011. The May challenge for the Massachusetts Center for the Book was “A book with a first sentence of eight words or less.” Jonathan found me a Margery Allingham, The Beckoning Lady, but I couldn’t stand it and checked the MassBook recommended list for an alternative. I’d heard a lot of good things about Night Circus and it was already on my read-someday list so I picked it. Hmm…. a lot of beautiful images but overall it didn’t grab me. Kind of a cross between Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, and Fingersmith. But it was originally a NaNoWriMo project so I root for it for that reason alone. A reviewer on GoodReads says it’s worth reading twice because you don’t pick up on the plot connections the first time around… but I’m 60 and there are too many other books to read. For the challenge I wrote “The circus of the title is the best thing about this novel – a dreamlike place of visual wonders.”
  • T. Tembarom – Frances Hodgson Burnett, 1913. Re-read for the umpteenth time; it’s probably my favorite Burnett, plus it’s related a bit to the Cinderella theme.
  • Death in Venice – Thomas Mann, 1911. Amherst book group; quotes TBD.

Novellas and short stories

  • “The Dwarf Pine” – Varlam Shalamov (from Kolyma Stories, 1954-1973), for Story Club

April 2025 books read

  • Vulcan’s Hammer – Philip K. Dick, 1960. I resisted re-reading Lucifer’s Hammer and picked this up instead! I read a lot of PKD in the ’90s; I don’t like his writing much but often find it compelling. This is very relevant to AI concerns today; not great but interesting.
  • How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures – Sabrina Imbler, 2022. Nature & Environment selection; quotes pulled, TBD.
  • Possession – A. S. Byatt, 1990. Second Monday selection; quotes pulled, TBD.
  • Little Grey Rabbit’s Story Book – Alison Uttley, 1977. I adore the Sam Pig stories; these aren’t as good, alas. Delighted to find this analysis of why she’s been described as a horrible person, perhaps unfairly.
  • The Adventure of the Strange Ruby – Enid Blyton, 1971. Most of the Blytons I read as a child were in French translations, but I think we had this Knight paperback in English. I remember the kids hiding out in the temple with lots of food and cozy rugs to sleep on. Not good, but comforting to re-read.
  • How to Lose a Marathon : A Starter’s Guide to Finishing in 26.2 Chapters – Joel H. Cohen, 2017. I picked this up from the running section of the library and was really looking forward to it, because I love first person accounts of mediocre runners and especially details about the New York Marathon. Unfortunately the “humor” was like nails on a blackboard for me. I finished it and would have gotten quite a bit of good practical advice out of it, between the unfunny quips, if I were new to running.
  • The Diary of a Bookseller – Shaun Bythell, 2017. April’s Massachusetts Center for the Book challenge: “A book about books, bookstores, or libraries.” I wrote “Enjoyable brief daily entries by an eccentric but realistic bloke who enjoys teasing customers and staff.” It was really interesting to see day over day how many online sales can’t be located, and how dependent they are on the (terrible) software platform. He introduces each month with a quote from Orwell’s “Bookshop Memories” – TBR!
  • A Little Princess – Frances Hodgson Burnett, 1905. Comfort re-read.

Notable novellas and short stories

  • “The Beast in the Jungle” – Henry James, 1903. Far Out Film watched The Beast (2023), which is loosely based on this, so I wanted to check it out. Very Jamesian – I’m not a fan – but the connection to the movie was interesting.
  • “The Moron Factory” – George Sanders, 2024. I would have loved this even if I weren’t a Story Club member, but GS himself giving it to us makes it all the better. It’s not dissimilar from “Tenth of December,” and I could see a critic accusing it of sentimentality – but kindness and humanity are his stock-in-trade, and the emotion he evokes is both real and earned.

March 2025 books read

  • Green Mansions – William Henry Hudson, 1904. I have seen so many references to this over my reading life (especially about “Rima the bird-girl”) that I’m not sure why I hadn’t read it before. It’s weird, not great but quite interesting (despite lots of racism).
  • The End of Drum-Time – Hanna Pylvainen, 2023. Second Monday selection; quotes TBD.
  • The Darkness Manifesto: On Light Pollution, Night Ecology, and the Ancient Rhythms That Sustain Life – Johan Eklöf (tr. Elizabeth DeNoma), 2020. Nature Environment selection; quotes TBD.
  • Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood – Trevor Noah, 2016. Massachusetts Center for the Book, “A book about someone with a marginalized identity” (this was on their suggested list and I’d heard good things about it). I wrote: “A charming memoir, mixing the comic, tragic, and everyday aspects of growing up mixed under apartheid and its aftershocks.”
  • A Wrinkle in Time – Madeleine L’Engle, 1962. Great Books selection (re-read); quotes TBD.
  • The Hunger Games – Suzanne Collins, 2008. I read this when it came out, as well as the sequel (I don’t remember if I read the third in the series, and definitely did not read the fourth). The fifth, which just came out, is getting excellent reviews, and a book group friend talks about how good they are, so I figured I’d re-embark on the journey. Yeah, it’s not bad. My biggest issue is how the producers/camera operators etc. are invisible and morally neutral. Current reality TV (esp. listening to the On Fire podcast and reading the book Bachelor Nation) keeps their viewpoint in my mind.

Short stories

  • “The Mysterious Stranger” (1916 version) and “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg” (1899) by Mark Twain (both re-reads). “Mysterious Stranger” came up in a Far Out Film meeting. Now that I know about the alternate versions I’m interested to try them too; it’s super-weird and fascinating.
  • “Flowering Judas” (1930) by Katherine Anne Porter, for Story Club. I read it twice, read George Saunders’ great analysis and most of the comments, but still don’t 100% get/appreciate it.

February 2025 books read

  • Just Like You – Nick Hornby, 2020.
  • Crossings: How Road Ecology Is Shaping the Future of Our Planet – Ben Goldfarb, 2023. Nature and Enviro selection, quotes TBD.
  • Gifts (2004) and Voices (2006) – Ursula Le Guin, Annals of the Western Shore #1 and #2. I was recommending more recent Le Guin to my mother-in-law, raved about these, and went to pick them up again. I’m saving the third for when I have time to appreciate it. Le Guin at the absolute top of her form!
  • The Transit of Venus – Shirley Hazzard, 1980. Great Books selection, quotes TBD.
  • After London; or, Wild England – Robert Jeffries, 1885. Read for the Mass Center for the Book February challenge: “A novel with the name of a city in its title.” I wrote “Although there’s a bit of how the English countryside would change after some unspecified disaster that wiped out the population, it’s mostly the adventures of a young man in a society much like the Middle Ages. I’m glad I finally read it, but I found it somewhat disappointing.”

Novellas

  • “The Man Who Would Be King,” Rudyard Kipling, 1888 – Read (if I’d read this before, I don’t remember it) because when we discussed Black Narcissus at a Far Out Film meeting, the movie was mentioned as a comparison. I love lots of Kipling, but I often find him confusing, and this was very elliptical. (I think my dad had mentioned this work because it references James Brooke, whom family lore identifies as an ancestor. None of my genealogical research finds a connection though.)
  • “The Death of Ivan Ilyich,” Tolstoy, 1886. I read the Pevear/Volokonsky translation, and re-read the Garnett, to participate in the wonderful Story Club. I got so much more out of this classic with Saunders’ guidance.

Just Like You – Nick Hornby, 2020

Second Monday selection. I always enjoy Hornby but didn’t find this as good or as believable as his usual standard. Just one word I learned, mandem, and a few short quotes:

  • “Cooking kept the evening away from the afternoon—it was a punctuation mark, stopping the long sentence of the day from tripping over itself and becoming garbled.”
  • On an unpromising blind date, “you could provide uninformed and unasked-for opinion, and you could be as nosy as you wanted.”
  • “He was very interested in feathering caps, and he didn’t mind which bird the feathers had fallen off.”
  • “He’d cross that bridge if the bridge ever got built. There wasn’t even anything for the bridge to go over yet.”
  • What the protagonist learns about the lute watching the movie Heartstrings – “who knew … that, if you listened to the lugubrious sound of the lute for nearly two hours, you wanted to gather up every lute in the country and burn them on a gigantic bonfire?”
  • “maybe there was no future in it, but there was a present, and that’s what life consists of”

January 2025 books read

  • The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth – Zoe Schlanger, 2024. Nature/Enviro selection, quotes TBD – but in case I never get there, it’s great!
  • Western Lane – Chetna Maroo, 2023. Second Monday selection; did not love. One quote: “As soon as [our aunt] stopped in our kitchen, we saw how much it lacked. There was no hot food, no tins or Tupperware on the side, no sign of activity or warmth. It wasn’t just that we weren’t ready for visitors. It was everything.” The protagonists play squash, which I would have loved to learn more about, but the novel didn’t succeed at illuminating it or drawing me in.
  • Le conte de Monte-Cristo – Alexandre Dumas, 1844. The Great Books group was willing to tackle the unabridged version!
  • A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens, 1843. A multiple re-read, this time for George Saunder’s wonderful Story Club, which was recommended by a friend. They were doing a slow read, one stave per week, and that sold me. I’m loving the whole experience; I know the book so well that I didn’t get much if anything new from my own reading, but some of the comments were very interesting.
  • Man and his Symbols – ed. Carl G. Jung, 1964. The Massachusetts Center for the Book January challenge was “A book published or about the year you were born.” I looked through the Goodreads list for 1964 and since I wanted something I hadn’t read before, I picked this. It’s been on my TBR list forever and I’ve owned at least one copy (probably still do, in storage, and now I can get rid of it when I find it!!!). I am a sucker for anything like this, especially with the wide-ranging illustrations, but I was SUPER disappointed. My submission: “If you’ve been paying attention in the past 60 years, you’ve already been exposed to all these ideas, but ideally with most of the gender and culture essentialism stripped out. Only one of these essays is by Jung, and his acolytes are even less discerning in their application of plausible ideas with too broad and assertive a brush. The images are interesting but random.” I did flag some passages, so I’ll probably find a number of things to look up and do a quote dump at some point.

Le comte de Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas, 1846

Re-read for Great Books – I had last read the whole thing in 2010. I enjoyed it again, but wow it’s long, and the plot is often very drawn out. I read it in French. Most of the group used the Robin Buss translation and liked it; the few stuck with the Chapman and Hall did not. I attempted my own versions of the quotes in English, and then refined them in collaboration with Jonathan, whose skills in writing, editing, and French helped tremendously.

I perked up when the Count offers Franz and Albert an infallible insomnia remedy, but it’s a ball of opium mixed with hashish… I was hoping for a mental exercise!

Such an adolescent fantasy, even libertarian: “mais je ne m’occupe jamais de mon prochain, mais je n’essaye jamais de protéger la société qui ne me protège pas, et, je dirai même plus, qui généralement ne s’occupe de moi que pour me nuire” and “tout ce qui m’entoure est libre de me quitter, et en me quittant n’aura plus besoin de moi ni de personne; voilà peut-être pourquoi on ne me quitte pas.” [“But I never worry about my neighbor; and I never try to protect society, which doesn’t protect me, and in fact generally takes notice of me only to cause me harm” and “everyone around me is free to leave me, and upon leaving me will have no further need for me or anyone else; perhaps that is why no one leaves me.”]

In this book I learned

I’m on the fence about which words I looked up to record… maybe not food (“clovisse” for example), but more general ones. The Shmoop list of references is pretty good.

Brand names and cultural references

A long paragraph on paintings

Ce salon était tapissé des œuvres des peintres modernes; il y avait des paysages de Dupré, aux longs roseaux, aux arbres élancés, aux vaches beuglantes et aux ciels merveilleux; il y avait des cavaliers arabes de Delacroix, aux longs burnous blancs, aux ceintures brillantes, aux armes damasquinées, dont les chevaux se mordaient avec rage, tandis que les hommes se déchiraient avec des masses de fer, des aquarelles de Boulanger, représentant tout Notre-Dame de Paris avec cette vigueur qui fait du peintre l’émule du poète; il y avait des toiles de Diaz, qui fait les fleurs plus belles que les fleurs, le soleil plus brillant que le soleil; des dessins de Decamps, aussi colorés que ceux de Salvator Rosa, mais plus poétiques; des pastels de Giraud et de Muller, représentant des enfants aux têtes d’ange, des femmes aux traits de vierge; des croquis arrachés à l’album du voyage d’Orient de Dauzats, qui avaient été crayonnés en quelques secondes sur la selle d’un chameau ou sous le dôme d’une mosquée…

[This salon was covered in works by modern painters: there were landscapes by Dupré, with long reeds, tall slender trees, lowing cows, and marvelous skies; there were Arab riders by Delacroix, with long white burnouses, shiny belts, and damascened weapons, whose horses gnashed their teeth in rage while the men tore at each other with iron implements; watercolors by Boulanger, depicting all of Notre-Dame de Paris with the vigor of a painter emulating a poet; there were canvases by Diaz, who makes flowers more beautiful than flowers, the sun more brilliant than the sun; drawings by Decamps, as colorful as Salvator Rosa’s, but more poetic; pastels by Girard and by Muller, showing children with the heads of angels, women with the features of virgins; sketches, ripped from Dauzat’s album of Oriental voyages, that had been scrawled in a few seconds from the saddle of a camel or under the dome of a mosque…]

Short quotes

  • Caderousse: “J’ai toujours eu plus peur d’une plume, d’une bouteille d’encre et d’une feuille de papier que d’une épée ou d’un pistolet.” [I’ve always been more frightened of a quill, a bottle of ink, and a piece of paper than a sword or a pistol.]
  • “l’air satisfait d’un homme qui croit avoir eu une idée lorsqu’il a commenté l’idée d’un autre” [the satisfied air of a man who thinks he’s had an idea when he’s commented on someone else’s]. (The Gutenberg edition I was using had “commencé” which I was confused by but rolled with. When Jonathan was reviewing these translations with me, we puzzled over it and he had the brainwave that it was a one-letter typo. Confirmed with a different French edition!)
  • “‘En effet,’ dit l’inspecteur avec la naïveté de la corruption, ‘s’il eût été réellement riche, il ne serait pas en prison.'” [“Indeed,” said the inspector with the naiveté of the corrupt, “if he had really been rich, he wouldn’t be in prison.”]
  • “ce coin de sa prison où l’ange de la mort pouvait poser son pied silencieux” [the corner of his prison where the angel of death might silently step]
  • “Les plaintes qu’on met en commun sont presque des prières; des prières qu’on fait à deux sont presque des actions de grâces.” [Shared plaints are almost prayers; prayers made with another are almost thanksgivings.]
  • “ce métier patient et sublime du prisonnier, qui de rien sait faire quelque chose” [the patient and magnificent work of the prisoner, who knows how to make something from nothing] Like “making a way out of no way”!
  • The last chapter of the first volume ends with a great sentence that has always stuck with me: “La mer est le cimetière du château d’If.” [The sea is the cemetery of the Château d’If.]
  • “le mistral, l’un des trois fléaux de la Provence; les deux autres, comme on sait ou comme on ne sait pas, étant la Durance et le Parlement.” [the mistral wind, one of the three scourges of Provence; the other two, as you may or may not know, are the Durance [river] and the Parlement [court].]
  • “cette impertinence particulière aux cochers de fiacre retenus et aux aubergistes au complet” [the distinctive impertinence of coachmen whose cabs are spoken for and innkeepers whose rooms are full]
  • “Dans tous les pays où l’indépendance est substituée à la liberté, le premier besoin qu’éprouve tout cœur fort, toute organisation puissante, est celui d’une arme qui assure en même temps l’attaque et la défense, et qui faisant celui qui la porte terrible, le fait souvent redouté.” [In all countries where independence is substituted for freedom, the primary need of any brave soul or powerful organization is for a weapon that can serve for both attack and defense, and which by making its owner redoubtable, can often make them dreaded.]
  • “la cuisine italienne, c’est-à-dire l’une des plus mauvaises cuisines du monde” [Italian cuisine, that is to say one of the worst in the world] – WTF?
  • “Les houppes de votre palais ne sont pas encore faites à la sublimité de la substance qu’elles dégustent. Dites-moi: est-ce que dès la première fois vous avez aimé les huîtres, le thé, le porter, les truffes, toutes choses que vous avez adorées par la suite?” [Your tastebuds are not yet adjusted to the sublimity of the substance they savor. Tell me: did you initially love oysters, tea, porter, truffles, all of which you subsequently adored?]
  • To Danglars: “tout en conservant l’habitude de vous faire appeler baron, vous avez perdu celle d’appeler les autres, comte” [though you’ve kept the habit of being called Baron, you’ve lost that of calling others Count]
  • “Je n’ai que deux adversaires; je ne dirai pas deux vainqueurs, car avec la persistance je les soumets: c’est la distance et le temps.” [I have only two adversaries; I will not say two conquerors, because with persistence I subdue them: they are distance and time.]
  • “[les domestiques] du Théâtre-Français, qui justement parce qu’ils n’ont qu’un mot à dire, viennent toujours le dire sur la rampe.” [The servants in the Théâtre-Français, who precisely because they have only a single word to say, always come downstage to say it.]
  • “mon père avait cela de terrible en lui, qu’il n’a jamais combattu pour les utopies irréalisables, mais pour les choses possibles, et qu’il a appliqué à la réussite de ces choses possibles ces terribles théories de la Montagne, qui ne reculaient devant aucun moyen” [my father has a dreadful trait, in that he has never fought for unrealizable utopias, but only for things that are possible, and to bring them about he has used The Mountain‘s dreadful theories, which stop at nothing]
  • “j’en suis arrivé à n’appeler malheur que les choses irréparables” [I have come to describe as misfortune only that which cannot be altered]
  • Laurence Sterne: “Conscience, que me veux-tu?” [Conscience, what would you have me do?]
  • “la douleur est comme la vie … il y a toujours quelque chose d’inconnu au-delà” [suffering is like life… there is always something unknown beyond it]
  • “le vieux patricien … semblait un seigneur parfait toutes les fois qu’il ne parlait point et ne faisait point d’arithmétique” [the old patrician seemed like a perfect nobleman whenever he refrained from speaking and did no arithmetic]

Longer quote

J’ai obtenu avec un banquier, mon confrère, la concession d’un chemin de fer, seule industrie qui de nos jours présente ces chances fabuleuses de succès immédiat qu’autrefois Law appliqua pour les bons Parisiens, ces éternels badauds de la spéculation, à un Mississippi fantastique. Par mon calcul on doit posséder un millionième de rail comme on possédait autrefois un arpent de terre en friche sur les bords de l’Ohio.

[I’ve obtained, with a fellow banker, the rights to a railroad, the only industry that currently has the fabulous possibility for immediate success that Law, speaking to the good Parisians – always an enthusiastic audience for an investment frenzy – once ascribed to a fantastical Mississippi. By my calculations one should own a thousandth of a railroad in the same way one used to own an acre of fallow land on the shores of the Ohio.]

December 2024 books read

  • James and the Giant Peach – Roald Dahl, 1961. Comfort re-read.
  • The Big U – Neal Stephenson, 1984. For a long time this was one of my favorite books, and I even wrote Stephenson a fan letter about it (picked up from the remainders at Harvard Bookstore not too long after it was published). I still enjoyed it very much, but I do see its flaws more now.
  • White Noise – Don DeLillo, 1985. Great Books selections, quotes TBD. I double-dipped with the Massachusetts Center for the Book December challenge: “A well-reviewed book in your least favorite genre.” Literary fiction fits the bill! I wrote: “Very funny, challenging, weird novel of ideas and people who all talk in the same particular way – but it works.”
  • The Bear – Andrew Krivak, 2020. I get Tim Ferris’ email newsletter and read it sometimes; he highly recommended this. I loved the indirect reference and homage to Randall Jarrell’s The Animal Family, one of my great books of all time, but this didn’t reach those heights – pretty good, not great.
  • The Human Age: The World Shaped by Us – Diane Ackerman, 2014. Nature Environment selection I regretted! Quotes pulled, TBD.
  • The Mouse and His Child – Russell Hoban, 1967. I can’t count the number of times I’ve read this. It’s got everything: the hero’s quest, found family, the joys of philosophy and performing, the Droste effect, news headlines vs reality… still a perfect novel to me after first reading it in the early ’70s.
  • Extra(Ordinary) People – Joanna Russ, 1984. I’ve mentioned my love for “Souls,” and immediately ordered this when I belatedly found out about this collection just a few weeks ago. But to me, the other four stories don’t come anywhere near it.
  • A Skeleton in the Family – Leigh Perry, 2013. Jonathan was a classmate of the author’s husband – a super roundabout path to get to this quite nice cozy mystery featuring a talking skeleton. Luckily that was the only paranormal aspect and it’s not exactly explained, which I appreciated – he’s just another wisecracking character.

Short stories

The Amherst Book Club started reading the Penguin Book of the Modern American Short Story to keep as a palate cleanser between books (we started The Magic Mountain this month), and these two were the first session. A great idea and very enjoyable to discuss!

  • “The Lesson” – Toni Cade Bambara, 1972
  • “The Fix” – Percival Everett, 1999

Year in Review

Per Goodreads, 111 books and 29,240 pages (lower than the past few years, but I’ve been much busier!). Shortest Otto: El Oso de Libro, and longest Moby-Dick; most “shelved” (e.g. “read,” but I guess they’re leaving room for other meanings) The Fellowship of the Ring (not a suprise!) and least the Tintin classic Le Temple du Soleil (only four, but maybe there aren’t many Francophones on Goodreads?).

On the blog, I kept up with the monthly lists and I’m treading water on transcribing quotes. I’m up to 384 published posts and 213 drafts. Next year will be busy as well, so I’ll be happy if I can keep this up, and if I get back to finishing the quote dumps at some point in the future, that will be nice. Since basically nobody reads this blog, it’s just for my own satisfaction anyway!

November 2024 books read

  • The Great God Pan – Arthur Machen, 1890. This has been on my radar forever, but what prompted me to finally read it was our friend Harold pointing me to Bob Dylan’s tweet saying it’s one of his favorite books. He’s a strange man and it’s a strange book – clearly it influenced Lovecraft a lot.
  • Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen – Christopher McDougall, 2009. Another long-dweller in the TBR list. I got so much out of the Eric Orton book that I finally picked this up. I did finish it but kind of hated it, especially the way McDougall exaggerates everything.
  • The Memory Police – Yoko Ogawa. Second Monday; I didn’t love it but we had a good discussion. Only one thing I looked up, ramune candy (akin to Smarties?) and one quote: “A heart has no shape, no limits. That’s why you can put almost any kind of thing in it, why it can hold so much. It’s much like your memory, in that sense.”
  • Souls – Joanna Russ, 1982. My go-to when I am distressed about humanity, so I re-read this the day after the election.
  • The Arbornaut: A Life Discovering the Eighth Continent in the Trees Above Us – Margaret Lowman, 2021. Nature and Environment group selection, quotes TBD.
  • Kristin Lavransdatter v1: The Bridal Wreath – Sigrid Undset, 1920. Great Books selection, quotes TBD.
  • James – Percival Everett, 2024. Amherst Book Club, quotes TBD.
  • Erasure – Percival Everett, 2001. Quotes TBD.
  • The Book of (More) Delights – Ross Gay, 2019. Massachusetts Center for the Book November challenge: “A relaxing, soul-soothing book.” I wrote: “A wonderful follow-up to one of my favorite books of the past decade. Gay’s wise, sharp, funny, touching essays find beauty and challenge in the everyday.” I was lucky enough to get this signed at his reading in Northampton – if you ever have a chance to see him speak, don’t miss it! He is even lovelier, warmer, and funnier in person.
  • On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century – Timothy Snyder, 2017. I’d meant to read this for ages. It’s very good, and brought me the tiniest gleam of hope…