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 movies 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.