{"id":1476,"date":"2021-02-28T15:58:00","date_gmt":"2021-02-28T20:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.salticid.com\/bookblog\/?p=1476"},"modified":"2023-10-21T10:11:43","modified_gmt":"2023-10-21T14:11:43","slug":"february-2021-books-read","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.salticid.com\/bookblog\/2021\/02\/february-2021-books-read\/","title":{"rendered":"February 2021 books read"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><em>Making Shapely Fiction<\/em> &#8211; Jerome Stern, 1991 &#8211; quotes pulled, TBD<\/li><li><em>Machines Like Me<\/em> &#8211; Ian McEwan, 2019 &#8211; quotes pulled, TBD<\/li><li><em>The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History<\/em> &#8211; John M. Barry, 2004 &#8211; quotes pulled, TBD<\/li><li><em>Darkness at Noon<\/em> &#8211; Arthur Koestler (tr. Daphne Hardy), 1941 &#8211; quotes pulled, TBD<\/li><li><em>The Death of Ivan Illych<\/em> &#8211; Leo Tolstoy (tr. Louis and Aylmer Maude), 1886 &#8211; I recall this being my father-in-law&#8217;s favorite book, which is what prompted me to read it originally. I think this was only my second go-through, prompted by a <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.lse.ac.uk\/theforum\/\">Forum for Philosophy<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=8buU8ex9-mM\">discussion<\/a> I heard about through the Amherst College group that read <em>Anna Karenina<\/em>. Wonderful but I only pulled two quotes so not worth a whole post:<ul><li>&#8220;No one pitied him as he wished to be pitied. &#8230; He longed to be petted and comforted.&#8221;<\/li><li>&#8220;&#8216;Maybe I did not live as I ought to have done,&#8217; it suddenly occurred to him. &#8216;But how could that be, when I did everything properly?&#8217; he replied, and immediately dismissed from his mind this, the sole solution of all the riddles of life and death, as something quite impossible.&#8221;<\/li><\/ul><\/li><li><em>Philadelphia Here I Come<\/em> &#8211; Brian Friel, 1965. Read for the Irish Writers book group. I usually don&#8217;t pull a lot of quotes from play scripts, but WOW, what a fantastic play. I watched two versions: a recording of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=exVwZT2EtPk\">a live production<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=SXXKIL0suCg\">the movie<\/a>. The first had too many paraphrased lines, the second took too many liberties, and neither captured the play&#8217;s brilliance, especially the final scene. I would love to see a good production live! The conceit of the Public and Private Gars (same person, as seen by others and only to himself) is cool. I was amused enough to quote to Jonathan this exchange from when Public is fantasizing about his future in America, picking up a girl in his apartment building: &#8220;Mind if I walk you past the incinerator, to the elevator?&#8221; &#8220;You&#8217;re welcome, slick operator.&#8221;<\/li><li><em>Still Life<\/em> &#8211; Louise Penny, 2005 &#8211; My <a href=\"http:\/\/www.salticid.com\/marathon\/?p=637\">kidney recipient<\/a> recommended this series and I love reading other people&#8217;s favorite books as a way to get to know them better&#8230; figured I should start with the first one. I liked it quite a bit, and I&#8217;m on hold for the next in the series. I&#8217;m intrigued by Penny <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gamacheseries.com\/still-life\/re-read\/\">saying<\/a> &#8220;Just as I created a community I would live in in Three Pines, and villagers I would choose as friends &#8230; I also intentionally created, in Armand, a man I would marry. Because, in many ways, I knew if\u00a0<em>Still Life<\/em>\u00a0spawned a series it would become like a marriage. And he needed to have the qualities I admire in a man. In anyone. The qualities I strive for, and so often fall short of, myself.&#8221;<\/li><li><em>The Best of Henry Kuttner<\/em> &#8211; Henry Kuttner, 1965. I read most of these stories in anthologies multiple times, and this particular collection at least once many years ago.  Jonathan was trying out some of the funny stories (&#8220;The Proud Robot&#8221; led him to a collection of &#8220;Gallegher&#8221; stories, which I&#8217;ll probably read at some point) so I picked this up again. Most of the humor has paled on me; I remember laughing out loud at &#8220;A Gnome There Was,&#8221; but now&#8230; not so much.<\/li><li><em>The Circus of Dr. Lao<\/em> &#8211; Charles G. Finney, 1935. I&#8217;ve known of this for years but finally read it and I&#8217;m sorry I waited so long &#8211; it is cra-zy, way more out there than I realized. Not much of a novel per se, but a surreal and fantastical experience with a quintessentially middle-America vibe; apparently Bradbury loved it and it inspired his carnival-set <em>Something Wicked This Way Come<\/em>s (have read, don&#8217;t remember at all).<\/li><\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Making Shapely Fiction &#8211; Jerome Stern, 1991 &#8211; quotes pulled, TBD Machines Like Me &#8211; Ian McEwan, 2019 &#8211; quotes pulled, TBD The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History &#8211; John M. Barry, 2004 &#8211; quotes pulled, TBD Darkness at Noon &#8211; Arthur Koestler (tr. Daphne Hardy), 1941 &#8211; quotes pulled, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-monthly-lists"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.salticid.com\/bookblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.salticid.com\/bookblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.salticid.com\/bookblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.salticid.com\/bookblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.salticid.com\/bookblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1476"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.salticid.com\/bookblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1476\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1531,"href":"https:\/\/www.salticid.com\/bookblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1476\/revisions\/1531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.salticid.com\/bookblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.salticid.com\/bookblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.salticid.com\/bookblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}