{"id":3360,"date":"2023-06-30T20:37:00","date_gmt":"2023-07-01T00:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.salticid.com\/bookblog\/?p=3360"},"modified":"2023-07-14T17:04:28","modified_gmt":"2023-07-14T21:04:28","slug":"june-2023-books-read","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.salticid.com\/bookblog\/2023\/06\/june-2023-books-read\/","title":{"rendered":"June 2023 books read"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><em>The Trees<\/em> &#8211; Percival Everett, 2021. Quotes marked, TBD.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>Desert Notebooks: A Road Map for the End of Time<\/em> &#8211; Ben Ehrenreich, 2020. Quotes marked, TBD.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>The Dead Zone<\/em> &#8211; Stephen King, 1979. One of my favorite novels, which I re-read in 2016 because it&#8217;s partly about the rise of an unhinged politician. Relevant again now, alas. On the positive side, it has a great depiction of a teenager overcoming a reading block, and a star-crossed couple who can&#8217;t be together and yet have an emotionally satisfying resolution.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>Little Lord Fauntleroy<\/em> &#8211; Frances Hodgson Burnett, 1886. Comfort re-read.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>Ginnie and Her Juniors<\/em> &#8211; Catherine Woolley, 1963. Another childhood favorite, but I hadn&#8217;t re-read this in a long time. It&#8217;s number 6 in a series (&#8220;Ginnie and Geneva&#8221;) &#8211; this is the only one I&#8217;ve read and I&#8217;m not driven to check the others out, despite the vivid writing. What I most enjoy is the climactic moment when Ginnie soothes a high-strung toddler that her parents can&#8217;t manage. Poor Ginnie&#8217;s mother gives good advice, but all she herself does is cook&#8230;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>The Song of the Lark<\/em> &#8211; Willa Cather, 1915 (although Cather revised it later &#8211; details in the post I&#8217;ll eventually build around the quotes)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>Birnam Wood<\/em> &#8211; Eleanor Catton, 2023. Read for the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.massbook.org\/readingchallenge\">Massachusetts Center for the Book<\/a>\u00a0June challenge, &#8220;a book set in a country you&#8217;ve never visited.&#8221; I wrote &#8220;Compelling, well-written thriller that gives a real feel for New Zealand&#8217;s people and countryside.&#8221; It was more place-educational than I expected; I learned the terms <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Hap%C5%AB\">hap\u016b<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Hui_(M%C4%81ori_assembly)\">hui<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Iwi\">iwi<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Oamaru_stone\">Oamaru stone<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Pasifika_New_Zealander\">Pasifika<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/R%C5%ABnanga\">r\u016bnanga<\/a> and some indigenous plants (harakeke, horopito, toetoe, totara). Plus this slang: &#8220;\u2018Tu meke is, like, thanks. In the sense of, you didn\u2019t have to do that. Above and beyond.\u2019&#8221; &#8220;\u2018And hard out is, like, impressive,\u2019 Jessica said. \u2018Like, awesome, I\u2019m impressed.\u2019&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Short stories<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Seven members of the Amherst College slow read group went on a camping retreat together and read four stories. We tackled them in order of length, with hiking and eating in between. It was delightful! We read:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>&#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/etgarkeret.com\/media\/uploads\/files\/the_next_to_last_time_i_was_shot_out_of_a_cannon_by_etgar_keret.pdf\">The Next to Last Time I Was Shot Out of a Cannon<\/a>,&#8221; by Etgar Keret, 2019<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>&#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/magazine\/2003\/12\/22\/extra-4\">Extra<\/a>,&#8221; by Yiyun Li, 2003<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>&#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/magazine\/archive\/2023\/03\/ben-okri-short-story-third-law-magic\/672783\/\">The Third Law of Magic<\/a>,&#8221; by Ben Okri, 2023 (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.salticid.com\/bookblog\/2023\/02\/february-2023-books-read\/\">my contribution<\/a>)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>&#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/magazine\/2004\/03\/22\/passion-alice-munro\">Passion<\/a>,&#8221; by Alice Munro, 2004<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Short stories Seven members of the Amherst College slow read group went on a camping retreat together and read four stories. We tackled them in order of length, with hiking and eating in between. It was delightful! We read:<\/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-3360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-monthly-lists"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.salticid.com\/bookblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3360","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=3360"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.salticid.com\/bookblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3360\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3428,"href":"https:\/\/www.salticid.com\/bookblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3360\/revisions\/3428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.salticid.com\/bookblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.salticid.com\/bookblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.salticid.com\/bookblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}