Joe's Fifth Book Cafe of 2026

Books Read in 2026

January 2026

1. This Place Kills Me by Mariko Tamaki*
2. Carl’s Doomsday Scenario by Matt Dinniman
3. The Day the Moon and Earth Had an Argument* by David Duff, The Crystal Heart* by Aaron Shephard, and The Knives* by Brubaker/Phillips.
4. Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens.
5. Drawing on Walls* by Matthew Burgess.
6. Isola by Allegra Goodman. Good but not great story of parentless Marguerite growing up spoiled by her rich circumstances, but still good-hearted, in a medieval castle-type setting, until her guardian uncle sells her lands and takes heron a journey to the New World - Canada. She ends up left on an empty stony island where she overcomes her coddled upbringing and survives under animal and weather duress. She finally makes herway back to France and is reunited with her dear friend Claire, and all turns out well.
7. The Correspondent by Virginia Evans. An epistolary novel. The life of in-her-70s Sybil Van Antwerp, as revealed in letters to and from her, and some unsent ones. She mentors a brilliant but socially teenage boy, who lives with her when things are their worst. She spars with her daughter Fiona, both of them longing for a better relationship but can’t figure out how to get it. She reveals all - almost all - to her best friend Rosalie, who has exchanged letters with her since they were little girls. Sybil lost her young son under heart-rending circumstances that broke her family apart and caused her husband to leave her. Now, at her advanced age, she finds herself caught between two men who both want her. And she unexpectedly learns she has a closely similar sister in Scotland she knew nothing about.. Well done and worthy of the popularity it has attained mainly through word of mouth.

8.Twelve Months by Jim Butcher. Harry Dresden is back, in another corker of a story. Queen Mab of the winter court has appointed Harry her Winter Knight, and told him he will be marrying Lara Raith, currently head of the White Court of Vampires. Harry is still mourning the loss of Karrin Murphy, a cop who battled alongside him and who reciprocated his love.. Harry., as usual, is not inclined to be easily compliant to authority, but Lara is intoxicatingly beautiful and brilliant in her own right, and Queen Mab has sufficient power to make it stick. Meanwhile, Harry is dedicated to freeing his half-brother Thomas (a vampire) from the clutches of a Hunger demon, and to free Thomas’s kidnapped pregnant wife, too. Lots of good ingredients for a juicy tale, and as usual Butcher manages to blend them into a tasty and satisfying dish.

February 2026

9. Stolen in Death by J.D. Robb. Another solid Eve-Roarke procedural, centered around stolen jewelry and a seemingly unnecessary death. Roarke had connections to the jewelry, and a woman from his past surfaces.

10. Villette by Charlotte Bronte. See review below.

11. A Bride’s Story 15 by Kaoru Mori. In this one we’re mostly in England instead of the Silk Road, as Smith brings Talas home with the intention of marrying her. His parents disapprove, of course, and think she must be from India (she’s from Turkistan, IIRC). They settle in his family’s enormous “cottage”, with sheep for Talas to happily tend. Mori’s drawing skills continue to impress and even improve.

12. Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. Review below.

13. Anti-Hero by Gregg Hurwitz. Descent into the sordid porn and abuse of women business. During an epileptic seizure in public, Anca is kidnapped by four teenage men who proceed to brutalize and rape her, then sell the film to a porn site. Evan, with the help of his techno-wizard adopted daughter Joey, and former nemesis Candy, rescues Anca, tracks down the young men and brings them to justice via new nemesis FBI agent Naomi Templeton, who’s wiiling to work with him on this. He also straightens out a falling añart billionaire genius, who in turn helps him destroy the porn site that is fomenting the abuse.

March 2026

14. Antarctica by Claire Keegan. Short stories by the author of Foster and Small Things Like These. She was able to convey a lotbin those short novels, and the same happens here. The title story is a masterwork as a woman dissatisfied with her marriage goes on a risky adventure. The author has a knack for ending a story sooner than you’d expect, with perfection, so that you’re satisfied yet your mind carries on the story into what happens beyond. Looking forward to her next novel.

15. Murder in Mistake by Anne Cleeland. Kathleen Doyle once again uses his truth-sorting powers and dream visits from a ghost to help her husband Lord Acton solve a complicated set of murders where veiled motives cause misdirection. There’s a new baby girl who needs breast-feeding, but Doyle handles a busy maternity leave with her usual aplomb. Love this series; always a pleasure to reunite with Doyle and Acton.

16. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett.* A competently done graphic version. This story is always appealing, but I kept thinking of the much more magical illustrations of Inga Moore.

17. Lucas Wars by Laurent Hopman.*

18. Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman. The first in a silly fun post-apocalyptic series.

19. The Crossroads by CJ Box. A Joe Pickett mystery in which Joe is in a hospital bed coma for most of it, after an ambush that gave him a bullet wound to the head. His three daughters investigate, which is fun.

20. The Hard Line by Mark Greaney. Another exciting Gray Man adventure. This time Court Gentry, the GM, is working with a team to thwart a Chine attempt to take over U.S. intelligence services with the help of high-up traitors. They send multiple GM-level assassins to kill key intelligence operatives. Among them are two with personal scores to settle with the Gray Man. One targets the GM’s father, which results in the GM and his father teaming up to fight a half dozen trained killers. Another fun thriller in this reliably action-filled series.

21. Please Wait to Cross by our cousin Elissa Bass. I enjoyed her Happy Hour, but this one a little less. Part of that is the inclusion of a somewhat grisly murder scene in an otherwise lightish romance novel. I can definitely see why she did it -it sets up a future valuable section about the main character’s good works, but yhe tonal asymmetry didn’t work for me.

22. Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis. The first half of this novel about an unhappy academician trying to get tenure at and Oxford/Cambridge-type university had me wondering why the book is revered. (I got it off that BBC Top 100 list). The introduction talks about how much Amis detested the academic environment and hidebound tradition, and it shows. In the second half Jim becomes more sympathetic, and his passive agressivevbattles with forces thst be (the main villain is named Welch, but I didn’t hold that against the book), and efforts to mollify a histrionic romantic interest while also pursuing a level-headed beauty made the reading much more interesting. As impossible as it seemed early on, thigs work out okay for Lucky Jim.

23. Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. Not my cuppa. An intolerably Christian father who oppresses his wife and daughters, and tries to force his Christian beliefs on African natives (the Congo) without for am minute considering their existing beliefs or, for that matter, their daily lives.

24. Theo of Golden by Allen Levi. The self-published phenomenon by a first-time author. A huge bestseller. Theo is a handsome, charming 86 year old man who comes to a small Georgia town, Golden, and keeps information about himself under wraps. He loves a local artist’s portraits of the townspeople and proceeds to buy them bit by bit. He arranges to give their portrait to each subject in exchange for time discussing their lives. In this way he becomes a valued member of the community. I enjoyed the community members and Theo, and Levi deftly mixes it up so it doesn’t get repetitive. Turns out that Theo had quite a life pre-Golden, and has unexpected connections to the town. A well done feel good novel.

25. Becoming Yourself by Shunryu Suzuki. Suzuki was an influential Zen master and author of one of my favorite Buddhist books. Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind. This one is a loose collection of transcribed talks Suzuki gave at the San Francisco Zen Center, which my Chicago Zen Center is affiliated with. I love his lighthearted skepticism about all the behavioral rules (e.g. the 16 precepts). His view: they’re important, but don’t overweight them. If you sit (meditate) well and get yourself into the compassionate Buddhist mindset, you’ll be fulfilling them without even thinking about it. The book also has a chapter by his wife about her life with Suzuki, and Suzuki’s explanation of how he learned Zen, and how and why he came to America to teach us Buddhism. Start with Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind. If you love it, you’ll want to read this one.

26. The Waves by Virginia Woolf. My goddaughter’s favorite of hers, and one of the BBC Top 100. Very poetic writing; consists of a half dozen or so freeflowing interior monologues interspersed witb lovely descriptions of the sea and shore. Stuctured from sunrise to sunset, it tracks the connected characters as they age from young to old. Explores the growth of identity and aspirations for unity over loneliness. Impressive, but my favorites remain Mrs. Dalloway and A Room of One’s Own.

27. The Astral Library by Kate Quinn. This fantasy novel on its face seemed like such a departure for this author of excellent historical novels like The Alice Network, The Rose Code and The Briar Club. But her Afterword makes it clear that she’s been an avid fantasy reader her whole life. She makes good use of that knowledge, as this novel features the ability to enter and live in the books of the Astral Library. This is a godsend for 26 year old Alix, who after being raised in multiple foster homes is eking out a meager existence cobbling together part time jobs, including one at the Boston Public Library. The Librarian in the AL is ancient and dragon- tough, and somewhat reluctantly takes on Alix as an assistant. This lead to adventures in multiple books, as the AL seems to be under a mysterious attack. Wearing the right clothing in books such as Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice is always an issue, particularly since the library’s funding (of course) has been cut, like every library’s. Luckily Alix’s best friend Beau is a rising fashion design star who can kit her out. Dire dilemmas relating to the attacks keep the book hopping, and it ended up being a very enjoyable diversion in our stressful time. A book lover’s, and fantasy lover’s delight. Given her enjoyment of the genre, I suspect that this is not the last we’ll see of Alix and the AL.

April 2026

28. Oh Brother by Georgina Chadderton. A graphic memoir from Austria about a young girl growing up with a brother very much on the autism spectrum. Rob is mostly non- verbal, so clever that they have combination locks on every door, and sometimes violent. Her parents are great with him, but he affects every aspect of their lives. Taking him to get his haircut or to the dentist is a major operation which he resists. Gina has trouble making friends but makes a good one in Callie, who puts up with Rob even after he bites her. Gina has her own anxieties and difficulties at school, but loves Rob and knows he always has to come first. . From an afterword we know that Rob becomes increasingly difficult, and after he turns 18 is moved to a house that provides proper. Gina learns at 32 that she’s on the spectrum, too. . What I particularly liked about this book is I haven’t often gotten this perspective from a sibling on a spectrum-resider. The graphics were so-so.

29. There is No Antimemetics Division by qntm. A VERY high concept sci-fi book about battling a creature who preys on memories.

30. The Violence: My Family’s Colombian War by Adrian’s Es Ramirez.
31. More Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa. Liked its “Days” predecessor a lot. The first half was a snooze.💤 Peaceful, but not much happening. The second half took a turn for the much better, with suppressed characters opening up to each other. I ended up glad I read it, and I’ll read more by this author.

32. Anger by Thich Nhat Hanh. Subtitled “Wisdom for Cooling the Fames”, I found it very helpful in trying to defuse and calm down my anger. Mindful breathing, embracing the anger and taking care of it like a loved one, rather than suppressing it or”venting it”. He says the last may give temporary relief, but in the end it just feeds the anger. Lots of good stuff about getting relationships back on track, the roles of parents, and more. Glad I read this one.

33. Transition by Ben Lerner. A disappointment that probably is my fault. Book critics have been robustly supportive of this one, and it basically sailed over my head. Supposedly an examination of memory and digital recording in novel form, it unfortunately did little for me. The most interesting part was when the main character’s daughter had an eating disorder that got straightened out.

May 2026

34. The Faraway Inn by Sarah Beth Durst. This cozy fantasy was delightful from beginning to end. It took me back to the first fantasies I read as a lad, and the pleasure I took in them. Clarisa’s boyfriend breaks her heart, and she needs to get away for the summer to heal. Her Aunt Zee needs help at her Vermont Inn, which turns out to have some wonderful secrets and surprising guests. A treat to read.

35. Woods & Words: The story of Poet Mary Oliver by Sara Holly Ackerman.

36. Siddhartha by Herman Hesse. Re-read. Spiritual and Buddhist, but also warmly personal and touching. This was an impressive re-read: not an easy subject to make so appealing.

37. Not in Love by Ali Hazelwood. Like our daughter, I’ve enjoyed this author’s STEM romances. This non-STEM one was just okay.

38. Platform Decay by Martha Wells. It has the humor we’ve all enjoyed, led by SecUnit’s skepticism concerning all things human, sometimes surfacing as distaste (e.g., our constant need for bathrooms) and sometimes an inability to understand (why the attempts to interpret his expression). I was a little disappointed by the somewhat unilinear plot: Murderbot has to rescue humans trapped on a space station from pursuing corporate villains out to capture or kill them. He connives his way through the ginormous space station, hoping to reconnect with an escape shuttle. His rescuees include weak and incomprehensible (to him) children whom he must reluctantly accommodate. It’s fun, but for me doesn’t reach the heights of some of its predecessors.

39. Wild for Austen by Devoney Looser. It’s subtitled “A Rebellious, Subversive and Untamed Jane”. The author is a well-known Austen scholar with other Austen books under her belt. This one seeks to dispel the notion that Austen was a cloistered, prim village girl with little exposure to the outside world. Looser’s arguments are effective. Through her brothers and other relatives and acquaintances she got around much more than commonly thought, and her inner fire was often on display. An authorial tic that annoyed me was Looser’s repeated use of the word “wild” to advance her premise. Among the otherwise skillful writing and meticulous research, it felt surprisingly amateurish. Still, I was impressed by the breadth of her knowledge and the depth of that research. It was great learning more about a favorite author and her works. I’m re-inspired to dig into her sometimes naughty, sometimes hilariously mean-spirited Juvenalia.

40. The Golden Hour by Niki smith.*. A well-done 235 page graphic story about Manuel, 10-11 years old, who was traumatized by a school shooter, but thought to pull the fire alarm and ended up saving his art teacher. A school project leads to friendship with white farm boy Sebastian and black classmate Caysha, both of whom help Manuel (who is Latin) when he gets triggered by noises or events.

It’s well done - also featuring realistic parents who are open-minded- and I hope it gets found by YAs and middle grade readers. The warm friendships are a highlight.

41. Out Law by Jim Butcher. A fun outing with Chicago wizard Harry Dresden. Harry is teaching a young apprentice wizard named Fitz, who knows how to create fire and some other things, but is ignorant of a whole lot more. Meanwhile chief gangster Marcone has called in a chip to have Harry help an annoying low echelon gangster, Tripp, go straight. It turns out Tripp is owed $10 mill by a rival gang leader after winning a bet, and the rival would rather kill him than pay it. The rival has a fantastically strong black blob called The Lurker doing what he asks; it gets inside animals and people and takes them over. The rival’s right hand man has the Lurker inside him. Harry, helped by the Valkyrie Bear, has to keep Tripp safe, get the $10 million for Tripp’s legit new charity, and defeat the rival and the Lurker. He figures out a clever way to do that with the help of Demonreach, and at the same time teach both Fitz and Tripp some valuable lessons.. I was very happy to have another Harry Dresden story to read.

42. Night Watch by Kevin Young. One of the best poetry collections I’ve read in a while. I always find it hard to describe poetry collections. I’ll think some more and maybe post an excerpt or two. Meanwhile I’m going to look for his previous collection, Stones.

43. Names and Faces by Leise Hook. A well-illustrated graphic memoir about a biracial Asian/white girl. She’s caught betwixt and between and has trouble figuring out her own identity. She grows up to look white. Her happiest time seemed to be when she was in an international school filled with mixed race children. There nobody thought there was something odd about her appearance.

She explores her Chinese heritage and experiments with her hair, going through a blonde phase. The lack of Asian role models, including in American girl dolls, troubles her mind. It’s all interesting enough, and caused me to think a lot more about what life is like for biracial people. But there is no real resolution. I suspect that there will be a second book covering more of her journey. She appears to marry a white man, so there may be more ruminations not only about her own identity, but that of any children.

44. This Book Made Me Think of You by Libby Page. A charmer in which a widow’s late husband leaves her a book a month for a year at a local bookstore, with a letter for each as to why. Some send her on adventures, others have other purposes. In the process the bookstore personnel also have an effect on her life. An enjoyable read, and each chapter begins with book recommendations from the bookstore owner which hit the spot for me and lead me already to a good book I hadn’t known about.

45. Tales from the Cafe by Kai Taksini. A follow-up to Before the Coffee Gets Cold in which the cafe time travelers travel to the past, and in one instance the future, to deal with grief issues. There are two more books in this series that I’ll likely read.

46. If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin. A family in crisis at an unexpected pregnancy and a racist cop who put the innocent father in prison.

June 2026

47. Visitations: Poems by Julia Alvarez, the author of A Time of Butterflies. Very satisfying poems that read like short stories, covering memories from her entire life, which started in the Dominican Republic. In an afterward she notes that she was first published as a poet and that this volume isn’t a departure from novel-writing but a return to her love of poetry. I’ll be looking for earlier collections.

48. The World’s Greatest Detective and Her Just Okay Assistant by Liza Tully. Like many others, I imagine, I couldn’t resist that title! Merritt is the terse, brusque, detail-retentive detective, and Blunt is her enthusiastic, not as bright assistant who is a good surrogate for the reader. It reminds me a bit of the Hawthorne and Horowitz relationship in Anthony Horowitz’s murder mysteries. Blunt also feels a bit under-used and disrespected.

It was quite enjoyable - was it suicide or murder? If murder, whodunnit and why? There’s a large cast of familial and other suspects. When it finished, the relationship had developed to where I thought, this likely is the start of a series and, sure enough, their new one will be out any minute now, The Forty Year Grudge.

49. Radiant Star by Ann Leckie, the author of the Ancillary books, starting with Ancillary justice. The good news is it’s an Imperial Radch book, à la the Ancillary books. Unfortunately I found it underwhelming. It features lots of religious, political, family and community jockeying for position, which other readers might find more interesting than I did. I gave it four stars; Leckie knows how to keep the pages turning. 1200+ Amazon readers gave it a slightly more enthusiastic 4.2 rating.

50. _Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury. It took us quite a while to read it to each other, but it was worth it. The summer of young Doug Spaulding and brother Tom in 1928 small town Illinois. Lovely storytelling, with one reminder after another of the simple gifts life brings us - a new pair of sneakers for Doug that has him running and jumping with poetic revelry, an old man whose vivid stories of years gone by have the boys viewing him as a Time Machine. This book had a profound positive effect on teenage disaffected me.

51. The Lions’ Run by Sara Pennypacker, author of the terrific Pax. This one is excellent, too, as young Lucas helps the French Resistance during Nazi occupation. A rare 5 stars on Amazon with 1700+ reviews.

52. Human Nature Vol. 1* by Dan Aronofsky. An interesting sci-fi graphic novel in which the protagonist arranges to get kidnapped by aliens in the hope of finding his disappeared daughter.

* Denotes a graphic work

Books One

Books Two

Books Three

Books Four

Books Five

Books Six

Books Seven

Looks like it's safe to step inside? Hope your technical difficulties are soon resolved, Joe.

>10 laytonwoman3rd:. You bet, Linda. I hope all is going well for you. Reading anything you particularly like lately?

I didn’t get a programming fix for the tech difficulties, but did get some strategies to reduce the risks of their happening. This new thread is one of them.😀

My best recent read was Rabbi Buchdahl's memoir, Heart of a Stranger, and right now I'm enjoying Jose Saramago's The Elephant's Journey. Life is pretty good.

Happy new thread, Joe. I'm hoping to get my own set up some time this weekend. It's just too gorgeous outside to waste at my computer. This perfect weather won't last long before the big heat starts and I need to take advantage. Besides gardening, I'm just soaking up sitting outside with a book.

I also just finished the same memoir Linda did, by Rabbi Angela Buchdahl. I thought of you a bit while reading it, as, if you hadn't known, she has a Jewish father and a Buddhist mother and she talks a fair bit about how they overlap and blend and made her who she is. I will have a review if I ever get my new thread set up.

>12 laytonwoman3rd:, Ah, thanks for letting me know, Linda. I’ve yet to read Saramago, believe it or not. I have his Blindness, and thought I’d start with that. Good idea?

Debbi might know Rabbi Buchdahl; nope, I just got a chance to ask her and she doesn’t. I hope you enjoy her memoir. Life does sound pretty good! I hope your weather is decent and the rest of your weekend continues in this groove.

>13 jessibud2:. Soaking up sitting outside with a book and gardening sounds most excellent. Ditto for me, except for the gardening. 😀. It’s gorgeous here; Debbi and Becca are running a very successful yard sale featuring Becca’s cast off books. She reads 200+ a year, and this is one way she funds new ones on a schoolteacher’s salary. Lazy moi provided set up muscle earlier, and now I’m keeping an eye on her dog Indy.

I’ll look for your review of Rabbi Angela Buhdahl’s book. You had me at Jewish father and Buddhist mother! It’s worked well in our house- we belong to a Reform temple that has no problem with my beliefs, and contributed a lot to our kids growing up well. Both children identify as Jewish, and let me sneak in some Buddhism on occasion. I’ll look for Angela and her book, too. Thich Nhat Hanh would be the first to say that Buddhism, with no deity, just the best way to live, works well with religions like Christianity and Judaism, and I imagine Islam, too.

>12 laytonwoman3rd:
I read Elephant's Journey and thought it was a very good work of historical fiction.

>14 jnwelch:
Blindness and its sequel Seeing are probably Saramago's most famous books. I started with Blindness and found it a fascinating work of fiction. It is probably his most political book. I say that because I think it is an allegory. At times I am not sure what it is an allegory for, but it is a book that stays with you and that I think about from time-to-time. And I read it about 15 years ago. It is very puzzling and powerful.

>14 jnwelch: I am experiencing Saramago for the first time myself, Joe. I am having a good time with his wit. As Benita says, it's historical fiction, because it is based on an actual event. But it's a clever exploration of human foibles, too. I'll definitely seek out more of his work.

As for Rabbi Buchdahl, she is currently the senior rabbi of Central Synagogue (a Reform congregation) in NYC. I'm sure I'd enjoy meeting her. My review of her book is here.

>14 jnwelch: Found in THE HEAVEN AND EARTH GROCERY STORE -

Shulchan Aruch

Wisdom
Meekness
Fear of God
Love of Truth
Love of People
Possession of a Good Name
Dislike of Money

(Yes, would definitely work with Judaism (!) and Christianity -
not certain about Islam, given how Mohammed opened his religion.)

New-thread orisons, Joe!

Happy new thread, Joe!

I hope it remains free of any issues that tangled the last one.

Happy new thread!

Happy number 5, Joe.

Happy new one, Joe!! Hope I post more than once on this one. ; ) Happy reading!

Happy Sunday, Joe. Happy New Thread! I am off to MI, so I will check in when I return.

>15 benitastrnad:. That’s very encouraging for Blindness, Benita, thanks. Sounds like my kind of book.

>16 laytonwoman3rd:. Heart of a Stranger sounds great, Linda. Thanks for the link to your well-done review. That’s the best, when an author makes you wish you had the chance to hang out with her on a regular basis.

I didn’t realize you were newly experiencing Saramago. You and Benita have moved him right up the TBR hill.

>17 m.belljackson:. Intriguing, Marianne, thanks. Heaven and Earth Grocery Store is a great book, isn’t it. The knowledgeable Jewish component surprised me after Deacon King Kong. I forgot about his mother.

I need to learn more about Islam.

>18 richardderus:. Thanks, Richard! The word “orisons” always makes me think of angels singing.😀

>19 quondame:. Thanks, Susan. Yes, so far so good on the technical difficulties. It’s a relief.

>20 figsfromthistle:. Thanks, Anita!

>21 PaulCranswick:. Thanks, Paul. 5’s my lucky number, so this bodes well.

>22 Berly: Thanks, Kim! No worries. It’s a treat when you can make it here, but I know you’re a busy woman. It’s fun to cross paths on Duolingo.

>23 msf59:. Happy Sunday, buddy. Have fun in Michigan!

>14 jnwelch: Our Book Club read Cain by Saramago a few years ago. Mixed reviews but I liked it.

Blindness is a good 'un too, but it's Saramago firing with both barrels. Neat, no chaser.

and a tip of the Hatlo Hat in celebration of your new thread Joe.

>25 jnwelch: Good starts for learning about Islam:

1. Islamic Empires by Justin Marozzi

2. Nomad by Ayaan Hirsi Ali

3. Heretic by Ayaan Hirsi Ali

All powerful and full of truth...

>30 m.belljackson:. Many thanks, Marianne. A little too ambitious for me right now, but I appreciate the thought.

>29 magicians_nephew:. Ha! Thanks for sending me into the archives, Jim. I imagine I’ve seen Jimmy Hatlo cartoons before, but didn’t properly appreciate who the cartoonist was. Apparently he’s the origin of “a tip of the hat”, which I use a lot. Thank you Jimmy and Jim.😀

>28 magicians_nephew:. Hmm. Thanks, Jim. Kudos to your adventurous book club. I wonder whether Seeing is the chaser to Saramago’s Blindness? Anyway, it sounds like I have a good place to start.

>31 jnwelch: Ayaan was Theo Van Gogh's closest friend when he was murdered by a Muslim -
with a note on his chest that she and Jewish people could be next...

The Dutch wanted her to leave her adopted country...

Happy new thread, Joe! I hope they get your technical difficulties straightened out.

>32 m.belljackson:. Thanks for the info, Marianne.

>33 Familyhistorian:. Thanks, Meg!

Abigail looked into the technical difficulties, but the true mystery seems destined to remain unsolved. The good news: her suggestion of a new thread is working well. The problems have disappeared, and I’m hoping they stay gone.

Happy new thread! Hope all of the technical issues stay away!

Happy new thread, Joe!

>32 m.belljackson:. Thanks for the info, Marianne.

>33 Familyhistorian:. Thanks, Meg!

Abigail looked into the technical difficulties, but the true mystery seems destined to remain unsolved. The good news: her suggestion of a new thread is working well. The problems have disappeared, and I’m hoping they stay gone.

Joe - The Great Stupa at Sanchi is featured in WONDERS OF THE ANCIENT WORLD - a remarkable old classic to revisit.

>35 foggidawn:. Thanks, Misti! I was just telling LT’s Abigail that there have been no problems since we started the new thread. Phew. Kinda like rebooting, I guess.

>36 drneutron:. Thanks, Jim! Have you been keeping up with Ann Leckie? I’m going to try Radiant Star.

>38 m.belljackson:. Fun, Marianne. Enjoy your armchair traveling!

Today’s Bargain: Sea of Tranquility by Emily St.John Mandel for $2.99 on e-readers. This cast its spell on me; she’s the author of the terrific Station Eleven.

>39 jnwelch: ps. It's a Buddhist shrine!

>39 jnwelch: I haven’t been - sounds like a good one!

>42 drneutron: 👍. It’s up next for me, Jim.

>41 m.belljackson:. Right, thanks, Marianne.

>40 jnwelch: You should enjoy that one!! And thanks for the continued bargain notifications. ; )

>40 jnwelch: And she has a new one out in September! I'm a huge fan too and I can't wait!

>44 Berly:. Good morning, Kim! I did enjoy Sea of Tranquility, and I’m glad that you did, too. What a most excellent author she is.

You’re welcome re the bargains. It’s always fun to see what’s being offered, and often to reminisce about a rewarding read.

>45 vivians:. Hi, Vivian. A new one from Emily St. John Mandel in September? Thanks - can’t wait! She’s a spellcaster, she is.

Hi Joe, mate, Happy New Thread dear friend. Hope this finds you, Debbi and the family all well.

Regarding Saramago, who is high on my list of favorite authors, Blindness was the first book of his that I read, in 2000 or 2001, which I thought was harrowing but absolutely brilliant. It does take time to get used to his sentence structure, though, as his sentences not infrequently extend beyond one page and they often lack quotations to let the reader know who is speaking.

As an alternative to Blindness I would highly recommend The Stone Raft and Death at Intervals (alternate title: Death with Interruptions), which are two great comic novels.

BTW the ebook version of The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis is on sale today for $2.99. It's considered as one of Saramago's greatest novels, and because I can't remember if I read it or not—LibraryThing tells me that I haven't, but it's possible I did before I became a member here in 2006—I decided to purchase it, along with Ancestor Stones by Aminatta Forna, another favorite author of mine.

>48 kidzdoc:
I ran across my copy of Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis a few weeks ago. Now that I know where it is, perhaps I can get it read?

>49 benitastrnad: I was looking at a summary of The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis last night, which reminded me that Ricardo Reis was one of the heteronyms of the great Portuguese writer Fernando Pessoa. I've been wanting to read my copy of Pessoa: A Biography by Richard Zenith ever since I visited Lisbon in 2018 or 2019. It's a door stopper, though, as it's slightly less than 1100 pages, so I don't know if I'll get to either book this year, or Pessoa's masterpiece The Book of Disquiet, which Zenith translated into English.

Today’s Bargain: The Miniature Wife by Manuel Gonzalez for $1.99 on e-readers.. A mind-bending short story collection. Clever and witty and askew.

>50 kidzdoc:
Pessoa was very famous in Portugal and lived in very difficult times under the Salazar regime. In many ways the history of Portugal parallels that of Spain under Franco. I really need to dig out that copy of Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis and get it read.

>52 benitastrnad: Right, Benita. I learned about all of this when I visited Portugal in 2018 or 2019.

>53 kidzdoc:. 👍

>52 benitastrnad:. Hi, Benita. I’ll need to find Pessoa and figure out which book is the best starter for me.

>50 kidzdoc:. Hi, Darryl. I thought heteronym was same spelling, but different meaning and pronunciation, like tear (rip) and tear (eye water)?

Would an uninitiated Pessoa tourist start with The Book of Disquiet?

>49 benitastrnad:. What got you started with Pessoa, Benita? Why were you drawn to his books?

>49 benitastrnad:. Congratulations on your liber-location, Benita.😀

>48 kidzdoc:. Thanks for the heads-up on the Saramago stylistic challenges, IDarryl. That will help stave off my “what the heck?” and to get me situated, and help me persist if it’s initially off-putting.

I’m taking mental note of his two great comic novels conditioned on my enjoying the boat trip down the river Blindness. Ditto re the bargain Ricardo Reis.

I read a different Aminatta Forna - Happiness - and wasn’t as taken by it as other readers were. Without more, I probably wouldn’t read another of hers.

>47 johnsimpson:. Hi, mate. Thanks a lot. We’re all well, and are taking a Disney cruise trip together to Alaska in two weeks. It should be a hoot with those two grandlittles on board.

I hope you and your expanding family are doing well, too. Are you reading hefty tomes again? I’ll stop by.

From Ghalen today: “It sounds like you are sometimes willing to give up what you need for others. That’s what it is to be a real man or woman.”

I like that definition. Makes me think of my days as a callow youth.

>54 jnwelch: Hi Joe, the word heteronym can have a different meaning when it's used in a literary sense. According to Wikipedia, "The literary concept of the heteronym refers to one or more imaginary character(s) created by a writer to write in different styles. Heteronyms differ from pen names (or pseudonyms, from the Greek words for "fake" and "name") in that the latter are just false names, while the former are characters that have their own supposed physiques, biographies, and writing styles." Pessoa used this technique in The Book of Disquiet to describe different characters, that I believe were meant to be alter egos of himself, but I haven't read the novel, or the biography I referred to, to know for certain.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heteronym_(literature)

>54 jnwelch: I'm sorry that reading Happiness didn't make you, um, happy. I gave it 4½ stars, so Forna may not be your cup of Joe.

I do learn a lot on your thread, Joe.

>59 ffortsa:. 😂. You and me both, Judy!

>58 kidzdoc:. Thanks, buddy. Yeah, one thing I’ve learned on LT more than anywhere else is that books that I assume eveyone will love because they were such a hit with me = nope. And it can be for unexpected reasons, like me not appreciating enough how a scene might affect dog lovers, or that some people are turned off by prevalent swear words. Or simply that what I found so exciting bores someone else.

I had a bookstore customer come in once who I didn’t know but as I remember it I learned that he loved flying and the space program, so I recommended Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff. Great research and writing, and right on topic. Had to be a reading home run, right? A week or so later he came back in just to let me know that he didn’t like the book at all. If it happened today I’d explore why, but back then I was too shocked by the failure and his animus to say much. Never saw him again. He probably found a store more on his wavelength.

Anyway, Happiness just didn’t grab me, and I don’t quibble with your 4.5. It was very well written, but missed me as a target. The same happened recently with Isola.

And I LOVED When the Cranes Fly South by Lisa Ridzen, and said so here (Debbi loved it, too). I’m sure a number of people thought, a novel about an old man dying, and his dog, and an uncomprehending son, and a muy simpático caregiver? Doesn’t exactly sound like a sunny day in the park. But it was so good! Makes me think of Kent Haruf, who so successfully delves into souls making do on cloudy days. Not everyone’s cuppa.

>57 kidzdoc:. Thanks so much for your patience, Darryl. I knew the term but had never heard that second, even more interesting meaning. I’ll have to think awhile about what authors I know that have used a heteronomic character like that. Yeah, it made me think of “alter ego”, too, but it’s not necessarily that, is it?

Google AI identifies the narrator and Tyler Durden as a heteronomic duo in Palahniuk’s Fight Club, and also cites the Saramago book you mention.

>60 jnwelch: I thought When the Cranes Fly South was OK, but I spent half the book wondering why the son didn't just hire a nearby kid/teen to walk the dog? Dog would still get his exercise and old guy would be happy 'cause he gets to keep his dog. Seems simple enough to me.

>62 kac522:. Yeah, me too, Kathy (hire a teen to walk the dog). Legit criticism.

My aggravation, as a reader, with the son reminded me of Haruf’s Our Souls at Night, where children interfered with their elders’ romance. Yes, the parent can become the child and the child the parent. But credit the oldster with some self-determination and respect that. My dad, as he became more and more incompetent, still wanted to stay in his house. My sisters and I moved heaven and earth to make that happen. I would’ve used your sensible solution for Bo and Sixten.

>63 jnwelch: Yes, my mother was the same and died at home with hospice caretakers. She insisted her hospital bed be put in the middle of the living room, so she could be in the midst of everything.

>57 kidzdoc: Fascinating literary concept. Trying to think of a book I've read that explores this...

>60 jnwelch: So many things affect our love of books -- #1 for me is they have to hit me at the right time or they might not be fully appreciated. No way you can accurately predict that for someone else when you make a recommendation, but I still do it! And I still want to get them. : )

Is it too late for me to wish you a happy new thread, Joe? Stopping by before I get too far behind to hope you have an excellent weekend!

Today’s Bargain: Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson for $1.99 on e-readers.My first of his, and still my favorite. A pizza delivery guy becomes critical to our survival.

>54 jnwelch:
I read Night Train to Lisbon by Pascal Mercier back in 2008. It was a book that was a best seller in Germany and was translated into other languages. English being one of them. Pessoa was mentioned several times in that book, and I knew nothing about him. I did a bit of looking into his life at that time. Actually, I recommend the Wikipedia page on him to people when they ask, because it is readable and contains lots of information about his life.

Pessoa, created several alter egos in his writing. He did exactly what Darryl describes in the meaning of the word heteronym. Pessoa created different personas and became those people while he was working on what he was writing. His real life was very different than these personas.

I have not read a single book of poetry by Pessoa, so can't make a recommendation. However, I can say that his poetry has had a profound effect on the citizens of Portugal. He is a national hero, and his work is beloved in that country. For that reason alone, his poetry, and a few novels, are defiantly required reading for people who want to understand modern Portugal.

I have read Saramago. I started reading his books when he won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Blindness was the first book of his I read. It was so powerful that I felt I had to read more of his work. The same thing happened to me when I read Gurnah for the first time. I can honestly say that I would never have read anything by either of these authors if they had not won the Nobel Prize. Both authors have opened up doors of understanding that I know I would not have had without their literature in my life.

Saramago, not only writes, powerful allegories, he writes very good historical fiction and contemporary novels. The contemporary novels are very good and allow the reader to enter into the lives of people who live in countries very different than mine. So far, I have only been touched remotely by repression, but the characters in the writing of both men mentioned above, have to live with repression all day - every day. So far, I have been lucky to not experience that kind of soul bending. I think we are on the cusp of that same kind of existence here in the US and it worries me, but at my age, it will probably occur after I am gone. That is a very selfish thought. I know it is the same as saying "not my problem. Let somebody else deal with it." Reading the works of these men helps me to understand others better, so I try to promote their work when I can.

We’re still having problems with ICE in Chicago. This happened yesterday:

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents crashed an SUV into a woman’s car before arresting a man later identified as Domer Jesus Martinez-Sifontes following a chase in Albany Park around 8 a.m. Tuesday near the intersection of Lawrence and Kedzie avenues, according to police, federal authorities and eyewitnesses.

“We should not have to live like this and be afraid. And we need to be protecting our neighbors,” said an eyewitness who asked for their name to be withheld out of fear of reprisal from federal authorities. “I don’t want to be on high alert when I take my dog out for a walk and stuff. I don’t want to live like that.”

ICE dropped an ammo magazine on the street and tackled the man roughly, and trained guns on the upset neighbors.

The Rest of Us live on Normally while this Monster Rages Unchecked.

A development I forgot to mention: thanks to Gov. Pritzker, Illinois has outlawed book banning. So those annoying yahoos can go to public meetings and demand book removals and now they’ll be told, “Sorry, no can do.” Hoorah! So far IL is the only state to do this, but I hope others pick up on it.

>60 jnwelch: I completely agree with you, Joe. Before I joined LibraryThing I was frequently astonished when someone expressed a completely different opinion about a book than mine, particularly someone whose literary tastes aligned closely with mine, but I now accept that we can't all like the same books, or the same things—such as beets!—and that's okay.

>61 jnwelch: The French author Antoine Volodine is another example of an author who uses heteronyms as a literary technique. I recently received a copy of his novel The Monroe Girls as part of my subscription to Archipelago Books, and this entry is included on the book's back cover:

Antoine Volodine writes under at least four heteronyms, including Lutz Bassmann, Manuela Draeger, and Elli Kronauer.

Google AI has this additional information:

Antoine Volodine is the primary pen name for a French author who uses dozens of fictional heteronyms to build a complex, interconnected literary universe known as "post-exoticism". This genre explores apocalypses, failed revolutions, and the Bardo state. The core heteronyms include:

• Lutz Bassmann: Often writes about underground militant groups, political prisoners, and the survivors of cataclysms.

• Manuela Draeger: Known for writing surreal, dark fables and detective stories that frequently feature sentient, talking animals and inanimate objects.

• Elli Kronauer: Represents another distinct voice in the post-exotic movement, blending political paranoia with science-fictional elements.

• Antoine Volodine: Acts as the primary spokesperson for the collective, orchestrating the works of the 49 supposed post-exotic authors.

Volodine’s works span over forty books, where characters, settings, and factions frequently cross over between the different heteronyms' works.

I have a sneaking suspicion that The Monroe Girls, which I haven't started yet, may be way over my head. 😂

>64 kac522:. A tip of the hat to your late mother, Kathy. Love that attitude!

It was sadder when my dad’s bed was in our living room. He had become uncooperative and my help was needed to clean him up - but the bedroom was too small. Soon after we had to move him into hospice.🥲

>65 Berly:. Right, Kim? Darryl’s literary heteronym has me thinking, too. One example I saw was Ben Franklin’s Poor Richard persona. I have this nagging feeling that I’ve read current writers using this technique.

Yeah, like you, I enjoy giving and getting recommendations too much to stop. I’m a mood reader, too, and share your feeling that I need to read the book at the right time. It’s rare that I mistime one, but it has happened.

>66 bell7:. It’s never too late to get new thread wishes, Mary, thanks.

We were just remembering your fun visit here. Looking forward to the next time next year we’re going to get the whole family out to Western Mass so our clan can spend time with Debbi’s cool relatives there. If that works out, I’ll let you know.

It’s an excellent weekend so far. I started with a two thumbs up doctor’s appointment. All my numbers are good, including my weight. Happy doctor, happy patient. Tomorrow is our neighborhood’s “progressive party” where we travel among 7-8 houses enjoying food and drink. We’re hosting one of the stops. We start the day with a belated birthday brunch for daughter Becca, which will reunite old friends of hers and ours. Plus I’m really enjoying Walter Mosley’s “black romance” Ghalen.

>68 benitastrnad:. Hi, Benita. I very much enjoyed Night Train to Lisbon, but (unfortunately) I didn’t follow up on those Pessoa references. It’s cool that you did.

I’ll have to look into Pessoa’s poetry. I’m intrigued.

You and Darryl and others are definitely inspiring me to explore Saramago’s writing, thanks.

I know what you mean about a concern about darkness descending in the near future. I remember as a young fella looking at my parents’ world and thinking, we’ll fix all those problems. And with Obama in office, I thought, here we go. And then came Trump and the Magas and the resurgence of racism and cruelty and retro- stupidity. What a spirit crusher. Now I feel bad about what we will be leaving the young ‘uns.

All I know to do is to keep pushing in the right direction. I’m happy to see the rise of Talarico in Texas - a Christian who actually follows Christ’s teachings and lines up with Democrat principles. And maybe the midterms will show a blue turn. We’ll see.

>70 m.belljackson:. Right, Marianne. Will the tables turn? I hope so.

>72 kidzdoc:. Right, Darryl? Yes, it’s important and healthy to realize that serious readers can differ in their reactions to books, and that not loving a book we love is okay.

However, you go a step too far when you suggest that reasonable people might like beets. That makes no sense to me.

>73 kidzdoc:. 😂. Just reading about Volodine is boggling my mind. What a complexity! It also has me wondering what the heck “post-exotic” is. Please let us know your reaction to The Monroe Girls when the time comes.

Man, that’s a lot of posts with no technical problems. Thank you, Abigail!

>75 jnwelch: Definitely keep me posted the next time you come out to western Mass, I would love to get together again. The progressive party sounds like a blast, and I hope you enjoy your time tonight.

>77 jnwelch: However, you go a step too far when you suggest that reasonable people might like beets. That makes no sense to me.

🙄 😂

>78 jnwelch: Right? I found this entry using Google AI, for what it's worth:

"Post-Exoticism" (Avant-Garde)This is a specific literary movement created by author Antoine Volodine (and his various pseudonyms). It describes politically engaged, dream-like, and darkly dystopian novels that take place in imaginary, totalitarian universes. Notable translations include Post-Exoticism in 10 Lessons, Lesson 11.

Umm. That didn't help one bit. I can give examples of avant-garde jazz musicians, but avant-garde literature is a different story. I almost always love the titles that Archipelago Books publishes, so I hold out hope that The Monroe Girls will be readable, and enjoyable.

>80 bell7:. 👍. Thanks, Mary. Will do. The party prep is pretty much done, and we’re just relaxing for a few.

I hope you have a most excellent weekend.

>81 kidzdoc:. Now I’ll have to give some attention to Archipelago Books, Darryl, as I've known them insufficiently so far, and your affinity carries weight.

Thanks for the mysterious explanation of “post-exotic”. Like you, I’m intrigued but still at sea.

Today’s Bargains: Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo for $2.99 on e-readers and The Complete Short Stories of Edgar Allen Poe for $1.99.

The first is a highly regarded fantasy novel.

The second contains stories that creeped me out in my youth. The Tell- Tale Heart, The Cask of Amontillado, The Fall of the House of Usher . . . Remember?

>82 jnwelch: Thanks, Joe. I get, I think, 10 to 12 or more books every year as part of my annual subscription to Archipelago Books for $150 or so. It's a small publishing house based in Brooklyn that specializes in translated books by little or unknown authors, and probably the most successful and best selling books are the six volume My Struggle series by the Nowegian author Karl Ove Knausgaard, which were a literary sensation, especially in Europe. I loved those books as well, although I've only read four of them so far.

>84 kidzdoc:. I’m impressed, buddy . A subscription to Archipelago Books? It speaks to your perspicacity and insouciance, which I can say after a special visit to the More Than Ten Letters store.

I subscribed to a publisher once, I think it was Greywolf, but I was less than enthused with the result. You’ve obviously been served dishes you’ve enjoyed.

Yeah,I’ve read about the My Struggle books and may take a swing at them some day, but so far not yet.

Do you ever read Walter Mosley? He’s a favorite author who has written some beauts (the short story collection The Awkward Black Man is a recent favorite) and right now I’m enthused about his new one Ghalen: A Black Romance, which so far is his most upbeat book I’ve read.

>85 jnwelch: Despite some great early imaging subplots, I rated My Struggle at One Star

for the 2 grandsons leaving Grandma to sit in her own urine. Great image - thanks, K.

(A book which he had also considered the title F---You.)

My struggle, book 2 ramped up to 2 Stars for the remarkable funny trip to his kid's Rhythm group.
His paid visit to America was a real downer.

>86 m.belljackson:. I’m impressed that you made it through two with such low ratings, Marianne. It would have been hard for me to keep trying after a one star read.

>85 jnwelch: It speaks to your perspicacity and insouciance, which I can say after a special visit to the More Than Ten Letters store.

You completely lost me, Joe!

>87 jnwelch: He can be a good and compelling writer!

Despite the title, he did not appear to be a nazi; why K. chose it is never fully explained.

From my review: Brilliant introspection alternates with chilling self exposure.

>85 jnwelch: I forgot to answer your question about Walter Mosley, Joe. I haven't read anything by him, although he was one of my late father's favorite authors (Dad was possibly a more productive bibliophile than I am, but he preferred crime, espionage and science fiction novels). I donated most of his books to our local Vietnam Veterans of America charity shop after he died, but I may have kept one or two of Mosley's novels. Which ones of his would you recommend the most?

BTW my favorite contemporary African American male authors are Percival Everett, Colson Whitehead and James McBride, and my all time favorite author, regardless of race, gender or country of origin, is James Baldwin.

>88 kidzdoc:. Can you imagine what our poor kids had to put up with, Darryl. Both perspicacity and insouciance have More than Ten Letters, and I thought I was being a little fancy with my compliment. I could have said your smartosity and casual deftness with difficult subjects instead. 😀

>89 m.belljackson:. Hmm. Thanks, Marianne. I like that line from your review. I’ve never read his reason for that title.

>90 kidzdoc:. Ah, thanks for the follow- up, Darryl. I wish I could have talked with your father about Mosley’s books. They sell well, but so far I haven’t come across another fan. Your father’s genre preferences are right in my wheelhouse, too.

Man, I wish I had known you better back then. I would’ve probably taken those Mosley books, although maybe not, as I already have a lot.

I think you’d enjoy The Last Days of Ptolemy Gray and Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned. Neither is a mystery; both are slice of life. Both also were made into good tv movies, the first with Samuel Jackson and the second Laurence Fishburne.

If you get in the mood for mystery, it would be Devil in a Blue Dress, the start of the irresistible Easy Rawlins series. That one was turned into a most excellent movie starring Denzel Washington, Don Cheadle (who deserved an Oscar nod) and Jennifer Beals.

I’m totally on board with your list of African-American authors. I’d recently add Jason Mott (Hell of a Book, People Like Us) and probably S.A. Cosby, (dark crime thrillers), too. I need to read more Percival Everett for sure, and probably James Baldwin, too. Thanks for the nudge on If Beale Street Could Talk.

>91 jnwelch: Joe - read James Baldwin's Go Tell it on the Mountain only if you are up for a super dose of the Bible.

>91 jnwelch: Ah! Now I get it.

I think you would have enjoyed meeting my father, to discuss books or any other topic. He was also the fastest reader I've ever known, as he could knock out a 300 to 400 page novel in a single day before he devoted his remaining years to the care of his beloved wife, my lovely mother.

Thanks for those book recommendations.

I haven't read anything by Jason Mott or S.A. Cosby yet, so Ill keep them in mind.

Liz/Eliz_M from Club Read informed us of the Literary Hub Summer Reading Challenge, which I intend to participate in. I started reading The Death of Ivan Ilych by Leo Tolstoy yesterday, one of Literary Hub's 50 Great Classic Novels Under 200 Pages, and later this week I'll begin a re-read of Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin, one of the 50 of the Greatest Summer Novels of All Time according to Literary Hub. This will probably be the third time I'll read it, but after reading the brilliant biography Baldwin: A Love Story by Nicholas Boggs, which is my favorite book of the year so far, I decided to read all of the books contained in the Library of America volume James Baldwin: Early Novels this year. Giovanni's Room will also be a great choice for Pride Month.

>93 kidzdoc: - Thanks for the link to the LitHub summer reading challenge, Darryl. Those lists are great! Coincidentally, my two book clubs are reading two books from the Greatest Summer Novels list this month - Rebecca and The Virgin Suicides. Not sure if I'll participate formally in the challenge, but I'm definitely bookmarking the site for easy access to the lists.

--

Hi Joe!

>92 m.belljackson:. Thanks, Marianne. I loved Go Tell It on the Mountain as a lad. That was what kicked me into gear for Baldwin. I never mind a lot of Bible so long as it doesn’t mind irreligious me. I actually read a lot of the Bible once because so many writers draw upon it, and a friend gave me a book of everything Jesus said without the surrounding frippery. I’m actually a Jesus fan, as every Democrat should be (to me the principles are the same). I just wish he had left it at Son of Man and not said he was Son of God and so on. Like Buddha, he was pointing insightfully to a better way to live.

>95 jnwelch: Go Tell it on the Mountain Plot was very confusing and the beating of his injured son by Gabriel was horrible to read.

We have four Bibles and a lot of Buddhist writings here - focus on early New Testament.

>94 katiekrug: You're welcome, Katie! I agree, there were several books in each list that appealed to me, and I chose these books, mainly because I own copies of them and was most interested in reading them:

5/28: Great Classic Novels Under 200 Pages:
The Death of Ivan Ilych by Leo Tolstoy

6/11: The Greatest Summer Novels of All Time:
Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin

6/25: What the New York Times Missed:
Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami

7/9: The Best Contemporary Novels Under 200 Pages
Sula by Toni Morrison

8/13: The Greatest Coming-of-Age Novels:
Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin

9/3: The Best Campus Novels from the Last 100 Years
Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov

BONUS: The Best Contemporary Novels Over 500 Pages:
The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk (thankfully this nearly 1000 page novel is on my Kindle!)

>93 kidzdoc:. Good! Someone once called my humor “obscure”, Darryl, and you can see why.

Man, your father was my kind of reader. Before the stroke I was fast as a whistle duck, and I imagine that they must be pretty fast. Darn it. Well, who knows, maybe we’ll meet up in the Celestial Library after I get kicked off this planet.

Don’t get me started on Jason Mott. I get over-enthusiastic about him. He’s an exciting writer and not a rule- or tradition-follower.

I like LitHub a lot, thanks for the link to the summer reading challenge. I shall peruse.

That’s a Tolstoy I haven’t read and a Baldwin I haven’t read. You’re right, Giovanni’s Room is a good pick for Pride Month. I haven’t gravitated to it because I had misgivings that a hetero might not grok it. Pretty dopey, huh.

As I’m sure I’ve said before, I don’t read many biographies, but your enthusiasm for the Nicholas Boggs one of Baldwin puts it on my radar.

What a great idea to read through Baldwin’s oeuvre (tough one to spell!) since you enjoy his writing so much. I did that with Murakami. I haven’t done that with Mosley, much as I like his writing. I didn’t enjoy his science fiction, and his prolific adventuresomeness takes him sometimes into my “nah” zone. I do mean to try his children’s books some day.

P.S. if you do read Kafka on the Shore, I’d love to hear your thoughts on it. It’s my favorite of his.

P.P.S. I might join you in September for Pnin.

>94 katiekrug:. Hi Katie! I’m curios about those lists, too. Rebecca is the only book I can remember finishing and immediately re-reading the beginning. So good!

>96 m.belljackson:. Somehow I had a more philosophical reaction to Go Tell It on the Mountain, Marianne. Wish I could go back and re-hear what the teacher said about it.

That’s a lot of Bibles!

>97 kidzdoc:. Thanks, Darryl. Jeez Louise, we left Toni Morrison off our African- American author list! I must read more of her books. I want to read Olga
Tokarczuk, too, but not that lengthy one, at least not for starters.

Good stuff, man, thanks.

>99 jnwelch: Also have Islamic Empires and a related poem that I sent to Mark for when he returns.

^^^^^^^^

Sending Best Wishes that your Alaska Journey
will feature many Whales, the Northern Lights, and Glaciers!

>98 jnwelch: "Obscure" is a good word, Joe! I took your comment far too literally, as I thought that you were referring to a bookshop titled More Than Ten Letters. 🤦🏾😂

As a Christian I do believe in Heaven, and that I'll be reunited with my father and other beloved family members and friends after it's time for me to go. I dream about him quite often, at least twice a month, even though it's been 4½ years since his death.

You've piqued my curiosity about Jason Mott. I would imagine that the two library systems I belong to will have his books, so I'll look through and choose one of them soon. I would probably lean towards reading the first book in Mosley's Easy Rawlins series, as I know my father enjoyed those books.

Baldwin: A Love Story is a tome, as it's more than 700 pages long, but it's extremely well written and it gave me a far greater understanding and appreciation of Baldwin the man and his entire oeuvre of novels, essays, plays and literary reviews.

I've almost certainly read more books by Haruki Murakami than anyone else, as I devoured everything he wrote after I read Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World roughly 25 years ago. I thought I had read Kafka on the Shore but I haven't rated or reviewed it, and even if I have I don't remember anything about it, so it would be worth reading regardless.

That sounds good re: Pnin. I haven't read anything by Nabokov yet, so I'm looking forward to reading it.

>99 jnwelch: I hadn't forgotten about Toni Morrison; I was limiting my comments to African American male writers. I should check to see if the Library of America has one or more volumes of her works, as I do want to read everything she's written.

I nearly forgot to mention that Amazon is having a huge sale on Kindle books today, with more enticing books than I recall ever seeing at one time. I bought a copy of Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection by John Green; several LTers wrote glowing reviews of it and this topic is right up my alley, as my undergraduate major was Microbiology.

>100 m.belljackson: I’m sure Mark will appreciate that, Marianne.

Thanks re the Alaska trip! We’re getting close! Our basement may even be mostly done before we leave, which would be a happiness-maker.

>101 kidzdoc:. Yeah, Darryl, I’m a little surprised I wasn’t nicknamed Obscure when I was a kid. I got “Gahzeppe”, which still comes up sometimes, “Deputy”, after a knee operation that made my leg stiff when I played basketball, after Dennis Weaver’s leg-swinging character on Gunsmoke, and “Dr.Strange”, which is the one I wanted after the Marvel character, but no one else ever called me that.😃

I like your belief in heaven and what it’s like. I just don’t know. I was there for both my parents’ deaths, and saw the spirit go out of them, that vital life force that was who they were, leaving only the empty flesh. I sure hope that spirit exists in some way somewhere. Energy can’t be destroyed, right? It can only change form or transfer to another object, according to the First Law of Thermodynamics.

Sounds good about Jason Mott and the first Easy Rawlins. I’ll try not to nag you like a little kid about them.

Wow, you started Murakami with Hard-Boiled Wonderland?! One of his most challenging. Did you try The City and Its Uncertain Walls yet? Same world. Kafka on the Shore will be a piece of cake for you. The character Nakata in it is my hero. I started with the easy After the Quake after seeing a stage adaptation here.

I haven’t read any Nabokov either. I find the idea of reading Lolita singularly unappealing, although both kids tell me it’s beautifully written. Looking forward to a Pnin joint venture.

Good goal to read all of Toni Morrison. For starters I just want to read more.

>102 kidzdoc:. Thanks for mentioning the Amazon sale. I did take a look, but I think I’d better take an acquisition breather! Kindle purchases are dangerous; no matter how many I buy, my Kindle weighs and looks the same.

We love John Green’s YA books (Becca, too), but haven’t read his NF. I know that Tuberculosis one got critical raves.

Oops. First glitch. Those were some long posts by yours truly.

>103 jnwelch: Gahzeppe?! I searched Google for that word, but came up with nothing. We didn't watch Gunsmoke, so that reference is lost on me. I know that we preferentially watched Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In on Monday nights during the late 1960s to the mid 1970s ("Sock it to me, baby!"), and although I'm not sure I believe my parents limited my evening television watching on school nights to only one hour when I was younger, and probably another hour when Monday Night Football began to air during the 1970 season. I only vaguely remember Dr Strange, especially in comparison to other characters who had their own afternoon or evening television shows. As a kid I most wanted to be Kato, the sidekick of The Green Hornet, who was portrayed brilliantly by Bruce Lee on the prime time television program in the late 1960s.

I wasn't at his bedside when my father died. When I was told by the ICU physician that he met the criteria for brain death I asked for him to be taken off of life support, as I was his power of attorney and knew that he did not want his life to be prolonged artifically. I said my final goodbye to him along with my brother the following day, and I saw his face relax and a tear run down his cheek when I told him, "Don't worry, Dad; I'll take care of Mom," even though he was in a coma. I received a call from the hospital before sunrise a few days later, after he was moved out of the ICU, to let me know that he had died, and because as part of my career I had to declare several kids with incurabe illnesses dead I did not want to be there when my father died, and as it turns out I would not have been allowed to stay there when he did expire, as it was past normal visiting hours. My mother, as you probably know, is in a memory care center, and although she is doing well she is DNR, as her will, which was originally created years ago when she was able to make her own decisions, states that she does not want any prolonged measures to save her life, such as painful procedures such as CPR, which not infrequently can result in the fracture of several rubs, even if done correctly.

I can't explain my belief in the afterlife on the basis of vital energy or physics; it's something I deeply believe as a Christian.

I can't promise that I'll get to Jason Mott or Walter Mosley this year or next, as I already have several planned and unplanned book projects going, along with books I've purchased recently. Do remind me of them, though.

The reason I chose to read Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World was because it was on a display table in one of the Borders bookshops in Atlanta that featured literature in translation. I probably bought it, along with Blindness by José Saramago, another author who I was completely unfamiliar with, in the latter half of 2000 or 2001 when I finished residency and became a pediatric hospitalist, as my meager salary as a resident didn't allow me to spend much money on unnecessary purchases. I was blown away by both books, and I began to buy anything I could find by either author. Let's see...according to Murakami's bibliography on Wikipedia, and with the possible exception of Kafka on the Shore—I thought that I had read it, but LibraryThing tells me otherwise— I haven't read anything by him after Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage.

Hmm...yesterday was my 20th Thingaversary, and I see that my entry for Kafka on the Shore was in 2006, so it's actually possible that I read it before I became active in LibraryThing. I'll look for reviews of it here and online before I decide to read it, especially if there is another book in that challenge I'm also eager to read.

We must have seen the same stagee adaptation of After the Quake! I saw it at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre, not far from the campus of UC Berkeley and a stone's throw from the Downtown Berkeley BART station. The most surreal aspect of seeing it was that there was an actual miid earthquake that took place during the performance, which caused the overhead lights to sway but did no structural damage. It didn't last long, and because it was so mild, even though it was clearly an earthquake, the perfomers on stage simply looked at each other, got an okay to continue from the stage manager, and proceeded shortly afterward as if nothing had happened.

I've been wanting to read Pnin, Lolita and Speak, Memory: An Autobiography Revisited by Nabokov, so I'm glad to finally get to one of his books.

I really should have read Toni Morrison's works long ago, and because I loved Beloved and Song of Solomon I'm eager to start correcting that blind spot.

>82 jnwelch: So, I get your lifetime's supply of pickled beets, then? I'm most peckish for a beet and onion salad....

Enjoy your Wednesday, Joe and Debbi.

For Joe, Mark, and Paul -

"O poets to come, I depend on you."

Walt Whitman

>106 kidzdoc:. Hiya, Darryl. Nice texting with you this a.m. I’m near the end of the mighty good Ghalen, but will catch up here on LT first. Gazeppe is the most common spelling, but I put in the “h” for this post to convey the pronunciation. I can’t cite a reason for it - my friends were nicknamed P-Dog, Vegas Vic and Baber (pronounced Babber). It started out for me as Joseppe and somehow transmogrified into Gazeppe.

My parents didn’t control my tv watching or that of my sisters. Their macro requirement was good grades, which we all delivered. Ed Sullivan was a staple. I hadn’t realized, until I read something recently, what a trailblazer he was in featuring black performers. This is from Google:

“Ed Sullivan was absolutely a trailblazer in having Black performers on his show, breaking racial barriers at a time when much of American television was segregated. He consistently showcased Black excellence and refused to cave to pressure from sponsors or racist viewers.Sullivan’s legacy as a civil rights trailblazer is defined by several key actions:Breaking the Color Barrier Early: As early as July 1948—just his fifth episode—he featured jazz legend Ella Fitzgerald alongside tap dancer Bill "Bojangles" Robinson.Treating Stars with Equal Respect: Unlike some hosts who minimized the presence of Black stars, Sullivan gave them prime billing and treated them with genuine warmth. He famously shook hands with Nat King Cole and kissed Pearl Bailey on the cheek on air, drawing outraged letters from segregationists but standing his ground.Championing Motown: He became an invaluable platform for the booming Detroit sound, regularly booking future legends like The Supremes, The Temptations, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, and The Jackson 5.Inclusive Variety: His stage was an integrated mix of genres featuring everyone from Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington to comedians like Richard Pryor and Flip Wilson.“

How cool is that? How sad the circumstances that he defied.

My parents both died slowly, with family surrounding, my mom of cancer and my dad of old age (everything stopped working, including his will). He survived my mom by eight years. They both expected him to die first. I closed his eyes once he was gone - weird. I’m glad your mother is still around, even with the memory impairment. I wish I’d met your Mosley-loving father.

Oh man, you have some good post-Colorless Tsukuru Murakami reading ahead of you! My favorite from that time period is 1Q84. (We supposedly have two moons now, one very small - Murakami gave us two close-in-size moons in 1Q84).

What are the odds that we both saw the same stage adaptation of After the Quake?! Holey Moley! So bizarre a play/book and so good. Super Frog, anyone?

An earthquake during the one you saw - how wild is that? What a special experience. The gods were smiling on you that day. Shivers me timbers just to think about it.

Yeah, I’m going to be glad to finally read some Nabakov, too. I’ve read Sula and Beloved, but that is woeful undernourishment when it comes to her.

>107 richardderus:. Yes, Richard, you are welcome to all the pickled beets mistakenly given to me. Adding onion is a great idea; then you just need to subtract the beets.

>108 m.belljackson:. Nice line from our friend Whitman, Marianne, thanks. I need to get back in the groove with poetry-writing. Life has thrown a number of curveballs.

I just took a Zoom class on The Iliad with translator Emily Wilson through the Poetry Foundation. What a genius she is. She periodically would enthusiastically read to us the original Greek, so we could hear the rhythm and power. Among other things, in her translation she substituted the familiar to us iambic pentameter rhythm for the original unfamiliar Greek hexameter, or whatever the heck it was. Can you imagine?! Just doing the translation, my favorite so far, was heroic, but recasting it in iambic pentameter?! Now I crave the expanse of her mind. So impressive.

P.S. do you know Auden’s poem “The Shield of Achilles”? I sure don’t. I’ve been fascinated by that shield, which as described contains more art and historical events than one shield could possibly hold. She recommended this Auden poem.

Here it is. Sorry it’s so long.

She looked over his shoulder
For vines and olive trees,
Marble well-governed cities
And ships upon untamed seas,
But there on the shining metal
His hands had put instead
An artificial wilderness
And a sky like lead.

A plain without a feature, bare and brown,
No blade of grass, no sign of neighborhood,
Nothing to eat and nowhere to sit down,
Yet, congregated on its blankness, stood
An unintelligible multitude,
A million eyes, a million boots in line,
Without expression, waiting for a sign.

Out of the air a voice without a face
Proved by statistics that some cause was just
In tones as dry and level as the place:
No one was cheered and nothing was discussed;
Column by column in a cloud of dust
They marched away enduring a belief
Whose logic brought them, somewhere else, to grief.

She looked over his shoulder
For ritual pieties,
White flower-garlanded heifers,
Libation and sacrifice,
But there on the shining metal
Where the altar should have been,
She saw by his flickering forge-light
Quite another scene.

Barbed wire enclosed an arbitrary spot
Where bored officials lounged (one cracked a joke)
And sentries sweated for the day was hot:
A crowd of ordinary decent folk
Watched from without and neither moved nor spoke
As three pale figures were led forth and bound
To three posts driven upright in the ground.

The mass and majesty of this world, all
That carries weight and always weighs the same
Lay in the hands of others; they were small
And could not hope for help and no help came:
What their foes liked to do was done, their shame
Was all the worst could wish; they lost their pride
And died as men before their bodies died.

She looked over his shoulder
For athletes at their games,
Men and women in a dance
Moving their sweet limbs
Quick, quick, to music,
But there on the shining shield
His hands had set no dancing-floor
But a weed-choked field.

A ragged urchin, aimless and alone,
Loitered about that vacancy; a bird
Flew up to safety from his well-aimed stone:
That girls are raped, that two boys knife a third,
Were axioms to him, who'd never heard
Of any world where promises were kept,
Or one could weep because another wept.

The thin-lipped armorer,
Hephaestos, hobbled away,
Thetis of the shining breasts
Cried out in dismay
At what the god had wrought
To please her son, the strong
Iron-hearted man-slaying Achilles
Who would not live long.

*****

“The Shield of Achilles” by W.H. Auden

>109 jnwelch: An earthquake interrupts a major Music performance in Ivan Doig's Prairie Nocturne. 4.5 stars.

>111 m.belljackson:👍. Thanks, Marianne.

Today’s Bargain: Mona Lisa Overdrive by William Gibson for $1.99 on e-readers. More fun cyberpunk sci-fi from one of my favorite authors.

>109 jnwelch: Good morning, brother Joe! I'm glad that you're enjoying Ghalen, and I look forward to reading it soon.

When we lived in Jersey City, from 1961 to 1974, we rented a modest two bedroom apartment, and we only had one television. My parents greatly preferred that I finish my homework on school days and read books for pleasure after dinner, for no more than two hours IIRC; we watched evening television programs in the summers and when I got older for longer periods of time. As shows featuring Black actors became more popular in the early 1970s we watched them preferentially, as did other Black families in our mixed race housing complex.

I thought my father, who died in late 2021, would outlive my mother, whose decline from vascular dementia has lasted for well over a decade. He basically died from love and grief over her worsening condition, as he turned down most offers from family and loved ones to help him care for her, especially when he had a near death experience as a result of a major seizure in 2019. He accepted and welcomed my help, though, and I decided to cut back my work hours and visit them every 1-2 months. Despite my pleas and offers to resign and care for both of them on a full time basis—Dad had developed mild to moderate cognitive impairment after his first major seizure and was never the same afterward—he became quite angry when I made this offer. He would typically fall asleep at the dinner table after he fed Mom, gave her her evening medications, and put her to bed, and forget to take his own critically important medications, something I saw many times over. I pleaded with him to be sure to take his medications before he went to sleep, especially his anti-epileptic drugs, and warned him that, if he didn't do so, he might have another major seizure which could leave him permanently incapacitated or claim his life. He waived away my concerns, but that is exactly what happened, as his second major seizure was worse than the first one, and his serum levels of his anti-epileptic medications were undetectable. As a result it took a long time for the ICU physician who first cared for him to raise his serum levels of those medications to normal ranges, but by that time the prolonged seizure activity led to irreversible brain damage, the worst case scenario that I feared the most.

I loved 1Q84; that may have been the last novel by Murakami I read.

The theatrical performance of After the Quake was very good, as was the book. I read it before I saw the play and I was pleased that "Super Frog Saves Tokyo" was included. Regarding the earthquake I had experienced several minor ones before then, the first one occurring in nearby northern Alabama when I lived in Atlanta. The one in Berkeley was similarly mild and of short duration, which caused no damage to the building or the set. I don't believe that anyone in the audience got up to leave, and the quake was treated with the same concern as a sudden clap of thunder.

I should finish reading The Death of Ivan Ilych today, and next up will be Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin for the LitHub Summer Reading Challenge.

>114 kidzdoc:. Good afternoon, brother Darryl!

Ghalen was grantastic; I’m very happy about it. I’m going to warn in the mini-review about rough language and rough situations, but for me that just adds to the depth and veracity.

Your parents did a great job - you’re the proof. I read a lot from the get-go; for the most part, books were better than tv. My sisters and I do remember fighting over what to watch on our one tv. My kids had a similar experience when we had one computer- woo, there were some bitter battles and he said, she saids. They still talk about it.

You’re a mensch for re-arranging your life plans to take care of your parents. I’m not surprised your father fought against your doing that, but I am sorry to hear that what you feared is what happened, i.e. that without supervision he neglected his meds and had a devastating seizure. Yikes. My sympathy. How awful. I’m too scared of a stroke recurrence to neglect my meds, but I sure understand that his number one priority was your mother.

I’m so glad that you read and enjoyed 1Q84! For a lot of Murakamians, that’s their favorite. I thought it was post-Colorless Tsukuru, but I’m glad you found it.

Yeah, I loved that After the Quake play adaptation, although ours didn’t have an earthquake during the performance. (Supposedly earthquakes can happen in the Midwest, but I’ve never experienced one. We’re better suited to “After the Tornado”). Mild, no damage quaking sounds like the way to go, my lucky bro.

Is Ivan Illych good? Silly question - how could it not be with that guy at the helm? It’s back on my radar now. I hope you have a good time with Giovanni’s Room. My next is The Lions’ Run by Sarah Pennypacker, an author I admire who wrote Pax and Pax, Journey Home. My next poetry book is Only Sing: 152 Uncollected Dream Songs. Back in the day, I loved his Dream Songs, with his characters Henry and Mr. Bones.

>115 jnwelch: Good early morning, Joe! I’m glad that you enjoyed Ghalen. I look forward to reading your review, but based on your previous glowing comments it’s on my wish list.

I don’t like to give myself any undeserved credit for deciding to retire early and move back to Pennsylvania to care for my mother. There was no one else who could have done this, as my only sibling is my younger brother, who wasn’t in a financial position to stop working, and my mother’s surviving sister was in her late 70s at the time, was living in the Houston area, and was in no physical condition to care for her, as she was and still is struggling to care for herself. The only option I knew of at the time would have been to have Mom placed in a nursing home and return to Atlanta, which would have been incredibly cruel and thoughtless, given that she was deeply mourning the loss of her beloved husband. I didn’t know about memory care centers at that time, which would have been a more palatable option, but I still wouldn’t have felt comfortable leaving Mom in one, as I think she would have withdrawn and died from grief within a matter of months.

My father was an amazing man, as he overcame growing up in a broken home, led by his abusive and very mean mother who was easily my least favorite relative—even though she also lived in Jersey City, in the house that she let one of her sons, one of my father’s older brothers and his family live, she didn’t want anything to do with any of us, even though my father was the most successful of her children, having earned a BA in electrical engineering from Howard University, a MA in theoretical physics (don’t ask) from City College of New York, and teaching upper level undergraduate students in transistor technology (again, don’t ask) at City College during the day and driving a taxi cab at night for several years to support our family until he was finally offered a position as an electrical engineer in the Brooklyn Navy Yard—as she wanted nothing to do with Dad, my mother and her grandchildren.

Without going into details here I take daily medications for three conditions, two in particular, that could greatly worsen and potentially result in a trip to the Emergency Department or a hospital admission if I stopped taking them for more than a couple of days. I could get by with taking them in the mornings before I left for work on days I was on hospital service in Atlanta, but a few years ago I began using pill boxes, as I take far more medications now, and I can no longer rely on memory to ensure that I take everything at the proper times of the day.

The earthquake I felt in Atlanta occurred just after sunrise, less than an hour before I was due to wake up to go to work. Despite being the first one I had ever experienced I instinctively reacted as if I had felt one before, and I immediately jumped out of bed and stood under a door frame until the quake ended. I turned on my television to watch a local news station, and the anchors were initially looking at each other in a state of confusion before the earthquake was confirmed a few minutes later. The reason that it was felt in north central Georgia, roughly 75-100 miles from its epicenter in northern Alabama, was that it was very superficial in nature, and IIRC it resulted in little if any damage even at the epicenter, as was the case for the two sets of mild earthquakes that I felt on two trips to the Bay Area.

My reading has slowed to a crawl this month, as I haven’t finished anything since I completed The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny at the end of May. I was very disappointed in the book, and the lack of participation by members of the Literary Fiction by People of Color group in Goodreads; more than 60 members of the group chose it for the book of the month of May, but the only ones who have completed it so far were the moderator and myself. I’ll stay in the group for now, but I probably won’t participate in any other monthly reads.

Hopefully I’ll finish The Death of Ivan Ilych by Sunday, and I know that I’ll enjoy Giovanni’s Room, as I’ve read it at least once previously. As I may have mentioned I would ideally like to read James Baldwin: Early Novels & Stories, the first of three volumes in the Library of America’s three part series of his works; the other books in this volume are Go Tell It on the Mountain, Another Country, and Going to Meet the Man, a collection of short fiction that is the only book in this volume I don’t believe I’ve read yet. I’ll refer back to the relevant sections of Baldwin: A Love Story by Nicholas Boggs when I read it earlier this year.

Have a great reading weekend, and I hope that this week’s severe weather in the Midwest is a thing of the past.

Good afternoon, Brother Darryl. Thank you for another great post. I’m dumbfounded by how hard your father worked (taxi cab at night!) and how smart he must’ve been. Should I really not ask about the theoretical physics? I’ll bet he was a good teacher of transitory technology (ha! My goof that may have been unintentionally accurate. I mean transistor technology!). My dad taught structural engineering for a year at Michigan, but didn’t like it. He was surprised by how laissez- faire the students were. I taught as an adjunct at Northwestern law school for a lot of years, but unfortunately never did really enjoy it. Lot of work, and I already had a lot of work.

I’m sorry you were disappointed by The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny. As you know, ditto for me, and I’d been looking forward to reading it. Pretty lousy for all of those Goodreads book club people who voted for it to not timely finish it.

You’re not going to keep me from thinking you’re a mensch re your parents. I won’t bore you with details, but my experience was quite different. One sister volunteered to take care of my parents. Unfortunately, after promising me she wouldn’t, she started to order them around, resulting in a dramatic “breakup” where she fled without telling them. My puzzled dad asked about it later and I was diplomatic. I now wish I’d just been honest with him. The other sister wept at the thought that, as the only non-working sibling, she was obligated to take care of them. I told her she had her own life, was not obligated, and we’d figure it out. We then found a wonderful caregiver who I think both parents ended up liking better than their progeny.😀. So yes, you’re a mensch, and I’m sure your parents both would agree with me.

Your Baldwin plans sound most excellent. My Pennypacker and Ann Leckie reading isn’t near as lofty, but I’m enjoying it. Debbi just finished Dear Mrs. Bird, a charmer I really liked. Those wild storms with the 80 mph winds have passed, and we’re sitting on our front porch reading. Aahhh.

Joe, just fyi, Dear Mrs. Bird has 2 sequels and a fourth in the making though I don't know when it will be out. All were delightful so far.

>118 jessibud2:. Thanks, Shelley. I’ve read those next two and agree they’re all delightful. I told Debbi about them and said in some ways they’re even better than the first, because you know the characters.

P.S. What a dope I am, Shelley. The 4th one is available, and I read it. It’s Dear Miss Lake, and it too is delightful.

What a bizarre reality we live in. Have you heard of the Great Attractor? I just read about it today. We, and our solar system, and our Galaxy, and many others, are all being drawn to it at high speed. We’ve yet to see it, and no one knows what it is. From Google:

The Great Attractor is a massive, invisible gravitational anomaly in intergalactic space that is pulling the Milky Way and hundreds of thousands of other galaxies toward it. It acts as the central gravitational focal point of the Laniakea Supercluster, drawing in everything within a region hundreds of millions of light-years across.”

Not only are we a small speck in a vast universe, but all sorts of things are happening at a more macro level that we know little to nothing about. At a micro level, too, for that matter. Holey Moley.

>117 jnwelch: Good morning, Joe. My father earned his BS in electrical engineering from Howard University in the District of Columbia, one of the top historically Black universities, in 1958. Although he graduated with a GPA of just over 3.0, despite having to work nights driving a taxicab to pay for tuition and books—he had worked many hours while he was in high school and gave his earnings to his mother, as safekeeping for college tuition, but she spent all of it to manage the household without telling him—and was taught transistor technology as an undergraduate student, an upcoming field of study that few of the majority White colleges were teaching their students, he was not offered employment for at least two years because of his race. One of his most notable interviews, according to my father, was with a leading aerospace manufacturer, possibly Lockheed Martin or Boeing. He was called in for an interview, as his name, David Morris, didn’t single him out as being Black. When he appeared for the interview the White receptionist looked at him, turned red in the face, then told him to wait while she spoke with the interviewer. He came out a few minutes later and told my father that the company didn’t hire Negroes for professional positions. He faced similar rejections by other companies, and in, I believe, 1960 the Brooklyn Navy Yard hired him because of his educational background, knowledge of transistor technology, and experience as an instructor at CCNY, which put him far ahead of other applicants who had recently received their bachelor’s degrees. As the old saying goes, back then, and to a somewhat lesser extent now, Black Americans seeking employment have to be twice as good, which was certainly the case for my father.

I’m not sure if my father enjoyed teaching transistor technology to students at CCNY or not. However, when he became estabished in his career, he served as a mentor to younger engineers, particularly ones in his division, along with female and minority engineers in the Naval Air Development Center, where he worked for the last two decades of his career, who were very rare, but also White male engineers who sought his guidance.

When I was an attending physician and an adjunct professor in the Department of Pediatrics at Emory University I was invited to give two lectures to first year physician assistant students on an annual basis. During the first two or three years the students were fully engaged and asked great questions, possibly because their textbooks were on paper and in shorthand, and they needed to take notes and attend lectures regularly to get get good grades. However, at some point the School of Public Health at Emory converted the textbooks into an online format and greatly expanded the information available in each chapter; as a result the students became passive rather than active learners during my lectures, especially since I ended each one informing them what were the key takeaway points, and implying that the test questions I wrote would be derived from those points. On one of the last times I lectured I came into the lecture hall toward the end of lectures given by a friend of mine, a pediatric cardiologist at Emory, and I noticed that nearly all of the students had their laptops on, but were looking at pages that had nothing to do with the lecture, or with anything related to their studies. Most of them were also strikingly disengaged during my lectures, a notable departure from previous years when I typically answered questions for 10-15 minutes after the conclusion of the lecture, and as a result the small stipend I received from giving these lectures was not enough to encourage me to continue, although I still greatly enjoyed teaching medical students and residents on hospital rounds, and during Grand Rounds in one of our auditoriums.

I finished The Death of Ivan Ilych by Leo Tolstoy last night, which is probably my favorite book about the dying and death process. Ilych is a highly regarded member of the Courts of Law in the region where he lives in mid 19th century Russia, and he is equally esteemed by his fellow members of the Court, other lawyers, friends, and members of his community, although his wife and children often treat him with disdain and underappreciation. He is afflicted with a mysterious malady, which is extremely painful and disabling, and the novella explores how his life is changed by his illness, how others around him deal with this changed reality, particularly his family, who view him as a burden and an uncooperative patient, and how the doctors attending him also downplay the seriousness of his symptoms, at a time when diagnostic tests and curative treatments were largely unavailable, even to people who could afford to pay these doctors’ fees. I’ve given it 5 stars for now, but I may drop my rating by no more than half a star after I think about it a bit more. The OneWorld Classics ebook I downloaded also contains another novella by Tolstoy, The Devil, so I’ll finish that today, continue reading Time Come: Selected Prose by the Jamaican born British dub poet Linton Kwesi Johnson, and start Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin, probably tomorrow.

I’m sorry that your sisters were not more supportive of your parents in their final years. It’s probably none of my business, but I can’t help but wonder if their views toward your parents had anything to do with their relationships with them. I’ve always had a great relationship with my parents, as I was an obedient child who performed well in school, was well liked by my teachers and classmates, and had no problems making friends with neighborhood kids my own age. My younger brother, on the other hand, was very different from me in all of these respects, and outside of his presence my parents, closest adult relatives and friends said that his middle name should have been “Why can’t you be more like your brother?!” Possibly as a result he was never as close to my parents as I was, even to this day, and if it wasn’t for me David would probably have had my mother transferred to the cheapest nursing home in our area, and spent little or no time checking up on her, even though he only lives 30-35 minutes away and his work related travels often bring him far closer than that. My relationship towards my parents were crucial toward my decision to be more supportive of them, especially during my father's near fatal illness in 2019 and during the 2+ years before that time and his death, as I feel that I am simply repaying the love and support they both showed me throughout my life.

Unfortunately it’s still too hot here to sit comfortably outside, as our high temperatures this week have ranged from the low to upper 90s, with at least one all time high temperature for the date when it hit 97° on Tuesday or Wednesday. Fortunately we’re supposed to have a much cooler stretch for a few days starting tomorrow, with high temperatures of 79-80°, so I’ll definitely get out of the house for longer periods on those days.

Have a great Sunday!

Another Homer-related poem that Emily Wilson recommended was Keats’ “On First Looking Into Chapman’s Homer”. Apparently translations were rare in Keats’ time, and he didn’t get Homer at all. Until he read Chapman’s translation, which had a big impact on him. I’d forgotten how good this poem is:

Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne;
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He star'd at the Pacific—and all his men
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise—
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

****

Ah, the power of reading.

This is Zen morning for yours truly, so I’ll be back later on.

I’ll post a mini-review of Walter Mosley’s new one, Ghalen, but in the meantime this is what I wrote to Mosley on Facebook:

“Thank you. Agreed.

BTW, your new book Ghalen is outstanding. It may be my new favorite. I always enjoy the wisdom you impart in all your books, but this one hit me in a special way. Early on Robert made me think of Peter Sellers in the movie Being There - wisdom so simple we had to slow down and think to even understand it. Later on his son Ghalen made me think of Hesse’s Siddhartha - putting himself into necessary lessons and maintaining his integrity even while tempted this way and that. Still later on it became more complex, with Ghalen having to handle rough, difficult ethical situations and the changes life brings to everyone, even in love. Brilliant book. Thanks so much for writing it.“

>121 kidzdoc:. Good afternoon, Darryl.

Thank you for the detailed storytelling.

Man, it’s frustrating to even read about what your poor father had to go through to get appropriate employment -solely because of his color. Do you feel like that has gotten any better? It certainly remains a problem with Pete Hegseth.

One of my favorite parts of your talking about your pediatric hospitalist practice is how much you were in demand for your Spanish-speaking skills. I can just imagine.

My sisters’ relationships with my strong-willed mother in particular were complicated, and as the youngest child and only boy, I got away with a lot. What I can say is it sounds like you were closer to your parents than any of us were. On the only hand, unlike your brother David who viewed their need for assistance so differently from you, we three were pretty much on the same page and regularly visited From Pittsburgh, Montana and Chicago. Also, all three spouses loved our parents and were very helpful in the collective decision-making. As you can imagine from knowing her, both parents had confidence in Debbi’s common sense and even keel.

I’m glad you’re getting a cooldown from those hot temperatures. It’s been moderate but rainy here. We’re getting organized for the Alaska trip in a week. It’s supposed to generally be in the 60s while we’re there, although layers and flexibility are advised.

Hope you’ve been having a great weekend, buddy.

Today’s Bargain: Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguru for $2.99 on e-readers.. Three former classmates look back on their time at an elite boarding school and begin to understand its true significance. Considered one of his best, up there with Remains of the Day.

>124 jnwelch: Hi, Joe. The opportunities currently available in the US for well educated African Americans like my father are undoubtedly far better than it was in the late 1950s and early 1960s. My father started college in 1954. Could I have been accepted to Rutgers as an undergraduate student with acceptable grades and test scores? Almost certainly yes, although it would probably have been more difficult then than it was in the mid 1980s, when I went. Could I have been accepted into medical school at Pitt, the University of Pittsburgh, in the late 1950s? That's considerably less likely but still possible, as Pitt did have a tiny number of medical students well before then. Would I have been offered a spot in any of the postdoctoral residency programs at Emory University in Atlanta in 1957, or get employed as a pediatric hospitalist in 1960? Absolutely not, as the university was still segregated at the time, and no hospitals for Whites in the Deep South would have allowed White patients to be treated by Black doctors. Grady Memorial Hospital, Atlanta's primary public hospital, was segregated into White and Black wings until the late 1960s or sometime in the 1970s. At some point Black doctors could care for Black patients, and years later those doctors could care for White patients, but I don't know when that change took place. The free standing children's hospital I worked in was in a well to do neighborhood with mostly White patients, but it was very rare that White patients asked for a White doctor instead of me, as far as I know of, although I don't doubt that some families would have strongly preferred that the hospitalized child be cared for by a White doctor.

Back in the 2000s Atlanta experienced a rapid rate of growth, similar to other cities in the Deep South, and many Latinos who were here legally or illegally were hired in the construction and landscaping fields, along with others that did not require an advanced education. These workers married and had many children, more than the system could handle, especially in the Newborn Nursery at Grady Memorial Hospital, and the pediatric residents were tasked with ensuring that the newborn babies were healthy, and that the mothers signed consent for the males to be circumcised. Fewer of those kids needed to present to one of our emergency departments or hospitalized, but there was an even greater need to be able to talk with parents and family members about the chief complaint, laboratory and radiologic findings, and the plan of care, which took much longer than consenting them for routine circumcisions.

Given what you said I suspected that you and your sisters' relationships with your parents were far more difficult that my relationship with mine. To this day I don't completely understand why my younger brother was less supportive of them, especially since they so often bailed him out of financial tight spots throughout his life, whereas I have lived frugally since I had after school jobs starting when I turned 16.

We finally experienced a cool down today, after a week of temperatures that were well above average. We had a line of strong thunderstorms that passed through the Delaware Valley late last night and early this morning, and it's now refreshingly cool and comfortable. Everyone loved my late father, and now my mother, including the staff in the memory care center where she currently resides.

Have a great time on your upcoming trip to Alaska! I look forward to you and Debbi's photos and descriptions.

>126 kidzdoc:. What a helpful post. Thanks, Darryl. It’s hard to wrap my mind around what your father went though, what you went through, and what you go through. I’d have to look at virtually my entire life differently. My planning would have been different, my fears would’ve been different, my frustrations would’ve been different, my anger would’ve been different. What an unfair burden. There would have been some temptation to simply have nothing to do with white people. Rising above that and becoming a doctor and helping white people as well as POC is impressive.

I’ve had some black people (mostly guys) react badly to my presence at some events, but it never bothers me because of all this. What fools we mortals be.

Yeah, the deterioration of parents is very revealing regarding the children in every family I imagine. All three of us read Being Mortal and took it to heart. What a helpful book.

Enjoy the cooldown! It’s lovely here, although they’re already warning about wild storms to come. Despite the dunderheads who refuse to believe it, climate change is really beginning to mess with us.

Thanks re the trip. Unlike past trips, you won’t see daily reporting on FB. We’d have to refinance the house to pay for wi-fi on the ship. I was surprised to find out they even have it. Adriana may have to have it, so, if so, we’ll at least be able to keep up with the World Cup.😀

>127 jnwelch:
I also have problems with the dunderheads who don't believe that climate change is real. Don't they see the same weather reports that I do?

Over the weekend, the Salina Kansas Journal had a front page story about the shift in Tornado Alley. It is moving to the southeast from its traditional stomping grounds of the Great Plains. This shift is the result of climate change.

>128 benitastrnad:. Right, Benita? We’re going on this Alaska cruise to, among other things, see the glaciers. That they’re melting like they are should clue in even the most resistant dunderhead - but of course it won’t.

To me, our weather is just getting wilder and wilder and more unpredictable. That tornado shift could end up doing a lot of damage. They’re predicting 80 mph winds here tonight for the second time in a week. Oops, that’s wrong. That’s the reappearance on my phone of last week’s warning. But still. . .

I’m reading John Berryman’s posthumous Only Sing 152 Uncollected Dream Songs and loving it. Something about his style with these really grabs me. Here’s one of the more famous ones, Dream Songs 14:

Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so.
After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns,
we ourselves flash and yearn,
and moreover my mother told me as a boy
(repeatingly) ‘Ever to confess you’re bored
means you have no

Inner Resources.’ I conclude now I have no
inner resources, because I am heavy bored.
Peoples bore me,
literature bores me, especially great literature,
Henry bores me, with his plights & gripes
as bad as achilles,

who loves people and valiant art, which bores me.
And the tranquil hills, & gin, look like a drag
and somehow a dog
has taken itself & its tail considerably away
into mountains or sea or sky, leaving
behind: me, wag.

>127 jnwelch: Thanks, Joe. Racism directed towards me personally is a non-issue, compared to what my father and his generation went through, and it is exceeding rare for me to have an encounter that I suspect represents prejudice towards me. On the contrary well over 95% of my interactions here in suburban Philadelphia are friendly and pleasant ones, and I think that has a lot to do with how I carry myself and dress in public, which is essentially non-threatening and trustworthy.

I posted the following message on my Facebook timeline this weekend: "Today's Quote of the Day comes from the legendary author Maya Angelou: "Try to be a rainbow in someone’s cloud.” i agree completely, as a smile or warm greeting from a stranger can make a huge difference in my day, and when I look at people I try to share pleasantries with them, as doing so makes me feel better about myself. 🌈" Unlike many African Americans I was never taught to distrust or dislike White people, as we attended a mixed race Lutheran church, and my family was very close friends to a German family; one of their daughters, who is my age, was inspired to become a Lutheran minister by her father and mine, and because she is now the minister of a church on the other end of the county we live in she readily agreed to conduct my father's funeral service in late 2021. My brother and I spoke prepared and largely uplifting remarks during the service, but Pastor Marie gave an impassioned impromptu speech that left everyone in tears and was probably the most moving tribute I've ever seen. Unfortunately the knucleheaded son of a former friend, who I paid to film the service, didn't save it, so that moving service will only serve as a great memory, as other family members and friends who couldn't attend the service never had the chance to see it.

Likewise I attended the elementary school affiliated with the church, and my classmates were Black, White—my best friends were two boys, one German and one Irish—and Latino. We moved into two majority White towns after my father's division transferred its operations from Brooklyn to suburban Philadelphia, and even though there was only a tiny number of Black students in each class I had no trouble fitting in within a few weeks of the beginning of 9th grade. My parents taught me to speak and dress well, and treat others with respectfully, and to dressed well, and I think that had a lot to do with how I was treated.

It seems as though your Black friends had a far more exposures to racism than I or my brother did, which is tragic, as I never minded if any of my White friends accompanied me anywhere from childhood on. I remember going to the Millrose Games, a track & field competition at Madison Square Garden with Chris, my Irish classmate and one of my older cousins, probably in the early 2970s, and because the event ended late and it snowed heavily buses from central Jersey City were badly delayed, so the three of us walked back to our apartment and, as I recall, Chris spent the night with us, with the approval of his parents—they had invited me to their home for dinner on several occasions, which is how I learned to love corned beef and cabbage, along with homemade Irish soda bread—and my father drove him back to his house after the streets were plowed. As you've obviously seen I continue have close friends of people of all races, especially yourselves, the lovely Claire/Sakerfalcon, and two formerly active LibraryThing British friends who live in Cambridge, who hopefully you'll get to meet sometime in the future.

Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande is an unbelievably valuable book, and it's probably the one I would recommend that everyone read.

Today was absolutely gorgeous, a Chamber of Commerce day if there was one IIRC Thursday is supposed to be considerably warmer, but after some potentially severe thunderstorms pass through the Delaware Valley that evening we'll have at least a few more days of pleasant weather.

Trump and his followers may want to blindly deny climate change but there is no denying that it exists, despite the Dear Leader's recent decision to slash grant funding to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and research previously conducted by other organizations and universities.

Oh, don't worry about keeping up on Facebook or LibraryThing! Have a marvelous time, and we look forward to catching up with yinz—that's Pittsburghese for y'all—when you return.

(Yikes, why are my replies to you so long?!)

I just saw this article from The Conversation published yesterday regarding a new novel by Haruki Murakami, which is titled The Tale of KAHO:

Haruki Murakami has a new book coming out and fans know what to expect – for the most part

It's supposed to be published in Japan this summer, but there isn't a release date yet for the English translation. However, an English language excerpt from the book was published in The New Yorker in July 2024:

KAHO

Hi, Joe. Just checking in. When do you leave for your trip? You guys must be pretty pumped. I know I would be. Great news about the new Mosley. I think that is awesome that he is still delivering on such a high level, especially with how prolific he is. That is tough to do.

I am really enjoying Visitations: Poems. I have read a couple of her novels but did not realize that she was such a fine poet. You read, Being Mortal, right?

Today’s Bargain: The Schoolmistress by Anton Chekhov for $1.99 on e-readers.. A slim volume of short stories by the famous Russian playwright.

>132 kidzdoc:. Thanks, buddy! I enjoyed that linked article - that Murakami bingo is a hoot. The funny, bookish Grant Snider created that. And I’ll be sure to pick up that new novel as soon as it pops up its head on these shores. From all accounts his translators have always done an excellent job. It probably helps that there’s so much that’s Western-style in his writing.

>133 msf59:. Hey, Sultan of Darkness (in books!). We leave on Sunday for the wilds of Alaska. Can’t wait! We’re pretty organized for it; it helps that Disney sends a suggested packing list. Waterproof pants? Okay now I have some.

Yeah, I mention how Being Mortal helped my sisters and me up in >127 jnwelch:. There’s also a really good John Berryman Dream Song poem up in >130 jnwelch:.

Isn’t Visitations a stellar poetry collection? I love that Julia Alvarez started out as a poet. I had no idea.

>131 kidzdoc:. I’m glad to hear, Darryl, that your own experiences with (not) racism have been largely positive. I agree that you’re very approachable or, as Debbi would put it, “adorable”. 😀.

Yeah, I can’t think this morning of a non-clunky way to say it, but your extensive exposure to white people no doubt makes normal relations more possible. It works the other way, too. My parents’ black friends were regulars at our house in Ann Arbor, as were mine. My high school had a large black population and Ann Arbor is, as Google says, “overwhelmingly liberal and progressive.”

I do hope we can meet your other two British friends some day. I’m appreciating more and more how lucky we were to get together with you and Claire and others across the pond pre-Covid.

Enjoy the gorgeous weather. Yeah, as usual, Trump with his terrible judgment has egged on the climate change deniers. There are a lot of contenders, but I think one of the worst aftereffects of his presidency will be all his cuts to scientific research and health-related initiatives - not to mention his discouraging brilliant scientists from immigrating here.

You cracked me up with your concluding “why are my replies so long?” I do believe that if you gathered them up you’d have a good beginning to a memoir.😀

“Yinz” - I am familiar with it from our strong connection to Pittsburgh. How the heck did that catch on?

P.S. “Yinz” apparently originated with Scottish-Irish immigrants using the phrase “you ones” for you all. With that heavy Scottish accent, I guess it’s no surprise it got garbled.

>135 jnwelch: You're welcome, Joe. I agree, that Murakami cartoon is spot on, with plenty of spots for cats and a missing elephant.

>136 jnwelch: There's certainly a chance that you'll eventually meet Rachael, the first member of LibraryThing I ever met, back in 2009, and Fliss. They both live in Cambridge, which is roughly one hour away from London via nonstop express trains from King's Cross station, but Rachael works in London and Fliss frequently travels there to see plays, concerts and to visit her sister. Lately I've been seeing them for extended dinners in Cambridge, though, especially since Rachael's physician husband is a top notch chef who puts me to shame!

That makes perfect sense that "yinz" was derived from the Scottish-Irish "you ones." It's similar to the common Philadelphia contraction "jeet yet?," which is short for "did you eat yet?"

>137 kidzdoc:. Ha! The Elephant Vanishes.

Do you have time for a longer reply? This one seems a little abbreviated to me.😀

Meeting Rachel and Fliss in Cambridge sounds like a treat to me! We’ve been to Oxford, not Cambridge.

“Jeet yet” is the example Debbi uses for how hard ESLs must have it dealing with our idiomatic English. The proper answer to “Jeet yet” of course, is “No, chew?”.

>138 jnwelch: 😂

>139 kidzdoc: 👍😀

Enjoy the cruise, Joe. There's lots to see in Alaska.

You are making me feel guilty about not reading any Murakami yet this year. I had retrieved South of the Border, West of the Sun from a box last winter and just never felt it calling to me. I will put it in the bookbag for taking with me to Chicago. I also put in Tokyo Ueno Station as well as one of the compilations of Best American Travel Writing. Those essays are great for reading in short snatches of time. All of them should keep me busy during any downtime on the trip.

Today’s Bargains. Yellowface by R.F. Kuang for $1.99 on e-readers and Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy for $2.99.

The first is by one of our smartest new authors. A stolen manuscript leads to literary fame, but also a pretense difficult to maintain.

The second is McCarthy’s most powerful book (and that’s saying a lot!) with his most legendary villain. Set along the Texas-Mexico border in the 1850s, it’s a brutal, nightmarish delirium of a story, just as powerful on a re-read.

>141 Familyhistorian:. Thanks, Meg. It’s coming up fast!

>142 benitastrnad:. Good for you, Benita. No surprise, I enjoyed South of the Border very much. One that’s rising in his pantheon for me is Sputnik Sweetheart, which I’ll be re-reading soon. One of his strongest female voices.

Tokyo Ueno Station really stuck in my mind. It’s unlike anything else I’ve read. I think it won some award, and that drew my attention.

What a bummer that we’ll be missing your trip to Chicago. I’m sure you’ve wrangled passage into the ALA conference. I’m also sure you’ll have a great time. That collection of travel essays sounds like good company for the trip.

>144 jnwelch:
My sister and a librarian friend from Alabama will be rooming with us at the Palmer House. The highlight is going to be a tour of the Bohemian National Cemetery. We are doing that on Thursday, June 25. Our great-grandparents are buried there and it is one place we have never been in Chicago. We are doing the tour through the Chicago Architetural Society and there will be just me and my sister on this tour. There is a free concert at the Pritzker Pavilion that evening, so we are going to have a busy day of doing things in Chicago before the fun starts at the conference.

I hope I can make it through the event. I am getting older and I am not sure I could walk for 2 hours. Then we have 4 more days at the ALA conference. It might be harder to do the conference than it was in the past. I am looking forward to seeing Rachel Maddow speak and seeing a show that is featuring Paul Poundstone.

We are also going to have afternoon tea at the Russian Tea Room. It will be a fun filled week.

When the conference is all over I am going to drive the first section of Route 66. The part that is in Illinois all the way to St. Louis. Eventually I want to drive the entire Route 66.

>145 benitastrnad: Bohemian is an interesting cemetery, Benita. I pass it almost every day and it borders the university where I retired from. I've been inside a few times, looking for graves for others, but I've never taken a tour. I hope you get time to find your g-grandparents burial place.

>145 benitastrnad:. That all sounds delightful, Benita. Gosh, I haven’t been in the Palmer House in ages. What a great, old-timey Chicago place to stay. Right in the thick of things, too.

I’ve never been to the Bohemian National Cemetery, but I have been to the quite close North Park Nature Center(forest preserve). What a beautiful area. If you’re like us, you’ll forget you’re in a big city.

That architectural bout tour is a gem, and something we recommend to anyone visiting. Periodically we redo it with someone just to enjoy it again.The Pritzker Pavilion concerts are a treat, too. One caveat: if it’s someone/something popular, you may want to get there early for a spot on the lawn. There does come a point where they turn people away - until some people leave, IIRC.

I know what you mean about the increased difficulty of being on your feet that long at ALA. I now use a nifty cane with fold down seat we found on Amazon to take a load off on long hikes or protracted legwork like that. That time we saw you at ALA I was young enough not to need it. I remember our voracious reader Becca had three big bags full of free books just for starters, which I toted back to our car so we didn’t have to walk the conference with them. She of course added more as the day went on. What a treat for book lovers. I’m sure you’ll enjoy whipsmart Rachel Maddow and dittosmart Paula Poundstone.

Debbi and Becca just recently went to the Russian Tea Room and had a grand time. If it had been the Russian Coffee Room I might’ve asked to join them.

I think you’re arriving too late, but Rhonda (banjo) and her wife may visit us on the 19th or 20th for lunch. You’re always welcome if you arrive early enough.

Yes, Route 66 starts downtown here; I think it’s at Michigan Ave and Adams. I need to learn more about its history- all I remember is that we can get our kicks on Route 66. Kudos to you for taking it all the way to St. Louis. Knowing you, I’ll bet you’ll have a good audiobook on hand.

P.S. Lou Mitchell’s in the west loop is a delish 100+ year old breakfast diner that has long been a traditional place to eat for those taking Route 66. Great breakfasts, and a real slice of Chicago.

https://share.google/Iop1sw9ZmjHrN3Dd2

Hey Joe, I thought about you when I saw this video from Ed Sullivan's YouTube channel last night, when The Temptations performed their hit song "Runaway Child, Running Wild" on February 2, 1969. Ed was a great judge of quality talent during his television career, which ran from 1948 to 1971, and he was instrumental in introducing Black and Brown artists and those from abroad to Americans for the first time; if I remember correctly The Beatles and The Rolling Stones made their first American television appearances on his show.

https://youtu.be/uoXRjSO34Gw?is=otHDcLQ8S_OFj8s9

I remember being very upset, possibly to the point of tears, when, as a 10 year old boy, I learned that his uber popular show was canceled in 1971. Fortunately there are dozens if not hundreds of similar clips on his YouTube channel, which you can watch for free.

The Temptations a great start for Juneteenth!

>146 kac522:. Hi, Kathy. Nice part of Chicago.

>148 kidzdoc:. Thanks, Darryl. I’ll enjoy that linked video. I grew up on Motown music (Ann Arbor is near Detroit), and it’ll be fun to travel back in time. We, too, were religious watchers of The Ed Sullivan Show. I remember wondering how in the world he got this gig - he was so stiff and awkward. But of course he was the designer and propulsion and, as I now know, a groundbreaker in featuring and showing warm respect to black performers. We were lucky to have him.

Today’s Bargain: The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus for $1.99 on e-readers. This is a well-regarded collection of his essays, with over 100,000 (!) positive reviews on Amazon. I fell under his spell in The Stranger, but I’m not inclined to pick up this one. I welcome being convinced otherwise.

I unfortunately was underwhelmed by Ann Leckie’s new one, Radiant Star. Others might not be. I say more about it in the last entry above in >2 jnwelch:.

Looking forward to seeing you soon, Joe!

>153 banjo123: Ditto, Rhonda!

>152 jnwelch: I also was underwhelmed by Radiant Star. Too many of the characters were venal or had very little agency. The world wasn't that interesting - a bit too out of the way.

>155 quondame:. Ahh, thanks, Susan. It always helps to hear a kindred reaction. I wanted to like Radiant Star more, but I agree with the problems you identify.

Joe - President Obama!!!

>157 m.belljackson: Yay! Sounds like a wonderful event, Marianne. Lots of happy celebration at the Obama Center opening, and good reviews of what’s inside and the park surrounding.

Today’s Bargain: The Librarianist by Patrick de Witt for $1.99 on e-readers. A novel about a retired librarian. I know this author is good from liking a prior book of his, the name of which escapes me. The Sisters Brothers. (Quick research). And maybe one other.

And The Next Day’s Bargain: Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes for $1.99 on e-readers.. This book sold like hot cakes back in my bookstore days, and supposedly tastes even better. A memoir set in one of the most beautiful places on our planet.

Weekend-ahead's orisons, Joe!

>161 richardderus:. Thanks, RD! Back atcha!

We just had a lovely visit from
Rhonda (banjo) and her wife Wendy. Surprisingly, books were discussed. Along with many other affairs of state.
LT people are the best people on the planet, aren’t they. Luckily, we imported some beautiful weather for them to replace the wild storms.

Ah, the beauty of sports. The Knicks win the NBA championship, and NYC transforms into a friendly metropolis.

“In this transformed city, previously forbidding strangers are transformed into fellow fans. A blue-and-orange hat is a symbol of fellowship, license to start a conversation in line at the deli. You could stand in silence while waiting for the elevator, or you could ask the person next to you if he saw the game. You could let the old man in the Knicks Forever tee with matching neon sneakers shamble on by, or you could nod and give him a thumbs-up, which, miraculously, is returned. The feeling is one of temporary wonder: Can you believe Brunson and Co. came through? Can you believe you and I are talking to each other right now?“

(NY Times)

Happy travels tomorrow, Joe! (I have that right?)

>164 jessibud2: Thanks, Shelley! You have that right!

We’re off early tomorrow to fly to Vancouver to connect with our Disney Cruise to Alaska. Hoorah! The Pittsburgh gang gets in tonight, and daughter Becca will be joining us as well.

While on board I’ll have no wi-fi, so it’ll probably be radio silence for a week. I hope the conversations continue. If connections open up, e.g. on a trip to a town like Skegway or a city like Juno, I’ll check in.

Safe travels and have a fantastic vacation, Joe!

ETA: Happy Father's Day!

Have a great cruise!

Books Read in 2026

January 2026

1. This Place Kills Me by Mariko Tamaki*
2. Carl’s Doomsday Scenario by Matt Dinniman
3. The Day the Moon and Earth Had an Argument* by David Duff, The Crystal Heart* by Aaron Shephard, and The Knives* by Brubaker/Phillips.
4. Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens.
5. Drawing on Walls* by Matthew Burgess.
6. Isola by Allegra Goodman. Good but not great story of parentless Marguerite growing up spoiled by her rich circumstances, but still good-hearted, in a medieval castle-type setting, until her guardian uncle sells her lands and takes heron a journey to the New World - Canada. She ends up left on an empty stony island where she overcomes her coddled upbringing and survives under animal and weather duress. She finally makes herway back to France and is reunited with her dear friend Claire, and all turns out well.
7. The Correspondent by Virginia Evans. An epistolary novel. The life of in-her-70s Sybil Van Antwerp, as revealed in letters to and from her, and some unsent ones. She mentors a brilliant but socially teenage boy, who lives with her when things are their worst. She spars with her daughter Fiona, both of them longing for a better relationship but can’t figure out how to get it. She reveals all - almost all - to her best friend Rosalie, who has exchanged letters with her since they were little girls. Sybil lost her young son under heart-rending circumstances that broke her family apart and caused her husband to leave her. Now, at her advanced age, she finds herself caught between two men who both want her. And she unexpectedly learns she has a closely similar sister in Scotland she knew nothing about.. Well done and worthy of the popularity it has attained mainly through word of mouth.

8.Twelve Months by Jim Butcher. Harry Dresden is back, in another corker of a story. Queen Mab of the winter court has appointed Harry her Winter Knight, and told him he will be marrying Lara Raith, currently head of the White Court of Vampires. Harry is still mourning the loss of Karrin Murphy, a cop who battled alongside him and who reciprocated his love.. Harry., as usual, is not inclined to be easily compliant to authority, but Lara is intoxicatingly beautiful and brilliant in her own right, and Queen Mab has sufficient power to make it stick. Meanwhile, Harry is dedicated to freeing his half-brother Thomas (a vampire) from the clutches of a Hunger demon, and to free Thomas’s kidnapped pregnant wife, too. Lots of good ingredients for a juicy tale, and as usual Butcher manages to blend them into a tasty and satisfying dish.

February 2026

9. Stolen in Death by J.D. Robb. Another solid Eve-Roarke procedural, centered around stolen jewelry and a seemingly unnecessary death. Roarke had connections to the jewelry, and a woman from his past surfaces.

10. Villette by Charlotte Bronte. See review below.

11. A Bride’s Story 15 by Kaoru Mori. In this one we’re mostly in England instead of the Silk Road, as Smith brings Talas home with the intention of marrying her. His parents disapprove, of course, and think she must be from India (she’s from Turkistan, IIRC). They settle in his family’s enormous “cottage”, with sheep for Talas to happily tend. Mori’s drawing skills continue to impress and even improve.

12. Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. Review below.

13. Anti-Hero by Gregg Hurwitz. Descent into the sordid porn and abuse of women business. During an epileptic seizure in public, Anca is kidnapped by four teenage men who proceed to brutalize and rape her, then sell the film to a porn site. Evan, with the help of his techno-wizard adopted daughter Joey, and former nemesis Candy, rescues Anca, tracks down the young men and brings them to justice via new nemesis FBI agent Naomi Templeton, who’s wiiling to work with him on this. He also straightens out a falling añart billionaire genius, who in turn helps him destroy the porn site that is fomenting the abuse.

March 2026

14. Antarctica by Claire Keegan. Short stories by the author of Foster and Small Things Like These. She was able to convey a lotbin those short novels, and the same happens here. The title story is a masterwork as a woman dissatisfied with her marriage goes on a risky adventure. The author has a knack for ending a story sooner than you’d expect, with perfection, so that you’re satisfied yet your mind carries on the story into what happens beyond. Looking forward to her next novel.

15. Murder in Mistake by Anne Cleeland. Kathleen Doyle once again uses his truth-sorting powers and dream visits from a ghost to help her husband Lord Acton solve a complicated set of murders where veiled motives cause misdirection. There’s a new baby girl who needs breast-feeding, but Doyle handles a busy maternity leave with her usual aplomb. Love this series; always a pleasure to reunite with Doyle and Acton.

16. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett.* A competently done graphic version. This story is always appealing, but I kept thinking of the much more magical illustrations of Inga Moore.

17. Lucas Wars by Laurent Hopman.*

18. Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman. The first in a silly fun post-apocalyptic series.

19. The Crossroads by CJ Box. A Joe Pickett mystery in which Joe is in a hospital bed coma for most of it, after an ambush that gave him a bullet wound to the head. His three daughters investigate, which is fun.

20. The Hard Line by Mark Greaney. Another exciting Gray Man adventure. This time Court Gentry, the GM, is working with a team to thwart a Chine attempt to take over U.S. intelligence services with the help of high-up traitors. They send multiple GM-level assassins to kill key intelligence operatives. Among them are two with personal scores to settle with the Gray Man. One targets the GM’s father, which results in the GM and his father teaming up to fight a half dozen trained killers. Another fun thriller in this reliably action-filled series.

21. Please Wait to Cross by our cousin Elissa Bass. I enjoyed her Happy Hour, but this one a little less. Part of that is the inclusion of a somewhat grisly murder scene in an otherwise lightish romance novel. I can definitely see why she did it -it sets up a future valuable section about the main character’s good works, but yhe tonal asymmetry didn’t work for me.

22. Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis. The first half of this novel about an unhappy academician trying to get tenure at and Oxford/Cambridge-type university had me wondering why the book is revered. (I got it off that BBC Top 100 list). The introduction talks about how much Amis detested the academic environment and hidebound tradition, and it shows. In the second half Jim becomes more sympathetic, and his passive agressivevbattles with forces thst be (the main villain is named Welch, but I didn’t hold that against the book), and efforts to mollify a histrionic romantic interest while also pursuing a level-headed beauty made the reading much more interesting. As impossible as it seemed early on, thigs work out okay for Lucky Jim.

23. Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. Not my cuppa. An intolerably Christian father who oppresses his wife and daughters, and tries to force his Christian beliefs on African natives (the Congo) without for am minute considering their existing beliefs or, for that matter, their daily lives.

24. Theo of Golden by Allen Levi. The self-published phenomenon by a first-time author. A huge bestseller. Theo is a handsome, charming 86 year old man who comes to a small Georgia town, Golden, and keeps information about himself under wraps. He loves a local artist’s portraits of the townspeople and proceeds to buy them bit by bit. He arranges to give their portrait to each subject in exchange for time discussing their lives. In this way he becomes a valued member of the community. I enjoyed the community members and Theo, and Levi deftly mixes it up so it doesn’t get repetitive. Turns out that Theo had quite a life pre-Golden, and has unexpected connections to the town. A well done feel good novel.

25. Becoming Yourself by Shunryu Suzuki. Suzuki was an influential Zen master and author of one of my favorite Buddhist books. Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind. This one is a loose collection of transcribed talks Suzuki gave at the San Francisco Zen Center, which my Chicago Zen Center is affiliated with. I love his lighthearted skepticism about all the behavioral rules (e.g. the 16 precepts). His view: they’re important, but don’t overweight them. If you sit (meditate) well and get yourself into the compassionate Buddhist mindset, you’ll be fulfilling them without even thinking about it. The book also has a chapter by his wife about her life with Suzuki, and Suzuki’s explanation of how he learned Zen, and how and why he came to America to teach us Buddhism. Start with Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind. If you love it, you’ll want to read this one.

26. The Waves by Virginia Woolf. My goddaughter’s favorite of hers, and one of the BBC Top 100. Very poetic writing; consists of a half dozen or so freeflowing interior monologues interspersed witb lovely descriptions of the sea and shore. Stuctured from sunrise to sunset, it tracks the connected characters as they age from young to old. Explores the growth of identity and aspirations for unity over loneliness. Impressive, but my favorites remain Mrs. Dalloway and A Room of One’s Own.

27. The Astral Library by Kate Quinn. This fantasy novel on its face seemed like such a departure for this author of excellent historical novels like The Alice Network, The Rose Code and The Briar Club. But her Afterword makes it clear that she’s been an avid fantasy reader her whole life. She makes good use of that knowledge, as this novel features the ability to enter and live in the books of the Astral Library. This is a godsend for 26 year old Alix, who after being raised in multiple foster homes is eking out a meager existence cobbling together part time jobs, including one at the Boston Public Library. The Librarian in the AL is ancient and dragon- tough, and somewhat reluctantly takes on Alix as an assistant. This lead to adventures in multiple books, as the AL seems to be under a mysterious attack. Wearing the right clothing in books such as Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice is always an issue, particularly since the library’s funding (of course) has been cut, like every library’s. Luckily Alix’s best friend Beau is a rising fashion design star who can kit her out. Dire dilemmas relating to the attacks keep the book hopping, and it ended up being a very enjoyable diversion in our stressful time. A book lover’s, and fantasy lover’s delight. Given her enjoyment of the genre, I suspect that this is not the last we’ll see of Alix and the AL.

April 2026

28. Oh Brother by Georgina Chadderton. A graphic memoir from Austria about a young girl growing up with a brother very much on the autism spectrum. Rob is mostly non- verbal, so clever that they have combination locks on every door, and sometimes violent. Her parents are great with him, but he affects every aspect of their lives. Taking him to get his haircut or to the dentist is a major operation which he resists. Gina has trouble making friends but makes a good one in Callie, who puts up with Rob even after he bites her. Gina has her own anxieties and difficulties at school, but loves Rob and knows he always has to come first. . From an afterword we know that Rob becomes increasingly difficult, and after he turns 18 is moved to a house that provides proper. Gina learns at 32 that she’s on the spectrum, too. . What I particularly liked about this book is I haven’t often gotten this perspective from a sibling on a spectrum-resider. The graphics were so-so.

29. There is No Antimemetics Division by qntm. A VERY high concept sci-fi book about battling a creature who preys on memories.

30. The Violence: My Family’s Colombian War by Adrian’s Es Ramirez.
31. More Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa. Liked its “Days” predecessor a lot. The first half was a snooze.💤 Peaceful, but not much happening. The second half took a turn for the much better, with suppressed characters opening up to each other. I ended up glad I read it, and I’ll read more by this author.

32. Anger by Thich Nhat Hanh. Subtitled “Wisdom for Cooling the Fames”, I found it very helpful in trying to defuse and calm down my anger. Mindful breathing, embracing the anger and taking care of it like a loved one, rather than suppressing it or”venting it”. He says the last may give temporary relief, but in the end it just feeds the anger. Lots of good stuff about getting relationships back on track, the roles of parents, and more. Glad I read this one.

33. Transition by Ben Lerner. A disappointment that probably is my fault. Book critics have been robustly supportive of this one, and it basically sailed over my head. Supposedly an examination of memory and digital recording in novel form, it unfortunately did little for me. The most interesting part was when the main character’s daughter had an eating disorder that got straightened out.

May 2026

34. The Faraway Inn by Sarah Beth Durst. This cozy fantasy was delightful from beginning to end. It took me back to the first fantasies I read as a lad, and the pleasure I took in them. Clarisa’s boyfriend breaks her heart, and she needs to get away for the summer to heal. Her Aunt Zee needs help at her Vermont Inn, which turns out to have some wonderful secrets and surprising guests. A treat to read.

35. Woods & Words: The story of Poet Mary Oliver by Sara Holly Ackerman.

36. Siddhartha by Herman Hesse. Re-read. Spiritual and Buddhist, but also warmly personal and touching. This was an impressive re-read: not an easy subject to make so appealing.

37. Not in Love by Ali Hazelwood. Like our daughter, I’ve enjoyed this author’s STEM romances. This non-STEM one was just okay.

38. Platform Decay by Martha Wells. It has the humor we’ve all enjoyed, led by SecUnit’s skepticism concerning all things human, sometimes surfacing as distaste (e.g., our constant need for bathrooms) and sometimes an inability to understand (why the attempts to interpret his expression). I was a little disappointed by the somewhat unilinear plot: Murderbot has to rescue humans trapped on a space station from pursuing corporate villains out to capture or kill them. He connives his way through the ginormous space station, hoping to reconnect with an escape shuttle. His rescuees include weak and incomprehensible (to him) children whom he must reluctantly accommodate. It’s fun, but for me doesn’t reach the heights of some of its predecessors.

39. Wild for Austen by Devoney Looser. It’s subtitled “A Rebellious, Subversive and Untamed Jane”. The author is a well-known Austen scholar with other Austen books under her belt. This one seeks to dispel the notion that Austen was a cloistered, prim village girl with little exposure to the outside world. Looser’s arguments are effective. Through her brothers and other relatives and acquaintances she got around much more than commonly thought, and her inner fire was often on display. An authorial tic that annoyed me was Looser’s repeated use of the word “wild” to advance her premise. Among the otherwise skillful writing and meticulous research, it felt surprisingly amateurish. Still, I was impressed by the breadth of her knowledge and the depth of that research. It was great learning more about a favorite author and her works. I’m re-inspired to dig into her sometimes naughty, sometimes hilariously mean-spirited Juvenalia.

40. The Golden Hour by Niki smith.*. A well-done 235 page graphic story about Manuel, 10-11 years old, who was traumatized by a school shooter, but thought to pull the fire alarm and ended up saving his art teacher. A school project leads to friendship with white farm boy Sebastian and black classmate Caysha, both of whom help Manuel (who is Latin) when he gets triggered by noises or events.

It’s well done - also featuring realistic parents who are open-minded- and I hope it gets found by YAs and middle grade readers. The warm friendships are a highlight.

41. Out Law by Jim Butcher. A fun outing with Chicago wizard Harry Dresden. Harry is teaching a young apprentice wizard named Fitz, who knows how to create fire and some other things, but is ignorant of a whole lot more. Meanwhile chief gangster Marcone has called in a chip to have Harry help an annoying low echelon gangster, Tripp, go straight. It turns out Tripp is owed $10 mill by a rival gang leader after winning a bet, and the rival would rather kill him than pay it. The rival has a fantastically strong black blob called The Lurker doing what he asks; it gets inside animals and people and takes them over. The rival’s right hand man has the Lurker inside him. Harry, helped by the Valkyrie Bear, has to keep Tripp safe, get the $10 million for Tripp’s legit new charity, and defeat the rival and the Lurker. He figures out a clever way to do that with the help of Demonreach, and at the same time teach both Fitz and Tripp some valuable lessons.. I was very happy to have another Harry Dresden story to read.

42. Night Watch by Kevin Young. One of the best poetry collections I’ve read in a while. I always find it hard to describe poetry collections. I’ll think some more and maybe post an excerpt or two. Meanwhile I’m going to look for his previous collection, Stones.

43. Names and Faces by Leise Hook. A well-illustrated graphic memoir about a biracial Asian/white girl. She’s caught betwixt and between and has trouble figuring out her own identity. She grows up to look white. Her happiest time seemed to be when she was in an international school filled with mixed race children. There nobody thought there was something odd about her appearance.

She explores her Chinese heritage and experiments with her hair, going through a blonde phase. The lack of Asian role models, including in American girl dolls, troubles her mind. It’s all interesting enough, and caused me to think a lot more about what life is like for biracial people. But there is no real resolution. I suspect that there will be a second book covering more of her journey. She appears to marry a white man, so there may be more ruminations not only about her own identity, but that of any children.

44. This Book Made Me Think of You by Libby Page. A charmer in which a widow’s late husband leaves her a book a month for a year at a local bookstore, with a letter for each as to why. Some send her on adventures, others have other purposes. In the process the bookstore personnel also have an effect on her life. An enjoyable read, and each chapter begins with book recommendations from the bookstore owner which hit the spot for me and lead me already to a good book I hadn’t known about.

45. Tales from the Cafe by Kai Taksini. A follow-up to Before the Coffee Gets Cold in which the cafe time travelers travel to the past, and in one instance the future, to deal with grief issues. There are two more books in this series that I’ll likely read.

46. If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin. A family in crisis at an unexpected pregnancy and a racist cop who put the innocent father in prison.

June 2026

47. Visitations: Poems by Julia Alvarez, the author of A Time of Butterflies. Very satisfying poems that read like short stories, covering memories from her entire life, which started in the Dominican Republic. In an afterward she notes that she was first published as a poet and that this volume isn’t a departure from novel-writing but a return to her love of poetry. I’ll be looking for earlier collections.

48. The World’s Greatest Detective and Her Just Okay Assistant by Liza Tully. Like many others, I imagine, I couldn’t resist that title! Merritt is the terse, brusque, detail-retentive detective, and Blunt is her enthusiastic, not as bright assistant who is a good surrogate for the reader. It reminds me a bit of the Hawthorne and Horowitz relationship in Anthony Horowitz’s murder mysteries. Blunt also feels a bit under-used and disrespected.

It was quite enjoyable - was it suicide or murder? If murder, whodunnit and why? There’s a large cast of familial and other suspects. When it finished, the relationship had developed to where I thought, this likely is the start of a series and, sure enough, their new one will be out any minute now, The Forty Year Grudge.

49. Radiant Star by Ann Leckie, the author of the Ancillary books, starting with Ancillary justice. The good news is it’s an Imperial Radch book, à la the Ancillary books. Unfortunately I found it underwhelming. It features lots of religious, political, family and community jockeying for position, which other readers might find more interesting than I did. I gave it four stars; Leckie knows how to keep the pages turning. 1200+ Amazon readers gave it a slightly more enthusiastic 4.2 rating.

50. _Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury. It took us quite a while to read it to each other, but it was worth it. The summer of young Doug Spaulding and brother Tom in 1928 small town Illinois. Lovely storytelling, with one reminder after another of the simple gifts life brings us - a new pair of sneakers for Doug that has him running and jumping with poetic revelry, an old man whose vivid stories of years gone by have the boys viewing him as a Time Machine. This book had a profound positive effect on teenage disaffected me.

51. The Lions’ Run by Sara Pennypacker, author of the terrific Pax.

52. Human Nature Vol. 1 by Dan Aronofsky. Sci-fi graphic novel with a good story so far - the protagonist gets himself kidnapped by aliens in hopes this will help him find his disappeared daughter.

53. Days at the Torunka Cafe by Satoshi Yagisawa. Relationships develop among the patrons of an out of the way cafe. Had the same calming, charming feeling as Before the Coffee Gets Cold, although this is a different author.

54. Dolly All the Time. A fun light romance.

55. The Neon Rain by James Lee Burke. The first Dave Robicheaux mystery. Someone recommended this series to me. It was enjoyable modern noir, with tough, witty repartee, but I’mon the fence about continuing. Maybe one more at least to see how it goes.

July 2026

55.

* Denotes a graphic work

>168 jnwelch:. Oops

Happy Father’s Day to all our LT fathers!

Joe - Have a Fun Father's Day Cruise Celebration - Best to All the Family!

Today’s Bargain: City by Clifford D. Simak for $1.99 on e-readers. . His best, by an under-appreciated sci-fi master. Intelligent dogs inherent the planet and keep the history of humans.

New Bargain: Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell for $1.99 on e-readers. Impressively structured and written modern classic.

Happy July, Joe. Is the Welch Clan back home? If so, how did the trip go? Inquiring minds and all that...

>173 jnwelch:. Hey, buddy. Yes, we’re back and we had a great time. The grandlittles were hilariously busy and happy, Alaska was breathtaking, the food excellent, the excursions into Skegway, Juneau and Ketchikan intriguing. We saw a lot of humpback whales, plus porpoises and sea lions. Debbi will probably be posting photos on FB. I’ve been enjoying Bernard Cornwell’s history of Waterloo.

It was in the 60s F there- did we make a mistake in coming back home? This heat is ridiculous.

Today’s Bargains: Rogues by Patrick Radden Keefe for $2.99 on e-readers and Case Histories for $1.99.

The first is a collection of a dozen NF pieces by the elite author of Say Nothing and London Falling.

The second is the first Jackson Brodie book, in which he solves three cases.

>172 jnwelch: I've always wanted to see an animated version of that story. I loved it as a teen.

Happy July's reads!

Books Read in 2026

January 2026

1. This Place Kills Me by Mariko Tamaki*
2. Carl’s Doomsday Scenario by Matt Dinniman
3. The Day the Moon and Earth Had an Argument* by David Duff, The Crystal Heart* by Aaron Shephard, and The Knives* by Brubaker/Phillips.
4. Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens.
5. Drawing on Walls* by Matthew Burgess.
6. Isola by Allegra Goodman. Good but not great story of parentless Marguerite growing up spoiled by her rich circumstances, but still good-hearted, in a medieval castle-type setting, until her guardian uncle sells her lands and takes heron a journey to the New World - Canada. She ends up left on an empty stony island where she overcomes her coddled upbringing and survives under animal and weather duress. She finally makes herway back to France and is reunited with her dear friend Claire, and all turns out well.
7. The Correspondent by Virginia Evans. An epistolary novel. The life of in-her-70s Sybil Van Antwerp, as revealed in letters to and from her, and some unsent ones. She mentors a brilliant but socially teenage boy, who lives with her when things are their worst. She spars with her daughter Fiona, both of them longing for a better relationship but can’t figure out how to get it. She reveals all - almost all - to her best friend Rosalie, who has exchanged letters with her since they were little girls. Sybil lost her young son under heart-rending circumstances that broke her family apart and caused her husband to leave her. Now, at her advanced age, she finds herself caught between two men who both want her. And she unexpectedly learns she has a closely similar sister in Scotland she knew nothing about.. Well done and worthy of the popularity it has attained mainly through word of mouth.

8.Twelve Months by Jim Butcher. Harry Dresden is back, in another corker of a story. Queen Mab of the winter court has appointed Harry her Winter Knight, and told him he will be marrying Lara Raith, currently head of the White Court of Vampires. Harry is still mourning the loss of Karrin Murphy, a cop who battled alongside him and who reciprocated his love.. Harry., as usual, is not inclined to be easily compliant to authority, but Lara is intoxicatingly beautiful and brilliant in her own right, and Queen Mab has sufficient power to make it stick. Meanwhile, Harry is dedicated to freeing his half-brother Thomas (a vampire) from the clutches of a Hunger demon, and to free Thomas’s kidnapped pregnant wife, too. Lots of good ingredients for a juicy tale, and as usual Butcher manages to blend them into a tasty and satisfying dish.

February 2026

9. Stolen in Death by J.D. Robb. Another solid Eve-Roarke procedural, centered around stolen jewelry and a seemingly unnecessary death. Roarke had connections to the jewelry, and a woman from his past surfaces.

10. Villette by Charlotte Bronte. See review below.

11. A Bride’s Story 15 by Kaoru Mori. In this one we’re mostly in England instead of the Silk Road, as Smith brings Talas home with the intention of marrying her. His parents disapprove, of course, and think she must be from India (she’s from Turkistan, IIRC). They settle in his family’s enormous “cottage”, with sheep for Talas to happily tend. Mori’s drawing skills continue to impress and even improve.

12. Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. Review below.

13. Anti-Hero by Gregg Hurwitz. Descent into the sordid porn and abuse of women business. During an epileptic seizure in public, Anca is kidnapped by four teenage men who proceed to brutalize and rape her, then sell the film to a porn site. Evan, with the help of his techno-wizard adopted daughter Joey, and former nemesis Candy, rescues Anca, tracks down the young men and brings them to justice via new nemesis FBI agent Naomi Templeton, who’s wiiling to work with him on this. He also straightens out a falling añart billionaire genius, who in turn helps him destroy the porn site that is fomenting the abuse.

March 2026

14. Antarctica by Claire Keegan. Short stories by the author of Foster and Small Things Like These. She was able to convey a lotbin those short novels, and the same happens here. The title story is a masterwork as a woman dissatisfied with her marriage goes on a risky adventure. The author has a knack for ending a story sooner than you’d expect, with perfection, so that you’re satisfied yet your mind carries on the story into what happens beyond. Looking forward to her next novel.

15. Murder in Mistake by Anne Cleeland. Kathleen Doyle once again uses his truth-sorting powers and dream visits from a ghost to help her husband Lord Acton solve a complicated set of murders where veiled motives cause misdirection. There’s a new baby girl who needs breast-feeding, but Doyle handles a busy maternity leave with her usual aplomb. Love this series; always a pleasure to reunite with Doyle and Acton.

16. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett.* A competently done graphic version. This story is always appealing, but I kept thinking of the much more magical illustrations of Inga Moore.

17. Lucas Wars by Laurent Hopman.*

18. Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman. The first in a silly fun post-apocalyptic series.

19. The Crossroads by CJ Box. A Joe Pickett mystery in which Joe is in a hospital bed coma for most of it, after an ambush that gave him a bullet wound to the head. His three daughters investigate, which is fun.

20. The Hard Line by Mark Greaney. Another exciting Gray Man adventure. This time Court Gentry, the GM, is working with a team to thwart a Chine attempt to take over U.S. intelligence services with the help of high-up traitors. They send multiple GM-level assassins to kill key intelligence operatives. Among them are two with personal scores to settle with the Gray Man. One targets the GM’s father, which results in the GM and his father teaming up to fight a half dozen trained killers. Another fun thriller in this reliably action-filled series.

21. Please Wait to Cross by our cousin Elissa Bass. I enjoyed her Happy Hour, but this one a little less. Part of that is the inclusion of a somewhat grisly murder scene in an otherwise lightish romance novel. I can definitely see why she did it -it sets up a future valuable section about the main character’s good works, but yhe tonal asymmetry didn’t work for me.

22. Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis. The first half of this novel about an unhappy academician trying to get tenure at and Oxford/Cambridge-type university had me wondering why the book is revered. (I got it off that BBC Top 100 list). The introduction talks about how much Amis detested the academic environment and hidebound tradition, and it shows. In the second half Jim becomes more sympathetic, and his passive agressivevbattles with forces thst be (the main villain is named Welch, but I didn’t hold that against the book), and efforts to mollify a histrionic romantic interest while also pursuing a level-headed beauty made the reading much more interesting. As impossible as it seemed early on, thigs work out okay for Lucky Jim.

23. Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. Not my cuppa. An intolerably Christian father who oppresses his wife and daughters, and tries to force his Christian beliefs on African natives (the Congo) without for am minute considering their existing beliefs or, for that matter, their daily lives.

24. Theo of Golden by Allen Levi. The self-published phenomenon by a first-time author. A huge bestseller. Theo is a handsome, charming 86 year old man who comes to a small Georgia town, Golden, and keeps information about himself under wraps. He loves a local artist’s portraits of the townspeople and proceeds to buy them bit by bit. He arranges to give their portrait to each subject in exchange for time discussing their lives. In this way he becomes a valued member of the community. I enjoyed the community members and Theo, and Levi deftly mixes it up so it doesn’t get repetitive. Turns out that Theo had quite a life pre-Golden, and has unexpected connections to the town. A well done feel good novel.

25. Becoming Yourself by Shunryu Suzuki. Suzuki was an influential Zen master and author of one of my favorite Buddhist books. Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind. This one is a loose collection of transcribed talks Suzuki gave at the San Francisco Zen Center, which my Chicago Zen Center is affiliated with. I love his lighthearted skepticism about all the behavioral rules (e.g. the 16 precepts). His view: they’re important, but don’t overweight them. If you sit (meditate) well and get yourself into the compassionate Buddhist mindset, you’ll be fulfilling them without even thinking about it. The book also has a chapter by his wife about her life with Suzuki, and Suzuki’s explanation of how he learned Zen, and how and why he came to America to teach us Buddhism. Start with Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind. If you love it, you’ll want to read this one.

26. The Waves by Virginia Woolf. My goddaughter’s favorite of hers, and one of the BBC Top 100. Very poetic writing; consists of a half dozen or so freeflowing interior monologues interspersed witb lovely descriptions of the sea and shore. Stuctured from sunrise to sunset, it tracks the connected characters as they age from young to old. Explores the growth of identity and aspirations for unity over loneliness. Impressive, but my favorites remain Mrs. Dalloway and A Room of One’s Own.

27. The Astral Library by Kate Quinn. This fantasy novel on its face seemed like such a departure for this author of excellent historical novels like The Alice Network, The Rose Code and The Briar Club. But her Afterword makes it clear that she’s been an avid fantasy reader her whole life. She makes good use of that knowledge, as this novel features the ability to enter and live in the books of the Astral Library. This is a godsend for 26 year old Alix, who after being raised in multiple foster homes is eking out a meager existence cobbling together part time jobs, including one at the Boston Public Library. The Librarian in the AL is ancient and dragon- tough, and somewhat reluctantly takes on Alix as an assistant. This lead to adventures in multiple books, as the AL seems to be under a mysterious attack. Wearing the right clothing in books such as Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice is always an issue, particularly since the library’s funding (of course) has been cut, like every library’s. Luckily Alix’s best friend Beau is a rising fashion design star who can kit her out. Dire dilemmas relating to the attacks keep the book hopping, and it ended up being a very enjoyable diversion in our stressful time. A book lover’s, and fantasy lover’s delight. Given her enjoyment of the genre, I suspect that this is not the last we’ll see of Alix and the AL.

April 2026

28. Oh Brother by Georgina Chadderton. A graphic memoir from Austria about a young girl growing up with a brother very much on the autism spectrum. Rob is mostly non- verbal, so clever that they have combination locks on every door, and sometimes violent. Her parents are great with him, but he affects every aspect of their lives. Taking him to get his haircut or to the dentist is a major operation which he resists. Gina has trouble making friends but makes a good one in Callie, who puts up with Rob even after he bites her. Gina has her own anxieties and difficulties at school, but loves Rob and knows he always has to come first. . From an afterword we know that Rob becomes increasingly difficult, and after he turns 18 is moved to a house that provides proper. Gina learns at 32 that she’s on the spectrum, too. . What I particularly liked about this book is I haven’t often gotten this perspective from a sibling on a spectrum-resider. The graphics were so-so.

29. There is No Antimemetics Division by qntm. A VERY high concept sci-fi book about battling a creature who preys on memories.

30. The Violence: My Family’s Colombian War by Adrian’s Es Ramirez.
31. More Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa. Liked its “Days” predecessor a lot. The first half was a snooze.💤 Peaceful, but not much happening. The second half took a turn for the much better, with suppressed characters opening up to each other. I ended up glad I read it, and I’ll read more by this author.

32. Anger by Thich Nhat Hanh. Subtitled “Wisdom for Cooling the Fames”, I found it very helpful in trying to defuse and calm down my anger. Mindful breathing, embracing the anger and taking care of it like a loved one, rather than suppressing it or”venting it”. He says the last may give temporary relief, but in the end it just feeds the anger. Lots of good stuff about getting relationships back on track, the roles of parents, and more. Glad I read this one.

33. Transition by Ben Lerner. A disappointment that probably is my fault. Book critics have been robustly supportive of this one, and it basically sailed over my head. Supposedly an examination of memory and digital recording in novel form, it unfortunately did little for me. The most interesting part was when the main character’s daughter had an eating disorder that got straightened out.

May 2026

34. The Faraway Inn by Sarah Beth Durst. This cozy fantasy was delightful from beginning to end. It took me back to the first fantasies I read as a lad, and the pleasure I took in them. Clarisa’s boyfriend breaks her heart, and she needs to get away for the summer to heal. Her Aunt Zee needs help at her Vermont Inn, which turns out to have some wonderful secrets and surprising guests. A treat to read.

35. Woods & Words: The story of Poet Mary Oliver by Sara Holly Ackerman.

36. Siddhartha by Herman Hesse. Re-read. Spiritual and Buddhist, but also warmly personal and touching. This was an impressive re-read: not an easy subject to make so appealing.

37. Not in Love by Ali Hazelwood. Like our daughter, I’ve enjoyed this author’s STEM romances. This non-STEM one was just okay.

38. Platform Decay by Martha Wells. It has the humor we’ve all enjoyed, led by SecUnit’s skepticism concerning all things human, sometimes surfacing as distaste (e.g., our constant need for bathrooms) and sometimes an inability to understand (why the attempts to interpret his expression). I was a little disappointed by the somewhat unilinear plot: Murderbot has to rescue humans trapped on a space station from pursuing corporate villains out to capture or kill them. He connives his way through the ginormous space station, hoping to reconnect with an escape shuttle. His rescuees include weak and incomprehensible (to him) children whom he must reluctantly accommodate. It’s fun, but for me doesn’t reach the heights of some of its predecessors.

39. Wild for Austen by Devoney Looser. It’s subtitled “A Rebellious, Subversive and Untamed Jane”. The author is a well-known Austen scholar with other Austen books under her belt. This one seeks to dispel the notion that Austen was a cloistered, prim village girl with little exposure to the outside world. Looser’s arguments are effective. Through her brothers and other relatives and acquaintances she got around much more than commonly thought, and her inner fire was often on display. An authorial tic that annoyed me was Looser’s repeated use of the word “wild” to advance her premise. Among the otherwise skillful writing and meticulous research, it felt surprisingly amateurish. Still, I was impressed by the breadth of her knowledge and the depth of that research. It was great learning more about a favorite author and her works. I’m re-inspired to dig into her sometimes naughty, sometimes hilariously mean-spirited Juvenalia.

40. The Golden Hour by Niki smith.*. A well-done 235 page graphic story about Manuel, 10-11 years old, who was traumatized by a school shooter, but thought to pull the fire alarm and ended up saving his art teacher. A school project leads to friendship with white farm boy Sebastian and black classmate Caysha, both of whom help Manuel (who is Latin) when he gets triggered by noises or events.

It’s well done - also featuring realistic parents who are open-minded- and I hope it gets found by YAs and middle grade readers. The warm friendships are a highlight.

41. Out Law by Jim Butcher. A fun outing with Chicago wizard Harry Dresden. Harry is teaching a young apprentice wizard named Fitz, who knows how to create fire and some other things, but is ignorant of a whole lot more. Meanwhile chief gangster Marcone has called in a chip to have Harry help an annoying low echelon gangster, Tripp, go straight. It turns out Tripp is owed $10 mill by a rival gang leader after winning a bet, and the rival would rather kill him than pay it. The rival has a fantastically strong black blob called The Lurker doing what he asks; it gets inside animals and people and takes them over. The rival’s right hand man has the Lurker inside him. Harry, helped by the Valkyrie Bear, has to keep Tripp safe, get the $10 million for Tripp’s legit new charity, and defeat the rival and the Lurker. He figures out a clever way to do that with the help of Demonreach, and at the same time teach both Fitz and Tripp some valuable lessons.. I was very happy to have another Harry Dresden story to read.

42. Night Watch by Kevin Young. One of the best poetry collections I’ve read in a while. I always find it hard to describe poetry collections. I’ll think some more and maybe post an excerpt or two. Meanwhile I’m going to look for his previous collection, Stones.

43. Names and Faces by Leise Hook. A well-illustrated graphic memoir about a biracial Asian/white girl. She’s caught betwixt and between and has trouble figuring out her own identity. She grows up to look white. Her happiest time seemed to be when she was in an international school filled with mixed race children. There nobody thought there was something odd about her appearance.

She explores her Chinese heritage and experiments with her hair, going through a blonde phase. The lack of Asian role models, including in American girl dolls, troubles her mind. It’s all interesting enough, and caused me to think a lot more about what life is like for biracial people. But there is no real resolution. I suspect that there will be a second book covering more of her journey. She appears to marry a white man, so there may be more ruminations not only about her own identity, but that of any children.

44. This Book Made Me Think of You by Libby Page. A charmer in which a widow’s late husband leaves her a book a month for a year at a local bookstore, with a letter for each as to why. Some send her on adventures, others have other purposes. In the process the bookstore personnel also have an effect on her life. An enjoyable read, and each chapter begins with book recommendations from the bookstore owner which hit the spot for me and lead me already to a good book I hadn’t known about.

45. Tales from the Cafe by Kai Taksini. A follow-up to Before the Coffee Gets Cold in which the cafe time travelers travel to the past, and in one instance the future, to deal with grief issues. There are two more books in this series that I’ll likely read.

46. If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin. A family in crisis at an unexpected pregnancy and a racist cop who put the innocent father in prison.

June 2026

47. Visitations: Poems by Julia Alvarez, the author of A Time of Butterflies. Very satisfying poems that read like short stories, covering memories from her entire life, which started in the Dominican Republic. In an afterward she notes that she was first published as a poet and that this volume isn’t a departure from novel-writing but a return to her love of poetry. I’ll be looking for earlier collections.

48. The World’s Greatest Detective and Her Just Okay Assistant by Liza Tully. Like many others, I imagine, I couldn’t resist that title! Merritt is the terse, brusque, detail-retentive detective, and Blunt is her enthusiastic, not as bright assistant who is a good surrogate for the reader. It reminds me a bit of the Hawthorne and Horowitz relationship in Anthony Horowitz’s murder mysteries. Blunt also feels a bit under-used and disrespected.

It was quite enjoyable - was it suicide or murder? If murder, whodunnit and why? There’s a large cast of familial and other suspects. When it finished, the relationship had developed to where I thought, this likely is the start of a series and, sure enough, their new one will be out any minute now, The Forty Year Grudge.

49. Radiant Star by Ann Leckie, the author of the Ancillary books, starting with Ancillary justice. The good news is it’s an Imperial Radch book, à la the Ancillary books. Unfortunately I found it underwhelming. It features lots of religious, political, family and community jockeying for position, which other readers might find more interesting than I did. I gave it four stars; Leckie knows how to keep the pages turning. 1200+ Amazon readers gave it a slightly more enthusiastic 4.2 rating.

50. _Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury. It took us quite a while to read it to each other, but it was worth it. The summer of young Doug Spaulding and brother Tom in 1928 small town Illinois. Lovely storytelling, with one reminder after another of the simple gifts life brings us - a new pair of sneakers for Doug that has him running and jumping with poetic revelry, an old man whose vivid stories of years gone by have the boys viewing him as a Time Machine. This book had a profound positive effect on teenage disaffected me.

51. The Lions’ Run by Sara Pennypacker, author of the terrific Pax.

52. Human Nature Vol. 1 by Dan Aronofsky. Sci-fi graphic novel with a good story so far - the protagonist gets himself kidnapped by aliens in hopes this will help him find his disappeared daughter.

53. Days at the Torunka Cafe by Satoshi Yakisawa.

54. Dolly All the Time. A fun light romance.

55. The Neon Rain by James Lee Burke. The first Dave Robicheaux mystery. Someone recommended this series to me. It was enjoyable modern noir, with tough, witty repartee, but I’mon the fence about continuing. Maybe one more at least to see how it goes.

July 2026

55. Waterloo by Bernard Cornwell. A well done history of the famous battle in which the Duke of Wellington beat the previously unbeaten Napoleon. The author drew on extensive research to include verbatim battlefield reports and excerpts from memoirs to lend immediacy. Fascinating how errors by Napoleonic and the steadfastness of Wellington led to the favorable result in a very close contest. How would subsequent events differ if Napoleon had won?

* Denotes a graphic work

>178 jnwelch:. Eesh. Still having glitches. I’ll try starting a new thread soon.

>177 richardderus:. Hey, RD. What a great idea. I’d love to see an animated version of Simak’s City.

Today’s Bargain: October Country by Ray Bradbury for $2.99 on e-readers.. A remarkable collection of stories from this master author.

Hi Joe! Thanks again for your hospitality while we were in Chicago. I am glad that you all had a fun cruise.

Wendy wanted me to ask you to thank Becca for the And Then There Were None recommendation. She just listened to the audio and really enjoyed it.

>175 jnwelch: We were in Ireland when the Great Heat Dome hit NYC. It wasn't cool the first week in County Cork either, but nothing like here. We slipped home between Friday's high and next Fridays high. This summer will be tough.

>81 kidzdoc:. Hi, Rhonda! That was such a nice time visiting with you and Wendy. I’m glad we didn’t have this goofy weather (too hot alternating with too much rain) while you were here.

Becca will be delighted to hear that Wendy enjoyed And Then There Were None. It’s such a good one. Hard to go wrong with Dame Agatha. She’s probably my most re-read author. She has a knack for fooling me again the second time around, although nothing could distract me from the wallop of that ending in And Then There Were None.

>182 ffortsa:. Well done in evading the heat, Judy. How was your time in Ireland? Such a lovely country. I’m sure you’ve visited that unforgettable Trinity College library in Dublin.😀

Here’s the link on LT to Time Magzine’s All Time Top 100 Novels. As you can tell, I’m always intrigued by these lists. This one is topped by two Orwell books, Animal Farm and 1984, followed by The Great Gatsby. My reaction was this is the list which has the most in common with LT readers. I think you’ll find you’ve read a lot of them.

https://www.librarything.com/list/9659/all/Times-All-Time-100-Novels

>185 jnwelch: Great Gatsby = boring rich - hard to enjoy at all...

Hope Moby-dick tops their list!

Dear god - not the Racist Gone with the wind - what MAGA makes these lists...

>185 jnwelch: I've read 2/3 of them, and almost all the authors if I were to include other titles. Some are on my tbr already.

>186 m.belljackson: Sigh. No Moby-Dick. In fact, I didn't see any Melville at all.
Sorry you feel so strongly about Gone With the Wind and The Great Gatsby. The latter is one of my favorites. Then again, this list was from Time Magazine, not the most erudite of publications.

>187 ffortsa: Time MAGAzine?

Today’s Bargain: The Ten thousand Doors of January by Alix Harrow at $1.99 on e-readers. . A very enjoyable fantasy book at an inviting price.

Today’s Bargain: The Astral Library by Kate Quinn for $2.99 on e-readers. . I was pleasantly surprised to see this newish one as a bargain. I enjoyed it - quite a departure for this well known historical novelist. A young woman finds a door in the Boston Public Library that leads to the titular Astral Library, which facilitates access to the worlds inside books for the reader to travel. Something nefarious is afoot, and she ends up investigating and confronting it.

>186 m.belljackson:. I understand your reaction to The Great Gatsby, Marianne, but it has many ardent, smitten readers who will be dumbfounded by your comment.😀

That is simply unbelievable with Moby-Dick, isn’t it. Again, I’m not a fan, but my BIL sure is. I kept looking for a gift shop featuring whale merchandise to pop up while reading it. But never have I ever seen a Best American Novel list without it at the top or somewhere near it. As Judy says, Time magazine isn’t exactly elite in its taste. I didn’t go back to see how they compiled the list.

Gone with the Wind: never read it, never will. I still have a bad taste in my mouth from the movie, although I do like its famous ending. (Clark Gable’s famous line is the end, right?)

>188 m.belljackson:. 😀

>187 ffortsa:. Hi, Judy. Right? There are a lot of familiar friends on that list, and I did enjoy having the Orwells at the top, just like I enjoyed having Middlemarch at the top of that BBC list.

If I had my druthers, Plainsong would be on every Great American Novel list. Was Gilead on there? Will Cather?

Leaving Moby-Dick off is unfathomable, isn’t it. Even I’m not that crass. The American love for it runs in my veins.

Is there one you’d put on the list that isn’t there? I didn’t look for A Tree Grows in Brooklyn or James Baldwin.

I’d love to see a list like Time’s that has more American classics on it.

. Today’s Bargain: The Astral Library by Kate Quinn for $1.99 on e-readers. . I was pleasantly surprised to see this newish one offered as a bargain. As they usually do with these, they announce, “For a limited time only!” This is a fun fantasy for book readers, a real departure for this well-known historical novelist (The Alice Network, The Briar Club). A young woman finds an unusual door in the Boston Public Library. It leads to another library that facilitates access to the worlds in the books we read. Something nefarious is afoot, and she helps investigate and confront it.

I’m nearing the end of Cherry Baby by Rainbow Rowell. I’ve been surprisingly enjoying it. Since I’m a fan of the author, probably best known for Eleanor and Park, what is the surprise? Well, when I got a ways into it I found it was a light romance and I thought, well, keep going. As it turns out, the plus-sized Cherry is charming, and her romantic travails believable and hard to put down. Great summer read.

>191 jnwelch: Why Read Moby-dick...

Alternatively, Pop-up Moby-dick by Sam Ita...

>194 m.belljackson: Both of those are in my husband's library!

>194 m.belljackson:. Thanks, Marianne. I was given the pop- up book, which is amusing. I appreciate Nathaniel Philbrick from his Mayflower book, but, ironically, I’d be more interested in his Why Read Moby Dick if I actually liked Moby Dick. Ponderous is the word that comes to mind.

195. Hi, Linda. 😀

>196 jnwelch: Joe - just finished my third reading of MOBY-dick (skipping the gruesome parts)
and wondering at the perfect writing!

>196 jnwelch: & >197 m.belljackson:

I am working my way slowly (very slowly) through Melville's opus and agree with both of you. Great writing certainly but also hugely ponderous.

>197 m.belljackson:. Jeez Louise, Marianne. A tip of the hat to you. A third reading of Moby-Dick! Once was more than enough for me. I’m not sure even a large sum of money could get me to do it again. The impressive writing you mention is probably what accounts for its dedicated fandom. You deserve a race through the pages of a mindless high octane thriller after completing your third go-round.

>198 PaulCranswick:. Good for you, Paul, for working your way through the mighty Moby-Dick. I do think it’s a journey that every serious reader has to make. At the time I joked that in the afterlife they wouldn’t let me into the Celestial Library if I hadn’t read it. I hope you’re rewarding yourself with treats every few chapters. At least it doesn’t have 3 page single-spaced footnotes like Infinte Jest. 😀

As best I can tell, the list in >185 jnwelch: appears to be novels from the 20th century only. Which explains why there are some major classics missing. I'll bet the LT label is incomplete.

>191 jnwelch: There is one Willa Cather: Death Comes For the Archbishop. And just Housekeeping from Robinson.

ETA: The list is from 2005 and includes novels in English published beginning in 1923, the year Time began publishing.

https://time.com/archive/6675063/times-100-best-novels/

Good to see that the Alaska cruise was a hit with all the family, Joe!

>199 jnwelch: >198 PaulCranswick: Words for You from MOBY:

"Books! you lie there; the fact is, you books must know your places.
You'll do to give us the bare words and facts, but we come in to supply the thoughts."

And then there's always - "Me Sabbee plenty."
Certainly a quote for all seasons.

To balance MOBY, I read Wendy Wax Ocean Beach series...

(Well, again in yet another minority since I loathe thrillers and crime reading!
Whales are Scary enough!)

>195 laytonwoman3rd: Your husband may enjoy the exchanges with Joe!

>201 Familyhistorian:. Thanks, Meg! It sure was a great Alaska trip. The little ones were on Cloud Nine. All the characters, and they LOVED the Kids Club, filled with kids their ages. Debbi’s favorite character is Goofy, and Goofy welcomed us to the ship and appeared repeatedly while we were there, including at a lumberjack competition in Skegway. Debbi felt well taken care of.

One of the coolest things was in one of the onboard restaurants, called Animators’ Palate. All the walls could turn into screens showing animation. They gave all the travelers at the restaurant paper with a structured background to drawn on, and then animated our drawings to play with each other in an animation on the walls. Jaw-dropping.

>202 m.belljackson:. Ha! Thanks, Marianne. “Me sabbee plenty.” I’ll try that one at the next cocktail party we attend. When asked, I’ll say, “Well, that’s from Moby Dick, of course!” With my nose way up in the air.

I mistakenly suggested to you my traditional change of reading pace, thrillers. I know you’re far from alone in preferring other cuppas. Ocean Beach looks like a sparkling and satisfying tale of women and life and friendships, not that I ever plagiarize blurbs. Any whales in that Ocean? I suspect not.

>203 m.belljackson:. 😀

Today’s Bargain: Origin Story by David Christian for $1.99 on e-readers. “ This ‘spectacular’ New York Times bestseller (New York Times bestselling author Carlo Rovelli) traces history from the beginning of the universe to the present day, examining trends, questions, and hidden threads. ‘The most powerful example of interdisciplinary scholarship that I know of’(Fareed Zakaria).”

Man, the reader comments are highly complimentary. This is just my kind of overview. I know the meaning of life is 42 (Hitchhiker’s Guide), but this will expand a bit on that answer.

Joe - on your Alaska trip, which whale did you see:

Sperm Whale
Right Whale
Finback Whale
Humpback Whale
or
Blue Whale

?????

>206 m.belljackson:. Humpback, Marianne - lots. My favorite was having fun jumping up into the air and throwing himself on his back, with a big splash.

Is this a journey you’ve made?

>207 jnwelch: Only on Page 139 of your new favorite book, with illustrations by Barry Moser...

Today’s Bargain: The Door-to-Door Bookstore by Carsten Henn for $2.99 on e-readers. . Debbi and I l LOVED this charmer. I’m too loopy this a.m. to describe it, but here’s the description from Amazon:

“The charming international bestseller about an unlikely friendship between an elderly door-to-door bookseller and a nine-year-old girl that changes his life.

Small-town German bookseller Carl Kollhoff delivers his books to special customers in the evening hours after closing time, walking through the picturesque alleys of the city. These people are almost like friends to him, and he is their most important connection to the world.

When Kollhoff unexpectedly loses his job, it takes the power of books and a nine-year-old girl to make them all find the courage to rebuild their bonds with each other.”

>208 m.belljackson:. 😂👍

Cherry Baby by Rainbow Rowell. Ended up giving it 5 stars. Couldn’t help myself! Although it’s pretty light, it was charming from start to finish. It ain’t easy to write a War and Peace, but it also ain’t easy to write a successful light charmer like this one. Go Cherry!

I'm back in Munden and selling lots of stamps yesterday and today. People here are preparing for the price increase by buying now. I suspect that tomorrow will be another barn burner at the Munden P.O.

I really enjoyed my visit to Chicago. ALA was hopping - as always and this time I had no pressure to be anywhere, so got to sit back and enjoy book sessions and librarian comradery. The Palmer House was wonderful - how could it not be. There were 3 of us in the room and we had 2 bathrooms, so it was great accommodations. There was live entertainment Thursday - Sunday nights, and it was perfect for relaxing after the busy day.

I treated my sister and friend to afternoon tea at the Russian Tea Time. The place has changed, much smaller that it was the last time I was in Chicago. We did not get a samovar of tea, but had a delicious break after tromping around the Bohemian National Cemetery in search of ancestors. (We found them.) WE also did the Chicago Architecture Center Riverboat cruise the last night in Chicago. It was great. So much modern history of Chicago in that tour. We highly recommend this tour. It was worth every penny. We did it on one of those terrifically hot days, but we went on the 7:30 PM tour and it was very nice on the river at that time. Chicago has sure upped its game with the new Riverwalk. It is a wonderful city to visit and looks like a good place for downtown living.

>212 benitastrnad:. Hi, Benita. Thanks for the lovely report. I’m a little short on participating brain cells today, or I’d respond at greater length.

I join you in recommending the architectural boat tour. We always recommend it to anyone visiting, and often go along. Sounds like you picked the perfect time on a hot day.

That Chicago River Walk is getting cooler and cooler isn’t it. As you may have guessed, it was inspired by San Antonio’s. They have little in common beyond River + Walk, but one of our mayors was inspired by SA to realize the downtown riverfront was an undeveloped asset. How it has grown in delights and popularity! It was pretty minimal at the beginning, and shorter.

I envy you your enjoyment of ALA. I don’t attend the talks, althought the right author would attract me. I’m drawn like a magnet to the new books, and those who enjoy talking about them, or about reading in general.

I’m glad you had a good time at the Palmer House and the Russian Tea Room. I assume you’re not a big art fan. The Art Institute has a really good Matisse cut-outs exhibit.

I probably mentioned that I did a Zoom seminar with translator Emily Wilson, who did my now-favorite translations of The Iliad and The Odyssey. The seminar was on The Iliad, and I’m hoping she does one on The Odyssey.

I loved this Google summary of what she thinks of Odysseus:

In her translation of The Odyssey, classicist Emily Wilson characterizes Odysseus not merely as a traditional hero, but as a manipulative, adaptable conman. Wilson emphasizes that his famous cunning is often less about noble leadership and more about deception, disguise, and telling highly calculated lies to survive and control his narrative.

Today’s Bargain: On a Winter’s Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino for $2.99 on e-readers. If you haven’t read this wonderful author, this is a great place to start. Two readers try to find the end of a book. The joy of storytelling.

The Next Day’s Bargain: Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson for $2.99 on e-readers. A beautifully written, atmospheric novel involving a murder trial and Japanese internment.

>216 jnwelch: Yesterday I was searching my Kindle for nonfiction ebooks written by Black women, and to my great surprise I noticed that I had over 1060 unread titles. No wonder it feels so heavy!

Fortunately the vast majority of these ebooks, probably more than 95%, were purchased when they were on sale for $2.99 or less. However, I think I should stop buying more ebooks until I have less than 100 unread titles.

You can stop laughing now 🙄.

Happy Sunday, Joe. Just checking in with my buddy. Sorry we missed Benita when she was in town. Maybe next time? Sounds like are you enjoying those current reads. Thanks for sharing those Bargain Reads. Some real gems in there. Glad to hear you loved Cherry Baby. I have not read Rowell in years.

Today’s Bargains: D-Day by Stephen Ambrose for $2.99 on e-readers, and American Prometheus by Kai Bird for $1.99.

The first is the renowned book by one of our best historian authors, who also wrote Undaunted Courage.

The second is the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Robert Oppenheimer that became the. basis of the Oscar-winning movie.

Joe - Love to have Debbi take a video of you hollering "Me Sabbee Plenty" at that cocktail party!

>216 jnwelch: I tried to read this years ago, and found it so painful I put it aside.