I hadn't read anything by Silone before, no! But Bread and Wine absolutely stands on its own. According to Amazon, at least, Silone thought the 3rd book in the series was the best and it has the same hero as Bread and Wine, so I'd like to read that one day.

I was wondering how that movie would be! I remember Catherine was supposed to be so plain and plodding, and it's very very hard to imagine Olivia de Haviland in that role. I'll bet the role of Catherine's aunt was fun to play though.

I am so curious what you'll think of Absalom Absalom, and especially of the language -- I like the way you describe Faulkner's rampaging words! It definitely felt like an onslaught to me, but I relished it.

I definitely will. I didn't know there were two endings!

I finished Bread and Wine, by Ignazio Silone. It's set in the Abruzzi region of Italy during the 1930s: a young communist, who's been living in exile, returns and lives in hiding in the countryside, organizing peasants while he convalesces. For me the book was about two things -- the life of the people, and also the hero's struggle to make his ideals fit with the reality around him. (It doesn't take long for him to be kicked out of the communist party too.) The book was a bumpy ride, and I mean that in the best possible way. It's so brutal in its realism -- the countryside here is not bucolic at all, it's filthy, violent, and smelly, and there are so many moments when everything feels absolutely hopeless. Then suddenly, a moment of understanding between people redeems everything. On a different note -- I'm having my son read Treasure Island, so I've been reading it too. I haven't read this since I was his age and I'd totally forgotten how good it is : ) Editing to add -- this week I want to try and read the Return of the Native. I've never read it.

I would focus first on identifying the verb. Ask her what the action in the sentence is -- in your example, harvest. Then, identify the subject by figuring out who is doing that action (the Aztecs). (Yes, I know the verb is complicated in this case, but if you guys are already struggling I would keep it simple.) I agree with Susan that it makes sense to start with simple sentences, too. Then I would prompt her really explicitly, like: The coffee was spilled by John. -- what's the action word in that sentence? (spilled) Who spilled the coffee? (John) Then, rewrite the sentence in active voice: John spilled the coffee. Honestly I think grammar books make this kind of thing way harder than it has to be, especially when they teach kids weird ideas like "the noun is what the sentence is about". I think focusing on the verb makes things a lot easier.

I did not know about your James Thomson! Thank you. I just looked up "my" JT in Peter Ackroyd's London: a Biography. Apparently he lived in London and wrote other gloomy poems about it. I think the Peter Ackroyd book is terrific. Every time I look in it I find something interesting. In this case, he notes JT's use of desert imagery and says that the 19th century is when writers stopped describing London as a primeval wilderness and started calling it a barren desert.

I just mean books with lots of high-quality color reproductions. I think Taschen and Phaidon are both good publishers, but I'd research it before buying anything. Normally I'd want to browse in a bookstore and look at everything first but of course that's tricky now1

The Genghis Khan book sounds really interesting and dense -- it makes sense that it would take more than a week to read it! Looking forward to your review when you get done with it : )

We read Washington Square in high school, which may have been too young. I remember finding it crushingly pessimistic, but that may have been partly because I was so young. I have mostly avoided him since then, but maybe I will try him again -- thanks for suggesting Spoils of Poynton, I hadn't heard of it.

I am listening to a reading of City of Dreadful Night, by James Thomson (it's on YouTube). I'd never read or heard this before but I have friends who love it, much the way I have friends who love Morrissey. I think this poem is much more interesting than I expected. It's hugely self-indulgent and repetitive -- I laughed a few times -- but it is also so closely-observed in unexpected places. There are sudden pockets of detaii which make me pause and sit up. And then actually, he uses repetition very cleverly in places, for the sake of creating a pattern and then twisting it. This is the excerpt that the Poetry Foundation put up, for anyone interested: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45407/the-city-of-dreadful-night This week I want to read Bread and Wine (Ignazio Silone).

If you're getting a range of poetry anthologies and you can afford it, I would include one latest edition. But if it doesn't fit your budget, I think it's totally fine to get used editions. We have a used history encyclopedia which stops in the Clinton years; we also have one atlas that shows Yugoslavia. It's kind of educational, in its own way.

I would buy poetry books -- the Norton Anthology is the first one that comes to mind but there are so many others. It's nice to have poetry collections on hand that you can dip into whenever you want. I would also buy high-quality art books.

I was thinking about the passage in Old Man and the Sea where Hemingway talks about the different uses of "mar" in Spanish -- whether the word is masculine or feminine. The thing that really struck me about that passage is that Hemingway must have been more integrated into Cuban life than I'd assumed. I spent a year in Chile as a student, and the explanation that Hemingway gives about the gender is pretty much exactly the explanation I got from people I asked. I got similarly flowery explanations about the Spanish language from people everywhere I went that year and from people at all levels of education (it was wonderful). So Hemingway, I assume, asked around and was fed this mar/mar thing by people in Havana. Really, it seems like "mar" is masculine when you're just using it in an ordinary way and it becomes feminine both in poetry and in technical language. The "high seas" are also feminine, so again, a more unusual usage. There are lots of other gender-ambiguous nouns in Spanish. Sugar, water, and other words that start with "a" are given the masculine article just to make pronunciation easier; I think some nouns also change gender depending on which country you're in, and I wonder whether that happens to any French nouns outside of France, now that i'm thinking of it. It is one of those endlessly interesting things that I wish I knew more about! I am loving this Book a Week thread.. thanks to all of you for making me think about these things 🙂

Thanks, now I'm going to have to obsess over this for a while...

That's a crucial point though.

❤ I'm really glad you brought up Hemingway and magic. I don't think I would have read this book otherwise, and I so enjoyed it. Thanks!

I didn't know about the Pantheon collection of folktales and it looks great. I remember that my kids were absolutely terrified of Norwegian myths when they were littler. It would be interesting to see what Norwegian folktales are like.

I finished the Old Man and the Sea. The last 20 pages or so (shark attack) took me completely by surprise. All the rest was like a long daydream. I don't know when I've read a book with less narrative tension -- until the sharks.

I was hoping a spelling expert would answer this. I always go by memory but now I'm curious. I was a good speller until I spent time in the UK, where suddenly all the rules were different and I looked foolish, especially when it came to SE vs CE. Lots of times they use "ce" where I, an American, would use "se." They have a department of defence, for example. We have a defense department. Someone explained to me that in many cases, the British use "ce" for the noun form of the word and "se" for the verb. For example, the team PRACTISED all morning vs the team had their PRACTICE session in the morning. We Americans do that for advice (the noun) vs advise (the verb) but otherwise it's mostly dropped out of our language. Anyhow, all of this makes me suspect that the rules have all gotten really mixed up over the years and we're probably best off just going by memory.

I love this list of days, especially "be late for something." Totally in my wheelhouse... I just started reading the Old Man and the Sea. @Dreamergal I understand why you called Hemingway a magical realist. It does feel like something magical is lurking just beneath. And the writing is so gorgeously paced too. I also have a book of essays by Emmanuel Mounier, the only book by him in my whole library system apparently. His analysis of Camus, Sartre, Malraux. We'll see how much of it I read, but it's nice to have it around.

I finished Dorothy Day: Dissenting Voice. It wasnt what I'd expected but it was really good. It's a slightly impersonal book and I never felt that I was really getting to know Dorothy. It doesn't try to imagine her inner life. It's much more interested in describing her community-- the people who supported her and kept her going, the books she read, the trips she went on. It does a great job at that. I also liked the way it described the changes to American society over her lifetime. Her relationship with her daughter was heartbreaking. I appreciated that the book didn't sweep that under the rug but also didn't judge.

double post : )

Thank you!! I just realized that I actually saw Entertaining Angels recently -- it is either free or very cheap on Amazon Prime. I loved it. (I was also very impressed by Martin Sheen as Peter Maurin; I thought he did a wonderful job.) The biography that I'm reading now is good, but it is not WARM in the way that Entertaining Angels is. I just put a hold on the Long Loneliness.

I'm reading Dorothy Day: Dissenting Voice of the American Century. https://www.amazon.com/Dorothy-Day-Dissenting-American-Century/dp/1982103493 It's very good and thorough; it's full of anecdotes about people she knew, places she went, and books she read. Although I still don't feel like I really understand her. Which books have you liked the most, by and about her?