Oh, this brings back lovely memories! When My Ideal Bookshelf came out eight years ago, I gave the photo below to my daughter, who drew a beautiful piece that now hangs in my bedroom.

Since my last post, I’ve finished seven books, bringing my total to 142 books read to date. ■ Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man (Mary L. Trump; 2020. Non-fiction.) This was the soundtrack of most of the second leg (Massachusetts to Michigan) of our recent travels; I finished listening during one of our walks once we returned home. I agree with this reviewer: keenly observed, well written, and “the most convincingly empathetic chronicle of Donald Trump I’d ever read.” ■ A Separation (Katie Kitamura; 2017. Fiction.) This was well-reviewed by critics but not necessarily by readers, if the mixed reviews on Amazon and Goodreads are an indication. I really liked it, though. It reminded me of The Third Hotel (Laura van den Berg), a book I read and admired in 2018. ■ The Sorrows of Young Werther (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe; 1774. Trans. Elizabeth Mayer and Louise Bogan; 1990. Fiction.) Yes, he’s troubled and self-absorbed, but I don’t belong to the reading club that maintains we must like the protagonist to like the book. I will say, though, that I am old enough to have wanted to be “quite severe” with Werther, to insist that he get a grip and meet a few more suitable companions. Heh, heh, heh. p. 9 There is a certain monotony about mankind. Most people toil during the greater part of their lives in order to live, and the slender span of free time that remains worries them so much that they try by every means to get rid of it. O Destiny of Man! ■ Antigone (Sophocles; 441 B.C. Trans. Ian Johnston; 2016. Drama.) Read in anticipation of an upcoming Theater of War production. More about that these three next time: ■ Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life (Ruth Franklin; 2016. Non-fiction.) ■ Richard II (William Shakespeare; 1595. Drama.) ■ The Haunting of Hill House (Shirley Jackson; 1959. Fiction.)

I am sorry to hear this. I hope you folks are all right.

Hello again! With The Farm I arrived at 135 books read this year; 110 from the shelves. ■ The Return of the Soldier (Rebecca West; 1918. Fiction.) In May, when I finished Willa Cather’s Alexander’s Bridge (1912), I remarked that it was difficult to believe that was her first novel; it was so assured and true. West’s first novel is even more so — remarkable and memorable. p. 65 Even though I lay weeping at it on the dead leaves I was sensible of the bitter rapture that attends the discovery of any truth. I felt, indeed, a cold intellectual pride in his refusal to remember his prosperous maturity and his determined dwelling in the time of his first love, for it showed him so much saner than the rest of us, who take life as it comes, loaded with the inessential and the irritating. I was even willing to admit that this choice of what was to him reality out of all the appearances so copiously presented by the world, this adroit discovery of the dropped pearl of beauty, was the act of genius I had always expected from him. But that did not make less agonizing this exclusion from his life. ■ The Bridge of San Luis Rey (Thornton Wilder; 1927. Fiction.) This was a reread. p. 138 The art of biography is more difficult than is generally supposed. ■ The Death of Ivan Ilyich (Leo Tolstoy; 1886. Trans. Louise and Aylmer Maude. Fiction.) This, too, was a reread, my fourth time encountering Tolstoy’s novella. The first was in AP English, thirty-eight years ago. What do typical seventeen-year-olds take away from reading Tolstoy? Oh, I was more than capable of parroting a teacher (or a study guide) on Tolstoy’s biography, the key characters, the basic plot, the essential themes and symbols, but I’m not sure I had actually read The Death of Ivan Ilyich until my third encounter, in my forties. “Maybe I did not live as I out to have done,” it suddenly occurred to him. “But how could that be when I did everything properly?” he replied, and immediately dismissed from his mind this, the sole solution of all of the riddles of life and death, as something quite impossible. ■ A Raisin in the Sun (Lorraine Hansberry; 1958. Drama.) I had planned to read this in Spring 2003 for the “One Book, One Chicago” program. Better late than never. ■ The Farm (Tom Rob Smith; 2014. Fiction.) A run of so many terrific books rendered this meh novel even more mediocre.

Hello! I hope you’re healthy and safe! My count now stands at 130, with 105 read from my shelves. ■ The Amateurs (Liz Harmer; 2019. Fiction.) Review here. ■ Postal: Deliverance, Vol. 2 (Brian Edward Hill; 2020. Graphic fiction.) ■ Ascender, Vol. 2: The Dead Sea (Jeff Lemire; 2020. Graphic fiction.) Hoopla has enabled me to keep up on series that interest me. ■ The Tao of Pooh (Benjamin Hoff; 1982. Non-fiction.) This is a somewhat different book now than it was when I first read it. The story of the author’s difficulties with the publisher are chronicled on his website. ■ The Pearl (John Steinbeck; 1947. Fiction.) It seems impossible that I have not read this before, but I could not remember anything more than the horrific conclusion. p. 25 For it is said that humans are never satisfied, that you give them one thing and they want something more. This is said in disparagement, whereas it is one of the greatest talents the species has and one that has made it superior to animals that are satisfied with what they have. ■ Death in Venice (Thomas Mann; 1912. Trans. Michael Henry Heim; 2004. Fiction.) Again, how is it possible that I have not read this? The Heim translation is introduced by Michael Cunningham, who writes, in part, “All the writers I respect want to write a book so penetrating and thorough, so compassionate and unrelenting, that it can stand unembarrassed beside the spectacle of life itself. And all writers I respect seem to know (though no one likes to talk about it) that our efforts are doomed from the outset. Life is bigger than literature. We do the best we can. Some of us do better than others.” How about this for serendipity / synthesis / synchronicity? p. 84 The cases were kept secret. Within a week, however, there were 10 of them, then 20, 30, and in different districts to boot. […] The Venetian authorities issued a statement to the effect that health conditions have never been better then took the most essential precautions against the disease. […] But fear of the overall damage that would be done — concern over the recently opened art exhibition in the Public Gardens and the tremendous losses with which the hotels, the shops, the entire, multifaceted tourist trade would be threatened in case of panic and loss of confidence — proved stronger in the city than the love of truth and respect for international covenants: it made the authorities stick stubbornly to their policy of secrecy and denial. Interesting aside: The word legerdemain is used in the description of one of the pearl dealers in Steinbeck’s short novel. It’s not a common word, so it struck me when I encountered it again in the Heim translation of Mann’s work.

I finished two more books in June: #123 Circe (Madeline Miller; 2018. Fiction.) Read with my older daughter as part of our informal summer reading program. Both of us described it as a page-turner and finished it in one day. Related links here and here. #124 The Godmother (Hannelore Cayre; 2019. Fiction.) Light and quick with a few witty observations. Perhaps it will work better as a movie? p.16 People say I’m bad tempered, but I think this is hasty. It’s true I’m easily annoyed, because I find people slow and often uninteresting. For example, when they’re banging on about something I couldn’t give a crap about, my face involuntarily takes on an impatient expression which I find hard to hide, and that upsets them. So, they think I’m unfriendly. It’s the reason I don’t really have any friends, just acquaintances.

With White Fragility, I reached my goal of reading 100 books from the shelves this year. Diangelo’s treatise also put me at a total of 122 books, which exceeds my Goodreads challenge goal of 120 (recently raised from 104). With six months remaining in the year, the suggestion that I raise the goal to 240 did not go unconsidered, but July will be a busy month for me, and I would like to tackle a few reading “projects” later this summer and into autumn. More about that in another post. Here are the books I’ve read since my last post. ■ The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Vol. I: The Pox Party(M.T. Anderson; 2006. Fiction.) A brutal but deeply moving novel from the author of Feed, a family book club selection from a few years back. Related link here. ■ Citizen: An American Lyric (Claudia Rankine; 2008. Non-fiction.) Even more powerful when reread. ■ The Blood of Emmett Till (Timothy B. Tyson; 2017. Non-fiction.) Related links here and here. ■ Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar… Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes(Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein; 2006. Non-fiction.) Did I read this when it was first published? All of the jokes are familiar. And maybe that’s the problem. ■ Thick and Other Essays (Tressie McMillan Cottom; 2019. Non-fiction.) This book grabbed me by the collar, and it still hasn’t set me down and straightened my shirt. Remarkable. If it were feasible, I would press the entire text into my commonplace book. p. 72 They say the beauty is in the eye of the beholder and that ugly is as ugly does. Both are lies. Ugly is everything done to you in the name of beauty. Knowing the difference is part of getting free. ■ Make Your Home Among Strangers (Jennine Capó Crucet; 2015. Fiction.) ■ The Mad Scientist’s Daughter (Cassandra Rose Clarke; 2016. Fiction.) Books that might have appealed to my much younger self still show up in my stacks and occasionally on my shelves. What can I say? A bag of Jax cheese curls or a box of Nabisco sugar wafers will sometimes end up in the pantry, too. Let’s just be grateful I don’t pull out a tube top or my neon green belt, eh? ■ Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (J.K. Rowling; 2003. Fiction.) Speaking of my younger self, it has been sweetly nostalgic to revisit these books my son and I so enjoyed. ■ Broken Monsters (Lauren Beukes; 2014. Fiction.) Review here. ■ White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism (Robin Diangelo; 2018. Non-fiction.) Flawed? Or diagnostic?

Since my last post, I have finished only three books, all of which were read from the shelves: #110 After the Fall (Arthur Miller; 1964. Drama.) My husband and I recently saw the TimeLine Theatre production of To Master the Art, which centers on Julia Child’s years in France. That McCarthyism figures in both that play and, of course, Miller’s provided one of those moments of readerly intersection I so appreciate. #111 Coraline (Neil Gaiman; 2002. Fiction.) Has it really been eighteen years since this was published? Review here. #112 Gang Leader for a Day (Sudhir Venkatesh; 2008. Non-fiction.) Related link with excerpt here.

*waving* Late to the party this week. I have read five more books, for a year-to-date total of 109, 88 of which are read from shelves (RFS). That puts me a dozen books from reaching my goal of one hundred read from shelves. ■ Rodham (Curtis Sittenfeld; 2020. Fiction.) ATY A sympathetic portrait and engaging what-if. Reviews here and here. p. 47 I liked being around other people during the day, and I was relieved to be alone late at night; it was the latter that made the former possible. In fact, setting up my nest often made me think if a Wordsworth phrase I’d learned in English class as a high school junior: emotion recollected in tranquility. p. 165 But as a president, would he be ethically casual, irresponsibly magnanimous, vulnerable to his enemies due to weaknesses he erroneously believed he could conceal or at least be forgiven for? p.236 I usually liked other human beings and they usually liked me. I liked their specificity, their often unfashionable clothes, their accents and enthusiasms and the things they cared about enough to seek me out and tell me about, and I liked their belief that I could help them in a measurable way. I wanted — I had always wanted this — for their belief to be accurate. p. 355 So often, people let you down; so often, situations turn out disappointingly. But occasionally someone recognizes, acknowledges, your private and truest self. ■ Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (J.K. Rowling; 2000. Fiction.) RFS * p. 605 Harry, Ron, and Hermione sat up late in the common room once again that night, talking it all over until Harry’s mind was reeling, until he understood what Dumbledore had meant about a head becoming so full of thoughts that it would have been a relief to siphon them off. ■ Saint Joan (George Bernard Shaw; 1923. Drama.) RFS Recommended here. SCENE II THE ARCHBISHOP: A miracle, my friend, is an event which creates faith. That is the purpose and nature of miracles. They may seem very wonderful to the people who witness them, and very simple to those who perform them. That does not matter: if they confirm or create faith they are true miracles. LA TREMOUILLE: Even when they are frauds, do you mean? THE ARCHBISHOP: Frauds deceive. An event which creates faith does not deceive: therefore it is not a fraud, but a miracle. ■ Shirley (Susan Scarf Merrell; 2014. Fiction.) RFS Plucked this from the shelves after reading Sheila O’Malley’s review of the new film. Of course, I was delighted by the serendipity / synthesis / synchronicity at work: I read Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle last month and watched the film earlier this month. ■ King Lear (William Shakespeare; 1606. Drama.) RFS * If pressed, I would cast my vote for this one as the best of the plays. It is certainly the one that awes me more and differently each time I read it. (The first time was in thirty-eight years ago in a graduate course at Temple University.) ————————————— ATY Acquired this year LIB Borrowed from library (including Hoopla and Overdrive) OTH Other RFS Read from shelves * Denotes a reread

Hello, BaWers! I hope you're all healthy and safe. I've read 29 books since my post on May 3, which puts me at 104 for the year. The order of the books in my posts is roughly that in which I finished reading the books, although I do sometimes cluster related titles to remark on them as a set. The object is to gather the mental slips of paper I’ve tucked into each book — passages I hope to remember, articles and / or images I sought while reading, my reasons for choosing this volume or that, etc. ■ After I’m Gone (Laura Lippman; 2014. Fiction.) RFS ■ I’d Know You Anywhere (Laura Lippman; 2010. Fiction.) RFS In 2008, I read Lippman’s What the Dead Know (2007). Although I do not remember much about it, the fact that I read it is all that explains the two additional Lippman titles on my shelves. In a different time, After I’m Gone would have been an adequate poolside companion. ■ The Journalist and the Murderer (Janet Malcolm; 1990. Non-fiction.) RFS Most know this book’s first sentence, which is also its argument: “Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible.” Related links here and here. ■ Tales from the Loop (Simon Stålenhag; 2014. Graphic fiction.) LIB I had thought the stories would be too slight, but, in fact, they amplify the weird beauty of his paintings. Related article here. p. 77 The one thing he was admired for was his accurate penalty shots when we played soccer during recess, so his stories may have been designed to get some attention during the winter months, when the soccer field play frozen and empty. What follows is what he told us. ■ Mother Night (Kurt Vonnegut; 1961. Fiction.) RFS * Revisiting my Vonnegut collection requires reassurance, “Ah, it holds up,” as if I were crossing a footbridge that readily supported my younger, lighter self but might buckle under the weight of my older, solid self. This book argues strongly for the bridge’s inherent reliability. ■ Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (J.K. Rowling; 1999. Fiction.) RFS * A comforting reread. ■ The Nickel Boys (Colson Whitehead; 2019. Fiction.) RFS What can I add to the chorus (e.g., here, here, and here) that has praised this and his earlier The Underground Railroad? ■ Bartleby, the Scrivener (Herman Melville; 1856. Fiction.) RFS * From “Herman Melville’s Bartleby and the steely strength of mild rebellion” (The Guardian; January 9, 2017): There are very few stories that, on re-reading after re-reading, seem to become impossibly more perfect, but Herman Melville’s eerie, aching story Bartleby, the Scrivener is one such. Like a parable without an obvious moral, it is defiance raised to the metaphysical. ■ Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties (Tom O’Neill; 2019. Non-fiction.) RFS Related link here. p. 84 I was writing a story about Charles Manson that had, so far, very little Manson in it. It was more about the way that events, in all their messy reality, boiled down to canonical fact; the way that a narrative becomes the narrative. ■ The Metamorphosis (Franz Kafka (1915); Bantam ed. 1972. 201 pages. Fiction.) RFS * Have seven years passed since I read this with my daughters? ■ Kafka (Robert Crumb; 1993 / 2013. Graphic non-fiction.) RFS ■ James Joyce: Portrait of a Dubliner (Alfonso Zapico; 2011. Graphic non-fiction.) RFS Excellent, both. ■ The Underground Railroad (Colson Whitehead; 2016. Fiction.) RFS Related link here. ■ The Book of Delights (Ross Gay; 2019. Non-fiction.) ATY Following Melissa’s recommendation, I finished this collection of essays in 1.5 sittings. Related link here. p. 32 [T]he process of thinking that writing is, made disappearable by the delete button, makes a whole part of the experience of writing, which is the production of a good deal of florid detritus, flotsam and jetsam, all those words that mean what you have written and cannot disappear (the scratch-out its own archive), which is the weird path toward what you have come to know, which is called thinking, which is what writing is. p. 49 “What if we joined our wildernesses together?” Sit with that for a minute. That the body, the life, might carry a wilderness, an unexplored territory, and that yours and mine might somewhere, somehow, meet. Might, even, join. p. 195 I’m from the Northeast, I hear myself say. Or, I’m a Northeasterner. Meaning, linguistically, that the appropriate plural of “you” in certain contexts is “yous.” Meaning the beach is called the shore, and you go down to it. To swim in the wooder. Aside: If I had a dollar for every quizzical look I have endured when asking for a glass of water, I could buy a large house on the shore. ■ The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents (Terry Pratchett; 2001. Fiction.) RFS Part of an informal summer book club with my older daughter. ■ A Very Easy Death (Simone de Beauvoir; 1964. Non-fiction.) RFS A friend recently shared that she thought her mother might be making surreptitious cigarette runs to the corner store. It wasn’t that the woman, who is in her late seventies, had resumed the habit that so upset my friend; it was that she was venturing out during the pandemic and not letting the people in her circle know. I listened, because in such conversations, that is all that is generally required. When her anger had abated a bit, I ventured, “You have officially entered the ‘parenting your parent’ stage, eh?” Later, in one of those odd moments of serendipity / synthesis / synchronicity, I realized that Beauvoir’s memoir of her mother’s illness, hospitalization, and death was the book I planned to read next. p. 92 Well-intentioned readers urged, ‘Disappearing is not of the least importance: your works will remain.’ And inwardly I told them all that they were wrong. Religion could do no more for my mother than the hope of posthumous success could do for me. Whether you think of it as heavenly or as earthly, if you love life immortality is no consolation for death. p. 98 Everyone knows the power of things: life is solidified in them, more immediately present than in any one of its instants. ■ Providence of a Sparrow (Chris Chester; 2002. Non-fiction.) RFS Unfinished business from last year. Related link here. p. 7 Baseline for me has always been slightly below sea level. Too modest a depth in which to drown but deep enough to suggest what life must be like for those truly debilitated by anxiety and sadness that doesn’t go away. I suspect my mother and I have this in common and that her rather non-specific complaints of “not feeling well” I recall from childhood were tendrils snaking out from that buried route. She died of cancer when I was twenty-three, long before I developed enough compassion and insight to know her better. A pity, it’s likely we’d have found lots to discuss. p. 182 The realization that we volunteer for many of our sorrows has helped me a good deal. We acquire them in seed form with each new attachment and shouldn’t be surprised when they sprout one day. Speaking as a person whose biochemistry manufactures gloom as a matter of course, it’s taken me years to understand that fate has never singled me out. The universe has better things to do than plague me with loss or go out of its way to make my life miserable. A perverse egotism is one of the problems with free-floating depression. It sits on your psyche calling attention to itself until you have to believe you’re important enough and special enough for the gods to persecute. ■ The Blue Castle (L.M. Montgomery; 1926. Fiction.) RFS This had been in my shelves for a decade. Thanks to Jeanne’s review, I finally read (and loved) it. ■ Alexander’s Bridge (Willa Cather; 1912. Fiction.) RFS It is difficult to believe that this was her first novel. ■ Breakfast at Tiffany’s (Truman Capote; 1958. Fiction.) RFS * I first read this book more than thirty years ago, but I actually read it last week. Capote was a genius. ■ I, Juan de Pareja (Elizabeth Barton de Treviño; 1965. Fiction.) RFS This satisfied my Children’s / YA RFS sub-challenge. From the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Velázquez most likely executed this portrait of his enslaved assistant in Rome during the early months of 1650. According to one of the artist’s biographers, when this landmark of western portraiture was first put on display it “received such universal acclaim that in the opinion of all the painters of different nations everything else seemed like painting but this alone like truth.” Months after depicting his sitter in such a proud and confident way, Velázquez signed a contract of manumission that would liberate him from bondage in 1654. ■ Incident at Vichy (Arthur Miller; 1965. Drama.) RFS * This fit in so well with recent (re)reading: The Plot Against America (Philip Roth; 2004), Man’s Search for Meaning: An Introduction to Logotherapy (Viktor E. Frankl; 1946), and Mother Night (Kurt Vonnegut; 1961). ■ Gilgamesh: A New English Version (Stephen Mitchell; 2004. Poetry.) RFS * “Gilgamesh is the story of a hero’s journey,” writes Stephen Mitchell in the introduction; “one might say that it is the mother of all heroes’ journeys, with its huge uninhibited mythic presences moving through a landscape of a dream.” He explains: The archetypal hero’s journey proceeds in stages: being called to action, meeting a wise man or guide, crossing the threshold into the numinous world of the adventure, passing various tests, attaining the goal, defeating the forces of evil, and going back home. It leads to a spiritual transformation at the end, a sense of gratitude, humility, and deepened trust in the intelligence of the universe. After he finds the treasure or slays the dragon or wins the princess or joins with the mind of the sage, the hero can return to ordinary life in a state of grace, as a blessing to himself and to his whole community. He has suffered, he has triumphed, he is at peace. So Gilgamesh is a quest story, maintains Mitchell, but on close inspection, it’s a “bizarre, quirky, and postmodern” one. Revisiting Mitchell’s remarkable version of “the oldest story in the world, a thousand years older than the Iliad or the Bible,” I was again undone by Book VIII. Enkindu, Gilgamesh’s best friend, has died. “Hear me, elders, hear me, young men,” laments Gilgamesh, [M]y beloved friend is dead, he is dead, my beloved brother is dead, I will mourn as long as I breathe, I will sob for him like a woman who has lost her only child. O, Enkindu, you were the axe at my side in which my arm trusted, the knife in my sheath, the shield I carried, my glorious robe, the wide belt around my loins, and now a harsh fate has torn you from me, forever. As they did sixteen years ago, the cadences of his profound grief recalled to me W.H. Auden: He was my North, my South, my East and West, My working week and my Sunday rest, My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song; I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong. The stars are not wanted now: put out every one; Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun; Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood. For nothing now can ever come to any good. ■ Einstein’s Dreams (Alan Lightman; 1993. Fiction.) RFS Patterns often emerge in my reading, and I find that this oddly complements Flatland, which I read last month. Aside: When I pulled the book from the shelves, I noticed a bookmark. I figured it was from the bookstore, but it was a commemorative item from a wedding, which meant I purchased this book used — perhaps at a library sale or a Half Price Books location? Of course, I Googled the couple and found that they had purchased a house in Illinois a few years after marrying. A yen to mail them their bookmark with a note about how awesome it was that they distributed bookmarks — bookmarks! — as a reminder of their special day seized me and would not let me go — until I realized that while the discovery may have delighted me, the reminder might not necessarily delight them. I wonder how many moments of joy are aborted by “On second thought…”? ■ The Odd Woman and the City (Vivian Gornick; 2015. Non-fiction.) RFS I began this several years ago but apparently never finished it (although much to my chagrin, it appears in my 2016 books read list). I removed the bookmark and began again, finishing in one sitting. This reading experience reminded me of the deep delight (that word again!) I experienced when I first read Diana Athill’s Stet: An Editor’s Life nearly twenty years ago: More! I want to hear more of this voice! Related article here. p. 20 One’s own best self. For centuries, this was the key concept behind any essential definition of friendship: that one’s friend is a virtuous being who speaks to the virtue in oneself. How foreign is such a concept to the children of the therapeutic culture! Today we do not look to see, much less affirm, our best selves in one another. To the contrary, it is the openness with which we admit to our emotional incapacities — the fear, the anger, the humiliation — that excites contemporary bonds of friendship. Nothing draws us closer to one another than the degree to which we face our deepest shame openly in one another’s company. Coleridge and Wordsworth dreaded such self-exposure; we adore it. What we want is to feel known, warts and all: the more warts the better. It is the great illusion of our culture that what we confess to is who we are. p. 100 Good conversation is not a matter of mutuality of interests or class concerns or commonly held ideals, it’s a matter of temperament: the thing that makes someone respond instinctively with an appreciative “I know just what you mean,” rather than the argumentative “Whaddaya mean by that?” In the presence of shared temperament, the conversation almost never loses its free, unguarded flow; in its absence, one is always walking on eggshells. ■ We Have Always Lived in a Castle (Shirley Jackson; 1962. Fiction.) RFS Although it received mix reviews, I may watch the film later this week. From NPR: But calling Castle [the novel] “horror” would be a misrepresentation of the work, which is really a Gothic psychodrama that eats itself from the inside. The story centers around the peculiarities of the Blackwood sisters, the ones in the giant gabled manor up on a hill. They were orphaned years ago after their parents succumbed to a dinnertime poisoning. Who poisoned them? ■ The Ocean at the End of the Lane (Neil Gaiman; 2013. Fiction.) RFS From A.S. Byatt, writing in The Guardian (July 3, 2013): Gaiman is a master of fear, and he understands the nature of fairytales, the relation between the writer, the reader and the character in the tale. ■ Vincent and Theo: The Van Gogh Brothers (Deborah Heiligman; 2017. Non-fiction.) RFS By the author of the lovely biography Charles and Emma: The Darwins’ Leap of Faith, this satisfied my Art RFS sub-challenge. p. 50 They promise to always be close, to keep the bond between them strong and intimate. They will always walk together. They will be more than brothers, more than friends. They will be companions in the search for meaning in life and meaning in art. Together they will achieve lives filled with a purpose. And they will, when needed, carry each other’s parcels. ■ Cassandra at the Wedding (Dorothy Baker; 1962. Fiction.) RFS This satisfied my NYRB RFS sub-challenge and completed my Goodreads goal of 104 books, and now Cassandra and Merricat, the unreliable narrator of Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle are paired in my readerly imagination. From Nicholas Lazard’s review (The Guardian, October 30, 2012): Thanks to the tireless raising of the point by Howard Jacobson and others, it seems just possible that the notion is sinking in that not to like a novel because one does not find the central character likeable is not, actually, a sophisticated way of reading. I need hardly add that I wholly endorse this view – but this doesn’t mean that I think there’s something immature or unworthy in taking pleasure in the characters a writer creates, whether you’re the reader or the writer. p. 81 I love our bedroom, but it was designed for us as we once were, not as we are now. ————————————— ATY Acquired this year LIB Borrowed from library (including Hoopla and Overdrive) OTH Other RFS Read from shelves * Denotes a reread

Hello, BaWers! 'thought of our little group when I read "The Exquisite Pain of Reading in Quarantine" in The Atlantic. Sending all of you "Stay safe!" and "Stay healthy!" thoughts. So... I’ve read 23 books since my last post, which puts me at 75 for the year, so far. Here's an annotated list. ■ Parnassus on Wheels (Christopher Morley; 1917. Fiction.) RFS I meant to read this ten or fifteen years ago, but I’m glad I didn’t because its innocence, humor, and bookish fun were something I needed now much more than then. p. 43 “Judging by the way you talk,” I said, “you ought to be quite a writer yourself.” “Talkers never write. They go on talking.” ■ How to Die: An Ancient Guide to the End of Life (Seneca; ed. James Romm; 2018. Non-fiction.) RFS ■ How to Keep Your Cool: An Ancient Guide to Anger Management (Seneca; ed. James Romm; 2019. Non-fiction.) RFS ■ How to Grow Old: Ancient Wisdom for the Second Half of Life (Marcus Tullius Cicero; ed. Philip Freeman; 2016. Non-fiction.) RFS ■ How to Be Free: An Ancient Guide to the Stoic Life (Epictetus; ed. A.A. Long; 2018. Non-fiction.) RFS These four books are part of Princeton University Press’ “Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers” series. I was particularly delighted by Cicero’s anecdote about Sophocles defending himself against his sons’ claims that he was experiencing age-related feeble-mindedness. p. 49 [T]he old man then read to the court his Oedipus at Colonus, which he had just written and was even then revising, asking when he finished if it sounded like the work of a weak-minded person. After his recitation, the jury acquitted him. It’s no secret that I am an abiding fan of synthesis / serendipity / synchronicity: We had tickets to Court Theatre’s now-rescheduled production of The Gospel at Colonus. Of course, then, Oedipus at Colonus was in my reading plan for April. How neat to have this tie-in. ■ The Bookshop (Penelope Fitzgerald; 1978. Fiction.) RFS When I added Parnassus on Wheels to my Goodreads, this came up as a suggestion — another book I had meant to read a long time ago. The ending broke my heart, but I loved The Bookshop. Lively, whose Moon Tiger (1987) I greatly admire, is a wordsmith. ■ The Haunted Bookshop (Christopher Morley; 1919. Fiction.) LIB This was nowhere near as beguiling as Parnassus on Wheels. ■ Chemistry (Weike Wang; 2017. Fiction.) RFS I’m not certain I am actually the audience for this book about a young woman who experiences personal crisis after her partner proposes, but I thought it was terrific — smart and bittersweet. Check out this interview with the author. ■ The Sense of an Ending (Julian Barnes; 2011. Fiction.) RFS Most folks read this years ago, when Barnes nabbed the Man Booker Prize. Again, this was just the book I needed now. It’s exquisite… perfect. p. 65 Later on in life, you expect a bit of rest, don’t you? You think you deserve it. I did, anyway. But then you begin to understand that the reward of merit is not life’s business. p. 104 How often do we tell our own life story? How often do we adjust, embellish, make sly cuts? And the longer life goes on, the fewer are those around to challenge our account, to remind us that our life is not our life, merely the story we have told about our life. Told to others, but — mainly — told to ourselves. p. 115 Sometimes I think the purpose of life is to reconcile us to its eventual loss by wearing us down, by proving, however long it takes, that life isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. ■ The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human (Jonathan Gottschall; 2012. Non-fiction.) RFS Naturally, this fan of synthesis / serendipity / synchronicity appreciated hearing an echo of Barnes’ narrator in Gottschall’s exploration of narrative and psychology. p. 161 We spend our lives crafting stories that make us noble — if flawed — protagonists of first-person dramas. A life story is a “personal myth” about who we are deep down — where we come from, how we got this way, and what it all means. Our life stories are who we are. They are our identity. A life story is not, however, an objective account. A life story is a carefully shaped narrative that is replete with strategic forgetting and skillfully spun meanings. ■ Oedipus at Colonus (Sophocles; 406 B.C. Trans. Robert Fitzgerald; 1969. Drama.) RFS See above. Scene IV OEDIPUS: I am perfectly content, so long as you Can neither wheedle me nor fool these others. CREON: Unhappy man! Shall it be plain that time Brings you no wisdom? that you shame your age? OEDIPUS: An agile wit! I know no honest man Able to speak so well under all conditions! ■ Truth and Beauty (Ann Patchett; 2004. Non-fiction.) RFS This complemented Lucy Grealy’s Autobiography of a Face (1994), which I read last month. ■ The Lost Books of the Odyssey (Zachary Mason; 2007/2010. Fiction.) RFS April may prove to be the month of perfect books. Boy, was this fabulous. Reviews here and here. p. 83 Finally, I saw myself, how my wit exceeded that of other men but gave me no leverage against fate, and how in the time to come it would avail me nothing but possibly an understanding of the full scope of my helplessness. ■ Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (J.K. Rowling; 1998. Fiction.) RFS ■ Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (J.K. Rowling; 1998. Fiction.) RFS I had expected that returning to these would prove too bitter… but it was sweet comfort. ■ Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery (Richard Kolker; 2013. Non-fiction.) RFS After watching a trailer for a new movie of the same title, I headed to the shelves where this terrifically written entry in the unsolved mystery / true crime genre has awaited me (for *shhh* seven years). Review here. ■ The Tempest (William Shakespeare; 1610. Drama.) RFS Years ago, when I first read The Tempest, I noted that Miranda was homeschooled. As I wrote elsewhere those many years ago, Prospero the schoolmaster serves his own needs at the expense of his student’s; and his dubious classroom management skills coupled with his troubling use of “wench” as term of endearment irritated in both that first reading and this most recent. Yet, when nearly every kid in the United States is “suddenly homeschooled,” rediscovering Shakespeare’s take on homeschooling provided another dose of synthesis / serendipity / synchronicity. Act I, Scene 2 PROSPERO: Now I arise: [Resumes his mantle] Sit still, and hear the last of our sea-sorrow. Here in this island we arrived; and here Have I, thy schoolmaster, made thee more profit Than other princesses can that have more time For vainer hours and tutors not so careful. ■ Man’s Search for Meaning: An Introduction to Logotherapy (Viktor E. Frankl; 1946. Non-fiction.) RFS This was the fourth or fifth time I’ve read this book. p. 56 Sensitive people who were used to a rich intellectual life may have suffered much pain (they were often of delicate constitution), but the damage to their inner selves was less. They were able to retreat from their terrible surroundings to a life of inner riches and spiritual freedom. p. 68 Humor was another of the soul’s weapons in the fight for self-preservation. It is well known that humor, more than anything else in the human make-up, can afford an aloofness and an ability to rise above any situation, even if only for a few seconds. p. 122 We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life — daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual. ■ Give Me Your Heart (Joyce Carol Oates; 2010. Fiction.) RFS It was a bit of a chore to work through this one. ■ Viktor Frankl: A Life Worth Living (Anna S. Redsand; 2006. Non-fiction.) RFS A suitable introduction to Frankl for middle-school students. ■ American Predator (Maureen Callahan; 2019. Non-fiction.) RFS Related link here. This was one that made me check the window and door locks. Again. And again. ■ Flatland (Edwin A. Abbott; 1884. Fiction.) RFS Trippy blend of satire, math, and physics. Related link here. ■ Measure for Measure (William Shakespeare; 1603. Drama.) RFS The Shakespeare Project of Chicago hopes to move its production of Measure for Measure to next season. Act I, Scene 4 LUCIO: Our doubts are traitors And make us lose the good we oft might win By fearing to attempt. Act II, Scene 2 ISABELLA: So you must be the first that gives this sentence, And he, that suffers. O, it is excellent To have a giant’s strength; but it is tyrannous To use it like a giant. ————————————— ATY Acquired this year LIB Borrowed from library (including Hoopla and Overdrive) OTH Other RFS Read from shelves

Hello, BaWers! I hope you’re all doing well. Since my last post, I’ve finished fifteen books, which puts me at (drumroll, please) fifty-two. ■ Autobiography of a Face (Lucy Grealy; 1994. Non-fiction.) RFS p. 7 The cruelty of children is immense, almost startling its precision. The kids at the parties were fairly young and, surrounded by adults, they rarely make cruel remarks outright. But their open, uncensored stares were more painful than the deliberate taunts of my peers at school, where insecurities drove everything and everyone like some looming, evil presence in a haunted machine. But in those backyards, where the grass was mown so short and sharp it would have hurt to walk on it, there was only the fact of me, my face, my ugliness. ■ The Plot Against America (Philip Roth; 2004. Fiction.) RFS I had thought this would be a reread but then realized I had confused it with American Pastoral. The book is practically perfect, so although the first episode of the new HBO series was solid, it’s unlikely that I will continue watching. p. 114 Turned wrong way round, the relentless unforeseen was what we schoolchildren studied as “history,” harmless history, where everything unexpected in its own time is chronicled on the page as inevitable. The terror of the unforeseen is what the science of history hides, turning a disaster into an epic. p. 300 Whether outright government-sanctioned persecution was inevitable, nobody could say for sure, but the fear of persecution was such that not even a practical man grounded in his everyday tasks, a person who tried his best to contain the uncertainty and the anxiety and the anger and operate according to the dictates of reason, could hope to preserve his equilibrium any longer. p. 316 To have enslaved America with this hocus-pocus! To have captured the mind of the world’s greatest nation without uttering a single word of truth! Oh, the pleasure we must be affording the most malevolent man on earth! ■ Aimless Love (Billy Collins; 2013. Poetry.) RFS Billy Collins is a treasure. ■ My Dark Vanessa (Kate Elizabeth Russell; 2020. Fiction.) ATY Read in two sittings. Timely and disturbing. Related links here and here. ■ Severance (Ming La; 2018. Fiction.) RFS Prescient and gorgeously written. I cannot recommend it enough. Mr. Nerdishly agrees, wryly adding, “It’s also scary as hell.” Review here. ■ Trees, Vol. 3 (Warren Ellis; 2020. Graphic fiction.) LIB Strong addition to the series. ■ Oblivion Song, Vol. 4 (Robert Kirkman; 2020. Graphic fiction.) LIB Less so. ■ Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland (Patrick Radden Keene; 2019. Non-fiction.) RFS Related links here and here. ■ Catch and Kill (Ronan Farrow; 2019. Non-fiction.) RFS This reminded me of my experience reading Bad Blood: I could not put it down; hours disappeared. A review and an article about the related podcast. ■ The Old Man and the Sea (Ernest Hemingway; 1952. Fiction.) ATY This is another of those books that I have reread as an adult and realized, “Wow, that was clearly wasted on my teenaged self.” No one should be alone in their old age, he thought. But it is unavoidable. ■ Postal: Deliverance, Vol. 1 (Brian Edward Hill; 2019. Graphic fiction.) LIB The owner of the comic book store we patronize has fruitfully recommended several series to me, so it’s odd that he didn’t mention that Postal, a series on my shortlist, had continued. Well, it was a treat to discover the first volume on Hoopla. ■ The Nose (Nikolai Gogol; 1835. Fiction.) RFS We saw some of William Kentridge’s The Nose Series at the Milwaukee Art Museum, but a search of the museum’s website yields only a tax document mentioning that the printswere there. Weird. Well, in any event, I now plan to watch the Kentridge production of the Shostakovich opera via Met On Demand. But nothing lasts long in this world, and so even joy is weaker one minute than the last, and by the third it has become something fainter still, until finally it fades imperceptibly back into the more usual state of one’s mind, just as a ripple on water, born from the drop of a pebble, will gradually merge back into the smooth surface of the lake. ■ The Book of M (Peng Shepherd; 2018. Fiction.) RFS Too long by one hundred pages, and, boy, is the chapter for each narrator device one of the most overused in contemporary fiction, or what? Add to that the fact that I grew impatient with the fantastical elements by the final third, and you have the recipe for a Meh rating. ■ The Lion in Winter (James Goldman; 1966. Drama.) RFS Reread one of my favorites because this is a season that requires such indulgences. Act II, Scene 1 Eleanor: I adored you. Henry: Never. Eleanor: I still do. Henry: Of all the lies, that one is the most terrible. Eleanor: I know: that’s why I saved it up for now. (They throw themselves into each other’s arms.) Oh, Henry, we have mangled everything we’ve touched. ■ The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe (Kij Johnson; 2016. Fiction.) RFS My ticket stub from Chicago Shakespeare Theater’s 2016 production of Tug of War: Friendly Fire marked page 41. My best guess, then, is that I began this unusual book four years ago and set it aside. Written as a feminist counterpoint to H.P. Lovecraft’s The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, this short novel is certainly not my usual fare, but I returned to the beginning and gave it another shot. Still not my cuppa, but, hey, I finished it this time. Related article here. ————————————— ATY Acquired this year LIB Borrowed from library (including Hoopla and Overdrive) OTH Other RFS Read from shelves

Hello, BaWers! I hope you’re doing well. Illinois is under a stay-at-home order, effective an hour ago. The Chicago Tribune article about the order has given me a recurring case of the chuckles, as it includes this assertion: Here are some of the books I’ve finished since my last post. ■ The Truants (Kate Weinberg; 2019. Fiction.) LIB A quick, entertaining read. I particularly relished the idea of Agatha Christie as a subject of academic inquiry. ■ Women and Power (Mary Beard; 2017. Non-fiction.) RFS Mary Beard is a genius. Related link here. ■ Men Explain Things to Me (Rebecca Solnit; 2017. Non-fiction.) RFS Related link: “Before there was mansplaining, there was Rebecca Solnit’s 2008 critique of male arrogance. Reprinted here with a new introduction.” p. 10 Dude, if you’re reading this, you’re a carbuncle on the face of humanity and an obstacle to civilization. Feel the shame. p. 62 Gay men and lesbians have already opened up the question of what qualities and roles are male and female in ways that can be liberating for straight people. When they marry, the meaning of marriage is likewise opened up. No hierarchical tradition underlies their union. Some people have greeted this with joy. ■ The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (Muriel Spark; 1961. Fiction.) RFS Muriel Spark was a genius, too. ■ The Lady from the Sea (Henrik Ibsen; 1888. Drama.) RFS Read in anticipation of seeing the Court Theatre production. ■ Five Days at Memorial (Sheri Fink; 2013. Non-fiction.) RFS Related link here. ■ The Taming of the Shrew (William Shakespeare; 1592. Drama.) RFS Reread in anticipation of seeing the Royal Shakespeare Company at Chicago Shakespeare. ■ Zeitoun (Dave Eggers; 2009. Non-fiction.) RFS This was the perfect companion to Fink’s Five Days at Memorial and Patricia Smith’s Blood Dazzler earlier this year. ■ As You Like It (William Shakespeare; 1599. Drama.) RFS Read in anticipation of seeing the Chicago Shakespeare production. Act III, Scene V But, mistress, know yourself: down on your knees, And thank heaven, fasting, for a good man’s love: For I must tell you friendly in your ear, Sell when you can: you are not for all markets: Cry the man mercy; love him; take his offer: Foul is most foul, being foul to be a scoffer. ■ American Dirt (Jeanine Cummins; 2020. Fiction.) ATY From the NYT review by Parul Sehgal: But does the book’s shallowness paradoxically explain the excitement surrounding it? The tortured sentences aside, “American Dirt” is enviably easy to read. It is determinedly apolitical. The deep roots of these forced migrations are never interrogated; the American reader can read without fear of uncomfortable self-reproach. It asks only for us to accept that “these people are people,” while giving us the saintly to root for and the barbarous to deplore — and then congratulating us for caring. It certainly was “enviably easy to read.” p. 50 What a waste of time it had all been. Lydia feels annoyed that her niece won’t get to see the music box she purchased for her special day. How expensive it was! She realizes, even as this thought occurs to her, how bizarre and awful it is, but she can’t stop it from crashing in. She doesn’t rebuke herself for thinking it; she does herself the small kindness of forgiving her malfunctioning logic. p. 276 He’s a philosopher, she thinks. He’s rough, but he means what he says, and his openness is a provocation. Despite everything, he likes being alive. Lydia doesn’t know whether that’s true for herself. For mothers, the question is immaterial anyway. Her survival is a matter of instinct rather than desire. ■ Homer’s The Iliad and The Odyssey (Alberto Manguel; 2007. Non-fiction.) RFS We’ve had our tickets to the Court’s sold-out, site-specific remount of An Iliad since September. It was more than worth the wait and the price. p. 2 We don’t know anything about Homer. It is otherwise with Homer’s books. In a very real sense, the Iliad and the Odyssey are familiar to us prior to opening the first page. Even before we begin to follow the changing moods of Achilles or admire the wit and courage of Ulysses, we have learned to expect that somewhere in these stories of war in time and travel in space we will be told the experience of every human struggle and every human displacement. Two of our oldest metaphors tell us that all life is a battle and that all life is a journey; whether the Iliad and the Odyssey drew on this knowledge or whether this knowledge was drawn from the Iliad and the Odyssey is, in the final count, unimportant, since a book and its readers are both mirrors that reflect one another endlessly. p. 88 A book’s influence is never straightforward. Common readers, unrestricted by the rigours of academe, allow their books to dialogue with one another, to exchange meanings and metaphors, to enrich and annotate each other. In the reader’s mind, books become intertwined and intermingled, so that we no longer know whether a certain adventure belongs to Arsilaous or to Aquiles, or where Homer ends Ulysses’ adventures and the author of Sinbad takes them up again. p. 226 The scene of war, says Homer, is never only that of war: it is never only that of men acting out in the present the events of the day. It is always the scene of the past as well, a display of what men secretly once were, revealed now in their ultimate moments. Confronted with the imminence of violent death, war also confronts them with the memory of days of peace, of the happiness that life can, and should, grant us. War is both things: the experience of an awful presence and the ghost of a beloved past. ■ The Iliad (Gareth Hinds; 2019. Graphic fiction.) RFS I did not appreciate this volume as much as Hinds’ graphic retelling of The Odyssey, which I read last year. ■ Why We Can’t Sleep (Ada Calhoun; 2020. Non-fiction.) LIB p. 221 Could we even see our newfound midlife invisibility as a source of power? In Harry Potter’s world, one of the most prized magical tools is an invisibility cloak. There are great advantages to being underestimated. Two of the best reporters I know are women in their fifties. They look so friendly and non-threatening, if you notice them at all. They can lurk in any room without usually wary people remembering to keep their guard up. Then they write devastating whistleblowing articles. The world ignores middle-aged women at its peril. ■ Vinegar Girl (Anne Tyler; 2016. Fiction.) RFS Read as a companion to my Shrew reread. This was also “enviably easy to read,” and that’s not a criticism. ————————————— ATY Acquired this year LIB Borrowed from library OTH Other RFS Read from shelves ————————————— Talk about serendipity, synthesis, and synchronicity… Not long after I finished reading Mary Beard’s slim volume, Women & Power, I visited the MFA, where the Head of Medusa (Arnold Böcklin, 1894) held my gaze.

Hello, BaWers! So far, I’ve read twenty-three books this year, fifteen of which are from my shelves and eleven of which are non-fiction titles. I’m off to a promising start, eh? ■ Highlights of the Collections of the Oriental Institute (Jean M. Evans; 2017. Non-fiction.) RFS We revisited the Oriental Institute in December in anticipation of seeing An Iliad there next month. ■ The Mousetrap (Agatha Christie; 1952. Drama.) RFS Read in advance of seeing the Court Theatre production. ■ Trust Exercise (Susan Choi; 2019. Fiction.) RFS Interesting review here. ■ Rutherford and Sons (Githa Sowerby; 1912. Drama.) RFS Read before seeing the TimeLine Theatre production. ■ Richard III (William Shakespeare; 1592. Drama.) RFS Reread before seeing the Shakespeare Project of Chicago production. ■ In the Heart of the Sea (Nathan Philbrick; 2000. Non-fiction.) RFS In a weird twist, I watched the movie before reading this terrific book. My interest was, of course, fueled by my Moby-Dick reread late last year. ■ Dear America (Jose Antonio Vargas; 2018. Non-fiction.) RFS Related link here. ■ A Long Way Gone (Ishmael Beah; 2007. Non-fiction.) RFS Arrived at this book a bit later than most. Here’s a related link. ■ Frogcatchers (Jeff Lemire; 2018. Graphic fiction.) LIB Another of Lemire’s meditations on death, regret, and letting go. ■ On Tyranny (Timothy Snyder; 2017. Non-fiction.) RFS Again, arrived at this later than most. I began marking passages for the commonplace book and soon realized I’d copy the entire text. Review here. ■ Tomten Tales (Astrid Lindgren; 2017 ed. (1960 and 1966). Juvenile fiction.) LIB Small gnome ornaments topped the holiday gift bags I distributed this year. In a lovely note, my music teacher thanked me for, among other things, “the adorable tomten.” In pursuit of a definition, I stumbled on this delightful children’s book. ■ An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth (Chris Hadfield; 2013. Non-fiction.) RFS My younger daughter (insistently) recommended this. p. 267 If you start thinking that only your biggest and shiniest moments count, you’re setting yourself up to feel like a failure most of the time. Personally, I’d rather feel good most of the time, so to me everything counts: the small moments, the medium ones, the successes that make the papers and also the ones that no one knows about but me. The challenge is avoiding being derailed by the big, shiny moments that turn other people’s heads. You have to figure out for yourself how to enjoy and celebrate them, and then move on. ■ Between the World and Me (Ta-Nehisi Coates; 2015. Non-fiction.) RFS p. 51 Poetry aims for an economy of truth — loose and useless words must be discarded, and I found that these loose and useless words were not separate from loose and useless thoughts. Poetry was not simply the transcription of notions — beautiful writing rarely is. I wanted to learn to write, which was ultimately, still, as my mother had taught me, a confrontation with my own innocence, my own rationalizations. Poetry was the processing of my thoughts until the slag of justification fell away and I was left with the cold steel truths of life. ■ Keep It Moving (Twyla Tharp; 2019. Non-fiction.) LIB Meh. ■ The Passengers (John Marrs; 2019. Fiction.) ATY Flawed and a bit predictable but an altogether entertaining way to pass a Sunday evening. ■ Digital Minimalism (Cal Newport; 2019. Non-fiction.) RFS This book is partially responsible for the gap in entries here. ■ We Should All Be Feminists (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie; 2014. Non-fiction.) LIB p. 18 Today, we live in a vastly different world. The person more qualified to lead is not the physically stronger person. It is the more intelligent, the more knowledgeable, the more creative, more innovative. And there are no hormones for those attributes. A man is as likely as a woman to be intelligent, innovative, creative. We have evolved. But our ideas of gender have not evolved very much. ■ Daughter of Time (Josephine Tey; 1951. Fiction.) RFS I reread this after rereading Richard III. p. 33 It was shocking how little history remained with one after a good education. p. 196 “No, that doesn’t matter at all. Most people’s first books are their best anyway; it’s the one they wanted most to write….” ■ Blood Dazzler (Patricia Smith; 2009. Poetry.) LIB Excerpts here. ■ Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men (Carolyn Criado Perez; 2019. Non-fiction.) RFS Wow. Wow. Wow. This will certainly top my list of memorable reads this year. Related link here. ■ The Whisper Man (Alex North; 2019. Fiction.) ATY Another meh. ■ The Warehouse (Rob Hart; 2019. Fiction.) LIB Although I’m weary of the narrative device of alternating voices, it worked in this was near-future dystopian novel. ■ Emma (Jane Austen; 1815. Fiction.) RFS Austen’s prose sparkles; her wit pierces. But I wonder if I am too old to appreciate Emma. I reread the novel before seeing the new Chicago Shakespeare musical. ————————————— ATY Acquired this year LIB Borrowed from library RFS Read from shelves

“The University of Illinois is home to 26 Pulitzer Prize winners, 23 Nobel Laureates, the inventors of YouTube, PayPal and a long list of game-changing innovators.”

Moby-Dick is, among other things, a witty book. The humor is sometimes ribald, sometimes punny, sometimes quiet, sometimes laugh-aloud... you get the idea. But it is funny, and the audiobook narrated by William Hootkins successfully uncovers every note of humor (to say nothing of pathos, weirdness, irony, universality, and more). Melville would have loved hearing Hootkins interpret his work, and I so appreciated having it underscore my book-in-hand reread. I may reread Middlemarch in 2020. I will also reread Emma and some Shakespeare in anticipation of plays we will see this season. Per your recommendation I am revisiting Agatha Christie, beginning with The Mousetrap.

Merry Christmas, BaWers! And, Robin, thank you again for keeping this going. With a week remaining in the year, there is little question that I will finish Providence of a Sparrow: Lessons from a Life Gone to the Birds, so I am calling it at 121 books read this year. (As always, I have included only cover-to-covers.) Here are a few numbers: — 50 novels (not including graphic works) — 38 non-fiction titles (not including graphic works) — 3 poetry selections — 6 plays — 24 graphic works (six of which were non-fiction selections) As I mentioned back in October, I crafted a bold reading challenge this year: Read one hundred books from my shelves (i.e., books in my collection before the end of 2018), including at least 24 non-fiction titles and at least one book from each of the following “special collections”: Shakespeare, poetry, NYRB, Vonnegut, Joyce Carol Oates, philosophy, art, and children’s / YA. I also planned to make short work of 2018’s unfinished business and to closely (re)read Moby-Dick. Knowing that my daughters’ relocation would consume a great deal of my spring and summer, I chose a goal of 104 books total for the year, but I happily surpassed that goal by 17. So, yes, I missed my goal of one hundred from the shelves (by 46), but what a fascinating and productive year of reading! While I only read 19 non-fiction titles from my shelves (missing my goal by five), the 44 non-fiction books I did read this year represents a substantial increase over previous years. I had completed the books I carried over from last year well before my October review, and I completed my reread of Moby-Dick on Christmas Eve. I met all of my mini-challenges, too: Shakespeare RFS: Hamlet Poetry RFS: Lunch Poems (Frank O’Hara) NYRB RFS: The Summer Book (Tove Jansson) Vonnegut RFS: Player Piano Joyce Carol Oates RFS: The Rise of Life on Earth Philosophy RFS: Letters from a Stoic (Seneca) Art RFS: But is it art? (Cynthia Freeland) Children’s / YA RFS: Milkweed (Jerry Spinelli) Here are a few more facts about this year’s 121 books, 32 of which were published this year: — 54 read from shelves — 31 acquired this year — 28 borrowed from the library — 8 other And here are the standouts: Even better on rereading: ■ Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale (Herman Melville; 1851. Fiction.) ■ Beowulf (Trans. Seamus Heaney; 2000. Poetry.) ■ Oedipus the King (Sophocles (Trans. Ian Johnston; 2007); 429 B.C. Drama.) The most engrossing books I read this year (not including rereads): ■ Ghost Wall (Sarah Moss; 2018. Fiction.) ■ A Loss for Words: The Story of Deafness in a Family (Lou Ann Walker; 1986. Non-fiction.) ■ The Wall (John Lanchester; 2019. Fiction.) ■ Charmed Particles (Chrissy Kolaya; 2015. Fiction.) ■ Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America (Beth Macy; 2018. Non-fiction.) ■ An Odyssey: A Father, a Son, and an Epic (Daniel Mendelsohn; 2017. Non-fiction.) ■ The Mighty Franks (Michael Frank; 2017. Non-fiction.) ■ In the Woods (Tana French; 2007. Fiction.) Honorable mention: ■ The Story of Arthur Truluv (Elizabeth Berg; 2017. Fiction.) ■ American Spy (Lauren Wilkinson; 2019. Fiction.) ■ Wild Game (Adrienne Brodeur; 2019. Non-fiction.) ■ All the Names They Used for God (Anjali Sachdeva; 2018. Fiction.) Fabulous story for a long car trip: ■ Paddle Your Own Canoe (Nick Offerman; 2013. Non-fiction.) Fabulous story to read while waiting in airports: ■ My Sister, The Serial Killer (Oyinkan Braithwaite; 2018. Fiction.) Cannot stop talking about the ideas in these books: ■ Paying for the Party: How College Maintains Inequality (Elizabeth Armstrong and Laura Hamilton; 2013. Non-fiction.) ■ The Class Ceiling: Why it Pays to be Privileged (Sam Friedman and Daniel Laurison; 2019. Non-fiction.) ■ The Years That Matter Most (Paul Tough; 2019. Non-fiction.) ■ The Privileged Poor (Anthony Abraham Jack; 2019. Non-fiction.) Best graphic works I read this year: ■ Nobody’s Fool: The Life and Times of Schlitzie the Pinhead (Bill Griffith; 2019. Graphic non-fiction.) ■ They Called Us Enemy (George Takei; 2017. Graphic non-fiction.) The list (not including Providence of a Sparrow): January ■ The People in the Trees (Hanya Yanagihara; 2013. Fiction.) RFS ■ A Sorrow Beyond Dreams (Peter Handke; 1972. Fiction.) RFS ■ Upgrade Soul (Ezra Claytan Daniels; 2016. Graphic fiction.) LIB ■ Fieldwork (Mischa Berlinski; 2007. Fiction.) RFS ■ Becoming (Michelle Obama; 2018. Non-fiction.) RFS ■ The Widower’s Notebook (Jonathan Santlofer; 2018. Non-fiction.) RFS ■ Reasons to Stay Alive (Matt Haig; 2015. Non-fiction.) RFS ■ Paper Girls, Vol. 5 (Brian K. Vaughan; 2018. Graphic fiction.) LIB ■ Fear: Trump in the White House (Bob Woodward; 2018. Non-fiction.) RFS ■ The Shakespeare Requirement (Julie Schumacher; 2018. Fiction.) RFS February ■ Guitar Zero: The New Musician and the Science of Learning (Gary Marcus; 2012. Non-fiction.) RFS ■ Ghost Wall (Sarah Moss; 2018. Fiction.) LIB ■ A Loss for Words: The Story of Deafness in a Family (Lou Ann Walker; 1986. Non-fiction.) ATY ■ Gone for Good (Harlan Coben; 2002. Fiction.) RFS ■ The Science of Evil: On Empathy and the Origins of Cruelty (Simon Baron-Cohen; 2011. Non-fiction.) ATY ■ First, Learn to Practice (Tom Heany; 2012. Non-fiction.) ATY ■ The Current (Tom Johnston; 2019. Fiction.) LIB ■ How to Love Your Flute (Mark Shepard; 1979. Non-fiction.) LIB ■ The Sirens of Titan (Kurt Vonnegut; 1959. Fiction.) RFS ■ Seven Brief Lessons on Physics (Carlo Rovelli; 2014. Non-fiction.) RFS March ■ Man-eaters, Vol. 1 (Chelsea Cain; 2019. (Graphic fiction.) OTH ■ Paddle Your Own Canoe (Nick Offerman; 2013. Non-fiction.) LIB ■ Why Art? (Eleanor Davis; 2018. Graphic non-fiction.) LIB ■ The Silent Patient (Alex Michaelides; 2019. Fiction.) ATY ■ The Walking Dead, Vol. 31 (Robert Kirkman; 2019. Graphic fiction.) OTH ■ All Systems Red (Martha Wells; 2017. Fiction.) LIB ■ Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? (Frans de Waal; 2016. Non-fiction.) RFS ■ Grass Kings, Vol. 2 (Matt Kindt; 2018. Graphic fiction.) LIB ■ The Wall (John Lanchester; 2019. Fiction.) ATY ■ Inspection (Josh Malerman; 2019. Fiction.) LIB ■ D’Aulaires Book of Norse Myths (Ingri Mortenson and Edgar Parin d’Aulaire; 1967. Fiction.) RFS ■ Sweat (Lynn Nottage; 2015. Drama.) LIB ■ Norse Mythology (Neil Gaiman; 2017. Fiction.) RFS ■ The Orchid Thief (Susan Orlean; 1998. Non-fiction.) RFS April ■ The Story of Arthur Truluv (Elizabeth Berg; 2017. Fiction.) ATY ■ Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America (Beth Macy; 2018. Non-fiction.) RFS ■ Crow Lake (Mary Lawson; 2002. Fiction.) RFS ■ Grass Kings, Vol. 3 (Matt Kindt; 2018. Graphic fiction.) LIB ■ Charmed Particles (Chrissy Kolaya; 2015. Fiction.) RFS ■ How to Be a Good Creature: A Memoir in Thirteen Animals (Sy Montgomery; 2018. Non-fiction.) LIB ■ Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home (Nora Krug; 2018. Graphic non-fiction.) LIB ■ Paying for the Party: How College Maintains Inequality (Elizabeth Armstrong and Laura Hamilton; 2013. Non-fiction.) LIB ■ To Walk the Night (William Sloane; 1937. Fiction.) RFS ■ The Awakening (Kate Chopin; 1899. Fiction.) RFS ■ The Pigman (Paul Zindel; 1968. Fiction.) ATY ■ Gideon Falls, Vol. 2: Original Sins (Jeff Lemire; 2019. Graphic fiction.) OTH ■ The Test (Sylvain Neuvel ; 2018. Fiction.) ATY ■ Nobody’s Fool: The Life and Times of Schlitzie the Pinhead (Bill Griffith; 2019. Graphic non-fiction.) LIB ■ Hey, Kiddo (Jarrett J. Krosoczka; 2018. Graphic non-fiction.) RFS May ■ Still Life (Louise Penny; 2005. Fiction.) ATY ■ The Uses of Enchantment (Heidi Julavits; 2006. Fiction.) RFS ■ Hamlet (William Shakespeare; 1602. Drama.) RFS ■ Where Reasons End (Yiyun Li; 2019. Fiction.) LIB ■ The Farm (Joanne Ramos; 2019. Fiction.) ATY ■ The Last Stone (Mark Bowden; 2019. Non-fiction.) ATY June ■ A Fatal Grace (Louise Penny; 2007. Fiction.) ATY ■ Oblivion Song, Vol. 2 (Robert Kirkman; 2019. Graphic fiction.) ATY ■ The Suspect (L.R. Wright; 1985. Fiction.) RFS ■ True West (Sam Shepard; 1980. Drama.) RFS ■ Beowulf (Trans. Seamus Heaney; 2000. Poetry.) RFS ■ Man-Eaters, Vol. 2 (Chelsea Cain; 2019. Graphic fiction.) OTH ■ The Class Ceiling: Why it Pays to be Privileged (Sam Friedman and Daniel Laurison; 2019. Non-fiction.) LIB ■ The Rise of Life on Earth (Joyce Carol Oates; 1991. Fiction.) RFS ■ Recursion (Blake Crouch; 2019. Fiction.) ATY July ■ American Spy (Lauren Wilkinson; 2019. Fiction.) ATY ■ An Odyssey: A Father, a Son, and an Epic (Daniel Mendelsohn; 2017. Non-fiction.) RFS ■ The Odyssey (Gareth Hinds; 2010. Graphic fiction.) ATY ■ Women Talking (Miriam Toews; 2019. Fiction.) ATY ■ The Wicked and the Divine, Vol. 1: The Faust Act (Kieron Gellen; 2014. Graphic fiction.) LIB August ■ The Mighty Franks (Michael Frank; 2017. Non-fiction.) RFS ■ My Sister, The Serial Killer (Oyinkan Braithwaite; 2018. Fiction.) ATY ■ The Art of Racing in the Rain (Garth Stein; 2008. Fiction.) RFS ■ The Walking Dead, Vol. 32: Rest In Peace (Robert Kirkman; 2019. Graphic fiction.) OTH ■ The Cruelest Month (Louise Penny; 2008. Fiction.) ATY ■ Where’d You Go, Bernadette (Maria Semple; 2012. Fiction.) RFS September ■ Audubon: On the Wings of the World (Fabien Grolleau and Jérémie Royer; 2017. Graphic non-fiction.) LIB ■ Howards End (E.M. Forster; 1910. Fiction.) RFS ■ Hope Rides Again (Andrew Shaffer; 2019. Fiction.) ATY ■ Outcast, Vol. 7 (Robert Kirkman; 2019. Graphic fiction.) OTH ■ Orange Is the New Black (Piper Kerman; 2014. Non-fiction.) RFS ■ American Prison (Shane Bauer; 2018. Non-fiction.) ATY ■ A Doll House (Henrik Ibsen (Trans. Rolf Fjelde); 1879. Drama.) RFS ■ The Testaments (Margaret Atwood; 2019. Fiction.) ATY ■ Milkweed (Jerry Spinelli; 2003. Fiction.) RFS ■ Ulysses (James Joyce; 1922. Fiction.) RFS ■ They Called Us Enemy (George Takei; 2017. Graphic non-fiction.) LIB ■ Lunch Poems (Frank O’Hara; 1964. Poetry.) RFS ■ The Summer Book (Tove Jansson; 1972. Fiction.) RFS October ■ Joyce’s Ulysses (James A.W. Heffernan; 2001. Non-fiction.) RFS ■ Paper Girls, Vol. 6 (Brian K. Vaughan; 2019. Graphic fiction.) LIB ■ Oblivion Song, Vol. 3 (Robert Kirkman; 2019. Graphic fiction.) LIB ■ But is it art? (Cynthia Freeland; 2001. Non-fiction.) RFS ■ Player Piano (Kurt Vonnegut; 1952. Fiction.) RFS ■ Gideon Falls, Vol. 3: Stations of the Cross (Jeff Lemire; 2019. Graphic fiction.) OTH ■ Old in Art School (Nell Irvin Painter; 2018. Non-fiction.) RFS ■ A Rule against Murder (Louise Penny; 2009. Fiction.) ATY ■ Mere Motherhood (Cindy Rollins; 2016. Non-fiction.) RFS November ■ Romeo and Juliet (William Shakespeare; 1597. Drama.) RFS ■ Wild Game (Adrienne Brodeur; 2019. Non-fiction.) LIB ■ The Years That Matter Most (Paul Tough; 2019. Non-fiction.) LIB ■ Who Was Andy Warhol? (Kristen Anderson; 2014. Non-fiction.) LIB ■ Oedipus the King (Sophocles (Trans. Ian Johnston; 2007); 429 B.C. Drama.) RFS ■ Man-eaters, Vol. 3 (Chelsea Cain; 2019. (Graphic fiction.) OTH ■ The Privileged Poor (Anthony Abraham Jack; 2019. Non-fiction.) ATY ■ Tell No One (Harlan Coben; 2001. Fiction.) RFS ■ An Iliad (Alessandro Baricco; 2006. Fiction.) RFS ■ Letters from a Stoic (Seneca (Robin Campbell, ed.) c. 65 A.D. Non-fiction.) RFS ■ In the Woods (Tana French; 2007. Fiction.) RFS ■ No Small Gift (Jennifer Franklin; 2018. Poetry.) ATY ■ All the Names They Used for God (Anjali Sachdeva; 2018. Fiction.) ATY December ■ The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse (Charlie Mackesy; 2019. Fiction.) ATY ■ Ascender, Vol. 1 (Jeff Lemire; 2019. (Graphic fiction.) LIB ■ Universal Harvester (John Darnielle; 2017. Fiction.) RFS ■ Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now (Jaron Lanier; 2018. Non-fiction.) LIB ■ A Warning (Anonymous; 2019. Non-fiction.) ATY ■ The Book of Job (Trans. Stephen Mitchell; 1979. Poetry / Religion.) RFS ■ The Late Starters Orchestra (Ari L. Goldman; 2014. Non-fiction.) ATY ■ Moby-Dick; or, The Whale (Herman Melville; 1851. Fiction.) RFS ■ Dive Deeper: Journeys with Moby-Dick (George Cotkin; 2012. Non-fiction.) ATY ■ Shortest Way Home (Pete Buttigieg; 2019. Non-fiction.) ATY

@Robin M The Gamache books. What treasures! I think I have you to thank for them. Thank you, thank you. I have the fifth in the series in queue.

How can it be two months since I lasted posted in the BaW threads?!? Well, hello! Here I am! While I typically read between 120 and 150 books each year, I knew that serving as move coordinator for my daughters and spending nearly the entire summer away from home would likely cut into my reading time. I settled on a more realistic goal of 104 books in 2019, and at ninety-five books read and a little more than two months remaining to read at least another nine, I think I chose well. I’m not doing quite as well with my “Read from the shelves” challenge. I tasked myself with reading one hundred books from my shelves (i.e., books in my collection before the end of 2018), including at least twenty-four non-fiction titles and at least one book from each of the following “special collections”: Shakespeare, poetry, NYRB, Vonnegut, Joyce Carol Oates, philosophy, art, and children’s / YA. I also planned to make short work of 2018’s unfinished business and to closely (re)read Moby Dick. How am I doing so far? Here are a few numbers: Total number of books read to date: 95 Read from shelves (RFS): 42 Non-fiction RFS: 15 Shakespeare RFS: Hamlet Poetry RFS: Lunch Poems (Frank O’Hara) NYRB RFS: The Summer Book (Tove Jansson) Vonnegut RFS: Player Piano Joyce Carol Oates RFS: The Rise of Life on Earth Art RFS: But is it art? (Cynthia Freeland) Children’s / YA RFS: Milkweed (Jerry Spinelli) I finished the seven books I carried over from 2018, and the Melville project is slated to begin next weekend. I selected Letters from a Stoic as my philosophy RFS. By completing it and the three other non-fiction titles on my nighstand, I would reach nineteen non-fiction works RFS. It remains to be seen whether I can read another five non-fiction titles from the shelves before the end of the year. (Although it was not a goal specific to this year, it is worth noting that I have already read thirty non-fiction works this year, even before the four on the nightstand, so I am poised to outpace previous years’ goals in that area.) Clearly, though, I will not meet the goal of one hundred books read from the shelves. The fact that so many of the books I had been reading in recent years were newly published and / or acquired in the year they were read had largely informed my “Read from the shelves” challenge (that and the embarrassment of riches that is my home library). It was never my intent to cease acquiring new books, only to acquire more thoughtfully and to make better use of the library. That said, of the ninety-five books I’ve read so far this year, only twenty-four were published this year. Twenty-three books on my 2019 list were acquired this year, ten of which were published in 2019. Twenty-three of this year’s books were borrowed from the library. Oh, and here are the books I’ve read since I last visited the BaW threads: ■ Where’d You Go, Bernadette (Maria Semple; 2012. Fiction.) RFS ■ Audubon: On the Wings of the World (Fabien Grolleau and Jérémie Royer; 2017. Graphic non-fiction.) LIB ■ Howards End (E.M. Forster; 1910. Fiction.) RFS ■ Hope Rides Again (Andrew Shaffer; 2019. Fiction.) ATY ■ Outcast, Vol. 7 (Robert Kirkman; 2019. Graphic fiction.) OTH ■ Orange Is the New Black (Piper Kerman; 2014. Non-fiction.) RFS ■ American Prison (Shane Bauer; 2018. Non-fiction.) ATY ■ A Doll House (Henrik Ibsen (trans. Rolf Fjelde); 1879. Drama.) RFS ■ The Testaments (Margaret Atwood; 2019. Fiction.) ATY ■ Milkweed (Jerry Spinelli; 2003. Fiction.) RFS ■ Ulysses (James Joyce; 1922. Fiction.) RFS ■ They Called Us Enemy (George Takei; 2017. Graphic non-fiction.) LIB ■ Lunch Poems (Frank O’Hara; 1964. Poetry.) RFS ■ The Summer Book (Tove Jansson; 1972. Fiction.) RFS ■ Paper Girls, Vol. 6 (Brian K. Vaughan; 2019. Graphic fiction.) LIB ■ Oblivion Song, Vol. 3 (Robert Kirkman; 2019. Graphic fiction.) LIB ■ But is it art? (Cynthia Freeland; 2001. Non-fiction.) RFS ■ Player Piano (Kurt Vonnegut; 1952. Fiction.) RFS ■ Gideon Falls, Vol. 3: Stations of the Cross (Jeff Lemire; 2019. Graphic fiction.) OTH ■ Old in Art School (Nell Irvin Painter; 2018. Non-fiction.) RFS ■ A Rule against Murder (Louise Penny; 2009. Fiction.) ATY ————————————— ATY Acquired this year LIB Borrowed from library OTH Other RFS Read from shelves

Hello, BaWers! Were your ears ringing? This weekly gathering was the subject of all my best compliments in a recent conversation about books and book clubs. In the month since my last post, I finished nine books, bringing my year-to-date total to seventy-three. ■ An Odyssey: A Father, a Son, and an Epic (Daniel Mendelsohn; 2017. Non-fiction.) RFS ■ The Odyssey (Gareth Hinds; 2010. Graphic fiction.) ATY ■ Women Talking (Miriam Toews; 2019. Fiction.) ATY ■ The Wicked and the Divine, Vol. 1: The Faust Act (Kieron Gellen; 2014. Graphic fiction.) LIB ■ The Mighty Franks (Michael Frank; 2017. Non-fiction.) RFS ■ My Sister, The Serial Killer (Oyinkan Braithwaite; 2018. Fiction.) ATY ■ The Art of Racing in the Rain (Garth Stein; 2008. Fiction.) RFS ■ The Walking Dead, Vol. 32: Rest In Peace (Robert Kirkman; 2019. Graphic fiction.) OTH ■ The Cruelest Month (Louise Penny; 2008. Fiction.) ATY ——————- ATY Acquired this year LIB Borrowed from library OTH Other RFS Read from shelves

Ayup. Most people didn’t want to hear my advice sixteen years ago, when I first maintained that college would not happen at the expense of my well-being and retirement. They probably don’t want to hear it now that my daughters have graduated. Heh, heh, heh. In an unrelated discussion, a poster pointed out that, on a plane in an emergency, you must put on your oxygen mask before you can fruitfully help others. Yet a frightening number of parents fail to don their financial oxygen masks. Worse, un(der)prepared for retirement and already living at (or above) their means, some help their children choose colleges based on a fatal combination of flawed advice from guidance counselors and admissions representatives and what will fly in their social circles. They maintain that it’s worth the cost for their kid to “follow his dream,” and they sign on to pay and pay and pay. The results will be disastrous.

Hello, BaWers! It seems impossible, but to the best that I can determine, I last contributed to the discussion during Mother’s Day weekend. !! Things did get a bit hectic, for me: I am the move coordinator for my daughters’ relocation to the East Coast. I finally have a bit of time to breathe — that is, read — again, though. I should finish Daniel Mendlsohn’s memoir An Odyssey tonight. At this moment, I am at sixty-four books. Here are the titles I’ve read since I last checked in: ■ Where Reasons End (Yiyun Li; 2019. Fiction.) LIB ■ The Farm (Joanne Ramos; 2019. Fiction.) ATY ■ The Last Stone (Mark Bowden; 2019. Non-fiction.) ATY ■ A Fatal Grace (Louise Penny; 2007. Fiction.) ATY ■ Oblivion Song, Vol. 2 (Robert Kirkman; 2019. Graphic fiction.) ATY ■ The Suspect (L.R. Wright; 1985. Fiction.) RFS ■ True West (Sam Shepard; 1980. Drama.) RFS ■ Beowulf (Trans. Seamus Heaney; 2000. Poetry.) RFS ■ The Class Ceiling: Why it Pays to be Privileged (Sam Friedman and Daniel Laurison; 2019. Non-fiction.) LIB ■ The Rise of Life on Earth (Joyce Carol Oates; 1991. Fiction.) RFS ■ Recursion (Blake Crouch; 2019. Fiction.) ATY ■ American Spy (Lauren Wilkinson; 2019. Fiction.) ATY ——————- ATY Acquired this yearLIB Borrowed from libraryOTH OtherRFS Read from shelves

What led you to homeschool? Briefly, we knew we could provide a better education than the schools available to us. How was your child homeschooled in the high school years? (Did you use WTM as a guide? Did your child take out of the home, online classes, or college classes?) The WTM informed our studies through the middle school years; less so during high school. Both the oldest and the youngest entered the local college as dual enrolled students for their senior year of high school. What did your child do after graduating? What is your child doing now? My oldest became a Marine after earning his Associate of Science (AS) with high honors. As many WTMers know, he died nearly nine years ago. My daughters transferred to the state flagship after earning their AS degrees, also with high honors. Both were in the University honors program, which, as it turns out, is not common for transfer students because of the difficulty one faces in meeting the program challenges in a compressed time frame. Both succeeded. The older daughter graduated last year with a BS in psychology and several academic honors in addition to the honors program designation. She has worked as a public school paraprofessional educator for the last year. This summer, she is working in the school’s extended year program. The younger daughter graduated this May with a BS in physics, several academic honors (including highest distinction departmental honors) in addition to the honors program designation, several offers of admission to PhD programs (all fully funded), and an invitation to return to the national laboratory at which she interned last summer (an invitation she happily accepted). The PhD program she chose has set my daughters, who are best friends, on a path to the East Coast, where the older daughter will work for one more year before beginning her Masters in Teaching and the younger will begin her PhD in physics.

Happy Mother’s Day, BaWers! With my reread of Hamlet today, I reached fifty-two books. And Robin, I finished the Gamache challenge by reading Still Life; it was terrific. Here’s what I’ve read since my last post: ■ Crow Lake (Mary Lawson; 2002. Fiction.) RFS ■ Grass Kings, Vol. 3 (Matt Kindt; 2018. Graphic fiction.) LIB ■ Charmed Particles (Chrissy Kolaya; 2015. Fiction.) RFS ■ How to Be a Good Creature: A Memoir in Thirteen Animals (Sy Montgomery; 2018. Non-fiction.) LIB ■ Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home (Nora Krug; 2018. Graphic non-fiction.) LIB ■ Paying for the Party: How College Maintains Inequality (Elizabeth Armstrong and Laura Hamilton; 2013. Non-fiction.) LIB ■ To Walk the Night (William Sloane; 1937. Fiction.) RFS ■ The Awakening (Kate Chopin; 1899. Fiction.) RFS ■ The Pigman (Paul Zindel; 1968. Fiction.) ATY ■ Gideon Falls, Vol. 2: Original Sins (Jeff Lemire; 2019. Graphic fiction.) OTH ■ The Test (Sylvain Neuvel ; 2018. Fiction.) ATY ■ Nobody’s Fool: The Life and Times of Schlitzie the Pinhead (Bill Griffith; 2019. Graphic non-fiction.) LIB ■ Hey, Kiddo (Jarrett J. Krosoczka; 2018. Graphic non-fiction.) RFS ■ Still Life (Louise Penny; 2005. Fiction.) ATY ■ The Uses of Enchantment (Heidi Julavits; 2006. Fiction.) RFS ■ Hamlet (William Shakespeare; 1602. Drama.) RFS ————————————— ATY Acquired this year LIB Borrowed from library OTH Other RFS Read from shelves

Robin, cyan... the color of technology but as old as nature itself. Wait, what? 🤣 Oh, and postscript... A few weeks back, you were doing a challenge that included an option to read the first book of a series. I chose Louise Penny's Still Life to be read sometime this year. Which challenge is that?