Somehow, another month passed since my last post. How does that happen? Well, since that mid-year review, I’ve read another sixteen books — five novels, one play, seven works of graphic fiction, and three non-fiction titles: ■ Papergirls, Vol. 4 (Brian K. Vaughan; 2018. Graphic fiction.) ■ Y: The Last Man, Vol. 1: Unmanned (Brian K. Vaughan; 2003. Graphic fiction.) -- A reread after recommending the complete collection to my older daughter, who now loves it as much as I do. ■ The Cabin at the End of the World (Paul Tremblay; 2018. Fiction.) -- Wow! This was pretty incredible, but my favorite of his work remains A Head Full of Ghosts. ■ Bel Canto (Ann Patchett; 2001. Fiction.) -- This flawed but beautiful novel has been on my shelves for seventeen years. My older daughter and I read it in preparation for seeing the opera. ■ Victims of Duty (Eugène Ionesco; 1953. Drama.) -- Read this in advance of seeing Michael Shannon reprise his role as the Detective in the recent A Red Orchid production. ■ Redlands, Vol. 1 (Jordie Bellaire; 2018. Graphic fiction.) ■ Give Me Your Hand (Megan Abbott; 2018. Fiction.) -- As good as Fever and You Will Know Me. ■ Alone (Chabouté; 2008 (2017, English). Graphic fiction.) -- Chabouté's work is gorgeous. ■ An American Marriage (Tayari Jones; 2018. Fiction.) -- Once I began reading, it was difficult to set this book down. ■ Janesville: An American Story (Amy Goldstein; 2016. Non-fiction.) ■ Mockingbird, Vol. 1: I Can Explain (Chelsea Cain; 2016. Graphic fiction.) ■ Mockingbird, Vol. 2: My Feminist Agenda (Chelsea Cain; 2017. Graphic fiction.) ■ Park Bench (Chabouté; 2012 (2017, English). Graphic fiction.) ■ Midlife: A Philosophical Guide (Kieran Setiya; 2017. Non-fiction.) ■ 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (Jules Verne; 1870. (Trans. Anthony Bonner; 1962.) Fiction.) -- Read in anticipation of seeing the Lookingglass Theatre production. ■ Squeezed: Why Our Families Can’t Afford America (Alissa Quart; 2018. Non-fiction. That brings my total to eighty-four books completed, to date. Books XI and XII and Lectures 9 through 12 remain in my quest to read The Aeneid and finish Elizabeth Vandiver’s The Aeneid of Virgil. About two and half hours remain in my audiobook of Hope Never Dies (Andrew Shaffer; 2018), and about one hundred pages remain in Jessica Bruder’s Nomadland (2017). Despite having a number of books in various states of unread, I pushed Squeezed (Alissa Quart; 2018) to the top of the pile because I must return it to the library later this month — right around the time I help move my youngest back to university and resume my academic-year position. From that book: p. 114 Among other things, being middle-class is a matter of having access to certain goods and services. It’s not just the house or the car you can buy. This status is also more granular, reflecting refined varieties of knowledge and information: the middle class knows where to send their children to school, where to get medical treatment, child care, career advice or training, or other kinds of help. Perhaps most importantly, class status is about how you even find out about these things to begin with, which again brings us to “cultural capital.” When I recall “cultural capital,” I think of my favorite theorist from when I was a graduate student, Pierre Bourdieu. Bourdieu theorized that capital extends beyond economics, encompassing credentials, skills, and tastes. Financial capital is convertible — if you have the latter, you can gain cultural capital through education. Then, if you have the former, you can convert that back into even more economic capital through the right social networks. (Related articles here, here, here, here,and here.) Janesville (Amy Goldstein), Squeezed (Alissa Quart), and Nomadland (Jessica Bruder) form a fascinating — and sobering — trilogy. One of my reading resolutions for this year is to finish at least thirty non-fiction titles. In May, I misstated the goal as thirty-six, but when I revisited the original post, I was delighted to realize that I am within nine books of the goal. Admittedly, I have made less progress on Resolutions 1 (Read from the shelves) and 4 (Finish reading several books abandoned in 2017 (or *gulp* earlier)), but I remain upbeat about rereading at least one Vonnegut novel (Resolution 3; probably Sirens of Titan and likely for Banned Books Week) and completing a close reading of Moby Dick (Resolution 2). From Chapter 41: Moby-Dick Here, then, was this grey-headed, ungodly old man, chasing with curses a Job’s whale round the world, at the head of a crew, too, chiefly made up of mongrel renegades, and castaways, and cannibals — morally enfeebled also, by the incompetence of mere unaided virtue or right-mindedness in Starbuck, the invulnerable jollity of indifference and recklessness in Stubb, and the pervading mediocrity in Flask. Such a crew, so officered, seemed specially picked and packed by some infernal fatality to help him to his monomaniac revenge. How it was that they so aboundingly responded to the old man’s ire — by what evil magic their souls were possessed, that at times his hate seemed almost theirs; the White Whale as much their insufferable foe as his; how all this came to be — what the White Whale was to them, or how to their unconscious understandings, also, in some dim, unsuspected way, he might have seemed the gliding great demon of the seas of life, — all this to explain, would be to dive deeper than Ishmael can go. The subterranean miner that works in us all, how can one tell whither leads his shaft by the ever shifting, muffled sound of his pick? In a neat bit of serendipity / synchronicity / synthesis, my reread of Moby Dick will follow my reread of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. This time, I read the Anthony Bonner translation of Verne's novel, which features an introduction by Ray Bradbury in which he draws comparisons between the Nemo and Ahab. I have not been able to find the introduction online, but I did find a Bradbury essay in which he revisits some of the ideas. And here are two of my commonplace book entries for 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea: p. 90 “Captain Nemo,” I said to my host who had just stretched out on a divan, “this library would do honor to more than one palace on land, and I am really astounded to think that it travels with you into the ocean depths.” “Where could one find greater solitude or silence, Professor?” replied Captain Nemo. “Can you boast of greater tranquility in your office at the museum?” “No, Monsieur, and I must admit that it is very shabby alongside yours. Why, you have six or seven thousand books…” “Twelve thousand, Monsieur Aronnax. These are my only ties with life on dry land….” p. 187 “A cannibal can still be an honorable man,” replied Conseil, “just as a glutton can be honest. One doesn’t exclude the other.” “That’s all very well, Conseil. I’ll even grant you that these cannibals are honorable and that they go about devouring their prisoners honorably. But since I don’t like the idea of being devoured, even honorably, I’ll stay on guard, for the commander of the Nautilus seems to be taking no precautions whatsoever. Now to work.”

Hello, BaWers! Here's my mid-year review. From page 69 of The Hole (Hye-Young Pyun; 2017): It was impossible to capture the trajectory of life in a map. Without one, there was no way of wrapping your brain around it all, and yet he was skeptical as to whether you could ever represent the world through maps alone. But it was meaningful. Someone had taken these invisible trajectories that could not be studied with any sort of accuracy and had tried anyway to turn them into a tangible space. He found it boring sometimes for the same reason. A world that could not be understood perfectly, could not be explained unambiguously, and was interpreted differently based on political purposes and conveniences was no different from the world he was already living in. And yet, the one way in which maps were clearly better than life was that they improved with failure. Life itself was merely an accumulation of failures, and those failures never made life better. The jacket copy suggests that The Hole evokes the work of Shirley Jackson and Stephen King. While I appreciate the assertion, I thought this meditation on the horror of finding blank emptiness at the center of a career, a marriage, a life was more philosophical than the comparisons to psychological thrillers suggests. This was the book I completed before heading to bed last night, so I have completed sixty-eight books so far this year: 27 novels 10 plays 18 non-fiction titles 13 graphic fiction works 18 works published this year My complete list is pasted at the end of this post. Here are a few notes. Even better on rereading: ■ Never Let Me Go (Kazuo Ishiguro; 2005. Fiction.) ■ Childhood’s End (Arthur C. Clarke; 1953. Fiction.) ■ Daytripper (Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá; 2011. Graphic fiction.) ■ Mrs. Caliban (Rachel Ingalls; 1983. Fiction.) Forgot how wonderful this writer is: ■ Memento Mori (Muriel Spark; 1959. Fiction.) For those who loved The Elementals (Michael McDowell; 1981): ■ The Reapers Are the Angels (Alden Bell; 2010. Fiction.) A new-ish author who deserves the hype: ■ Little Fires Everywhere (Celeste Ng; 2017. Fiction.) ■ Everything I Never Told You (Celeste Ng; 2014. Fiction.) Fabulous story for a long car trip: ■ American Kingpin (Nick Bilton; 2017. Non-fiction.) Honorable mention: ■ The Idealist: Aaron Swartz and the Rise of Free Culture on the Internet (Justin Peters; 2016. Non-fiction.) The most engrossing book I've read so far this year (not including rereads): ■ Behold the Dreamers (Imbolo Mbue; 2016. Fiction.) Honorable mention: ■ Killers of the Flower Moon (Dan Grann; 2017. Non-fiction.) ■ An Abbreviated Life (Ariel Leve; 2016. Non-fiction.) ■ After the Eclipse (Sarah Perry; 2017. Non-fiction.) ■ The Hole (Hye-young Pyun; 2017. Fiction.) LIST TO DATE: January ■ Never Let Me Go (Kazuo Ishiguro; 2005. Fiction.) ■ An Enemy of the People (Henrikson Ibsen; 1882. Drama.) ■ The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning (Margareta Magnusson; 2018. Non-fiction.) ■ The Perfect Nanny (Leila Sliman; 2018. Fiction.) ■ Saga, Volume 8 (Brian Vaughan; 2018. Graphic fiction.) ■ Postal, Volume 6 (Bryan Hill; 2018. Graphic fiction.) ■ Bitch Planet: Triple Feature, Volume 1 (Kelly Sue DeConnick; 2017. Graphic fiction.) ■ Descender, Volume 5: Rise of the Robots (Jeff Lemire; 2018. Graphic fiction.) ■ Disappearance at Devil’s Rock (Paul Tremblay; 2016. Fiction.) ■ Fire and Fury (Michael Wolff; 2018. Non-fiction.) ■ You Deserve Nothing (Alexander Maksik; 2011. Fiction.) ■ The Woman in the Window (A.J. Finn; 2017. Fiction.) ■ Inheritors (Susan Glaspell; 1921. Drama.) February ■ Killers of the Flower Moon (Dan Grann; 2017. Non-fiction.) ■ Shelter in Place (Alexander Maksik; 2016. Fiction.) ■ Childhood’s End (Arthur C. Clarke; 1953. Fiction.) ■ Landscape with Invisible Hand (M.T. Anderson; 2017. Fiction.) ■ Emilie (Lauren Gunderson; 2010. Drama.) ■ Memento Mori (Muriel Spark; 1959. Fiction.) ■ Alive, Alive Oh! (Diana Athill; 2016. Non-fiction.) March ■ Briggs Land, Volume 2: Lone Wolves (Brian Wood; 2018. Graphic fiction.) ■ Dead People Suck (Laurie Kilmartin; 2018. Non-fiction.) ■ Instead of a Letter (Diana Athill; 1962. Non-fiction.) ■ The Walking Dead, Volume 29: Lines We Cross (Robert Kirkman; 2018. Graphic fiction.) ■ A Moon for the Misbegotten (Eugene O’Neill; 1947. Drama.) ■ Mary Stuart (Friedrich Schiller; 1800. (Trans. Peter Oswald; 2006.) Drama.) ■ Educated (Tara Westover; 2018. Non-fiction.) ■ Candide (Voltaire; 1759. (Trans. John Butt; 1947.) Fiction.) ■ hang (debbie tucker green; 2015. Drama.) ■ Dying (Cory Taylor; 2016. Non-fiction.) ■ The Reapers Are the Angels (Alden Bell; 2010. Fiction.) ■ Injection, Vol. 3 (Warren Ellis; 2017. Graphic fiction.) ■ Letter 44, Vol. 5: Blueshift (Charles Soule; 2017. Graphic fiction.) ■ Letter 44, Vol. 6: The End (Charles Soule; 2018. Graphic fiction.) ■ Exit West (Mohsin Hamid; 2017. Fiction.) April ■ Little Fires Everywhere (Celeste Ng; 2017. Fiction.) ■ Everything I Never Told You (Celeste Ng; 2014. Fiction.) ■ Black Hammer, Vol. 1: The End (Jeff Lemire; 2017. Graphic fiction.) ■ The Female Persuasion (Meg Wolitzer; 2018. Fiction.) ■ If We Were Villians (M.L. Rio; 2017. Fiction.) ■ American Kingpin (Nick Bilton; 2017. Non-fiction.) ■ Fractured (Catherine McKenzie; 2016. Fiction.) ■ Harmony (Carolyn Parkhurst; 2016. Fiction.) ■ Lazarus X+66: The End (Greg Rucka; 2018. Graphic fiction.) ■ An Abbreviated Life (Ariel Leve; 2016. Non-fiction.) ■ With or Without You (Domenica Ruta; 2013. Non-fiction.) May ■ I’m Supposed to Protect You from All This (Nadja Spiegelman; 2016. Non-fiction.) ■ I’ll Be Gone in the Dark (Michelle McNamara; 2018. Non-fiction.) ■ A Higher Loyalty (James Comey; 2018. Non-fiction.) ■ The Rules Do Not Apply (Ariel Levy; 2017. Non-fiction.) ■ After the Eclipse (Sarah Perry; 2017. Non-fiction.) ■ The Best We Could Do (Thi Bui; 2017. Graphic non-fiction.) ■ The Perfect Mother (Aimee Molloy; 2018. Fiction.) June ■ Red Clocks (Leni Zumas; 2018. Fiction.) ■ Daytripper (Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá; 2011. Graphic fiction.) ■ Mrs. Caliban (Rachel Ingalls; 1983. Fiction.) ■ Suddenly, Last Summer (Tennessee Williams; 1958. Drama.) ■ Sometimes I Lie (Alice Feeney; 2017. Fiction.) ■ Buried Child (Sam Shepherd; 1978. Drama.) ■ The Idealist: Aaron Swartz and the Rise of Free Culture on the Internet (Justin Peters; 2016. Non-fiction.) ■ Behold the Dreamers (Imbolo Mbue; 2016. Fiction.) ■ Macbeth (William Shakespeare; 1606. Drama.) ■ Royal City, Vol. 2: Sonic Youth (Jeff Lemire; 2017. Graphic fiction.) ■ Sorry to Disrupt the Peace (Patty Yumi Cottrell; 2017. Fiction.) ■ Macbeth (Hogarth Shakespeare) (Jo Nesbø; 2018. Fiction.) ■ Hamlet (William Shakespeare; 1602. Drama.) ■ The Lying Game (Ruth Ware; 2017. Fiction.) ■ The Hole (Hye-young Pyun; 2017. Fiction.)

Since my last post, I’ve read: ■ The Perfect Mother (Aimee Molloy; 2018. Fiction.) ■ Red Clocks (Leni Zumas; 2018. Fiction.) ■ Daytripper (Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá; 2011. Graphic fiction.) ■ Mrs. Caliban (Rachel Ingalls; 1983. Fiction.) This puts me at 56, to date. As I mentioned previously, Molloy’s novel was just meh, but, boy, was Red Clocks terrific, as were Daytripper and Mrs. Caliban, both of which were rereads. In fact, I first read Ingalls’ slim novel more than thirty years ago and thought it was a revelation then. Now, with the benefit of years and experience, I recognize it as quite possibly perfect. p. 107 “Have you heard of a doctor who didn’t try to shoot you full of drugs? I’m not sick. I’m bereaved. That means I’ve got to keep all my strength to get through. And if I’m full of drugs, my resistance is going to be destroyed, isn’t it?” In anticipation of seeing the play, I’m about to reread Tennessee Williams’ Suddenly, Last Summer. I will also read Book III of The Aeneid this week. It’s hard to say which of the other many books in my TBR stack and scrawled in my book journal will win the coveted spot in my knapsack, though.

I would love that!

Is there a Kristin Lavransdatter challenge or read-along? In catching up with BaW, I noticed some posts about the trilogy, and after last summer’s great W&P challenge/read-along, I am more than intrigued by the idea of a KL program. Let me know. ?

@Lady Florida., sending good thoughts to you, your family, and your FIL.

As I prepared this post, I discovered that I have read 53 books! Woot! January ■ Never Let Me Go (Kazuo Ishiguro; 2005. Fiction.) ■ An Enemy of the People (Henrikson Ibsen; 1882. Drama.) ■ The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning (Margareta Magnusson; 2018. Non-fiction.) ■ The Perfect Nanny (Leila Sliman; 2018. Fiction.) ■ Saga, Volume 8 (Brian Vaughan; 2018. Graphic fiction.) ■ Postal, Volume 6 (Bryan Hill; 2018. Graphic fiction.) ■ Bitch Planet: Triple Feature, Volume 1 (Kelly Sue DeConnick; 2017. Graphic fiction.) ■ Descender, Volume 5: Rise of the Robots (Jeff Lemire; 2018. Graphic fiction.) ■ Disappearance at Devil’s Rock (Paul Tremblay; 2016. Fiction.) ■ Fire and Fury (Michael Wolff; 2018. Non-fiction.) ■ You Deserve Nothing (Alexander Maksik; 2011. Fiction.) ■ The Woman in the Window (A.J. Finn; 2017. Fiction.) ■ Inheritors (Susan Glaspell; 1921. Drama.) February ■ Killers of the Flower Moon (Dan Grann; 2017. Non-fiction.) ■ Shelter in Place (Alexander Maksik; 2016. Fiction.) ■ Childhood’s End (Arthur C. Clarke; 1953. Fiction.) ■ Landscape with Invisible Hand (M.T. Anderson; 2017. Fiction.) ■ Emilie (Lauren Gunderson; 2010. Drama.) ■ Memento Mori (Muriel Spark; 1959. Fiction.) ■ Alive, Alive Oh! (Diana Athill; 2016. Non-fiction.) March ■ Briggs Land, Volume 2: Lone Wolves (Brian Wood; 2018. Graphic fiction.) ■ Dead People Suck (Laurie Kilmartin; 2018. Non-fiction.) ■ Instead of a Letter (Diana Athill; 1962. Non-fiction.) ■ The Walking Dead, Volume 29: Lines We Cross (Robert Kirkman; 2018. Graphic fiction.) ■ A Moon for the Misbegotten (Eugene O’Neill; 1947. Drama.) ■ Mary Stuart (Friedrich Schiller; 1800. (Trans. Peter Oswald; 2006.) Drama.) ■ Educated (Tara Westover; 2018. Non-fiction.) ■ Candide (Voltaire; 1759. (Trans. John Butt; 1947.) Fiction.) ■ hang (debbie tucker green; 2015. Drama.) ■ Dying (Cory Taylor; 2016. Non-fiction.) ■ The Reapers Are the Angels (Alden Bell; 2010. Fiction.) ■ Injection, Vol. 3 (Warren Ellis; 2017. Graphic fiction.) ■ Letter 44, Vol. 5: Blueshift (Charles Soule; 2017. Graphic fiction.) ■ Letter 44, Vol. 6: The End (Charles Soule; 2018. Graphic fiction.) ■ Exit West (Mohsin Hamid; 2017. Fiction.) April ■ Little Fires Everywhere (Celeste Ng; 2017. Fiction.) ■ Everything I Never Told You (Celeste Ng; 2014. Fiction.) ■ Black Hammer, Vol. 1: The End (Jeff Lemire; 2017. Graphic fiction.) ■ The Female Persuasion (Meg Wolitzer; 2018. Fiction.) ■ If We Were Villians (M.L. Rio; 2017. Fiction.) ■ American Kingpin (Nick Bilton; 2017. Non-fiction.) ■ Fractured (Catherine McKenzie; 2016. Fiction.) ■ Harmony (Carolyn Parkhurst; 2016. Fiction.) ■ Lazarus X+66: The End (Greg Rucka; 2018. Graphic fiction.) ■ An Abbreviated Life (Ariel Leve; 2016. Non-fiction.) ■ With or Without You (Domenica Ruta; 2013. Non-fiction.) May ■ I’m Supposed to Protect You from All This (Nadja Spiegelman; 2016. Non-fiction.) ■ I’ll Be Gone in the Dark (Michelle McNamara; 2018. Non-fiction.) ■ A Higher Loyalty (James Comey; 2018. Non-fiction.) ■ The Rules Do Not Apply (Ariel Levy; 2017. Non-fiction.) ■ After the Eclipse (Sarah Perry; 2017. Non-fiction.) ■ The Best We Could Do (Thi Bui; 2017. Graphic non-fiction.) ■ The Perfect Mother (Aimee Molloy; 2018. Fiction.)

This weekend, I finished reading Books 51 52 and 52 53 of the year: Thi Bui’s illustrated memoir, The Best We Could Do, and Aimee Molloy’s meh recent novel, The Perfect Mother. In addition to meeting the 52/52 early, I’m well positioned to meet one of my reading goals: to read thirty-six non-fiction tiles in 2018; I’ve read seventeen, so far. In fact, here are my commonplace book entries for the sixteenth, Sarah Perry’s haunting memoir about her mother’s murder, After the Eclipse: p. 136 As far back as I could remember, reading had been a perfect escape, an alternate universe where none of the problems were mine. When I was upset at home or school, I could always pull out a book, or know that one was waiting for me in the next quiet moment. In first grade, encouraged by my teacher, I began writing stories, and this was even better; I could create whatever escape I wanted, include whatever characters I wanted to spend time with. Writing gave me power. p. 159 Sometimes, the scary thing about suicide was that it seemed inevitable, the only logical end to everything that had happened. p. 250 Violence outpaced lab funding everywhere. Our family book club is tackling The Aeneid this summer. We’ve already listened to the three introductory lectures in Elizabeth Vandiver’s course on the work and have decided to read one of The Aeneid’s twelve books each week, complemented by the appropriate lecture(s). The Girls Rule! Book Club has also tentatively scheduled Madame Bovary (Gustave Flaubert) and The Art of War (Sun Tzu), which may prove a bit ambitious with their commitments, but we’ll see. The library’s reading program commences later this week, and frankly? My group enjoys lighter fare in the summer, so my assembled pile of fiction includes Sometimes I Lie (Alice Feeney) and Red Clocks (Leni Zumas) — perfect, I think, for reading lakeside in the early morning between birdwatching and chillaxing.

Quiz: Fox

Hello! Here are some commonplace book entries from my last five books. ■ With or Without You (Domenica Ruta; 2013. Non-fiction.) p. 23 Pride like this is both tyrannical and tragic, for the chief function of pride is to usher in the fall. My parents had sufficient raw materials to achieve a level of fame in a small town, but not much more than that. p. 119 It made sense to me. There are some things that we have to forget about in order to get through the day. ■ I’m Supposed to Protect You from All This (Nadja Spiegelman; 2016. Non-fiction.) p. 87 According to neuroscientists, when we stir up a long-term memory, it floats in our consciousness, unstable, for a window of approximately three hours. During this time, the memory is malleable. The present infiltrates the past. We add details to fill in the gaps. Then the brain re-encodes the memory as if it were new, writing over the old one. As it sinks back down into the depths of our minds, we are not even aware of what we have gained or lost, or why. p. 235 It had happened to me once, the unexpected resurgence of a difficult childhood memory. It had made me feel I was losing my hold on reality. It terrified me, already, that I was composed of a past that was so lonely, that was made up of memories and narratives no one else in my family could agree upon. It was too much that it might be unknowable to myself as well. I wondered often how many other memories lurked within me, dark and alien as cancers. ■ I’ll Be Gone in the Dark (Michelle McNamara; 2018. Non-fiction.) p. 199 In their reserve and in virtually every other way, detectives differ from show-biz folks. Detectives listen. They’re getting a read. Entertainers get a read only to gauge their influence on a room. Detectives deal in concrete tasks. I once spent an hour listening to an actress analyze a three-line text that hurt her feelings. Eventually I’ll see the cracks in a detective’s veneer, but in the beginning their company is an unexpected relief, like fleeing a moodily lit cast party loud with competitive chatter and joining a meeting of determined Eagle Scouts awaiting their next challenge. I wasn’t a native in the land of the literal-minded, but I enjoyed my time there. ■ A Higher Loyalty (James Comey; 2018. Non-fiction.) p. 118 I had never met President Obama before and was struck by two things: how much thinner he appeared in person and his ability to focus. p. 121 On the way out the door, I told Kathy Ruemmler how surprised I was by the interesting discussion, telling her, “I can’t believe someone with such a supple mind actually got elected president.” p. 123 Though it was a small moment, what struck me about President Obama’s remark is that it displayed a sense of humor, insight, and an ability to connect with an audience, which I would later come to appreciate in a president even more. These are all qualities that are indispensable in good leaders. A sense of humor in particular strikes me as an important indicator – or “tell” – about someone’s ego. Having a balance of confidence and humility is essential to effective leadership. Laughing in a genuine way requires a certain level of confidence, because we all look a little silly laughing: that makes us vulnerable, a state insecure people fear. And laughing is also frequently an appreciation of others, who have said something that is funny. That is, you didn’t say it, and by laughing you acknowledge the other, something else insecure people can’t do. ■ The Rules Do Not Apply (Ariel Levy; 2017. Non-fiction.) p. 4 My lined notebooks were the only place I could say as much as I wanted, whenever I wanted. To this day I feel comforted and relieved of loneliness, no matter how foreign my surroundings, if I have a pad and a pen. p. 5 (When we expressed subdued versions of our outrage to our elders, their responses invariably included the phrase “paying your dues.” It was not a phrase we cared for.) p. 154 How did people do this? People who’d lost children who had existed – not for minutes but days, decades? Children who had voices, who had opened their eyes. Children with names. Did these people wake up every morning until the day they died and beg Mother Nature to return what she had given and then taken away?

Right. The overall acceptance rate at UIUC is deceptive, particularly since the admission standards for programs like engineering, CS, physics, and business, for example, are so much more stringent than the middle profile appears to predict. With each passing year, parents of good and great students who thought UIUC would be a "safety" are stunned when their kids receive rejections or the dreaded DGS offer.

Hello, BaWers! It's snowing here; we have about two inches. Yesterday, it was 68 degrees on campus and 36 degrees back home. Crazy weather! Good for reading, though, right? This week, I finished three books, reaching 41 to date: The Female Persuasion (Meg Wolitzer; 2018. Fiction.) If We Were Villains (M.L. Rio; 2017. Fiction.) American Kingpin (Nick Bilton; 2017. Non-fiction) I thought the Wolitzer was a little bloated but worthwhile. I wish I could say the same of Villains, which read like a cheap Secret History knock-off. My husband and I really liked Bilton's account of the cyber-hunt for Ross Ulbricht, the Dread Pirate Roberts behind the darknet's Silk Road, though -- seriously good non-fiction. As a sort of related follow-up, we're now reading The Idealist: Aaron Swartz and the Rise of Free Culture (2016). (One of my reading goals for this year is to complete at least 36 non-fiction titles. At only nine to date, I'm a wee bit behind, but I remain optimistic. I wish I could say the same about my poetry goals. *chuckle*) I will finish Fractured (Catherine McKenzie; 2016), an-easy-to-digest, Sunday-afternoon sort of novel later tonight, and then continue with Amy Goldstein's Janesville: An American Story. Off to catch up on what everyone else is reading....

This past week I reached Book 38: ■ Little Fires Everywhere (Celeste Ng; 2017. Fiction.)■ Everything I Never Told You (Celeste Ng; 2014. Fiction.)■ Black Hammer, Vol. 1: The End (Jeff Lemire; 2017. Graphic fiction.) While I adore Jeff Lemire, I do not, in general, adore “superhero” narratives, so Black Hammer was only meh for me; I won’t pursue other volumes in the series. The Ng novels were pretty terrific, though. Over the weekend, I began Meg Wolitzer’s new novel, The Female Persuasion. It began a little slowly, but I’ve settled in with it. My husband and I are also reading American Kingpin (Nick Bilton), the story of the Ross Ulbricht and the darknet market, Silk Road. I’m celebrating Poetry Month with Etter’s Alliance, Illinois.

Hello, again! Earlier today, I posted in the previous thread, but thought I’d check in here, too. This week I’m reading Celeste Ng’s two novels, Everything I Never Told You and Little Fires Everywhere.

Hello! It's been so long since I've been able to post. I hope you all have been well. Because it took a while to get re-established here (I picked an odd time to return *chuckle*), I only have time to post my list and say that fans of The Elementals will appreciate the Southern Gothic vibe of The Reapers Are the Angels. Don't let the zombies fool or deter you -- this is a beautiful meditation on what it is that makes us human. January ■ Never Let Me Go (Kazuo Ishiguro; 2005. Fiction.) ■ An Enemy of the People (Henrikson Ibsen; 1882. Drama.) ■ The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning (Margareta Magnusson; 2018. Non-fiction.) ■ The Perfect Nanny (Leila Sliman; 2018. Fiction.) ■ Saga, Volume 8 (Brian Vaughan; 2018. Graphic fiction.) ■ Postal, Volume 6 (Bryan Hill; 2018. Graphic fiction.) ■ Bitch Planet: Triple Feature, Volume 1 (Kelly Sue DeConnick; 2017. Graphic fiction.) ■ Descender, Volume 5: Rise of the Robots (Jeff Lemire; 2018. Graphic fiction.) ■ Disappearance at Devil’s Rock (Paul Tremblay; 2016. Fiction.) ■ Fire and Fury (Michael Wolff; 2018. Non-fiction.) ■ You Deserve Nothing (Alexander Maksik; 2011. Fiction.) ■ The Woman in the Window (A.J. Finn; 2017. Fiction.) ■ Inheritors (Susan Glaspell; 1921. Drama.) February ■ Killers of the Flower Moon (Dan Grann; 2017. Non-fiction.) ■ Shelter in Place (Alexander Maksik; 2016. Fiction.) ■ Childhood’s End (Arthur C. Clarke; 1953. Fiction.) ■ Landscape with Invisible Hand (M.T. Anderson; 2017. Fiction.) ■ Emilie (Lauren Gunderson; 2010. Drama.) ■ Memento Mori (Muriel Spark; 1959. Fiction.) ■ Alive, Alive Oh! (Diana Athill; 2016. Non-fiction.) March ■ Briggs Land, Volume 2: Lone Wolves (Brian Wood; 2018. Graphic fiction.) ■ Dead People Suck (Laurie Kilmartin; 2018. Non-fiction.) ■ Instead of a Letter (Diana Athill; 1962. Non-fiction.) ■ The Walking Dead, Volume 29: Lines We Cross (Robert Kirkman; 2018. Graphic fiction.) ■ A Moon for the Misbegotten (Eugene O’Neill; 1947. Drama.) ■ Mary Stuart (Friedrich Schiller; 1800. (Trans. Peter Oswald; 2006.) Drama.) ■ Educated (Tara Westover; 2018. Non-fiction.) ■ Candide (Voltaire; 1759. (Trans. John Butt; 1947.) Fiction.) ■ hang (debbie tucker green; 2015. Drama.) ■ Dying (Cory Taylor; 2016. Non-fiction.) ■ The Reapers Are the Angels (Alden Bell; 2010. Fiction.) ■ Injection, Vol. 3 (Warren Ellis; 2017. Graphic fiction.) ■ Letter 44, Vol. 5: Blueshift (Charles Soule; 2017. Graphic fiction.) ■ Letter 44, Vol. 6: The End (Charles Soule; 2018. Graphic fiction.) ■ Exit West (Mohsin Hamid; 2017. Fiction.) Postscript: By Sunday, I will have finished both of Celeste Ng's novels.

Happy New Year! So, as I reported last week, I finished 157 books in 2017. It's less about the number and more about the experience, though, and this year was enhanced by my participation in the "Shakespeare in a Year" project, Robin's War and Peace read-along, and a slew of terrific non-fiction. In short, 2017 is a tough act to follow. While mulling over my reading goals for this year, I stumbled upon a post in which a virtual friend mentioned that turning sixty has made her keenly aware of how finite her reading life is; she chooses books even more carefully now. Her wise insight now informs my own reading choices. I also came up with a short list of reading resolutions for 2018: Read from the shelves. Complete a close reading of Moby Dick. (Yes, I have already read it. More than once. It's worth it.) Reread at least one Vonnegut novel. (I appreciated rereads these past two years but wonder how much of his oeuvre "holds up.") Finish reading several books abandoned in 2017, including Six Four (Hideo Yokoyama), Will in the World (Stephen Greenblatt), and Providence of a Sparrow (Chris Chester). (Yeah, I have been a shamelessly promiscuous reader in the past, but these are good books that didn't deserve to be abandoned.) Read thirty non-fiction titles. (Twenty-six has been my goal in the past. I beat it in 2017, so I've raised the bar.) My first book of the year was Never Let Me Go (Kazuo Ishiguro), a family book club selection and a reread for me. Tonight I will finish An Enemy of the People (Henrik Ibsen) -- a selection made in anticipation of seeing Traitor (based on this play) later this winter break and An Enemy of the People over spring break. Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End is up next (another family book club selection).

Northern cardinal this year.

As I wrote last year, I first read about “Bird of the Year†fourteen or so years ago, in Lyanda Lynn Haupt’s paean to birding, Rare Encounters with Ordinary Birds. She writes: There is a game birders play on New Year’s Day called “Bird of the Year.†The very first bird you see on the first day of the new year is your theme bird for the next 365 days. It might seem a curious custom, but people who watch birds regularly are always contriving ways to keep themselves interested. This is one of those ways. You are given the possibility of creating something extraordinary — a Year of the Osprey, Year of the Pileated Woodpecker, Year of the Trumpeter Swan. This game is an inspiration to place yourself in natural circumstances that will yield a heavenly bird, blessing your year, your perspective, your imagination, your spirit. New year, new bird. After her breathless anticipation, Haupt is confronted with… an Eastern Starling, or “sky-rat.†The Year of the Eastern Starling. Inauspicious, yes, but not without its charms, according to Haupt. Before heading to bed on New Year’s Eve, then, I ensure that all of the feeders are topped off and that corn and nuts are scattered for the squirrels. (As backyard birders know, there are no squirrel-proof feeders. Cheap feed scattered away from the feeders will (mostly) keep those furry nuisances away from the birds and the more expensive seed, though.) Some years, I hang a Post-It on the big window to remind everyone to note his or her first bird. What will it be this year? Happy New Year! I look forward to seeing everyone's birds!

Our family book club selected this as our winter break book.

Happy day after Jólabókaflóð, BaWers! A bit of my "yule book flood" is pictured above. It’s been a while since my last post because coming out of retirement, even for a parttime gig, has certainly changed my schedule. In an unprecedented move, I have decided to call the year now. This week brings several adventures (including two more plays, a museum visit, and geocaching -- to say nothing of games, movies, and Season 2 of Stranger Things); plus, I have a one-hour music lesson for which to prepare. So... it's a wrap at 157 books this year. — 53 plays (37 by Shakespeare) — 45 novels (not including graphic works) — 23 non-fiction works (29, including graphic works) — 5 poetry titles — 31 graphic works (6 of which were non-fiction titles) This unrepentantly promiscuous reader could easily add thirty more titles to my annual list — books left in various stages of “undress†— but, as always, I have included only cover-to-covers. A few fun facts: ▪ My participation in the “Shakespeare in a Year†project accounts for forty of my entries and may (partially) explain the thirty-four-book increase over last year’s 123. ▪ I read three fewer graphic works this year than last year. ▪ Forty-one of the books I read were published this year. (Last year, I read forty-six books published in 2016.) ▪ The forty-five novels represent a decrease from fifty-seven in 2016. And now to some of Robin’s questions. What were your reading goals for the year? Did you meet those goals? I exceeded my two perennial goals — Read at least one non-fiction work every two weeks and Read more poetry — by finishing twenty-nine non-fiction books (six of which were graphic works, including the three volumes of John Lewis’ remarkable memoir, March) and reading each of Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets, as well as Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece. Did you end with a prime number of reads? Yes, 157. Which book did you think you were going to love but didn't? Hunger (Roxane Gay; 2017. Non-fiction.) In which challenges did you participate? Shakespeare in a Year. War and Peace. (Thank you, Robin.) Which of the books you read this year do you recommend? This year, I reread a number of books that were as good if not better than they were when I first (or, in some cases, last) read them. (I have not included Shakespeare’s plays in this discussion.) To me, Reread generally equals Highly recommended, so consider these well worth your time: ■The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood; 1986. Fiction.) ■Rhinoceros (Eugene Ionesco; 1959. Drama.) ■Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (Tom Stoppard; 1966. Drama.) ■The Odyssey (Homer. (Trans. Robert Fagles; 1996.) Poetry.) ■Fun Home (Alison Bechdel; 2006. Graphic memoir.) ■Cat’s Cradle (Kurt Vonnegut; 1963. Fiction.) In addition, I'd like to recommend the following: ■So Long, See You Tomorrow (William Maxwell; 1980. Fiction.) As much a meditation on loss and grief as it is an exploration of memory and how memory shapes (and haunts and robs from) the present, William Maxwell’s 1980 novel is as perfect a book as A Good School or Revolutionary Road (both by Richard Yates) or Olive Kitteridge (Elizabeth Strout). You’ll find commonplace book entries here. ■World of Trouble (Ben H. Winters; 2014. Fiction.) I’m cheating here because this is the final book in the Last Policeman trilogy, which means, yes, I am actually recommending three books. They’re not heavy, though, and Henry Palace is not simply another quirky detective; he is a character who will roam the rooms of your imagination for a long time. ■Before the Fall (Noah Hawley; 2016. Fiction.) It’s unsurprising that the flow of this “thumping good read†is reminiscent of great television; Hawley is a television writer and producer. (Commonplace book entries here.) My “Honorable Mention†recommendation would be Fierce Kingdom (Gin Phillips; 2017). This beautifully written and almost recklessly fast-paced thriller is destined for big-screen treatment. (Commonplace book entries here.) Pack either or both of these in your vacation bag. ■Lincoln in the Bardo (George Saunders; 2017. Fiction.) Whether or not you ordinarily like audiobooks, you must hear Saunders’ first novel to appreciate how original and remarkable it is. My husband and I listened during trips to and from the University and in and out of Chicago, and we are still talking about this beautiful book. (Related article here.) Neither of us were surprised to learn that it will be a film. ■Fatale (Jean-Paul Manchette; 1977 (2011, English). Fiction.) In the “slim book you can finish in a day†category, I shook things up earlier this year by recommending this dark, odd character study over the other contender, News of the World (Paulette Giles), which didn’t need my recommendation, anyway, as it was touted by everyone and her mother. ■American War (Omar El Akkad; 2017. Fiction.) This is my entry in the “best post-apocalypse / dystopia / it’s a mad, mad world fiction read this year†category. Others chose The Power (Naomi Alderman) or The Book of Joan (Lidia Yuknavitch)… but I think I’m right on this one. ■A Whole Life (Robert Seethaler; 2014. Fiction.) In 2015, I noted that Maria Beig’s novel Hermine: An Animal Life (translated from the German by Jaimy Gordon) is perfect, so comparing my experience of A Whole Life (translated from the German by Charlotte Collins) to Hermine is the highest praise I can offer this beautiful and deceptively simple novel. See also this review from The Irish Times, which draws parallels to Stoner (John Williams) and So Long, See You Tomorrow (William Maxwell), two books that would, like Hermine, easily earn a spot in my “Essential Bookcase.†■Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City (Matthew Desmond; 2016. Non-fiction.) This is the sort of book everyone talks about and shares articles about but never reads. I recommend that you actually read it. ■Reclaiming Conversation (Sherry Turkle; 2015. Non-fiction.) “They decide there should be a rule: A good friend should keep you off your phone when you are together.†(p. 157) Don’t miss this thought-provoking exploration of what has been lost since people turned away from each other to connect via phone. ■The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple (Jeff Guinn; 2017. Non-fiction.) This well-researched account fascinates and saddens: If it were all so inevitable, how did no one prevent the tragedy? ■Briggs Land, Volume 1: State of Grace (Brian Wood; 2017. Graphic fiction.) I thought I was going to recommend Wood’s The Massive, Volumes 1-5, and then I remembered how strong the opening to his new series is… and how annoyed I was by the resolution of The Massive. Please share favorite quotes. From The Space Merchants by Frederik Pohl: p. 36 “First, words. We want words that are about Venus, words that’ll tickle people. Make them sit up. Make them muse about change, and space, and other worlds. Words to make them a little discontented with what they are and a little hopeful about what they might be. Words to make them feel noble about feeling the way they do….†p. 47 “… It always winds up with him telling me the world’s going to hell in a hand-basket and people have got to made to realize it — and me telling him we’ve always got along somehow and we’ll keep going somehow.†p. 81 It was an appeal to reason, and they’re always dangerous. You can’t trust reason. We threw it out of the ad profession long ago and have never missed it. p. 95 It was a simple application of intelligence, and if that doesn’t bear out the essential difference between consumer and copysmith mentality, what does? Share your list of completed reads. January ■Pygmalion (George Bernard Shaw; 1912. Drama.) ■A.D.: After Death, Book 2 (Scott Snyder; 2016. Graphic fiction.) ■I Will Always Write Back: How One Letter Changed Two Lives (Martin Ganda and Caitlin Alifirenka; 2016. Non-fiction.) ■Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis (J.D. Vance; 2016. Non-fiction.) ■The Selfishness of Others (Kristin Dombeck; 2016. Non-fiction.) ■So Long, See You Tomorrow (William Maxwell; 1980. Fiction.) ■King John (William Shakespeare; 1623. Drama.) ■The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood; 1986. Fiction.) ■Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City (Matthew Desmond; 2016. Non-fiction.) ■Bird Watching (Paula McCartney; 2010. Non-fiction.) ■The Taming of the Shrew (William Shakespeare; 1590. Drama.) ■The Two Gentlemen of Verona (William Shakespeare; 1589. Drama.) ■Much Ado: A Summer with a Repertory Theater Company (Michael Lenehan; 2016. Non-fiction.) ■Henry VI, Part 1 (William Shakespeare; 1591. Drama.) February ■King Charles III (Mike Bartlett; 2014. Drama.) ■Henry VI, Part 2 (William Shakespeare; 1591. Drama.) ■Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (Bryan Stevenson; 2014. Non-fiction.) ■Henry VI, Part 3 (William Shakespeare; 1591. Drama.) ■Richard III (William Shakespeare; 1592. Drama.) ■Sun Moon Star (Kurt Vonnegut; 2016. Fiction.) ■Titus Andronicus (William Shakespeare; 1593. Drama.) ■The Comedy of Errors (William Shakespeare; 1594. Drama.) ■Love’s Labour’s Lost (William Shakespeare; 1595. Drama.) ■The Futures (Anna Pitoniak; 2017. Fiction.) ■Books for Living (Will Schwalbe; 2016. Non-fiction.) ■Countdown City (Ben H. Winters; 2013. Fiction.) ■Lights Out: A Cyberattack, A Nation Unprepared, Surviving the Aftermath (Ted Koppel; 2015. Non-fiction.) ■The Joy of Geocaching (Paul and Dana Gillin; 2010. Non-fiction.) ■Rhinoceros (Eugene Ionesco; 1959. Drama.) ■Small Admissions (Amy Poeppel; 2016. Fiction.) ■The Confession (John Grisham; 2010. Fiction.) ■The Changeling (Thomas Middleton and William Rowley; 1622. Drama.) ■The Little Book of Hygge (Meik Wiking; 2017. Non-fiction.) ■Outcast, Volume 4 (Robert Kirkman; 2017. Graphic fiction.) March ■No Man’s Land (Harold Pinter; 1974. Drama.) ■World of Trouble (Ben H. Winters; 2014. Fiction.) ■The Walking Dead, Volume 27: The Whisperer War (Robert Kirkman; 2017. Graphic fiction.) ■Security (Gina Wohlsdorf; 2016. Fiction.) ■Before the Fall (Noah Hawley; 2016. Fiction.) ■Richard II (William Shakespeare; 1595. Drama.) ■The Last One (Alexandra Oliva; 2016. Fiction.) ■The Massive, Volume 1: Black Pacific (Brian Wood; 2013. Graphic fiction.) ■The Massive, Volume 2: The Subcontinental (Brian Wood; 2013. Graphic fiction.) ■Romeo and Juliet (William Shakespeare; 1595. Drama.) ■The Hard Problem (Tom Stoppard; 2015. Drama.) April ■The Massive, Volume 3: Longship (Brian Wood; 2014. Graphic fiction.) ■The Massive, Volume 4: Sahara (Brian Wood; 2015. Graphic fiction.) ■The Massive, Volume 5: Ragnarok (Brian Wood; 2015. Graphic fiction.) ■Class (Lucinda Rosenfeld; 2017. Fiction.) ■Saga, Volume 7 (Brian K. Vaughan; 2017. Graphic fiction.) ■Letter 44, Volume 4: Saviors (Charles Soule; 2017. Graphic fiction.) ■A Midsummer Night’s Dream (William Shakespeare; 1595. Drama.) ■Venus and Adonis (William Shakespeare; 1593. Poetry.) ■Monster (Walter Dean Myers; 1999. Fiction.) ■Birds Life Art (Kyo Maclear; 2017. Non-fiction.) ■Lincoln in the Bardo (George Saunders; 2017. Fiction.) ■Revival, Volume 8 (Tim Seeley; 2017. Graphic fiction.) ■The Art of Practicing (Madeline Bruser; 1999. Non-fiction.) ■Reclaiming Conversation (Sherry Turkle; 2015. Non-fiction.) May ■Fatale (Jean-Paul Manchette; 1977 (2011, English). Fiction.) ■Tenth of December (George Saunders; 2013. Fiction.) ■The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Geocaching (2012. Non-fiction.) ■Briggs Land, Volume 1: State of Grace (Brian Wood; 2017. Graphic fiction.) ■Those Who Wish Me Dead (Michael Koryta; 2014. Fiction.) ■Henry IV, Part 1 (William Shakespeare; 1597. Drama.) ■The Rape of Lucrece (William Shakespeare; 1594. Poetry.) ■Henry IV, Part 2 (William Shakespeare; 1597. Drama.) ■The Metamorphosis (Peter Kuper (adapting Frank Kafka); 2003. Graphic fiction.) ■Roughneck (Jeff Lemire; 2017. Graphic fiction.) ■Harvey (Mary Chase; 1944. Drama.) ■The Good, the Great, and the Unfriendly (Sally Gardner Reed; 2017. Non-fiction.) ■A.D.: After Death, Book 3 (Scott Snyder; 2017. Graphic fiction.) ■Shylock Is My Name (Howard Jacobson; 2016. Fiction.) ■American War (Omar El Akkad; 2017. Fiction.) ■The Book of Joan (Lidia Yuknavitch; 2017. Fiction.) June ■The Power (Naomi Alderman; 2016. Fiction.) ■The Merry Wives of Windsor (William Shakespeare; 1602. Drama.) ■Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (Tom Stoppard; 1966. Drama.) ■Julius Caesar (William Shakespeare; 1599. Drama.) ■Lazarus, Vol. 5 (Greg Rucka; 2017. Graphic fiction.) ■News of the World (Paulette Jiles; 2016. Fiction.) ■Bitch Planet, Vol. 2: President Bitch (Kelly Sue DeConnick; 2017. Graphic fiction.) ■The Woman in Cabin 10 (Ruth Ware; 2016. Fiction.) ■Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Edward Albee; 1962. Drama.) ■Much Ado about Nothing (William Shakespeare; 1599. Drama.) ■March, Book One (John Lewis; 2013. Graphic non-fiction.) ■All the Missing Girls (Megan Miranda; 2016. Fiction.) ■March, Book Two (John Lewis; 2015. Graphic non-fiction.) ■March, Book Three (John Lewis; 2016. Graphic non-fiction.) ■The Bunker, Volume Four (Joshua Hale Fialkov; 2017. Graphic fiction.) ■Ah, Wilderness! (Eugene O’Neill; 1933. Drama.) July ■Descender, Vol. 4: Orbital Mechanics (Jeff Lemire; 2017. Graphic fiction.) ■Henry V (William Shakespeare; 1599. Drama.) ■Monstress, Vol. 2: The Blood (Marjorie Liu; 2017. Graphic fiction.) ■On Such a Full Sea (Chang-Rae Lee; 2014. Fiction.) ■Dis Mem Ber (Joyce Carol Oates; 2017. Fiction.) ■Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches (Tony Kushner; 1993. Drama.) ■Dream Hoarders (Richard V. Reeves; 2017. Non-fiction.) ■Last Things (Marissa Moss; 2017. Graphic non-fiction.) ■The Dead Lands (Benjamin Percy; 2015. Fiction.) ■Final Girls (Riley Sager; 2017. Fiction.) ■Postal, Vol. 5 (Bryan Hill; 2017. Graphic fiction.) August ■Angels in America, Part Two: Perestroika (Tony Kushner; 1994. Drama.) ■As You Like It (William Shakespeare; 1599. Drama.) ■Twelfth Night (William Shakespeare; 1601. Drama.) ■Drowned City: Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans (Don Brown; 2016. Graphic non-fiction.) ■The Odyssey (Homer. (Trans. Robert Fagles; 1996.) Poetry.) ■The Followers (Rebecca Wait; 2015. Fiction.) ■Hamlet (William Shakespeare; 1602. Drama.) ■The Grip of It (Jac Jemc; 2017. Fiction.) ■Measure for Measure (William Shakespeare; 1604. Drama.) ■The Marriage Pact (Michelle Richmond; 2017. Fiction.) ■Fierce Kingdom (Gin Phillips; 2017. Fiction.) September ■Fun Home (Alison Bechdel; 2006. Graphic memoir.) ■Othello (William Shakespeare; 1603. Drama.) ■Timon of Athens (William Shakespeare; 1605. Drama.) ■Macbeth (William Shakespeare; 1606. Drama.) ■Do Not Become Alarmed (Maile Meloy; 2017. Fiction.) ■Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? (Jeanette Winterson; 2012. Non-fiction.) ■Carrying the Elephant (Michael Rosen; 2002. Poetry.) ■War and Peace (Leo Tolstoy; 1869. (Trans. L. and A. Maude; Everyman’s Library; 1992.) Fiction.) ■Machinal (Sophie Treadwell; 1928. Drama.) ■You (Caroline Kepnes; 2014. Fiction.) ■Antony and Cleopatra (William Shakespeare; 1607. Drama.) ■Cat’s Cradle (Kurt Vonnegut; 1963. Fiction.) October ■The Walking Dead, Volume 28: A Certain Doom (Robert Kirkman; 2017. Graphic fiction.) ■Outcast, Volume 5 (Robert Kirkman; 2017. Graphic fiction.) ■Royal City, Volume 1: Next of Kin (Jeff Lemire; 2017. Graphic fiction.) ■All’s Well That Ends Well (William Shakespeare; 1605. Drama.) ■The Witches (Stacy Schiff; 2016. Non-fiction.) ■Pericles (William Shakespeare; 1608. Drama.) ■The Skin of Our Teeth (Thornton Wilder; 1942. Drama.) ■The Space Merchants (Frederik Pohl; 1952. Fiction.) ■Coriolanus (William Shakespeare; 1608. Drama.) ■Paper Girls, Volume 3 (Brian Vaughan; 2017. Graphic fiction.) November ■American Fire (Monica Hesse; 2017. Non-fiction.) ■Reading Shakespeare’s Sonnets (Don Paterson; 2010. Poetry.) ■King Lear (William Shakespeare; 1608. Drama.) ■Unbelievable (Katy Tur; 2017. Non-fiction.) ■A Whole Life (Robert Seethaler; 2014. Fiction.) ■Hard Times (Charles Dickens; 1854. Fiction.) ■Withnail and I (Bruce Robinson; 1989. Drama.) ■Children of the New World (Alexander Weinstein; 2016. Fiction.) ■The Tempest (William Shakespeare; 1610. Drama.) ■The Winter’s Tale (William Shakespeare; 1609. Drama.) ■Henry VIII (William Shakespeare; 1613. Drama.) ■The Hate You Give (Angie Thomas; 2017. Fiction.) ■Conversion (Katherine Howe; 2014. Fiction.) December ■Heather, the Totality (Matthew Weiner; 2017. Fiction.) ■The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple (Jeff Guinn; 2017. Non-fiction.) ■The Two Noble Kinsmen (William Shakespeare; 1614. Drama.) ■The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum (Heinrich Böll; 2014. Fiction.) ■Believe It or Not (Eugène Scribe; 1848. (Trans. Ranjit Bolt; 2004.) Drama.) ■Polar Bears (Mark Haddon; 2010. Drama.) ■My Name Is Rachel Corrie (ed. Alan Rickman and Katherine Viner; 2006. Drama.) ■Hunger (Roxane Gay; 2017. Non-fiction.) ■Our Little Racket (Angelica Baker; 2017. Fiction.)

Hmmm. That image looks odd on my iPad. Trying again.

Our Lady of Ikea. Here's one of several walls of books in our house.

Hello! Happy day after Thanksgiving! About the photo: I recently acquired the top three books on the stack, have recently finished the bottom four plus Conversion (Katherine Howe), and am currently reading the rest. Finished since my last BaW post: 141 Hard Times (Charles Dickens; 1854. Fiction.) 142 Withnail and I (Bruce Robinson; 1989. Drama.) 143 Children of the New World (Alexander Weinstein; 2016. Fiction.) 144 The Tempest (William Shakespeare; 1610. Drama.) 145 The Winter’s Tale (William Shakespeare; 1609. Drama.) 146 Henry VIII (William Shakespeare; 1613. Drama.) 147 The Hate You Give (Angie Thomas; 2017. Fiction.) 148 Conversion (Katherine Howe; 2014. Fiction.) Commonplace book entries: From Hard Times (Charles Dickens): p. 47 It was one of the most exasperating attributes of Bounderby, that he not only sang his own praises but stimulated other men to sing them. There was a moral infection of clap-trap in him. p. 277 “I beg your pardon for interrupting you, sir,†returned Bitzer; “but I am sure you know that the whole social system is a question of self-interest. What you must always appeal to, is a person’s self-interest. It’s your only hold….†From Withnail and I (Bruce Robinson): MARWOOD: Never discuss your family, do you? WITHNAIL: I fail to see my family is of any interest to you — I have absolutely no interest in yours — I dislike relatives in general, and my own in particular. MARWOOD: Why? WITHNAIL: Because… I’ve told you why… we’re incompatible. They don’t like me being on stage. MARWOOD: Then they must be delighted with your career. WIRHNAIL: What d’you mean? MARWOOD: You rarely are.

Hello, BaWers! It's been a while since my last post. Since my last visit, I have seen several plays, including The Belle of Amherst featuring Kate Fry (runs through December 6 -- get there, if you can); finished all of the Forty Little Pieces in Progressive Order and moved on to the Album of Sonatinas (‘hard to believe that I have been studying flute for three years now); and completed (nearly) twelve weeks at my no-longer-new job. By necessity more than design, my bookish notes from the last six weeks mostly comprise dog-earred pages, screenshots, photos of books, and random lists. With this post, I will try to impose a bit of order. At this point I have finished reading 140 books: — 45 plays (33 by Shakespeare) — 38 fiction titles (not including graphic works) — 21 non-fiction titles (not including graphic works) — 5 poetry titles — 31 graphic works (six of which were non-fiction works) Coriolanus (“Hear you this Triton of the minnows?â€) and King Lear (“O, let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven / Keep me in temper: I would not be mad!â€) were the highlights of my recent Shakespeare in a Year progress. Finishing the Sonnets represents a milestone, I suppose, but what a slog! At least I can say I have met my goal to read more poetry this year. Heh, heh, heh. And the otherwise tedious task was certainly leavened by Don Paterson’s erudite and irreverent commentary. Over the next week or so, I will quickly reread The Winter’s Tale, The Tempest, and Henry VIII (all of which I have, within the last two years or so (re)read) and then turn to The Two Noble Kinsmen, which I have, to the best of my recollection, never read. The most recent of the novels I’ve read this year is A Whole Life (Robert Seethaler; translated from the German by Charlotte Collins). In 2015, I noted that Maria Beig’s novel Hermine: An Animal Life (translated from the German by Jaimy Gordon) is perfect, so comparing my experience of A Whole Life to Hermine is the highest praise I can offer this beautiful and deceptively simple novel. See also this review from The Irish Times, which draws parallels to Stoner (John Williams) and So Long, See You Tomorrow (William Maxwell), two books that would, like Hermine, easily earn a spot in my “Essential Bookcase.†Another of my goals this year was to read at least twenty-six non-fiction works. Monica Hesse’s American Fire and Katy Tur’s Unbelievable represent the twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh titles toward that goal. Both books recount fascinating stories that probably would have been better related in long-form articles. From American Fire: Love, Arson, and Life in a Vanishing Land: p. 23 [W]hile some of his volunteers thought he was a hard-ass, his military training had taught him that there were right ways to do things and wrong ways, and getting small things correct was the only way to make sure the big things worked when it mattered most. p. 205 It’s amazing how boring trials can be. How even the most salacious of crimes committed under the most colorful of circumstances can result in testimony that is tedious and snoozy. From Unbelievable: p. 201 I think we dislike and ultimately distrust the media because journalism, honestly pursued, is difficult and uncomfortable. It tells us things about the world that we’d rather not know; it reveals aspects of people that aren’t always flattering. But rather than deal with journalism, we despise journalism. p. 235 We really have to start teaching journalism in elementary school. People don’t even understand the basics of what we do anymore. Regarding the photo: — Before seeing The Taming of the Shrew at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater (review here), we attended a “Preamble†program during which the lecturer mentioned Scheil’s She Hath Been Reading. Naturally, I had to have a copy. — I am reading Hard Times in anticipation of seeing the play over autumn break. (Reviews here and here.) — Withnail and I arrived on my stack via its (loose) ties to Hamlet. — And the rest: Family Life leapt off the shelf at me yesterday. It seems like The Road to Jonestown has been on my stack too long. The Hate U Give is one of the few times I’ve given in to “But everybody’s reading it!†We’ll see how that works out. I'm off to catch up on the thread!

Hello, BaWers! The image above is from "Coveting Nature" at the Krannert Art Museum. Nature, art, old books. Yes, I enjoyed the exhibit. As I mentioned last time, I chose to read Stacy Schiff's The Witches in anticipation of seeing Steppenwolf's production of The Crucible (after which we saw Frances Guinan and John Mahoney in The Rembrandt -- both shows are fantastic; get there, if you can). A feverish introduction promises more than Schiff's thorough but pedestrian narrative can deliver. That's 24 non-fiction books (and 130 books total), so I am optimistic about hitting my goal of at least 26 non-fiction titles. This week, I am reading The Skin of Our Teeth (Wilder) in anticipation of seeing Remy-Bumppo's production and (re)reading The Space Merchants (Pohl). Off to catch up on this week's and last week's posts. Edited to add: I want to like more posts, but nothing happens when I press "like." I *always* have this problem. Chuckle. Please consider your posts liked, BaWers. As always, I am glad to "see" everyone and grateful for the thoughtful conversation, and I am sending good thoughts to you.