Saw this article on Joanne Jacobs' site and thought of you folks: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-05/why-aren-t-american-teenagers-working-anymore

Hello, readers! Four and half months into the "Shakespeare in a Year" project, I can happily report that I am on or ahead of schedule: I've read through Sonnet 60, finished Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece, and read all of the plays through Henry IV, Part 2 (May 31)... well, sort of. As I confessed earlier, I could not bring myself to reread Edward III as I *just* read it last year in advance of Chicago Shakespeare's Tug of War: Civil Strife. And although The Merchant of Venice is one of my favorites, I read it for the sixth? seventh? time last summer prior to seeing Jonathan Pryce as Shylock (also at the CST). In the spirit of the plan, though, I opted to return to Shylock Is My Name, a book I set aside after a chapter last summer but am now more than halfway through. This is a much stronger entry in the Hogarth Shakespeare series than the first title, The Gap of Time. I've pasted my list to-date below. A few observations: -- Seventeen of the seventy books I've read so far this year were published in 2017. -- With fifteen non-fiction titles already, I am poised to exceed my annual goal of twenty-six (minimum). -- The "Shakespeare in a Year" project has guaranteed that I exceed my "Read more poetry!" goal. -- The project also explains the large number of drama entries on my list (twenty-two, so far). -- My graphic entries are down, I think... only fourteen at this writing. -- And, if you're interested, the following represent standout reading experiences: ■So Long, See You Tomorrow (William Maxwell; 1980. Fiction.) ■Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City (Matthew Desmond; 2016. Non-fiction.) ■The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood; 1986. Fiction.) REREAD ■Before the Fall (Noah Hawley; 2016. Fiction.) ■The Hard Problem (Tom Stoppard; 2015. Drama.) ■Lincoln in the Bardo (George Saunders; 2017. Fiction.) ■The Massive, Volumes 1 - 5 (Brian Wood; 2013 - 2015. Graphic fiction.) THE LIST 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.)

Hello! I hope you are all doing well. Here are my reading notes: â– Monster (Walter Dean Myers; 1999. Fiction.) Before his incarceration, sixteen-year-old Steven Harmon was a high school student who particularly enjoyed his film course. In prison, to recover his sense of self, he keeps a diary in the form of a movie script. While watching They Call Us Monsters, I wondered how familiar Ben Lear was with this contemporary young adult classic. â– Birds Life Art (Kyo Maclear; 2017. Non-fiction.) This lovely and meditative volume yielded the following commonplace book entries: p. 26 My husband is far too loyal and drowsy to doubt me. If I embark on a fantastically ill-conceived journey, I know he will be the guy throwing paper streamers in the air and hooting, “Farewell! Farewell!†This is what we do. We cheer each other on in our misadventures. p. 48 Smallness did not dismay me. Big nature travel — with its extreme odysseys and summit-fixated explorers — just seemed so, well, grandiose. The drive to go bigger and farther just one more instance of the overreaching at the heart of Western culture. I like smallness. I like the perverse audacity of someone aiming tiny. p. 86 I was a bookish child and grew to be a bookish adult. Books gave me pleasure, but they also gave me permission to isolate myself, to turn away from the world when it bothered or frightened me. Books allowed me to hide from demands, from the day, from family and the immediate world. They provided solace and amusement in the deep night and served as surrogates for friendship when I was far away from home. â– 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; nor were we really surprised by this bit of synchronicity. â– The Art of Practicing (Madeline Bruser; 1999. Non-fiction.) Much of the advice seemed, well, obvious. Stretch. Be mindful. Work but not painfully. Focus. Do what you love. And so on. Other notes… â– After a few fits and starts, I am poised to finish Sherry Turkle’s Reclaiming Conversation this week. A thought-provoking exploration of what has been lost since people have turned away from each other to connect via phone, this book suffered the fate many of mine do: It was tossed aside, unfinished, when I, a promiscuous reader if e’er there were one, picked up another. And another. And another. And so on. (It’s embarrassing how grateful the books seem when I return to them. Have they no respect for themselves? Chuckle.) Here are two short commonplace book entries: p. 54 The desire for the edited life crosses generations, but the young consider it their birthright. p. 147 They decide there should be a rule: A good friend should keep you off your phone when you are together. â– My husband and I have been rereading Moby Dick; or, The Whale. It began as a desperate bid to sleep through the night but has evolved into a project that provides discussion fodder and new in-jokes. (“Queequeg, my fine friend, does this sort of thing often happen?â€) We long ago fell into the habit of leaving a muted radio set to WGN or WBEZ playing as we slumbered. Late last year, though, when frequent awakenings began to affect the quality of our rest, we realized — after changing pillows, thermostats, sheets, and alarms — that the newscasts punctuating our favorite features (and later, the topics to which our favorite features had inevitably turned) were the disturbance. What to do? Ah, an audiobook! Each night, we pick up where we left off, in an endless loop — which is really much more delightful than it sounds. We were already fans of Moby Dick, but William Hootkins’ narration makes us wonder why it is not even more widely read. I am revisiting the text itself, too, (re)marking favorite passages and making new notes. From the opening of Chapter XLIX: The Hyena: There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody’s expense but his own. However, nothing dispirits, and nothing seems worth while disputing. He bolts down all events, all creeds, and beliefs, and persuasions, all hard things visible and invisible, never mind how knobby; as an ostrich of potent digestion gobbles down bullets and gun flints. And as for small difficulties and worryings, prospects of sudden disaster, peril of life and limb; all these, and death itself, seem to him only sly, good-natured hits, and jolly punches in the side bestowed by the unseen and unaccountable old joker. That odd sort of wayward mood I am speaking of, comes over a man only in some time of extreme tribulation; it comes in the very midst of his earnestness, so that what just before might have seemed to him a thing most momentous, now seems but a part of the general joke. â– My “Shakespeare in a Year†project is going well, although I somehow fell a bit behind with the sonnets. As National Poetry Month draws to a close, though, I will finish Sonnets 49 through 54. May brings The Merchant of Venice and Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2, Sonnets 55 through 66 and The Rape of Lucrece. (I wonder if Jacobson’s Shylock Is My Name, a book I wantonly set aside last summer, will show me the same embarrassing gratitude Turkle’s Reclaiming Conversation has when I return to it next month to complement my reread of Merchant?) â– Speaking of National Poetry Month, I will close with the conclusion to one of my favorite poems, Tom Hennen’s “The Life of a Day“: […] For some reason we like to see days pass, even though most of us claim we don’t want to reach our last one for a long time. We examine each day before us with barely a glance and say, no, this isn’t one I’ve been looking for, and wait in a bored sort of way for the next, when, we are convinced, our lives will start for real. Meanwhile, this day is going by per- fectly well-adjusted, as some days are, with the right amounts of sunlight and shade, and a light breeze scented with a perfume made from the mixture of fallen apples, corn stubble, dry oak leaves, and the faint odor of last night’s meander- ing skunk.

Hello! Popped in to say that with the book Monster (Walter Dean Myers) I hit 54 books. It's not that I've abandoned my "Year of Reading Slowly" approach; it's just that I have more time to read. Speaking of which, right now I'm reading a perfectly lovely book: Birds Art Life (Kyo Maclear). It's a mediation on, well, birds, art, and life, and contains gems like this: "I like smallness. I like the perverse audacity of someone aiming tiny."

Hello, BaWers! It's been a little while since I've posted. Spring break and other stuff followed early voting for the consolidated primary. Then I had early voting for the consolidated election. And election day. And a bit of other stuff. Today, I'm just trying to catch up. Here are some passages for the commonplace book: From Before the Fall (Noah Hawley; 2016. Fiction.): p. 95 The machine he believed himself to be broke down. and Gus found himself immersed in an experience he had witnessed for years in his job with the NTSB, but never truly understood. Grief. Death was not an intellectual conceit. It was an existential black hole, an animal riddle, both problem and solution, and the grief it inspired could not be fixed or bypassed like a faulty relay, but only endured. p. 101 Convergence. It’s one of those things that feels meaningful, but isn’t. At least he doesn’t think it is. How could it be? A batter in Boston fouling pitches into the stands while a small plan struggles through low coastal fog. How many millions of other activities begin and end at the same time? How many other “facts†converge in just the right way, creating symbolic connectivity? p. 251 He breaks off, thinking, aware that he is not giving them what they wanted, but concerned that their questions are too important to answer in the moment, to define in passing, simply to meet some kind of arbitrary deadline. What was the experience like? Why did it happen? What does it mean going forward? These are the subjects for books. They are questions you meditate for years — to find the right words, to identify all the critical factors, both subjective and objective. It’s unsurprising that the flow of this “thumping good read†reminds me of great television; Hawley is a television writer and producer. From The Last One (Alexandra Oliva; 2016. Fiction.): p. 58 This adventure I asked for, it’s not what I was expecting, not what I wanted. I thought I would feel empowered, but I’m only exhausted. p. 90 For all her love of animals, for all her work with animals, she feels little remorse. She is comfortable in her knowledge that humans are omnivores and that securing reliable sources of protein is what allowed the species to evolve its current intelligence. She will not kill to kill, but she will kill to eat, and she sees little difference between the eyes of a dead fish and a live one. Some reviews mentioned that the book erred in revealing its “twist†in the opening pages. They miss the point. Completely. A central conceit of a “reality†survival show is that the audience has information the participants do not. Here, the reader has knowledge the protagonist does not, so The Last One delivers its gut-punch not in a twist but rather in Mae’s eventual comprehension that what she had thought was the fakery of television is actual her new reality. From The Hard Problem (Tom Stoppard; 2015. Drama.): Scene Five Hilary (roused) Being wrong about human behaviour half the time is our guiding star, Leo! It’s what’s telling us the study of the mind is not a science. We’re dealing in mind stuff that doesn’t show up in a scan — accountability, duty freewill, language, all the stuff that makes behaviour unpredictable. We saw Stoppard’s latest play at the Court Theatre this past weekend. If you’re in the area, both it and TimeLine Theatre’s A Disappearing Number are must-see theater. Both run through April 9. In other reading… Election Day (April 4) was a long slog made bearable by Lucinda Rosenfeld’s Class, a book light enough that I could regularly look away but meaty enough that I didn’t feel like I had consumed the mental equivalent of Yodels. Brian Wood’s The Massive is a pretty terrific post-apocalyptic tale. My daughters, both artists and readers of graphic fiction, say that I should remark on the art when I talk about graphic fiction. It’s generally all about the story for me, but in these volumes, I realized that I do know when a different artist takes over. In a medium dependent on image, why would one change artists partway through the story? Different styles change the narrative in subtle ways. Is that the point? Or is it simpler than that? Is one artist available when one issue or arc is being prepared for publication but unavailable for another? Well, in any event, Danijel Zezelj’s work in the “Sahara†arc was particularly powerful. For my “Shakespeare in a Year†project, I have read through Sonnet 45 and Line 936 of Venus and Adonis, the latter of which I find the more satisfying endeavor. (No pun, Shakespearean or otherwise, intended.) Don Paterson’s commentary, however, quite nearly makes slogging through the sonnets worth it. Irreverent and insightful and highly recommended. Since my last bookish post, I’ve also (re)read Richard II, a favorite of mine… Let’s talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs; Make dust our paper and with rainy eyes Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth, Let’s choose executors and talk of wills…. … and Romeo and Juliet. Is it old(er) age that makes me increasingly immune to this story’s appeal? I must have muttered, “Overwrought,†two dozen or more times while reading and listening. Mercutio, though. What an invention! I think it was Bloom who posited that the Mercutio passages presage the verbal antics of Hamlet. I can believe it. In advance of seeing the CST’s Tug of War: Foreign Fire last year, I read Edward III, which occurs in the reading plan between Richard III and The Comedy of Errors. I simply have not been able to bring myself to reread it. Since this admission does not appear to have gotten me booted from the group, I plan to move on to A Midsummer Night’s Dream this coming weekend. Books read in 2017 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.)

Hello, BaWers! Here are some of my notes about books read this month: Books about books appeal to me, and in 2012, Will Schwalbe’s The End of Your Life Book Club proved to be an amiable enough contribution to the genre, as did his recent Books for Living. One of the delights of the books about books genre is adding to one’s TBR pile, so what a pleasure it was to find that the recommendations that most interested me were already on my shelves. To read: The Importance of Living (Lin Yutang); A Little Life (Hanya Yanagihara); A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry); Valley of the Dolls (Jacqueline Susann) To reread: Stuart Little (E.B. White); David Copperfield (Charles Dickens); Reading Lolita in Tehran (Azar Nafisi); The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (Muriel Spark) The only purchase I made while reading Books for Life was The Confession, a John Grisham novel about the death penalty, which, because I read Just Mercy earlier this month, touched a chord of serendipity / synthesis / synchronicity. For the commonplace book: p. 188 The world is filled now with huggers. Maybe that’s because we live in such a technological age that people crave human touch. Men and women whom you barely know hug you hello and goodbye. Kids in school hug each other. Even in business meetings, people will give you a hug if they’ve sat with you in meetings a few times before (though not if they work at the same company). I really don’t like being hugged by anyone other than my husband. People regard this as a character flaw. One friend even devoted an hour of time with his analyst to discussing why I didn’t like to hug. I gather he takes it personally. p. 255 Reading is a respite from the relentlessness of technology, but it’s not only that. It’s how I reset and recharge. It’s how I escape, but it’s also how I engage. And reading should spur further engagement. Speaking of the commonplace book, much of Eugene Ionesco’s Rhinoceros might be pressed into mine, but I will content myself with the following bits from Act III, when Dudard and Berenger discuss the way things are: p. 75 BERENGER: I understand what you mean, at least I’m trying to. But you know — if someone accused me of being a bad sport, or hopelessly middle class, or completely out of touch with life, I’d still want to stay as I am. p. 78 BERENGER: If only it had happened somewhere else, in some other country, and we’d just read about it in the papers, one could discuss it quietly, examine the question from all points of view and come to an objective conclusion. We could organize debates with professors and writers and lawyers, and blue-stockings and artists and people. And the ordinary man on the street, as well — it would be very interesting and instructive. But when you’re involved yourself, when you suddenly find yourself up against the brutal facts you can’t help feeling directly concerned — the shock is too violent for you to stay cool and detached. I’m frankly surprised, I’m very very surprised. I can’t get over it. The Remy-Bumppo Theatre Company hosted a staged reading of this oft-read but rarely seen play last night, and as I did when watching the Shakespeare Project of Chicago’s King John last month, I thought, This is a play for our time, to be sure. From the conclusion: People who try to hang on to their individuality always come to a bad end. [He shakes himself out of it.] Oh well, too bad! I’ll take on the whole lot of them! I’ll put up a fight against the lot of them, the whole lot of them! I’m the last man left, and I’m staying that way until the end. I’m not capitulating! I first read Rhinoceros in high school and thought myself so clever for “getting†it and Sartre’s No Exit and Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. As so many of us discover when we return to the books we swallowed whole as younger readers, though, I “got†little more than the tattered texts I purloined from the shelves of the English department — well, that and the tacit promise that I would return to the treasures at some point, which I have. On the topic of returning to books, last year The Last Policeman (Ben H. Winters) so pleased me that I was reluctant to begin Countdown City, fearing the second in the trilogy would disappoint. It did not. I plan to read the third book later this week. Much of the “Shakespeare in Year†project also represents a return of sorts, although I find that I am less chagrined by these past readings than, say, of Rhinoceros or No Exit. This is probably because I have been reading and rereading Shakespeare for the last fifteen years; as an adult and an autodidact, then, I have approached the plays and now the sonnets and long poems knowing that so much remains for me to learn. Other commitments require that I continue to read ahead in order to keep up with the schedule, so at this writing, I have read through Sonnet 27 and Line 576 of Venus and Adonis and completed the following plays: ■The Taming of the Shrew ■The Two Gentlemen of Verona ■Henry VI, Part 1 ■Henry VI, Part 2 ■Henry VI, Part 3 ■Richard III ■Titus Andronicus ■The Comedy of Errors ■Love’s Labour’s Lost A few notes: I appreciated Titus Andronicus much more than I had thought I would, but that doesn’t mean it was an easy read. Even if one accepts the idea that the plot is willfully over-the-top, it’s still horrifying. Given the graphic sound effects in the Arkangel recording, I had unhappily anticipated close-ups of violence and bloodletting from the film featuring Anthony Hopkins in the title role. It was, however, rather restrained, for which I was most grateful. Not all of the production choices appealed to me (frankly, I just didn’t understand a few), but overall, it earned a thumbs-up for both acting and restraint. Maybe it was my mood, but The Comedy of Errors fared much better in this, my third or fourth, reading. Would that I could say the same about my second reading of Love’s Labour’s Lost. I’m actually a little concerned because we will see the Chicago Shakespeare Theater production next month; can they make this seem less… ridiculous? Again, maybe it was my mood. The Sonnets. Sigh. Don Paterson’s commentary, though, makes the journey bearable. And perhaps I am too old to encounter Venus and Adonis for the first time because I have, several times, wondered, Kissing is a polite euphemism, right? What this work has made me realize is that I must read Ovid’s Metamorphoses. (I read some early in our home education days and some more before seeing the Lookingglass Theatre presentation of Mary Zimmerman’s play.) This year’s reading plan is already wildly ambitious, but Ovid is moving up. Well before I get to Ovid, though, I will reread Edward III for “Shakespeare in Year†and finish The Changeling (Thomas Middleton and William Rowley), which the Shakespeare Project of Chicago will present later this month. I will also read a few more books about geocaching. To explain: As an election judge, I have met some interesting folks with whom “What are you reading?†has been the perfect way to step around both banalities and (most) politics. Last week, a fellow election judge mentioned a popular fiction novel I had tossed across a hotel room in disgust three years ago, but rather than going there, we moved onto EMPs and emergency preparedness, which is not my usual fare, but in confirming via Amazon that, yes, he was talking about the tossed book, I saw Ted Koppel’s Lights Out, a book I knew was already on my shelves. It was clear-sighted, but I was glad to finish. Since early November, I have felt, well, not unlike Berenger: If only it had happened somewhere else, in some other country, and we’d just read about it in the papers…. The same judge also talked about his family’s interest in geocaching. When I first heard about this pursuit years ago, it seemed like a perfect fit for our family, but our days were already so full. The rhythm of our lives has changed a great deal since then, though, and the judge’s enthusiasm was contagious, so as we parted, he extracted a promise that I would tell him about our adventures when we work together again this week. On the way home from the polling place, I borrowed The Joy of Geocaching (Paul and Dana Gillin) from the library. That evening, I created an account at geocaching.com and downloaded the app to my phone, and this weekend my husband and I found our first cache. Actually, the truth? I found the cache on Friday afternoon, but I didn’t understand what I was looking at. When I brought my husband to the same spot on Saturday afternoon, he indicated that I had read the map and the app’s compass properly (I defer to him in such matters; he is an Eagle Scout), so it should be here…. “I’ve got it!†I hooted softly. “I’ve got it!†Aware that I needed to be discreet, I showed him the contents and the ingenious hiding spot, and we logged the cache in hard copy and in the app. We are late to this but it dovetails current pursuits: biking (we took the first ride of the year on Saturday, by the way: thirteen easy miles; it was beautiful), walking / hiking in the county and state parks and conservation areas, and archery. Hmmm. That leaves Calculating God and Diary of a Provincial Lady. The latter is a reread. In recommending it recently, I suggested that if one thought Downton’s Dowager Countess was the primary reason to sit through any episode of Downton Abbey after the middle of Season Two, if one fancied the idea of British Bombeck, and if one fancied a book that would take him or her completely and utterly out of this place and time, then one might be advised to reach for Diary of Provincial Lady. Calculating God arrives on my stack via one of those “blind date with a book†gimmicks that popped up around Valentine’s Day. I answered a flurry of questions and landed on this. I read and enjoyed Sawyer’s WWW : Wake in 2010, so I am actually looking forward to my date.

Books read, so far. Notes to follow. 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.)

Aggieamy! I am sorry I spelled your name incorrectly above. Stacia, guess what book I received this week? The Vonnegut Encyclopedia: Revised and Updated Edition (October 2016)! I would like every. single. post. in the BaW thread every. single. week. Just so you all know. Wishing everyone a wonderful rest of the week!

Forgive the self-referential quoting, but I wanted to add that the person who sent the note and sonnet mentioned the death of his mother. Shakespeare is amazing, no? The sonnets are love poems, but readers can readily appropriate lines, phrases, passages that speak to their specific experience.

Thank you! I know I am not alone in my appreciation of cool curated link lists. I keep the FB for our library group, and the BaW thread often supplements the links I provide there.

This was one of our favorite read-alouds. Ever. What a great recommendation! (All of them were great; I just really loved Owls.)

Sigh. I actually angered someone by confessing my ambivalence about KD. I appreciate your observations.

Fifty-three here. I was beyond perplexed by fifty-nine being depicted as so old and clueless. What?!? My knees and feet are feeling old, but that's about it.

I ran into some of the same issues and was, therefore, so relieved when a friend commented: A Man Called Ove seems to be wildly popular but I didn’t really like it. A cranky, aggressively rude man is loved by generous, warm-hearted women — why? I knew everyone and her mother and uncle had read Ove, which is part of the reason I had resisted it, but then it came up as a possible book club selection. I appreciated that she validated my “Blergh.â€

*waving at my fellow BaWers* I am off to read the rest of the thread.

This is a terrific book. One particularly memorable aspect is how thoroughly Dreiser brings his reader into Chicago then -- the mud, the noise, the lack of infrastructure, the chaos, the vast differences between in town and just beyond, and so on. And, yes, to all who are nursing tooth pain or helping their young ones through braces, all good and healing thoughts.

Thank you, aggiemy. No, that's my husband as a boy, sitting on the bench of his grandmother's organ. Here is my son in photo taken before his sisters' piano recital (circa July 2009):

Picked this up early this year. Your post has prompted me to move it up the TBR stack.

Four shelves of Shakespeare. Now knee-deep in this project, I feel confident discussing my progress. So. Using this plan, a number of readers are attempting to read all of Shakespeare’s works in 2017. At this writing, I have completed the Sonnets through 18, Venus and Adonis through line 432, and the following plays: ■The Taming of the Shrew ■The Two Gentlemen of Verona ■Henry VI, Part 1 ■Henry VI, Part 2 ■Henry VI, Part 3 ■Richard III Because the Shakespeare Project of Chicago presented King John (a play for our time, to be sure) in January, I have also read that. Why am I off schedule? Early voting for the consolidated primary begins next week. This, coupled with my other pursuits, requires that I work ahead to keep up. To complement my reading, I chose Tony Tanner’s Prefaces to Shakespeare. Garber, Bloom, and Van Doren were well exercised during our home education years, so it was time to turn to another resource. That said, I may supplement with a rerun of the Saccio lectures. For the sonnets, I am using Don Paterson’s Reading Shakespeare’s Sonnets and the app that features the filmed performances coupled with Paterson’s comments. (By the way, I purchased the Tanner seven years ago. It has given all of the stockpiled companions around the house hope: “Maybe she will read me next!†Heh, heh, heh.) The plays Going forward, I will try to be more methodical about my notes. As I recall, my remarks about Taming centered on how I would direct the final act as if Kate were complicit in the wager. I’ve written about my experience of Gentlemen a few times, including here; my reread was swift. The Henry VI plays were not tedious for me (some find them so) because I read them last year to prepare for the Chicago Shakespeare Theater’s Tug of War. (Foreign Fire and Civil Strife covered three plays each: Edward III, Henry V, and Henry VI, Part 1; and Henry VI, Parts 2 and 3, and Richard III. Yes, three plays, one meal, two snacks per event. It. Was. Awesome.) The “read a synopsis or retelling / watch a(t least one) production / listen to an unabridged recording with text in hand / dig into additional resources†approach works well for me, and this go-around, I watched The Hollow Crown, Cycle 2, and read the plays while listening to the Arkangel productions. Margaret interests me greatly; what a role that would be! Richard III more naturally follows the Henry VI plays than Titus Andronicus (the next play on the plan), so I reread Richard III first. In addition to the CST production in the fall, we saw the Gift Theatre production of Richard III at the Steppenwolf last year. Wow. What a mesmerizing performance. Yes, he rose from his wheelchair and encircled Anne with his walker. Brilliant. (Review here.) Over the weekend, I also watched Benedict Cumberbatch as Richard in The Hollow Crown, Cycle 2. Maybe it was Richard III overload (or Benedict Cumberbatch overload, for that matter), but his Richard lacked the dark wit that usually makes the character such a delicious role. Speaking of delicious, ahem… ‘gainst my wont, I have begun reading Titus Andronicus, one of the few plays I have not already read and studied, before seeing a production. Amazon Video had nothing, nor was there anything on our shelves, so I await word on my library holds. Spoiler alert: As many folks know, Titus Andronicus is a horror show of a play. Even if you choose to reconcile the violence as purposeful camp, it’s still rough going, especially if, like me, you use the Arkangel recording to complement your reading. You’ve been warned. The sonnets It is a reflection of my limitations, obviously, and not the poet’s, but the sonnets, with one exception, hold little appeal for me. The exception is Sonnet 74, which was sent to me with a note that read, in part: Below is Shakespeare’s Sonnet 74, where the poet addresses his beloved, advising that his spirit will live on after his death in what he leaves behind (his poem) and his spirit in his beloved’s heart. Bold emphasis is mine. But be contented: when that fell arrest Without all bail shall carry me away, My life hath in this line some interest, Which for memorial still with thee shall stay. When thou reviewest this, thou dost review The very part was consecrate to thee: The earth can have but earth, which is his due; My spirit is thine, the better part of me: So then thou hast but lost the dregs of life, The prey of worms, my body being dead, The coward conquest of a wretch’s knife, Too base of thee to be remembered. The worth of that is that which it contains, And that is this, and this with thee remains. This reminds me of the following commonplace book entry from King John: CARDINAL PANDULPH You hold too heinous a respect of grief. CONSTANCE He talks to me that never had a son. KING PHILIP You are as fond of grief as of your child. CONSTANCE Grief fills the room up of my absent child, Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me, Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words, Remembers me of all his gracious parts, Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form; Then, have I reason to be fond of grief? Fare you well: had you such a loss as I, I could give better comfort than you do. Yes, I have mentally SCREAMED this: He talks to me that never had a son. And this: Fare you well: had you such a loss as I, I could give better comfort than you do. … Once I finish Titus Andronicus, I will use the rest of this week’s Shakespeare time to read through Sonnet 27. The long poems Which leaves Venus and Adonis. While tame by today’s standards, this is certainly naughty Shakespeare. Chuckle. According to my husband, this poem merits my eyebrow face — when my eyebrows rise so high, they all but disappear. My reading / listening, though, has been a powerful reminder that so much of human narrative — perhaps especially Shakespeare — is meant to be heard. I blame the Q Brothers for this, but my imagination’s ear *totally* heard an ad-rap-tation of the poem! My goal, in addition to Sonnets 19 through 27, is to read through Line 576 this week.

You're welcome! And I'm a Stoner fan, too. Every time someone mentions it, I feel compelled to say, "Yes, yes! Read it!" It you like Stoner, you may enjoy Richard Yates and William Maxwell, too, btw.

Hello, BaWers! It looks like I will have fourteen for this month. Here are my notes. ■Pygmalion (George Bernard Shaw; 1912. Drama.) After seeing Remy Bumppo’s Pygmalion, I needed to revisit the text. I had forgotten how much I love Shaw. ■A.D.: After Death, Book 2 (Scott Snyder; 2016. Graphic fiction.) I came for Lemire’s art and have stayed for Snyder’s intriguing story. ■I Will Always Write Back: How One Letter Changed Two Lives (Martin Ganda and Caitlin Alifirenka; 2016. Non-fiction.) I finished this in two sittings. It’s a simple (and utterly predictable), feel-good story framed by the correspondence between a privileged teenager and her pen pal from Zimbabwe. I’m surprised it’s not a movie. ■Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis (J.D. Vance; 2016. Non-fiction.) After a few fits and starts, I finally finished Hillbilly Elegy. Here are my commonplace book entries: p. 7 The problems that I saw at the tile warehouse run far deeper than macroeconomic trends and policy. Too many young men immune to hard work. Good jobs impossible to fill for any length of time. And a young man with every reason to work — a wife-to-be to support and a baby on the way — carelessly tossing aside a good job with excellent health insurance. More troublingly, when it was all over, he thought something had been done to him. There is a lack of agency here — a feeling that you have little control over your life and a willingness to blame everyone but yourself. This is distinct from the larger economic landscape of modern America. p. 9 But I love these people, even those to whom I avoid speaking for my own sanity. And if I leave you with the impression that there are bad people in my life, then I am sorry, both to you and to the people so portrayed. For there are no villains in this story. There’s just a ragtag band of hillbillies struggling to find their way — both for their sake, and by the grace of God, for mine. p. 52 Federal housing policy has actively encouraged homeownership, from Jimmy Carter’s Community Reinvestment Act to George W. Bush’s ownership society. But in the Middletowns of the world, homeownership comes at a steep social cost: As jobs disappear in a given area, declining home values trap people in certain neighborhoods. Even if you’d like to move, you can’t, because the bottom has fallen out of the market — you now owe more than any buyer is willing to pay. The costs of moving are so high that people stay put. Of course, the people trapped are usually those with the least money; those who can afford to leave do so. p. 228 For kids like me, the part of the brain that deals with stress and conflict is always activated — the switch flipped indefinitely. We are constantly ready to fight or flee, because there is constant exposure to the bear, whether that bear is an alcoholic dad or an unhinged mom. We become hardwired for conflict. And that wiring remains, even when there’s no more conflict to be had. ■The Selfishness of Others (Kristin Dombeck; 2016. Non-fiction.) This was my “reading in the theater before the show begins†book, so it was set aside several times before I finally finished it. A fascinating look at our culture’s obsession with narcissism, it included the reference to Anders Breivik that reminded me that One of Us: The Story of Anders Breivik and the Massacre in Norway (Åsne Seierstad; 2015) was in my collection. (One of Us was one of the best books I read last year — and I don’t say that about every book I read.) We saw several plays over the break, by the way: Cheek by Jowl’s The Winter’s Tale and King Charles III (which featured Robert Bathurst (yes, from Downton Abbey) in the title role), both at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater; Pygmalion, mentioned above; Hamilton (yes, really, and it was as wonderful as folks have maintained) at the PrivateBank Theater; and A Disappearing Number at the TimeLine Theatre. Yes, the last is a play about math, among other things, and it was the highlight of our winter break theater adventures. My youngest recently secured a spot with a high energy physics research group that is working on the ATLAS experiment, so insert a muted nerdgirl “Squeeeeee!†when Anish Jethmalani’s character, Aninda, announces that he is a physicist lecturing at CERN. The script is not a seamless one, but the production is so fabulous that one forgives the small weaknesses in the text. Highly recommended. ■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 So Long, See You Tomorrow is as perfect a book as A Good School or Revolutionary Road (both by Richard Yates) or Olive Kittredge (Elizabeth Strout). p. 9 What I didn’t say, across the few feet that separated our two beds, was that I couldn’t understand how it had happened to us. It seemed like a mistake. And mistakes ought to be rectified, only this one couldn’t be. Between the way things used to be and the the way they were now was a void that couldn’t be crossed. I had to find an explanation other than the real one, which was that we were no more immune to misfortune that anybody else, and the idea that kept recurring to me, perhaps because of that pacing the floor with my father, was that I had inadvertently walked through a door I shouldn’t have gone through and couldn’t get back to the place I hadn’t meant to leave. p. 27 What we, or at any rate I, refer to confidently as memory — meaning a moment, a scene, a fact that has been subjected to a fixative and thereby rescued from oblivion — is really a form of storytelling that goes on continually in the mind and often changes with the telling. Too many conflicting emotional interests are involved for life ever to be wholly acceptable, and possibly it is the work of the storyteller to rearrange things so that they conform to this end. In any case, in talking about the past we lie with every breath we draw. p. 113 In the face of a deprivation so great, what is the use of asking him to go on being the boy he was. He might as well start life over again as some other boy instead. ■King John (William Shakespeare; 1623. Drama.) A play for our time. Really. And this for the commonplace book: CARDINAL PANDULPH You hold too heinous a respect of grief. CONSTANCE He talks to me that never had a son. KING PHILIP You are as fond of grief as of your child. CONSTANCE Grief fills the room up of my absent child, Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me, Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words, Remembers me of all his gracious parts, Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form; Then, have I reason to be fond of grief? Fare you well: had you such a loss as I, I could give better comfort than you do. ■The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood; 1986. Fiction.) Our family book club chose The Handmaid’s Tale for our winter selection. We listened to the audiobook for a bit during each of our drives in and out of Chicago earlier this month and then on the way back to campus. (Claire Danes does exceptional work with the narration.) My husband completed the audiobook, my daughters are reading the rest in between classes and research, and I finished by rereading my thirty-one-year-old hardback. Since I first read Tale, it has been a looming part of the landscape of my imagination, yet I was unprepared for how much more horrifying it seems now — now that I am the mother of adult daughters, now that the world appears to have gone a bit mad. p. 181 No mother is ever, completely, a child’s idea of what a mother should be, and I suppose it works the other way around as well. But despite everything, we didn’t do too badly by one another, we did as well as most. I wish she were here, so I could tell her I finally know this. ■Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City (Matthew Desmond; 2016. Non-fiction.) It was the quote on p. 52 of Hillbilly Elegy that reminded me to pluck this from the shelves. Move Evicted to the top of your TBR pile. Now. Really. I’ll wait. From my commonplace book: p. 256 The Hinkstons expected more of their landlord for the money they were paying her. Rent was their biggest expense by far, and they wanted a decent and functional home in return. They wanted things to be fixed when they broke. But if Sherrena wasn’t going to repair her own property, neither were they. The house failed the tenants, and the tenants failed the house. p. 257 Substandard housing was a blow to your psychological health: not only because things like dampness, mold, and overcrowding could bring about depression but also because of what living in awful conditions told you about yourself. p. 285 Poverty could pile on; living it often meant steering through gnarled thickets of interconnected misfortunes and trying not to go crazy. There were moments of calm, but life on balance was facing one crisis after another. p. 291 The home is the wellspring of personhood. ■Bird Watching (Paula McCartney; 2010. Non-fiction.) I picked up Bird Watching from a bargain table at the university bookstore. I want to adore McCartney’s playfulness, but I did not. ■Much Ado: A Summer with a Repertory Theater Company (Michael Lenehan; 2016. Non-fiction.) Rick Kogan’s interview with Michael Lenehan ran while my youngest and I were working on one project or another early in our winter break. “He always says, ‘This is one of the best books I ever read!’ or ‘You’re truly one of the great writers!’ and I get duped every time,†I remarked. “What are you doing?†she asked me later. “Ordering that book about the American Players Theatre that Rick Kogan recommended,†I replied, and she chuckled. As it turns out, though, it was pretty good, if a little choppy. ■The Taming of the Shrew (William Shakespeare; 1590. Drama.) ■The Two Gentlemen of Verona (William Shakespeare; 1589. Drama.) ■Henry IV, Part 1 (William Shakespeare; 1597. Drama.) Maybe I should have declined the invitation because I knew I would not be able to give the “Shakespeare in a Year†project my complete attention until this past weekend, but I am confident I will be completely caught up by Groundhog’s Day, so I am going for it, and I've made a great beginning by finishing the three plays listed here.

My daughters list priority registration (on a campus of 44,000, this is a BIG deal), access to special programming and job/internship opportunities, and campus-wide recognition as the chief benefits of the honors program. The required academic points can be earned in the context of the student's major; so, for example, for two of the four academic points she earned this past semester, the physics major completed a project in which she learned Python in order to model various physics concepts. The psych major had similar success submitting her research assignment in one of the university's labs for qualifying points. Activity points can be earned through leadership seminars, board positions, volunteer activities, performance or art exhibition, etc. They plan to begin working on those this coming semester. Neither has had any complaints about the additional work -- nor about the program's stringent standards for retaining the designation.

My daughters, 20 and 19, are college juniors. It seems as if the younger has always known she would major in physics (although she briefly toyed with the idea of engineering). The older had thought she might study zoology but chose psychology.

So pretty, in fact, that I bought a copy. There was a like-new edition available for a reasonable price. Thank you for the link!

Agreed. Chuckle. Which is why I usually stay away until late January... but I missed my virtual reading buds. What's a reader to do?