Hello! It’s been a while. As always, thank you, Robin — not only for the thread but for setting me on Louise Penny. This week, among other things, I’m reading Book Three of Middlemarch (George Eliot) for book group and finishing up Home Fire (Kamila Shamsie). Here are the last few books I’ve finished: 118. Bury Your Dead (Louise Penny; 2010. Fiction.) 119. The Hummingbirds’ Gift: Wonder, Beauty, and Renewal on Wings (Sy Montgomery; 2021. Non-fiction.) 120. How to Think Like Shakespeare: Lessons from a Renaissance Education (Scott Newstock; 2020. Non-fiction.) 121. Hamlet (William Shakespeare; 1601. Drama.) 122. Trojan Women (Euripides (trans. E. P. Coleridge); 415 B.C. Drama.)123. Antigone (Sophocles (trans. Don Taylor); 441 B.C. Drama.)

Thank you! I really appreciate links like this.

It was, of course, maligned because many thought that Cummins was not the person equipped to write that story. I had purchased and read the book before I learned about the controversy, so my uninformed opinion was, It’s a pageturner that educated me about an aspect of immigration experience about which I had no knowledge. Was it perfect? No. Was it wildly overwritten in places? Yeah. Did earn keeper status in my personal library? No. Am I glad I read it? Yes.

The first bird I saw was an American goldfinch. Thanks for participating, everyone, and may this new year be kind(er) to all of us, eh?

Do you watch the birds that visit your yards or the nearby parks or other outdoor spaces? Your bird of the year would be the first non-pet bird you see tomorrow.

Either schedule will be fine, Robin. 📚

Too many books this year to choose just one, so here is a list of 37 standouts among the 233 I read, arranged in about the order I encountered them: ■ Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men (Carolyn Criado Perez; 2019. Non-fiction.) ■ Women and Power (Mary Beard; 2017. Non-fiction.) ■ Five Days at Memorial (Sheri Fink; 2013. Non-fiction.) ■ Zeitoun (Dave Eggers; 2009. Non-fiction.) ■ Homer’s The Iliad and The Odyssey (Alberto Manguel; 2007. Non-fiction.) ■ Severance (Ming La; 2018. Fiction.) ■ Catch and Kill (Ronan Farrow; 2019. Non-fiction.) ■ Parnassus on Wheels (Christopher Morley; 1917. Fiction.) ■ The Bookshop (Penelope Fitzgerald; 1978. Fiction.) ■ The Sense of an Ending (Julian Barnes; 2011. Fiction.) ■ The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human (Jonathan Gottschall; 2012. Non-fiction.) ■ The Lost Books of the Odyssey (Zachary Mason; 2007/2010. Fiction.) ■ The Nickel Boys (Colson Whitehead; 2019. Fiction.) ■ The Book of Delights (Ross Gay; 2019. Non-fiction.) ■ The Blue Castle (L.M. Montgomery; 1926. Fiction.) ■ The Odd Woman and the City (Vivian Gornick; 2015. Non-fiction.) ■ The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Vol. I: The Pox Party (M.T. Anderson; 2006. Fiction.) ■ Thick and Other Essays (Tressie McMillan Cottom; 2019. Non-fiction.) ■ Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life (Ruth Franklin; 2016. Non-fiction.) ■ Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World’s Greatest Nuclear Disaster (Adam Higginbotham; 2019. Non-fiction.) ■ Lost Children Archive (Valeria Luiselli; 2019. Fiction.) ■ The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Cartoonist (Adrian Tomine; 2020. Graphic non-fiction.) ■ The New Wilderness (Diane Cook; 2020. Fiction.) ■ Radio Golf (August Wilson; 2005. Drama.) ■ Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents (Isabel Wilkerson; 2020. Non-fiction.) ■ They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (Milton Mayer; 1959 (2017 edition). Non-fiction.) ■ Disappearing Earth (Julia Phillips; 2019. Fiction.) ■ Parable of the Sower (Octavia Butler; 1993. Fiction.) ■ On Immunity: An Inoculation (Eula Biss; 2014. Non-fiction.) ■ Theory of Bastards (Audrey Schulman; 2014. Fiction.) ■ New Boy (Tracy Chevalier; 2017. Fiction.) ■ Still Alive: A Holocaust Girlhood Remembered (Ruth Klüger; 2001. Non-fiction.) ■ Wolf Hall (Hilary Mantel; 2009. Fiction.) ■ The Assassination of Brangwain Spurge (M.T. Anderson; 2018. Fiction.) ■ The Theater of War: What Ancient Greek Tragedies Can Teach Us Today (Bryan Doerries; 2015. Non-fiction.) ■ Bring up the Bodies (Hilary Mantel; 2012. Fiction.) RFS ■ We Keep the Dead Close: A Murder at Harvard and a Half Century of Silence (Becky Cooper; 2020. Non-fiction.)

While posting about bird of the year elsewhere, it struck me that more folks may be interested. In her paean to birding, Rare Encounters with Ordinary Birds, Lyanda Lynn Haupt writes: 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. As I have on the past eighteen or so New Year’s Eves, tomorrow night I will ensure that all of the feeders are topped off and that corn and nuts are scattered for the squirrels. (There are, of course, no squirrel-proof feeders, but I have learned that feed scattered away from the feeders will (mostly) keep those furry nuisances away from the birds and the more expensive seed.) And on Friday morning, the first bird I espy will be my theme bird for 2021. Why don’t you join me? Post your bird of the year here on Friday.

And thank you! 😊

In my general count, I distinguished the Astrid Lindgren as juvenile fiction to indicate that it was a short read. The two you point out (which, of course, fall under children's / YA fiction, are just labeled fiction in my general count.

Tomorrow is New Year’s Eve, and 375 pages stand between me and the conclusion of The Mirror and the Light, so I am calling it at 233 books read this year. (As always, I have included only cover-to-covers.) Because 233 books and all of those notes are an awful lot to (re)post in this thread, here is a link to my complete list, here is a link to all of the posts annotating that list, and here are a few numbers: ♦ 233 books read this year ♦ 105 fiction titles (not including graphic works) ♦ 61 non-fiction titles (not including graphic works) ♦ 6 poetry selections ♦ 37 plays ♦ 24 graphic works (three of which were non-fiction selections) ♦ 34 rereads (i.e., books that I had first read sometime in the past, not this year) My goals for this year were to read 100 books from my shelves (i.e., books in my collection before the end of 2019), including at least 24 non-fiction titles and at least one book from each of the following categories: Shakespeare (by, about, retold, etc.) poetry, NYRB, Kurt Vonnegut (by or about), Joyce Carol Oates, philosophy, art, and children’s / YA. I read 148 books from the shelves, 47 of which were non-fiction titles, and I met each of the category challenges: Shakespeare This year, seven plays (Richard III, The Taming of the Shrew, As You Like It, The Tempest, Measure for Measure, King Lear, and Richard II) and two works from the Hogarth Shakespeare series (Vinegar Girl (Anne Tyler; 2016) and New Boy (Tracy Chevalier; 2017)) satisfied the challenge. Next year, I will not consider it complete unless I also tackle at least one of the many non-fiction works I’ve collected. Poetry With Aimless Love (Billy Collins; 2013) and Crow (Ted Hughes; 1970) I met the challenge, but I had also hoped to increase the amount of poetry I read this year, whether from my shelves or not. With six books, I doubled what I managed last year, but there is still much room for growth here. NYRB Cassandra at the Wedding (Dorothy Baker; 1962) Kurt Vonnegut Mother Night (1961) Joyce Carol Oates Give Me Your Heart (2010) Philosophy How to Die: An Ancient Guide to the End of Life (Seneca; ed. James Romm; 2018) How to Keep Your Cool: An Ancient Guide to Anger Management (Seneca; ed. James Romm; 2019) How to Grow Old: Ancient Wisdom for the Second Half of Life (Marcus Tullius Cicero; ed. Philip Freeman; 2016) How to Be Free: An Ancient Guide to the Stoic Life (Epictetus; ed. A.A. Long; 2018) Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar… Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes (Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein; 2006) Art Vincent and Theo: The Van Gogh Brothers (Deborah Heiligman; 2017) Children’s / YA I, Juan de Pareja (Elizabeth Barton de Treviño; 1965) Harriet the Spy (Louise Fitzhugh; 1964) I rose to Robin's challenge to read three Agatha Christie titles this year: The Mousetrap (1952), Crooked House (1949), and Endless Night (1967). And I tossed in a challenge to read a book about my bird of the year, which in 2020, was the crow: Gifts of the Crow: How Perception, Emotion, and Thought Allow Smart Birds to Behave Like Humans (John M. Marzluff; 2012). The only goal on which I stumbled was “Read Hilary Mantel’s Cromwell trilogy,” and, gosh, I came close. In fact, back to the book. Quick question: Is The Count of Monte Cristo a definite readalong for this coming February?

Hello! Hello! Missed last week, so I have two weeks of reading to share. At this writing, I'm at 228 for the year. Right now, I'm juggling three books, including the last in the Mantel trilogy. ■ Gideon Falls, Vol. 5: Wicked Words (Jeff Lemire; 2020. Graphic fiction.) This series is barreling toward the conclusion. ■ Still Alive: A Holocaust Girlhood Remembered (Ruth Klüger; 2001. Non-fiction.) Klüger’s is “an unforgiving memoir of growing up Jewish in Nazi-occupied Vienna and escaping death in a concentration camp.” (NYT, October 16, 2020) It was recommended in the lively discussion that occurred in the comments during Court Theatre’s Deep Dive: Leopoldstadt. p. 69 Remembering is a branch of witchcraft; its tool is incantation. I often say, as if it were a joke — but it’s true — that instead of God I believe in ghosts. p. 150 Of course, that’s always the case: men go to war because they are drafted. They usually go with enthusiasm, which lasts as long as their side is winning, never mind if their cause is good or bad. A minority know their minds, and the rest mistake the collective mind for their own. p. 194 I shed these prejudices quickly and quietly, as one takes off a pair of nylons under the table, secretly, so that no one will notice you’ve been wearing them. p. 199 No one is as dependent as mothers are on the dependency of their children. ■ Wolf Hall (Hilary Mantel; 2009. Fiction.) When The Mirror and the Light was released earlier this year, I quietly added “Read the Mantel trilogy” to my 2020 goals. These books are proving to be the perfect companions for long-nighted December days. p. 499 The fate of peoples is made like this, two men in small rooms. Forget the coronations, the conclaves of cardinals, the pomp and the processions. This is how the world changes…. ■ Memorial: A Version of Homer’s Iliad (Alice Oswald; 2011. Poetry.) In this startling and powerful reframing of the Iliad, two similes (on facing pages in my edition) begged to be pressed into my commonplace book. The first reminded me of the most exquisite passage in all of literature written in English (see below): Like snow falling like snow When the living winds shake the clouds into pieces Like flutters of silence hurrying down To put a stop to the earth at her leafwork The second was so poignant it hurt: Like when a mother is rushing And a little girl clings to her clothes Wants help wants arms Won’t let her walk Like staring up at that tower of adulthood Wanting to be light again Wanting the whole problem of living to be lifted And carried on a hip ■ The Dead (James Joyce; 1914. Fiction.) In which one finds the most exquisite passage in all of literature written in English: A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead. ■ The Assassination of Brangwain Spurge (M.T. Anderson; 2018. Fiction.) One of the most delightful books I read this year. Related article here. ■ In Defense of Elitism: Why I’m Better Than You and You Are Better Than Someone Who Didn’t Buy This Book (Joel Stein; 2019. Non-fiction.) Yes, Stein’s humor is an acquired taste. Related interview here. ■ Antigone Rising: The Subversive Power of the Ancient Myth (Helena Morales; 2020. Non-fiction.) Related article here. ■ The Theater of War: What Ancient Greek Tragedies Can Teach Us Today (Bryan Doerries; 2015. Non-fiction.) A wonderful reader recommended Theater of War to me in late spring. Since then, I’ve watched seven readings — most recently, The Book of Job with Bill Murray. Doerries’ book is as riveting as those performances. p. 13 It is not our job to judge the characters in Greek tragedies — to focus on their “flaws.” Tragedy challenges us to see ourselves in the way its characters stray from the path, and to open our eyes to the bad habits we may have formed or the mistakes we have yet to make. Contrary to what you may have learned in school, tragedies are not designed to fill us with pessimism and dread about the futility of human existence or our relative powerlessness in a world beyond our grasp. They are designed to help us see the impending disaster on the horizon, so that we may correct course and narrowly avoid it. Above all, the flaw in our thinking about tragedy is that we look for meaning where there is none to be found. Tragedies don’t mean anything. They do something. ■ Harriet the Spy (Louise Fitzhugh; 1964. Fiction.) Favorable reviews (e.g., here and here) of the recently published Louise Fitzhugh biography prompted me to revisit Harriet for the first time in many years; I was not disappointed. ■ Crooked House (Agatha Christie; 1949. Fiction.) ■ Endless Night (Agatha Christie; 1967. Fiction.) So, one of the mini-challenges was to read three books by Agatha Christie. In January, I read The Mousetrap, picked up a few new Christie titles… and promptly forgot about the challenge. Better late than never, right? Crooked House may be my new favorite, especially now that Josephine is uneasily paired with Harriet in my readerly imagination. ■ The Silence of the Girls (Pat Barker; 2018. Fiction.) A feminist Iliad. p. 216 Now, he can see what he’s been trying to do: to bargain with grief. Behind all this frenetic activity there’s been the hope that if he keeps his promises there’ll be no more pain. But he’s beginning to understand that grief doesn’t strike bargains. There’s no way of avoiding the agony – or even of getting through it faster. It’s got him in its claws and it won’t let go till he’s learnt every lesson it has to teach. ■ Bring up the Bodies (Hilary Mantel; 2012. Fiction.) What an achievement these books are. ■ Gifts of the Crow: How Perception, Emotion, and Thought Allow Smart Birds to Behave Like Humans (John M. Marzluff; 2012. Non-fiction.) A late entry to my list of reading goals: a book from the collection of ornithology titles, preferably one about my bird of the year. ■ We Keep the Dead Close: A Murder at Harvard and a Half Century of Silence (Becky Cooper; 2012. Non-fiction.) As she attempts to solve a decades-old mystery, Cooper excavates the pervasive misogyny of university politics while negotiating the creative non-fiction writer’s tendency to become the subject. Coming from such a young writer, this was particularly deft and compelling. p. 332 Breathing life into someone on the page was an act of both resurrection and transubstantiation: I wrote them by learning about them, then by holding them inside me, then by feeling for them. By the end, I’d become their host, so of course I would forget where they ended, and I started. p. 405 It occurs to us that a cousin of randomness is serendipity. p. 426 Some days I don’t even know what to tell you about Jane. I know even less about whether telling a responsible story of the past is possible, having learned all too well how the act of interpretation molds the facts in service of the storyteller. I have been burned enough times to know: There are no true stories; there are only facts, and the stories we tell ourselves about those facts.

It’s fabulous. 📚 Hey, am I imagining this or was one of this year’s challenges to read three books by Agatha Christie?

Hello! Atop the stack on my desk this morning is Harriet the Spy. Favorable reviews of the recently published Louise Fitzhugh biography prompted me to revisit this childhood favorite for the first time in many years; I have not been disappointed. Most of the other books on my desk, marked with dogears and slips of paper, were awaiting inclusion in my commonplace book. Since I last posted, I’ve read nine books, bringing my 2020 total to 221. ■ Gideon Falls, Vol. 5: Wicked Words (Jeff Lemire; 2020. Graphic fiction.) This series is barreling toward the conclusion. ■ Still Alive: A Holocaust Girlhood Remembered (Ruth Klüger; 2001. Non-fiction.) Klüger’s is “an unforgiving memoir of growing up Jewish in Nazi-occupied Vienna and escaping death in a concentration camp.” (NYT, October 16, 2020) p. 69 Remembering is a branch of witchcraft; its tool is incantation. I often say, as if it were a joke — but it’s true — that instead of God I believe in ghosts. p. 150 Of course, that’s always the case: men go to war because they are drafted. They usually go with enthusiasm, which lasts as long as their side is winning, never mind if their cause is good or bad. A minority know their minds, and the rest mistake the collective mind for their own. p. 194 I shed these prejudices quickly and quietly, as one takes off a pair of nylons under the table, secretly, so that no one will notice you’ve been wearing them. p. 199 No one is as dependent as mothers are on the dependency of their children. ■ Wolf Hall (Hilary Mantel; 2009. Fiction.) When The Mirror and the Light was released earlier this year, I quietly added “Read the Mantel trilogy” to my 2020 goals. These books are proving to be the the perfect companions for long-nighted December days. p. 499 The fate of peoples is made like this, two men in small rooms. Forget the coronations, the conclaves of cardinals, the pomp and the processions. This is how the world changes…. ■ Memorial: A Version of Homer’s Iliad (Alice Oswald; 2011. Poetry.) In this startling and powerful reframing of the Iliad, two similes (on facing pages in my edition) begged to be pressed into my commonplace book. The first reminded me of the most exquisite passage in all of literature written in English (see below): Like snow falling like snow When the living winds shake the clouds into pieces Like flutters of silence hurrying down To put a stop to the earth at her leafwork The second was so poignant it hurt: Like when a mother is rushing And a little girl clings to her clothes Wants help wants arms Won’t let her walk Like staring up at that tower of adulthood Wanting to be light again Wanting the whole problem of living to be lifted And carried on a hip ■ The Dead (James Joyce; 1914. Fiction.) In which one finds the most exquisite passage in all of literature written in English: A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead. ■ The Assassination of Brangwain Spurge (M.T. Anderson; 2018. Fiction.) One of the most delightful books I read this year. ■ In Defense of Elitism: Why I’m Better Than You and You Are Better Than Someone Who Didn’t Buy This Book (Joel Stein; 2019. Non-fiction.) Yes, Stein’s humor is an acquired taste. ■ Antigone Rising: The Subversive Power of the Ancient Myth (Helena Morales; 2020. Non-fiction.) ■ The Theater of War: What Ancient Greek Tragedies Can Teach Us Today (Bryan Doerries; 2015. Non-fiction.) A wonderful reader recommended Theater of War Productions to me in late spring. Since then, I’ve watched seven readings — most recently, The Book of Job with Bill Murray. Doerries’ book is as riveting as those performances. p. 13 It is not our job to judge the characters in Greek tragedies — to focus on their “flaws.” Tragedy challenges us to see ourselves in the way its characters stray from the path, and to open our eyes to the bad habits we may have formed or the mistakes we have yet to make. Contrary to what you may have learned in school, tragedies are not designed to fill us with pessimism and dread about the futility of human existence or our relative powerlessness in a world beyond our grasp. They are designed to help us see the impending disaster on the horizon, so that we may correct course and narrowly avoid it. Above all, the flaw in out thinking about tragedy is that we look for meaning where there is none to be found. Tragedies don’t mean anything. They do something.

This.