Reading

The Spectator Bird by Wallace Stegner

/ ★★★★★, Literary Fiction, Reading

★★★★★ | Literary Fiction | Print + Digital | Own | StoryGraph | Goodreads 

Stegner must be my spirit author. The Big Rock Candy Mountain affected me on a deeply emotional level because of the many similiaries from my own life that that novel explores.  This one touched me as well, but for diffrent reasons. The narrator is 69, retired to his dream home in California, and deeply unhappy. He looks back on his life as pointless, a spectator.

The truest vision of life I know is that bird in the Venerable Bede that flutters from the dark into a lighted hall, and after a while flutters out again into the dark.

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The Elephant Whisperer by Lawrence Anthony

/ Nature, Reading

★★★★☆ | Travel and Nature | Print | Own | StoryGraph | Goodreads

I enjoyed these episodic adventures in the wilds of South Africa amongst elephants and the incredible struggle to preserve and cohabitate with these massive and intelligent animals. An Immense World by Ed Yong introduced me to the ways in which elephants see the world from a scientific basis. Here, the author tells the story from practical experience. 

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Rose Madder by Stephen King

/ Horror, Reading

★★★☆☆ | Horror | Digital | Own | StoryGraph | Goodreads

My journey to read all of Stephen King continues.  Normally, I enjoy the supernatural aspects of King’s novels.  In this case, I think the story would have been better without any of the other-world part. Rosie is an abused woman who digs deep and finds strength to leave and ultimately confront her abusive husband with the help of her new friends.  Having to rely on the supernatural powers to ultimately defeat her beast of a husband felt like a let down.

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Spook Street by Mick Herron

/ Reading, Spy-Detective

★★★★☆ | Spy-Detective | Digital | Borrow | StoryGraph | Goodreads

The fourth Slow Horses book was fun. These books follow a formula, yet are so well written. These aren’t the kind of books you analyze for themes or highlight many passages.  They’re just good, well-written entertainment. It will be interesting to watch Season Four on TV now that I’ve read the book. Maybe there will be more departures from the book?

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The Age of Louis XIV by Will Durant

/ ★★★★★, History, Reading

★★★★★ | History | Print | Own | StoryGraph | Goodreads 

My straight-through reading of this mammoth 11-volume history continues. Volume VIII shares a detailed view of Europe in the 17th Century. So much war and bloodshed and atrocity, and yet brilliance too.

Let us agree that in every generation of man’s history, and almost everywhere, we find superstition, hypocrisy, corruption, cruelty, crime, and war: in the balance against them we place the long roster of poets, composers, artists, scientists, philosophers, and saints. That same species upon which poor Swift revenged the frustrations of his flesh wrote the plays of Shakespeare, the music of Bach and Handel, the odes of Keats, the Republic of Plato, the Principia of Newton, and the Ethics of Spinoza; it built the Parthenon and painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel; it conceived and cherished, even if it crucified, Christ. Man did all this; let him never despair.

Will Durant

Show Your Work by Austin Kleon

/ Reading, Writing Guides

★★★☆☆ | Writing | Digital | Borrow | StoryGraph | Goodreads

An amusing mishmash of quotes and editorializing on the benefits of showing up and sharing your work, including the messy sausage making process.  I read this on a Kindle, so may have missed out on the visual aspects of Kleon’s work.  But to me, it felt more like a commonplace book of inspirational (and sometimes disconnected) quotes.

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Somehow by Anne Lamott

/ Essays, Memoir, Reading

★★★☆☆ | Essays, Memoir | Digital | Borrow | StoryGraph | Goodreads 

I loved Lamott’s Bird by Bird memoir on the writing craft. The writing here was good, but forced. Too many similes, too many quotes from others. Great life advice: be kind to yourself & others, all we need is love, etc., but it felt repetitive to me. Her advice on sobriety and community is heartfelt and immensely quotable.

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Table for Two by Amor Towles

/ Literary Fiction, Reading

★★★★☆ | Literary Fiction | Print | Own | StoryGraph | Goodreads

I’ll read anything that Amor Towles writes. He’s one of my favorite living writers. This collection of six short stories and a novella hit the mark, though each left me wanting more, to know happens next. A master storyteller.

The Public Library by Robert Dawson

/ Books and Libraries, Reading

★★★☆☆ | Reading and Books | Print | Own | StoryGraph | Goodreads

The author, Robert Dawson, spent decades driving around the country taking photographs of public libraries in the U.S. This book is the result. He keeps a blog at https://libraryroadtrip.com which he continues to update.

The book is mainly photographs, but there are some good essays sprinkled throughout. I bought the book because of an E.B. White essay, which turned out to be a paragraph-long letter to children who had written him from a library. Ha.  I liked the Anne Lamott one the best — saving the Salinas public libraries that were about to close with a “read-in.”

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