what I’ve been reading lately:
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The Thirteenth Tale by Diane SetterfieldAtria Books, 2006
This is a story of neo-Gothic intrigue, the story of a decaying pile of a mansion and the falling-apart family that lives in it, a story of reading and writing. In the first few pages I decided it had a few things going for it: the reference to The Water Babies (yay classic kids’ books)
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Wanderlust: A History of Walking (new edition) by Rebecca SolnitVerso, 2006 (originally Viking, 2000)
This book is really smart and satisfying; it’s an excellent blend of the personal and the historical and the philosophical. Early in the book, Solnit talks about walking’s place—or lack thereof—in our daily lives: walking as part of “the time inbetween,” “the time of walking to or from a place” as “uncluttered time,” appreciated by
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The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. RowlingChildren’s High Level Group, 2008
These short stories are wizarding-world fables, “translated from the ancient runes by Hermione Granger” (though sadly, without any kind of textual commentary in Hermione’s voice), with “commentary by Albus Dumbledore.” The commentary, with its amusing footnotes and asides, is the best part of the book, though the stories themselves aren’t bad either. I liked “The
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By Hook or By Crook: A Journey in Search of English by David CrystalOverlook Press, 2008 (originally HarperCollins, 2007)
This book had me grinning from the preface, which quotes HV Morton (“I have gone round England like a magpie picking up any bright thing that pleased me.”) and calls this book a “linguistic travelogue” (pp xii, xiii). The first chapter continued along excitingly: I’d heard of the Welsh town with the longest place-name in
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Rock Crystal by Adalbert Stiftertrans. Elizabeth Mayer and Marianne MooreNew York Review Books, 2008 (originally Pantheon, 1945)
I thought I was in the mood for a wintry book, for prose with edges like mountains and ice, but maybe I wasn’t, or maybe I was but this wasn’t it. Having read W.H. Auden’s introduction, I knew the ending already, so I missed out on the “almost unendurable suspense” the back cover copy promises.
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Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog by Dylan ThomasNew Directions, 1968 (originally New Directions, 1940)
Mmm Dylan Thomas. I’ve read Under Milk Wood a few times and like it a whole lot, so I’m not sure why it took me so long to read this. It is one of those perfect books of short stories where each story is exquisite, where each makes you want to pause after reading it.
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The Pear as One Example by Eric PankeyAusable Press, 2008
Smart, allusive: the first poem is called “To Olga Knipper,” and includes a reference to May 25, 1901—the day of her wedding to Chekhov. The poem is like a letter from Chekhov’s point of view: it’s quiet and beautiful (images of flowers, birds, rain) and makes me want to read Chekhov’s actual letters to Knipper.
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Prairie Style by C.S. GiscombeDalkey Archive Press, 2008
These prose-poems are about the idea of “inland,” the idea of the prairie: location, self and voice (and race) and what that means in a given place, metaphor, juxtaposition, repetition. (“What’s your body in the set of places?” one poem asks (p 23).) These poems are full of “foxes,” the fact of the animals but
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The Shadow of Sirius by W.S. MerwinCopper Canyon Press, 2008
This is a book of quiet poems, quiet beauty: there’s something of magic and majesty in Merwin’s descriptions of stars, birds, planets, rivers, in phrases like “the green heart of the woods” (p 13). These are poems concerned with memory, with family, with nature, with sight—perhaps mostly with memory: “here surfacing through the long/backlight of