Book (Sale) News

It's not like I need more books.  In many ways it is a sickness that I have so many, but I will say I've been getting better at picking up cheap books that are not for me but for the Little Free Library out front.  This sort of satisfies the urge to hunt for books and have them in my hand (temporarily) and still not end up with one more book on a stack that I won't get to for years.  Or at least that's what I tell myself.

It turns out that I missed the UVic book sale.  It was Sept. 19-23.  Now the 21st, I was in Stratford all day, and then I was getting ready for a trip out to Vancouver.  But I probably could have stopped by on the 20th had I known about it.  I just didn't really see any signs about it and haven't been going to the UT campus (and definitely not UVic) as much lately.  This site helps keep track of the book sales, and presumably it will flip over to 2025 sale dates at some point.

I guess the St. Michael's book sale was the same time as University College's sale.  I didn't find out about the sale at St. Mike's in time, and this was the first time I dropped in to the one at University College.  Incidentally, I found out about University College due to a small notice pasted onto a Little Free Library in Leslieville!  It just so happens that University College's sale (and St. Mike's) are on at the same time as Word on the Street in Queens Park, which may be intentional or just a quirk of the calendar, as the book sales generally are all scheduled very early in the new school year.  I'll come back to a short report on the University College sale and Word on the Street shortly.  I haven't missed the one at Trinity, which is at the end of Oct., but the only day I can go check it out is the 24th, right before a concert I am attending, so I'll just have to hope this place doesn't have a strict bag policy...  (Or maybe I'll leave work early, go to the sale, drop books off at home and come back downtown.  A bit daft, but I've done odder things before.)

Generally most (non-rare) books at these sales are $3 to $5, which is certainly good, but not as amazing (for stocking up the Little Free Library) as the $2 books at St. Andrews.  I can't find a listing on-line.  They usually have one book sale that runs at the same time as the TIFF festival, but then there are other book sales throughout the year.  Perhaps one in the spring and one in summer.  I usually find a few things of interest there, so I'll try to figure out what sort of schedule they really are on.

I mentioned before that I had stopped off at the Toronto Reference Library for their rare book sale back in Sept. and picked up a few art books but passed on a John Marin book.  They said that the Winter book sale was the one with all the cheap, cheap books, so I'll try to go back to that.  This is supposed to be Nov. 14-6.  Now as it happens, I am debating going to NYC on Nov. 13, and if I do that, I would perhaps take the train to DC for a day, so I might not actually make it back by the 16th, but we shall see.  This is mostly about stocking up with books for outside, so it isn't completely essential that I go.

I also mentioned that I gave up on Powers's The Gold Bug Variations.  It was ultimately not sufficiently interesting for me to overlook how much Powers needed to show off the world how clever he was.  I liked Joy Williams's The Quick and the Dead much more, though it was quite episodic, and I didn't think the ending made a lot of sense.  These shortcomings will probably keep it from being one of the best books of the year, though there have been a lot of generally disappointing books this year (2023 was generally a better year for reading).

That said, I am tackling Powell's The Golden Spur next, and this should be tres amusant.  I reread the last few pages of The Wicked Pavilion to help me get back into the right frame of mind.  And right after that, it will be Kilometer 101 by Maxim Osipov (from NYRB).  These should be pretty interesting, and neither is terribly long.  

I'm off to Stratford next weekend (to see Something Rotten in fact), and I'll be taking DuPont's The American Fiancée with me.  The following weekend I should be travelling to Raleigh, and I'll likely finish that book and take something I can leave behind with me (maybe Manu Joseph's Serious Men).  And then I fly the week to Edmonton immediately after that.  I have a few options, but probably I'll take Oliver Twist, though I'm wondering if perhaps I should consider Murakami's The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles.  As I said a bit before, I definitely want to tackle Atwood's The MaddAdam Trilogy soon, but it doesn't actually work as well as the others as a long travel read.

I see I have run out of time (largely due to the many, many times I had to try to restart the computer to upgrade Kindle, which still isn't working quite properly).  I'll try to fill in a bit more about Word on the Street when I get back.

I'll just end with some thoughts on shorter books.  I am mostly done with Freud's The Question of Lay Analysis and should wrap that up this weekend with a bit of a push.  I had planned on tackling Kennedy's Ironweed as the next very short book, but actually I picked up Melville's Billy Budd combined with The Encantadas for $1 from the University College books sale.  I have read a fair bit of Melville (including both The Confidence Man and Moby Dick twice!), but never Billy Budd.  So I'll read that next and then put it outside.  After this (from the "short list") probably a collection of Orwell's lesser known essays and then perhaps Huxley's The Devils of Loudun.  I should be able to squeeze in Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 in there somewhere.  And then maybe Forster's Howard's End.  The only issue with that it is in an omnibus with A Room with a View, so it doesn't particularly feel like a short read.  Well, first world problems and all that.  Time to run.  Ta!

Sad Art Day

I thought about calling this Bad Art Day, but that would be unfair.  I just wasn't moved by a lot of what I saw on Sat., both during the day and at Nuit Blanche, but I don't think much of it was bad art, though I might make an exception for what is on at the Market Gallery, where almost everything on view is a bit of a rip-off of Norval Morrisseau's style.

Sat. did get off to a bit of a rocky start, when I turned up at the Regent Park pool and because nearly all the life guards had called in sick at the last minute, the hot tub wasn't open (sigh) and we had to wait in line until enough other people had left the pool, so that was quite annoying.  And even though there were slightly fewer people swimming laps than usual, the medium lanes were just as congested as ever.  I managed to get in 19 laps and finally bailed before I got even more frustrated.  It wasn't a complete disaster, but it wasn't ideal.

I ran over to the TMU Image Centre, since I hadn't seen this since the main exhibit switched over to one featuring Lee Miller.  Most of the images are fashion-oriented and not very interesting to me, though there is a room of her WWII images, some of which are grim indeed.  But this exhibit mostly feels like a missed opportunity.  They surely could have found a space for Lee Miller taking a bath in Hitler's tub on the day his death was announced, which is generally read as a way of mocking him.  (More on that story here.)

But her connection to the art world, particularly Picasso, is turned into nothing more than a footnote, and none of the 1000s of images she took of him and his work (or any of the published Vogue spreads) are included.  This seems like a very poor decision on the Image Centre's part.  Anyway, more on Miller and Picasso here.

After this, I tried unsuccessfully to buy a mango lassi, then went over to The Powerplant.  I wasn't particularly interested in the exhibits.  I ran next door and saw some of the exhibits there.  That paid off, as the Power Plant wasn't going to participate in Nuit Blache and the building next door was closing quite early (8:30!).  This is a far cry from the glory days of Nuit Blanche when many museums participated all night long (or at least that's how I remember it).

I went over to the St. Lawrence Market and ran upstairs to the Market Gallery.  As I already indicated, this was very disappointing, and I ran back home, stopping along the way to pick up some groceries.

I had real work to do in the afternoon and early evening, and I didn't actually head out for Nuit Blanche until 9:15 or so!  My path this time was the Lee Daniels Lightbox in Regent Park, then the Bentway (though I actually overshot it and ended up in Liberty Village!).  I think I actually saw a coy-wolf skulking around but didn't manage to get a picture.

It really did look almost exactly like this, however, and I did wonder if it was a wolf, though a coy-wolf (or Eastern Coyote) is certainly more likely.

The Bentway art was ok but nothing particularly spectacular.  There weren't all that many people around either.  I was disappointed that there was nothing in Fort York proper (and I guess there wasn't last year either), though there was an inflated light bulb (sponsored by Toronto Hydro) near Fort York.

It was quite challenging to get back to Stackd Market (because drivers on Bathurst were so terrible!) but that was perhaps the most interesting site of the night.  

There was some DJ playing as I biked past The Well, but it didn't look like there was actually any art on view, so I kept going.  I should have hooked right on Spadina, but the traffic was insane, even worse than Bathurst, so I went on to Blue Jay Way and finally got over to Harbourfront.  I guess I probably should have backtracked to the Music Garden, but I just didn't feel like it.  There wasn't all that much art where I was, but there was a great big space filled with multicultural food vendors.  At least there was quite the buzz of people out at night, having a good time.  (I also guess there was some stuff on at 401 Richmond, and I do regret not going back for that, but again it would probably have involving having to deal with Spadina traffic...)

Then I went over to Union and saw a few things, though again one exhibit had closed early.  There was something going on at King and Bay, but it was indoor art and the line to get in was far too long.  I was astounded that there was nothing going on at Nathan Philips Square, which is usually kind of the heart of Nuit Blanche.  There certainly wasn't much on on Yonge St., particularly compared to last year when Yonge was sort of the spine of the whole thing (pre-pandemic Spadina was more of the heart of things).  There was one last outdoor exhibit at Yonge-Dundas Square.  It wasn't all that interesting.  What was more interesting was I was there at the same time as the cyclists doing their own sort of art parade showed up, then they went to King and Bay and I went home.  

I think I spent roughly 2.5 hours out and about, which is probably a bit less than most years.  

I guess there were a few things of interest that I did miss, including some billboards that were "talking" to each other (not quite sure where that was), but I felt this time around things were too spread out and not very well coordinated.  I was really disappointed in how few art hubs and/or spines there were this time around, aside from the waterfront sites, maybe because the city didn't want to pay even more overtime to deal with traffic control (and deal with even more complaints from suburbanites who already hate driving around the city).  As far as I can tell, no streets were shut down for Nuit Blanche, and they usually are.  It was also a major disappointment that no or nearly no major art institutions or civic centres (with exception of Union Station) were participating.  I definitely found this a real missed opportunity.  So, as I said, a fairly sad day for art in the city...

Back from Vancouver

I spent pretty close to three full days at the Transportation Association of Canada (TAC) conference, though in fact I got there midway through Monday.  I met a lot of people; while many of them I had known or worked with previously, I did make a few useful new contacts.  I had stayed through Thurs., hoping to spend more time with TransLink staff, but really so few people are coming to the office these days that it is just as easy to do this through MS Teams.  I was able to sit in on a meeting of the TransLink modellers on Tues.  So Thurs., I worked out of my firm's Vancouver office, though I did have a meeting with a subconsultant who is based in Vancouver.  All in all, I probably could have arranged to go back Thurs. morning.

Downtown Vancouver hasn't changed too much from how I remember it.  From what I gather, the Downtown East Side is quite a bit worse.  I didn't head over that way.  On Wed. evening, I did skirt Chinatown a bit, as I was meeting up with a friend for dinner at an Indian place on Main.  It's not a part of town I was ever in a lot, though I did visit the Sun Yat-Sen Garden a couple of times while I lived in Vancouver.  We had a long discussion about how things had changed at TransLink, though we actually covered some of this ground on my last trip to Vancouver in April.  We mostly talked about books.  I handed over Cela's The Hive and O'Brien's August is a Wicked Month.  I also passed along The Gold Bug Variations by Richard Powers, which I had abandoned as I was nearing the halfway mark.  I just found this so pretentious, even if it was sort of low-key pretentious.  I think the passage that did me in is when one of the older biochemists is explaining the history of classical music to another one, as if the long passages about unraveling the structure of DNA and the mysteries of Guanine (G) and Thymine (T) weren't enough.  Also, I wasn't convinced that the minor plot variations needed to hit 32 (to ape Goldberg) or that this novel really needed to stretch out to this length; 250-300 pages would have been fine.  While Stoppard's Arcadia came along a couple of years later, it just does this two love stories in two different time periods so much better.  I glanced through some Goodreads comments.  While most people who stuck it out thought this was a masterpiece, there was some dissent, including someone who said that Powers decided to squeeze in some absurd thriller-like plot at the very end.  I was almost intrigued enough to read ahead but decided I would be better off moving on.  So far I'm really enjoying The Quick and the Dead by Joy Williams, and incidentally I am also near the halfway mark. 

I could have wrapped this novel on the red-eye flight back from Vancouver but decided I needed sleep better, so I only read up until the point where they handed out the snacks and drinks, and then I crashed.   (I think the fact that I only managed to get through 100 pages on the Stratford bus and then another 150 pages after 8 or so hours while in transit to Vancouver made it pretty clear that I was just not into The Gold Bug Variations!)  Friday, I pushed through a full day of work, though I was pretty tired (and am still feeling it a bit).  I should wrap up The Quick and the Dead this weekend and likely Waugh's The Loved One as well. 

I don't have a lot planned for this weekend, though I am about to head over to the gym.  I might spend some time working on the deck, and I will also try to swim on Sunday as well as get over to Word on the Street (which should be at Queens Park) and then I have tickets to a Tafelmusik matinee.

Back from Stratford

I had a good time at Stratford.  I have to say I was overdressed in the sense that I was expecting fall weather, and indeed it rained a fair bit in Toronto.  However, it was like a summer day in Stratford with no rain at all!  It did make it a bit uncomfortable, as I was criss-crossing the downtown, but it did mean that the artists were out in the park.

Anyway, I had been warned, but getting there was a bit more difficult than normal because the Gardiner was closed, and we sort of crawled along on Lake Shore Blvd.  I had thought I would use the extra time to read more, but I was exceedingly tired, and also The Gold Bug Variations is an extremely slow burner.  I may still give up on it, as it just isn't grabbing me, though pages 50-100 are better than 1-50.

It's always interesting coming to Stratford.  Since I only do it once or so a year, the changes stand out a bit more.  It's been several years since the Pizza Pizza closed and was replaced with a Cat Cafe.  I still remember on one of my first trips back (2015 probably) that the 2nd (and more interesting to me) bookstore on the main drag was closing down.  I've seen a trendy vinyl place open up, but I don't go in because the prices are absurd.  Anyway, this time around I saw a new "bowl" place, though I didn't have time to try it, and a Mexican place.  I went in there and was able to get a burrito to go, since I was feeling a bit squeezed for time because we had gotten in about 30 minutes late.

I walked through the art in the park, and still had about 15 minutes to check out Gallery Stratford up past the Festival Theatre.  I'm not sure if they always had this admission fee, but it's now $12 for adults, which is well beyond what I think is reasonable for such a small gallery.  I think it probably used to be free, or perhaps a $5 donation.  I can't imagine going back at that price, so I won't have to quickstep in on my next visit.  (Honestly, we should get in free with proof that we are seeing a show at Stratford...)

London Assurance was good, though it does start a bit slow.  There was a point in the second half where I did nod off just a bit, though I don't think I missed more than a minute or two.  I actually bought the play at the gift shop and double-checked later, and if I did miss anything it was the somewhat dopey duel subplot.

I had dinner at the Thai place downtown that I usually eat out, since I can eat outside, which is nice, provided the weather cooperates.  I saw that Matilda Swanson Art Gallery, which was a new addition on my last trip, still is in business, so that was cool.  I ran in and had a quick look 'round.

I walked back to the Festival Theatre, and sat outside on some benches.  I did read a little bit but have to admit, the book just isn't all that interesting.  I set an alarm so I wouldn't miss my next play and perhaps I did nod off just a bit.

I enjoyed Twelfth Night a lot.  This production had not sold well (at least on this evening), and pretty much anyone sitting in the wings was moved in a section to fill in the audience a bit more.  That was pretty great.  This is perhaps the first production where Viola and Sebastian looked enough alike that it was actually believable they could be mistaken for each other (after you got past the height difference!).  I thought the "duel" between Auguecheek and Viola was very funny (they were in a boxing ring with boxing gloves on!).  One somewhat interesting twist is that Viola didn't turn back up in her women's garb either at the very end or at curtain call.  Typically she does, at least the productions that I remember.

It was another long trip back to the city, though I tried to sleep.  In the end, I didn't get back to downtown Toronto until 1:45, and then I still had to bike home, so I was very late and very weary.

Briefly, on Sunday, I did sleep for a while (though not enough).  I went to to the gym and did a very small grocery run after that (as I am off to Vancouver for pretty much the whole week!).  I biked over to Carlton Cinema and watched DiDi, a film about a very socially awkward Asian-American boy about to start high school and see him navigating his peer group and a first crush.  It was set in 2008, so the early childhood of the internet as well.  Some elements were a bit triggering, as I was very socially awkward at that same age, though I didn't have to deal with Yahoo or AOL groups, thank goodness.  I may circle back at a later point to discuss this in more detail.

Friday I had managed to go to the high end TPL book sale and got a few art books (Klimt, Klee & Henry Moore).  I had debating picking up a John Marin by John Marin book, but 1) I didn't have any space left in my panier and 2) there were only a handful of colour plates.  It turns out that Robarts has a copy, so I was able to check that out on Sunday, though I probably should have waited to check it out after I returned from Vancouver.  Oh well...

Then I went to work and did some GIS processing of this PSRC data.  I hope I manage to get to the point I can use it, though I think I may simply run out of time, between having to pack and order a cab (for only a few hours from now at this point...).  So I guess I really ought to break things off at this point.  Ciao!

Last Chance(s) for Walker

It's a busy day, and I have to try to leave soon to get a jump on things, but I thought I would point out that this is the last weekend to see George F. Walker's Fierce, over at Alumnae Theatre.  Apparently there is not a Sunday matinee, so act fast.  Fierce was good if a little contrived and unbelievable (which is kind of Walker's signature style).

However, Girls Unwanted is in a completely different category.  It is about three young women who are living in a sort of halfway house, more or less abandoned by "the system," though there is a live-in case worker who is dangerously close to burn out herself.  There is some humour in the play, but mostly hurt and rage.  Nothing about the plot was far-fetched at all (which indeed is a bit of a departure for Walker...). 

It was very intense, which was ramped up even further because I was in the front row, so close to the action that one time an actor bumped my foot while coming through the stage door!  You might want to be a row or two back.  It plays in Parkdale, right at King and Dufferin, and true to form there were quite a few people hanging on the stoop and the street asking for change.  Anyway, it runs through this weekend and next (tickets here), and I would recommend it, though not if you are looking for a feel-good night at the theatre.  

Change(s) of Plans

After I found out that I wasn't going to Stratford after all, I slept in pretty late.  I eventually made my way over to the gym.  I certainly don't normally go that late (it was basically early afternoon).  I don't go nearly as often as I used to in the evenings, as I find it is pretty crowded.  Sat. or Sun. morning is usually not too bad, but this was actually far emptier, which was quite nice, though I don't plan on making a habit of it.  Afterwards, I actually had to hustle a bit in order to grab a few things on hold at the library before they closed.

It was a nice day, and I had kind of wanted to read outside, but I also wanted to get this deck repair done.  I dragged my feet a bit but finally got started.  In the end, I managed to get one and a half boards removed before it just got too dark.  I think I read a bit after that and got at least a bit of work done.

Sunday I escorted my daughter to her volunteer job downtown.  The TTC was in fine form.  Dundas Station was closed due to police activity with no hint as to when this would wrap up, so we walked down from College.  After I dropped her off, I wanted to backtrack and go to the Regent Park pool.  I just managed to get a streetcar, but it turned out it wasn't going anywhere because there was some addict sprawled out on the floor completely unwilling to move.  I think the passengers would have been more than happy to walk around him, but the driver wasn't going anywhere.  Finally, he put the streetcar out of service.  This was unbelievably frustrating, and probably had the standoff happened later in the evening, someone would have physically dragged him off the streetcar.  I guess the only (small) saving grace is that the driver made us all get off the streetcar and drove off with the addict still on the floor.  I guess he was going to try to meet the police and/or ambulance somewhere (though there certainly should have been some kind of response from the ambulances around the corner at Victoria and Shuter!).  Otherwise, the Dundas line would have been completely shut down for who knows how long.  Under normal circumstances, I would have given up and gone to work instead, but the Dundas station was still shut down.  It was a very long wait (definitely over 10 minutes) for the next streetcar, but I did eventually get to the pool and did 22 or so laps.

Then I did go to work for a bit, trying to focus entirely on GIS processing, as my VPN situation still isn't great when working from home. Then I picked up my daughter.  I thought I would take her out for a late lunch, but she just wanted to go home.  

So then I was actually able to return to the deck repair.  I pried out the last half board, and then nailed in the replacement boards and stained them.

I was wrapping up as dusk fell.  Between swimming the extra laps and all the hammering, I was a bit weary.  I basically crashed and then woke up in the middle of the night and got a bit more work done, though not quite as much as I had hoped.

I ended up working from home on Monday, and I certainly assumed that I would be able to sand the other boards and hit them with a new coat of stain.  I'll try to get around to the other parts of the deck, but the top part needs it the most.  Anyway, almost my entire team is out in Edmonton this week, and the call that was supposed to end around 5:30 or so ran until 7:45!  I should have just dropped off anyway, but they were talking about important things like the project schedule.  I only was able to briefly test that the belt sander was still working before it just got too late.  This means that I will have to try to come home from work early on Tues. to wrap this up, which means I can't run over to see anything at Carlton until Wed.  (While there wasn't much I really wanted see at the TIFF Festival, I probably would have watched Croenenberg's The Shrouds.  No idea when this will actually turn up at a regular screening.  I also somehow missed the Goddard flic at Paradise, and they just don't have that much on through Oct.  Sigh.)

Now I had been scheduled to see Jane's Addiction and Love and Rockets on Wed.  I was certainly a bit worried that the weather wouldn't cooperate, but that was the least of my worries.  As has been widely reported, Perry Farrell tried to hit the lead guitar player and had to be restrained and taken off stage.  While I thought it was unlikely they would continue the tour after this, I was hoping somehow they could get themselves together.  Honestly, I could care less about Jane's Addition.  I wanted to see Love and Rockets again.  We already lost so many concerts during COVID (and several never rescheduled).  Then The Fixx keyboard player broke his hand right before the NYC show.  Then Neil Young cancelled his second Toronto show.  And now this.  I'm definitely more than a little pissed off.  So as I said, I'll probably go to the movies instead on Wed.

I'm scheduled to see a George F. Walker premiere on Thurs., and then Friday, I'll probably hit The Rex to see if I can see Neil Swainson in action again.  So I am not exactly moping around.

Sat. is my all-day excursion to Stratford for this season.  Fingers crossed that the weather cooperates.  Sunday I will take my daughter over to Spadina Museum.  I may be able to sneak away to do work and/or see something at Carlton depending on what they have scheduled.

And then I am off to Vancouver for the TAC Conference.  So not a whole lot of downtime over the next week or so...  There is very little rain in the forecast, so I probably should go ahead and water the plants, even though I don't like to do that.

Edit (9/17): I was able to get home by 7, so I had a narrow window to get the sanding done before it got really dark by 7:45 or so.  I wasn't as worried about putting on the stain after dark, as that wasn't going to disturb anyone's rest...  Hopefully it looks ok.  It should be dry by Wed. evening, not that I am planning on going out there for a while.  I may be able to work on the next section on Sunday, but I saw that it was threatening to rain Sunday into Monday, and that probably won't give me the time I need to let it dry.  I guess I'll just have to wait and see.

Times 100 Best Books (of the 21st Century)

I managed to see this list previously, but a week or so ago it turned up in the Toronto Star paper (on Sundays I get some key extracts from the NY Times, including the book reviews).

I'm not going to go through the whole list here, but it looks like I have read 15 of them.  A handful of these I didn't care for all that much, particularly Ben Lerner's 10:04, Han Kang's The Vegetarian and Edward P. Jones's All Aunt Hagar's Children.  I disliked Saunders's Lincoln in the Bardo so much that I stopped after 30 pages or so.  I did like a few of the ones I read (including Station Eleven and Erasure), but just generally I don't think I am that aligned with their editorial decisions.

That said, there are probably 5 that I expect to read in the next year or so:
Denis Johnson Train Dreams
Paul Beatty The Sellout
Lucia Berlin A Manual for Cleaning Women
Alice Munro Runaway (yes, I am still going to finish reading her work)
Tony Judt Postwar (I don't often read non-fiction, but this one does seem essential)

That would bring me to 20, and perhaps over the years I will get to 25 (another Munro and some late Philip Roth and Mohsin Hamid's Exit West), but I don't think I'm likely to get much further than that.

At this point in the post, I am just going back to talking about reading in general and not the Times's list...

I didn't make it to Stratford this weekend, but I will go next weekend and make a big dent in Powers's The Gold Bug Variations.  The following week I will travel to Vancouver and I am planning on bringing DuPont's The American Fiancée and perhaps Joy Williams's The Quick and the Dead as well.

In my main (non-special travel) reading, I'm making decent progress on Waugh's The Loved One. (I was thinking I might try to see the movie, but it is surprisingly hard to find in a library or to stream, which is weird, as I am completely convinced I had checked it out at one point.  Maybe this was even in Vancouver, as their library seems to have it.  So odd.  In fact, there is only a very loose connection between the movie and the novel, so I can't get too hung up over this.)  

I'll also be getting to Dawn Powell's The Golden Spur soon.  After I read this, Angels on Toast and her story collection Sunday, Monday and Always, I will be able to cross her off my list.  I'm reasonably close with William Maxwell as well, though I have more short stories to get through, and he has dropped a bit on the interim lists.

In terms of books I've thought about reading for a long time, I will be bringing up di Lampedusa's The Leopard (again one where I might watch the movie shortly afterwards) and also Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49, which I read many, many years ago.  It's quite short, which is appealing these days...

I'm starting to think that as I finally return to my main reading list (after many, many detours), I want to add Atwood's Maddaddam Trilogy and then for the following year Lessing's Martha Quest novels.  I feel it's just time to tackle them.  (While her best work was certainly in the 20th Century, I definitely think the Times's list needed to find a way to add something by Margaret Atwood, as I'm pretty sure it didn't.)

This reminds me that I have a hold on Atwood's newest poetry collection, Paper Boat, New and Selected Poems, 1968-2023, which comes out next month.  It's not entirely clear whether this is closer to a Selected or a Collected, as well as how many new poems there are, at least since Dearly came out (in 2020, so not that long ago!).  I have pretty much all her early poems, but I don't have Morning in the Burned House or Dearly, so I might be in the market for this.  Curiously, there are 3 different covers.  The US edition will look just like her stamp.  If I do order it, I'll try to make sure to get the UK edition, which has the coolest cover.  But I definitely need to see what's in there first, so I won't be pre-ordering this.