Books read recently by J. Zimmerman.
[Inspired in part by
Catarina.net's book blog.]
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though it be broken broken again still it is there moon on the water by the 19th century poet Chooshuu (Choo = listen and Shuu = autumn season). |
{ March (marzo (see also books on Spanish)) 2006 }
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One of the best books read in 2006.
The essays include a set of 'Enthusiasms' (or 'appreciations') for the work of lesser-known deceased English-language poets, including:
David Ferry's translation of The Georgics of Virgil is of the most interest in Peter Campion's review, where it's called "the best poetry of Ancient Rome, rendered by the best translator of modern America".
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Finished
The Body in Question: Exploring the Cutting Edge of Forensic Science (2005) by Brian Innes [for a class on criminal behavior].
Macabre but fascinating,
especially a month-long sequence of photos showing a decomposing human body
(left to science for such experiments) in a humid, hot climate.
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As best I can tell, a sociopathic greedy fund-manager, Eric Packer, is a financially over-extended NYC SOB. He is murdered and his whole day (well, most of it) flashes before his eyes.
Or maybe the whole story is the fantasy of Benno Levin, a past junior employee close to the seabed on Packer's food chain. Levin, now an isolated social outcast, fantasizes about the kind of man he would like to murder. You, as they say, decide. If you care. Either way, it's a surreal farce.
Packer willfully ruins himself, his wife, his clients, et al. He accidentally meets his wife of 22 days around each meal time on one day. Or a woman who he thinks might be his wife, as he is vague on what she looks like. In one of his many unmotivated acts, he murders his chief body guard. There is an inside joke about the rat becoming the unit of currency. To me, Packer is, in fact, a rat who would like to become the unit of currency. His barber says: "I never seen such ratty hair on a human"; but I've never seen such human hair on a rat.
The best book I've read by DeLillo is the brilliant The Body Artist. Underworld is the worst. Cosmopolis is not as bad as Underworld.
(3.15.2006)
Received this in an e-mail recently:
Donate your Used Books: New Orleans Public Library is asking for hard-cover and paperback books for people of all ages in an effort to restock its shelves after Hurricane Katrina. The staff will assess which titles will be kept for its collections; books that are not kept for the library will be distributed to needy families or sold for library fundraising. Send your books by US mail to: Rica A. Triggs, Public Relations, New Orleans Public Library, 219 Loyola Avenue, New Orleans, LA 70112. |
So I picked out:
(3.14.2006)
(3.12.2006)
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Feet of Clay (1996)
by Terry Pratchett.
A hilarious murder mystery in a parallel universe. Explores issues of freedom and trust. Centers on
Sam Vimes, officer of
the Watch,
assisted by
One of the
best books read in 2006.
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(3.8.2006)
(3.1.2006)
{ February (febrero (see also books on Spanish)) 2006 }
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(2.27.2006)
Some of the autopsy work is interesting technically.
The incident with the dead cat seemed reminiscent of something in a Sue Grafton 'Kinsey Milhone' alphabet novel. Not sure which one. My favorite in that series so far is R is for Ricochet.
Centers on Unseen University Rincewind and Mustrum Ridcully and his mob, in a midwinter expedition in search of sun, sea, and youth. Good cameos from a midget god of evolution and from the evilly named Mrs. Whitlow.
William Logan's lively essay "The Bowl of Diogenes" is also a pleasure. It opens with a brief complaining salvo:
| The more I'm asked to write about criticism, the less I want to write about anything at all. ... Then something gets under my skin ... a letter ... 'The real trouble with poetry,' the letter said, 'is that it is piled high ... in the attic of its own obscurity.' Imagine someone thinking contemporary poetry too obscure, when it isn't half obscure enough! Just as I was feeling rather blue, there was a man handing me an ax to grind. |
And Logan enthusiastically grinds on.
(2.21.2006)
Not a fan. Four sections:
language he knows too well
to say anything simply.
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We take
their young hands in ours
and tell them we will stays old, swear
to grow even older, be rust
for their iron.
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The heroine, SpecOps (Special Operations) operative Thursday Next, with the aid of Hamlet Prince of Denmark, saves the known universe (i.e. 1980s Britain). In addition, Hamlet also conquers his indecisiveness and (gulp) gets a job. The Hamlet quiz (including ads from King Lear Probate Specialists, Othello Anger Management, and Montague-Capulet Marriage Guidance Counsellors) is at http://www.jasperfforde.com/hamlet.html.
Fforde's books are fun to read and even more fun to have read to you on CD. His home site is www.jasperfforde.com.
See also Fforde's The Eyre Affair.
Fforde is Welsh, which may account for Wales being an independent country in his books.
I am pleased (but not surprised) to see that people who buy see Something Rotten also buy the hilarious The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse
I highly recommend this book.
Marian Olson wrote the Foreword, and I agree with what she wrote. For example she quotes Higginson: "William J. Higginson, translator and scholar of Japanese poetic forms, has remarked that Chula's work blends 'acute perception with the grace and aesthetics of the [Japanese] tradition." Olson continues about "this collection of exceptional poems. The brushstrokes of her poetic lines unfold with the precision of a sumi-e master to reveal tiny parcels of subtle beauty -- the mark of her haiku."
For an admired example of Chula's work, see Modern Haiku (Vol. 36.2).
Not a fan. It's arranged in 6 sections of 6-16 poems each, occupying 85 pages of poems. Having just composed a chapbook, I have both more respect and more impatience with poetry books. This book is equivalent in size to roughly 3 chapbooks.
This book is Gallagher's expression of mourning for the loss of Raymond Carver, whom she married shortly before his death. I like "I stop writing the poem" (a 12-line poem) and "I put on my new spring robe" (an 11-line poem). Most of the other poems are much longer and much less accessible, rather like journal entries written to oneself and then expanded with Latinate words to make them seem more important and obscure. Gallagher's earlier work was more interesting to me.
But what do I know? The poems in Moon Crossing Bridge have been "first published" (though there are duplicate publications, so hopefully each place of 'first' publication knows who it is) in periodicals that most of the rest of us can only drool over:
(2.10.2006)
Hilarious and witty. Similar to Terry Pratchett's work in its relentless wit, fantasy, social satire, and use of a parallel universe with both similarities to and differences from our own. Both writers show a sense of ethics presented in a very humorous way.
Fforde's heroine, Thursday Next, lives in a world where the Crimean War never ended and technology ranges from far behind to far before our own. Most importantly, everyone reads good literature, has opinions on who really wrote plays attributed to Shakespeare, and whether the ending of Jane Eyre should be improved.
Thursday's "disgraced" father's name has been edited out of the world, though he continues to travel through and police time. Thursday's profession is to guard text against supernatural (a silver bullet is introduced early in the story) bad 'uns that capture original manuscripts and thereby enter the manuscript and abduct characters. This leads to the rewriting of plots, especially in a first-person narrative, much to the fury of the obsessive readers.
See also Fforde's Something Rotten.
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Even better than reading the book, listen to the version
read by Richard Poe (published 2002) of:
East of Eden by John Steinbeck. This won the Audie Award for 2004 ('Classic' section). In the nine months of 1951, when John Steinbeck was writing East of Eden, he warmed up for the day by writing in his Journal of a Novel, to help him warm up before he began the writing for the day. It is fascinating to see how Journal of a Novel records his clarity of story and intention. And very creepy to see how wicked characters of the story develop. One of the best books read in 2006. |
{ January (enero (see also books on Spanish)) 2006 }
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Strongly recommend:
Truth and Fiction in the Da Vinci Code: A historian reveals what we really know about Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and Constantine (2004) by Bart D. Ehrman. See our review. One of the best books read in 2006. |
(1.29.2006)
One of Pratchett's earliest Diskworld books, and it centers on Esmerelda 'Granny' Weatherwax and Unseen University's Archchancellor Cutangle over whether a female (specifically the girl called Esk) can become a wizard.
(1.23.2006)
For an admired example of Chula's work, see Modern Haiku (Vol. 36.2).
This book has the phenomenally good "The Searchers", about how the search dogs in wreckage and rubble [one assumes from the 9/11 Twin Towers collapse] became demoralized when they could find no one, and how a stranger was pressed into hiding so that he could be discovered by the dogs, who tugged him:
proudly, with suppressed yaps back to Command and the rows of empty triage tables. But who will hide from us? Who will keep digging for us here in the cloud of ashes? |
I was in rather heavy weather with most of the other poems, but did find two pleasing images. First, from "A Walk in Giovanna's Park"
Under the immense elms children are playing with darkness as if it were clay, and they've made two small gods who cannot leave each other. |
Second, from "Nine Crows"
To pass the time we play tricks. We pretend to fall from the sky -- oh no, I've forgotten how to fly -- |
(1.20.2006)
Not only does Lacey tell interesting stories but he is a skilled historian, able to cull from multiple historical records. In this way, Lacey explores the 'personality' tales of history and some 'myths that tell the truths about the age.'
Using these, he reports how Robin Hood began as a lone robber, that his companions were added later, and that it was many decades before Hood was converted in the folk tales from a hoodlum into a help-the-poor hero.
Furthermore, he shows that while Alfred the Great, King Canute, and Lady Godgyfu (Godiva) were great contributors to the development of England, their burning of bread, attempts to turn the tide, and naked horse-riding only appear in records written decades and sometimes centuries after the purported event.
Keep in mind, then, a tendency for legends to migrate when they are written decades after the event, especially when you consider: Lost Christianities and Christian Scriptures; Books and Teachings by Bart D. Ehrman.
(1.18.2006)
A blast, as much due to the delightful illustrations. Leonard of Quirm invents and pilots Discworld's first space ship. Captain Carrot goes with him to arrest to last hero, Cohen the Barbarian, before he blows up the Gods at the Hub.
See other reviewed books by Terry Pratchett, which include:
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Finished
The Power of Negative Thinking:
Using Defensive Pessimism to Harness Anxiety and Perform at your Peak (2001)
by Julie Norem.
One of the best books read in 2006. Compare with Seligman's Learned Optimism (Seligman). |
It includes poems by Sharon Olds ("Son"), Wendy Cope ("The Concerned Adolescent"), and Mary Oliver ("Aunt Leaf"); Oliver used to say that she would not appear in a collection of women-only poets. The book title is from a poem of that name by Liz Lochhead. Among my favorite poems are Rosemary Norman's "Lullaby", Grete Tartler's "Didactica Nova", Gwen Harwood's "A Simple Story", Cicely Herbert's "The Juggler's Wife", and Dorothy Barnham's poem about maggots.
D.H. Tracy's "Eight Takes" finds nothing splendid except Kenneth Fields' "Classic Rough News". He does have some mixed-message comments on "Feminine Gospels" by Carol Anne Duffy: "may be an opportunity to extend her empire" yet "the poems feel simultaneously more playful and more necessary. Utterly uninterested in wisdom, rhetoric, or meditation, she imagines the poems with systematic vigor. ... A poem ... just when it seems to run into a brick wall of predictability, Duffy skid-turns into a fantastical variation that may be allegorical but is principally just clever."
One of Pratchett's weaker books. Commander Sam Vimes jumps back in time, with one of the nastiest sociopaths. Vimes is inventive and wise, but the surrounding characters are just a bit too sincere. Several missed chances of character development. However, the delight of the book is to see the young Vetinari as a peerless assassin.
See other reviewed books by Terry Pratchett, which include:
(1.11.2006)
(1.09.2006)
(1.07.2006)
Kenneth Rexroth praises Shiffert's poems for their Japanese aesthetics of honkadori, kokoro, kotoba, makoto, miyabi, mono no aware, sabi, yugen,
The book is organized by the twelve months. Interestingly she writes many of her haiku in complete sentences, and capitalizes the start of each one. An example is:
Because I cannot use stepping stones or bridge, I take the long path. |
(1.03.2006)
A collection of essays on practical approaches to helping our youngsters to cope with loss and grief. Includes 'Eight Myths About Children, Adolescents, and Loss'.
His original short story, Ender's Game first appeared in the August 1977 issue of Analog: "There is no teacher but the enemy... No one but the enemy will ever tell you what the enemy is going to do." The 1977 World Science Fiction Convention nominated Ender's Game for a Hugo Award and gave to Card the John W. Campbell Award for best new writer.
However, I prefer his later version of this story, which pivots not around Ender but around the child that could have replaced him, Bean, who is Ender's Shadow.
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Related pages:
Books on Buddhism.
Books on Learning Spanish.
Poetry - Learn How to Write Your Own.
Forests of California and Trees of the World.
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Copyright © 2006 by J. Zimmerman. |
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