Right now I am reading "The Prince of the Marshes and other occupational hazards of a year in Iraq" by Rory Stewart. I think Rory Stewart is my celebrity/literary crush. The last crushes of this variety were David James Duncan and Tom Robbins. He is young, energetic, pragmatic, funny, and dead-focused on improving conditions for the local Marsh community without getting sidelined by red tape, protocol or machismo.
I have a geeky tendency to naturally tie together every book I have read in a weird "six degrees" sort of way. For example, prior to "The Prince of the Marshes" I was on a weird Civil War/Reconstruction/western expansion kick. Donald McCaig's writing of the American West and moments leading up to the Battle of Little Big Horn, descriptions of how the US government managed the stolen American West painfully foreshadows the Mideast wheeling and dealing. Tim Egan's "The Good Rain" about history and resources in the PNW similarly documents the ongoing plunder.
I can do some more dot-connecting between the last six months of books, but I would benefit from a pencil and paper to draw a visualthesaurus.com thought-mapping graphic.
Here is the book list (Feb-July 2008):
The Gun Thief
The Alchemist
Spook Country
The Pale of Settlement
The Ghost Map
The Emperor's Children
Her Last Death
The Road
The Inheritance of Loss
The Road to Wellville
The Yiddush Policeman's Union
The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Rhett Butler's People
Jacob's ladder
Caravans
Gentleman of the Road (a.k.a. Jews with Swords)
The Good Rain
Canaan
Unaccustomed Earth
Monday, July 21, 2008
Sunday, February 24, 2008
choose your own books
Books read since October 29, 2007:
The Glass Castle*
The Almost Moon
The World Without Us
The Air We Breathe
After Hours
Run
The Zookeeper's Wife
Animal Vegetable Miracle
The Joys of Motherhood*
The Quiet Girl
The Gum Thief
The Alchemist*
*Books read for my book group.
Not the best series I have read. Highlights include The Zookeeper's Wife and Animal Vegetable Miracle. Notably three books on the list (Zookeeper, World Without Us, Air We Breathe) reference an old-growth, primeval forest located on the Polish-Belorus border: Bialoieza.
Monday, October 29, 2007
the plow that broke the plain (plane)
books in last four weeks:
1. the book thief by markus zusak
2. the worst hard time by tim egan
3. divisadero by michael ondaatje
1. incredible incredible incredible. actually left me sobbing for 2+ hours as i read the last chapters and in the time that immediately followed. i don't know what else to say about it. another wwII tale. about a young girl living through the third reich. this is nothing like anne frank.
2. nonfiction about the dust bowl. extremely well-composed. bigger man-made disaster than hurricane katrina or the san diego fires.
3. lovely literature by one of my favorite writers. finished it on the black ball ferry from victoria, bc to port angeles, wa.
no end of books in sight.
1. the book thief by markus zusak
2. the worst hard time by tim egan
3. divisadero by michael ondaatje
1. incredible incredible incredible. actually left me sobbing for 2+ hours as i read the last chapters and in the time that immediately followed. i don't know what else to say about it. another wwII tale. about a young girl living through the third reich. this is nothing like anne frank.
2. nonfiction about the dust bowl. extremely well-composed. bigger man-made disaster than hurricane katrina or the san diego fires.
3. lovely literature by one of my favorite writers. finished it on the black ball ferry from victoria, bc to port angeles, wa.
no end of books in sight.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
cyberpunk goes gardening
in my office, i wish that i could type ctrl+F and use the search function to find some missing papers.
on walks, i wish that i could point to plants and have a backlit text box hovering over with the common and scientific names of the plants. google earth-style.
its mousing through the world, always searching for the blinking cursor.
didnt molly in "neuromancer" have digitally-constructed roboeyes that gave time, temperature readings, etc. in the corner of her vision? i would like something like that, but with a built in encyclopedia.
on walks, i wish that i could point to plants and have a backlit text box hovering over with the common and scientific names of the plants. google earth-style.
its mousing through the world, always searching for the blinking cursor.
didnt molly in "neuromancer" have digitally-constructed roboeyes that gave time, temperature readings, etc. in the corner of her vision? i would like something like that, but with a built in encyclopedia.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
dolce
finished "suite francaise" last night after intermittent reading for two months. the stories were written in the early 1940s, in german-occupied france by irene nemirovsky. she was arrested by police in july 1942 because of her russian jewish background and disappeared. her husband was arrested in november 1942. they both died in auschwitz. their daughters survived along with her manuscripts. the stories are about the fate of the french during occupation. the first story is about parisians fleeing the city with the germans on their heels. the second is about the life of an occupied village. the stories do not flatter the french. one excerpt notes that the french do not want the germans or the english to win the war - they would prefer if both sides were defeated.
this continues my wwII-tinged reading:
the foreign correspondent by alan furst
the samurai's garden by gail tsukiyama
the history of love by nicole krauss
molokai by ??
the ministry of special cases by nathan englander
man walks into a room by nicole krauss
this continues my wwII-tinged reading:
the foreign correspondent by alan furst
the samurai's garden by gail tsukiyama
the history of love by nicole krauss
molokai by ??
the ministry of special cases by nathan englander
man walks into a room by nicole krauss
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