Francis Spufford is a British writer of non-fiction; this is his first foray into fiction. It is set in 1746 in New York and is written in the style of novels of the time. While I assume concessions were made to make it more readable for the modern reader, still, I needed to look up many words (and was grateful that the kindle makes that so easy). Speaking of words that I needed to look up, this...
This 2010 book was the author's first; it was recently published in the US and reviewed in the New York Times, perhaps because of the acclaim her second novel (The Railwayman's Wife) has received. I want to rely on that review for capturing the wonder of this novel so beautifully while I record some tangential bits that I want to remember. Three stories are set in...
SPOILER ALERT! I begin by saying I can keep no secrets in writing about this book. In the first 40% of the book you know something is up, but you don’t know quite what it is. I knew that much from what ANZ LitLovers wrote about it. But I must say I didn’t guess what it was. It begins with the story of a young man Jacky escaping from what we later learn is a farm owned by...
This book is a compilation of conversations between Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers describing Campbell's teaching on mythology. The conversations occurred near the end of his life and are pretty free wheeling at times. I listened as I worked and marked a few passages on my phone that struck me as of particular interest. Below are my efforts to reproduce them. Campbell says that every...
This book was an interesting mix of laugh-out-loud funny moments, embarrassingly silly not funny jokes, and an interesting take on digital lives of people of a certain age. He did a significant amount of research on the subject and along with Eric Klinenberg, sociologist from NYU, did some focus group type of research himself. They contrasted the ways people met each other in the 40s to current...
I have made the unusual decision to stop reading this estimable book; though it has much to offer, I find it too oppressive for me at the moment. It was Reading Matters’ review that was the impetus for reading it. She called it “an extraordinary portrait of an ordinary man,” a good description. I’m finding that life too grim. The story of Farley begins in 2010 with his...
JaquiWine's review of this book prompted me to put it on my list and what a pleasure it has been to read. It is a celebration of the end of World War II and coming to terms with a changed world for the upper class in England. Through the course of a hot summer day Laura surveys the diminished life she and her husband Stephen have now that those who cleaned their house, fed them, took care of...
This book was recommended to me decades ago by a work colleague but I didn't stick with it. This year Jennifer recommended it and I learned there was a 2017 audio version of a translation done in 2005 of the trilogy. I am amazed to find that it held my interest for its 44 hours. This saga of a Norwegian family set in the fourteenth century was written in the 1920s and won the author...
The subtitle of this book is An Unlikely Friendship and a Journey to the Heart of the Quran. The friendship is between the author, an American journalist who has worked all around the world and a former colleague of hers, Sheikh Mohammad Akram Nadwi, a Muslim scholar from India who eventually studied at Oxford. The author spent a year studying with the Sheikh, including attending day-long...
I have loved this beautiful town of Charlottesville since 1982 despite its flaws. It's hard to know how it happened that so many hate-filled people came to our town for a well-funded, carefully planned event. I assume they were drawn here by the lure of a fight; did they come here hoping to kill, "own" the town, an angry urge to destroy something, anything? How is it that racism is...