My new job is keeping me so busy that all I
can do here on the blog is to continue getting caught up on documenting the
books I have read during the past year.
Here are the first lines of books I finished in November and December.
Book 1
I remember the plane hurtling above the
village. It left a trail of thick gray
smoke, and its engine roared and coughed.
Grandmother and I were working in the garden, digging potatoes. We could see the plane was an enemy fighter,
part of the squadron we’d heard earlier as it growled north, heading up the
coast.
Book 2
My grandmother called my grandfather Satrapi,
never by his first name. She said one
must respect one’s husband.
Book 3
Chapter 1: Beer and Knees
On
any Friday evening, the Cumberland Bar, just round the corner from Drummond Place
and Scotland Street, might be expected to be busy, the meeting place of
assorted mercantile tribes, of office workers from further down the hill, of
young accountants, of estate agents and lawyers, and, conspicuous by their less
formal attire, of some of the more bohemian, the more artistic inhabitants of
this eastern corner of Edinburgh’s Georgian New Town.
Book 4
Wife kills husband with frozen leg of lamb, then disposes of the
“weapon” by feeding it to the cops. Serviceable enough Dahl offering, though
Lambiase questioned whether a professional housewife could successfully cook a
leg of lamb in the manner described—i.e., without thawing, seasoning, or
marinade. Wouldn’t this result in tough, unevenly cooked meat?
Book 5
Deep breath.
Feel the air fill my lungs. This
is the right thing to do. The country
needs to see that our democracy still works, no matter how painful this
is. Breathe out. Scream later.
Book 6
THE FIRST CANDLE: Chopped Liver
Sunday, December 12, 1971
I could have stopped at three and called it a
miracle. After all, three in a row is good. Not just good—great. You know the
odds of that happening by itself? Miniscule.
Book 7
History does not repeat, but it
does instruct. As the Founding Fathers debated our Constitution, they took
instruction from the history they knew. Concerned that the democratic republic
they envisioned would collapse, they contemplated the descent of ancient
democracies and republics into oligarchy and empire. As they knew, Aristotle
warned that inequality brought instability, while Plato believed that
demagogues exploited free speech to install themselves as tyrants. In founding
a democratic republic upon law and establishing a system of checks and
balances, the Founding Fathers sought to avoid the evil that they, like the
ancient philosophers, called tyranny.
Book 8
Everyone had always said that John would be a
preacher when he grew up, just like
his father. It had been said so often that
John, without ever thinking about it, had come to believe it himself.
Titles and Authors revealed:
Book 1
A Green and Ancient Light by Frederic S. Durbin, © 2016.
I met this author at a talk at Northland
Library. The book is sort of YA fantasy,
but not too over-the-top in its fantasy and not too infantile. The author does use a quirk of not naming any
of the characters save one, the one from the fantasy world.
Book 2
Embroideries by Marjane
Satrapi (a graphic novel), © 2005.
Weird.
Book 3
The Bertie Project, by
Alexander McCall Smith, © 2016.
Book 4
The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, by
Gabrielle Zevin, © 2013.
Second reading of this book. We read this for book club – it made a good
read following the heavy, violent book we had read the previous month.
Book 5
What Happened, by Hillary
Clinton, © 2017.
It’s rare that I read a book during the year
it was published. Here’s the exception.
The book opens with this epigraph:
If you are
tired, keep going.
If you are
scared, keep going.
If you are
hungry, keep going.
If you want
to taste freedom, keep going.
- Harriet Tubman
Good words from Harriet Tubman. Just keep swimming.
Book 6
Dreidels on the Brain, by Joel
Ben Izzy, © 2016 (YA).
This book seems to be
semi-autobiographical. It covers eight
days in the life of 12-year-old Joel, during Hanukkah 1971. I found it enjoyable. Sometimes it seemed like it was trying to be
a primer to explain American Judaism to people unfamiliar with it, but that may
be appropriate for the age of readers it is aimed at.
Book 7
On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, by Timothy Snyder, © 2017.
(second time reading). You can
read this. It’s short. Just do it.
Book 8
Go Tell It On the Mountain, by
James Baldwin © 1953.
Excellent prose. Deep layers of meaning,
which I was not in the right frame of mind to explore. This book is steeped in Christian religious
imagery. It would be a good book to read
for a class.
In December I started several books which I
did not finish. One was Do I Make Myself Clear? by Harold Evans. It’s a book about writing. I wanted to finish, but got pulled away to
read other things. There’s only so many
times you can renew a library book before the library police come to get you.
Soon I’ll post a list of my favorites from
2017.
1 comment:
I actually own a copy of On Tyrrany thanks to a friend who had a spare copy and kindly sent one to me. I need to pull it out again and read it.
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