Saturday, October 16, 2021

I really suck at this

 I know I promised this already, but this time I mean it! OK, maybe not, but who knows. Without further ado, here's what I've been doing since my last post way back in August: 

For one, we moved. Back in northern Virginia. w00t! I also observed the first annual DC Marathon Swim for a friend of mine, Elaine. She did great, through what was a brutal swim. She was right when she said (at the end) that the race only began at the Woodrow Wilson bridge (after she already swam 11.3 miles and had another 9.2 to go). She's a beast.

Did a bunch of reading, to.

Life After Life, by Kate Atkinson. Outstanding. Part of the Todd Family of (currently two) books. This woman can write. I am almost scared to try any of her other books. Could the Todd stories be one-offs? There's also a war theme to them, which is a favorite of mine. Whenever someone in my many booky FB groups asks for a novel recommendation, I suggest this one or her A God in Ruins.

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, by John Berendt. Love the movie, everyone in it is great, and the story! The book is even better. Must see Savannah!

Bright Lights, Big City, by Jay McInerney. Would never had read this if my wife hadn't picked it for our family book club. I had seen the movie when I was younger, and the only thing I remember is a very high Michael J. Fox saying no to two beautiful women he found in a bathroom stall, making out with each other, when they asked him, "Want to join us?" That's when I knew drugs made you stupid. What man would say no to that question? Anyway, the book is in 2nd person and Wow, it works. In fact, it is probably so far in our multi-year family book club history the best book. 

War Music: An Account of Homer's Iliad, by Christopher Logue. My wife had read this many years ago and raved. I knew I'd read it someday, and last month seemed the right time. She was right, as usual. This is a great translation and the anachronisms are so good, they should be used in a writing class on how to effortlessly slip these things into stories. 

The Illustrated Diary of a Nobody, by George Grossmith. Interesting? SIL choice for the club. Strange I'd never heard of it, considering my fav author Waugh described it as the funniest book he'd read. It was funny, in a very British way, but hardly something I'll ever read again. 

Schlump, by Hans Herbert Grimm. Great book in the Schweik or Forrest Gump kind of way. This one from a German POV. Quick read with a great ending. 

The Fall of Arthur, by J.R.R. Tolkien. The master's take on Arthur, in verse. Love the metre and alliteration. 

The Book of Blam, by Aleksandar Tišma. I came to this one because the NYRB book club sent out #3 in Tišma's series about the Hungarian occupation of Yugoslavia during WWII. Great book. I will read numbers two and three soon. 

Wolves Eat Dogs, by Martin Cruz Smith. Dear reader(s) will remember how much I love Arkady Renko. Probably my favorite book detective. This one is very good, maybe #3 after Polar Star and Havana Bay. Scary. How many rads does a man need? Six feet? 

The Yiddish Policemen's Union, by Michael Chabon. Reread as I read this, what, 10 years ago? Is it that old? Loved it then, still love it. My #2 fav of Chabon after The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay

Browsings: A Year of Reading, Collecting and Living with Books, by Michael Dirda. Another reread, this time on Audible, for free with our membership. Thankfully, the books I got interested in, when I looked at my Kindle copy, were highlighted from when I read this book about 3-4 years ago. What's changed are some of the books he mentioned I'd since (or am currently) read(ing), like The White Nile, which I am about 60% through.

Piccadilly Jim, by P.G. Wodehouse. October read for the FB P.G. Wodehouse Book Club. I'd never read this one before, so that was nice. Also interesting (spoiler follows) that one of the characters in it is the main kid in The Little Nugget, which I read (and forgot about) years ago!

Language-wise, I studied Swahili for a couple months. I've decided not to DLPT in it. Weird policy at work: If I DLPT in a language, but don't score at least a 1+ in all three proficiencies, then I can't get any training in the language (paid by employer). I'd rather not have an attempt listed so that if I ever want to get training in Swahili in the future, they can't say No due to my sad scores. (Though they can say No for so many other reasons!)

I've also gotten back into the Old English book I used a couple years ago for a short (4-week) challenge over the Christmas holidays. TY Complete Old English is pretty great, I like it better than the traditional intros out there (Intro to Old English by Baker and The Cambridge Old English Reader by Marsden). I'm on unit 5 now, which is as far as I got during the challenge, so everything from here on out is new! Already reading some sections of Beowulf which helps with my ultimate goal of reading the poem in the original.

I'll start back at Russian soon, and a new section of Middle Egyptian is starting Nov 1 with Glyphstudy, so I'll probably jump in on that. Maybe this time I'll actually finish! 

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