2014: Reading

 

Darn. I'd intended to keep track of what I read in 2014 but quickly I forgot. 

So... just some random notes

I read a lot of graphics (novels, memoir, nonfiction)––my favorite is Fluffy by Simone Lia about a bunny oblivious to its human daddy's anxiety––and, this fall when I started my new job, books about dementia (once, both---the excellent graphic memoir Tangles by Sarah Leavitt). 

In a search for lighter reading, I tried and failed to like Joanna Trollope and Joanne Harris, but I did enjoy Meg Woliztzer, especially The Wife, a novel that's satisfyingly bitter, like turmeric.

Loved the early Betsy-Tacy books by Maud Hart Lovelace, which triggered sensory memories of preliterate childhood, and MHL's far darker YA book Emily of Deep Valley.

I felt grateful to Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl, also YA, for reflecting how I experienced internet fandom and girlhood, even though I didn't experience it until I was in my 40s.

Christopher Isherwood, The Sixties: Diaries 1960–1969

Some of his observations about life with his much younger (30 years?) lover, Don, remind me of life with Mz (we're not lovers, but she is 30 years younger than me).

Favorite line that made both of us laugh: "Do I hate Don?"

I listened to the audiobook of Wil Wheaton reading Redshirts by John Scalzi--a funny take-off on Star Trek

books by artist Maira Kalman

 

new discovery--poet Lorine Niedecker (thanks, Orange Crate Art!)

Ongoing: I continue to enjoy reading the obituaries in the Economist--never the same old thing

Right now I'm reading a collection of movie reviews by Pauline Kael. I've read many of them before but her sharp opinionated style is fun to read.

[Photos of me by Mz, who is always sneaking up on me.]