I've been greedy this week, with the influx of book donations to the thrift store, and brought home lots and lots. (Usually I bring home a coupla books, here and there.)
Some I already photo'd and shared yesterday.
This morning I spread out the rest on the floor to gaze upon, along with a couple I already had/am currently reading.
I'll probably take many of these back to the store after I read them (or fail to); some I'll keep.
Books, with a few notes
BELOW: I've liked some of Neil Gaiman very much (Anansi Boys)--have never read The Sandman comics--curious to try one.
The Appalachian Trail . . . It didn't just happen--people planned it. I'd like to read a book about how the Camino de Santiago was revived too (in the 1980s)--there are lots of journal articles, but I don't see a book on that topic.
I never finished the sonnet I was working on during the most recent staff meeting--maybe Will will inspire me to get on it.
N. Irish-Canadian Brian Moore is one of those authors I think I don't know, then it turns out they've written famous books, some made into famous movies (Moore's Lonely Passion of Judith Hearn, Black Robe), but each one distinct, like, say, Walter Tevis (Color of Money, Queen's Gambit), not like, "Oh, another Stephen King".
A review of this novel, Catholics, said the main character Father Kinsella is "a sceptic who respects the beliefs of others but also ... a
traditionalist in his attitude to the aesthetic and mystery of belief
...[which] will all be lost under the new dispensation [of Vatican II]".
I wonder if the novel transcends that very specific concern, but it interests me even if not.
BELOW: Re: The ReReading Project
I want to reread books that impacted me when I was young and that I barely remember now, such as Greene's Power and the Glory.
Woman in the Dunes is another--I haven't read it since high school, when I set out to read books off the library shelves in alphabetical order! I had no idea who Abé, Kobo was.
This novel was a permission slip to be small and to stay small.
(I didn't get far into the A authors though before I peeled off.)
I'm collecting covers by Edward Gorey, so I got this kid's book, A Billion for Boris. (Maybe I'll read it too.)
If anyone ever doubts how devastating mental illness can be, I'd point them to Kay. More than halfway through the prestigious and prodigious work of illustrating all the HP's, his bipolar disorder made it impossible to continue and he had to give up the project.
Jim Kay on mental illness: from a 2021 interview (before he gave up the HPs):
Q: Do creative professionals have pet peeves? What is yours?
Jim : Only one, and for me it’s a big one.
When people hear that you struggle with your mental health they often remark that the illness somehow benefits your creative process, or that the two are beneficially or necessarily symbiotic.
Trust me, it doesn’t and they are not. I don’t want to dwell on how much of my life I’ve lost to this, but let’s just say I would have been a far more productive illustrator without it.
I think if mental illness manifested itself as some massive distended bubble-head growth on your face, people wouldn’t say ‘yeh but it’s probably what makes your work interesting’… or maybe they would!"
The book is part retelling, part history, and part travelogue, as the author, Peter Hopkirk, retraces Kim's journey.
P.S. My god, you'd think governments would've learned the lesson about Afghanistan by now! Like marching to Russia in the winter: Don't go there.
I want to own all of the Penguin Lives series--short bios, all around 200 or fewer pages, each written by a literary writer, so when one comes along, even if I've read it, like this one on Therese of Lisieux, I get it.
BELOW: I read Boy Erased (2016) in a day--a fascinating memoir of author Garrard Conley's "voluntary" participation in gay conversion therapy when he was eighteen. Coming from a fundamentalist family, he sincerely wanted to turn straight, with the genuinely loving support of his mother. It didn't work.
According to Penny Cooper, "It was a school field trip," and it inspired her to make a papier-mache mask, too.
I doubt I'll ever make it though an abridged de Toqueville I'm dipping into, but these Vintage Books volumes are so pretty--covers by Alvin Lustig (link to more covers)––I brought them home.
