Read in 2021

Sep 2: Waiting for the Barbarians

J. M. Coetzee
Another story of an empire's representative stationed in a distant colony, but much grimmer than The Heart of the Matter. --more--

Aug 20: The Heart of the Matter

Graham Greene
Moral ambiguity in a British colony in Africa during World War 2. The setting is as strongly felt as the internal life of the main character. Easy to envision this as a film noir. The imagery illuminates the hot, damp, seedy scenes like flashes of lightning. E.g. when Scobie tells his lover that his wife is coming back to the colony: "The rain clouds had reached the moon and her face went out like a candle in a sudden draught of wind."

Aug 16: What to Listen for in Music

Aaron Copland
Good overview of classical musical forms and structures. Copland assumes a much higher level of musical education than Americans have today.

Aug 1: The Celestial Railroad and other stories

Nathaniel Hawthorne
Not what I expected, based on my memory of reading The Scarlet Letter in high school. These are fairy tales for adults. Fantasy, and at times a kind of early science fiction in the same mold as Mary Shelly's Frankenstein.

Read in 2020

Apr 15: Double Star

Robert A. Heinlein
Although the characters move from Earth to Mars to the Moon, this book is less about space flight and more about politics and about Heinlein's thoughts on the effectiveness of blending representative democracy with monarchy. Interesting to compare the writing style here with Simak's in TITST. Heinlein's is heavy on dialog and very light on description, while Simak constantly paints word pictures of the natural world his characters move in. What doesn't age well: the failure to anticipate progress in information technology. The solar system only has a few "metal brains", and on election night the campaign staff predict the outcome using slide rules.

Apr 8: Collected Sonnets

Edna St. Vincent Millay
Published in 1941, with a forward by the poet.
"Euclid alone has looked on beauty bare
Fortunate they who, though once only and then but far away,
Have heard her massive sandal set on stone."

Mar 31: Dark Matter

Blake Crouch
Another page-turning, thriller/SF story with an interesting parallel worlds concept.

Mar 29: Time is the Simplest Thing

Clifford D. Simak
Last read this when I was 14. Enjoyable, fast moving story. Surprised by the beauty of the descriptive passages, approaching prose poetry as Simak paints pictures of the American plains. What didn't age well was that the futuristic elements that drive the story are embedded in an America that retains a mid-century, or earlier, culture and technology. E.g. telepaths try to communicate mind to mind from one city to another, but are blocked by long distance operators unable or unwilling to make a connection.

Mar 21: Medieval Women

Eileen Power

Mar 8: Medieval People

Eileen Power
The first section explores the time after Rome fell, but before Europe was medieval. It is not hard to see a reflection of our present shining out from between the lines, just as it did when this introductory section was written - while Nazi power was growing in the 1930s. The introduction to this edition, written in 2000, reinforces this sense of history not repeating, but certainly rhyming. … In the chapter on Marco Polo, learning how advanced and developed cities in China were when (1268) Venice was proud of it's status.
Looking back on reading this ... a book of history can be a door into another world as much as any book of fiction. Especially when the history takes us into the lives of ordinary people.

Feb 14: Dark Sacred Night

Michael Connelly
Bosch and Renee Ballard working together. Made me think about Morse and Lewis. As enjoyable as all the other Connelly novels I've read. I'm pretty sure that Bosch's name came up in the first Ballard book, The Late Show, and he was a fictional character on a TV show. This one seems to be set in a slightly different parallel universe in which they are both real. I wonder how many more stories there will be with Bosch and Ballard as a team, before Harry leaves the stage.

Jan 25: Big Sky

Kate Atkinson
The final (so far) Jackson Brodie book. Halfway through. Does not seem as tightly written as the others. And after finishing it, I still feel the same. Too many characters whose stories take too long to come together. But after 5 books, I'm invested in the characters and situations, so will read the next one if there is one.

Jan 10: Recursion

Blake Crouch
Reminiscent of The Lathe of Heaven, By His Bootstraps, and Time And Again. Also the "new prometheus" theme that goes back to Frankenstein.

Jan 6: Left Early, Took My Dog

Kate Atkinson
Jackson Brodie unraveling another tangled collection of past events for a present client.

Summer 2021 Update

More than a year since I updated this... Some of what I've read since then:

Mark Twain

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
The Prince and the Pauper
The Mysterious Stranger
Tom Sawyer
Huckleberry Finn

Ernest Hemingway

Complete Short Stories

Sir Walter Scott

Ivanhoe

Kazuo Ishiguro

Klara and the Sun

Reading Now (Spring 2020)

Infinite Powers

Steven Strogatz
A layman's introduction to calculus. Hardcover borrowed from the library; had it earlier on Libby app from the NY Public Library, but did not get very far into it.

The World of Mathematics, vol 4

James R. Newman
This set of four hardcover volumes was a Christmas (or maybe birthday) present from my parents when I was in High School. I've read sections over the years, but not all of it. Starting now, with the 4th (shortest) volume. I suspect that the essays by von Newmann and Turing in this volume were what got me interested in the foundations of mathematics and the mathematics of computer science.

The Secret Commonwealth (The Book of Dust, vol 2)

Phillip Pullman
Lyra is a twenty-year-old undergraduate… My loan from the NY Public Library expired before I finished this… have it on hold again.