I want to share my reading lists, book comments and the experiences I have when I lead lifelong learning sessions on history and literature - plus occasional nibbles at philosophy and religion.
I have been an wide-ranging reader all my conscious life.
Silver Season is the name under which I research and write about American silverplate (www.silverseason.com).
I have been an wide-ranging reader all my conscious life.
Silver Season is the name under which I research and write about American silverplate (www.silverseason.com).
What I Read in January 2009
Posted 2nd February 2009 at 11:42 AM by silverseason
Updated 3rd February 2009 at 01:01 AM by silverseason
Updated 3rd February 2009 at 01:01 AM by silverseason
Plenty of cold, snow and ice - especially ice - in Connecticut this January. Some recent years we have had almost none, but I still believe that global climate change is happening.
Molly Ivins, Who Let the Dogs In? Collected writings of the late and great political commentator.
Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. Long, involved, dreamlike.
Evelyn Waugh, Vile Bodies. Wow! Decadence and smart young things in 1920s England.
Orhan Pamuk, Istambul. History, literature and memoir of a city and its melancholy.
Georges Simenon, Maigret in Montmarte. A little light relief in Paris after the heaviness of Istambul.
Geraldine Brooks, Nine Parts of Desire. The lives of Muslim women - see earlier blog entry.
Debra Dean, The Madonnas of Leningrad. Elderly woman remembers her war years in the cellars beneath the Hermitage Museum.
Roland Reisley, Usonia New York: Building a Community with Frank Lloyd Wright. The history of the cooperative community in Pleasantville, NY.
Pearl Buck, The Good Earth. A re-read, disappointing.
George Eliot, Adam Bede. Another re-read, not disappointing, but not at the level of Middlemarch either.
Molly Ivins, Who Let the Dogs In? Collected writings of the late and great political commentator.
Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. Long, involved, dreamlike.
Evelyn Waugh, Vile Bodies. Wow! Decadence and smart young things in 1920s England.
Orhan Pamuk, Istambul. History, literature and memoir of a city and its melancholy.
Georges Simenon, Maigret in Montmarte. A little light relief in Paris after the heaviness of Istambul.
Geraldine Brooks, Nine Parts of Desire. The lives of Muslim women - see earlier blog entry.
Debra Dean, The Madonnas of Leningrad. Elderly woman remembers her war years in the cellars beneath the Hermitage Museum.
Roland Reisley, Usonia New York: Building a Community with Frank Lloyd Wright. The history of the cooperative community in Pleasantville, NY.
Pearl Buck, The Good Earth. A re-read, disappointing.
George Eliot, Adam Bede. Another re-read, not disappointing, but not at the level of Middlemarch either.
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Comments
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Ms. Season,
Ms. Ivins, we miss her.
"Vile Bodies" -- What fun!
"The Madonnas of Leningrade" -- would you recommend it? The Hermitage is incredibly large. I imagine the cellars being a giant underground labyrinth.
What a diverse month's reading!Posted 2nd February 2009 at 10:40 PM by Irene Wilde 
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It was a good month. I read The Madonnas of Leningrad for my local (real people, face-to-face) book group and thought it was not great literature, but worthwhile. Somewhere I saw a documentary about the fate of European art during World War II, and they showed these cellars where they stored the art and where many people also lived. This was first novel and the author recreated the wartime situation through an old person's memories. During the siege she would walk through the rooms of the museum, recreating the art in her mind as a memory exercise. This helped her to bring it back in old age as her memory was fading.Posted 3rd February 2009 at 01:00 AM by silverseason
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