The Go-Between by L.P. Hartley

 

What Not by Rose Macaulay

 

Listened to this driving home from Chicago. Absorbing but not that great. Wanted other books by her but couldn't find anything else recorded. Sci fi dystopian 1920 Britain, the Dept of Brains, people are classed by mental acuity and breeding laws passed to try to limit stupidity. Love story within all this.

Fascinating but thin.

The Mission House by Carys Davies

 

Listened to this driving out to Chicago, slow start but great in the end. Totally absorbing activity to do while driving.

A Confederacy of Dunces: A Graphic Novel Adaptation by John Kennedy Tootle and Albert Monteys

 

Had to get, as they're never gonna make the movie version, at least not in my lifetime.

Unimpressive drawings and obviously-reduced text.

Meh from me.

Scar Tissue by Anthony Kiedis with Larry Sloman

 

Lent to me by a good, respected - if not respectable  -friend. I'm not a big RHCP fan except for their sophomore effort FREAKEY STYLEY (produced by the infinite George Clinton), and Kiedis is self-admittedly and unabashedly a junkie (from an early age - maybe 14 was first heroin use?), so not that reliable a narrator. But I'm finding the sleazy Hollywood/LA/endlesstoursing narrative pretty riveting - what a life, what travels, what meetings and what a great and musical mess he's made over the years.

Becoming FDR: The Personal Crisis That Made a President by Jonathan Darman

 

Spurred on by finally seeing the movie of the musical ANNIE of all things. Don't know much of the FDR story. This is interesting so far, if a little by-the-numbers on how polio drove him to do it all.

Rules of Civility by Amor Towles

 

Liking this, easy to read, sparkly - but not at all the stunning experience I found his A GENTLEMAN IN MOSCOW to be.

Walking to Martha's Vineyard, Poems by Franz Wright

 

Starter Villain by John Scalzi

 

Promising premise, flat delivery. Good talking cats and dolphins, but second half of plot falls a bit flat for me. Sci fi, fantasy mock-superhero/villain genre new to me, nice change of pace, for awhile.

The Beforelife, Poems by Franz Wright

 

Exceptional, dark, depressing, funny poems. 

How does one go

about dying?

Who on earth

is going to teach me—

The world is filled with people

who have never died

Deceptively easy to read, they are bruising when you slow down and read them aloud, and allow some breathing room to the spaces between lines and stanzas.

Alcohol

You do look a little ill.

But we can do something about that, now.   

Can’t we.

The fact is you’re a shocking wreck.   

Do you hear me.

You aren’t all alone.

And you could use some help today, packing in the   

dark, boarding buses north, putting the seat back and   

grinning with terror flowing over your legs through   

your fingers and hair . . .

I was always waiting, always here.   

Know anyone else who can say that.

My advice to you is think of her for what she is:   

one more name cut in the scar of your tongue.

What was it you said, “To rather be harmed than   

harm, is not abject.”

Please.

Can we be leaving now.

We like bus trips, remember. Together

we could watch these winter fields slip past, and   

never care again,

think of it.

I don’t have to be anywhere.

Memoir

Just hope he forgot the address

and don’t answer the phone

for a week:

put out all the lights

in the house—

behave like you aren’t there

if some night when

it’s blizzarding, you see

Franz Wright arrive

on your street with his suitcase

of codeine pills,

lugging that heavy

black manuscript

of blank texts.

—from The Poem Said

The poem said never love anything

Not even you?

I asked

and it answered

especially me

Based On a Prayer of Rabi'a Al-Adawiyya

God, if I speak my love to you in fear of hell, incinerate me in it;

if I speak my love to you in hope of heaven, close it in my face.

But if I speak to you simply because you exist, cease

withholding from me your

neverending beauty.

Description of Her Eyes

Two teaspoonfuls,

and my mind goes

everyone can kiss my ass now --

then it's changed,

I change my mind.

Eyes so sad, and infinitely kind.

Ongoingness: The End of a Diary by Sarah Manguso

 

Extended essay about why author kept an 800,000 journal for 20+ years and decided not to publish it. Mostly about motherhood, in the end.