May the new year bring you peace and joy, my dear blog readers!
image by our daughter Margret Asmund
- taken 29/12/2019 by Traunsee, Gmunden, Austria
image by our daughter Margret Asmund
- taken 29/12/2019 by Traunsee, Gmunden, Austria
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Tuesday, 31 December 2019
Thursday, 19 December 2019
№ 22 reading list: Christmas 2019
Here it is, the reading list I have been promising for some time. It's almost two in one, as I meant to post one in October and one before Christmas. Life just got rather hectic. At some point on this term when trying to balance school and family life I thought of lines in Joan Didion's book, The Year of Magical Thinking, which became my mantra: 'In time of trouble, I had been trained since childhood, read, learn, work it up, go to the literature. Information was control.' Once I looked them up, I knew I had to reread it yet again. Didion's book about grief and everything life can throw at you was my reward during study breaks. Didion grounded me. She kept me studying. Information was control. I need to thank two publishers for books on the list: Eland Books for So It Goes and Fitzcarraldo Editions for I Remain in Darkness. Both are translations that I will be reviewing in the New Year.
These past months, when I have found time, I have been reading some of the books on the list and have already finished Life with Picasso and I Remain in Darkness. It was time to include Wilfrid Sheed on a reading list. A long time ago I bought a used copy of this essay collection, after hearing John Williams at the New York Times Book Review praise it on their podcast. Every other week the staff talks about the books they are reading in their spare time and Williams's taste in books comes close to mine, and I usually agree with his views.
This year I'm breaking tradition and not rereading a classic over the holidays. I will, however, be reading Louisa May Alcott's Little Women into the New Year, a tradition I started in Scotland. Last Friday I listened to editor David Remnick's interview with Greta Gerwig on The New Yorker Radio Hour and now I cannot wait to see her film adaptation.
№ 22 reading list:
1 Year of the Monkey by Patti Smith
2 So It Goes by Nicolas Bouvier
3 I Remain in Darkness by Annie Ernaux
4 Genius and Ink: Virginia Woolf on How to Read
5 Life with Picasso by Françoise Gilot and Carlton Lake
6 Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe
7 Essays in Disguise by Wilfrid Sheed
8 Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction by Jonathan Culler
9 The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion [rereading]
1 Year of the Monkey by Patti Smith
2 So It Goes by Nicolas Bouvier
3 I Remain in Darkness by Annie Ernaux
4 Genius and Ink: Virginia Woolf on How to Read
5 Life with Picasso by Françoise Gilot and Carlton Lake
6 Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe
7 Essays in Disguise by Wilfrid Sheed
8 Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction by Jonathan Culler
9 The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion [rereading]
Translated by: 2) So It Goes: Robyn Marsack; 3) I Remain in Darkness: Tanya Leslie.
These past months, when I have found time, I have been reading some of the books on the list and have already finished Life with Picasso and I Remain in Darkness. It was time to include Wilfrid Sheed on a reading list. A long time ago I bought a used copy of this essay collection, after hearing John Williams at the New York Times Book Review praise it on their podcast. Every other week the staff talks about the books they are reading in their spare time and Williams's taste in books comes close to mine, and I usually agree with his views.
This year I'm breaking tradition and not rereading a classic over the holidays. I will, however, be reading Louisa May Alcott's Little Women into the New Year, a tradition I started in Scotland. Last Friday I listened to editor David Remnick's interview with Greta Gerwig on The New Yorker Radio Hour and now I cannot wait to see her film adaptation.
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Saturday, 14 December 2019
Sleepless Nights · Elizabeth Hardwick
I have fallen so hard for Elizabeth Hardwick since reading a collection of her essays released in 2017. I had already put Sleepless Nights (1979) on my to-read list when Faber & Faber released this new edition last summer, which they describe as 'a kaleidoscopic scrapbook of one woman’s memories; a collage of fiction and memoir, letters and essays, portraits and dreams, and one of the greatest New York novels of all time.'
Simultaneously, Faber also released her essay collection Seduction and Betrayal (1974), which you will find on a reading list one day. Another book I have added to my wish list is the newly published, in the US, The Dolphin Letters, 1970-1979: Elizabeth Hardwick, Robert Lowell, and Their Circle, edited by Saskia Hamilton (FSG).
Cover image: © Daido Moriyama Photo Foundation
Cover design: Faber
Cover design: Faber
Simultaneously, Faber also released her essay collection Seduction and Betrayal (1974), which you will find on a reading list one day. Another book I have added to my wish list is the newly published, in the US, The Dolphin Letters, 1970-1979: Elizabeth Hardwick, Robert Lowell, and Their Circle, edited by Saskia Hamilton (FSG).
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