Recommended reading

I do read other things besides books. Here's a bit of what I've been reading lately, some of which you might find interesting.

  • Philip Roth announced his retirement from writing in 2012. He was near 80 at the time. Six years later he has stuck to his retirement pledge, but that doesn't mean he's stopped observing with the eyes of a writer or that he's quit having opinions about what's happening. He shared some of his thoughts with The New York Times.
  • More from The Times: I always look forward to Gail Collins' columns, at least partly because she usually manages to find some humor in things even at the darkest times. In a column this past weekend, she argued that even though Hillary Clinton lost, the future is hers: "It’s 2018, a big election year, and women are going to be running everywhere. We’re sort of astonished by the numbers, but not by their ambition. They’ll be elected to city councils, state legislatures and Congress and hardly anyone will give their gender a second thought. That’s Hillary’s gift."
  • Margaret Atwood is always worth listening to and it seems that she's never been more popular, what with the successful adaptation of The Handmaid's Tale for television and now Alias Grace as well. To The Guardian, she denied that 2017 was her fault and says, "I am not a prophet. Science fiction is really about now."
  • Texas saw its maternal mortality rate more than double between 2010 and 2014, as the state closed more than half of its abortion clinics and severely cut funding for Planned Parenthood. Thanks to Texas and a few other states with strong “pro-life” lobbies, mostly in the South, the US now bears the ghastly distinction of having the highest maternal mortality rate of all the world’s wealthy democracies. Barbara Ehrenreich argues that those who claim the mantle of pro-life are actually pro-death.
  • Zadie Smith has a lot of fans and some of them are famous. She answered questions from some of them, as well as some unfamous people, for The Guardian.  
  • Here's a mind-numbing but mesmerizing read. Once I started, I found I had to go straight through to the end, but I warn you it is appalling and you need a strong stomach. 
  • If you feel the need of a rinse-off after that, Jill Abramson tells us that even after the year we've just been through, there is still hope amid the horror. 
  • Finally, Elena Ferrante has started writing a weekly column for The Guardian and her first column is about first love.
Since I have given up broadcast news because of its vacuousness, I find that I spend a lot more time reading in order to keep up with what's going on in the world and that the world is a more interesting place. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Rude people

I spent some time in a doctor's office waiting room today waiting for my husband. During much of my hour-and-a-half there, the room was very crowded with strangers. I had brought my Kindle and was trying to read Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson. It's a novel of manners about the way people treat each other and about their expectations of each other. It reminds me somewhat of Alexander McCall Smith's Isabel Dalhousie series. It has the same gentle, meandering feel to it. Anyway, I was trying to concentrate on my book, but at some point, it just became impossible. On the opposite side of the room from me several rather elderly - that is to say older than me - people were seated, and, as always seems to happen in these circumstances, one of them, a woman, had a loud and abrasive voice and manner and she insisted on telling the others her life story and especially her medical history. A couple of other people there entered eagerly into the spirit of the...
Read more

Poetry Sunday: Citizen of Dark Times by Kim Stafford

This poem is from a collection of poetry written by Oregon poet Kim Stafford after the presidential election of 2016. It was his effort, he said in an interview, to find the "flavor of unity" in divisive times. It seems particularly appropriate at the moment. Citizen of Dark Times by Kim Stafford Agenda in a time of fear: Be not afraid. When things go wrong, do right. Set out by the half-light of the seeker. For the well-lit problem begins to heal. Learn tropism toward the difficult. We have not arrived to explain, but to sing. Young idealism ripens into an ethical life. Prune back regret to let faith grow. When you hit rock bottom, dig farther down. Grief is the seed of singing, shame the seed of song. Keep seeing what you are not saying. Plunder your reticence. Songbird guards a twig, its only weapon a song.
Read more

My new Kindle

I love books. I love the feel of books, the smell of books, the heft of books, the look of books - their perfect symmetry. I am, as the phrase goes, an "avid reader." I've always got at least one book going and several waiting on my "to be read" shelf, so I consume a lot of books in a year's time. I am a fairly eclectric reader, although my favorite genre is mysteries, and specifically, historical mysteries, but I read a lot of other stuff as well, both fiction and nonfiction. My devotion to the printed page has been unwavering and I've never even considered getting an ebook reader. Until earlier this year. I got a Kindle for my husband, the technogeek, for his birthday, and after watching him use it and seeing his enthusiasm for it, I decided that maybe I should try it, even though I'm decidedly NOT a technogeek. I did try it and I was hooked. So, Santa, that jolly old elf, knowing that I had been seduced by the Kindle, stuffed my Christmas sto...
Read more