The Nature of Things

This book was the winner of the Man Booker International Prize last year. The writer is Omani and is the first female Omani writer to be translated into English and the first from the Arabian Gulf to win this prize. She is also - as best I can recall - the first Omani writer I have read. I should also mention that Marilyn Booth translated the book from Arabic. Had I not known that it was a translation, I could not have discerned it so smoothly did the narrative flow. And that is not to say that I did not have some  problems with the narrative. There is a huge number of characters in this story and most of their stories are told by an omniscient third party narrator, but two of the characters speak in first-person narratives. I found the switch back and forth a bit confusing, and it made the story harder to follow and invest in. Plus some characters are mentioned tangentially and never heard of again. Nevertheless, overall this story provides extraordinary insight into a society tha...

In the northern hemisphere, we are now in the dead of winter, even as many in the southern hemisphere scorch under unbearable heat waves. John Updike, of course, was a New Englander, and the winter he describes in this short poem is a New England winter. It might still be accurate, although I doubt there are any milk bottles bursting outside the door!    January by John Updike The days are short, The sun a spark, Hung thin between The dark and dark. Fat snowy footsteps Track the floor. Milk bottles burst Outside the door. The river is A frozen place Held still beneath The trees of lace. The sky is low. The wind is gray. The radiator Purrs all day.

A roundup of the week's news of birds and the environment : A Red-bellied Woodpecker visits my suet feeder. *~*~*~* Thousands of Australians have been forced to flee their homes because of the wildfires raging there. As many took refuge on the shore, the week saw the last day of the warmest decade on record in the  country. Nine people and countless animals have died as a result of the fires and hundreds of properties have been destroyed.  *~*~*~* A new interpretation by the current administration of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act means that as of now, companies are no longer subject to prosecution or fines even after a disaster like the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010 that destroyed or injured about one million birds and for which BP paid $100 million in fines. It essentially ends protections for migratory birds. Moreover, the Interior Department is planning to redefine "habitat" in a way that will make it more difficult to protect endangered species. ( Truly, the...

I'm still catching up with reviews of books read in the latter part of December. This is actually the last book that I read in 2019, something to entertain in the quiet moments as the holidays wound down. In this eleventh in the Bruno, Chief of Police series, Bruno has received a promotion. He is no longer only the chief of police for the little town of St. Denis, he now has responsibility for a wide range of territory in the Dordogne region of France which encompasses two other towns with current police with whom he must build a relationship. Bruno, who thoroughly enjoys being the chief in St. Denis and being a large fish in a small pond, is not at all sure he likes the idea of his enhanced authority and responsibility.  Moreover, his efforts to work with the policeman in one of the new towns under his jurisdiction prove problematic when it turns out the man seems to spend most of his day drinking. He's not someone on whom Bruno can rely. Fortunately, the head policewoman in t...

Corruption is rampant in Donna Leon's Venice. Venetians might have invented quid pro quo . It seems impossible to get anything done there without one hand washing the other, so to speak.  That holds true for the police as well. That is the milieu in which Commissario Guido Brunetti must operate. It's what he must deal with to extract information, investigate crimes, and achieve justice for the victims. In fact, in these dark stories, there is very little justice achieved. Leon always manages to bring a bit of current-day politics into her tales which contributes to their feeling of verisimilitude. In this case, her reference is to refugees and immigrants from Africa that are coming into Italy, some legally and some illegally. Some of the men work as street vendors. They buy knock-off handbags and then resell them to customers on the streets after shops are closed for the day. The community is tolerant toward them. They seem harmless and don't cause any trouble. Then one of ...

I'm finishing up my reading year of 2019 by visiting some of the series that I've been following. This was the year that I started reading the Ann Cleeves Vera Stanhope Mysteries and I've now reached the sixth in the series, published in 2014. The quality of the writing, plotting, and character development continue to be exceptional for a mystery series. Each book is different and does not follow any particular formula. I am always surprised by the identity of the perpetrator and that was true with Harbour Street , as well. That's true even though I watched and enjoyed the BBC series based on the books. The action in this book takes place around Christmastime and begins with Vera's sergeant, Joe Ashworth, and his young daughter, Jessie, traveling on the Metro after a trip into town. The train is extremely crowded and loud with holiday shoppers and revelers. When the train is stopped due to bad weather ahead and all the passengers exit to be picked up by buses, Jessi...

Robert Macfarlane is an acclaimed English Nature writer, winner of numerous awards for his intelligent and readable books on many subjects related to Nature. His latest book, Underland , certainly continues that string. In it, he takes us on various expeditions deep under the surface of our planet. I found the descriptions of many of those explorations extremely hard to read. That's no criticism of the writing. In fact, it may be a compliment to the writing. It was so evocative of the dark and tight places that he was visiting that I found it very claustrophobic and oppressive. I have to admit I skimmed quickly through some of those sections. The author visits a great variety of such underground features from sinkholes in Slovenia to a nuclear-waste containment site in Finland and sea caves in Norway. His explorations in Greenland document the effects of global warming, including the fact that some of the things that are being brought to the surface by melting ice are detrimental t...