Well, once again I didn’t post an update on Monday as promised. So shoot me! We are moving along, though, and the electrician will make his second appearance for the week today, at which time the kitchen will have its lighting. So I’ll post a picture of that. Our dear family is being v-e-r-y tolerant of the mess. We’re in a trough right now where we can’t go ahead and finish unloading the furniture for the main living space because of the aforementioned carpet problem. Friday is the deadline for getting everything out of the pods; otherwise we’ll have to pay for an extra month.
Books
Lessons from a Wise Young Man
The Great Beanie Baby Bubble: Mass Delusion and the Dark Side of Cute by Zac Bissonnette. Visit his author page on Amazon at Zac Bissonnette.
I’ve posted about the work of Zac Bissonnette before when I wrote a review of his book Debt-Free U, about the utter foolishness of piling up thousands of dollars in debt in order to go to a prestigious university. Cuh-rae-zee! While I can’t claim any particular plan of ours in this regard, it is so great for us to know that our son Gideon has his degree from a good school and has no debt. And now he’s headed for grad school and they’ll pay him. We are thrilled!
In Which I Take Ownership of My Chorale Cooking
The Geometry of Love: Space, Time, Mystery and Meaning in an Ordinary Church by Margaret Visser, originally published in 2001, now available in hardback, paperback, and Kindle versions. Link is to Amazon page.
In this book, the historian and anthropologist Margaret Visser takes the reader through a Roman church, Saint Agnes Outside the Walls (Sant’Agnese fuori le Mura), exhaustively describing the architecture, history and current activities centered on this ancient structure. Sound boring? Oh believe me, it’s not. It is one of the most fascinating books I’ve ever read, and I’m so sorry that we didn’t visit this church when we went to Europe back in 1993. We’ll do so someday! I had read the book many years ago (it came out in 2001) and then again in 2013 when we went on our big driving trip to LA.
Where Does the Self Live?
The Perpetual Now: A Story of Amnesia, Memory and Love by Michael D. Lemonick, published by Doubleday, 2016. Visit the author’s website at http://michaeldlemonick.com/ for ordering info and an audio clip from the book.
Wow, folks. I actually read a physical book. This is another product of time spent at the library while our house was being shown. I cannot tell you how fascinating it is. You must, must, MUST read it. It is so engagingly written, about such an engaging subject, that you’ll find it . . . engaging.
The book would be worth reading even without the drama of the main’s character’s loss of memory, as it centers around a remarkable family, the Johnsons. The parents of Lonni Sue Johnson, the central figure, were a world-class physicist and an equally-world-class artist. They had one of the world’s best marriages, at least as it’s presented in the book. And Lonni Sue’s sister, Aline, is an immensely-talented computer analyst and musician. As for Lonni Sue herself, she was a commercial artist whose work was published on the cover of The New Yorker magazine five times.
A Funny, Charming Book about . . . Clutter.
Year of No Clutter by Eve Schaub. Follow the link to the author’s website.
Since I’ve been so immersed in political and true-crime podcasts and articles for the past months my book posts have been a little sparse. I spent some time today trying to come up with something to post for this week, attempting to persuade myself that I really was going to read the book I have about the Peloponnesian War. (That may actually happen at some point, as it’s excellently written, and I love the Greeks–did my masters speech recital about them.) But I’m ending up with this audiobook, written by the same woman who wrote a book a couple of years back about going a year as a family without eating any added sugar. I didn’t like that book too much, as I found her premise a bit irritating: that she could go ahead and make sweet things as long as she made them with glucose (sold under the name of “dextrose”) instead of sucrose (which is half fructose). Actually, what I found to be irritating was that because of her I ordered a 50-lb. bag of dextrose and then realized I just didn’t want to use it.
A Winning Book
We had been driven out of our house this past Saturday for showings, so one stop was at the library. Honestly, I don’t patronize the library much any more, the physical one at least. I get audiobooks and e-books, and I listen to podcasts and read political articles online. So my former at-least-once-a-week library habit has dwindled away to almost nothing. But we needed a place to hang out, so there we went. One of my favorite places at this branch is the nonfiction new book shelves at the top of the stairs. I couldn’t tell you how many great discoveries I’ve made there. Saturday was no exception; I picked this book off the shelf and sat down in one of the chairs upstairs, thinking that I’d read a chapter or two, and I was hooked. I ended up reading all but two chapters, which for me nowadays is kind of a record, and I made sure to read the conclusion.
Three Books about Deception.
Great way to start the new year, huh? I got to thinking that I’d read these three books and enjoyed them immensely because they’re all the type of story in which you start out thinking one thing and then gradually you find out that everything you believed was wrong. Two of them are novels, and I’ve said before that I’ve sort of lost my taste for fiction. They must be pretty good! I will just issue my usual warning about strong language, for the novels at least. Having said that, if you’re just looking for some good reads, something to curl up with on a cold winter evening, these should fill the bill.
Two Great Cookbooks from My Two Great Guys.
Image from Amazon.com |
Image from Amazon.com |
We had a great Christmas at our house. How about you? I wanted to make my book(s) of the week the two cookbooks I received as gifts, one from my husband Jim and the other from my son Gideon. I love both, but they’re very different from each other. I thought it would be fun to do a comparison review for my weekly book post.
In Which I Wimp Out About Trevor Noah’s Memoir.
Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah, available in multiple formats from multiple outlets. Visit the author’s website at trevornoah.com.
I have never watched The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, so it made no blip my on my radar screen when he left the show and Trevor Noah, a South African comic, was installed as his replacement. I had heard Noah being interviewed on NPR about his memoir; he sounded funny (good for a comedy show, I guess) and self-deprecating, with a lovely, lilting British-sounding accent.
At some point I needed to get an audio book to take advantage of a freebie from Audible.com; by that time we had watched a number of video clips from TDS featuring Noah and thoroughly enjoyed his eviscerations of Donald Trump and American voters in general.
Required Reading for All Lovers of Democracy
Winter Is Coming: Why Vladimir Putin and the Enemies of the Free World Must Be Stopped by Garry Kasparov, available in several formats and multiple outlets. Visit the author’s website at www.kasparov.com/.
Not exactly a happy book! I’m cross-posting this from my “Personal and Political” blog as my book of the week. But no one can be truly happy in a fool’s paradise. If I could, I would require that every single US citizen sit down and read at least the introduction to this definitive book, written by former world champion chess player and now political activist Garry Kasparov. I would also require listening to this episode of Slate’s ”Trumpcast” in which Kasparov is interviewed about his opinions regarding Donald Trump. As he says, “I hate to say ‘I told you so.’” And his perspective on the nomination of Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State is indeed frightening. (I know I keep using that word in my political posts, but I don’t know what other word to use. “Disturbing” is too mild.)