Haven't posted in a while. Been spending all my time on reading for class (Comparative Colonialisms), with a couple additional diversions.
Books for Class
- The Lover by Marguerite Duras
- Phantasmatic Indochina by Pavinong Norindr
- Colonizer and Colonized by Albert Memmi
- Provincializing Europe by Dipesh Chakrabarty
Others:
- The House of Paper by Carlos Maria Dominguez. This is a great novel about books. I won't give away the plot but something happens to a person's book collection and I have to say I was more distressed than in hearing most tales of actual people getting hurt. I must warn you, it has more than a few touches of "magical realism," which I hate (although based on an NYRB review I do think I will have to pick up Memories of My Melancholy Whores, the latest novel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez). This is another Reader's Subscription book. It's amazing that I read so many book reviews, etc., and then I still find brand new stuff I've never heard of on Reader's Subscription and it's great!
- The Penelopiad: The Myth of Penelope and Odysseus by Margaret Atwood. I am a sucker for books that give the point of view of some relatively minor character in a classic book. This one is self-explanatory. I am not in general a fan of Margaret Atwood, but I thought The Handmaid's Tale was stunning, and I always at least look at her new stuff. I found this one in Powell's, again, I hadn't heard of it before, and I was pretty amazed that I hadn't. I also picked up the new Kurt Vonnegut (one of my all-time favorite authors) book, A Man Without a Country, which I also didn't know existed until I went to Powell's.
And I've started to read Plays Unpleasant (one of my Penguin Classics!) which includes Mrs. Warren's Profession and The Philanderer by George Bernard Shaw. This is a Dad book.
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