Bildungsroman. Bildungsroman, bildungsroman, bildungsroman. That is just a fun word to say. Does it make an interesting and/or worthwhile reading experience? I dunno. I struggled with this. Elena (our narrator) and Lila (lets be honest: the object of her desire) are the most grating and annoying characters I have spent time with recently. Is it the fact that I am decades beyond what these girls are dealing with in their emotional and intellectual lives? Is it because I’ve read the Knausgaards and have become enamored […]
that tense, shining dullness of the space where the memories are
“We carry the lives we’ve imagined as we carry the lives we have, and sometimes a reckoning comes of all the lives we have lost.” Ms. Macdonald is reeling from the sudden death of her beloved father. Cambridge educated, a writer and a naturalist, she turns to a skill she has cultivated since childhood, falconry. She gets it into her head to train a goshawk, a notoriously difficult raptor to deal with, and is soon on her way to Scotland to obtain the captive bred […]
Effortless effort
While I am not much of a gardener, I have enjoyed reading and experiencing Carol Deppe’s books. For having so much practical and solid information, they are compulsively readable, charming and enlightening. Organized by basic Taoist concepts, Ms. Deppe covers the growth and harvest of the aforementioned vegetables as well as instructions on do-it-yourself seed banks, complete with how to store seeds and “dehybridize” current hybrids. She’s got the science to back it up, as she has a PhD in biology from Harvard, but it’s […]
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you
I am a fan of Simon Van Booy’s novels and short stories, so this book in his small series pondering the philosophical questions Why We Need Love, Why Our Decisions Don’t Matter and Why We Fight intrigued me. “I believe that philosophy is a subject we have a natural gift for…….I am committed to the idea that these central questions of life are part of our everyday lives-we all possess the skill and agility to tackle them, and that by pondering them, we can experience […]