The OF Blog: March 2013 Reads

Sunday, April 07, 2013

March 2013 Reads

Started working my second job in early March, so the reading fell off a bit (30 books read compared to February's 35), but there were several good stories, old as well as new, read.

68  Carolyn Ives Gilman, Ison (decent)

69  Ismail Kadare, Agamemon's Daughter (very good)

70  Ismail Kadare, The Successor (very good)

71  Alain Mabanckou, Black Bazaar (may write more on this later, but this was an excellent read)

72  Ismail Kadare, Chronicle in Stone (very good)

73  Brian Evenson, The Other Ear (limited-edition chapbook; very good)

74  Jennifer Cody Epstein, The Gods of Heavenly Punishment (decent)

75  Caitlín R. Kiernan, The Drowning Girl (inconsistent but mostly good)

76  Ismail Kadare, The Fall of the Stone City (one of Kadare's better novels; excellent)

77  Ghalib Lakhnavi and Abdullah Bilgrami, The Adventures of Amir Hamza (very good)

78  Amal Al-Jubouri, Hagar Before the Occupation/Hagar After the Occupation (re-read; poetry; very good)

79  Zoran Živković, Most (Serbian; review in near future)

80  Zoran Živković, The Bridge (re-read; review in near future)

81  Ken Emerson (ed.), Stephen Foster & Co.:  Lyrics of America's First Great Popular Songs (lyrics; anthology; very good)

82  Umberto Eco and Carlo Maria Martini, ¿En qué creen los que no creen? (re-read; Spanish; non-fiction; religious; very good)

83  Pierre Grimbert, The Secret of Ji:  Six Heirs (good)

84  John Joseph Adams and Douglas Cohen (eds.), Oz Reimagined (anthology; very strong and consistent set of stories set in Baum's Oz)

85  Xu Lei, Search for the Buried Bomber (had planned to write a short review of this, but due to time constraints, I'll just settle for noting that this translation of a Chinese mystery/thriller was a very good read)

86  Pope Francis and Abraham Sorka, Sobre el cielo y la tierra (Spanish; non-fiction; religious; already reviewed)

87  Vikram Seth, The Golden Gate (poetry; excellent)

88  Jim Gavin, Middle Men (short story collection; excellent)

89  Ruth Ozeki, A Tale for the Time Being (already reviewed)

90  William H. Gass, Middle C (formal review in near future; outstanding)

91  Hugh Howey, The Wool Omnibus 1-5 (meh)

92  Nalo Hopkinson, Sister Mine (good)

93  Pope Benedict XVI, Journey to Easter (non-ficiton; religious; very good)

94  Nihad Sirees, The Silence and the Roar (very good)

95  Forugh Farrokhzad, Remembering the Flight:  Twenty Poems by Forugh Farrokhzad (re-read; poetry; very good)

96  Celia Correas de Zapata (ed.), Short Stories by Latin American Women:  The Magic and the Real (short story collection; some very strong stories paired with some mediocre ones)

97  Karl Shapiro, Selected Poems (poetry; very good)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Larry,

while I don't like John Lukacs (or his books) - he's too superficial* to me, at least -, but I do recommend to read this book:

*I'm just a lay.

John Lukacs: The Future of History

It's just a (good) summary but even good summaries are very rare things in these days.

Plus an excellent history book:

Nora Berend:

At the Gate of Christendom: Jews, Muslims and 'Pagans' in Medieval Hungary, c.1000 - c.1300

Maybe the publisher sends you a complimentary copy. (the usa/uk price is insane).

http://www.marginalia.co.uk/journal/05cambridge/soyer.php


cseresz

John said...

"83 Pierre Grimbert, The Secret of Ji: Six Heirs (good)"

Larry,could you briefly describe what this is about ? I'm curious about this one.

 
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