My friend Laila wrote a book. (That’s the disclaimer part, so you can choose whether to believe my account of it or not depending on how nice you think I am to my friends…) It’s called Yellow Crocus and it tells a cracking story about slavery and escape, but also about transformation and the way people realize and assimilate the truth of things. Read it!
I bought a copy of Tristram Shandy for a quarter a long time ago because it was mentioned in some other book I was reading. What an awesome book! It has meta-prose, stream of consciousness, digressions, hilarity, love, and a character who builds model battlegrounds. If I could only recommend one book out of my whole list this time, I think it would be this one because it was so smart and funny.
Nightmare Abbey is a send-up of Byron, Keats, Shelley, etc. It is slight and charming. I expect it is even funnier if a person is deeply steeped in the poets, but even a smattering is enough (she says from experience!).
The Leopard is another book about the end of a family, but an Italian one that has to come to terms with the change of times. They fade rather than explode.
I read a single volume of poetry this time, A.E. Houseman’s A Shropshire Lad. Manly stuff and yet tender. War is stupid. That is all.
Tomorrow I’ll finish up with non-fiction, kids/young adult, sci-fi/fantasy, and graphic novel.
