MarysLibrary

22nd Avenue in the Snow

Uh-oh

Seventeen Inches of Snow Fell Yesterday

Ten More Inches on the Way

Spokane Schools Closed for the First Time Since 1996

It's a Winter Wonderland, Says Alice

Dramatic Changes to Greek Theater

I find myself tonight reading Sophocles. (You will have begun to realize that the Reading List idea isn't working out.)

I just discovered that Aeschylus added a second actor to the traditional Greek theater. Hitherto, apparently, there had been only one actor and a chorus. I'm sure he found he could write much better dialog that way.

And Sophocles then added a third and a fourth actor. And costumes! Amazing.

Well, back to "Oedipus." (This isn't going to turn out well. I just know it.)

Oops

I subscribe to the Library of America which sends me a volume every couple of months. In the mail the other day I got Edmund Wilson's Literary Essays and Reviews of the 1920s & 30s, which includes Shores of Light and Axel's Castle. It went immediately onto my reading list.

I wasn't counting on this when I made up the list. Usually I put the LoA books as they arrive onto the shelf with the others and tell myself I'll read them "someday." But Edmund Wilson on Willa Cather? On Fitzgerald and Poe? On Yeats, Joyce, and Proust? This is not to be resisted.

And so another lengthy tome - 958 pages - is added to the reading list. And if you think that as I read Wilson I will be able to resist hustling off to re-read "The Diamond as Big as the Ritz" or My Antonia you haven't been reading my blog. And so my reading remains out of control.

22nd Avenue in January

I've grown used to seeing people cross-country skiing down the street. Or snowshoeing. This has been the view from my front porch since mid-December. More snow is coming this weekend.

 

Reading List Update

• Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson (2007) 258 pages, due 12 Jan at the library. For NBCC and NY Times 10 Best of 2007 Lists. READ 1/11/08 *
• Framley Parsonage, chapters 13-18, summaries to write, due 14 Jan for the online trollope group. FINISHED 1/14/08
• Framley Parsonage, chapters 19-24, due 21 Jan for online trollope group. READ 1/20/08
• The Way to Win: Taking the White House in 2008 by Mark Halperin (2006) 454 pages, due 23 Jan at the library. READ 1/19/08 *****
• Ramona the Pest by Beverly Cleary (1968) ASAP so I can talk with my grand-niece about it. READ 1/20/08 ****
• Class Warfare: Besieged Schools, Bewildered Parents, Betrayed Kids, and the Attack on Excellence by J Martin Rochester (2002) 316 pages, due 24 Jan at the library.
• Framley Parsonage, chapters 25-30, due 28 Jan for online trollope group
• The Bee Season by Myla Goldberg (2000) 274 pages, due 29 Jan for the Jewish Literature Lecture Series
• The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare (1959) 205 pages, due 29 Jan at the library
• Alice: Alice Roosevelt Longworth, from White House Princess to Washington Power Broker by Stacy A Cordery (2007) 590 pages, due 29 Jan at the library
• The Sunday Philosophy Club by Alexander McCall Smith (2004) 247 pages, due 31 Jan for SAABS Book Group
• The Well of Lonliness by Radclyffe Hall (1928)
• At the Jerusalem by Paul Bailey
• Ticket to Ride: Inside the Beatles' 1964 and 1965 Tours that Changed the World by Larry Kane
• The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century by Alex Ross (2007) 624 pages
• Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 by Steve Coll (2004) 717 pages (sic)
• Hard Call: Great Decisions and Extraordinary People Who Made Them by John McCain (2007) 456 pages
• Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain by Maryanne Wolf (2007) 320 pages
• Theodore Roosevelt (The American Presidents Series) by Louis Auchincloss (2001) 155 pages