gaudy night

Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The thing about reading a Dorothy Sayers' mystery is that you can enjoy it on different levels: the charm of Lord Peter, the moments of well crafted description, the overwrought but equally entertaining literary quotations, and then there's the Latin.  The Latin that lies at the crux of crucial moments in this novel that can serve only to remind those of us who, while overeducated (is there such a thing?), still, did not go to Oxford and do not use Latin in our every day speech. I for one, enjoy it when my "light" reading has a bit of heft to it.  And while I'm not the biggest Harriet Vane fan (the whole resistance/submission thing is annoying), still this book makes for a good afternoon read.  It certainly has its misogynist elements and certainly there's both an anti and pro-academic theme running throughout, still, Lord Peter shows up before it all gets too annoying and the brief moments of madness counterpointed against the calm of punting in the river make it a worthwhile read.


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every little thing in my life slides away as insignificant as I think about my dad in his hospital bed oh so far away. and I watch the live feed of the tsunami along the pacific rim. nothing like watching the ocean sweep along my favorite place on earth. thankfully, it looks like Oregon/Washington Coasts have been spared. can't even watch the footage of Japan. new yorkers are mostly so insular that they're busy talking about sports & the weather & shoes. oh well...*went to the NBCC event on Wednesday & saw some GREAT readers: Terrance Hayes, Ann Carson, Patti Smith. Franzen gave a lame reading - big surprise. In fact, the fiction category was the least interesting. I miss the young adult/graphic novel categories - all that reading could use some visuals. unless they all learn to be as expressive as Hayes. didn't go to the awards ceremony last night & instead went home, did some work, read more of light boxes (shane johnson) and waited for Con Ed (who never showed). walking to work today, I saw the remains of several umbrellas - so glad I missed the brunt of it though the windows/outside walls shook with the force of that wind. someday I want to live in a little stone house that does not feel the wind. on higher ground, of course. safe from waves. and Republicans.

52 books in 52 weeks

52 books in 52 weeks

I'm woefully behind on my reading this year. apparently. still. and this means I'm either forgetting some (a lot?) of books I read this year, or I have 12 books to read between now and 12/31. Which, really, is do-able.

1. drift/victoria patterson

2. once the shore/paul yoon (sp? gave it away so can't look it up)

3. sense & sensibility & sea monsters

4. point omega/delillo

5. face/sherman alexie (poems

6. war dances/sherman alexie

7. Inspector Alleyn Calls (3 novels)/Ngaio Marsh

8. Nevermore (a graphic adaptation of Poe's short stories)

9. off the reservation/paula gunn allen

10. neither here nor there/marcel jolley

11. the passion/j. winterson (2nd/3rd? read)

12. tapping the source/kem nunn

13. the dogs of winter/kem nunn

14. breathe/tim winton

15. dirt music/tim winton

16. the particular sadness of lemon cake/aimee bender

17. solar/ian m.

18. hell/robert olen butler

19. rat girl/kristin hersh

20. nights at the circus/angela carter

21. invisible cities/calvino

23. tinkers/paul harding

24. diary of a bad year/coetzee

25. the boy detective fails/joe meno

26. brooklyn/colm toibin

27. on the nat. history of dest./sebald

28. let the great world spin/colum mccann

29. zoli/colum mccann

30. unquiet mind/kay jamison

31. by night in chile/bolano

32. inherent vice/pynchon

33. the third elevator/aimee bender

34. the signal/ron carlson

35. essential/kathy acker (re-read)
36. new orleans noir (akashic anthology)
37. french quarter fiction: the newest stories of America's oldest bohemia
38. haunted/chuck p.
39. Emma & the vampires