A few books I've enjoyed

I have family in town, and unlike the stereotypical disaster that proposition holds for some, I love having them here.  This is because they are not only good people and extremely funny, but because they are readers.  A few days ago I was asked what books and authors I've really enjoyed lately.  Here is my response:

Some favorites

Poetry

Songbook by Umberto Saba

Canti by Leopardi

Love poems by Pablo Neruda

Fiction

Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

My brilliant friend by Elena Ferrante

The Maias by Eça de Quieros

Club of Angels by Luis Fernando Verissimo

Maidenhair by Mikhail Shishkin

Ways of going home by Alejandro Zambra

My Struggle [vol.1] by Karl Ove Knausgaard

Nada by Carmen Laforet

Swann's Way by Marcel Proust 

Piano Stories by Felisberto Hernandez

The Insufferable Gaucho by Roberto Bolaño 

All Souls by Javier Marías

Other:

The consolations of philosophy by Alain de Botton

The architecture of happiness by Alain de Botton

A time of gifts by Patrick Leigh Fermor

Between the woods and the water by Patrick Leigh Fermor

Danube by Claudio Magris

The story of art by E. H. Gombrich

Soccer in Sun and Shadow by Eduardo Galeano

An intimate history of humanity by Theodore Zeldin

The art of happiness by Epicurus 

Wind, Sand, and Stars by Antoine de Saint-exupéry

Cosmopolitanism by Kwame Anthony Appiah

The art of travel by Alain de Botton

Back in the saddle.

In the last five months, I have been battling cancer and neglecting this blog.  The cancer remains and I keep fighting, but I think it is time for me to start blogging again.  Out time is finite, and I can think of very few things I would rather do thank be with my family and talk about literature here with friends.

Posts are coming.  Cheers to all.

And the Nobel will go to...

Thursday the Nobel Prize in Literature is announced, and so I continue my tradition of failing to pick the winner.  My record is 100 percent at not being even close to reality.  So, here we go again.  Play along at home.

First, five I feel deserve to win (the certain kiss of death to winning chances, sorry Javier):

1. Javier Marías
2. Cesar Aira
3. Pascal Quignard
4. Mikhail Shishkin
5. Karl Ove Knausgaard

Next, three likely to win:

1. Haruki Murakami
2. Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o
3. Adonis

And three who could win but should not:

1. Haruki Murakami
2. Peter Handke
3. Philip Roth

And you? Who do you pick?

a poem for September going into October

The little white death is coming.

Nothing existential or forever,

just the first snows

that blot out the tired grass

and the golden carpet of leaves

that have surrendered themselves

as messiah-like sacrifices to the future,

so that all might live and rise

again in the Spring.

school is in session

My little princess is ready for her first day of second grade.

A historical poem of sorts

The Road to Rome

It's August 26, AD 79.

A young boy walks the road to Rome, his feet calloused and his ears now broken by the horrific blasts he has heard. Never again will he hear the sounds of birds or of other little boys or girls. He will never again hear his mother's voice, because he is now deaf, and she is now dead. His world is a pillar of smoke. Just a week before, he laughed as his father read him a dirty poem carved on a stone wall as they both went to the market. His strong father, a merchant, was building a future for the boy, a future of prosperity, a future undercut by total death.

Horses pass the boy, and he cannot hear the voices of the soldiers and engineers who have been sent from Rome to assess the scope of the catastrophe. “Boy,” they shout. “Boy!”

The boy shuffles on, emotions and awareness now as buried as his home. He has escaped with a few other stragglers.

“Forget him,” one soldier says. “He's like the others we've met. On to Pompeii.”

a poem for a Tuesday

My words are about you, about your taut skin

and the seaside blue of your eyes and the heat

pulsating from my cathedral, your body.

My words are about you, my greatest desire,

my poor words, impoverished and dependent

on adjectives, nouns, verbs...trifles.

My words are about you, they are calloused ropes

set to ensnare you, to halt time and rip space

and hold you steady and immortal.

My words are about you, and so about me

and my futile attempts to work base metals

into refined gold.

My words are about you, poor offerings from a poor beggar,

the only thing I can give you since you already

have my beating heart.

My words are about you, and I sing them like a bird

freed from the cage sings a song carried

aloft on white tufts of cloud.

My words are about you, and now I listen

as you cast forth the spell of your words,

and our words are about us.

RR Shea