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Posts from the ‘#20BooksOfAutumn2018’ Category

29
Sep

Classic: Dutch writer W.F. Hermans

  • Author: W.F. Hermans
  • Title: Nooit Meer Slapen
  • Published: 1966
  • Language: Dutch ( available in translation: Beyond Sleep)
  • #20BooksOfAutumn
  • #ccbookreviews
  • Trivia: W.F. Hermans  is considered one of
  • ‘The Big Three’ 20th C  writers in Dutch  literature.
  • You can read more about W.F. Hermans  HERE
  • List Reading Challenges 2018
  • Monthly planning
  • Classic Club Master list


Conclusion:

  1. Dutch is my second language.
  2. It was time I started 20 books by Dutch authors
  3. …considered 20th C must reads.
  4. W.F. Hermans is the first one on the list.
  5. Ch 1-12 were very slow...but if you keep reading the
  6. book picks up steam ch 27 until the end.
  7. Main character: geologist Alfred is obsessed with ‘discovering something new’.
  8. He wants to prove to his deceased father he has not wasted his life.
  9. Hermans uses the philosophy of Wittgenstein (3 references) and the
  10. Symbol: a compass to help Alfred find his direction
  11. …physically (during a failed expedition on a Norwegian glacier)
  12. …and spiritually (start a new life.)
  13. It is a good book….but not great.
  14. The war novel The Dark Room of Damocles
  15. is the author’s ‘chef’ d’oeuvre
  16. W.F. Hermans was member of the Dutch resistance WW II.
25
Sep

#Poetry Danez Smith: Forward Award Poetry 2018

  • Author: Danez Smith
  • Title: Don’t Call Us Dead
  • Published: 2017
  • Genre: poems
  • Trivia: Short list National Book Award 2017
  • Trivia: Awarded Forward Prize  in London 18 September 2018

Conclusion:

  1. Once I figured out who ‘WE” were and
  2. what “HERE” meant  and
  3. where  SOMEWHERE and SOMEPLACE is…
  4. in the first poem ‘Summer, Somehere’
  5. my mind wanted to race through the entire collection immediately.
  6. Don’t.
  7. Take the time to read each poem at least 10 x…let them sink in.
  8. Danez Smith has broken through the formal poetry rules and created a
  9. poetry that is unique …all its own.
  10. There is a crude but eloquent energy in every piece of writing
  11. Danez Smith is a meteorite of the poetry world.

“Don’t Call Us Dead,” landed on the longlist for the National Book Award 2017.

WINNER:

Frank Bidart, Half-light: Collected Poems 1965-2016 (Farrar, Straus and Giroux / Macmillan Publishers)

Finalists:

Last thoughts:

  1. Don’t Call Us Dead wrestles with what it means to
  2. be a young black gay man in America.
  3. It begins with a lengthy poem — “summer, somewhere” —
  4. that imagines a utopic afterlife for
  5. victims of racism and police brutality.
  6. This is not language…it is music in your head!
  7. Here is the first stanza of the poem…..amazing!

“summer, somewhere”

somewhere, a sun. below, boys brown
as rye play the dozens & ball, jump

in the air & stay there. boys become new
moons, gum-dark on all sides, beg bruise

-blue water to fly, at least tide, at least
spit back a father or two. i won’t get started.

history is what it is. it knows what it did.
bad dog. bad blood. bad day to be a boy

color of a July well spent. but here, not earth
not heaven, we can’t recall our white shirts

turned ruby gowns. here, there’s no language
for officer or law, no color to call white.

if snow fell, it’d fall black. please, don’t call
us dead, call us alive someplace better.

we say our own names when we pray.
we go out for sweets & come back.

12
Sep

#AWW 2018 Atomic Thunder (NF)

 

Who is  Elizabeth Tynan?

  1. Elizabeth Tynan is a science writer and academic
  2. at the James Cook University  in Queensland, Australia.
  3. She completed a PhD on aspects of British nuclear testing in Australia.

 

What is Atomic Thunder about?

  1. Britain wanted to join the nuclear club.
  2. Britain needed Australia’s geographic assets (testing ground)
  3. …and its distance from the British electorate.
  4. Britain conducted three atomic explosions at
  5. the Monte Bello Islands off the coast of Western Australia
  6. …and nine at Maralinga and Emu.
  7. This book chronicles the scandals that ensued:
  8. 1950 Australian prime minister Robert Menzies
  9. agreed to atomic tests without informing his government
  10. the overall levels and distribution of radioactivity
  11. …that wreaked havoc on Indigenous communities
  12. …and turned the land into a radioactive wasteland
  13. the uncovering of the extensive secrecy around British testing
  14. This book is the most comprehensive account of the whole saga.
  15.  After the British departed they left an unholy mess behind.

 

Conclusion:

 

Strong point:

  1. Mw Tynan shows in the last chapters
  2. the transformation Australia society has endured.
  3. What a difference a generation makes
  4. …layers of secrecy and inertia are lifted!
  5. Investigative journalists and media are not
  6. ….interested in comforting the powerful
  7. No more stonewalling….
  8. The people of Australia demand accountability!

Quote: pg 290

  • “Britain knew in the 1960’s that radioactivity at its former nucelar
  • test site in Australia was worse than first thought.
  • But it did not tell the Australians.“

Quote: pg 300

  • “Australia in the 1950s and early 1960s was essentially
  • ….an atomic banana republic…
  • useful only for its resources…especially uranium and land.”
  • Chilling and selfish attitude of Britain
  • treating Australia as a lackey. Disgraceful

 

Last thoughts:

  1. The whole story is shocking but while I was reading
  2. chapter 9 Clean-ups and Cover-ups I  put my hands
  3. over my lips in absolute horror.
  4. Clean up crews were working 12-hr shifts scooping
  5. up topsoil that was liberally
  6. …dotted with plutonium-contaminated fragments.
  7. No-one says any thing about this to George Owen (British Army recruit).
  8. After 5 months working at Maralinga he is discharged.
  9. Soon after he notices strange growths on his hands.
  10. This is plutonium-239….
  11. 1 millionth of a gram may be sufficient to
  12. cause lung cancer if inhaled.
  13. How much dust did Owen inhale?
  14. Speechless….
  15. #MustRead
  16. PS…I read it in one day…could NOT put it own!

 

 

 

 

30
Aug

#20BooksofAutumn 2018

 

  • If we fail to plan …we plan to fail.
  • I had a #20BooksOfSummer list that helped me stay focused.
  • Here is my  list for September – October – November.
  • I selected books that
  • …I REALLY REALLY want to get off my TBR list
  • List of Challenges 2018
  • Monthly plan
  • #20BooksOfAutumn

 

  1. The Outrun (A. Liptrot) (Biography/Memoir) – READ
  2. Darkness Visible – W. Styron (Biography/Memoir) – READ
  3. Between Riverside and Crazy – S. Guirgis (Pulitzer Prize 2015)  (play) – READ
  4. Our Man in Charleston – C. Dickey (NF) – READ
  5. Kim Jong-Il Production – P. Fischer (NF) – READ
  6. Atomic Thunder – E. Tynan (Prime Minister’s Literary Awards 2017 History) – READ #AWW2018
  7. The Enigmatic Mr Deakin – J. Brett – READ #AWW2018
  8. The Bed-Making Competition – A. Jackson – READ #AWW2018
  9. Short story:  Audition – S. Sayarfiwezadeh – READ (The New Yorker 10.09.2018)
  10. An Ordinary Day – L. Sales – READ  #AWW2018
  11. Nooit Meer Slapen (Beyond Sleep) – W. F. Hermans – READ
  12. Don’t Call Us Dead – D. Smith – READ
  13. The River in the Sky – Clive James – READ
  14. Just Enough Liebling – J. Liebling (NF) – READ
  15. James Wright: A Life in Poetry (NF) – J. Blunk – READ
  16. Washington Black – E. Edugyan – READ #CanBookChallenge
  17. The Raven – E.A. Poe – READ  #RIPXIII
  18. Christ Stopped at Eboli – C. Levi – READ
  19. Mãn – Kim Thuy – READ #CanBookChallenge
  20. Je reste ici – M. Balzano – READ