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About meNow reading . . .
Recently finished:
The Telling by Ursula K. LeGuin. Great stuff, as is just about everything she writes . . . There’s an artistic concept called 間 (ma, or “empty space”) that’s used in many Japanese art forms–the blank space around the ink in a picture, the quiet moment in a Miyazaki movie when you see just some water flowing in a creek or a cloud in the sky. LeGuin makes excellent use of this in her books, which are quiet and punctuated with action at the perfect times.
Now working on:
Blood Money by T. Christian Miller. Depressing and important. I lived with T for five years during our college days and it’s great to see him writing things like this. I wish everyone would read it before the next election.
Up next:
The Road by Cormac McCarthy. Love everything this guy’s ever done. I think he’s the number-one American writer alive today. This book is a postapocalyptic tale of a father and son traveling through a nuclear-ravaged America. I don’t know anything more than that and I am keeping myself from reading a thing about it until I get through the book myself.
The Box by Marc Levinson. I saw this one reviewed together with Brian J. Cudahy’s Box Boats; if I find it fascinating enough I will go ahead and read that book too. All about standardized shipping containers and the ways they ended the traditional livelihood of longshoremen and made the economy much more efficient. A present from Adam and Sue!
The Emperor of Wine by Elin McCoy. Robert Parker is one of the most poewrful men in cultural consumption today; when he says he likes a wine it can change the fortunes of the entire grape-producing region where it came from. There’s an excellent look at him online here. He’s responsible for the 100-point wine scoring system, so thank or blame him for that. Another present from Adam and Sue!
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