Kate Ardis Oden
@odenka
Brief book reviews and book-related posts. I’m reading and reflecting instead of pursuing a formal MFA.
I’ve been weeding out books this week, reading just a little of each, nixing them if they’re not for me. I’m about halfway through this stack and, no surprise, keeping most.
Reading for a piece. Gayl Jones writes on the 1600s while keeping the characters completely recognizable. They’re human, not just armatures for stilted language and bygone custom.
Just swimming in books and writing today: Reading for a new piece to be published Wednesday, posting about finds, writing my podunk journal, geeking out with fellow bookhunters, looking forward to more DeLillo…
Pacing is fascinating. How is it I spend hours on Miller for 30 pages and the same amount of time on Knausgaard for 75? It’s the density, I know, and the transparency of the words.
If I organized by color… (The cover with the red blurb is Ellison’s Invisible Man, the title and author in contrasting gloss.)
How many times can I highlight this section on Schtitt and Mario in subsequent readings of Infinite Jest…
Puzzling over Celan’s synesthesia and inversion, but enough is clear to delight. “My hearing has wandered into my fingertips and learns to see”; “trees flying up to their birds.” This prose is more like a poem than a poem.
In love with this 1975 Franklin Library Faust, but it’s pricey and I would have to read it immediately.
The best way to jog is to the library, where you can read the paper and cruise the shelves.
The volunteer amaranth is three feet tall and the delicata squash is going great guns. Potatoes and tomatoes are making up for lost time. I wonder if I can still get some beans in, make it a soup garden.
Even if you only read the first 30 pages, read it. The last three paragraphs I read just shook me to tears. This is a brutally beautiful endeavor.
Backyard dinner-makings, plus the strawberries and peas I ate off the vine.
Going to a college meet-and-greet in the Boston area with the kid and wondering just how many used bookstores we might also visit...
Finished The Birdcatcher last night and am still thinking about it. The title begins to make more sense. There’s more Gayl Jones in my future. Might be starting Knausgaard’s opus or might be plunging into Henry Miller. Library not open for another three hours, so…
Out here in the 90-something degrees with Gayl Jones talking about bloody murder. The juice of summer. The Birdcatcher essentially a series of unsettling dialogues, like watching a play to aftershocks.
Dude trying to sell these on FB Marketplace for how much?! I wish old, no-name books actually sold for that much, because I’d be rich. The one I can find online goes for $20, so I would price a lot like this at, say, $300. Or do wealthy people who don’t read really shell out this much for decor?