Early Winter Reading

I’m looking at my collection of reading and all I can say is— it’s eclectic. There’s Sun After Dark by Pico Iyer. I actually wanted to take out his latest book, but that meant a wait so I borrowed this earlier book where “...he invites us to accompany him on an array of exotic explorations...” 

But this isn’t a usual travel book because of the questions Pico poses: “ How do we reconcile suffering with the sunlight often found around it? How does the foreign instruct the traveler, precisely by discomforting him?  And how does travel take us more deeply into reality, both within and without?”

I found the following book in a display of new books— The Dinosaur Artist by Paige Williams. This is a true - crime story that involves a dinosaur eight feet high and twenty-four feet long, a bidding war, “an international custody battle” and “ a sometimes murky, risky business populated by eccentrics and obsessives.”

The Modern Hebrew Poem Itself was published in 1965 so it can no longer contain the truly contemporary poets. It is written for the non- Hebrew reading English reader. Each poem is written both in Hebrew and an English phonetic  transcription. The reader is instructed to read that version aloud to absorb the sound of the poem. There are English approximations. The translation and here they quote “  Robert Frost  —are discussed into English.”

 “The commentary offers a literal rendering of the poem and an extensive prose commentary.” 

And into this mix I’m engrossed in a lightweight saga of a small town and its citizens. There are twelve books in the series and each book is akin to eating penny candy and delighting in the experience. Nothing is required of the reader— save a cup of tea and a bit of time.