In the High Peaks
















Monday, October 29, 2012

Hurricane: A Day for Books & Winter Journal?

Today I took over another professor's classes--a way to make a little extra money. So, was I delighted when a custodian burst into the classroom this afternoon to announce that the college will be closed tomorrow. Wow! Tuesday is the most challenging day of the week, and I've got it off.

Oh, no. The high winds from Hurricane Sandy have made the power blitz off for a moment. I'll have to keep this short because I know we'll lose power in these high winds.

First, superlatives are in order for Paul Auster's Winter Journal, which is a memoir, of sorts. Not a linear narrative, but thoughts and memories and reflections during Auster's 65th year. I'm loving it--reading passages over and over again. How is it that with some special writers one feels such a kinship? It happens to me with Auster, over and over and over again.

He confesses to an obsessive habit with cigars and copious wine consumption. His wife worries that he drinks and smokes too much, wishing that he would live forever, he says. He's had no negative effects from these habits, other than middle-of-the-night coughing fits. So, his wife worries? I worry. I didn't know about this. Naturally I hope my favorite author has a dozen more books in him. I'll have to keep my fingers crossed and hope his genetic heritage is like the comedian George Burns, who smoked cigars for seven decades and lived to be over 100.

Sunday, October 7, 2012

Bernhard Schlink Week, November 11-17

Bernhard Schlink Week is my very first blog event! In mid-November, I am inviting EVERYONE to drop in and participate, even if the last time you read a Schlink novel was a year or more ago.

Schlink's novels and short stories:

  • Summer Lies (short stories) 2012
  • The Weekend 2010
  • Homecoming 2007
  • The Reader 1997
  • Flights of Love (short stories) 2001

  • Then there are his crime novels, none of which I've read. Have you tried one?
    • Self's Murder 2005
    • Self's Deception 2007
    • Self's Punishment (with Walter Popp) 2009
    • Gordian's Knot  2010  (Vintage pub. date) 
    And the brief nonfiction title, a long thought-provoking essay:
    • Guilt about the Past, first published in Australia in 2009, and in Canada in 2010
    Would you please let me know if there are titles I'm missing that have been published in Europe?