READING IN A TIME OF COVID

 

What are You Reading?  I would love to know. Email me at jbaril@tbaytel.net.  

What am I reading? Here is the usual eclectic list running from mysteries to poetry to a deep dark memoir from a British spy in the Russian Revolution.

Books I have enjoyed lately.

1. The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson. In 1940, the relentless Nazi bombing of England killed 45,000 people. Everyone expected the invasion any day. At the centre of this horror, the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, a man of almost child-like energy, easily led from one half-cocked enthusiasm to another, an aristocrat who never shed his aristocrat habits, was, at the same time a man of such eloquence, courage, and perseverance  that he was able to bind the country together and convince then they would survive and win. The book also centres on Churchill’s family, friends, and the “Secret Circle” who advised him and kept him level and focused. Well written and well paced.
2. The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman gives up four peppy seniors living in an English retirement village. Their hobby is solving murders and they are good at it. An English cozy with lots of fun, wit and laughs even though lots of dirty work is happening at the crossroads.
3. Memoirs of a British Agent by Bruce Lockhart. He was in Russia in 1917 when the first revolution broke out. In 1918 He was head of the British Mission to the Bolsheviks. The Revolution is over and the chaos, the killings and reprisals, the Civil War, the famine, the plots and counter plots are in full swing. Not to mention the terrible toll of Russian deaths as Germany conquers eastward. Lockhart has to deal with Lenin, Trotsky and other revolutionaries. He has to figure it all out, get the information back to London, run several spies but, at the same time, stay alive, while leading a busy social life with his mistresses. Although he does a stint in the notorious Loubianka prison, he is not shot as he expected. With the help of his mistress, he makes it home and lives to write this book. A riveting memoir.
4. Collected Poems of Bronwen Wallace If I were a poet, and I’m not, this is the kind of poetry that I would like to write. Straightforward, strong, and feminist with wise observations and rhythmic lines that reveal to me a new slant on women’s lives. An excerpt from , “A Simple Poem For Virginia Woolf” will give you an idea.

This started out as a simple poem

for Virginia Woolf

it wasn’t going to mention history

or choices or women’s lives

the complexities of women’s friendships

or the countless gritty details

of an ordinary woman’s life

        that never appear in poems at all

yet even as I write these words

those ordinary details intervene

between the poem I meant to write

and this one    where the delicate faces

of my children    faces of friends

of women I have never seen

glow on the blank pages

and deeper than any silence

press around me

waiting their turn

Bronwen Wallace

The Free World by David Bezmozgis One of Canada's greatest writers had me joining the Krasnansky family, three generations of Russian Jews, now in Italy, who are working, scheming, and hustling to get the precious visas to the West and the Free World. Bezmozgis' characters are ice sharp. Each carries the dislocation of immigrants but also the burning ambition to settle, to settle at last. 

David Bezmozgis