This Month, Less Drama

January was a phantom month. I missed doctor’s appointments, stumbled along with an out-of-date database program (now brought up-to-date), found myself with a little too much shiver to ascribe to Florida weather, waited for my 2018 allotment to buy a new espresso machine, became fascinated with the technical details of jazz, read a dozen books (mostly novels), enjoyed a local Bluegrass concert with excellent Barbecue on the side, saw my van loose an argument with a rough deer (now fixed up as good-as-new .. on one side), triangulated three Amazon Echos so I have music (or left-wing political talk) wherever I go learned my iPhone battery was kaput (still waiting for a new one) so I must take my iPad with me if I intend to sit in the Lucy Goat for longer than twenty minutes, didn’t realize I had to update my website until the last day and now am in a rush, still can’t decide if I want a new iPad Pro since the old one is still working great, and the IRS informs me that they have my check for the 2015 tax year but they do not have my actual tax return.

Maybe I should go easy this month, especially since it’s a day or two shorter than the other months.

So here is the reading list I threw together at the last minute (actually, it looks pretty good .. what do you think?).

1. Wonderland — Ace Atkins
2. They Were Counted — Miklós Bánffy
3. The Big Money — John Dos Passos
4. Odysseus Abroad: A Novel — Amit Chaudhuri
5. For Bread Alone — Mohamed Choukr
6. I Can Give You Anything But Love — Gary Indiana
7. Therese and Isabelle — Violette Leduc
8. The Years, Months, Days — Yan Lianke
9. The Picturegoers — David Lodge
10. Sherlock Holmes — James Lovegrove
11. The Loved Ones — Alia Mamdouh
12. The School of English — Hilary Mantel
13. The Child in Time — Ian McEwan
14. The Howling Miller — Arto Paasilinna
15. The Underground Railroad — Colson Whitehead
16. Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang: A Novel — Kate Wilhelm
17. An Afghanistan Picture Show; or, How I Saved the World — William T. Vollmann
18. When Red Is Black — Qiu Xiaolong
19. Your Heart Is a Muscle the Size of a Fist — Sunil Yapa
20. Angeles Crest — P. J. Zander