Been a Tough Month

It’s been several weeks now with daily healthcare on site to help me do the difficult things (dry my back after a shower) and watch me lest I tip over in my walker. Add to that Physical Therapy in home a couple of days a week and I barely have time to nap, let alone read books and play my ukulele.

But I’m getting stronger, hurting less, and continue to exhibit good numbers for my vitals. Who knows, I might get back to the semi-decrepit state I enjoyed before my fall. Unfortunately, home nursing and physical therapy do not make you any younger.

Philip Roth died the other day, I remember when Faulkner died and Hemingway paved the way for Hunter S. Thompson. They all weren’t much older than I am right now. Fortunately I refuse to touch a gun but it scares me that I might not get around to reading A Man Without Qualities or Joseph and His Brothers.

So this months reading pool is still an exercise in filling in the cracks of my reading and grabbing a couple of contemporary popular novels to keep up with modern literature, at least a little.

The June reading list contains 20 titles, each of which I hope to read but being realistic, I’ll be happy if I crack eight of them. Hopefully I’ll enjoy my experience: lately I have found very few stinkers, but at the same time, very few books I can highly recommend. Cross your fingers:

1. The Scarecrow — Ibrahim al-Koni
2. The Water Knife — Paolo Bacigalupi
3. The Terranauts — T. C. Boyle
4. The English Teacher — Durjoy Datta
5. Tarantula — Bob Dylan
6. Iphigenia In Tauris — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
7. Party Going — Henry Green
8. Riders of the Purple Sage — Zane Grey
9. A Little History of Religion — Richard Holloway
10. The Interpreter — Suki Kim
11. The Child in Time – Ian McEwan
12. Such Fine Boys — Patrick Modiano
13. The Absolute Gravedigger — Vítězslav Nezval
14. Maigret Gets Angry — Georges Simenon
15. Donovan’s Brain — Curt Siodmak
16. A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy — Laurence Sterne
17. Inventing Hell: Dante, The Bible, and Eternal Torment — Jon M. Sweeney
18. Honeymoon To Nowhere — Akimitsu Takagi
19. The Hellfire Club — Jake Tapper
20. The Impossible Fairy Tale — Han Yujoo