2023 Reading

Another year of wide variety in my reading, which is what I aim for. My Dad passes on to me several magazines to read, along with Smithsonian and the Sunday edition of The Wall Street Journal. (I really enjoy the Review section) As I have written before I am usually reading 8 to 10 books at a time, which is why it takes me so long to complete one. I took the time to count this year, and I am currently involved with 13 books right now. My wife Shelly is perfectly happy reading one book at a time, bless her. Anyhow, here is what I completed in 2023. A few comments follow some on the list.

A Death In The Family By James Agee

A meditation on death and loss, with some interesting character studies on the side. For me this was not at all a sad read.

Bigger Secrets By William Poundstone

The Strange Career of Jim Crow By C. Vann Woodward

In Our Time By Ernest Hemingway

With a couple of exceptions Papas short stories have proven a better read for me than his novels. This, his first collection of short stories, is a masterpiece.

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test By Tom Wolfe

I could barely make it through this one. Wolfe can get so caught up in trying to relay the hippy-dippy mystical nonsense that was going on that I sometimes did not know what I was reading. I have read short pieces by him over the years that I really enjoyed, and I think I will try some more of his stuff despite this experience.

Crazy Horse And Custer By Stephen E. Ambrose

This might have been my most enjoyable read of the year. If you are interested I wrote about it here earlier this year.

I Was The Nuremberg Jailer By Col. Burton C. Andrus (Ret.)

Includes profiles of all the prisoners, the most interesting being Reichsmarschall Goring, who in the end cheated the hangman with cyanide.

Fear And Loathing in Las Vegas By Hunter S. Thompson

I got the idea while reading this that Hunter didn’t think some of the crazy things he does in this book were all that crazy.

All Creatures Great and Small, All Things Bright and Beautiful, All Things Wise and Wonderful, The Lord God Made Them All, Every Living Thing By James Herriot

I enjoyed his five main books very much. I was surprised by how much humor they contain.

Rocks All Around Us By Anne Terry White

An enchanting little book written for young people.

How To Live In The Country Without Farming By Milton Wend

One-Night Stands with American History By Richard Shenkman and Kurt Reiger

If you like to read about American history this is a fun book to dip into.

The Hunt For Martin Bormann By Charles S. Whiting

Sometimes it seemed the author went on a bit long in some places, but otherwise I enjoyed this probe into what happened to the missing Nazi Reichsleiter. Turns out after searching the world over it was discovered he never made it out of Berlin.

Eyewitness To America Edited By David Colbert

The subtitle to this book is “500 Years of America in the Words of Those Who Saw It Happen.” Very enjoyable and addictive.

Wisdom Edited By James Nelson

A 1950s documentary film project of interviews of prominent elders of that time by NBC are transcribed in this book. I found it fascinating.

Coyotes and Climatized

On our place looking west, just before harvest

The fall harvest finished on our road around Oct. 20. With the corn gone our little hideaway is out in the open and we can see for miles all around us again.

Last month I wrote about the possibility of a carnivore roaming our acreage because of the lack of mice and rabbits. Well, if there was one it is gone because once again there are rabbits and mice aplenty.

A couple of weeks ago, during a mid-October evening, I heard a pack of coyotes very close, just behind our machine shed. I was walking from the garage to the house when they started up. Once on the back porch I stood listening to them howling and yipping for a few minutes until just as suddenly as they started they stopped. To hear them howling far off in the distance is lovely, almost romantic. To hear a pack just a few yards away from you is something different altogether.

A small wind storm blew through recently throwing dirt and debris at our house from across the field to our west. Just a little warning to us of what might be coming. We need to finish getting the place ready for winter. The weather forecast for this coming weekend looks like it might be a good time to take care of that.

As a kid when I would complain about being cold during the fall or early winter my dad would tell me I was not yet “climatized.” The more time you spent out in the cold, he would say, the more used to it you get. Well, sure enough, as winter went on what was a cold day in November felt like a heat wave in January. As I get older I dislike winter more and more, but I still look forward to becoming “climatized.” The only drawback is how much cold you have to endure to get there.

Image of the Month

The Climax features Salome kissing the severed head of John the Baptist, and the original drawing was completed by Aubrey Beardsley in 1893, just before it was first published. It was one of many drawings that he contributed to Salome, a British publication of an Oscar Wilde play. The artwork shown here is contemporary in style, with just a few lines creating each form. The most intensive area of the composition is within a series of circles in the top left corner which contrasts with the simpler parts of the illustration elsewhere. Aside from the two figures, nearer the bottom we also find some flourishes of nature. Beardsley regularly used flowers, trees and also peacock feathers as a means to illuminate his drawings, placing elements of them around the central theme. In this case we find Salome floating in mid air, whilst holding the head in both hands. Less detail is given to her clothing than in other Salome drawings, and it is just simple white plains, with black lines which signify the rolls of material.

Source: https://www.thehistoryofart.org/aubrey-beardsley/climax/

Early Harvest, Garden and A Prowler

The last of our garden and lots of field corn to harvest

The harvest of crops along our road started September 12 and continues now into October. Just sections at a time have been taken so far, with the entire field to the south of us finally all gone while we are still surrounded by beautiful golden corn on the other three sides.

I write this on October 3rd and only a few trees have begun to change color. The garden is winding down, with only the tomatoes left producing. The forecast calls for widespread frost this coming weekend, so that might be the end of it. Our son-in-law has offered in the past to bring out several containers of turkey manure to spread on the garden and I think we will take him up on the offer once we have the garden cleared out.

A few weeks ago I was cleaning up part of the machine shed when I noticed a couple of piles of animal scat, long and dark, on the floor. My first thought was raccoon, but there was no other evidence of them such as the usual chewing and general destruction. My second was a cat, for two reasons. We have seen one on our property a couple of times over the summer, and the rabbits and mice have almost disappeared. I have not seen a rabbit for maybe two months, which is roughly how long it has been since I have emptied a mouse trap around here. We might have an unseen visitor prowling the acreage.