Books I Read November 21st, 2023

Happy Thanksgiving if you're in the US. I'll be hosting for the first time, and currently I'm on the hook for two breads, two pies, a quick bread, potatoes, carrots, and a squash orzo thing I'm doing in lieu of meat because my oven is tiny and half the people I know are vegan. Wish me luck.

Last week I read...

The Silver Bough by Lisa Tuttle – The lives of several lonely Americans in a far-flung Scottish village are upended when a landslide cuts them off from the mainland/releases magic back into the world. An engaging if light-hearted adult romance in several senses of the word.

The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller by Carlo Ginzburg – The story of an Italian peasant whose penchant for intellectual disputations saw him killed by the Inquisition. A fascinating episode but the work itself is pedantic and conjecture-ridden.

The Country of Too by Rodrigo Rey Rosa – A gun-thug finds himself intertwined in the struggle of an indigenous central American community against a corrupt government and the forces of international capitalism.

Vernon Subutex #2 by Despentes – The definitive Gen X hipster turned homeless vagrant becomes the epicenter of a cultural movement/the spiritual heart of modern Europe in the second part of Despente's endearingly odd ensemble epic. Vibrant, engaging, lots of fun.