Tom Smith

@smithtm.bsky.social

GIVE AWAY! // AKA WE DID IT AGAIN! Since The Night Guest is coming out in paperback we decided to try to gift another copy bitten by Uggi. And it went … a little *too* well. (See picture 🧵) Like and share this post and on December 30th I will select a winner and send them this teeth marked copy!

Uggi the dog and a copy of The Night Guest

Books read in November. One for #NYRBWomen25 and a couple for Native American Heritage Month. Sad to see the end of the Barrøy Chronicles and Roy Jacobsen. 5 years from reading the first to the last was too long a gap, so a re-read is planned.

Stack of books:
Spring Snow by Castle Freeman
Bear by Marian Engel
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday
Inheritance by Dani Shapiro
Mourning a Breast by Xi Xi
The Empusium by Olga Tokarczuk
The White Book by Han Kang
The Transmigration of Bodies by Yuri Herrera
Just a Mother by Roy Jacobsen

“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” ― H.L. Mencken

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October reading with Scandinavia well tepresented. Not pictured: The Captive by Marcel Proust. I enjoyed all but the Garcia Marquez. My favorites were Orbital, The Postcard, and Mirror to Shoulder, Signal. #NYRBWomen25

Stack of books including:
Mirror, Shoulder, Signal by Dorthe Nors
The Postcard by Anne Berest
Didion & Babitz by Lili Anolik
Slouching Toward Bethlehem by Joan Didion
I Used to be Charming by Eve Babitz
The Autumn of the Patriarch by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Funeral Music for Freemasons by Lars Gustafsson
The Hanged Man of Saint-Pholien by Georges Simenon
Eyes of the Rigel by Roy Jacobsen
Orbital by Samantha Harvey

Wow! A world used to exist where Barbara Loden could go on Dick Cavett to promote her singular independent masterpiece, Wanda, to an audience almost certainly unfamiliar with her and it. Even more remarkable, the clip is a full 2 1/2 minutes long and the first full minute is dialogue free.

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October reading. I enjoyed them all, but perhaps the Solnit was my favorite. Loved the references to two books I own: Views of the Mississippi and Death Valley in '49. Read two for #NYRBWomen23 and the Jackson for #1962club.

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New additions to my library from the Moline library book sale and a visit to Prairie Lights. A table full of nature books from a single donation. Another person donated two tables of French lit, which sadly I can't begin to read.

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Another great month of reading in August. Eight books for #WITMonth, two for #NYRBWomen2023, and seven writers who were new to me. I loved all but the Bronsky and my favorites were the Giono, Nors, and Djavadi.

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