What I Read and Watched in 2023

A happy and healthy New Year to you and yours! I hope you have had a joyful and wide-ranging year of reading, whatever that means in your particular circumstances.

For the past four years, I've kept a running list of books I've finished over the course of the year. Previous lists can find found at the following links:

• 2022
  
• 2021 
• 2020
  

In 2023 I read 123 books...

Out of all of those books, there are a few that particularly stood out to me, which I would enthusiastically encourage you to check out. Part of the fun of recommending books is the connection it can create with another reader, so if you do read or listen something below and enjoy it, I'd love to hear about it!

My Recommendations 

1. Short Stories: "The Curfew Tolls," by Stephen Vincent Benét (which I read in 50 Great Short Stories, edited by Milton Crane); "The Girl of My Dreams" by Bernard Malamud (which I read in an edition of The Magic Barrel), "Sad, Dark Thing" by Michael Marshall Smith (which I read in Ghost, edited by Louise Welsh) at the end of which I whistled and swore softly at the perfect final twist and emotional devastation it left; "Click-Clack the Rattlebag" by Neil Gaiman (in his collection Trigger Warning); "Dinner of the Dead Alumni" by Adam Marek (another story from Ghost), which is deeply off-colour and blackly, disturbingly funny. Finally, "The Mad Lomasneys" by Frank O'Connor (I read it in The Granta Book of the Irish Short Story), with its tragicomic love story, deftly sketched characters, and impossibly perfect dialogue, is terrific fun.
2. Children's and Young Adult: The Enchanted Forest Chronicles hold up to re-reading as an adult, and I loved getting to know the work of Holly Black and Leigh Bardugo.
   
3. Romance: Alexis Hall's work does not always land for me but when they do, they really, really do. Glitterland is a gem.
4. Science Fiction and Fantasy: 2023 was a standout year for my reading (and re-reading) in this genre. So many good books! Reaper Man and The Truth were a glorious introduction to Terry Pratchett. (Sharp and funny--read them both!) Ordinary Monsters is a sprawling, atmospheric Victorian fantasy. From the rereading department, the Paksworld books by Elizabeth Moon were just as diverting and delightful as I remembered them being, and Sharon Shinn's Samaria books continue to be comfort reading.
   
5. Nonfiction: I received a copy of What an Owl Knows for Christmas, gulped it down whole, and proceeded to pepper my family with owl facts for the next five days.
   
6. Dishonorable mention: In general, I figure that a book that wasn't to my taste will be to someone else's, live and let live. But. I so deeply, passionately disliked Lapvona by Otessa Moshfegh, that it earns my first dishonorable mention in four years of writing these posts. It's a well-crafted and totally vile book, set in a medieval fantasy world that plays up all the stereotypes of that world that scholars work so hard to replace with colour and nuance and life.
7. Podcasts:  You gotta listen to Alabama Astronaut, a riveting exploration of the music played in American serpent handling (signs following) churches. Really. Yes, the religion is something I (to put it politely) do not understand, but the music is electric, and the compassion and curiosity with which Abe Partridge and Ferrill Gibbs approach the people and places they come to know gives me hope for a better world.
   
8. On the silver screen:  Good Omens Season 2! Good Omens Season 2! I really can't say enough about how much I adored the second season of that show. And its beautiful, devastating ending. Broadchurch is insanely well-crafted, and Olivia Coleman and David Tennant play off each other delightfully. Diego Luna joins Coleman, Tenannt, and Toby Stephens as an actor whose craft I watch with awe and delight. Andor is incredible.
   

Reading

Fiction

 

Anthologies and Short Stories

1. Parallel Hells by Leon Craig 
2. 50 Great Short Stories, edited by Milton Crane  
3. Trigger Warning: Short Fictions & Disturbances by Neil Gaiman
   
4. The Magic Barrel by Bernard Malamud
   
5. Ghost: 100 Stories to Read with the Lights On, edited by Louise Welsh
6. The Granta Book of the Irish Short Story edited by Anne Enright 

Children's Book and Young Adult

1. Dark Lord of Derkholm by Diana Wynne Jones
2. Year of the Griffin by Diana Wynne Jones
3. The Sherwood Ring by Elizabeth Marie Pope (reread)
4. Fire and Hemlock by Dianna Wynne Jones (reread)
5. Searching for Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede (reread)
6. Talking to Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede (reread)
7. Dealing with Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede (reread)
8. Calling on Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede (reread)
9. Sorcery and Cecelia by Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer (reread)
10. Conrad's Fate by Diana Wynne Jones
    
11. The Cruel Prince by Holly Black (reread)
12. The Wicked King by Holly Black
13. Queen of Nothing by Holly Black
14. How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories by Holly Black
15. Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo
16. Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo
17. King of Scars by Leigh Bardugo
    

Historical Fiction

1. Prize for the Fire by Rilla Askew
   

Literary Fiction

1. Lapvona by Otessa Moshfegh
   

Mystery

1. The Sanctuary Sparrow by Ellis Peters
2. The Raven in the Foregate by Ellis Peters
   

Poetry

1. What it is by Esther Jansma
2. The Poetry of Ennodius translated by Brett Milligan
3. Frost on the window and other poems by Mary Stewart
4. William Cowper: Selected Poems, edited by Nick Rhodes
5. Rochester, selected by Ronald Duncan
6. The Poetry of Robert Frost: The Completed Poems, edited by Edward Connery Latham
7. Good Poems, edited by Garrison Keillor
   

Romance

1. Seven Minutes in Heaven by Eloise James
   
2. Neon Gods by Katee Robert
3. Electric Idol by Katee Robert
4. Wicked Beauty by Katee Robert
5. Radiant Sin by Katee Robert 
6. For Real by Alexis Hall
7. Pansies by Alexis Hall
8. If Only You by Chloe Liese 
9. Goodbye Paradise by Sarina Bowen
   
10. The Spanish Love Deception by Elena Armas (reread)
    
11. The American Roommate Experiment by Elena Armas (reread)
12.  Just Like Heaven by Julia Quinn (reread)
13. The Sum of All Kisses by Julia Quinn (reread)
14. Happy Place by Emily Henry
15. Beach Read by Emily Henry (reread) 
16. Love Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood
17. An Unnatural Vice by KJ Charles
    
18.  An Unsuitable Heir by KJ Charles
19. An Unseen Attraction by KJ Charles 
20. Better Hate Than Never by Chloe Liese
21. The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen by KJ Charles
22. The Nobleman's Guide to Seducing a Scoundrel by KJ Charles
23. 10 Things That Never Happened by Alexis Hall 
24. Glitterland by Alexis Hall  
25. Beyond Pain by Kit Rocha (reread) 
26. Sorry, Bro by Taleen Voskuni
27. Fumbled by Alexa Martin (reread) 
28. A Scot in the Dark by Sarah McLean (reread) 

Science Fiction and Fantasy

1. Ordinary Monsters by J.M. Miro
2. Archangel by Sharon Shinn (reread)
3. Jovah's Angel by Sharon Shinn (reread)
4. The Alleluia Files by Sharon Shinn (reread)
5. Angelica by Sharon Shinn (reread)
6. Angel Seeker by Sharon Shinn
7. The World We Make by N.K. Jemisin
8. A River Enchanted by  Rebecca Ross
9. A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik
10. The Last Graduate by Naomi Novik
11. The Golden Enclaves by Naomi Novik
12. Winter's Orbit by Everina Maxwell (reread)
13. Ocean's Echo by Everina Maxwell
14. Memory by Lois McMaster Bujold (reread)
    
15. Embers of War by Gareth Powell
16. Angel Mage by Garth Nix
    
17. The Red Scholar's Wake by Aliette de Bodard
18. In Acension by Martin MacInnes
    
19. To be Taught if Fortunate by Becky Chambers
20. Printer's Devil Court by Susan Hill
21. The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers
22. The Gospel of Loki by Joanne Harris 
23. Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Prachett (reread)
    
24. Sheepfarmer's Daughter by Elizabeth Moon (reread)
    
25. Divided Allegiance by Elizabeth Moon (reread)
26. Oath of Gold by Elizabeth Moon (reread)
27. Oath of Fealty by Elizabeth Moon (reread)
28. Kings of the North by Elizabeth Moon (reread)
29. Echoes of Betrayal by Elizabeth Moon (reread)
30. Limits of Power by Elizabeth Moon (reread)
31. Crown of Renewal by Elizabeth Moon (reread)
32. Surrender None by Elizabeth Moon (reread)
33. Liar's Oath by Elizabeth Moon (reread)
34. Angelica by Sharon Shinn (second reread)
35. Angel Seeker by Sharon Shinn (reread)
36. Archangel by Sharon Shinn (second reread)
37. Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett 
38. The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden
39. Sealskin by Su Bristow
40. The Truth by Terry Pratchett
41. Soul Taken by Patricia Briggs (reread)
42. Wild Sign by Patricia Briggs (reread)
    

Nonfiction 

Advice

1.  Overcoming social anxiety and shyness : a self-help guide to using cognitive behavioural techniques by Gillian Butler
2.  How to be a person in the world: Ask Polly's guide through the paradoxes of modern life by Heather Havrilesky

Autobiography, Biography, and Memoir

1. Memories by Lucy Boston
   

Cookbooks 

1. New England Open House Cookbook by Sarah Leah Chase
2. The Woks of Life by Bill, Judy, Sarah, and Kaitlin Leung
3. Natural by Love Food
4. Summer Kitchens by Olia Hercules
   
5. Indian Slow Cooker by Neela Paniz
6. The Slow Cooker Bible by Sara Lewis, Saskia Sidey, and Libby Silberman
7. I Dream of Dinner (So You Don't Have To) by Ali Slagle
   

Essays

1. A Slip of the Keyboard by Terry Pratchett
   

Gardening and Nature Writing

1. What an Owl Knows by Jennifer Ackerman
   

History 

1. Before We Were Trans: A New History of Gender by Kit Heyams
2. The Ruin of All Witches: Life and Death in the New World by Malcom Gaskill
3. The Illustrated History of Football by David Squires
4. The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine by Serhii Plokhy
   

Travel

1. A textile traveler's guide to Guatemala by Deborah Chandler 
2. Utrecht: Sights and secrets of Holland's smartest city by Anika Redhed

Writing

1.  About Writing by Gareth Powell
   

Viewing and Listening

Movies

1. Star Wars: Episode 4 - A New Hope (1977)
2. Star Wars: Episode 5 - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
3. Star Wars: Episode 6 - Return of the Jedi (1983)
4. Star Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace (1999)
5. Star Wars: Episode 2 - Attack of the Clones (2002)
6. Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2003-2005)
7. Star Wars: Episode 3 – Revenge of the Sith (2005)
8. Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018) (rewatch)
   
9. Captain America: the Winter Soldier (2014) (rewatch)
   
10. Much Ado About Nothing (2011)
11. John Wick (2014)
12. John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017)
13. John Wick: Chapter 3--Parabellum (2019)
14. John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023)
15. Mission: Impossible (1996) (watched twice, on two separate flights)
    
16. 65 (2023)
    
17. Die Hard (1988) (rewatch)
    
18. Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023)
    

Podcasts

1. Alabama Astronaut
2. Ali on the Run
3. Nobody Asked Us (with Des and Kara)
   

TV Shows

1. Shadow and Bone (Season 2)
   
2. The Expanse (Seasons 1-6)
3. Bridgerton (Season 2)
   
4. Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story
5. Andor (Season 1) 
6. Obi Wan Kenobi
   
7. Good Omens (Season 2)
8. Heartstopper (Season 2)
   
9. Salvation (Seasons 1-partway through Season 2)
   
10. Agents of Shield (Seasons 1- 3 ongoing)
11. Loki (Seasons 1-2)
12. Lost in Space (season 1 ongoing)
13. Manifest (Seasons 1-3, ongoing)
    
14. Broadchurch (Seasons 1-3)
    
15. Foyle's War (Season 1-4, ongoing)
16. Castle (Seasons 1-2, in the midst of season 3)
    

Youtube

1. Vlogbrothers (the brothers Green)
   
2. Run and Stretch (running warmups and cooldowns)
   
3. Paola La (figure skating commentary)
4. Full of Lit (book and TV reviews)
   

Myths of Weaving: Writing About Textiles in Ancient and Late Antique Literature

My special treat this winter vacation is to finish writing a series of posts about books* I read in the 2022-2023 academic year. That was full year and blogging took a backseat to my many other adventures. As I continue to settle into postdoc life, I'm hoping to keep using this blog as a commonplace book for my academic and creative life. I greatly enjoy the writing I do here and hope to continue it into a brave new year!

One of the books I finished last year was Greek Myths: A New Retelling by Charlotte Higgins. At the time I was reading it, September to December 2022, I was beginning to work on the use of textile metaphors in late antique literature for two conference papers that have since become two book chapters. Hence, references to textile production snagged my attention even when reading books for fun. Making textiles provides a through-thread for Higgins' retelling of Greek myths, and the passage of the introduction where she explains this is worth quoting in full:

'Running through Greek and Roman thought is a persistent connection between the written word and woven thread, between text and textile. The Latin verb texere, from which the English words text and textile derive, means to weave, or compose, or to fit a complex structure together. Textum means fabric, or framework, or even, in certain branches of materialist philosophy, atomic structure. The universe itself is sometimes describes as a kind of fabric: Lucretius, in his first-century BCE scientific poem On the Nature of the Universe, describes the Earth, sea and sky as three dissimilar elements that are texta, woven together. Texere is related to the Greek verb tikto, which means to engender, to bring about, to produce, to give birth to. In turn the Latin and Greek words are related to the Sanskrit takman, child, and taksh, to make or to weave. Greek and Roman literature is full of metaphors that compare its own creation to spinning and weaving...My book reassess the connectedness of all of this: text and textile, the universe, the production of ideas, the telling of stories, and the delicate filaments of human life. These are the lives that are so cunningly and ruthlessly manipulated by the Fates, the all-powerful ancient goddesses who spin, wind and finally cut the thread of each person's existence.' pp 12-13

There's a passage in one of my book chapters in progress where I attempt to sketch the backstory of the relationship between texts and textiles; I admire the economy and elegance of Higgins' summary here. Before the eighteenth century, when new technologies of weaving (the flying shuttle and the spinning jenny) were invented, producing and processing fibre to make textiles required immense amounts of time and effort.

'...the lives of most women, and many men, were dominated by the slow, laborious processes required to make cloth. Partly because few examples have survived from the classical world, and partly because they were long overlooked as mere 'women's work', textiles have only fairly recently taken off as the object of serious study. Now, though, they are being investigated in all of their aspects---sociological, economic, archaeological, literary, metaphorical, mathematical--and rightly seen as central to live in the ancient world.' p. 11

Greek Myths: A New Retelling by Charlotte Higgins

I'm lucky to be writing my chapters about textiles at a time when this field of research is growing in so many directions. As I was formatting the bibliography for "Has geminas artes: text and textiles in the world of Attusia Lucana Sabina," earlier this month, I was struck by the sheer range of work I was citing: archaeology, experimental archaeology, literary studies, and more! It was particularly exciting to read about scholars' and weavers' attempts to reproduce ancient textiles as a way to learn more about how the techniques and time commitment involved in making them. Such scholarship challenges old assumptions about the complexity of ancient textiles.

'Despite the fact that textiles survivals from the ancient world are so sparse, there are plenty of indications that real, non-mythical cloth could be woven with complex designs--most notably the textile annually offered in Athens to the sculpture of Athena Polias, which was said to have depicted the gods' battles with the giants...Scholars long believed this kind of complicated pattern would have been impossible to create on so simple a device as a warp-weighted loom--but it is perfectly possible.' p. 12

Greek Myths: A New Retelling uses the ancient literary device of ekphrasis--a literary description of a physical work of art--as the roving from which to spin accounts of the stories of eight women of Greek myth--Athena, Alcithoë, Philomela, Arachne, Andromeda, Helen, Circe, and Penelope. Weaving features prominently in each of their stories, and description of the textiles they are making is an ingenious framing device. Each story opens with a line drawing by Chris Ofili, which enhance the text beautifully. For a unique and lovely introduction or reintroduction to Greek myth, this is a book to seek out and enjoy.

Further Reading

The notes and bibliography provide an excellent source of further reading. I bookmarked several scholars, publications, and projects to explore more thoroughly. Some I have since encountered in my research over the past year and some I look forward to digging into in 2024 and beyond.

 

Scholars and Projects

• Professor Mary Harlow (Wikipedia) (Archaeological Textiles Review)
  
• Dr Ellen Harlizius-Klück (Academia.edu)
• The Penelope Project  at the Research Institute for the History of Technology and Science at the Deutsches Museum, Munich (Project Publications on Zenodo)

Books and Poems

• Elizabeth Ward Barber (1996), Women's Word: The First 20,000 Years: Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times 
• Fiona Benson, [transformation: Callisto] (a poem about the Callisto myth, found in Benson's collection Vertigo & Ghost (2019), reviewed by Colin Burrows in the London Review of Books here)
• E. Karslus and G. Fanfani, (eds). Homo Textor: Weaving as a Technical Mode of Existence (forthcoming, Munich; publication date is given on one contributor's faculty page as 2022)
  
• Carol Helibrun (1985), What was Penelope Unweaving? in Hamlet's Mother and Other Women: Feminist Essays in Literature. There's apparently a great quote that talks about weaving and women's language and story
• Theocritus, Idyll 15, which describes a textile at the festival of Adonis, where there are 'tapestries so marvellous that the figures depicted on them seem to move' p. 286
• The Illiad and the Odyssey, translated by Emily Wilson. I'm particularly interested in reading Wilson's translation of Illiad 22, which is the scene when Andromache learns the news of her husband Hector's death. As Higgins puts it: 'When she realises what has happened, she rips off her headdress and drops her shuttle: one of the great devastating moments in literature.' (p. 285) 

*These include Before We Were Trans by Kit Heyam, The Bright Ages by Matthew Gabriele and David M. Perry, and The Gates of Europe: A New History of Ukraine by Serhii Plokhy, not necessarily in that order.

They were memories

As a historian, I most often work with texts, especially letters. But the past is present in the rest of my life through objects. My grandmother, who died before I was born, was an antiques dealer and collector, and many of her things, and their stories, passed down to my mother, who has an extraordinary visual memory. The question "where did this come from?" is the key to the stories she keeps; it gives access to people and places I will never know. This background makes me readily believe that objects can serve as vessels of memory. 

Recently, I was delighted by a scene in "Summer Nights", a short story by Elizabeth Bowen, where the keepsakes of one of the story's minor characters, Aunt Fran, are described:

Round the room, on the ledges and brackets, stood the fetishes she had traveled through life with. They were memories--photos in little warped frames, musty, round straw boxes, china kittens, palm crosses, three Japanese monkeys, bambini, a Lincoln Imp, a merry-thought pen-wiper, an ivory spinning wheel from Cologne. From these objects the original virtue had by now almost evaporated. These gifts' givers, known on her lonely journey, were by now as faint as their photographs: she no longer knew, now, where anyone was. All the more, her nature clung to these objects that moved with her slowly towards the dark.

Elizabeth Bowen, "Summer Night, " reprinted in The Granta Book of the Irish Short Story, edited by Ann Enright, (London, 2010), pp. 78-9

Imagining this as a gathering of what a shop sign would call "antiques and collectibles", I began to wonder what these objects might look like. "Summer Night" was published in 1941, and Aunt Fran is described as an old lady, so I used the word Victorian in my image searches.

photos in little warped frames: I enjoyed looking at lots of elaborate Victorian photo frames on ebay but chose this very simple example; the adjectives "little" and "warped" suggest something not very elaborate.

Image source: ebay.com

 

 

 

 

 

musty, round straw boxes: The straw box below isn't the right shape but it was surprisingly tricky to find examples of Victorian straw work. The example below so pretty--I wonder if the decoration technique might be a form of straw marquetry? "Musty", does, however, suggest a little trinket box made entirely out of straw. Decorated wood, like the box below, would likely be sturdier.

Image source: Rubylane

 

china kittens: There are, as anyone who has gone into an antique store knows, a lot of cat figurines in this old world. With boxes still on my mind, I thought this was an utterly charming examples of china kittens.

Image source: etsy.com

palm crosses: Given the tone of the passage and the other keepsakes on Aunt Fran's shelves, I imagine these being kept as mementos of time spent with loved ones, as well as for their value as religious objects. Passages of the Bible which describe the arrival of Jesus Christ in Jerusalem, shortly before his execution, mention that the crowds which accompanied him and his disciples were carrying palm branches. Palm Sunday, the commemoration of this event in the Christian religious calendar, is celebrated on the Sunday before Easter; many churches include a procession with palms in their celebrations. These palms are often made into crosses and kept until the church service that marks the start of Lent.

"Good Friday: Palm Cross" by Dai Lygad is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

three Japanese monkeys: While the story doesn't say, enough of my searches for "Victorian Japanese monkeys" came back with these "speak no evil, hear no evil, see no evil" monkeys that I thought Aunt Fran's figurine was probably similar.

Image source: ebay.com

bambini: Dear reader, do you know what this would be? I know that bambini is the Italian word for "babies," but Google searches for terms like "Victorian bambini" were useless. Websites like ebay, which have lots of antiques for sale, didn't seem to have items specifically listed under this term either. Suspecting that bambini is a word, like putti, which refers to something specific, I looked it up in the dictionary. Bambini is "a representation of the infant Christ." Most of the images I was able to find were described by their sellers as figurines from nativity scenes. Here's one example. Again, the presence of this object this suggests both religiosity and the social side of religious observance. If Aunt Fran's figurine was a baby Jesus from a manger scene, it may have reminded her of decorating for the holidays with members of her family.

Image source: ebay.com

a Lincoln Imp: As a former resident of Lincoln, I was charmed to see its famous gargoyle among Aunt Fran's collectibles. Most Lincoln Imps seem to have been in the form of teaspoons or door knockers. After scanning several pages of search results, I came across this charming little paperweight, who looks like the sort of thing one might keep on a ledge or bracket as a memento. I wouldn't have though them especially common in Ireland (or indeed, outside of Lincoln), so its presence suggests a traveling friend or relative.

Lincoln Imp Paperweight (Image source: ebay.com)

Merry-thought penwiper: At first I thought that 'merry-thought' was simply an adjective, and the object could have been any sort of penwiper (perhaps this astonishingly cute cat-shaped one?) But no, the full phrase is a proper noun! The merry-thought pen wiper is a doll made from a wishbone, used as a pen-wiper; the Cambridge Public Library features newspaper instructions on how to make one here and the blog Victorian traditions has a delightful selection of pictures of them here. Something to do with the wishbone of your Christmas turkey, perhaps?

Lastly, the ivory spinning wheel from Cologne! This was another object that I struggled to identify. Why is it significant that the ivory spinning wheel is from Cologne? My searches turned up many examples of carved ivory from medieval Cologne, but almost no information on ivory carving in nineteenth or twentieth century Cologne. However, the German town of Erbach was and is a centre for ivory carving; it even has a museum with examples of ivory carving from around the world. Being absolutely exact, the auction house which sold the little ivory spinning wheel below concluded it was made in France or Flanders, not Germany, but it is too charming not to share.

Image source: Bonhams.com

A character's things and how they feel about them are so evocative, aren't they? Aunt Fran is, for the other characters in "Summer Night", unsympathetic and irritating. As a reader, her attachment to her shelves full of treasures and the memories they hold caught my attention. Thinking about these objects, where they came from, and what they looked like, enriches my understanding of Aunt Fran's character by hinting that she once had a wide circle of friends and family, who went with her to church, and  traveled--to Germany, England, Japan--and brought her back gifts. The gifts' givers are dead, estranged, or out of touch, but their memories remain.

The full text of Look at all these roses, the short story collection where "Summer Night" was originally published, can be found on the Internet Archive here.

Dreams that would split the brain of Caesar

Curating an anthology is a skill that fascinates me (as I've written before). While I enjoy collections of poems or short stories written by a single person, I love the element of surprise that a good anthology provides. In older anthologies editorial intervention is often delightfully discreet --while there may be short foreword explaining what materials have been selected and why, there are no explanatory notes or biographies of authors. The stories are left to speak for themselves.

Which is to say--if you run across a copy of the anthology 50 Great Short Stories, edited by an American professor of English, Milton Crane (1917-1985), pick it up and read it. Crane's tastes are old-fashioned: most of the stories he selected were written before the Second World War; and the majority of them are by British or American men. Nine of the fifty stories are by women, which seems like a pretty good proportion for a collection originally published in the 1950s.

The fact that the stories in this anthology are the sorts of stories that were popular in a bygone age makes 50 Great American Short Stories a wonderful book for encountering the work of writers whose work has fallen out of fashion in the twenty-first century. Stephen Vincent Benét (1898-1943) seems to be one such; in his own day he was a best-selling and prizewinning poet. I have a vague memory of encountering his most famous short story, "The Devil and Daniel Webster," in one of my many happy hours browsing the Norton Anthology of Literature during my high school English classes, but the author's name hadn't stuck in my memory.

Benét's short story "The Curfew Tolls," was one of my favourite finds in this collection. The frame of the story is a series of letters by a retired British general, Estcourt, sent to the coastal watering place of St. Philippe-des-Bains to recover his health in 1788. (Why the dates of the letters matter is revealed over the course of the story.)

The 1983 edition of 50 Great Short Stories (originally published in 1959).

The story's epistolary frame is the perfect vehicle for long, chatty descriptions of people, places, and conversations. As narrator, Estcourt is determined to amuse himself, and his sister Harriet, with whom he is corresponding, by finding and befriending characters among the locals. The chief among these is an officer, retired from the French army, whose contradictions puzzle and fascinate him. Witness one of their conversations:

"And what is treason?" he said lightly. "If we call it unsuccessful ambition we shall be nearer the truth. He looked at me, keenly. "You are shocked, General Estcourt," he said. "I am sorry for that. But have you never known the curse"--and here his voice vibrated--"the curse of not being employed when you should be employed? The curse of being a hammer with no nail to drive? The curse--the curse of sitting in a dusty garrison town with dreams that would split the brain of Caesar and no room on earth for those dreams?"

"Yes," I said, unwillingly, for there was something in him that demanded the truth. "I have known that."

- Stephen Vincent Benét, 'The Curfew Tolls", in 50 Great Short Stories, ed. Milton Crane, p. 306

Their frustrated ambitions and shared passion for military strategy provide the foundations for an odd sort of friendship, which deepens when Estcourt meets the officer's large and disreputable family. I particularly love Benét's description of the redoubtable family matriarch:

Only the old lady remained aloof, saying little and sipping her camomile tea as though it contained the blood of her enemies. - Stephen Vincent Benét, 'The Curfew Tolls", in 50 Great Short Stories, ed. Milton Crane, p. 309.

The officer's name is not revealed until the very end of the story, but clues to his identity are given throughout, including in his dramatic deathbed speech:

"Risen?" he said, and his eyes flashed. "Risen? Oh, God, that I should die alone with my one companion an Englishman with a soul of suet! Fool, if I had had Alexander's chance, I would have bettered Alexander! And it will come, too, that is the worst of it. Already Europe is shaking with a new birth. If I had been born under the Sun-King, I would be a Marshall of France; if I had been born twenty years ago, I would mold a new Europe with my fists in the next half-dozen years. Why did they put my soul in my body at this infernal time. Do you not understand, imbecile? Is there no one who understands?" - Stephen Vincent Benét, 'The Curfew Tolls", in 50 Great Short Stories, ed. Milton Crane p. 312.

It wasn't until the final paragraphs that I realized why the lack of a name mattered, and this twist made for a reading experience I would recommend. 

"The Curfew Tolls" can be read online here.

If You Read Enough Books, You Overflow

One of the last books I checked out of the Lincoln Central Library before I moved away was Terry Prachett's A Slip of the Keyboard. Pratchett is one of those authors who has been on edges of my awareness for awhile--I was given a copy of Good Omens over a decade ago, and loved it (I could also go on, at length, about how much I adore the television show), but I hadn't stumbled into reading any of his other writings. 

A Slip of the Keyboard by Terry Pratchett

A Slip of the Keyboard changed that. It was, of course, helpful that I found it exactly at the right time--anthologies with short chapters are good for moving, or times of upheaval in general, because you can pick them up and put them down without losing the plot. The book collects Pratchett's essays, speeches, and other non-fiction pieces. It is full of delightful moments. Consider this reflection on his experiences at the start of his career:

I was lucky. Incredibly so, when I think of all the ways things could have gone. But when the floppy-eared Spaniel of Luck sniffs at your turn-ups it helps if you have a collar and a piece of string in your pocket. In my case, it was a sequel. (p. 21)

I can picture the Spaniel of Luck, can't you? It's probably the type of dog who gets excited and beats a tattoo with its tail. Neil Gaiman's introduction reflects beautifully on the contrast between Pratchett's image as a jolly funnyman and the outrage against injustice that drives much of his work. Outrage aside, moments of exasperation are among the delights of these pieces. One of my favourites is his pithy comment on the internet:

The ethos of the internet was evolved by people who did not have to pay their own phone bills. (p. 79)

But there's also his comment on the rebranding of librarianship:

Not long ago I was invited to a librarians' event by a lady who cheerfully told me, 'We like to think of ourselves as information providers.' I was appalled by this want of ambition: I made my excuses and didn't go. After all, if you have a choice, why not call yourselves Shining Acolytes of the Sacred Flame of Literacy in a Dark and Encroaching Universe? I admit this is hard to put on a button, so why no abbreviate it to librarians?....It seemed to me, even in those days, that librarians and their ilk were not mere 'providers.' (p. 143)

This is part of a passage describing his experience working as a volunteer librarian. I like his point that librarians do more than simply provide access to information, they help people navigate it. (I also think he's on to something about the way that information professionals can often struggle to "TAKE UP SPACE", as my middle school violin teacher would memorably shout at me when I slouched.)

Another passage I want to copy out and wave at everyone I know (the point of this post, if there is one), comes from his inaugural lecture as a professor at Trinity College, Dublin. It's a passage I want to put in a course handbook one day:

Vice-chancellor, venerable staff, guests, students, and graduates, I hope that no one will take it amiss when I say that what we are in fact doing today is celebrating ignorance. Ignorance is generally an unregarded talent among humans, but we are in fact the only species that knows how to do it properly. We've got where we are today by starting out ignorant. It wasn't always like this. A few thousand years ago, we knew everything--how the world began, what it was for, our place in it...everything. It was all there, in the stories the old men told around the fire or had written down in a big book. No more questions, everything sorted out. But now we now that there's vast amounts of things that, well, we simply don't know, Universities have made great efforts in this area. Think about how it works: you arrive at university, the gleam still on your A-levels, and you've pretty well got it all sussed. Then the first thing they tell you--well, the second thing, obviously, because they have to tell you where the toilets are and so on--is that what you've learned so far is not so much the truth as it is a way of looking at things. And after three years or so you've learned that there's a huge amount you don't know yet, and that's when they give you a scroll and push you out. Ignorance is a wonderful thing--it's the state you have to be in before you can really learn anything. (p. 149)

It's not quite correct--as a medievalist, I take issue with the idea that rigid, patriarchal certainty about the way the world works (or should work), is a thing of the past--it seems to be doing very well for itself in the twenty-first century. But the real point, that one of the outcomes of becoming truly educated is realizing with wonder and humility just how infinitely much there is to learn--is something I hope to convey in my own teaching.

Some of the loveliest moments in the book are when Pratchett reflects on his own development as a writer. I love his account of writing a fan letter to Tolkien and getting a response back.

...when I was young, I wrote a letter to J.R.R. Tolkien, just as he was becoming extravagantly famous. I think the book that impressed me was Smith of Wotton Major. Mine must have been among hundreds or thousands of letters he received every week. I got a reply. It might have been dictated. For all I know, it might have been typed to a format. But it was signed. He must have had a sackful of letters from every commune and university in the world, written by people whose children are now grown up and trying to make a normal life while being named Galadriel or Moonchild. It wasn't as if I'd said a lot. There were no burning questions. I just said I'd enjoyed the book. And he said thank you. For a moment, it achieved the most basic and treasured of human communications: you are real, and therefore so am I. (p. 76)

Writers on the craft of writing can be a bit hit or miss, and a secondary industry to the writing advice industry is the don't-take-that-writing-advice-industry, where people explain their allergies to old chestnuts such as "write every day". A Slip of the Keyboard is not a book of advice, but I found this passage especially useful.

Read with the eye of a carpenter looking at trees. Apply logic in places where it  wasn't intended to exist. If assured that the Queen of the Fairies has a necklace made of broken promises, ask yourself what it looks like. If there is magic, where does it come from? Why isn't everyone using it? What rules will you have to give to allow some tension in your story? How does society operate? Where does the food come from? You need to know how your world works. (p. 85)

And lastly, in a book stuffed with great one-liners, this is among the book's best:

And I went on reading; and, since if you read enough books you overflow, I eventually became a writer. (p. 126)

Inspired by A Slip of the Keyboard, one of the first books I checked out from my new public library, de Bibliotheek Utrecht, was their extremely battered copy of Reaper Man, which I loved. I'm currently testing the integrity of the tape binding holding together their copy of The Truth. There is more Terry Pratchett in my future. May we all read to overflow in what remains of this year and the ones to come, and thanks to Sir Terry for helping us do it.