November '25 Reading

 This is an after-the-fact attempt at capture. 

1. I, Claudius by Robert Graves. "I, Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus This-that-and-the-other (for I shall not trouble you yet with all my titles), who was once, and not so long ago either, known to my friends and relatives and associates as 'Claudius the Idiot', or 'That Claudius', or 'Claudius the Stammerer', or 'Clau-Clau-Claudius', or at best as 'Poor Uncle Claudius', am now about to write this strange history of my life; starting from my earliest childhood and continuing year by year until I reach the fateful point of change where, some eight years ago, at the age of fifty-one, I suddenly found myself caught in what I may call the 'golden predicament' from which I have never since become disentangled. "
2. October Country by Ray Bradbury. Standouts: "The Emissary," "Homecoming," The Cistern," "Next in Line," "The Wind."
3. A Haunting on the Hill by Elizabeth Hand. An adequate haunted house story set in Hill House which I rather regret reading.   
4. NYer of 8/11/25. "Breeze,/blow for one/I love, stretch/his muscles as/he needs and wants." (James Schuyler). 

October '25 Reading

A busy month in general, and filling in a lot of free time with pickleball and horror movies. 

1. Meditations Marcus Aurelius. I can't get beyond this text as a illustration of the massive privilege (a word I avoid as much as possible). 
2. Harvest Home by Thomas Tryon. Trope of the petit patriarch assuming superiority over everyone only to fall hard
3. Greengage Summer by Rumer Godden. "On and off, all that hot French August, we made ourselves ill from eating the greengages."
4. Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay. A mid riff on the "cursed film" trope. Kind of ok in parts, like the method acting=descent into psychosis idea.