The Ninth: Beethoven and the World in 1824 by Harvey Sachs is an account of Beethoven’s writing of his 9th Symphony, although it’s far more than that.
Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall by Anna Funder is charming in its way. The author was working in Germany and began exploring victims of the East German secret police (the Stasi) and also interviewed both former Stasi agents and collaborators.
Gustav Klimt by Wilfried Rogasch is a short book about a great artist. The text is mostly biography but also includes some information about the most famous of his paintings and includes many beautiful color reproductions.
Found Audio by N. J. Campbell is a quirky little meta-novel published by the also quirky Two Dollar Radio. It purports to be a manuscript submitted to a literary agent about mysterious goings on, but is itself part of a conspiracy that isn’t quite explained.
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby is the book on which the well-received film is based. The author was a magazine editor in Paris when he had a stroke that rendered him paralyzed but for the movement of one eyelid. With only that means of communication, he wrote this short book about his life before and after the stroke. He died only days after publication of the book in France.
Amazing Things Are Happening Here by Jacob M. Appel is a collection of short stories. Appel is a terrific story writer, and these pieces are good examples of his work. Perhaps my favorite in this volume is “The Bigamist’s Apprentice,” about two dementia patients who want to marry each other even though they are already married to other people.
I am the Size of Whatever I See by Fernando Pessoa is a collection of the great Portuguese writer’s poems. One of the things that’s interesting about the collection is that Pessoa wrote under many heteronyms representing persona he adopted for various styles of writing and this book includes work under some of those heteronyms.
If Life is Love by Chuck Madansky is a collection of poems that address love, nature, death, and everything in between. The poems are beautiful and smart.
Missing Persons by Stephanie Carpenter is a collection of short stories. Winner of the Press 53 Award for Short Fiction, the book’s stories are gritty and realistic but find their characters in difficult circumstances.
Swallowing Mercury by Wioletta Greg (translated from Polish by Eliza Marciniak) is a short novel that was considered for the International Booker Prize in 2017. Set in Polish village in the 1980s, it describes the coming of age of young girl just as the country is awakening.
The Pavilion of Former Wives by Jonathan Baumbach is a collection of short stories that didn’t do a lot for me. They all seemed to be about relationships gone bad.
The Going and Goodbye by Shuly Xóchitl Cawood is a memoir of love and loss that I found highly readable. It’s odd to read a memoir by someone I know, though.
