Birdgirl: Looking to the Sky for a Better Future by Mya-Rose Craig - A Memoir- forthcoming March 28,2023

 Birdgirl: Looking to the Sky for a Better Future by Mya-Rose Craig - A Memoir- forthcoming March 28,2023

"Birdwatching has never felt like a hobby, or a pastime I can pick up and put down, but a thread running through the pattern of my life, so tightly woven in that there’s no way of pulling it free and leaving the rest of my life intact.”

Birdgirl is a very powerful deeply moving memoir by a twenty year old woman.The focus is on how a love of birdwatching, called "twitching" in England, lead her to a deep interest in conservation and climate issues. Interwoven with this is her story of growing up dealing with her mother's serious mental health problems, she was bipolar. Her mother was from Bangladesh and her father English which impacted her life in a society with biases against minorities.

Mya-Rose Craig began birdwatching at eight, starting with her father, she became obsessed with birds, seeing them, listing her sightings on birding website and becoming at 17 to be the youngest person to have seen over 5000 species of birds, half of the estimated 10,000 in the world. Her mother, a solicitor, had extreme mood swings. Growing up Mya-Rose did not understand the causes of this but she came to look for down turns which might keep her mother feeling like doing nothing all day to be as inexplicably to her up moods when her mother would work 12 hours a day, then come home and plan bird watching trips.

Each chapter begins with a description of a bird she hopes to see. I learned a lot about birds, their environments, birding lodges (for fun I followed a few lodges on Facebook)

Her family had the resources to go on lengthy birdwatching trips all over the world. They spent three months touring twitching hot spots in South America. Her mother planned the trips and Mya-Rose noticed her mother, who was also an obsessive twitcher, seemed better on trips. I learned birdwatching was a competitive pursuit as well as a community building activity.

Mia-Rose began to get noticed by British media. At 13 she was giving speeches all over England, she became involved in environmental causes along with Greta Thunburg. She was trying hard to fit in as a young teenager with her age peers. We see the struggles to find help for her mother. The mother's issues emotionally strained the father. She begins a program to get more minorities involved in birdwatching.

I am very glad to close out this year on The Reading Life with such an interesting and inspiring memoir. If Mya-Rose Craig can pack so much in just 20 years I know she will be a powerful force for the good of the earth.

 "I am a 20-year-old prominent British-Bangladeshi ornithologist, environmentalist, diversity activist as well as an author, speaker and broadcaster. At age 11 I started the popular blog Birdgirl, and at age 17 I became the youngest person to see half of the birds in the world" from.https://www.birdgirluk.com/

For more about her amazing accomplishments I refer you to her website.

From Amazon 

"Mya-Rose Craig, also known as Birdgirl, is a 20-year-old British-Bangladeshi birder, environmentalist, and diversity activist. She campaigns for equal access to nature, to end the climate and biodiversity loss crises, issues which she believes are intrinsically linked, while promoting Global Climate Justice. She also fights for the rights of indigenous peoples, is an Ambassador for Survival International and has previously written a book in the UK amplifying their voices.

At age fourteen she founded Black2Nature, to engage teenagers of color with nature and at seventeen she became the youngest Briton to receive an honorary Doctorate, awarded by Bristol University for this pioneering work. Also at seventeen she became the youngest person to see half the world's bird species and shared a stage with Greta Thunberg, speaking to 40,000 protestors. In September 2020 she held the world's most northerly Youth Strike, traveling with Greenpeace, for whom she is an Oceans' Ambassador, to the melting pack ice of the high Arctic."

Mel Ulm

Electra by Euripides- First Produced c. 420 B.C.E. -translated by Emily Wilson 2016- This play is included in The Greek Plays: Sixteen Plays by Sophocles, Aeschylus and Euripides-Preface, general introduction, play introductions, and compilation copyright © 2016 by Mary Lefkowitz and James Romm

 
Electra by Euripides- First Produced c. 420 B.C.E. -translated by Emily Wilson 2016- This play is included in The Greek Plays: Sixteen Plays by Sophocles, Aeschylus and Euripides-Preface, general introduction, play introductions, and compilation copyright © 2016 by Mary Lefkowitz and James Romm

An Ancient Reads Work 

CAST OF CHARACTERS (IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE) PEASANT, husband of Electra ELECTRA, daughter of the dead king of Argos, Agamemnon, and the wife who murdered him, Clytemnestra,ORESTES, exiled brother of Electra OLD MAN, loyal servant and long-ago tutor of Agamemnon MESSENGER CLYTEMNESTRA, mother of Electra AEGISTHUS, lover of Clytemnestra and co-murderer of Agamemnon; in possession of the throne of Argos CASTOR (with POLLUX, nonspeaking role), brothers of Helen and Clytemnestra, who have become gods PYLADES, friend of Orestes (nonspeaking role) and CHORUS of women of Argos.

"Both this Electra and the one by Sophocles —perhaps written at about the same time, though neither can be securely dated— are recastings of Aeschylus’ Libation Bearers, and both feature realistic characters who are not particularly laudable. In Euripides’ drama, both Electra and Orestes are more interested in recovering their patrimony and their aristocratic way of life than in accomplishing the justice of Zeus. They spend more time plotting the murders than summoning Agamemnon’s ghost, a reversal of the pattern by which Aeschylus had displayed the piety of his heroes." From The introduction to Electra

The play begins with a peasant giving a lengthy speech in which he explains why Electra committed her murders and their consequences. Electra's mother has forced her to marry an old peasant farmer. She must labor, her clothes are dirty and her hair is short. Only aristocrats with slaves can have the luxury of long hair. Electra is, as her mother intended, humiliated by her circumstances. The marriage is never consummated as her husband has too much respect for her to touch her. When her brother Orestes returns they do not initially recognize each other. He assumes he is a criminal and he that she is a peasant. The children of Agamemnon are criminals and the peasant, way down on the social scale, is much more an embodiment of Greek ideals than they.

"Electra and Orestes offer horrifying descriptions of how they killed their mother in the peasant’s house. They saw her bare her breast and heard her plead with them not to kill her. Electra helped the hesitant Orestes thrust his sword through their mother’s neck. Once the deed is done, they both express regret: Electra takes pity on Clytemnestra as she lies dead, putting the clothes back on the body of “our unkind kin, the enemy we loved.”".

A sense of Wilson's translation can be seen in the explanation Orestes gives as to why he has returned.

ORESTES: Ah, Pylades! My best, most loyal friend, linked by both hospitality and blood. The only one who still respected me, stuck by me when Aegisthus made me suffer. He killed my father, with my monstrous mother. I’ve been away, a visit to the god; no one in Argos knows I’ve got back here, to pay my father’s killers death for death. Last night I went to see my father’s grave, and wept for him, and gave a lock of hair, and killed a sheep, and poured blood on the fire, in secret from the powers that be— those tyrants! And I’m not setting foot inside the walls, if anybody sees me; secondly, I’m looking for my sister, since they say she’s married now and living with a husband. We’ll team up: she will help me kill those two, and help me understand what’s going on behind the walls. just coming to the borders of the land. Two reasons: first, so I can get out fast, if anybody sees me; secondly, I’m looking for my sister, since they say she’s married now and living with a husband. We’ll team up: she will help me kill those two, and help me understand what’s going on behind the walls."

There are two other translations by Emily Wilson in the collection. I also am looking forward to reading six of her translations of Seneca as well as her highly regarded recent translation of the Odyssey.

Emily Wilson is the College for Women Class of 1963 Term Professor in the Humanities, professor of Classical Studies, and graduate chair of the Program in Comparative Literature & Literary Theory at the University of Pennsylvania. Wilson attended Oxford University (Balliol College B.A. and Corpus Christi College M.Phil.) and Yale University (Ph.D.). In 2006, she was named a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome in Renaissance & Early Modern scholarship. In 2019 she was named a MacArthur Fellow, and in 2020 she was named a Guggenheim Fellow. She lives in Philadelphia with her three daughters, three cats, two rats, and one dog.

Follow Professor Wilson on Twitter @EmilyRCWilson. Professor Wilson frequently tweets about the Odyssey, translation, and her pets. From https://www.emilyrcwilson.com/

There are links to links to several articles by Wilson as well as several interviews on her website.

Mel Ulm

Sally on the Rocks by Winifred Boggs -1915- reprinted in the British Library Women Writers Series - 2021 with a Preface by Lucy Evans and an Afterword by Simon Thomas

 Sally on the Rocks by Winifred Boggs - 1915- British Library Women Writers Edition-2021- with a Preface by Lucy Evans and an Afterword by Simon Thomas

"Part of a curated collection of forgotten works by early to mid-century women writers, the British Library Women Writers series highlights the best middlebrow fiction from the 1910s to the 1960s, offering escapism, popular appeal and plenty of period detail to amuse, surprise and inform".- From The British Library

Winifred Boggs - 1874 to 1931

There are currently 15 works in the British Library Women Writers Series. I am hoping to read through them. Most are fairly brief and all include author bios and expert commentaries. The Kindle Editions are under $4.00.

British Women Writers Works I have so far read

Strange Journey by Maud Cairnes -1935

The Love Child by Edith Olivier - 1927

Tea is So Intoxicating by Ursula Bloom (writing as Mary Essex)- 1950

Father by Elizabeth Von Armin - 1931

The Tree of Heaven by Mary Sinclair- 1917

O, The Brave Music by Dorothy Evelyn - 1943

Sally on the Rocks by Winifred Boggs- 1915

So far Sally on the Rocks is my favourite in the series.

As the story opens Sally Lunton is in Paris, World War One has just begun. Sally's six year relationship with a young English man has just ended. She has been making a little money as a painter but not nearly enough to be comfortable. At 31 she knows she must find a husband before she gets much older. Plus she no longer feels save in Paris. She decides to return the small English town of Little Crampton, under the care of her dedicated guardian. Her parents are deceased and she has no siblings.

As in other books in the series, there is a rich busybody older woman who asserts herself in a very judgemental way into the lives of residents. "The sooner you discovered that Miss Maggie was neither to be defied nor ignored, but appeased, the better. Also that it would save time and trouble to tell her your own version of the worst. No matter how small the skeleton she pounced upon, the lady could make its bones rattle so loudly that you would be deafened". In Little Cranpton men were allowed to have a premarital adventure but a hint of this could destroy the reputation of a woman.

  Sally is advised to set her sights on Mr. Bixby, a bachelor in his forties who manages the local bank. Besides his salary he receives £3000 pounds a year from an inheritance, quite a good income. She has some competition as a widow is also after him. Mr. Bixby is smug, a bit portly and way to hung up on the advise his late mother left him about Women in a book she wrote.

 Men are already returning, broken, and traumatised from the trenches, and others were being hailed heroes merely for wearing a uniform. Mr Bixby is over the age to enlist and he basically says he is to valuable to be in the war. He seems jealous of the appeal of soldiers to women.  

Another important character enters. An officer who disobeyed the command of his superior. This leads to his entire command but for three men being killed. He is falsely branded a Coward. He is also from Little Crampton and has returned there. 

I do not want to give up much of the really quite involving plot.

One thing I was really struck by was how antiwar the novel was. Not to be hyperbolic in my companion but I recently read Persians by Euripides and I was reminded of the opening speech of the Persian messenger describing the horrible devastation inflicted on Persian soldiers forced to fight in a war meaningless to them. From the mouth of Sally:

"This war reaping the youth and manhood and strength of the world, robbing us not only of this generation, but the next, is horrible, but it still rages on. God looks down from His high Heaven, but He does not put back the sword in its scabbard. Death is horrible, and life sometimes more."

Readers now will not probably accept the treatment of alcoholism as a character weakness.

There are numerous exciting plot turns, interesting minor characters, some stuff for foodies. We know what the characters look like, how they dress and what they are hiding.  I felt I was there in Little Crampton.

I found Sally on the Rocks a delightful work

Next on my list is Chesterson Square by E. F. Young.

Mel Ulm

Clouds- A Comedy by Aristophenes-First Produced 423 B.C.E.- translated by Aaron Poochigian- 2021

 Clouds- A Comedy by Aristophenes-First Produced 423 B.C.E.- translated by Aaron Poochigian- 2021 

An Ancient Reads Work.

Aristophanes, (born c. 450 BCE—died c. 388 BCE), 

Emily Wilson's Review of Aaron Poochigian Collection of four comedies by Aristophenes- A Marvelous Introduction to the Comedies of Aristophenes - at Emilyrcwilson.com

This is the fourth comedy by Aristophenes I have so read. Prior to this I have posted on Lysistrata, his most famous work, Birds and Women of the Assembly. These works are included in Aaron Poochigan's collection.

In his introduction Poochigan says that Clouds, unlike the other three plays focuses on one person and his attempt to improve his financial situation. (But similarly to Lysistrata and Women of the Assembly, strap on dildos are a big factor. Here is my suggestion for a Dissertation- "Dildos in Classical Drama").

Characters 

Socrates, the philosopher who runs The Thinkery[9]

Strepsiades, student who joins The Thinkery

Pheidippides, his son

Chaerephon, disciple of Socrates

The Clouds, who form the chorus

Chorus Leader

Slave

Students

First Student

Wrong Argument

Right Argument

First Creditor

Second Creditor

Witness

Xanthias

As the play opens Strepsiades is in bed but he cannot sleep because he is very stressed by the debts he has run up to support son's, Pheidippides betting on horse races. Strepsiades tells the audience that his wife, from a wealthy clan, encourages the son Pheidippides in his interest in horses as it is regarded as a hobby for aristocrats. Strepsiades's creditors keep adding on interest and are now threatening to sue him which could cause him to lose all he owns.  

Strepsiades tries to get his son to enroll in an academy run by Socrates, The Thinkery, in which young men are taught to win arguments. When his spoiled son refuses he enrolls himself even though he is way older than the other students. It seems that the students are expected to allow their instructors to work them over with strepon dildos. All Strepsiades wants to do is learn how to refute the true claims of his creditors when he appears in court.

Wikipedia has a decent article laying out the plot. Strepsiades learns of the absurd doctrines taught at the school. Clouds is a savage attack on the perceived by Aristophenes decay of Athenian morality caused by Socrates.  

The Countess From Kirribilli, The Mysterious and Free-spirited Literary Sensation That Beguiled the World by Joyce Morgan-2021-419 Pages- A Biography of Elizabeth von Armin

 The Countess From Kirribilli, The Mysterious and Free-spirited Literary Sensation That Beguiled the World by Joyce Morgan-2021-419 Pages- A Biography of Elizabeth von Armin 

Born: August 31, 1866, Kirribilli, Australia

Died: February 9, 1941, Charleston, South Carolina, United States

Spouse: Frank Russell, 2nd Earl Russell (m. 1916–1931), Count Henning August von Arnim-Schlagenthin (m. 1891–1910)

Children: Elizabeth Reeves

Grandparents: John Beauchamp, Anne Stone

Cousin of Katherine Mansfield 

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Books by Elizabeth von Armin

Elizabeth and Her German Garden (1898)

The Solitary Summer (1899)

April Baby’s Book of Tunes (1900)

The Benefactress (1901)

The Adventures of Elizabeth in Rugen (1904)

Princess Priscilla’s Fortnight (1905)

Fräulein Schmidt and Mr Anstruther (1907)

The Caravaners (1909)

The Pastor’s Wife (1914)

Christine (1917) (published as Alice Cholmondeley)

Christopher and Columbus (1919)

In the Mountains (1920)

Vera (1921)

The Enchanted April (1922)

Love (1925)

Introduction to Sally (1926)

Expiation (1929)

Father (1931)

The Jasmine Farm (1934)

All the Dogs of My Life (1936)

Mrs Skeffington- 1940 -selected by The Book of the Month Club

Her marriage made her Countess von Arnim-Schlagenthin and her second Elizabeth Russell, Countess Russell. After her first husband's death, she had a three-year affair with the writer H. G. Wells, then later married Frank Russell, elder brother of the Nobel prize-winner and philosopher Bertrand Russell. She came to despise both of her husbands. She felt liberation when the oppressive Count

 von Arnim-Schlagenthin died and after her separation from Bertrand Russell's brother she ridiculously portrayed him so harshly in a novel that he wanted to sue her until his attorney advised him that would, just make him look worse. Husbands and fathers overall come across as oppressive, boring, and just a bother, as Morgan documents.She had a three-year affair with a man twenty years her junior. They remained close even after he married.

 Her father was Henry Herron Beauchamp(1825–1907), a wealthy shipping merchant, and her mother was Weiss Lassetter (1836–1919). She had four brothers and a sister. One of her cousins was the New Zealand-born Kathleen Beauchamp, who wrote under the pen name Katherine Mansfield. When she was three years old, the family moved to England, where they lived in London but they also spent several years in Switzerland.cousin once removed of Mansfield

. Although Elizabeth was older by 22 years, she and Mansfield later corresponded, reviewed each other's works, and became close friends. Mansfield, ill with tuberculosis, Switzerland from May 1921 until January with her husband John Middleton Murry from June 1921. The house was only a 30 minutes from Arnim chalet. visited her cousin's niece often during this period. They got on well, although Mansfield considered the much wealthier Arnim to be patronizing.Mansfield satirized Arnim as the character Rosemary in a short story, "A Cup of Tea", which she wrote while in Switzerland, a wicked story indeed.

Two of her books were made into Hollywood movies, Mrs Skeffington and Enchanted April, for which she received $50,000 each (the equivalent today of just over a million dollars.)   

Morgan abundantly illustrates that Elizabeth von Armin did not have a lot of luck with men and her relationships with her children were often troubled . We see how disturbed she was by the turn of Germany to Nazism. Unlike many of the aristocracy of England she abored Hitler from the start.

Toward the end of her life she became increasingly lonely, her old friends were mostly dead. There is to be such sadness in these lines about a writer who brought joy to so many:

"Elizabeth spent Christmas Day alone. She felt desolate and cried tears she thought had long dried up. When a lizard crawled across her carpet, she sat down next to it for company." (1940)

I found Morgan's poignant account of her deep love for dogs both moving and heartbreaking. Dogs gave her the loyalty she rarely found in those she loved.

I am very glad to have read this book.

"Joyce Morgan is the author of three books: two about creative Australians and one about the discovery of the world’s oldest printed book. Her biography of artist Martin Sharp was long-listed in 2018 for the Stella Prize, Australia’s key award for female writers. Joyce has been a journalist for four decades in Australia, England and Hong Kong, specialising in Arts and Culture. A veteran traveller, Joyce also leads cultural tours to Asia and beyond." From The author’s website 

Three Sisters- A Play in Four Acts by Anton Chekhov- 1900- translated by Constance Garnett

 Three Sisters- A Play in Four Acts by Anton Chekhov- 1900- translated by Constance Garnett

I was motivated to read Chekhov's play by the chapter devoted to it in Viv Groskup's marvelous book, The Anna Karenina-Life Lessons from Russian Literature, "How to Live with the Feeling That the Grass is Always Greener: Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov".

Born: January 29, 1860, Taganrog, Russia

Died: July 15, 1904, Badenweiler, Germany

Spouse: Olga Knipper (m. 1901–1904)

Three Sisters along with The Cherry Orchard, Uncle Vanya and The Seagull are considered Chekhov's best plays. The play was written for the Moscow Art Theatre and it opened on 31 January 1901, under the direction of Konstantin Stanislavski and Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko.

The three sisters, twenty something live in a provisional town but they long to move to Moscow.

Their parents are deceased, they have been left a comfortable house and enough money to have servants. The oldest sister, Olga is at 28 considered a spinster. She works as a teacher but wishes she could be a wife instead, even "to an old man". She functions as the matriarch of the family.

Marsha, the middle sister is married to a teacher who she despises for his pettiness. She has an affair. The youngest sister Irina, 20, longs for love. Their brother Andrei, whose ill-advised romance and compulsive gambling wreaks havoc on the family finances and eventually forces them out of their home. Weary of their small-town surroundings, the Prozorovs long to return to Moscow, the bustling metropolis they left eleven years ago. Unfortunately, ground down by disappointment, debt, and the oppressive ordinariness of their daily lives, they’re never able to get there. There is an army camp nearby and a number of officers visit.

Here is Viv Groskup's take on the lesson to be learned from Three Sisters. 

"The problem is, no matter how good we have it, the grass genuinely does seem greener elsewhere. Nowhere is this better illustrated than in Chekhov’s play Three Sisters, where all the three sisters really want in life is to get back to Moscow, scene of their childhood. Moscow represents a reaction against their present life – which they don’t want – and a promise of something better. They want Moscow, Moscow, Moscow. They say it enough times. But what they also want, crucially, is to be somewhere else other than where they are right now. Sound familiar?"

One of the factors I enjoyed in the play was that the Sisters seemed aware there was a growing demand for social change directed at ending the vast inequalities in Russian society.

"Chekhov’s brilliance lies in capturing something important about a life change that was happening at the time he was writing: people were starting to be able to affect their own lives, change their class, break out of the confines of their gender". Viv Groskup 

Les liaisons dangereuse by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos- 1782- 409 Pages- translated and edited by Douglas Parmée; introduction by David Coward- 1995- (Oxford World Classics)

 Les liaisons dangereuse by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos- 1782- 409 Pages- translated and edited by Douglas Parmée; introduction by David Coward- 1995- (Oxford World Classics)

This was the most read French novel during the 18th Century. It was condemned by the Church which served to increase reader demand.

"The lesson in happiness in Les Liaisons Dangereuses is a simple but profound one: happiness is real, not a pose. If you pretend to be something you’re not—and especially if you feign emotions you don’t have—sooner or later you will be found out. Les Misérables is a demonstration of how meaningless happiness is in the face of the suffering of others. Les Liaisons Dangereuses takes this a step further. It’s about one of the worst things any human being can do: actively and intentionally destroy the happiness of others. The one pleasure the Marquise de Merteuil and Valmont take is in dismantling any happy moment that others might be experiencing. Choderlos de Laclos shows us what he really thinks of this by giving them their comeuppance. This is a novel that leaves you feeling unsettled and unsure as to how exactly you’ve been manipulated." Ver Goskup

I added this book to my wishlist after reading Viv Groskup's chapter on it in Tristesse: Lessons in Happiness from French Literature. It is an epistolary novel, a form which allows authors to make us of their characters private thoughts before the interior monologue came into usage. I was happy to see mentions of Samuel Richardson's classic epistolary work Clarrisa, 1748, in several letters.

(L'Abbé Antoine François de Prévost (1697-1763) was 

its first translator in 1751, later it was translated by Rousseau and Denis Dedirow, among others.)

Wikipedia has a decent plot summary so I will just make a few observations.

I do really hope I can watch the 1988 movie starring Glenn Close.  

It took me a bit of time to be drawn into the work. The letters are not fully candid, often aimed at manipulation of the receiver. We are drawn into a world of corruption brought about by the boredom of aristocrats. Seducing married women is a popular pastime, servants can be bribed to shield affairs from husbands. The letters are replete with sycophantic prevarication. It is an interesting challenge to slowly develop our understanding of intentions.

This is the author's only work besides a light opera and a few poems.He wrote it in six months while on leave from serving as a general in the French Army. He also is credited with inventing the modern artillery shell.

Viv Groskup sums up the power of this novel perfectly

"It is uncwhether the Choderlos de Laclos meant this novel as a provocative piece of entertainment intended as a celebration of amorality or as a political statement damning the aristocracy for their decadence and cruelty. Is it a celebration of libertinism? Or a vicious critique of it? The author’s intentions can never be known. Which I think is rather wonderful, as it means that we get to decide for ourselves. Furthermore, this boo is a perfect example of the sort of book that challenges your expectations and your morality over time. There are times when I can read (or watch) Les Liaisons Dangereuses and find it hilarious and delicious and clever. And there are times when I can come to it and think that it is a depiction of the absolute worst of humanity, so much so that it makes me want to weep forever."

Mel Ulm

The Persians by Aeschylus -479 B. C. E. -translated by James Romm - 2009- The Most Ancient of Dramas

 The Persians by Aeschylus -479 B. C. E. -translated by James Romm - 2016- The Most Ancient of any drama

An Ancient Times Project Work

  Aeschylus- 525 B. C. E. to 456 B.C. E. Only seven of his estimated 80 dramas survived.

This play is included in The Greek Plays: Sixteen Plays by Sophocles, Aeschylus and Euripides-Preface, general introduction, play introductions, and compilation copyright © 2016 by Mary Lefkowitz and James Romm

CAST OF CHARACTERS (IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE) CHORUS of Persian elders ATOSSA, queen of the Persians; mother of Xerxes; widow of Darius MESSENGER from the retreating Persian army GHOST OF DARIUS, former king of the Persians; father of Xerxes XERXES, king of Persia 

In his informative introduction to The Persians James Romm explains that Aeschylus and much of his audience had fought in the a seemingly miraculous Greek victory over the Persian navy at the island of Salamis, off the west coast of Attica. That victory, achieved despite long odds, had saved most of Greece, and especially Athens, from a fearsome choice between annihilation and subjection to the might of imperial Persia. 

The Persians is the final drama in a Trilogy, the first two works were lost. My research indicates it is one of the very few Greek dramas based on actual events.

The Persians most powerful segment to me is a very amazing account of the army assembled by the Persian Emperor Xerxes to conquer Greece. The play takes place in Susa, one of the capitals of the Persian Empire and opens with a chorus of old men of Susa, who are soon joined by the Queen Mother, Atossa, as they await news of her son King Xerxes' expedition against the Greeks. Expressing her anxiety Antossa feared this vast assembly of warriors would be destroyed by the Greeks under the leadership of Athens. Xerxes the Emperor escapes capture. His mother Atossa is harshly critical of her son, blaming his hubris for the death of many thousands of Persisns.

Contemporary scholars seem divided as to how one might view the play. Some see it as a celebration of the Greek victory others see compassion for the "warriors of Asia" sent to die in a war that meant nothing to them. 

At the tomb of her dead husband Darius, Atossa asks the chorus to summon his ghost: "Some remedy he knows, perhaps,/Knows ruin's cure". On learning of the Persian defeat, Darius condemns the hubris behind his son's decision to invade Greece. 

God's are depicted as favoring the Greeks but they demand obedience and punish those they find disrespect them.

Mel Ulm

The Reading Life 

The Year of No Garbage;Recycling Lies, Plastic Problems and One Woman' Trashy Journey to Zero Waste by Eva Schaub- forthcoming January 2023

 

The Year of No Garbage:Recycling Lies, Plastic Problems and One Woman's Trashy Journey to No Waste by Eva Schaub- Forthcoming January 2023- 336 Pages

"When we say “garbage” what we’re really saying is climate change. What we really mean is discrimination. What we really mean is cancer. Garbage is at the root of so many things that are going wrong in the world today— from global warming and environmental racism to cancer: the number two killer of Americans— and it’s getting worse all the time." From a year of no Garbage by Eva Schaub

This is a delightful account of Eva Schaub's very determined attempt to go a year without 

Creating any garbage. Living in Vermont with her husband and her two daughters, one in high school the other in college, she, began to wonder about what eventually happens to the estimated 6000 plus pounds of stuff they put in the garbage bins in front of the house.in a year.   Having written a book about her experiences totally cutting sugar from their diet, A Year Without Sugar, she decides to embark on a year of serious recycling while eliminating as much waste as possible. To make it all the more challenging, soon after she starts, the Covid Pandemic begins.  

The memoir is a blend of her challenges and what she learned about the terrible impact the extreme pervasiveness plastics have on the environment and the deceptions employed to make well meaning people feel good when they drop things in a recycling bin at the grocery store when in fact doing this just perpetuates problems. Garbage is moved from affluent places, "liberal" places and dumped on the poor areas. No predominantly White Country accepts garbage from other countries, no first world country. The fees paid to dump garbage go into the pockets of leaders of poorer countries.  

The first challenge Schaub faced was getting her family on board. Her husband Steve liked the idea,her two daughters reaction was "whatever,Mom". She soon realised how much plastic there was in the food she buys at the supermarket. Chicken, one example, comes in a plastic covered package with small plastic inserts under the Chicken. In order to recycle things they must be washed and dried.

I learned from Schaub how plastic pollution raises the temperature of oceans, destroying reefs and acquatic life on a huge scale. CO2 released from the plastic disposal contributes much more to global warming than fossil fuels. Schaub searched for ways to cut down on her consumption of plastic. She acknowledges that her relative afluence made it possible for her to devote time and money to the project. 

About half the book is involved with her findings. I want to share some of them here. But first I wish to share two seminal thoughts, totally supported by Schaub's findings, by academic scholars.

Author Adam Minter gives a haunting description of the global plastics recycling center in Wen’an, China, and the scrap plastics trade in his 2013 book Junkyard Planet. At the time this “shadowy trade” often involved burning unusable plastics in the streets and dumping unusable plastics and plastic cleaning fluids into a giant pit on the outskirts of town. The people of the city were suffering strange new ailments involving strokes, paralysis, and lung scarring. “Wen’an is the most polluted place I’ve ever visited,” Minter writes.

Yes this is where Covid probably started.

In her book A Terrible Thing to Waste: Environmental Racism and Its Assault on the American Mind , author Harriet A. Washington explains that “African Americans and other people of color are 79 percent more likely than white US residents to live in neighborhoods” of toxic environmental chemicals residents to live in neighborhoods” of toxic environmental chemicals emitted from sources such as “petrochemical plants, refineries, garbage dumps, (and) incinerators.” These are the poisonous places where we source, make, and dispose of our plastics. All the processes involved with plastic —from fracking to incineration— are not just toxic, they also disproportionately end up in low-income communities and communities of color.

From A Year of No Garbage by Eva Schaub

Top Ten Terrible Truths About Plastic 

1. Plastic is not really recyclable. 

2. “Single-stream” recycling is a lie. 

3. “Compostable” plastics are pretty much a total lie (with one notable exception). 

4. “Extreme Recycling” Programs are pretty much a total lie too. 

5. Forget one giant ocean garbage patch; there are five

. 6. Plastic drives climate change. 

7. Plastic is racist.

8. Plastics do not break down— or go away—ever

. 9. Plastics are in our water, air, and food. Also our bloodstream, and the placenta of newborn babies. 

10. There aren’t seven kinds of plastic as recycling symbols indicate; there are tens of thousands, all largely untested for effects on human health

From The Year of No Garbage by Eva Schaub

"In an article for The Nation, journalist Jamie Lincoln Kitman writes that “The leaded gas adventurers have profitably polluted the world on a grand scale and, in the process, have provided a model for the asbestos, tobacco, pesticide and nuclear power industries, and other twentieth-century corporate bad actors, for evading clear evidence that their products are harmful by hiding behind the mantle of scientific uncertainty.”The plastics industry should be on the above list of “corporate bad actors” too, although you could argue that in a way, it already is. Because of course the “leaded gas adventurers” who played fast and loose with the health and well-being of millions of people in using lead as an additive in gas, are in many cases the very same companies, or their descendants, who are emphatically ramping up plastics production, all the while pushing “better recycling,”“personal responsibility,” and “gee whiz, plastic sure seems safe.

I have quoted more than I normally do in a post because I hope my readers will come to ponder her thoughts.

She offers lots of good tips, list useful resources and is very open about the challenges of the project including a section on plastic free hygiene products which her daughters had little enthusiasm for as well as a funny segment about getting a bidget.

Serial memoirist Eve O. Schaub lives with her family in Vermont and enjoys performing experiments on them so she can write about it.

"During 2011 Eve wrote a blog about her family’s attempt to live and eat for a year without any added sugar in their food, which became the book Year of No Sugar (Sourcebooks, 2014). It has since been translated into Chinese, Hebrew and French. She has been a guest on the Dr. Oz Show, and FOX and Friends, and has appeared in numerous print and online outlets. She considers not hyperventilating on national television one of her greatest accomplishments.

Her second book, Year of No Clutter, (Sourcebooks, 2017) revealed her deepest, darkest secret: clutter. In it, she struggles to transform herself from a self-described “clutter-gatherer” into a neat, organized person who can actually walk through every room of her house and does not feel the need to keep everything from childhood raincoats to cat fur. As you suspected, the family gets roped in on this one too.

Currently Schaub is working on Year of No Garbage, blogging about living all of the year 2020 without throwing anything away, at all. Ever. As you can imagine it was super-easy and nothing much to tell there, but nevertheless she is currently finalizing the manuscript for this third and final family adventure story and if you happen to be an interested publisher then you are her new best friend.

In addition to her books, Eve has written online for Hyperallergic, The Belladonna Comedy, Little Old Lady Comedy and in print for Vermont Life, Vermont Magazine, Everyday Health, and the Boston Globe Online. Also the New Yorker printed her letter once, so that was pretty cool. She holds a BA and BFA from Cornell University, and a MFA from the Rochester Institute of Technology."

Eve imagines it would be fun to win several important awards. Her favorite word is antidisestablishmentarianism. She enjoys writing about herself in the third person. From www.eveschaub.com

Mel Ulm

The Reading Life

Tobacco: The Cultural History of How an Exotic Plant Seduced Civilization by Ian Gately - 2001-426 pages

 Tobacco: A Cultural History of How an Exotic Plant Seduced Civilization by Ian Gately - 2001 - 426 Pages 

In October I read 1493: The World That Columbus Made by Charles Mann. Considered starting a Reading Life Project around books detailing the impact of contacts between North and South Africa with Asia, Europe, Australia and Africa. However for now this seemed too opened a project so I have abandoned the idea.  

One of the topics covered in Mann's essential book is the impact the spread of Tobacco from South America first to Virginia plantations in the 1700s than to Europe and from their worldwide. He details how the need for malaria resistant labourers resulted in replacing English indentured servants with West Africans, as slaves, who had a good bit of Immunity to malaria. He explains how this lead to increased warfare in Africa where tribes sought captives to sell to slave traders.

In his book Ian Gately traces the spread of near narcotic grip Tobacco soon had over Europe, Asia, especially Japan, Africa and the United States. In order to tell this story Gately does need to rely on a lot of historical background. The problem with this is that probably anyone who might be drawn to read his book will already know the history and will be bored by an elementary account of how the Spanish conquistadors took over the Empires of the Aztecs and Incas. Gately makes use of a lot of accounts of smoking customs in many places. He talks about how Tobacco was merchandised over the centuries throughout the world. He tries at times to be amusing. 

I ended up speed reading through the last half of the book.

Tobacco: A Cultural History of How an Exotic Plant Seduced Civilization by Ian Gately - 2001 - 426 Pages 

In October I read 1493: The World That Columbus Made by Charles Mann. Considered starting a Reading Life Project around books detailing the impact of contacts between North and South Africa with Asia, Europe, Australia and Africa. However for now this seemed too opened a project so I have abandoned the idea.  

One of the topics covered in Mann's essential book is the impact the spread of Tobacco from South America first to Virginia plantations in the 1700s than to Europe and from their worldwide. He details how the need for malaria resistant labourers resulted in replacing English indentured servants with West Africans, as slaves, who had a good bit of Immunity to malaria. He explains how this lead to increased warfare in Africa where tribes sought captives to sell to slave traders.

In his book Ian Gately traces the spread of near narcotic grip Tobacco soon had over Europe, Asia, especially Japan, Africa and the United States. In order to tell this story Gately does need to rely on a lot of historical background. The problem with this is that probably anyone who might be drawn to read his book will already know the history and will be bored by an elementary account of how the Spanish conquistadors took over the Empires of the Aztecs and Incas. Gately makes use of a lot of accounts of smoking customs in many places. He talks about how Tobacco was merchandised over the centuries throughout the world. He tries at times to be amusing. 

I ended up speed reading through the last half of the book.

Revolutionary Russia:1891 to 1991 A History by Orlando Figes - 2014 - 336 Pages

 Revolutionary Russia:1891 to 1991 A History by Orlando Figes 

In October I read The Crimean War by Orlando Figes. I am very interested in Romonov era Russian History, especially the last days of the dynasty, so when his history of the Russian Revolution was on sale as a Kindle for $2.95 I acquired it. (It is now back up to $12.95.)

The central thesis of the work is that Russian History from 1891 up to 1991 can best be understood as a working out of radical changes brought to society by the Revolution.

Figes,as one would expect, lays out very well the huge social inequities that created the conditions that brought about the revolution. He shows how the completely incompetent leadership of Czar Nicholas during World War One, his marriage to a German Princess, the involvement of Rasputin and his belief in his divine right to rule greatly aided the arguments of anti-Tsarist ideologues. When peasants attempting a peaceful protests were gunned down by Cossacks the fate of the Romonovs was sealed. Figes goes into detail about the infighting between different Revolutionary groups, leading to the rule of Lenin, 1917 to 1924

Lenin wanted to create a Marxist state where there was no private property. Upon the ascension of Stalin to power (1924 to 1953) the government began the collectivation of farms owned by farms owned by Kulaks, rich peasants. Soon, for reasons Figes explains, this lead to a disastrous food short. In May of last year I read a highly regarded book by Anne Applebaum, Red Famine: Stalin's War on The Ukraine in which she shows that Stalin made a decision to take food from the Ukraine and divert it to Russia, thus preventing Russians from turning on the government. I was shocked by this from Figes:  

"In the reported words of Lazar Kaganovich, who oversaw collectivization and grain procurements in Ukraine, the death of a ‘few thousand kulaks’ would teach the other peasants ‘to work hard and understand the power of the government’.9 But no hard evidence has so far come to light of the regime’s intention to kill millions through famine, let alone of agenocide campaign against the Ukrainians. Many parts of Ukraine were ethnically mixed. There is no data to suggest that there was a policy of taking more grain from Ukrainian villages than from the Russians or other ethnic groups in the famine area. And Ukraine was not the only region to suffer terribly from the famine, which was almost as bad in Kazakhstan."

This is the polar opposite of Applebaum's very thoroughly documented conclusions.  

Figes made another remarkably inaccurate remark that undermined my reliance on his insights into Russian society:

"Russia is no longer an aggressive state. It does not start foreign wars. Economically it is a pale shadow of the powerhouse it was on the eve of the First World War. Seventy years of Communism ruined it. Yet the authoritarian state tradition has revived in Russia in a manner unexpected twenty years ago. This resurgence, based on Putin’s reclamation of the Soviet past, demands that we look again at Bolshevism—its antecedents and its legacies—in the long arc of history"

This is totally wrong, of course. Figes does provide a lot of information about the structure of government under Stalin.

I am glad I read this and would read other books by Figes if they were on sale. 

ORLANDO FIGES is the author of numerous books on Russia, including A People’s Tragedy, Natasha’s Dance, The Whisperers, and The Crimean War. His works have been translated into twenty-seven languages. A professor of history at Birkbeck, University of London, and a frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books, Figes is the recipient of the Wolfson History Prize, the W. H. Smith Literary Award, the NCR Book Award, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, among others.

Mel Ulm 

The History of the Philippines: From Indio Bravos to Filipinos by Luis H. Francia- 2014 - 495 Pages

 A History of the Philippines: From Indio Bravos to Filipinos by Luis H. Francia- 2014 - 495 Pages

I have read numerous books on the history of the Philippines. Luis H. Francia's is by far the best. 

There are reliable records for four main periods of Philippine history:

• Spanish rule (1521–1898)

• American rule (1898–1946)

• Japanese occupation (1941–1946)

• Philippines Self Rule - 1946 on

  Luis acknowledges that intelligent guess are that the first people arrived by boat. Their DNA as found in skeletal remains is similar to that of Australian Aborigines.

  The Negritos, a broad term for indigenous people of dark complexions, reached the Philippines around 25,000 years ago by a land bridge from the Asian mainland. Waves of Indonesians followed by sea from 3,000 BC, and Malays got a firm foothold around 200 BC, followed in later centuries by waves of Chinese settlers. Most of today’s Filipinos have grown out of intermarriages between indigenous and Malay people. Modern Filipino culture, including language and cuisine, was heavily influenced by the Malays, who also introduced arts, literature, and a system of government.

When the Spanish arrived in 1521 they destroyed all written documents they found, regarding them as Satanic.  

A few centuries before the Spanish reached the Philippines in the 16th century, Filipinos involved in trade had also met Arabs and Hindus from India, while the expanding Chinese population wielded considerable commercial power. 

Francia's opening chapter focuses on the arrival on  Palawan Island and Mindoro by Malaysians.  I found this very interesting. Much of the main island, now called Luzon, was covered by rain forests with many  independent settlements. I was surprised to learn that the Tagalog word "Barangay", referring to the smallest unit of government (metro Manila has over 800 Barangays) meant in circa 1400 the people who came with you in a boat and later their descendents. 

It took several decades for the Spanish to fully subdue Luzon. Francia details the circumstances under which Ferdinand Magellan was killed.  Catholic priests were sent to convert the people. The official sanctioned by the Pope rational for conquest was to "save the savages". Francia showed me how many priests were defacto rulers who exploited the people.  Local leaders were coopted  by the Spanish and given large land holdings in exchange for being puppets for the Spanish.  Most people were forced to work the lands of the wealthy. As time went on there were fewer and fewer small landowners working their farms.  The rich loaned them money with their land as collateral. Religious conversions were often forced. Many merged their prior faiths with Catholic beliefs.  The Philippines is very much a "mother centered" country even now which Francia attributes in part to the role of Mary as the mother of Jesus.

Mindoro Island residents were largely Muslims and never accepted Spanish rule.  To this day there is a movement for independence there.

In the 1890s the USA was developing into an international power.  Probably a war was provoked with Spain upon the blowing up of an American battleship, the Maine, in Havana, capital of Spanish owned  Cuba.  Francia acknowledges that precisely why the ship blew up is unknown.  The Americans claimed Spain attacked it while the Spanish suggested it was an accident.  The Spanish had no chance in the war.  America gained control of the Philippines, Puerto Rico and Guam. Cuba was given independence as a kind of America client state.

A war broke out in the south in resistance to American rule. American troops, many veterans of wars against Native Americans, were sent to crush the rebellion.  Francia estimates the death totals among natives as at least 250,000 and possibly as much as a million.  American troops killed not just rebels but women and children.  Francia gives a very informative account of the struggle for independence.

The Philippines became a major market for American goods.  The American attitude toward the country was patronising.  Throughout the period up until independence in 1946, residents did not really think of themselves as Filipinos but as residents of their area.  In 1946 there were nearly 200 different languages spoken in the archipelago of 7000 plus islands. Americans encouraged the teaching of English. Francia talks about the rise of Tagalog to become the official language.

The day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, on December 8, 1941 the Japanese bombed Manila and other parts of the Philippines.  Soon they invaded. Their pretence was to free the area from American rule.  Francia talks about the collaboration of Philippino officials with the Japanese as well as  the gorilla fighters who opposed them.  Ferdinand Marcos claimed to be a leaders of the gorilla forces but Francia says this was a lie.

Francia continues his history up to 2010, presenting a very clear and insightful analysis.

Luis H. Francia

"Luis Francia was born in the Philippines and earned his BA from Ateneo de Manila University. He immigrated to the US after college, moving to New York City. In the 1970s, he began working for the Village Voice, a newspaper he was associated with for more than 20 years. A journalist, an editor, and a teacher, Francia began to write poetry in workshops with famed Filipino writer Jose Garcia Villa at the New School.  Francia has published numerous works of fiction and nonfiction, including Memories of Overdevelopment: Reviews and Essays of Two Decades (1998), A History of the Philippines: From Indios Bravos to Filipinos (2010), and RE: Reflections, Reviews. Francia teaches at New York University, Hunter College CUNY, and the City University of Hong Kong. A regular contributor to newspapers such as the Voice, Francia writes an online column for the Manila paper Philippine Daily Inquirer. He lives in Queens, New York, with his wife, Midori Yamamura." From The Poetry Foundation.

Mel Ulm

Birds by Aristophenes- A Comedy- first preformed 414 BCE- translated by Aaron Poochigian- 2021 - plus a new Project Begins, Ancient Readings

 Since the start of The Reading Life in July of 2009 I have employed Reading Life Projects to help me structure the blog. My first two projects were on Japanese Literature and Katherine Mansfield. I now have projects on Irish Short Stories, early Australian Literature among others. Projects also give blog visitors a sense of what can be found on The Reading Life. Once I begin a project it is permanent.

Today I am initiating The Ancient Readings Project encompassing Literature from Sumeria, Greece, India, China, Rome as well as historical narratives on this era.

As of now I have as potential works for the projects, six plays by Senaca, eleven comedies by Aristophenes, New translations of Gilgamesh, Ovid, The Illiad by Homer, Virgil's Aneid as well as plays by Sophocles, Euripides and Aeschylus. Hopefully I will be able to acquire modern translations of The Vedas and Buddhist Sutras. Perhaps portions of The Old Testament can be included. This is for me an ambitious project. (I am limited to works available as Kindle Editions)

"Not only was Aristophanes one of the greatest poets of antiquity but, in the words of Lempriere’s Classical Dictionary, “the greatest comic dramatist in world literature: by his side Molière seems dull and Shakespeare clownish.” - From New Translations of the Complete Plays by Paul Roche 

Aristophenes wrote 44 plays, as documented by Paul Roche, but only 11 survive still. Prior to today I have posted on two of his works. These are Lysistrata, his most famous work, and Women of the Assembly. Both these comedies have focus on the sex lives of Athenian women in very explicit language. Birds is very different.

The first work to be included going forward is Birds by Aristophenes.

Birds was first preformed in 414 BCE at Dionysius where it won second place. It is the longest of the 11 surviving works. Set in the wilderness outside of Athens, Pisthetaerus, an Athenian, persuades the birds in the area to form a great city in the sky, reclaiming their ancient place as Gods. 

Wikipedia has a decent plot summary so I will forgo that. I liked the satire of Athenian society, the way the birds were given personalities fitting their species. No doubt ornithologists would enjoy deciding which species are represented. Birds is a deep mockery of Greece's myth based religion.

I will next read his play Clouds.

Mel Ulm

James Edward Oglethorpe by Joyce Blackburn with a Preface by Eugenia Price-1970

 James Edward Oglethorpe by Joyce Blackburn with a Preface by Eugenia Price-1970

Five years ago, in consultation with Max u, it was decided every December there should be a post in Observation of the Birth Anniversary of our father, born on December 2, 1918 in a small then very undeveloped tiny town in south Georgia, Cairo.

Our Father served four years in the United States Army during World War Two.  He was a junior officer serving under General Douglas MacArthur.  He was stationed in New Guinea and shortly after the war in the Philippines.  For the initial observation in December of 2018 I posted on a wonderful book, Rampage MacArthur, Yamashita and The Battle of Manila by James M. Scott .  Shortly after I posted, the author, a great speaker, did a book tour in Manila.  My wife and I attended one of his talks. Afterwards we had a lovely conversation with Mr. Scott.

In 2019, I came upon a perfect book for the second annual birthday observation, War at the End of the World: Douglas MacArthur and the Forgotten Fight For New Guinea, 1942-1945 Book by James P Duffy.  

This year I decided to go in another direction, exploring the early history of Georgia as an English colony.  Our last name comes from a very ancient pre-Roman City in Germany.  (The City has a very famous cathedral and is the birthplace of Albert Einstein).  Because our last name is relatively uncommon we havd been able ascertain when and where our first American ancestor bearing our Last named arrived in tbe colonies, Savanah Georgia in 1755.

Born 1696. Into an old Family with royal connections

1722 - having inherited a large estate, he becomes a member of parliment 

He becomes interested in forming a colony in Georgia to be settled by inmates of debtor’s prisons and the unemployed.  The political appeal to the English government is as a buffer to keep Spanish intrusions from Florida 

In 1732 he departs for Georgia to serve as the first governor.

He will return to England in 1743 never to return.

He tried to keep cordial relationships with Native Americans and temporarily outlawed slavery.  He felt slaves would join forces with the Spanish.

Died: June 30, 1785, Cranham, Upminster, United Kingdom

“James Edward Oglethorpe turned his back on Oxford University, his family's Jacobite schemes, and a career as courtier to a prince to settle as an English country squire. But history was not to let him stay unnoticed. As a member of Parliament in the eighteenth century, Oglethorpe fought for debtors? rights and prison reform, and when he gained them, volunteered to found a new colony in America. Under his direction, settlements were established, strong bonds were formed with the Creek Indians, and the colony of Georgia flourished. He guided it during its formative years and protected it during war with Spain. That alone should have assured Oglethorpe of his place in history...but as he learned, politics and fortune are fickle. In this captivating biography, Joyce Blackburn details the career and life of this gallant gentleman, hero, visionary, and patriot.” From the publisher 

Joyce Blackburn

“Joyce was the only child of Reverend Leroy and Mrs. Audry Knight Blackburn. A graduate of Moody Institute in Chicago, taking a job as a broadcaster at WMBI after graduation. During her career there, she directed dramatic programs and presented her own series. Her recording of Suki and the Invisible Peacock lead to a contract for her first book of the same title and subsequent prize-winning titles for young readers have made her well-known among librarians and teachers. In 1996, the Suki books were reissued in a Silver Anniversary Edition and she was presented with the 1996 Governor's Award in the Humanities from the Georgia Humanities Council.

In the 1940's she became life long friends with writer Eugenia Price and in 1965 the two moved to St. Simons Island, Georgia where the two continued to write. There they established the Eugenia Price–Joyce Blackburn Foundation, a nonprofit organization whose proceeds fund grants and scholarships, support charitable organizations, and create programs that promote excellence in writing. 

Joyce was buried to the right of her life long friend, Eugenia Price.” From the publisher 

This is a young adult book.  I would suggest rather than spending $11.95 you just read the Wikipedia article 

The Reading Life Review - November- 2022

 

The Reading Life Review - November 2022

The Reading Life is a multicultural

book blog, committed to Literary Globalism 

   Short Stories, Irish literature, Classics, Modern Fiction, Contemporary Literary Fiction, The Japanese Novel, Post Colonial Asian Fiction, The Legacy of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and quality Historical Novels are Among our Interests.  Narrative non-fiction also is of importance.

Blog Stats 

Pages Views as of December 1, 2022 - 6,840, 353

Posts currently online 4131

Home Countries of November Readers

1. USA

2. The Philippines 

3. France

4. India

5. Isreal 

6. Canada 

7. Germany

8. The United Kingdom 

9. Russia

10. Indonesia 

Three of the eight authors featured were women, five men. Four living, four not. Six were authors previously featured, two were new to me writers.

Home Lands of Authors

1. USA - 3

2. Ireland- 1

3. England- 1

4. Greece - 1

5. Pakistan- 1

6. Russia - 1

The ten most viewed posts in November were all on short stories

Future Plans

 I hope to initiate three new reading life projects in December. One on Ancient Literature and history. Another on the impact of the Columbine Exchange. A third one will be on authors included in the British Library Women Writers Books. I will do individual posts detailing these later in December.

Pangaea post