"A Love Letter in the Midsummer" A Short Story by Danny Denton -included with Cork Stories - Edited by Madeleine D’Arcy & Laura McKenna - 2024 - An Irish Short Story Month Work

 

Irish Short Story Month XIII 
March and April - 2024

A Love Letter in the Midsummer" A Short Story by Danny Denton -included with Cork Stories - Edited by Madeleine D’Arcy & Laura McKenna - 2024 - An Irish Short Story Month Work

Today's story by Danny Denton, a lecturer in creative writing at Cork University, is a delightful six page story within a story.

"That midsummer she wrote him a love letter from Leenane. But it was not exactly a love letter, more a sort of teleplay about King Kong and Godzilla sharing an apartment off Douglas Street, long after their various escapades in Japan and New York and across the world’s oceans. He’d kept the letter in his back pocket all evening, and when at last the pub was swept clean and wiped down and locked up, he walked along by Sullivan’s Quay and stopped on a riverside bench there. Taking out the letter, he felt that heavy compression of expectation in his chest. ...

Morning in the apartment. King Kong poked his dishevelled head out of the bedroom doorframe, taking in the scope of the kitchen and living area. ‘You cleaned up,’ Kong said. ‘Sorry.’ Godzilla sat at the table, browsing away on his laptop, his cup of tea to one side. ‘You’re grand,’ he consoled, not for the first time. Kong crossed to the kitchen on shaky legs and began the ritual of going through the cupboards, hanging out of them and grumbling, looking perhaps for something that wasn’t there. ‘How bad was it?’ he eventually asked. "

I really enjoyed this story.

Danny Denton is an Irish novelist, the editor of The Stinging Fly and a lecturer in creative writing at University College Cork. His first novel, The Earlie King & The Kid In Yellow, was published by Granta Books in 2018, and nominated for 'Newcomer of the Year' at the Irish Book Awards. Among other publications, Denton's work has appeared in The Stinging Fly, Southword, Granta, Winter Papers, The Dublin Review, Guardian, Irish Times and Big Issue.

Whether you are just getting started in Irish Short Stories or have been and avid reader for fifty years, Cook Stories, published by Doire Press, will delight you with 18 Stories.

The best way to purchase this marvelous collection  is via the Publisher Doire Press 

https://www.doirepress.com

Start-up Nation: The Story of Israel's Economic Miracle - 2009 - by Dan Senor and Saul Singer

 

Start-up Nation: The Story of Israel's Economic Miracle - 2009 - by Dan Senor and Saul Singer

"How has a small nation of 9 million people, forced to fight for its existence and security since its founding and riven by ethnic, religious, and economic divides, proven resistant to so many of the societal ills plaguing other wealthy democracies?

Why do Israelis have among the world’s highest life expectancies and lowest rates of “deaths of despair” from suicide and substance abuse? Why is Israel’s population young and growing while all other wealthy democracies are aging and shrinking? How can it be that Israel, according to a United Nations ranking, is the fourth happiest nation in the world? Why do Israelis tend to look to the future with determination and purpose while the rest of the West struggles with an epidemic of loneliness, teen depression, and social decline?nture capital investment as the US and thirty times more than Europe?" from dansenor.com

The central question of the book is: How is it that Israel, a country of only 7.1 million people, has been able to produce more start-up companies than much larger and more stable nations? The authors attribute Israel's success to a unique combination of factors, including:

A culture of immigration and immigration that brings together people from diverse backgrounds and skillsets.

A mandatory military service that instills discipline, teamwork, and leadership skills in young Israelis.

A strong emphasis on education and research and development.

A government that is willing to take risks and support innovation.

A close relationship between the Israeli military and the private sector, which has led to the development of many new technologies.

Saul Singer is coauthor of the bestselling book Start-Up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle. He is a former editor and columnist at the Jerusalem Post and has written for The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and other publications. Singer has given keynote speeches at innovation conferences around the world including Beijing, Sydney, Singapore, London, Madrid, Amsterdam, Oslo, Nairobi, and Sao Paulo. Before moving to Israel in 1994, he served for ten years as an advisor to US Members of Congress. He lives in Jerusalem with his wife and three children.

Daniel Samuel Senor (/ˈsiːnər/; born November 6, 1971) is an American Canadian columnist, writer, and political adviser. He was chief spokesman for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq and senior foreign policy adviser to U.S. presidential candidate Mitt Romney during the 2012 election campaign. A frequent news commentator and contributor to The Wall Street Journal, he is co-author of the book Start-up Nation: The Story of Israel's Economic Miracle (2009) and The Genius of Israel: The Surprising Resilience of a Divided Nation in a Turbulent World (2023). 

The Covenent of Water - A Novel by Abraham Verghese- 2023 - 720 Pages - An Oprah Book Club Selection

 

The Covenent of Water - A Novel by Abraham Verghese- 2023 - 720 Pages - An Oprah Book Club Selection

When I watched Oprah Winfrey's six minute presentation on her 101th book club selection I at once added it to my read very soon list.

Now I must thank Oprah for her brilliant remarks and Doctor Abraham Verghese for the ten years it took to write one of the very greatest novels I have ever read in the sixty plus years of my reading life.

The Covenent of Water centers on a family grappling with a strange curse:  at least one member in each generation seems destined to die by drowning.  This is particularly poignant considering their life unfolds in Kerala, a land defined by its backwaters, rivers, and Arabian Sea coast.

The narrative starts with a young girl, Mariamma, who is sent by boat for an arranged marriage to a much older widower.  Over time, Mariamma transforms into the family matriarch, overseeing a vast estate and earning the title "Big Ammachi."   The story then unfolds through the lives of her descendants, including a celebrated writer son and future generations who become physicians.

"The Covenant of Water is the long-awaited new novel by Abraham Verghese, the author of Cutting for Stone. Published in 2009, Cutting for Stone became a literary phenomenon, selling over 1.5 million copies in the United States alone and remaining on the New York Times bestseller list for over two years.

Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water is set in Kerala, on South India’s Malabar Coast, and follows three generations of a family that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning—and in Kerala, water is everywhere. The family is part of a Christian community that traces itself to the time of the apostles, but times are shifting, and the matriarch of this family, known as Big Ammachi—literally “Big Mother”—will witness unthinkable changes at home and at large over the span of her extraordinary life. All of Verghese’s great gifts are on display in this new work: there are astonishing scenes of medical ingenuity, fantastic moments of humor, a surprising and deeply moving story, and characters imbued with the essence of life.

A shimmering evocation of a lost India and of the passage of time itself, The Covenant of Water is a hymn to progress in medicine and to human understanding, and a humbling testament to the hardships undergone by past generations for the sake of those alive today. It is one of the most masterful literary novels published in recent" From Grove Press

Abraham Verghese, MD, MACP, is Professor and Linda R. Meier and Joan F. Lane Provostial Professor, and Vice Chair for the Theory and Practice of Medicine at the School of Medicine at Stanford University. He is also a best-selling author and a physician with a reputation for his focus on healing in an era where technology often overwhelms the human side of medicine. He received the Heinz Award in 2014 and was awarded the National Humanities Medal, presented by President Barack Obama, in 2015. 

Further biographical data is available on the Author’s website 

https://www.abrahamverghese.org

The Reading Life Review - March 2024 - Works Featured- Movies Streamed

 

The Reading Life Review - March 2024 - Works Featured- Movies Streamed - Future Hopes and P,lans

My March Reading 

1. Memoirs of Hadrian,A  historical novel by Marguerite Yourcenar, published in 1951 as Mémoires d’Hadrien. - translated  by  Grace Flick - 2005

2.Stepchildren of the Shtetl : The Destitute, Disabled, and Mad of Jewish Eastern Europe, 1800–1939 by Natan M. Meir.- 2020 - Nonfiction 

3. The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming – , 2019  -  by David Wallace-Wells - 320 Pages - Nonfiction 

4, Three Short Stories by Carol Shields 

5, Six Irish Short Stories 

6. A Story by Nancy Hale

7, A Story by Jhumpa Lahiri 

In March six of the featured writers were Women, five were Men.  Five writers were initially featured in March, three are deceased.

Home Countries of authors

1. Ireland - 6

2. USA  - 3

3. Canada -1

4. Belgium- 1

March Movies

1. The Favourite - A 2018 Film Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos- Starring Emma Stone, Olivia Coleman and Rachel Weisz

2. The Zone of Interest - Directed by Jonathan Glazer - Starring  Christian Friedel as Rudolf Höss -'Sandra Hüller as Hedwig Höss - 2024 Academy Award Winner for Best International Picture and Best Sound Design 

3. Poor Things - A 2023 Film Directed  by Yorgos Lanthimos - Starring Emma Stone (winner 2024 Academy Award for Best Actress), William Defoe and Mark Ruffalo

4, The Pianist is a 2002 biographical Holocaust war drama film produced and directed by Roman Polanski 

 with a script by Ronald Harwood, and starring Adrien Brody

5. The Creature from the Black Lagoon- 1954

6. Blazing Saddles- 1974 - directed by Mel Brooks 

7. The Wizard of Oz - 1939 - starring Judy Garland 

8.  Great Expectations- A 1946 Movie - Directed by David Lean - Starring Alex Guinness, John Mills, and Jean Simmons

9. Schindler's List - 1993 - Directed by Steven Spielberg - which stars Liam Neeson as Schindler, Ralph Fiennes as SS officer Amon Göth, and Ben Kingsley as Schindler's Jewish accountant Itzhak Stern

Blog Stats 

7,601,916 Pages views since inception 

In March there was a total of 94,916 Page Views 

Home Countries of Visitors 

1. Hong Kong 

2. Singapore 

3, USA 

4. India 

5. Philippines 

6. UK

7. Canada 

8. Poland

9. Indonesia 

10. Ireland 

Memoirs of Hadrian,A historical novel by Marguerite Yourcenar, published in 1951 as Mémoires d’Hadrien. - translated by Grace Flick - 2005

Memoirs of Hadrian, A historical novel by Marguerite Yourcenar, published in 1951 as Mémoires d’Hadrien. - translated by Grace Flick - 2005

Marguerite Yourcenar 

Born: June 8, 1903, Brussels, Belgium

Died: December 17, 1987 (age 84 years), Northeast Harbor, Mount Desert, Maine, United States

In the long ago I visited Hadrian's Tomb.  I am glad now I have had the opportunity to read Marguerite Yourcenar's Memoirs of Hadrian.

The novel is written in the form of memoirs dictated by Hadrian, the Roman emperor, to his adopted grandson and successor, Marcus Aurelius. Hadrian reflects on his life, from his childhood in Spain to his reign as emperor. He discusses his military campaigns, his love affairs, his philosophy, and his legacy.

The novel is a meditation on power, love, and the meaning of life. It is also a portrait of a complex and fascinating man who ruled one of the greatest empires in history.

Hadrian reflects on his life, from his childhood in Spain to his rise to power as emperor. He discusses his military campaigns, his love affairs, his philosophy, and his legacy.

Hadrian had a number of love affairs in his life, both heterosexual and homosexual. The novel explores the different facets of love and its importance in human life.

Themes of the book

The burdens and responsibilities of power: Hadrian was one of the most powerful men in the world, but he also felt the weight of that power. He constantly struggled to balance the needs of the empire with his own personal desires.

The importance of love and friendship: Hadrian had many close relationships throughout his life, both with men and women. These relationships were a source of great joy and comfort to him.

The search for meaning in life: Hadrian was a thoughtful and introspective man who constantly questioned the meaning of life. He found solace in philosophy, art, and nature.

The legacy of the Roman Empire: Hadrian was a great admirer of Greek culture, and he saw himself as the defender and promoter of Roman civilization. He was determined to leave a lasting legacy behind him.

Stepchildren of the Shtetl : The Destitute, Disabled, and Mad of Jewish Eastern Europe, 1800–1939 by Natan M. Meir.- 2020

 

Stepchildren of the Shtetl : The Destitute, Disabled, and Mad of Jewish Eastern Europe, 1800–1939 by Natan M. Meir. - in The Stanford University Jewish Studies Series

"This outstanding book offers us a glimpse at the underbelly of a Jewish community rarely studied from this vantage point. Meir tackles an elusive topic with analytic skill, keen sensitivity, and clear, accessible prose."―Steven J. Zipperstein, author of Pogrom: Kishinev and the Tilt of History

Winner of the 2021 Choice Award for Outstanding Academic Title, sponsored by the American Library Association.

Finalist in the 2020 National Jewish Book Awards (History category), sponsored by the Jewish Book Council.

Honorable Mention in the 2021 DHA Outstanding Book Award, sponsored by the Disability History Association

Stepchildren of the Shtetl : The Destitute, Disabled, and Mad of Jewish Eastern Europe, 1800–1939 by Natan M. Meir. - in The Stanford University Jewish Studies Series- is very through study of a not much written about aspect of Eastern European Jewish, especially Jewish Russian history.

Meir details the numerous reasons an Eastern European Jew were to live in poverty.  If you were disabled or seriously mentally ill or cognitively challenged and had no family you had few options.  Public Begging or charity were your primary options,

Meir covers the operations of "poor houses" and the traditional obligations of Charity, the cholera weddings of the poor as well as the fears of many in Jewish society that the marginalised Jews played into the hands of Anti-Semitism.

"Memoirs of Jewish life in the east European shtetl often recall the hekdesh (town poorhouse) and its residents: beggars, madmen and madwomen, disabled people, and poor orphans. Stepchildren of the Shtetl tells the story of these marginalized figures from the dawn of modernity to the eve of the Holocaust.

Combining archival research with analysis of literary, cultural, and religious texts, Natan M. Meir recovers the lived experience of Jewish society's outcasts and reveals the central role that they came to play in the drama of modernization. Those on the margins were often made to bear the burden of the nation as a whole, whether as scapegoats in moments of crisis or as symbols of degeneration, ripe for transformation by reformers, philanthropists, and nationalists. Shining a light into the darkest corners of Jewish society in eastern Europe—from the often squalid poorhouse of the shtetl to the slums and insane asylums of Warsaw and Odessa, from the conscription of poor orphans during the reign of Nicholas I to the cholera wedding, a magical ritual in which an epidemic was halted by marrying outcasts to each other in the town cemetery—Stepchildren of the Shtetl reconsiders the place of the lowliest members of an already stigmatized minority." From Stanford University Press

About the author

Natan M. Meir is the Lorry I. Lokey Professor of Judaic Studies at Portland State University.

I borrowed this book from The New York City Public library 

"Poaching" - A Short Story by Carol Shields - Included in the Collected Short Stories of Carol Shields- 2004

 "Poaching" - A Short Story by Carol Shields - Included in the Collected Short Stories of Carol Shields- 2004  - 4 pages

This year, Buried in Print, a marvelous blog I have followed for over ten years,is doing a read through of the short stories of Carol Shields. I hope to participate fully in this event.

The more I read in the stories of Carol Shields the more grateful I am to Buried in Print for turning me on to her work. There are sixty some stories in the collection,it is my hope to read and post on them all in 2024.

Buriedinprint.com

"Poaching" is the 11th Short Story by Carol Shields I have so far read. 

"Poaching"  centers on a couple driving throughout England. We never learn much of their history.  They often pick up hitchhikers so they can learn their "story". The man calls this "Poaching".  

"I am partial, though, to the calm, to those who stand by the roadside with their luggage in the dust, too composed or dignified to trouble the air with their thumbs. There was the remarkable Venezuelan woman who rode with us from Cardiff to Conway and spoke only intermittently and in sentences that seemed wrapped in their own cool vapors. Yes, she adored to travel alone. She liked the song of her own thoughts. She was made fat by the sight of mountains. The Welsh sky was blue like a cushion. She was eager to embrace rides from strangers. She liked to open wide windows so she could commune with the wind. She was a doctor, a specialist in bones, but alas, alas, she was not in love with her profession. She was in love with the English language because every word could be picked up and spun like a coin on the table top. The shyest traveler can be kindled, Dobey maintains—often after just one or two strikes of the flint. That sullen Lancashire girl with the pink-striped hair and the colloid eyes—her dad was a coward, her mum shouted all the time, her boyfriend had broken her nose and got her pregnant. She was on her way, she told us, to a hostel in Bolton. Someone there would help her out. She had the address written on the inside of a cigarette packet. I looked aslant and could tell that Dobey wanted to offer her money, but part of our bargain was that we offer only rides".

I especially enjoy the literary references in her stories, today's story mentions the early work of Ludwig Wittgenstein and the playwright Ben Jonson.

The Carol Shields Literary Trust Website has an excellent biography 

https://www.carol-shields.com/biography.html