Books--finished

[muninnhuginn]

I've got Looby Loo trained to drag me away from any display of books on sale--even second hand--with cries of "You're not to buy any more books, Mummy!" Last week I went into town with the Aged P however and bought one book (admittedly twice over, the second copy being a birthday present for my brother (who I fairly safely assume doesn't read this)). So another interstitial completion

1. Haruki Murakami, A Wild Sheep Chase
2. Ulrich von Liechtenstein, The Service of Ladies
3. Philip Roth, The Plot Against America
4. ed. The Lifted Veil, 19th Century Women's Stories
5. Bremner, Bird, Fortune, You Are Here
6. Polly Bird, How to Be an Effective School Governor
7. Jean Estoril, Ballet Twins
8. Andre Norton, Judgment on Janus
9. Granta 89, The Factory
   
10. Gene Wolfe, The Claw of the Conciliator
11. Gene Wolfe, The Sword of the Lictor
12. Patrick McGrath, Dr Haggard's Disease
13. James Barclay, Dreamthief
14. Paul Cornell, British Summertime
15. Ken Macleod, Dark Light
16. Evelyn Lord, The Knights Templar in Britain
17. Eric Brown, Deep Future
18. Japanese Death Poems
    There's an (old) article at Salon.com with some examples.
    Why Borders had two copies of this volume on its shelves at all--it's not new; I can't see it being of anything other than of limited interest--I don't know. I picked it up out of curiosity and was grabbed in the way that the successfully potent images of haiku can grab you. It's not been my sole reading matter for the past week or so, and much of the time spent with the volume was reading through the, slightly irritating, introduction. Hard to explain the attraction of poems written within such an alien tradition, but the images are arresting, occasionally crudely amusing, enlightening or puzzling. A favourite, I think, is this one by Meisetsu:

    My only hope against
    the cold—
    one hot-water bottle.

    I also now know the Japanese for cuckoo, that well-known bird of death: hototogisu. I've not read a complete volume of poetry in a long while, so a happy return to something that requires a little more than superficial skimming.