Welcome to Litsy!

Another book from the Pushkin Collection - this is a collection of short pieces by George Orwell of his observations on England and its sociology. Some pieces are well known (Shooting an Elephant) but it was the final piece of the book - The Lion and the Unicorn - that really captured me, as it is still applicable in many ways today as it was years ago. Warning: some outdated language common to the time in which it was written.

These arrived yesterday!

I'm hoping to read (some of) the books mentioned in Barbara Boswell's study of Black South African women's writing.

And one of Walker's essays (about searching for artist biographies) is mentioned in Jane Austen's Bookshelf.
@Lcsmcat

Alexander Pope (1688-1744) Vs. A.I.

In his "On Epic Poetry", Pope satirises the proliferation of bad epic poetry, written not by poets with "genius", but by hacks according to a "recipe" in which they take themes and episodes from the great works of literature, "stack them up" and pour out verbiage void of any true human meaning, moral or value. ???

My reading of this essay was enhanced by it sounding in my mind as narrated by Simon Callow ?

I'm about ¼ through this essay collection, having just finished the selections by Joseph Addison (1672-1719), which I've really enjoyed.
He was co-founder of The Spectator magazine, the title of which was borrowed by a still-extant conservative periodical, which is ironic given that Addison's satirical essay, "The Tory Fox-Hunter" lampoons the Little Englander mentality that still prevails amongst current Spectator & Daily Mail reading folk. ⬇️

I wanted to start into something culinary, when I get the free time over the coming summer, and figured reading an anthology of food essays by Vogue food writer and critic Jeffrey Steingarten would be the best start. The panoply of food he discusses (paired with his tried and true recipes) is mind-boggling and drool-inducing: from sourdough starter and Sicilian granita, to Tunisian bkaila and a good apple pie (hint: never use cinnamon).

When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free

As a fellow daughter of Chicago suburban decadence I liked this a lot

“By the time I was ten or eleven, everyone had moved on from sticker collecting—everyone, that is, except for me…I particularly loved the fruits…

God, I loved scratch and sniff bananas. They didn‘t smell like bananas; they smelled like the Platonic Ideal of bananas. If real bananas were a note played on a home piano, scratch and sniff bananas were that same note played on a church‘s pipe organ.”

I used to try to read aloud to my pet house rabbit and, though she was my little soul-twin in many ways, she was decidedly uninterested; she preferred a cozy silence.

Bite by Bite will go down in personal memory as the first book I read aloud to my pup. He *loved* it. We started with Nezhukumatathil‘s essay on potatoes. Jett is now my “best spud.” 🥔 He also loved the chapter on maple syrup. As such, I‘m unable to rate this book objectively.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Channeling Chuck Klosterman; a compliment! I love these kind of funny, pop-culture focused, personal essays. Bonus that I‘m familiar with many of his Milwaukee references from the time we lived there. The perfect palate-cleanser. A fun read!

Note: Elder Millennial = Generation Catalano. #iykyk