Recent acquisitions.

Over the holiday, I finished The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (Michael Chabon; 2000) for one Roundtable by The 92nd Street Y course and have nearly finished The Oppermanns (Lion Feuchtwanger; 1933) for another.

My reread of Moby-Dick (Herman Melville; 1851) with Samantha Rose Hill continues. As I mentioned, my daughter and I are registered to read in the Moby-Dick Readathon at the New Bedford Whaling Museum. This year, the event begins on January 3, exactly 185 years after Melville sailed from New Bedford on the Acushnet. We will return to Boston from the Readathon in time for my daughter to head to work and for me to attend (virtually) the first meeting of the latest iteration of UChicago Graham School’s course on the book.

A friend and I will continue making our way through E.M. Forster’s novels with Howards End (1910), January’s selection. We will also meet to discuss some short stories in December, beginning with the first in Simon Van Booy’s 2009 collection, Love Begins in Winter.

Music lessons resume this coming week; the holiday concert is the following week. With winter holidays and related prep and travel, it’s difficult to say what sort of progress I will make on the two remaining projects in the sidebar.