Years ago, I worked with an educational content provider. They assigned me topics to research, and after identifying grade-appropriate online resources, I submitted short descriptions of the websites to help young researchers choose the most appropriate for their projects. One of my first topics was cuttlefish, so I thought I knew a bit about them — until I beheld flamboyant cuttlefish at the Shedd Aquarium on Friday. Unfortunately, it was all but impossible to capture a good photo of them, so here’s a link, instead.

Rather than cuttlefish, then, you get a photo of my July reading stack. Love in the Time of Cholera and Infinite Jest are for Roundtable courses, and Pattern Recognition is the next selection for the philosophy book club. I’ll be rereading Ulysses for another month and a half. (Speaking of rereading, I first encountered Love in the Time of Cholera about forty years ago (about five years before I first encountered Ulysses). Perhaps it’s not so much that books are wasted on our younger selves but that they often land so much effectively with our older selves. This is a much richer experience.) My older daughter gave me the Kanakia (which I think I first heard about at Jared Henderson’s site), and the Jansson biography is for a project a friend and I will begin in August. (With this same friend, I recently read Jon Fosse’s The Other Name, which we will discuss tomorrow.)

PSA: The heat wave loosened its grip on our area Friday night, but the weather has been difficult, hasn’t it? Wherever you are, be careful; be safe.