Today, though, I’m reading from the shelves: Breakfast of Champions (Kurt Vonnegut; 1973).
Jólabókaflóð continues
Jólabókaflóð begins
Yes, an argument could be made that I celebrate jólabókaflóð all year long.
A few more
May 2020 was the perfect time to first encounter Ross Gay’s The Book of Delights (2019). For some reason, this treasure was only in my Kindle library, so when I recently gave the book as a gift, I grabbed a hard copy for myself. Speaking of gifts, Brightly Shining (Ingvild Rishøi; 2024) was one that arrived yesterday.
Acquisitions
Bought three; received the fourth as a gift.
Today I’m reading The Bell by Iris Murdoch (1958), my first encounter with this author. One hundred pages in, I can say that this wasn’t at all what I expected.
Winter afternoons
From lows in the teens and biting winds, we have temporarily arrived at upper forties and a breeze. Today we will walk without scarves and wash the windows.
This weekend, to prepare for an Academy of American Poets seminar, I am reading a selection of Emily Dickinson poems, including one that begins:
There’s a certain Slant of light,Winter Afternoons –
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes –
As they say, mood.
Other books on my nightstand include The Bell (Iris Murdoch; 1958), Daytripper (Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá; 2010), and King Lear.
Acquisitions
My younger daughter and I are planning to read works by Brazilian writers (in translation). First up? The profound and wonderful Daytripper (Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá; 2010), a reread for me.
Undettered
Although the zoos (and much else) were closed on Thursday, our favorite breakfast place was open. We walked at a conservation district, ate a great brunch, then headed to another conservation district to walk and geocache. Later we enjoyed conversation, games, and leftovers. (As in the past, we had cooked the big meal on Wednesday in anticipation of, you know, spending the holiday at the zoo.)
Holiday magic
A small twin-spot octopus.
For more than twenty years with only a few exceptions, my family has visited either the Brookfield Zoo or the Milwaukee County Zoo on Thanksgiving and / or Christmas. This year, we were particularly interested in seeing the koala bears at Brookfield, so on Tuesday I checked the website to ensure their habitat would be open — and learned that the zoo is now closed on Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Just like that, a tradition ended.
We visited on Friday for Holiday Magic, an event that was a pale imitation of previous iterations.
Ways of seeing
Above are some of my photos from Friday’s Art Institute visit.
A few more books
Holiday travel and adventures will leave little time for reading, so these have been shelved.
Nerdishly 