2022 reading

i have almost finished a history of the baltics and an awful history of the 1905 war between russia and japan --- probably several other partials lurking around, but these are the ones i've finished, rated none to three stars --- 

***Stacy Schiff, The Revolutionary, Samuel Adams (2022)

*Marc David Baer, The Ottomans: Khans, Caesars, and Caliphs (2021)

Jane Ridley, George V: Never a Dull Moment (2022)

**Karen Armstrong, St Paul: The Apostle We Love to Hate (2015)

***David Graeber and David Wengrow, The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity (2021)

*Michael Pollan, This Is Your Mind on Plants (2021)

Ada Ferrer, Cuba: An American History (2021)

*Thomas Hardy, The Woodlanders (1887)

Jared Diamond, Upheavel: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis (2019)

Mark A Noll, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind (1994)

Harry S Stout, The Divine Dramatist: George Whitefield and the Rise of Modern Evangelicalism (1991)

*Jessica Mitford, The American  Way of Death Revisited (2011)

**Violet Moller, The Map of Knowledge: A Thousand-Year History of How Classical Ideas Were Lost and Found (2020)

Timothy Snyder, The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, (1569-1999) (2003)

Isabel de Madariaga, Ivan the Terrible (2020)

**Simon Sebag Montefiore, The Romanovs, 1613-1918 (2016)

Marie Favereau, The Horde: How the Mongols Changed the World (2021)

Eino Jutikkala with Kauko Pirinen, A History of Finland (1984)

David S. Brown, The Last American Aristocrat: The Brilliant life and improbable Education of Henry Adams (2020)

Kenneth Scott, St. James’s Palace, A History (2010)

Serhii Plokhy, The Origins of the Slavic Nations; Premodern Identities in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus (2006)

David Remnick, Lenin’s Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire (1994)

Martyn C. Rady, The Habsburgs, To Rule the World (2020)

Simon Winchester, The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of t he Oxford English Dictionary (1998)

**H. W. Brands, The First American: the Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin (2000)

New Scientist, The Origin of (Almost) Everything (2016)

David S. Heidler, Henry Clay, The Essential American (2010)

Christopher Hibbert, Florence: The Biography of a City (1993)

Julian Sancton, Madhouse at the End of the Earth: The Belgica’s Journey into the Dark Antarctic Night (2021)

catching up

 i've missed our 106 club dinners, especially the regularity --- i still see ms kidd from time to time, including attending a wonderful atl symphony reinterpretation of REM back in June --- we’ll see the atl bot gdn holiday lights in early january --- and i keep up with ms troy purty well --- also see mr purser fairly regularly, usually lunch at manuels, and he and robin brought me along for a tour of the fabulous fox the other day --- always nice

just before thanksgiving, uga press notified us that they had put my coochee book out for peer review --- last line of the letter sent by their acquisitions editor:  “Really excited about the prospect of working together on what will surely be a wonderful book.” I didn’t believe it would get this far --- the reviewers’ reports are due at end of march 2023, and if they’re favorable . . . . .   

there was not a bumper crop of meyer lemons this year, but the last one was really fine

I think a lot of older people, including myself, have a hard time creating meaningful relationships to replace those lost for whatever  reason --- john has been dead for over three years, and I still miss him almost every day --- other friendships mutate, including mine with angela, whose wisdom has been often overlooked --- 

once in a while, casual relationships emerge in unexpected places --- during the covid semi-lockdown in 2020, I kept seeing this couple from the 16th floor  going or coming from starbucks  and we finally got to talking on the sidewalk --- john and johanna, 30 somethings --- we’ve gotten together a couple of times since then, other than on the sidewalk --- did happy hour at their place the other evening, and they’re gonna be here tomorrow evening --- nice intelligent folks

health issues

the weekend has not been all it might have been for me --- friday morning i got up with a scratchy throat but i dragged myself out of bed this p.m. to go get my order of paxlovid, which i will begin tonight --- I remember, however, that the bidens were fully vaxxed and taken paxlovid, and they still got it again --- whatever --- kenny has been at my side non-stop, but we limit his walks to around the block or something --- yesterday was the worst, but i managed to get him out for three very short walks, and then back to bed

i am very glad that i did not catch this stupid virus two years ago, when the first strain was doing its worst, the hospitals were jammed, people were freaking out and the streets were like a ghost town --- until 7 o'clock or so, when in cities across the country everybody got out on their balconies and porches banging pots and pans for all the health care workers and emergency responders who were working their asses off ---

 I wrote that on 28 August, as i began a bout with the covids --- i haven't had a cold or anything in years, and this fall it seemed like i was always sick --- over the last few days, i've finally started feeling semi-normal