Extraordinary Things Part II

Currently Reading:

• Cobra II by Michael Gordon and Genl. Bernard Trainor. Riveting in an extraordinarily disheartening way.
• Metamorphoses by Mary Zimmerman, based on Ovid's extraordinary work, of the same name. "Metamorphoses" will open ART's upcoming season. Very excited.
• Ovid's Metamorphoses translated by Arthur Golding, 1567. It's a bit of a slog, Golding really isn't all that he's cracked up to be, especially after having read and loved more modern translations already. But it's the undisputed source for Shakespeare, Milton, Blake, etc., so it's worthwhile.
  
• Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. Absolutely brilliant, cannot put it down. Dreaming of Smyrna now.
• Postwar by Tony Judt. Earlier I raved about The Cold War by John Lewis Gaddis. Thought it was insightful and concise, if perhaps too cursory. Shortly thereafter I read a review of the book by Tony Judt, which absolutely demolished Gaddis' lackadaisical approach. So I picked up Judt's somewhat competing book. And he's not holding back, he's showing you how it's done, he's following up on sources and taking a broad view of every decade, and it's remarkably well done. Much more authoritative, much more thought out.
  
• I'm working on a recording of 1 Henry IV, for which I rely on nothing so much as the excellent annotations of the Arden editions.
• My World-Traveling Housemate recommended Robin McKinley's The Blue Sword, and I'm only slowly growing an attachment to it. Perhaps there's altogether too much derring-do on my reading list already.
  
• I love everything Hellboy.

Yes, it's a lopsided list, I know. I'm working on that.

paulmonster-bookworm