Saturday, November 28, 2020

Husky: NYTBR 100 Notable Books of 2020

 “Reading a book is like living a deep and fulfilling life. Watching a movie is like being a paralyzed person: watching others live their lives while you observe from the sidelines.”
Charbel Tadros 


This video is a lovely little rumination by Iancu Barbarasa “about collecting, cycling caps, art and design, personal connections and why it’s worth doing something for a long time, even if the benefits are not clear at first.”

Many think some people are special but usually those people just put a lot more time in it than others. This applies to sports, arts, almost everything. It’s worth doing something for a long time, even if the benefits are not always clear. Good surprising things come out of it. You also learn about yourself in the process.

His inspiration in doing the film was to “inform, delight, and inspire”:

I mentioned above Milton Glaser’s “inform and delight” definition of art. It’s brilliant, but I always felt something was still missing from it. So I’d say that art — and any creative’s work — should aim to “inform, delight and inspire”. Hopefully my film will inspire people to start something of their own, or share what they’re already doing with other people. That would bring joy to everyone, and there’s never too much of it.

You can check out Barbarasa’s cycling cap collection on Instagram. I have never been much of a collector, but my 22+ years of efforts on this site (collecting knowledge/links?) and my sharing of photos on Flickr/Instagram over the years definitely have resulted in some of the same benefits.

“The road to chaos is filled with political correctness.”
Charbel Tadros 


       NYTBR 100 Notable Books of 2020 

       The editors of The New York Times Book Review have selected their 100 Notable Books of 2020
       Remember that this is limited to books they have (or will) review -- i.e. a smattering of the many worthy titles out there -- but they do include quite a few books in translation, eleven this year (versus just three in 2019), with four alone translations from the Japanese. 
       Only five of the hundred titles are under review at the complete review -- all translations --, as I am also once again staggered by how many of these titles I haven't even seen .....:

       (The Carrère seems an odd choice -- this had a US publication date of 5 November 2019 ..... (Yes, the NYTBRreview appeared (in print) on 22 December 2019 -- within the past twelve months; still .....)) 
       I haven't thought too much about my top books of the year -- for god's sakes, it's the middle of November, there's still tons of reading time ! -- and since I've gotten considerably fewer review copies this year than usual, even more of my reading and reviewing in 2020 has been backlist, but the one title I'm very surprised fell short here is Susanna Clarke's Piranesi. (As far as eligible (i.e. NYTBR-reviewed) translations go, Nino Haratischvili's The Eighth Life would have seemed a good fit, too.)