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Sunday, December 06, 2020

St Mikulaš Nicholas: Best Books 📚 2020


.
In his first poem “A Window in front of the Mountain,” Mr. Francis picks up on foreboding karma in the atmosphere.
.
A window in front of the mountain
but from that window you cannot see
the mountain . . . 
Clouds themselves like
towels fray and mildew, are impure
because the air is not a vacuum.
Even the cypresses will not last but
turn to sticks, a slight discolored
stain on the grass.
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For the best deals on almost anything, check these 3 sites first - Fast Company – “We’re now officially neck deep in holiday deal ads, even though it feels like the holiday shopping season lasts half the year. The problem with every store in the history of retail offering holiday deals is that they each expect you to visit their sites to sift through all the would-be bargains. There’s got to be a better way! There is a better way. A much better way. I haven’t paid full price for something since I happily overpaid for a Nintendo Wii bundle in 2006. I also have almost no time to shop. So how do I score the best cheapskate-friendly deals? Here are the three sites I visit every time I’m in the market to buy something…”



FASTER, PLEASE:  “Researchers have restored vision in old mice and in mice with damaged retinal nerves by resetting some of the thousands of chemical marks that accumulate on DNA as cells age.”

 
8:00 pm by Glenn Reynolds
 
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Like Human Beings: Scientists translated bat screeches and learned they argue a lot about food and sex



 Gmail - FastCompany – “…Some of Gmail’s settings are available only on the Gmail website. Others are only in the mobile apps—or sometimes just in the mobile app on one specific platform. And other Gmail settings, paradoxically, can’t even be found within Gmail at all (yes, really!). It practically requires a recurring spelunking expedition to make sure you’re taking advantage of everything Gmail has to offer, particularly since the list of possibilities evolves so often. But not to worry — [JR Raphael] is here to help. I’ve dug up and broken down a dozen of Gmail’s most helpful yet least visible settings. Consider this your map to some of the service’s best buried treasures—no messy metaphorical cave-crawling required….”



NYTBR 100 Notable Books of 2020 | Jan Morris (1926-2020) 
Leila Aboulela Q & A | The Mouseiad review

       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.) 


    Best of the year lists are coming out in quick succession in these weeks. 
       Among the latest of interest: The 10 best books of 2020 in The Washington Post and The 10 Best Fiction Books of 2020in Time.


 


NYTBR 2020 top ten | French prize pay-out/offs | The Paper Menreview

       NYTBR 2020 top ten 

       The editors of The New York Times Book Review have now announced what they think are The 10 Best Books of 2020. 



       Best-of-the-year lists 

       Quite a few best-of lists out by now, including: 

        - "Sixty-five writers make their selections from around the world" in the Times Literary Supplement's Books of the Year 2020. 
       (I'm fully on board with Michael Hofmann's selection: Roberto Bazlen's Notes Without a Text.) 

        - Time offers their list of The 100 Must-Read Books of 2020. 
       (I've seen, much less read, very few of these: Kawakami Mieko's Breasts and Eggs, Murata Sayaka's Earthlings, Scarlett Thomas' Oligarchy, and Susanna Clarke's Piranesi. (Yes, oddly enough, all fiction by women -- even though writing by women remains grossly under-represented at the complete review.) 

        - They have: "The best reading of 2020, according to New Statesman friends and contributors", another extensive Books of the Year list. 


Washington Post – Of all the excellent books this year, these stood out.

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