1023

Review – An Elderly Lady

09Nov2024

Here is another set of short stories in translation. This one features an octogenarian serial killer.
An Elderly Lady Is Up To No Good – 171 (small!) pages; published 2013-2018, translated 2018
An Elderly Lady Must Not Be Crossed – 255 (small!) pages; published 2020, translated 2021
Written by Helene Tursten; translated by Marlaine Delargy

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1031

Review – The Kamogawa Food Detectives

08Nov2024

I just finished a curious little book. More of a collection of short stories, and rather more fiction than “mystery” as the library has cataloged it. But still…interesting.
Hisashi Kashwai – The Kamogawa Food Detectives
200 pages; US translation published in 2023; original Japanese publication in 2013
A retired detective turned gourmet chef recreates the virtually impossible from the least memory of beloved food experiences.

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305

Lights Out

06Nov2024

With the apparent hand-over of political power in the United States to a self-proclaimed “dictator” and the installation of a fully fascist government….
And given that these websites cost money….
Well….


Fuck.

744

Existential Affirmation #1

08Jul2024

Those who read here more than once should get the sense that I tend generally to trade in existential crisis. Tales of nameless dread, nightmares, heightened reality. The absolute certainty of the pointlessness and uncertainty of the human condition. But I am more than the sum of my neuroses. I am, after all, only human myself. More or less.
(Perhaps we’ll touch on that later, but don’t count on it.)

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714

Is this growth?

10Nov2023

It just occurred to me.
Lately, I’ve been wondering if, as I’ve aged, I’ve been ossifying, becoming less resilient. I have had more and more trouble accepting and handling the difficulties that life throws at a person. From daily challenges of a more or less petty nature all the way up to my responses to reporting on global catastrophes that have absolutely zero bearing on me.

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