What I’ve been reading

1. Hilda Hilst, With My Dog-Eyes: A Novel.  Life as an academic, as viewed by the Brazilian avant-garde.  This underappreciated novel is available in English for the first time, recommended to those who think they might like it.

2.Bengt Jangfeldt, Mayakovsky: A Biography.  A non-fiction work translated from Swedish to English is virtually guaranteed to be good.  This book brings major advances to our understanding of Mayakovsky’s life, although it is perhaps for those who already have an interest in the topic.  That’s me.

3. Roberta A. Ness, The Creativity Crisis: Reinventing Science to Unleash Potential.  A good overview of why innovativeness has declined and what might be done to restore it.

4. Tom Paulin, Writing to the Moment, Selected Critical Essays 1980-1996.  I loved this book, which (by a very important metric) caused me to buy at least five additional books on Amazon.  One of Ireland’s greatest poets writing an appreciation of other English-language poets and writers.  A 1996 book, but one of my most exciting reads for the year.

5. E.M. Forster, A Passage to India.  A very good reread, the Straussian in me remains convinced that the final “Hindu section” of the book somehow has to make sense.

Arrived in my pile is:

6. Andrew I. Gavil and Harry First, The Microsoft Antitrust Cases, which upon a brief perusal appears to be a very thorough and useful look at what the title promises.

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