The great books are great because they speak to us, generation after generation.  They are things of beauty, joys forever—most of the time.  Of course, some old books will make you angry at the prejudices they take for granted and occasionally endorse.  No matter.  Read them anyway.  Recognizing bigotry and racism doesn’t mean you condone them.  What matters is acquiring knowledge, broadening mental horizons, viewing the world through eyes other than your own.  Michael Dirda, a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Washington Post Book World and the author of the memoir “An Open Book” and of four collections of essays:  “Readings,” “Bound to Please,” “Book by Book” and “Classics for Pleasure.”   https://www.washingtonpost.com/people/michael-dirda/   

HAPPY NEAR YOU (Happy New Year)   

Favorite books read by the Muser in 2022

·        Open Secrets by Alice Munroe (book of short stories set in Ontario, Canada in which women are the central characters)

·        Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver  (Human life boils down to three basic essentials—birth, death, and sex.)  Kingsolver interweaves three stories of relationships and land set in the fictional Zebulon County near the border of North Carolina and Tennessee.) 

·        Tomorrow Will Be Better by Betty Smith  (A novel of love, marriage, poverty, and hope set in 1920s Brooklyn)  sequel to A Tree Grows in Brooklyn  At the end of my edition is an essay “Things I Want to Say About My Mother” by Nancy Pfeiffer and “Betty Smith’s Library at the Time of Her Death”—a selection of titles. 

·        Twenty Thirty:  The Real Story of What Happens to America by Albert Brooks  (Cancer, Alzheimer’s and muscular dystrophy are cured--leading to the powerful “olds” being supported by struggling young people.)

·        Zero Fail:  the Rise and Fall of the Secret Service by Carol Leonnig (The Secret Service, born in 1865 with the assignation of Abraham Lincoln, began in earnest with the shooting of John F. Kennedy.)

·        The Possessions by Sara Flannery Murphy (The Elysian Society allows paying clients to reconnect with their lost loved ones.  The workers, known as bodies, wear the discarded belongings of the dead and swallow pills to summon spirits.)   

Favorite books re-read by the Muser in 2022

• 1984 by George Orwell  Published in 1949, the book is set in 1984 in Oceania, one of three perpetually warring totalitarian states--the other two are Eurasia and Eastasia.  Oceania is governed by the all-controlling Party, which has brainwashed the population into unthinking obedience to its leader, Big Brother.  The Party has created a language known as Newspeak, which is designed to limit free thought and promote the Party’s doctrines.  The Party maintains control through the Thought Police and continual surveillance. 
• Brave New World by Aldous Huxley  Published in 1932, dystopian social science fiction novel, largely set in a futuristic World State, whose citizens are environmentally engineered into an intelligence-based social hierarchy, the novel anticipates huge scientific advancements in reproductive technology, sleep-learning, psychological manipulation and classical conditioning.  Huxley followed this book with a reassessment in essay form, Brave New World Revisited (1958), and with his final novel, Island (1962), the utopian counterpart.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_World
• The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende (1982) Magda Bogin (Translator) Three generations of the Trueba family, revealing both triumphs and tragedies.  The novel was rejected by several Spanish-language publishers before being published in Buenos Aires.  It became an instant best-seller, was critically acclaimed, and catapulted Allende to literary stardom.  The novel was named Best Novel of the Year in Chile in 1982, and Allende received the country's Panorama Literario award.  The House of the Spirits has been translated into over 20 languages. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_House_of_the_Spirits    

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2612  December 28, 2022