2026
January
- Jenny Erpenbeck. The End of Days. trans. Susan Bernofsky. New York: New Directions, 2014 (2012). [6.d]*
- Forestalls criticisms by asserting them; structurally playful, but as a serious game. Didn’t much care for it.
- Lee Alan Dugatkin and Lyudmila Trut. How to Tame a Fox (and Build a Dog). Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press, 2017. [5]
- A nice little book at the intersection of history, politics, and science, with cute pictures of foxes. Occasionally hagiographic, but no one is perfect.
- [Cicero]. How to Grieve. trans. & ed. Michael Fontaine. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 2022. [4]
- Odd formatting choices (inverted question/exclamation marks, little musical notes [🎵] to indicate poetry, shaded boxes, bullet lists) and anachronistic word choices (bullets and zaps) were interesting in the way they emphasized Fontaine’s thesis about the authorship of the treatise. The oddities of register and tone were perhaps less forgivable – translations that would make a piece come alive in a classroom setting may not be the best approach for print. Still, worth reading, with caution.
- Marc Bekoff. Canine Confidential: Why Dogs Do What They Do. Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press, 2018. [3]
- A useful overview of canine ethology (with a focus on dog parks), but occasionally a bit glib, as is unfortunately a bit too common from late career researchers addressing a popular audience.
- Michael Taussig. Corpse Magic: Echoes Active in the Slayer-Slain Nexus. Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press, 2025. [2]
- Not at all what I expected, but an engaging personal exploration of cop and gang murders in Colombia and the United States. The inclusion of drawings by the author was an interesting choice.
- Jan Struther. Mrs. Miniver. New York: Harvest/HBJ, 1990 (1939). [1]
- A soothing book; the vignettes feel more essay-ish rather than fictional. In the manner of Rose Macaulay’s Personal Pleasures.
(last revised: 11 January 2026)
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