Congratulations, Arthur Sze!

Our next Poet Laureate is an excellent choice... Child of Chinese immigrants, teacher at Institute of American Indian Arts... How did this happen under Trump? 

Murder They Wrote

Summertime is the time for crime novels, one of the genres my mother always called "escapist literature." And couldn't we all use some escape?

The Glass Key
Dashiell Hammett

Hard-boiled, with plenty of political shenanigans. It is more graphically violent than I would have expected from a 1931 novel. A very good read from front to back.

Bluebird Bluebird
Attica Locke

Our favorite Black Texas Ranger Darren Mathews is back, and appealing as ever. Locke gets a little bogged down in her east Texas version of Faulknerian southern gothic, but the characters are mostly compelling, and the plot keeps you going. 

Harm Done
Ruth Rendell

I can't say exactly why I have never fallen for Inspector Wexford the way I have Dalgliesh, but nonetheless this is a decent read, despite some meandering plot detours and a bit of amateur sociologizing.

Eddie Palmieri, RIP

A giant. 

Larry Kotlikoff on Trump firing the head of BLS

I suppose you have to be an econ nerd to fully appreciate the work of our federal statistical agencies– notably the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Census Bureau. Suffice to say, they are not perfect, but they do incredibly valuable work generating data that we can have confidence in. At least until now. I don't agree with Kotlikoff on everything, but he is spot-on here. Krugman and others have noted that by corrupting and politicizing government data, Trump is doing what banana republics have always done. I suppose becoming a banana republic will have its advantages, since we will presumably have to grow our own when the Trump tariffs cut off banana imports.

Amanita augusta

At the end of July! In California! Spectacular.

Reading roundup

Mrs. Dalloway
Virginia Woolf

I first read it when I took an undergrad course in Woolf. I liked it then, though I found its stream of consciousness and frequent changes in perspective challenging. Less challenging today, which I like to think reflects my maturity and breadth as a reader. Stylistically, every sentence reads like poetry, in a good way. There is more social criticism than I remember. One of the great works.

The Friend
Sigrid Nunez

A girl and her dog. And her grief. I could have lived without the philosophical digressions about writing, but the book is overall engaging and lovely. Now a not-so-major movie at a theatre or streaming service near you. 

Long Island
Colm Toíbín

I loved Brooklyn. This is the highly praised sequel, which I found disappointing and dull. Maybe I have been reading too many virtuosic writers, including Woolf and Banville, and Toíbín's style is just so dry in comparison. I was looking forward to finding out what became of Eilis Lacey, the complex and compelling hero of the first book, and indeed she is here, and still admirable. But ultimately this is Jim Farrell's story. And Jim is no Eilis. The ending reads as if someone tore the last few pages out of the book before handing it to me. I know, it's on purpose. But I couldn't muster much interest in learning or even wondering whatever would become of Jim.

The Last Policeman
Ben H. Winters

This is a pretty conventional crime novel, with an appealing young detective, embedded within a pre-apocalyptic near-future dystopia. You see, a large asteroid will collide with Earth in a few months. Dystopia is really too strong a term, since, naturally, different people react to this impending doom in different ways, and not all of the ways are bad. That said, not surprisingly, suicides are up, and many people– including cops– are not inclined to dwell on whether a slightly suspicious suicide might not actually be a murder. After all, why does it matter? But our young hero and narrator Henry Palace can't help himself and, of course, suicide it's not. Published in 2012, pre-COVID and pre-Trump, there is an innocence to the narrative that you may find refreshing... or depressing...

Mrs. Dalloway

Just read it. Or read it again. One of the best novels ever. Not as difficult as I remember.

Anat Cohen

The clarinetist appeared at Stanford Jazz Saturday night in her duo with the Brazilian seven-string guitarist Marcello Gonçalves. They've been playing together for quite some time, and their ease and rapport show through. Given the instrumentation, the overall flavor is choro, but ranges more widely. They played several arrangements of pieces by Moacir Santos, some Jobim, some Nascimento, and then to preview their latest project, some Bernstein. The music does not push the envelope, but is varied and lovely. Recommended.