Not That John Williams

Two nerdy questions for those with translation opinions: First, favorite of Ovid's Metamorphoses? (A brief sample of Allen Mandelbaum's looked very good to me.)

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I made an initial try with Halldor Laxness's Independent People a few years ago, when I visited Iceland; struggled a bit with first 50 pages on the plane and then abandoned it. More patient this time, I eventually fell into its world/rhythm and didn't want it to end.

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Ada Calhoun's "Also a Poet" and the poems of Frank O'Hara were obvious and rewarding companions.

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@johnlingan All good! Though nothing that's bolting me to the chair, obviously. (Not their fault.) Iris Murdoch's letters, collected Jung, The Employees by Olga Ravn, Exposition by Nathalie Leger, After Me Comes the Flood by Sarah Perry...

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And lastly, something I didn't totally jibe with, though I want to (and will, soon) read more by him: Boathouse by Jon Fosse was effectively creepy but I don't always get along well with especially recursive experimentation. (See also: the David Markson I've read.)

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"Kingsolver has effectively reignited the moral indignation of the great Victorian novelist to dramatize the horrors of child poverty in the late-20th century." @RonCharles reviews "Demon Copperhead." https://t.co/puWzVTx377

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Fintan O'Toole's We Don’t Know Ourselves combined memoir & history, which didn't sound so novel. But reading it felt novel. And like a novel. Brilliant scenes of personal, political and cultural insight. (Grateful too for the psychological light it shed on my own Irish roots.)

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Even though I'd read her before, this was the year of fully realizing how great (and undervalued, I think) Iris Murdoch is. The Black Prince and A Word Child are simultaneously entertaining and brilliant in a way that's exceedingly rare.

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Tim Parks on Domenico Starnone's "The House on Via Gemito," which "could seem a tremendous act of revenge" on his father but is also "a profound consideration of artistic vocation." (Also: Ferrante-adjacent.) https://t.co/GgnQKjjjo0

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Linked to first review by @jenszalai as a Times staff critic earlier. Great week overall for the brilliant trio. @DwightGarner on Ali Smith's "Winter" http://nyti.ms/2CS5llq and @parul_sehgal on two classic under-read American novels http://nyti.ms/2CNHjrw