heartbeat

2024_books.html

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 					<td>Susan Sontag</td>
 					<td>Most of the book was a slog, and I had to skip an essay or two, but there were two excerpts that made me feel "seen" (in an annoying Twitter way):<br><blockquote>It is characteristic of the Saturnine temperament to blame its undertow of inwardness on the will. Convinced that the will is weak, the melancholic may make extravagant efforts to develop it. If these efforts are successful, the resulting hypertrophy of will usually takes the form of a compulsive devotion to work. Thus Baudelaire, who suffered constantly from "acedia, the malady of monks," ended many letters and his Intimate Journals with the most impassioned pledges to work more, to work uninterruptedly, to do nothing but work. (Despair over "every defeat of the will" - Baudelaire's phrase again - is a characteristic complaint of modern artists and intellectuals, particularly of those who are both.) One is condemned to work; otherwise, one might not do anything at all.</blockquote><br>and:<br><blockquote>All his writings are polemical. But the deepest impulse of his temperament was not combative. It was celebratory. His debunking forays, which presumed the readiness to be made indignant by inanity, obtuseness, hypocrisy - these gradually subsided. He was more interested in bestowing praise, sharing his passions. He was a taxonomist of jubilation, and of the mind's earnest play.</blockquote></td>
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+					<td>2024-W24</td>
+					<td>Salem's Cipher</td>
+					<td>Jess Lourey</td>
+					<td>Part of a summer library reading challenge.</td>
+				</tr>
+				<tr>
+					<td>2024-W25</td>
+					<td>The Trouble with Angels</td>
+					<td>Debbie Macomber</td>
+					<td>Part of a summer library reading challenge. I had to read a romance novel for one of the slots, and I chose this one because it had "angel" in the title. Can't say I'm a fan of heterosexuality.</td>
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+					<td>2024-W26</td>
+					<td>A Poetry Handbook</td>
+					<td>Mary Oliver</td>
+					<td>The same sensation as being bilingual and deciding one day to observe how speakers of one of your languages learn the other one: a unjustified frustration at retreading ground you'd covered years and years ago. More useful for an English class context than for private study.</td>
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