The Professor from across the street stopped in last night to give me copies of The Times Literary Supplement and the spring issue of The New York Review of Books. He subscribes to both and thought I might be interested in reading them.
Oh my. The NYRB issue is filled to the covers with books. Eight-eight pages of books to be exact. Overwhelming. Mostly ads from university presses. One from the Chicago Art Institute. A few from various foundations.
Instead of inspiring me, the issue fascinated and depressed me. Who are all these authors writing on all these subjects? So many words. And the reveiws and criticisms. Over 30 articles. Only one intrigued me and that is a look at Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John La Carre. It is written by Russell Baker and was sparked by the latest movie version of the book. I just watched it recently and was as lost as always in spy land.
The TLS only weighs in at 32 pages. It contains a look at Isabel Allende's newest novel El Cuaderno De Maya (The Notebook of Maya). I have never read Allende but I did attend a lecture by her and found her to be charming and charged with a fierceness that I will never have.
After paging through all this material, I realize that what I really need is nap.
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