Reading the Booker shortlist. Two down, four to go! Will I make it by November 10? Probably not, but fun to try!

This, a short novel in which Nobelist Jon Fosse, in his inimitable style, imagines the birth of child Johannes and the death of old man Johannes. I heard someone who said he wasn't religious call it "holy." Yes. Everything of a life gathers here, the heavy and the light, and it provokes me to awe.

A woman leaves her current life to live in a convent. A plague of mice happens, the bones of a disappeared nun are returned, an unlikely person from her past arrives. Calamities of various kinds, yes, but a profound quietness in this novel. I liked it a lot. (Shortlisted for the 2024 Booker.)

The Moleskine phenomenon, ship & travel journals, commonplace books, autograph books, notable & ordinary diaries, expressive writing, recipe notebooks, bullet-journalling, ICU diaries, notebooks of artists & writers & other thinkers. All very interesting!

Stop doomscrolling and read a book instead, said a Blueskyer recently. Good advice, and here's a book that more than holds its own. Two men on a remote Scottish island. Their unusual, often fraught friendship. The power of language. The suspense of how the story might end. Terrific read.

Stephane Carlier's "Clara Reads Proust": short & charming, about staff & customers at a French salon. Hairdresser Clara's life is changed when someone leaves behind a book by Marcel Proust and she begins to read it. Madeleine moments of her own ensue; "Even the smallest things become Proustian."

Finished my reading year with Jon Fosse's Septology I - II. Hypnotic; compelling; art & prayer. As narrator Asle says, “with the writing I like to read, what matters isn’t what it literally says about this or that, it’s ...something that silently speaks in and behind the lines and sentences…”

Reading about hearts this morning –
a hummingbird’s, a whale’s – I stop,
press fingers to my pulse
and there it is, strong and steady,
steady and strong, working for me.
Beside me, a candle burns. The flame
tugs upward, wavers slightly like a
beat, a tiny pulse of light and heat.

My first encounter with the work of Spanish writer Javier Marias: Berta Isla. A spy novel of sorts, though it's the experience of the spy's wife -- she who waits, who is always outside his secrets -- that's given depth and focus here. Brilliant and compelling.

Liminal space of a whole day in Pearson Airport (cancellation/rebooking) perfect for reading Samantha Harvey's novel "Orbital." Six people in Space Station "looping round" Earth. Gorgeous description (its "ringing singing lightness") & reflection ("We couldn't survive a second without its grace.")

Just finished “A Man of Two Faces,” a searing indictment of America and the American Dream. But he doesn’t stand apart; this memoir, about forgetting and re membering, a deep dive into what it means to be refugee, Vietnamese, American. Brilliant.

There's a labyrinth in the heart of the city of Toronto. Found it yesterday (here on a visit) and walked it. A contemplative practice. (The tents behind belong to homeless folks.)

Back to back, & unexpectedly (the way it goes with what I read some weeks), two fine novels about young motherhood, which I'm long beyond by now but haven't entirely forgotten! Clare's also about friendship -- the ins & outs beautifully delineated. Yoder's is propulsive and startling.

Just re-read "Touching the Rock: An Experience of Blindness" by John M. Hull. Found it as profound as my first read in 1991. Reflections on becoming blind, on new ways of knowing. He has "lifelong love affair with God," so has to confront biblical bias to light/ sight. Highly recommended.