Read A Book A Week
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Carto’s Recent Posts
- Earthsea — Dragons and Wizards
- Flowers on Note Cards
- An Exhibition of Paintings by Monet
- Twisted — An Arizona garden in California
- The Thinker Waits
- Weathered — Church Bells in the Tower
- Favorites 2017 — Transition to Winter
- Transformation — Land’s End turns chilly
- Peek — Halloween in Palo Alto
- Stanford at Night
Carto’s Most Viewed Posts
- Téa Obreht—Tigers, Myths and Death Rites In The Balkans
- Stephen Foster: Darkies, People and Great Music
- Blue Dogs in my Dreams
- Saramago's Lucid Novels
- Carlos Fuentes—Author of The Doll Queen is dead at 83
- The Robber Barons—High-speed Rail in California
- China Girl on an Italian Motorcycle
- Zero To Hero — Donna Tartt spins a murder tale in Vermont
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Posts Organized by Category
Category Archives: Fiction
The 25th Century — A Doom Scenario
Note: California City was laid out in 1958 by real estate developer and sociology professor Nat Mendelsohn on 80,000 acres of Mojave Desert land. It was never completed, but has one landowners’ resort, one PGA golf course, one prison (the California … Continue reading
Posted in eBook, Fantasy/Adventure, Fiction, Speculative Fiction
Tagged California, POD, postaweek, San Francisco, Self-Publishing, Tijuana, Yucca Mountain
1 Comment
London – The Twilight of the Gods
Summer reading takes us to London. Something is not quite right in London’s beautiful Hampstead Heath Park. Is a dog-walker hugging that majestic English Oak? No, she is talking to it. How odd. Oh the infamy of it all – … Continue reading
Posted in Fantasy/Adventure, Fiction
Tagged Hampstead Heath, London, postaweek, Review, San Francisco, Working Women
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John Irving—Twisted River, A Writer Drifts Through Life
A guardian angel looks down on Iowa. A scene from John Irving’s novel Last Night in Twisted River takes place on a small pig farm not far from Iowa City. A pig was roasting in a makeshift barbeque pit not … Continue reading
Posted in eBook, Fiction, Memoir
Tagged American Literature, Iowa City, John Irving, Mingei International Museum, New Hampshire, Niki de St. Phalle, postaweek
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Toni Morrison— Home, A Memorial to Civil Rights and The Korean War
Frank Money’s home is in rural Georgia, a small town just South of Atlanta. Home is the new novel by Nobel and Pulitzer winner Toni Morrison that tells Frank’s story. As the novel begins, Frank is speaking to the author … Continue reading
Posted in Fiction, Poetry
Tagged American Literature, Ft. Lawton, Korean War, Memorial Day, postaweek, Toni Morrison
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Téa Obreht—Tigers, Myths and Death Rites In The Balkans
In one of those insane acts that define modern war, NATO airplanes in 1999 (Operation Noble Anvil) bombed Belgrade and a random bomb destroyed part of the Belgrade Zoo. Prince, a Siberian tiger became so traumatized that he started eating … Continue reading
Posted in Fiction
Tagged American Literature, Balkans, Belgrade Zoo, Deathless Man, jungle book rudyard kipling, postaweek, Serbia, shere kahn, Slovenia, Yugoslavia
2 Comments
Inspector Chen’s Shanghai: For the Good of the Party
Two middle-aged Chinese men meet on the Waibaidu Bridge in Shanghai—they look down at the polluted waters of the Suzhou River and reminisce of days past when the river was unpolluted and they fished for carp from the garden park … Continue reading
Posted in Crime novel, eBook, Fiction, Poetry, Translation
Tagged China, Inspecter Chen, postaweek, Shanghai
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Celebrating Gabriel García Márquez And Ice
Gabriel García Márquez was born on this day (March 6) in 1927 in Aracataca, Colombia; he is 85 years old. In Spanish, only Cervantes is more widely read than García Márquez. García Márquez is a storyteller and one of his … Continue reading
Posted in Classics, eBook, Fiction, Spanish, Translation
Tagged Colombia, García Márquez, Ice XV, Macondo, postaweek2011
1 Comment
Gertrude Stein: The Novel Ida, Fame and Celebrity
Alice B. Toklas was 29 years old in 1908 when she left her home in San Francisco for Paris. She met Gertrude Stein the day she arrived in Paris and the star struck Toklas was moved to write: “She was … Continue reading
Alabama—Crossing Over, African-Americans, Descendants of Slaves
The quilt in the photo was one of bed covers featured in the 2006 De Young Museum exhibition The Quilts of Gee’s Bend. All the quilts in the exhibit were hand-made by the women of Gee’s Bend, Alabama. Many of … Continue reading
Posted in eBook, Fiction, History, Non-fiction
Tagged Black History Month, Exhibition, Gee's Bend, postaday, Quilts, San Francisco, Textiles, Working Women
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Valentine’s Day Poet—Pablo Neruda
The 1971 Nobel Laureate Pablo Neruda was a prolific writer of love poems. His first poetry was published in Chile in a small volume titled in Spanish: Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada (Twenty Love Poems and a … Continue reading
Posted in Fiction, Poetry, Spanish, Theater, Translation
Tagged Pablo Neruda, postaday, Valentine's Day
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