What I Read in October 2025 – What a simple daily pleasure.

October was so long ago.  It is almost December.  Why do I write these.

MARLOWE AND SO ON

The Famous Victories of Henry V (1580s?), ??? – Some notes over here.

Tamburlaine, Pt. II (1587?), Christopher Marlowe – Righthere and also here.

The Spanish Tragedy (1587?), Thomas Kyd – This away and that away.

Henry VI, Pt. 2 (1590?), William Shakespeare – Just click here or here.

English Tragedy before Shakespeare (1955), Wolfgang Clemen – A deceptive title.  The focus is narrowly on the evolution of the set speech in early Elizabethan plays.  A topic of enormous interest and a book of great insight, it turned out.

POETRY

Brides of Reason (1955) &

A Winter Talent and Other Poems (1957) &

A Sequence for Francis Parkman (1961), Donald Davie

Night Watch (2025), Kevin Young

 

OTHER BOOKS IN ENGLISH

Platero and I (1914), Juan Ramón Jiménez – It occurred to me, returning from my French donkey expedition, that I had many of the classics of donkey literature but not this one, a hundred-some prose poems by the future Nobel Prize-winning poet about his beloved donkey friend.  Way too sentimental for my tastes, but with many fine moments of fine beauty or irony.  The line in the post’s title is from LVII, Promenade, p. 95 of my edition, translated by Austin, Texas, high school Spanish teacher Eloise Roach.

The Plague (1947), Albert Camus

Class Clown: The Memoirs of a Professional Wiseass (2025), Dave Barry – The American humorist.  I assume non-Americans have no idea who Barry is.  One’s taste for his humor is obviously central to enjoying this book, but this is an actual memoir, not a humor book, and the long central section about his newspaper career in the 1970s and 1980s is an extremely interesting depiction of a lost world.  We were better off back then, although there is nothing to be done to bring it back.

 

IN FRENCH & PORTUGUESE

Primeiro Livro de Poesia (First Book of Poetry, 1991) – Poetry suitable for children from around the Lusophonic world, assembled by Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen.  I read this book three years ago when I was just starting to read in Portuguese.  Was it easier now?  Did I understand it better?  I guess.

Le coffre (The Cartopper, 2019), Jacky Schwartmann & Lucian-Dragos Bogdan – An artificial novel for the Lyon mystery festival when Romania was the special guest country, with the French author writing the Lyon chapters and the Romanian writing the Romanian writing those set in Romania.  The detectives do not share a language and can only communicate by email.  This should be a throwaway book, but it is actually pretty good.  The central mystery was all right and the characters were developed and enjoyable.  Both authors were digressive, relaxed.  The Lyon details were a treat.  Not bad, not bad.  The book was a thoughtful gift – thanks!

Retour à Birkenau (Return to Birkenau, 2019), Ginette Kolinka avec Marion Ruggieri – Birkenau survivor Kolinka became active in French Holocaust education when she became a widow in her seventies.  She accompanied groups of French schoolchildren on tours of Birkenau, thus the Return in the book’s title, an extraordinary piece of bravery.  Her 100th birthday was last February.

Avec les fées (With the Fairies, 2024), Sylvain Tesson – Travel writer Tesson tours the Celtic coast – Brittany, Cornwall, Wales, western Ireland, western Scotland, as far as the Shetlands – by sailboat, foot, and bicycle.  I enjoy his voice and humor, but this is a minor book compared to his crazy Russian adventures.  Perhaps a bit too gooey, rhetorically, but how much is there to say about the pleasures of sailing without a little goo.