Knitting and kitty pictures are coming soon, I promise.   Suffice it to say, kittens don’t think people should sleep when they’re used to sleeping, but in shorter, sporadic spells.  Yarrow is a Zen Master, and is also quite fond of disembowling fake mice.  Heavens forfend he ever gets a real one.  Speedwell wavers between being endearingly affectionate and downright possessive of me.  He may be jealous of Yarrow’s muttonchops and his athletic ability.  Kayo thinks both cats should move more slowly and accept his licks.  Water-guns are in my future.

I’m taking the Metro to and from my new job, which means I get a little bit of extra sock-knitting time in the morning, but lots of extra reading time.  Expect only small bits of knitting for a while, and lots of books.  Here are several book reviews, all thrown together.

If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things by Jon McGregor

I picked this book up because it is the author’s first novel and it was short-listed for the Booker Prize.  I love first novels, just like I love first albums.  That first fruit is packed full of energy and sweetness and light.  The words are generally chosen carefully, the images are beautiful.  If it’s successful, the artist may be able to make wonderful things in the future, but they’re likely to face the pressure of recording or publishing contracts, critics, bills, and all of the other things that get in the way of artistry.

One of the blurbs on the cover refers to this as a "prose poem of a novel."  I think that’s spot on, at least when referring to the opening pages.  The book is set on a working-class street in a British city.  We follow several of the folks who live there.  The narrative jumps from one point in time to another.  Something terrible happens, but we don’t know what until well into the book.    We have a great amount of insight into speech patterns, but the tone is familiar enough that we get very little exposition.  It turns the book into a mystery of sorts.  I loved it.  I wish I could read it for the first time all over again.

The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse by Louise Erdrich

I’m really falling in love with Erdrich’s writing.  This novel made Erdrich a finalist for the National Book Award.  I’m a bit surprised she didn’t win it.  Like many of Erdrich’s novels, this one is set on an Ojibwe reservation.  The main character is a priest with a mammoth of a secret, who is being interviewed about the possible canonization of a recently deceased nun who figures in other novels in the series.    The novel tracks the priest’s life, his role in the local community, his life before the priest-hood–it’s good stuff.  I’m hesitant to reveal much, of course, because I love the unfolding of a story I know nothing about, so I assume others do too.  Most reviews give the priest’s secret away, as does the back cover of the book.  But I think you should ignore all that, and just start at the start.  You can, however, consult some reviews here and here and here.

Tales of Burning Love by Louise Erdrich

I think this is the weakest Erdrich novel I’ve read so far.  In short, it’s the story of a man named Jack, who drives his businesses and marriages to fail, and of several women who marry him.  I love two of the characters, Dot and Eleanor, but I’m not sure why the others are appealing to anyone.  The prose is lovely in parts, a touch overdone in others, but very good as a whole.  The structure is intriguing, as are most of Erdrich’s books, because she reveals more about each character in little treasures hidden throughout the chapters.  She is an elegant writer, and I guess this is her most inelegant work because a few of her characters seem less appealing than I want them to.  It’s still worth reading, though.

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