Everyone I know has been rightly lamenting the closing of Sundance Bookstore, a cultural mainstay and incredibly valuable resource in our area. With the official closing on Friday, I thought it might be nice to document my last purchase there from a few days before it closed, the last of many buys involving hundreds, perhaps thousands, of dollars over the years. (Thanks to the Reno Phil for the gift certificate that paid for some of this.) In no particular order…
The Woman in the Purple Skirt by Natsuko Imamura. I read this one immediately after purchase, a delightfully sinister short novel in which the Woman in the Yellow Cardigan follows and documents in weird, stalker-like detail, a period in the life of the title woman.
What Kingdom by Fine Gråbøl. This was a blind buy, the tale of someone living in a temporary psychiatric institution in Copenhagen. The jacket description grabbed me, and my experience with Archipelago Books has always been positive. (Another Archipelago book I recently read, The Bird by Tarjei Vesaas, was quietly and extremely moving, and comes highly recommended.)
The Siren’s Lament: Essential Stories by Jun’ichiro Tanizaki. A small, elegant volume from Pushkin Press collecting three stories, none of which have I read or previously owned, by the great Japanese author.
Humanely Possible by Sarah Bakewell. Finding this one was a pleasant surprise, as its existence had somehow eluded me. This is a history of humanism, from the fourteenth century to the present. I loved Bakewell’s At the Existentialist Café, and have a feeling this will be another winner. Probably my next read.
Septology I-VII by Jon Fosse. The legend. The myth. The Nobel Prize winner. I admit to being a little intimidated by this book, with its length, philosophical depths, and passages of stream-of-consciousness writing. However, much of what I know about this book also tells me I will love it, if I’m up for the challenge.
The Making of Incarnation by Tom McCarthy. The couple of other novels by McCarthy that I’ve read have left me a bit confused, but also greatly intrigued. I need to read more.
Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay. I have to admit that I’ve never read this book, nor seen the rather famous film of it made by Peter Weir in the late 1970s. It’s time to remedy that.
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie. I’ve read this before, and found it quite beautiful. But I gave my copy away some time ago, and, finding a used copy at Sundance for $6, couldn’t resist having it again.
Utopia Avenue by David Mitchell. Having just reread with great pleasure The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, and with Cloud Atlas on my TBR calling out to me for another reading, I decided to purchase Mitchell’s most recent novel, the story of a fictional British rock band of the 1960s.
Goodbye, Sundance! It’s been a pleasure knowing you.
Thirty-Two Minutes 