Favorites

Some favorite books by favorite authors: The Sportswriter and its sequel Independence Day by Richard Ford; American Pastoral by Philip Roth (honorable mention: I Married a Communist and The Human Stain); Black Box by Amos Oz (honorable mention: all of Oz’s more recent works of fiction starting with A Perfect Peace with the exception of The Same Sea which I didn’t like); The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky; Mercy of a Rude Stream (series) by Henry Roth.
Notes on the above: If you’re thinking of going to Israel read Amos Oz first. This will give you the layout of the mental geography that blows over the land more strongly than the wind off the eastern desert. The works written before A Perfect Peace are too dark and somber for me. While dark, the later works have at least a glimmer of lightness that somehow seems more real. The Henry Roth books are rough stuff and a difficult read but ultimately worth it.

Favorite poem: Crossing Brooklyn Ferry by Walt Whitman.
Favorite beer: Bass Ale on draught (honorable mention: Newcastle Brown Ale)
Favorite beer bottle (yes, the bottle not the beer): Rolling Rock Extra Pale.

A note on winter: The heart of winter (January and the first half of February) was exceptionally mild here. Only now that the sun is rising higher in the sky has the real winter begun. I suspect we have at least one more major east coast snowstorm to come.