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What we’ve read since our last report in May:

Between the Woods and the Water by Patrick Leigh Fermor – Reread the second volume of the record of Patrick Leigh Fermor’s epic walk from Germany to Turkey in 1933 before starting on the last volume.

Beyond Paris – Translations of stories by 20th century French writers including Michel Tournier and J.M.G. Le Clezio, published by Cacho in the late 90s. The project—contemporary French fiction translated in the Philippines—was not only ahead of its time, it’s ahead of this time.

The Broken Road – Patrick Leigh Fermor never got to finish the account of his long walk—he died in 2011, having crammed several lifetimes’ worth of adventure into his 96 years (In Crete during WWII, he led a daring operation to capture a German general). He left an unfinished manuscript, which has been edited by his biographer Artemis Cooper.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by Alan Moore, while we were watching Penny Dreadful.

Doctor Strange, Season One by Greg Pak and Emma Rios. Our introduction to Marvel’s Master of the Mystic Arts was neither marvelous nor mystical. It’s the typical buddy movie in which two very different individuals overcome their antipathy towards each other and learn to work together. The magic is incidental. By the hoary hosts of Hoggoth! It is not strange at all.

Yes, we’ve been looking for the vintage comics.

The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, Sixth Edition by David Thomson. Our favorite film reference—we disagree with Thomson half the time, but we enjoy the argument—has been updated to include Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams, Benedict Cumberbatch, Cary Joji Fukunaga, and other players who have broken out since the last edition.

In the entry on Bryan Cranston, Thomson writes: “It’s hard to believe that the movies today would have the courage and the persistence to do someone like Walter White. Long-form television is the narrative form that has transcended movies in the way, once, the novel surpassed cave paintings. And Walter addresses two of our central questions: What will you do to survive? And what is left after survival?”

Now we want to watch Breaking Bad yet again. We should just have it on all the time.

Currently reading:

Crime and Punishment – We have vowed to read every word and resist the urge to skim through the looong internal monologues.

Means of Escape – stories by Penelope Fitzgerald, upon the insistence of Tina, who has launched a campaign to make everyone read the late British author.

Next:

Zona by Geoffrey Dyer – a book about Tarkovsky’s Stalker.
The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald
The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann