What I’m reading: 'John & Paul: A Love Story in Songs'

What I’m reading:

John & Paul: A Love Story in Songs

It’s been a while since I have devoured a book the way I am reading this book. I’ve been staying up until 11 p.m. reading it – not looking at Facebook, not fooling around with the laptop. Just reading as much of the book as I can manage – running to it whenever I have a moment free.

HOW TO CAPITALIZE ON THIS?

Am I reading the wrong books?

Should I be reading more biographies?

I think childhood -- and childhood obsessions -- could be the key to understanding my readerly swooning here. When I read about the Beatles, it's as though I am reading about someone I knew – as if someone wrote a biography of St. Anthony’s High School or Eclectic House at Wesleyan.

Growing up, I listened to Beatles albums a lot. Thanks to my uncles Joe and Pat, we learned about the Beatles as children and had the records. I loved the anthologies to start and then later Abbey Road, The White Album and Let It Be.

As a tween and young teen, I would obsessively listen to Beatles-only radio programs (for example, Scott Muni's "Ticket To Ride"). I studied the album covers for clues just as I was told to do so on these programs. And the drama of their breakup was something I felt keenly -- more than a decade after the actual breakup!

The book is also just plain fascinating.

As I wrote on the Goodreads site, I don't think I could love this book more! I am returning to my girlhood obsession with the Beatles and exploring in minute detail the inner workings of the Lennon-McCarthy songwriting partnership, thanks to this wonderful dual biography of the two Beatles. For anyone who's ever had any kind of Beatle worship, this book is essential. And what an interesting concept! Exploring this relationship as a one-of-a-kind partnership that eschews easy definition. 

It's about friendship, it's about collegiality, it's about boyhood but it also confirms the partnership. I literally cannot put it done! Excellent work, Ian Leslie.

For more information about the book, visit the author's website where he details the genesis of this project:

https://www.ian-leslie.com/p/64-reasons-to-celebrate-paul-mccartney

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The coolest thing: praise for “The Quiet Exhilaration of Learning Italian”

An academic in Italy read the essay I wrote for The Millions about learning to speak Italian and reposted it to LinkedIn with the most amazing comments!

She actually called it "un bellissimo articolo" -- a beautiful article!

I believe this is one of the few times I've read something in Italian that's commenting on my writing (outside of graduate school!):

Chi ama parlare, ma soprattutto vivere, una lingua riconoscerà subito questa sensazione: non è (solo) comunicare, ma anche acquisire una nuova identità e scoprire un altro modo di stare al mondo.

Translation: "Anyone who loves speaking but especially living another language will immediately recognize this sensation: it's not only communicating but also acquiring a new identity and discovering another way of being in the world."

How truly wonderful this is! Thank you, Gaia. Molto gentile!

Here's Gaia's post:

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7358807293552971776/

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My favorite photo of Florence?

I took this photo one morning over the summer as I walked the streets of "my city." Firenze. Florence. The City of Dante. Also: The city of Jeanne. I'd finally made it across the river to revisit my old neighborhood and check on Piazza Santo Spirito, my old stomping grounds.

The morning that I took this photo, I stopped at Caffe Ricchi by Santo Spirito for a cappuccino and as I wrote in an earlier post about the trip, when I asked the barman there about a sign listing soy milk cappuccino, he said it tastes like cardboard. Old-school Italy remaining old-school Italy -- yay. The piazza was largely empty, I guess because it was all of 7:30a but how delightful.

On the way back the apartment, I passed a throwback record store and peering into the window, I saw a Beatles album whose cover read in Italian, "Aiuto." Aiuto = Help. That's the famous “Help” album – translated for the Italian edition. LOVE IT!

Anyway, this might be my favorite photo of Florence from this trip. It remains such a beautiful city -- especially if you're able to step away from the areas that are heavily populated with tourists.

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'The age I lost everyone and everything' (my lecture at Otterbein)

Thanks to the amazing English department at Otterbein University in Ohio, I'll be giving a talk about my translation on Thursday.

The title of the talk -- "'The Age I Had Been When I Lost Everyone and Everything': The Life and Works of Edith Bruck" -- is inspired by a line from one of the stories in my translation, This Darkness Will Never End.

I'll also have the distinct privilege of sitting in on a Holocaust literature course that includes the translation as a required text!

Pinch me, pinch me -- the students will be discussing stories with me that I translated!

I plan to discuss what women writers can tell us about the Holocaust, and also various aspects of Edith Bruck's life, including outtakes from our conversation in July when I visited her again at her apartment in Rome.

What a partnership literary translation can be. I feel as though I am one of many 'emissaries' promoting the work of Edith Bruck. There are emissaries in France, emissaries in Spain, even emissaries in Germany. And I'm one of her American emissaries.

Thanks again to Otterbein!

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