This month I completed four books and four short stories. The stories were part of A Swim in a Pond in the Rain by George Saunders, which is the first Saunders I have read, and the first time I had read three of the four stories, the fourth being the Chekhov, either ten or 25 years ago. I don’t quite remember which.

So the tally for the month stands at two fiction and two non-fiction. Not bad for a month as chaotic as was October, in a year as chaotic as is 2021.

Books

47. Chakraborty, S.A., The Kingdom of Copper (2021.10.04)
48. Saunders, George, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain (2021.10.15)
49. Wiesenthal, Simon, The Sunflower (2021.10.15)
50. Sanford, Jason, Plague Birds (2021.10.19)

Short Prose

108. Tolstoy, Leo (Maude, Louise and Aylmer, translators), “Master and Man”, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain (2021.10.06)
109. Gogol, Nikolai (Struve, Mary, translator), “The Nose”, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain (2021.10.10)
110. Chekhov, Anton (Yarmolinsky, Avrahm, translator), “Gooseberries”, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain (2021.10.13)
111. Tolstoy, Leo (Brown, Clarence, translator), “Alyosha the Pot”, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain (2021.10.14)