What I Read in June 2026 – I don’t know, that’s all words, never wake, all words, there’s nothing else

Oh right, I can pretend I am writing something. Some notes on books I read in the distant past. NOT SHAKESPEARE The Dutch Courtesan (1604), John Marston – Discussed long ago. Poems (1594-1612), George Chapman – A superb, innovative poet, somehow an Ovidian and an anti-Ovidian, attracted to but also shocked by human sensuality, which may be a good part of why he had much presence for a long time. I mean, compare to sexy John Donne. Please see Chapman’s long poem Ovid’s Banquet of Sense (1595) for a demonstration. There is the other problem – rather than write sonnets and epigrams and other things we, for some sense of we, still like to read, he wrote long, complex philosophical about aesthetics. FICTION The Unnamable (1953), Samuel Beckett – The fragment in the post’s title is from the last page. Officers and Gentlemen (1955), Evelyn Waugh – The second volume of Waugh’s trilogy about World War II, including a long account of the defense and retreat from Crete that is especially good,…