The Pleasures of Reading, Viewing, and Listening in 2023, pt. 13: Dennis Danvers

 

 

Reading, Viewing, Listening in 2023

by Dennis Danvers

 

I began the year reading Bewilderment by Richard Powers and found it deeply moving. I dipped in and out of Bob Dylan's The Philosophy of Modern Song throughout the year. I've been writing a lot of songs the last few years, and hanging out with Bob is an inspiration.

 

I read Frenchman's Creek by Daphne Du Maurier and found it delightful. I also reread Rebecca, a favorite novel. I read Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens and it delivered on all those Dickensian pleasures in abundance.  I reread The Odyssey every few years, and this was the first time I read Emily Wilson's terrific translation, taut and lean and musical. I reread some Ray Bradbury—The Martian Chronicles and Dandelion Wine—I hadn't read since I was a teen, and they were both more wonderfully weird than I remembered them.

 

After Dickens, I sought out shorter novels. I enjoyed Just Like You by Nick Hornby for his usual virtues but also for the glimpse it gave me of the Brexit controversy on a human scale. The Plot: A Novel by Jean Hanff Korelitz didn't quite work for me, though it was fun. I guessed the plot too early and spoiled it... Bad Questions by Len Kruger, on the other hand, was a beautiful and funny novel about a painful adolescence not unlike my nerdy adolescence. Nine Shiny Objects by Brian Castleberry delivered a kind of retro spookiness in an understated but haunting story. Saturnalia by Stephanie Feldman offered a pagan future—what's not to like?

 

We stream a lot. Favorites include Dead to Me on Netflix, Jury Duty on Hulu, The Morning Show on Apple, Lessons in Chemistry on Apple, No One Will Save You on Hulu. In the theater I saw Barbie and the Eras Tour with my stepdaughters and loved them both.

 

As for music, I've listened to a lot of Taylor Swift—I've been a Swiftie since her first album, and this is her year. I also watch a lot of piano tutorials on Bitesize Piano, a great site by Francesca Williams, a piano teacher in the UK.

 

And just last week we went to a Richmond Shakespeare production of Hamlet that was great.

 

Dennis Danvers has published ten novels, including NYT Notables Circuit of Heaven and The Watch, and Locus- and Bram Stoker-Awards nominee Wilderness; The Perfect Stranger (2020)and The Soothsayer & The Changeling (2021). His short fiction has appeared in Strange Horizons, Apex, F&SF, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, Tor.com, Lightspeed, Electric Velocipede, and elsewhere. His story collection, Leaving the Dead was published in 2023. He taught Literature and Creative Writing for over thirty years at Virginia Commonwealth University and lives in Richmond, VA. Aqueduct Press will be releasing his Tales from Mnemosyne next month.