Not that translated novels are even that noticeable if they’re done properly, but there can definitely be a feel (for lack of a better word) that you get from a country’s authors. At least the first and only one I can recall. I have to say that this must be the first Polish novel I’ve ever read. Despite continuing to commute about 10 feet to my home office every day. It turns out that my methodology for adding to my library was targeted and spread out over enough time that I ended up with this novel, as well as another by author, Olga Tokarczuk, in my queue without even realizing it. I figured if the Nobel Prize people felt passionate enough about it to give it one of their coveted awards, then it should be just fine for me. A book originally written in Polish that sounds like an emo song title from the early 2000s, or an album title from Austin prog-emo band, …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead. So, amongst the now 45 or so books I have sitting in my Kindle queue, I chose to read this, Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead. Too much life when you’re not held captive in a moving metal tube for a couple hours a day. Working from home, it turns out, is not conducive to reading multiples of books. That is, until my commute disappeared all together. It was much easier to sit back on the train and close my weary eyes than keep them trained on the written word. And then podcasts came along and kind of cut into my reading. Sometimes my eyes would droop and head would nod incessantly a couple paragraphs in, but I tried. I read on busses, on trains, in parks, on my bed. Back in the times of yesteryear, I read like a maniac.

It’s just my life and habits have changed in this, the time of COVID. I wouldn’t say my interest or love of books has waned. It’s been a good while since I’ve done a book review.

Blake drive your plow