Our Lady of Guadalupe

 I'm reading this book

to Jacqueline (along with 4 other books) every night. 

Short version of the story: a Mexican guy named Juan sees an apparition of the Virgin Mary. He goes to tell a priest, and the priest wants proof. The Virgin Mary tells Juan to pick the flowers at the top of the hill where she has appeared. He is surprised at this, as it is not the season for flowers, but he follows her directions. And at the top of the hill, he finds flowers that are not even native to the region growing. He collects them in his tilma.

Then he takes them to the priest. When he opens his tilma, the flowers fall out, and imprinted on the tilma is a picture of the Virgin Mary. (The tilma was made of a material which should have deteriorated in about fifty years yet five hundred years later it is still here.)

If that's not amazing enough, check out these details from the book I'm reading with Jacqueline:

🤯 💥 

Amitav Ghosh Bibliography +

What Amitav Ghosh has written:

Novels

The Circle of Reason (1986)

The Shadow Lines (1988)

The Calcutta Chromosome (1995/1996)

The Glass Palace (2000)

The Hungry Tide (2004)

Gun Island (2019)

Ghost-Eye (2025/2026) 

Sea of Poppies (2008)

River of Smoke (2011)

Flood of Fire (2015)  

Verse & Illustrated Books

Jungle Nama (2021)

The Living Mountain (2022) 

Non-Fiction & Essays

In an Antique Land (1992)

Dancing in Cambodia, at Large in Burma (1998)

Countdown (1999)

The Imam and the Indian (2002)

Incendiary Circumstances (2005)

The Great Derangement (2016)

The Nutmeg's Curse (2021)

Smoke and Ashes (2023)

Wild Fictions (2025)

What Barnes & Noble has on the shelf:

Admittedly misogynistic, but with a side order of self abnegation, I'm going to call it a fair ball.

I don't have regrets about all of the women in my life. Nancy, the cashier at Kroger's, is always very nice to me.

P.S. More stoned "humor."

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Amitav Ghosh

 

I suppose it started with Christopher Nolan. I watched a video where he went into the Criterion Closet to choose some of his favorite movies. One of them he referred to as The Apu Trilogy. I am a big fan of trilogies and a bigger fan of Christopher Nolan, so I immediately checked the local library listings to see if they had the these movies. They did. I got them, then, as usual, left them to ferment on the table as I did Other Things.

At about the same time I was looking at a New York Times review and saw an ad for a novel called Ghost-Eye by Amitav Ghosh. I don't remember what it was that attracted me to the novel — it might have just been the picture of an eyeball on the cover (see above). At any rate, I checked the library and they had it so I took it out and began to read. It didn't take long for it to pull me in and I finished reading it in just a few days. As soon as I finished it I wanted more from Mister Ghosh.

It was an astonishing novel which touched on reincarnation, environmental disaster, remote viewing, drones, and class warfare...all in one neat package. It also introduced me to Indian and Bangladeshi culture, about which I'd known nothing previously.

At the same time I watched the first two films of The Apu Trilogy, which was also centered around Indian culture. It made for a nice bit of minor immersion.

And just a few minutes ago I picked up this--

 --which is the first book of The Ibis Tril🌝gy,  and I'm going to start on it as soon as I shut up here. 

Like NOW.

A few words from Amitav Ghosh's Ghost-Eye which should scare the shit out of you.

 

And by the way, this is a Great, Must-Read novel...no matter what that stupid motherfucker at The Guardian says.

Addendum: "...human faith in the sacred is founded...[on the] sense of awe and wonder...." (288) (Quote rearranged for clarity.)