I’ve just finished reading Diary of a Bad Year by J.M. Coetzee, 2003 Nobel winner and the first author to win the Booker Prize twice. If you’ve never bumped into Coetzee before, I recommend him to you highly, and, if you know him, but haven’t read this book yet, I think anyone over a certain age or of a contemplative nature is going to love it. The plot is easily told, as it concerns an older writer who bumps into and then engages a gorgeous younger woman who lives in his apartment complex to type a manuscript for him. The writer’s current work is scheduled to be included in a German book called Strong Opinions, and the topics the writer takes up range from Al Qaeda to intelligent design to J.S. Bach. However, the heart of the book takes place through the juxtaposition of these short essays with entries from the writer’s and the young woman’s diaries, and those concern desire, deception, and ultimately decency. It’s great fun to notice which threads you find yourself wanting to follow the most and to contemplate the relationship between the very different matters that are taken up on any given page. I’ve been thinking a lot about aging and mortality lately; if you have, too, and your tastes run more to movies, I can recommend highly two German films, Cherry Blossoms (directed by Dorris Dörrie, 2009) and Cloud 9 (directed by Andreas Dresen, 2010)—which both, for a summer twist, also concern desire.