Books, Botswana & Norman Rush
Bookshelf of 
Herman Costa
Here is someone who reads daily and write reviews. The 365 days project
(NYtimes covered her here)
I noticed that she has not read Norman Rush. Will she read his novels one day?
Happy Birthday Norman Rush!
(I love his novel “Mating” which I read when it got published long ago. He writes slowly so his output is small. )
Peace Corps Writers org
BORN AND RAISED IN THE SAN FRANCISCO AREA, Norman Rush went to prison as a conscientious objector during the Korean War. After graduating from Swarthmore College in 1956, Rush worked as an antiquarian book dealer and college teacher.
Mating and Norman Rush 
(via)
In retrospect: a conversation with Norman Rush (bookcritics)
What I wanted was a character who was irreverent, smart, adventurous, and intellectually adventurous, and who possessed a comic view of life. I wanted someone who would think, and say, almost anything. And for the plot, I wanted someone who was looking for a perfect mate. It took a while to find this voice.
At some point, I’ll be right. It sort of goes like this: Mating is about courtship; Mortals is about marriage; Subtle Bodies is about friendship. Subtle Bodies is set in the Catskills on the eve of the invasion of Iraq.
Bathroom wall 
and my small mock Hodgkin painting.
Interview of N. R by – National book org.
I regard Mating as a true novel, but one that is essentially comic and based around a story of adventure and a passionate love relationship. That’s the vehicle I used to explore very important moral questions, like What is good life? What is a justified life? Why is there so much lying in society? Who are the liars, and how much lying is socially necessary? The idea was to use a story of adventure and an exotic setting and a character who was relentlessly questioning, as a framework for these other issues.
Sheila loved “Mating” (Sheila’s Varieation)
Salon personal best review of Mating by Cynthia Joyce.
Botswana Blues – Orgies of talk in Africa – a review of “Mortals” by John Updike