tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1844034090606144332024-02-19T00:42:11.979-05:00Book TapestryWeaving together books and lifeBookTapestryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13808126395322513413noreply@blogger.comBlogger158125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-184403409060614433.post-86354918099437878192020-10-15T18:36:00.000-04:002020-10-15T18:36:14.906-04:00Book Beginning: The Peppermint Tea Chronicles by Alexander McCall Smith<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.rosecityreader.com/" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="170" data-original-width="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWaVUh17v3BBHTUFWOul2TyQzW58Kbmj_RaOo0d6JG1wM4F3dqK_5zUXCOZ-0_xBZ9j5H4zn2wnaP-JuJ-QthPa-95b-wahtx38Ht_tk8F5Jao8tKY7zeNHMPROIq5lXmSUeIU13AsLdIM/s0/BookBeginnings.jpg" /></a></div><p></p><p>Book Beginnings is a weekly meme hosted by <a href="http://www.rosecityreader.com/"><b>Rose City Reader</b></a>. We share the first sentence (or so) of the book we are reading, along with our initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires.<br /><br /></p><blockquote>Domenica Macdonald, anthropologist, resident of Scotland Street, and wife of Angus Lordie, portrait painter and long-standing member of the Scottish Arts Club, sat in the kitchen of her flat in Scotland Street.</blockquote><p></p><p></p><p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBlyGYlACnVJkawH0VYuFz_48vd3R4UV1bdZA97HwqHphByQDrpvJGR4GBnrN-z4aoH3FIPoZ1cSVXZPFTf6DVwW_CdDQKbibpQvpsPAkfAUp4unt90ihLVM5tI4egqiPSnNNdd8owt2Sx/s300/PeppermintTeaChronicles.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="195" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBlyGYlACnVJkawH0VYuFz_48vd3R4UV1bdZA97HwqHphByQDrpvJGR4GBnrN-z4aoH3FIPoZ1cSVXZPFTf6DVwW_CdDQKbibpQvpsPAkfAUp4unt90ihLVM5tI4egqiPSnNNdd8owt2Sx/s0/PeppermintTeaChronicles.jpg" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>Huzzah, a comfort read for troubled times. This is book 13 in the <b>44 Scotland Street</b> series by Alexander McCall Smith, published late last year. I do so love these books, as well as most of his other works. They won't win him the Nobel Prize or even the Booker Prize, but they are extremely enjoyable and full of stories about regular, normal, everyday humans, replete with all their foibles. <br /></p><p>Sometimes the books can seem a bit disjointed, as each short chapter tends to repeat or summarize some of the scenes of last one. This is the result of their original format: they have been serialized daily in "The Scotsman" newspaper since 2004.<br /><br />I can't wait to see what Bertie, Cyril, Mathew and Elspeth, Pat, Big Lou, and the other characters are up to now!<br /><br /><br /><br /></p><br />BookTapestryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13808126395322513413noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-184403409060614433.post-28299541908179338262020-10-09T00:28:00.002-04:002020-10-09T00:28:46.430-04:00Book Beginning: Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.rosecityreader.com/"><img border="0" data-original-height="170" data-original-width="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWaVUh17v3BBHTUFWOul2TyQzW58Kbmj_RaOo0d6JG1wM4F3dqK_5zUXCOZ-0_xBZ9j5H4zn2wnaP-JuJ-QthPa-95b-wahtx38Ht_tk8F5Jao8tKY7zeNHMPROIq5lXmSUeIU13AsLdIM/s0/BookBeginnings.jpg" /></a></div><p></p><p>Book Beginnings is a weekly meme hosted by <a href="http://www.rosecityreader.com/"><b>Rose City Reader</b></a>. We share the first sentence (or so) of the book we are reading, along with our initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires.<br /> </p><p></p><blockquote>When I was ten years old, I wrote a letter to my future self and buried it in my backyard. Seventeen years later, I remembered that I was supposed to remember to dig it up two years earlier. </blockquote><p></p><p></p><blockquote>I looked forward to getting a nostalgic glimpse into my childhood - perhaps I would marvel at my own innocence or see the first glimmer of my current aspirations. As it turns out, it just made me feel real weird about myself.</blockquote><br /><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLbCZqhr4Pf7Kd5LmNylUgNlVBC_dps5sIOD6q01AkX28bfHzgvmFSp60wpXwKNk5SVqz9KhNbuKyOj6VLegTUI0OPHvusEiF_ptg_acKS7NXqczr1HijAYq7GLrj9dPbS_4_CZlz_ZU1N/s300/Hyperbole%252BAHalf.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLbCZqhr4Pf7Kd5LmNylUgNlVBC_dps5sIOD6q01AkX28bfHzgvmFSp60wpXwKNk5SVqz9KhNbuKyOj6VLegTUI0OPHvusEiF_ptg_acKS7NXqczr1HijAYq7GLrj9dPbS_4_CZlz_ZU1N/s0/Hyperbole%252BAHalf.jpg" /></a></div><p></p><p> </p><p>This is a graphic/comic memoir that came out of Allie Brosh's blog of the same name. The subtitle is "unfortunate situations, flawed coping mechanisms, mayhem, and other things that happened". I've read a lot of it already and it is strangely compelling and repelling at the same time. </p><p><br /></p>BookTapestryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13808126395322513413noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-184403409060614433.post-89616537258548498622020-09-18T00:54:00.000-04:002020-09-18T00:54:18.736-04:00Book Beginning: Nine Lives: The Folklore of Cats by Katharine Briggs<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.rosecityreader.com/"><img border="0" data-original-height="170" data-original-width="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWaVUh17v3BBHTUFWOul2TyQzW58Kbmj_RaOo0d6JG1wM4F3dqK_5zUXCOZ-0_xBZ9j5H4zn2wnaP-JuJ-QthPa-95b-wahtx38Ht_tk8F5Jao8tKY7zeNHMPROIq5lXmSUeIU13AsLdIM/s0/BookBeginnings.jpg" /></a></div><p></p><p>Book Beginnings is a weekly meme hosted by <a href="http://www.rosecityreader.com/"><b>Rose City Reader</b></a>. We share the first sentence (or so) of the book we are reading, along with our initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires.<br /> </p><p></p><blockquote>The great day for the cat must be placed some two thousand years ago in Ancient Egypt, when cats enjoyed a position of special privilege, and had long held it.</blockquote><p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicZWKPwARjJN5kA8vQ_kHjWhWPhZgSQpt6tptfVnPHhFVBMFxK9F9e5SGBR-CtRF64-_LcQymk7j5yhEEcgQ5DcRnnxmGAIufgc_HA77iZ3IhxV0I3Z0bz-GKhBje8jW0SPvRTpJ1c9Tz6/s299/NineLives.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="299" data-original-width="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicZWKPwARjJN5kA8vQ_kHjWhWPhZgSQpt6tptfVnPHhFVBMFxK9F9e5SGBR-CtRF64-_LcQymk7j5yhEEcgQ5DcRnnxmGAIufgc_HA77iZ3IhxV0I3Z0bz-GKhBje8jW0SPvRTpJ1c9Tz6/s0/NineLives.jpg" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>I have loved cats for most of my life, and lived with them for many years. I don't have a feline companion at the moment, but this summer I started volunteering at Ohio Alley Cat Rescue, which is just down the street from me. We usually have 40-50 kittens and cats in residence on any day, so I can get my kitty cuddles frequently! Thus I was intrigued by the title of this book and bought it sight unseen from<a href="Powells.com"> Powells.com</a>, my favorite bookstore.<br /><br /></p>BookTapestryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13808126395322513413noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-184403409060614433.post-70083050726085571592020-09-11T02:23:00.000-04:002020-09-11T02:23:51.246-04:00Book Beginning: The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.rosecityreader.com/" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="170" data-original-width="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWaVUh17v3BBHTUFWOul2TyQzW58Kbmj_RaOo0d6JG1wM4F3dqK_5zUXCOZ-0_xBZ9j5H4zn2wnaP-JuJ-QthPa-95b-wahtx38Ht_tk8F5Jao8tKY7zeNHMPROIq5lXmSUeIU13AsLdIM/s0/BookBeginnings.jpg" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>Book Beginnings is a weekly meme hosted by <a href="http://www.rosecityreader.com/"><b>Rose City Reader</b></a>. We share the first sentence (or so) of the book we are reading, along with our initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires.<br /><br /></p><blockquote>It was hard to say when exactly winter arrived. The decline was gradual, like that of a person into old age, inconspicuous from day to day until the season became an established, relentless reality.</blockquote><br /><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjB2xzmQcx9DaoVYmzekVs_IxMra_hmNHEbZVqJkcL4SK8nB_VK-Sx-tMPV_cIOB2ohJIrBA35ka3jVIiA4XhS12NYvGO8yg5K7_VUmWd9yQpkJnahL82tQ51ob4QJY_yBwyJctPtv2-ruO/s300/TheArtOfTravel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="194" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjB2xzmQcx9DaoVYmzekVs_IxMra_hmNHEbZVqJkcL4SK8nB_VK-Sx-tMPV_cIOB2ohJIrBA35ka3jVIiA4XhS12NYvGO8yg5K7_VUmWd9yQpkJnahL82tQ51ob4QJY_yBwyJctPtv2-ruO/s0/TheArtOfTravel.jpg" /></a></div><p><br />I've seen this book mentioned many times by travellers and
travel writers. Since I'm trying to get motivated about travel planning -
when travel is an unknown quantity at present - I thought I would
listen to some travel philosophy.</p><p> </p><p> </p>BookTapestryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13808126395322513413noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-184403409060614433.post-85147586805700313032020-09-04T21:12:00.000-04:002020-09-04T21:12:56.756-04:00Book Beginning: Ten Years a Nomad by Matthew Kepnes<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.rosecityreader.com/"><img border="0" data-original-height="170" data-original-width="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWaVUh17v3BBHTUFWOul2TyQzW58Kbmj_RaOo0d6JG1wM4F3dqK_5zUXCOZ-0_xBZ9j5H4zn2wnaP-JuJ-QthPa-95b-wahtx38Ht_tk8F5Jao8tKY7zeNHMPROIq5lXmSUeIU13AsLdIM/s0/BookBeginnings.jpg" /></a></div><br /><p></p>Book Beginnings is a weekly meme hosted by <a href="http://www.rosecityreader.com/"><b>Rose City Reader</b></a>. We share the first sentence (or so) of the book we are reading, along with our initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires.<p><br /> I AM A NOMAD<br /><br /> For a decade I have lived a long, peripatetic life on the road.<br /><br /> Three thousand nights.<br /><br /> In more than ninety countries. In a thousand different cities. In hundreds of hostels. With countless people. For half a million miles on airplanes, and half a million more (I've added it up) on trains and buses and tuk-tuks and cars and bicycles.<br /><br /> That was my home.</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="194" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaWx_zgsxsOWqNUututdLBsw9k855JfU-pPSt0MWaLL99IIfPT_w6JkYBKVkHknoEDb6eUh0-HAOtX2RHOtJNAuY1LNZbCAvB7K_hLdIHsdOSHPvm_P-9k8s1AaHZB2gDIKUz6sKiIo2nq/s0/TenYearsANomad.jpg" /></div><p><br /><br />There is also an opening quote in the Introduction which I like a lot:<br /><br /></p><blockquote>I haven't been everywhere, but it's on my list.<br /> -Susan Sontag</blockquote><p> </p>I first found Matt and his fellow digital nomads back when I was contemplating making a change in my own life. I've been reading his blog/website, <a href="https://www.nomadicmatt.com/"><b>Nomadic Matt</b></a>, for several years and I read his first book, "How to Travel the World on $50 a Day". Non-stop travelling sounded so exciting.<br /><br />My life did change abruptly when I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2016 and I never did become a nomad. After my treatments I retired from my online crafts shop, SkyBluePink, and was beginning to travel frequently when the novel coronavirus struck. Now I'm dreaming of travelling again someday and looking for inspiration to keep my spirits up. So I think I will enjoy Matt's newest memoir of being on the road for 10 years.<br /><p></p><p><br /></p>BookTapestryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13808126395322513413noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-184403409060614433.post-14896748146660634672020-08-20T21:33:00.000-04:002020-08-20T21:33:17.656-04:00Book Beginning: The Library of Lost and Found by Phaedra Patrick<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="170" data-original-width="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWaVUh17v3BBHTUFWOul2TyQzW58Kbmj_RaOo0d6JG1wM4F3dqK_5zUXCOZ-0_xBZ9j5H4zn2wnaP-JuJ-QthPa-95b-wahtx38Ht_tk8F5Jao8tKY7zeNHMPROIq5lXmSUeIU13AsLdIM/s0/BookBeginnings.jpg" /> </div><div> </div><div>Book Beginnings is a weekly meme hosted by <a href=" http://www.rosecityreader.com/"><b>Rose City Reader</b></a>. We share the first sentence (or so) of the book we are reading, along with our initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires.</div><div> </div><blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><blockquote>As always, Martha Storm was primed for action. Chin jutted, teeth gritted, and a firm grip on the handle of her trusty shopping trolley.</blockquote><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="198" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt-wwUPClJuR18Nvlgn9-X-sho__xhx-0wcpSrybVB98KV2P2apg1X7oOcvyJrbmtmGzxopVMi46pM-2NWq4F0q6NuPQdLmpVc_FDztr9AW_4DVsa-WVbxzYyNMfxtRaEZ6vymMk_z3Ot2/s0/LibraryOfLost%2526Found.jpg" /></div></blockquote><p> I saw this book recommended somewhere as a nice, sweet story and that sounded about where my head is these days. My concentration has gotten better but I don't think I can read a Dickens' novel or anything Classic and heavy duty. Still, I able to pay attention to audiobooks while I knit my charity hats, so that's an improvement in my Pandemic State of Mind. I look forward to finding out about the always-ready-for-action Martha!<br /></p><blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></blockquote><p> </p><p></p>BookTapestryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13808126395322513413noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-184403409060614433.post-56293867678110565372020-08-13T17:57:00.001-04:002020-08-13T23:28:38.009-04:00Book Beginning: Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.rosecityreader.com/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="170" data-original-width="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWaVUh17v3BBHTUFWOul2TyQzW58Kbmj_RaOo0d6JG1wM4F3dqK_5zUXCOZ-0_xBZ9j5H4zn2wnaP-JuJ-QthPa-95b-wahtx38Ht_tk8F5Jao8tKY7zeNHMPROIq5lXmSUeIU13AsLdIM/s0/BookBeginnings.jpg" /></a></div><p></p><p>Book Beginnings is a weekly meme hosted by <a href="http://www.rosecityreader.com/"><b>Rose City Reader</b></a>. We share the first sentence (or so) of the book we are reading, along with our initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires.<br /><br /></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;">There were four of us—George, and William Samuel Harris, and myself, and Montmorency. We were sitting in my room, smoking, and talking about how bad we were—bad from a medical point of view I mean, of course.</p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"> <br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMceIHX_jX09AB4bzea3yNNarvcypKGYOxoR2qhHKP-1PVKGy7Dte9IeOeYbQSnp0h2QXurxYkXZsppCGegveilkzq4Uw4o7NUuUlueHbLDPdrI-yOMQPPETcZRDnjIZheiKre5YmPmqLF/s300/ThreeMenInaBoat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="187" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMceIHX_jX09AB4bzea3yNNarvcypKGYOxoR2qhHKP-1PVKGy7Dte9IeOeYbQSnp0h2QXurxYkXZsppCGegveilkzq4Uw4o7NUuUlueHbLDPdrI-yOMQPPETcZRDnjIZheiKre5YmPmqLF/s0/ThreeMenInaBoat.jpg" /></a></div><p><br />A comedy that seems to be very popular with the Classics Club set, and who doesn't need a good laugh about now? The subtitle reads: "(to say nothing of the dog)". Which might explain the opening phrase "There were four of us". We shall see!<br /><br /><br /></p>BookTapestryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13808126395322513413noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-184403409060614433.post-63687904916884854572020-08-03T01:14:00.001-04:002020-08-09T19:06:12.790-04:00Classics Club Spin #24<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv_MHzK84TaZ2DGgptvk9vH2kcHNa3mrND01fDQKXWjopzOsEhY17lTOZnM5BwZIkTeqmQqOINKVmzJ1_Cj2xW89rXToxdEskt5OXaRQpDW315yCc8FeW9O72WIS2id73KhpHdz5qbI8qb/s1600/24.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="211" data-original-width="338" height="199" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv_MHzK84TaZ2DGgptvk9vH2kcHNa3mrND01fDQKXWjopzOsEhY17lTOZnM5BwZIkTeqmQqOINKVmzJ1_Cj2xW89rXToxdEskt5OXaRQpDW315yCc8FeW9O72WIS2id73KhpHdz5qbI8qb/s320/24.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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It's <a href="https://theclassicsclubblog.wordpress.com/2020/08/01/cc-spin-24/"><b>Classics Club Spin</b></a> time again! Each Clubber has a personal list of 50-100 classic books that we have chosen to be our challenge list. For the Spin we pick 20 of those titles and put them into a numbered list. On August 9th the Club moderators will draw a number from 1 to 20 and we have to read that book on our list by the end of September and report back to the Club.<br /><br />I failed completely for Spin #23 - I just could not read anything in April and May. But I'm hoping to be in a reading mood now, so here's a list of books that I think I have on my shelves or can get for my Kindle. First publication date is in parentheses.<br />
<br />
<ol>
<li>At Swim-two-birds, Flann O'Brien (1939)</li>
<li>Billy Budd and other Tales, Herman Melville (~1891)</li>
<li>Candide, Voltaire (1759)</li>
<li>The Dubliners, James Joyce (1914)</li>
<li>Emma, Jane Austen (1815)</li>
<li>Enemies, A Love Story, Isaac Bashevis Singer (1966)</li>
<li>Eugénie Grandet, Honoré de Balzac (1833)</li>
<li>Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain (1884)</li>
<li>Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë (1847)</li>
<li>The Man in the Brown Suit, Agatha Christie (1924)</li>
<li>Oroonoko, The Rover and Other Works, Aphra Behn (<1689)</li>
<li>The Autobiography of Alice B Toklas, Gertrude Stein (1933)</li>
<li>The Rainbow, D. H. Lawrence (1915)</li>
<li>The Reef, Edith Wharton (1912)</li>
<li>A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens (1859)</li>
<li>Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe (1958)</li>
<li>This Side of Paradise, F. Scott Fitzgerald (1920)</li>
<li>Three Men in a Boat, Jerome K. Jerome (1889)</li>
<li>The Vicar of Bullhampton, Anthony Trollope (1870)</li>
<li>Wives and Daughters, Elizabeth Gaskell (1864)</li>
</ol><p>
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I'm looking forward to reading them all eventually, but I think I'd like to tackle Gertrude Stein's "The Autobiography of Alice B Toklas". Go #12!</p><p><br /></p><p>UPDATE: The spin is #18, so I have a date with "Three Men in a Boat" by Jerome K. Jerome. Everyone tells me it's great fun, so I'm happy. Cheerful books are easier for me to concentrate on during these trying days.<br /></p><p><br /></p>BookTapestryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13808126395322513413noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-184403409060614433.post-12556368866627833752020-06-26T01:15:00.000-04:002020-06-26T01:15:31.147-04:00Book Beginning: Sandwich: A Global History by Bee Wilson<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.rosecityreader.com/"><img alt=" " border="0" data-original-height="170" data-original-width="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWaVUh17v3BBHTUFWOul2TyQzW58Kbmj_RaOo0d6JG1wM4F3dqK_5zUXCOZ-0_xBZ9j5H4zn2wnaP-JuJ-QthPa-95b-wahtx38Ht_tk8F5Jao8tKY7zeNHMPROIq5lXmSUeIU13AsLdIM/s1600/BookBeginnings.jpg" /></a></div>
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Book Beginnings is a weekly meme hosted by <a href="http://www.rosecityreader.com/"><b>Rose City Reader</b></a>. We share the first sentence (or so) of the book we are reading, along with our initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires.<br />
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Portable, quick, satisfying, cheap and requiring neither plate nor cutlery, the sandwich is the most universal of all fast food, the archetypal hand-held snack.</blockquote>
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<br />Lately I have unearthed quite a few series of small, non-fiction books. "Sandwich" is from one called "Edible" with single-word titles such as: <i>Milk</i>, <i>Pancake</i>, <i>Soup</i>, <i>Spices</i>, <i>Whiskey</i>, and <i>Chocolate</i>. The publisher says:<br />
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<i>Edible</i> is a revolutionary new series of books dedicated to food and drink that explores the rich history of cuisine. Each book reveals the global history and culture of one type of food or beverage.</blockquote>
<br />I think this will be perfect for light summer reading, although it might be hunger inducing!<br />BookTapestryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13808126395322513413noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-184403409060614433.post-82199637298594843612020-06-17T17:53:00.000-04:002020-06-17T17:53:13.205-04:00Some Current Reads<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It's a few days late for it, but here's my entry for June's Quick Lit, a monthly meme on the <a href="http://modernmrsdarcy.com/category/books-reading/quicklit/"><b>Modern Mrs. Darcy</b></a> blog. The creator is Anne Bogel, who explains that Quick Lit is where "we share short and sweet reviews of what we’ve been reading lately on the 15th of the month".<br />
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<b>Translation: A Very Short Introduction</b> by Matthew Reynolds<br /><br />
This is another book in Oxford University Press's <a href="http://www.oup.com/vsi"><b>A Very Short Introduction</b></a> series, now 689 books strong. From Abolitionism to Zionism, from Lincoln to Rousseau, from Advertising to Sleep, and everything in between is discussed in a very accessible way in about 125 pages each.<br /><br />So far I've read "Italian Literature", "Languages", and now "Translation". I find this series perfect for dipping a toe into a subject without digesting an entire 500-page tome on the topic. Each book has sections on references and further reading, in case I want to pursue that topic further.<br /><br />I have been reading more literature in translation recently, and wanted to know something about the processes and issues involved. I find it hard to summarize this type of book, so I'm giving you the publisher's blurb about it:<br />
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In this Very Short Introduction, Matthew Reynolds gives an authoritative and thought-provoking account of the field, from ancient Akkadian to World English, from St Jerome to Google Translate. He shows how translation determines meaning, how it matters in commerce, empire, conflict and resistance, and why it is fundamental to literature and the arts.</blockquote>
Reading this slim volume helped me to better appreciate the translated novels I've been reading.<br />
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<b>Literature: Why It Matters</b> by Robert Eaglestone<br />Polity 2019<br /><br />
I enjoy these small books about big topics, and the<a href="https://politybooks.com/serieslanding/?subject_id=88&series_id=50"><b> Why It Matters</b></a> series from Polity Books is another good source of quick, distilled information. The literature topic is very complex, more than I'd imagined. I did like this volume, but, again, cannot easily tell you what it's about. I'll let the publisher explain it:<br />
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"Facts alone are wanted in life," exclaims Mr Gradgrind at the beginning of Dickens' Hard Times. Literature is not about facts alone, and – despite two and a half thousand years of arguments – no one can agree on what it is, or how to study it. But, argues Robert Eaglestone, it is precisely the open-ended nature of literature that makes it such a rewarding and useful subject.</blockquote>
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Eaglestone shows that studying literature can change who you are, turning you from a "reader" into a "critic": someone attuned to the ways we make meaning in our world. Literature is a living conversation which provides endless opportunities to rethink and reinterpret our societies and ourselves. With examples ranging from Sappho to Skyrim, this book shows how literature offers freer and deeper ways of thinking and being.</blockquote>
<br />The whole series is worth reading, and this one only has 12 books!<br />
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<b>Season of Migration to the North</b> by Tayeb Salih<br />
Translated by Denys Johnson-Davies<br />Heinemann, 2008<br />Originally published in Arabic, 1966<br /><br />I had high hope for this short novella. It's another of my finds in the clearance section at my local used bookstore. I had not heard of the author before, but the influential literary critic Edward W. Said proclaimed this novel to be "among the six finest novels to be written in modern Arabic literature". It also fit into my plan to read more translated literature.<br /><br />One of the glowing reviews, in the The Observer (London), had this to say:<br />
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An "Arabian Nights" in reverse, enclosing a moral about international misconceptions and delusions. This is the story of a student who returns to his village after his obsession with the West had led him to London and the beds of women with similar obsessions about the mysterious East...Powerfully and poetically written and splendidly translated by Denys Johnson-Davies.</blockquote>
The first 2/3 of the book was very interesting, the prose lyrical and readable. The descriptions of the Sudanese men in London and the Londoners' impressions of the Sudanese men are well written, and perhaps especially enlightening in the current era of trying to understand racial bias. But then it veered off into violence and the grotesque. I did finish it, but overall I would say I did not like this book. I don't like violent, grotesque movies or TV shows either. Maybe if you can think of it all as allegory you would like it.<br /><br />This is my entry in the Classic in Translation category for the <a href="https://karensbooksandchocolate.blogspot.com/2020/01/back-to-classics-challenge-2020.html"><b>2020 Back to the Classics</b></a> challenge. It's also part of my reading for the <a href="https://myreadersblock.blogspot.com/2019/10/mount-tbr-reading-challenge-2020.html"><b>2020 Mount TBR Challenge</b></a>.<br /><br /><br />
<br />BookTapestryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13808126395322513413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-184403409060614433.post-5469980505108738912020-05-08T00:59:00.001-04:002020-05-08T00:59:25.732-04:00Book Beginning: Enemies, A Love Story by Isaac Bashevis SingerBook Beginnings is a weekly meme hosted by <a href="http://www.rosecityreader.com/"><b>Rose City Reader</b></a>. We share the first sentence (or so) of the book we are reading, along with our initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires.<br /><br />
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Herman Broder turned over and opened one eye. In his dreamy state, he wondered whether he was in America, in Tzivkev, or in a German camp.</blockquote>
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<br />Isaac Bashevis Singer always wrote in Yiddish and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1978. That's all I really know about him. I was a bit skittish about reading his work, fearing it would be about the Holocaust and too dark. But this is described as humorous, so I'm hoping for the best. It's my #6 for the Classics Club Spin #23.<br /><br /><br />BookTapestryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13808126395322513413noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-184403409060614433.post-36107111797169938572020-05-07T23:05:00.000-04:002020-05-07T23:05:08.891-04:00Common Sense about Language<b>Talk on the Wild Side: Why Language Can't be Tamed</b><br />
Lane Greene<br />
PublicAffairs, 2018<br />
232 pages<br />
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For all you word people, this is a fantastic book! I loved it, plain and simple. Greene covers various topics, each showing, in a different way, why language can't be tamed, why it can't be put in a neat little perfectly logical box, with Rules. The range of topics can be deduced from the front blurb:<br />
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Samuel Johnson one said that "to enchain syllables, and to lash the wind, are equally the undertakings of pride." Nevertheless, many have tried: from sticklers for supposedly correct grammar to inventors of supposedly perfect languages; from software engineers working on machine translation to governments that see language management as politics by another means. But when you enter the lair of a wild beast, you may be lucky to escape with your wits intact. Join Lane Greene on a journey of discovery into the deep strangeness of language.</blockquote>
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I'd heard of something called The Great Vowel Shift, but never could get my mind around the scant explanations I saw. He has a terrific explanation of how English vowel sounds moved away from the sounds in the rest of Europe. He shows this process using some examples from recent English.<br />
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Another favorite chapter talks about how words start sticking together
and changing over time. Again, I'd read that this has happened in the
past, but never understood the process. He shows how we write things
like "ought to work", "got to sleep", "have to run", and "going to try".
But when we speak "the TO gets glommed on to the previous word":
"oughta work", "gotta sleep", "hafta run", and "gonna try". If we had
only spoken language, the actual words might start to change. Wow!<br />
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In a chapter entitled "Whom in a biker bar", Greene covers a large set of related topics such as various English dialects, Normal English vs. Formal English, how children learn their native language, and rules vs. preferences in grammar. There's an awful lot of information packed into that chapter, but I think the important ideas can be summed up by this paragraph:<br />
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The tricky cases that need to be taught explicitly to children in school belong almost exclusively to Formal. Normal is, by definition, what comes naturally to a native speaker. But Formal English includes all of the grammatical bits and pieces like <i>whom</i>, word order like <i>the man <b>about whom I was talking</b></i>, and nominative case after the copula like <b><i>it was she</i></b>. These form part of the literary language that is a critical part of English-speakers' cultural heritage. Students need to learn Formal. But they should learn it for what it is: a specific kind of language for certain important purposes, and not the One Right Way. p. 173</blockquote>
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This book is enlightening, funny, and wise, and I learned a lot about how we humans try to communicate. He also tweets out interesting tidbits, so you might want to follow him on Twitter, too: @lanegreene .<br />
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<br />BookTapestryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13808126395322513413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-184403409060614433.post-86020365632186031592020-05-02T17:26:00.000-04:002020-05-02T17:26:17.851-04:00A Life of Co-incidences<b>Indiscretions Of Archie</b><br />
P.G. Wodehouse<br />
Andrews UK, 2004<br />
Originally published 1920<br />
189 pages<br />
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Archie is my first Wodehouse character who is not Jeeves or Bertie Wooster or one of their pals. And poor Archie really, really needs a calm mess-fixer-upper like Jeeves. To be formal, the titular character is Archibald Moffam (pronounced "Moom"), another inimitable Wodehousian name.<br />
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Unlike Bertie Wooster, Archie is not wealthy, and after many business failures in England has gone to America to seek a new start. He falls in love and quickly marries a sweet girl, whose father turns out to be one of the richest men in New York. But his new father-in-law despises Archie.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6X1QSjnbFaZLbRMo1kVFMFtwOAZFtQsNFrtXaru9ddj4crEplFFm5JCfbJmYVZmwRw8p_a2W_pTlb8T4pDSX6u6SrNp2S-U_z99zJxgYpwRu888PM-o91C2d-wUnorq_KWNEq0Rb2U-aQ/s1600/IndescretionsOfArchie.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="206" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6X1QSjnbFaZLbRMo1kVFMFtwOAZFtQsNFrtXaru9ddj4crEplFFm5JCfbJmYVZmwRw8p_a2W_pTlb8T4pDSX6u6SrNp2S-U_z99zJxgYpwRu888PM-o91C2d-wUnorq_KWNEq0Rb2U-aQ/s1600/IndescretionsOfArchie.jpg" /></a> All of which sets the scene for the stories in this book, which is sometimes described as a book of short stories rather than a novel. The stories are in sequential order and all involve the same characters, so I think it can be considered either one.<br />
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The subtitle really ought to be: A Life of Co-incidences, for Archie ricochets from one crazy co-incidence to another like a ball in a Pachinko machine. In the early chapters, everything seems stacked against Archie, but as I read on things began to break his way -- still in extremely co-incidental ways. It was a diverting and fun read for the #1920Club over at <a href="http://www.stuckinabook.com/"><b>Stuck in a Book</b></a>.<br />
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P. G. (Pelham Grenville) Wodehouse published at least 71 novels and 24 story collections, as well as plays, a poem, some non-fiction, and other miscellaneous books. So if you decide you like his style, you have plenty of good reading ahead of you!<br />
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<br />BookTapestryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13808126395322513413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-184403409060614433.post-80978889905826673412020-04-30T20:59:00.000-04:002020-04-30T20:59:49.601-04:00Book Beginning: Richard Walden's Wife by Eleanor Mercein Kelly<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Book Beginnings is a weekly meme hosted by <a href="http://www.rosecityreader.com/"><b>Rose City Reader</b></a>. We share the first sentence (or so) of the book we are reading, along with our initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires.<br />
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For a long time after the great family hegira - indeed, at intervals for the rest of her life - Emmeline would wake shivering in the solid security of her bed, reliving portions of it.</blockquote>
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<br />It's not often that I have to look up a word in the very first sentence of a novel, but "hegira" was not a word I really knew. I had fuzzy thoughts that it was something religious and perhaps Middle Eastern. Wikipedia tells us: "The Hegira is the migration or journey of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and his followers from Mecca to Yathrib, later renamed by him Medina, in the year 622."<br /><br />So now we know that Emmeline's family made some sort of long journey. Intriguing! But who is Richard Walden, who is his wife, and where does Emmeline fit in?<br /><br /><br /><br />BookTapestryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13808126395322513413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-184403409060614433.post-15938090523260198962020-04-23T16:53:00.000-04:002020-04-23T16:53:05.427-04:00Book Beginning: Indiscretions Of Archie by P.G. WodehouseBook Beginnings is a weekly meme hosted by <a href="http://www.rosecityreader.com/"><b>Rose City Reader</b></a>. We share the first sentence (or so) of the book we are reading, along with our initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires.<br />
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Sir? replied the desk-clerk alertly. All the employees of the Hotel Cosmopolis were alert. It was one of the things on which Mr. Daniel Brewster, the proprietor, insisted. And as he was always wandering about the lobby of the hotel keeping a personal eye on affairs, it was never safe to relax.</blockquote>
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<br />
Since I love Wodehouse's Jeeves and Wooster series, - in print, on film, on audiobook - I'm taking a plunge into a different Wodehouse world. Should be many crazy antics ahead!<br />
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<br />BookTapestryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13808126395322513413noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-184403409060614433.post-70742791921205420302020-04-21T18:38:00.002-04:002020-04-21T18:38:16.532-04:00World Book Day 2020<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://www.un.org/en/observances/book-and-copyright-day"><img alt="https://www.un.org/en/observances/book-and-copyright-day" border="0" data-original-height="142" data-original-width="600" height="94" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEie03YtlQyRtgIjuNMX9rNHEEcJ4Tl8FonKQtwyJLtJP0M4ZpUjX71qjEbq1Qbh2JgpO9FYQP9DJviE_tU5jctmTH0L15YK04uOKRdQ-mDj_oapmwOVsRBZFd1h_0ee0hDFWIyKOU-Xzmjc/s400/WorldBookDay2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Are you ready for <b>World Book Day</b>? It will be upon us this Thursday, 23 April 2020. This special day was officially proclaimed in 1995 by UNESCO, The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, and is celebrated by over 100 countries on that day.<br />
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According to the UNESCO web page, the full name is World Book and Copyright Day, and many festivities are planned all around the world. In addition, a World Book Capital is named each year, and that city promotes literacy throughout the year until April 23rd of the next year. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, is the <a href="https://www.kualalumpurwbc.com/"><b>World Book Capital for 2020</b></a>.<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
23 April is a symbolic date for world literature. It is on this date in 1616 that Cervantes, Shakespeare and Inca Garcilaso de la Vega all died. It is also the date of birth or death of other prominent authors, such as Maurice Druon, Halldór K. Laxness, Vladimir Nabokov, Josep Pla and Manuel Mejía Vallejo.<br />
- <b><a href="https://www.un.org/en/observances/book-and-copyright-day">UN web page</a></b></blockquote>
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I'm all for promoting books, reading, and literacy; they have always been a big part of my life. What makes me especially happy is that Amazon.com is celebrating by offering 9 Kindle books for free! And remember that free Kindle reader apps are available for most devices!<br />
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The categories of the nine free ebooks are: Contemporary Fiction, Thriller, True Crime, Chinese Literature, Romantic Comedy, Biographical Fiction, Historical Fiction, Children's Book, and Memoir. The books have all been translated into English, and come from a wide variety of languages. In addition many are by authors who are prize winners or best sellers in their native countries. Such a good chance to peek into another culture.<br />
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But hurry, these books are only free until 11:59 PM [Pacific Daylight Time] on Friday night. The time remaining is shown at the top of the download page, so check it in your local time zone. Here's the page on Amazon.com to get your free ebooks:<br />
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<a href="https://www.amazon.com/article/read-the-world-2020"><img alt="https://www.amazon.com/article/read-the-world-2020" border="0" data-original-height="61" data-original-width="400" height="48" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXZhP0_Wg7bxEeuUUqZuEDblp7QHP693qhzRKDU2m5wAJC5ezMowWRzsPdAZXNhLpGzlW3qKFCj7LQsyW0yBIIaqBhwzo1jPPLX2e6pVdGIZMi1YuQ54Wg21GSwmYDeihg9fRe6QcI5cUh/s320/WorldBookDay.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: small;"> <a href="https://www.amazon.com/article/read-the-world-2020">https://www.amazon.com/article/read-the-world-2020</a></span></b></div>
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FURTHER READING<br />
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* UN: World Book and Copyright Day 23 April<br />
<a href="https://www.un.org/en/observances/book-and-copyright-day">https://www.un.org/en/observances/book-and-copyright-day</a><br />
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* UNESCO: World Book Day<br />
<a href="https://en.unesco.org/commemorations/worldbookday">https://en.unesco.org/commemorations/worldbookday</a><br />
<br />
* World Book Day - a British site for their day, 7 March 2019<br />
<a href="https://www.worldbookday.com/">https://www.worldbookday.com/</a><br />
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<br />BookTapestryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13808126395322513413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-184403409060614433.post-46399194559887597162020-04-19T01:54:00.001-04:002020-04-19T23:15:07.835-04:00Classics Club Spin #23<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It's Classics Club Spin time again! Each Clubber has a personal list of 50-100 classic books that we have chosen to be our challenge list. For the Spin we pick 20 of those titles and put them into a numbered list. On April 19th the Club moderators will draw a number from 1 to 20 and we have to read that book on our list by the end of May and report back to the Club.<br />
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I've missed the last few Spins, but I'm in a reading mood now, so here's a list of books that I think I have on my shelves or can get for my Kindle. First publication date is in parentheses.<br />
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<ol>
<li>At Swim-two-birds, Flann O'Brien (1939)</li>
<li>Billy Budd and other Tales, Herman Melville (~1891)</li>
<li>Candide, Voltaire (1759)</li>
<li>The Dubliners, James Joyce (1914)</li>
<li>Emma, Jane Austen (1815)</li>
<li><b>Enemies, A Love Story, Isaac Bashevis Singer (1966)</b></li>
<li>Eugénie Grandet, Honoré de Balzac (1833)</li>
<li>Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain (1884)</li>
<li>Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë (1847)</li>
<li>The Man in the Brown Suit, Agatha Christie (1924)</li>
<li>Oroonoko, The Rover and Other Works, Aphra Behn (<1689)</li>
<li>The Autobiography of Alice B Toklas, Gertrude Stein (1933)</li>
<li>The Rainbow, D. H. Lawrence (1915)</li>
<li>The Reef, Edith Wharton (1912)</li>
<li>A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens (1859)</li>
<li>Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe (1958)</li>
<li>This Side of Paradise, F. Scott Fitzgerald (1920)</li>
<li>Three Men in a Boat, Jerome K. Jerome (1889)</li>
<li>The Vicar of Bullhampton, Anthony Trollope (1870)</li>
<li>Wives and Daughters, Elizabeth Gaskell (1864)</li>
</ol>
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I'm looking forward to reading them all eventually, but I think I'd
like to tackle Gertrude Stein's "The Autobiography of Alice B Toklas".
Go #12!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXDhzVwzhlSL5JqsyEHNEv09KIWbH0MQw1pgzJd7UVqwI9_YUX9u5Dr0xou0vo56xsASeU6oCYsyO13r5zkRT1Q0888dGNaafm5JD753IwoUHguUXI6qxTEVQhqACnv-Sn6agY7BZysena/s1600/6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="95" data-original-width="75" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXDhzVwzhlSL5JqsyEHNEv09KIWbH0MQw1pgzJd7UVqwI9_YUX9u5Dr0xou0vo56xsASeU6oCYsyO13r5zkRT1Q0888dGNaafm5JD753IwoUHguUXI6qxTEVQhqACnv-Sn6agY7BZysena/s1600/6.jpg" /></a></div>
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UPDATE: The spin is #6, so I'm reading "Enemies, A Love Story", by Isaac Bashevis Singer. I know only a little bit about Singer: he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, and he always wrote and published in Yiddish. I'm looking forward to reading this novel!<br />
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<br />BookTapestryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13808126395322513413noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-184403409060614433.post-74177963431940963332020-04-17T16:17:00.000-04:002020-04-17T16:17:18.115-04:00Book Beginning: This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
Book Beginnings is a weekly meme hosted by <a href="http://www.rosecityreader.com/"><b>Rose City Reader</b></a>. We share the first sentence (or so) of the book we are reading, along with our initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires.<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Amory Blaine inherited from his mother every trait, except the stray inexpressible few, that made him worth while. His father, an ineffectual, inarticulate man with a taste for Byron and a habit of drowsing over the Encyclopedia Britannica, grew wealthy at thirty through the death of two elder brothers, successful Chicago brokers, and in the first flush of feeling that the world was his, went to Bar Harbor and met Beatrice O’Hara. In consequence, Stephen Blaine handed down to posterity his height of just under six feet and his tendency to waver at crucial moments, these two abstractions appearing in his son Amory.</blockquote>
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This book was the debut novel for F. Scott Fitzgerald and was first published in 1920. All I know about it is that it "examines the lives and morality of post–World War I youth", according to Wikipedia. This was the beginning of the Jazz Age, The Roaring Twenties, so it should be an interesting contemporary account of the early stages.<br />
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<br />BookTapestryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13808126395322513413noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-184403409060614433.post-43661686594251343472020-04-16T15:53:00.000-04:002020-04-20T01:48:11.930-04:00The Debut of M. Hercule Poirot<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0OuUjk3k6zQwF0yNYoRSQma99fKrAAeGxZ_rimYwZcTeTHWUQTg8dHXrBIa9hK5W_zcX5CEf_LP_bDnw2w_j6a8Gr70b0S3ARj8fF1zHY1cZHJErgjgx6kmcL68D4MY50uOQkPA6zmohB/s1600/1920Club.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="200" data-original-width="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0OuUjk3k6zQwF0yNYoRSQma99fKrAAeGxZ_rimYwZcTeTHWUQTg8dHXrBIa9hK5W_zcX5CEf_LP_bDnw2w_j6a8Gr70b0S3ARj8fF1zHY1cZHJErgjgx6kmcL68D4MY50uOQkPA6zmohB/s1600/1920Club.jpg" /></a><b>The Mysterious Affair at Styles</b><br />
Agatha Christie<br />
William Morrow, 2020 Kindle Edition<br />
Originally published 1920<br />
269 pages<br />
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I read a classic Agatha Christie for the <a href="http://www.stuckinabook.com/1920club-starts-tomorrow/"><b>1920 Club</b></a>, presented by Simon at <a href="http://www.stuckinabook.com/"><b>Stuck in a Book</b></a> and Karen at <a href="https://kaggsysbookishramblings.wordpress.com/"><b>Kaggsy's Bookish Ramblings</b></a>. Years ago I listened to the audiobook version of this, the first in the Hercule Poirot series, but I had no memory of the story.<br />
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Reading this book now, I took delight in the many details of M. Poirot's appearance, mannerisms, and quirks. Of course I was comparing them to the wonderful TV portrayal of Poirot by David Suchet, and I think the shows were faithful to the original character, always an important issue for me.<br />
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Not to give away the plot, but Poirot does solve the murder, which involves a poisoning in a locked room and lots of suspicious relatives. This was Christie's first mystery, and it was turned down by six publishers before being published in 1920. I was quite surprised that this was her first published novel. The characters seem well-defined and the plot logical without annoying loose ends. She had, however, written one earlier novel that was rejected and never published.<br />
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This Kindle version of the William Morrow paperback includes two
short articles by Christie where she explains how Poirot came to be and
her relationship to him over the years. Very interesting!<br />
<br />
Now I
think I will continue to read more of Poirot. There are 33 novels, 2
plays, and more than 50 short stories in the Poirot canon. Plenty to
keep me busy.<br />
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The is my entry in the Classic Adaptation category for the <a href="https://karensbooksandchocolate.blogspot.com/2020/01/back-to-classics-challenge-2020.html"><b>2020 Back to the Classics</b></a> challenge. It was adapted as part of the long-running Poirot TV series.<br />
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<br />BookTapestryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13808126395322513413noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-184403409060614433.post-69890097164392001252020-04-13T15:59:00.002-04:002020-04-13T15:59:58.345-04:00Disease in the Bad Old Days<b>In the Wake of the Plague: The Black Death and the World It Made</b><br />
Norman F. Cantor<br />
Harper Perennial, 2001<br />
245 pages<br />
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<br />
Talk about topical! Because I spent 16 years doing microbiological research, I have been interested in infectious diseases for a very long time, and I buy books on that topic whenever I unearth them in some dusty corner of a used book store. So, given the current covid-19 pandemic and lots of time, I grabbed this one off my shelf.<br />
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Let me say right off the top: this book will not help you to understand our world in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. It can, however, help you to appreciate how far modern medicine has come in fighting infectious disease epidemics.<br />
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Cantor uses stories of historical individuals from the aristocracy, the gentry, and the peasants to personalize the devastation caused by the Black Death in the 1400s in England. I highly recommend looking at a listing of the kings and queens of England during that period. Much of the book involves the English court scene and I was totally lost without knowing the families involved. I found Wikipedia's <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_monarchs"><b>"List of English monarchs"</b></a> extremely helpful. I also copied out the relevant parts on paper so I could check back now and then. This in not to be taken as a flaw in the book! What the rulers were doing at that time had large implications for how the common folk were affected by the Black Death. And most of us just don't have a handle on royalty of the Middle Ages.<br />
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The book is structured in three parts. "Part 1 Biomedical Context" has an overview of the book and some discussion about the cause of the Black Death. There is a very interesting question raised: was it bubonic plague or was there another microbe involved?<br />
<br />
In "Part 2 People", the longest section, he discusses what he calls the "microscopic closeup perspective" on the disease. He shows the many effects this disruption of society had on lawyers and property law, on women of the gentry class, and on science and religion. Interestingly he mentions anecdotal evidence that gentry males were hit harder that their womenfolk, a situation reflected in current covid-19 data.<br />
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"Part 3 History", the macroscopic perspective, has a fascinating discussion of alternate theories of where the plague came from and how it spread: other microbes? other vectors (animals)? outer space? The final chapter "Aftermath" has a wide-ranging discussion of the many ways the Black Death changed European society in the Middle Ages. This is followed by a bibliography divided into various topics brought up in the book. If you get seriously intrigued by this plague or this era of European history, you will find lots of further reading.<br />
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I am glad I read this book as it has given me a better picture of life in the European Middle Ages during the Black Death. And it makes me profoundly grateful for modern science and medicine.<br />
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This is part of my reading for the <a href="https://myreadersblock.blogspot.com/2019/10/mount-tbr-reading-challenge-2020.html"><b>2020 Mount TBR Challenge</b></a>.<br />
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<br />
FURTHER READING<br />
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<b>Plagues and Peoples</b> by William H. McNeill (1976)<br />
Upon its original publication, "Plagues and Peoples" was an immediate critical and popular success, offering a radically new interpretation of world history as seen through the extraordinary impact – political, demographic, ecological, and psychological – of disease on cultures. From the conquest of Mexico by smallpox as much as by the Spanish, to the bubonic plague in China, to the typhoid epidemic in Europe, the history of disease is the history of humankind. -from the publisher<br />
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I loved this book which I read when it was new. Might be time for a re-read!<br />
<br />BookTapestryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13808126395322513413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-184403409060614433.post-79023302929308075082020-04-10T08:00:00.000-04:002020-04-10T08:00:06.407-04:00Book Beginning: On The Art of Reading by Arthur Quiller-Couch<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.rosecityreader.com/"><img alt="http://www.rosecityreader.com/" border="0" data-original-height="170" data-original-width="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWaVUh17v3BBHTUFWOul2TyQzW58Kbmj_RaOo0d6JG1wM4F3dqK_5zUXCOZ-0_xBZ9j5H4zn2wnaP-JuJ-QthPa-95b-wahtx38Ht_tk8F5Jao8tKY7zeNHMPROIq5lXmSUeIU13AsLdIM/s1600/BookBeginnings.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
Book Beginnings is a weekly meme hosted by <a href="http://www.rosecityreader.com/"><b>Rose City Reader</b></a>. We share the first sentence (or so) of the book we are reading, along with our initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires.<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
In the third book of the "Ethics", and in the second chapter, Aristotle, dealing with certain actions which, though bad in themselves, admit of pity and forgiveness because they were committed involuntarily, through ignorance, instances 'the man who did not know a subject was forbidden, like Aeschylus with the Mysteries,' and 'the man who only meant to show how it worked, like the fellow who let off the catapult' ([Greek: e deixai Boulemos apheinai, os o ton katapelten]).</blockquote>
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OK, so this is going to be a bit of a challenge, not easy stuff! I have read that it gets much less high-brow as he goes on with the lectures. An article in The Cambridge Quarterly of September 2014 says:<br /><br />
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Vast numbers of self-help readers after the First World War were keen to develop their literary taste and gain confidence in navigating their way through the literary field; Quiller-Couch's innate understanding of this "new reading public" accounts for the extraordinary success of his published lectures.</blockquote>
<br />It's always good to have a meaty book in the current reading pile!<br /><br /><br /><br />REFERENCE<br />Alexandra Lawrie, "Arthur Quiller-Couch, Taste Formation and the New Reading Public", The Cambridge Quarterly, Volume 43, Issue 3, September 2014, Pages 195–211,<br /><a href="https://academic.oup.com/camqtly/article/43/3/195/270666">https://academic.oup.com/camqtly/article/43/3/195/270666</a><br />
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<br /><br />BookTapestryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13808126395322513413noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-184403409060614433.post-8644551804549117912020-04-09T19:39:00.000-04:002020-04-09T19:39:47.802-04:00Reading 1920<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Monday's the start of the 1920 Club, presented by Simon at <a href="http://www.stuckinabook.com/"><b>Stuck in a Book</b></a> and Karen at <a href="https://kaggsysbookishramblings.wordpress.com/"><b>Kaggsy's Bookish Ramblings</b></a>. They pick out a year and everyone reads and reviews books published during that year. Sounds like fun!<br />
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I've acquired three books from 1920, which was complicated somewhat by the current library closure. But my trusty Kindle Paperwhite came through for me and I'm ready to read these books:<br />
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<ul>
<li>"On The Art of Reading" by Arthur Quiller-Couch</li>
<li>"The Mysterious Affair at Styles" by Agatha Christie</li>
<li>"This Side of Paradise" by F. Scott Fitzgerald</li>
</ul>
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Books about books are always fun, and in the comments on the club announcement page, Liz mentioned "On the Art of Reading". It a compilation of lectures given at Cambridge University in England, lectures described as wildly popular in contemporary accounts! So that's my first one.<br />
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<br />BookTapestryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13808126395322513413noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-184403409060614433.post-85063558578343141932020-04-03T02:38:00.002-04:002020-04-03T02:38:49.651-04:00Book Beginning: Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Book Beginnings is a weekly meme hosted by <a href="http://www.rosecityreader.com/"><b>Rose City Reader</b></a>. We share the first sentence (or so) of the book we are reading, along with our initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires.<br />
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It was, gentlemen, after a long absence - seven years to be exact, during which time I was studying in Europe - that I returned to my people. I learnt much and much passed me by - but that's another story. The important thing is that I returned with a great yearning for my people in that small village at he bend of the Nile.</blockquote>
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This book is another of my great finds in the clearance section of my local used bookstore. I had not heard of the author before, but the influential literary critic Edward W. Said proclaimed this novel to be "among the six finest novels to be written in modern Arabic literature". It also fits into my plan to read more translated literature. I'm looking forward to this short novel!<br />
<br />BookTapestryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13808126395322513413noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-184403409060614433.post-62153253292017181372020-03-27T01:38:00.000-04:002020-03-27T01:39:05.250-04:00Book Beginning: In the Wake of the Plague by Norman F. CantorBook Beginnings is a weekly meme hosted by <a href="http://www.rosecityreader.com/"><b>Rose City Reader</b></a>. We share the first sentence (or so) of the book we are reading, along with our initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires.<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
In the sixth month of the new millennium and new century, the American Medical Association held a conference on infectious diseases. Pronouncements by scientists and heads of medical organizations at the conference were scary in tone. Infectious disease was the leading cause of death worldwide and the third leading cause in the U.S.A., it was stressed. The situation could soon become much worse.<br />
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As the world becomes more of a global village, said one expert, infectious disease could by natural transmission become more threatening in the United States. Here monitoring is lax because of a mistaken belief that the threat of infectious disease has been almost wiped out by antibiotics.</blockquote>
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Whew. Talk about timely! I've had this book for quite a while now because as a former microbiologist I am very interested in the history of disease. The subtitle of the book is "The Black Death & The World It Made". Hence I thought it would be of historical interest. Now I'm thinking it might be more relevant to today's problems. We shall see.<br />
<br />BookTapestryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13808126395322513413noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-184403409060614433.post-49271834141590507822020-03-20T02:07:00.001-04:002020-03-20T02:07:45.321-04:00Book Beginning: Plum Bun by Jesse Redmon FausetBook Beginnings is a weekly meme hosted by <a href="http://www.rosecityreader.com/"><b>Rose City Reader</b></a>. We share the first sentence (or so) of the book we are reading, along with our initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires.<br />
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Opal Street, as streets go, is no jewel of the first water. It is merely an imitation, and none too good at that. Narrow, unsparkling, uninviting, it stretches meekly off from dull Jefferson Street to the dingy, drab market which forms the north side of Oxford Street.</blockquote>
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After reading "Quicksand" and "Passing" by Nella Larsen last month, I read an article about women writers of the Harlem Renaissance, and learned of Jessie Redmon Fauset's book, "Plum Bun: A Novel Without a Moral". The quote on the book cover says "A fine example of the hidden Harlem Renaissance - where the women were writers too." I'm eager to read this book.<br /><br />
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<br />BookTapestryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13808126395322513413noreply@blogger.com4