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Book a Week in 2015 - BW3


Robin M
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Happy Sunday, dear hearts.   Today is the start of week 3 in our quest to read 52 Books. Welcome back to all our readers, to all those who are just joining in and to all who are following our progress. Mr. Linky is all set up on the 52 Books blog to link to your reviews. The link is below in my signature.

 

52 books blog - Women of the Middle Ages:  There has been quite a bit of discussion about balancing out our read of History of the Medieval world with some female authors or reads about females of the medieval time period.  Since the time frame runs from the 5th century with the collapse of the Roman Empire through the 15th century and the beginning of the Renaissance, we have a rather broad area to browse through.   Although the period was admittedly dominated male centric, there were quite a few powerful women not only behind them, but leading as well. I've highlighted a few as well as some books I discovered in my meanderings about the interwebz:
 

Notable women

Hypatia of Alexandria ( 370 - 415 ) Mathematician and Philosopher

St. Brigid of Kildair ( 451 - 525)  Founded the first nunneries in Ireland

Theodora ( 497 - 528)  Byzantine empress, wife and adviser to emperor Justinian

Irene of Athens (752 - 803)  Byzantine empress who, upon Leo IV death, become co-ruler with son Constantine VI 

Anna Comnena - (1083 - 1148) Considered 1st female historian and documented the reign of her father, Alexius I

Hildegard of Bingen (1098 - 1179) German prioress of Benedictine cloister of Disibodenberg

Eleanor of Aquitaine (1122 - 1204) Queen of France 

Christine De Pizan (1364 - 1430)  Italian poet, writer and feminine activist

Joan of Arc (1412 - 1421) Lead French army to victory during 100 years war





Book discoveries
 
 
 
 
Goodreads Best Medieval History Books - nonfiction
 
I think that gives us a pretty good start and there are numerous historical fiction stories that will suffice as well, so be sure to check out Historical Novels which has quite a long list of reads.  Happy hunting! 
 
******************************************************************************
 
History of the Medieval World - Chapter 3 (pp 21 - 27)
Empire of the Mind (India 319-415)
 
******************************************************************************
 
What are you reading this week?
 
 
 
 
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I'm currently reading a new to me author - Beverly Swerling's Bristol House.

 

Non fiction currently in progress besides HotMW :)

 

Dorothea Brande Becoming a Writer which lead me to write this post about Consciously Unconcious writing.

 

Making of a Story: Norton's Guide to Creative Writing by Alice LePlant -  My study group is on Chapter 6 this month all about Points of View.    I get to write one scene from the 3 different points of view.  Have the perfect character who is quite arrogant for which 2nd (you pov) will work wonderfull well.  Speaking of which, which point of view do you prefer - 1st , 2nd (you) or 3rd which is a wide range from omniscient to limited to one person.

 

 

 

and I just had to share the Poem of the Day which combines quite well with Nan's fractured frost window picture

 

Winter by Billy Collins
 
A little heat in the iron radiator,
the dog breathing at the foot of the bed,

and the windows shut tight,
encrusted with hexagons of frost.

I can barely hear the geese
complaining in the vast sky,

flying over the living and the dead,
schools and prisons, and the whitened fields.
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Well I started the week with a binge read and then went into that familiar reading slump you all probably know when your head is and still wants to be in the universe of the series but you've run out of books. This has led me to stalk the authors website in an attempt to find out the publication date for the next book but no such luck. Today with some discipline I managed to break said slump...at least somewhat.

 

I read a few chapters of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, a chapter of Band of Brothers, chapters 2-4 of History of the Medieval World (I figured I would get a bit ahead since I know I will fall behind at some point).

 

I agree with Chrysalis Academy (I think it was) that the jumping from one country to another is a bit distracting. I am a rabbit trail/binge reader in that I tend to read a lot on one subject for a while and then jump onto another trail that I find in the book. For me history has always been studied chronologically but at the same time geographically (focused mostly on Europe but some US and in high school some China, Middle East and Cuba thrown in for good measure) and the jumping from country to country gets me mixed up. Add to that the non-familiar names and I feel my mind drift off. But I shall focus.

 

So far this year I have read:

 

1. Child Catchers by Kathryn Joyce

2. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling

3. The Understatement of the Year by Sarina Bowen

4. The Year We Hid Away by Sarina Bowen

5. The Year We Fell Down by Sarina Bowen

6. Blond Date by Sarina Bowen

7. A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift

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Week three already? I'm continuing my Discworld binge, and am considering trying the zentangle thing. Would zentangling be a good quiet time activity to do with kids? I could call it homeschool art...

 

In Progress:

Adventuring With Children by Nan Jeffrey

The Color of Magic by Terry Pratchett

 

Finished Books:

 

1. The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

2. Hallucinations by Oliver Sacks

3. Mort by Terry Pratchett

4. Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett

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Robin, your list is a wonderful complement to HotMW. So many great resources to choose from. I still haven't taken the plunge with SWB's book and if I do I'll have three chapters to catch up on. Are all of you enjoying it? I think I'll try the sample and see how it feels.

 

In my own book travels I'm about 2/3 of the way through 'The Steerswoman'. It's a good story, the writing is polished and interesting and the characters have enough texture to hold my lens. I'm particularly enjoying the relationship between the Steerswoman and her companion, two admirable and solid female characters. With its descriptions of dragon attacks, magical gems and wizards this is a genre that is very far out of my normal range but I'm finding it enjoyable so far. Nan, perhaps you'd like this with all its descriptions of boating, ships, nautical weather and the like as well as the fantasy element. I plan to finish this today.

 

Next up is Ahab's Wife. To be honest I don't hold out too much hope for this because of its length, 700+ pages, and the poor reception it got here. The writing will have to be pretty stellar and the story a ripping good one in order for me to commit to such a literary relationship. Nevertheless there is something compelling about it such that I'm willing to give it a try. I said to dh the other day that Melville is laughing at me in my attempts to avoid his book while ending up with one equal to MD's behemoth stature.
 

I'm also working my way through Against Interpretation by Susan Sontag. I've just started this with the aspiration to balance my enjoyable fiction with some rigor. The opening chapter begins with two seemingly contradictory quotes, the first by Willem de Kooning...

 

Content is a glimpse of something, an encounter like a flash. It's very tiny--very tiny, content.

 

And the second by Oscar Wilde...

 

It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances. The mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.

 

And so begins the first essay, eponomously entitled, 'Against Interpretation'. I love her opening sentence for its combination of conviction and imagination..."The earliest experience of art must have been that it was incantatory, magical; art was an instrument of ritual" She then plunges into a description of some of the earliest theories of art, those held by the Greek philosophers who proposed that art was mimesis, an imitation of reality. And by describing the seemingly opposing views on this held by Plato and Aristotle respectively she brings us back round to the quote above affirming what I felt intuitively upon reading them, that they aren't actually contradictory at all. This will be a pithy, slow read, perfect for when I have just 30 minutes or so to sit down with a book.

 

I'm continuing to work through my Zentangles book and am getting a lot of joy from it. I am finding the process and the result meet some need in me for order that is beautiful, or beauty that is ordered. The tangles are absorbing and deeply satisfying and the result is so pleasing to my eye. Here is one from over the weekend...

 

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It was a very social week for me with not much time for reading.  So it goes...

 

Thus I am still reading the two books that I began last Sunday.  Lost, Stolen or Shredded:  Stories of Missing Works of Art and Literature is "delightful" (as it says on the cover).  Author Rick Gekoski does more than provide anecdotes from history.  Among the provocative questions he raises are those on the fate of authors' diaries and letters.  Kafka, for instance, asked Max Brod to destroy his papers which included his unpublished masterpieces.  Obviously Brod did not.  But other requests have been honored which leads Gekoski to ask questions on privacy or whether these ancillary materials belong to a greater audience and perhaps could be made public decades after an artist's death. Or will we really care to read an author's shopping lists a century later?  Probably not. There are some quirky and convoluted tales within as well. A worthwhile read.

 

On the back cover of Sait Faik Abasiyanik's collection of short stories, A Useless Man, Rivka Galchen notes that

 

Reading these stories by Sait Faik feels like finding the secret doors inside of poems.  Little moments--here one about milk, there one about death--open out into corridors of narrative, leading to effects and endings that are consistently both gentle and cutting, simultaneously honest and surprising.

 

 

This is not a book to be swallowed whole but savored.

 

Consider this excerpt from Sinagrit Baba, a story from the point of view of a sinagrit, i.e. a sea bream, that has determined to end its days and is carefully choosing the right fisherman to win the catch.

 

Sinagrit Baba sniffs one of the lines. It belongs to the fisherman Hristo.  He's a flawed man.  Greedy and always calculating.  Yes, he's poor, but he's not proud. Sinagrit Baba favors poor men with some pride.  He drifts to the next line and sniffs.  Hasan's line.  Forget him. Forget his temper, too. Underneath it, he's a coward, and Sinagrit Baba favors the brave. He tries another line. Fisherman Yakup is a good man about town, charming, loveable and sometimes crude.  But he has a jealous streak.  SInagrit Baba doesn't favor jealous men.  Forget him, too.

 

 

I was quite taken by the idea of a fish seeking a righteous recipient of its life.  Alas we do not expect happy endings from Sait Faik.

 

I have read through chapter five of the HoMW and chapter six of The Golden Legend. 

 

 

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Currently reading:

 

The Viscount who Loved Me by Julia Quinnhttps://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10190004-the-viscount-who-loved-me#other_reviews. Her books are always light and fun. I am almost done so won't mention it again because if I was reading in the half hour I have before picking up the dc's it would have been done. The next one is ready to go on my kindle.......

 

Jane Eyre, I haven't touched it since last week but plan to get it don in the next couple of days.

 

There Was a Little Girl.....Brooke Shields is my current read an occasional few pages book and I am impressed. Checked it out because of the infamous Calvin Klein ads which hit my senior year of high school. She is much more likeable than I ever imagined. Roughly half way through.

 

 

I have made a decision regarding History of the Middle Ages. I may end up doing it at the end of the year but would really love to dig in to several books that I have on my shelves that pertain to that time period, How to Read a Church (also have the village one), several on the Templars, and many others. I think I want a more local concentration.

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And now for a moment with birds as opposed to books...

 

Yesterday in the morning a kingfisher posed for my husband.  We find that these birds inevitably move about the time the camera comes out.

16116333818_fdcc6f6ebe_z.jpg

 

They are one of my favorites. So says the woman who seems to have an uncountable number of favorites.

 

Later in the afternoon when "the light was gorgeous" my husband went out for a walk while I stayed home to read.  When he showed me a photo of what he encountered, I was jealous.

 

15684079893_d57736e01a_z.jpg

 

Cedar waxwings!  These are seasonal visitors and so I found myself in a state of waxwing lust.  After the morning rain passed, we found waxwings in the same location they were in yesterday.  Your correspondent entered a state of bliss.

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Caroline - About Bell Labs

 

I can tell you that in the second half of the 1970's, there were women working there.  I babysat for one.  More showed up when they needed software engineers.  My impression was that they would have hired more but that there just weren't any.  The company culture in the 60's made it hard for a woman to combine being a mother with being a professional.  Workers were expected to work late, if needed.  Sick days and vacation days were not abundant.  If you wanted to be promoted above a certain level, you had to be willing to move.  My impression is that they weren't particularly un-family-oriented or inflexible, just that at that time, expectations for workers were different.  There were people who came in an hour early and left early to avoid a bad commute, and people who just somehow couldn't get up in time and so had their hours shifted the other direction.  People had bathing suits hanging on their office doors.  They offered enrichment classes.  Family benefits were good.  There was a family day each year so families could see where Dad worked.  For the times, that was pretty innovative.  Next time I see someone old from Bell Labs, I'll ask about women engineers and scientists in the work place.

 

Nan

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Ack! My computer just ate my post, complete with long reviews of the books I just finished. I can't retype them so I'm just listing:

 

Finished yesterday:

The Wikkeling - Steve Arontson

Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto - Stewart Brand

 

Read in 2015:

1. The War of the Worlds - HG Wells

2. Night - Elie Wiesel

3. The Case of Comrade Tulayev - Victor Serge - my book group meets to discuss this on Thursday

4. Ancillary Justice - Ann Leckie

5. The Strange Library - Haruki Murakami - January author challenge

6. Dawn - Elie Wiesel

7. The Ghost-Feeler: Stories of Terror and the Supernatural - Edith Wharton

8. Whole Earth Discipline

9. The Wikkeling

 

Currently Reading:

HotMW - with you guys

Science as a Way of Knowing

The House of the Seven Gables - audiobook

The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam

The Black Cauldron - read-aloud with the girls

1984 - re-read inspired by Comrade Tulayev

An Everlasting meal - for some winter cooking inspiration

The Cave and the Light: Plato vs Aristotle and the struggle for the soul of western civilization

Day - to finish the trilogy

My Real Children - my for-pleasure fiction

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Moving my question over from the old thread...

 

So I have a question born of reading Point to Point - When one reads Japanese Kanji or Chinese characters, does one hear words in one's head? I know this varies amongst readers of English, but what about a language of characters? Is one less likely to hear streaming audio?

 

 

 

Nan

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And now for a moment with birds as opposed to books...

 

Yesterday in the morning a kingfisher posed for my husband.  We find that these birds inevitably move about the time the camera comes out.

16116333818_fdcc6f6ebe_z.jpg

 

They are one of my favorites. So says the woman who seems to have an uncountable number of favorites.

 

Later in the afternoon when "the light was gorgeous" my husband went out for a walk while I stayed home to read.  When he showed me a photo of what he encountered, I was jealous.

 

15684079893_d57736e01a_z.jpg

 

Cedar waxwings!  These are seasonal visitors and so I found myself in a state of waxwing lust.  After the morning rain passed, we found waxwings in the same location they were in yesterday.  Your correspondent entered a state of bliss.

 

We're bird lovers here! I've been following the birder thread started by a non-homeschooler who left WTM when she found out it's a homeschool/education forum. 

 

I have seen cedar waxwings exactly once, and my photo looks a lot like yours. A tree full of them, and me trying to sneak up and get a shot before they realized I was there. Kingfishers are beautiful! We only see them in the wildlife refuge. I've never seen any in the back yard. (The cedar waxwings were in my yard.)

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I'll repost here the post I made this morning on last week's thread:

 

A couple of days ago, I finished Dear Committee Members by Julie Schumacher.  This was an engaging (often funny, sometimes poignant) epistolary novel composed solely of letters of recommendation written by an English professor.  JennW mentioned having enjoyed reading this last year.

 

 

"Finally a novel that puts the "pissed" back into "epistolary."

Jason Fitger is a beleaguered professor of creative writing and literature at Payne University, a small and not very distinguished liberal arts college in the midwest. His department is facing draconian cuts and squalid quarters, while one floor above them the Economics Department is getting lavishly remodeled offices. His once-promising writing career is in the doldrums, as is his romantic life, in part as the result of his unwise use of his private affairs for his novels. His star (he thinks) student can't catch a break with his brilliant (he thinks) work Accountant in a Bordello, based on Melville's Bartleby. In short, his life is a tale of woe, and the vehicle this droll and inventive novel uses to tell that tale is a series of hilarious letters of recommendation that Fitger is endlessly called upon by his students and colleagues to produce, each one of which is a small masterpiece of high dudgeon, low spirits, and passive-aggressive strategies. We recommend Dear Committee Members to you in the strongest possible terms."

 

Regards,

Kareni

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Happy Sunday, dear hearts.   Today is the start of week 3 in our quest to read 52 Books. Welcome back to all our readers, to all those who are just joining in and to all who are following our progress. Mr. Linky is all set up on the 52 Books blog to link to your reviews. The link is below in my signature.

 

52 books blog - Women of the Middle Ages:  There has been quite a bit of discussion about balancing out our read of History of the Medieval world with some female authors or reads about females of the medieval time period.  Since the time frame runs from the 5th century with the collapse of the Roman Empire through the 15th century and the beginning of the Renaissance, we have a rather broad area to browse through.   Although the period was admittedly dominated male centric, there were quite a few powerful women not only behind them, but leading as well. I've highlighted a few as well as some books I discovered in my meanderings about the interwebz:

 

Notable women

Hypatia of Alexandria ( 370 - 415 ) Mathematician and Philosopher

 

St. Brigid of Kildair ( 451 - 525)  Founded the first nunneries in Ireland

 

Theodora ( 497 - 528)  Byzantine empress, wife and adviser to emperor Justinian

 

Irene of Athens (752 - 803)  Byzantine empress who, upon Leo IV death, become co-ruler with son Constantine VI 

 

Anna Comnena - (1083 - 1148) Considered 1st female historian and documented the reign of her father, Alexius I

 

Hildegard of Bingen (1098 - 1179) German prioress of Benedictine cloister of Disibodenberg

 

Eleanor of Aquitaine (1122 - 1204) Queen of France 

 

Christine De Pizan (1364 - 1430)  Italian poet, writer and feminine activist

 

Joan of Arc (1412 - 1421) Lead French army to victory during 100 years war

 

 

 

Book discoveries
 
 
 
 
Goodreads Best Medieval History Books - nonfiction
 
I think that gives us a pretty good start and there are numerous historical fiction stories that will suffice as well, so be sure to check out Historical Novels which has quite a long list of reads.  Happy hunting! 
 
******************************************************************************
 
History of the Medieval World - Chapter 3 (pp 21 - 27)
Empire of the Mind (India 319-415)
 
******************************************************************************
 
What are you reading this week?
 
 
 
 

 

 

For some reason, the story of Hypatia is one of the most heartbreaking in history.  I don't know that I can read a book about her, knowing how her life ended.

 

Theodora sure is a fascinating woman - I'd like to read more about her.

 

Christine de Pizan, too - her Book of the City of Ladies has been on my to-read wish list for a long time.

 

I might have to ditch Margery Kemp and pick up a book about Theodora or Christine instead.  Margery is so annoying!

 

Here is another book about women of this period that I really enjoyed:

 

She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth - Helen Castor

 

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8474660-she-wolves?from_search=true

 

Alison Weir has a good biography of Eleanor of Aquitaine and also of Queen Isabella, wife of Edward II

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Last night I finished A Texas Cowboy: or Fifteen Years on the Hurricane Deck of a Spanish Pony--Taken from Real Life by Charles Siringo. Siringo had a fascinating life; he was born in 1855 in Matagorda County, Texas, on the peninsula around Matagorda Bay--basically a two-mile wide sandbar, where as a child he watched Union and Confederate ships firing at each other from either beach over the houses of the settlement, and his impoverished family helped themselves from wrecked ships (they ate their mush-and-milk from very nice china off of a Spanish merchant).

 

Siringo was a cowboy, a businessman, a detective with the Pinkerton Agency, and a writer. He survived the Great Storm of 1875 which washed away the Gulf town of Indianola with half its inhabitants (and which would be better remembered if it hadn't been dwarfed by the 1900 Galveston Flood). He is locally famous for his involvement in the pursuit of Billy the Kid and of William Bonney's's friend, Pat Coughlin, and for his biography of Bonney.

 

He is famous domestically for having accused (in another book) my great-great-grandfather of unscrupulous behavior toward him. Having posted an earlier excerpt with Siringo's account of his own sharp practices, I will let the BAWers draw their own conclusions as to who was in the wrong. Here's another helpful excerpt from A Texas Cowboy:

 

----------------

 

We rented a large log house in the lower end of town and went to living like white folks. We had no money, but we struck two of the merchants who gave us an unlimited credit until we could make a raise. Our greatest expense was feeding the horses corn which cost five cents a pound and hay, two cents a pound. The grub we ate wasn't very expensive as we stole all of our meat, and shared with our honest neighbors who thought it a great sin to kill other people's cattle. You see "Bob" and I still clung to the old Texas style which is, never kill one of your own beeves when you can get somebody else's.

--Charles Siringo, A Texas Cowboy

 

------------------

 

Note: Great-great-grandad wasn't a Texan.

 

A good and quick read, and available for free on-line. Now I've begun Graham Greene's The Quiet American, for a change of pace.

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:001_wub:  :001_wub:  :001_wub: I think the lesson learned is, when your husband asks you if you want to take a walk with him, you're supposed to say, yes.

 

And now for a moment with birds as opposed to books...

 

Yesterday in the morning a kingfisher posed for my husband.  We find that these birds inevitably move about the time the camera comes out.

16116333818_fdcc6f6ebe_z.jpg

 

They are one of my favorites. So says the woman who seems to have an uncountable number of favorites.

 

Later in the afternoon when "the light was gorgeous" my husband went out for a walk while I stayed home to read.  When he showed me a photo of what he encountered, I was jealous.

 

15684079893_d57736e01a_z.jpg

 

Cedar waxwings!  These are seasonal visitors and so I found myself in a state of waxwing lust.  After the morning rain passed, we found waxwings in the same location they were in yesterday.  Your correspondent entered a state of bliss.

 

 

shukriyya, I'm loving your zentangles and particularly the way you are handling the boundary edges.  Or, more precisely, the way you are treating the boundary edges as the vaguest of suggestions rather than actual boundaries.  I expect this reveals a good bit about your approach to boundaries in other walks of life as well...  My youngest and I have launched into doing them and are finding them rather addictive, though we're more on the 15-20 minute Rosie plan.  I find the pattern making immensely relaxing and freeing, and get totally stressed out about the shading -- an otherwise rarely evident perfectionist streak seems to emerge with a lot of negative self-talk... 

 

Chrysalis, I've been in and out and have missed a lot -- are you still looking for post-holocaust figuring-out-what-comes-next?  If so... the giants on the subject include Wiesel (in addition to the Night/Dawn/Day trilogy, maybe try some of hit later work -- last year I read his later memoir One Generation After at Eliana's suggestion; or the fictional Town Beyond the Wall; both addressing re-integration to life...)... Victor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning, not explicitly about picking up the post-pieces, more about the factors that make it possible... Primo Levi -- who himself ultimately committed suicide, but not before producing a wealth of insight; maybe The Reawakening and The Drowned and the Saved (I haven't read this last one, but it looks to be on your subject).  And then there are many individual memoirs and individual biographically based storylines; last year forex I was fascinated by Kasztner's Train, a little-known historical incident which also traces the post-war experience of Rezso Kasztner and many other refugees who ended up in Israel since returning "home" was not possible.  (and the repeating answer that emerges from all of these is... reintegration was massively difficult for all, and impossible for some...)

 

re: earth wind and fire (and water) -- I feel primally attracted to both water and fire, and can happily lose all sense of time and boundaries-of-self gazing at either of them; and also to earth (in the sense that I feel most contented and whole when digging, planting, watering, pruning, watching things grow)... but wind?  I got nothing.  I barely notice it except if it's threatening my plants...

 

 

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Zee: Well I started the week with a binge read and then went into that familiar reading slump you all probably know when your head is and still wants to be in the universe of the series but you've run out of books. This has led me to stalk the authors website in an attempt to find out the publication date for the next book but no such luck.

 

Totally understand as I love to read series and feel bereft at the end missing that particular world of characters.  Takes a couple days to get them out of your head in order to move on. 

 

Mel:  am considering trying the zentangle thing. Would zentangling be a good quiet time activity to do with kids? I could call it homeschool art...

Wonderful Idea. The more pictures I see, the more I want to do it as well. Since I'm looking for something new for us to do for homeschool art, besides Mark Kistler, and still have money to spend in my school budget for 2nd semester, it just went on the list of things to order. 

 

 

Shukriyya:  Robin, your list is a wonderful complement to HotMW. So many great resources to choose from. I still haven't taken the plunge with SWB's book and if I do I'll have three chapters to catch up on. Are all of you enjoying it? I think I'll try the sample and see how it feels.....    Next up is Ahab's Wife. To be honest I don't hold out too much hope for this because of its length, 700+ pages, and the poor reception it got here.

Honestly, I don't think it will satisfy your writer/readers soul because you need more meat so to speak on the bones of history. I think you would do better with the complementary reads, going off on rabbit trails.      As for Ahab's wife, I liked it.  And perhaps one day, not this year but another, will read it again. In physical book form, rather than e book because I have a tendency to zoom through ebooks.  Some books I'd rather savor than devour and this one is worth savoring IMHO.

 

 

Jane: Lost, Stolen or Shredded:  Stories of Missing Works of Art and Literature is "delightful" (as it says on the cover).  Author Rick Gekoski does more than provide anecdotes from history.  Among the provocative questions he raises are those on the fate of authors' diaries and letters.

Sounds great and will add to my wishlist!

 

 

Mum:  I have made a decision regarding History of the Middle Ages. I may end up doing it at the end of the year but would really love to dig in to several books that I have on my shelves that pertain to that time period, How to Read a Church (also have the village one), several on the Templars, and many others. I think I want a more local concentration.

 

The templars have always fascinated me. Can't blame you for doing a more local concentration.  You do live in a place with great history.

 

 

Jane: awesome pictures. I always love it when nature decides to stop for us.  The birds or other animals that we have saved from our cats are remarkably quiescent in our hands, giving us and them a moment, that won't be forgotten.

 

Note--multiquote isn't working yet, doing it the painstaking way by copying and pasting in another tab.  We all need to go gang up on OtherJohn and find out when he's going to fix this.  Maybe an offer of wine will help.  ;)

 

 

 

 

 

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Chrysalis, I've been in and out and have missed a lot -- are you still looking for post-holocaust figuring-out-what-comes-next?  If so... the giants on the subject include Wiesel (in addition to the Night/Dawn/Day trilogy, maybe try some of hit later work -- last year I read his later memoir One Generation After at Eliana's suggestion; or the fictional Town Beyond the Wall; both addressing re-integration to life...)... Victor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning, not explicitly about picking up the post-pieces, more about the factors that make it possible... Primo Levi -- who himself ultimately committed suicide, but not before producing a wealth of insight; maybe The Reawakening and The Drowned and the Saved (I haven't read this last one, but it looks to be on your subject).  And then there are many individual memoirs and individual biographically based storylines; last year forex I was fascinated by Kasztner's Train, a little-known historical incident which also traces the post-war experience of Rezso Kasztner and many other refugees who ended up in Israel since returning "home" was not possible.  (and the repeating answer that emerges from all of these is... reintegration was massively difficult for all, and impossible for some...)

 

 

 

Yes, I'm still on a quest, although I will have to space these books out a bit - it's too much to read them back to back to back, KWIM?  I will add your suggestions to my to-read list, thank you.

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I can't be the only one who spends Sundays checking this thread for Robin's post with a link to the new week. It's always exciting to me when the new thread begins. I know she's not on eastern time, but I can't help myself. :)

Just so you know, I'm in california and a late sleeper.  :tongue_smilie:   But I do post somewhere around  9:30 to 10:30.  

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Rose - I also have Cave and the Light,  which is in my read me soon stacks.  What do you think of it so far?

 

Thanks for suggesting Helen Castor's She Wolves and Alison Weir.  Will add them to my 'check them out' list.

 

 

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Rose - I also have Cave and the Light,  which is in my read me soon stacks.  What do you think of it so far?

 

Thanks for suggesting Helen Castor's She Wolves and Alison Weir.  Will add them to my 'check them out' list.

 

I've just read the Intro so far, so too soon to say.  He's very easy to read.  It's a subject I'm very interested in.  I'll report back when I get a few chapters in.

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I continued my Amy Harmon run by reading A Different Blue (this is the fourth of her books that I've read, most of them in the past week).  I've now run out of my library's offerings and have put in a couple of purchase suggestions.  From that you can probably tell that I've been enjoying her books; they have a depth that many other books do not have.

 

 

"Blue Echohawk doesn't know who she is. She doesn't know her real name or when she was born. Abandoned at two and raised by a drifter, she didn't attend school until she was ten years old. At nineteen, when most kids her age are attending college or moving on with life, she is just a senior in high school. With no mother, no father, no faith, and no future, Blue Echohawk is a difficult student, to say the least. Tough, hard and overtly sexy, she is the complete opposite of the young British teacher who decides he is up for the challenge, and takes the troublemaker under his wing.

This is the story of a nobody who becomes somebody. It is the story of an unlikely friendship, where hope fosters healing and redemption becomes love. But falling in love can be hard when you don't know who you are. Falling in love with someone who knows exactly who they are and exactly why they can't love you back might be impossible."

 

Here's a review.  If you should end up reading the book, return to the site I linked.  In a future post, they have an epilogue that the author provided.

 

Regards,

Kareni

 

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I'm now reading The Night of Four Hundred Rabbits by Elizabeth Peters. It is not very amusing like most of her other mysteries, being focused on drugs and broken relationships. However, since I am about half way through, I will finish it.

 

Shukriyya- your zen tangles are becoming more and more organic. I love the way they are sprouting.

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I just finished The Monuments Men - 2 Stars - I was thoroughly engaged from the get-go. As it progressed however, completing it felt like a chore to get through. I kept falling asleep after completing a page or so. The details were too many and it felt more like reading a research report, than something a bit lighter, which is what I was looking for. I didnĂ¢â‚¬â„¢t particularly care for the writing style and thought that it was quite boring and dry. I honestly had to force myself to finish it, something that I rarely do. Nonetheless, I do appreciate all the work that went into putting this together. I learned a great deal and would still like to see the movie Ă¢â‚¬â€œ unless if thatĂ¢â‚¬â„¢s boring also. 

 

9781599951492_p0_v2_s260x420.JPG

 

MY RATING SYSTEM

5 Stars

Fantastic, couldn't put it down

4 Stars

Really Good

3 Stars

Enjoyable

2 Stars

Just Okay Ă¢â‚¬â€œ nothing to write home about

1 Star

Rubbish Ă¢â‚¬â€œ waste of my money and time. Few books make it to this level, since I usually give up on them if theyĂ¢â‚¬â„¢re that bad.

 

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So I have a question born of reading Point to Point - When one reads Japanese Kanji or Chinese characters, does one hear words in one's head? I know this varies amongst readers of English, but what about a language of characters? Is one less likely to hear streaming audio?

 

My thought is that the English language is made up of characters, too.  (In our case the Roman alphabet.)  My guess is that readers of languages such as Japanese, Chinese, Russian, and braille are as likely to hear words as are readers of standard English. 

 

Regards,

Kareni

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I read l'etranger from Camus in Dutch.

I think it is the first one I read in this style, so I'm not sure what to think about it.

So far I think it is a little bit odd.

 

I started stereoreading le petit prince in French and Dutch, so far so good, but I think after this I want to read something from Germany. Just time for a different culture.

 

I also started reading Shirley from Bronte as february is a short month, too short for reading Shirley properly

I started in English but that was too difficult as bedtime reading, so I switched to Dutch :blush:

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I'm kind-of stalled out in the middle of Murakami's A Wild Sheep Chase. I like it, yet I feel very little drive to pick it up once I put it down again. Sacrilege for this Murakami fan? Maybe I've read too much Murakami in the past few years. I really don't tend to sink myself in an author's work as I get too bored (I guess that's the term) with a certain style of writing -- and, ime, authors tend to have telltale traits to their writing that shine through brightly for me, regardless if their topic or even style changes somewhat between books. It really works better for me if I read one or two things by an author in a year or two, then walk away from that author for about ten to 12 years. (That's my theory as to why I enjoy Donna Tartt's books -- she's published only three & they have been published about a dozen years apart each time.  :lol: ) Then, when I revisit the author after that long interval, I'm happy to read him/her again. Granted, I've been busy this week, but I'm still thinking I may have to put this one down & start something else instead.

 

In the meantime, per Robin's original post about women in the medieval era -- I thought of a Genghis Khan-related book I read years ago (Gehghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford). I loved it & remembered that the author has one about the Mongol queens (The Secret History of the Mongol Queens: How the Daughters of Genghis Khan Rescued His Empire) that I've wanted to read. So, I just requested it from the library & perhaps will start it in a week or so when it arrives.

 

The Mongol queens of the thirteenth century ruled the largest empire the world has ever known. Yet sometime near the end of the century, censors cut a section from The Secret History of the Mongols, leaving a single tantalizing quote from Genghis Khan: Ă¢â‚¬Å“Let us reward our female offspring.Ă¢â‚¬ Only this hint of a fatherĂ¢â‚¬â„¢s legacy for his daughters remained of a much larger story. 

The queens of the Silk Route turned their fatherĂ¢â‚¬â„¢s conquests into the worldĂ¢â‚¬â„¢s first truly international empire, fostering trade, education, and religion throughout their territories and creating an economic system that stretched from the Pacific to the Mediterranean. Outlandish stories of these powerful queens trickled out of the Empire, shocking the citizens of Europe and and the Islamic world.

After Genghis KhanĂ¢â‚¬â„¢s death in 1227, conflicts erupted between his daughters and his daughters-in-law; what began as a war between powerful women soon became a war against women in power as brother turned against sister, son against mother. At the end of this epic struggle, the dynasty of the Mongol queens had seemingly been extinguished forever, as even their names were erased from the historical record.. 
           
One of the most unusual and important warrior queens of history arose to avenge the wrongs, rescue the tattered shreds of the Mongol Empire, and restore order to a shattered world. Putting on her quiver and picking up her bow, Queen Mandhuhai led her soldiers through victory after victory. In her thirties she married a seventeen-year-old prince, and she bore eight children in the midst of a career spent fighting the Ming Dynasty of China on one side and a series of Muslim warlords on the other. Her unprecedented success on the battlefield provoked the Chinese into the most frantic and expensive phase of wall building in history. Charging into battle even while pregnant, she fought to reassemble the Mongol Nation of Genghis Khan and to preserve it for her own children to rule in peace.
           
At the conclusion of his magnificently researched and ground-breaking narrative, Weatherford notes that, despite their mystery and the efforts to erase them from our collective memory, the deeds of these Mongol queens inspired great artists from Chaucer and Milton to Goethe and Puccini, and so their stories live on today. With The Secret History of the Mongol Queens, Jack Weatherford restores the queensĂ¢â‚¬â„¢ missing chapter to the annals of history.

 

I guess right now I'll say I'm between books, then. May pick up something off my shelves or may wait for some library holds to come though; I'm just not sure.

 

I love the bird photos & zentangles. Beautiful!

 

--------------------------
My Goodreads Page
2015 Books Read:
01. The Affinity Bridge by George Mann, a Tor book pub. by Tom Doherty Associates. 3 stars. Europe: England. (Entertaining steampunk with likeable characters.)
02. The Strange Library by Haruki Murakami, a Borzoi book pub. by Alfred A. Knopf. 4 stars. Asia: Japan. (Creepy campfire style story; thought-provoking ending made me rethink the entire story.)

03. Extraordinary Renditions by Andrew Ervin, pub. by Coffee House Press. 4 stars. Europe: Hungary. (Triptych of stories in Budapest touching on the Holocaust, racism, corruption, the power of music,Ă¢â‚¬Â¦)

04. Rue du Retour by Abdellatif LaĂƒÂ¢bi, trans. from the French by Jacqueline Kaye, pub. by Readers International. 4 stars. Africa: Morocco. (Poetic paean to political prisoners worldwide by one who was himself in prison for Ă¢â‚¬Å“crimes of opinionĂ¢â‚¬. Explores not only incarceration but also readjusting to a Ă¢â‚¬ËœnormalĂ¢â‚¬â„¢ world after torture & release.)

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Argh, the lack of multi-quoting is a real impediment to brevity. Here goes...

Jane, the bird photos are glorious. The vivid blue of the kingfisher against the neutral background...

Rose, 'The Cave and the Light' looks intriguing. My reading of Sontag has sparked interest in the bones of her various theses, their origins. Dh and I are planning to read 'The Symposium' together. He's a PhD philosophy holder and has taught it all as well which will make for some wonderful conversation. I shall have to ask him about 'The Cave and the Light'.

Pam, I'd love to see some of what you and your dd are doing with the zentangles. And anyone else who is doing them.

VC, I think you've hit upon something quite integral to the zentangles, that they do mirror the patterns in nature and that's why they're so satisfying to make.

Robin, good to know at least one person enjoyed Ahab's Wife ;) And thank you for your thoughts on pursuing HotMW.

Loesje, I'm so impressed by your multi-lingual approach to the BaW thread!

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In the meantime, per Robin's original post about women in the medieval era -- I thought of a Genghis Khan-related book I read years ago (Gehghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford). I loved it & remembered that the author has one about the Mongol queens (The Secret History of the Mongol Queens: How the Daughters of Genghis Khan Rescued His Empire) that I've wanted to read. So, I just requested it from the library & perhaps will start it in a week or so when it arrives.

 

 

 

 

 

Wow, this looks so interesting! And my library has it . . . just put it on hold. We can read it together!

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Rose, 'The Cave and the Light' looks intriguing. My reading of Sontag has sparked interest in the bones of her various theses, their origins. Dh and I are planning to read 'The Symposium' together. He's a PhD philosophy holder and has taught it all as well which will make for some wonderful conversation. I shall have to ask him about 'The Cave and the Light'.

 

 

 

Do let me know what he says.  I stumbled on to this book after seeing a different one by the same author suggested in Whole Earth Discipline.  It's this one:

 

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/684476.The_Idea_of_Decline_in_Western_History?from_search=true

 

The Idea of Decline in Western History

 

I'm even more interested in reading this - the whole question of how the post-Rousseau Romantic view informs modern environmentalism is fascinating to me.  I'm a bit of a pessimist at heart, and I adore dystopias, and since I work on ecology & climate change, it tends to feed my whole Romantic decline/we're all going to hell in a handbasket world view.  Unfortunately my library doesn't have this one, but it had The Cave and the Light, and if it's good I'll probably buy the other.  If I can't get my library to buy it.

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Just poking my head in to wave hello. Not much reading to report, except this thread, as I'm in bed in a post-op recuperative haze.  Which makes my replying to Nan's question kind of funny as my brain has no business attempting this, but here I go....

 

 

So I have a question born of reading Point to Point - When one reads Japanese Kanji or Chinese characters, does one hear words in one's head? 

 

I don't know what the answer would be for a native speaker, but as someone who studied Chinese for 4 years or so, I hear words in my head when I see characters -- whether I remember the meaning for sure or not.  Many of the more complex characters have a phonetic element built into them.  You see, characters are built from bits and pieces of many characters -- there are the bits that have to do with meaning, there are bits that have to do with sound, and there often random bits -- but the same limited sets of strokes are used over and over.

 

For instance, depending on the bit of character you add to the word for horse, "ma", you can get the word mother, jade, scold or the character that indicates the sentence is a question, and all of those words are pronounced "ma" (except with different tones -- rising or falling pitches in the spoken voice).  Does that make any sense?  You can see all these variations of the horse character on the right hand side of this page.  

 

With Japanese it gets more complicated as there are different pronunciations for kanji, some of which are the Chinese pronunciation.  Tokyo in Chinese sounds like dongjing, but I believe that, "Tokyo", is considered the "Chinese" pronunciation.  I'm probably muddling it all up as I never studied Japanese enough to worry about kanji pronunciation.  

 

Back when I was studying Chinese, I'd fill pages up with characters, writing the same ones over and over just to memorize them.  The result was rather zentangle-like! 

 

Alrighty.  I've reached my maximum brain cell usage for the moment.  Back to studying the backs of my eyelids...

 

 

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Finished Wuthering Heights...and enjoyed it, weird as it is. My brain kept cycling Pat Benatar's Wuthering Heights which our cool English teacher Mr. Richardson played for us when we were in 11th grade. And I think when you're in 11th grade everyone is drawn to the drama and "love" story of Catherine and Heathcliff; I've enjoyed re-reading classics from my high school years and seeing the books completely differently. I'm actually thinking of trying Faulkner again to see if I can handle stream of consciousness any better now that I'm a little more mature!

 

I'm currently reading some Sherlock Holmes tales that involve Moriarty. I think I've read all of the shorter adventures that mention him and I'm halfway through The Valley of Fear, one of the four longer Holmes novellas. That should get me ready to read Moriarty, but I'm enjoying Holmes so may end up reading more short stories first.

 

My only real reading goal for 2015 is to read through some books I took from Mom's house and then pass some along to new readers. I'm thinking one a month would be good, so I should pick one for January--maybe Forgotten English.

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to read '

 

 

Loesje, I'm so impressed by your multi-lingual approach to the BaW thread!

Thanks.

Although it is utiliristic? From me.

Dd will follow the languages track in Highschool will read 6-18 classics in the original language depending on the language. I did a different track so I haven't read most of these classics in any language.

I try to set an example for dd as DH did the languages track but hasn't read anything from his lists...

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Finished Wuthering Heights...and enjoyed it, weird as it is. My brain kept cycling Pat Benatar's Wuthering Heights which our cool English teacher Mr. Richardson played for us when we were in 11th grade. And I think when you're in 11th grade everyone is drawn to the drama and "love" story of Catherine and Heathcliff; I've enjoyed re-reading classics from my high school years and seeing the books completely differently. I'm actually thinking of trying Faulkner again to see if I can handle stream of consciousness any better now that I'm a little more mature!

 

I'm currently reading some Sherlock Holmes tales that involve Moriarty. I think I've read all of the shorter adventures that mention him and I'm halfway through The Valley of Fear, one of the four longer Holmes novellas. That should get me ready to read Moriarty, but I'm enjoying Holmes so may end up reading more short stories first.

 

My only real reading goal for 2015 is to read through some books I took from Mom's house and then pass some along to new readers. I'm thinking one a month would be good, so I should pick one for January--maybe Forgotten English.

Your Pat Benatar mention brought back my memories of that song which I had completely forgotten! I really loved that song but I also loved Wuthering Heights. I just listened to it on youtubehttp://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TZcLMVCsH14and that album cover brings back memories. It was one I owned. I went to one of her concerts too.......

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Jenn, :grouphug: . So glad to see that you're feeling well enough to post (& even be coherent :laugh: )! Hope you have a speedy recovery! :grouphug:

 

Rose, I'll let you know when I get the Mongol Queens book from the library & start it! If you haven't read Weatherford's book about Genghis Khan, you might also enjoy that one. I found it fascinating.

 

Oh, and when I'm reading all the Wuthering Heights love, I'm going :toetap05:  and :ack2: .

 

;) :lol:

 

Btw, shukriyya, if you get into Ahab's Wife & decide you don't like it (or even if you do like it), maybe you should try Galore. Just another option, just in case....

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Jenn, :grouphug: . So glad to see that you're feeling well enough to post (& even be coherent :laugh: )! Hope you have a speedy recovery! :grouphug:

 

Rose, I'll let you know when I get the Mongol Queens book from the library & start it! If you haven't read Weatherford's book about Genghis Khan, you might also enjoy that one. I found it fascinating.

 

Oh, and when I'm reading all the Wuthering Heights love, I'm going :toetap05:  and :ack2: .

 

;) :lol:

 

Btw, shukriyya, if you get into Ahab's Wife & decide you don't like it (or even if you do like it), maybe you should try Galore. Just another option, just in case....

 

Oh man, I am right there with you with Wuthering Heights! I started a whole thread about not liking it on the HS/Self-Ed Board last year while I was reading it.

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Oh man, I am right there with you with Wuthering Heights! I started a whole thread about not liking it on the HS/Self-Ed Board last year while I was reading it.

 

Yeah, it's in the category of 'books I love to hate' for me. :lol:  I also include Patrick Suskind's Perfume on that list.

 

Maybe I need to create a 'books I love to hate' shelf on my Goodreads page. :tongue_smilie:

 

And, I beg the pardon of those who love those books. Please know that I'm not picking on you, just mocking my own visceral response to those same books.

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I am very confused, ladies. I was very sure it was Kate Bush that sang "Wuthering Heights." Has senility come so soon?

 

ETA: Ah--Wikipedia says they both sang it.

 

In my reality Kate Bush and Wuthering Heights are a duo. I've never heard the Pat Benatar version.

 

Mumto2, KB recently did another short tour in your parts, relatively speaking, UK at least. I have a friend who is such a fan and has the financial wherewithal that he booked tickets and hopped a plane from the US just to see her a couple of months ago.

 

Stacia, Galore went on my tbr list last time you mentioned it along with two others recommended by you all in lieu of Mr. Murakami. I think one of them was Mr. Fox and the other was Mink River. Though I've not read it The Colony of Unrequited Dreams has been on my tbr list for a while and I think of you each time I see it. You might check it out.

 

Jenn, I think a little chocolate needs to come your way ;)

 

I'm in the camp of I *think* I'm a 'Wuthering Heights' fan in that I loved it when I read and reread it decades ago but it's been so long since then that I wonder, when I revisit it next month, whether I'll enjoy it. I always preferred the Brontes over Jane Eyre.

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Jennifer- I hope you feel better soon!

 

I dabbled this last week.  I read three books in the Vampires in America Series by D.B. Reynolds, skipping around to which stories interested me.  Then I ventured back to the Kitty Norville Series by Carrie Vaughn to read book #13, Low Midnight, which was disappointing.  Last I read I Saw Her Standing There, book #3 in the Green Mountain Series by Marie Force.

 

I have Night by Elie Wiesel on my pile of TBR, along with the list of books I downloaded to my kindle last week and didn't get around to reading.  Burned, book #7 in the Fever Series comes out on Tuesday, but I haven't decided if I'll break down and buy it or try and wait for a library copy. 

 

 

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Jenn, :grouphug:   thinking good thoughts for a quick recovery.

 

Shukriyya,  that zentangle is truly beautiful.   And I am one who liked Ahab's wife--I liked it quite a bit.

 

Jane,  I enjoyed your bird pictures.

 

Stacia,  I agree with your theory of reading numerous books by the same author in a short period of time.  It doesn't work for me either.  I always need  some breathing space in between books. 

 

There are other posts that I wanted to comment on but I forget what they are (darn multi-quote and getting old.)

 

I like how others are listing their books of what they are reading and what they have finished so I think I will copy them.

 

 

Books Currently Reading:

Imitation of Christ  by Thomas a Kempis

The Order of Things  by James Schall

Breathing Room  by Leeana Tankersley

The Inferno  by Dante

Home  by Marilynne Robinson

 

Books Finished:

Burial Rites  by Hannah Kent

The Lost Husband by Katherine Center

Leisure: The Basis of Culture  by Josef Pieper

The Age of Miracles  by Katherine Townsend Walker  (a twist on dystopian, I loved this book--great writing)

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Jenn :grouphug:

 

Stacia, I knew WH would make you go yuk! What can I say the teen me loved it (so did the twenty something). When I reread it in my 40's I could see where the negatives were coming from but I still enjoyed my read, just not as a great romance anymore. But I remember that song with love. After Dh and I married we visited the UK several times a year and I always flew home reading a cheap copy of a classic, frequently WH.

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Your Pat Benatar mention brought back my memories of that song which I had completely forgotten! I really loved that song but I also loved Wuthering Heights. I just listened to it on youtubehttp://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TZcLMVCsH14and that album cover brings back memories. It was one I owned. I went to one of her concerts too.......

Pat Benatar... Hell Is For Children?

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Why oh why oh why am I completely unable to stop reading a terrible book?!?!  This week I read Tedd and Todd's Secret.  It. Was. Awful.  An incredible mess of horrible grammar, improper use of commas, and a huge cast of characters that all sound exactly the same when they talk.  And, yet, I just couldn't delete it from my Kindle.  I was compelled to finish it by some weird thing inside me that won't let me stop reading a book before it is finished.  I ended up giving it 2 stars because the action was continuous and the ending was decent.

 

I also finished reading Dante's Inferno.

 

I'm currently reading The Well-Trained Mind, Les Miserables, The Year of the Century: 1876, Verse by Verse, Old Testament: Volume One (and, by extension, The Old Testament), and Princess Callie and the Totally Amazing Talking Tiara (reading that to the little guys and I am surprised that they are LOVING it... and I am, too!).

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