Book a Week 2015 - wk 13: all things virginia woolf

[JennW in SoCal]

Eliana,

 

I love the image of your dancing the night away at your daughter's wedding.  I also love the idea of the BaW ladies all dancing together to celebrate with you!  Wouldn't that be something?!  Your entire post just made my heart sing with joy.  Congratulations, and best wishes to the couple for a long, happy and fruitful life together.  

[Angel]

 

Add me to the list of those who can't quite deal with the Puritans.  The boys hear me rant on this topic every Thanksgiving.

 

:confused1:  Am I missing something here?  The Puritans were not the ones who were on the Mayflower.  That was the Separatists.  The Puritans wanted religious freedom for themselves but really weren't very tolerant of religious freedom for others (understatement  :laugh: ), they wanted to "purify" the church of England from the inside out.  On the other hand, the Separatists wanted religious freedom for themselves AND for others and wanted freedom to worship how they chose outside of the church of England.  The Puritans came over to the New World after Plimoth was settled.  

 

Can you guess what was in our history lessons the last two weeks  :lol:  :rolleyes:

 

The Witch of Blackbird Pond is one of my favorite books from childhood.  My copy is well worn.  I have yet to read The Scarlet Letter, though it was kind of in the back of my mind for this year.  I've only read one Hawthorne, The House of the Seven Gables, and I don't even remember a thing about it.  

[Angel]

Eliana, Thank you for sharing your precious pictures with us!  What a beautiful day, and a beautiful couple!  Are you going to share an updated pic of your sweet grandbaby?

[Jane in NC]

:confused1:  Am I missing something here?  The Puritans were not the ones who were on the Mayflower.  That was the Separatists.  The Puritans wanted religious freedom for themselves but really weren't very tolerant of religious freedom for others (understatement  :laugh: ), they wanted to "purify" the church of England from the inside out.  On the other hand, the Separatists wanted religious freedom for themselves AND for others and wanted freedom to worship how they chose outside of the church of England.  The Puritans came over to the New World after Plimoth was settled.  

 

Can you guess what was in our history lessons the last two weeks  :lol:  :rolleyes:

 

The Witch of Blackbird Pond is one of my favorite books from childhood.  My copy is well worn.  I have yet to read The Scarlet Letter, though it was kind of in the back of my mind for this year.  I've only read one Hawthorne, The House of the Seven Gables, and I don't even remember a thing about it.  

 

It is my understanding that some Puritans were Separatists--you see clear division where I do not.  From the Plimoth Colony website I found the following:

 

 

The Separatists' faith experience was part of the larger English Reformation of the 16^th century. This movement sought to “purify†the Church of England of its corrupt human doctrine and practices; the people in the movement were known as “Puritans.†Separatists were those Puritans who no longer accepted the Church of England as a true church, refused to work within the structure to affect changes, and “separated†themselves to form a true church based solely on Biblical precedent. Puritans rejected Christmas, Easter and the various Saint's Days because they had no scriptural justification, and in their worship services, they rejected hymns, the recitations of the Lord's Prayer and creeds for the same reason.

 

The Separatists believed that the worship of God must progress from the individual directly to God, and that “set†forms, like the Church of England's Book of Common Prayer, interfered with that progression by directing one's thoughts down to the book and inward to one's self. The only exceptions were the Psalms and the Lord's Supper, both of which had scriptural basis, and possibly the covenant by which individuals joined the congregation. As Pastor Robinson expressed it, even two or three “gathered in the name of Christ by a covenant [and] made to walk in all the ways of God known unto them is a church.â€

 

It seems that they are using Separatist and Puritan to describe the same group.

[Clear Creek]

I was busy over spring break and then I was sick last week (again - bah!), so I am behind on listing my books read.

 

I read Delirium by Lauren Oliver. It was enjoyable brain candy and I will definitely get the next in the series from the library. I also read the Wonder of Your Love by Beth Wiseman, the second in her Land of Canaan series. Sweet Amish fiction, an easy read. The third book I read was One Plus One by Jojo Moyes..like her other books, it was thoroughly enjoyable and made me cry at some point. The fourth book I read was another WWII memoir (big surprise :lol: ) about a young Polish boy; it was The Lost Childhood by Yehuda Nir. It was quite a fascinating tale of a Jewish mother and her two children living out in the open disguised as Catholics during WWII. It was especially dangerous for the young man since the widespread test for proving Catholicism was pulling down a male's britches. Since the author goes through puberty and becomes obsessed with females during the time the book takes place, the mood of the book reflects that and makes it very unusual for its genre.

 

Read so far this year...

1. Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand

2. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

3. Without a Trace by Colleen Coble

4. Tempest's Course by Lynette Sowell

5. Freefall by Kristen Heitzmann

6. In My Hands: Memories of a Holocaust Rescuer by Irene Gut Opdyke

7. Bridge to Haven by Francine Rivers

8. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

9. A Season of Change by Lynette Sowell

10. An Irish Country Christmas by Patrick Taylor

11. The Riddle of the Labyrinth by Margalit Fox

12. All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

13. Seek Me With All Your Heart by Beth Wiseman

14. Holocaust Survivor by Mike Jacobs

15. Unwind by Neal Shusterman

16. The Ditchdigger's Daughters  by Yvonne S. Thornton

17. Delirium by Lauren Oliver

18. The Wonder of Your Love by Beth Wiseman

19. One Plus One by Jojo Boyes

20. The Lost Childhood by Yehuda Nir

[Angel]

 

[redsquirrel]

So I already finished Brown Girl Dreaming. It was so good, I wish I hadn't read it yet so I could read it for the first time all over again. Ds1 is going to read it tonight. If anyone has an evening to spare, I highly recommend it.

Today I start Homer and Langley by E.L. Doctorow. The local university assigns a freshman summer reading book every year and the town reads it as well. If possible the author will come and lecture, etc. I figured I would get a head start and read it now. It has very mixed reviews, so I am a little worried. I hope I enjoy it.

[Jane in NC]

At one point in my 20's, I went through a hard boiled detective kick.  Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler were favorite authors; in fact, I have inherited my father in law's collection of these authors because he and I used to have pleasant chats about them, this after he had a stroke and lost his short term memory.

 

But there was one Hammett novel that I had not read until recently: The Glass Key. 

 

Hammett's writing style is sparse.  He uses adjectives and adverbs to describe facial expressions or gestures but never directly reveals a character's thoughts.  The reader assumes what he wants from the finger rubbing the mustache or other non-verbal response.

 

Chandler and Hammett are often considered the fathers of the hardboiled, but Chandler gave Hammett the credit.  In his essay The Simple Art of Murder, Chandler wrote:

 

 

Hammett took murder out of the Venetian vase and dropped it into the alley; it doesn’t have to stay there forever, but it was a good idea to begin by getting as far as possible from Emily Post’s idea of how a well-bred debutante gnaws a chicken wing. He wrote at first (and almost to the end) for people with a sharp, aggressive attitude to life. They were not afraid of the seamy side of things; they lived there. Violence did not dismay them; it was right down their street.

 

Hammett gave murder back to the kind of people that commit it for reasons, not just to provide a corpse; and with the means at hand, not with hand-wrought duelling pistols, curare, and tropical fish. He put these people down on paper as they are, and he made them talk and think in the language they customarily used for these purposes. He had style, but his audience didn’t know it, because it was in a language not supposed to be capable of such refinements. They thought they were getting a good meaty melodrama written in the kind of lingo they imagined they spoke themselves. It was, in a sense, but it was much more.

 

Chandler just says it much better than I can say it:

 

 

He is said to have lacked heart, yet the story he thought most of himself is the record of a man’s devotion to a friend. He was spare, frugal, hardboiled, but he did over and over again what only the best writers can ever do at all. He wrote scenes that seemed never to have been written before.

 

Hammett's novels and stories are period pieces. Men change their collars and drink copious amounts of whiskey in speakeasies.  But I find the characters to be of interest to me even though they are not exactly like my neighbors.  Again, Chandler sums up just who this detective is in Hammett's books:

 

 

In everything that can be called art there is a quality of redemption. It may be pure tragedy, if it is high tragedy, and it may be pity and irony, and it may be the raucous laughter of the strong man. But down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. The detective in this kind of story must be such a man.

 

Here's to Ned Beaumont, Sam Spade, Nick (and Nora) Charles, as well as the nameless Continental Op, characters brought to life by Dashiell Hammett.  Long may they live.

[NoseInABook]

Eliana, those are beautiful! Thank you for sharing them with us! 

 

 

[Robin M]

Awww, Robin.  Thank you for this.

 

 

 

(And... I'm back.  And totally absolutely fine.  Sorry for the extended hiatus, and  :001_wub:  :001_wub:  :001_wub: to the several of you dear ones who sent me PMs or ACTUAL SNAIL MAIL NOTES in my absence.  Y'all are the best.  Off now to read this week's thread in full -- I'm not even going to try to catch up on the prior ones...)

 

So, I've returned from Singapore, where I was "helping" my brother and wife who've just had a baby girl   :party: .  My husband and younger kids joined me for a stint in Laos as well.

 

Babies are glorious.  Mystical.  Transcendent.  And... I realized I'm at a stage in life where I'm truly glad to be able to hand her back, as well.  

 

welcome back Pam and congratulations to your brother and sister law!

 

I have not read a single book so far this week (though I did finish a few before the wedding that I'll have to share later), but I danced at my daughter's wedding and spent a lot of time snuggling my grandbaby...

 

It has been the most amazing week.  ...and now I need to get folks off to the airport and get to serious work getting reading for Pesach (Passover)

 

I wish you could all have been here to dance at the wedding with us!

 

Here's my second daughter with me and the groom's mother:

 

 

 

The fathers with the groom:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Under the chuppah (wedding canopy):

 

 

 

the couple:

 

Positively adorable!  Congratulations!

 

:grouphug: :001_wub:

[Nan in Mass]

Eliana - Thank you thank you for sharing! I wish for the new couple a long and wonderful life together, full of joy and goodness. My heart is dancing with you.

 

Nan

[Angel]

Today I start Homer and Langley by E.L. Doctorow. The local university assigns a freshman summer reading book every year and the town reads it as well. If possible the author will come and lecture, etc. I figured I would get a head start and read it now. It has very mixed reviews, so I am a little worried. I hope I enjoy it.

 

I think this sounds so cool!

[redsquirrel]

I think this sounds so cool!

 

Yeah, well, I am a dork because I have the wrong book, lol. This is a book from a couple years ago! I got the wrong information. The book for this summer hasn't been officially announced yet, although dh knows the person who runs the program and he can ask him for the inside scoop.

 

This is so me, le sigh.  I almost always read the freshman summer reading books, so this must be from a year I missed it. Serves me right for trying to get it done early. Turns out I am really, really late.

 

Oh well, I have the book so I am going to read it. I have always really enjoyed the books they pick.

 

Here is the website from last summer's book.  All the incoming freshmen have to read it and they have to participate in a discussion seminar on the book and do a writing project. Other students are welcome to participate and many do, but it is mandatory for the freshmen. The local library also gives out copies of whatever book it is and runs discussion groups and has people in to talk to the community as well as the university students etc.

 

http://blogs.cornell.edu/reading2014/

[idnib]

http://blogs.cornell.edu/reading2014/

 

Wow, I love how the title is done.

[Stacia]

http://blogs.cornell.edu/reading2014/

 

 

Hey! I read that book a few years ago when I first discovered Europa editions publishing!

[redsquirrel]

Hey! I read that book a few years ago when I first discovered Europa editions publishing!

After I read that book I became a big fan of that publishing house. That is how I found Elena Ferrante

[mumto2]

I finished Once Upon a Tartan by Grace Burrowes yesterday.https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15713729-once-upon-a-tartan?from_search=trueIt was fun read (adult content) by the same author Kareni linked yesterday with the free kindle book. My BF has been busy reading the kiss series also this week so I will have to try it.

[Uff Da!]

This is somewhat BAW related as the psalm project started from a study/read last year.  I finished rewriting my own version of the psalms this morning and think I'll start Latin for the New Millenium next.  It looks fun and easy.

[mumto2]

Last week I recommended Soulless to Noseinabook and commented on how intriguing I found the Soulless concept. That sent me on a rabbit trail to find the other paranormal series that I have read with the same concept, in these it's null. The series is by Melissa F. Olsen and the first one is Dead Spots https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16037696-dead-spots?ac=1They are available for free with amazon prime. I just downloaded the third one this morning!

 

Coincidentally over in Kindle First Boundary Crossed by Melissa Olsen is one of April's selections. That one is the first in a new series and apparently has a null baby. I downloaded that one also.

[JennW in SoCal]

This is somewhat BAW related as the psalm project started from a study/read last year.  I finished rewriting my own version of the psalms this morning...

 

A friend's husband had done this many, many years ago, and a few of his rewrites were read aloud at his funeral. They were simply beautiful. I had never heard of anyone doing this til that funeral and am impressed with you for having finished such a wonderful exercise.

[Kareni]

I finished a re-read today by one of my favorite historical romance authors ~   Jo Goodman's One Forbidden Evening.  I enjoyed revisiting the book.

 

"As a masked ball reaches its fever pitch, Cybelline Caldwell surrenders to the embrace of a midnight lover, a stranger who seals her fate. By morning the wanton seductress has been replaced by a determinedly sensible woman preparing to leave London...and its memories. Yet temptation follows. For Christopher Hollins, Earl of Ferrin, the notorious rake she so brazenly challenged, vows to show her that one night was not enough.

It took some clever detective work, but Ferrin uncovered the identity of his mystery lover, surprised and intrigued to come face to face with Cybelline. Soon he discovers she is a woman of mystery—and a woman in danger, stalked by a ruthless enemy. Unable to erase the searing memory of Cybelline in his arms, Ferrin knows he must discover the secrets that shadow her days...for only then can he claim all of her nights."

 

Regards,

Kareni

[Stacia]

Just venting. You can skip this post but I just wanna rant...

 

I get so tired of returning a stack of stuff to the library, only to have them 'skip' scanning in one (or more) of the items (which I would then be held liable for as missing/unreturned). It used to happen all.the.time. Then, it got better for a year or so. Now it seems to be coming back. The problem this time is that one of the Patrick Modiano books I returned had been listed only as 'paperback' w/ no identifying info in their system. I returned it. Checked my account later & saw it wasn't scanned in. Called them. Lady said that since it's a paperback & they have thousands, there is no way to verify so I should just hope someone else randomly tries to check out the book I returned before the due date on my account. :cursing:  I told her that I knew the author, title, & even where it is shelved in their branch (in the new section) & that it doesn't look like their typical paperbacks because it is very small & it had a clear, hard coating on it to make it more like a hardcover than a paperback. She supposedly looked (though the paperbacks, which is not the section where it is kept & that is what I told her) & couldn't find it. I'm sorry; I have little tolerance for half-a&&ing your job by not listening & not even trying, esp. when I'm on the hook for a mistake on their part. She ended up taking it off my account, though, because I was getting mad. :smash: I'm sure I could drive over there now, walk to the exact section, find the book & take it to the desk to show them. (I've had to do that more than once before too. In fact, I had to do that about a week ago when I was there with a book that we had returned the trip prior to that.) Man oh man, I am cranky today!

 

:rant:

 

There have been many times that I have felt that I know much more about how the library operates & their stock than some of the librarians do. This is part of the reason I pay to check out books from the next county over. My home county does this kind of stuff often enough that it's (more than) irritating. In over four years of turning in materials at the other county, they have overlooked something once (which they immediately found & fixed when I called).

[Chrysalis Academy]

Stacia, I totally feel your pain!  I've had this happen on multiple ocaisions.  Luckily, at this point, I'm buds with the library manager - he runs the book group I'm part of - so now I just go straight to him and he fixes it on the computer.  Our library does have a "claim return" designation, so that the book stays on your record, but you don't get charged any fines for it, and if it does end up turning up on the shelves, it goes away (or, if you actually find it months later and return it - which has happened to me, too!)  This way you don't have to argue about whose mistake it is, and you don't pay any fines if it is their mistake.

 

But before I started going over their heads, I have done many things - including checking the catalog, calling the library branch where the book I know I returned is, asking the librarian to do a shelf check, and when she comes back with the book, asking her to check it in for me as I'm a patron who supposedly has it checked out! They are always shocked when I do that, and say that my librarian should do that for me, it isn't my job.  I've also gone and found the book on the shelf in their library and brought it to the desk for them to check back in for me. It's happened enough times now that they don't question me when I claim return!

 

I figure I make a lot of work for them - I'll often return 30+ books at a time, and I usually have 50 or 60 out at any one time.  So statistically, a lot of the mistakes that get made get made on me, as I'm one of their most active patrons!  So I cut them slack as long as they cut me slack.  If I were paying for the mistakes, I'd be livid.

[Ali in OR]

Stacia, this happens to me about once a year. Except you can't just call and have them fix it. Since I'm there once a week anyway, I just find the book on the shelf and take it to the desk and have them clear it. There was a time when I was taking everything to the desk to have them check in each item while I waited, but that got time consuming. Still, if it started happening a lot I would do that again.

[Robin M]

Happy April my lovelies.

 

For our artistically inclined BAWer's check out Johanna Basfords coloring books for adults and peruse out the book on amazon.

 

On bookriot - an argument for reading literature in chronological order. 

 

Simon and Schuester have revived Scribner Magazine for the digital age

 

I've committed to reading Proust's Swann's Way starting in May with a couple writer friends so figured I'd bring you all along for the ride.  You all will now  have the option of Dante's Purgatorio or Proust now for May. 

[Robin M]

This is somewhat BAW related as the psalm project started from a study/read last year.  I finished rewriting my own version of the psalms this morning and think I'll start Latin for the New Millenium next.  It looks fun and easy.

How neat.  I'd love to see one if you'd care to share!   Perfect and just in time for Easter.  The Latin book is very tempting for a bit of self education, but I just don't have the time now with all my writing classes.  

 

[idnib]

For our artistically inclined BAWer's check out Johanna Basfords coloring books for adults and peruse out the book on amazon.

 

I've committed to reading Proust's Swann's Way starting in May with a couple writer friends so figured I'd bring you all along for the ride.  You all will now  have the option of Dante's Purgatorio or Proust now for May. 

 

You got me! I love to color and often print out mandalas for coloring. The book is now in my Amazon cart.

 

Did I miss Inferno along the way by not joining the BaW last year? I read it in high school but then a T-rex ate my copy. I still remember the gist of it but not the details. Can I just jump in with Purgatorio? Or should I go back to the beginning?

[Chrysalis Academy]

You got me! I love to color and often print out mandalas for coloring. The book is now in my Amazon cart.

 

Did I miss Inferno along the way by not joining the BaW last year? I read it in high school but then a T-rex ate my copy. I still remember the gist of it but not the details. Can I just jump in with Purgatorio? Or should I go back to the beginning?

 

I'm thinking I'm going to do Inferno while everybody else is reading Purgatorio.  I haven't read any Dante, and I think I want to start at the beginning. So, if you do that, you'll have company!

[Chrysalis Academy]

I finished Out of the Silent Planet.  I liked it, more for the anthropological aspects than the allegorical ones. So I'm not sure if I want to read the rest of the series! But I'm looking forward to talking about it with y'all . . . 

[Kareni]

For our artistically inclined BAWer's check out Johanna Basfords coloring books for adults and peruse out the book on amazon.

 

What a fun article and book, Robin.  Thanks for sharing the links.

 

So, where have all our zen tanglers gone?  I miss their posts.

 

Regards,

Kareni

[Robin M]

You got me! I love to color and often print out mandalas for coloring. The book is now in my Amazon cart.

 

Did I miss Inferno along the way by not joining the BaW last year? I read it in high school but then a T-rex ate my copy. I still remember the gist of it but not the details. Can I just jump in with Purgatorio? Or should I go back to the beginning?

I'm thinking I'm going to do Inferno while everybody else is reading Purgatorio.  I haven't read any Dante, and I think I want to start at the beginning. So, if you do that, you'll have company!

 

I did Inferno last year and a few people (very few if I remember correctly)  jumped in.  A T-rex ate it, hmm?  :laugh:

 

You'll probably want to start with Inferno as a refresher before diving into Purgatorio,   if you don't remember much of it. But you may start to read and remember a lot and want to skip.  Either way there will  probably be a few other folks who join you and Rose in the first one, if they missed it last year too. 

[Robin M]

What a fun article and book, Robin.  Thanks for sharing the links.

 

So, where have all our zen tanglers gone?  I miss their posts.

 

Regards,

Kareni

 

They've all taken board breaks or become ultra busy.

 

[Kareni]

I just finished a very enjoyable young adult novel ~  Love and Other Foreign Words by Erin McCahan.

 

"Can anyone be truly herself--or truly in love--in a language that's not her own?

Sixteen-year-old Josie lives her life in translation. She speaks High School, College, Friends, Boyfriends, Break-ups, and even the language of Beautiful Girls. But none of these is her native tongue--the only people who speak that are her best friend Stu and her sister Kate. So when Kate gets engaged to an epically insufferable guy, how can Josie see it as anything but the mistake of a lifetime? Kate is determined to bend Josie to her will for the wedding; Josie is determined to break Kate and her fiancé up. As battles are waged over secrets and semantics, Josie is forced to examine her feelings for the boyfriend who says he loves her, the sister she loves but doesn't always like, and the best friend who hasn't said a word--at least not in a language Josie understands."

 

Here's a good review from the Hello, Chelly site.

 

Regards,

Kareni

[Stacia]

Oh, I had seen that coloring book/artist recently (maybe on Buzzfeed?). I bookmarked her stuff because it's totally, 100% my dd & will be perfect for her. Btw, for those who like to color intricate designs using markers, my dd loves this Stabilo set of markers.

 

I've tried/done all the things listed re: returned library books. :lol:  (More than once! Ugh.) Most of the librarians know me by sight, but I'm not sure all of them know me by name (though I routinely take up a chunk of their 'holds' shelf so you would think they might recognize it). Plus, our county rotates the librarians through the different branches. There will be a few librarians at my closest branch for a couple of weeks, then it switches to a different set of librarians; it takes a bit until the first set rotates back through. Anyway. I still love my library (& fought for them in county meetings & petitions, etc... when their locations & hours were being drastically reduced a few years back), even if they do make me want to beat my head on a wall every now & then. Today's issue (to me) can be summed up as inefficiency, incompetence, & not listening = :banghead:  ( <------ that's me on the phone). I know my fellow INTJs will understand. :D

 

Hmmm. Dante or Proust. Will have to ponder that one. I've read the first few pages of Swann's Way, but have never fully tackled it.

 

I have seriously got to find a book to read. It's been more than a week for me with no real reading. Maybe that's why I'm cranky.

[Uff Da!]

How neat. I'd love to see one if you'd care to share! Perfect and just in time for Easter. The Latin book is very tempting for a bit of self education, but I just don't have the time now with all my writing classes.

Mine seem to be much shorter than the originals but here are a couple. The Psalms that talk about enemies felt awkward to rewrite as my mind doesn't divy up the world into friends and enemies, good doers, evil doers and so forth. You can kind of see how that played out in the second example.

 

My Psalm 90

We are but dreams

Fleeting and brief

In the shadow of your eternity

Pull us to you

Entwine us in your presence

For you are the beginning and the end

 

 

My Psalm 102

Oh God, you picked me up

Snapped me like a twig

And grafted me onto the Tree of Life

Do the same to the gossips, presumers, projectors

the power hungry calculators

Snap them

So they can be grafted too

And thrive under your nourishment

Your love is the water

That sustains us

[TeacherZee]

Happy April my lovelies.

 

For our artistically inclined BAWer's check out Johanna Basfords coloring books for adults and peruse out the book on amazon.

 

On bookriot - an argument for reading literature in chronological order.

 

Simon and Schuester have revived Scribner Magazine for the digital age

 

I've committed to reading Proust's Swann's Way starting in May with a couple writer friends so figured I'd bring you all along for the ride. You all will now have the option of Dante's Purgatorio or Proust now for May.

I have the postcard version of her book and it is so relaxing but I would love some recommendations for pens to use for coloring. The ones I have bleed a bit.

[Pam in CT]

:grouphug: Stacia.  I too feel your pain.  Many is the time I've found a book long claimed to be long overdue in the shelves.  My own, uh, admittedly flawed organizational systems don't help matters, as the odds are about even whose mistake it is...

 

 

 

.. So, where have all our zen tanglers gone?  I miss their posts.

 

Regards,

Kareni

 

I actually gave my just-delivered-a-baby SIL the book and a box of supplies during my BAW hiatus -- I thought it might be a nice no-left-brain-required pastime for those oddly timed bits of downtime.  She and I did a bunch of them while I was there.  No pics though, sadly.

[Jane in NC]

Mine seem to be much shorter than the originals but here are a couple. The Psalms that talk about enemies felt awkward to rewrite as my mind doesn't divy up the world into friends and enemies, good doers, evil doers and so forth. You can kind of see how that played out in the second example.

 

My Psalm 90

We are but dreams

Fleeting and brief

In the shadow of your eternity

Pull us to you

Entwine us in your presence

For you are the beginning and the end

 

 

My Psalm 102

Oh God, you picked me up

Snapped me like a twig

And grafted me onto the Tree of Life

Do the same to the gossips, presumers, projectors

the power hungry calculators

Snap them

So they can be grafted too

And thrive under your nourishment

Your love is the water

That sustains us

 

This is so lovely.

 

I read about your Psalm rewrite project while in the service waiting room of the car dealership, having one of those flukey things repaired on a car, a thing that goes wrong at the most inconvenient of times.  For the first hour and a half or so of my waiting, I managed to ignore the inane television program and read. Unfortunately though an unhappy customer then managed to use the waiting room as her stage, pulling us all into her drama.  It was hard to refocus on my book so instead I focused on Psalm 1 and my own potential rewrite. What a pleasant diversion!  Thank you!

 

 

[Onceuponatime]

Since this is the end of the first quarter, I thought I would post my list of books read so far:

 

Reading list 2015

January:

 

Mansfield Park- Austen (England, classic romance, morality tale, 19th century)

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan- See (China, historical fiction, lives of women, 19th century)

The Strange Library - Murakami  (life and death)

The Night of Four Hundred Rabbits- Peters ( Mexico, mystery, drugs)

Moriarty- Horowitz (England, 19th century, mystery)

Common Sense and Age of Reason- Thomas Paine (non-fiction, 18th century)

 

February

Book Line and Sinker - Jenn McKinlay (mystery, librarians, Massachusetts)

Cosmos- Sagan ( Non-fiction)

Mrs. Pollifax Pursued- Dorothy Gillman (Us, Africa, intrigue)

Devil May Care- Elizabeth Peters (Virginia, Mystery)

Library: An Unquiet History- Matthew Battles (non-fiction)

Winter's Tales- Isak Dinesen- (Short stories, Denmark)

Behold, Here's Poison- Georgett Heyer (Mystery, England)

 

March

To Kill a Mockingbird- Lee (Deep South, prejudice)

House of Silk- Horowitz (Sherlock, mystery, England)

As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust- Bradley (Mystery, Canada, Flavia)

Death at Wentwater Court- Dunn (Mystery, England, Daisy Dalrymple)

This Rough Magic- Mary Stewart (Corfu, mystery)

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button- F. Scott Fitzgerald (a backwards life)

Encore Provence- Peter Mayle (life in Provence)

The Tale of Hill Top Farm - Susan Wittig Albert (Mystery, Beatrix Potter, village life)

 

I've started A Moveable Feast by Hemingway and am getting through it rather quickly. It is a fascinating and disconcerting look into life in Paris for the artsy expat set during the 20's. It actually makes me like Hemingway as a person more than I thought I would. At least he seems a little more sane to me than some of the other characters he talks about.

[idnib]

My Psalm 90

We are but dreams

Fleeting and brief

In the shadow of your eternity

Pull us to you

Entwine us in your presence

For you are the beginning and the end

 

I love them both, but this one especially reminds me of some of the Sufi poetry I have read. 

[Uff Da!]

:001_wub: Thanks for the positive feedback.  I learned a lot doing this project and not just because I've never written much poetry.  Rewriting Psalms teaches prayer: prayers of thanks, prayers of rejoicing, prayers of blessing and even prayers of cursing.  I think CS Lewis said something about the cursing in the psalms being primitive (or something like that) but I don't agree with him after rewriting them.

[LaughingCat]

Just wanted to say that my library did that one time.... on all 30+ books I returned.  :lol:  I went back in and said - there's a whole slew of books showing on my acct (and my kids acct) that I returned the other day, and then went down the list saying "that one, and that one and that one" -- they ended up just printing the whole list and searching for all of them. 

 

Fortunately my branch has always been nice about these kinds of things and dealt with the problem appropriately :hurray:  

[*Inna*]

Eliana, congratulations! Beautiful couple!

[Guest]

Books.  This thread is about books. 

 

I did not read much last week, but I think there are some books I finished before that I never got a chance to talk about here.

 

I finished three lit books:

 

The Changeling by MIddleton & :Rowley This is part of my Shakespearean contempraries self-challenge - and I liked it much more than the Jonson.  One of the threads is a tragedy, the other semi-comedic, and both examine similar themes from slightly different angles.  The gender issues are disturbing here, but there is some interesting nuance.

 

The Moonlit Pond: this is an anthology of Korean poetry that was written in Chinese.  There are some really lovely poems in here... though it took me a while to adjust to it reminding me of Chinese poetry, but having a different flavor.

 

The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym by Poe: (thank you, Stacia)  This is a fascinating book.  I found the first ~third to be the most chilling and compelling, but the whole thing was entrancing... and I want to reread it some day looking more closely at the reliability of the narrator...

 

2 comfort reads:

 

Coronets and Steel & Blood Spirits by Sherwood Smith:  These are fluffy books, but so sweet and just what I needed in the midst of the hecticness...  I have the third one almost finished as well.

 

I am looking forward to resuming my regular reading patterns... I feel so odd when I am reading this little over a prolonged period of time.

[Guest]

I currently have Mrs. Dalloway on my shelves and will be reading it in honor of Virginia Woolf.  Join me in reading her works.  All are available online here at The University of Adelaide.

 

re: Virginia Woolf:

 

Her essay Death of the Moth is online - short and very good.  I've used it with my high school students.

 

Her novel Flush - a biography of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's dog - is unlike many of her other books and very delightful.

 

The London Scene, her collection of essays about London is very enjoyable - brief, but evocative prose.

 

I loved reading her Writer's Diary and some collected letters so much that I'm now reading the complete multi-volume sets of both her letters and diaries.

 

 

  I did squeeze in a few pages of Hilary Mantel's Bring Up the Bodies.  Someone on this thread told me that Mantel was better in identifying who "he" is in this book.  Mantel's use of the pronoun in Wolf Hall often confused me although "he" meant Cromwell (and not one of the other men involved in the scene).  No question--this Man Booker Prize winner is well done, but the sense of foreboding that I have prevents me from picking up this particular book every time I have a chance to read. 

 

I couldn't continue with the book (though I keep meaning to come back to it) because it clashed so strongly with what I've learned in my studies of the period.  It is an interesting angle and I should like it better than I do, but it was both distant and 'off', for me.  I keep reading people's reviews hoping for I'm not sure what... a reason to pick it up again?  Or to set it aside permanently? 

 

Last week I finished Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni.  I went in and out of enjoying the book, but any book that makes me more introspective, like the Betrothed did, makes it feel like a worthwhile read.  The dominating characteristic of each character reflects many conflicting emotions that many of us experience.  The author has a sense of humor and effortlessly speaks directly to the reader in some instances.  The book explained the background for the time period in great detail, particularly the war of the times and the Plague in Milan in the early 1600s.  Culturally fitting for Italy at the time, it deals with good and evil from a Catholic perspective.  I would recommend it!

 

 

This has been on my TBR lists for a long time - I'll need to bump it up the list now that I'm past the wedding and (I hope!) reading more again.  Thank you!

 

 

And another Shannon preview - The Riddle of the Labyrinth: The Quest to Crack an Ancient Code by Margalit Fox.  It's about the discovery and deciphering of the Linear B script of Crete.  I think she'll enjoy it - a main focus of the book is the little known story of Alice Kober, who was a key figure in deciphering the script. 

 

This, too, has been on my TBR lists for quite a while.  Thank you for bringing it to my attention again!

 

 

 Life has been busy, hectic, & stressful at times & I feel like it has put me off my reading groove. I need & WANT to find it again. Sigh. :willy_nilly:on top of heart, soul...

 

 

 

:grouphug:   Wishing you many days of peace and tranquility... with lots of contented reading! 

 

 

Reading Virginia Woolf's suicide note made me feel so very sad. Depression is so frightening to me because even when I am not in the midst of it, I am still scared that it will come back. (Bell Jar descending, anyone?)

 

It isn't depression for me, it is pain/fatigue/cardiac issues, but I know that dread that certain symptoms might mean a return to the bad days again... days of being a burden and feeling worthless.  I can only imagine the nightmare if it were my mind rather than my body that was unreliable.

 

...but her life wasn't one of misery.  She had so many busy, happy days...

 

Since this month is Childhood Sexual Abuse awareness month I want to mention that Woolf was sexually abused by her older half brothers (one more significantly than the other), and the return of her mental illness coincided with revisiting those years in working on memoirs. 

 

...but she was more than her illness.  She was a spunky, opinionated, brilliant woman who read widely, thought deeply, and cared intensely about the world and her fellow humans.  When I was reading her Writer's Diary the other year, I did it in snippets here and there, a little each day, and I missed Virginia when I finished it... so much so that I spent the rest of the year dipping in and out of Bloomsbury...

 

 

 

[Maus]

21. "No More Meltdowns" by Jed Baker, Ph.D.  Recommended by the neuropysch.  It addressed several very familiar sounding situations.  I need to go back through once for each of my children, and try these solutions.

 

20. "Amazed by Grace" by Sheri Dew (LDS).

19. "Teaching from Rest: A Homeschooler's Guide to Unshakable Peace" by Sarah Mackenzie.

18. "How to Become a Straight-A Student" by Cal Newport.

17. "Eight Plus One" by Robert Cormier.

16.  "Unbroken" by Laura Hillenbrand.

15. "How to Train Your Dragon" by Cressida Cowell.

14.  "As You Wish" by Cary Elwes.

13. "The Giver" by Lois Lowry. 

12. "My Louisiana Sky" by Kimberly Willis Holt. 

11. "Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself" by Alan Alda.  

10. "When I Was Your Age" edited by Amy Ehrlich.

9. "Freak the Mighty" by Rodman Philbrick.  

8. “Broken Things to Mend†by Jeffrey R. Holland (LDS)

7. “When You Can't Do It Alone†by Brent Top. (LDS)

6. “What to Do When You Worry Too Much†and “What to Do When Your Temper Flares†by Dawn Huebner, Ph.D.â€

5. “Tales of a Female Nomad†by Rita Golden Gelman.

4. “Heaven is for Real†by Todd Burpo.

3. "Your Happily Ever After" and "The Remarkable Soul of a Woman" by Dieter F. Uchtdorf. (LDS)

2. "Cliff-Hanger" by Gloria Skurzynski and Alane Ferguson.

1. "Rage of Fire" by Gloria Skurzynski and Alane Ferguson.

[LaughingCat]

My books for the week:

 

Clean Sweep - reread, because I was thinking this was a different book :lol: oh, well - it is an enjoyable, light read anyway

Pocket Apocalypse by Seanan McGuire -- another enjoyable, light read

Happiness By Design -- finally finished this one - the beginning was good but the end fell flat

Rethinking Positive Thinking -- this is one of those books that could have been 10x shorter -- but the idea, man, I really think that could be a game changer for me -- I'd seen it before but the way they put it in the book actually got me trying it out -basically that after 'dreaming' about something you want/goal, you should 'dream' about the obstacles and be much more likely to act to bypass the obstacles (or give up the dream altogether)

 

Agatha Christie month ended this week, and uh, well, um, I did manage to finish 1 short story :leaving:   "The Tuesday Night Club"  (first story in Miss Marple, the Complete Short Stories)

C.S. Lewis month should go better since I was already thinking about reading Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe since we just watched the BBC version of the first 3 books (original order) for movie night (more recent versions are still a little past younger for age and older for sensitivity to fighting scenes)

[idnib]

I also started an absolutely gorgeous book called Seeing Trees: Discover the Extraordinary Secrets of Everyday Trees by Nancy Ross Hugo.  It is a fabulously photographed book on trees - close-up, botanical drawing style photographs.  I thought it would just be a beautiful coffee-table style book, and got it for the pictures, but it's actually a wonderful natural history/botany read.

 

Our copy came and it's such a beautiful book. I love the photography. I haven't read it because as soon as I showed it to DS he disappeared with it and was reading it for a couple of hours. I noticed he hasn't put it back in a common area of the house so he's got it squirreled away. I guess I'm in line after him. Thanks for telling us about it.

[mumto2]

 

Lewis month should go better since I was already thinking about reading Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe since we just watched the BBC version of the first 3 books (original order) for movie night (more recent versions are still a little past younger for age and older for sensitivity to fighting scenes)

I love the BBC version of those books. Our library had them when the dc's were little, we watched them so many times I finally bought our own set! As I remember they follow the books much more closely then the Disney remakes.

 

I just finished Patricia Brigg's latest Alpha and Omega book, Dead Heat https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18941694-dead-heat, very good. :)

[TeacherZee]

I love the BBC version of those books. Our library had them when the dc's were little, we watched them so many times I finally bought our own set! As I remember they follow the books much more closely then the Disney remakes.

 

I just finished Patricia Brigg's latest Alpha and Omega book, Dead Heat https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18941694-dead-heat, very good. :)

 

Swedish tv used to always show them during the easter break here. And my mom read me the books when I was growing up. But I think I will be trying Mere Christianity for C.S. Lewis month.