Jump to content

Menu

Book a Week in 2014 - BW24


Robin M
 Share

Recommended Posts

Ali in OR - I highly recommend the Penderwicks as audiobooks also.  Those were a huge hit at my house.  DH was teasing DD about something and she turned around and quoted Shakespeare at him ... she learned it from the Penderwicks. At that point I just gave up teaching and figured audiobooks would take care of it all.  

 

Penderwicks would work well--more in the class of "books they know by heart"! I never got around to the third book, so it would be fun for me too. We're new to audiobooks--finally realized we spend so much time driving from place to place that audiobooks would make the car time far more enjoyable. The Harry Potter books were our first trial (and we started with book 3 and just kept going on to the next one from there).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 260
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Stacia,

 

I see you dress to match your avatar, or perhaps you chose your avatar to match the way you dress!

 

Nice photo, ladies.

 

Regards,

Kareni

 

:lol:

 

Um, it must be that I unconsciously dressed to match my avatar because I never even thought of that! I just love stripes & love that scarf, so it is sort-of my traveling scarf....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I recall that Eliana has spoken highly of the author Andrea K Höst.  If you have a Kindle, her book

Stray (Touchstone Book 1) is currently free.

 

"Part 1 of the Touchstone trilogy.

On her last day of high school, Cassandra Devlin walked out of exams and into a forest. Surrounded by the wrong sort of trees, and animals never featured in any nature documentary, Cass is only sure of one thing: alone, she will be lucky to survive.

The sprawl of abandoned blockish buildings Cass discovers offers her only more puzzles. Where are the people? What is the intoxicating mist which drifts off the buildings in the moonlight? And why does she feel like she's being watched?

Increasingly unnerved, Cass is overjoyed at the arrival of the formidable Setari. Whisked to a world as technologically advanced as the first was primitive, where nanotech computers are grown inside people's skulls, and few have any interest in venturing outside the enormous whitestone cities, Cass finds herself processed as a 'stray', a refugee displaced by the gates torn between worlds. Struggling with an unfamiliar language and culture, she must adapt to virtual classrooms, friends who can teleport, and the ingrained attitude that strays are backward and slow.

Can Cass ever find her way home? And after the people of her new world discover her unexpected value, will they be willing to let her leave?"

 

Regards,

Kareni

Link to comment
Share on other sites

For those who enjoy science fiction ~

 

Get Tor.com’s Original Fiction Hugo Finalists for Free

 

Regards,

Kareni

I just finished requesting a stack of the Charles Stross' Landry Files books which are mentioned here.  Sounds a bit like Torchwood  for the Dr. Who fans.  I have seen these books on another list at some point.

 

Pam(and others) -- Ds is loving the Orson Scott Card books.  He is my slightly reluctant reader so good to see him with a book that isn't a programming language!

 

Edited...fixed an autocorrect error,  Torchwood not touchstone??????

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Eliana-- :grouphug: praying for a safe and easy delivery for your Dd.  I know how hard the waiting is,  Dd kept us waiting the entire two weeks!

 

Just had a quick look for your Thunder at Twilight.  No luck but will try again later.  It would fit well with others I have been reading. Four Sisters http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/mar/30/four-sisters-romanov-duchesses-helen-rappaport-review is in my stack.  One of the ones I definitely plan to read.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Why can't I "like" posts this morning? :( [ETA: Problem fixed; user error, as usual]

 

Finished John Buchan's The Thirty-Nine Steps, just so I wouldn't be the only one in the world (certainly in my family except for Wee Girl) who hasn't read it. It was okay. I still can't appreciate thrillers. But I'm now reading Buchan's The Strange Adventures of Mr Andrew Hawthorn & Other Stories, and liking it very much indeed. The stories are mostly set in Scotland at different times, and show Buchan to have considerable flexibility in writing style. My current read, "The Watcher By the Threshold," is a convincing take on the Scott-era gothic.

 

(Middle Girl re-read The 39 Steps while I had it borrowed, and then moved on to Greenmantle, which I will leave to her.)

 

Also finished The Poetic Edda, which I thought I'd have to abandon but then found available in the same translation on-line. Middle Girl this year read her children's Nibelungenlied, so I read her some sections with the Norse versions of the same events, which she enjoyed. No polar bears in the Siegfried/Kriemhild version! It was nice having recently seen lots of viking treasures at the National Museum in Edinburgh, so I had vivid mental images to go with the lays.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Aww, look at you two lovelies shining so beautifully together. This is such a wonderful pic!

 

 

Stacia and Negin, lovely picture! So fun to be able to put faces with names.

 

 

Nice photo, ladies.

 

Thank you all :). 

 

 

DH has arrived in time, spend the night with his family.

 They still expect, mil will pass away within a day.

:grouphug: 

 

Happiness is...

 

a really long plane ride (21 hours) 

and 7 new books to read on my iPad

and an extra iPad battery (just in case)

 

I leave tomorrow.   :thumbup1:

Happy travels, Heather. 

 

They sent everybody home.

MIL still unconscious but stable,  it can take a week before she will pass away

dd can't handle this situation very well.

:grouphug: 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Loesje :grouphug:

 

Heather -- I hope traveling goes well and that you enjoy your visit home.

 

I just finished A Pleasure and a Calling.  Really enjoyed it although totally creeped out.  Not much more to say.  It was masterfully written with lots of layers.  Circumstances kept changing as the next bit of history was revealed.  Fascinating.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Gracious, I just looked back and realized I did not finish one single book last week.  My eldest was home from college for a week (she's off now to New York to stay with my father-in-law and work at a PAYING JOB :hurray: after a slew of "internships"...) and the gardening was good.  Oh well.  

 

My youngest and I are still listening to Eragon and also reading The Queen of Atolia (second in Megan Whalen Turner's Thief series); they have enough similarities that both of us are getting sub-plot issues confused, LOL... ("wait -- is this the one with the werecat that speaks in his mind, or is that the other one?!")  I am nearly done, thank goodness, with Naipul's Beyond Belief...  I started, and then misplaced, Elie Wiesel's The Gates of the Forest -- it has subsequently resurfaced, but in the meantime I dug into one of my 5/5/5 books, The Song of the Distant Dove: Judah Halevi's Pligramage.  I am really enjoying this -- Halevi was an 11th c. physician/poet/leader who lived in several cities in Muslim-ruled Spain, before making a pilgrimage to Jerusalem just before his death.  Raymond Scheildlin's contributions in the book are marvelous -- he provides a great deal of historical background of the time, developing liturgical conventions in which Halevi was immersed, possible other influences from Arab/Sufi poetry.  And his close readings of the poems themselves are first rate... Eliana, I think you would enjoy it...

 

 

Happiness is...

 

a really long plane ride (21 hours) 

and 7 new books to read on my iPad

and an extra iPad battery (just in case)

 

I leave tomorrow.   :thumbup1:

Safe travels!  Enjoy your visit. Is this your daughter's first time to the US? I was following your other thread with interest.

 

 

 

I am still not a grandmother...

 

...but soon, G-d willing.

 

I've been spoiled, my kids, except for my youngest, were all really close to their due dates... and just a few days post dates feels like an eternity...

We're all impatient!!  OK, baby, all right already!  Maybe today.

 

 

 

 

Pam(and others) -- Ds is loving the Orson Scott Card books.  He is my slightly reluctant reader so good to see him with a book that isn't a programming language!

I'm glad to hear it.  My son is similarly slightly reluctant, and he really enjoyed the early Card books.  

 

 

They sent everybody home.

MIL still unconscious but stable,  it can take a week before she will pass away

dd can't handle this situation very well.

:grouphug: My eldest was 14 when my MIL went into a coma and then languished for an extended time before dying.  It was really, really hard on her.  Such situations are ghastly for everyone, but maybe particularly for youngsters who on the one hand are old enough to (more or less) understand what's happening, but who on the other hand have little prior experience with death... they have so much to process all at once...  Holding you all in the light... :grouphug:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Pam, I hear you about the paying job vs unpaid internships! Only slightly less discouraging than the unpaid-but-you-must-get-experience jobs are the jobs where child gets a paycheck from the university and turns around to give it right back to the university for tuition. Which is actually dh's fulltime situation, come to think of it....

 

Eliana, we are agog with anticipation, if that's the right way to use "agog"! Adorable news and photos expected soon.

 

And speaking of adorable photos, I am so envious of both Negin and Stacia now.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Safe travels! Enjoy your visit. Is this your daughter's first time to the US? I was following your other thread with interest.

 

 

:

Actually my daughter's visa did not come in time so she cannot go. She is staying here with her dad and her older brother. My middle child and I are going to the U.S. for two weeks so my mom doesn't have a fit. :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Eliana, there is a group of literary ladies waiting with virtual arms to welcome your grandbaby into the world :D May the birth be easeful for both mama and babe.

 

VC, will keep you apprised as to Iphigenia's appearance or non-appearance.

 

 

 

Robin and Amy, ds gave a big smile when I told him you wanted to see the finished product.

 

Loesje, your family has my continued thoughts.

 

And all my other BaWers to you say :seeya: as I sit here with my strong coffee and dark chocolate.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Violet Crown, Outlander is a series by Diana Gabaldon about a woman from the 1940s who travels back into time to 1743 Scotland. It's kind of historical romance fiction but it's not the typical romance-y bodice ripper though there is plenty of sex. It's either a you love it or you hate it kind of series. http://www.amazon.com/Cross-Stitch-Outlander-Diana-Gabaldon-ebook/dp/B000FC2L1O/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1402331833&sr=8-1&keywords=Outlander

 

Starz is putting out a TV version this summer and the 8th book in the series is due out tomorrow so it's stirring up the fans.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

NoseInABook, thanks for that info. Doesn't sound like quite what I'm in the market for, though it would certainly be timely.

 

Shukriyya, just a few weeks ago I finished reading that very book to Wee Girl. She announced that the Iliad and Odyssey were the Best Books Ever. The Provensens also lavishly illustrated The Golden Treasury of Myths and Legends in the same style. Books well worth hunting down! Thanks for putting up those gorgeous pictures.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

attachicon.gifbaby.jpeg

 

I am over the moon.

 

She was born at home early this morning after an easy, speedy labor.

 

Mother and baby are well... and we Skyped this morning! (I hereby renounce all previous Luddite tendencies... and am more than resigned to switching over to a smart phone... which dd assured me would make sending baby pictures so much easier... )

 

...she missed this morning's Torah reading, so her name should be announced Thursday morning.

 

I am always amazed by the intensity of joy when a longed for happiness comes into reality. ..my cup overfloweth...

 

may we all share much joy together.

Huzzah!!! What a sweet little bundle. Welcome to the world!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

attachicon.gifbaby.jpeg

 

I am over the moon.

 

She was born at home early this morning after an easy, speedy labor.

 

Mother and baby are well... and we Skyped this morning!  (I hereby renounce all previous Luddite tendencies... and am more than resigned to switching over to a smart phone... which dd assured me would make sending baby pictures so much easier... )

 

...she missed this morning's Torah reading, so her name should be announced Thursday morning.

 

I am always amazed by the intensity of joy when a longed for happiness comes into reality.  ..my cup overfloweth...

 

may we all share much joy together.

Absolutely beautiful!!!!! Congratulations to all but especially to you Eliana.  So glad mother and baby are well! :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

attachicon.gifbaby.jpeg

 

I am over the moon.

 

She was born at home early this morning after an easy, speedy labor.

 

Mother and baby are well... and we Skyped this morning!  (I hereby renounce all previous Luddite tendencies... and am more than resigned to switching over to a smart phone... which dd assured me would make sending baby pictures so much easier... )

 

...she missed this morning's Torah reading, so her name should be announced Thursday morning.

 

I am always amazed by the intensity of joy when a longed for happiness comes into reality.  ..my cup overfloweth...

 

may we all share much joy together.

 

Awww... mazel tov to all!  

 

Skype is awesome!  

 

I resisted getting a smart phone for years.  Sooooo never going back, now.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am over the moon.

 

She was born at home early this morning after an easy, speedy labor.

 

Mother and baby are well... and we Skyped this morning!  (I hereby renounce all previous Luddite tendencies... and am more than resigned to switching over to a smart phone... which dd assured me would make sending baby pictures so much easier... )

 

...she missed this morning's Torah reading, so her name should be announced Thursday morning.

 

I am always amazed by the intensity of joy when a longed for happiness comes into reality.  ..my cup overfloweth...

 

may we all share much joy together.

 

Mazel tov, Eliana! She's beautiful! So glad to hear all went well. Can you believe you're a grandma?! :D And I, too, resisted a smart phone until just last year. Now I'm finding so many uses for it.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Shukriyya, just a few weeks ago I finished reading that very book to Wee Girl. She announced that the Iliad and Odyssey were the Best Books Ever. The Provensens also lavishly illustrated The Golden Treasury of Myths and Legends in the same style. Books well worth hunting down! Thanks for putting up those gorgeous pictures.

 

Oh my, you own this treasure???!! I looked at it on Amazon and it's running at $223 :eek: Ds, who has steeped himself in these myths since he was 6, starting with the d'Aulaires, has already declared he'll be studying classics at uni and it would be a fun addition to our collection of various re-tellings. The other one sounds intriguing, too. I'll have to send some wishes to the second-hand book fairies that I come upon it serendipitously at a used-book store. In the meantime I can happily enjoy the glorious pics online and enjoy the fact that a BaWer actually owns this book :D

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Loesje, my condolences.

 

Oh my, you own this treasure???!! I looked at it on Amazon and it's running at $223 :eek: Ds, who has steeped himself in these myths since he was 6, starting with the d'Aulaires, has already declared he'll be studying classics at uni and it would be a fun addition to our collection of various re-tellings. The other one sounds intriguing, too. I'll have to send some wishes to the second-hand book fairies that I come upon it serendipitously at a used-book store. In the meantime I can happily enjoy the glorious pics online and enjoy the fact that a BaWer actually owns this book :D

 

Try bookfinder.com; I see a battered copy (mine has the binding detached and a botched* repair job) for under $20, plus shipping.

 

*by me

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We weep in joy and we weep in sorrow. 

One life ends as another begins. 

We celebrate a life well lead and

the wonders of a new life and what is ahead.

 

Hugs and love to both loesje and Eliana

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I recall that Eliana has spoken highly of the author Andrea K Höst.  If you have a Kindle, her book

Stray (Touchstone Book 1) is currently free.

 

 

 

 

Thunder Before Twilight: I loved this book.  Vienna before WWI... a few key strands - Trotsky, Hitler, Freud, and, most of all, Archduke Franz Ferdinand... and his assassins. It is both readable and, as far as I can tell, solidly researched.  It isn't exhaustive or heavily detailed, but it does vivid sketches, and nails the atmosphere and the personalities.

 

More books added to my stacks. Thanks ladies.

 

 

 

attachicon.gifbaby.jpeg

 

I am over the moon.

 

She was born at home early this morning after an easy, speedy labor.

 

Mother and baby are well... and we Skyped this morning!  (I hereby renounce all previous Luddite tendencies... and am more than resigned to switching over to a smart phone... which dd assured me would make sending baby pictures so much easier... )

 

...she missed this morning's Torah reading, so her name should be announced Thursday morning.

 

I am always amazed by the intensity of joy when a longed for happiness comes into reality.  ..my cup overfloweth...

 

may we all share much joy together.

AW!!!!  So adorable.   Yes, you must get a smart phone. They are quite awesome as well as useful.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Look at this marvelous artwork, in a Golden children's book of the Iliad and the Odyssey no less...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Is it weird that I like this picture so much I would frame it and put it on my wall?  Something about it is just fantastic to me.

 

attachicon.gifbaby.jpeg

 

I am over the moon.

 

She was born at home early this morning after an easy, speedy labor.

 

Mother and baby are well... and we Skyped this morning!  (I hereby renounce all previous Luddite tendencies... and am more than resigned to switching over to a smart phone... which dd assured me would make sending baby pictures so much easier... )

 

...she missed this morning's Torah reading, so her name should be announced Thursday morning.

 

I am always amazed by the intensity of joy when a longed for happiness comes into reality.  ..my cup overfloweth...

 

may we all share much joy together.

 

I can't see the picture.  *pouty face*

 

Congrats to you on your wonderful new addition.  Just think of all the books you'll get to read to her!  

 

 

My MIL just passed away.

 

I am so sorry.  ((HUGS))  Will you be going to meet your DH?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

attachicon.gifbaby.jpeg

 

I am over the moon.

 

She was born at home early this morning after an easy, speedy labor.

 

Mother and baby are well... and we Skyped this morning!  (I hereby renounce all previous Luddite tendencies... and am more than resigned to switching over to a smart phone... which dd assured me would make sending baby pictures so much easier... )

 

...she missed this morning's Torah reading, so her name should be announced Thursday morning.

 

I am always amazed by the intensity of joy when a longed for happiness comes into reality.  ..my cup overfloweth...

 

may we all share much joy together.

 

And what a joy to have stumbled upon this news, Eliana!  Heartfelt congratulations to you.  

 

Had to smile, too, at your renunciation of Luddite tendencies.  Sounds so like something I might say down the road. ;-)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

We weep in joy and we weep in sorrow. 

One life ends as another begins. 

We celebrate a life well lead and

the wonders of a new life and what is ahead.

 

Hugs and love to both loesje and Eliana

 

Beautifully and generously put, Robin.

 

I'm rather taken with this article, The Poetics of the Psyche : Adam Phillips on Why Psychoanalysis is Like Literature and How Art Soothes the Soul. He's able to so beautifully articulate the places in between...What he says here may be resonant to some in our little group, I think,...

 

 "It’s not as though when I read I’m gathering information, or indeed can remember much of what I read. I know the books that grip me, as everybody does, but their effect is indiscernible. I don’t quite know what it is…There are powerful unconscious evocative effects in reading books that one loves. There’s something about these books that we want to go on thinking about, that matters to us. They’re not just fetishes that we use to fill gaps. They are like recurring dreams we can’t help thinking about."

 

And this, on art...

 

"One of the reasons we admire or like art, if we do, is that it reopens us in some sense — as Kafka wrote in a letter, art breaks the sea that’s frozen inside us. It reminds us of sensitivities that we might have lost at some cost."

 

And finally, on poetry...

 

"You know something’s happened to you but you don’t know what it is. You’ll find yourself going back to certain poems again and again. After all, they are only words on a page, but you go back because something that really matters to you is evoked in you by the words. And if somebody said to you, Well, what is it? or What do your favorite poems mean?, you may well be able to answer it, if you’ve been educated in a certain way, but I think you’ll feel the gap between what you are able to say and why you go on reading."

 

The article is fairly long but thought provoking and well worth reading. I was taken enough with his writing and perspective that I've got one of his books on request from the library.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'll try pasting again - it didn't work this morning, but I was not operating on all cylinders...

 

 

 

There's something so moving about that universal baby pose, arms bent and up, head turned to the side, fists loose and relaxed, little bell-shaped mouth poised in a sleep that suggests the angelic realm from whence they so recently danced...

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We weep in joy and we weep in sorrow. 

One life ends as another begins. 

We celebrate a life well lead and

the wonders of a new life and what is ahead.

 

Hugs and love to both loesje and Eliana

 

:iagree: Hugs to you both! I've only had time to skim this thread so far, but wanted to make sure I acknowledged both of you. :grouphug:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I will get back to read this a little later, kids are anxious to go swimming. I have a few seconds, as I told them no swimming until bedrooms were picked up!

 

I finished both Ice by Sarah Beth Durst (thanks, Iona!!!) and The Peach Keeper by Sarah Addison Allen over the weekend. I really enjoyed both of them, even though I would consider them "beach reads". That's exactly what I was looking for in both of them, so I was pleased. Ice, a YA book, was  surprisingly interesting. I really enjoyed the second half of it. Does anyone know more about East of the Sun, West of the Moon? I guess that's what it was based on, but I haven't had the time to figure out when and by whom that was written. Something I read said a Norwegian fairytale? I want to look more into that one. The Peach Keeper - I'm not a huge fan of Allen, but I did enjoy this book. I will say that the continuously referencing the characters' high school pasts kind of grated on me, but I read it quick enough that it was fine. A typical, cliche storyline of the true meaning of friendship, growing up into your own person, and romance. :D

 

I haven't decided what is going to get cracked open next...I have too many to choose from, lol!

 

Pam - I was excited to get Longitude on my Kindle the other day for $1.99 - I thought it was you who recommended that to me, at the same time as The Mapmaker's Wife? Anxious to get into both of those still.

 

Okay, the sun awaits.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Oh Eliana--she is gorgeous!  I can smell that wonderful new baby smell over the Internet. Sigh...

 

When will you be able to rub that precious head against your cheek?

 

Sending best wishes to Baby, her parents, her grandparents and her wonderful aunts and uncles. 

 

Jane

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 Does anyone know more about East of the Sun, West of the Moon? I guess that's what it was based on, but I haven't had the time to figure out when and by whom that was written. Something I read said a Norwegian fairytale? I want to look more into that one. The Peach Keeper - I'm not a huge fan of Allen, but I did enjoy this book.

 

 

I just read this last week in Lang's, 'Blue Fairy Book' which I got as a kindle book for .99. Yes, it's a Norwegian fairy tale. From Wiki here's a synopsis...

 

 

 

 

Pam - I was excited to get Longitude on my Kindle the other day for $1.99 - I thought it was you who recommended that to me, at the same time as The Mapmaker's Wife? Anxious to get into both of those still.

 

 

I got that, too, when it came up as a daily deal :D I saw the movie several years ago and really enjoyed it.

 

 

Okay, the sun awaits.

 

Such a lovely sentiment and felt reality...as I muse on the idea of the great, glimmering orb of warmth awaiting my singular step into its beaming presence...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share


×
×
  • Create New...