Book a Week in 2014 - BW24

[Guest]

NM

[Stacia]

Continuing the blue cover theme, there is Sacre Bleu by Christopher Moore

which doesn't really look like the others, but was printed in such a lovely blue ink inside. Such a subtle, but rich & luscious change from black ink. Thought the story was ok, but loved the 'look' (font, ink, paper) of the book.

[Stacia]

That's one bizarre list.

 

Yes, Buzzfeed anything is quite bizarre and rather entertaining. The "Recommended For" for each book is hilarious. #17's "recommended for" is rather weird/disturbing/and wacky at the say time   :lol:   :leaving:.

 

See, I thought shukriyya was referring to the banned children's books list when she said it was a bizarre list. I didn't see the list of 2013 faves as being bizarre. Lol.

 

So, shukriyya, which list were you referring to?

[Guest]

Stacia, you know what I love about your book choices? They are so entrancing to me visually. I would read anything you tell me to, because I know it will be aesthetically captivating!

[Violet Crown]

Today I finished the collection of John Buchan's short stories I'd been reading. One was in the "thriller" genre, and it was definitely among the weakest of the stories; so I find myself wondering how that got to be the genre he mostly wrote. Anyhow, a definite recommend.

 

I was just about done with my Mauriac, and then Middle Girl spirited it off. So that's on hold for the moment. I started Zola's Germinal, and found it disappointing only two chapters in; crude and obvious in the same way that makes me dislike Upton Sinclair. Dh told me he got through the first hundred or so pages and dropped it for the same reason.

 

So it was off to the used bookstore, where the clearance table featured Mauriac's three Thérèse novels for a pound, and inside, a nice old 2-vol. Everyman Decameron. My suitcase is going to be so heavy on the way back. Especially because while I was picking over my books, Wee Girl was rummaging through the Enid Blyton bin.

[Uff Da!]

I am so sorry loesje.

 

And congratulations Eliana.

 

Summer is officially here and I am running ragged in the best of all possible ways. I finished T.S. Eliot's poems and am looking at the plays...maybe I'll read them, maybe not.  Weisel's All Rivers Run to the Sea has captured me and I am happy carrying it from park to park.  I also finished 2 Kings, 1 Chronicles and am working through 2 Chronicles for the Coursera class.  I don't have enough time to read the Bible references while keeping up with the lectures from week to week.  I've started a list of what I want to read for that course and am not trying to match the readings to the lectures.

 

Hopefully, I'll get some down time to catch up this thread.  My best to all of you.

Winter

 

[Uff Da!]

Adding a Four Quartets excerpt:

 

Exceprt from Four Quartets:

 

Home is where one starts from.  As we grow older

The world becomse stranger, the pattern more complicated

Of dead and living.  Not the intense moment

Isolated, with nobefore and after,

But a lifetime burning in every moment

And not the lifetime of one man only

But of old stones that cannot be deciphered.

There is a time for the evening under starlight,

A time for the evening under lamplight

(The evening with the photograph album).

Love is most nearly itself

Where here and now cease to matter.

Old men ought to be explorers

Here and there does not matter

We must be still and still moving

Into another intensity

For a further union, a deeper communion

Through the dark cold and the empty desolation,

The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters

Of the petrel and the porpoise.   In  my end is my beginning.

[Stacia]

Stacia, you know what I love about your book choices? They are so entrancing to me visually. I would read anything you tell me to, because I know it will be aesthetically captivating!

 

:) :grouphug:

 

Thanks, Monica. You just made my day!

[JennW in SoCal]

For some crazy reason, organizing books by color is a trend.  It seems dumb to me -- how can you ever find anything?  

 

 

But I guess it is a "thing" because I found several articles about it, such as this one in defense of organizing books by color

 

 

[Stacia]

For some crazy reason, organizing books by color is a trend.  It seems dumb to me -- how can you ever find anything?  

 

 

But I guess it is a "thing" because I found several articles about it, such as this one in defense of organizing books by color

 

See? I've always wanted to do this w/ my bookshelves. Admittedly, I don't own as many books as some, so that might be helpful in my case. But, I tend to think of books in terms of cover art & color anyway, so I always thought organizing by color made sense.

 

ETA: Yes, the shirts in my closet are hung in rainbow order. It's so pretty that way. :laugh:

[shukriyya]

 

Speaking of which, I started Lady of Devices and I may just set it down. It's not grabbing me and I have a huge stack of other books I'd like to get into. Shukriyya, I remember you saying it's nothing great, right?

 

 

I read it in a day, it was entertaining fluff. Beach reading.

 

 

This (Sea Creatures from the list linked above) is like the 3rd book I've seen in the last few weeks with this blue cover, I am getting confused! (Okay, after posting them I see they are different, but every time I go into the library I think I'm seeing one book and it's the other.)

 

 

 

 

Oh, those covers...I've looked at those books simply for their cover art alone. All the Light We Cannot See went onto my tbr list a month or so ago and I just added Under the Wide and Starry Sky.

 

I know what you mean. I keep thinking of this cover (of a book that has been popular in the past year):

 

 

This was another cover that caught my eye but I don't think I'm up for the content..

 

See, I thought shukriyya was referring to the banned children's books list when she said it was a bizarre list. I didn't see the list of 2013 faves as being bizarre. Lol.

 

So, shukriyya, which list were you referring to?

 

I was referring to the inane banned children's book list, naturally :lol:

[shukriyya]

So it was off to the used bookstore, where the clearance table featured Mauriac's three Thérèse novels for a pound, and inside, a nice old 2-vol. Everyman Decameron. My suitcase is going to be so heavy on the way back. Especially because while I was picking over my books, Wee Girl was rummaging through the Enid Blyton bin.

 

Knowing your 'love' of Enid Blyton this had me :smilielol5:

 

Adding a Four Quartets excerpt:

 

Exceprt from Four Quartets:

 

Home is where one starts from.  As we grow older

The world becomse stranger, the pattern more complicated

Of dead and living.  Not the intense moment

Isolated, with nobefore and after,

But a lifetime burning in every moment

And not the lifetime of one man only

But of old stones that cannot be deciphered.

There is a time for the evening under starlight,

A time for the evening under lamplight

(The evening with the photograph album).

Love is most nearly itself

Where here and now cease to matter.

Old men ought to be explorers

Here and there does not matter

We must be still and still moving

Into another intensity

For a further union, a deeper communion

Through the dark cold and the empty desolation,

The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters

Of the petrel and the porpoise.   In  my end is my beginning.

 

I wonder...I don't think home is where we start from at all...we begin flung out into the lungs of a question whose shore we spend most of our lives trying to swim back to...nor do I think the pattern grows more complicated as we get older, quite the contrary...do you remember lying on the grass when you were seven looking at the intricacy of each blade, feeling its squeak and color in the amazement of your thumbs while the sun bleached your very thoughts with the light of possibility...I love TS Eliot's poetry but I have to disagree with his sentiment here no matter how skillfully and beautifully he presents it...Thank you for sharing that piece and allowing me a little poetic day-dream :D

 

See? I've always wanted to do this w/ my bookshelves. Admittedly, I don't own as many books as some, so that might be helpful in my case. But, I tend to think of books in terms of cover art & color anyway, so I always thought organizing by color made sense.

 

ETA: Yes, the shirts in my closet are hung in rainbow order. It's so pretty that way. :laugh:

 

Really?! I'm impressed. I don't think I have enough color in my wardrobe to do that with, being more of a neutral gal myself. I'm now imagining your closets like this...

 

 

 

And while I was searching for the above gif I couldn't help but notice this...The Puffy Shirt episode...Look at the body language and facial expressions here :lol:

 

 

 

[Stacia]

Aw, I love Kramer!

[Kareni]

 Dove into M. L. Buchman's I Own The Night and thoroughly enjoying it. I think it was Kareni who suggested. Thank you. looking forward to reading the rest of the series.

 

It was indeed!  I'm glad you're enjoying the series.  Buchman has a new spinoff series, too, the first book of which I'm waiting to get from my library.  The book is Pure Heat (Firehawks).

 

Regards,

Kareni

[shukriyya]

Aw, I love Kramer!

 

Yep, he's a keeper, a dork of the most loveable kind :001_wub:

 

[Stacia]

...

[Kareni]

Continuing the blue cover theme, there is:  

 

And, continuing with the blue theme ~ have you seen this article about a very talented high schooler?

 

This High Schooler Turned Her Prom Dress Into a Work of Art

 

Regards,

Kareni

[Stacia]

And, continuing with the blue theme ~ have you seen this article about a very talented high schooler?

 

This High Schooler Turned Her Prom Dress Into a Work of Art

 

Regards,

Kareni

 

Wow. Really lovely. She did a gorgeous job!

[mumto2]

And, continuing with the blue theme ~ have you seen this article about a very talented high schooler?

 

This High Schooler Turned Her Prom Dress Into a Work of Art

 

Regards,

Kareni

Wow!!!  What a lovely dress.

[shukriyya]

Yeah, that's about it. Mine is light on the colors blue & purple because they're not my faves (though purple was my fave when I was 3yo).

 

I think you need to branch out, color-wise, shukriyya. :D

 

 

 

Hehe, we have one of those growing near us :D

 

And, continuing with the blue theme ~ have you seen this article about a very talented high schooler?

 

This High Schooler Turned Her Prom Dress Into a Work of Art

 

Regards,

Kareni

 

Wonderful!

[Negin]

nm

 

 

 

[JennW in SoCal]

And, continuing with the blue theme ~ have you seen this article about a very talented high schooler?

 

This High Schooler Turned Her Prom Dress Into a Work of Art

 

Regards,

Kareni

 

My son and I once started and fairly quickly abandoned a jigsaw puzzle of Starry Night.  We got the border and the bigger yellow orb (I started to write sun but that makes no sense...) then were thwarted by hundreds of small jigsawed bits of blue!

[Guest]

 

  I also finished 2 Kings, 1 Chronicles and am working through 2 Chronicles for the Coursera class.  I don't have enough time to read the Bible references while keeping up with the lectures from week to week.  I've started a list of what I want to read for that course and am not trying to match the readings to the lectures.

 

Which course is this? I looked into Coursera after you mentioned it last week and I joined the Greek and Roman mythology class. Oy. My first quiz I got a 17 out of 20! :( When I retook it, however, I did get a 20 out of 20 and there were some different questions. I haven't taken a test in 14 years. And they want me to do an essay?!? I don't know if I'll be able to keep up with it, especially the reading. This is the book list to be covered in 10 weeks:

• Greek Tragedies, Volume 1, ed. by David Grene and Richmond Lattimore (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992)
• Greek Tragedies, Volume 3, ed. by David Grene and Richmond Lattimore (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992)
• Hesiod, Theogony and Works and Days, M. L. West, trans. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988 or 2009)
• Homeric Hymns, Sarah Ruden, trans. (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2005)
• Homer, The Odyssey, Robert Fagles, trans. (New York: Penguin, 1997 or 2006)
• Virgil, The Aeneid, Robert Fitzgerald, trans. (New York: Vintage, 1990)
• Ovid, Metamorphoses, David Raeburn, trans. (New York: Penguin, 2004)

I don't know...I'll give it a valiant effort. I like that you can participate as much or as little as you like. So, if I don't have the chops for it, at least I can get something out of it.  I know I would most likely do much better in a Bible course, though!

 

[Guest]

NM

[shukriyya]

Reminds me of this pin that my daughter found on Pinterest:

 

 

 

 

I'm sure I'm not the only one who scanned that table for possible reads :lol: And the one right in the front is what drew my eye immediately, the elegant minarets set against a light-filled sky with that poetic title, "The Mirrored World" sent me scurrying to Amazon to learn more...

 

"The critically acclaimed author of The Madonnas of Leningrad (“Elegant and poetic, the rare kind of book that you want to keep but you have to share†—Isabel Allende), Debra Dean returns with The Mirrored World, a breathtaking novel of love and madness set in 18th century Russia. Transporting readers to St. Petersburg during the reign of Catherine the Great, Dean brilliantly reconstructs and reimagines the life of St. Xenia, one of Russia’s most revered and mysterious holy figures, in a richly told and thought-provoking work of historical fiction that recounts the unlikely transformation of a young girl, a child of privilege, into a saint beloved by the poor."

 

And onto the tbr list it has gone, rather close to the top I might add. Thank you, Negin :D

 

[Jane in NC]

Adding a Four Quartets excerpt:

 

Exceprt from Four Quartets:

 

Home is where one starts from.  As we grow older

The world becomse stranger, the pattern more complicated

Of dead and living.  Not the intense moment

Isolated, with nobefore and after,

But a lifetime burning in every moment

And not the lifetime of one man only

But of old stones that cannot be deciphered.

There is a time for the evening under starlight,

A time for the evening under lamplight

(The evening with the photograph album).

Love is most nearly itself

Where here and now cease to matter.

Old men ought to be explorers

Here and there does not matter

We must be still and still moving

Into another intensity

For a further union, a deeper communion

Through the dark cold and the empty desolation,

The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters

Of the petrel and the porpoise.   In  my end is my beginning.

 

Thank you, Winter.  I just had a lovely dockside dinner with my niece, her husband and a fussy but still adorable toddler.  And you provided dessert!

[shukriyya]

Thank you, Winter.  I just had a lovely dockside dinner with my niece, her husband and a fussy but still adorable toddler.  And you provided dessert!

 

What was the main course? Apparently I need a vicarious dockside dinner right now :lol:

 

[Jane in NC]

What was the main course? Apparently I need a vicarious dockside dinner right now :lol:

 

 

Crab cakes, potato salad and tomatoes/cucumbers.  Washed down with a Carolina Blonde Ale. 

[shukriyya]

Crab cakes, potato salad and tomatoes/cucumbers.  Washed down with a Carolina Blonde Ale. 

 

Okay, I'm in.

 

[shukriyya]

Tying in this week's blue cover art theme and the ongoing fairy tale theme...this from "The Snow Queen."

 

 

[Stacia]

...

[shukriyya]

So, how do they get that much knit stuff so securely fitted around a tree???? Seems like it would take a knitting mafia or something in order to succeed....

 

 

I dunno but there's a name for it...yarn bombing. Blech, of all the titles they could have chosen! :thumbdown:  At any rate here is a website detailing the how-tos. And another pic...a little more subtle. I haven't decided if I like the idea as a whole. I appreciate the creativity but there's something so gorgeous about the variegated planes and valleys, shadows and light of a tree trunk, yk. Not to mention the roughness of it and the stories it tells one's hands...

 

 

 

 

So I have to ask all the BaWers now.... What type of jigsaw-puzzle-putter-together are you? :lol:

 

Do you start w/ the edges, then fill in by color type? (My dh, my mom, & my dd are like this.)

 

Do you start anywhere, just looking at the piece, then finding where the exact piece would be in the pic, then putting the piece in its approximate location? (This is me, so I do best w/ jigsaws that look like a Where's Waldo book w/ lots of unique details. My dh & my mom think I'm completely abnormal that I put puzzles together this way.)

 

Do you go by shape of the puzzle piece?

 

Other?

 

 

Dh and ds are the jigsaw puzzlers in this household. I lend my critical eye occasionally but it's generally unhelpful :lol: Now crosswords, specifically the NYTimes crosswords, that's another story...

[Stacia]

Even though I posted the pic, I like trees in their birthday suits. :D  I'm not into the knitting mafia dressing trees.

 

 

 

 

[Pam in CT]

My uncle gets 1500 piece puzzles of things like 1500 pennies, or carpenters' nails, or wavelets on a nearly still lake.  He does them once (first the edges, then working inward in layers by puzzle shape).  If he particularly "likes" a puzzle (??! what the criteria for a "good" puzzle is, I know not) then he'll do it again with the picture face down.

 

:huh:

 

Needless to say the rest of us more or less just watch him in astonishment.  We don't, uh, have much value to add.

[Stacia]

My uncle gets 1500 piece puzzles of things like 1500 pennies, or carpenters' nails, or wavelets on a nearly still lake.  He does them once (first the edges, then working inward in layers by puzzle shape).  If he particularly "likes" a puzzle (??! what the criteria for a "good" puzzle is, I know not) then he'll do it again with the picture face down.

 

:huh:

 

Needless to say the rest of us more or less just watch him in astonishment.  We don't, uh, have much value to add.

 

My nephew did puzzles like this (by piece shape) when he was younger. He never even looked at the picture, just started picking up pieces & fitting them together by shape.

 

I'm guessing (???) a 'good' puzzle is one that has pieces that feel good (heavy enough) & snap together well. (You can certainly tell the 'good' puzzles from the 'bad' ones in that respect. Bad ones really have poor piece fit.)

[Mom-ninja.]

Um, a dictionary?! Banning a dictionary?

[aggieamy]

 

So I have to ask all the BaWers now.... What type of jigsaw-puzzle-putter-together are you? :lol:

 

Do you start w/ the edges, then fill in by color type? (My dh, my mom, & my dd are like this.)

 

Do you start anywhere, just looking at the piece, then finding where the exact piece would be in the pic, then putting the piece in its approximate location? (This is me, so I do best w/ jigsaws that look like a Where's Waldo book w/ lots of unique details. My dh & my mom think I'm completely abnormal that I put puzzles together this way.)

 

Do you go by shape of the puzzle piece?

 

 

 

Always start with the edge - after arranging the pieces in neat piles by color first - and then I go by picture.  I didn't know there was another way to do it!

 

Um, a dictionary?! Banning a dictionary?

 

The dictionary was asking for it with all those sassy words in it like curmudgeon and flummoxed.  

[Guest]

So I have to ask all the BaWers now.... What type of jigsaw-puzzle-putter-together are you? :lol:

 

Do you start w/ the edges, then fill in by color type? (My dh, my mom, & my dd are like this.)

 

Do you start anywhere, just looking at the piece, then finding where the exact piece would be in the pic, then putting the piece in its approximate location? (This is me, so I do best w/ jigsaws that look like a Where's Waldo book w/ lots of unique details. My dh & my mom think I'm completely abnormal that I put puzzles together this way.)

 

Do you go by shape of the puzzle piece?

 

 

Corners, edges, then whatever. But, in all honesty, I am not very patient when it comes to puzzles. :blushing: By the time the corner and edges are done, I'm usually ready to move on to something else.

[Guest]

My uncle gets 1500 piece puzzles of things like 1500 pennies, or carpenters' nails, or wavelets on a nearly still lake.  He does them once (first the edges, then working inward in layers by puzzle shape).  If he particularly "likes" a puzzle (??! what the criteria for a "good" puzzle is, I know not) then he'll do it again with the picture face down.

 

:huh:

 

Needless to say the rest of us more or less just watch him in astonishment.  We don't, uh, have much value to add.

 

That's awesome.

[Kareni]

So I have to ask all the BaWers now.... What type of jigsaw-puzzle-putter-together are you? :lol:

 

 

I'm one who starts with the straight edged pieces.  I usually work my way inwards after that though there are those occasional islands within the frame.

 

Regards,

Kareni

[Stacia]

Interesting side note.... Is Dracula buried in Naples?

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2655354/Is-Draculas-final-resting-place-16th-century-headstone-unearthed-Naples-belong-Vlad-Impaler.html

[Shawneinfl]

I almost forgot this puzzle we bought to put together this summer. Going to find it now... http://www.springbok-puzzles.com/product/38-10619-super-size-1000-piece-jigsaw-puzzle

[Stacia]

Picked up some books on hold at the library today. Couldn't wait to get started on them (even though I'm still reading Mink River), so I've started Kathy's recommendation of Ru by Kim Thúy. So lovely so far.

[shukriyya]

Another lovely cover...

[mumto2]

Interesting side note.... Is Dracula buried in Naples?

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2655354/Is-Draculas-final-resting-place-16th-century-headstone-unearthed-Naples-belong-Vlad-Impaler.html

Should be great for the tourist industry in Naples.......

Picked up some books on hold at the library today. Couldn't wait to get started on them (even though I'm still reading Mink River), so I've started Kathy's recommendation of Ru by Kim Thúy. So lovely so

This was a good one. Read it two or three weeks ago.

 

Jigsaw -- Dd loves them. Her bedroom floor is always covered with her work in progress which is currently a 3000 piece one, her largest ever, which is maybe 200 pieces from done. I have spent the last few years doing puzzles with the kids. Ds and I are very much edges and colour sections types where Dd quickly fills in based on shape. Although for the 3000 piece one even she sank to edges and colors.

 

For dds birthday Dh and I discovered rather last minute that her loot was predominantly good jigsaws. We both buy as we see and toss things in a big box in the garage that the kids don't look in. Then normally a few days before we look at what we have and flesh things out a bit. For Dd we had forgotten pretty much until the day before to look. Anyway I ended up wrapping her a huge stack of puzzles mixed with a couple other things (books,dvds). Honestly expected a slightly miffed girl because it was a bit boring imo instead she was thrilled. Loved her puzzle birthday, keeps her stack of to be done ones on the floor of her room too.....the floor is full. :lol:

[mumto2]

http://www.stavepuzzles.com/index.php?p=store&cPath=802

 

Couldn't resist adding a link to these incredible puzzles.  Years ago I read an article by Barbara Bush detailing her love of jigsaw and these in particular.  Way Out of our price range but gorgeous.

[Violet Crown]

http://www.stavepuzzles.com/index.php?p=store&cPath=802

 

Couldn't resist adding a link to these incredible puzzles. Years ago I read an article by Barbara Bush detailing her love of jigsaw and these in particular. Way Out of our price range but gorgeous.

I like the Bunny Bacchus!

[Negin]

nm

nm

[Negin]

Saw this. This is so me. I love smelling books. in fact, one of my dearest friends and I barely knew each other until we went to a bookstore and realized that we're both book smellers. She was a closet smeller and was always rather embarrassed about it, whereas I was very open and out there. We got quite a few funny looks in the bookstore. To this day, we laugh about that :lol:. 

 

 

 

 

[Jane in NC]

Another corner, edge, color island type.

 

The puzzle discussion led me to think of my very wise mother who would set up a puzzle during the winter months.  She would place one of those folding card tables somewhere with two chairs.  We would often sit in silence and work on the puzzle, but I realize now that she was creating a comfortable and safe place to talk with her daughters one at a time.