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Book a Week in 2014 - BW 44


Robin M
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Happy Sunday, dear hearts!  Today is the start of week 44 in our quest to read 52 Books. Welcome back to all our readers, to all those who are just joining in and to all who are following our progress. Mr. Linky is all set up on the 52 Books blog to link to your reviews. The link is below in my signature.
 
52 Books blog - November is National Novel Writing Month
November is coming up fast and that means it is time for Nanowrimo which is short for National Novel Writing Month.   If you aren't aware of what it is - here's the skinny:

 
 

National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write 50,000 words  by midnight, November 30.

Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.

Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.

Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that's a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.

 

I've been participating since 2007 which makes November a very crazy, stressful, interesting month.  Why do I do it?  Because it challenges me to be creative.  However, going to do things a little differently this time.  I'm in the midst of editing a story, which involves a lot of rewriting.  I'm going to be a Nano rebel.  I've checked in with the powers that be and the consensus is 1 hour of editing is equal to 1000 words, so shooting for at least two hours of editing a day. Yeah!  It's doable.  Plus the sparkly idea percolating in the back of my head may just get incorporated into the story.  

My son is also participating through the Young Writer's Program and he gets to set his own writing goal.  He loves writing fan fiction and would probably write 8 hours a day if I let him.

So if you have ever had the urge to write, jump in and join the rest of the nanowrimo's. For those nonwriters among us, check out the Irish Times new book club or Russia Beyond the Headlines article on children's literature and How Dr. Dolittle became Dr. Ayobolit.

 

 

History of the Ancient World - chapter 60 and 61

 

 

What are you reading this week?

 

 

 

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Huzzah!  Your Internet is back, Robin. 

 

Franketienne's little book Ready to Burst is blowing me away.  The author embraces a writing style referred to as "spiralism"--which admittedly could annoy some of you.  There is a story that is being told but not in a linear fashion.  It is a spiral, a form to which I was always attracted in mathematics (specifically in systems of differential equations but I am confident you don't want to hear about that).  Life is a spiral, as far as I am concerned.  We can pretend we walk on linear paths but we always return to where we have been as new people ("In my end is my beginning" as noted by T.S. Eliot). 

 

Thinking about spiralism and Franketienne led me on a Google trail where I made an amazing discovery.  Hold on to your hats those of you interested in poetry in translation!  Then check out the Poetry Translation Centre!  I'll come back to Franketienne but let me first offer an example of what the PTC does.  Here is a taste of a poem by Coral Bracho:

 

 

Agua de medusas,
agua láctea, sinuosa,
agua de bordes lúbricos; espesura vidriante -Delicuescencia
entre contornos deleitosos. Agua –agua suntuosa
de involución, de languidez

 

Now for the literal translation:

 

Water of jellyfish,
milky, sinuous water,
water of slippery borders; glassy thickness - Deliquescence
amid delightful outlines. Water - sumptuous water
of regression, of languidness

 

Then for the version referred to as the "translated poem":

 

Water of jellyfish,
milky, snaking water
of ever-changing shapes; glossy water-flesh; melting
into its lovely surroundings. Water - sumptuous waters
receding, languid

 

Is this cool or what??

 

Here is the start of the translated version of Franketienne's poem Dialect of Hurricanes:

 

          Every day I use the dialect of lunatic hurricanes.
I speak the madness of clashing winds.
          Every evening I use the patois of furious rains.
I speak the fury of waters in flood.
          Every night I talk to the Caribbean islands in the tongue of hysterical storms. I speak the hysteria of the rutting sea.
          Dialect of hurricanes. Patois of rains. Language of tempests. Unravelling of the spiralling life.
          Fundamentally, life is tension. Towards something. Towards someone. Towards oneself. Towards the point of maturity where the old and the new, death and birth untangle. And every being is realised in part in the search for its double, a search which may, in a sense, merge with the intensity of a need, a desire, and an infinite quest.

 

Which brings us back to this thing called spiralism.  ;)

 

Oh--and the Poetry Translation Centre offers recorded readings of the poems, both original and translated.

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Coming to you live from my verizon hotspot as our at&t lines are completely out in our house. 

 

Sad to say The Left Hand of Darkness has been relegated back to the shelves. I had high hopes but they were dashed as couldn't get into the story, the world or the writing.  

However, Dean Koontz saved me and I thoroughly enjoyed reading Frankenstein: City of Night.  Now I'll have to search out the 3rd book.

Started Dan Simmons The Hollow Man last night and it has me hooked.

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I'm currently reading a non-fiction called The Wandering Gene and the Indian Princess: Race, Religion, and DNA by Jeff Wheelwright. It is about the breast cancer gene. The author is more a story teller than a scientist, so he meanders around in lovely descriptions of scenery and personalities to set the stage for the historical transmission of the gene.

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Last night, I finished David Treuer's The Translation of Dr Apelles: A Love Story. It's a unique look at being Native American in the modern American world. Through two parallel storylines, Treuer examines the traditional, old version of Indian stories contrasted & compared with the version of a modern man's story. Treuer's work also weaves in questions about stories, books, histories, our inner lives, & our outer lives. I think I found it especially intriguing because dd has always been interested in Native American life & we have spent many hours over the years at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian (& a few other places too), which provides a glimpse not only of history but also of modern life. Treuer's book fit neatly with all the exhibits I've seen & read about; Treuer is well-placed to muse on some of these topics as he is Ojibwe from the Leech Lake Reservation in northern Minnesota. Worth reading. 3. 5 stars.

 

About the Book

A daring and unique novel that firmly places Treuer, author of Little, at the forefront of his generation of writers.
 
He shakes, and looks down at the document, just a few small pages, and looks back up at the ceiling. He realizes he has discovered a document that could change his life forever. It also occurs to him that he has never been in love. What a strange sensation.

Dr. Apelles lives a diligent existence. A Native American translator of Native American literature, his life has become solitary and academic. It is when he stumbles across an extremely old manuscript--a love story--that only he can translate, that the rules--the very words--which define his life begin to shift. Is it his place to give meaning to this ancient story? Can language be trusted? And what, more importantly, does he know of love? With a shock of discovery, he realizes that he has never been in love. As the translation progresses, the story of Dr. Apelles takes many fascinating forms.

A brillant, innovative mystery of letters, award-winning author, David Treuer, excavates the persistent myths that belittle the contemporary Native American experience. He shows how the power of imagination can liberate or circumscribe, and poses the question: whose power is greater: the imagined, or the one who imagines.

 

This is yet another book I read in my quest to read from indie publishing companies, this time Graywolf Press. If we end up doing a reading challenge for indie books & you're interested in participating, I'm happy to send this book to you. (Just send me a PM & I'll drop it in the mail to you.) 

 

Just added another book to my to-read list after hearing another excellent interview on the Bob Edwards show today. Wow. Sounds really fascinating & I really enjoyed listening to Egeland's thoughts & opinions.

 

Next a visit from Jan Egeland.  He was in charge of coordinating humanitarian relief for the United Nations during some of the world’s most horrific recent events: the Indian Ocean tsunami, the crisis in Darfur, the aftermath of the Iraq war. Egeland’s book about his experience is called A Billion Lives: An Eyewitness Report from the Frontlines of Humanity.

 

Ok, for me being an avid library patron, I must say that I've been a total hypocrite & have collected a HUGE number of personal books this year.  :tongue_smilie:  (Partly due to my trying to read more indie presses & my library doesn't always have those books.) And I've recently ordered a few used books for myself. And picked up a few books from the used bookstore. And just requested yet another book through PaperbackSwap. :willy_nilly:  My stacks are teetering & towering. It doesn't help that I bought three books at the book signing yesterday, as well as dd picking up a different one for herself (The Miniaturist -- such a pretty cover too). I may need to put myself on a library moratorium for awhile & make a dent in my own stacks.

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Stacia, I was planning on sending Ready to Burst to you when I am finished with it.  Sounds like your stacks may be Ready to Topple... :laugh:

 

:smilielol5:

 

(Wow. Btw, I'll continue my hypocritical ways & say that I'd love to read it...! Sounds incredible. Love your post about poetry translation!)

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Morning!

I'm up to chapter 50 of HoAW, started another Shakespeare and am half way through a Christopaganism book. That's shaping up to be more interesting than I was expecting and I am regretting there is no longer anyone in the category of person I would discuss the study questions with.

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I finished reading Interview with the Vampire. I found the characters and their relationships pretty interesting, thought the book was slow in the middle but ended well. Then I continued spooky reading by starting The Turn of the ScrewJames' sentences are too long and convoluted, imo, but I'm really into the story. It is much spookier than Interview with the Vampire and somehow reminds me of Picnic at Hanging Rock - the setting I guess, and the realistic nature of everything except the ghosts.

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I read A Christmas Carol this morning.  I first read that book when I was 11 or 12.  I loved it then and I love it now.  (This is another book my 13 year old will be reading in school... and something magical happened and plugging books into the pre-planned schedule of school days with the books in order from oldest to newest, he'll finish A Christmas Carol the last day of school before Christmas break.  I couldn't have planned it better!)  The end of A Christmas Carol just makes me so happy.

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Last night I finished Grace Burrowes' The Captive (Captive Hearts)  which is a Napoleonic era historical romance and the first in a trilogy.  I started book two some time ago and then read book three mistakenly thinking it was book two.  I enjoyed this book, and now I need once more to obtain book two and read it to completion.

 

"He'll never be free...

 

Captured and tortured by the French, Christian Severn, Duke of Mercia, survives by vowing to take revenge on his tormentors. Before the duke can pursue his version of justice, Gillian, Countess of Greendale, reminds him that his small daughter has suffered much in his absence, and needs her papa desperately.

 

Until he surrenders his heart...

 

Gilly endured her difficult marriage by avoiding confrontation and keeping peace at any cost. Christian's devotion to his daughter and his kindness toward Gilly give her hope that she could enjoy a future with him, for surely he of all men shares her loathing for violence in any form. Little does Gilly know, the battle for Christian's heart is only beginning."

 

 

The hero of book two, The Traitor, was the captor/interrogator of the hero of The Captive.  It will be interesting to read his story.

 

Regards,

Kareni

 

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Thinking about spiralism and Franketienne led me on a Google trail where I made an amazing discovery.  ...  Here is a taste of a poem ...

 

Now for the literal translation:

 

Then for the version referred to as the "translated poem":

 

 

 

All of this talk of translation and retranslation reminds me of Mark Twain's book  The Jumping Frog: In English, Then In French, Then Clawed Back Into A Civilized Language Once More By Patient, Unremunerated Toil which I enjoyed reading when I was studying French.

 

And that reminds me of another fun piece of Twain's on The Awful German Language. (That piece is short and is complete at the link.)

 

Regards,

Kareni

   
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I finished The Ivy Tree yesterday and as Jane described it wrapped up in a satisfying way gathering speed and texture towards the end. I've one more Mary Stewart to read for my 5/5 and while I have Wildfire at Midnight and Nine Coaches Waiting in the stacks I'm more drawn to The Gabriel Hounds with its Middle Eastern setting.

 

Other than that I'm not sure what I want to read next. Possibilities are I am Livia, The Red Garden or Ursula LeGuin's Lavinia thanks to Eliana's rec. I'd really like to dive into some Patricia McKillip...The Alphabet of Thorn and Nan in Mass's recs, Solstice Wood and Winter Rose or The Limits of Enchantment another book by Graham Joyce, author of Some Kind of Fairytale which I finished last week. But I feel the pull to try and complete my 5/5 within the year so am trying to stick to the straight and narrow with that.

 

And lastly has anyone read any William Gibson? Dh is a fan and is currently reading Zero History and thinks I might like it despite it being a genre that I rarely visit.

 

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I finished The Ivy Tree yesterday and as Jane described it wrapped up in a satisfying way gathering speed and texture towards the end. I've one more Mary Stewart to read for my 5/5 and while I have Wildfire at Midnight and Nine Coaches Waiting in the stacks I'm more drawn to The Gabriel Hounds with its Middle Eastern setting.

.

I read The Gabriel Hounds many times and probably enjoyed it more than the other two books. I can't really remember Nine Coaches Waiting. I should probably read it again.

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I finished The Ivy Tree yesterday and as Jane described it wrapped up in a satisfying way gathering speed and texture towards the end. I've one more Mary Stewart to read for my 5/5 and while I have Wildfire at Midnight and Nine Coaches Waiting in the stacks I'm more drawn to The Gabriel Hounds with its Middle Eastern setting.

 

Other than that I'm not sure what I want to read next. Possibilities are I am Livia, The Red Garden or Ursula LeGuin's Lavinia thanks to Eliana's rec. I'd really like to dive into some Patricia McKillip...The Alphabet of Thorn and Nan in Mass's recs, Solstice Wood and Winter Rose or The Limits of Enchantment another book by Graham Joyce, author of Some Kind of Fairytale which I finished last week. But I feel the pull to try and complete my 5/5 within the year so am trying to stick to the straight and narrow with that.

 

And lastly has anyone read any William Gibson? Dh is a fan and is currently reading Zero History and thinks I might like it despite it being a genre that I rarely visit.

 

My husband is also a fan of William Gibson but he knows better than to recommend any of his works to me. :001_rolleyes: He has witnessed too many eyerolls!

 

Well The Gabriel Hounds sounds delightful! Thanks for giving me an excuse to go to the library.

 

 

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Hello! It's been five weeks since my last BaW post, I think. Since then, I've finished:

 

â–  Iphigeneia at Aulis (Euripides. (Merwin / Dimock trans.; 1992). 128 pages. Drama.)
â–  Neurocomic (Hana Ros; 2014. 144 pages. Graphic non-fiction.)
â–  The Gatekeepers: Inside the Admissions Process of a Premier College (Jacques Steinberg; 2003. 336 pages. Non-fiction.)
â–  Station Eleven (Emily St. John Mandel; 2014. 352 pages. Fiction.)
â–  Gabriel: A Poem (Edward Hirsch; 2014. 96 pages. Poetry.)
â–  My Friend Jeffrey Dahmer (Derf Backderf; 2012. 224 pages. Graphic non-fiction.)

 

That brings my year-to-date total to 80, eight behind my two-a-week goal. And that's okay. Station Eleven was magnificent, by the way, especially if blending some Shakespeare and classical music into a post-plague narrative sounds good to you.

 

'been keeping busy with the adult literacy volunteer gig, flute practice and lessons, a Shakespeare MOOC, and helping my youngest with the last of her college applications, two of which will require supplements for the scholarship programs for which she has been recommended. (Woot!)

 

Edited to add a link that may motivate you to read Hirsch's beautifully difficult, exquisitely beautiful elegy, Gabriel: "A Masterpiece of Sorrow."

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Hello dear friends.  It's so nice to be back talking books and life with you.  

 

Quick Amy update:

 

We are moved in.  90% of boxes are unpacked.  It's feeling like home.  AND in one hour 35 people will be showing up at my house to for DS's birthday.  One year ago at this time we were so nervous waiting for him to be born and get the call to head down to Texas to pick him up.  Wow.  What a ride!

 

No news on DH's brother.  Medical examiner in Hawaii is still doing what they do.  They said it could still be a few weeks before the body is officially identified and they release cause of death.

 

I read A Christmas Carol this morning.  I first read that book when I was 11 or 12.  I loved it then and I love it now.  (This is another book my 13 year old will be reading in school... and something magical happened and plugging books into the pre-planned schedule of school days with the books in order from oldest to newest, he'll finish A Christmas Carol the last day of school before Christmas break.  I couldn't have planned it better!)  The end of A Christmas Carol just makes me so happy.

 

I love that story too.  Have you read his other Christmas stories?  We did that one year for my ladies book club and I remember that of the four I liked two and thought the other two were *meh*.  I can't remember which ones I liked though.

 

I finished The Ivy Tree yesterday and as Jane described it wrapped up in a satisfying way gathering speed and texture towards the end. I've one more Mary Stewart to read for my 5/5 and while I have Wildfire at Midnight and Nine Coaches Waiting in the stacks I'm more drawn to The Gabriel Hounds with its Middle Eastern setting.

 

Other than that I'm not sure what I want to read next. Possibilities are I am Livia, The Red Garden or Ursula LeGuin's Lavinia thanks to Eliana's rec. I'd really like to dive into some Patricia McKillip...The Alphabet of Thorn and Nan in Mass's recs, Solstice Wood and Winter Rose or The Limits of Enchantment another book by Graham Joyce, author of Some Kind of Fairytale which I finished last week. But I feel the pull to try and complete my 5/5 within the year so am trying to stick to the straight and narrow with that.

 

And lastly has anyone read any William Gibson? Dh is a fan and is currently reading Zero History and thinks I might like it despite it being a genre that I rarely visit.

 

Yesterday I crawled into bed exhausted at 8:30 and decided to (FINALLY) start The Ivy Tree.  At 1 am I finished it.  It was my first Mary Stewart and I've already got my second one on hold at the library.  I kinda want to read the story again already because there were so many twists and turns that I'm sure I missed something.  I've heard that this isn't her best novel and I can see where many of the complaints come from - the love story didn't show us enough background and the characters were a bit two dimensional - but the twists and more twists and even more twists to the plot were pretty awesome.  

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Hello! It's been five weeks since my last BaW post, I think. Since then, I've finished:

 

â–  Iphigeneia at Aulis (Euripides. (Merwin / Dimock trans.; 1992). 128 pages. Drama.)

â–  Neurocomic (Hana Ros; 2014. 144 pages. Graphic non-fiction.)

â–  The Gatekeepers: Inside the Admissions Process of a Premier College (Jacques Steinberg; 2003. 336 pages. Non-fiction.)

â–  Station Eleven (Emily St. John Mandel; 2014. 352 pages. Fiction.)

â–  Gabriel: A Poem (Edward Hirsch; 2014. 96 pages. Poetry.)

â–  My Friend Jeffrey Dahmer (Derf Backderf; 2012. 224 pages. Graphic non-fiction.)

 

That brings my year-to-date total to 80, eight behind my two-a-week goal. And that's okay. Station Eleven was magnificent, by the way, especially if blending some Shakespeare and classical music into a post-plague narrative sounds good to you.

 

'been keeping busy with the adult literacy volunteer gig, flute practice and lessons, a Shakespeare MOOC, and helping my youngest with the last of her college applications, two of which will require supplements for the scholarship programs for which she has been recommended. (Woot!)

 

Edited to add a link that may motivate you to read Hirsch's beautifully difficult, exquisitely beautiful elegy, Gabriel: "A Masterpiece of Sorrow."

 

The Gatekeepers does not quite reflect admissions reality in my opinion.  But then we were really turned off when we toured Wesleyan so perhaps I am prejudiced.

 

Hello dear friends.  It's so nice to be back talking books and life with you.  

 

Quick Amy update:

 

We are moved in.  90% of boxes are unpacked.  It's feeling like home.  AND in one hour 35 people will be showing up at my house to for DS's birthday.  One year ago at this time we were so nervous waiting for him to be born and get the call to head down to Texas to pick him up.  Wow.  What a ride!

 

No news on DH's brother.  Medical examiner in Hawaii is still doing what they do.  They said it could still be a few weeks before the body is officially identified and they release cause of death.

 

 

I love that story too.  Have you read his other Christmas stories?  We did that one year for my ladies book club and I remember that of the four I liked two and thought the other two were *meh*.  I can't remember which ones I liked though.

 

 

Yesterday I crawled into bed exhausted at 8:30 and decided to (FINALLY) start The Ivy Tree.  At 1 am I finished it.  It was my first Mary Stewart and I've already got my second one on hold at the library.  I kinda want to read the story again already because there were so many twists and turns that I'm sure I missed something.  I've heard that this isn't her best novel and I can see where many of the complaints come from - the love story didn't show us enough background and the characters were a bit two dimensional - but the twists and more twists and even more twists to the plot were pretty awesome.  

 

Happy Birthday to your cutie pie!  One year already?  You are brave to have a party so soon after unpacking boxes.

 

And welcome to the Mary Stewart club!

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Stopping by once again between gigs.  The matinee today is my spooky thing for the month of October, a youth production of The Addams Family musical. Fun music, a very talented cast AND several of the leads were the little newbies back when my kids were in this theater group.  Such a treat seeing these kids grow up and blossom! One girl confessed to having had a crush on my son way back when, but never having the nerve to talk to him!  Anyway, if any of you are fans of musical theater, this is a very funny show with lots of catchy music.  One more weekend to go.

 

The joy of community theater is working with musicians who are playing for fun (the pay barely covers gas, though they do feed us). This show has a small, enthusiastic contingent of college boys, one of whom is the percussionist.  All drummers are permanently stuck in the toddler stage of banging on pots except the rhythms are more sophisticated. Our young percussionist is no exception. providing all sorts of sound effects throughout the show and during breaks a non-stop backdrop of paradiddles, flams and drags.  It has meant no serious reading during breaks, so no progress to report on the Alan Furst book.  I did start a light read, Walden on Wheels.

 

I finished listening to Good Omens during dress rehearsal week.  I want to spend more time with a few of those characters!!  Now I'm onto the next audio book in the Master and Commander series.  

 

 

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The Gatekeepers does not quite reflect admissions reality in my opinion.  But then we were really turned off when we toured Wesleyan so perhaps I am prejudiced.

 

I was in the mood for something not elegiac or dystopian. The Gatekeepers worked.

 

From 1986 until 1989, I was an admissions counselor, first at a small two-year college in a big East Cost city and then at a major university in that same city. The traveling, the angst about converting admits to enrollments, and the reading, reading, reading all resonated with me. The rest, since I did not work for a very selective school, left me a little cold. It also made me understand better why my youngest, who has been anxiously courted by a list of schools that greatly impresses her aunt and grandmothers, and would likely impress Ralph Figueroa, opted out of the race.

 

It bores her.

 

And no matter how many times she runs the numbers, she can't for the life of her understand why parents push(ed) their children to get into colleges they have no hopes of affording. (The Bentes family was still on the hook for $26,000 annually for their daughter's Yale education. The mother worked sporadically, and the father's income was uneven. And that was in 2000 dollars. Let's wrap our minds around 2014 dollars.)

 

But that's another post altogether. Heh, heh, heh.

 

Afterthought: The other odd bit about The Gatekeepers? Figueroa attended Stanford and then headed to UCLA law school, if I remember correctly. And he became an admissions counselor when he grew up. So many of us on the road for good and great schools just thirteen or so years before Figueroa were in our early twenties, making between $23,000 and $27,000 annually, with our BA or BS.

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Started Dan Simmons The Hollow Man last night and it has me hooked.

 

I read Simmons' The Terror and Drood and then realized he's somewhat prolific!  Glad to hear a recommendation for a next choice for this author.  :)

 

I just finished Help for the Haunted by John Searles.  Gillian Flynn had some good things to say about it so I gave it a whirl.  A few unsatisfying loose ends never tied up by the end, but overall I enjoyed it. 

 

I finally finished The Whole Five Feet and liked it very much.  I may go back and make a few notes.

 

Other reads this past month:

The Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis

The Radleys by Matt Haig

Jackaby by William Ritter (supernatural Sherlock Holmes teen/YA--4/5 stars)

The Long Way Home by Louise Penny (latest Chief Inspector Gamache; not my favorite of the series and I wonder how many more Penny will do?)

Made for More: An Invitation to Live in God's Image by Hannah Anderson (very good so far)

 

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I am cheking in to mark the thread. Glad Robin was able to get our new week started even though her internet is down.

 

I did read a historical romance out of my library stack today, Mine til Midnight by Lisa Kleypas. It was pretty good. Not quite to formula, the couple consisted of a gypsy and the sister of a Lord who was not a titled Lady. Not the Dukes and multiple titles of my recent reads. ;)

 

I also started the third in Faith Hunter's Skinwalker series. No comments so far, still trying to remember who the characters are because it has been a year. :lol:

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Here's a free Kindle book that might appeal to some here:

 

The Emperor's Edge by Lindsay Buroker

 

"Imperial law enforcer Amaranthe Lokdon is good at her job: she can deter thieves and pacify thugs, if not with a blade, then by toppling an eight-foot pile of coffee canisters onto their heads. But when ravaged bodies show up on the waterfront, an arson covers up human sacrifices, and a powerful business coalition plots to kill the emperor, she feels a tad overwhelmed.

Worse, Sicarius, the empire's most notorious assassin, is in town. He's tied in with the chaos somehow, but Amaranthe would be a fool to cross his path. Unfortunately, her superiors order her to hunt him down. Either they have an unprecedented belief in her skills... or someone wants her dead."

 

The first Amazon reviewer, KinDallas, says: "The Emperor's Edge is a unique blend of steampunk and warrior caste fantasy with a dash of feminism." 

 

Regards,

Kareni

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Stopping by once again between gigs.  The matinee today is my spooky thing for the month of October, a youth production of The Addams Family musical. Fun music, a very talented cast AND several of the leads were the little newbies back when my kids were in this theater group.  Such a treat seeing these kids grow up and blossom! One girl confessed to having had a crush on my son way back when, but never having the nerve to talk to him!  Anyway, if any of you are fans of musical theater, this is a very funny show with lots of catchy music.  One more weekend to go.

 

The joy of community theater is working with musicians who are playing for fun (the pay barely covers gas, though they do feed us). This show has a small, enthusiastic contingent of college boys, one of whom is the percussionist.  All drummers are permanently stuck in the toddler stage of banging on pots except the rhythms are more sophisticated. Our young percussionist is no exception. providing all sorts of sound effects throughout the show and during breaks a non-stop backdrop of paradiddles, flams and drags.  It has meant no serious reading during breaks, so no progress to report on the Alan Furst book.  I did start a light read, Walden on Wheels.

 

I finished listening to Good Omens during dress rehearsal week.  I want to spend more time with a few of those characters!!  Now I'm onto the next audio book in the Master and Commander series.  

 

Jenn, I loved Walden on Wheels. Let me know what you think of it.

 

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I finished just two: Terry Pratchett's Unseen Academicals, which I listened to on CD -- both the book and Stephen Briggs' narration, complete with sustained different voices for each of the 1,684 characters are BRILLIANT; and Two Worlds: An Edinburgh Jewish Childhood by David Daiches, a marvelous memoir that my daughter in Edinburgh wanted and I got on Kindle so we both could read it.

 

Not a book, but just wanted to share that I also spent much of the week obsessively listening, over and over and over, to Annie Lennox' new CD Nostalgia.  Highly recommended for Funk & Wagnall crowd, and all other jazz and blues lovers...

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52 Books blog - November is National Novel Writing Month

November is coming up fast and that means it is time for Nanowrimo which is short for National Novel Writing Month.   If you aren't aware of what it is - here's the skinny:

 

 

 

I've been participating since 2007 which makes November a very crazy, stressful, interesting month.  Why do I do it?  Because it challenges me to be creative.  However, going to do things a little differently this time.  I'm in the midst of editing a story, which involves a lot of rewriting.  I'm going to be a Nano rebel.  I've checked in with the powers that be and the consensus is 1 hour of editing is equal to 1000 words, so shooting for at least two hours of editing a day. Yeah!  It's doable.  Plus the sparkly idea percolating in the back of my head may just get incorporated into the story.  

I'm thinking of going on the writers retreat, writing a short story and then quilting like mad for the rest of the retreat and through November. :leaving:   I don't think I even qualify as a rebel this year. 

 

I started My Antonia and love it. Lately, I've been thinking about identity and childhood.   I have memories of running wild on a turkey farm Northern Minnesota, what is was like to be little and struggle carrying buckets of slopping water on the dairy farm, to stand in the one room homestead and to wander through drafty barns that were built by Norwegian immigrants.  This cozy, beautifully written book fits into that nostalgia somehow.  I am so glad to be reading it.  

 

Gah....Maybe Giants in the Earth will be next.  :confused1:

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At&t repair gentleman came and replaced our old coaxial cable with new cat 5.  Yeah, now all is right with our world again.  Didn't realize how reliant we are on all our technology. 

 

 

I finished The Ivy Tree yesterday and as Jane described it wrapped up in a satisfying way gathering speed and texture towards the end. I've one more Mary Stewart to read for my 5/5 and while I have Wildfire at Midnight and Nine Coaches Waiting in the stacks I'm more drawn to The Gabriel Hounds with its Middle Eastern setting.

 

Other than that I'm not sure what I want to read next. Possibilities are I am Livia, The Red Garden or Ursula LeGuin's Lavinia thanks to Eliana's rec. I'd really like to dive into some Patricia McKillip...The Alphabet of Thorn and Nan in Mass's recs, Solstice Wood and Winter Rose or The Limits of Enchantment another book by Graham Joyce, author of Some Kind of Fairytale which I finished last week. But I feel the pull to try and complete my 5/5 within the year so am trying to stick to the straight and narrow with that.

 

And lastly has anyone read any William Gibson? Dh is a fan and is currently reading Zero History and thinks I might like it despite it being a genre that I rarely visit.

I thoroughly enjoyed Gibson's Neuromancer. 

 

Hello! It's been five weeks since my last BaW post, I think. Since then, I've finished:

 

â–  Iphigeneia at Aulis (Euripides. (Merwin / Dimock trans.; 1992). 128 pages. Drama.)
â–  Neurocomic (Hana Ros; 2014. 144 pages. Graphic non-fiction.)
â–  The Gatekeepers: Inside the Admissions Process of a Premier College (Jacques Steinberg; 2003. 336 pages. Non-fiction.)
â–  Station Eleven (Emily St. John Mandel; 2014. 352 pages. Fiction.)
â–  Gabriel: A Poem (Edward Hirsch; 2014. 96 pages. Poetry.)
â–  My Friend Jeffrey Dahmer (Derf Backderf; 2012. 224 pages. Graphic non-fiction.)

 

That brings my year-to-date total to 80, eight behind my two-a-week goal. And that's okay. Station Eleven was magnificent, by the way, especially if blending some Shakespeare and classical music into a post-plague narrative sounds good to you.

 

'been keeping busy with the adult literacy volunteer gig, flute practice and lessons, a Shakespeare MOOC, and helping my youngest with the last of her college applications, two of which will require supplements for the scholarship programs for which she has been recommended. (Woot!)

 

Edited to add a link that may motivate you to read Hirsch's beautifully difficult, exquisitely beautiful elegy, Gabriel: "A Masterpiece of Sorrow."

Thank you for sharing A Masterpiece of Sorrow - very heartfelt.

 

Hello dear friends.  It's so nice to be back talking books and life with you.  

 

Quick Amy update:

 

We are moved in.  90% of boxes are unpacked.  It's feeling like home.  AND in one hour 35 people will be showing up at my house to for DS's birthday.  One year ago at this time we were so nervous waiting for him to be born and get the call to head down to Texas to pick him up.  Wow.  What a ride!

 

No news on DH's brother.  Medical examiner in Hawaii is still doing what they do.  They said it could still be a few weeks before the body is officially identified and they release cause of death.

 

 

I love that story too.  Have you read his other Christmas stories?  We did that one year for my ladies book club and I remember that of the four I liked two and thought the other two were *meh*.  I can't remember which ones I liked though.

 

 

Yesterday I crawled into bed exhausted at 8:30 and decided to (FINALLY) start The Ivy Tree.  At 1 am I finished it.  It was my first Mary Stewart and I've already got my second one on hold at the library.  I kinda want to read the story again already because there were so many twists and turns that I'm sure I missed something.  I've heard that this isn't her best novel and I can see where many of the complaints come from - the love story didn't show us enough background and the characters were a bit two dimensional - but the twists and more twists and even more twists to the plot were pretty awesome.  

Happy birthday to your kiddo.  Glad you are getting moved in and settled.  I remember all our moves and the most important thing to me was getting everything unpacked to make the house feel like a home.

 

I am cheking in to mark the thread. Glad Robin was able to get our new week started even though her internet is down.

I did read a historical romance out of my library stack today, Mine til Midnight by Lisa Kleypas. It was pretty good. Not quite to formula, the couple consisted of a gypsy and the sister of a Lord who was not a titled Lady. Not the Dukes and multiple titles of my recent reads. ;)

I also started the third in Faith Hunter's Skinwalker series. No comments so far, still trying to remember who the characters are because it has been a year. :lol:

Thank goodness for Verizon and having a hotspot. Saved my butt.   I really should go back and reread the Skinwalker series.  I've been trying to resist buying yet another book but the temptation is getting to me.  Of course, it's been a while but think I'll remember all the players.

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I finished Jen Hatmaker's Interrupted and Jen Wilkin's Women Of The Word. A little over 100 pages into The Historian and I wish I had more time to devote to actually sitting down and reading it, I've been doing a chapter or two every evening before crashing out. 

 

I am readingh Wilkin's book right now.

 

 

Not a book, but just wanted to share that I also spent much of the week obsessively listening, over and over and over, to Annie Lennox' new CD Nostalgia.  Highly recommended for Funk & Wagnall crowd, and all other jazz and blues lovers...

I have seen Lennox on tv a few times this past week and have liked what I've heard.  I think I will have to make a purchase this week.

 

I finished While Beauty Slept by Elizabeth Blackwell.  It is an interesting  re-telling of Sleeping Beauty.  I am now reading Astonish Me  by Maggie Shipstead.

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Sat down & read a book of short stories today: Three Scenarios in Which Hana Sasaki Grows a Tail: Stories by Kelly Luce. Even though I'm not normally a fan of short stories, I found this collection quite enchanting. I absolutely loved the story "Wisher" -- just incredibly touching & wonderful. Also really enjoyed the story "Amorometer" -- fun & hopeful. The author is American, but the stories all revolve around Japan in some way & most contain elements of magical realism. 4 stars. Definitely recommended.

 

Again, this is one from an indie publisher: A Strange Object, a new(ish) publishing company in Austin, Texas. The book of short stories was the first book they published.

 

A quote I enjoyed from the story "Amorometer":

I must come to my point: I would very much like to meet you. As a widower of two years, I have found the companionship available to me (my tomcat and my memories) to be inadequate. The cat is unreliable and cantankerous, the memories often the same.

It may be true that regardless of a man's age, there remains inside him a kernel of youth. As I have aged, my curiosity has not lessened, but has migrated from my brain to my heart. It is not such a bad thing.

 

A starred review from Publishers Weekly:

Luce's debut short story collection with its captivating title and incandescent prose lures readers into a land both familiar and fantastically foreign, melding Japanese folklore and traditions with strange and memorable characters. In "Ms. Yamada's Toaster," a neighborhood buzzes with the newfound discovery of a toaster producing bread toasted with a kanji character indicating how you'd die. In "The Blue Demon of Ikumi," a honeymoon trip takes an unexpected turn when Saki confesses to her husband that the real reason that they got together was because she grew a tail. Nao in "The Wisher" considers himself "something of a priest: a hearer of confessions, witness of desires" as he is able to hear each wish that is cast by coin in a neighborhood wishing fountain. In "Amorometer," Aya receives news that she scored exceptionally high on the device "that measures one's capacity to love" even as she remained ambivalent in a lackluster marriage. Each story is stemmed in loneliness and Luce's writing packs subtle charm with a sense of foreboding that lingers long after reading.

 

Also, from the other book I just finished, I thought Jane, mumto2, & Pam might enjoy this quote...

 

From David Treuer's The Translation of Dr Apelles:

The chokecherries -- gregarious and chatty, perched on their branches calling out to everyone to strip them off. Wild plums -- sarcastic and timid at the same time -- called out from behind their leaves only to retreat into the brushy brambles where they lived. Raspberries and blackberries -- royal and corrupt princes -- braved it out in the full sun of forest clearings. Gooseberries and huckleberries -- reticent, tradition-bound and private -- lived on unbothered in the swamps. Cranberries and pincherries (those party-goers) draped themselves over the furniture of the branches and invited all passerby, birds and people, to join the party. The blueberries and wintergreen grew undisturbed -- calmly bourgeois -- in the carpeted hush of the big woods.

 

So, now I have two books to send out. If you want either, please let me know! :thumbup1:

The Translation of Dr Apelles by David Treuer, published by Graywolf Press

Three Scenarios in Which Hana Sasaki Grows a Tail by Kelly Luce, published by A Strange Object

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Not a book, but just wanted to share that I also spent much of the week obsessively listening, over and over and over, to Annie Lennox' new CD Nostalgia.  Highly recommended for Funk & Wagnall crowd, and all other jazz and blues lovers...

 

Nice! I'm on a Lisa Gerrard kick myself.

 

At&t repair gentleman came and replaced our old coaxial cable with new cat 5.  Yeah, now all is right with our world again.  Didn't realize how reliant we are on all our technology. 

 

 

I thoroughly enjoyed Gibson's Neuromancer. 

 

 

Dh doesn't think I'd like much of his other material, just this particular one. He's read Neuromancer and enjoyed it.

 

Also, from the other book I just finished, I thought Jane, mumto2, & Pam might enjoy this quote...

 

From David Treuer's The Translation of Dr Apelles:

 

The chokecherries -- gregarious and chatty, perched on their branches calling out to everyone to strip them off. Wild plums -- sarcastic and timid at the same time -- called out from behind their leaves only to retreat into the brushy brambles where they lived. Raspberries and blackberries -- royal and corrupt princes -- braved it out in the full sun of forest clearings. Gooseberries and huckleberries -- reticent, tradition-bound and private -- lived on unbothered in the swamps. Cranberries and pincherries (those party-goers) draped themselves over the furniture of the branches and invited all passerby, birds and people, to join the party. The blueberries and wintergreen grew undisturbed -- calmly bourgeois -- in the carpeted hush of the big woods.

 

 

This is lovely and makes me wanna spend time in the kitchen with my elbows dusted in flour as I make pie after pie...

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Speaking of pie, I asked for chocolate chip bar recipes lately in another thread.  FloridaLisa replied with this recipe, Chocolate Chip Pecan Pie Bars,  which I baked this afternoon.  They are quite delicious.

 

This afternoon I started Paris Letters by Janice MacLeod; I'm about half way through and am enjoying the book very much.  It's a memoir, and I recommend reading this in a paper version due to the author's illustrated letters that occur throughout the book.

 

"Finding love and freedom in a pen, a paintbrush...and Paris

 

How much money does it take to quit your job?

 

Exhausted and on the verge of burnout, Janice poses this questions to herself as she doodles on a notepad at her desk. Surprisingly, the answer isn't as daunting as she expected. With a little math and a lot of determination, Janice cuts back, saves up, and buys herself two years of freedom in Europe.

 

A few days into her stop in Paris, Janice meets Christophe, the cute butcher down the street—who doesn't speak English. Through a combination of sign language and franglais, they embark on a whirlwind Paris romance. She soon realizes that she can never return to the world of twelve-hour workdays and greasy corporate lingo. But her dwindling savings force her to find a way to fund her dreams again. So Janice turns to her three loves—words, art, and Christophe—to figure out a way to make her happily-ever-after in Paris last forever."

 

Regards,

Kareni

 

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Also, from the other book I just finished, I thought Jane, mumto2, & Pam might enjoy this quote...

 

 

 

From David Treuer's The Translation of Dr Apelles:

Quote

The chokecherries -- gregarious and chatty, perched on their branches calling out to everyone to strip them off. Wild plums -- sarcastic and timid at the same time -- called out from behind their leaves only to retreat into the brushy brambles where they lived. Raspberries and blackberries -- royal and corrupt princes -- braved it out in the full sun of forest clearings. Gooseberries and huckleberries -- reticent, tradition-bound and private -- lived on unbothered in the swamps. Cranberries and pincherries (those party-goers) draped themselves over the furniture of the branches and invited all passerby, birds and people, to join the party. The blueberries and wintergreen grew undisturbed -- calmly bourgeois -- in the carpeted hush of the big woods.

 

"Blueberries and wintergreen... -- clearly bourgeois---" - Love it!  So true, they sit there in the middle of deep forest chaos, all mounded and tidy, as if the landscaper had just come by with the pruning shears...

 

 

Nice! I'm on a Lisa Gerrard kick myself.

 

Which one to start?  

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All of this talk of translation and retranslation reminds me of Mark Twain's book  The Jumping Frog: In English, Then In French, Then Clawed Back Into A Civilized Language Once More By Patient, Unremunerated Toil which I enjoyed reading when I was studying French.

 

And that reminds me of another fun piece of Twain's on The Awful German Language. (That piece is short and is complete at the link.)

 

Regards,

Kareni

   

 

Oh fun!  I will have to share these with my oldest daughter. 

 

I finished Anna Dressed in Blood.  Loved it.  I started The Snow People.  Meh.  I'm not sure what to think so far.  It's confusing and the timeline is not very clear. I will say I'm less than pleased with the anti-homeschool view of a bratty teenager who appears to be what will be a main character.  :p

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This afternoon I started Paris Letters by Janice MacLeod ...

 

And I finished this late last night.  It was a pleasant read, and I recommend it to those who like Paris, memoirs, love stories (particularly if they involve blue eyed butchers living in Paris but originally from Poland), and stories of making life changes.

 

Regards,

Kareni

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Finished The Perks of Being a Wallflower this week and enjoyed it. I love Charlie. To quote his teacher Bill (or paraphrase him, speaking to Charlie), "You are very special." I always considered myself a wallflower (probably why just the title of the book appealed to me), but not really the same as Charlie or as defined by author Stephen Chbosky. Charlie is the observant wallflower, but still relatively extroverted and more daring than my personal version. I appreciated how well he understood his friends as shown in the gifts he gave them. This is a book  that in many ways I'd love to share with my 14 yo, but I can't because of a lot of mature content that I don't think she's ready to know about (sexual experiences, drug use, sexual abuse). Maybe someone toward the end of high school. Since this book takes place in the early 90's, it's probably a lot more similar to my world (high school in early 80's) than now. Mix tapes, Rocky Horror, no internet, etc.

 

I'm past half way in The Historian and enjoying that one too. It's a nice follow-up to Dracula which I read last October. Thankfully it's not freaking me out or scaring me--just an interesting story to me. But I will say what I say of most chunksters--could be shorter! In this stage of life I much prefer 300-page books to 600-page books.

 

I was in the mood for something not elegiac or dystopian. The Gatekeepers worked.

 

From 1986 until 1989, I was an admissions counselor, first at a small two-year college in a big East Cost city and then at a major university in that same city. The traveling, the angst about converting admits to enrollments, and the reading, reading, reading all resonated with me. The rest, since I did not work for a very selective school, left me a little cold. It also made me understand better why my youngest, who has been anxiously courted by a list of schools that greatly impresses her aunt and grandmothers, and would likely impress Ralph Figueroa, opted out of the race.

 

 

Had to just put this on hold at the library because I actually went to school with Ralph Figueroa! He's a delightful, funny, down-to-earth person. I don't remember hearing about this book when it came out--maybe because my kids were babies and college admissions just wasn't on my radar. Like your daughter, I'm a bit frustrated/disturbed with the current college admissions process. Maybe because I think my kids are just typical good students and don't really stand much of a chance of being unusual enough to get into these elite schools--and I don't really want to participate in hoop jumping just to play the game. And after going to an elite school, I moved to an area where degrees from the local state school really are worth just as much as degrees from the elite schools. Anyway, I'd like to read about the admissions process even if I'm wary of participating in it--thanks for bringing it to my attention.

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AND in one hour 35 people will be showing up at my house to for DS's birthday.  One year ago at this time we were so nervous waiting for him to be born and get the call to head down to Texas to pick him up.  Wow.  What a ride!

 

 

I love that story too.  Have you read his other Christmas stories?  We did that one year for my ladies book club and I remember that of the four I liked two and thought the other two were *meh*.  I can't remember which ones I liked though.

 

:party:  Happy Birthday to Chews on Books!  What great toddler reading material did he receive  ;)

 

Are you saying that Dickens has other Christmas stories?  Seeing as how A Christmas Carol is the only book of his I can actually finish, I would be interested in his other Christmas stories. 

 

 

All drummers are permanently stuck in the toddler stage of banging on pots except the rhythms are more sophisticated. Our young percussionist is no exception. providing all sorts of sound effects throughout the show and during breaks a non-stop backdrop of paradiddles, flams and drags. 

 

:lol:  :lol:  I am a former drummer.

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Speaking of drumming ~ my daughter who is in South Korea took drumming lessons last year on the janggu and the buk (two traditional Korean drums); she also joined a Samulnori group which is a percussion group that consists of those two drums as well as two different types of gongs.   A couple of weeks ago, she participated in the World Samulnori competition with her group all of whom are non-Koreans.  She and her team won first place in the Foreigners category at 2014 World Samulnori competition!  (Yes, it was a small field, but we now have a world champion in the family.)

 

If you'd like to see her performance, send me a personal message and I'll provide the link.

 

Regards,

Kareni

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I just finished such an interesting book:  The Fishing Fleet  It was stories from the British Empire in India in the 1800's through early 1900's, based on letters and interviews of women who really lived it - young women sent to India to find a husband.  It was one view of what life was like at that time, and it makes me want to read more.  I read Passage to India years ago.  I think I want to read some Kipling and Gandhi...  and maybe watch a little Bollywood...

 

At the same time I was reading Wave - a memoir by a survivor of the tsunami in Sri Lanka.  Her memories of her children are so crystal clear.  And her sadness just rolls over you.  It was an incredible book.  I can't say that I enjoyed reading it.  It was so so sad.

 

I am currently reading The Husband's Secret.  I'm enjoying a little lighter read this week, though so far, it's not particularly happy either...

 

 

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Am now reading Lamberto, Lamberto, Lamberto by Gianni Rodari, published by Melville House. It's completely whimsical fun so far.

 

Lamberto-Lamberto-Lamberto-235x279.jpg

 

When we first meet Baron Lamberto (age ninety-three), he is very rich and very ill. He owns twenty-four banks and has been diagnosed with twenty-four serious ailments: only his butler Anselmo remembers them all.

 

On the advice of an Egyptian sage, Lamberto hires a group of servants to repeat his name over and over and over. It’s a recipe, he’s told, for eternal life…. surprisingly, it works.

 

Lamberto’s newfound youth, however, is put at risk when a terrorist group lays siege to the Baron’s villa on the island of San Giulio in the mountains near Lake Orta. The Baron’s army of bank directors are summoned to pay a huge ransom, and an international media spectacle is born as the bankers and Baron Lamberto negotiate with the bandits. Lamberto becomes the first casualty—but the celebrity funeral that follows becomes the first funeral in history with a happy ending…

 

Lamberto, Lamberto, Lamberto is an adroit, witty, and poignant reflection on what happens when terrorism strikes. But it’s also a fantastic tale: Our beloved Lamberto eventually springs back against impossible odds. There are things, writes Rodari, “that only happen once.†In fact, “there are things that only happen in fairytales.â€

“If Roald Dahl had rewritten The Picture of Dorian Gray to include a gang of 24 bandits and a giant balloon, the result might have been Rodari’s wonderfully improbable novel…â€

-- Publishers Weekly

 

And, when I was on the Melville House website, I noticed an interesting article: Translators and the Nobel Prize.

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 Station Eleven was magnificent, by the way, especially if blending some Shakespeare and classical music into a post-plague narrative sounds good to you.

 

Yes, yes it does! :D

Welcome back, MM!

 

Sat down & read a book of short stories today: Three Scenarios in Which Hana Sasaki Grows a Tail: Stories by Kelly Luce. Even though I'm not normally a fan of short stories, I found this collection quite enchanting. I absolutely loved the story "Wisher" -- just incredibly touching & wonderful. Also really enjoyed the story "Amorometer" -- fun & hopeful. The author is American, but the stories all revolve around Japan in some way & most contain elements of magical realism. 4 stars. Definitely recommended.

 

 

I would read it just for the title alone. :)

 

Am now reading Lamberto, Lamberto, Lamberto by Gianni Rodari, published by Melville House. It's completely whimsical fun so far.

 

 

Sounds good!

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I've already finished The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.  I surprisingly enjoyed it and found it easy to block out the movie and just read.  I really, really didn't like the movie, though I liked Catching Fire just fine.  Now that I've read the book, I realize that the movie didn't give me the background I needed.  Now I understand Peeta and Katniss better, and the world they live in.  I'm still surprised that I feel attached to the same characters that I couldn't relate to in the movie.  Weird for me.  I'll be starting Catching Fire tonight.  

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Sorry to report in a day late. This week I departed from the ever-growing TBR pile and read a book that fell into my hands from the clearance shelf, 49. Penguin Special: The Story of Allen Lane, the Founder of Penguin Books and the Man who Changed Publishing Forever, by Jeremy Lewis.

 

While there was nothing special about the writing, the story is interesting, and the chapters on the publishing of Joyce's Ulysses (while Lane was at Bodley Head) and the trial for Penguin's publication of Lady Chatterley's Lover are particularly interesting. (An amusing detail of the latter; Penguin tried to get all their best-known writers to agree to testify on their behalf, causing Enid Blyton some consternation--given her market, it was, as she pointed out, shocking that she should be asked to testify.)

 

Back now to books already in progress....

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