Book a Week 2016 - BW27: sailing west of the prime meridian

[Laura in CA]

Immerse yourself in sea life during the Napoleonic wars and climb on board with Captain Aubrey in Patrick O'Brien's Master and Commander series or Horatio Hornblower in C.S. Forester's Hornblower Saga.  

 

Live vicariously through Thor Heyerdahl as he replicates the mythical voyage of Kon Tiki across the Pacific in a raft or with Joshua Slocum in Sailing Alone around the World.

 

 

great theme! I am looking forward to re-reading Moby-Dick, and Dana's Two Years before the Mast. And some Joseph Conrad. I read Slocum's book a few years ago and found it fascinating.

 

 

Robin, a wonderful book that would fit your theme this week is To the Ends of the Earth by William Golding of The Lord of the Flies fame.  To the Ends of the Earth is a trilogy of short novellas.  There was a miniseries made of it starring, at the time, the rather unknown actor, Benedict Cumberbatch.  His acting is phenomenal!  So I highly recommend both the book and the miniseries.

 

 

funny coincidence – the movie version will be my son's 21st birthday gift (in a few weeks). Hmmm ... maybe I'd better watch it before I wrap up the DVD! :)

 

Another big fan of Simon Winchester here. I just finished listening to him read his The Men Who United the States, & I started the audio version of The Professor and the Madman. And I love Boswell's Life of Johnson. 

 

I am currently reading Nate Silver's The Signal and the Noise; re-reading Dorothy L. Sayers' The Man Born to Be King; and re-reading GKC's The Man Who Knew Too Much. I just finished I'll Never Be French (enjoyable). I am planning to re-read The Wind in the Willows (oh! another book about "messing about in boats"! :) :) ) in preparation for my upcoming visit in August to the River & Rowing Museum in Henley-on-Thames – which fits with this week's nautical theme!

Edited July 5, 2016 by Laura in CA

[Faithr]

Laura in CA, just so you know, there is a whole substory about a very sympathetic minister who becomes unglued during the hardships of the voyage and develops an obsession with a strapping young sailor, doesn't know how to deal with it and it gets ugly, though not graphic.  That part has a bit of the Lord of the Flies vibe going on.  The journey (they are going from England to Australia) takes months and it is all about how the different people on the ship respond to living in the very uncomfortable, with no privacy and fraught with physical danger, community aboard the ship.  

 

Also, The Man Born to Be King and The Man Who Knew Too Much are two books I've been wanting to read for ages.

Edited July 5, 2016 by Faithr

[fastweedpuller]

Moby-Dick is a reread for me about every 6-8 years; I love it so.  I would add 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea for you and your kiddos if you've not read it already; DD  recently enjoyed Sharon Creech's The Wanderer (13yo girl sails with her family, ca. 1800s).  Probably one of my most brain-sticking books for me about the sea is not, really, about the sea:  it's MFK Fisher's The Gastronomical Me, which separates parts of her autobiography into sections called Sea Change, which means what you think it means but also the physiological changes that occur to humans on transoceanic voyages.  (She would go a little mad when she sailed from her native California to Europe and back in the days before commercial air travel.)  Most recent favorite books sea-related is William Finnegan's Barbarian Days, which was marvelous.

 

Despite the days off, not much in the Have Read column for me this last week; I did finish Frans de Waal's Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? which I enjoyed thoroughly as both an animal lover and one who raises animals for eating.  Barbara Kingsolver's Flight Behavior was my fluff read for the week, and DD and I enjoyed team-reading Wonder by RJ Palacio.

 

Peace to all who're going through their own sea changes right now...!

[-M-]

Hello again, BaWers! Some more "bookishness" --

 

From the opening of Michael Robbins’ article “In defense of book collecting†(Chicago Tribune, June 26):
 

As of this writing there are 1,790 books in my apartment, some couple hundred in my campus office, and an unknown number floating about on loan to various friends and students. This represents a decrease of probably 20 percent from the height of my mania. Over the past few years, I have embarked on culling operations, boxing up hundreds of books and carting them to used bookstores. Spilling off shelves, piled in tottering stacks on every flat surface and a few angular ones, the books are snowing me under.

 

He had me at “Hello,†of course, but this bit slayed me:

 
Even after my latest and severest cull, I own three translations of “War and Peace,†a book I read about 150 pages of in high school and never opened again. “Some day!†the sirens sing to the book collector.

 

In his December 17, 2008 column for the Sun-Times, Neil Steinberg described reading War and Peace aloud to his son:

I am currently reading War and Peace, out loud to my older son, and we’re both loving it, not because it gives us something to brag about, but because it’s great. When Tolstoy describes a horse, it’s like an actual horse canters into the room, twitching and snorting. When Natasha jumps into her mother’s bed to tell the old countess about Prince Andrei, it could be any 16-year-old girl gushing about her dreamboat. It’s real.

 

When I first shared the link to that piece, I confessed to having acquired three translations of the tome:
 
1. Translated by Rosemary Edmonds; acquired in 1991
2. Translated by Anthony Briggs; acquired in February 2007
3. Translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky; acquired in December 2007

 

Eight years, a move, and several culling operations later, I still have the Briggs and the Pevear/Volokhonsky, and, as Robbins suggests, the sirens still sing “Some day!’ to this book collector. At nearly seven thousand volumes, my collection has decreased about thirty-five percent since the height of my mania. Our move to the forever home resulted in the greatest cull, to date: It was the one in which the Edmonds translation was released. In the next major cull in 2014, I jettisoned more than ninety percent of the remaining home education materials and all but the treasured volumes in the children’s literature collection. Although I was once interested in YA trends, the genre has lost most of its appeal, which resulted in a mini-cull late last year and will likely result in another in the fall. And some books are now released soon after being read — for example, my “beach books.â€

 

“You live in a library!†the mail carrier admired as he handed me another stack of deliveries. Well, yes. Sort of. It’s actually more of an antilibrary, though, as more than half of its contents are books I haven’t yet read. This once embarrassed me. Now it alternately enlivens and frightens me. From early in Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable:

The writer Umberto Eco belongs to that small class of scholars who are encyclopedic, insightful, and nondull. He is the owner of a large personal library (containing thirty thousand books), and separates visitors into two categories: those who react with “Wow! Signore professore dottore Eco, what a library you have! How many of these books have you read?†and the others — a very small minority — who get the point that a private library is not an ego-boosting appendage but a research tool. Read books are far less valuable than unread ones. The library should contain as much of what you do not know as your financial means, mortgage rates, and the currently tight real-estate market allows you to put there. You will accumulate more knowledge and more books as you grow older, and the growing number of unread books on the shelves will look at you menacingly. Indeed, the more you know, the larger the rows of unread books. Let us call this collection of unread books an antilibrary.

 

All of this book talk reminds me of another bit from Lionel Shriver’s The Mandibles:

The Stackhouses had also banished the busy clunk of books that cluttered all three stories of her parents’ jumbled brick house in Carroll Gardens. Nothing betrayed you as a fuddy-duddy like parallels of shabby spines junking up the walls. Once you’d read a book, why retain it in three dimensions, save as a form of boasting? Now that you could balance the Library of Congress on your fingertip, dragging countless cartons of these spent objects from home to home was like moving with your eggshells.
 

And that reminds me of our move from Southern California to Chicago just before Christmas 1993. The movers were delayed twice and were rough with our belongings once they arrived in the city. Among other offenses, they tore our mattress, chipped two bookcases and a chest of drawers, and bent the handle of our new refrigerator. When they were finally, finally gone, we began unpacking in the kitchen. In the second box we found, carefully wrapped in paper towel and bubble wrap, the eggshells from the muffins I was making when the movers arrived to pack up our home two weeks earlier.

Edited July 5, 2016 by M--

[Jane in NC]

M--:  There is a quoted line in your post with which I will disagree.

 

 

Read books are far less valuable than unread ones.

 

Many of my read books are dear old friends.  There is the old chestnut about making new friends while keeping the old since "One is silver and the other gold." 

 

I don't want to discount the new since they too may become golden.  But my main altar in this temple of books contain my dear friends.  The volumes there that I call unread are my husband's.  ;)  We learn to share our shelves.

[-M-]

M--:  There is a quoted line in your post with which I will disagree.

 

Read books are far less valuable than unread ones.

 

Many of my read books are dear old friends.  There is the old chestnut about making new friends while keeping the old since "One is silver and the other gold." 

 

I don't want to discount the new since they too may become golden.  But my main altar in this temple of books contain my dear friends.  The volumes there that I call unread are my husband's.  ;)  We learn to share our shelves.

 

Read books are far less valuable than unread ones.

 

I hear you, as do the many, many read and reread friends on my o'er-stuffed shelves. In Taleb's defense, though, I think he is simply supporting his claim: "Black Swan logic makes what you don't know far more relevant than what you do know." (Emphasis his.)

[Onceuponatime]

There is a difference between individually loved and treasured books and a library full of the books we have read that makes us feel "accomplished." A library full of books we haven't read reminds us that we don't even know how many things we don't know. It keeps us humble.

[Jane in NC]

There is a difference between individually loved and treasured books and a library full of the books we have read that makes us feel "accomplished." A library full of books we haven't read reminds us that we don't even know how many things we don't know. It keeps us humble.

 

So by keeping War and Peace unread in the dusty stacks I grow humbler by the year!

 

[mumto2]

Does having War and Peace in my Kindle stack count? :lol:

[fastweedpuller]

You guys!  War and Peace is awEsoMe!  It's like the original soap opera...with cannons!  (Make sure you get the Pevear/Volokhonsky translation if you're not Russian speaking, and bone up on your French.)

[Onceuponatime]

I read War and Peace when I was much younger. Somehow, I get the feeling that it was wasted on me then. I have no idea what translation I read. I will admit that I was checking it off a list in order to feel accomplished. Humility is looking at my copy of The Consolations of Philosophy by Boethius that MMV recommended to me many many years ago and knowing I haven't read it yet. Someday.

 

Coming here is like owning a virtual library of unread books. Every year I find out how many good books I haven't read and may never read. We are such a humble bunch, we should win an award!

[Lady Florida.]

You guys!  War and Peace is awEsoMe!  It's like the original soap opera...with cannons!  (Make sure you get the Pevear/Volokhonsky translation if you're not Russian speaking, and bone up on your French.)

 

It is! It's a wonderful novel with the best characters...and there are fancy balls!

 

I read War and Peace when I was much younger. Somehow, I get the feeling that it was wasted on me then. I have no idea what translation I read.

 

I finally read it last year at age 59-60 (yes, I had a birthday while in the middle of reading it). It's definitely a book one appreciates after maturity (an arbitrary age that's different for everyone). Personally, I don't think I would have appreciated it if I had read it before around the age of 30. 

[Jamee]

To this week's theme, I've been wanting to read Kon Tiki, even have it in my stacks. I finished three books last week, BFG, the Bully Pulpit, and a Lord John Gray novel.  Bully Pulpit I listened to on audible and LOVED it!  I learned so much and it's a great history lesson for the current election. It's quite long at 36 hours, but well worth it and Edward Hermann is a fantastic narrator. I've not been able to get in as much reading as I like this summer, but hope to get a few more hibernating books finished, three down, nine to go!

[Laura in CA]

Laura in CA, just so you know, there is a whole substory about a very sympathetic minister who becomes unglued during the hardships of the voyage and develops an obsession with a strapping young sailor, doesn't know how to deal with it and it gets ugly, though not graphic.  That part has a bit of the Lord of the Flies vibe going on.  The journey (they are going from England to Australia) takes months and it is all about how the different people on the ship respond to living in the very uncomfortable, with no privacy and fraught with physical danger, community aboard the ship.  

 

Also, The Man Born to Be King and The Man Who Knew Too Much are two books I've been wanting to read for ages.

 

Thanks for the heads-up! 

 

And I hope you will love both books (DLS & GKC). I finished both of them recently and started new books and then thought, Why? :) – both of those books merit multiple re-reads, and I will only get more out of them the second time. Lyrical and deep. Highly recommended! 

[Just Robyn]

 

The Boy Who Lost Fairyland (Book #4) by Catherynne Valente – Fairy tale fiction, Middle Grade. A book I selected for DD10, who refuses to read it. She doesn't want to read baby books; she wants to read Divergent! Sigh. The other day I was pondering who is telling fairy tales, like Baum or Carroll. Although this is the first of the Fairyland books I’ve read, I think a case can be made this is a modern fairy tale. I love Valente’s voice. One quibble though: it can be difficult to tell whether the narrator or character is talking and which character exactly is speaking because they all read alike, as if her novels are populated by characters from The Hudsucker’s Proxy using a rat-tat-tat style. Her prose is lovely though, a flow of words that you just accept until you reach the end and can see the thought. A sample:

 

 

This would be a wonderful read-aloud, because you can distinguish between the characters by changing your voice for each. Content warning: trolls and babies are stolen from mothers, creatures discuss eating bloody hearts, and Changelings are subject to a bit of torture so this isn’t for a child who might find the content disturbing. Highly recommended.

 

 

 

Even though your DD refuses to read it, it's nice to see someone else enjoying these books. It's hard to say whether book one or four is my favorite in the series, but either way, I think fondly of The Boy Who Lost Fairyland. Definitely a modern fairy tale. I'm trying to think of other modern fairy tales - how about Stardust by Neil Gaiman?

[Just Robyn]

Oh & for anyone looking for a short, quick maritime read, I'll recommend the book I read a couple of weeks ago: The Island of Last Truth. It's worth seeing if your library carries it.

 

 

 

This looks great, Stacia. My library doesn't have it, but I may just order a used copy.

[Just Robyn]

Nautical, I will come back to that thought. For now, here is what I've finished since I last posted:

 

Dear Continuum: Letters to a Poet Crafting Liberation - This book is a sort of retelling (or continuum) of Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet, but updated and with a black female poet slant. The thing is, Rilke's letters were actual letters from him to one particular actual person, whereas this book is full of "letters" to no one in particular - to all poets, or perhaps to all beginning black female poets and whoever else happens to pick it up. This book lacks the authenticity (and specificity) of Rilke's letters and sometimes feels self-helpish or sentimental or kind of like an info-dump, where information is unnaturally forced into a "letter."

The most interesting parts for me:

"Things are so different now, and if there weren't others who inhabited that '90s poetry space with me, I'd think I dreamt it all up. Back in the day no one in my circle--or its orbit--ever asked me where I got my MFA."

"When poetry becomes a business (or an elite club or a bid for integration) it can't help but mirror everyday life in this country. In fact even without poetry being a business, it reflects the classism, racism, sexism, and heterosexism of the country in which we live. What you are seeing, at times, is the ugliness of this country in stanza and verse."

 

The Two Towers, which I enjoyed. I'm looking forward to beginning the third book.

 

Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life by Thich Nhat Hanh - This is the first book I've read (actually, I listened to this one) by this author, and I'm glad I checked him out, but I doubt I'll read much of his work. It was a little light and self-helpish most of the time. Not my thing. 

 

Twelfth Night - This is a re-read for me, and I just saw it performed last night with my grandmother at the Illinois Shakespeare Festival. It was a great performance. Now it is raining and we are sitting in the hotel room hoping the weather clears up before tonight's scheduled performance of Peter and the Starcatcher. (No roof on the theatre, so rain means there will be no performance tonight, and since we don't live in Illinois, we probably will not exchange our tickets for another date.)

 

 

[Loesje22000]

Does anyone knows these books or authors?

I try to plan history for the coming year, and it seems hard to find my way:

 

      

 

I would love to have something readable about Marie Theresia of Austria (who also reigned about 'Belgium' in the 18th century...)

TIA

 

 

[mumto2]

I think I forgot to post a couple of books that were read last week that some here might enjoy. The first book in an American cozy series by Julia Spencer Flemming was interesting. Not really cozy too violent but I need to call it something. It features a female Episcopal priest who discovers a newborn on her doorstep which leads to multiple murder investigations. I listened to it so it moved incredibly slow. I knew who did it, probably partly because of the narration tone, from the first word out of the characters mouth. :lol: I did continue to listen..... I can't get these in Kindle book form from my library which I think would take care of my issues with slowness. I may go back and listen to more at some point because I do like the main characters and have read enough cover blurbs to know I will probably like the future books. I honestly think Jane and Jenn among others might enjoy these as lighter reading.

 

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1414862.In_the_Bleak_Midwinter

 

 

I also finished a second Alana Knight British cozy. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7478427-enter-second-murderer. I believe I left her off my list but she is an incredibly prolific author from the 1980's forward. These are books that feature an Edinburgh policeman or his children. Perfectly good but not outstanding.

[Ethel Mertz]

I think I forgot to post a couple of books that were read last week that some here might enjoy. The first book in an American cozy series by Julia Spencer Flemming was interesting. Not really cozy too violent but I need to call it something. It features a female Episcopal priest who discovers a newborn on her doorstep which leads to multiple murder investigations. I listened to it so it moved incredibly slow. I knew who did it, probably partly because of the narration tone, from the first word out of the characters mouth. :lol: I did continue to listen..... I can't get these in Kindle book form from my library which I think would take care of my issues with slowness. I may go back and listen to more at some point because I do like the main characters and have read enough cover blurbs to know I will probably like the future books. I honestly think Jane and Jenn among others might enjoy these as lighter reading.

 

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1414862.In_the_Bleak_Midwinter

 

 

I also finished a second Alana Knight British cozy. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7478427-enter-second-murderer. I believe I left her off my list but she is an incredibly prolific author from the 1980's forward. These are books that feature an Edinburgh policeman or his children. Perfectly good but not outstanding.

 

I loved the Julia Spencer Fleming books. The character portrayals were good and the Episcopal Church details accurate.

[fastweedpuller]

I think many of you might find this of interest:

 

The Atlantic:  Women are Writing the Best Crime Novels

 

Personal interest:  My husband's art is the splash page of that article.  He has done other things you might know: Jasper Fforde, Jane Hamilton, lots of others, lots of magazine work; he's an artist and an illustrator and yes uses books/pulp novels.  Yes, this means we have a ton of books in the house.  :)

[Chrysalis Academy]

I finished The General in His Labyrinth - my next-to-the-last Marquez novel. Ever, probably.  I did like this book, it was a more straightforward historical novel than you usually get from GGM, although written with his absolutely beautiful descriptors - I still think you could spend a whole career studying how he describes things.  I felt, while reading this book, that if I knew more about Bolivar and the struggle for South American independence, I would have gotten more out of it, but at the same time, it did inspire me to want to learn more. And it was cool to catch the references to Humboldt - Bolivar was mentioned in The Invention of Nature as one of the figure inspired by and inspiring Humboldt.

 

Here is a highlight from the book, describing the General as a reader. I thought perhaps some of us could relate?

 

"He had been a reader of imperturbably voracity during the respites after battles and the rests after love, but a reader without order or method. He read at any hour, in whatever light was available, sometimes strolling under the trees, sometimes on horseback under the equatorial sun, sometimes in dim coaches rattling over cobbled pavements, sometimes swaying in the hammock as he dictated a letter . . . In the end he read everything that came his way, and he did not have a favorite author but rather many who had been favorites at different times. The bookcases in the various houses he lived in were always crammed full, and the bedrooms and hallways were turned into narrow passes between steep cliffs of books and mountains of errant documents that proliferated as he passed and pursued him without mercy in their quest for archival peace. He never was able to read all the books he owned. When he moved to another city he left them in the care of his most trustworthy friends, although he never heard anything about them again, and his life of fighting obliged him to leave behind a trail of books and papers stretching over four hundred leagues from Bolivia to Venezuela."

[Kareni]

 

... we brought home twin babies a couple weeks ago. They are 31 week preemies and spent 5 weeks in the NICU.

 

Happy new babies!  Do you know how long you will get to mother them?

 

**

 

I am happily back at home after my travels.  It's enjoyable being back with my husband; we keep trading stories of our various experiences.  He had a great time, too.  (And it's fine to sleep once again in my own bed.)

 

**

 

Some book-ish pieces ~

 

The Power of a Great Time Travel Story by Ann VanderMeer

 

No Mother Tongue: Language in the world of Magic by V. E. Schwab

 

Regards,

Kareni

[mumto2]

I loved the Julia Spencer Fleming books. The character portrayals were good and the Episcopal Church details accurate.

I thought someone here had read these. The church details were accurate to the Church of England also, except we get to call both males and females Vicar. I kept thinking that the C of E way is easier every time someone asked what to call her. ;) I did enjoy it. I just got really tired of the narrator.

 

I have now "read" six books that I have actually listened to. The narrator makes a huge difference. I love the Amelia Peabody books by Elizabeth Peter's when they are read to me but have never made it beyond a few pages. I had hoped to find another series I enjoyed listening to for my quilting.

[Violet Crown]

Loesje,

 

I've had a book about the Hapsburgs sitting on my TBR shelf forever. Maybe I should get around to reading it and join you. Didn't the last od the Habsburgs die five years ago today?

 

 

Dear Continuum: Letters to a Poet Crafting Liberation - This book is a sort of retelling (or continuum) of Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet, but updated and with a black female poet slant. The thing is, Rilke's letters were actual letters from him to one particular actual person, whereas this book is full of "letters" to no one in particular - to all poets, or perhaps to all beginning black female poets and whoever else happens to pick it up. This book lacks the authenticity (and specificity) of Rilke's letters and sometimes feels self-helpish or sentimental or kind of like an info-dump, where information is unnaturally forced into a "letter."

The most interesting parts for me:

"Things are so different now, and if there weren't others who inhabited that '90s poetry space with me, I'd think I dreamt it all up. Back in the day no one in my circle--or its orbit--ever asked me where I got my MFA."

"When poetry becomes a business (or an elite club or a bid for integration) it can't help but mirror everyday life in this country. In fact even without poetry being a business, it reflects the classism, racism, sexism, and heterosexism of the country in which we live. What you are seeing, at times, is the ugliness of this country in stanza and verse."

 

Thanks for the warning-off from the Rilke sequel; I just read Rilke's letters and I don't think he would have approved. Interesting that she sees poetry becoming classist as a new development; I'm just finishing The Life of Robert Burns and of course Burns was famously feted by Edinburgh high society but was quickly rejected when the Ayrshire ploughman failed to be grateful and obsequious, and insisted on continuing to write poetry (and to behave, and to marry) as one of his class.

[Violet Crown]

I am happily back at home after my travels. It's enjoyable being back with my husband; we keep trading stories of our various experiences. He had a great time, too. (And it's fine to sleep once again in my own bed.)

 

Kareni

Glad your return travels were good ones! We're also safely back home, fifty degrees warmer and glad to be back, much as we loved Scotland. Wee Girl cried on the train into Edinburgh on Monday, because "it's the Fourth of July and nobody cares." So we knew it was high time we repatriated. (I bought cob corn and watermelon and Texas peaches today, and the offering was accepted.) Edited July 6, 2016 by Violet Crown

[Jane in NC]

It is hot as Hades here, a good excuse to hide indoors and read.

 

Today I finished Eudora Welty's wonderful novel, The Optimist's Daughter.  If I had read this book while growing up in the Midwest, I would not have understood it.  Age may be one thing here, living in the South is another.  After a death in the novel, a home is filled with relatives, neighbors, casseroles, as well as the casket.  This reminded me of a conversation that I had with a friend who grew up in a small SC town.  She and I had attended a memorial service together and what she couldn't believe was that folks were not invited back to the house afterwards.  That is what one did in her small town life.  I explained that in my world, growing up, there would be a lunch or reception with snacks in the church hall after the funeral.  "Not in the family home?" She was outraged.  How does one retreat to grieve, I wondered.  Well The Optimist's Daughter tells us how one grieves after the neighbors and relatives have left.  What a beautiful, beautiful book. 

 

I finally read the last of the vignettes in Steinbeck's Once There Was a War.  I have done a fair amount of WWII reading but rarely on the battles. I read about the homefront, the spies, the aftermath.  Steinbeck was embedded in the troops.  He tells human stories of young men who are scared yet competent. I could not move quickly through these grim reminders of the horror of war.

 

There are a couple of mysteries in my library bag, but I seem to be on a roll clearing out some dusties.  Off to check out what falls out of the stacks...

[JennW in SoCal]

  Off to check out what falls out of the stacks...

 

My mental image is of you jiggling random bookshelves around the house.  

[mumto2]

Glad your return travels were good ones! We're also safely back home, fifty degrees warmer and glad to be back, much as we loved Scotland. Wee Girl cried on the train into Edinburgh on Monday, because "it's the Fourth of July and nobody cares." So we knew it was high time we repatriated. (I bought cob corn and watermelon and Texas peaches today, and the offering was accepted.)

A 4th of July British funny.....

 

Last year my family stopped at a major family dining chain here for dinner on the 2nd of July for dinner after a day out. The first clue that something weird was going on was there were big billboards by the door to inviting everyone to celebrate the second of July with them. We were sort of looking at one another at this point and asking what the Second of July was?

 

We sat down at our table to special red, white, and blue menus with unusual ( as in no thank you, bit too interesting) BBQ type dishes. The servers were dressed in western attire. They were very serious about the whole thing. It was pretty funny but we just couldn't laugh or tell them because they were trying really hard. Someone had apparently got the brilliant idea to celebrate the 4th on the wrong day at all 100 plus locations with a huge promotion.

 

We had the carvery like normal and felt guilty. We drove by another one of their restaurants just to check for signage on the way home to find out if it was all locations. It was. :lol:

Edited July 6, 2016 by mumto2

[Violet Crown]

A 4th of July British funny.....

 

Last year my family stopped at a major family dining chain here for dinner on the 2nd of July for dinner after a day out. The first clue that something weird was going on was there were big billboards by the door to inviting everyone to celebrate the second of July with them. We were sort of looking at one another at this point and asking what the Second of July was?

 

We sat down at our table to special red, white, and blue menus with unusual ( as in no thank you, bit too interesting) BBQ type dishes. The servers were dressed in western attire. They were very serious about the whole thing. It was pretty funny but we just couldn't laugh or tell them because they were trying really hard. Someone had apparently got the brilliant idea to celebrate the 4th on the wrong day at all 100 plus locations with a huge promotion.

 

We had the carvery like normal and felt guilty. We drove by another one of their restaurants just to check for signage on the way home to find out if it was all locations. It was. :lol:

Whoops! I wonder if they were unsure of the date and looked up when the Declaration of Independence was written (July 2) rather than signed?

[mumto2]

Whoops! I wonder if they were unsure of the date and looked up when the Declaration of Independence was written (July 2) rather than signed?

We hadn't thought of that. We all just sat there in shock whispering....google is good, and similar comments. Can't wait to tell the kids your idea tomorrow.

[NoseInABook]

Butter, that is soooo cool!!!

 

Kareni, not sure how long the little bits will stay. Could be a handful of months if suitable family is found but so far it's looking like there isn't any... so then it goes to whenever biological mother can get her life together or it could go to adoption, in which case they'd be here forever because you bet your rear I'll adopt. ;) So, we shall see!

 

I did finish Night Shift and it was... meh. I love Charlaine Harris and really wanted to love this series but I didn't like it as much as I enjoyed some of her others. I'm not sure what to start next. I have a stack of John Green that a friend brought for me so maybe one of those? Or the next in the Miss Peregrine series.

 

 

[Kareni]

... We're also safely back home, fifty degrees warmer and glad to be back, much as we loved Scotland. Wee Girl cried on the train into Edinburgh on Monday, because "it's the Fourth of July and nobody cares." So we knew it was high time we repatriated. (I bought cob corn and watermelon and Texas peaches today, and the offering was accepted.)

 

Only fifty degrees warmer?!  I'm guessing that was probably a shock to the system.

 

Glad to hear that your travels were smooth.  (Am I remembering correctly that your travel experiences were vastly different a year or so ago?)

 

Corn and watermelon and peaches all sound delicious. What time is dinner?

 

Regards,

Kareni

[Stacia]

I think many of you might find this of interest:

 

The Atlantic:  Women are Writing the Best Crime Novels

 

Personal interest:  My husband's art is the splash page of that article.  He has done other things you might know: Jasper Fforde, Jane Hamilton, lots of others, lots of magazine work; he's an artist and an illustrator and yes uses books/pulp novels.  Yes, this means we have a ton of books in the house.  :)

 

Well that is super-cool. Love the art-work & the layering of the images.

 

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

 

I finished Tail of the Blue Bird by Nii Ayikwei Parkes last night & really loved it. It's a criminal procedural type novel set in Ghana & does a great job of mixing modern-day police work & forensics w/ the older village traditions in Ghana. There is a mix of dialects so it takes a little bit of feeling to get into the cadence & rhythm of the storytelling (& there is apparently an online glossary available but I preferred to sink into the story & just go w/ the flow w/out stopping to look up the words), but it's really lovely once you find the rhythm.

 

I've made a concerted effort to read more African works over the last two-three years & I would rank this among some of the best I've read so far. Highly recommended.

 

 

From Booklist:

Set in a contemporary Ghanaian village, this murder mystery blends CSI with magic realism. Forensic scientist Kayo was trained in Britain (he watches CSI), so when he is sent from his Accra city desk to investigate the bloody remains found in a rural hut, he travels with his laptop at the ready. The question is not only whodunit but also what is it (the remains, that is)? Could it be a human placenta? Then who and where is the mother? Kayo’s boss and the blatantly corrupt officials in the district are far less concerned with what happened than with how they can profit from it, but Kayo and his sidekick soldier on, in the process getting themselves caught up in the local feuds and goings-on. The novel, which was short-listed for the Commonwealth Prize, is not easy reading, especially the occasional parts told in pidgin dialect, but the story and atmosphere prove quite engaging. Working in a remote village, rooted in the scary forest, Kayo must look beyond the easy answers that come at the touch of a keyboard and search for absolute truths. --Hazel Rochman

 

ETA: I realized this lets me finish a different row of BaW Bingo, the 4th row across:

Translated: The Expedition to the Baobab Tree

Banned: Smile as They Bow (banned in Myanmar)

Mystery: An Exaggerated Murder

Color in the Title: Tail of the Blue Bird

Nobel Prize Winner: The Stranger

Edited July 7, 2016 by Stacia

[Loesje22000]

Loesje,

 

I've had a book about the Hapsburgs sitting on my TBR shelf forever. Maybe I should get around to reading it and join you. Didn't the last od the Habsburgs die five years ago today?

 

 

The former head of the Habsburg family died five years ago, indeed.

This is the current head of the family:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_von_Habsburg

 

Which title dou you own about the Habsburgs, if I may ask?

 

Just a side note:

I was working my way through 'the Spanish Netherlands' and the 'Austrian Netherlands' yesterday and suddenly it became clear to me that they were both Habsburgers.

That was something I had never realized before... DH didn't believe me :)

History is sooo fun :)

[Jane in NC]

Fastweed--thanks for the link to your husband's art work.

 

Stacia--My library lacks Tail of the Blue Bird but thanks for putting it on my radar.  It might just show up at a book sale. Ah, the power of serendipity.

 

Jiggling the shelves, as Jenn suggested, I have started reading two books in the collection of dusties.  One is an Archipelago that I know will be difficult because of subject matter, Elias Khoury's Yalo.  Khoury writes of Beirut:  the civil war, the aftermath, the long term affects of growing up in a war culture. 

 

To help keep my equilibrium, I also picked up W.P. Kinsella's book of short stories, The Alligator Report. 

 

Kinsella's name may ring a bell:  he wrote a book called Shoeless Joe that became the film Field of Dreams. Apparently he is known in Canada, less so here in the US except for Shoeless Joe. When I saw this book at a library book sale , the author's name did not ring a bell, but the small press did.  The Alligator Report is published by Coffee House Press in Minneapolis, one of those funky little independent publishers that Stacia has mentioned. This book appears to be an ode to Brautigan which suggests a little whimsy--just the antidote needed for war torn Beirut!

[Kareni]

Kareni, not sure how long the little bits will stay. Could be a handful of months if suitable family is found but so far it's looking like there isn't any... so then it goes to whenever biological mother can get her life together or it could go to adoption, in which case they'd be here forever because you bet your rear I'll adopt. ;) So, we shall see!

 

I'll hope for the best possible outcome whatever that might be.  I'm glad that they have you now.

 

**

 

Here's are links to two more lists from Tor.com's Five Books About series.  Once again, read the comments for additional suggestions.

 

Five Books About Monstrous Humans by Victoria Schwab

 

Five Books About Ancient Rome by Daniel Godfrey

 

Regards,

Kareni

[Chrysalis Academy]

 

Five Books About Ancient Rome by Daniel Godfrey

 

Regards,

Kareni

 

Ah, I added a couple of these to my TR for 9th grade list!

[Violet Crown]

Stacia, do you have the link to the original book bingo post? I remember thinking my reading was too narrow to play it, but now I'm thinking I might be able to shoehorn some books into the categories. Today I actually bought a book for its cover for the first time, I think, in my life!

 

Only fifty degrees warmer?!  I'm guessing that was probably a shock to the system.

 

Glad to hear that your travels were smooth.  (Am I remembering correctly that your travel experiences were vastly different a year or so ago?)

 

Corn and watermelon and peaches all sound delicious. What time is dinner?

 

Regards,

Kareni

 

 

Yes our yearly trip (for dh's work) has had some rough travel years. Was it when British Air let us check our bags at Heathrow without mentioning that they knew the luggage wasn't moving for three days, and Wee Girl's important stuffed penguin Ogo was in it?

 

Dinner btw was early. We all passed out around eight and woke up at three, ready to start the day.

 

 

The former head of the Habsburg family died five years ago, indeed.

This is the current head of the family:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_von_Habsburg

 

Which title do you own about the Habsburgs, if I may ask?

 

Just a side note:

I was working my way through 'the Spanish Netherlands' and the 'Austrian Netherlands' yesterday and suddenly it became clear to me that they were both Habsburgers.

That was something I had never realized before... DH didn't believe me :)

History is sooo fun :)

I have The Fall of the House of Habsburg.

[Violet Crown]

Kareni, while looking through some past threads to try to fill the holes in my book list, I noticed you had asked, some weeks ago,

 

The burning question of the day ~ Violet Crown, have you read Chrysal?

No I have not. But I've run into several references to it. Sorry to be so oblivious!

 

Finished The Life of Robert Burns, by Catherine Carswell. Well-written and engrossing; recommended for anyone with any interest in the Scottish Bard.

 

If any woman could have resisted him at this time her name was not Jean Armour.

Now reading J. Frank Dobie's Apache Gold and Yaqui Silver.

 

Prior, finished Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet, which I think I would have enjoyed more decades ago. Middle Girl loved Rilke, amd felt like he was writing directly to her. I felt like a 27-year-old was telling me how to properly channel my life's griefs and sadnesses, and was a little annoyed.

 

(Thrift store literary find: all four volumes of the Oxford complete poems of Dryden! They were waiting for me as a welcome-home present. Middle Girl found an odd book called Stalking the Wild Asparagus that she's now engrossed in.)

Edited July 7, 2016 by Violet Crown

[Jane in NC]

Kareni, while looking through some past thread to try to fill the holes in my book list, I noticed you had asked, some weeks ago,

 

 

No I have not. But I've run into several references to it.

 

Finished The Life of Robert Burns, by Catherine Carswell. Well-written and engrossing; recommended for anyone with any interest in the Scottish Bard.

 

 

Now reading J. Frank Dobie's Apache Gold and Yaqui Silver.

 

(Thrift store literary find: all four volumes of the Oxford complete poems of Dryden! They were waiting for me as a welcome-home present. Middle Girl found an odd book called Stalking the Wild Asparagus that she's now engrossed in.)

 

Euell Gibbons!  What is old is new again! Gibbons was a proponent of foraging.

 

[JennW in SoCal]

 Stalking the Wild Asparagus 

 

Doesn't David Attenborough stalk wild asparagus in one of his nature documentaries?  I hear it is a wily and elusive little beastie.

[Violet Crown]

Euell Gibbons! What is old is new again! Gibbons was a proponent of foraging.

 

Well that's perfect. All those years of telling her to quit putting random plants in her mouth.

 

ETA: Also I was going to remark that her book seems pretty dated but then remembered I bought the Dryden.

Edited July 7, 2016 by Violet Crown

[Jane in NC]

Well that's perfect. All those years of telling her to quit putting random plants in her mouth.

 

ETA: Also I was going to remark that her book seems pretty dated but then remembered I bought the Dryden.

 

Not just plants!  Gibbons also wrote Stalking the Blue-Eyed Scallop.

[Onceuponatime]

Doesn't David Attenborough stalk wild asparagus in one of his nature documentaries? I hear it is a wily and elusive little beastie.

Around here, the wild asparagus stalks you.

[Violet Crown]

Not just plants! Gibbons also wrote Stalking the Blue-Eyed Scallop.

It's a four hour drive to the Coast so good luck to her with that.

[Jane in NC]

It's a four hour drive to the Coast so good luck to her with that.

Hmmm...May have a copy around here. Shall I check to see if Gibbons recommends some fresh water goodies?

[Violet Crown]

Hmmm...May have a copy around here. Shall I check to see if Gibbons recommends some fresh water goodies?

I don't think even he would eat something dredged out of Town Lake.

 

So when was this foraging stuff popular? Was I not paying attention?

Edited July 8, 2016 by Violet Crown

[Stacia]

Any cool magazine suggestions? Aimed toward either teens or adults? Not looking for the popular, run-of-the-mill magazines... looking for some that are off the beaten path. (Want ones that would be available for subscription/paper versions, not just digital versions.)

 

Thanks!

[Jane in NC]

Definitely a 70's "back to the land" kind of thing. Gibbons actually made a famous television commercial for Grape Nuts cereal.