Book a Week 2016 - BW44: November Notions

[Nan in Mass]

Hi everyone. This week's thread is great as usual.

 

But what a week I have had. Warning: non-bookish post!!

 

Sunday evening I attended a fundraiser for a farmer I have known for close to 20 years, a man whose land and tractors were underwater after Hurricane Matthew (three feet of water in his home too). On Monday I drove up the coast to a meeting of an advisory board on which I sit. The devastation of Matthew to small towns and farmers in Eastern NC was witnessed by many in the gathering. One woman reported driving through a community where everything--mattresses, couches, drywall--sat in the yards of now empty houses.

 

This meeting kept us hopping until noon on Wednesday when I then drove to another part of the state to attend a gathering of a different advisory board at another university. I serve as a liaison between the two groups. On Thursday morning I hit the ground running again.

 

When things wrapped up on Friday around noon, one would have thought that I would have used the three and a half hour drive home to listen to Kim. I did for a bit. But my head was filled with so much from the busy week that I found it preferable to decompress in silence and then listen to Science Friday on NPR.

 

So that is my excuse for not accomplishing much in terms of reading.

 

I would like to hide behind a wall of books and yarn in November. Let's see how that plays out.

Hugs, Jane.

[Nan in Mass]

Today in the mail I received my order of the Arthur Rackham Fairy Tale Book. This book was one of my favorites as a child and a lot of it was because of the illustrations. I collect children's illustrated books (though my collection is small)/ I was just so happy to get this book condition. Here is a link to the Amazon page which has another book of his illustrations and a look inside so you can see examples. https://www.amazon.com/Arthur-Rackham-Treasury-Full-Color-Illustrations/dp/0486446859/ref=pd_sim_14_1?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=03BC7W6KYQ7G3FCHZN46

Ooo I had that book. I don,t remember reading it but I spent hours looking at the illustrations and was pretty miffed when my drawing teacher in college told me they weren,t art and I couldn,t do my report on them.

 

Nan

[Just Robyn]

Today in the mail I received my order of the Arthur Rackham Fairy Tale Book.  This book was one of my favorites as a child and a lot of it was because of the illustrations.  I collect children's illustrated books (though my collection is small)/  I was just so happy to get this book condition.  Here is a link to the Amazon page which has another book of his illustrations and a look inside so you can see examples.                                                                                  https://www.amazon.com/Arthur-Rackham-Treasury-Full-Color-Illustrations/dp/0486446859/ref=pd_sim_14_1?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=03BC7W6KYQ7G3FCHZN46

 

Skimming through the sample on Amazon, this illustration grabbed me.

 

[Stacia]

:grouphug: :grouphug: , Jane.

 

Thank you, Stacia. I do have Oyeyemi on my to-read list because you brought her books to my attention. I feel certain I'll love Mr. Fox if I can get myself to read it (and the only reason I haven't is that I must have been reading something else). That reading list has a lot of books I've never heard of, which is awesome if they're good, since it gets old having the same books recommended on every list, and just weird if they're not good. My fingers are crossed for awesome.

 

Mine are crossed for awesome too. It was refreshing to see a list that didn't have the same old stuff on it.

 

I read Morte d'Arthur (in modern English) in college. Two volumes of fine print on thin pages. At the time, I summed it up as: Knight meets knight. Knight fights knight. Knight moves on. Repeat ad infinitum.

Is that what you read? I liked Tristan et Iseult much better. I made youngest read that one, in French, but I let everyone read an abridged Morte d'Arthur.

 

Nan, yes, I read a retelling of the Sir Thomas Malory book Le Morte d'Arthur; this retelling is by Peter Ackroyd. Your summary is right on target! I feel sorry for you reading two volumes of fine print on thin pages! A slow & sure torture it sounds like to me.

 

And, yes, I say *read* because I forced myself to sit down & plow through the rest, just so I could finish it in the name of the Bingo card! Lol. This thing is over 300 pages & the plot line pretty much repeats every three pages or so. I guess that makes it about 100 times I read a similar scenario over & over & over.... It becomes rather mind-numbing after a point.

 

Summary: I can't count myself in the ranks of fans for King Arthur stories. They should be exciting or adventurous (I have never read the originals), but instead they seemed rendered dull by this version. A slog, but as a good knight (or lady), I stayed the course, fought the battle, & have emerged on the other side. (Not sure if I made it through the reading battle scathed or unscathed though.... ;))

 

I really hope that an "Arthurian" block is NOT on the 2017 Bingo card <hint, hint, Robin>! :leaving:

Edited November 6, 2016 by Stacia

[LaughingCat]

I finally finished London Falling https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15779584-london-falling. I haven't had much time to read and this book didn't go all that smoothly for me. I don't do well reading just a few pages a day. As you all know I am a huge fan of the Rivers of London (Midnight Riot) and I was expecting this book to be more like that series. It was probably the wrong book for me to pick as a travel companion, total fluff would have been better. I greatly enjoyed the parts of the book pertaining to the West Ham history. I don't want to say more because I think this book is being mailed between some of you. There were parts that were great fun but I found some of it a bit blah.

 

Kareni, Lets just say The Bunny and the Bear made it's way on to my Kindle because the title is just snort worthy.

Read London Falling recently as well after a BaWer recommended it due to Rivers of London.  It is a very different style and I struggled getting into it.  The beginning was too much of a  'gritty' style I think -- however  I did end up enjoying the book.  But I did not have the 'how fast can I get the next one!' feeling the Rivers of London series gave me.   

 

Also read Miss Julia Speaks Her Mind.  This was just ok IMO.    Not sure why but similar to a previous poster - - too many parts just seemed like it wouldn't really happen that way.  Not enough to kill the story but enough to make me feel like the author wasn't quite pulling it off.

 

Although I also read Mercedes Lackey's most recent Valdemar novel -- and that whole book felt like that -- like nothing could go wrong for the protagonists.  And the villain reveal at the end was so contrived.  I have GOT to stop reading her books or even putting them on hold.   It does make an interesting look at how your taste changes though -- I so loved her Sword Sworn and Arrows of the Queen so many years ago when they first came out and now I just feel like 'why do I keep wasting my time on books i don't even like!'   (although !shhh!  I also felt like that on my last Lord of the Rings reading --  it all just seemed so overly wordy and pompous-- usually I get lost in the story and ignore all that but not the last time  :leaving: )

[Kathleen.]

I read "Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven" by John Eliot Gardiner and my 10yo read "Fairy Dust and the Quest for the Egg" by Gail Carson Levine.

☺

[Nan in Mass]

:grouphug: :grouphug: , Jane.

 

 

Mine are crossed for awesome too. It was refreshing to see a list that didn't have the same old stuff on it.

 

 

Nan, yes, I read a retelling of the Sir Thomas Malory book Le Morte d'Arthur; this retelling is by Peter Ackroyd. Your summary is right on target! I feel sorry for you reading two volumes of fine print on thin pages! A slow & sure torture it sounds like to me.

 

And, yes, I say *read* because I forced myself to sit down & plow through the rest, just so I could finish it in the name of the Bingo card! Lol. This thing is over 300 pages & the plot line pretty much repeats every three pages or so. I guess that makes it about 100 times I read a similar scenario over & over & over.... It becomes rather mind-numbing after a point.

 

Summary: I can't count myself in the ranks of fans for King Arthur stories. They should be exciting or adventurous (I have never read the originals), but instead they seemed rendered dull by this version. A slog, but as a good knight (or lady), I stayed the course, fought the battle, & have emerged on the other side. (Not sure if I made it through the reading battle scathed or unscathed though.... ;))

 

I really hope that an "Arthurian" block is NOT on the 2017 Bingo card <hint, hint, Robin>! :leaving:

Oh that one! I had a mental note to try that one. Perhaps I won't bother. I managed to have only two years of what could be called "literature" in all my 18 years of going to school. One was a standard 10th grade honours English class, the second half on my high school's literature sequence. We read a little Arthurian lit in that, along with things like Great Gatsby and Grapes of Wrath and The Invisible Man and Cry My Beloved Country and For Whom the Bell Tolls and other depressing books that I wasn't old enough to appreciate. Not sure I ever will be. I did scifi instead of the last year of great books with my own children. They can read that stuff later if they want to. One of them is so I am not regretting that decision. Anyway, I had the first semester of French literature in college because I needed a French class. That's where I read Tristan et Iseult. The rest of what we read was much duller and more difficult to discuss for a STEM student with poor French. The upshot was that when I found I needed a semester of English, my English major mother suggested Aurthutian Literature. I,ve read quite a lot of original Arthutian lit in modern English translation and liked it far better than almost anything else I had to read. I complained a bit about those two volumes, but not much because while I was reading that, my sister was read The Plague and other horribly traumatic lit that I knew would haunt me forever and make getting through my growing up even more if-y than it already was. For me, the arthurian square isn,t something I would read left to my own devices, but at least looks doable. I,ll probably reread Sir Gwain or Sword in the Stone. I love those and haven't read them for a few years. Or Crystal Cave. I remember liking that one, years and years ago.

 

Nan

[Chrysalis Academy]

Also not an Arthurian lit lover here. Which is funny, because I thought I was due to reading Mary Stewart's Merlin trilogy in my youth, and The Mists of Avalon when I was slightly older. I never tried to read any "original" or their translations till I started homeschooling. Here's a case where I find modern retellings far superior to the original. Partly because the retellings take some of the really interesting minor characters and give them stories of their own. And partly because I find the interaction of christianity and paganism - or the clash thereof - far more interesting than the more heavy-handed christian themes in the medieval lit itself.  Also, I just don't like medieval lit much, I've realized.

[idnib]

I haven't finished a book this week and probably won't. This week I spent more time with magazines and newspapers along with binge watching three seasons of The Killing. I am taking a break from it.

 

 

I really enjoyed that series as well, although it certainly became grim. I was surprised to find the main male actor is actually Swedish. He does a fantastic American West coast accent! I think the original show was Swedish as well.

[Lady Florida.]

:grouphug: Jane  :grouphug: It's humbling to see the devastation caused by natural disasters - I know from experience too. I'm sure your help on the board is appreciated. Here's hoping you can just disappear into some good books in November.

 

I finished A Royal Pain (Her Royal Spyness #2) on audio book yesterday. Haven't decided what to listen to next.

 

While I'm enjoying my slow journey through both Britain in the late middle ages (Plantagenet fiction and non-fiction) and the American Revolution (Hamilton bio), it's been a while since I read a plain old mystery. Yesterday I downloaded two from my library.

 

Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death (Grantchester Mystery #1) - dh and I enjoyed the tv series on Amazon Prime so I thought I'd try the books.

 

Cover Her Face - I don't know why as a mystery lover, I've never read P.D. James. I always meant to, and now I'll begin.

 

Both seem like quick reads. I like to read before going to sleep but sometimes am too tired to concentrate on one of the meatier books I'm reading. OTOH I can't fall asleep without reading at least a little bit. My mysteries are great for those times. 

[Robin M]

Link to week 45 - please continue conversation in new thread 

[TravelingChris]

I really enjoyed that series as well, although it certainly became grim. I was surprised to find the main male actor is actually Swedish. He does a fantastic American West coast accent! I think the original show was Swedish as well.

He is a Swedish American. He grew up in Sweden but went to an American show. I agree his,accent was great. The original show was Danish and this show is considered Scan-Noir even though it is in Seattle.

 

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