Book a Week 2019 - BW35: Ocean of Earth by Guillaume Apollinaire

[Robin M]

Happy Sunday and welcome to week thirty-five in our 52 Books rambling roads reading adventure. Greetings to all our readers, welcome to all who are joining in for the first time and everyone following our progress. Visit 52 Books in 52 Weeks where you can find all the information on the annual, mini and perpetual challenges, as well as the central spot to share links to your book reviews.  

Ocean of Earth

by

Guillaume Apollinaire
August 26, 1880

(Translated by Ron Padgett)

To G. de Chirico

I have built a house in the middle of the Ocean
Its windows are the rivers flowing from my eyes
Octopi are crawling all over where the walls are
Hear their triple hearts beat and their beaks peck against the windowpanes

House of dampness
House of burning
Season’s fastness
Season singing
The airplanes are laying eggs
Watch out for the dropping of the anchor

Watch out for the shooting black ichor
It would be good if you were to come from the sky
The sky’s honeysuckle is climbing
The earthly octopi are throbbing
And so very many of us have become our own gravediggers
Pale octopi of the chalky waves O octopi with pale beaks
Around the house is this ocean that you know well
And is never still

(Translated from the French)

What are you reading? 

Link to week thirty four

 

[Robin M]

Good morning.  Currently immersed in Shelly Adina's Magnificent Devices series and reading # 12 Fields of Gold.

Thank you for all the happy anniversary wishes.  Celebrating hubby's 60th birthday today.  Off to take James shopping for bday presents. 

😘

[mumto2]

Happy Birthday to your DH! 🥳. Our anniversary is my dh’s birthday which is always a bit confusing in terms of where the emphasis goes. 😉.

I just got back from a trip to the library all by myself,  bliss.  It’s been a really long time since I just wandered around on my own in the library  instead of dashing in to grab my hold’s.  I came home with a stack of hold’s but added a couple of cozy mysteries to that stack.

Not much reading this week,  I managed to finish Miranda James’ latest A Pawful Truth https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42426873-the-pawful-truth before Overdrive snatched it away.  I have my reader turned off because I have lost both The Escape and the Golden Hour from my iPad this week and want them preserved in their half read states someplace!  I am still listing to Ilona Andrews Hidden Legacy series.  

Before I forget I finally read the prequel to the Expanse series.  The Butcher of Anderson Station was not anything new or surprising if you have read Leviathan Wakes......but I now have my permission to start watching The Expanse!😂🤣😂. FYI, I believe most of the first season takes place in the prequel which is why I thought I had to read it first.

Edited August 26, 2019 by mumto2

[Negin]

Robin, Happy Birthday to James!

Mumto2, your time at the library sounds like an absolute dream. 

I'm still unable to read for more than a few minutes at night.

Melmichigan - thank you! Mel sent me a gift of an audible book. I plan on listening to it soon and can't wait. Bit of tech trouble at the moment, but hopefully my dh can get it up and running soon. Thank you so much!

Thank you all so much for your kind thoughts regarding my pain. I had some X-rays done and saw a fabulous doctor. It turns out that I have cervical spondylosis (also known as cervical osteoarthritis or neck arthritis). He put me on meds for a little while and I just started them. No swimming, no lifting anything heavy, not too much cooking (Yay! A break from cooking!), lots of rest, stretching, and physical therapy (which I really don't want to do again). I have a long way to go to heal. I've had some very rough nights and it's hard to sleep because of the pain. I read that cervical spondylosis is very common and worsens with age. "More than 85 percent of people older than age 60 are affected by cervical spondylosis. Most people experience no symptoms from these problems. When symptoms do occur, nonsurgical treatments often are effective."

I managed to finish Nine Essential Things I've Learned About Life - 4 Stars - This is the first book that I’ve read by Harold Kushner and I would love to read more. Any book that reminds me to trust in God is a winner. This was an insightful and comforting read. I would recommend it to anyone who is going through challenging times. I imagine that all his books are this way.

I highlighted so many quotes that I loved and there are so many gems in this book. Here are just a few. The rest are below my review on Good Reads.

“It isn’t God’s job to make sick people healthy. That’s the doctors’ job. God’s job is to make sick people brave, and in my experience, that’s something God does really well. Prayer, as I understand it, is not a matter of begging or bargaining. It is the act of inviting God into our lives so that, with God’s help, we will be strong enough to resist temptation and resilient enough not to be destroyed by life’s unfairness.”

“God’s role is not to make our lives easier, to make the hard things go away, or to do them for us. God’s role is to give us the vision to know what we need to do, to bless us with the qualities of soul that we will need in order to do them ourselves, no matter how hard they may be, and to accompany us on that journey.”

“The truth is, life is unfair, and we would do well to come to terms with that fact. Boorish people are blessed with athletic or musical skills that qualify them to earn more money in a year than many of us will earn in our lifetime. Saintly people are struck down by disease before they can use their gifts to help others. The task of religion is not to teach us to bow our heads and accept God’s inscrutable will. It is to help us find the resources to live meaningfully and to go on believing, even in a world where people often don’t get what they deserve.”

MY RATING SYSTEM

5 Stars

The book is fantastic. It’s not perfect, since no book is, but it’s definitely a favorite of mine.

4 Stars

Really Good

3 Stars

Enjoyable

2 Stars

Just Okay – nothing to write home about

1 Star

Rubbish – waste of my money and time. Few books make it to this level, since I usually give up on them if they’re that bad.

[Liz CA]

Happy Birthday to James and all other August babies.

Finished reading Eason's Code of Valor and went on to "Code of Ethics." My reading is so slow now with so much less time.

I am still waiting for Pettrey's "The Killing Tide" to appear on my Overdrive.

 

Audiobooks:

I have almost finished "Miss Julia Strikes Back" by Ann Ross - very funny and easy listening.

Still "chewing" on Glasser's "Choice Theory"  - some good morsels, some stuff I can't agree with.

Downloaded a Mary Higgins Clark and feeling ambiguous about it. I used to love her early books like "Where are the Children," and "The Cradle will Fall." But more recent books are way off - to the point that I am wondering if someone else is doing the majority of the writing. 

But I am going to try "All by myself." Let's see how far I get with this one.

 

Edited August 25, 2019 by Liz CA

[Teaching3bears]

I finally finished The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy.  Unfortunately, I really did not like it.  The writing was good but just not enjoyable to me and the book was just so negative with so much foreshadowing of all the bad stuff that was to come.  I also felt the author was really trying to shock rather than tell a story.

I read I'm Supposed to Protect You From All This by Najda Spiegelman.  It was non-fiction based on her mother's life, her grandmother's life, her own, and their relationships.  I appreciated her effort to try really hard to find the truth and then admit that she could not completely.

I read The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins.  It was a captivating thriller who-dun-it and hard to put down at times.

 

 

[-M-]

Hello, BaWers! Were your ears ringing? This weekly gathering was the subject of all my best compliments in a recent conversation about books and book clubs. 

In the month since my last post, I finished nine books, bringing my year-to-date total to seventy-three.

■ An Odyssey: A Father, a Son, and an Epic (Daniel Mendelsohn; 2017. Non-fiction.) RFS

■ The Odyssey (Gareth Hinds; 2010. Graphic fiction.) ATY

■ Women Talking (Miriam Toews; 2019. Fiction.) ATY

■ The Wicked and the Divine, Vol. 1: The Faust Act (Kieron Gellen; 2014. Graphic fiction.) LIB

■ The Mighty Franks (Michael Frank; 2017. Non-fiction.) RFS

■ My Sister, The Serial Killer (Oyinkan Braithwaite; 2018. Fiction.) ATY

■ The Art of Racing in the Rain (Garth Stein; 2008. Fiction.) RFS

■ The Walking Dead, Vol. 32: Rest In Peace (Robert Kirkman; 2019. Graphic fiction.) OTH

■ The Cruelest Month (Louise Penny; 2008. Fiction.) ATY

——————-

ATY Acquired this year

LIB Borrowed from library

OTH Other

RFS Read from shelves

Edited August 26, 2019 by Melissa M

[Kareni]

Negin, I'm glad you've received some answers and hope that the new treatment will ease your pain.

Robin, happy birthday to your husband.

Earlier today I finished  Permafrost by ALASTAIR REYNOLDS 

which I found to be a quick and thought provoking read.

 "Fix the past. Save the present. Stop the future. Master of science fiction Alastair Reynolds unfolds a time-traveling climate fiction adventure in Permafrost.

2080: at a remote site on the edge of the Arctic Circle, a group of scientists, engineers and physicians gather to gamble humanity’s future on one last-ditch experiment. Their goal: to make a tiny alteration to the past, averting a global catastrophe while at the same time leaving recorded history intact. To make the experiment work, they just need one last recruit: an ageing schoolteacher whose late mother was the foremost expert on the mathematics of paradox.

2028: a young woman goes into surgery for routine brain surgery. In the days following her operation, she begins to hear another voice in her head... an unwanted presence which seems to have a will, and a purpose, all of its own – one that will disrupt her life entirely. The only choice left to her is a simple one.

Does she resist ... or become a collaborator? "

Regards,

Kareni

[Kareni]

Some bookish posts ~

Fantasy Birds Are the Best Birds

https://www.tor.com/2019/08/23/fantasy-birds-are-the-best-birds/

Don’t let a bad reader ruin your audiobook experience. Here are recordings to savor — and to avoid.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/dont-let-a-bad-reader-ruin-your-audiobook-experience-here-are-recordings-to-savor--and-to-avoid/2019/08/05/0750b980-ae2f-11e9-a0c9-6d2d7818f3da_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_campaign=CYS - 81619&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Sailthru

10 Expansive SFF Worlds We Want to Get Lost In

https://www.tor.com/2019/08/21/10-expansive-sff-worlds-we-want-to-get-lost-in/

Sci-Fi & Fantasy Indie Bookseller Picks: Bookmarks in Winston-Salem, NC by Caleb Masters

https://www.tor.com/2019/08/21/sci-fi-fantasy-indie-bookseller-picks-bookmarks-in-winston-salem-nc/

10 OF THE BEST DETECTIVES FROM RECENT CRIME NOVELS

https://bookriot.com/2019/08/15/detectives-from-recent-crime-novels/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=CYS - 82319&utm_term=BookRiot_CheckYourShelf_DormantSuppress

Regards,

Kareni

[Violet Crown]

Thank you for the Apollinaire, Robin! It's a great poem; and I should be getting to Apollinaire soon as part of my non-realists category. I love Océan de terre. If you have any French at all you should read it in a facing edition so you can enjoy the wonderful sound of "Octopus stir all around" in French: "Des poulpes grouillent partout," and the word-play in "Attention on va jeter l'ancre/ Attention à l'encre que l'on jette." 

This week I finished David Lindsay's 1920 science fiction Voyage to Arcturus, which apparently inspired C. S. Lewis in his decidedly inferior science fiction series. I'm not at all sure I made sense of it all, but it's something like Scottish Calvinism meets Swedenborgian Gnosticism in the Twilight Zone. Now reading the much more comprehensible Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler, which is substantially less philosophical I can tell you. Philip Marlowe doesn't waste any time pondering the nature of the Will.

[mumto2]

23 hours ago, Violet Crown said:

Thank you for the Apollinaire, Robin! It's a great poem; and I should be getting to Apollinaire soon as part of my non-realists category. I love Océan de terre. If you have any French at all you should read it in a facing edition so you can enjoy the wonderful sound of "Octopus stir all around" in French: "Des poulpes grouillent partout," and the word-play in "Attention on va jeter l'ancre/ Attention à l'encre que l'on jette." 

This week I finished David Lindsay's 1920 science fiction Voyage to Arcturus, which apparently inspired C. S. Lewis in his decidedly inferior science fiction series. I'm not at all sure I made sense of it all, but it's something like Scottish Calvinism meets Swedenborgian Gnosticism in the Twilight Zone. Now reading the much more comprehensible Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler, which is substantially less philosophical I can tell you. Philip Marlowe doesn't waste any time pondering the nature of the Will.

What can I say other than I am looking forward to reading Voyage to Arcturus!😉

@Negin I am so glad you were able to see a specialist and now have a diagnosis.  I hope the exercises start to work quickly!

 

I finished reading The Golden Hour earlier today and ended up really enjoying it.  A mixture of fact and fiction which spans two world wars and two rather romantic couples.  Apparently one of the couples leads back to another series by the same author https://www.goodreads.com/series/165486-schuyler-sisters which I will eventually read.  Behind the other couple loomed the Windsor’s.  I am still a bit fascinated by the multiple sides of this historic couple.   I still don’t know if I like Wallis but have came to the conclusion that perhaps Edward never wanted to be King and Wallis was his romantic excuse of a way out.  Wallis apparently worked very hard running the  Red Cross in the Bahama’s which made me like her more than I ever have before.  Part of yesterday’s library haul was The Windsor Faction https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17654681-the-windsor-faction?ac=1&from_search=truemy alternate history that @Kareni located for me last week.  There is apparently a recently released memoir written by Wallis’ personal secretary that I am curious about https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40844323-the-windsors-i-knew?ac=1&from_search=true.  I think my tracking that book down will depend on how interested I am after I finish The Windsor Faction. 😉

 

[Kareni]

Some currently free historical romances for Kindle readers ~

Cast in Shadows (Cast in Scandal Book 1)

Cast in Ice (Cast in Scandal Book 3)

The Bluestocking and the Rake (Hearts in Hiding Book 2)

The Dashing Widow: Book One in the Regency Romps Series

Regards,

Kareni

[Penguin]

@Robin M Belated happy anniversary wishes.

@mumto2 I always appreciate your Brit Tripping photos. A belated thanks!

I have been trying to keep up with the threads, but have been completely consumed with family matters - all good things, fortunately. Just very time consuming. Over the summer, I got to enjoy spending time with all three boys. I even had the rare pleasure of seeing all three of them together for a few brief days. DS25 has returned to the Netherlands, and just last weekend we dropped the youngest off at college about six hours from home. We had house guests over the weekend, and this weekend will be heading south to spend time with my mom, DS27, and DS27's girlfriend. While we have had an empty nest for exactly one week, we really have not yet experienced the quiet of an empty nest.

Some overdue bookish updates. I think it has been a long time since I have posted any. Here you go:

FINISHED

The Autobiography of Malcolm X: Engagingly written, and I learned a lot. He went through a lot of changes in thinking over the years, and it was interesting to read through the evolution of his mindset. I was left wanting to explore Malcolm X through other sources, and am also now interested in reading Alex Haley's Roots.

Farewell Summer, Ray Bradbury's sequel to Dandelion Wine, was a disappointment. The writing was great (well, if you like Bradbury's writing), but the plot was thin. Because Dandelion Wine is one of my favorite books, the disappointment was rather sharp.

Thanks to a suggestion from @Kareni , I read The Little World of Don Camillo . I enjoyed the book quite a bit. I had to get it through ILL, and the copy that came was very old with the type of thick, soft paper that one seldom finds in modern books. 

ACTIVELY WORKING ON

I have been pecking away at the Diary of Anne Frank in Danish since January. I did quite a bit of pecking last week.

My current Danish read is  Den, Der Lever Stille by Leonora Christina Skov. The book begins with the death of the main character's mother. The main character is named Christina but later changes her name to Leonora. I have not read anything about the author yet, but maybe this is semi-autobiographical fiction. Christina/Leonora was raised in a strict, oppressive household. When she came out as a lesbian, she was rejected by her parents. Christina/Leonora is a successful novelist, and after the death of her mother she feels free to tell her own story. I am at the 40% mark. It is a good book, but not amazing. At least not yet.

Return to Thrush Green (Thrush Green #5) by Miss Read. The series continues to delight and relax me. And, as was promised to me by BaW member @tuesdayschild, it does indeed seem that Harold just might get the happy ending this time. I fervently hope so!

--

Last but not least, I'd like to mention that I continue to appreciate the BaW threads and the ability to drop back in after an absence.

Edited August 27, 2019 by Penguin

[Kareni]

A currently free book for Kindle readers ~

Auraria: A Novel by Tim Holtzclaw

""Holtzclaw hadn't heard of Auraria until his employer sent him to destroy it..."

Shimmery mystery and spirits, humble monsters, singing trees and vengeful fish in the 19th-century north Georgia mountains

"Weaves tall tales and legends, Carrollian surrealism, and a fascinating cast of characters into a genuinely inventive novel that reads like steampunk via Mark Twain. Fact and fancy are intertwined cleverly and seamlessly in a top-notch, thoroughly American fantasy." Publishers Weekly, starred review

Water spirits, moon maidens, haunted pianos, headless revenants, and an invincible terrapin that lives under the mountains. None of these distract James Holtzclaw from his employer's mission: to turn the fading gold-rush town of Auraria, GA, into a first-class resort and drown its fortunes below a man-made lake. But when Auraria's peculiar people and problematic ghosts collide with his own rival ambitions, Holtzclaw must decide what he will save and what will be washed away.

Taking its inspiration from a real Georgia ghost town, Auraria is steeped in the folklore of the Southern Appalachians, where the tensions of natural, supernatural and artificial are still alive. "

Regards,

Kareni

[Lady Florida.]

@Robin M Happy Belated Birthday to James and Happy Belated Anniversary!

I haven't finished any print/Kindle books since my last update but I finished four audio books. I only listen to audio books when driving or working around the house, and I haven't been driving much so that tells you what I've been up to. 🙂 I've been doing major decluttering and made multiple trips to the thrift shop. They do have pick up but the place I donate to has one small truck and they have a long waiting list for pickups. I just wanted stuff gone so I took it in myself.

This weekend I might get some reading done since it's going to be wet. Yes, we're right in the path of Dorian, in the Cone of Doom. Our most trusted local weather forecaster specifically said Titusville (my city) has a high likelihood of taking a direct hit. Sigh. Dennis is going to have a hurricane birthday. The storm is coming through overnight Sunday into Monday, and his birthday is Tuesday. The last time he had a hurricane birthday was 2004 when Frances came through for his 7th birthday. 

Anyway, on to books. I finished listening to 

Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine, and the Murder of a President - an account of the assassination of James Garfield. It sounds like he might have been a good president and had he lived things might have gone differently in the South after the Civil War. Perhaps Reconstruction wouldn't have been so awful.
Never Enough - a true crime tale of two murdered brothers, one by his wife one by an unrelated person, though the emphasis was mostly on the first brother
Priceless -  memoir by an FBI agent who went after stolen art and historical artifacts, as well as going undercover to catch those who either stole or tried to sell the stolen items. 
Agatha Raisin and the Vicious Vet - because I needed some fluff

Currently (still) reading 

A Moment in the Sun, Fantasyland, Everglades: River of Grass. My book club chose The Bluest Eye for our August book as a tribute to Toni Morrison. We meet the first Tuesday of the month but I doubt we'll be meeting next Tuesday because most of us will be doing storm clean up. It's a reread for me but it's been six years since I read it so it feels new again.

Edited August 29, 2019 by Lady Florida.

[Lady Florida.]

I should add that we're high and dry - high being relative since this is Florida and we're about 3 feet above sea level. We also have a barrier island protecting us. Even if we take a direct hit we'll see minor damage. 

[mumto2]

@Lady Florida. Happy early birthday to Dennis!  I just arrived back in the Cone of Doom a few days ago.......a bit further inland (near Orlando so things should be fine) and have been busy getting organized for the wet weekend.  I am so hoping it just turns out to be wet,  we were here for Frances etc too!   Fortunately we already have a generator because none could be found tonight!  It has been awhile since we were in Central Florida for a hurricane.  Wish we had waited a week or two.........but classes started this week for the dc’s and they would now be freaking out if we had sent them ahead!

I can’t remember who has read Space Opera but I had to abandon listening to it.   I know people either loved it or abandoned it.   I just couldn’t continue.  Somehow the narration reminded me of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy in terms of rhythm etc and at first I was really happy with it for five minutes but then it got irritating. I plan to start listening to  Zero Sum Game https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37534869-zero-sum-game?ac=1&from_search=true next.

I did finish all of the previously published Ilona Andrew’s Hidden Legacy series and am now waiting for my hold on the latest.  This series was so good!

I started my Fred Vargas........not sure what I think of it yet.  For Fluff I have the new Tessa Dare, The Wallflower Wager https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40972652-the-wallflower-wager ready to read.

[Lady Florida.]

9 minutes ago, mumto2 said:

@Lady Florida. Happy early birthday to Dennis!  I just arrived back in the Cone of Doom a few days ago.......a bit further inland (near Orlando so things should be fine) and have been busy getting organized for the wet weekend.  I am so hoping it just turns out to be wet,  we were here for Frances etc too!   Fortunately we already have a generator because none could be found tonight!  It has been awhile since we were in Central Florida for a hurricane.  Wish we had waited a week or two.........but classes started this week for the dc’s and they would now be freaking out if we had sent them ahead!

 

I've been out of the loop for a while and didn't realize you're so close. If you want to try and meet up at some point while you're here PM me. Were you here for Charley too? It came a few weeks before Frances and went through Orlando. It hit the west coast first then went across the state through Orlando, then up and out near Jacksonville. Still, by the time Dorian gets inland it should only be a Category 1 so mostly you'll get wet. I'm glad you'll be here for the kids. I can't imagine how scary it would be for them to be here without you!

[mumto2]

11 minutes ago, Lady Florida. said:

I've been out of the loop for a while and didn't realize you're so close. If you want to try and meet up at some point while you're here PM me. Were you here for Charley too? It came a few weeks before Frances and went through Orlando. It hit the west coast first then went across the state through Orlando, then up and out near Jacksonville. Still, by the time Dorian gets inland it should only be a Category 1 so mostly you'll get wet. I'm glad you'll be here for the kids. I can't imagine how scary it would be for them to be here without you!

I would love to meet!  Give me a few weeks to see what everyone’s life looks like after things settle down.

We were out of town for Charley and returned right before Frances was upgraded and the trajectory plotted.   The whole build up to the event is what drives me nuts.  

[Kareni]

Lady Florida and mumto2, wishing you (and everyone) safe in the upcoming storm.

Regards,

Kareni

[Kareni]

I just finished a book that I quite enjoyed; I suspect this is a book I'll be rereading. It had me laughing frequently. ~

The Flatshare: A Novel by Beth O'Leary

 "Tiffy and Leon share an apartment. Tiffy and Leon have never met.

After a bad breakup, Tiffy Moore needs a place to live. Fast. And cheap. But the apartments in her budget have her wondering if astonishingly colored mold on the walls counts as art.

Desperation makes her open minded, so she answers an ad for a flatshare. Leon, a night shift worker, will take the apartment during the day, and Tiffy can have it nights and weekends. He’ll only ever be there when she’s at the office. In fact, they’ll never even have to meet.

Tiffy and Leon start writing each other notes – first about what day is garbage day, and politely establishing what leftovers are up for grabs, and the evergreen question of whether the toilet seat should stay up or down. Even though they are opposites, they soon become friends. And then maybe more.

But falling in love with your roommate is probably a terrible idea…especially if you've never met. "

Regards,

Kareni

[Kareni]

A currently free inspirational historical romance for Kindle readers ~

Note: I haven't read this particular book, but I've enjoyed several others by the author. The author's heroines usually have out of the ordinary jobs; in this book, the heroine is a telegrapher.

A Dangerous Legacy by Elizabeth Camden

Also a mystery:

To Kill A Labrador (The Marcia Banks and Buddy Cozy Mysteries Book 1)

Regards,

Kareni

[Kareni]

I just finished Ben Aaronovitch's The October Man. This novella is a spin off from the author's Rivers of London series. I enjoyed it.

 "If you thought magic was confined to one country—think again.

Trier: famous for wine, Romans and being Germany’s oldest city.

When a man is found dead with his body impossibly covered in a fungal rot, the local authorities know they are out of their depth. But fortunately this is Germany, where there are procedures for everything.

Enter Tobias Winter, an investigator for the Abteilung KDA, the branch of the German Federal Criminal Police which handles the supernatural. His aim is to get in, deal with the problem, and get out with the minimum of fuss, personal danger and paperwork.

Together with frighteningly enthusiastic local cop, Vanessa Sommer, he quickly links the first victim to a group of ordinary middle aged men whose novel approach to their mid-life crisis may have reawakened a bloody conflict from a previous century.

As the rot spreads, literally, and the suspect list extends to people born before Frederick the Great, Tobias and Vanessa will need to find allies in some unexpected places.

And to solve the case they’ll have to unearth the secret magical history of a city that goes back two thousand years.

Presuming that history doesn’t kill them first. "

Regards,

Kareni

[Violet Crown]

Kathy, here's hoping the hurricane leaves you and yours unscathed.

Teaching prep, with the need to really firm up my Latin, is eating up my time something fierce - qui, quae, quod; qui, quae, quae - but I finished Raymond Chandler's noir mystery Farewell, My Lovely for the Crime & Punishment 10x10 category. Starting now, in between annoying future tenses that look like present tenses of other conjugations, The Táin Bó Cúailnge.

 

[mumto2]

A bit late in the day but I do have a few more Brit Tripping posts to make.......

Back in 2010 Brodsworth Hall hosted a series of free archeological lectures and my family attended.  My kids were the only children in the audience and our family was by far the most inquisitive.😂. Over the course of a month or so we learned quite a bit about the current structure and the previous house which was also quite grand but out of fashion in the opinion the new very rich heir.  A new house was built and the old was completely demolished ...... it was previously explored by the same archeology team.  There are pictures of both houses in this link. https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/brodsworth-hall-and-gardens/history/

The project that year was to find the gate between the Saxon Church that was still standing and the old hall.  I wasn’t able to get in to the church this summer but have been to a few fund raisers there over the years.  It is a well maintained village church that serves really nice cakes.😉. This link has great detail about the details of the church https://www.crsbi.ac.uk/site/3390/ along with a few pictures to illustrate what they are talking about.............

Back to the search for the gate.........several Saxon bodies were found in what had been considered outside the churchyard much to the delight of my kids.  They never got to so the bones but were very interested and did dig for about five minutes one day. 😂  If you look at the laurel bush (new since dig) to the left of the tower the bodies were approximately there.  Part of the tower is thought to be the original Saxon Church.  They did find the gate eventually.....

[Robin M]

@Violet Crownand the rest of our Texas peeps. Please check in to let us know all your family and friends are okay.

 

@Lady Florida. and @mumto2  Glad to hear you are high and dry.  

Edited September 1, 2019 by Robin M

[Robin M]

@mumto2 "Happy Birthday to your DH! 🥳. Our anniversary is my dh’s birthday which is always a bit confusing in terms of where the emphasis goes." 

I know. I promised John when we got married I wouldn't combine presents for our anniversary and his birthday.  So far so good.  Less exhausting  as long as we go out to dinner for one occasion one night and then cook a big dinner for the other.  Speaking of which Ruth Chris steak house, yummy but their prices have doubled.  Sticker shock!  

@NeginHugs and hope the meds and therapy are helping.   Love the quotes from Nine Essential Things

@Liz CA  I've noticed the same thing about Mary Higgins Clark. I don't enjoy her stories as much as I did years and years ago. 

@Teaching3bears  Glad to hear Girl on the Train is hard to put down. Must move it up in my stacks.

@Melissa M  Yep, our ears are burning.   🙂

@Kareni  Love the links

@Violet Crown  My French is very very rusty.  One of these days I'll dip my toes back in. 

@Penguin Waving hello back. Always a joy to hear from you. Glad you had got to spend time with your three young men.

@Lady Florida. Cheers to decluttering and staying dry during the hurricane.  Happy birthday to Dennis.

@mumto2 Brodsworth Hall sounds fascinating and what fun the lecture series must have been for your family. 

 

I finished my binge watch of Younger just in time for the start of Season 7 next week.    We are having the final inspection next week on the house and we're sending our 30 day notice to our commercial landlord.  Our contractor's been working double time to get things done.  Our hypothetical plane is coming in for landing.  We're in for major decluttering this coming month. 

 

[Violet Crown]

28 minutes ago, Robin M said:

@Violet Crownand the rest of our Texas peeps. Please check in to let us know all your family and friends are okay.

Everything is quiet in the City of the V. C. Thanks for checking!

[Negin]

Kindle book on sale today - one that I cannot wait to eventually read!

 

[Junie]

1 hour ago, Negin said:

Kindle book on sale today - one that I cannot wait to eventually read!

 

I really enjoyed this one!  

[Robin M]

Week 36 is live - please continue conversation on new thread.