Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks

Sunday, May 28, 2023

BW22: Memorial Day by Frederick W. Emerson

Memorial Day

Frederick W. Emerson

Our Nation is reverently thinking today

Of the loved ones sleeping beneath the cold clay;

Of the sacrifice made, and the brave deeds done,

To preserve our Union as a glorious one.

We ne'er will be able to pay the great cost

Of the noble, the true, and the brave that we've lost;

But over their graves, with tears like the dew,

We'll lay our sweet flowers of red, white and blue.

Our Nation is paying its tribute today

Upon the green mounds where its loyal men lay;

While statesman, and orator, fondly repeat

The story of those who knew no defeat.

They tell of the Union united again,

By the triumph of those who died not in vain;

Of the forty-four states all loyal and free,

Of the peace, and the freedom, from sea to sea.

Please share your book thoughts reviews and link to your website, blog, Goodreads, Google+, Tumblers, or Instagram page. If you do not have a social media account, please leave a comment to let us know what you are reading. The link widget closes at the end of each book week.

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Sunday, May 21, 2023

BW21: 52 Books Bingo - Southern

Happy Sunday! Our next 52 Books Bingo category is Southern which means our reading adventures are taking us southward. But where shall we go? We can go South of the Mississippi or to Southern California. We could go south of the equator to one of the five continents of Antarctica, Africa, Australia, South America, or Asia. Or we could go to the south of France or Italy. We can turn south and read a book from towns, cities, states, or countries in that direction. We could read a book with South in the Title or a character or dog named south. Ask a family member to blindly pick a point on the map located in the south and read a book by an author closest to that point. How you interpret it is up to you.

Books in Southern Europe

33 Must Read South Asian Books

12 Books Set in Our Favorite Southern Cities

The Best Books About Mississippi

Books Set in Southern California

Books with South on the cover

This post is brought to you by the letter U for understanding, underdog, undefeated, united, and unconditional.

Please share your thoughts and reviews. Link to your website, blog, Goodreads, Google+, Tumblers, or Instagram page. If you do not have a social media account, please leave a comment to let us know what you are reading. The link widget closes at the end of each book week.

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Sunday, May 14, 2023

BW20: Happy Mother's Day!

My Mother Kept a Garden

My Mother kept a garden,

A garden of the heart.

She planted all the good things

That gave my life its start.

She turned me to the sunshine

And encouraged me to dream.

Fostering and nurturing

The seeds of self-esteem.

I am my Mother’s garden.

I am her legacy.

And I hope today she feels the love

Reflected from me.

Author — Unknown

Happy Mother's Day

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Sunday, May 7, 2023

BW19: 52 Books Bingo - Character vs ...

Happy Sunday! Books thrive on conflict, the more conflict the better. Our next 52 Books Bingo is all about character and conflict. Conflict between characters, fate, technology, or nature as well as the conflict between self, the supernatural, or society.

Character vs character conflict about the struggles between the protagonist and the antagonist: Batman vs Joker characters such as Harry Potter vs Voldemort.

Character vs fate conflict of the battle of free will against a prophecy, a curse, society's expectations, or a fatal disease: Ex - Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince or Frodo from Lord of the Rings.

Character vs technology conflict between man and machine: Ex - Frankenstein or I, Robot.

Character vs nature conflict is the battle between man and nature: Ex - Old Man and the Sea or Moby Dick.

Character vs self as the character battles himself, his choices, desires, and duties, both literal or psychological: Ex - The Bell Jar or Crime and Punishment

Character vs Supernatural conflict in which man battles the supernatural such as ghosts, goblins, demons, or aliens: Ex - The Haunting of Hill House or The Discovery of Witches.

Character vs Society conflict between man and the world at large, his desires and beliefs vs society at large: Ex - The Hunger Games or 1984.

Do Character-Driven or Plot-Driven Books Create Better Book Club Conversations?

Testing Fate: A Closer Look at Person vs. Fate Conflict

Fate, Destiny, and Choices - Parallel Life Books

What Are the Different Types of Conflict in Fiction?

10 Thought-Provoking Books Written To Challenge Society

6 conflict types in fiction: Man vs self, Man vs Nature, or Man vs Society

Our post is brought to you by the letter S which brings you solutions, society, sales, and sorcerers.

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Sunday, April 30, 2023

BW18: May Author of the Month - Kirsten McKenzie

Kirsten McKenzie

Happy Sunday and Welcome to May! May is Mystery Month as well as Gifts from the Garden Month, National Bike month, and National Photograph month. This week is Be Kind to Animal week. Let's gather around the maypole, honor our brothers and sisters, meditate in the garden, celebrate all things Star Wars, party on Cinco De Mayo, read a free comic book, and wear a fancy hat for Kentucky Derby day.

Our author of the month is Kirsten McKenzie. She is the author of the time travel books - The Old Curiosity Shop series which includes The Fifteen Postcards, The Last Letter, and Telegram Home. She is currently working on a spinoff series, the Ithaca Trilogy. The first book Ithaca Bound is available now. She has also published a horror thriller Painted and thriller The Forger and the Thief.

Our post is brought to us by the letter R which stands for random, romance, realism, and racing.

Join me in reading Kirsten McKenzie's works this month.

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Sunday, April 23, 2023

BW17: National Poetry Month

Happy Sunday! We are going to close out the month with a nod to National Poetry Month and this year's Poet Laurette Ada Limon.

The Last Thing

First there was the blue wing

of a scraggly loud jay tucked

into the shrubs. Then the bluish-

black moth drunkenly tripping

from blade to blade. Then

the quiet that came roaring

in like the R. J. Corman over

Broadway near the RV shop.

These are the last three things

that happened. Not in the universe,

but here, in the basin of my mind,

where I’m always making a list

for you, recording the day’s minor

urchins: silvery dust mote, pistachio

shell, the dog eating a sugar

snap pea. It’s going to rain soon,

close clouds bloated above us,

the air like a net about to release

all the caught fishes, a storm

siren in the distance. I know

you don’t always understand,

but let me point to the first

wet drops landing on the stones,

the noise like fingers drumming

the skin. I can’t help it. I will

never get over making everything

such a big deal.

This week's post is brought to you by the letter Q for guiet, quintessential, question, and quest.

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Sunday, April 16, 2023

BW16: 52 Books Bingo - Food Lover

Happy Sunday. Calling all foodies! April is full of food holidays which means it is time for another round of 52 Books Bingo with Food Lovers. Today is the Day of the Mushroom and I can smell the butter and garlic now. Wednesday is National Garlic Day by the way so get those garlic pressers ready. Or maybe you are more in the mood for eggs with Eggs Benedict day, or cheese for cheeseball day or Jelly Beans. Whatever you are in the mood for, let's get reading and cooking with:

32 Best Devour-Worthy Novels About Food

Novels About Food: 32 Scrumptious Books For Foodies

20 tasty and tantalizing food memoirs

Top 10 culinary memoirs

Goodreads huge listopia of foodie books

Are you hungry now?

Our post is sponsored by O and P which stands for Oulipo and Poetry.

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Sunday, April 9, 2023

BW15: Happy Easter

The Splendor of Lilies

Margaret Elizabeth Munson Sangster

Oh, rare as the splendor of lilies,

And sweet as the violet’s breath,

Comes the jubilant morning of Easter,

The triumph of life over death;

And fresh from the earth’s quickened bosom

Full baskets of flowers we bring,

And scatter their satin soft petals

To carpet a path for our King.

In the countless green blades of the meadow.

The sheen of the daffodil’s gold,

In the tremulous blue on the mountains,

The opaline mist on the wold.

In the tinkle of brooks through the pasture,

The river’s strong sweep to the sea.

Are signs of the day that is hasting

In gladness to you and to me.

Oh, dawn in thy splendor of lilies,

Thy fluttering violet breath,

Oh, jubilant morning of Easter,

Thou triumph of life over death!

Then fresh from the earth’s quickened bosom

Full baskets of flowers we bring,

And scatter their satin soft petals

To carpet a path for our King.

Happy Easter to all!

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Sunday, April 2, 2023

BW14: April Author of the Month - Barbara Kingsolver

Happy Sunday! April is a fun month of the year since it is National Poetry month as well as National Humor month, National Frog month, and National Kite Month. Today we celebrate Palm Sunday as well as Children's Book Day, the 3rd is Find a Rainbow Day, the 4th is School Librarian day, the 5th is National Walking Day, the 6th California Poppy Day, and the 7th is Good Friday as well as World Health day, and the 8th is All is Ours day.

Plus our Author of the Month is Barbara Kingsolver, best known for the Poisonwood Bible which I found to be an absolutely amazing story and stayed with me long after I finished it. Nathan Price knows nothing about the Congo or its people, but is determined to start a church and save all the natives. The story is from the perspective of Orleana Price and her four daughters. Rachel, a teenager who vain and self absorbed; twins Leah and Adah, both extremely intelligent, but physically different. Adah disabled from birth and can't speak. Leah adores her father whereas Adah views him and the world more realistically. And Ruth who sees the world through her five year old eyes. While Nathan insists on the natives conforming to his view of the world, Orleana and her daughters do their best to survive, learning about the world they now are forced to reside it.

The Poisonwood Bible is full of African history and culture. Because there are many different meanings to the same words, whether the emphasis is on one part or another, it leads to many miscommunication between the Prices and the villagers. Throughout, the villagers remain a constant. They end up teaching the Prices about life, individuality, liberty, and death. Africa changes the Price family, for better and for worse, forever. I didn't expect to enjoy this story as much as I did but from Rachel's self absorbed rants to Adah's metamorphosis, the lives of the Prices and the story of Africa completely enfolds you. If you haven't read The Poisonwood Bible yet, I recommend it.

Kingsolver has written many books which I am looking forward to reading. She was an editor for Best American Short Stories in 2001. Plus her stories are part of the core literature curriculum in many high schools and colleges.

Join me in reading Barbara Kingsolver's works this month.

Our post is brought to us by the letter N which stands for narrator, night, national, and names.

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Sunday, March 26, 2023

BW13: Happy Birthday Joseph Cambell

Courtesy of the Joseph Campbell Foundation

Happy Sunday! Today marks the anniversary of the birth of Joseph Campbell who is best known for introducing the concept of the Hero's Journey in The Hero With a Thousand Faces. Campbell has written numerous books on comparative mythology and his entire booklist can be found on the Joseph Campbell Foundation as well as the list of required reading for the mythology course taught at Sarah Lawrence college.

"The basic story of the hero journey involves giving up where you are, going into the realm of adventure, coming to some kind of symbolically rendered realization, and then returning to the field of normal life." Pathways to Bliss

"My feeling is that mythic forms reveal themselves gradually in the course of your life if you know what they are and how to pay attention to their emergence. My own initiation into the mythic depths of the unconscious has been through the mind, through the books that surround me in this library. I have recognized in my quest all the stages of the hero’s journey. I had my calls to adventure, my guides, demons, and illuminations." Man and Myth

"It would not be too much to say that myth is the secret opening through which the inexhaustible energies of the cosmos pour into human cultural manifestation. Religion, philosophies, arts, the social forms of primitive and historic man, prime discoveries in science and technology, the very dreams that blister sleep, boil up from the basic, magic ring of myth." Hero with a Thousand Faces

"For the symbols of mythology are not manufactured; they cannot be ordered, invented, or permanently suppressed. They are the spontaneous productions of the psyche, and each bears within it, undamaged, the germ power of its source." Hero with a Thousand Faces

"Blunders are not the merest chance. They are the results of suppressed desires and conflicts. They are ripples on the surface of life, produced by unsuspected springs. And these may be very deep—as deep as the soul itself. The blunder may amount to the opening of a destiny." Hero with a Thousand Faces

"I didn’t write my books for critics and scholars. I wrote them for students and artists. When I hear how much my work has meant to them––well, I can’t tell you how happy that makes me. That means that this great stuff of myth, which I have been so privileged to work with, will be kept alive for a whole new generation. That’s the function of the artists, you know, to reinterpret the old stories and make them come alive again, in poetry, painting, and now in movies." Hero's Journey

"Life is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be lived." Hero's Journey

Have fun delving to the world of mythology with Joseph Campbell.

Our post is sponsored by the letter M which stands for myth, meaning, and man.

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Sunday, March 19, 2023

BW12: March Equinox

Happy Sunday! This week we celebrate the beginning of Spring in the Northern Hemisphere and the beginning of Autumn in the Southern Hemisphere. It seems Spring has sprung already in our neck of the world. The temps are rising and it was a balmy 70 degrees yesterday while I was running here, there, and everywhere. Today is also Let's Laugh Day, the 20th is not only the March Equinox, but International Day of Happiness as well. The 21st is World Poetry Day, the 22nd is As Young as You Feel Day, the 23rd is not only my dad's 92nd birthday, but also National Chip and Dip Day. The 24th is National Cheesecake day, and the 25th is International Waffle Day. I think the person who makes up the calendar was hungry. LOL!

Let's dive into spring (or autumn reads, depending on where you are) with Beyond the Bookends list of 107 Sensational New Spring 2023 releases or She Reads Most Anticipated Books of Spring

In the Southern Hemisphere, dip into the Republic's list of 23 African Books to Expect in 2023 or Australian Fiction authors new releases through March 2023.

Read a book with Spring or Autumn in the title or Spring or Autumn flowers on the cover.

Read a book that takes place during Spring or Autumn.

Join your local libraries Spring or Autumn 2023 reading challenge.

Our post is brought to you by the letter L this week which means loads and loads of love, laughter and life to explore.

Have fun following rabbit trails!

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Sunday, March 12, 2023

BW11: St. Patrick's Day

Happy Sunday! St Patrick's Day is officially March 17th, however, we're going to celebrate St. Patrick's Day all week long. My father's side of the family came from Cork county, Ireland which is known as the food capital of Ireland. Plus it's northwest of the Blarney castle where my grandparents have kissed the blarney stone a few times. We have a plaque in our home my grandmother gave us that says "Fluent Blarney spoken here."

Instead of loading our wish lists down with more books, let's find a book on our shelves about Ireland, with Irish characters, or with green on the cover or in the title.

St. Patrick’s Day

Jean Blewett

There’s an Isle, a green Isle, set in the sea,

Here’s to the Saint that blessed it!

And here’s to the billows wild and free

That for centuries have caressed it!

Here’s to the day when the men that roam

Send longing eyes o’er the water!

Here’s to the land that still spells home

To each loyal son and daughter!

Here’s to old Ireland—fair, I ween,

With the blue skies stretched above her!

Here’s to her shamrock warm and green,

And here’s to the hearts that love her!

Our post is sponsored by the letter K which stands for kiss, kind, knight, kneel, kittens, and kites.

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