BW24: Xplore Creative Sparks

 

Happy Sunday! I'm not feeling particularly creative today.  Are you feeling creative today? Sometimes we all need a little something to light a spark.  

5 Favourite Books To Reignite Your Creative Spark

Revealed! 7 Brilliant Books About the Nature of Creativity.

Spark Your Creativity: 16 Titles to Get Your Creative Juices Flowing

The 10 Best Books on Creativity (To enrich your mind)

20 of the best books on journaling

13 Books I Love To Use For Junk Journaling

Have fun! 

BW23: Bingo Quest - Prince

 

Happy Sunday! Our next bingo quest is Prince.  Read about Prince, born June 7, 1958 and who sadly passed away April 21st, 2016 at the age of 57.  For those who don't want to read about Prince or find a story with the words in the titles of any of his songs,  we can go in a different direction, reading stories with Prince or royal in the title, or a character in the story.  

Must-Read Books About the British Royal Family

Kings, Queens, and Courtiers: 15 Books About Royal Life

Pick a book Chosen by Her Majesty

13 Novels Starring Fictional Royals

Have fun! 

BW22: Choices: Literary Legend or Author Bookology

 

Happy Sunday!  Which direction should we go with our reading this month?   Left is our Literary Legend Laurence Sterne with his satirical story Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy.

"Laurence Sterne's great masterpiece of bawdy humour and rich satire defies any attempt to categorize it, with a rich metafictional narrative that might classify it as the first 'postmodern' novel. Part novel, part digression, its gloriously disordered narrative interweaves the birth and life of the unfortunate 'hero' Tristram Shandy, the eccentric philosophy of his father Walter, the amours and military obsessions of Uncle Toby, and a host of other characters, including Dr Slop, Corporal Trim and the parson Yorick. A joyful celebration of the endless possibilities of the art of fiction, Tristram Shandy is also a wry demonstration of its limitations."

Right is our Author Bookology with Sonali Dev and her Bollywood style contemporary romances.  I thoroughly enjoyed There's Something About Mira. 

"Mira Salvi has the perfect life. A job she loves, a fiancé everyone adores, and the secure future she's always imagined for herself. Really, she hasn't a thing to complain about, not even when she has to go on her engagement trip to New York alone. 

While playing tourist in the city, Mira chances upon a lost ring, and her social media post to locate its owner goes viral. With everyone trying to claim the ring, only one person seems to want to find its owner as badly as Mira does: journalist Krish Hale. Brooding and arrogant, he will do anything to get to write this story.

As Krish and Mira reluctantly join forces and jump into the adventure of tracing the ring back to where it belongs, Mira begins to wonder if she is in the right place in her own life. She had to have found this ring for a reason? Right? Maybe, like the owner of the lost ring, her happy ending hasn't been written yet either."

Or straight ahead with your mental safety blanket, the all encompassing comfort read or reread, depending on your mood. 

I'm 0 for 5 in our Literary Legend conquests as I have started to read each author and parted ways soon thereafter as I have immersed myself in Robin Hobb's worlds with her Farseer Trilogy as well as the Live Ship traders trilogy. I have had better luck with our author bookology although I have yet to read Abraham Verghese but I'm hoping to make it 6 out of 6 soon. But only after I dive into Sonali Dev's Recipe for Persuasion.  And of course, continue what has turned into a year long quest of reading Robin Hobb with the first book in her next series Rain Wild Chronicles:  Dragon Keeper. 

But first I must finish my comfort read with author Nora Roberts and her newest stand alone book - The Final Target.  I thought she gave it all away in the synopsis, but as usual her interesting characters have drawn me in. 

Oh! And I've finally fallen into the world of Dungeon Crawler Carl. We'll see for how far I get. 

Happy Reading!

BW21: Memorial Day

 

Memorial Day

By

Clara Ann Thompson

Go;—for ’tis Memorial morning—

Go with hearts of peace and love;

Deck the graves of fallen soldiers;

Go, your gratitude to prove.

Gather flow’rs and take them thither,

Emblem of a nation’s tears;

Grateful hearts cannot forget them,

In the rush of passing years.

Strew the flow’rs above their couches;

Let thy heart’s affection blend,

With the dewy buds and blossoms,

That in fragrant showers descend.

Strew the flow’rs above the heroes,

Slain for loving friends and thee;

Canst thou find a better off’ring,

For those sons of liberty?

While the buds and blooms are falling,

Earnest hearts are asking,—Why—

In a tone, though low and gentle,

Yet, as ardent as a cry,—

‘Why must precious lives be given,

That our country may be free?

Is there not a nobler pathway

To the throne of liberty?

‘Can we choose no nobler watch-word,

Than the ringing battle-cry,

Harbinger of strife and bloodshed,

Must we sin, that sin may die?

‘Long ago, to far Judea,

Came the blessed Prince of Peace:

Shall we ever heed His teaching,

That these wars and feuds may cease?’

BW20: May Contemporary Author - Abraham Verghese

 

Happy Sunday!  Our contemporary author of the month is Abraham Verghese. Born in Addis Abba, Ethiopia, he wanted to be a doctor and ended up completing his residency in the United States. His work with terminally ill patients lead him to writing both  stories such as the historical fiction story, Covenant of Water, to the non fiction stories about his life such as My Own Country: A Doctor's story.  

I have Covenant for Water in my stacks and hope to get to it soon, after I finish Robin Hobb's Live Ship Trader series.  

Abraham Verghese:  2015 National Humanities Medalist

Weekly Read: “If Brains Was Gas” by Abraham Verghese

Abraham Verghese on Marrying Medicine With Literature

Epic of Love, Family Curses and Faith From Author of “Cutting for Stone”

Happy Reading! 

BW19: Bingo Quest - Simulated

 

Happy Sunday!  Is it real or fake? An alternate reality, fake reality, or set in another space or dimension?  Our next Bingo Quest is Simulated.  The book world is full of stories about simulated theory, metaverse, liminal space, computer game worlds, cyber reality and virtual reality.   Creative, nonsensical, fantastical, or horrific, the simulated worlds draw the readers in.  

Dive into Life is a Simulation or See You in the Metaverse.

Reach into  8 Mind-Bending Simulation Books Where Nothing Is As It Seems or 12 Engrossing Novels Inspired By Video Gaming

step through Liminal Spaces, Timeslips and Matrix Glitches in Fiction

Have fun exploring! 

BW18: Literary Legend - Herman Melville

Happy Sunday! Our literary legend for the month is Herman Melville, best known for his epic Moby Dick about Captain Ahab's obsession with the sea and whales.  I've read Moby Dick as well as various spin offs such as Captain Ahab's Wife by Sena Jeter Naslund and The Wind Whale of Ishmael by Phillip Jose Farmer, both which were as entertaining as well.  

Plus I have Nathaniel Philbrick's In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex in my stacks which "brings to new life the incredible story of the wreck of the whaleship Essex - an event as mythic in its own century as the Titanic disaster in ours, and the inspiration for the climax of Moby-Dick. In a harrowing page-turner, Nathaniel Philbrick restores this epic story to its rightful place in American history."

Nathaniel Philbrick also wrote Sea of Glory: America's Voyage of Discovery, the U.S. Exploring Expedition, 1838-1842, as well as other nonfiction book that bring history to life which I have totally enjoyed.  

Berkshire County Historical Society

Moby Dick Inspired Books

Moby-Dick and In the Heart of the Sea

Join in reading Moby Dick or Herman Melville's other books, Moby Dick adaptations, a book about maritime adventures,  whales or other sea creatures, oceanic and marine science fiction, or songs of the sea. 

BW17: Bingo Quest: Quirky

 

Happy Sunday! This post will be short but sweet since I'm rebuilding our business website because I accidently took it down when changed a setting with our new servicer and our current website disappeared completely.    OY! 

Our next bingo quest is to find a book with a quirk which is something odd or unusual about the book cover itself or the story or a character or however you define it.  

 My Favorite Quirky Literary Characters

40 Charming, Heart-Warming, and Quirky Books

22 Quirky, Awkward Books That Prove We’re All Weird

Most Unique Female Characters

Have fun! 

BW16: National Poetry Month: The Chance by Arthur Sze

 

Happy Sunday! Since April is National Poetry Month leaving you with The Chance by Arthur Sze which is excerpted on the poster above. 

The Chance 

The blue-black mountains are etched

   with ice. I drive south in fading light.

   The lights of my car set out before

   me, and disappear before my very eyes.

   And as I approach thirty, the distances

   are shorter than I guess? The mind

   travels at the speed of light. But for

   how many people are the passions

   ironwood, ironwood that hardens and hardens?

   Take the ex-musician, insurance salesman,

   who sells himself a policy on his own life;

   or the magician who has himself locked

   in a chest and thrown into the sea,

   only to discover he is caught in his own chains.

   I want a passion that grows and grows.

   To feel, think, act, and be defined

   by your actions, thoughts, feelings.

   As in the bones of a hand in an X-ray,

   I want the clear white light to work

   against the fuzzy blurred edges of the darkness:

   even if the darkness precedes and follows

   us, we have a chance, briefly, to shine.

BW15: Opportunities

 

Happy Sunday! I'm in Arizona again helping my dad out and realized that no matter what age you are, opportunity is our friend. You just have to reach out and grab it.  Same with books since they present limitless opportunity.  So reach out and grab the books that has been calling your name and find your next opportunity! 

"A day dawns, quite like other days; in it a single hour comes, quite like other hours; but in that day and in that hour the chance of a lifetime faces us. To face every opportunity of life thoughtfully and ask its meaning bravely and earnestly, is the only way to meet the supreme opportunities when they come, whether open-faced or disguised. ~Maltbie Davenport Babcock (1858–1901)"

Happy Reading! 

BW14: Author bookology - Ariel Lawhon

 

Happy Sunday!   Our contemporary author choice for the month of April is Ariel Lawhon.  Last year, I read The Frozen River and couldn't put it down. 

“A gripping historical mystery inspired by the life and diary of Martha Ballard, a renowned 18th-century midwife who defied the legal system and wrote herself into American history. 

Maine, 1789: When the Kennebec River freezes, entombing a man in the ice, Martha Ballard is summoned to examine the body and determine cause of death. As a midwife and healer, she is privy to much of what goes on behind closed doors in Hallowell. Her diary is a record of every birth and death, crime and debacle that unfolds in the close-knit community. Months earlier, Martha documented the details of an alleged rape committed by two of the town’s most respected gentlemen—one of whom has now been found dead in the ice. But when a local physician undermines her conclusion, declaring the death to be an accident, Martha is forced to investigate the shocking murder on her own.

Over the course of one winter, as the trial nears, and whispers and prejudices mount, Martha doggedly pursues the truth. Her diary soon lands at the center of the scandal, implicating those she loves, and compelling Martha to decide where her own loyalties lie.

Clever, layered, and subversive, Ariel Lawhon's newest offering introduced an unsung heroine who refused to accept anything less than justice at a time when women were considered best seen and not heard. The story was  a thrilling, tense, and tender story about a remarkable woman who left an unparalleled legacy yet remains nearly forgotten to this day.”

I have since added Code Name Helene to my stacks which am taking with me on the plane to read while visiting my father again.   I thoroughly enjoy World War II historical fiction especially when it involves women spies.  Kristen Hannah's The Nightingale enthralled and kept me reading long into the night.  Hopefully this one will be equally mesmerizing.  

Be sure to check out Ariel Lawhon's other books!

BW13: April is upon us

 

April is upon us and I'm laughing because the first week in the month is Read a Road Map Week. I'm horrible with navigation which has lead to getting lost many a time. We just got back from a trip and it is the main reason why I'm the driver and hubby is the navigator as it seems he has a compass in his head.  I'm also grateful for digital navigation which tells me where to go, but sometimes even it's wrong. What's a girl to do?   

This month our literary legend is Larry McMurtry, author of the Lonesome Dove and then some.  And since we just got back from celebrating my dad's 95th birthday and I almost forgot to write this post, I'm going to leave you with a few links to peruse:

Larry McMurtry books in Order with a breakdown by series or publication date. 

National Endowment for the Humanities: Larry McMurtry

Larry McMurtry Literary Center

NPR Literary center named for author Larry McMurtry honors hometown son

Goodreads Larry McMurtry

I currently have The Lonesome Dove as well as The Last Picture Show in my stacks to read this year.  Join me in reading a book by Larry McMurtry this year.