Sunday, December 8, 2024

BW50: Big C, little C, what begins with C?

 



Happy Sunday!  Big C, little c, what begins with C.  Why Christmas of course and feasting. Which brings us to Brownie Day (8th), National Pastry Day (9th), National Noodle Ring Day (11th), National Gingerbread Day (12th), and Ice Cream Day (13th). This week we also celebrate International Children's Day, Christmas Card Day, Human Rights Day, National Ding a Ling Day, and Friday the 13th. Lots of things we can turn into book ideas.  

Why Christmas website provides a round up of How Christmas is celebrated around the world

Penguin has some delightful Christmas Classics that would be perfect for gifts. I've already bought a set to give to family. 

Pan MacMillian has The best books to gift for Christmas 2024

I recently added A Christmas Memory by Truman Capote to my stacks. Ann Patchett, author and owner of Parnassus books says she's never been able to read the book aloud to a group of people without crying. I also added another holiday tale - Comfort and Joy: A Christmas fable by Kristen Hannah. 

Plus I am reading Kingdom of Copper, part of the Daevabad series by our December author of the month, S. A. Chakraborty.  Be sure to check her out. 


Happy Reading!




Sunday, December 1, 2024

BW49: Countdown to Christmas!

 



Big D, little d, what begins with D. Why, December of course. Welcome to December and all the celebrations this month with Advent, St. Nicholas Day, Hanukkah, Bodhi Day, St Lucia Day,   December Solstice, Las Posadas, Festivus for the rest of us Christmas Day, Boxing Day, and ending with New Year's Eve. 

Time to pull out our Christmas books, curl up by the fire or wrap up in our favorite blankets, fill a mug full of hot goodness, and read. 







What books do you traditionally read during the month of December, for advent, for Hanukkah or Christmas or the holy days or holidays?  







Sunday, November 24, 2024

BW48: Happy Thanksgiving

 



Happy Thanksgiving to all!


On Waking

by 

John O'Donohue


I give thanks for arriving

Safely in a new dawn,

For the gift of eyes

To see the world,

The gift of mind

To feel at home

In my life,

The waves of possibility

Breaking on the shore of dawn,

The harvest of the past

That awaits my hunger,

And all the furtherings

This new day will bring.


Books About Cooks, and the Ingredients That Can’t Be Measured

A Feast of Thanksgiving Reads

13 Books That Didn't Forget About Thanksgiving


Big E, little e, what begins with E - Epics and epilogues, epiphanies and essays, experimental and expressionism all begin with E. 

50 Books beginning with E - How many have you read? 

Read-Alikes For Authors With Last Names Beginning E



Sunday, November 17, 2024

BW47: F is for .....

 


Happy Sunday! Can you believe there are 6 1/2 weeks left in the year? I can't. Time to start brainstorming for next year.    I've reached F in A.J. Jacob's The Know it All in which he's reading through the entire Encyclopedia Britannica in his quest to become the smartest person in the world. The first entry is Fables, which coincidentally, coincides with the letter of the week and the first thing that popped up in literary terms when I searched the internet.  Synchronicity! Maybe.   

Big F, little F. What begins with F.  Why, Fables, as well as flashbacks, fantasy, foils, free verse, folklore and fairy tales, and feminine rhyme.  Robert Frost is a favorite of mine. I'd also like to dip my toes into stories by Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Flaubert, and Fleming, and well as French, Foyle, and Fyodor to name a few.  


The Flower Boat 

by 

Robert Frost

The fisherman's swapping a yarn for a yarn
Under the hand of the village barber,
And her in the angle of house and barn
His deep-sea dory has found a harbor.

At anchor she rides the sunny sod
As full to the gunnel of flowers growing
As ever she turned her home with cod
From George's bank when winds were blowing.

And I judge from that elysian freight
That all they ask is rougher weather,
And dory and master will sail by fate
To seek the Happy Isles together.


Happy Reading! 


Sunday, November 10, 2024

BW46: We Honor You Today by Susan R. Smith

 




We Honor You Today

By

Susan R. Smith




To all of our veterans

Far and near.

We thank you for your service

For all those years.


You sacrificed your time,

And some gave your life.

You preserved our freedom

By willingly paying the price.


Many of you

Were sent overseas.

You were wounded in battle,

With scars and disease.


But courageous and brave,

You weathered the storm.

You faced every battle

With faith and beyond.


We honor you with joy

For all that you've done.

You stood strong for our country,

For our daughters and sons.


So no one stands alone,

We walk hand in hand.

Remember, we are with you.

Together we shall stand.


We salute you today.

Hear what we say.

Let our words speak eloquently

In this special way.


On this day,

Let us express our love and thanks

For the sacrifice you paid.

You served in honor

For many years and days,

And we will never forget

How you were strong and brave.




Sunday, November 3, 2024

BW45: Let's take a road trip through through History, Humor, Hobbies and more!

 


Happy Sunday! Let's take a road trip through history, humor, hobbies, and more.  Welcome to Nonfiction November in which we honor and read a wide variety of categories that are fact based.  Or at least we hope so.  When I told my husband I was planning on reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, he said it's fiction.   I disagreed but when I looked it up, found a variety of opinions and the main consensus is Zen is a fictionalized Autobiography in which the author took creative license with the subject matter.  *sigh*  And hubby hated it when he read it way back when.  Thank you for bursting my bubble. I'll make up my own mind what I think of the story when I read it.    A few people who shall remain nameless have fooled me in the past with their fictionalized autobiographies which resulted in me tossing their books across the room in disgust.  However, there is literary nonfiction or creative nonfiction which I love to read which uses literary styles and techniques similar to fiction but is actually based on fact to tell a story, rather than a dry tome regurgitating facts.  


Whether any of the books listed in the links are nonfiction, creative nonfiction, or fictionalized autobiographies, I'll let you be the judge. 







Happy Reading! 




Sunday, October 27, 2024

BW44: I is for Intertextuality

 




Happy Sunday! I dove into a rabbit hole and became lost in internet land exploring books about and with intertextuality. What is it? Simply put: the relationship between texts, particularly literary text.  

According to literary terms:

"the fact that they are all intimately interconnected. This applies to all texts: novels, works of philosophy, newspaper articles, films, songs, paintings, etc. In order to understand intertextuality, it’s crucial to understand this broad definition of the word “text.”

Every text is affected by all the texts that came before it, since those texts influenced the author’s thinking and aesthetic choices. Remember: every text (again in the broadest sense) is intertextual."

Each story connects or alludes to the next one in some shape or form. Sounds like synchronicity, doesn't it. Yet, synchronicity finds meaningful coincidences without cause while Intertextuality texts borrow words and meaning from each other. 

Literary Hub's The Joys of Influence: In Praise of Intertextuality

Bibliovaults Books about Intertextuality  - a more scholarly view. 

The Book Lovers Sanctuary  - round up of book category intertextuality

Goodreads Intertextual classics (so many I've already read, and will probably reread at some point. Yes, our friend Haruki Murakami is listed.  Plus Goodreads Intertextuality books  - so many interesting stories I'd like to read. How about you? 

Try not to get lost in any rabbit holes. I dare you! :)





Sunday, October 20, 2024

BW43: Japanese Literature

 



Happy Sunday! I have been a fan of Japanese literature for a very long time. I usually start the new reading year with stories written by Haruki Murakami which are full of magical realism.  Fortunately he has a new book coming out in November, The City and It's Uncertain Walls

"We begin with a nameless young couple: a boy and a girl, teenagers in love. One day, she disappears . . . and her absence haunts him for the rest of his life.

 Thus begins a search for this lost love that takes the man into middle age and on a journey between the real world and an other world – a mysterious, perhaps imaginary, walled town where unicorns roam, where a Gatekeeper determines who can enter and who must remain behind, and where shadows become untethered from their selves. Listening to his own dreams and premonitions, the man leaves his life in Tokyo behind and ventures to a small mountain town, where he becomes the head librarian, only to learn the mysterious circumstances surrounding the gentleman who had the job before him. As the seasons pass and the man grows more uncertain about the porous boundaries between these two worlds, he meets a strange young boy who helps him to see what he’s been missing all along."

I've branched out quite a bit over the years and have acquired many more books written about and by Japanese authors.  From Reading the City series,(I hope to eventually read them all) I have added the Book of Tokyo, A City in Short Fiction, with short stories written by Banana Yoshimoto and more:

"A shape-shifter arrives at Tokyo harbour in human form, set to embark on an unstoppable rampage through the city’s train network… A young woman is accompanied home one night by a reclusive student, and finds herself lured into a flat full of eerie Egyptian artefacts… A man suspects his young wife’s obsession with picnicking every weekend in the city’s parks hides a darker motive… At first, Tokyo appears in these stories as it does to many outsiders: a city of bewildering scale, awe-inspiring modernity, peculiar rules, unknowable secrets and, to some extent, danger. Characters observe their fellow citizens from afar, hesitant to stray from their daily routines to engage with them. But Tokyo being the city it is, random encounters inevitably take place – a naïve book collector, mistaken for a French speaker, is drawn into a world he never knew existed; a woman seeking psychiatric help finds herself in a taxi with an older man wanting to share his own peculiar revelations; a depressed divorcee accepts an unexpected lunch invitation to try Thai food for the very first time… The result in each story is a small but crucial change in perspective, a sampling of the unexpected yet simple pleasure of other people’s company. As one character puts it, ‘The world is full of delicious things, you know."

My family are also big fans of the Godzilla movies created by Toho Studios in Japan which lead to us wanting to eventually travel to Japan.  The closest we have gotten is through our armchair travels which is why I recently picked up Pico Iyer's A Beginners Guide to Japan:

"In A Beginner’s Guide to Japan, Iyer draws on his years of experience—his travels, conversations, readings, and reflections—to craft a playful and profound book of surprising, brief, incisive glimpses into Japanese culture. He recounts his adventures and observations as he travels from a meditation hall to a love hotel, from West Point to Kyoto Station, and from dinner with Meryl Streep to an ill-fated call to the Apple service center in a series of provocations guaranteed to
pique the interest and curiosity of those who don’t know Japan—and to remind those who do of its myriad fascinations."

I enjoy translated books from a variety of countries but there is an emotional richness to Japanese literature, with layers and complexity that will capture your attention. 

Japanese Literature divided into four periods

Why I love Japanese Literature

65 Best Japanese Books of All Time

Contemporary Japanese Literature 

Where to Get Started with 57 Essential Japanese Books in English

Happy Reading! 





Sunday, October 13, 2024

BW42: Kunstlerroman vs Bildungsroman

 


Courtesy of Pinterest hudasameh204

Happy Sunday! What is kunstlerroman and what is a Bildungsroman? A bildungsroman is a coming of age story, whilst a kunstlerroman is a sub genre of bildungsroman and follows a character's development as an artist. 

Harry Potter, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Where the Crawdads sing are all examples of bildungsroman. Whereas, A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man, The Unknown Masterpiece, or In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower are all examples of kunstlerroman.  






Happy Reading! 




Sunday, October 6, 2024

BW41: October Author of the Month: Nora Roberts

 


Happy Sunday! Our Author of the Month is Nora Roberts and this week, October 10th,  just so happens to be her birthday.  Roberts is the diva of romance, romantic suspense, action and adventure, and supernatural thrillers.  I discovered her books back in 2007 and fell in lurve.  I have one very full bookcase dedicated to all her books. She is a prolific writer and has written 242 novels which include multiple trilogies and stand alone books. All of which are unique and interesting.  She writes stories that are full of world building, settings, and characters I have fallen in love with and makes me want to reread them over and over again. She also has written a unique futuristic police procedural under the pseudonym of J.D. Robb and recently published the 55th book in the ongoing series. I've reread them a number of times as well. 

Roberts and her husband also own a bookstore in Maine called Turn the Page and a historic inn called Inn Boonsboro with rooms named after literary characters including Eve and Roark from the In Death series.  

Interesting tidbits from her website:

Nora Roberts’ books are published in over 34 countries.

There are enough Nora Roberts books in print to fill the seats of Wrigley Field over 9,900 times (selling out Cubs’ home games for more than 124 seasons).

If you place all Nora’s books top to bottom, they would stretch across the United States from New York to Los Angeles 18 times.

Her official blog, Fall Into The Story, contains updates on books, conversations with readers and insights into Nora’s home life.


Although romance is an element of most of her stories, she has written a number of books that are spooky, thrilling, chilling, and include ghosts or are post apocalyptic such as The Sign of Seven Trilogy or Chronicles of The One.  All good choices for our October Spooktacular. 


Big L, Little L, what begins with L? Why Love, of course. As well as literary, library, letters, and lullaby.

Happy Reading! 




Sunday, September 29, 2024

BW40: October Spooktacular


 

Happy Sunday! Are you ready for our October Spooktacular? What spooks you, gives you goosebumps, sends a chill up your spine, keeps you up reading late into night?  Horror, thrillers, dark comedy, science fiction,  supernatural thrillers, speculative fiction, true crime stories, books with morally grey characters.  Perhaps cozy reads or paranormal reads with ghosts, vampires, werewolves, or mummies. There is something for everyone, even if you like spooky lite. Boo!

16 Spooky Halloween Books for Adults

Spooky Books to Read Every October

31 Halloween Books to Read This October

Goodreads all inclusive Spooky Book Lists

And for those who aren't into the spookiness, our fall reading challenge will be ongoing until Winter. Plus I think we should extended banned books week through October because I still want to read Grapes of Wrath along with Steinbeck's Working Days: The Journal of the Grapes of Wrath. I also want to read Isabel Allende's The House of the Spirits which is also on the Top 100 Banned Books List

Which brings us to our letter of the week - M- which stands for magical realism, memoirs, motifs, marginalia, and metaphors.  

Happy reading! 



Sunday, September 22, 2024

BW39: I have a Notion it is Fall!

 


Happy Sunday! I've got a notion it's Fall. Well, in the Northern Hemisphere at least. Those of you in the Southern Hemisphere are ushering in Spring.  Either way, nature is painting the landscape with vivid and vibrant colors.  Which means, it's time for our Fall Reading Challenge or mission or journey or whatever you want to call it. 

Read a book with, which is, or about (But not all inclusive)

  • Leaves, trees, or nature of some sort on the cover. 
  • Fall colors on the cover. 
  • Fall in the title.
  • Set in Fall or Autumn
  • Someone who could possibly fall, whether physically or metaphorically.
  • Released in September, October, or November.
  • A cozy full of murder and mayhem.
  • Full of pumpkins
  • About someone who transforms.
  • Is magical or mystical.
  • About Halloween, Samhain, Octoberfest, Día de Muertos, Diwali, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving, 

The Ultimate Fall 2024 Reading List which is a round up of list from around the internet.   Haruki Murakami's latest - The City and Its Uncertain Walls will be out on November 19th. Louise Penney's #19 in the Gamache series - The Grey Wolf - will be out on October 29th.  Nora Roberts 2nd book in The Lost Bridge Trilogy - The Mirror - will be out on November 19th. 

The Queen's Reading room - Season 15 includes Geraldine Brooks Horse, E.F. Benson's Mapp and Lucia, Tan Twan Eng's The House of Doors, and Robert Harris's Archangel.  

Have fun filling up your TBR stacks. 

Oh! And it's Banned Book Week so read some challenged books 

Happy reading!