Sunday, June 30, 2013

BW27: Eurorail through Europe


Can you believe we are halfway through the year?  Monday is July 1st and that means it's time to continue our travels across the continents.  If you've been doing the continental, I hope you had a grand time traipsing through Africa and are ready to take a ferry from Morocco over to Spain where we will begin our trip through Europe.  I'm going to splurge on a global Eurorail pass which will let me visit multiple countries and take a champagne tour through France, watch the changing of the guard at Buckingham palace, sleep in a historic castle in Ireland, explore the black forests of Germany, or perhaps hike up through the Swiss Alps.

Currently in my backpack is Carlos Ruiz Zafon's The Midnight Palace, Italo Calvino's If on a Winter's Night a Traveler,  Frank Delaney's Ireland, and Matt Rees' Mozart's Last Aria.

Check out the link above Eurorail through Europe where I've highlighted a couple books from several countries to help get you started on your travels.   How about taking a literary tour of Europe.  Be sure to check out Adelante's program- Ireland's Nobel Literature or Literary Traveler's Le Belle Epoque in Paris.  Or take a tour of libraries starting with the world's largest library, The National Library of Spain  in Madrid, founded in 1712 by King Philip V.  Be sure to check out Flavorwire's stunning photo's of Europe's Most Beautiful Libraries.


*****************************************************************
Link to your reviews:    Please link to your specific book review post and not your general blog link. In the Your Name field, type in your name and the name of the book in parenthesis. In the Your URL field leave a link to your specific post. If you don't have a blog, tell us about the books you are reading in the comment section of this post.


Sunday, June 23, 2013

BW26: Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy


Book #12 in Susan Wise Bauer's list of great fiction in Well Educated Mind is Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy.  Although it seemed like a soap opera at times, I thoroughly enjoyed this novel as much as I did War and Peace.   The story was originally published in serial form in The Russian Messenger from 1873 to 1877.  Tolstoy clashed with the editor with his political leanings in the last chapter and therefore became the final installment.  Anna Karenina is a complex story dealing with her adulterous affair with Count Vronsky and how it affects her life and relationships with those surrounding her.  


Chapter One: 
Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

Everything was in confusion in the Oblonskys' house. The wife had discovered that the husband was carrying on an intrigue with a French girl, who had been a governess in their family, and she had announced to her husband that she could not go on living in the same house with him. This position of affairs had now lasted three days, and not only the husband and wife themselves, but all the members of their family and household, were painfully conscious of it. Every person in the house felt that there was so sense in their living together, and that the stray people brought together by chance in any inn had more in common with one another than they, the members of the family and household of the Oblonskys. The wife did not leave her own room, the husband had not been at home for three days. The children ran wild all over the house; the English governess quarreled with the housekeeper, and wrote to a friend asking her to look out for a new situation for her; the man-cook had walked off the day before just at dinner time; the kitchen-maid, and the coachman had given warning.

Three days after the quarrel, Prince Stepan Arkadyevitch Oblonsky--Stiva, as he was called in the fashionable world-- woke up at his usual hour, that is, at eight o'clock in the morning, not in his wife's bedroom, but on the leather-covered sofa in his study. He turned over his stout, well-cared-for person on the springy sofa, as though he would sink into a long sleep again; he vigorously embraced the pillow on the other side and buried his face in it; but all at once he jumped up, sat up on the sofa, and opened his eyes.
"Yes, yes, how was it now?" he thought, going over his dream. "Now, how was it? To be sure! Alabin was giving a dinner at Darmstadt; no, not Darmstadt, but something American. Yes, but then, Darmstadt was in America. Yes, Alabin was giving a dinner on glass tables, and the tables sang, Il mio tesoro--not Il mio tesoro though, but something better, and there were some sort of little decanters on the table, and they were women, too," he remembered.

Stepan Arkadyevitch's eyes twinkled gaily, and he pondered with a smile. "Yes, it was nice, very nice. There was a great deal more that was delightful, only there's no putting it into words, or even expressing it in one's thoughts awake." And noticing a gleam of light peeping in beside one of the serge curtains, he cheerfully dropped his feet over the edge of the sofa, and felt about with them for his slippers, a present on his last birthday, worked for him by his wife on gold-colored morocco. And, as he had done every day for the last nine years, he stretched out his hand, without getting up, towards the place where his dressing-gown always hung in his bedroom. And thereupon he suddenly remembered that he was not sleeping in his wife's room, but in his study, and why: the smile vanished from his face, he knitted his brows.

"Ah, ah, ah! Oo!..." he muttered, recalling everything that had happened. And again every detail of his quarrel with his wife was present to his imagination, all the hopelessness of his position, and worst of all, his own fault.

"Yes, she won't forgive me, and she can't forgive me. And the most awful thing about it is that it's all my fault--all my fault, though I'm not to blame. That's the point of the whole situation," he reflected. "Oh, oh, oh!" he kept repeating in despair, as he remembered the acutely painful sensations caused him by this quarrel.
Most unpleasant of all was the first minute when, on coming, happy and good-humored, from the theater, with a huge pear in his hand for his wife, he had not found his wife in the drawing-room, to his surprise had not found her in the study either, and saw her at last in her bedroom with the unlucky letter that revealed everything in her hand.

She, his Dolly, forever fussing and worrying over household details, and limited in her ideas, as he considered, was sitting perfectly still with the letter in her hand, looking at him with an expression of horror, despair, and indignation.

"What's this? this?" she asked, pointing to the letter.

And at this recollection, Stepan Arkadyevitch, as is so often the case, was not so much annoyed at the fact itself as at the way in which he had met his wife's words.

There happened to him at that instant what does happen to people when they are unexpectedly caught in something very disgraceful. He did not succeed in adapting his face to the position in which he was placed towards his wife by the discovery of his fault. Instead of being hurt, denying, defending himself, begging forgiveness, instead of remaining indifferent even--anything would have been better than what he did do--his face utterly involuntarily (reflex spinal action, reflected Stepan Arkadyevitch, who was fond of physiology)--utterly involuntarily assumed its habitual, good-humored, and therefore idiotic smile.
This idiotic smile he could not forgive himself. Catching sight of that smile, Dolly shuddered as though at physical pain, broke out with her characteristic heat into a flood of cruel words, and rushed out of the room. Since then she had refused to see her husband.

"It's that idiotic smile that's to blame for it all," thought Stepan Arkadyevitch.

"But what's to be done? What's to be done?" he said to himself in despair, and found no answer.

It can be read here, here, or download in ebook format from all sources including gutenberg, kindle or nook. 

*****************************************************************************************
Link to your reviews:    Please link to your specific book review post and not your general blog link. In the Your Name field, type in your name and the name of the book in parenthesis. In the Your URL field leave a link to your specific post. If you don't have a blog, tell us about the books you are reading in the comment section of this post. 

 

Sunday, June 16, 2013

BW25: Ode to Fathers

me and my dad
 
 
 
 
Life Lessons
You may have thought I didn't see,
Or that I hadn't heard,
Life lessons that you taught to me,
But I got every word.
 
Perhaps you thought I missed it all,
And that we'd grow apart,
But Dad, I picked up everything,
It's written on my heart.
 
Without you, Dad, I wouldn't be
The person I am today;
You built a strong foundation
No one can take away.
 
I've grown up with your values,
And I'm very glad I did;
So here's to you, dear father,
From your forever grateful kid.
 
By Joanna Fuchs
 
 
Happy Fathers day to dads everywhere!

***************************************************************

Link to your reviews:    Please link to your specific book review post and not your general blog link. In the Your Name field, type in your name and the name of the book in parenthesis. In the Your URL field leave a link to your specific post. If you don't have a blog, tell us about the books you are reading in the comment section of this post. 

Sunday, June 9, 2013

BW24 - The Audies 2013


June is the month to celebrate audiobooks and recently stumbled across The Audies 2013 sponsored by the Audio Publishing Association.  Up until a couple years ago I wasn't really a big fan of audiobooks.  I'm very picky when it comes to narrators and even when found one I liked, would end up tuning out, because my brain was simply too busy.  Then I got a new car radio which was USB capable and had a brilliant idea.  Why not listen to a book I'd already read.  So I began downloading books to my Iphone and listening to J.D. Robb's In Death series and before I knew it, started enjoying my drives more and training my brain to listen to audio books.

Now I find myself listening while cleaning the house, gardening or  occasionally just sitting there doodling.  And I discovered it's a great sleep aid for a busy mind and curl up in bed most nights, listening until I start to phase out.   I'm still picky about the narrators and mainly like female narrators but find myself branching out and discovering some of the guys do a pretty good job without sounding like off Broadway female impersonators. 

Which brings me back to The Audies.  I'm looking forward to checking out a few of these award winning titles.

Audiobook of the Year:  The End of the Affair by Graham Greene and read by Colin Firth

Fiction:  The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood and read by Claire Danes

AudioDramaSwordspoint by Ellen Kushner read by Ellen Kushner and a cast of others

Classic:   Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens read by Charlton Griffin

Distinguished Achievement on Production:  Dracula by Bram Stoker read by Tim Curry and a cast of others.

There are a few other categories listing the winners and nominees for each category.  Be sure to check it out and listen to an audio book or two this month.  Looks like they are all available at Audible.com


******************************************************
Link to your reviews:    Please link to your specific book review post and not your general blog link. In the Your Name field, type in your name and the name of the book in parenthesis. In the Your URL field leave a link to your specific post. If you don't have a blog, tell us about the books you are reading in the comment section of this post.

Sunday, June 2, 2013

BW23: Revisit old friends


It's June! How about that. Another year of homeschooling under our belt and 7th grade is done. I am more than ready to rest my brain.  I really haven't been in the mood to read anything new and have been revisiting old friends. Can't say they are necessarily comfort books.  Just those books that strike my fancy.  Surprisingly, even though I've read them before, it seems like the first time and I have the same anticipation of what's going to happen.  Some I remember what's going to happen and enjoy the build up. Others leave me thinking - "How could I have forgotten that?"    I'm currently rereading an oldie from 1980 Congo by Michael Crichton.  Which is now giving me to urge to reread Sphere.  And soon I'll be introducing my son to the book, Jurassic Park.  We watched the movie together and he loved it and asked to read the book, so it's on the way to us now from Barnes and Noble. 

Another author I love to revisit over and over again is Nora Roberts and her alter ego J.D. Robb.  I never get tired of her In Death series, which I've read twice and listened to in audio book once.  I love Eve and Roark and discover something new every time read the series.  So, yes, after perusing the shelves and  looking at Naked in Death yesterday, thought about about diving in again.  I recently downloaded the audiobook of Robert's first book in her key Trilogy, Key of Light and will invariably end up re-reading the book as well when don't have time to listen to the audiobook. 

I think June is going to be a month of rereading and following rabbit trails, seeing where those books lead me. 

What are your comfort books or books you like to revisit?

*************************************************************
Link to your reviews:    Please link to your specific book review post and not your general blog link. In the Your Name field, type in your name and the name of the book in parenthesis. In the Your URL field leave a link to your specific post. If you don't have a blog, tell us about the books you are reading in the comment section of this post.