BW27: Zen and the art of ....

 

Happy Sunday! We're headed for a heat wave this coming week, and I've peopled way too much so totally ready to hibernate in the cool with one or two or three books.  We're past the halfway point in our 52 Books journey and moving backwards through the alphabet from Z to A.   We can be zen, we can zoom, we can zigzag, we can stay in the zone.  We can read books that move in reverse chronology. We can read books about Z and the art of ... motorcycles, writing, saving the planet, or even the art of stand up comedy. We can read about zoo's or zombie's or zorro or zealots. There are so many ways we can go. 

Zinfandel

By

Rick Fernandez 

In the skies a wizard flies 

Spreading magic dust.

There is a fire in his eyes

It's Zinfandel or bust.

The animals have seen his stare

And await their manna from heaven.

There's so much magic in the air

As they go on misbehaving.

The seal he wears a crown of gold

The deer in field goes grazing.

Behold! Behold! as tales are told

In this magicland so amazing.

Happy Reading! 

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BW26: We're halfway there

 

Happy Sunday! Are you ready for the halftime show?  The year is zipping right along, full of zingy and Zen reads, full of zaddy characters, zaffre settings, and zeal.  I added to my stacks when on vacation in Texas when we stopped by a Barnes and Noble while waiting for a table at the restaurant across the way, plus found a little book store at the airport while waiting for a very delayed flight to return home. Plus I had fun exploring my nieces and nephews book shelves and since we have similar tastes in science fiction and fantasy, chatting about stories.  And now I'm off again for a belated father's day celebration with my father in law so time is short.  

What has been your most favorite story so far this year?  Have you discovered a new author or series to explore? Any interesting book news you'd like to share?

June 23rd is Let it Go Day, June 24th is Celebration of the Senses day, June 25th is the day to celebrate The Beatles, the 26th is Forgiveness day, the 27th is National Handshake Day, the 28th is National Food Truck Holiday and last but not least, the 29th is Hug Holiday.  So don't worry and be happy, go out and shake someone's hand or give them a huge hug, and eat plenty of food, while you listen to the Beatles. 

Peace!  

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BW25: Happy Father's Day

 

Happy Sunday and happy Father's day to all our dad's. The June Solstice is upon us as of the 20th which means we are celebrating the beginning of Summer here in the Northern hemisphere and Winter in the Southern hemisphere.  

An Ode To Dads

by 

Melodia Ortez

Dads are the rock that holds us strong,

A compass to guide us all along,

The foundation of our lives they create,

A stronghold of love that's never late.

With strength and support, they stand by our side,

A beacon of hope that never hides,

Dads are the world we live in each day,

And their love is what lights the way.

Y is for Yabba Dabba Do, Yesteryear, Yum, and Yes.

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BW24: X marks the spot

 

Happy Sunday! It's time to go on a reading adventure and conveniently, our next 52 Books Bingo category is Adventure.   Find a book about a treasure hunt or go on a treasure hunt for a new title or unread book in your home library.  

Pick a book by the cover and pick it up. What captured your attention? The author, the title, or the picture?  Does it tickle your fancy?  Is it by an author you've read before or a brand new author?  Don't peak at the synopsis on the back or the inside flap. Yes, I know, it's ridiculously hard.  What do you think it will be about? Suppose you go into it blind and read it.  Were your suppositions close or no cigar? 

Or

Choose a random book based on its position on the shelf in your home library or the public library, or the book store.   Decide in advance or leave it up to chance and pick a shelf, pick an aisle, pick a genre. First decide which shelf you will choose from - top, 2nd, 3rd, fourth, or bottom shelf, pick a number between 1 and 30, assuming there are probably 30 books to a shelf, then read that book. 

My son does it all the time when we go to Barnes and Noble and finds the most fascinating reads, for himself, me, or for his dad.   

Have fun treasure hunting! 

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BW23: Words

 

Welcome to June and our month of celebrating fathers, summer, gardening, and the great outdoors.  This week is devoted to the window of the world with words.  The wild and wacky, wonderful and winsome, the witty and weary, world of words that whisper and weave the wonderous who, what, where, when, and why of words. 

Our author of the month is Akwaeke Emezi, a Nigerian author of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, as well as a film writer, musician, and artist. Last year, I read one of her stories - You Made A Fool Out of Me with Your Beauty.  There were so many layers to this story:  loss and grief, sexual attraction, choices, and love, sorrow and learning to live again. After the loss of her husband, Feyi is trying to figure out if she can ever love again. She plunges into the dating waters full steam ahead, trying to figure out who and what she wants. She's a woman exploring the sexual waters and falling in love with someone she didn't expect. The beginning of the story fooled me when it went full boil with a sexual escapade, but I gave it a chance. It simmered down and the more I learned more about Feyi, the deeper I became invested in her story. It was crude, it was raw. It was full of angst, full of sorrow. Full of choices, and full of love. 

“It was like a fork in the road has closed, shut off by an avalanche of grief, choked with rocks and a broken heart. It wasn't supposed to open, and honestly, it still hadn't, but somehow, an entirely new path had formed, green and creeping.”

You Made A Fool Out of Me with Your Beauty sticks with you long after finishing it and makes one think. One of the themes is all about choice. The choice on the characters who wants to make a choice for himself, when in the past, all his choices were for his children. When he choose himself, it got me to thinking about some decisions we make which aren't about the other person but about us. Food for thought.

I'm looking forward to reading The Death of Vivek Oji next.  

Her stories aren't for the faint at heart as they contain LQBTQ supporting cast characters, graphic sex, and crude language, so if you'd like, stick with our letter of the week, and check out Oscar Wilde, E.B. White, Elie Wiesel, Laura Ingalls Wilder,  Colson Whitehead,  Alice Walker, or Martin Walker to name a few. 

Happy reading! 

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BW22: Virtual Reality

 

Happy Sunday!  Ever since the 1980's when I first read Brian Daley's Tron, a story about a computer geek who gets sucked in his own computer world, stories about virtual reality have fascinated me.  Tron lead me to Larry Niven's Dream Park series to William Gibson's Neuromancer through the years to Ernest Cline's Ready Player One and Two, and now my current read, Armada.

"Zack Lightman has never much cared for reality. He vastly prefers the countless science-fiction movies, books, and videogames he's spent his life consuming. And too often, he catches himself wishing that some fantastic, impossible, world-altering event could arrive to whisk him off on a grand spacefaring adventure.

So when he sees the flying saucer, he's sure his years of escapism have finally tipped over into madness.

Especially because the alien ship he's staring at is straight out of his favorite videogame, a flight simulator called Armada--in which gamers just happen to be protecting Earth from alien invaders.

As impossible as it seems, what Zack's seeing is all too real. And it's just the first in a blur of revlations that will force him to question everything he thought he knew about Earth's history, its future, even his own life--and to play the hero for real, with humanity's life in the balance.

But even through the terror and exhilaration, he can't help thinking: Doesn't something about this scenario feel a little bit like...well...fiction?"

Join me in immersing yourself in Virtual Reality. 

Happy Memorial Day! 

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BW21: U is for ...

 

BIG U, little u, what begins with U?

Uncle Ubb’s umbrella and his underwear, too. 

~ Dr. Seuss’s ABC: An Amazing Alphabet Book!

Sunday!  Big U, little u, what begins with U?  How about under, unique, utopia, umbrella, unicorn, ugly, and universal to name a few.   

Read a book with these words or any word that start with U on the cover.  

Read a utopian novel. 

Read a book with an ugly cover or with the word Ugly in the title and fulfill yet another one of our 52 books bingo categories.  

Read a book by an author whose name begins with U. 

Read a book that will make you 'ugly cry.' 

Read a book about an ugly duckling. 

Under The Moon

by 

Bayard Taylor

I.

From you and home I sleep afar,

Under the light of a lonely star,

Under the moon that marvels why

Away from you and home I lie.

Ah! love no language can declare,

The hovering warmth, the tender care,

The yielding, sweet, invisible air

That clasps your bosom, and fans your cheek

With the breath of words I cannot speak, --

Such love I give, such warmth impart:

The fragrance of a blossomed heart.

II.

The moon looks in upon my bed,

Her yearning glory rays my head,

And round me clings, a lonely light,

The aureole of the winter night;

But in my heart a gentle pain,

A balmier splendor in my brain,

Lead me beyond the frosty plane, --

Lead me afar, to mellower skies,

There under the moon a palace lies;

There under the moon our bed is made,

Half in splendor and half in shade.

III.

The marble flags of the corridor

Through open windows meet the floor,

And Moorish arches in darkness rise

Against the gleam of the silver skies:

Beyond, in flakes of starry light,

A fountain prattles to the night,

And dusky cypresses, withdrawn

In silent conclave, stud the lawn;

While mystic woodlands, more remote,

In seas of airy silver float,

So hung in heaven, the stars that set

Seem glossy leaves the dew has wet

On topmost boughs, and sparkling yet.

IV.

In from the terraced garden blows

The spicy soul of the tuberose,

As if 't were the odor of strains that pour

From the nightingale's throat as never before;

For he sings not now of wounding thorn,

He sings as the lark in the golden morn, --

A song of joy, a song of bliss,

Passionate notes that clasp and kiss,

Perfect peace and perfect pride,

Love rewarded and satisfied,

For I see you, darling, at my side.

V.

I see you, darling, at my side:

I clasp you closer, in sacred pride.

I shut my eyes, my senses fail,

Becalmed by Night's ambrosial gale.

Softer than dews the planets weep,

Descends a sweeter peace than sleep;

All wandering sounds and motions die

In the silent glory of the sky;

But, as the moon goes down the West,

Your heart, against my happy breast,

Says in its beating: Love is Rest.

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Bw20: Happy Mother's Day

 

Happy Mother's Day!  

T 

is for

Terrific and tenacious, 

Timeless and tireless,

Tangible and transparent, 

Tough and tolerant,

Trusting and tranquil, 

Thoughtful and true! 

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BW19: 52 Books Bingo - Space

“The three rules of the Librarians of Time and Space are: 

1) Silence; 

2) Books must be returned no later than the last date shown; and 

3) Do not interfere with the nature of causality.”

― Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!

Happy Sunday! A door opens up and you see...Space.  You look up into the sky and see...Space.  You climb aboard a train and look for...Space.   

According to Dictionary.com: 

Space is the unlimited or incalculably great three-dimensional realm or expanse in which all material objects are located and all events occur.

The portion or extent of this in a given instance; extent or room in three dimensions: a space your body occupies. 

In Fine Arts, space is the designed and structured surface of a picture, or the illusion of depth on a two-dimensional surface.

In Mathematics. space is a system of objects with relations between the objects defined.

In Storytelling, space is an interval of time; a while. 

In Music, space is the interval between two adjacent lines of the staff.

In Telegraphy, space is an interval during the transmitting of a message when the key is not in contact.

Outer Space which is the space beyond the atmosphere of the earth or Deep Space which is the space beyond the limits of the solar system

Oh my. Space travel sound rather perilous.

 I can assure you they will never get me on 

one of those dreadful Star Ships. C-3PO from Star Wars.

In our household, we are big fans of everything Star Wars, so if you have a hankering to explore through their extended world,  check out these massive list  of canon in chronological order and legends in chronological order. 

 

Have fun traveling in, out, and about space! 

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BW18: May Author of the Month - Peng Shepherd

 

Happy Sunday! Our author of the month is Peng Shepherd who writes speculative fiction as well as mysteries. Shepherd's debut novel, The Book of M, released in 2018 won Dartmouth College's 2019 Neukom Institute for Literary Arts Award for Debut Speculative Fiction. Her second book, The  Cartographers, was an international best seller, and her third book, All This and More will be released in July of this year.  I'm currently reading The Cartographers which is about a young woman who finds a map with a dark and deadly secret, in a hidden drawer of her deceased father's desk. 

I have always been fascinated by Cartography, the study, science, and practice of drawing and using maps, which brings us to one of our 52 Book's Bingo categories.  From the real life cartographic crimes like in Island of Lost Maps: A True Story of Cartographic Crime by Miles Harvey to writing books like Maps of the Imagination by Peter Turchi, to creating your own maps in Map Art Lab: 52 Exciting Art Explorations in Mapmaking, Imagination, and Travel, to fictional tales of mapmakers such as The Mapmaker's War by Ronlyn Domingue, they have all been an adventure to read. 

Have fun exploring the fiction and not so fictional roads and routes of cartography! 

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BW17: Question me an Answer!

 

Happy Sunday!  We have a queen who is in a quagmire to answer the quality of the quadragenarian quest without qualms or quibbles due to the quadrants quirks.  What is the question?  Your mission is to read about a quest, a question, a quack, even a quid pro quo.  Have fun! 

Lost Horizon 

Music by Burt Bacharach

Question me an answer bright and clear

I will answer with a question clear and bright

Even though your answer may be wrong

My question will be right

Question me an answer

Answer with a question

(Chorus) Fourteen hundred ninety two. (1492)

(Bobby) What's the year that Babe Ruth hit his sixtieth home run?

(Chorus) Wellington at Waterloo

(Bobby) Who became the hero at the battle of Bull Run?

Learning can be lots of fun

Question me an answer bright and clear

I will answer with a question clear and bright

Even though your answer may be wrong

My question will be right

Question me an answer

Answer with a question

(Chorus) Midnight ride of Paul Revere

(Bobby) What's the way that Yankee Doodle really went to town?

(Chorus) Cleaning up the atmosphere

(Bobby) What's the reason London Bridge is always falling down

(All) You can learn things from a clown

Question me an answer bright and clear

I will answer with a question clear and bright

Even though your answer may be wrong

My question will be right

Question me an answer

Answer with a question

(Bobby) On the good ship Lollipop

(Chorus) How did Christopher Columbus sail upon the sea?

(Bobby) Underneath the circus top

(Chorus) Where did Cleopatra get to meet Mark Anthony?

(All) They say knowledge makes you free

Question me an answer if you please

I will answer with a question if I can

(Bobby) Let me show you just how I

Became an educated man

Question me an answer

Answer with a question

If you wanna' know, if you wanna' hear, if you wanna' see

Question me an answer

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BW16: P stands for .......

 

Happy Sunday! P stands for Paint.  We’re still prepping our bathroom since we had the bathroom disaster and we’ve been scraping and scrubbing and sanding, redoing the old orange peel left over from the days we used to rent before we lay linoleum, and shop for replacements for the old medicine cabinet and mirrors, and light fixtures. Hubby and I have different methods for getting some things done and we are both passionate about how to do so but we have fun in the process since both ways work well. Things goes faster when we work together as a team. Which brings me to our letter of the week.

P not only stands for paint but also poetry,  plot, prose, personification, protagonists, proverbs, puns, as well as pool.  Ha! 

"Trouble (oh, we got trouble)

Right here in River City (right here in River City)

With a capital "T" and that rhymes with "P" and that stands for pool (that stands for pool)

We've surely got trouble (we've surely got trouble)

Right here in River City (right here)

Gotta figure out a way to keep the young ones moral after school

(Our children's children gonna have trouble, trouble, trouble, trouble)"

Ya Got Trouble by Robert Preston

April is National Poetry Month and the poster above represents the poem Blessing the Boats by Lucille Clifton. 

may the tide

that is entering even now

the lip of our understanding

carry you out

beyond the face of fear

may you kiss

the wind then turn from it

certain that it will

love your back may you

open your eyes to water

water waving forever

and may you in your innocence

sail through this to that

Why the poem has no punctuation is beyond me, but it's another p word.   So read a book of poetry or punctuation.  Read about Robert Preston, or Prince or Pedro Pascal.  Read a book about painters, or pets, or penguins.  Read a book about passion or peace or prosperity. 

Find your pleasure, find your prize, as you participate in our favorite pastime.  

Peace out! 

*****

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