BW34: Author Birthdays and Linky Love

We have a few interesting authors sharing the same birthdays this week so leaving you with some linky love. Check them out, perhaps put one of their books on your Want To Read It List or read one of their stories in honor of their birthdays. 

August 19  Gene Roddenberry
August 19   Mary Doria Russell
 

August 20  H.P. Lovecraft 

August 20  Greg Bear 

August 21  Anthony Boucher

August 21  Sabrina Jeffries

August 22  Ray Bradbury 

 

August 23  Nelson De Mille 

August 24  Orson Scott Card

August 24  Jorge Luis Borges  

August 25  Patrick McManus  

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BW 33: Hugo Gernsback

 

Happy Birthday Hugo Gernsback!

Who is Hugo Gernsback and why are the Hugo Science Fiction / Fantasy Awards named after him?  

Hugo Gernsbacher, born August 16, 1884 in Luxembourg immigrated to the United States in 1904 to New York.  Hugo was fascinated by electricity and invented a dry battery which he patented upon arriving in the United States.   He established a radio and electrical supply house called Electro Importing Company and developed a small portable radio transmitter called the Telimco Wireless Telegraph.    He went on to patent 80 inventions. 

Gernsback  published a magazine for electrical experimenters called Modern Electronics which was later taken over by Popular Science.   To fill up some empty space in the magazine, he decided to write a futuristic story which ran in 12 installments.

That story was later published in 1926 as a novel called "Ralph 124C 41+"  which was set in the 27th century and is still available today.  He started a number of magazines including the first magazine dedicated exclusively to science fiction called  "Amazing Stories." the magazine of scientifiction in 1926.

First Issue April 1926

Hugo coined the term scientifiction which later went on to be known as Science Fiction.  Thanks to the beauty of the internet I found an original pdf of an article of Gernback's called Plausibility in Scientifiction on Mumpsimus (thank you, Matthew)

 

click on link to read "Plausability in Scientifiction" 

Gernsback unfortunately went bankrupt and lost control of Amazing Stories. He quickly bounced back and went on to publish three more magazines:  Air Wonder Stories, Science Wonder Stories and Science Wonder Quarterly.

Air Wonder and Science Wonder were merged into one magazine Wonder stories in 1930 and sold it in 1936 to Beacon Publications where it continued to be published for 20 more years. 

Gernsback is lauded as the father of science fiction.  The first annual Science Fiction Achievement awards was awarded back in 1953 with retro awards handed out for the years 1946 in 1996, retro award 1951 given in 2001 and 1954 retro award presented in 2006.  The award were unofficially called the "Hugo's" until the name was officially changed and use beginning in 1993.    In 1960 he was given a special Hugo Award as "The Father of Magazine Science Fiction."  The Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame was founded in 1996 and Hugo Gernsback was one of the first inductees along with Jack Campbell (1908-2006), A.E. van Vogt's (1912-2000) and John W. Campbell Jr. (1910-1971)

Hugo Gernsback died in New York on August 19, 1967 at the age 83.    

If you want to know more about Hugo Gernsback, his electronic accomplishments, all about his magazines and his life, you find everything you want to know here and  here.

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BW32: Difficult books

Ulysses Sepia by 96dpi

A few Christmases ago, my husband decided he was going to buy me the largest possible book he could find, the one with the most words.  I ended up with War and Peace (1440 pages) and an independently published book called Walls of Phantoms (1320 pages)   I enjoyed the first and for my husband I slogged through the latter.  The links are to my reviews.   So I was quite amused and relieved when did a search today and discovered he could have gotten me Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time (7 volumes at 4211 pages), Madison Cooper's Sironia, Texas (2 Volumes at 1731 pages) or Luo Guanzhong's Romance of the Three Kingdom's (4 Volumes at 2342 pages).  I think I got off lightly.  

While perusing the interwebz, I stumbled across The Millions Difficult Books series which they started in 2009 and for 2012 have put together a list of the top ten they consider the most difficult of the difficult.
Check out the link for their reasoning. 

The Faerie Queen

To The Lighthouse

A Tale of a Tub

Phenomenology of Spirit

The Making of Americans

Nightwood

Clarissa

Being and Time

Finnegan's Wake

Women and Men

The only book on this particular list I've read is To The Lighthouse and while stream of consciousness writing is not easy to read, can't say it was the most difficult book I have ever read.  Would have to say Nausea by Jean Paul Sartre which, like it's title, was simply nauseating.

Have you read any of these books?  What is the one book you would consider the most difficult so far to read?

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BW 31: Miguel de Cervantes 'Don Quixote'

The first novel  in Susan Wise Bauer's list of fiction reads from her book The Well-Educated Mind is Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes.  It wasn't what I expected and found it interesting, intriguing, humorous and sad. The main character Alonso Quijano, after reading a few too many books about chivalric exploits, decides to go on a knight's quest,  declares a certain lady as his lady love, though she knows nothing about him, recruits a squire and sets off on a journey.  The problem is, he's quite mad.   I'll leave you with the first chapter as an enticement if you haven't read it yet. 

Don Quixote

CHAPTER 1:  WHICH TREATS OF THE CHARACTER AND PURSUITS OF THE FAMOUS GENTLEMAN DON QUIXOTE OF LA MANCHA

In a village of La Mancha, the name of which I have no desire to call to mind, there lived not long since one of those gentlemen that keep a lance in the lance-rack, an old buckler, a lean hack, and a greyhound for coursing. An olla of rather more beef than mutton, a salad on most nights, scraps on Saturdays, lentils on Fridays, and a pigeon or so extra on Sundays, made away with three-quarters of his income. The rest of it went in a doublet of fine cloth and velvet breeches and shoes to match for holidays, while on week-days he made a brave figure in his best homespun. He had in his house a housekeeper past forty, a niece under twenty, and a lad for the field and market-place, who used to saddle the hack as well as handle the bill-hook. 

The age of this gentleman of ours was bordering on fifty; he was of a hardy habit, spare, gaunt-featured, a very early riser and a great sportsman. They will have it his surname was Quixada or Quesada (for here there is some difference of opinion among the authors who write on the subject), although from reasonable conjectures it seems plain that he was called Quexana. This, however, is of but little importance to our tale; it will be enough not to stray a hair's breadth from the truth in the telling of it.

You must know, then, that the above-named gentleman whenever he was at leisure (which was mostly all the year round) gave himself up to reading books of chivalry with such ardour and avidity that he almost entirely neglected the pursuit of his field-sports, and even the management of his property; and to such a pitch did his eagerness and infatuation go that he sold many an acre of tillageland to buy books of chivalry to read, and brought home as many of them as he could get. 

But of all there were none he liked so well as those of the famous Feliciano de Silva's composition, for their lucidity of style and complicated conceits were as pearls in his sight, particularly when in his reading he came upon courtships and cartels, where he often found passages like "the reason of the unreason with which my reason is afflicted so weakens my reason that with reason I murmur at your beauty;" or again, "the high heavens, that of your divinity divinely fortify you with the stars, render you deserving of the desert your greatness deserves." 

Over conceits of this sort the poor gentleman lost his wits, and used to lie awake striving to understand them and worm the meaning out of them; what Aristotle himself could not have made out or extracted had he come to life again for that special purpose. He was not at all easy about the wounds which Don Belianis gave and took, because it seemed to him that, great as were the surgeons who had cured him, he must have had his face and body covered all over with seams and scars. He commended, however, the author's way of ending his book with the promise of that interminable adventure, and many a time was he tempted to take up his pen and finish it properly as is there proposed, which no doubt he would have done, and made a successful piece of work of it too, had not greater and more absorbing thoughts prevented him.

Many an argument did he have with the curate of his village (a learned man, and a graduate of Siguenza) as to which had been the better knight, Palmerin of England or Amadis of Gaul. Master Nicholas, the village barber, however, used to say that neither of them came up to the Knight of Phoebus, and that if there was any that could compare with him it was Don Galaor, the brother of Amadis of Gaul, because he had a spirit that was equal to every occasion, and was no finikin knight, nor lachrymose like his brother, while in the matter of valour he was not a whit behind him. In short, he became so absorbed in his books that he spent his nights from sunset to sunrise, and his days from dawn to dark, poring over them; and what with little sleep and much reading his brains got so dry that he lost his wits. 

His fancy grew full of what he used to read about in his books, enchantments, quarrels, battles, challenges, wounds, wooings, loves, agonies, and all sorts of impossible nonsense; and it so possessed his mind that the whole fabric of invention and fancy he read of was true, that to him no history in the world had more reality in it. He used to say the Cid Ruy Diaz was a very good knight, but that he was not to be compared with the Knight of the Burning Sword who with one back-stroke cut in half two fierce and monstrous giants. 

He thought more of Bernardo del Carpio because at Roncesvalles he slew Roland in spite of enchantments, availing himself of the artifice of Hercules when he strangled Antaeus the son of Terra in his arms. He approved highly of the giant Morgante, because, although of the giant breed which is always arrogant and ill-conditioned, he alone was affable and well-bred. But above all he admired Reinaldos of Montalban, especially when he saw him sallying forth from his castle and robbing everyone he met, and when beyond the seas he stole that image of Mahomet which, as his history says, was entirely of gold. To have a bout of kicking at that traitor of a Ganelon he would have given his housekeeper, and his niece into the bargain.

In short, his wits being quite gone, he hit upon the strangest notion that ever madman in this world hit upon, and that was that he fancied it was right and requisite, as well for the support of his own honour as for the service of his country, that he should make a knight-errant of himself, roaming the world over in full armour and on horseback in quest of adventures, and putting in practice himself all that he had read of as being the usual practices of knights-errant; righting every kind of wrong, and exposing himself to peril and danger from which, in the issue, he was to reap eternal renown and fame. Already the poor man saw himself crowned by the might of his arm Emperor of Trebizond at least; and so, led away by the intense enjoyment he found in these pleasant fancies, he set himself forthwith to put his scheme into execution.

The first thing he did was to clean up some armour that had belonged to his great-grandfather, and had been for ages lying forgotten in a corner eaten with rust and covered with mildew. He scoured and polished it as best he could, but he perceived one great defect in it, that it had no closed helmet, nothing but a simple morion. This deficiency, however, his ingenuity supplied, for he contrived a kind of half-helmet of pasteboard which, fitted on to the morion, looked like a whole one. 

It is true that, in order to see if it was strong and fit to stand a cut, he drew his sword and gave it a couple of slashes, the first of which undid in an instant what had taken him a week to do. The ease with which he had knocked it to pieces disconcerted him somewhat, and to guard against that danger he set to work again, fixing bars of iron on the inside until he was satisfied with its strength; and then, not caring to try any more experiments with it, he passed it and adopted it as a helmet of the most perfect construction.

He next proceeded to inspect his hack, which, with more quartos than a real and more blemishes than the steed of Gonela, that "tantum pellis et ossa fuit," surpassed in his eyes the Bucephalus of Alexander or the Babieca of the Cid. Four days were spent in thinking what name to give him, because (as he said to himself) it was not right that a horse belonging to a knight so famous, and one with such merits of his own, should be without some distinctive name, and he strove to adapt it so as to indicate what he had been before belonging to a knight-errant, and what he then was; for it was only reasonable that, his master taking a new character, he should take a new name, and that it should be a distinguished and full-sounding one, befitting the new order and calling he was about to follow. And so, after having composed, struck out, rejected, added to, unmade, and remade a multitude of names out of his memory and fancy, he decided upon calling him Rocinante, a name, to his thinking, lofty, sonorous, and significant of his condition as a hack before he became what he now was, the first and foremost of all the hacks in the world.

Having got a name for his horse so much to his taste, he was anxious to get one for himself, and he was eight days more pondering over this point, till at last he made up his mind to call himself "Don Quixote," whence, as has been already said, the authors of this veracious history have inferred that his name must have been beyond a doubt Quixada, and not Quesada as others would have it. Recollecting, however, that the valiant Amadis was not content to call himself curtly Amadis and nothing more, but added the name of his kingdom and country to make it famous, and called himself Amadis of Gaul, he, like a good knight, resolved to add on the name of his, and to style himself Don Quixote of La Mancha, whereby, he considered, he described accurately his origin and country, and did honour to it in taking his surname from it.

So then, his armour being furbished, his morion turned into a helmet, his hack christened, and he himself confirmed, he came to the conclusion that nothing more was needed now but to look out for a lady to be in love with; for a knight-errant without love was like a tree without leaves or fruit, or a body without a soul. As he said to himself, "If, for my sins, or by my good fortune, I come across some giant hereabouts, a common occurrence with knights-errant, and overthrow him in one onslaught, or cleave him asunder to the waist, or, in short, vanquish and subdue him, will it not be well to have some one I may send him to as a present, that he may come in and fall on his knees before my sweet lady, and in a humble, submissive voice say, 'I am the giant Caraculiambro, lord of the island of Malindrania, vanquished in single combat by the never sufficiently extolled knight Don Quixote of La Mancha, who has commanded me to present myself before your Grace, that your Highness dispose of me at your pleasure'?" 

Oh, how our good gentleman enjoyed the delivery of this speech, especially when he had thought of some one to call his Lady! There was, so the story goes, in a village near his own a very good-looking farm-girl with whom he had been at one time in love, though, so far as is known, she never knew it nor gave a thought to the matter. Her name was Aldonza Lorenzo, and upon her he thought fit to confer the title of Lady of his Thoughts; and after some search for a name which should not be out of harmony with her own, and should suggest and indicate that of a princess and great lady, he decided upon calling her Dulcinea del Toboso—she being of El Toboso—a name, to his mind, musical, uncommon, and significant, like all those he had already bestowed upon himself and the things belonging to him.


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BW30: 2012 Christy Award winners

The Christy Awards, named in honor of Catherine Marshall's most famous novel Christy, are given for excellence in Christian fiction:

The Christy Award is designed to:

• Nurture and encourage creativity and quality in the writing and publishing of fiction written from a Christian worldview.
• Bring a new awareness of the breadth and depth of fiction choices available, helping to broaden the readership.
• Provide opportunity to recognize novelists whose work may not have reached bestseller status.

The 2012 Winners were just announced and they are:

Contemporary Romance:  Wolfsbane by Ronie Kendig
(Finalists included My Foolish Heart by Susan May Warren and Larkspur Cove by Lisa Wingate)

Wolfsbane

 Contemporary Series: The Amish Midwife by Mindy Starns Clark and Leslie Gould
(Finalists included Dancing on Glass by Pamela Binnings Ewen and The Touch by Randall Wallace)

The Amish Midwife

Contemporary Standalone:  Promises to Keep by Ann Tatlock
(Finalists included Dry as Rain by Gina Holmes and Words by Ginny Yttrup)

Promises to Keep

First Novel:  Words by Ginny Yttrup
(Finalists included An Eye for Glory by Karl Bacon and Southern Fried Sushi by Jennifer Rogers Spinola)

Words

Historical:  Wonderland Creek by Lynn Austin
(Finalists included Forsaking All Others by Allison Pittman and Mine is the Night by Liz Curtis Higgs)

Wonderland Creek

Historical Romance: The Maid of Fairbourne Hall by Julie Klassen
(Finalists included A Lasting Impression by Tamera Alexander and To Die For by Sandra Byrd)

The Maid of Fairbourne Hall

Suspense:  The Queen by Steven James
(Finalists included Over the Edge by Brandilyn Collins and Pattern of Wounds by Mark Bertrand)

The Queen

  
Visionary:  Veiled Rose by Anne Elisabeth Stengl
(Finalists included The Chair by James L. Rubart and Forbidden by Ted Dekker and Tosca Lee)

Veiled Rose

Young Adult:  Waterfall by Lisa T. Bergren
(Finalists included How Huge the Night by Heather Munn and Lydia Munn and The Merchant's Daughter by Melanie Dickerson)

Waterfall

Yes, more books to add to your wishlist. *grin*  I'm looking forward to reading some of the winners books,  especially Steven James, and a few of the nominees.  The links all lead to the authors websites.

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BW29: Tolstoy and the Purple Chair

I'm not a big non fiction reader except for maybe books about writing.  However when I heard about Nina Sankovitch's Tolstoy and the Purple Chair, I was intrigued.  The title captured my attention first, then the background. 

Synopsis:  "Caught up in grief after the death of her sister, Nina Sankovitch decided to stop running and start reading.  For once in her life she would put all other obligations on hold and devote herself to reading a book a day: one year of magical reading in which she found joy, healing, and wisdom.

With grace and deep insight, Sankovitch weavers together poignant family memories with the unforgettable lives of the characters she reads about. She finds a lesson in each book, ultimately realizing the ability of a good story to console, inspire, and open our lives to new places and experiences.  A moving story of recovery, Tolstoy and the Purple Chair is also a resonant reminder of the all encompassing power and delight of reading."

Sankovitch documented her year of reading at Readallday.org where she reviewed all the books.  Her reading was rather eclectic and I already lost an hour perusing through her thoughts on some of the books.  My wishlist is going to grow by leaps and bounds.  But first, I need to read the book.  It just came out in paperback on June 19th, and I have the wonderful folks at Harper Perennial to thank for providing me with a copy.  Will let you know what I think when done.   And no it isn't going to prompt a read a book a day project.  I may be a fast reader, but not that fast. 

Check out Nina's blog and find her on Facebook here.

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BW28: Carlos Ruiz Zafon

 Back in 2009 I was presented with the opportunity to read and review Carlos Ruiz Zafon's The Angel's Game. It was the prequel to The Shadow of the Wind which I hadn't read yet, but decided to take the chance because it sounded very intriguing and it was. Intriguing, interesting dark, full of mysterious and supernatural happenings, obsession and murder.  Check out my review here.

Amazon: Zafon's narrator/hero is David Martin, an orphan brought up in true Dickensian squalor. After years of struggle, he achieves success writing a popular series of "penny dreadfuls" called City of the Damned. In time, his work comes to the attention of Andreas Corelli, a Parisian publisher with a truly Faustian proposition. Corelli offers David 100,00 francs if he will use his narrative gifts to create a viable new religion.

The extraordinary tale that follows is many things at once: mystery, love story, supernatural thriller, historical drama, gothic romance, and meditation on the primal importance of stories, of narrative itself. As the author reminds us throughout this novel, books have souls, and reflect the souls of both their readers and their writers.

After reading Angel's Game, just had to read Carlos Ruiz Zafon's bestseller "The Shadow of the Wind."  Also dark, but rich in detail and interesting characters.

 Amazon:  Barcelona, 1945—just after the war, a great world city lies in shadow, nursing its wounds, and a boy named Daniel awakes on his eleventh birthday to find that he can no longer remember his mother’s face. To console his only child, Daniel’s widowed father, an antiquarian book dealer, initiates him into the secret of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, a library tended by Barcelona’s guild of rare-book dealers as a repository for books forgotten by the world, waiting for someone who will care about them again. Daniel’s father coaxes him to choose a volume from the spiraling labyrinth of shelves, one that, it is said, will have a special meaning for him. And Daniel so loves the novel he selects, The Shadow of the Wind by one Julian Carax, that he sets out to find the rest of Carax’s work. 

To his shock, he discovers that someone has been systematically destroying every copy of every book this author has written. In fact, he may have the last one in existence. Before Daniel knows it his seemingly innocent quest has opened a door into one of Barcelona’s darkest secrets, an epic story of murder, magic, madness and doomed love. And before long he realizes that if he doesn’t find out the truth about Julian Carax, he and those closest to him will suffer horribly.

Which bring me to the release of The Prisoner of Heaven on tuesday, July 10th, the 3rd book in the series which takes us back to Barcelona and the Cemetery of Forgotten Books.  

Synopsis:  Barcelona, 1957. It is Christmas, and Daniel Sempere and his wife, Bea, have much to celebrate. They have a beautiful new baby son named Julián, and their close friend Fermín Romero de Torres is about to be wed. But their joy is eclipsed when a mysterious stranger visits the Sempere bookshop and threatens to divulge a terrible secret that has been buried for two decades in the city’s dark past. His appearance plunges Fermín and Daniel into a dangerous adventure that will take them back to the 1940s and the early days of Franco’s dictatorship. The terrifying events of that time launch them on a search for the truth that will put into peril everything they love and ultimately transform their lives.

Happy to say I have been given the opportunity to review the book, unhappy to say there was a delay in shipping the book from the publisher so haven't gotten to read it yet. *pout*  So now I wait with baited breath and very tempted to go back and reread both books since it has been a couple years before I read and review The Prisoner of Heaven.  In the meantime, check out the excerpt on Carlos Ruis Zafon website. 

How often do you reread books in a series when a new book comes out? 

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BW27: Make good art!

Grab a chair, a cup of your favorite beverage, sit down, relax and enjoy the words of wisdom Neil Gaiman passed on to the class of the 2012 University of the Arts.

"Be wise, because the world needs more wisdom. And if you cannot be wise, pretend to be someone wise, and then just behave like they would."

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BW26: Halfway there challenge

Courtesy Ubiquity_Zh

Happy Summer!   It is week 26 and we are halfway to our quest to read 52 books in 52 weeks. I'm halfway through the A to Z by title and author challenge only because I've been mixing in a mess of other books in between.  How are you doing?   

I'm always on the look out for unique or interesting book lists and forget who turned me on to Hawes Publications which lists every New York Times Bestseller  listing from the year 1950 until now.  You can look up which fiction and non fictions books were published and on the best seller list for the year, month and week you were born.  I was born November 1959 and found some great books, even a few (italics) I already have on the shelves.

Advise and Consent by Allen Drury

Exodus by Leon Uris

Dear and Glorious Physician by Taylor Caldwell

The Ugly American by William J. Lederer and Eugene Burdick

The War Lover by John Hersey

The Devil's Advocate by Morris L. West

The Darkness and the Dawn by Thomas B Costain

The Cave by Jennifer Warren

The Thirteenth Apostle by Eugene Vale

Station Wagon in Spain by Frances Parkinson Keyes

Poor No More by Robert Ruark

The Lotus Eaters by Gerald Green

The Art of Llewellyn Jones by Paul Hyde Bonner

Eva by Meyer Levin

Doctor Zhivago By Boris Pasternak

Lady Chatterly's Lover by D.H. Lawrence. 

So check out the lists, find your birth date or even one of your loved ones birth dates and pick out one of the the books to read.  Enjoy!

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 Link to your most current read. 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 have multiple reviews, then type in (multi) after your name and link to your general blog url. If you don't have a blog, tell us about the books you are reading in the comment section of this post. 

BW 25: Dorothy Sayers

June 13, 1893  - December 17, 1957

My first introduction to Dorothy Leigh Sayers was through her essays The Lost Tools of Learning and it took me a while to put two and two together because I didn't realize she was also the mystery writer of the Lord Peter Wimsey Series until recently.  We inherited many books from my late mother in law a few years back and among them was a book by Sayers with three complete novels: Strong Poison, Have His Carcase and Unnatural Death.  Lisa of Golden Grasses has been talking up Dorothy Sayers so much in the past couple weeks and since it is the anniversary of Sayers birthday,  I just have to read the stories.  I've been meaning to for a while and now just don't have any excuse not to.  *grin*

So in honor of Dorothy Leigh Sayers birthday here's an excerpt from Chapter one of Strong Poison.

There were crimson roses on the bench: they looked like splashes of blood.

The judge was an old man; so old, he seemed to have outlived time and change and death.  His parrot-face and parrot-voice were dry, like his old, heavily-veined hands.  His scarlet robe clashed harshly with the crimson of the roses.  He had sat for three days in the stuffy court, but he showed no sign of fatigue.

He did not look at the prisoner as he gathered his notes into a neat sheaf and turned to address the jury, but the prisoner looked at him.  Her eyes, like dark smudges under the heavy square brows, seemed equally without fear and without hope.  They waited.

"Members of the jury..."

The patient old eyes seemed to sum them up and take stock of their united intelligence.  Three respectable tradesmen--a tall, argumentative one, a stout, embarrassed one with a drooping moustache, and an unhappy one with a bad cold; a director of a large company anxious not to waste valuable time; a publican, incongruously cheerful; two youngish men of the artisan class; a non descript, elderly man, of educated appearance, who might have been anything; an artist with a red beard disguising a weak chin; three women--an elderly spinster, a stout capable woman who kept a sweet shop and a harassed wife and mother whose thoughts seemed to be continually straying to her abandoned hearth.

"Members of the jury--you have listened with great patience and attention to the evidence in this very distressing case, and it is now my duty to sum up the facts and arguments which have been put before you by the learned Attorney-General  and by the learned Counsel for the Defence, and to put them in order as clearly as possible, so as to help you in forming your decision.

"But first of all, perhaps I ought to say a few words with regard to that decision itself.  You know, I am sure, that it is a great principle of English law that every accused person is held to be innocent unless and until he is proved otherwise.  It is not necessary for him, or her, to prove innocence; it is, in the modern slang phrase 'up to' the Crown to prove guilt,  and unless you are quite satisfied that the Crown has done this beyond all reasonable doubt, it is your duty to return a verdict of  'Not Guilty.'  That does not necessarily mean that the prisoner has established her innocence by proof; it simply means that the Crown has failed to produce in your minds an undoubted conviction of her guilt."

Salcombe Hardy, lifted her drowned violet eyes for a moment from his reporter's note book, scribbled two words on a slip of paper and pushed them over to Waffles Newton. "Judge hostile."  Waffles nodded.  They were old hounds on this blood trail. 

Here is a complete list of her works.  Join me in honoring Dorothy Sayers and read one of her works this month.

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Link to your most current read. 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 have multiple reviews, then type in (multi) after your name and link to your general blog url. If you don't have a blog, tell us about the books you are reading in the comment section of this post.

BW24: RIP Ray Bradbury

August 22, 1920 to June 5, 2012

Ray Bradbury, best know for writing Fahrenheit 451 and Something Wicked This Way Comes, died June 5 at the age of 91.  The first book I ever read of his, way back in the late 70's or early 80's, don't remember exactly, was The Martian Chronicles.  My husband and I recently each read Fahrenheit 451 and had fun sharing our thoughts about the story and big brother and other issues.  All his stories stand the test of time and are well worth reading over again, each time pulling something different out of them.

Over the past few days, many authors have been sharing their memories and thoughts about Bradbury and what his stories have meant to them. Chuck Wendig of Terribleminds shares his thoughts about his scary short story "The Veldt" which lead to the link on You Tube of Stephen Colbert reading the story:  Part 1, Part 2,  and Part 3.    Read online while listening and just imagine!

In Chicken Soup for the Soul, Bradbury had this to say about reading in How to Be Madder than Captain Ahab:

"I have been a library jackdaw all of my life, which means I have never gone into that lovely holy place with a book list, but only with my beady bright eyes and my curious paws, monkey-climbing the stacks over among the children's and then again where I was not allowed, burrowing among the adult's mysterious books. I would take home, at the age of ten, eight books at a time, from eight different categories, and rub my nose in them and all but lie down and roll on them like a frolicsome springtime dog...."

"and the more you read, the more the ideas begin to explode around inside your head, run riot, meet head-on in beautiful collisions so that when you go to bed at night the damned visions color the ceiling and light the walls with huge exploits and wonderful discoveries...."

"I may start a night's read with a James Bond novel, move on to Shakespeare for half an hour, dip into Dylan Thomas for five minutes, make a fast turnabout and fasten on Fu Manchu, that great and evil oriental doctor, ancestor of Dr. No, then pick up Emily Dickinson, and end my evening with Ross MacDonald, the detective novelist, or Robert Frost, that crusty poet of the American rural spirit.  The fact should be plain now: I am an amiable compost heap...."

"I am a junkyard, then, of all the libraries and bookstores I ever fell into or leaned upon, and am proud that I never developed such a rare taste that I could not go back and jog with Tarzan or hit the Yellow Brick Road with Dorothy, both characters and their books banned for fifty years by all librarians and most educators.  I have had my own loves, and gone my own way to become my own self. I highly recommend you do the same.  However crazy your desire, however wild your need, however dumb your taste may seem to others....follow it!"

In honor of Ray Bradbury, read one of his books this month.  

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Link to your most current read. 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 have multiple reviews, then type in (multi) after your name and link to your general blog url. 

If you don't have a blog, tell us about the books you are reading in the comment section of this post.

BW23: Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee

Queen Elizabeth II: Portraits by Cecil Beaton 

This week is Queen Elizabeth's Diamond Jubilee. It's been 60 years since her coronation on June 2, 1953. Last Tuesday I happened to catch on tv The Jubilee Queen with Katie Couric which was actually quite fascinating and made me want to find out more. There are a couple book lists available online  here and here.  Prince Phillip's biographer Philip Eade wrote an article for The Telegraph documenting the best books celebrating Queen Elizabeth's life.   One author who is mentioned several times in various articles is Ben Pimlott, a British historian who wrote 

The Queen: A Biography of Elizabeth II

Biography.com has a wonderful synopsis about Queen Elizabeth's life along with a gallery of photos from her life.  Plus, the Queen's Diamond Jubilee online store offers a variety of books and dvds about Elizabeth's life.  Have fun learning all about her life like I did. 

Congratulations to her royal Highness, Queen Elizabeth II 

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Link to your most current read. 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 have multiple reviews, then type in (multi) after your name and link to your general blog url. 

If you don't have a blog, tell us about the books you are reading in the comment section of this post.