Debi Cates
Ever eat a pine tree? Many parts are edible.
–Euell Gibbons, 1970s TV commercial for Grape Nuts cereal
Back when I was a teen, we went through a spell of making jokes using “Ever eat a ___? Many parts are edible” as a template. A meme, if you will.
In Stalking the Wild Asparagus I discovered I really like Gibbons, the man. The jokes we made might have been funny but now I realize he was a national treasure, an inspiration. He was wonderfully entertaining and generous. He possessed a true wealth of information and was a nature-lover of the first order. In his book, even his friends teased him about the effort and economics of foraging. But he always responded good naturedly about it, secretly knowing that his Saturday's bounty was all free and healthful, while his friends gardened or golfed that day–neither of those activities with low economies per take home output. Gibbons knew that he, instead, had the memory of a beautiful day spent in the sun or in a cooling rain among critters and plants with complete relaxation and peace of mind. And arms full of good food.
Sadly, I couldn't help but wonder about how different the American landscape might seem to him now, 50 years later. Would four adults–he, his wife, a friend and his wife–still be able to forage all their meals on a Pennsylvania man's 20 acres? For a week? He did back then. Maybe he could now too, but much of where he might have foraged once is buried under cement or barred by No Trespassing signs, I'm sure.
Still, it did make my heart sing to attentively imagine all that he gathered and vicariously enjoy the many ways he prepared his wild foods. I admired that he carried within him eons of human knowledge.
I felt a twinge of the wannabe prepper in me, wondering how much I could gather right here that was edible. I see thousands of gold bean pods hanging from maligned mesquite trees every late summer and autumn and know the Native Americans made a flour from them. I wonder how that might taste. On leisurely winter walks I've gathered several pounds of pecans from neighbors' trees that fall on the public side. Late this summer, my eldest granddaughter, 20, made prickly pear tuna jelly from cacti growing not more than 10 feet from our homes. The jelly was delicious and sparkled a jewel-like magenta. This summer I taught my littlest granddaughters, 6 and 8, that the weeds growing in their lawn–clover–were edible and tasted lemony. They tried them and were amazed, couldn't wait to share with their parents when they got home.
As I read Gibbons, I realized how all around me, even in a desert, grow edibles. Wild amaranth, dandelions, oaks with acorns, mustard weed, purslane, mushrooms, wild garlic, horehound, milkweed, sage, common sunflowers -all perfectly edible–and more I'm certain if only I too would partake of eons of human knowledge.
I loved this book. No joke.
The story is simple, very simple, written simply. If there is beauty in this book, then it would have to be in its simplicity. I have a feeling that the heartfelt reviews have something to do with knowing the author's previous work, honoring him while knowing he was dying as he wrote this.
For me, though, my first Haruf was underwhelming.
I read it like I was sitting in the backseat of a car with two kind, but quiet, people driving while I watched ordinary scenery blur by.
Out here in West Texas we have a noxious hateful weed that we call “goat heads.”
They have 5 finely sharp points, their seed casings. Inside are zillions of tiny seeds that can live up to 5 years. And that outer goat head, just one, under the bare heel of a grown man can bring him down hard.
They get inside the house stuck to shoes, fall off in random places, causing even more tears and curses than stray Legos or–for those that wince to remember–stray jacks.
They begin to grow at the first tiny hint of Spring and germinate through October. They grow all the long Texas summer, lying flat to the ground to avoid the mower, creeping, expanding. They even nudge out immortal Bermuda grass.
The only solution to get rid of them is chemicals, repeatedly. Unless, that is, you want to yank them up yourself by their rotten little necks which is painful but rewarding in a psychotic way.
Even then, they continually get back into the yard somehow.
I wouldn't be surprised if any day now they sprouted legs just to be extra evil.
They are Texas triffids.
“Humans are a danger to The Egg,” said the crow.“Kill them all!”
Do you love animals? I bet you do, but it should come as no surprise that the feeling is not entirely mutual.
Would you believe in spite of the “kill humans” thing this is the most enjoyable dystopian novel I've ever read? It is!
It takes place after “The Calamity,” a planet-wide disaster that has caused chaos, genetic mutations, and has reduced the human population to one small camp, barely surviving. The Calamity was, of course, the fault of humans (no explanation given but wouldn't take much imagination to come up with one of your own). The animal kingdom has gathered together to decide if they should let that small group of humans live, possibly thrive then wreak havoc all over again. Or, just eat them and be done with it.
The animal council is a simple yes or no vote. It's a very, very small collection of critters. A single animal represents their own species and their whole Order. For example, a single cat for all the cats–all kitty cats, lions, panthers, bobcats, etc. Likewise, a single baboon to represent all the primates (sans humans). And so on, including a late-arrival that will probably surprise you because it surprised me, in the most delightful way.
All the world's animals have agreed to abide by the council's majority vote.
Well, not all animals. The council is a bit short-sighted and snobbish. Plenty of other animal groups are miffed about not being invited to be represented.
We get to know the 7 individual animal distinct personalities, their secret talents, and learn what they really thought of their pre-Calamity relationships with humans (not very positive but a few do have some fond memories, and addictions). The story's narrator, a historian, is telling us the heroic tale, a historian who often goes off topic then writes, “But I digress.” The digressions were intriguingly thoughtful and philosophical, in a fun post-Calamity way.
I laughed out loud many times. McDonell knows how to do quirky. And to be so endearing that I even forgave him, er, the historian narrator, his bad puns. The ending was wonderful and perfect. I didn't see it coming and it made me laugh some more. (I'm vegan, so my sense of humor may not be standard.)
I don't know who this was marketed to, but I was thinking it should be to Middle Grade. It would be the perfect book for parent and child to read together; it would be captivating and exciting to both. After I had read only a few chapters, one day I brought it with me to hang out with my two Littles (my granddaughters ages 6 and 8). I gave them a synopsis, showed them the cover and some of the illustrations. They were hooked. They wanted to know where the vote stood. (It was tied at that point.)
I do have one complaint. This book deserves a lot more love than it's received here on GR. Hmph. Humans!
“...if you please, no reference to examples in books. Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story. Education has been theirs in so much higher a degree; the pen has been in their hands. I will not allow books to prove anything.” –Miss Anne Elliot
I have enjoyed many TV series and movies based on Austen's novels, some viewed multiple times, snuggly cozy entertainments. That explains why I'm not entirely sure I haven't read her until now; I feel so familiar with her work. But I am pretty sure this my first legitimate Austen.
Her writing is amazing! Witty, snarky, precise, observant, perfectly controlled, and done so as woman of her time and within great limitations. That last bit is surely our loss.
If she could create stories that are eagerly and frequently read continuously 200 years after she wrote them, that is a testament to her genius talent! I cannot help but wonder what her pen might have also included if she had traveled, had received a formal education, had “a room of her own” and a modest financial foundation.
Certainly not all is lost. She told us her story, a fabulously entertaining but clear-eyed portrait of a woman's life, its limitations back when women had few options, few rights, and little education. It's good to never forget that state of affairs that lasted eons before now. And, remarkably, like Virginia Woolf insisted that any great work must not do, she didn't grind her axe.
Instead, she illuminated. With greatness.
P.S. Why just 4 stars? I rate those books 5 stars that I would love to read again. Honestly, I don't have that desire with Persuasion. There are many more works, 20th and 21st century works, that I prefer, that invoke stronger feeling, stronger connections. I, too, am a woman of my own time. I will continue to happily stream Austen-based films on my big screen TV on cold rainy Sundays with a hot mug of coffee.
Life's prisons.Almost ten years ago now, I read [b:Winesburg, Ohio 80176 Winesburg, Ohio Sherwood Anderson https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1391639013l/80176.SY75.jpg 191520] and really didn't care for it because it depressed me. But I've read more, lived more since then. I should give it another try.I can see now how Anderson is such a pivotal figure in American literature, not the least of which was his influence on the giants who came after him. His style was the beginning of something new, something that resonated, perhaps most especially, with Americans. His writing is simplified. It's also repetitive in phrases and metaphors and even in speech. Much like, I suppose, real people think and talk. His is more than mere style; here he writes about the serious struggles against lackluster life, of being unfulfilled.In “The Egg,” a farmer, upon the arrival of his baby son, has been prodded along by his wife to better himself and the family's financial circumstance. He has a succession of failures in spite of his earnest efforts, including a long stint as a chicken farmer. He eventually comes to own a down and out diner. It's not until then that we get a glimpse into the plodding, taciturn man when he tries to entertain a single, uninterested diner with egg tricks.“Senility” is a brief story about an old man talking to a stranger. Senility has its grip and control of his mind. He's still alive, still thinking, still chatting, but is clearly stuck in the ragged, confusing recall of what his life had been.In “The New Englander,” a spinster, as they used to call unmarried women of a certain age with few to no prospects for marriage, moves with her aged parents from the city to the corn fields of Iowa. There were some stunning descriptions of the fields that I will long remember, the unforgettable experience of being in among the tall corn, and the awakening effect it had on the woman.Another two were memorable, too. “I Want to Know Why,” in spite of its objectionable language (uses the n word liberally), had a surprising contemporary subject, also done with beautiful subtlety. And “Unlighted Lamps” was especially touching, about a man and his daughter struggling with the inability to communicate their inner feelings with one another. That frequent observation about short stories applies here, too. The ones I liked, I liked a lot. There were a few stories, though, that lost my interest and some I found were too long or too short. It came to my mind that as a writer, he's a man's man. When he takes a woman's point of view, that view felt less authentic, somewhat like what a man thinks/hopes a woman might feel. “The New Englander” beautifully rose above that limitation, being more subtle than in his other female protagonist stories here. I could get quite philosophical why I liked Anderson's stories this time around but not when I read Winesburg. Time takes its toll, I guess, forcing us into stoic acceptance of the many manifestations of loss, regret, and disappointments. And for some, when that happens, we become more empathetic and less fearful of reading about it.Anderson had his own share of woe in his life. But in his last years he had happiness, at last. Maybe he, like some do, learned how to be content with life.I'm more than a little confused about all the editions listed for this title and the difference in their Contents. I'll leave links below to the copy my review refers to.Librivox, a good narration by Ben Adams:https://librivox.org/the-triumph-of-the-egg-a-book-of-impressions-from-american-life-in-tales-and-poems-by-sherwood-anderson/Project Gutenberg text:https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7048Wikipedia entry:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Triumph_of_the_Egg#External_links
I'm having a hard time putting to words what this book was like for me. I've never read anything quite like the two characters, six year old Sophia and her eighty-five year old grandmother, and their interactions while spending a summer on an island in the Gulf of Finland.
Sophia is impetuous, inquisitive, precocious, opinionated, fearful, and emotional.
Her grandmother is cranky, frank, wise, fearless, tired and losing her independence.
They forge, with not a little clanging noise, an iron-strong relationship of love and trust.
All I can think of is how desperately I want to read this with my 8 year old granddaughter. I see us within the book.
“...as if some giant cucumber had spread itself over all the roses and carnations in the garden and choked them to death.” (My italics.)She does make me laugh, Woolf does. There is no one like her. She is smart, original, and has pure wicked wit. She is a most splendid specimen of woman's fearless mind.Reading Woolf here sparked my brain a hundred ways, causing a five alarm fire hazard. I could hardly contain or organize the thoughts that were lit, then glowed. So many thoughts, but for now the biggest, glitteriest ember in my on fire brain was to assess “women and fiction” for myself. That is, for me, assess the novels by women about women that I read this year. I want to look back at a few and briefly shine a Woolf fagot on them to see how they look in that light. Four novels immediately come to mind and they were: [b:Orlando 18839 Orlando Virginia Woolf https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1443118010l/18839.SY75.jpg 6057225], [b:Their Eyes Were Watching God 37415 Their Eyes Were Watching God Zora Neale Hurston https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1368072803l/37415.SY75.jpg 1643555], [b:Hamnet 43890641 Hamnet Maggie O'Farrell https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1574943819l/43890641.SY75.jpg 68289933], and [b:The Penelopiad 17645 The Penelopiad Margaret Atwood https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1442806554l/17645.SY75.jpg 3016476]. Of the four, the first two were incredible, works for the ages, and as being from, as Woolf describes the phenomenon, minds that “consumed all impediments.” Both Orlando and Their Eyes possessed Woolf's own ideal of a literary quality of illumination. That quality she insists cannot have been written with anger or resentment, must not have an old axe to grind. And neither did. They both, though, addressed gender relations and oppression. Yet they were works of their genius writer's unique expressions of human joy, suffering, adventure. They shined from within.The other two novels were very good! But, they were not as good. They came from a different mindset, out to put the record straight, or to at least give the record a firmly different female versus male perspective: Hamnet about Shakespeare's wife Anne and Penelopiad about Odysseus's wife Penelope. I agree those kinds of books need to be written now; they serve a historic purpose, a rebalancing of lopsided scales. I'm glad for having read them, building up my stores of lives imagined, the women behind the great males of literature, even if just in supposition. The works, though, both suffer as works of art, albeit not horribly, for that mission. An honorable mention in this year's reads of a woman writing fiction as Woolf encouraged women to write, was by an Iranian author, [b:Things We Left Unsaid 13373135 Things We Left Unsaid Zoya Pirzad https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1332435731l/13373135.SY75.jpg 2019022]. It's not of the same rank as Orlando or Their Eyes either but it's solid writing with a clear female voice and an experience of a life limited by social norms which the novel accomplished without rancor. No one likes a blunt bonk on the head, right? Let's just see what it is like to be in a certain mind and body at a certain time.I'm not saying that there isn't a place for social criticisms, and harsh ones there should be too! But Woolf's essay reminds us that literature should be more. Woolf's prime examples were Shakespeare and Austen. Those writers certainly do say something big about the state of all number of things, ugly and unfair things, but they do it from a perspective undistracted, not dinged by personal complaints.Woolf liked women as human beings (and also romantically). I like women (platonically) a lot and I like women who also like women as human beings. Men who are angry at women and women who hate men are boring, out of sync with reality (you simply can't succeed in whatever you are hoping to gain from that), and those haters are tempted to be cruel toward other human beings. The same can be said of other prejudices. It's unreasonable.The best writing will come from people who do not have that personal baggage. They certainly will include male and female relationships, but they won't be preaching a message. They will, as Woolf said, “think about things in themselves” and tell us stories about them.One more great example of another genius jumps to my mind, although I didn't read her this year. She wrote about grotesquely unequal relationships without personal bitterness, only with necessary weeping, is Toni Morrison, a woman and black American. How delighted Woolf would be to read Morrison's work. And how celebratory of Morrison's Nobel Prize, too! Woolf foresaw that sort of thing in 1928 as prime to happen, and predicted accurately, it would happen “in another hundred years time.”
How silently the heart pivots on its hinge
I've been reading this book of poetry for 7 months. The poems are rich and satisfying, not to be gorged or gulped, feasts of new memories made of things we all have on hand.
The first poem, “The Lives of the Heart” stabbed me, blew my head off, made me joyful and sorrowful in quick, alternating successions. It made me want to give this book to everyone I know, even the ones who don't like poetry, to put it in their hands and say, “Here, you must read this. Your soul is in here.”
There were other poems, too, that were also the sounds of silent pivots of the heart. And a few poems where all I could say was, “I don't understand.” But I did understand. I understood the cadence, I understood the never-ending now, the way the heart opens and closes and opens again. I understood them in a way that is the truth and is strange in its plaintive, honest voice heard at a distance. It traverses the complete course of the body. At the end, I think I even grasped the Lion she often writes about, life's fear, that primitive fierce force which we all possess and also face.
Here she writes about a horse, as she often does.
“Not Moving Even One Step”
The rain falling too lightly to shape
an audible horse, an audible tree,
and, soaking, the old horse waits in his pasture.
He knows the field for exactly what it is:
his limitless mare, his beloved.
Even the mallards sleep in her red body maned
in thistles, hooved in the new green shallows of spring.
Slow rain streams from fetlocks, hips, the lowered head,
while she stands in the place beside him that no one sees.
The muzzles almost touch,
How silently the heart pivots on its hinge.
I want to read everything Hirshfield has ever put on paper.
My own humble tribute of thanks to her:
The reader is eating bread and butter
The bread, poetry in elastic chews,
The butter, salt of faith on top.
Overall, a big disappointment.
The petroglyphs at Three Rivers NM is a special place to me and probably to anyone who's been there. The only passage in this book that didn't make me want to pull my hair out were the last lines, “Every person who has seen the valley since then has stood in awe of its natural beauty and grandeur. It still happens today.”
Looks like the publisher is a vanity publisher, or closely akin to one, one specializing in histories. I tried to look at their website but Chrome told me it was unsafe. But that does explain how this got published and the lack of editing.
The problems were rife:
>Repeating the same information multiple times, in the same phrases, sometimes in the span of just a previous sentence or two.
> Droning on about minutiae that no one in their right mind would care about. In fact, that is the majority of this book. Names and places and who bought what and when and for how much are history, but not interesting history.
>But the worst crime of the author is writing about truly interesting things, fascinating history, intriguing events, and NOT taking it and running with it. There are so many examples, but here's one, p.69, “Shortly after leaving El Paso, someone fired into the car and killed Hutchings with a bullet probably intended for [Oliver] Lee.” And that's it. I mean, wouldn't you read that and be curious why it should probably have been Lee instead of Hutchings? Or if the murder apprehended? I mean, tell us something about that “probably.”
Even the most focused and best written part, the history of A.B. Falls and his guilt or innocence in the national Teapot Dome Scandal, was transparently heavy-handed in favor of innocence and admiration for Fall. Based on the evidence even Cozzens presented here, Fall was either stupid or guilty. And he wasn't stupid.
In the end, there were two things that kept me from giving up on this book at page 19. First, I knew nothing about the history of the area so I at least got an introduction to the main players in Three Rivers' history. And second, Cozzens included a decently long bibliography that might lead to better reading experiences.
I don't know if there are other books written about the history of Three Rivers, but you should seek them out instead. Unless you have plenty of hair or have no curiosity.
I'm sorry, Mr. Cozzens.
Upon reading my first manifesto!
The current cutting-edge state of gender identification is an exciting time, don't you agree? It's high time, too. You can tell just how exciting by the angry backlash to it.
I wanted to read some current nonfiction about the LGBTQ+ movement, not a bloaty book, looking for just the high points for now. That's how I stumbled on this manifesto. “Manifesto?” I've never read a manifesto before. Are they all written like this?
Although this may not be the be-all-to-end-all on the subject, it did provide one answer to a simple question that's nagged me, “Why do politicians care so much about gender choices?” They can't all be fundamentalist Christians or self-hating non-cishets, surely. According to this work, the gender topic has them up in arms because it is destabilizing to the power structure and they are the power structure gate-keepers and favored privileged. Ah, yes, greed, why didn't I think of that?
Sigh. Employed against the gender movement are the same tactics used against social justice movements for ages. Even the magic tricks of outrage and distraction are old–religion, pseudo-Science, tribalism, outlandish worst-case predictions, name-calling, and more. Meanwhile, they quietly continue the real business at hand, that of enriching themselves.
Probably the most interesting concept presented here is the observation that various movements work as allies but not as the same movement fighting the same underlying oppression, which, according to these writers, they should be. Hm, yes, probably.
The manifesto could sorely use some re-writes. The piece aspires to a high intellectual style but is riddled with clumsy, bad grammar that undermines it. In a work like this, I would have liked to see citations listed as well. Or, scratch all that and re-write it a whole other way. You know, for us proletariats.
Ultimately, the manifesto did not convince me of their conclusion/solution: communism by revolution.
If it's written for Western capitalist readers, that is not realistic for any foreseeable future. Spitting in the wind, my friend. Communism, in its present real life manifestations, is distinctly highly unappealing. (Anybody keen on moving to a communist country?) But what do I know because neither is Nationalism appealing any in any of its current or historic manifestations, yet that apparently is in vogue with the masses. And with the powerful, too, as they disdain us pleebs all the way to the bank.
Until a better solution comes along, we are stuck with the way things work now: a slow and painful cultural evolution, making progress by millimeters.
I read the pdf copy here:
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/vikky-storm-the-gender-accelerationist-manifesto
Don't mess with Grandma
I'm up at 4 a.m. It's an new old age thing for me, waking hours before the alarm. What a perfect time to read this book about another Grandma. I read it in one sitting, chortled and guffawed darn near every page.
Grandma Dowdel is one badass granny. Two city kids, Joey and Mary Alice, are sent to the small town to stay with Grandma, their dad's mom, for a week every summer between the years 1929-1935. There they learn an old-fashioned thing or twenty. Some of it outright illegal, some of it dubiously moral, all of it memorable. What goes on that action-packed week is tacitly agreed between brother and sister when they return to Chicago what goes on at Granny's stays at Granny's.
In their first ever week there, they are half-terrified of this unsmiling, opinionated, anti-social old lady who has no vehicle, no phone, no radio, but does have a shotgun that makes regular appearances. By the end of the very last summer's week there, they would follow her to the ends of the earth.
I wonder would a Granny, in 2024, be able to apprehend the criminal kids of the neighborhood, hold them by shotgun until their parents arrive, and not go to jail herself? Asking for a friend.
A new favorite! Looking now for more Richard Peck to read. His writing doesn't feel like writing; it's as smooth and easy as a hot knife through home-churned butter.
I use colors intuitively, or if you prefer, willy-nilly. Sometimes successfully and sometimes–not surprisingly–not. Now that I've read this short book, I see color theory as a great tool to understand those failures especially.
Color wheels and the various schemes using them look like fun! I didn't have my paints out while I read this book; I wanted to give it a read through without getting distracted. And paints, lovely paints, do distract me.
The paintings that illustrated the concepts are all by the artist author. Her works are mostly clear illustrations of her points, but I would have liked to see other artists' works, applying the same concepts, driving home the point.
When I retire the paints will come out and just might stay out. Until then, this book patiently waits on my reference shelf.
Pizzled
“Pizzled on papapot” pretty much sums it up for me. It was a lot of fun in the beginning, I laughed out loud at the crazy future 1992 fashions as imagined by Dick and the tyranny of technology especially by avaricious household appliances. The major concepts of half-life and Ubik in a spray can were 60s cool, man.
But, truthfully, as I find so often with sci-fi, when the novelty wears off, when the plot thickens and everyone's life is in mortal danger by Evil Forces, my interest wanes–the exciting part isn't exciting to me. Is that weird?
I finally read a Philip K. Dick. And, well, now I'm good.
Narrator Anthony Heald was good.
Sigh, such a lovely–and loving–story written by an author who cherished her characters.
And I'm so glad it was both the same as and different to the BBC series which introduced me to the novel. Enough sameness so I could continue to see and hear Miss Matty as Dame Judi Dench and see and hear the irrepressible Miss Pole as Dame Imelda Staunton (my favorite Cranfordian), with enough differences that there was yet more in Cranford to enjoy. And in both versions–novel and TV series–I found myself chuckling aloud at the endearing quirks of the dear Amazons.
If like me, you would enjoy knowing more about the author Mrs. Gaskell, I recommend the digital edition below that has the 1891 preface by Anne Thackeray Ritchie.
Text at Gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/57539/pg57539-images.html#Page_219
with a preface by Anne Thackeray Ritchie and illustrations by Hugh Thomson
Audiobook at Librivox: https://librivox.org/cranford-version-2-by-elizabeth-gaskell/
A very nice narration by Noel Badrian
2 stars = “It was ok.”
I had the impression from the first couple of chapters the story would be about a boy observing nature in the wild, writing in his journal. That's not what it was about.
A trumpeter swan that has a trumpet, a slate, chalk on a string, a bravery medal, and money bag hanging from his neck is not at all what I expected. If I read this even as a kid, I don't think I would have fallen under its spell. I was near impossible to suspend disbelief. As an adult, I wondered if a kid who loved observing wildlife in nature would really want to work at a zoo, especially a 1970s zoo.
I'll be interested to see what my Little, my 8 year old granddaughter, thinks of it; her class is reading it in school.
I loved E.B. White's Charlotte's Web–about a spider that can spell–so, go figure.
A wonderful muddle.
The periodic table, famous quotes from history in their original language, scientific concepts about time and matter, interplanetary travel, different life forms, explanation of a sonnet, a bit of God, and a large throbbing disembodied brain.
Oh, and a heroic girl!
Narrated by Hope Davis
I found the next gift for my bee-keeper mother.
Author Lebanese-Canadian El-Mohtar has written of her experiences tasting different honeys, 28 in all, one per each day in a February, the jars being a gift from a friend. After tasting and describing each honey, she spins a honey enchantment for us, writing a poem, a story, or a fable–each as fantastical as any favorite fairy tale–about love, fear, disaster, ecstasy.
She is a sensuous Scheherazade.
She is an Isak Denison telling winter tales. And spring, summer, and fall tales.
We are willing, rapt listeners as she festoons us with flowers, fruits, spices, seaweed, wet tree branches, thorns, music, and bees. Lots of bees. Bees who love us, bees who trick us, bees who feed us, bees who kiss us.
I loved every page of this thin volume and my mother would have too. We would have read it together, also just one honey a day. Then we would share our thoughts long-distance by phone, reciting our favorite lines. She would tell me more stories of her bees and their honey. And then we would continue talking longer than we meant to about our remember-whens.
I found the perfect gift for my bee-keeper mother. I will bring these stories with me to heaven so I can tell them to her, to festoon her in flowers, spices, wet tree branches, too. She will love it.
“Back Fang, back!”
I love that, plan on answering my door like that from now on.
Okay, okay, okay. I finally relented, after more than 25 years of its popularity, I read the mega hit Harry Potter. i haven't even seen the movie. I live mostly happily under a rock of my own choosing.
One opinion was the tipping point for me, though. One of my Littles, my 8 year old granddaughter read this with her mom and loved it. I get it now.
It was good. It was very good.
Listened via Hoopla audio, excellent narration by Jim Dale.
(Made me wish that another heroic story would have turned out so well. The one about the battle against the Orange Voldemort.)
I liked it.
At last! I have finally gotten around to this classic of classics.
The audio reader Jeff Harding was just OK (a preferred version by Ralph Cosham was unavailable). I suspect that is why I only “liked it” rather than “really liked it.”
The part of the story that really shone–everyone's favorite part I'm sure–is when Black Beauty (aka Jack) works for the Mr. Jeremiah (Jerry) Barker family. But there was much more and more variety of cruelty that I didn't expect. I had no idea there are all kinds of ways to be specifically negligent or cruel to a horse. Also the fact that Black Beauty was sold so many times, used the word “master”, and was often seen as merely flesh to work launched comparisons to other sadly deep parallels. That was unexpected.
I wonder how kids of 2024 react to this book, especially an unabridged version.
Now that I've discovered my public library offers audiobooks online, it is a tempting way to easily fill in some reading omissions. And since it's crochet weather, I am making a nice progress on my rainbow striped cotton coverlet while taking no time away from reading.
Second Childhoods
I'm discovering that reading can give you the gift of a childhood again. And it's a hoot!
I don't mean I'm nostalgically re-reading books that I once read as child, but that I'm reading books new to me, some I've never even heard of.
Ostensibly I'm pre-reading them before I make the selections that me and my granddaughters (the two Littles) will read together in our weekly after school time together. Tonight, though, I realized that I often pick books that on the outset I know we three will never read together. Yet, I read them anyway, knowing that.
Well, why not? A few hours spent in a world–cheerful, imaginative, kind, often funny, and almost always has a happy ending–is uplifting in between the “serious adult” books I read.
So, tonight I listened to this book, a book that will not fit the limited time the girls I have once a week. I listened via a Hoopla recording read by Vikas Adam. I don't know if it was his recording or the book's text, but I laughed out loud many times at Tucker, a New Yorker kind of mouse with that New Yorker sense of humor.
Now I have lined up several more kid's books on audio.....for little old me!
It was ok.I wanted to adore this author/artist's work. I should have adored it. But I didn't. A to Z of folk-art-y paintings (based on items in the Smithsonian) with short, off-hand comments made by the author. I think they were meant to convey wonder and whimsy. In the back were very small actual photos of the objects.Maybe my Littles would like it, maybe not. I'm not keen enough myself to use the time we three have together on this one. I'll donate this book and [b:And the Pursuit of Happiness 8450221 And the Pursuit of Happiness Maira Kalman https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1347767759l/8450221.SX50.jpg 13314163] to our local Friends of the Library where it might find its way into more appreciative hands.