mabith's ROOTS

CharlasROOT - 2014 Read Our Own Tomes

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mabith's ROOTS

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1mabith
Editado: Dic 23, 2014, 5:02 pm

I did pretty well last, year, beat my goal, though I'd set it intentionally low. I have chronic pain, so holding books is hard on me. A lot of my ROOTS aren't available as audiobooks, so it's a problem! (And if I'm honest I resent the loss of multi-tasking ability that I get with audiobooks.)

My goal this year is 24, which is quite doable (I hit 20 last year).



Little Men by Louisa May Alcott
Dorothy Dixon Solves the Conway Case by Dorothy Wayne
Women of the Weird edited by Seon Manley
800 Years of Women's Letters edited by Olga Kenyon
The 13 Clocks by James Thurber

The Diary of Thomas A. Edison by Thomas A. Edison
The Battle of Blair Mountain by Robert Shogan
The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
Cloud of Sparrows by Takashi Matsuoka
Over to You by Roald Dahl

The Saber-Tooth Curriculum by J. Abner Peddiwell
The Penguin Atlas of Medieval History by Colin McEvedy
Ancient Egyptian Literature translated by John L. Foster
Civil War in West Virginia by Winthrop D. Lane
99 Poems in Translation edited by Harold Pinter

The Making of a Poem edited by Mark Strand & Eavan Boland
Empress Dowager Cixi by Jung Chang
Jane, Stewardess of the Air Lines by Ruthe S. Wheeler
The Belle Epoque of the Orient Express by M. Wiesenthal
The Turret by Margery Sharp8

Which Side Are You On? by Thomas Geoghegan
The Harps That Once... edited by Thorkild Jacobsen
English Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs
Falco: The Official Companion by Lindsey Davis
Parzival and the Stone From Heaven by Lindsey Clarke

A Vicarage Family by Noel Streatfeild
Jo's Boys by Louisa May Alcott
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Away From the Vicarage by Noel Streatfeild
Gemma by Noel Streatfeild

William Shakespeare's Star Wars: Verily, A New Hope by Ian Doescher

31

2connie53
Dic 27, 2013, 8:17 am

Welcome back, Mabith.

3rabbitprincess
Dic 27, 2013, 6:36 pm

Welcome back! Enjoy the challenge.

4mabith
Dic 27, 2013, 6:45 pm

Thanks, guys!

5rainpebble
Ene 1, 2014, 2:40 am

Hi Meredith. Good to see you & good luck with your challenge. :-)

6mabith
Ene 1, 2014, 3:28 pm

Thanks, you too!

7mabith
Ene 11, 2014, 10:28 am

1 - Little Men by Louisa May Alcott

This is the book my favorite blames for ruining him for public school, though I imagine most brainy, bookish kids dislike public school for reasons unrelated to reading about a lovely miniature boarding school.

It follows Jo and Mr. Bhaer running their little ideal school where boys can have freedom to play and mess about so long as they rigorously follow the few rules set out. We see some new children added to the school, inventive methods of discipline, Jo dealing with the boys' sometimes anti-girl feeling, etc...

The book is sweet, and not really all that dated in terms of alternative school philosophies. As is evident in other books Alcott has a bit of a split personality in terms of traditions for women and writing what will sell while trying to slip the more subversive ideas in as well.

8Merryann
Ene 12, 2014, 11:55 pm

I haven't read any Louisa May Alcott books since my early teens. Your review makes me want to go take another journey though them.

Congratulations on finishing your first ROOT of the year!

9connie53
Ene 13, 2014, 7:12 am

Yes Meredith, #1 out of the way.

10Caramellunacy
Ene 30, 2014, 10:51 am

I remember enjoying Little Men (and still remember Demi & Daisy's "soda makes sour things sweet" lecture)!

11mabith
Editado: Mar 22, 2014, 10:13 am

2 - Dorothy Dixon Solves the Conway Case by Dorothy Wayne

I have now read all four books in the Dorothy Dixon series. She's a young aviator, and planes play a roll in all of her books. They do use technical terms, which is nice. I slightly collect girls' fiction from 1910s-1930s, and I find it delightfully fun and sometimes quite well done.

These are absolutely silly, insane books. This one only spans about 12 hours. Dorothy runs out of gas, makes an emergency landing with her friend, and then when they find a house they see a young man tied to a chair and being brutally interrogated inside (thank goodness for french windows...). Everything speeds along very quickly after that, they involve two of Dorothy's other friends, there's a perilous rock climb in the dark, and gun play. This volume was harder to read than some, as there are two African American characters. While the characters themselves are presented well and save the day twice, the language used and the heavy dialect writing was very hard to read, just the obvious latent racism of the author even while she writes the characters themselves as important and good people...

I rather admire Dorothy Dixon as a character and role model for girls. She has people, two men especially, who help, and she readily accepts help, but she takes over (and they trust her judgement) when she comes up with a plan. She uses a gun and a has bobbed hair, but she also thinks about her clothes and shoes. She doesn't have to be all tomboy or all feminine, and I think that's pretty important. Too many books and movies make the mistake of pitting stereotypically masculine and feminine things against each other, which pretty much always imply that stereotypically feminine things are bad/weak/unimportant/frivolous.

Her adventures are pretty far fetched (but I bet Nancy Drew's are as well), but they are rather fun. The aviatrix theme of the 20s and 30s is such a fun one.

12mabith
Ene 31, 2014, 1:39 pm

10 - Ha, yes, the soda makes sour things sweet is definitely going to stick in my head! I love details like that in books.

13rabbitprincess
Ene 31, 2014, 6:35 pm

Dorothy Dixon sounds like fun! Especially the airplane bits. Will have to see if I can find a copy somewhere.

14mabith
Ene 31, 2014, 6:44 pm

I'd go for one of her other books first though - Dorothy Dixon Wins Her Wings, Dorothy Dixon and the Double Cousin or Dorothy Dixon and the Mystery Plane. They were all published in 1933, not sure how difficult they are to find since they're not in the public domain yet.

15Merryann
Feb 2, 2014, 7:12 pm

I shall be keeping my eyes open for Dorothy Dixon books. They look just like my kind of reading. Thanks!

16mabith
Editado: Feb 2, 2014, 7:58 pm

15 - You might enjoy the Vesper Holly books by Lloyd Alexander. They're a more recent creation and are great fun in the girls' adventure genre! They're much smarter than the old 20s-30s books but just as exciting/improbable (and they're set in the 1870s with a very Sherlock Holmes vibe).

17Merryann
Feb 2, 2014, 7:44 pm

Oh, and I already know I like Lloyd Alexander. Will do. Thank you. :)

18Caramellunacy
Feb 3, 2014, 5:29 am

I really enjoyed the Vesper Holly books, they reminded me of nothing so much as the Young Indiana Jones novels my dad used to buy for me :)

19mabith
Feb 3, 2014, 9:56 am

She's definitely a mix of Indy and Sherlock Holmes, and Alexander never questions whether he should throw in a reference to a famous person that your average (esp. American) 9-14 year old might not know. Adam Smith, Rousseau, Simon Bolivar... I love that. I read a few as a kid, but I find reading them now surpasses how good they were in my memory, which is quite a feat.

20Caramellunacy
Feb 3, 2014, 10:05 am

I'll have to dig out my stash of Vesper Hollys!

21mabith
Editado: Mar 2, 2014, 2:39 pm

3 - Women of the Weird: Eerie Stories by the Gentle Sex edited by Seon Manley and Gogo Lewis

This was part of a series of anthologies (some larger than others) focusing on female writers of mystery, crime, fantasy, supernatural, etc... stories. My dad brought this home when the library he worked at discarded it, probably in 1986. He never read it. I kept it in my collection because of the title and the Edward Gorey cover.

This is a really mixed bunch of stories, two of which I don't feel fit with the theme at all. The last story didn't have any eerie or odd element in the least and the preface reference Freud and "Oh it's hard to write about mothers and daughters and they're competitive with each other" really turned me off.

The stories I liked best were rather Thurber-esque tales by Shirley Jackson and Sheila Burnford. There's a terrible one in here by E. Nesbit, which is just a kids' camp fire story in my opinion and more attempting to be horror rather than just eerie.

It includes a literary fairy tale by Madame d'Aulnoy. It also includes a somewhat silly story by Elizabeth Gaskell and a bit of an odd one by Edna St. Vincent Millay

A quick read, with a few highlights, but not a well thought-out collection by any means. I think perhaps the editors had a few stories they really liked which they were unable to fit into the other collections. So they whipped up another title and padded it out with whatever they could find (at least one third were in the public domain).

22connie53
Feb 6, 2014, 2:58 pm

Ohh, I just love the growing pictures in the top post!

You are doing well, Meredith!

23mabith
Feb 6, 2014, 3:08 pm

Thanks, Connie! The only downside to doing the picture is that then I can't get rid of any books I don't want to keep! Last year I did two pictures so I could at least get rid of things after reading the first ten ROOTS and didn't have so many to move around for each picture.

24connie53
Feb 6, 2014, 3:10 pm

Maybe put them in a carton box and put them in a closet when they are not needed for the picture?

25rabbitprincess
Feb 6, 2014, 5:47 pm

The books up top look so nice together, too! All that blue :)

26mabith
Feb 6, 2014, 6:42 pm

Connie - Oh there's still some space on the shelves, it's more I just get itchy to be rid of things when I KNOW I don't want them.

25 - Ha, uh oh, now you've done it! I am totally the type of person who would start choosing books based on how they'll look in that picture...

27connie53
Feb 7, 2014, 10:43 am

Yes I can understand that urge too, Meredith! The get rid of itch.

Blue books are the thing the coming weeks? Or maybe you can make a colorshifting choice. Slowly changing from blue into green and so on. ;-))

28mabith
Feb 7, 2014, 10:57 am

Ha, I was totally thinking of going to green! I'd already made note of two on the shelves, and I was going to look around today to see if I could make a full rainbow, in which case I'd actually better read some purple books next...

29connie53
Feb 7, 2014, 11:08 am

Ohh, that is really a weird coincidence! We think alike!

30Tallulah_Rose
Feb 16, 2014, 1:04 pm

That would be great if you could manage a full rainbow! Am interested in the progress. :-)

31mabith
Feb 16, 2014, 1:37 pm

Doing the rainbow would mean no longer being in a group where we look at each other's to-read lists and then choose two for the person to choose from. I suppose I could give them a list of my green/yellow/orange, etc... books to choose from. Hmmm... So many choices!

32avanders
Feb 28, 2014, 12:32 pm

Ooh, I've just stumbled in here.. your first post's pic - those are the read ROOTS to date? love the idea!
Don't think I could DO it, but I love it! (I get rid of read-books as fast as I can ;))

Also, I've got the same ROOT goal as you do... :)

33mabith
Mar 2, 2014, 8:30 pm

>32 avanders: That is the trouble with doing the picture, I have to keep the books. Last year I used two pictures, so after reading ten books I got rid of the ones I didn't want and started on the next picture. Hopefully we can both meet our goals! I'm *just* on track, and the silly decision to decide to make a picture with the spines in a sort of rainbow is making me want to read mine more quickly.

34mabith
Mar 2, 2014, 8:46 pm

4 - 800 Years of Women's Letters edited by Olga Kenyon

A wonderful compilation of women's letters grouped into various categories, though very much focused on westerners. It was great to read through, but I can see why it was remaindered.

The organization, editing, and short commentary on the letters really needs some improvement. Sometimes Kenyon made it sound like a letter would include certain things when it didn't, and sometimes her short blurbs before each letter didn't contain enough background information. The cover was also kind of bad, and that really does matter in books. She also occasionally uses letters from novels, which rather annoyed me.

It was a little depressing at times, given how so many of the women's problems and concerns are still our problems and concerns. It's hard to read these things, and books like A Room of One's Own, and feel like we've made no progress (obviously we have, in many arenas, but prevailing social/cultural attitudes take a lot longer to address).

Really a treasure trove of neat letters and perspectives, but I feel like there are better collections out there.

35mabith
Mar 2, 2014, 8:51 pm

New picture up! Starting the rainbow. That third book is so annoying. In pictures it vacillates between blue and grey, but if it looks blue then the purple spine looks too blue.

36connie53
Mar 3, 2014, 5:54 am

Well, I love it anyway!

37avanders
Mar 3, 2014, 10:38 am

>33 mabith: Mabith -- that's a good idea... keeping 10 books per picture :) Maybe I'll do something like that for 2015... :) And fun idea w/ the rainbows!
You'll meet your goals! I have faith in us 24'ers ;)

I think your pic looks pretty too! If you end up reading a black-spined book, maybe the grey can end up being a fade from purple to black, but for now, it makes sense where it is!

38mabith
Mar 3, 2014, 11:27 am

>37 avanders: Yeah, I have a silly mindset of wanting to keep them in the order that I'm reading it. Well, the whole thing is a bit silly, but my brain gets attached to such things.

39avanders
Mar 3, 2014, 11:42 am

Oooh, funny. I missed that part.
But no, I totally understand!

40mabith
Editado: Mar 6, 2014, 4:25 pm

5 - The 13 Clocks by James Thurber

A wonderful little children's book. Great for that in-between period when new-readers want something longer than a picture book. The edition I have has lovely illustrations by Marc Simont.

The word play is great in this one, and the villain is nice and evil and just the sort children tend to like best.

I actually listened to an old audiobook of this, recorded in the 1960s, I think. Lauren Bacall reads it absolutely perfectly. It made me wish she'd become a reader for children's book as a full-time job!

==
New picture! I edited 800 Years of Women's Letter separately as in person it is a true, medium purple but washed out so in photos.

41mabith
Mar 11, 2014, 10:26 am

No new ROOTs, but I did learn that in Japanese there's a specific word for unread books you own - tsundoku, so I wanted to share that.

42avanders
Mar 11, 2014, 12:07 pm

v. cool... I have plenty tsundoku... ;) Most of my books at this point are tsundoku, in fact...

43lilisin
Editado: Mar 11, 2014, 2:18 pm

41 -
Yep! In fact, tsundoku (積読) is a new word that was just recently created in the language to represent those who have lots of books piled up. It comes from the words "to pile up" (積む - tsumu) and "to read" (読む - yomu). If you notice, those same characters show up in the word above. Japan has its own version of LT and Goodreads so the word came up at about that time.

44connie53
Mar 12, 2014, 6:57 am

Wow. that's really nice. There is a word for my TBR: tsundoku! I love it.

45mabith
Mar 13, 2014, 10:19 am

6 - The Diary of Thomas A. Edison by Thomas A. Edison

Edison only kept a diary (that we know about) for a short period in 1885, basically two weeks in July. This is after his first wife died, and just after he meets the woman who would become his second wife. I slightly wonder if he kept it for her, really (I've done that myself), or perhaps he was just feeling so uplifted finally that he had to write.

The book features a bit of biographical information, quite a few pictures, and then photocopies of the diary pages. His handwriting is so lovely. A mix of script and print, and very neat (once you get used to the loopy Ls and a few other little things).

The really great thing about this work is the humour! Edison was quite the card (lots of puns). It's also interesting for the random scientific observations and the way words have changed. I'm kicking myself for not writing any down, but there will be a word which is not quite in it's current form, with slightly different parts attached but obviously on its way to being our word. Skimming back through I found one - architectualist versus architect. Not my favorite example, but you get the idea. He also recounts his dreams quite frequently.

"...Darwin has it right. They make themselves pretty to attract the insect world who are the transportation agents of their pollen. Pollen freight via Bᵉᵉ line."

(Being raised on a steady diet of Rocky and Bullwinkle shows, I have a weakness for such humour. Rather than groaning at Peabody and Sherman punchlines I love myself laughing.)

46mabith
Editado: Mar 13, 2014, 10:21 am

New picture! Wish I'd had more purple books to add, but oh well. There are certainly more red and orange books around. Doing the colors in order is spurring me to read them more quickly.

47avanders
Mar 13, 2014, 12:57 pm

Sounds interesting... and new pretty picture! I think the reds balance the blues nicely ;)

48connie53
Mar 15, 2014, 1:58 pm

The picture is lovely!

49mabith
Editado: Mar 22, 2014, 10:37 am

7 - The Battle of Blair Mountain: The Story of America's Largest Labor Uprising by Robert Shogan

This book mainly focuses on the events leading up to the battle, rather than that event itself. If you've already read most of the books about this subject (as I have) then this one doesn't fill a gap. I don't think it really provides more information about the event than Life, Work, and Rebellion in the Coal Fields, which is the most comprehensive book about the West Virginia Mine Wars.

However, if you've never read about the unionizing of WV's southern coal fields, where the UMWA had their hardest fights, then this book might be a good introduction. It's a relatively short book and gives a good taste of the conflict and some of the largest events. Two books have been released since this was published that would have likely effected the text, I think. Matewan Before the Massacre (which I've started but put on hold for now) and When Miners March which is directly about the Blair mountain incident, written by the son of the principal march and battle leader.

I got this as an ARC about ten years ago, and wow, it had more typos than any ARC I've ever seen (and between working in a bookstore, being a librarian's daughter, and LT I've seen a lot). It was so odd. It got a little better in the second half of the book, but there were a lot of double spaces or lack of space things. They were just odd typos. I mean, it had Welsh instead of Welch (a town) the first five or six times it mentioned the name.

50mabith
Mar 22, 2014, 10:32 am

Once I get back to the blues I'm totally going to cheat with my picture. I'll read a couple more blue books and put them at the beginning. I'm sure no one would chide me for making a prettier book picture.

51connie53
Mar 22, 2014, 10:41 am

No, we would not! I love pretty pictures!

52streamsong
Mar 22, 2014, 2:29 pm

I love your rainbow idea! What a grand way to keep motivated (hmmm, wonder what colors I have read).

53mabith
Mar 22, 2014, 3:22 pm

Thanks! It is always neat to see how they stack up and sometimes randomly look nice. I have two shelves of poetry and the bottom shelf randomly has a lot of red, blue, white, and black spines while the top has a lot of yellow, brown, orange and green, Accidental pretty is a nice thing.

54Merryann
Mar 26, 2014, 2:03 am

It is very pretty!

55mabith
Editado: Mar 28, 2014, 11:31 pm

8 - The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer

I listened to a really nice audio production of the Burton Raffel translation of this. It was really a joy to listen to all around. Some of the stories weren't as enjoyable as others, and I got very tired of hearing about penitence in the last section, which I think anyone would. However, it was enough so I'll probably give it another go later. If I could find an audio edition of the middle English that would be the best.

Finishing this in March puts me a full month ahead of schedule on my goal. I already want to start the next one just to take the next picture. I'm very eager for this rainbow to come together.

56rabbitprincess
Mar 28, 2014, 10:44 pm

The Canterbury Tales seem like they would lend themselves well to audio. :)

57connie53
Mar 29, 2014, 3:27 pm

Ahh, new photo on top!!

58mabith
Mar 29, 2014, 3:47 pm

Of course! :)

59Merryann
Mar 30, 2014, 11:35 pm

Lovely!

60avanders
Mar 31, 2014, 11:56 am

Hmm, never considered an audio Canterbury... great idea! I will add to wish list ;)

& pretty new photo!

61mabith
Abr 9, 2014, 3:00 pm

9 - Cloud of Sparrows by Takashi Matsuoka

This novel is set in Japan in 1861, about seven years after the 'opening' of Japan to the west.. A local lord has opened the way for some missionaries to establish church, angering many.

While the novel is full of Big Bloody Events - assassination plots, battles, a bombing, conspiracies, etc... it was really quite a calm, lovely read for me. It felt more character and culture driven than plot driven even though there are all those plot events. When the book came out it was praised for cultural and historical accuracy, which I'm not knowledgeable enough to really speak to.

Definitely a good read. The writing was nice (Matsuoka is a first generation Japanese-American so there was no translation involved in this book, in case you were curious). The book flips back and forth from events in the past to visions of the future to the present day quite a bit, but it wasn't hard to follow at all (and I listened to the audiobook).

(new picture is up!)

62avanders
Abr 10, 2014, 10:10 am

Congrats on a new ROOT and a new pretty picture!

63MissWatson
Abr 10, 2014, 10:37 am

Well ahead of your schedule, wow!

64mabith
Abr 10, 2014, 1:37 pm

Thanks!

>63 MissWatson: I wouldn't be ahead except trying to read a book rainbow has made me so excited to get to the next ROOT!

65avanders
Abr 11, 2014, 10:06 am

>64 mabith: lol I can see how that would be motivating!

66mabith
Abr 25, 2014, 2:19 pm

10 - Over to You by Roald Dahl

An astounding book of short stories about flyers and flying, drawn from Dahl's service during WWII. The stories are intense and heartbreaking, and the writing puts you into those situations so successfully. A few of the stories are linked to each other or involve the same characters. Some put me in mind of Johnny Got His Gun.

Well worth reading, highly recommended. Not something you want to shoot through in a couple sittings though.

==
Picture news! I have one more orange book to read because I'm into the yellows, which I'm rather excited for. It's rather made me want to create some book rainbows just for photographic purposes. Saving that for a day when I need a good distraction.

67avanders
Abr 25, 2014, 3:05 pm

Man you are really good at picking out good books for your rainbow!

68mabith
mayo 14, 2014, 11:02 am

11 - The Saber-Tooth Curriculum by J. Abner Peddiwell

A series of satirical essays about education, told through a university professor discoursing on paleolithic educational techniques and reform.

This was first published in 1939 and is still in print today, just as applicable as it was then, and probably applicable in 1839, 1739, and 2139. Problems in education never seem to change.

I got a lot of laughs out of this, though if you don't know any teachers or aren't interested in the educational system you probably won't enjoy it. Definitely get it for the teachers in your life.

69avanders
mayo 15, 2014, 10:52 am

Congrats on another ROOT & another stripe in your rainbow!

#11 sounds interesting :)

70mabith
mayo 15, 2014, 1:49 pm

Thanks! Very appropriate picture! I think I might switch back to blues and just not have the books in the order I've read them for blue and purple. The picture is feeling so unbalanced.

Saber-Tooth Curriculum was quite interesting, though even more interesting to give it to teachers to read and ask them to guess what year it was written!

71avanders
mayo 16, 2014, 9:41 am

To me, the picture is pretty.... but if you want to switch back to blues, I won't complain!
I have a couple teacher friends... definitely will pass on the book to them and hear their thoughts :)

72connie53
mayo 18, 2014, 3:56 pm

One more down, Meredith!

73mabith
mayo 30, 2014, 3:16 pm

12 - The Penguin Atlas of Medieval History by Colin McEvedy

This review is based on the original publication and not the revised version which was published in the 90s. I hope they took out the casual racism along with fixing historical mistakes (and adding sources)...

This book uses a fixed map encompassing Europe, the near east, and a tiny bit of northern Africa. Over this he creates three types of map. One showing the boundaries of countries and dominions, one showing the boundaries of eastern and western Christianity, and the third showing trade routes and goods. It's the kind of book would have ADORED as a kid (particularly the ancient history edition).

McEvedy was not a historian and he does not provide sources. His writing style is relatively interesting, and not dry. He provides commentary on each map page basically catching you up on the changes from the previous map. It starts in 406 AD and most are set about 20 years apart, but it differs a fair bit.

This was written in 1961... "Ireland, which had been slipping from the English grip for over a century, finally drifted to its aboriginally squalid freedom."

Another one that made me blink a bit for the randomness... "It is un-Marxist to suppose that a merely human event some three and a half thousand miles away could influence the inexorable progress of history... Most of us bourgeois, however, fell that the Khan's demise saved central Europe from a very nasty ravage."

I'm going to look through the revised editions and if they check out I'll send them off to my oldest niece and nephew. The niece takes after me and my dad in slightly preferring non-fiction.

74mabith
mayo 30, 2014, 3:16 pm

13 - Ancient Egyptian Literature: An Anthology translated/edited by John L. Foster

I've been reading a poem or two most nights for a couple months now and it's been great fun. I love ancient poetry because it just brings home how little we've changed. Plus you get some beautiful poems. Once I have a little more bookshelf space I think I'll get the three volume set of ancient Egyptian literature edited by Miriam Lichtheim and others.

Each poem or section of poems is preceded by a brief explanation of the piece, style, time period, etc... Though there are a few editing lapses where the approximate year of the writing isn't mentioned, which greatly annoyed me.

Here's one of my favorite poems from the book:

I love you through the daytimes,
in the dark,
Through all the long divisions of the night,
those hours,
I, spendthrift, waste away alone,
and lie, and turn, awake ‘til whitened dawn.

And with the shape of you I people night,
and thoughts of hot desire grow live within me.
What magic was it in that voice of yours
to bring such singing vigor to my flesh,
To limbs which now lie listless on my bed without you?

Thus I beseech the darkness:
Where gone, O loving man?
Why gone from her whose love
can pace you, step by step, to your desire?

No loving voice replies.
And I (too well) perceive
how much I am alone.

—Written in the Ramesside Period, ca 1292-1070 BCE

75avanders
Jun 3, 2014, 11:02 am

2 more! congrats! Looking forward to the picture update ;)
That poem is quite good... but so sad!

76mabith
Jun 3, 2014, 11:17 am

I am so dozy! I took the picture but just forgot to update the thread. It's there now.

I'm glad I'm ahead of my total. The next couple books aren't long, but one is an older paperbook, quite a rare find, and I won't be able to hold it for very long at a stretch (if a spine on an oldish book isn't creased how can I inflict the first cruel blow?).

77avanders
Jun 3, 2014, 2:12 pm

pretty! so, is your next book green? :)

78mabith
Jun 3, 2014, 2:22 pm

Nope, two more yellow books first.

79avanders
Jun 4, 2014, 8:47 am

fun!

80mabith
Jun 21, 2014, 10:43 pm

14 - Civil War in West Virginia by Winthrop D. Lane

This is collection of period writings about the labor struggles in WV in the first few decades of the 20th century. They were written originally for a newspaper series, for the New York Evening Post, and then collected into a book, possibly with a few extra chapters added or just some slight editing to make it feel more like a book. Lane spent six weeks in the area and attempts to present a balanced view of the situation. Sometimes made hard by the company views/actions.

It was very interesting to me since the vast majority of what I've read about the conflict was written in the 1990s. Lane interviews operators, miners, union leaders, etc... and tries to cover as many of the issues as possible, though there's a lot he leaves out. That's especially evident in the disagreements between the UMWA and many WV miners (leading to unofficial work stoppages not sanctioned by the union and a bit of a extra bad blood between union-seekers and companies). The typical things the union fought for weren't necessarily wanted in WV, where some general practices were different, including some major things like the company town aspect that completely dominated the southern mines, where workers did not own their houses and weren't given even a week's notice before eviction, and the fact that they were paid in scrip and could only shop at the company store.

It's such an interesting period in labor history and deserves so much more attention (the whole of it, not just bloodiest bits). Really glad I finally got around to reading this, especially since it took me ages to track down a copy (I bought mine via ebay, the seller was in Yorkshire!).

Large companies are so short-sighted. If they'd simply paid the workers in actual money, let them buy their own houses, and employed checkweighmen, then they wouldn't have had to raise wages for decades or had much union trouble. Walmart could take a hint...

==
Picture is up!

81avanders
Editado: Jun 23, 2014, 10:40 am

Love the updated pic! :)

And seems to me, Walmart could take a lot of hints... ;)

82mabith
Jun 23, 2014, 12:39 pm

Ha, yes, Walmart is in need of a LOT of counseling. I'll have the final yellow book done soon and realized I have no idea what the first green one will be! Silly thing to panic over.

83avanders
Jun 23, 2014, 3:24 pm

lol! but what fun, picking out your first book ;)

84mabith
Jun 24, 2014, 1:06 pm

haha, thanks!

85mabith
Jun 24, 2014, 7:27 pm

15 - 99 Poems in Translation edited by Harold Pinter (and others)

First off, the vast majority of these poems are by men. Only eight are definitely by women (with two of three more that could go either way based on name alone). The vast majority of writers are from western Europe and most of the non-European (western or eastern) examples are ancient works. This really bugged me.

A somewhat high percentage of writers featured were born in time to fight in WWI or at least remember it vividly and lived through WWII. I wonder if it was purely accidental that SO many such writers are featured.

The Lilacs and the Roses by Louis Aragon (1897-1982)

O months of blossoming, months of transfigurations,
May without a cloud and June stabbed to the heart,
I shall not ever forget the lilacs or the roses
Nor those the Spring has kept folded away apart.

I shall not ever forget that tragic sleigh-of-hand,
The cavalcade, the cries, the crowd, the sun,
The lorries loaded with love, the Belgian gifts,
The road humming with bees, the atmosphere that spun,
The feckless triumphing before the battle,
The scarlet blood the scarlet kiss bespoke
And those about to die bolt upright in the turrets
Smothered in lilac by a drunken folk.

I shall not ever forget the flower-gardens of France -
Illuminated scrolls from eras more than spent -
Nor forget the trouble of dusk, the sphinx-like silence,
The roses all along the way we went;
Flowers that gave the lie to the soldiers passing
On wings of fear, a fear importunate as a breeze,
And gave the lie to the lunatic push-bikes and the ironic
Guns and the sorry rig of the refugees.

But what I do not know is why this whirl
Of memories always comes to the same point and drops
At Saint-Marthe ... a general ... a black pattern ...
All quiet here, the enemy rests in the night
And Paris has surrendered , so we have just heard -
I shall never forget the lilacs nor the roses
Nor those two loves whose loss we have incurred:

Bouquets of the first day, lilacs, Flanders lilacs,
Soft cheeks of shadow rouged by death - and you,
Bouquets of the Retreat, delicate roses, tinted
Like far-off conflagrations: roses of Anjou.

(translated by Louis MacNiece)

86mabith
Jun 24, 2014, 7:27 pm

I wanted to find shorter poems to share, but this one hit me so hard in the gut.

A Sad State of Freedom by Nazim Hikmet (1902-1963)

You waste the attention of your eyes,
the glittering labour of your hands,
and knead the dough enough for dozens of loaves
---of which you'll taste not a morsel;
you are free to slave for others -
you are free to make the rich richer.

The moment you're born
---they plant around you
mills that grind lies
lies to last you a lifetime.
You keep thinking in your great freedom
---a finger on your temple
---free to have a free conscience.

Your head bent as if half-cut from the nape,
your arms long, hanging,
you saunter about in your great freedom:
---you're free
---with the freedom of being unemployed.

You love your country
as the nearest, most precious thing to you.
But one day, for example,
---they may endorse it over to America,
and you, too, with your great freedom -
you have the freedom to become an air base.

The tentacles of Wall Street may grab you by the neck;
they could despatch you to Korea
---one of these days
there to fill a hollow with your Great Freedom.
Yes, you're free
---with the freedom of an unknown soldier.

You may proclaim that one must live
not as a tool, a number or a link
but as a human being -
then at once they handcuff your wrists.
You are free to be arrested, imprisoned,
---and even hanged.

There's neither an iron, wooden,
---nor a tulle curtain
--- in your life;
there's no need to choose freedom:
you are free.
But this kind of freedom
---is a sad affair under the stars.

(translated by Taner Baybars)

87mabith
Jun 24, 2014, 10:12 pm

The picture is up, though I went a bit off and grabbed Little Women instead of Little Men and did not have the energy to redo it.

88avanders
Jun 25, 2014, 1:39 pm

Green!
I don't understand... do you re-put the books on a shelf to take the pic every week?

Thanks for sharing the poems!

89mabith
Jun 25, 2014, 3:06 pm

Yeah, I don't have an empty shelf to use for photos, so I clear a shelf that gets good light and take the ROOTs out of their normal spots (everything must be sorted by basic genre and alphabetized), then put everything back.

90avanders
Jun 25, 2014, 4:27 pm

wow, that's some dedication! lucky us :)

91mabith
Jun 25, 2014, 5:19 pm

Ha, nah, I have sooo much time, and it's a nice fun break/procrastination technique from the things I need to do in a day.

92Merryann
Jul 10, 2014, 4:09 am

>86 mabith:. Oh my. O my...my. I don't generally 'get' poetry but that's some intense writing. Beautiful, in a very disquieting way.

93mabith
Editado: Jul 20, 2014, 11:45 am

Mary Ann, if you ever feel like you want to read some poetry, try Carl Sandburg. He's so accessible, and is poetry is very down to earth and just... real. Less intense than what's above, he's more about the every day scenes and lives. (He's also my favorite poet, so I always push him at people.)

94mabith
Jul 20, 2014, 12:21 pm

16 - The Making of a Poem: A Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms edited by Mark Strand and Eavan Boland

Well, I'm conflicted about the quality of this book. First off, the paper and cover are so cheap, like it's designed almost as a throwaway book for college courses.

I bought it because I like poetry and having something that addressed the various forms would be nice. Each section starts with the rules of the form, but the rules could stand to be more detailed for some and they cover SO FEW forms (only seven, plus a section on stanzas, and then elegies, pastorals, odes and open forms). Some forms don't work as well across languages (such as the haiku), but many of the other European forms should work fine with English and surely they could be covered even if only a few examples are used? They also include poems which do not meet all the rules for a form but don't talk about why they were specifically included. I'd have also liked them to be in chronological order in the sections with date written attached to each poem (they sometimes seemed to be chronological, but I can't be sure).

At first the balance of male to female poets was good but it dropped off sharply in the second half of the book when we'd moved to elegies, pastorals, odds, and open forms. I can understand why they're not using poems in translation in the first half, because then they'd no longer meet the rules of the forms, for the second half they certainly could have. The book is dominated by British and American writers, with three Australians, and maybe six poets from Europe (only I think at least three of those were army brats born in other countries, but not really part of those countries). Didn't even see any Canadians when I glanced through the author summaries.

If you're familiar with Norton anthologies the 330 pages here (not including indexes) will seem incredibly short. If they'd bothered to look at more forms, to be more detailed about the rules, to at least give the rules for forms from other countries that we don't have English language poems of (though I imagine we do for all of them), they could have easily filled this out to the normal length for their large anthologies. I also find it slightly odd that the cover blurb is from a review in the magazine Elle...

95mabith
Jul 20, 2014, 12:28 pm

New picture up.

96mabith
Jul 20, 2014, 2:31 pm

The Shrinking Lonesome Sestina

Somewhere in everyone's head something points toward home,
a dashboard's floating compass, turning all the time
to keep from turning. It doesn't matter how we come
to be wherever we are, someplace where nothing goes
the way it went once, where nothing holds fast
to where it belongs, or what you've risen or fallen to.

What the bubble always points to,
where we notice it or not, is home.
It may be true that if you move fast
everything fades away, that given time
and noise enough, every memory goes
into the blackness, and if new ones come--

small, mole-like memories that come
to live in the furry dark--they, too,
curl up and die. But Carol goes
to high school now. John works at home
what days he can to spend some time
with Sue and the kids. He drives too fast.

Ellen won't eat her breakfast.
Your sister was going to come
but didn't have the time.
Some mornings at one or two
or three I want you home
a lot, but then it goes.

It all goes.
Hold on fast
to thoughts of home
when they come.
They're going to
less with time.

Time
goes
too
fast.
Come
home.

Forgive me that. One time it wasn't fast.
A myth goes that when the quick years come
then you will, too. Me, I'll still be home.

-Miller Williams

(Sestinas have six stanzas of six lines each followed by an envoi of three lines. The same six end-words must occur in every stanza but in a changing order following a set pattern and must occur in the envoi as well. I like how Williams cheats a bit in the fourth stanza.)

97avanders
Jul 20, 2014, 9:47 pm

woo hoo congrats! and good color selection :)

98Merryann
Jul 27, 2014, 4:34 pm

>93 mabith:, I think I actually have a Carl Sandburg book in one of the boxes waiting for me to get to it. I shall pay it attention when it resurfaces. :)

99mabith
Jul 31, 2014, 11:51 am

17 - Empress Dowager Cixi by Jung Chang

I found this to be a very interesting and well-done book. Unlike some others I did not go into it with an idea of Cixi already formed. There have been criticisms that Chang excuses the executions directly ordered by her, but I didn't feel like this was so. She talks about why they were done or thought to be necessary by Cixi, but I don't think that's the same thing as justifying or excusing them, that's just an important part of the history.

Given the very different pressures and expectations on female rulers (even today), I find it amazing she didn't have to deal out more death, honestly (there were maybe 10 at most, and one cold-blooded, direct murder at the very end of her life). No matter how Cixi acted there were always going to be people making up their own truth about her, to fit in with misogynistic views. If she had truly been the devastatingly cruel ruler historians made her out to be should would not have stayed in the picture for so long, and she would not have been allowed to rule in even minor ways. She did not have an army or a league of spies and assassins on her side to threaten people and could easily have been shut away. She had a few loyal friends and her talents kept her involved.

The most interesting thing to me is the constant push and pull between traditional China and the modern world, which happened to everyone involved. The modernizers had their faith and loyalty to traditional things, and the traditionalists had their own weaknesses, I think particularly after seeing the leaps and bounds made by Japan and the military gains of modernization. She was not a paragon of virtue, but what ruler could have been, particularly anyone trying to change a culture so much?

==
Picture up!

100avanders
Jul 31, 2014, 12:11 pm

Sounds interesting! And as always, nice new pic!

101Merryann
Jul 31, 2014, 8:06 pm

I like how the Saber-Tooth orange book pokes out of the middle like a pointy tooth now. :)

102mabith
Jul 31, 2014, 8:50 pm

Ha, it does! I hadn't noticed that. I'm just happy I've got all the colors now. I've got three more to read and then I'll read some more blue and purple books to stick in there.

103avanders
Ago 1, 2014, 10:04 am

Sounds lovely!

104Tess_W
Ago 11, 2014, 9:06 am

Great poetry and what a great list of TBR's!

105mabith
Ago 11, 2014, 1:20 pm

128 - Jane, Stewardess of the Air Lines by Ruthe S. Wheeler

Published in 1934 this is about two girls, newly graduated nurses, who are to become the first stewardesses on a large airline (along with six or seven other new nurses). It's a ridiculous book in the most fun way possible. I wish I'd read these kinds of girls' adventure books when I was a kid, but it's not like new ones really existed (other than the Vesper Holly series) that I knew about, and they're not common today either, unfortunately.

I didn't think it was going to be quite so adventurous, since in the beginning it seemed like it was leaning towards being propaganda to make the younger set feel secure about air travel. But no, there's a crash in the first 20 pages, then air bandits trying to shoot them down, then a poisoning, then a kidnapping, then two more crashes... Of course our main girl, Jane, comes through all of it a hero AND gets to be in the movies AND turns down a chance to become traveling companion and nurse for a billionaire old lady during her round the world cruise/tour.

I read it all in one go last night. I can't wait until my niece and nephew are a bit older. I'd buy them cheap e-readers just to read all the girls' adventure books you can get on Gutenberg (I don't trust them with my fragile old copies).

106avanders
Ago 12, 2014, 9:57 am

Sounds like a fun novel! And looking at your pic of it, sounds like JUST the book I'd pick up at a used bookstore :)

107mabith
Ago 12, 2014, 10:26 am

It was! And yeah, me too. I always look specifically for that kind of pre-1940s girls book. They're hard to find anymore though, or I find them in people's 'antique' booths and said people have absolutely no idea how to price books or that random customers aren't going to pay $20 these things (particularly since with the cheap paper they'll be dust in 10 years or less). Age definitely doesn't equal worth in regards to books.

108avanders
Ago 12, 2014, 1:48 pm

I know, so true!

109connie53
Ago 17, 2014, 3:11 pm

Just passing and waving hi!!

110mabith
Ago 20, 2014, 2:30 pm

Hi Connie! Thanks for stopping by!

111mabith
Ago 20, 2014, 2:32 pm

The Belle Epoque of the Orient Express by M. Wiesenthal

You would think from the title and the fact that the book is full of pictures from 1880s to the early 1920s, that this is a book about the golden age of the Orient Express or the train during the Belle Epoque period, NOPE!

This book is a sort of travelogue of someone's third class journey on the train in 1976. Only is it a normal travelogue that waxes on about the train and its history? NOPE! It's like a beat poet travelogue in the worst sense which tells you nothing interesting or useful about the trip. It includes imaginary conversations between the writer and the (seemingly fictional) basis for a Tolstoy character.

It was awful, but short, and I needed it for my ROOT rainbow reads. Here is an excerpt from the imaginary conversation section:
"Let me tell you, my dear friend, that time doesn't exist. It is just another absurd invention of those who want to find logic in everything."
The watermelons of Trieste are large and red.
"The idea that there is logic in the world belongs to Aristotle who was a cretin."
The melons of Trieste have writing on their skin.
"The worst thing that one can be in this life is a classic cretin like Aristotle, a cretin with a face like a bust."
The figs of Trieste show the red pulp of their heart through their bursting skins.
"The whole of European culture comes from Aristotle. And that's why it's stupid."
Trieste is the city of fruits.


==
I have a couple "between blue and green" books on my list, but I'm going to go back and read a couple more blue and purple books to shove in before I hit those.

112avanders
Ago 21, 2014, 9:29 am

Pretty! I love how the picture keeps filling out over the days :)

>111 mabith: lol! Sounded kind of interesting until you said "in the worst sense" ;) Glad you stuck it out to add to your rainbow!
lolol I really enjoyed the excerpt your provided ;)

113mabith
Ago 21, 2014, 9:48 am

Thanks! I might try to make a little animation of all the pictures at the end.

Yeah, I'm not sure I'd really like a beat travelogue anyway (poetry is one thing, non-fiction another...), but this was a beat parody at best, with as little about the actual trip and cities as possible. Plus I couldn't help feeling annoyed about how misleading the title and the pictures in it were. With non-fiction I don't really think it's my fault for not skimming the text. Now to decide whether to wait and sell it back to the store I got it from (no used bookstores in my city), or give it to the library sale so the next person disappointed by it will only have paid $1 or less (I think I paid $5, though in store credit from selling other books).

114avanders
Ago 21, 2014, 10:48 am

That's a great idea! I was just thinking this morning that it would be nice to see the progression :)
lol, that's quite a conundrum! :)
I think I'm in the minority of people who freely give away my read-books (and unread, but not likely to read ever/soon books).. but it's funny that the ones that I actually hesitate in giving away are the terrible ones... (of course, I give them away anyway)

But getting bookstore credit or even cash in exchange for a terrible reading experience? sounds tempting...

115mabith
Ago 21, 2014, 10:59 am

For the most part I don't know really know people in person who want the books I've read (sometimes my dad will take some of my ERs, but then he brings them back). I'm always on a tight budget, so in February when my mom and I go to North Carolina, I took a box of books to sell and managed to limit my book-spending just to the amount of credit I received. It was quite a good feeling.

116avanders
Ago 21, 2014, 10:34 pm

Ah that can make a difference for sure! I send out emails to my book group offering them up .. what people don't take, i bring to the local library... one way I can help support them :)

Oh that is a fabulous idea though! Exchanging books is always a good plan!

117Merryann
Ago 29, 2014, 2:43 am

>105 mabith: What a delightful sounding book!

118avanders
Editado: Ago 29, 2014, 10:32 am

>105 mabith: free! Didn't think about the fact that it was out of copyright, so the kindle version is *free* ... so I can have it! :)

119mabith
Ago 29, 2014, 12:13 pm

Yup! It's an oldie! I snagged The Motor Girls and The Automobile Girls from Gutenberg too, but haven't read them yet. There's also The Girl Aviators, which looks like fun. I just love reading those types of books, they are outrageously fun adventures.

120avanders
Ago 29, 2014, 1:45 pm

awesome, thanks for the heads up!

121mabith
Sep 17, 2014, 3:43 pm

20 - The Turret by Margery Sharp

This is the third in the book series started by The Rescuers and I love them so much! They're just really fun, and maybe slightly progressive. Miss Bianca gets to be soft and feminine and strong and brave and thoughtful and strategic and luxury-loving and willing to go without and compassionate and selfish all at once. She's just wonderful. And Bernard is lovely too and the books are funny in spots. Really recommended, wish I'd known about them as a kid.

The character's vivid and realistic personalities are similar to those in the Freddy books by Walter R. Brooks.

==
No picture yet, as I'm leaving for a trip tomorrow morning and in too much pain from packing to rearrange the books.

122avanders
Sep 17, 2014, 4:21 pm

Sounds great!
(and looking forward to that pic ;))

Hope you feel better quickly & enjoy your trip!

123mabith
Sep 30, 2014, 10:32 am

21 - Which Side Are You On?: Trying to be for Labor When it's Flat on its Back by Thomas Geoghegan

First off, this is a review of the first edition of this book published in 1992 or 1994 (I forget which). There was an updated edition published in 2004, though I think it's too bad he didn't wait until 2010 or so. The book does read as dated, but is useful all the same.

Geoghegan's style is very loose, the chapters are more like individual essays and it's all a bit stream-of-consciousness, but it generally worked for me and made for quick reading. There's a fair bit of latent misogyny oozing from the pages and some language regarding race that made me check the publication date (he refers to someone as "a black" where he never said "a white" but always "a white man"). He writes "I almost said..." constantly and by the end I did rather want to scream "Well, why didn't you?!" at him. He at least never pretends to really understand the lives of the workers.

The labor history I'm most familiar with is West Virginia's (covering 1900 to the early 1930s) and the country's at large in the 1930s, so it was a good primer for me about what was happening in the 70s and 80s. Particularly in regards to the legislation that weakened unions so much.

I'm very curious to see what's been added to the updated version, but I doubt I'll read it just to compare any time soon (would have read it, instead of this old one I own, but the library didn't have it). It is an important read, and I'm glad I picked it up. Oh, actually has a new one about the labor movement published this year, so I'll probably pick that up at some point.

I'd recommend anyone interested pick up the updated edition. If you're not already interested in labor history this probably isn't the best book to start with.

124mabith
Sep 30, 2014, 10:34 am

The new picture is up! I've filled in the blues a bit with these last two reads, and I have one more purple ROOT I hope to add.

The funny thing is I've read some others that are technically ROOTs but haven't counted them here as they don't work with the rainbow. Haha, well, who cares as long as I'm reading them.

125avanders
Sep 30, 2014, 9:38 pm

Love the pic! :)
And lol.. But I can understand the OCD-tendency... I have similar.. Experiences.. :)

126connie53
Oct 6, 2014, 2:31 pm

Lovely rainbow up there, Mabith!

127mabith
Oct 6, 2014, 2:59 pm

Thanks, Connie!

Right now I'm wondering if people post ROOTs they didn't finish? I've got one, it's 500 pages and I've made it halfway through. It's just so dull and uninteresting. I think it's fine to count, since the point is at least getting far enough into our ROOTs to know whether or not we want to keep them on our shelves, but I'm dithering.

128rabbitprincess
Oct 6, 2014, 6:16 pm

>127 mabith: I've posted unfinished ROOTs before, so I say go for it :)

129MissWatson
Oct 7, 2014, 2:55 am

If you reached the halfway point, you made a serious effort with the book, so yes, count it!

130mabith
Oct 7, 2014, 7:17 pm

22 - The Harps That Once...: Sumerian Poetry in Translation edited by Thorkild Jacobsen

I did not finish this book. However, I did read 250 pages, which was half the book, and I feel perfectly able to review it based on that, so I'm putting it on my list.

Most of this book is concerned with Sumerian mythology. They just have endless hymns and tales in poetic form all about their founding gods. However, it's repetitive, and not really enjoyable to read (unlike Ancient Egyptian Literature, which I read earlier this year and really enjoyed). It all feels very impersonal and removed from humanity.

There were a few poems at the beginning which were personal and enjoyable, but then it shifted into myth mode. The poems are preceded by quite long explanations of the goings on, and each is marked by copious footnotes. All in all I'd rather read a straight prose book about their mythology and I just couldn't continue to force myself to read these.

131mabith
Oct 7, 2014, 7:22 pm

Picture is up! I have my last two reads planned (last for the rainbow, anyway): English Fairy Tales (a purple-spined book) and Parzival and the Stone From Heaven (a mix of green and blues).

132avanders
Oct 11, 2014, 10:51 pm

Congrats! And lovely pic as always!

133Tess_W
Oct 12, 2014, 7:31 am

Congrats!

134mabith
Oct 13, 2014, 2:08 pm

Thanks! Only one more to go now!

135mabith
Editado: Oct 13, 2014, 3:34 pm

23 - English Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs

To be fair, quite a few of these are Scottish tales (and many don't involve fairies). Jacobs published this is 1890, so these are the old fairy tales, with lots of death and blood. However, the women in them have far more agency than in Anderson's works or the old French tales (I haven't read many of the old Grimm works). The English version of Cinderella, Cap O'Rushes, was wonderful. That girl gets everything done on her own.

It was great fun to read, though many of the less common tales I knew from my dad (a professional storyteller, who kind of got his start from this book, given to him by his college roommate).

Here's the last paragraph of The Three Bears (Goldilocks is an old woman in this one):
"Out the little old woman jumped; and whether she broke her neck in the fall; or ran into the wood and was lost there; or found her way out of the wood, and was taken up by the constable for a vagrant as she was, I cannot tell. But the Three Bears never saw anything more of her."

The notes were amusing to read as well. Here he mentions the other version of Jack and the Bean Stalk, which has a fairy at the top who says the giant stole the gold, goose, and harp from Jack's father:
"The object of this was to prevent the tale becoming an encouragement to theft! I have had greater confidence in my young friends and have deleted the fairy who did not exist in the tale as told to me."

Here he is on Johnny-Cake, a version of The Gingerbread Man:
"Chambers gives two versions of "The Wee Bunnock," the first of which is one of the most dramatic and humorous of folk-tales. Unfortunately, the Scotticisms are so frequent as to render the droll practically untranslatable."

He makes quite of few comments on the necessity of leaving out all those dreadful Scotticisms. There was also a Mr. Sabine Baring-Gould who published some articles on folk tales all being directly descended from religion and interpreting many in monotheistic or "sun-myth" terms. Jacobs doesn't think much of that and after quoting Baring-Gould's analysis of Ass, Table, Stick says "Mr. Baring-Gould, it is well known, has since become a distinguished writer of fiction." Old snark is the best snark.

136mabith
Oct 13, 2014, 2:54 pm

New picture is up! I wish I had another bright red spine for the last ROOT, but I don't really.

137avanders
Oct 14, 2014, 12:28 pm

So close!!

138Tess_W
Oct 18, 2014, 9:50 pm

I prematurely congratulate you! I know you will do it!

139mabith
Oct 18, 2014, 11:01 pm

Thanks! I'm halfway through my last one now. I did find another red spine, it was just hiding in my bedroom instead of on the shelf where it belonged.

140mabith
Oct 20, 2014, 12:34 pm

24 - Falco: The Official Companion by Lindsey Davis

Having been a fan of Falco for nine or ten years I jumped at this book. It includes a little mini-autobiography of Davis, and she has not had an easy life.

I loved the sections where she talks a little about each book, particular researches, dilemmas, etc... She also goes into detail about each main character and some more minor characters who appear in more than one book. She talks about the writing process and influences, people who write in with corrections, her history with getting her work published, etc...

In the end she talks about the places in Falco's Rome, gives a timeline, and deals with basic aspects of life in Rome during this period.

What the book really did was made me love Lindsey Davis even more. She's so sharp and funny and I just want her to adopt me or become traveling companions with my mother. My mom gave me the first Falco book soon after I had to leave university due to my illness. I was stuck at home, depressed, and in pain.

Falco became an absolutely necessary companion for me, and I still re-read the books regularly. Few other historical novelists manage to put me so completely in another time and place. Davis manages to flood her books with historical detail without it feeling forced or like a history lesson. She is simply a wonder and a treasure.

141mabith
Oct 20, 2014, 12:37 pm

Finished maybe! There's one last book that could fit in the rainbow, so I may read it eventually and do one more picture.

Given that this was unplanned, I ended up with a pretty good rainbow. Not perfect, but not bad.

142avanders
Oct 20, 2014, 3:09 pm

Woo hoo!! Congrats on meeting your goal! And very pretty rainbow :)

143rabbitprincess
Oct 20, 2014, 5:12 pm

Congratulations!! Love the rainbow too :)

144MissWatson
Oct 21, 2014, 5:23 am

Lovely rainbow!

145Jackie_K
Oct 21, 2014, 6:59 am

Hooray, well done!

146mabith
Oct 21, 2014, 7:41 pm

Thanks, gang! Doing the rainbow made me read through some things I would have just dipped in and out of otherwise, so that's good.

147avanders
Oct 21, 2014, 11:11 pm

Awesome! It's so interesting how random things like that can motivate us... Like the tickers work really well on me, even though it doesn't *really* matter, like in life, whether I make it through the thing... ;)

148mabith
Nov 1, 2014, 2:32 pm

25 - Parzival and the Stone From Heaven by Lindsay Clarke

I have quibbles with the way this book was presented. On the cover it states that the book is “a holy grail romance retold for our time.” To me, this implied that it was written in a modern style and highly novelized. There is no foreword, no introduction.

The book is actually an adaptation of the medieval writer Wolfram von Eschenbach's grail work of the same name, using modern language and editing some aspects for length. The style is still very much a medieval tale, though, with that feel to it. There's an afterword explaining all this, which really should have been at the front, as it's important for the reading, I think.

This isn't the type of thing I enjoy reading, Arthurian stuff is not of much interest to me. It's a ROOT though, and my dad gave it to me, so I thought I'd give it a go (it also wasn't that long). I didn't get into at all, though I'd have found it FAR more interesting if I'd read that afterword first. The author talks about Wolfram's unique text and how he feels it influenced more modern writing.

149mabith
Nov 1, 2014, 2:35 pm

That's probably the last ROOT that will go in the picture, only I found another yellow book, and that section could really use some help... Now the picture is an animated gif! It was pretty tedious due to the editing of the pictures (the animated part was super easy), especially since that first purple book always washed out SO much in the pictures that I ended up photoshopping its color every time.

I'm actually reading another ROOT now, it just won't go in the picture (though I will put it in this thread, of course).

150rabbitprincess
Nov 1, 2014, 7:35 pm

The GIF is amazing! Excellent work.

151avanders
Nov 3, 2014, 10:48 am

>149 mabith: Wow! I am very impressed!

152mabith
Nov 3, 2014, 1:48 pm

thanks, gang! I'm so pleased with it. If I do read that last yellow book it won't even be a tiny hassle to add it to the picture, thankfully.

153Tess_W
Nov 3, 2014, 8:11 pm

Wow-very nice!

154connie53
Nov 4, 2014, 2:17 pm

I really, really do like the picture in the first post! It looks amazing.

155mabith
Editado: Nov 5, 2014, 6:56 pm

26 - A Vicarage Family by Noel Streatfeild

This is the first volume of Streatfeild's memoirs, covering her young girl-hood, from about age 11-17. She felt compelled to use different names for her family but not to really disguise that it was a memoir.

It is a very self-focused memoir, and for that period it almost has to be. She felt like the odd one out as a child, the one who wasn't at all gifted, and felt guilty yet annoyed for the way people pitied her father the vicar for having her as a daughter. While her family was generally quite loving, that love wasn't always expressed in the way best for the child, and individual needs were not really considered (things would be done the way they'd always been done for all the children, of course!).

It was a very enjoyable book for me, both for being put smack in the Edwardian period, and for learning more about one of my favorite children's authors. Streatfeild had a wonderful gift for portraying children as they really are, and showing relationships where two children or an adult and child tried but just couldn't get on the same page about an issue. The way she was able to write sibling relationships and show that “not like the others” feeling was also wonderful. I can't wait until my niece and nephew are old enough for her books.

==
The second memoir in this series fell into my lap at SUCH random at a local Habitat for Humanity ReStore, rather far from Streatfeild's influence, one would think. I bought the others online a year ago thinking I'd read them immediately and quickly (as my mom did), and yet...

156mabith
Nov 5, 2014, 7:04 pm

27 - Lord of the Flies by William Golding

One online book club I'm in does a free-read month every year, with a theme. This time it's "Books I Should Have Read in School" and I picked Lord of the Flies.

While I didn't think it was a bad book at all, I don't quite see why it's still such a classic. I wonder if it's in that class that were considered classics soon after publication and though they've faded with age the label still clings. My mum says it's probably partly that growing up with frequent references to the book has affected my reading of it (though really there was only the one reference). I don't know. I am not one to think about all the symbols and allegories while I read, so perhaps that's part of it. I tend to think more about the psychology of the characters, and in this it didn't hold up with reality, in my opinion. Perhaps it's also that I don't think the vast majority of kids are mean or cruel and I think more than two would be truly concerned with getting home...

I had a very hard time shaking the thought that in this situation what would really happen is the kids would either accidentally poison themselves trying out foods, or they would simply eat fruit, have chronic diarrhea and get cholera.

157mabith
Dic 18, 2014, 5:14 pm

28 - Jo's Boys by Louisa May Alcott

This is the third in Alcott's trilogy of the March family. It seems to have a lot more religion in it than the previous books, though it's been a long time since I read Little Women. However, I think Alcott gets to be a little more herself in this, as it's written after she's found literary success. She is a little more forceful about education for women in it.

The best part is in the beginning when she talks about the difficulty of being a famous author and all the letters and visitors and such. It's a more fragmented book, as the boys are now scattered throughout the world in their professions, and we spend a little time with most of them. While it wasn't an unenjoyable book exactly, it wasn't particularly remarkable and isn't destined to be a favorite or to be revisited at all.

158mabith
Dic 18, 2014, 5:15 pm

29 - Away From the Vicarage by Noel Streatfeild

This is the second of Streatfeild's slightly fictionalized biographies. In this one the only fictional elements seem to be a couple of heavy flirtations (this coming from one of Streatfeild's biographers).

Streatfeild was born in 1895. During WWI her beloved cousin (who had largely lived with them growing up) died, and it seems to have derailed her life to an extent. After the war is over she went to a drama school and started working on the stage, mostly in touring shows including to South Africa and Australia. I picked this now for the very different post-war life of Streatfeild versus Vera Brittain (two years older), since I was also reading Testament of Youth. The flyleaf on this book includes the great line "She drinks, she dances, she goes to bed late!"

She weaves it all together nicely, and you can see the germ of her children's books forming. I did suddenly realize (as after this I started one of her children's books that I hadn't read before), that all of her truculent, quarrelsome characters are girls. I realize it's partly because she was that character in her own family, while her brother and cousin were very calm and easy-going (of course, they didn't HAVE to be truculent since they were treated differently as boys), but come on, Noel.

159mabith
Dic 18, 2014, 5:15 pm

30 - Gemma by Noel Streatfeild

The first in a series, basically the original Hannah Montana story - starlet lives secretly as regular girl (though with rather more depth than the Disney, I imagine). Gemma was a famous child actress but at 11 she's at that awkward stage between child and teen or adult parts (apparently). Her mother's career, which had flagged, has been reinvigorated and she's been offered a role in New York City. She's decided that Gemma is too old to leave with governesses and so sends her to her sister's house.

The Robinson family are sweet and happy, though poor, as their father has rheumatism in his hands and has to stop playing with the orchestra. Gemma's mother sends a generous stipend to them for looking after her. Gemma must face a very different family life with the down-to-earth, never braggy Robinsons and her cousins who are all talented in their own ways.

As usual, Streatfeild builds a lovely and generally believable family with complex characters. Very different from her own youth, Streatfeild's characters always have a pretty good idea of where they're going and what they want to do.

160avanders
Dic 22, 2014, 10:35 am

161connie53
Dic 23, 2014, 2:29 pm

A very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

162mabith
Dic 24, 2014, 10:03 am

31 - William Shakespeare's Star Wars: Verily, A New Hope by Ian Doescher

Being both a fan of the original trilogy and Shakespeare, I snapped these up when they were published. I'd look at a page or two, look up how a favorite line was rendered, and then put it back on the shelf. I've read plenty of plays cold before, never having seen a production, but it takes more motivation these days.

Then I found the audio editions! They are multi-cast recordings and the stage directions are read as well. The readers do a good job of mimicking the original cast and it was a really fun listen. Rather than just doing the script straight there are interior monologues inserted for various characters (I admit I really didn't care for the ones they did for R2D2).

I do wish they had inserted more archaic words where appropriate rather than just changing sentence structure and using thee, thy, though, dost, etc... All in all, great fun though. Reminds me of being in 7th grade and listening to Star Wars radio broadcast on NPR every week on the way home from my clarinet lessons.

163Caramellunacy
Dic 29, 2014, 7:18 am

I picked up the first for my husband, but I think he might enjoy the audio versions more! I'll have to see if I can pick them up.