Howling Frog Books

 4!   That gives me  The Nature of Things , by Lucretius...a classic of Roman philosophy.  It's a poem, but I have a vague idea that the Penguin Classics hardcover at the library is in prose.  So wish me luck, and if there's a better translation out there that you know of, let me know!     

 Wow, it's the 40th Classics Club Spin !  You know the drill, or you can see it at the site.  They'll pull the number on Sunday morning, and we'll have until April 11th to finish the book.  Here are my titles:  No Name, by Wilkie Collins Peter the Great's African, by Pushkin  The Beggar's Opera, by John Gay The Nature of Things, by Lucretius Second-Class Citizen, by Buchi Emecheta Life and Fate, by Vasily Grossman (this would be quite a feat!) Sybil, by Disraeli The Leopard, by di Lampedusa  Phineas Finn, by Anthony Trollope   The Obedience of a Christian Man, by William Tyndale   Sagas of Icelanders (aiming for 50% by the due date) The Well at the End of the World, by William Morris   The Law and the Lady, by Wilkie Collins It is Acceptable (Det Gaar An), C. J. L. Almqvist  Two Years Before the Mast, by Richard Henry Dana  Amerika, by Kafka Polyhistor Solinus   The Tale of Sinhue (ancient Egyptian poetry)   Eichmann ...

 Disobedient Women: How a Small Group of Faithful Women Exposed Abuse, Brought Down Powerful Pastors and Ignited an Evangelical Reckoning, by Sarah Stankorb I've been paying quite a lot of attention to the evangelical world for the last year or so, so this title naturally caught my attention.  Stankorb, a journalist, grew up on the edges of this world, and chronicles the efforts of many people over a long time to bring attention to problems of ecclesiastical abuse.  Evangelicals, in their efforts to build parallel institutions that would allow Christian families to live largely in bubbles insulated from the dangerous outside world, didn't really build in any safeguards -- after all, this was supposed to be their safe space.  Since every institution (schools, businesses, churches, Little League teams, whatever) is vulnerable to predators who seek to use it for access to victims, safeguards are always important.  And in these parallel institutions, children were t...

 Letters From My Mill, by Alphonse Daudet I came across this some months ago while weeding the French literature at work. We had a lot of ancient copies of modernist plays that needed replacing.   I took it home to get around to, but Fanda got there a lot faster than I did.  I'm completely unfamiliar with Daudet; as we know, French literature is my weakest point.  This was his first published work, in 1866, and it became a popular success, and it remained a favorite of his. The conceit is that Daudet has rented a disused windmill, where he often goes for holidays or perhaps to live for periods of time.  The first few pieces are written as letters to friends in Paris, telling charming stories of the Avignon countryside -- some are cast as local incident, and some as legend.  After a while, we get reminiscences of former days in Paris or Algeria, or stories told by sailors. On the whole it's charming, though the Algerian stories I could do without. ...

Xenophon's Anabasis (Landmark ed.) I love looking at the Landmark editions, but I'm not so great at actually reading them, unless they are Herodotus.  But my sister was here over winter break and she inspired me to pick up something more serious than I've been reading lately, and so I have now read the Anabasis .  I enjoyed it a lot, too!  I'm not that great at reading about warfare, because I find it tedious, but reading about soldiers stuck in enemy territory and trying to get home is much more interesting. So here's the background: It's 401 BC, and Xenophon, a young and elite Athenian, decides to go along with a company of 10,000 Greek mercenaries to the Persian Empire.  He's not actually in the military, but his friend says 'if you get in good with Cyrus, you'll be in great shape for a career!' and so he goes along.  Cyrus is challenging his older brother Artaxerxes for the Persian throne, and he's promised good pay to these mercenari...

  All in Her Head: The Truth and Lies Early Medicine Taught Us About Women's Bodies and Why It Matters Today, by Elizabeth Comen Elizabeth Comen is an oncologist specializing in breast cancer, and as she worked with her patients, she came to realize just how badly our medical system is set up -- for everyone, but particularly for women.  Looking back into history, she collected evidence and traced stories illustrating how attitudes and beliefs have come down to us and are still hanging around. Dr. Comen works through chapters dedicated to systems of the human body, starting with skin, bones, and muscles, right through to nerves, hormones, and reproduction.    (While the entire book is enraging, this guarantees that the intensity will ramp up and the  most enraging material will probably be at the end.)  Readers will probably be familiar with quite a few of the stories already -- Ignaz Semmelweis' failed attempts to get doctors to wash their hands, the horri...

 I have quite a pile of random children's books on my TBR shelf, and I've been going through them, so here are three at once! The Children of Noisy Village, by Astrid Lindgren : This qualifies as a minor classic, not as popular as the Pippi Longstocking stories, but a lovely book describing a Swedish country childhood in about the 1950s.  Lisa lives in the middle farmhouse of three, and since there are six lively children in those three farmhouses, it's known as Noisy Village.  Lisa and her two brothers, the two sisters on one side, and a boy (plus infant sister) on the other -- they all get up to mischief and fun every day.  Lindgren takes her children through most of a year, describing summer, Christmas, birthdays, and spring.  This would be a great read-aloud for a child 5 and up. Nicobobinus, by Terry Jones : It was the Terry Jones on the spine that caught my eye.  What kind of children's book would he write? It would be guaranteed to be silly and all o...