Howling Frog Books

 13!  That gives me First Love and Other Stories, by Turgenev.  Not bad!  

 Guess what time it is?  That's right, it's another Spin!  Huzzah!  Here's the post, and you know the rules.  The lucky number will be posted on Sunday, and we'll have until August 6th to read the book.  Only one of these is on my 20 Books of Summer list, and if I get a different one that is long I might have to do some trading.  There are some awfully long Victorian novels on here.  Wish me luck!   The Well at the End of the World, by William Morris The Story of Hong Gildong (a Korean classic) The Black Arrow, by R. L. Stevenson Revelations of Divine Love, by Julian of Norwich Conjure Tales, by Charles Chesnutt The Duchess of Malfi, by John Webster Rob Roy, by Sir Walter Scott Second-Class Citizen, by Buchi Emecheta Ring of Bright Water, by Gavin Maxwell The Tale of Sinhue (ancient Egyptian poetry)   I Served the King of England, by Bohumil Hrabal It Can't Happen Here, by Sinclair Lewis First Love and Other Stories, by Turgenev Sybil, b...

 How's your summer going?  We've had just the most wonderful weather, a good ten degrees cooler than usual because a string of thunderstorms keeps coming through.  I've been on some hikes, I've picked cherries and boysenberries, I finished an embroidery project!, and I've read some great books.  Invasion: The Inside Story of Russia's Bloody War And Ukraine's Fight for Survival, by Luke Harding : The first serious books about Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine started coming out last fall (another I've seen highly recommended is Overreach ) and I finally got my hands on this one.  Harding has been reporting on Ukraine and Russia for years -- he's now banned from Russia, of course -- and includes material from the past ten years here so the reader can know some background.  Each chapter covers a particular place and time: first Kyiv in February 2022 as the invasion started, and then places such as Bucha, Chernobyl (Russian invaders were kept so ign...

 My semester is over and I'm on summer break!  And the weather has been absolutely fantastic, not too hot, so I've been trying to spend a lot of time outside and hiking.  My goal is to do plenty of that this summer.  I've also read quite a bit in the last couple of weeks, and here is some of it, but it doesn't include the Louise Penny binge I went on of three novels in a row; they were good too! #antisemitism: Coming of Age During the Resurgence of Hate, by Samantha A. Vinokor-Meinrath : A survey and analysis of GenZ Jewish kids and how they feel about their Judaism and the rising incidence of antisemitism.  Most of these kids have GenX parents (like me) who grew up with very little antisemitism in the US, and I was shocked at how it's just common now for GenZ kids to have experienced, at the very least, comments from friends and schoolmates.                  A Place for Everything: The Curious History of Alphabe...

 ...to read lots of books?  That doesn't rhyme.  I have to do it right. ...to be a robin lightly dressed, concocting soup inside my nest! Mix it once, mix it twice, mix that chicken soup with rice! No, actually, I'm not making soup, I'm reading books.  Quite a few books, so here at the halfway point I'm doing a post.  The Marquis' Secret, by George MacDonald:   I'm a bit of a sucker for these sort-of translated 1980s Bethany House versions of George MacDonald's very Victorian Scottish romances.  This one was originally The Marquis of Lossie , a sequel to Malcolm.  Malcolm, a poor fisher-boy, is the true heir to the estate of Lossie, but his half-sister Florimel (a definite Faerie Queene reference!) thinks she is, and so he becomes her groom in hopes of finding a way to break the news to her without ruining her life.  Confusion and hijinks ensue; Malcolm despairs of influencing his sister for good; and also he falls in love.  Can this ...

 It's that time of year again, when we start to plan for 20 Books of Summer !  The rules are as simple as can be; pick your goal number, and try to read them between June 1 - September 1.  Cathy at 746Books is the host.  And here's my list: 20 books plus two alternates since I am a weirdo.   England Speaks:  Being Talks with All Manner of Folk, of Humble and Exalted Rank, with a Panorama of English Scenes, by Philip Gibbs Kraken, by China Mieville Codependent Discipleship: Not a How-To Guide, by Nick Galieti and Jennifer Roach My Cousin Rachel, by Daphne du Maurier Tomorrow's Crimes, by Donald Westlake The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World, by Virginia Postrel Notes from the Burning Age, by Claire North To the Diamond Mountains: A Hundred-Year Journey through China and Korea, by Tessa Morris-Suzuki    Arresting God in Kathmandu, by Samrat Upadhyay The Pushcart War, by Jean Merrill Pageants of Despair, by Dennis Hamley The W...

 Motl, the Cantor's Son , by Sholem Aleichem  I'm late delivering my Spin title, even though I finished it a couple of weeks ago!  I enjoyed this so much.  Various people told me that it was a lot lighter than Tevye the Dairyman , which I read a few years ago, and it definitely was. Motl is a little boy, 8 and 9 years old, telling his story of getting to America -- in installments, because it was published as a serial in a newspaper.  We start in a shtetl in the Russian empire; I'm pretty sure it would be Ukraine now.  Motl's family is poor but cultivated, because his father is Peysi the cantor and a very well-respected man.  After his death, the family is left penniless and Motl's older brother resolves to take everyone to America, 'everyone' being their mother, Elyahu the brother, his wife, his best friend (a comedic bookworm given to declaiming about Columbus), and little Motl.  It's about 1910, the pogroms are getting worse, and America promis...