Howling Frog Books

I feel so cool!  For the first time in about 20 years, I read a novel in Danish.  It was "Det caribiske mysterium," or The Caribbean Mystery , by Agatha Christie. At first it was quite slow going; I almost had to read aloud in my head to make sure I was paying enough attention to each sentence and not skimming.  But it wasn't too long before I was doing much better and reading a little bit faster and much more comfortably.  The Danish part of my brain responded to a good workout (and presented me with several weird dreams in Danish, which happens anyway sometimes, but not usually so many at a time). The funny part was that I am so familiar with how Agatha Christie wrote in English that I almost always knew exactly what the original would have said.  That may have helped me understand the story, I don't know.  I would like to try a non-English author to see--I don't have a large collection of Danish books, but I did find the book I was originally looking...

A Spoonful of Sugar : A Nanny's Story, by Brenda Ashford I was seeing this book all over the blogs recently, and I promptly wanted to read it.  Happily for me, Bev at My Reader's Block had a giveaway and I got the lucky number!  So thank you to Bev and Doubleday. Brenda Ashford is--as far as anyone can figure out--Britain's longest-serving professional nanny, with a career that spanned 62 years and a whole lot of children.  She trained at the eminent Norland Institute, which is the place for children's nurses (they didn't really like you to call them nannies ) to train.  Norland nannies wore a particular uniform with a special cape, so everyone knew that you had the best possible nanny. Nurse Brenda tells her story right from the start, describing a loving family home and especially the birth of her baby brother.  It was then that her love for small children really got started, though she was only nine herself.  By the time she was 18 and entered ...

The Echoing Green: Memories of Victorian Youth , by Gillian Avery  This is a great book!  Gillian Avery collected the life stories of nearly 20 people who grew up during the Victorian era, and put them together here.  There is a really nice variety; children of all classes and circumstances and locations are mixed together so that the reader gets an impression of the conditions all over the UK.  A few include: a girl from a strict Quaker family, a boy who lived in a workhouse (makes Oliver Twist look cheery), a boy who worked as a navvy at the start of the railway era, a Northern Irish Catholic boy, a Scottish girl who was wealthy until her father squandered it all, a miner boy, one of Queen Victoria's choirboys, a 'ragged school' boy who was shipwrecked, an emigrant to America. My copy was called "Memories of Victorian Youth," but really it goes right back to Georgian times and the main focus is on the first half of the 19th century.  The Great...

The Red and the Black , by Stendhal I wasn't sure what to expect from this novel, but I've always kind of wanted to find out about it.  Stendhal was the pen name of Marie-Henri Beyle, a French writer of the early 19th century ( I have no idea how you would pronounce "Stendhal" in French, though; in my head it sounds Scandinavian).    The Red and the Black was his second novel, written in 1830.  Stendhal was concerned with creating realistic psychological portraits of his characters, and he seems to have been one of the earliest French Realists.  Reading this book did feel quite a lot like reading Madame Bovary that way; there was the same meticulous dissection of motivations and feelings.  This is the story of Julien Sorel, a country peasant boy who wants something different out of life.  His father and older brothers are carpenters, and they're doing quite well at it, but they all hate weird young Julien, who only wants to read and despises ever...

  "The Four Ages of Poetry," by Thomas Love Peacock I am becoming fond of Thomas Love Peacock.  Besides his unbeatable name, he was a lot of fun.  Peacock was a minor literary figure of the early 19th century; he tried his hand at poetry but mainly succeeded in satire.  I read his short novel Nightmare Abbey last year, but at the time I didn't know that the young hero of the story, Scythrop, was modeled on Peacock's good friend Percy Shelley.  He and Shelley were quite close and Peacock was the executor of Shelley's will. Thomas Love Peacock Percy Bysshe Shelley "The Four Ages of Poetry," a tongue-in-cheek essay on the history and development of poetry, was published in 1820 in a new magazine called Literary Miscellany , which promptly died.  It would probably have been completely obscure and unknown--it nearly is anyway--but for Shelley.  Peacock sent a copy to his friend, who I guess didn't really have much of a sense of...

Since I don't have enough to read this June, the Classics Club is doing another spin .  Same rules as last time, and the number will come up on Monday the 20th.  We will then have until July 1 to finish whatever book lands in our various laps. My list has 5 books I am nervous about , 5 I'm looking forward to , 5 I feel neutral about , and 5 chosen at random by random.org.   I mixed them up this time.  The only thing is that I have made a rule that none of them can be too long, since I'm already reading a 900-page Russian novel.  (Also The Red and the Black is going pretty slowly!) Home and the World, by R. Tagore Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque , by Poe  Pensees , by Pascal  My Antonia , by Willa Cather The Custom of the Country , by Edith Wharton A Streetcar Named Desire, by Tennessee Williams Why We Can't Wait , by MLK Jr.   Brideshead Revisited, by Evelyn Waugh Slaughterhouse Five, by Kurt Vonnegut Faustus , by Marlow...

Carlyle in 1848 "On History," by Thomas Carlyle A little while ago I was thinking I would try to read some old, classic-type essays for my Essay Challenge.  I picked out a little Shelley, a little Browning, I'm thinking about Coleridge....and then I thought "Aha!  I will read something by the grand-daddy of them all, the most Victorian writer that ever was: Carlyle."  Carlyle was so respected, so beloved (so controversial!), all those Victorians just thought he was super.  I decided that I would figure this out and read some Carlyle, so I checked a "Selected Works" volume out and picked out a few things to try. I read a short early essay called "On History," which is about...history.  Why we should study it, who should write it, how excellent it is that history is currently a popular subject of study (in 1830, that is).   History is the most important kind of writing, and yet it is impossible to write an accurate history, because we c...

Watching the English: the Hidden Rules of English Behaviour , by Kate Fox I have finally found people who dislike talking about feelings even more than I do!  At least, if you believe Kate Fox, an anthropologist who spends her life studying her own tribe: the English (not the Welsh or the Scottish or anything but English; that would be a different book again).   Here, she tries to work out a primer for being English--she describes how people behave and develops a list of unspoken rules, ending up with a sort of diagram describing the central characteristics of Englishness.  She's doing this for an English audience, not for others, and as a result she doesn't try to play up good points of being English, which makes me feel kind of weird about writing this post.  I would really like to live in the UK for a year or so myself, so English people, do not blame me for the content of this book! This was my last ILL of the year before school is over and it turned out...

Driving the Saudis, A Chauffeur's Tale of the World's Richest Princesses (plus their servants, nannies, and one royal hairdresser) by Jayne Amelia Larson  Jayne Larson is an actress and film producer and, you know, all-around Hollywood kind of person, and a few years ago when she was going through a rough spot financially she took a job as a chauffeur to make ends meet.  A special gig came up--7 weeks driving for a branch of the Saudi royal family.  It would be tough work, with no days off, on-call 24 hours, but there would be a big tip at the end for those who did well.  And there would be princesses! Larson didn't know much about the Saudi royal family when she started, and she was surprised when the princesses arrived in designer clothing instead of black abayas, which had been discarded during the journey.  The family was there to shop and get plastic surgery and generally have fun, and Larson's job was grueling; at any moment she could get a sudden dem...

...summer reading is already out of control!  People keep posting all these neat things to do.  I have now started In the First Circle , so there's that, plus the EBB/RB letters, and then: I've picked a book for Ekaterina's Summer Language Freak Challenge--I'll be reading Det caribiske mysterium , otherwise known as The Caribbean Mystery , by Agatha Christie.  In English, I can knock out a Miss Marple mystery in 2 hours.  In Danish...I'm aiming for a chapter a day, or two if they are very short.  I'm on chapter 4 now.  I can understand most of it pretty easily, but I cannot read fast.  It is slow.  And it is far too easy to skim and not realize that I didn't pay proper attention to that sentence. Adam at Roof Beam Reader is hosting an event: The Beats of Summer, in which everyone will read something by a Beat poet.  He mentions a couple of intriguing titles by women involved with the movement, and I might grab one.  I will pla...

The House of Mirth , by Edith Wharton I've been reading this along with the WEM Ladies.  I only discovered Edith Wharton last year, and I was happy to get another one to read.  I've got The Custom of the Country waiting, too! This is the story of Lily Bart--beautiful, graceful, and socially talented.  She has been brought up to ornament New York high society, but she has no money of her own; she lives with an aunt and makes herself useful to her friends in order to keep up appearances.  She needs to marry a rich man, and somehow she never quite does.  Now that she is 29 the case is becoming urgent. Lily is honestly pretty hard for me to like.  She is confident that she deserves to be rich, which is never an attractive quality to me.  All of her life is spent pleasing wealthy people so that she can be in on their society.  She has every intention of selling her soul---her saving grace is that she can't quite do it.  She also can't stop ...

The question for the Classics Club monthly meme is: Tell us about the classic book(s) you’re reading this month. You can post about what you’re looking forward to reading in May, or post thoughts-in-progress on your current read(s). Right now I'm reading Stendhal's The Red and the Black , which I chose for the readalong.  It's quite interesting, although it also features yet another rich and pretty young wife who falls into adultery.  (Emma Bovary has got plenty of literary company; I imagine them all hanging out together in the Bookworld.)  The focus of the story, however, is the young and poor student Julien, who has plenty of ambition but a difficult time deciding where to focus it--the red of the military or the black of the clergy? It's not an easy read and I've been going a bit too slowly after the Dewey readathon, but I'll focus a bit more this weekend.  I've got some other books going too and I took a mental break with a couple of Agatha Chr...

Bodies in a Bookshop , by R. T. Campbell This is a fun mystery from the Golden Age of British mystery.  R. T. Campbell wrote several mysteries during WWII, and I'm not sure if they all feature Max Boyle and the Professor, but certainly it sounds like this is part of a series.  They are an oddball little team, orthodoxly eccentric amateur detectives and pretty funny. Max Boyle is a botanist, assistant to Professor John Stubbs.  The professor loves a good mystery, and for some reason the local Chief Inspector invites him along on his investigations and even asks his opinions.  (Sounds legit.)  Anyway, Max is the sort any bookish blogger can love, and one day while he's browsing in a favorite bookshop, he finds the owner and a stranger mysteriously dead in the back room.  Max, the professor, and Inspector Bishop are promptly vaulted into a puzzle that winds through many a back room of a bookshop or print gallery.  It's a very fun mystery. One det...

Mere Christianity , by C. S. Lewis I've read this book several times, but this time I got it on Kindle for cheap.  My own copy is an ancient paperback, and it was nice to get an ebook version with type that is easier to focus on.  I enjoyed reading it very much.  Isn't it funny how reading a book in a different edition or format can bring new details out?  I have often felt like I was reading a whole new book when I got a new version of an old one. Every time I read Mere Christianity I enjoy Lewis' insights. Of course that doesn't mean that I agree with him in every particular, but in the main there are few writers who can open a window into human nature the way he does.      

I'm supposed to do a check-in for Lemon Tree's Narrative Poem Reading Challenge .  So it's a good thing that I finally got around to reading one the other day!  (Although I then realized that I read "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" aloud with my daughter a month ago.  Too late now, oh well.)  Lemon Tree asks: Have you enjoyed any narrative poem this year? Which one? I'm not sure I enjoyed the chapter of The Trail  that I read.  It was interesting, it was well worth reading, but it was also difficult and unhappy poetry. How's your progress through the challenge? I planned to read four poems, and I've read one, so I'm pretty good I think. Do you have any plan to read any narrative poem in the near future? I haven't picked another one yet.  So many possibilities!  I think I'm going to have to do some Spenser.  Or should I try Milton? Sorry Lemon Tree, it's not much of a check-in. :)

The English Teacher , by R. K. Narayan Time to catch up on my book pile!  I have actually read plenty lately, but the blogging energy has been low.  So here we go. The English Teacher turns out to be the third in a trilogy, but it didn't matter as much as you would think.  It's an "informal" trilogy, I gather.  The whole thing follows Krishna throughout his life from boyhood to adulthood, and this third book is about his life as a teacher of English literature at the same school that he attended as a boy.  He is even living in the same room, even though he is married and has a child; his wife and baby live with her parents.  It's high time that he get a house and bring his family to live with him, but he's nervous about that. Happily it all works out and living with his wife, Susila, and their baby Leela is wonderful.  Krishna is happier than he had thought he could be.  I loved this part of the story; it's just a portrait of two happy youn...