Howling Frog Books

I've never paid attention to my blog's birthday before, but today it's 5 years old, which seems to warrant a mention.  I passed 1000 posts earlier this year and failed to notice, and passed 150K views a little while ago.  It's not a large or fancy blog, but it's mine and I like it.  Happy birthday, Howling Frog Books.  May we long continue.  And happy 2015 to all the rest of you!  Just for fun, here are a few of my favorite booky, or just fun, images from this year: It's...ATOMIC! I'm pretty sure I need this book.

The US cover without jacket, which is how I got it Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage , by Haruki Murakami I must confess that I have not had a ton of luck with Murakami in the past.  I liked After the Quake pretty well, but gave up on IQ84 after about 8 pages.  I wasn't too sure I wanted to read Colorless Tsukuru , but the cover is pretty hard to resist and I thought I'd give it a try and I could always quit if I didn't like it.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that I enjoyed it quite a bit, and in fact I think I finished it in just one day. Tsukuru Tazaki has never had a high opinion of himself.  He thinks of himself as lacking personality, "an empty vessel" with nothing much to offer.  In high school, he belonged to a close-knit group of 5 friends, and even then he wasn't sure he was worthy, but then they kicked him out of the group with no explanation; just "we never want to see you again."  At age 35, he looks rea...

Love's Labour's Lost , by William Shakespeare I wanted to hit 90/150 on my Classics Club list by the end of the year (I decided this right before Christmas) so I figured a Shakespeare play would be about right.  I wanted a comedy that I hadn't read before, so I chose Love's Labour's Lost (it was a competition between that and The Merry Wives of Windsor ).  After all, I just read a fun mystery that featured a newly-discovered script of Love's Labour's Won (Love Lies Bleeding , by Edmund Crispin, in case you're dying to know). The plot: Ferdinand, King of Navarre, talks his three best buddies into entering a three-year pact to study hard and practice virtue.  They will eat only plain food, fast once a week, sleep little, and...never talk to any women at all ever.  The impracticality of this silly plan is promptly revealed when the Princess of France shows up--with three of her best friends--to conduct some diplomatic business.  Naturally, each man f...

As usual, I took on a lot of challenges this year.  Let's see how I did.  I'm sure you're tired of these by now and I am too, so I hope this is the final one! Arthurian Literature Challenge : My own baby challenge was quite fun.  I wanted to hit the Paladin level of 6 or more, and I read 12 works of literature and one history book for a total of 13.  So, not bad. A Sail to the Past History Reading Challenge : Fanda had a good one this year!  I signed up for 7 history books, and I read 8 in all .  I would have liked to read more!  Challenge exceeded. Back to the Classics Challenge : This year, Katherine gave us 6 required categories and 5 optional.  I did them all, but I completely forgot about the part where the books had to be 50+ years old and one of my optional titles doesn't actually count.  Still, I did the required part and I only didn't hit the optional because I didn't figure out the rule until mid-December.  I'm going t...

It's just wrapup after wrapup around here, but feel free to skip if you're getting bored. :)  Adam asks how we did with the TBR Pile Challenge--- Playing With Fire , by the Sangtin Writers -- good stuff. The Mill on the Floss, by George Eliot -- lovely. People Tell Me Things , by David Finkle e --Meh.  One of the meh-est books of my year. Still Life , by A. S. Byatt --This was my FAIL title.  Did not finish. History in English Words , by Owen Barfield --Second time's the charm; I enjoyed this. Candide , by Voltaire --culturally educational. Tristram Shandy , by Laurence Sterne - -weird. Mirror of Flowers , by Dorothea Eastwood --fun! The Man Born to Be King , by Dorothy Sayers --really good, and not nearly as intimidating as I expected. Second Treatise on Government, by John Locke --I did it! In the Steps of the Master , by V. H. Morton --zowie, great stuff. The Green and Burning Tree , by Eleanor Camero n --pretty good. And alternate titles: Joseph ...

Christmas With the Savages , by Mary Clive This was a Christmas present!  It's a novel presented as a childhood memoir, based on the author's life, of a Christmas spent at an Edwardian country house.  Young Evelyn is about 8 years old, and her parents are detained in Scotland, so she is sent to the home of a family friend for the holiday.  It's a gathering of a large extended family with three sets of children, with the largest and loudest set named Savage. The great thing about this memoir is how completely honest and unsentimental it is about what she thought as a child.  Evelyn, and all the other children, are show-offy, quarrelsome, self-centered, and ignorant enough to sound snotty when they're trying to sound sophisticated and knowledgeable.  They are hilarious.  The whole thing is a laugh riot. There are also some nice details about everyday life during the Edwardian period--clothes, domestic items, and so on.  In particular, it's amazing ...

Yes, I know, I'm cutting down on challenges this year.  And I am, really!  But I'd like to add this one: the Books in Translation Challenge at Introverted Reader. I'm sure I'm behind as usual, but it's time for the 2015 Books in Translation Reading Challenge signup! The goal is obviously to read translations of books, from any language into the language(s) you're comfortable reading in; they don't have to be in English. You can read any genre and any age range. Crossovers with other challenges are fine. Any format that you choose is also acceptable. The challenge will run from January 1 through December 31, 2014. Looking for suggestions? I have a shelf on GoodReads you can check out. There's also a Listopia list on GoodReads. Linked reviews for the 2014 , 2013 , and 2012 challenges are a great resource. I am not limiting the challenge to bloggers. You can also link to a review you wrote on another site, such as GoodReads or ...

I did this meme once before and it was fun to look back and see how the year went.  Fanda started it again and I thought I'd try it.  Here goes--the first lines (or, in some cases, paragraphs so they would make sense) of each month at Howling Frog Books: January :  Hello, fellow Arthurians!  I am so excited about this year's challenge.  We are going to have a lot of fun!  Arthurian Challenge: Go! February :   I got a huge kick out of this book, despite the fact that I am not in the intended audience at all.  Medieval Underpants and Other Blunders March : For the first day of DWJ March, Kristen wants us to show off our collections.  Mine is fairly extensive, but beat up.   DWJ March Kickoff: My Collection April:   Way back in college I had to take a course on modern American literature, which I was quite annoyed about at the time, but turned out to be a good thing because I found out that there were lots of books...

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam , by Edward FitzGerald Those of us who grew up seeing a lot of musicals probably always have a hard time actually deciding to read this book of verses.  As a result, I didn't know much about it except that it made a little movie play in my head.  So here's the background: Omar Khayyam was a Persian poet and scholar who lived nearly 1000 years ago.  He wrote a whole lot of verses in a quatrain format (of two sets of two lines each).  Edward FitzGerald then took and "translated" some of them, starting in the 1850s and continuing through the next 30 years to edit and change.  By "translated," I mean that he really did translate some, and a lot he sort of loosely transposed, and others it looks like he probably wrote himself in the style he wanted. They don't come off as all that Persian, really, and most of it isn't love poetry either.  The verses do not hang together in a coherent whole or tell a story, but there is a s...

Fanda at Classic Lit asked for a wrapup to her excellent Sail to the Past Challenge .  Let's see how I did. I signed up to read 7 or more books, and I read 8.  I did not read 4 or 5 of the titles I originally picked, and some of those are on my TBR pile for 2015. The Endless Summer: England 1911, Just Before the Storm , by Juliet Nicolson The Guns of August, by Barbara Tuchman (for the 100th anniversary of the start of WWI) The History of the Ancient World , by Susan Wise Bauer A Time of Gifts , by Patrick Leigh Fermor Arthur's Britain , by Leslie Alcock   Savage Continent , by Keith Lowe   In the Steps of the Master , by V. H. Morton Molotov's Magic Lantern , by Rachel Polonsky There was lots of great history reading this year.  I only wish I could have fit more in. 

Bev always has a final checkpoint for her Mount TBR Challenge.  She wants to know: 1. Tell us how many miles you made it up your mountain (# of books read). If you've planted your flag on the peak, then tell us and celebrate (and wave!).  Even if you were especially athletic and have been sitting atop your mountain for months, please check back in and remind us how quickly you sprinted up that trail. And feel free to tell us about any particularly exciting book adventures you've had along the way. I completed 24 books (just barely!), which was my goal.  Nearly all of them were very good--not always pleasant, fun-type books, but well-written and good to read.  People Tell Me Things wasn't much, but that was the only disappointment. 2. The Year in Review According to Mount TBR: Using the titles of the books you read this year, please associate as many statements as you can with a book read on your journey up the Mountain.  I have given my titles ...

Molotov's Magic Lantern: Travels in Russian History , by Rachel Polonsky Rachel Polonsky is English, but studies and writes on Russian history and literature, and has lived there quite a bit.  Here, she travels around certain Russian cities, writing about their histories, and she starts with a stint in Moscow.  Polonsky is staying in a borrowed apartment in what was once a building that housed eminent Russians: first high society types, and then the Soviet elite.  Upstairs is Molotov's old apartment.  Polonsky is granted access through the current resident and discovers that a good portion of Molotov's own possessions are still there--in particular, remnants of his large book collection, and his magic lantern (an early slide projector).  Although Molotov is not really a major figure in this book, Polonsky uses the books he once read as starting points for her thoughts on her visits to places in Russia. Every city visited offers a mix of history--both pre- an...

I started this post meaning to participate in Fanda's Kaleidoscope 2014 Even t, but then I realized that I was terrible at figuring out what to say in the categories.  So this post is actually a random mishmash of 2014 favorites. Looking over the past year, I had forgotten how many great fantastic lovely books I had read!  I can't really pick just five or ten.  So here are my favorites from this year. A Time of Gifts    --Who wouldn't want to walk across Europe? The Quest of the Holy Grail   --This was still my favorite Arthurian read.  I love its bizarre stories. Roadside Picnic and Tale of the Troika   --Great SF from behind the Iron Curtain, and pretty surreal stuff. The Conjure-Man Dies  --The Harlem Renaissance challenge led me to this neat mystery. Eugene Onegin (readalong with installments)   --I loved this poem; having a different translation and a second reading helped a lot too. ...

Death of a Salesman , by Arthur Miller Willy Loman is a traveling salesman, but he's getting older and more tired, and he's getting less stable--he keeps reliving memories instead of facing reality.  He's disappointed in his two sons, Biff and Happy, who were popular and successful in high school but have drifted ever since.  Willy expected them (and himself, too) to become successful businessmen, but that never materialized and he takes refuge in memories and lies about his life.  His wife loves him and is worried that he will commit suicide, but he tends to trample her.  During the play, we find out why Biff, the oldest son, went off the rails and just how far Willy will go to avoid reality. I gather that the play is supposed to be about the failure of the American dream; at least, as Willy Loman sees it.  He wants to make deals and be loved, and for his sons to get rich.  He wants to believe that his sons are special--all-American athletes, popular...

I haven't gotten around to answering the monthly Classics Club meme question lately, so I thought I'd try to jump back in.  December's question: Let’s talk about children’s classics! Did you read any classic works as a child? What were your favorites? If not, have you or will you try any classic children’s literature in the future? (We’re aware children often read at an adult level. Please feel free to share adult OR children’s classics that you treasured in childhood OR children’s works that you’ve recently fallen for.) Did I read any classic works as a child?  Well, yes.  My mother is a children's librarian and storyteller.  Our house was stuffed and overflowing with children's literature--a large percentage of them were library discards, so they were often pretty beat-up even before we got to them.  I was fairly resistant to reading anything that said CLASSIC on it, but I was also unaware that most of the books in the house probably counted in th...

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman , by Laurence Sterne This is my final book for Adam's TBR Pile Challenge, woot!  I'd been looking forward to it for some time.  I've meant to read this since I read A Sentimental Journey in college, and the TA (who was a friend of mine too, and really cool) told us a bit about the bizarre book that is Tristram Shandy.  There's a black page, a marble page, a blank page.  There are doodles.  And there are diversions and digressions upon digressions, yea verily unto the n th degree.  What there isn't , is very much about the life of Tristram Shandy, gentleman. We begin with his conception, and it takes fully half the book to get young master Tristram born.  Only four things, all unfortunate, happen to little Tristram and after that, never again does he appear in his own autobiography.  Too many interesting incidents, stories, interruptions, and histories get in the way!  There's always a n...

Hey, I do believe that my companions in Malory reading are about finished!  Comment on what you did and how you feel about it.  I sure appreciate a few people joining me on what turned out to be a fairly insane journey! I got hold of a couple of short commentaries by C. S. Lewis about Malory, and I thought I'd quote a few things.  There is a very short piece in Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Literature , and a longer one in Image and Imagination .  Both comment on the Vinaver scholarship that was pretty big news back then--new material had been discovered!  The Malory I read is so old that it pre-dates that discovery, and I didn't find that out until afterwards. I like this line:  "It must of course be admitted that there are in the text untransmuted lumps of barbarism, like Arthur's massacre of the children."  That's an understatement, hm? Lewis looks at the historical Malory, who we know as a knight who spent time in prison, having been...

O Pioneers! and My Ántonia , by Willa Cather I read these for the Willa Cather Reading Week event, and they were so good!  It's been a very long time since I read Cather, and I had only ever read My Ántonia long ago, so this was a nice opportunity to get to know her books a little better.  (Oddly, both books had the same foreword by Doris Grumbach.  Isn't that kind of weird?) O Pioneers! is about Alexandra Bergson, oldest daughter of a Norwegian immigrant family.  When Mr. Bergson dies, she becomes the head of the family, determined to make good on the Nebraska prairie.  She is an excellent and foresighted manager, and becomes prosperous despite some desperately difficult times.  Her intelligence mostly earns her the resentment of her two brothers, who both owe her their prosperity, and the suspicion of neighbors who resent her different way of thinking.  Alexandra is a lovely person, honest, kind, and close to nature, but she is lonely, with ver...

Adam at Roof Beam Reader is back with his traditional TBR Pile Challenge .  The short version of the rules (go to the post to read it all): The Goal: To finally read 12 books from your “to be read” pile (within 12 months). Specifics: 1. Each of these 12 books must have been on your bookshelf or “To Be Read” list for AT LEAST one full year. This means the book cannot have a publication date of 1/1/2014 or later ( any book published in the year 2013 or earlier qualifies, as long as it has been on your TBR pile – I WILL be checking publication dates ). Caveat: Two (2) alternates are allowed, just in case one or two of the books end up in the “can’t get through” pile.... [snip] *Note – You can read the books on your list in any order; they do not need to be read in the order you have them listed. As you complete a book – review it, and go back to your original list and turn that title into a link to the review - that will keep the comments section here from getting ridicu...

I'm signing up for Karen's Back to the Classics Challenge again!  Here are (some of) the rules, which I have edited for brevity--follow the link to read everything and sign up yourself. It's back!!  Once again, I'm hosting the Back to the Classics Challenge.  I'm hoping to encourage bloggers to read more classics.  By reading and posting about a minimum of six classic books, one lucky winner will receive a $30 gift from Amazon.com or The Book Depository! This year I've made two changes to the format.  First of all, there are no required categories.  That's right!!  If there is a category you don't like (or more than one), you can just skip it, and still qualify for the drawing! Secondly, I've increased the categories from eleven to twelve.  I had so much fun choosing categories, I couldn't decide, and so this year I've decided to make it an even dozen.  This results in a slight change to the way I'll calculate entries into the dra...

That's my new term of venery for several reviews at once.  The credit goes to my husband, but I think it's pretty good, yeah?  I have 9 books here in front of me and a couple more ebooks that I have read, and I will never catch up unless I just throw them all out at once, so here goes. Two African Classics :  both of these are on my CC list and come from a list of the 12 best African books of the 20th century (as selected by a jury). Sleepwalking Land , by Mia Couto -- As Mozambique is torn by civil war, a young boy and an old man take refuge in a burned-out bus.  They find a set of notebooks written by one of the passengers, and start reading them aloud.  For each chapter about the lost pair, there is a notebook, which narrates the surreal journey of a young man looking to become a naparama warrior.  I loved the set-up, but it got pretty crude at times and I wound up kind of disappointed.  I can think of several African novels I've read that I wo...