Howling Frog Books

Hey, it's time for Something on Sunday, Jenny's meme where we share good things about the week because goodness knows we need it. I had a humor grenade last night.  We were watching some of Ghostbusters , one of the greatest movies ever made, and you know at the beginning the librarian gets scared, and Venkman asks her if any of her relatives have mental problems.  Her answer: "My uncle thought he was St. Jerome."  I was laughing about that later on and my husband was not familiar with Jerome, so he looked him up. Jerome is the patron saint of librarians. _______________________ I went to a free concert featuring a brass quintet and it was great!  Lovely music, including Bach, some modern stuff, some jazz, and all the songs of the five branches of the military.  Because it was an Air Force quintet, part of the Air Force Band of the Golden West, a fancy name if ever I heard one.   My daughter and I got all inspired about altered books and we ...

Laurie at Relevant Obscurity has a monthly event, Blogging the Spirit, where we talk a bit about things we don't normally discuss on book blogs.   I can think of two very different things this week: There's a podcast I listen to about various churchy things and this week's episode actually featured a woman I knew in college, where she was doing a master's in theology (and was incidentally the best Sunday School teacher I've ever had).  Since then, we've crossed virtual paths through classical homeschooling and I've also seen some of her theological work, which specializes in Mark.    That's what she was talking about in the podcast, and I learned something I didn't know before: Mark was (as you might expect) originally an oral text, but it was performed.  It should be read more like a script than like a book, and more like a collection of short scripts, each gathered around a theme, than a chronological history. She suggests listening to Mark all...

On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons From the Twentieth Century, by Timothy Snyder A couple of years ago, I read Timothy Snyder's excellent account of Eastern Europe in the 20th century, Bloodlands .  It was a fantastic book, though one of the grimmest I've ever read.  But Snyder knows what he's talking about, and so when he writes a little teeny book about tyranny that takes its lessons from his historical knowledge, I think it's a good idea to read it. I do mean it's teeny.  This is not a scholarly or heavy work; it's more like a short tutorial for Americans.  It has 20 sections, each just a few pages long, illustrating a rule: 1) Do not obey in advance.  3) Beware the one-party state.  5) Remember professional ethics.  12) Make eye contact and small talk.  14) Establish a private life.  19) Be a patriot. As such, it's a pretty quick read and one that most people can read with interest.  Most of the examples are taken from World War II, s...

Since we're getting close to November, Brona has posted some fun warmup questions, which are guaranteed to make you feel more clueless than you thought you were.  Want to join in the party?  Go check out her post and write your answers! 1. Tell us about the Australian books you've loved and read so far.  I really liked Seven Little Australians , except for the end. I enjoyed most of Picnic at Hanging Rock , and I loved My Brilliant Career .  I was blown away by The Biggest Estate on Earth , which is non-fiction. 2. When you think of Australia, what are the first five things that pop into your mind? Kangaroos, Uluru, a lot of hot dry land, kookaburras, wildfires.... really being kind of a lot like California only with marsupials.  3. Have you ever visited Australia? Or thought about it?  What are the pro's and con's about travelling to/in Australia for you? What are/were your impressions?  I would love to visit Austral...

Blue Remembered Hills , by Rosemary Sutcliff A couple of years ago I wrote a post about Rosemary Sutcliff for the children's literature event, in which I mostly talked about her books and the fact that her mother had spent a lot of time telling her ancient stories and legends, which had led to her literary focus on Roman and Celtic Britain.  The interesting thing about this memoir is that it doesn't talk about any of that.  It's entirely about other subjects, and so there were lots of new things to find out. Sutcliff was an only child, and her father was in the Navy, so they moved around a good deal.  She spent several years of early childhood in Malta!  Her mother was attractive but volatile (she probably had bipolar disorder), and dedicated herself to nursing little Rosemary in ways that were both heroic and stifling.  Rosemary suffered from Still's Disease, which is a kind of juvenile arthritis, so she was frequently hospitalized or getting surgeries, an...

The Treasure of the City of Ladies , by Christine de Pisan I love Christine de Pisan so much, I cannot even tell you.  I discovered her Book of the City of Ladies several years ago, and it's a must-read if you like medieval literature.  Widowed at 25 with three children, a mother, and a niece to support, she became a professional writer to pay the bills, but she did it in about 1390.  She started with lyrics -- your standard love ballads and so on -- and then moved into longer poetic and historical works.  The popularity of the Romance of the Rose inspired her to argue with the misogynistic portrayal of women in Jean de Meun's part of the poem and she took a large part in "the debate of the Romance of the Rose," a literary and scholarly correspondence with various other writers.  In 1404 she wrote the Book of the City of Ladies as her public answer to the whole question of women.  In the next year, she wrote this 'sequel,'  of which more anon....

Okay, I can't really say I'm in a blogging slump any more.  I'm just having a really hard time getting to the computer to write posts!  And I'm working a lot for the next few days, so don't expect better any time soon.  So here we go with another short one, filled with the small but good things of the last week: My car flipped to 150,000 miles and I caught it on film.  Plus, it still runs at 150K.  Pretty much.  Keep going, little car! The used book-sorting gig was exciting when we got three boxes of ancient pulp paperbacks, mostly in pretty good shape, nearly all Westerns.  I love pulp paperback covers!  They all looked just like this. My husband and I went to see The Princess Bride at an actual movie theater!  I think that it's a practically perfect film, and I didn't see it the first time 'round (I don't think?) so that was really fun.  It was kind of a bummer that there were a lot of superfans there who felt it necessary t...

Jenny at Reading the End has been doing a 'Something on Sunday' event, where we post something good or inspiring.  It's been a pretty rotten week in the world outside, so we all probably need it. I got all inspired this week with a quilt idea.  (I have a lot of quilt ideas.)  I belong to a quilting guild, and they have a challenge every two years.  This one starts in January and will have an animal theme.  I'm not much on animal sewing, but I have a brilliant idea for this one.  Hint: it will connect to this blog and my love of reading.  I can't wait to get started! Another hint This week I managed to kill my car battery by leaving the lights on (the weird part is that I didn't know they were on at all; it was the middle of the afternoon, I have no idea what they were doing on).  It was a hassle to get a jump, and I was feeling pretty dumb for killing the battery, but then this Toy Dolls song that I had never heard before came on my play...

Norse Mythology, by Neil Gaiman Everybody went nuts over this book last year, and I finally got to it too. I like Neil Gaiman, and I like Norse mythology, so I expected good things, and I got them!  This is a very nice retelling of the Norse myths; it's clear, it's exciting, and it's beautifully written, with just a hint of Gaiman's personality, but not so much that it overshadows the material and becomes annoying.  I mean, this could have been "Neil Gaiman Tells His Own Version of Norse Myths"  -- which would be fine except that the cover doesn't say that -- and it's not.  So, good job Neil. I don't have a lot more to say -- I just liked this book quite a bit.

There are a couple of fun events coming up in November, and I plan to participate -- how about you? Brona is hosting her annual AusNovember event , and she has a cool geography bingo theme -- go take a peek!  I'm going to commit to the easiest "Fly by night" level, which is all of one book.  I do have several Australian books on my wishlist, and I will probably read either Cloudstreet or A Descant for Gossips -- maybe even both! Nonfiction November is a group-hosted event that has a new prompt every week. Check it out at JulzReads .  Lori at Emerald City Book Review will be posting for the 5th week!  I'll try to write a post for every week; it looks like it's going to be a lot of fun. What do you think -- will you join me?

My Real Children , by Jo Walton Patricia Cowan is very very old, and she lives in a nursing home.  It's 2015 and she's had a good long life, except that she has two sets of memories.  She remembers raising four children in an unhappy marriage with Mark, and being called Trish.  She remembers a happier life as Pat with Bee and three children.  Which is real?  Are they both real?  Is she switching universes? Not only that, the world is different too.  The world with Mark in it is fairly peaceful and has moon bases, while the world with Bee has the occasional exchange of nuclear bombs. In alternating chapters, we see both of Patricia's lives unfold.  (Honestly, it can be a little tricky to keep track of some characters!)  Which one is she, and can they both be true? I was actually more gripped by this novel than I expected to be.  Sometimes I was a bit annoyed with it, but on the whole it really kept me interested and there was a lo...

Boris Godounov , by Alexander Pushkin A year or so ago, I was browsing in the used bookstore and found this great edition of Boris Godounov by Pushkin, illustrated by Zvorykin.  But it was kind of on the pricey side, so I thought I might get it later...and then of course it wasn't there any more, and I regretted everything.  But!  Then I started this volunteer job sorting used books for the library, and the very first thing that happened was that the same book came across the table!  So I finally got to read it, and for free too.  It turns out to have a companion volume of fairy tales, so I'd like to get that as well. Boris Godounov is a play written in blank verse, but I think more people are familiar with it in the Mussorgsky opera based upon the play.  (Comment and tell me!)  It's a historical play, and I had to learn some Russian history before I could make head or tail of the story.  The quick version: Ivan IV (the Terrible) murdered...

The Castle of Wolfenbach , by Eliza Parsons Here it is, the first Horrid Novel!  Eliza Parsons wrote it in 1793, just a few years into her career.  She wrote to support her family, and turned out 19 novels and a play in her 17 years as a writer.   This was a fun read, and I zoomed right through it (weeks ago now).  It starts off in the trackless forests of Germany, but ends up traveling all over the place, to France and England and Italy, and even further!   On a dark and stormy night, a poor German peasant couple receives an exhausted lady and her manservant.  They direct the lady to a nearby castle, but warn her that it is haunted !  She is undaunted, however, and when the groans and rattling chains start, she simply grabs the nearest candle and starts exploring.  Thus she meets a lady, secretly imprisoned, and as they become instant friends, they start to confide their stories to each other.  Our heroine is Matilda, escaping from th...

Now I've been so lazy that I have a lot to do on the blog, as well as actually talk about the books I've been reading.  So let's get going already and see how Mount TBR is doing.  Bev says: For those who would like to participate in this checkpoint post, I'd like you to do two things:   1. Tell us how many miles you've made it up your mountain (# of books read).  If you're really ambitious, you can do some intricate math and figure out how the number of books you've read correlates to actual miles up Pike's Peak, Mt. Ararat, etc.  2. Complete ONE (or more if you like) of the following: A. Who has been your favorite character so far? And tell us why, if you like. B. Pair up two of your reads. But this time we're going for opposites. One book with a male protagonist and one with a female protagonist. One book with "Good" in the title and one with "Evil." Get creative and show off a couple of your books....

I still seem to be in a posting slump, but I am reading more, so, progress!  You may recall that Jenny at Reading the End is running a weekly event where we share good things about the week. We've had some very good news this week, as my husband received and accepted a job offer that he is pretty excited about.  That has been a huge relief. Right now, something that is bringing me joy is that my 14-year-old's two friends are here.  They are sisters, and make an adorable little trio with my daughter.  They used to get together often, but the family moved away over a year ago.  So we were thrilled when they showed up this weekend!  The girls have been having a great time all day and we took them out for lunch.  It's not a big special event, just a sweet reunion for them. And one more fun thing that I just now thought to include: I took a backwards bicycle ride on Thursday!  I went to pick up a kid and found a guy riding what can only be de...

It must be admitted that I've been in a slump, and not just in the reading and blogging realm.  Things have been a little tough all 'round.  Jenny at Reading the End has noticed that a lot of bloggers are feeling this way  -- possibly disasters, politics, and the disaster of politics has something to do with this -- so she decided to ask people to post "something on Sundays:" The only guidelines are that you write about something that kept you on your feet that week, whether that’s a person that inspired you, an action you took that you’re proud of, a book or movie or TV show that nourished your heart, a self-care strategy that worked for you, a goofy event or moment that brought you joy. Whatever it is, every Sunday, I want you to tell me something that matters to you. If you don’t have enough energy for a post, tweet it at me (you can use the hashtag #SomethingonSunday). So here we go.  This week I finally started doing some sewing again.  Years ago,...