Howling Frog Books

On December 31, 2009, I started Howling Frog Books because I wanted to participate in reading challenges.  I had no idea how much fun, great literature, and neat people across the world I was going to find!  So, to my fellow book bloggers and readers, thank you so much for ten years of bookish loveliness.  You have been a great help to me. Just for fun, here is the very first book I blogged about: Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven, by Susan Jane Gilman. Ten years ago I was a homeschooling mom with a 9- and a 6-year-old.  I didn't have a job because the county had decided that the public library -- where I'd been doing sub work with the expectation of eventually working part-time at least -- didn't need much in the way of actual librarians.  I wasn't sure how I was going to solve that career dilemma, but meanwhile I was very busy doing classical education at home. Now my kids are nearly grown; one is at college.  My career dilemma solved itself wh...

Keely at A Common Reader is hosting another Russian Literature Challenge, hooray!  You would not believe the amount of Russian literature on my shelf.  Well, you would.  But it's a lot.  This challenge goes right along with my 2020 goals, and it's nice and relaxed, so I'm excited to join up.  Keely says: Personally I'm not the greatest fan of challenges that have too many rules and regulations so I only have one: read as much (or as little) Russian literature in 2020 as you want to and share your thoughts if you so desire! I have a recommended reading list that I'll add the link to at the end of this post for ideas but how you define Russian literature is up to you.  Here are some titles, in no particular order, that are on my list of things to read, but I'm not committing to anything specific at this time. The White Guard or Heart of a Dog , by Mikhail Bulgakov Shorter works of Tolstoy Last Witnesses and The Unwomanly Face of War , by Sv...

OK, what else have we got to finish up here? Back to the Classics:  I finished all 12 categories (just barely!). 1.   A 19th Century Classic --  Crime and Punishment, by Dostoyevsky 2.  A 20th Century Classic --  The Palm-Wine Drinkard, by Amos Tutuola 3.  A Classic by a Woman Author.    Elizabeth and Her German Garden, by Elizabeth von Arnim 4.  A Classic in Translation.--  Undine and other stories by Fouque 5.  A Classic Comedy.  --  Parnassus on Wheels, by Christopher Morley 6.  A Classic Tragedy.  --  The Plague, by Albert Camus 7.  Very Long Classic . --  The Adventures of Roderick Random, by Tobias Smollett 8. A Classic Novella .  --  Kappa, by Akutagawa Ryunosuke 9.  A Classic From the Americas (includes the Caribbean) . --  Walls of Jericho, by Rudolph Fisher 10.  Classic From Africa, Asia, or Oceania (includes Australia) . -- Essential Enc...

The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck For Karen's Back to the Classics Challenge, I needed a classic set in a place where I have lived, and the solution was obvious: The Grapes of Wrath .  Cleo wanted to do a readalong in December, which suited me just fine, and so three people set out to read it together.  It's possible the timing was less than ideal, as this is the least wintery or Christmassy book I have ever read in any December ever.  It's an August book for sure. What connection do I have to the locations in this novel?  The Joads set out from Oklahoma and take Route 66, with their destination being Bakersfield, California.  It's the only time I've ever seen anybody describe the land around Bakersfield in glowing terms.  I was born in Bakersfield, and so was my dad; his parents were not Okies, but they were pretty much part of the same migration west around that time.  (I did have a great-aunt who was an Okie; she said when she was little th...

I'm running awfully short on time, so I'm going to do a three-fer wrapup post for the TBR Challenges.  Feel free to skip this long post! For Mount TBR, I squeaked in with 25 titles read, one more than the 24 needed to hit my goal.  BUT two of those titles were read during my blogging break and did not get written up, so I don't know if Bev will count them.  Here they are:   Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky Individualism and Economic Order, by F. A Hayek (well, sort of)  A Most Dangerous Book, by Christopher Krebs    Undine and Other Stories, by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué Yeats Short Stories, by W. B. Yeats Black Earth, by Timothy Snyder  Kappa, by Ryonsuke Akutagawa Born a Crime, by Trevor Noah Drawn From Memory/Drawn From Life, by E. H. Shepard Elizabeth and Her German Garden, by Elizabeth von Arnim  Voodoo Histories, by David Aaronovitch Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, by Robin Sloan Roderick Random, by To...

I'm going to continue with Bev's TBR challenges next year.  Adam, to my sorrow, will no longer be doing his. Bev hsots two: The Mount TBR Reading Challenge is simple: pick how high you want to go.  As always, I'll be aiming for 24 books from the pile, though that is not nearly as many as I should read!  The Virtual Mount TBR Challenge is library-based, which is good for me because my pile of library books is nearly as large as my actual TBR pile.   If the book is on your mental TBR list, and you get it from the library, it counts.  I'll be aiming for Mt. Crumpit, which is also 24 books.  Naturally, the virtual mountains are fictional. Excelsior!

The New Year is fast approaching, and I haven't done any wrap-ups or sign-ups or anything.  I've gotta get moving!  So I'm going to take a page from other posts I've seen and cram a few things in together. Every year I think about cutting back on challenges, and every year challenges pop up that are irresistible to my very greedy book-loving heart.  However, all the challenges I want to join are in line with my existing goals, which are: Continue to work on Reading ALL Around the World and my Classics Club list ; Read as much history as I can cram into my brain (favorite things: UK and Russia/Eastern Europe); Also and at the same time, read whatever I want.  Totally doable, right?  So, here are two events coming up soon, and two of the challenges that I plan to sign up for (but not all, because I'm still hoping some favorites will appear): My favorite way to kick off a new year, the Vintage Sci-Fi Not-a-Challenge, is hosted by Little Red .  I've ...

Blackout and All Clear, by Connie Willis Instead of finishing off my official TBR challenge list, I dived into Connie Willis' gigantic and sprawling time-travel epic story of World War II, the double-volume Blackout and All Clear .  Each is a good 600 pages long, so it could easily have been a quartet! In 2060 Oxford, several historians are preparing to jump around in World War II, observing various aspects of the war.  Merope, alias Eileen, is working with evacuated children in the countryside.  Polly goes to 1940 to observe the London Blitz.  And Michael will be Mike, an American reporter in Dover who just happens to see the home end of the evacuation of Dunkirk.    Other historians have plans too, and Colin, age 17, keeps hoping to go along even though he isn't even an Oxford student yet. Things go very pear-shaped right away for the three historians; they arrive just a bit off-target, and their drops stop working.  E...

The Spin number is...lucky 13! That means I'll be reading Pramoedya Ananta Toer's Footprints, the third volume in the Buru quartet.  Which is about Minke, a Javanese living under Dutch colonialism, and his journey from clever but naive youth to understanding and active adulthood.  Set at the start of the 20th century, this third volume is where it gets really political, and Minke becomes more clearly based on a real person -- Javanese press pioneer Tirto Adhi Suryo. I kind of meant to read this last summer, so I'm glad to have a push to get it done.  My plan is to read all four. Just to prove that I have indeed been there for every single Spin, here is the complete list of my Spin titles so far! Ake: The Years of Childhood, by Wole Soyinka A Streetcar Named Desire, by Tennessee Williams Niels Lyhne, by J. P. Jacobsen Far From the Madding Crowd, by Thomas Hardy Bless Me, Ultima, by Rudolfo Anaya Kit Marlowe plays: Doctor Faustus and Tamburlaine The Sm...

I picked up this tag from Chris at Calmgrove .  It seems fun.  This year I have read (according to Goodreads) 187 books, and so surely I ought to be able to fill this in? ‘My Life in Books 2019’ Using only books you have read this year (2019) , answer these questions. Try not to repeat a book title. In high school I was— Dancing with the Viper  (OK, maybe not, but it sounds cool) People might be surprised by— Footsteps in the Dark I will never be— The Green Face (at least I hope not) My fantasy job is—  The Last Dragonslayer  At the end of a long day I need—  Angry White Pajamas I hate—  Voodoo Histories  Wish I had—  The Mansion in the Mist My family reunions are—  Paradise of the Blind  (we are all ridiculously near-sighted!) At a party you’d find me with—  Such a Strange Lady I’ve never been to—  Ganga  (but I would sure love to go) A happy day includes—  The Green Futures of Tycho (actuall...

Four British Fantasists: Place and Culture in the Children's Fantasies of Penelope Lively, Alan Garner, Diana Wynne Jones, and Susan Cooper, by Charles Butler Boneland, by Alan Garner  Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, trans. by Simon Armitage I've been having one of those times when books criss-cross each other, and most of it was while I was taking a break.  But I really want to talk about them, so call it a themed riffle of reviews... I loved Four British Fantasists so much!  Obviously it's right up my alley, seeing that DWJ and Cooper are two of my favorites.  I've never read Penelope Lively, but this book convinced me to.  If, like me, you are really into at least two of these four writers, you'll enjoy this analysis.  There were lots of wonderful insights, but the part I'll talk about here concerns Alan Garner, who does get a large share of the book because he concerns himself so much with place -- to the point of obsession. The four aut...

Yeah, I thought I wouldn't be able to hold out against a Spin -- Spins are my favorite!  This is Classics Club Spin #22, and you probably know the routine; if not, check out the rules.   The lucky number will be posted on Sunday, December 22, and the goal will be to read the book by January 31st.  So here are my Spin picks, which I have chosen because they are already present on my groaning shelves -- I don't dare bring anything new in until I actually read some of what I've got! Our Mutual Friend, by Charles Dickens Passing, by Nella Larsen Subtly Worded, by Teffi Lorna Doone, by R. D. Blackmore Amrita, by Banana Yoshimoto Thus Were Their Faces, by Silvina Ocampo   The Idiot, by Dostoyevsky  The Imitation of Christ, by Thomas a Kempis   Forest of a Thousand Daemons, by D. O. Fagunwa Homeric Hymns The Red Cavalry Cycle, by Isaac Babel The Female Quixote, by Charlotte Lennox Footsteps, by Pramoedya Ananta Toer (Buru Quartet, vol. ...

Radiance of Tomorrow, by Ishmael Beah Well folks, I'm back!  Six weeks off has been very good for me, and we'll see where it goes from here.  My main trouble is the same as ever and is a universal: so many things to say, so little time.  And for my first post-break post, I've got a novel set in Sierra Leone.  Ishmael Beah is a well-known author now, and he started off with a memoir of being a child soldier, which I gather attracted some controversy, but I haven't read it. The blurb on the cover calls this novel a parable, and I can see why.  It's mostly , almost entirely, a realistic novel, but the edges have been smoothed a bit so that things happen at the right time.  I noticed this mainly at the start; I think the story gets more real as it goes along. In the countryside of Sierra Leone, people are starting to recover from the devastating civil war that slaughtered so many, and in which children were often forced to become soldiers.  The villa...

In the last week I've come to the rather sudden decision that I need to put this blog on hiatus.  It hasn't been a very fun decision; I so enjoy connecting with all of you about books, and Howling Frog has been a part of me for nearly ten years.  (I still think it's the most awesome blog name ever.)  But here we are. I will still comment on your posts, and I'm planning on finishing my 2019 challenges.  I cannot stand the idea of not finishing them!  I'll still read my CC list and read around the world.  I am unhappy about doing this in the middle of Witch Week, so that I haven't participated like I wanted to do, not to mention all the other cool November events.  And what about the CC Spin, of which I have never missed one?  I'll have to figure out a way to do that...and I have a pile of books saved up for the Vintage Sci-Fi Reading event in January... It's funny how much weight this decision has taken on in the last week.  I mean, I own ...

 The Bride Price, by Buchi Emecheta Happy Halloween, folks, and happy Spin Day too!  I was very excited about this title, since I love Emecheta's writing.  I found out that she considered it her best novel, but it also had tragedy attached to it; she based the story loosely on her own life, but when her husband found and read the manuscript, he was angered that his fictional counterpart was a descendant of slaves.  He burned the manuscript, which was the only copy.  Emecheta re-wrote her novel, but changed the ending from hopeful to tragic, reflecting her changed feelings and her failing marriage. Aku-nna is a young teen when her doting father dies, leaving her and her mother and brother almost destitute.  The little family travels back to Ma Blackie's home village (Ma Blackie is much admired for her beautiful, extremely dark skin).  Ma Blackie becomes a plural wife to Okonkwo, a relative of her husband's, and Aku-nna and Nna-nndo go to school....

The Bride of Lammermoor, by Sir Walter Scott The Classics Club issued a dare to pick a spooky classic from our lists to read.  My CC list has already had most of the spooky classics taken, but I did have one left: The Bride of Lammermoor, by Sir Walter Scott.  I knew it featured a bride who goes mad and stabs somebody, and that an opera, Lucia di Lammermoor , was based on the novel.  Also, the novel was published in 1819.  But it's historical fiction, set at the end of the 17th century, over 100 years before Scott wrote it. Edgar, Master of Ravenswood, has been dispossessed of his ancestral property.  His father was a Jacobite and was stripped of his title and everything else, too.  Edgar has a single tower left to him, Wolfs Crag, and no money whatsoever.  He has to find a job overseas, because he's certainly not welcome in Scotland, but first he would like to take his revenge upon the man who persecuted his father and then got all the property:...

It's Nonfiction November -- which starts in October to make the weeks come out right -- and this week's post is hosted by Julz Reads .  Head over there to see everybody's posts!  This week's topic is Your Year in Nonfiction : Take a look back at your year of nonfiction and reflect on the following questions – What was your favorite nonfiction read of the year? Do you have a particular topic you’ve been attracted to more this year? What nonfiction book have you recommended the most? What are you hoping to get out of participating in Nonfiction November? Themes that cropped up this year have been: German/Eastern European/Russian history, as usual, with some literature thrown in too.  There is not enough time in my life to read all the history I want to, especially for that area.  I was particularly excited to read Tacitus, followed by A Most Dangerous Book , followed by Black Earth .  And Svetlana Alexievich is always a big deal to me; this year it was ...