Howling Frog Books

Undine at the start (Rackam, obvs.) Undine and Other Stories , by La Motte - Fouqué Well, his whole name was Friedrich Heinrich Karl de la Motte, Baron Fouqué, but that was too difficult, so even my book only says "La Motte Fouqué" on the title page and never elaborates.  He lived from 1777 - 1843 and was a German Romantic to the core; my little Oxford World Classics book (from 1932) says we "may now recognize in Fouqu é the latest and the most uncompromising of the Romanticists, the man who accepted most unflinchingly the principles of that school, and who carried them out most thoroughly."   It also calls him "somewhat stupid" and goes on to note that his output "was positively prodigious, and most of it, so far as modern readers are concerned, might very well have been left undone."   Poor Fouqué!  The introduction does allow him several stories to keep for posterity, and these four make up the majority of them. It must be admitted tha...

That's Not English: Britishism, Americanisms, and What Our English Says About Us, by Erin Moore This was a fun, fast read that I enjoyed a lot because I will never not want to read books comparing the British to Americans and vice versa.  I cannot get enough of those. Erin Moore is American-born, moved to England, married into a trans-Atlantic family, and is now raising a little Briton of her own, so she's had plenty of opportunity to experience culture shock (both ways) and delve into the mysteries of our respective characters.  Each chapter is dedicated to a word or expression that either means different things to each side ( quite, sorry, cheers, ginger ) or is practically unknown to one side ( knackered, bespoke, dude ).  So, some random observations from me: Indeed, I use quite as an intensifier that means just plain really .  Apparently Britons aren't quite that enthused when they say it. Moore says that English parents say to their children "You get w...

Yes, indeed there are other reading events besides March Magics, and here they are. Paula at Book Jotter is hosting Dewithon 2019, also known as Reading Wales.  Read anything by a Welsh writer, or about Wales!  My trouble is, all the Welsh books I can find are fantasy novels I've read before, but I have this copy of Elidor, by Alan Garner, that I haven't read in a long time, and also Jasper Fforde wrote a fantasy trilogy I haven't read yet, so I got The Last Dragonslayer .  I plan to enjoy those, and sometime I will get my hands on some Serious Welsh Literature. Cathy at 746 Books is hosting Reading Ireland 2019.    She's even going to have weekly themes!  It so happens that I put a battered old book of Yeats on my TBR list for Adam's challenge this year, so I'll read that.    Looking into it properly, I find that it contains Stories of Red Hanrahan, The Secret Rose (also a collection of stories), and Rosa Alchemica -- a novella perhaps...

How to Think, by Alan Jacobs  I'm going to make a judgement here, and that is that every college student and adult ought to read this book.  It's short and painless, so entirely doable!  I heard about this, by the way, from a favorite podcast I didn't mention before (because it's not literary), No Dumb Questions with Destin and Matt.  Destin does the Smarter Every Day channel on Youtube , and all of us are big fans.  Matt is a smart dude too, and they just talk and it's hugely entertaining.  They have kind of a book club, and they discussed this one a while ago.  I'm not current on their podcast, so I have yet to read a book along with them.  Anyway... Alan Jacobs teaches at a college, and he wants us all to learn to think a bit better -- especially on Twitter.  Really thinking is not easy; it's uncomfortable, and kind of hard work, so our brains don't like to do it.  So in short chapters, Jacobs tackles various aspects of thinkin...

One of my very favorite yearly events is March Magics, when we read and discuss two of the greatest fantasy writers around, Diana Wynne Jones and Terry Pratchett.  It's hosted by Kristen at We Be Reading, and the theme this year is "Riches Well-Told."  Kristen says: What does that mean in terms of books? It means we get to read our favorites this year! I want everyone to pick up the books from these authors that never get old, the ones that we've read dozens of times already but plan to read at least a dozen more times. The DWJ readalong this year will be Howl's Moving Castle , and the Pterry title has yet to be chosen.  Kristen is running a poll at the announcement post, and I voted for Wee Free Men on the grounds that I haven't read it in a long time.  (Update: it's official; Wee Free Men !)  I'll have to think about which favorites I want to read in March....it's hard to choose!  There are so many to love. I just realized I'm we...

The Unknown Ajax, by Georgette Heyer I always enjoy a good Heyer novel, though I don't always review them here.  The last one I read was just OK, so I didn't post about it, but it wasn't bad either.  On the whole, I think we should all admit that Georgette Heyer was the best writer of Regency romance-comedies ever.  She simply cannot be beat.  Her dialogue is always great, her comedy excellent, her detail and knowledge unmatched.  And The Unknown Ajax is one of the best of the romances that I have read. The Darracotts are not a united family, and they are headed by the irritable -- nay, enraged -- Lord Darracott, who is particularly angry that his eldest son got himself killed in an accident.  Now the family must accept an estranged and unknown cousin -- from Yorkshire! who is half commoner! -- as the heir.  Major Hugo Darracott arrives, a huge and amiable man, and everybody expects him to be both stupid and vulgar. Anthea, the young lady of t...

The Whale Rider, by Witi Ihimaera I was pretty excited when I spotted this novel on the donation table; it's currently not that easy to find in the US.   It's also shorter than I expected!  This cover make it look kind of like a kid's book but I would say that it is maybe more YA.  It's one of those novels that kind of defies age categories, really. The story is told in two interlocking parts: one side is mythic, about the far past and about the whales.  The other is narrated by a young Maori man, and it's really about his niece, Kahu.  She is the first-born of her generation, and the family patriarch, Koro, is extremely displeased, because he expects a boy to be the chief and carry on the family heritage -- they are descended from the legendary whale rider.  Kahu adores Koro, and spends her childhood following him around, bouyantly ignoring his indifference.  When an entire pod of whales beaches near the village, Koro believes that it's a w...

Enraged: Why Violent Times Need Ancient Greek Myths, by Emily Katz Anhalt What?  Why would a modern, 21st-century society need stories told by a bunch of Greeks over 2000 years ago?  Well, Emily Anhalt is here to tell you, and she is dang good at it.  I enjoyed this book a lot! Anhalt's thesis is that human beings are just the same as they always were, and the ancient Greeks gave these things a lot of thought.  She analyzes the Iliad and the plays Ajax and Hecuba for themes that hit close to home for us today.  All of them are about rage, and there's a lot of that going on right now.  She doesn't talk specifics -- there's enough rage to go around anyway The Iliad is all about rage.  Achilles and Agamemnon both have a lot of it, and it has tremendous effects -- none of them good.  Achilles' rage leads directly to the death of his best friend, and that's only the beginning. Sophocles' Ajax covers an episode just after the Iliad , in wh...

Dancing With the Viper, by Amy Beatty A few months ago I told you about my friend Amy, whose novel Dragon Ascending was published last October.  She also has a second series going, and I bought myself a copy of this first installment in the Viper series.  It's available in paperback and on Kindle, and there are a couple of short stories on her website too! This is Amy's 'complicated politics in a galactic empire' story, but it doesn't start that way.  We start at the edge. The Talessanin made contact several years ago, and they have an embassy on Earth now, but Hanna has never actually met one of the aliens before.  Now she has a Talessanin for a neighbor, and she's not entirely sure she wants the company on her cherished lonely country road.  Still, one must be neighborly, so she takes a welcome cake over and meets Jon, a retired soldier, and his two friends? assistants?, Chance and Tomin.  Pretty soon Hanna (and her friends) are getting to know the ...

A Most Dangerous Book: Tacitus's Germania From the Roman Empire to the Third Reich, by Christopher B. Krebs I've been pretty excited about this book.  Once I finished reading the actual Germania , so that I could understand this one, I was able to get started.  (I shall continue the chain by reading about one of the terrible consequences in Timothy Snyder's Black Earth .)  Krebs packs his book with lots of fascinating information, but it's quite dense and I went pretty slowly because I found it hard to concentrate sometimes.  The second I drifted even a tiny bit, I'd lose the train and discover that I had no idea what the last two pages had said. Krebs starts off with plenty of background for Tacitus and what was going on in the Roman Empire at the time.  Of course, Tacitus never set foot in the unconquered territory of the barbarians; he didn't study the Germanic tribes in person or anything.  He draws the tribes as the descendants of an autochthon...

I've been listening to some really great language or literature podcasts lately, and I thought I'd let you in on the fun in case you didn't know about these yet.  Probably you do, because I cannot claim to be terribly knowledgeable or cool about podcasts!  My list is not long, and I mostly only listen to them when I'm walking on my own, am alone in the car, or possibly sometimes while folding a mountain of laundry.  Still, I really like these, and here they are: The History of English, by Kevin Stroud.   This might be my very favorite podcast.  Kevin starts with Indo-European and takes us on a detailed, fascinating trip through the history of the English language.  I'm on episode 62 and we're almost to the Norman Conquest, so there is a lot of information! Medieval Death Trip, by Patrick Lane .  I'm the last to know about this fabulous podcast; my mom told me about it.  In every episode, Patrick reads a selection from a lesser-known mediev...