Howling Frog Books

Escape From the Soviets , by Tatiana Tchernavin To update, I still have three UK trip posts to write, and a large pile of books.  My girls went to camp this past week, which gave me some wonderful quiet time, so I sewed a lot of quilt blocks and did a good bit of blogging in the first part of the week, but I had a talk to write, so pretty soon I had to just focus on that instead of blogging.  I delivered my talk today, and I did OK, so now I am back here and ready to go. My mom gave me this book and it's been on my TBR for a little while, but I've been really excited about it, partly because this was written much earlier in the history of the USSR than most things I've read.  It was published in 1933, and my copy, which is from the seventh printing (1934) contains only an outdated photo of the author's son at age five (he was 12 or so by then) and a note that no photos of the author or her husband could be printed "as they fear that this might enable the OGPU a...

This was Bath day!  We drove to another park and ride, which was again a great and inexpensive way to get into town.  We got dropped off on Milsom Street--where the Tilneys lodged in Northanger Abbey--and walked south to the Roman Baths and the Pump Room. Roman Baths from street level The Roman Baths now has a giant underground museum, showcasing parts of a temple/bath complex that is largely a fairly recent discover; much of this was not known even 20 years ago.  They are discovering more all the time, which is really exciting.  When we went down to the large Roman pool, we found a docent about to give a tour, so we joined him, and he turned out to be incredibly knowledgeable.  I think we listened to him for nearly an hour.  My poor 13-year-old was less fascinated than the rest of us, but he talked about how the baths were used and what was happening at the time and the latest discoveries....it was really neat. Model of Roman temple/bath...

Three Chestnut Horses, by Margita Figuli Remember how I read the classic Bulgarian novel, the one everybody reads in high school?  Someone commented that it would be neat to have a list of all the 'classic books everybody reads in high school' for lots of different countries, and I think that would be a fabulous project!  I would read that list.  I have no idea how to put such a thing together, though, so if anyone has contacts in, say, 50+ countries and wants to help me, let me know!  Meanwhile, this is one of the books that every Slovakian kid reads in high school.  It's a basic classic of Slovakian literature. Published in 1940, Three Chestnut Horses was an instant hit.  People loved it.  It continued as a beloved classic throughout the years of Communist control, though it was edited to take out religious content (and it must have been fairly heavily edited!); the introduction hints that this was done without Figuli's permission. This is a ...

Palace of Illusions , by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni I had the opportunity to meet Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni a few months ago , which was a very exciting event, and so I decided that it was high time I finished the only Divakaruni novel I had not read-- Palace of Illusions .  I got about halfway through it several years ago, and I was convinced that something completely terrible would happen to Panchaali, the protagonist, and I just couldn't keep reading!  But this time I did it, and it's a great novel. This is a retelling of many of the events of the great Indian epic, the Mahabharata , from the point of view of Draupadi (or Panchaali, as she is called here), the wife of the five Pandavas.  If you're not familiar with the basics of the story, it's about two sets of cousins: the five Pandava brothers, who are rightful heirs to the kingdom of Hastinapura.  Their uncle, the blind king Dhritarashtra, wrongfully appoints his son, the eldest of the hundred Kauravas, ...

After the wonderfulness that was visiting the Manor at Hemingford Grey, we packed up the car and hit the road.  Google said it would take a couple of hours to get to our hotel at Chippenham, but I didn't really believe that.  Possibly it would have for somebody more used to the British roads!  We took a little longer, largely because we somehow turned Fiona's voice off right before we needed it most, and we missed the turnoff to the M25.  Instead we fell into the hideous vortex of suburban London, freeway edition.  It took us an hour to get out again. After that we did pretty well, really.  The roads were very good.  From then on there were usually tall hedges on either side, so we couldn't see much of the countryside.  There are now these really convenient turnoffs that just provide services to travellers; you just get off the road at the right place, and bam, there's a gas station, a motel, and a food court with eight choices and restrooms lik...