Howling Frog Books

Courtesy of Lois at You, Me, and a Cup of Tea , who is evidently the best at finding these things.  I thought it would be fun for an end-of-year post. Find a book for each of your initials J -- Johnny the Clockmaker , by Edward Ardizzone (Js are hard! It took me a long time to find this one!) K -- Kaleidoscope , by Eleanor Farjeon L -- Leave it to Psmith , by P. G. Wodehouse P -- Persuasion , by Jane Austen Count your age along your bookshelf... What book is it? Before We Visit the Goddess , by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni.  A wonderful novel and a fun thing to get, since I got to meet her a year or so ago. Pick a book set in your country The Grapes of Wrath , by John Steinbeck.  It's a definitive California novel, after all, and partly set in Bakersfield, where I was born.  I should really re-read it. Pick a book that represents a destination you'd love to travel to Hum.  I have a long list of destinations I would love to travel to!  ...

Reading-wise, it's been a pretty good year.  Let's hope other things improve too.  I wasn't as consistent with my blogging as I would like to be, but it all got there eventually, and I read lots of great stuff.   This is not a list of my top ten or anything, and it doesn't include all the best stuff; I'm sure I missed lots.  But here are some favorites of 2017: While I didn't get to read as much medieval literature as I would have liked (I guess this is a constant theme in my life, I did have the great fun of re-reading Eneas .  Another favorite was The Treasure of the City of Ladies .  And Bovo-Buch !   And Merlin and the Grail !  I was in a kind of German mood and read some good history:  Germania and Stasiland were both excellent.   Voices From Chernobyl -- well, there's not much to say about it.  A very important book that I'll never forget.    Their Eyes Were Watching God was a great novel...

It's time for that final post on the Mount TBR Challenge, and Bev says : 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, take a selfie, 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. My goal was to read 24 books, and I exceeded it by reading 29.  Some of them were really great, and a few were kind of meh.  Dirt was meh. 2. The Words to the Wise According to Mount TBR: Using the titles of the books you read this year, see how many of the familiar proverbs and sayings below you can complete with a book read on your journey up the Mountain. Feel free to add/subtract a word or two to help them make sense.   A stitch in time .....

Henry IV, Part 1 , by William Shakespeare My Spin title!  It wasn't exactly a 'scary' one, but I wasn't too excited either; I'm more looking forward to Part 2.  But here we go...this play is second in a line of four, after Richard II and before Part 2 and Henry V. Henry IV is king of England, but the story is really more about his son, Prince Hal -- the future Henry V.  It's set in 1402-03, and we have a couple of major plot lines that converge.  The king won't do as the powerful Percys wish, and he threatens young Hotspur (Henry Percy, and about the 4th Henry in the play), who decides to foment a rebellion.  Meanwhile, Prince Hal is spending all his time hanging around inns, drinking with commoners, and generally causing consternation at court.  He's always with Sir John Falstaff, a corrupt old knight who prefers carousing to all else, and everybody is wondering if the Prince is going to be able to do his job.  The Prince's plan is to quit this...

The Faithful River, by Stefan Żeromski  A badly wounded soldier, near death, stumbles into a mostly-deserted manor house.  The only people there are Salomea, a young woman whose father is off fighting, and an elderly cook.  They take the soldier in and hide him during his long, slow recovery. The novel, published in 1912, is set during the Polish uprising of 1863 and 1864, when Polish volunteers fought the Russian occupation of the eastern part of the country.  Poland didn't technically exist at this time, having been carved up and shared out between Austria-Hungary, Russia, and Prussia.  The novel is set in what is now south-central Poland, the Kielce region, and I think the river must be the Vistula.  The reader doesn't need to know a lot of this background, but a little bit is helpful. Josef Odrowaz is a dashing young nobleman -- or he was, before the Russian troops slaughtered every wounded man on the battlefield.  Now he is only barely al...

Marshall Islands Legends and Stories, coll. by Daniel A Kelin II I lifted this title straight from Ann Morgan's project list , since there aren't a lot of Marshallese writers.  But I was extra-excited about this one anyway.  For one thing, I just like collections of folktales.  They are pretty well irresistible to me.  (Possibly this is a thing for most librarians?)  Plus, one of my very good friends lived in the Marshall Islands for a couple of years at about the same time that these tales were collected, in the early 1990s.  She speaks Marshallese and I'm going to lend her this book tomorrow, now that she's done with the semester and has some time to indulge in fun reading.  I think we're both sort of hoping that she'll recognize one of the storytellers as somebody she knew, even though that isn't really very likely. In the Marshall Islands, storytelling is sort of an official calling.  You have to get permission from the iroij, the chief, ...

OK, I've finished this challenge just under the wire!  I wanted to fulfill all 12 categories, and I did, which earns me three entries in Karen's prize drawing. I always have a lot of fun with this challenge.  Thanks, Karen, for keeping it going! 1.   A 19th Century Classic-- The Heart of Midlothian, by Sir Walter Scott 2.   A 20th Century Classic -- The Foundation Pit, by Andrei Platonov 3.   A Classic by a Woman Author . -- Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston 4.   A Classic in Translation .  Marie Grubbe, by J. P. Jacobsen 5.   A classic published before 1800 .  The Histories, by Herodotus 6.   A romance classic   -- Shakuntala, by Kalidasa 7.   A Gothic or horror classic.   Castle of Wolfenbach, by Eliza Parsons 8.   A classic with a number in the title .   The First Wife, by Paulina Chiziane 9.   A classic about an animal or which includes the name of an animal...