Sunday, June 24, 2012

BW26: Halfway there challenge

Happy Summer! It is week 26 and we are halfway to our quest to read 52 books in 52 weeks. I'm halfway through the A to Z by title and author challenge only because I've been mixing in a mess of other books in between. How are you doing?

I'm always on the look out for unique or interesting book lists and forget who turned me on to Hawes Publications which lists every New York Times Bestseller listing from the year 1950 until now. You can look up which fiction and non fictions books were published and on the best seller list for the year, month and week you were born. I was born November 1959 and found some great books, even a few (italics) I already have on the shelves.

Advise and Consent by Allen Drury

Exodus by Leon Uris

Dear and Glorious Physician by Taylor Caldwell

The Ugly American by William J. Lederer and Eugene Burdick

The War Lover by John Hersey

The Devil's Advocate by Morris L. West

The Darkness and the Dawn by Thomas B Costain

The Cave by Jennifer Warren

The Thirteenth Apostle by Eugene Vale

Station Wagon in Spain by Frances Parkinson Keyes

Poor No More by Robert Ruark

The Lotus Eaters by Gerald Green

The Art of Llewellyn Jones by Paul Hyde Bonner

Eva by Meyer Levin

Doctor Zhivago By Boris Pasternak

Lady Chatterly's Lover by D.H. Lawrence.

So check out the lists, find your birth date or even one of your loved ones birth dates and pick out one of the the books to read. Enjoy!

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Link to your most current read. Please link to your specific book review post and not your general blog link. In the Your Name field, type in your name and the name of the book in parenthesis. In the Your URL field leave a link to your specific post. If you have multiple reviews, then type in (multi) after your name and link to your general blog url. If you don't have a blog, tell us about the books you are reading in the comment section of this post.

Saturday, June 16, 2012

BW 25: Dorothy Sayers

June 13, 1893 - December 17, 1957

My first introduction to Dorothy Leigh Sayers was through her essays The Lost Tools of Learning and it took me a while to put two and two together because I didn't realize she was also the mystery writer of the Lord Peter Wimsey Series until recently. We inherited many books from my late mother in law a few years back and among them was a book by Sayers with three complete novels: Strong Poison, Have His Carcase and Unnatural Death. Lisa of Golden Grasses has been talking up Dorothy Sayers so much in the past couple weeks and since it is the anniversary of Sayers birthday, I just have to read the stories. I've been meaning to for a while and now just don't have any excuse not to. *grin*

So in honor of Dorothy Leigh Sayers birthday here's an excerpt from Chapter one of Strong Poison.

There were crimson roses on the bench: they looked like splashes of blood.

The judge was an old man; so old, he seemed to have outlived time and change and death. His parrot-face and parrot-voice were dry, like his old, heavily-veined hands. His scarlet robe clashed harshly with the crimson of the roses. He had sat for three days in the stuffy court, but he showed no sign of fatigue.

He did not look at the prisoner as he gathered his notes into a neat sheaf and turned to address the jury, but the prisoner looked at him. Her eyes, like dark smudges under the heavy square brows, seemed equally without fear and without hope. They waited.

"Members of the jury..."

The patient old eyes seemed to sum them up and take stock of their united intelligence. Three respectable tradesmen--a tall, argumentative one, a stout, embarrassed one with a drooping moustache, and an unhappy one with a bad cold; a director of a large company anxious not to waste valuable time; a publican, incongruously cheerful; two youngish men of the artisan class; a non descript, elderly man, of educated appearance, who might have been anything; an artist with a red beard disguising a weak chin; three women--an elderly spinster, a stout capable woman who kept a sweet shop and a harassed wife and mother whose thoughts seemed to be continually straying to her abandoned hearth.

"Members of the jury--you have listened with great patience and attention to the evidence in this very distressing case, and it is now my duty to sum up the facts and arguments which have been put before you by the learned Attorney-General and by the learned Counsel for the Defence, and to put them in order as clearly as possible, so as to help you in forming your decision.

"But first of all, perhaps I ought to say a few words with regard to that decision itself. You know, I am sure, that it is a great principle of English law that every accused person is held to be innocent unless and until he is proved otherwise. It is not necessary for him, or her, to prove innocence; it is, in the modern slang phrase 'up to' the Crown to prove guilt, and unless you are quite satisfied that the Crown has done this beyond all reasonable doubt, it is your duty to return a verdict of 'Not Guilty.' That does not necessarily mean that the prisoner has established her innocence by proof; it simply means that the Crown has failed to produce in your minds an undoubted conviction of her guilt."

Salcombe Hardy, lifted her drowned violet eyes for a moment from his reporter's note book, scribbled two words on a slip of paper and pushed them over to Waffles Newton. "Judge hostile." Waffles nodded. They were old hounds on this blood trail.

Here is a complete list of her works. Join me in honoring Dorothy Sayers and read one of her works this month.

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Sunday, June 10, 2012

BW24: RIP Ray Bradbury

August 22, 1920 to June 5, 2012

Ray Bradbury, best know for writing Fahrenheit 451 and Something Wicked This Way Comes, died June 5 at the age of 91. The first book I ever read of his, way back in the late 70's or early 80's, don't remember exactly, was The Martian Chronicles. My husband and I recently each read Fahrenheit 451 and had fun sharing our thoughts about the story and big brother and other issues. All his stories stand the test of time and are well worth reading over again, each time pulling something different out of them.

Over the past few days, many authors have been sharing their memories and thoughts about Bradbury and what his stories have meant to them. Chuck Wendig of Terribleminds shares his thoughts about his scary short story "The Veldt" which lead to the link on You Tube of Stephen Colbert reading the story: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. Read online while listening and just imagine!

In Chicken Soup for the Soul, Bradbury had this to say about reading in How to Be Madder than Captain Ahab:

"I have been a library jackdaw all of my life, which means I have never gone into that lovely holy place with a book list, but only with my beady bright eyes and my curious paws, monkey-climbing the stacks over among the children's and then again where I was not allowed, burrowing among the adult's mysterious books. I would take home, at the age of ten, eight books at a time, from eight different categories, and rub my nose in them and all but lie down and roll on them like a frolicsome springtime dog...."

"and the more you read, the more the ideas begin to explode around inside your head, run riot, meet head-on in beautiful collisions so that when you go to bed at night the damned visions color the ceiling and light the walls with huge exploits and wonderful discoveries...."

"I may start a night's read with a James Bond novel, move on to Shakespeare for half an hour, dip into Dylan Thomas for five minutes, make a fast turnabout and fasten on Fu Manchu, that great and evil oriental doctor, ancestor of Dr. No, then pick up Emily Dickinson, and end my evening with Ross MacDonald, the detective novelist, or Robert Frost, that crusty poet of the American rural spirit. The fact should be plain now: I am an amiable compost heap...."

"I am a junkyard, then, of all the libraries and bookstores I ever fell into or leaned upon, and am proud that I never developed such a rare taste that I could not go back and jog with Tarzan or hit the Yellow Brick Road with Dorothy, both characters and their books banned for fifty years by all librarians and most educators. I have had my own loves, and gone my own way to become my own self. I highly recommend you do the same. However crazy your desire, however wild your need, however dumb your taste may seem to others....follow it!"

In honor of Ray Bradbury, read one of his books this month.

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Link to your most current read. Please link to your specific book review post and not your general blog link. In the Your Name field, type in your name and the name of the book in parenthesis. In the Your URL field leave a link to your specific post. If you have multiple reviews, then type in (multi) after your name and link to your general blog url.

If you don't have a blog, tell us about the books you are reading in the comment section of this post.

Sunday, June 3, 2012

BW23: Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee

Queen Elizabeth II: Portraits by Cecil Beaton

This week is Queen Elizabeth's Diamond Jubilee. It's been 60 years since her coronation on June 2, 1953. Last Tuesday I happened to catch on tv The Jubilee Queen with Katie Couric which was actually quite fascinating and made me want to find out more. There are a couple book lists available online here and here. Prince Phillip's biographer Philip Eade wrote an article for The Telegraph documenting the best books celebrating Queen Elizabeth's life. One author who is mentioned several times in various articles is Ben Pimlott, a British historian who wrote

The Queen: A Biography of Elizabeth II

Biography.com has a wonderful synopsis about Queen Elizabeth's life along with a gallery of photos from her life. Plus, the Queen's Diamond Jubilee online store offers a variety of books and dvds about Elizabeth's life. Have fun learning all about her life like I did.

Congratulations to her royal Highness, Queen Elizabeth II

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