BW35: Ocean of Earth by Guillaume Apollinaire

Guillaume Apollinaire

Ocean of Earth

by 

Guillaume Apollinaire

August 26, 1880

(Translated by Ron Padgett)

To G. de Chirico

I have built a house in the middle of the Ocean

Its windows are the rivers flowing from my eyes

Octopi are crawling all over where the walls are

Hear their triple hearts beat and their beaks peck against the windowpanes

House of dampness

House of burning

Season’s fastness

Season singing

The airplanes are laying eggs

Watch out for the dropping of the anchor

Watch out for the shooting black ichor 

It would be good if you were to come from the sky

The sky’s honeysuckle is climbing

The earthly octopi are throbbing

And so very many of us have become our own gravediggers

Pale octopi of the chalky waves O octopi with pale beaks

Around the house is this ocean that you know well

And is never still

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BW34: 52 Books Bingo - Alternate History

Iron sky: The Coming Race 

Our next 52 Books Bingo category is Alternate History,  speculative fiction which diverges from real history. Whether the stories surround events in history, politics, romance, steampunk or science fiction, they makes us ask what if, time and time again. So where do you start with Alternate History?

There was some debate a few years back if Steampunk killed Alternate History or if steampunk has anything in common, so let's look into how steampunk for historians defines the genre and the challenges of writing stories set in other cultures. I'm currently immersed in the world of steampunk right now with Shelley Adina's Magnificent Devices series  which is why it's on my mind.

However, the world of Alternate history is more than steampunk, so take a trip into The Top 25 Novels About Alternate History (Worlds That Never Were), 10 Sci-Fi & Fantasy Books That Twist the History of World War II, The Most Unusual Alternate History Novels Ever Published or dive into the world of romantic or political alternate history.

Check out Uchronia.com, the alternate history list which is chock full of resources including a bibliography of over 3400 titles. There are lots and lots of rabbit trails to follow.

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If you'd like to share your book reviews, you may link to your website, blog, Goodreads, Google+, Tumblers, or Instagram page. If you do not have any internet or social media account, please leave a comment to let us know what you are reading. Please do not add links of 52 Books, nonexistent or old web pages. They will be deleted. If your link disappears, please email me if you need to change or update your links. The linking widget closes at the end of each book week.

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BW33: Song for the Last Act

Song for the Last Act

by 

Louise Bogan

(August 11, 1897) 

Now that I have your face by heart, I look

Less at its features than its darkening frame

Where quince and melon, yellow as young flame,

Lie with quilled dahlias and the shepherd's crook.

Beyond, a garden, There, in insolent ease

The lead and marble figures watch the show

Of yet another summer loath to go

Although the scythes hang in the apple trees.

Now that I have your face by heart, I look.

Now that I have your voice by heart, I read

In the black chords upon a dulling page

Music that is not meant for music's cage,

Whose emblems mix with words that shake and bleed.

The staves are shuttled over with a stark

Unprinted silence. In a double dream

I must spell out the storm, the running stream.

The beat's too swift. The notes shift in the dark.

Now that I have your voice by heart, I read.

Now that I have your heart by heart, I see

The wharves with their great ships and architraves;

The rigging and the cargo and the slaves

On a strange beach under a broken sky.

O not departure, but a voyage done!

The bales stand on the stone; the anchor weeps

Its red rust downward, and the long vine creeps

Beside the salt herb, in the lengthening sun.

Now that I have your heart by heart, I see.

Find out more about Louise Bogan through the Correspondence of Louise Bogan, my Poetic Side, and the Poet who Wrote about Love.  

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If you'd like to share your book reviews, you may link to your website, blog, Goodreads, Google+, Tumblers, or Instagram page. If you do not have any internet or social media account, please leave a comment to let us know what you are reading. Please do not add links of 52 Books, nonexistent or old web pages. They will be deleted. If your link disappears, please email me if you need to change or update your links. The linking widget closes at the end of each book week.

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BW32: Whodunit bookology - Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg

Our August Whodunit Bookology detective is French police detective Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg. We are introduced our detective of the month in The Chalk Circle Man, the first book in a nine book series. He has recently been promoted to Commissaire in the 5th arrondissement in Paris and is unorthodox when it comes to solving crimes.

The character was created by Fred Vargas aka Frédérique Audoin-Rouzeau. Ms. Vargas,  born June 7, 1957,  is a French historian and archaeologist as well as a writer. Her studies of the black death and the bubonic plague is considered definitive in research studies completed on the subject which resulted in Les chemins de la peste : Le rat la puce et l'homme (Pest Roads), published in 2003.

There are a number of ways to complete the bookology challenge, including but not limited, to the suggestions below:

Read the first book in the series.

Read one book per letter in the character's first or last name.

Read one book per letter in the author's first or last name.

If you're really ambitious, one book per letter in the character's first and last name.

Follow in a character's footsteps and read a book set in the country or time period of the character.


Be sure to check out Vargas's other series The Three Evangelists as well.

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If you'd like to share your book reviews, you may link to your website, blog, Goodreads, Google+, Tumblers, or Instagram page. If you do not have any internet or social media account, please leave a comment to let us know what you are reading. Please do not add links of 52 Books, nonexistent or old web pages. They will be deleted. If your link disappears, please email me if you need to change or update your links. The linking widget closes at the end of each book week.

In the Your Name field, type in your name and the name of the book in parenthesis. In the Your URL field paste a link to your post, then check the privacy box and click enter.