23 Mar

(2012) #19 review: Macbeth

Posted by WordsAndPeace in Fiction, Plays, Reading Challenges. Tagged: , , .

Macbeth

by

William SHAKESPEARE

177 pages

Published between 1603-1607

I read this book for the following Challenges:

   

MY THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS BOOK

First let me vent about bloggers who launch fantastic Reading Challenges, and then drop because blogging becomes too overwhelming! I have 3 like this this year, this is frustrating, but of course I will go on with the challenge, but I will miss the interaction with my fellow bloggers on Shakespeare’s plays.

And in case you wonder, I will keep my own reading challenge for you, unless I face a life/death issue. Even if I slow down blogging, the challenge will still going on. By the way, as for my own reading challenge for you, on the books published in the first years of your life, 20 people subscribed, but so far only 2 reviews have been posted. On the hyperlink given in this paragraph, you will easily see 2 underlines at the end of the post: one to sign in the challenge, one to post your reviews. It would also be great if all bloggers followed that type of structure: sometimes you have to look all over the place to see where to post your reviews.

Done with the venting, let’s turn to Macbeth.

I read and studied thoroughly Macbeth a few decades ago, and I remember being then fascinated by the portrayal of Lady Macbeth. This time, I found her more shallow, and was more attracted by the complexity of Macbeth’s character himself. It’s always tragic to see where false ambition and envy can carry you. Once you’ve entered that terrible circle, it’s very hard if not humanly impossible to get out of it. We see instead Macbeth going deeper and deeper into darkness, to the point of becoming anti-human, – this was a theme I was more attentive to this time.

I prefer tragedies to comedies, and especially the richness of Shakespeare’s characters in that genre.

Along with Macbeth, I read the Cliffs Notes on Macbeth, by Alex Went.
I really appreciated the way he analyzed each act under these categories:
theme, character insight, literary device, style and language. Very helpful!

WHAT IS IT ABOUT

One of the great Shakespearean tragedies, Macbeth is a dark and bloody drama of ambition, murder, guilt and revenge. Prompted by the prophecies of three mysterious witches and goaded by his ambitious wife, the Scottish thane Macbeth murders Duncan, King of Scotland, in order to succeed him on the throne. This foul deed soon entangles the conscience-stricken nobleman in a web of treachery, deceit and more murders that ultimately spells his doom. [Goodreads]

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

William Shakespeare (baptised 26 April 1564) was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world’s pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England’s national poet and the “Bard of Avon” (or simply “The Bard”). His surviving works consist of 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and several other poems. His plays have been translated into every major living language, and are performed more often than those of any other playwright.

Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon. At the age of 18 he married Anne Hathaway, who bore him three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Between 1585 and 1592 he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part owner of the playing company the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, later known as the King’s Men. He appears to have retired to Stratford around 1613, where he died three years later. Few records of Shakespeare’s private life survive, and there has been considerable speculation about such matters as his sexuality, religious beliefs, and whether the works attributed to him were written by others.

Shakespeare produced most of his known work between 1590 and 1613. His early plays were mainly comedies and histories, genres he raised to the peak of sophistication and artistry by the end of the sixteenth century. Next he wrote mainly tragedies until about 1608, including Hamlet, King Lear, and Macbeth, considered some of the finest examples in the English language. In his last phase, he wrote tragicomedies, also known as romances, and collaborated with other playwrights. Many of his plays were published in editions of varying quality and accuracy during his lifetime, and in 1623, two of his former theatrical colleagues published the First Folio, a collected edition of his dramatic works that included all but two of the plays now recognised as Shakespeare’s.

Shakespeare was a respected poet and playwright in his own day, but his reputation did not rise to its present heights until the nineteenth century. The Romantics, in particular, acclaimed Shakespeare’s genius, and the Victorians hero-worshipped Shakespeare with a reverence that George Bernard Shaw called “bardolatry”. In the twentieth century, his work was repeatedly adopted and rediscovered by new movements in scholarship and performance. His plays remain highly popular today and are consistently performed and reinterpreted in diverse cultural and political contexts throughout the world.

HAVE YOU READ THIS BOOK YET?
WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE TRAGEDY BY SHAKESPEARE?
DO YOU FEEL LIKE READING THIS BOOK?
SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS  IN A COMMENT PLEASE

23 Mar

(2012) #18 review: Mrs Pollifax and The Whirling Dervish

Posted by WordsAndPeace in Audiobooks, Fiction, Reading Challenges. Tagged: , , , , , .

Mrs. Pollifax and the Whirling Dervish

by

Dorothy GILMAN (died 2/2/2012!)

Narrator: Barbara ROSENBLAT

7:15 hours

Audiobook published by Recorded Books in 2005

(Paperback published by Fawcett in 1990)

I listened to this book for the following challenges:

            

      

MY THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS BOOK

I was looking for an audiobook from my library connected with Morocco, for my 52-countries challenge; finding the book I want, in the format I want, can in itself be challenging at times. And this title came up!

I had never heard of Dorothy Gilman before. I was delighted by Emily’s personality right away, imagine: a grand-mother detective, that can be really cool! She’s sweet, charming, but also full of insights, intuition, and even with some good karate moves!

I thought the book was really good at giving you the impression you were traveling with her in Morocco: the landscapes, and I had heard enough before of the Atlas mountain to know that this sounded quite authentic, the social milieu, and the rich smells of the country! I almost wanted to go there!

It’s a good and simple detective story, nothing scary or over the top, actually a nice little easy read. I regret it was the 9th book of the series, but I don’t think it was a problem – except that I have automatically many more books on my TBR, because of course now I want to read the whole series!!

The narrator was the perfect voice: she really portrayed a sweet, cool, active and attractive  grand-mother, witty, with some humor in her voice. I would not be able to imagine Emily Pollifax now without Barbara Rosenblat’s voice. And really, I think this is the prefect kind of books for the audio format.

WHAT IS IT ABOUT

Ninth Book in the Series. Emily Pollifax, pillar of the Garden Club and occasional agent for the CIA, is once again called into action, this time in Morocco. Her assignment seems simple enough: accompany Max Janko as he travels across Morocco confirming the identities of seven undercover informants — and try to keep him from making an unpleasant ass of himself. Immediately, things go horribly wrong. The first is Max is not who — or what — he says he is. With no one to bail her out, Mrs. Pollifax determines to outfox the enemy and check out the remaining informants on her own. Only Mrs. Pollifax would expose herself to the dangers of being an American and a woman alone in Morocco. And only she would forge ahead, knowing as she does that one of the original informants has been replaced by a deadly impostor. [found on Mrs Pollifax Fan Blog]

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dorothy Gilman started writing when she was 9. At 11, she competed against 10 to 16-year-olds in a story contest and won first place. Dorothy worked as an art teacher and telephone operator before becoming an author. She wrote children’s stories for more than ten years and then began writing adult novels about Mrs. Pollifax–a retired grandmother who becomes a CIA agent. The Mrs. Pollifax series made Dorothy famous. While her stories nourish people’s thirst for adventure and mystery, Dorothy knew about nourishing the body as well. She used to live on a farm in Nova Scotia, where she grew medicinal herbs. Her knowledge of herbs comes through in many of her stories, including A Nun in the Closet, in which a nun treats a man’s wounds with the herbs growing nearby. Many of Dorothy’s books, including Caravan, feature strong women having adventures around the world. Dorothy spent much of her life in Connecticut and Maine. She died at age 88 of complications of Alzheimer’s disease. [Goodreads]

HAVE YOU READ THIS BOOK YET?
HAVE YOU READ THE WHOLE SERIES?
DO YOU FEEL LIKE READING THIS BOOK?
SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS  IN A COMMENT PLEASE

21 Mar

(2012) #17 review: Death of Kings

Posted by WordsAndPeace in Excerpts, Fiction, Historical novels. Tagged: , , , , .

Death of Kings

(Saxon Stories #6)

by

Bernard CORNWELL

320 pages

Published by Harper in January 2012

I read this book for the following challenges:

      

MY THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS BOOK

I discovered Bernard Cornwell in May 2011, and read the first book of this series. Since then, I have devoured each following book, and was looking forward to the latest one – alas it seems only 1 more will be added to this series, BUT Cornwell has  written many other interesting series, so this is bearable!!

Like the previous books of this series, you see Uhtred fighting both with his body and mind between his allegiance to king Alfred, and his love for his Danish ancestors and friends. This is getting even more intense in this volume, as Alfred dies, and no one really knows what’s going to happen to the continent: will it be torn apart by local leaders with conflicting interests, or will it be finally totally overwhelmed by a major Danish invasion benefiting from the confused situation after the death of Alfred?

I really like the way Uhtred is portrayed with his inner conflict. And am looking forward to have him finally reach home, maybe, in the volume to come.

WHAT IS IT ABOUT

As the ninth century wanes, England appears about to be plunged into chaos once more. For the Viking-raised but Saxon-born warrior, Uhtred, whose life seems to shadow the making of England, this presents him with difficult choices.

King Alfred is dying and his passing threatens the island of Britain to renewed warfare. Alfred wants his son, Edward, to succeed him but there are other Saxon claimants to the throne as well as ambitious pagan Vikings to the north.

Uhtred‘s loyalty – and his vows – were to Alfred, not to his son, and despite his long years of service to Alfred, he is still not committed to the Saxon cause. His own desire is to reclaim his long lost lands and castle to the north. But the challenge to him, as the king’s warrior, is that he knows that he will either be the means of making Alfred’s dream of a united and Christian England come to pass or be responsible for condemning it to oblivion. [Goodreads]

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Cornwell was born in London in 1944. His father was a Canadian airman, and his mother was English, a member of the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force. He was adopted and brought up in Essex by the Wiggins family, who were members of the Peculiar People, a strict Protestant sect who banned frivolity of all kinds and even medicine. After he left them, he changed his name to his mother’s maiden name, Cornwell.
Cornwell was sent away to Monkton Combe School, attended the University of London, and after graduating, worked as a teacher. He attempted to enlist in the British armed services at least three times, but was rejected on the grounds of myopia.
He then joined BBC’s Nationwide and was promoted to become head of current affairs at BBC Northern Ireland. He then joined Thames Television as editor of Thames News. He relocated to the United States in 1980 after marrying an American. Unable to get a Green Card, he started writing novels, as this did not require a work permit.
As a child, Cornwell loved the novels of C.S. Forester, chronicling the adventures of fictional British naval officer Horatio Hornblower during the Napoleonic Wars, and was surprised to find that there were no such novels following Lord Wellington’s campaign on land. Motivated by the need to support himself in the U.S. through writing, Cornwell decided to write such a series. He named his chief protagonist Richard Sharpe, a rifleman involved in most major battles of the Peninsular War.

Cornwell wanted to start the series with the Siege of Badajoz but decided instead to start with a couple of “warm-up” novels. These were Sharpe’s Eagle and Sharpe’s Gold, both published in 1981. Sharpe’s Eagle was picked up by a publisher, and Cornwell got a three-book deal. He went on to tell the story of Badajoz in his third Sharpe novel Sharpe’s Company published in 1982.
Cornwell and wife Judy co-wrote a series of novels, published under the pseudonym “Susannah Kells”. These were A Crowning Mercy, published in 1983, Fallen Angels in 1984, and Coat of Arms (aka The Aristocrats) in 1986. (Cornwell’s strict Protestant upbringing informed the background of A Crowning Mercy, which took place during the English Civil War.) He also published Redcoat, an American Revolutionary War novel set in Philadelphia during its 1777 occupation by the British, in 1987.
After publishing 8 books in his ongoing Sharpe series, Cornwell was approached by a production company interested in adapting them for television. The producers asked him to write a prequel to give them a starting point to the series. They also requested that the story feature a large role for Spanish characters to secure co-funding from Spain. The result was Sharpe’s Rifles, published in 1987 and a series of Sharpe television films staring Sean Bean.
A series of contemporary thrillers with sailing as a background and common themes followed: Wildtrack published in 1988, Sea Lord (aka Killer’s Wake) in 1989, Crackdown in 1990, Stormchild in 1991, and a political thriller called Scoundrel in 1992.
In June 2006, Cornwell was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the Queen’s 80th Birthday Honours List.
Cornwell’s latest work is titled Azincourt and was released in the UK in October 2008. The protagonist is an archer who participates in the Battle of Agincourt, another devastating defeat suffered by the French in the Hundred Years War. However Cornwell has stated that it will not be about Thomas of Hookton from The Grail Quest or any of his relatives. [Goodreads]

To know more about Bernard Cornwell and his work, there’s an excellent article on wikipedia, and great interviews and book trailers on his own website.

AVAILABLE EXCERPT

HAVE YOU READ THIS BOOK YET?
DO YOU FEEL LIKE READING THIS BOOK?
DO YOU LIKE UHTRED? WHY?
SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS  IN A COMMENT PLEASE

20 Mar

Penthos: The Lenten Journey To Joy

Posted by WordsAndPeace in Non-Fiction, Orthodoxy, Religion. Tagged: , , , , .

For my Eastern Orthodox readers:

Pemptousia, a journal about Culture, Science, and Religion, managed by the Friends of Vatopaidi Monastery, just published one of my articles:

Penthos: The Lenten Journey To Joy

It’s nothing scholarly, just a little reflection on Lent.

The article was originally written during Lent 2009, for St. Luke Orthodox Church Newsletter, OCA, Palos Hills, IL.

Just a detail: the images were not mine, and I’m really not sure why they did not use the gorgeous icon of the Prodigal Son, instead of this not even good Renaissance painting.

DOES THIS ARTICLE RELATE
TO YOUR OWN EXPERIENCE OF LENT?
PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT


16 Mar

(2012) #16 review: The Boy in The Suitcase

Posted by WordsAndPeace in Audiobooks, Fiction, Reading Challenges. Tagged: , , , , .

The Boy in the Suitcase (Nina Borg #1)

by

Lene KAABERBOL and Agnete FRIIS

Narrator: Katherine Kellgren

8:41 hours

Published by AudioGO in 2011

(hardcover published by Soho Crime in 2011)

Audiobook received from AudioGo via Audiobook Jukebox

I listened to this book for the following Challenges:

        

 

  

MY THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS BOOK

I needed a book with a setting in Denmark, and I read great reviews of this work as audiobook, AND I received it for free from the publisher, via the fantastic program at Audiobook Jukebox.

First let me begin with the narrator: she is absolutely stunning. This is a very fast pace book, with characters from Denmark, Lithuania, and Poland. She is excellent at imitating the different accents, and transmitting all the adequate emotions and feelings all along, whether they are expressed by women or men: sadness, grief, anger, violence, compassion, empathy, etc. When it gets really frantic and violent, yes, there are a few very intense moments, the narrator is close to exploding, and you are really on the edge of your seat!

Independently from the narrator’s talent, this is not a very easy audiobook, in the sense that at the beginning you get a bit confused about whom they are talking about, or who is talking. Probably a bit easier in print, though you may stumble on difficult foreign last names, and anyway you HAVE to listen to Katherine Kellgren!
The story? You get totally pulled into it, as the plot thickens, and you get major surprises along the way. Without saying too much: Nina, a quite compassionate nurse goes to help a friend, and she is led to discover a boy in a suitcase; he is 4, and he does not speak her own language. She quickly realizes that he and her now are in danger, but she is constantly hesitating between giving over the boy to the police, or trying to solve the mystery by herself, finding where he is coming from, possibly returning him to his family, and taking care of him in the meantime, which also means being away from her own family for several days and not taking care of her own children.

There’s a lot going on, you realize you are in the middle of an international network: prostitution? abduction of children? why? Well, you will have to listen to it to know! Believe me, it’s worth it.
I was a bit surprised in the very last lines of the book, when I realized that this was actually part of a series, and the nurse Nina is apparently preparing to go rescue someone else.

WHAT IS IT ABOUT

Nina Borg, a Red Cross nurse, wife, and mother of two, is trying to live a quiet life. The last thing her husband wants is for her to go running off on another dangerous mission to help illegal refugees. But when Nina’s estranged friend Karin leaves Nina a key to a public locker in the Copenhagen train station and begs her to take care of its contents, Nina gets suckered into her most dangerous case yet. Because inside the suitcase is a three-year-old boy: naked and drugged, but alive. Nina’s natural instinct is to rescue the boy, but she knows the situation is risky. Is the boy a victim of child trafficking? Can he be turned over to authorities, or will they only return him to whoever sold him? In an increasingly desperate trek across Denmark, Nina tries to figure out who the boy is, where he belongs, and who exactly is hunting him down. When Karin is discovered brutally murdered, Nina realizes that her life and the boy’s are in jeopardy, too. [AudioGO]

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Unfortunately, I do not speak nor read Danish, and her presentation is in Danish on Goodreads. So here is how Google translates it, actually not too bad, at least for the 1st part:
I [Lene Kaaberbol] was born at Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen on 24.3.1960. The superintendent was in evening dress – he had been interrupted in the middle of a gala dinner – but my sister says it’s nothing, her obstetrician was in the Icelandic national costume. Some would argue that it already from the beginning it was clear that I was a very special child. Others will probably say that my mom was just good at creating sudden gynecological emergencies.
I was thus born in Copenhagen, but it should probably be considered a fault, because my parents are in Jutland, my upbringing was in Jutland (mostly in Malling near Aarhus), and I consider myself today as exile Jutlander in Frederiksberg, at the Jutland my friends refer to as Devil’s Island (Zealand).
I have written always, or at least ever since I got out of ‘Ole as a sow’ stage. As a horse-crazy teenager, I wrote books about Tina and the horses (the first two came when I was fifteen, the fourth and last when I was seventeen). As a 18-year-old, I discovered Tolkien and Lord of the Rings, then Ursula K. LeGuin’s trilogy about Land Sea, and since then my book Heart banquet for adventure and take blood and worlds that are at least three steps to the right of the rainbow or the Milky Way, and in any event, some way off the paved Danish reality.
Today, about 30 books later, I am still as hopeless love to write as I always have been. And even though I’ve been a little getaway in criminal country and wrote a detective novel for adults – read more on ninaborg.dk if you like – then I’m certainly still children’s book author, and still have a penchant for magic moments!’

Agnete Friis was born in 1960. Here is her Goodreads’ blog page – only 2 posts.

I don’t often highlight narrators, but Katherine Kellgren is awesome! She is the award-winning narrator of more than 175 audiobooks. You can like her facebook page here.

Audiofile has also a cool presentation on her. It explains there why she is so good at accents: she works with a dialect coach, how cool is that!

REVIEWS BY OTHERS

HAVE YOU LISTENED TO THIS BOOK YET?
DO YOU LIKE IT BEING PART OF A SERIES?
WOULD YOU RECOMMEND ANY OTHER BOOK
NARRATED BY KATHERINE KELLGREN?
DO YOU FEEL LIKE LISTENING TO THIS BOOK?
SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS  IN A COMMENT PLEASE

9 Mar

I love France #15: (2012) #15 review: le dieu du carnage

Posted by WordsAndPeace in ebook, I Love France, Plays. Tagged: , , , , .

I LOVE FRANCE!

I plan to publish this meme every Thursday.
You can share here about any book
or anything cultural you just discovered related to France, Paris, etc.

Please spread the news on Twitter, Facebook, etc !
Feel free to grab my button,
and link your own post through Mister Linky,
at the bottom of this post.

*******

Le dieu du carnage

by

Yasmina REZA

128 pages

Published by Albin Michel in 2007

(English translation by Christopher Hampton published by Faber & Faber in 2007)

This book counts for the following Reading Challenges:

          

MY THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS BOOK

First let me tell how much I enjoy my French online teaching! I use skype, which allows me to have students form all over the world.
I particularly enjoy the advanced to nearly fluent students: apart from the necessaru grammatical exercises, we either watch French videos together and talk on them, or share about the latest movies we saw or books we read.

One day, R. shared with me her passion for French plays, and even sent me an efile of the latest she had read. So I read it as well, and then we spent a few classes looking at the interesting colloquial vocabulary and studying the charcater development of this short play. It really made it more interesting than if I had just read it by myself.

A kid has just hit another one at achool. We are here in the presence of the 2 sets of parents who want to reach some kind of peaceful agreement about the whole thing. It starts in a very polite and courteous manner, with typical rich French people, superficial, or stuck in their business.
Then, little by little, things fall apart: one gets drunk, and then politeness disappear  to give place to rudeness, even meanness and violence, with lots of street vocabulary, perfect if you intend to improve your modern French!

I kind of enjoyed this social satire, it sounded very French to me.

Actually a movie has been made put of it and is available. I’m looking forward to watch it.

WHAT IS IS ABOUT

What happens when two sets of parents meet up to deal with the unruly behavior of their children? A calm and rational debate between grown-ups about the need to teach kids how to behave properly? Or a hysterical night of name-calling, tantrums, and tears before bedtime?
Christopher Hampton’s translation of Yasmina Reza’s sharp-edged new play The God of Carnage premiered at Wyndham’s Theatre, London, in March 2008 and at Bernard B. Jacobs Theater, New York City, in March 2009. The International Herald Tribune calls it “an expert piece of stagecraft, and savagely funny.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Yasmina Reza began work as an actress, appearing in several new plays as well as in plays by Molière and Marivaux. In 1987 she wrote Conversations after a Burial, which won the Molière Award for Best Author. Following this, she translated Kafka’s Metamorphosis for Roman Polanski and was nominated for a Molière Award for Best Translation. Her second play, Winter Crossing, won the 1990 Molière for Best Fringe Production, and her next play The Unexpected Man, enjoyed successful productions in England, France, Scandinavia, Germany and New York. In 1995, Art premiered in Paris and went on to win the Molière Award for Best Author. Since then it has been produced world-wide and translated into 20 languages. The London production received the 1996-97 Olivier Award and Evening Standard Award. Screenwriting credits include See You Tomorrow, starring Jeanne Moreau and directed by Didier Martiny. In September 1997, her first novel, Hammerklavier, was published.

HAVE YOU READ
OR WATCHED THIS PLAY YET?
DO YOU FEEL LIKE READING THIS BOOK?
SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS  IN A COMMENT PLEASE

*** *** ***

Please if possible
include the title of the book or topic in your link:
name of your blog (name of the book title or topic).
Thanks

9 Mar

GOOD BOOKS FOR YOUR WEEK-END 03/10-11

Posted by WordsAndPeace in TBR, Good books for your week-end, Fiction, Non-Fiction. Tagged: , , , , .

GOOD BOOKS FOR YOUR WEEK-END 

03/10-11/2012

Here are some of  the latest fiction titles I added to my already too long Goodreads TBR:

The Old Man and His Sons (1940)

by Heðin Brú, John F. West (Translator)
4.48 of 5 stars 4.48  ·  rating details  ·  21 ratings  ·  8 reviews

These are the Faroe Islands as they were some fifty years ago: sea-washed and remote, with one generation still tied to the sea for sustenance, and a younger generation turning toward commerce and clerical work in the towns.At the post-hunt whale-meat auction, Ketil enthusiastically bids for more meat than he can afford. Thus when Ketil is seventy, he and his wife struggle to repay their debt.He1987), novelist and translator, was considered the most important Faroese writer of his generation and is known for his fresh and ironic style.

The Book on Fire (2009)

by Keith Miller (Goodreads Author)
4.5 of 5 stars 4.50  ·  rating details  ·  34 ratings  ·  15 reviews

Balthazar, book thief and bon vivant, arrives in Alexandria to steal from the famous library. But from the moment he steps off the boat, a veiled figure shadows him. Zeinab, literary prostitute and avenging ghost, will be his chaperone through the city of books. With her help, he succeeds in penetrating the underground library. But once inside, instead of ransacking it, he becomes obsessed with the youngest librarian, Shireen, who was born in the library and is herself more than half book. Their love story forms the heart of the novel. Balthazar schemes to get Shireen out of the library. But Zeinab has plans of her own . . . In sumptuous, evocative prose, ‘The Book on Fire’ explores the relationships between creation and destruction, between belief and imagination, between desire and fulfillment

The Home-Maker (1924)

4.1 of 5 stars 4.10  ·  rating details  ·  134 ratings  ·  48 reviews

Although this novel first appeared in 1924, it deals in an amazingly contemporary manner with the problems of a family in which both husband and wife are oppressed and frustrated by the roles they are expected to play. Evangeline Knapp is the perfect, compulsive housekeeper, while her husband, Lester, is a poet and a dreamer. Suddenly, through a nearly fatal accident, their roles are reversed: Lester is confined to home in a wheelchair and his wife must work to support the family. The changes that take place between husband and wife and particularly between parents and children are both fascinating and poignant.

And the non-fiction titles:

How Proust Can Change Your Life (1997)

by Alain de Botton (Goodreads Author)

Alain de Botton combines two unlikely genres–literary biography and self-help manual–in the hilarious and unexpectedly practical How Proust Can Change Your Life.

Who would have thought that Marcel Proust, one of the most important writers of our century, could provide us with such a rich source of insight into how best to live life? Proust understood that the essence and value of life was the sum of its everyday parts. As relevant today as they were at the turn of the century, Proust’s life and work are transformed here into a no-nonsense guide to, among other things, enjoying your vacation, reviving a relationship, achieving original and unclichéd articulation, being a good host, recognizing love, and understanding why you should never sleep with someone on a first date. It took de Botton to find the inspirational in Proust’s essays, letters and fiction and, perhaps even more surprising, to draw out a vivid and clarifying portrait of the master from between the lines of his work.

Here is Proust as we have never seen or read him before: witty, intelligent, pragmatic. He might well change your life.

The Earth Moved: On the Remarkable Achievements of Earthworms (2004)

by Amy Stewart (Goodreads Author)
3.89 of 5 stars 3.89  ·  rating details  ·  170 ratings  ·  63 reviews

“Engrossing” (The Christian Science Monitor), “fascinating” (TimeOut New York), “delightfully nuanced” (Entertainment Weekly), “terrific” (New York Newsday), “inspiring” (Bust magazine). “You know a book is good when you actually welcome one of those howling days of wind and sleet that makes going out next to impossible” (The New York Times).
The Earth Moved has moved reviewers across the country. In witty, offbeat style, Amy Stewart takes us on a subterranean adventure and introduces us to our planet’s most important gatekeeper: the humble earthworm. It’s true that the earthworm is small, spineless, and blind, but its effect on the ecosystem is profound, moving Charles Darwin to devote his last years to studying its remarkable attributes and achievements.
With the august scientist as her inspiration, Stewart investigates the earthworm’s astonishing realm, talks to oligochaetologists who have devoted their lives to unearthing the complex web of life beneath our feet, and observes the thousands of worms in her own garden. Stewart’s “ease in gliding from worms to plants to humans will remind readers of John McPhee’s essays on canoes, oranges, the geology of America” (Providence Journal). “Stewart’s book paddles along in Rachel] Carson’s wake. Read her book and you’ll start to see how the rhododendron bed in front of your house is a kind of Mars for frontier science”.

The Great Northern Express: A Writer’s Journey Home (March 6, 2012)

3.75 of 5 stars 3.75  ·  rating details  ·  8 ratings  ·  5 reviews

From bestselling, nationally celebrated author Howard Frank Mosher, a wildly funny and deeply personal account of his three-month, 20,000-mile sojourn to discover what he loved enough to live for.

Several months before novelist Howard Frank Mosher turned sixty-five, he learned that he had prostate cancer. Following forty-six intensive radiation treatments, Mosher set out alone in his twenty-year-old Chevy Celebrity on a monumental road trip and book tour across twenty-first-century America. From a chance meeting with an angry moose in northern New England to late-night walks on the wildest sides of America’s largest cities, The Great Northern Express chronicles Mosher’s escapades with an astonishing array of erudite bibliophiles, homeless hitchhikers, country crooners and strippers, and aspiring writers of all circumstances.
Full of high and low comedy and rollicking adventures, this is part travel memoir, part autobiography, and pure, anarchic fun. From coast to coast and border to border, this unforgettable adventure of a top-notch American writer demonstrates that, sometimes, in order to know who we truly are, we must turn the wheel towards home.

HAVE YOU READ ANY OF THESE?

7 Mar

(2012) #14 review: Cleopatra’s Daughter

Posted by WordsAndPeace in Audiobooks, Fiction, Historical novels, Reading Challenges. Tagged: , , , .

Cleopatra’s Daughter

by

Michelle MORAN

Narrator: Wanda McCADDON

11:56 hours

Published by Tantor Media in 2009

I listened to this book for the following Challenges:

      

MY THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS BOOK

If you are a faithful follower of this blog, you may recall my passionate review of Madame Tussaud last year. That was my discovery of Michelle Moran, and I definitely planned to read more books by her. So here is my 2nd. And I chose to listen to it. I have to say after the incredible genius idea and writing of Madame Tussaud, this one is not as perfect, but it is still very good. Again, I enjoy all the very serious background work Michelle Moran puts in her books, by reading a lot of history books and visiting the places she talks about. As Cleopatra’s surviving children were taken to Rome, you  will learn a lot about life both in Egypt and in Rome at the time, at the historical, but also social and cultural level.

Selene is a fascinating character, and apparently she really was, in real life. She’s smart and gifted. And has to go through lots of drama in her youth. My only disappointment was that the book ended too soon for me: I would have liked to see her married with Juba, and how she managed to make her Mauretanian kingdom flourish and prosper.

The narrator was good, but nothing really spectacular. She had a nice flow, with a pleasant imitation of a young and simple person’s voice, without sounding childish nor too refined.

WHAT IS IT ABOUT

Follows the incredible life of Cleopatra’s surviving children with Marc Antony — twins, named Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene, and a younger son named Ptolemy. All three were taken to Rome and paraded through the streets, then sent off to be raised by Octavia (the wife whom Marc Antony left for Cleopatra). Raised in one of the most fascinating courts of all time, Cleopatra’s children would have met Ovid, Seneca, Vitruvius (who inspired the Vitruvian man), Agrippa (who built the Pantheon), Herod, his sister Salome, the poets Virgil, Horace, Maecenas and so many others! [goodreads]

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Michelle Moran was born in the San Fernando Valley, CA. She took an interest in writing from an early age, purchasing Writer’s Market and submitting her stories and novellas to publishers from the time she was twelve. When she was accepted into Pomona College she took as many classes as possible in British Literature, particularly Milton, Chaucer, and the Bard. Not surprisingly, she majored in English while she was there. Following a summer in Israel where she worked as a volunteer archaeologist, she earned an MA from the Claremont Graduate University.

Michelle has traveled around the world, from Zimbabwe to India, and her experiences at archaeological sites were what inspired her to write historical fiction. A public high school teacher for six years, Michelle Moran is currently a full-time writer living in California. [goodreads]

REVIEWS BY OTHERS


A solidly researched history lesson … the book is a satisfying blend of romance, intrigue and fascinating historical fact. Cleopatra’s daughter may not share her mother’s renown, but Selene’s own life story is also worth surviving through the centuries.
—Allecia Vermillion Chicago Sun-Times [found on the author's website, where you can find lots more information about this book, many more reviews, and even watch the trailer. I encourage you to go to that link, there's also a fascinating interview on the author and this book]

HAVE YOU READ THIS BOOK YET?
WHICH ONE IS YOUR FAVORITE BOOK MY MORAN
DO YOU FEEL LIKE READING THIS BOOK?
SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS  IN A COMMENT PLEASE

7 Mar

(2013) #13 review: Exploring The Inner Universe

Posted by WordsAndPeace in Excerpts, Non-Fiction, Orthodoxy, Reading Challenges, Religion. Tagged: , , , , .

Exploring the Inner Universe

by

Archimandrite Roman BRAGA

154 pages

Published by HDM Press in 1996

This book counts for the following Reading Challenges:

      

MY THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS BOOK

I met Father Roman during a retreat at the Romanian monastery of the Dormition of the Mother of God (Rives Junction, Michigan), where he served then as the chaplain. He no longer serves as the main chaplain but still resides there and serves the Liturgy. His homily was fiery, full of inner fire and passion, and his face also spoke volumes of charity and goodness. I learned briefly about his life and torture under the communist regime in Romania.

Very recently, a friend of mine went to the same monastery and bought this book that she lent me to read.

The first part is actually more an interview than an essay. Through the excellent questions of his interviewer, also a very spiritual man if I judge by his questions, Fr Roman tells us about his life in Romania, about this country before and under the communist regime, and about the development of Christian Orthodoxy there, with all the activities explained more in the essay.

There are lots of interesting elements on the nature of the Romanian soul, based on history and culture. It was a very interesting and of course spiritually very enlightening book.

WHAT IS IT ABOUT

Included in this book are two essays composed by Fr. Roman – The Burning Bush and Romanian Monasticism During the Time of Communism. Being part of the “Burning Bush” movement in Romania cost Fr. Roman eleven years of freedom. The essay “Romanian Monasticism During the Time of Communism” is an invaluable historical account about the origins, the development and the meaning of Orthodox Monasticism in Romania, allowing us to understand better not only the meaning of monasticism, but also trials and tribulations of an Orthodox nation. [goodreads]

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Roman Braga was born in Romania in 1922 to a peasant family that lived near a monastery, which had a profound influence on him. He entered the seminary when he was 12 years old, after the death of his father. After completing the seminary in 1943 he was sent to military school until 1945 when the war ended and he moved to Bucharest where he continued his theological studies. For choosing to take care of youth who were interested in spirituality, he was arrested for the first time in 1948 and held prisoner for five years. He was arrested a second time in 1959 and only released in 1964, when by decree all political detainees were granted freedom. He was ordained a priest of the Negresti parish where he remained for three years until the secret Romanian police, the Securitate, came to take him and transfer him to a small village. In 1968, seeking to get rid of him, the patriarch sent him to a Romanian parish in Brasil where he remained for four years before moving to the United States, where he lives presently. [found on lipa]

EXCERPT

There’s a long excerpt available here.

I thought there was a very interesting passage pp.65-66 about compromises under the communist regime. We always hear these talks about priests who compromised with the regime, should they have or not, etc.
Fr Roman illustrates this by telling us about St Gennadios the Scholar (1454-1456): When he was in Constantinople under Mohamed II, he signed the compromise not to ring the bells, not to have processions on the streets with holy relics,etc, and he is considered a saint in the Orthodox calendar.
I’m not making any political statements, I’m just noticing that giving this example is an interesting and original response to this whole issue.

HAVE YOU READ THIS BOOK YET?
DO YOU FEEL LIKE READING THIS BOOK?
SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS  IN A COMMENT PLEASE

6 Mar

(2012) #12 review: And Then There Were None

Posted by WordsAndPeace in Audiobooks, Excerpts, Fiction, Reading Challenges. Tagged: , , , , .

And Then There Were None

by

Agatha CHRISTIE

Narrator: Hugh Fraser

Audiobook 5:52 hours

Published by Audio Partners Publishing in 2006

Originally published in 1939

I listened to this book for the following Challenges:

   

MY THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS BOOK

I feel like I should know better Agatha Christie: she is such a classic, and she writes so well. I enjoyed very much The Man In The Brown Suit read last month. And this month, my city has a city reads around mysteries and thrillers, and this book will be the object of a book discussion. As it is one of Agatha’s most famous book, I jumped onto it.  And I had a hard time stopping and waiting for the next opportunity to go on listening to it.

Everything is so mysterious about this book.

Even its title: it was originally Ten Little Niggers. Then it was changed in the US in 1940 to Ten Little Indians. It received its current title only in 2001!

And the author herself gave a different, happier ending to her stage adaptation – that’s why the movie does not end as the novel. I will talk here about the novel itself.

Ten people are invited on an island. There’s some mystery around who really invited them, and why, as their host is not present when they arrive on the island, and they don’t seem to see any connection between each other. One intriguing fact is that in the room of each is a nursery rhyme on display:

Ten little Indian boys went out to dine;
One choked his little self and then there were nine.

Nine little Indian boys sat up very late;
One overslept himself and then there were eight.

Eight little Indian boys travelling in Devon;
One said he’d stay there and then there were seven.

Seven little Indian boys chopping up sticks;
One chopped himself in half and then there were six.

Six little Indian boys playing with a hive;
A bumblebee stung one and then there were five.

Five little Indian boys going in for law;
One got in Chancery and then there were four.

Four little Indian boys going out to sea;
A red herring swallowed one and then there were three.

Three little Indian boys walking in the zoo;
A big bear hugged one and then there were two.

Two Little Indian boys sitting in the sun;
One got frizzled up and then there was one.

One little Indian boy left all alone;
He went out and hanged himself and then there were none.

The guests also discover 10 little Indian figurines in the dining room. The problem is that more mysterious things begin to happen very quickly, and one of the guests dies. Then a second one. Ad then they notice that the little figurines disappear as the guest die, one after the other…

As they start dying, they all start suspecting each other of being the killer, especially as dark things have been revealed about their respective pastsBut they eventually all die – that’s the novel’s ending. So, who could have killed them, and how? Was the murderer among them? was he/she on the island? outside the island??
Isn’t that good?

Only one thing intrigued me in the plot: the characters know that the figurines disappear as the guests die, and they make the connections with the nursery rhyme, but only rarely do they seem to think ahead of the next disappearance based on the next verse of the nursery rhyme.

Researching for this review, I discovered that the nursery rhyme did exist! A first version appeared in 1868, under the title 10 Little Injuns, but it was adapted in 1869 (10 Little Niggers).

The narrator added a bonus to it, with a very detached tone, non-committal without being cold. His tone is more vivacious with some female characters reactions, either hysterical or very upright and severe, and it will be up to you to decide if that’s a clue or not!I think this is the prefect type of books to listen to.

WHAT IS IT ABOUT

First, there were ten – a curious assortment of strangers summoned as weekend guests to a private island off the coast of Devon. Their host, an eccentric millionaire unknown to all of them, is nowhere to be found. All that the guests have in common is a wicked past they’re unwilling to reveal – and a secret that will seal their fate. For each has been marked for murder. One by one they fall prey. Before the weekend is out, there will be none. And only the dead are above suspicion. [goodreads]

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Agatha Christie also wrote romance novels under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott.
Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller was born in Torquay, Devon, England, U.K., as the youngest of three. The Millers had two other children: Margaret Frary Miller (1879–1950), called Madge, who was eleven years Agatha’s senior, and Louis Montant Miller (1880–1929), called Monty, ten years older than Agatha.
During the First World War, she worked at a hospital as a nurse; later working at a hospital pharmacy, a job that influenced her work, as many of the murders in her books are carried out with poison.
On Christmas Eve 1914 Agatha married Archibald Christie, an aviator in the Royal Flying Corps. The couple had one daughter, Rosalind Hicks. They divorced in 1928, two years after Christie discovered her husband was having an affair.
Her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, came out in 1920. During this marriage, Agatha published six novels, a collection of short stories, and a number of short stories in magazines.
In late 1926, Agatha’s husband, Archie, revealed that he was in love with another woman, Nancy Neele, and wanted a divorce. On 8 December 1926 the couple quarreled, and Archie Christie left their house Styles in Sunningdale, Berkshire, to spend the weekend with his mistress at Godalming, Surrey. That same evening Agatha disappeared from her home, leaving behind a letter for her secretary saying that she was going to Yorkshire. Her disappearance caused an outcry from the public, many of whom were admirers of her novels. Despite a massive manhunt, she was not found for eleven days.
In 1930, Christie married archaeologist Max Mallowan (Sir Max from 1968) after joining him in an archaeological dig. Their marriage was especially happy in the early years and remained so until Christie’s death in 1976. In 1977, Mallowan married his longtime associate, Barbara Parker.
Christie frequently used familiar settings for her stories. Christie’s travels with Mallowan contributed background to several of her novels set in the Middle East. Other novels (such as And Then There Were None) were set in and around Torquay, where she was born. Christie’s 1934 novel Murder on the Orient Express was written in the Hotel Pera Palace in Istanbul, Turkey, the southern terminus of the railway. The hotel maintains Christie’s room as a memorial to the author. The Greenway Estate in Devon, acquired by the couple as a summer residence in 1938, is now in the care of the National Trust.
Christie often stayed at Abney Hall in Cheshire, which was owned by her brother-in-law, James Watts. She based at least two of her stories on the hall: the short story The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding, which is in the story collection of the same name, and the novel After the Funeral. “Abney became Agatha’s greatest inspiration for country-house life, with all the servants and grandeur which have been woven into her plots.
During the Second World War, Christie worked in the pharmacy at University College Hospital of University College, London, where she acquired a knowledge of poisons that she put to good use in her post-war crime novels.
To honor her many literary works, she was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1956 New Year Honours. The next year, she became the President of the Detection Club. In the 1971 New Year Honours she was promoted Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire, three years after her husband had been knighted for his archeological work in 1968.
From 1971 to 1974, Christie’s health began to fail, although she continued to write. In 1975, sensing her increasing weakness, Christie signed over the rights of her most successful play, The Mousetrap, to her grandson. Recently, using experimental textual tools of analysis, Canadian researchers have suggested that Christie may have begun to suffer from Alzheimer. [goodreads]

REVIEWS BY OTHERS

HAVE YOU READ THIS BOOK YET?
HAVE YOU WATCHED THE MOVIE?
WHICH ENDING DO YOU PREFER?
WHICH ONE IS YOUR FAVORITE BOOK BY AGATHA CHRISTIE?
DO YOU FEEL LIKE READING THIS BOOK?
SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS  IN A COMMENT PLEASE

5 Mar

(2012) #11 review: A Golden Age

Posted by WordsAndPeace in Fiction, Historical novels, Reading Challenges. Tagged: , , , .

A Golden Age

by

Tahmima ANAM

276 pages

Published by Harper in 2008

I read this book for the following Challenges:

            

MY THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS BOOK

I enjoy more and more doing this reading challenge which makes me visit so many different countries and read books I would probably never have read otherwise.

When I was  about 8, I met a young man who had just come back form Bangladesh with a little orphan he had found there. This was my only contact and knowledge with that country, apart from horrific images of famine and flood.

I enjoyed very much this book, set during the war of independence of Bangladesh. It was excellent at showing the love of the country of the characters, in particular in a mother who had also a very deep love for her 2 children. This deep love will lead her to do something very particular, very difficult for this good woman.
It is probably totally by chance, but I had just finished this novel on the Sunday when our Church was reading  Matthew 25:

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

   37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

   40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

It struck me that Rehana DID all these things on the course of the novel. That sheds a particular light on the last act she had to do for the love of her children.

I’m using now questions proposed by another challenge: around the world in 12 countries – we had to read a book on Bangladesh in February:

What did you learn about the country’s culture, history etc. from reading this book?
Everything! There were a lot of daily life scenes that gave a good idea of the culture. and of course the historical situation with the independence from Pakistan was well explained, from different perspectives – civilians and military as well.

Any new insights, any shifts in your perception, or did it align with what you knew/understood already?
The country sounds much more beautiful than the hosts I had seen on tv or in magazines decades ago, at the time of the war.

 

How did land, geography, flora and fauna feature in the book? Did it have a distinct feel that helped you visualise and made you feel like you were there, or was the story more focused on plot?
Absolutely, you could see and smell the flowers, for instance

WHAT IS IT ABOUT

As young widow Rehana Haque awakes one March morning, she might be forgiven for feeling happy. Her children are almost grown, the city is buzzing with excitement after recent elections. Change is in the air.
But no one can foresee what will happen in the days and months that follow. For this is East Pakistan in 1971, a country on the brink of war. And this family’s life is about to change forever.
Set against the backdrop of the Bangladesh War of Independence, ‘A Golden Age’ is a story of passion and revolution, of hope, faith, and unexpected heroism. In the chaos of this era, everyone must make choices. And as she struggles to keep her family safe, Rehana will be forced to face a heartbreaking dilemma. [goodreads]

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tahmima Anam was born in Dhaka, Bangladesh in 1975. She was raised in Paris, New York City, and Bangkok.

After studying at Mount Holyoke College and Harvard University, she earned a PhD in Social Anthropology.

Her first novel, A Golden Age, was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award and the Costa First Novel Prize, and was the winner of the 2008 Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Book. It was translated into 22 languages.

Her writing has been published in Granta, The New York Times, and the Guardian.

She lives in London.

REVIEWS BY OTHERS

‘Tahmima Anam’s startlingly accomplished and gripping novel describes not only the tumult of a great historical event… but also the small but heroic struggles of individuals living in the shadow of revolution and war’  – Pankaj Mishra

“I couldn’t tear myself away from A Golden Age…the authenticity shines through Anam’s beautiful, simple prose.”  – Martha Kearney, Harper’s Bazaar

“There is a powerful feeling of tension as we wait to see how [the] story of domestic loss will work its way into the narrative of civil war, and when it does the result is heart-shattering.” – Kamila Shamsie, Guardian Review

Other reviews and material available on the author’s website.

HAVE YOU READ THIS BOOK YET?
WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE BOOK ON BANGLADESH?
DO YOU FEEL LIKE READING THIS BOOK?
SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS  IN A COMMENT PLEASE

2 Mar

(2012) #10 Review: Saint Gregory Palamas As A Hagiorite

Posted by WordsAndPeace in Excerpts, Non-Fiction, Orthodoxy, Reading Challenges, Religion. Tagged: , , , , .

St. Gregory Palamas as a Hagiorite

by

Hierotheos Vlachos,  Metropolitan of Nafpaktos

394 pages

Published by Birth of Theotokos Monastery in 1997

This book counts for the following Reading Challenges:

    

MY THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS BOOK

I have to say I was disappointed by this book. I enjoy other books by this author, and I have read several works by and on Gregory Palamas, my favorite Saint.
I was expecting something deeper from this book.
The author wants too much to make his point, that Gregory was a Hagiorite – who would actually doubt it these days? So in every chapter, the author talks about his life and his works by demonstrating for each point that the way he lived and wrote this and that prove that he is a Hagiorite. I don’t know if it’s the translation or what, but it was way too redundant.

The part also about proving that he was Roman would be very confusing for most readers, as the meaning of the word is so very different now from Gregory’s time. Honestly, this was totally pointless.

Even though I loved a few passages, quoted here below, I would say do not bother reading this. Instead, stick to the classic one by Meyendorff, and the most recent publications by Dr Christopher Veniamin, who has just done a fantastic job of publishing all of Gregory’s homilies in English. His introduction and notes are fantastic.

WHAT IS IT ABOUT

The life and the teaching of St. Gregory Palamas, Archbishop of Thessaloniki, will set out the limits and the great difference which exists between the abstract and impersonal life of Eastern religions and the Orthodox Tradition as well as between Barlaam’s scholasticism, moralism and the Orthodox spiritual life. And this is important precisely because tendencies to both the impersonal way of life (Eastern religions) and rationalism/scholasticism together with moralism (Western religions) prevail in the West today—a fact that creates a deep despair and much speculation.

A reading of Saint Gregory Palamas as a Hagiorite will show the particular features of Byzantium, which used to be called Romania (Roman Empire) as it is preserved and kept even in our days on the Holy Mountain of Mount Athos. Nowdays many people admire the art which developed in the Byzantium (Roman Empire) but in the final analysis this art was the outcome of a holy life, it was the fruit of a way of life, as we can see in the life and the teaching of St. Gregory Palamas. [archangelsbooks]

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

He was born Georgios S. Vlachos in Ioannina, Epirus, Greece, in 1945 and graduated from the theological school of the University of Thessaloniki. He took the monastic name Hierotheos and has been a priest since 1971. He served at the Archbishop’s House of Offices in Athens, as a preacher and Youth Director. He was consecrated bishop on July 20, 1995, and elected Metropolitan of Nafpaktos and St. Vlasios in the same year.

He taught Greek for several semesters and gave lectures on Orthodox ethics to the students of the St. John of Damascus Theological School at the University of the Patriarchate of Antioch, in northern Lebanon.

Already in his youth he was particularly interested in the Fathers of the Church, working for a time in the monastery libraries of Mount Athos, on the recording of the codices. He was especially interested in the teaching of St. Gregory Palamas.

The study of the patristic texts and particularly those of the hesychast Fathers of the Philokalia, many years of studying St. Gregory Palamas, association with the monks of the Holy Mountain (Mount Athos), and many years of pastoral experience, all brought him to the realisation that Orthodox theology is a science of the healing of man and that the neptic fathers can help the modern restless man who is disturbed by many internal and existential problems.

Within this framework he has written a multitude of books, the fruit of his pastoral work, among which is Orthodox Psychotherapy. Some of these books have been translated into various languages, such as English, French, Spanish, Russian, and Arabic. With these books he conveys the Orthodox spirit of the Philokalia to the restless and disturbed man of our time. This is why they have aroused so much interest.

EXCERPTS

As a lover of light, Palamas’ prayer could be considered my motto. this is from p.276

As any Orthodox writer, Gregory Palamas had a great love for the Theotokos. This excerpt p.292 is a good illustration of it:

I was struck by this passage related to the Transfiguration:
“The holy Fathers explain that they fell on their faces ‘not because of the voice, but because of the change and marvel of the light’.”
Therefore this voice was a vision of God.”
p.347

I liked this comment, because it reminded me of another major luminous event in the New Testament, that is, the conversion of Saint Paul. It is very interesting to see that in one passage, he explains that his companions could only see the light that blinded him, and in another passage, he says they could not see  anything, but hear a voice.

“The Transfiguration is a great event in the life of Christ, but especially in the lives of the Disciples.
It points to the height of the spiritual life,
reveals the meaning of our existence,
shows the path we should take in order to become real human beings.”
p.354

HAVE YOU READ THIS BOOK?
WHICH BOOK ON PALAMAS IS YOUR FAVORITE?
SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS  IN A COMMENT PLEASE

1 Mar

February wrap-up

Posted by WordsAndPeace in Audiobooks, Fiction, Historical novels, I Love France, Non-Fiction, Orthodoxy, Plays, Read in, Reading Challenges, Religion. Tagged: , , , , , .

Ouch, February is already over, it didn’t make much of a difference of having an extra day, did it?

At the reading level, I managed to reach 9 books, which is not bad for me, BUT I have not reviewed yet any of these 9 books, AND I still need to review 1 book read in January… [I will add the links as I review these books].

That’s 1136 pages, with an average of 39.1 pages/day
and 25:13 hours, with an average of 52 mn/day for the audiobooks

The culprit is mainly the 157-page book I had to translate, that’s over 67,000 words, so that was a lot of writing! I probably also spent too much time reading other blogs through my Google reader, and recommendations and reviews on Goodreads, not mentioning a few Words with friends games…

So let’s look at it positively now, here are the 9 books.

FICTION:

Le dieu du carnage, by Yasmina Reza
      recommended and sent by a French student!
Death of Kings, by Bernard Cornwell
     I had been waiting to read the latest in the series of the Saxon Chronicles
A Golden Age, by Tahmina Anam
     historical novel on the Bangladesh war of independence, for my 52-countries challenge
Macbeth, by Shakespeare
for another challenge. That’s a re-read, I studied it at length decades ago.

3 of these fiction books were audiobooks:

Cleopatra’s Daughter, by Michelle Moran
I loved so much Madame Tussaud that I want now to read other books by Moran
Mrs Pollifax and The Whirling Dervish, by Dorothy Gilman
       A fun fun mystery set in Morocco, again for that international challenge
And Then There Were None, by Agatha Christie
My library is launching a city reads focusing on mysteries, and this will be part of a book club, and there are so many books by Agatha Christie I feel I should know about

Here are my favorite fiction for the month, on paper and audio
the 2 mysteries I listened to were really good.

NON-FICTION

Exploring The Inner Universe, by Archimandrite Roman Braga
        By this amazing Orthodox priest I know, who spent years in prison and under torture during the communist regime in Romania.
That’s an interview on his life and on important issues in his country

CliffsNortes on Shakespeare’s Macbeth, by Alex Went
very well done, with interesting categories for study.

My favorite non-fiction

***

Reading Challenges recap

Around the World in 52 books:  12/52
Around the world in 12 books: 2/12
European reading challenge: 5/5 – COMPLETED
I love Italy: 0/1-3
Dewey Decimal: 12/20
We want you to read French authors: 5/5 or 10 (ends in August)
Books in translation: 3/10-12
South Asia: 2/7
Middle East: 2/18
My own reading challenge: 0/5
What’s in a Name: 3/5
Ebook challenge: 3/10
Audiobook: 3/12
Support your library: 14/37
Finishing the series: 1/1 – COMPLETED
2nds challenge: 2/3
Foodies: 1/3
Japanese literature: 0/? (starts in June)
Historical novels: 4/7-10
New authors challenge: 11/15
A Shakespeare play a month: 2/12
SHAKESPEARE READING MONTH: 1/1   -  COMPLETED
AUSTRALIAN LITERATURE MONTH: 1/1 – COMPLETED
DICKENS READING MONTH: 1/1  – COMPLETED
Graham Green Challenge: 0/1

***

Blog recap

December 2011:    29 posts =  total views =  1,718  = 55/day
January 2012:        21 posts =  total views =  2,165  = 70/day
February 2012:     10 posts! = total views=   1,310  = 45/day

How was YOUR month of February?

24 Feb

My favorite Lenten recipe: Lentil burgers

Posted by WordsAndPeace in Orthodoxy, Recipes. Tagged: , , , , , , , , .

Eastern Orthodox are one of the few, or the only?, surviving species of Christians who still take the fast very seriously, and I’m not only talking about monks and nuns, but about lay people as well.

We have several fasting periods during the year, the longest one being during the Great Lent, the weeks preparing to Pascha, that is, the celebration of Christ’s Resurrection.

We enter progressively into this fasting period, first by fasting of meat a week ahead, and then, it’s: no meat, no fish, no dairy, no egg, for 40 days.

Conclusion: you really need to be creative to provide healthy meals with enough proteins and nutrients.

I have shared this fantastic recipe with some friends, but more ask for it, and the page is totally gone from the internet, I cannot even access the cached copy! There are lots of Lentil burgers recipes out there, but I know for sure this one works really well

Thank God I had printed it.

So here it is, enjoy, it is so easy to make, totally Lenten, and so very good:

Makes 8 burgers – or more if you form small patties, which I tend to do.

  • 1 cup of lentils.  I also tried with red lentils, I thought it was even better
  • 4 cups of water
  • 1-1/2 cups of regular oats
  • 3/4 cup mild salsa [that's what makes everything stick together]
  • 1 tsp garlic powder
  • 1/2 tsp salt = totally unnecessary and not as healthy
  • 1/4 tsp black pepper
  1. Place the lentils in  4 cups of water
  2. Bring to a boil
  3. Reduce heat and simmer for 20 mn or until done
  4. Pour off the excess of water
  5. Allow to slightly cool
  6. Add oats through pepper to the lentils
  7. Mix thoroughly
  8. Place in the refrigerator and allow to cool completely

Next day if you wish:

  1. When ready to make, scoop out 1/2 cup of servings or less
  2. Form into a patty
  3. Place on a parchment paper lined baking sheet
  4. Bake at 400 degrees for 30 mn
  5.  Flip the patties
  6. Bake for 15 more mn

They are good warm or cold.

I usually make a lot and freeze some. They are also good eaten in a pita with salad leaves. Or any other creative way you may come up with!

TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK!
DO YOU HAVE A FAVORITE VEGAN/LENTEN RECIPE?

24 Feb

(2012) #9 Review: The Adventures of Hergé

Posted by WordsAndPeace in Graphic-Novels, Non-Fiction, Reading Challenges. Tagged: , , , , .

The Adventures of Hergé

by

José-Louis BOCQUET (Author), Jean-Luc Fromental (Author),
Helge Dascher (Author), Stanislas Barthélémy (Illustrator)

70 pages

Graphic biography

Published by Drawn and Quarterly in November 2011

This book counts for the following Reading Challenges:

      

MY THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS BOOK

When I go to the library, I often roam a bit through the graphic novel section, just in case there might be something interesting there.
This book caught my eye right away: I thought, ah Tintin in English! And a crowd of childhood memories raced to my mind: I did enjoy a lot Tintin comics, good plots, nice drawings, funny characters, and I had not read any for ages, and probably none in English.

So I picked up the book and realized it was actually a biography of Tintin’s creator: Hergé! AND I needed to read a book related to Belgium for my 52 countries Reading Challenge, so that was perfect!

My first confusion and a look at the cover here above tells you how cool this is: the illustrator imitated at perfection Hergé’s style.

I knew nothing about Hergé, so it was neat to discover who was the man behind Tintin, his childhood, his success with comics. As a child, I had of course no idea that there had even been some dark controversies related to Tintin and Nazism, really!

If you enjoy Tintin, you have to check out this book.

WHAT IS IT ABOUT

The Adventures of Hergé is a biographical comic about the world-renowned comics artist Georges Prosper Remi, better known by his pen name, Hergé. Meticulously researched, with references to many of the Tintin albums and complete with a bibliography and mini-bios for each of the main “characters,” the biography is appropriately drawn in Hergé’s iconic clear line style as an homage to the Tintin adventures that have commanded the attention of readers across the world and of many generations.

Seven-year-old Hergé first discovered his love of drawing in 1914 when his mother gave him some crayons to stay out of trouble. He continued drawing in school when he fatefully met the editor of XXe Siècle magazine, where Tintin first appeared. His popularity skyrocketed from the 1930s through post–World War Two. Hergé was perceived by some to have aided the Nazi government in Belgium by continuing to publish Tintin in a government-sanctioned magazine, and he was briefly imprisoned in the aftermath of the war and narrowly escaped execution. Also covered are his marriage troubles in the 1950s and subsequent affair with Fanny Vlamynck, who went on to become his lifelong partner; his late career in the 1960s, as his interest in Tintin waned and he occasionally “disappeared” for weeks at a time as he contemplated giving up his career to become a fine-arts painter; and a recounting of a humorous encounter with Andy Warhol.  [Goodreads]

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Little José-Louis was born in Neuilly-sur-Seine on 28 August 1962 and became passionate about good comic strips so quickly that at the age of 13, he founded Bizu, his own fanzine. He then established various illustrated anthologies for Bédérama, offering compilations of work by authors such as Franquin, Binet and Andréas.

To satisfy his passion for reading, he got a job with the Temps Futurs bookshop at the start of the 1980s and, together with friend and companion Jean-Luc Fromental, he took part in the production of the works of L’Année de la Bande Dessinée), published by that Parisian temple of cartoons and science-fiction.

His first articles started to appear in Metal Hurlant and he became a press attaché for Humanoïdes Associés in 1983, then became their collections editor. His first scripts were illustrated by Serge Clerc (“Les mémoires de l’espion”), Arno (Anton Six and “Kriegspiel”), Franz (“Mémoires d’un .38″, in collaboration with Fromental), Max (“Panzer Panik”) and Biard (“Le 38° Parallèle”, in collaboration with Rivière).

It was working with François Rivière on scripts and with Philippe Berthet for illustrations that he commenced his most ambitious series in 1983, “Le Privé d’Hollywood”. Fuelled by the old-style detective novels by Stuart Kaminsky and the initial works of the Série Noire, this reconstruction of an America which disappeared a long time ago has retained all of its charm, a fact confirmed by its reissue as a complete version in 1999.

From 1989 to 1991, he wrote scripts for Francis Vallés” trilogy of the adventures of the reporter Dorian Dombre (for Glénat) and endeavoured to bring back memories of Jerry Spring with Franz (“Fureur Apache”, for Alpen in 1990).

In 1991, he and Jean-Baptiste Gilou took part in the creation of La Sirène publications in which he published a monumental monograph on film director Henri-Georges Clouzot. A man with taste and many talents, he was also assistant editor in chief on Salut Les Copains and presenter on TF 1, but writing remained his biggest pleasure and it is therefore no surprise to find several of his novels in the catalogue of Série Noire and other popular editors.

In 1997, he worked with Marie-Ange Guillaume on editing a biography of René Goscinny for Actes-Sud and he provided the script to “Timbrés rares” for Antonio Cossu and Louis Joos. [goodreads]

The list of his work is impressive. See here.

REVIEWS BY OTHERS

“A useful introduction to one of the 20th century’s most important cartoonists.”-Hollywood Reporter

“[An} intriguing…curiosity…Effortless charm."–New City, Chicago

"Offers greater rewards for dedicated fans than those purely interested by the big-screen adaptation."–THE AUSTRALIAN

"Barthélémy wisely evokes Remi’s style without attempting to copy it…the book evokes an unspoken fusion between its subject and his work…One can almost imagine slipping the pages of The Adventures of Hergé between the Tintin albums themselves, filling in blanks and bridging gaps. Somewhere between this episodic but evocative comic-book bio and Tintin’s own adventures lies the story of Georges Remi, hidden in the white expanses that separate one panel from the next." –SLATE

"Delightfully drawn in a style that’s an uncanny homage to the late artist…The universal appeal and sheer volume of material, along with its consistent quality and rich cast of characters make it an appealing and rich expression of the medium and society. This graphic bio of the man behind the character is well worth the trip."–THE MIAMI HERALD [on the publisher's website]

HAVE YOU READ THIS BOOK YET?
ANY LOVING MEMORY OF TINTIN??
DO YOU FEEL LIKE READING THIS BOOK?
SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS  IN A COMMENT PLEASE

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »