Literature One thing leads to another in my reading life ... Mind Over Medicine by Lissa Rankin, read in the course of looking for answers to my health issues, led me to Rankin's website and online courses, and thus to a quote from Kitchen Table Wisdom by Rachel Naomi Remen, which I immediately sought out, … Continue reading Month in Review: September 2022
This week's TTT focuses on books with covers that are all or mostly text-based. I love me a good typographic cover, but I could not think of any off the top of my head, so I scrolled through my Goodreads lists of read and want-to-read books to see what I could find. It was not … Continue reading Top Ten Typographic Covers
The second book of the Dark Is Rising readalong, hosted by AnnaBookBel, is The Dark Is Rising itself -- originally titled The Gift of Gramarye, but a publisher nixed that because of the fear that young readers would think the book was about grammar. Point taken, but in fact the chapter in which our protagonist, … Continue reading #TDiRS22: Into the darkness
On our way back from Bivio this summer, we took a jaunt through northern Italy to visit a friend of my husband's for a few days. This was the Sudtirol region, which has close ties with neighboring Austria, and where German is still mixed in with Italian in a lot of places. Interestingly, as soon … Continue reading Postcards from Switzerland (and Italy): Two sacred sites
My Summer in Other Languages project for 2022 is now over. I didn't do much, basically just reading one book in French ... but every little bit helps. I'd really like to get back to working on German now. I've actually been quite surprised and pleased that my conversational skills seem to have improved quite … Continue reading A poem in translation: The Rockface by Conrad Ferdinand Meyer
Literature This month, I really wanted to get back to my Reading Around the World project, and I had some great journeys through Europe with a teenage backpacker, around the Middle East with fictional displaced Palestinians, and to Malaysia via a fantasy novel about ghosts and the bonds of family. The latter was in anticipation … Continue reading Month in Review: August 2022
Here we go with the first month of a Dark Is Rising readalong hosted by AnnaBookBel. Following on the heels of Narniathon, I'm excited to share this journey through another of my favorite childhood series with you. Illustration by Laura Carlin The first book, however, was not one of my childhood favorites, because I never … Continue reading #TDiRS22: An ominous beginning
This year, I've been making a concerted effort to improve my health, especially regarding the digestive issues and migraine headaches that have plagued me for almost half my life. With a number of transitions in my life going on, including a move to Switzerland at the same time as going through menopause , things really … Continue reading #OneWord2022: The health connection
I picked this prompt from the Support Book Bloggers Challenge because my reading is very influenced by other bloggers -- probably at least half the books I read are due to this. The reason can range from individual reviews, to a blogger's love for a particular author, to specific reading events, and even personal recommendations. … Continue reading Support Book Bloggers Challenge: Books I read because of other bloggers
At the start of Europe's heat wave in July, we decamped for cooler climes in the Alps. We stayed in the delightful town of Bivio in Val Surses, just across the Julierpass from the famous Engadin valley where my husband and I had stayed shortly after we were married 18 years ago. We got to … Continue reading Postcards from Switzerland: Val Surses and Engadin
