A couple of other places you can find posts by me this week: At Shiny New Books a review of a powerful new novel set in the brothels of ancient Pompeii, The Wolf Den by Elodie Harper. And my essay "Seeking the Honey of Life" was published in Kosmos Quarterly. I'm honored to be part … Continue reading Enchanted elsewhere
Over at A Gallimaufry, a Sylvia Townsend Warner Reading Week is happening from June 28 to July 4. I'm always up for investigating another blogger's enthusiasms, and I've been meaning to read something else by STW (I'd only read Lolly Willowes). So I checked out The Corner That Held Them from the library, and set … Continue reading “Lively and discursive as Chaucer’s pilgrims”: The Corner That Held Them
For English speakers, one of the main hazards in learning a language like French or German is the existence of informal and formal versions for the second person (you). This used to be part of English as well -- "thou" was informal, though now it sounds extra formal and archaic to our ears. However, this … Continue reading A formal feeling
Alternatives to Goodreads come up now and then, and I check them out because I'm not wild about the Amazon monopoly. I'm not sure how my using GR would profit Amazon since I almost never buy books from them, and my reviews don't attract lots of views and excitement. Still, I am always interested in … Continue reading Is there an alternative to Goodreads?
This month brought quite a bounty of reading delights. On spiritual topics, I finished Open Mind, Open Heart by Thomas Keating, which I've been reading in my ongoing study of Centering Prayer, as well as another book by Richard Rohr, and a memoir suggested by Rohr's emails, The Choice by Holocaust survivor Edith Eger. An … Continue reading Month in Review: May 2021
If you're participating in the Summer in Other Languages challenge, welcome! I'm looking forward to three months of reading and sharing about our adventures, as we read books originally written in languages other than our own. Click on the link for more information about the challenge. By the way, I know there are lots of … Continue reading Summer in Other Languages: The journey begins
Stella Gibbons, The Swiss Summer (1951), A Pink Front Door (1959), The Weather at Tregulla (1962), The Snow-Woman (1969) Sometimes all I ask from a book is to transport me to someplace different so I can meet and live with another set of people for a while. If the scenery of that place is attractive, … Continue reading Beyond cold comfort: Four by Stella Gibbons
Thanks to all those who weighed in on my Make me read it challenge last month, I successfully knocked at least one book off my longstanding TBR pile! I'd love to ask for your help again, this time to decide what book I should read next in French (which will also count for my Summer … Continue reading Make me read it: French edition
Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower, 1993 I read Parable of the Sower for my "Make me read it challenge" -- blog readers told me which of five choices on my TBR shelf to complete. I'm not sure I would have gotten through it without the challenge, because this is a helluva bleak dystopian vision … Continue reading You made me read it: Parable of the Sower
If you use WordPress, you know that a while ago they pushed upon us a new way of viewing and editing our posts, called the "Gutenberg Block Editor." I always resist changes in my computerized life, having usually just gotten used to the last innovation by the time the next one appears. So I stuck … Continue reading How are you doing with the block editor?
