Tag Archives: booklists

Customs and Duties

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It is my custom to search second-hand bookstores when I visit a new location. 
I believe it is my duty to share my success.

There are a plethora of charity shops in the UK.  Initially this confused us; I truly wondered what one bought in a store called British Heart Association or Help The Aged.  We found the best deals at Oxfam Bookshops where books sold for £1 – £3.


The tankard on the right, in need of cleaning, was 50 pence!
We found it in Lutterworth, the final home of John Wycliffe.

After visiting the Edinburgh Castle, we hit our saturation point with castles and palaces.  We ditched plans for the Holyrood Palace and hit the bookstore district. We walked down five flights of stairs and several blocks where six independent second-hand bookshops huddled together under the castle’s shadow.  

Some shops were elegant, with a tweed-wearing, trim-bearded proprietor.  Their prices, alas, were also elegant. One shop was shabby, shelves sagging with the weight of books.  I have never seen such a vast collection of first edition Henty books in my life.  I say, there is nothing quite so seductive as a shelf full of good-condition, Victorian hardbound books for boys. 


More of our 50 pence ($1 to us) brass, found in a box in front of a store.
(Cleaning them up is on my list of stuff to do.)


The best finds were all from Curt’s patient, methodical search through the shelves.  Oh the glorious books he found! If I were a rustic oafish man, talking about my wife, I’d say something cheesy like, “I think I’ll keep her.”  Still, he is a keeper, and I’m so glad that wonderful book-finding man is my keeper. 


All edited by “Q”, Arthur Quiller-Couch.
If you are not drooling, you ought to be!

 
Curt found this early in our trip and read about half during the trip.
 John Ploughman is a generic name like John Doe.
My favorite quote from Spurgeon’s preface,
“There is no particular virtue in being seriously unreadable.”


This Scottish Psalter and Church Hymnary was given to me
on our final day in Scotland by a lovely Glaswegian family.
The split in the page allows you to mix and match tunes with the metrical psalms.

If you were writing this post, I  would want to see, in its entirety, a list of the books you got.  Following the Golden Rule, here’s the whole enchilada:

John Ploughmans’ Talk,  C.H. Spurgeon I believe this is the best find.  Quotes to come!
In Search of Scotland,  (1929) H. V. Morton, a travel writer
In Search of England,  (1927) H. V. Morton
In the Steps of The Master,  (1934) H. V. Morton, on Palestine
A Child’s Book of Prayer in Art, (1995) Sister Wendy Beckett
The Laughing Christ, (1933) Pearson Choate, an intriguing look at how Christ in portrayed in art; we couldn’t pass it up
The Herb of Grace, (1948) Elizabeth Goudge

 “It was wonderful what high-faluting theories about suffering one could formulate when one did not happen to be suffering oneself.”

Trains and Buttered Toast, (2006) John Betjeman, Radio talks for the BBC in 1932-1952
The Nature Notes of An Edwardian Lady, (1989) Edith Holden,  lush watercolors, a jewel of a book
Scotland, Food and Drink, (1982) John Fisher
Collected Poems of G.K. Chesteron (1941) wickedly clever, a mix of light and heavy verse
Cautionary Verses Omnibus Edition, (1993) Hilaire Belloc I think adults like these more than children!
Stories Essays and Poems, (1963) Hilaire Belloc
The Path to Rome, (1902) Hilaire Belloc ‘The only book I ever wrote for love.’ 
Places, (1942) Hilaire Belloc 

“And yet one can’t help wishing, at least I can’t help wishing, that people in this country knew more about other people.”

Wild Wales, (1905) George Borrow my friend highly recommended this author
Lavengro, (1851) George Borrow
That House That Is Our Own, (1940) O. Douglas
Eliza for Common, (1930) O. Douglas
The Day of Small Things (1933) O. Douglas

“O. Douglas never forgets that kindness knocks cleverness to the back of beyond.”

My World of Islands, (1983) Leslie Thomas a book I was looking for
A Hole Is To Dig, (1952) Ruth Krauss, if you have a child in your life, you must have this book
The Mortification of Sin, John Owen
Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, (1939) T.S. Eliot priceless fun
Locations, (1992) Jan Morris – Zinsser recommended this author
The Kitchen Congregation, (2000) Nora Seton, I couldn’t resist the title
Bunyan Characters (1894) Alexander Whyte a lovely hardbound to hold in your hands
Fathers of the Kirk (1960) ed. Ronald Selby Wright short vignettes, including one on Chalmers
The Child That Books Built, (2002) Francis Spufford the cover drew me in
Country Bunch, (1963) Miss Read

“In it Miss Read shares her astonishing breadth of reading with us…”

The Warden, (1855) The Last Chronicle of Barset (1967), An Autobiography (1883) Anthony Trollope

Books 2006, Second Half

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1776 I listened to and read this book.
Excellent.  But, of course, it’s McCullough!


Johnstown Flood quite good history from industrial period
Folks now are trying to imitate McCullough, but he’s the best.


Blue Shoes and Happiness I like Mma Ramotswe, but I this one let me down.


The Best Things of Life pretty good, humorous in places

Devices and Desires, Death of An Expert Witness & Death in Holy Orders
P.D. James is a skilled mystery writer;
some of her books have uncomfortable elements;
all of her books have wonderful literary and cultural references


84, Charing Cross Road A jewel of a book
Listened to it, read it, watched the movie.
My husband looked at me and said,
“This woman is you!”
Which isn’t quite true, but a high compliment.


The Imitation of Christ William Griffith translator.  I read an excerpt
of this translation in another book and immediately bought this one.
This was such a treat to read.  Short chapters. Incandescent.
Perfect for the, ahem, “water closet”.

An Old Man’s Love My introduction to Anthony Trollope
Not his best, but a poignant, engaging story.
They took engagement promises pretty seriously back then.


The Warden I distinctly remember how wealthy I felt after reading
my second Anthony Trollope novel.  Oh my!  There are many more
treats waiting for me out there.  This is the first of the six Barset chronicles.

Body for Life for Women Good stuff;
the “before” pictures in bikinis…shudder.


Imagined London About Anna’s first visit  to London, replete with literary references.

Get the Sugar Out Ann Louise Gittleman writes a practical book.
I know (in a gnostic sense) how helpful this would be,
but just doing it would take radical steps.

10 Habits That Mess Up a Woman’s Diet
Yikes! I can only remember one habit – not drinking enough water.

The Fat Flush Plan Detox your liver. It worked for me when I did it.


The Secret of Father Brown You can not go wrong with G.K. Chesterton.
But, his Father Brown books are, hands down, the easiest to read.

Five Red Herrings Another Lord Peter Wimsey book by Dorothy Sayers.
Witty, clever, literary, I enjoy Dorothy Sayers for her own sake;
however, I am pressed to read them often at my son’s request pleas .

The Nine Tailors by Dorothy Sayers.  I enjoyed this Lord Peter book immensely.
I learned a LOT about campanology, the kind of bell ringing
you hear in England when royalty is married or dies.

The Catnappers by P.G. Wodehouse.
Every year needs a bit of Wodehouse.

Jeeves and the Tie That Binds by P.G. Wodehouse.
Jeeves is my greatest friend when it comes to educating my teenage son.
Collin enjoys “getting” the many references made by Bertie’s smart butler, Jeeves.

The Art of the Hand Written Note, by Margaret Shephard.
I love books on books; I also love books on writing.


The Long Valley This collection of short stories was my first Steinbeck.
Short and readable, they are also deep, textured, thoughtful.
So began my Stuck on Steinbeck stage.

The Church History Eusebius’ classic isn’t a book I’d casually
take up and read. It was good. If you don’t believe me,
read this excerpt.


Temperament was the most challenging book I read in 2006.
It helped me comprehend other books, particularly about the medieval period.


My Life with the Great Pianists I was looking for a graduation gift
for a young pianist and discovered this gem. One for her, one for me.

The Greatest English Classic this book by Cleland McAfee was thrust in my hand
by an erudite retired gentleman, a good friend. It is a series of lectures on the
impact the King James Version of the Bible had on language and culture.
It was a treat to read the original 1912 hardback.


Herriot’s books were the first books Curt and I read together.
Every Living Thing is more sweet cream reading.

The Unaborted Socrates more Peter Kreeft; pretty good


Year of Magical Thinking Didion chronicles her first year as a widow.
Poignant writing; hard to read emotionally; raw, honest, hollow, sorrowful.
I’m not sorry I read it, though.


This Boy’s Life I picked up this book at a sale; the cover drew me.
I devoured this memoir; be warned – it has mature themes.
It left me uneasy and off-balance.


Old School is the sequel to This Boy’s Life.
A boy bluffs (lies) his way into a East Coast prep school
as a scholarship student. Compelling reading that made me ponder.

The Summer of the Great-Grandmother with this I finished L’Engles
Crosswick Journals. The joys and irritations of cross-generational living.

The Sphinx at Dawn I read this L’Engle because it was a L’Engle.
But I don’t remember much about it.

Moonlight on the Millpond & Just Above a Whisper
Okay. I’m embarrassed.  I read these romances. I lost one afternoon of my life.

Red House Mystery Diane at Circle of Quiet said this “if feels like a P.G. Wodehouse mystery if such a thing existed.” I wholeheartedly concur.  Delightful.

  Low Country I listened to this by mistake. I thought it was the author Janie at Seasonal Soundings loved.  Wrong. So so.


The Man Who Was Thursday a unique book that intrigued me


Ballad of the White Horse Considered the last epic poem
written, this work tells the story of King Alfred fighting the Vikings.
Full of lush imagery, it is worth the effort to read it.

The Moonstone I had never heard of Wilkie Collins before 2006.
Then some blogger wrote about Wilkie Colllins in such a way,
 that I thought I ought to know his stuff.
I listened to The Moonstone; I think this book is better read.
I’m planning on reading A Woman in White….someday.

Books 2006, First Half

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I know. It is 2008.  2006 was the first year I tracked my reading.  I’m just getting this on the blog for archival purposes. 

Laddie a classic I will always love and  re-read


The Kite Runner  powerful writing, gritty story


Cry, the Beloved Country aching beauty, potent message


Till We Have Faces better the second time; deep

Garden Graces inspiring; great quotes


French Women Don’t Get Fat great ideas, clear-headed

Chosen By God a readable explanation of predestination


Shadows on the Rock charming girl, lovely geography, 1697 Quebec

A Lost Lady I didn’t care for this Willa Cather


The Song of the Lark  Cather captures the mystery of music

The Magic of Honey whatever

Teacher Man great in a few places; edgy

 
Humility highly excellent little book

The Histories often icky, sometimes interesting, never rivoting

Financial Peace Revisited solid, foundational; I loathe debt

Meacham, A Wide Spot on the Trail local history of a ghost town we pass often

A Song I Knew by Heart light reading, Ruth and Naomi in South Carolina


Tender At the Bone Memoirs fascinate me; this was particularly good

The Scotswoman historical fiction; Flora McDonald; mediocre writing

More to Be Desired Than Gold by a Christian in Kabul; great stories, poor presentation


Boy: Tales of Childhood fun book, far exceeds his best fiction

The Oedipus Cycle never again.  Never. Again.

The Quotidian Mysteries tiny book; incredible quotes

Sailing the Wine Dark Sea Cahill is spotty; helpful in places

The Giver provocative children’s book; leaves you wondering

Blue Shoes and Happiness McCall Smith not up to snuff with this Mma Ramotswe book

Last Days of Socrates it was duty that made me read it

Final Witness by Tolkien’s grandson; don’t bother

Stacks of Books, Glorious Tottering Stacks

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 Yay for the Winter Reading Challenge hosted by Kathleen!

In the first place, I always find it hard to realign my stack to reality.
For instance, look at all the beautiful books which are NOT on my list!

I didn’t it find it hard to get a stack of books going.
There are some gaps for books to read with my son and my neice.
I have some borrowed books in the picture below
and one lender reads this blog.  Uh-oh!

There are the good lenders, the friends who share your taste
and thrust a book into your hand with promises that you will like it.
I’m a book-thruster from way back.  It’s one of my vices.
My husband keeps trying to curtail my book-thrusting tendencies.

Because….there are the books which are thrust upon you almost,
umm, against your will.  You know what I mean?
“I really want you to read this book,” the well-meaner says.
One of these books fits that category, but I can’t say which one.
But I digress…

I’m reading My Antonia with my niece.
I’m trying to read Wives and Daughters before the Netflix envelope comes.
The Intellectual Life: I suppose I’m the last one on this bus.
The Lives of A Cell – Poiema wrote so compellingly about this title.
A Natural History of Latin delights me.  I must finish it…and return it….yesterday.

If you are new to Magistra, you might not know that
my husband and I are taking a trip to Scotland and England next spring.
Almost every event in life requires a book to read first, agreed?
Come on!  How many of us read
What to Expect when we were expecting?
I’ve never traveled over the ocean, so I’m delighted with these books.

And two titles needed a full cover shot:
At Home with Beatrix Potter

Don’t these make your lips numb?

And here is command center, ready for bedtime.

“The contents of someone’s bookcase are part of his history,
like an ancestral portrait.”
~  Anatole Broyard

Winter Reading Challenge

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Kathleen at Rock Creek Rumblings is hosting the Winter Reading Challenge.  The rules are as easy as ramen noodles, and the result is much more nourishing. You list the books you intend to read in December, January and February.  It could be one book, it could be five: it’s not a competition.  The idea is to read intentionally.  You might say it is planning your menu instead of figuring out your consumption on the fly.  Consider joining us. (I’m adding my list to this post later today.)

I’m getting excited about a Christmas project we’re doing for our grandson Gavin who is almost three years old.  We are buying him children’s books and making CDs of Papa and Nana reading the books.  His folks asked us not to give him toys this year (he has so many already); with a mischievous grin said that he liked books.  As if books weren’t my favorite gift in the world to give.  As if.  Curt said, “I get Yellow and Pink!”  I’m still too delighted about the idea to make a decision on which books to read.

I try to read 50 pages a day.  It’s a baseline I’ve decided on, just like trying to drink two quarts of water daily.  During these dark winter nights I run into this problem…

Reading Myself to Sleep
by Billy Collins

The house is all in darkness except for this corner bedroom
where the lighthouse of a table lamp is guiding
my eyes through the narrow channels of print,

and the only movement in the night is the slight
swirl of curtains, the easy lift and fall of my breathing,
and the flap of pages as they turn in the wind of my hand.

Is there a more gentle way to go into the night
than to follow an endless rope of sentences
and then to slip drowsily under the surface of a page

into the first tentative flicker of a dream,
passing out of the bright precincts of attention
like cigarette smoke passing through a window screen?

All late readers know this sinking feeling of falling
into the liquid of sleep and then rising again
to the call of a voice that you are holding in your hands,

as if pulled from the sea back into a boat
where a discussion is raging on some subject or other,
on Patagonia or Thoroughbreds or the nature of war.

Is there a better method of departure by night
than this quiet bon voyage with an open book,
the sole companion who has come to see you off,

to wave you into the dark waters beyond language?
I can hear the rush and sweep of fallen leaves outside
where the world lies unconscious, and I can feel myself

dissolving, drifting into a story that will never be written,
letting the book slip to the floor where I will find it
in the morning when I surface, wet and streaked with daylight.

Baskets of Books

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This is an incomplete gathering of books I’ve received for free!! (sorta)
since I joined PaperBackSwap in July.
Color me tickled pink.

If this was your blog, I’d want to see close ups.
So here they are!

 
Some of these are for school, but a lot are for pleasure edification (cough, cough).
After Kristin Lavransdatter, I want to read more Sigrid Unset.
(See The Axe above?)
My son compels me to read Dorothy Sayer’s mysteries.
He won’t let up until I’ve read them all.

Here’s the deal.
You need to list 9 books that you are willing to mail when
a member requests one of them. You have five days to mail a book
after it has been requested.
After you’ve listed 9 books, you get 3 “gift” credits.
 [Soon it will be list 10 books, get 2 credits.]

A credit = a free book.
You find a book you’d like, request it, and the member
who posted that book sends it to you for free. Yippee!!

Essentially, you are getting a book for the price of postage
to mail the book that got you the credit. (~ $2.13).
You are clearing off your shelves of books you don’t need to keep
and getting books you want to read.

“Organization is the key to life,”
says my dear SIL Valeri. 
I have a cupboard in the garage dedicated to books
I’m selling or swapping so they don’t get
co-mingled with my collection.

Kristin, who referred me to PBS, gave good advice:
the key to PBS is the Wish List.
There are 180 books on my Wish List right now.
When a title enters the system and I’m first in line,
I get first dibs at ordering it.

So now, when I read delicious blogs and delectable
book lists, I scoot over to PBS and enter those
titles on my wish list.

When our pastor told us about a Dostoevsky
short story (White Nights) which is required reading
for his daughters, I put it on my Wish List.
Now it’s in the mail to me.  Ha!

I laughed out loud after I’d ordered a book (unknowingly)
from Cindy at Dominion Family.  She sent me a message
asking, “Are you Magistra?”
and threw in another book from Grant’s list. Ha, Ha!

And sneaky Carmon found my PBS Wish List
and sent me a book for my birthday from that list! Ha, Ha, Ha!!

This basket of books is my firewood for the winter;
fuel for my mind, stacked up, pressed down
and overflowing.

Modern Fiction and Verse

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Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch

Dr. Grant’s best of Modern Fiction and Verse.

1. Oxford Book of English Verse, Arthur Quiller-Couch (partially read)

2. The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien

3. The Father Brown Stories, G.K. Chesterton

4. Witch Wood, John Buchan

5. The Four Quartets, T.S. Eliot

6. The Space Trilogy, C.S. Lewis

7. A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

8. The Four Men, Hilaire Belloc

9. Penhally, Caroline Gordon

10. Collected Stories, William Faulkner

11. The Wizzard of Oz, L.Frank Baum

12. Charlotte’s Web, E.B. White

13. Scaramouche, Rafael Sabatini

14. The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco

15. Kristen Lavransdatter, Sigrid Undset

16. Love in the Ruins, Walker Percy

17. The Velvet Horn, Andrew Lytle

18. The Footsteps at the Lock, Ronald Knox

19. The Weekend Wodehouse, P.G. Wodehouse

20. Falling, Colin Thubron

21. Little House on the Prairie, Laura Ingles Wilder

22. The Anubis Gates, Tim Powers

23. Song of the Lark, Willa Cather

24. Possession, A.S. Byatt

25. At Home in Mitford, Jan Karon

I’ve read
I plan to read

Questions that arise:

1.  Where, oh where, is Wendell Berry?
2.  Really, where is Wendell Berry?
3.  Who else is missing, in your humble opinion?
4.  Which ones have you never heard of? (Colin Thubron and A.S. Byatt for me)
5.  Of the books on this list which would be your favorite?
6.  Don’t you just love talking about books?

Modern Non Fiction Books

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I had a “Simple Pleasures in September” post all planned in my brain until the gust from two friends blew those plans to the Marshall Islands.  Now I’ve got a terminal case of Maddy Prior and book lists.  We all love book lists, don’t we, precious? If you are a glutton for tilting and tottering stacks of books, stick around.  If you “don’t have time to read” walk on by.  I’ll pray for you.  [Please!  I’m joking.  I crazy silly happy.]

This is a list of best books by one of the best best-books guys around, George Grant.  He is certainly in the top five of most influential people in my life.  If he is unfamiliar to you, go here, and start exploring.  These lists are in a book he wrote with his wife, Shelf Life. 

Let’s make this a book meme:  Copy the list and color code it however you’d like.  Books I’ve read are, of course, red.  Books I’ve just ordered from PaperBackSwap and am planning on reading within the next year are purple.  Books on my shelf are brown.

There are six sets of lists on George Grant’s site.  Let’s take one at a time, shall we?  Oh, people, September is my favorite month, and this is just whipped cream on top of my mocha. 

Modern Non Fiction

1. Orthodoxy, G.K. Chesterton
2. The Stone Lectures, Abraham Kuyper
3. Knowing God, J.I. Packer
4. Mont St. Michel and Chartres, Henry Adams (Yikes! I’ve never heard of this one!)
5. The Servile State, Hilaire Belloc
6. Up From Slavery, Booker T. Washington
7. The Birth of the Modern, Paul Johnson
8. Hero Tales of American History, Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge
9. The Gathering Storm, Winston Churchill
10. A World Torn Apart, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
11. Home, Witold Rybczynski (another yikes!)
12. A Texan Looks at Lyndon, J. Evetts Haley (huh???)
13. How the Other Half Lives, Jacob Riis
14. My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers
15. I’ll Take My Stand, Donald Davidson, et al.
16. George Whitefield. Arnold Dallimore
17. 84 Charing Cross Road, Helene Hanff
18. The Calvinistic Concept of Culture, Henry Van Til
19. A Wake for the Living, Andrew Lytle
20. A Christian Manifesto, Francis Schaeffer
21. Where Nights Are Longest, Colin Thubron
22. Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman
23. Civil Rights, Thomas Sowell
24. Essays and Criticisms, Dorothy Sayers
25. Ideas Have Consequences, Richard M. Weaver

Well,  I’m off to  to add books to my wish list (up to 159 books!)

Introductions

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Having
finished one book, I’m starting three. 

Three books, three introductions. 

Ursula
K. Le Guin’s opening paragraph to Buffalo
Gals and Other Animal Presences resonated with me.  I, too, prefer to read the introduction after I’ve read the book, a behavior
I’ve never heard spoken of before.  Any
one else do this? 

Having done introductions before, I
have found that many readers loathe them,
reviewers sneer at them, and critics
dismiss them; and then they all tell
me so.  As for myself, I rather like
introductions, but generally read them
after reading what they were supposed to introduce me to.  Read as extra-ductions,
they are often interesting and useful. 
But that won’t do.  Ductions must be intro, and come first, like
salad in restaurants, a lot of  cardboard
lettuce with bits of red wooden cabbage soaked in dressing, so that you’re disabled for the entrée.

 


Thomas
Cahill’s latest book in his Hinges of History series, Mysteries of the Middle Ages, The Rise of Feminism, Science, and Art
from the Cults of Catholic Europe, is a lush, beautiful book.  The type, sidebars, illustrations, yea, even
the paper announce: this book is special. 
I’m unsure of his premises and am feeling a bit reserved about the book.  But these words warmed me:

 

All across Europe,
a pilgrimage in company with others was a life-defining event and one of the
principal satisfactions of a well-tuned life. […]  I invite
you on a pilgrimage, dear Reader.  Come
along with me (and many others) to places
we have never seen before and to people we could  otherwise never have expected to know. We are surely
sundry folk, as Chaucer would have
called us, and we shall meet sundry folk even more exotic than ourselves.  “By
adventure”—by happenstance—we have fallen into
fellowship.

 

Barbara
Tuchman’s introduction to A Distant
Mirror, The Calamitous 14th Century  provided the best reason I’ve
ever read for learning historical dates– in one short sentence.  Oh man, this revved my engine.

Dates may seem dull and pedantic to
some, but they are fundamental because
they establish sequence—what precedes and what follows—thereby leading toward an understanding of cause and effect.

Here’s a sequence I’ve pondered, one I’ve never seen mentioned in
print.  What does The Fall of Constantinople
to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 have to do with
Luther’s Reformation of 1517?  Have you
ever wondered why Martin Luther died from natural causes at the age of 62, when
many reformers/heretics were burned at the stake before and after him?  Charles V wanted to deal with Luther, but the
Ottoman Turks were knocking at the door of Vienna. 
Hmm.  So the threat of Islam gave
the Reformation a small period of incubation. 
I talked to a missionary to Turks living in Germany and posited this
theory.  He nodded vigorously and said
that the connection is something many Moslems are aware of.

 

Random Ramblings

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»  One of my piano students is learning the bass clef line notes.  Do you remember the mnemonic ditties?  The bass clef space notes are ACEG: All Cows Eat Grass.  The bass clef lines are GBDFA; and we all know that Good Boys Deserve Fudge Always. I must have skipped over this self evident truth. My dear little student  made up her own menmonic starting from the top: All Fat Dinosaur Babies Growl. =)

»   Last week I heard what qualifies as the Most Absurd Question in the world.  My friend told me about going to a neurologist who asked her:

Have you been bathing in toxic substances?

Say What??  She was tempted to reply, “Only on Tuesdays.”

»   On our way home yesterday we saw a lovely little family of wild turkeys.  Approaching them made them skittish but here are a couple pictures.

»   Add these “just borrowed” books to my Summer Reading Challenge.  The Good Husband of Zebra Drive  by Alexander McCall Smith and A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini.

»  Add these “must reads” to my Summer Reading Challenge: North of Ithaka by Eleni Gage and Eleni by Nicholas Gage.  HT (and thanks) to Di.  My niece is in Greece!  She’s not yet, but “will be in Greece” doesn’t pop with the same rhythm.  My niece received a fellowship to study in Greece this summer. [Doesn’t that sound like a spelling sentence?] So while she is soaking up the Athenian sun, I must read something that will help me be with her in spirit.  Eleni is at our library in both the book and the audiobook. I love, love, love, books about other cultures, as evidenced in the four additions to my summer list.

»   Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott is due back at the library today, no more renewals.  It’s taking some time to copy so many passages into my journal.  “Becoming a better writer is going to help you become a better reader, and that is the real payoff.” p. 10