My life has changed. I can't go into details, but as of April, my life changed entirely in big, beautiful ways. Along with these changes came much, much increased busy-ness. In all actuality, I finished this book well before that big change, I just never got to blogging it.
BUT I have started reshuffling life, and have started doing early mornings in order to get a bit of 'me' time in before everyone wakes up. This will get me back to exercising, cooking, and... blogging!
I'm reading, I promise. I've actually taken out a bunch of young adult books, as the boys are exploring more, and there are many books in that genre I never read. Right now I'm reading Tuck Everlasting. I'm also reading The Guns of August (less young adult, more history classic).
In terms of finished products, the only book I've completed that I have not blogged is The Untold History of the Potato by John Reader. I am too lazy to post a picture of it this evening, but the cover shows a predictable photo of a large, red spud!
It was an interesting history. It's very easy for a history that is focused on a more mundane product can miss the mark, most often due to a lack of research (the first few chapters of A History of the World in 6 Glasses by Mark Standage were quite painful). However, centering a history on the humble potato was quite a pleasant journey, from the archaeology to the history to the present. To be honest, I finished the read long enough ago that there are no specifics to point at and pick at. I think the most painful thing to read was that, prior to the Irish Potato Famine, they had already figured out how to deal with blight - it just wasn't acted on and publicized in time to help. Imagine how different the world, particularly North America, would be, if so many Irish had not left to escape the famine. Harry Turtledove needs to have a moment with that one!
Title: The Untold History of the Potato
Published: 2008
Pages: 278
Total books blogged: 15
Total pages: 4985
Wednesday 18 June 2014
Thursday 27 March 2014
Completed: Zhou Daguan: A Record of Cambodia - The Land and Its People
I started this when I went to Toronto in October 2012. I brought it with me because it wasn't very long/heavy to carry on a plane. I feel like it was so long ago and I have no recollection of when I actually finished it - months ago now.
It is one of those historical documents that has a shimmer of stardust around the corners. A memoir by someone who actually spent a year among the population of an active, inhabited and bustling Angkor Wat? How incredible!
However, first impressions are often deceiving. It's not that it isn't indeed such a memoir by such a traveller. It's that what Zhou Daguan left behind was likely much more than has survived to today, and what does remain is not extensive, likely rearranged and trimmed/chopped at least once. What remains is a quite dry description without a lot of details or scene setting. From a modern perspective, it's still wonderful to have even that tiny glimpse. But it's such a tiny snapshot that it leaves you wanting so much more!
Title: Zhou Daguan's A Record of Cambodia - the Land and Its People
Translated with an introduction and notes by: Peter Harris
Published: 2007
Pages: 135
Total books blogged: 14
Total pages: 4707
It is one of those historical documents that has a shimmer of stardust around the corners. A memoir by someone who actually spent a year among the population of an active, inhabited and bustling Angkor Wat? How incredible!
However, first impressions are often deceiving. It's not that it isn't indeed such a memoir by such a traveller. It's that what Zhou Daguan left behind was likely much more than has survived to today, and what does remain is not extensive, likely rearranged and trimmed/chopped at least once. What remains is a quite dry description without a lot of details or scene setting. From a modern perspective, it's still wonderful to have even that tiny glimpse. But it's such a tiny snapshot that it leaves you wanting so much more!
Title: Zhou Daguan's A Record of Cambodia - the Land and Its People
Translated with an introduction and notes by: Peter Harris
Published: 2007
Pages: 135
Total books blogged: 14
Total pages: 4707
Wednesday 5 February 2014
Word of the ?Week: Kabyle
In "The Escape" by Joseph Kessel (in the French Stories book), his protagonist notes the types of people who are incarcerated along with him at a detention camp in France during World War II. There's room for everyone:
"Room for foreigners. For traffikers. For Freemasons. For Kabyles. For those who were opposed to the Legion. For Jews. For refractory peasants. For vagrants. For former convicts. For political suspects. For those whose intents were suspect...." The list goes on. But I had never heard of Kabyles, and so I paused.
They are a Berber-speaking ethnic group from Algeria. Wiki tells me that for "historical and economic reasons", a lot of Kabyle folks moved to France, and it sounds like, according to Kessel, they were persecuted along with so many other groups in the 30s and 40s. After several Google searches I can't find more information about the Kabyle movement to France. Very curious!
"Room for foreigners. For traffikers. For Freemasons. For Kabyles. For those who were opposed to the Legion. For Jews. For refractory peasants. For vagrants. For former convicts. For political suspects. For those whose intents were suspect...." The list goes on. But I had never heard of Kabyles, and so I paused.
They are a Berber-speaking ethnic group from Algeria. Wiki tells me that for "historical and economic reasons", a lot of Kabyle folks moved to France, and it sounds like, according to Kessel, they were persecuted along with so many other groups in the 30s and 40s. After several Google searches I can't find more information about the Kabyle movement to France. Very curious!
Completed: The Bedside Book of Famous French Stories
I finished this book long ago - well before Christmas. I just have not written. And I find I don't miss it when I'm not writing, but as soon as I start to write, I realize that I did, in fact, somehow miss it, and that there is something liberating about writing.
The Bedside Book of Famous French Stories was well worth the read, cover to cover. You've already heard about it once, but I have a bit more to add now that I've gotten through the whole book.
The first thing that went throughout the text, through the various time periods that flowed through each of the stories (which could have gone on for another 400 or so pages, if I'd had my way!), was that the short stories in this book were full of political commentary. They touched on topics including government, war, the prison system, morality, art. Political fiction is not normally an appealing genre to me, but each of these stories was enjoyable in its own way.
One story, The Torture of Hope by Villiers do L'Isle-Adam, was particularly poignant in this regard, but the title completely spoiled it for me. It falls into the modern category of "Spoiler Alert!" - the title betrays what is coming, and the denouement of the story was shattered because the progression was clear before I even started. It was my only disappointment within the book, and that's difficult to write, because, without the title, it was a fabulous story. If I gave it to you with no title on it, you'd be on the edge of your seat. But my seat fell through on me. The original Spoiler!
I've been through two more books since I finished this book, I'll add them here at some point in the near, or not so near, future!
Title: The Bedside Book of Famous French Stories
Editors: Belle Becker and Robert N. Linscott
Published: 1945
Pages: 427
Total books blogged: 13
Total pages: 4572
The Bedside Book of Famous French Stories was well worth the read, cover to cover. You've already heard about it once, but I have a bit more to add now that I've gotten through the whole book.
The first thing that went throughout the text, through the various time periods that flowed through each of the stories (which could have gone on for another 400 or so pages, if I'd had my way!), was that the short stories in this book were full of political commentary. They touched on topics including government, war, the prison system, morality, art. Political fiction is not normally an appealing genre to me, but each of these stories was enjoyable in its own way.
One story, The Torture of Hope by Villiers do L'Isle-Adam, was particularly poignant in this regard, but the title completely spoiled it for me. It falls into the modern category of "Spoiler Alert!" - the title betrays what is coming, and the denouement of the story was shattered because the progression was clear before I even started. It was my only disappointment within the book, and that's difficult to write, because, without the title, it was a fabulous story. If I gave it to you with no title on it, you'd be on the edge of your seat. But my seat fell through on me. The original Spoiler!
I've been through two more books since I finished this book, I'll add them here at some point in the near, or not so near, future!
Title: The Bedside Book of Famous French Stories
Editors: Belle Becker and Robert N. Linscott
Published: 1945
Pages: 427
Total books blogged: 13
Total pages: 4572
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