Completed: The Guns of August by Barbara W. Tuchman

I am contemplating embarking on another undergraduate degree, focusing on North American history. I grew up away from my home continent. I studied mainly European history. And I enjoyed it. However, I feel like I don't know my own continent very well.

Tuchman's book, though not in North America, was a very enlightening history of the beginning of World War I. I found it fascinating; it was written in a way that read like a novel, with character sketches, humour, and sarcasm. And yet it is a record, a history, of the events and happenings of those first few months (primarily the first month). It was a readable history. So much of the history we all get to read is written to be so dry. Tuchman actually made an engrossing history book.

I think the invasion of Belgium, and the needless political puffery that caused the war in the first place, were the parts that impacted me the most. The arrogance of the politicians in feeling that war would somehow be a noble resolution of their differences. The slow, creeping realization that the war would not be over quickly.

My blogging of this book comes on the tail end of reading a National Geographic article about the underground 'cities' of the front line in World War I - the quarries excavated out behind the trenches, with soldiers living underground for weeks at a time in damp conditions, listening for tunneling soldiers from the other side set to bomb their enemies. Carving their lives into the soft chalk. It was the life of so many millions of soldiers for so many years.

Tuchman's book gave me a better understanding of the political personalities, military tactics and decisions that led to the horrid near-stalemate that was much of the first World War. National Geographic added the humanity of the soldiers to this picture. The two reads complimented each other. In the vast numbers of casualties and wounded that one sees when studying WWI, we must always remember that each one of those millions was a person of their own, with a family, parents, children perhaps, a wife maybe. A dream.

Title: The Guns of August
Published: 1962 (my copy is a crap 1980s paperback)
Pages: 489

Total books blogged: 16
Total pages: 5474

Sitting at a new desk

Quite some time ago now, I shared my now-not-so-new reading nook with you, and today I can share that I am sitting at my new desk. We have completely shuffled our three bedrooms so that G and J are happily split into each having their own rooms. This necessitated removing our large but unwieldy and tremendously heavy desk from the 'office', as it is now a bedroom. We now have a cute little computer desk in our own bedroom, set up just for me to work at.

"What is this, a desk for ants?" ~my interpretation of my husband's reaction to my tiny work nook

Tonight I caught up on paperwork. Next I will catch up on books - I have four to blog! And am more than halfway through a fifth. I have done more reading than I expected to get done in the past few months, but haven't had the urge to write until recently, when I have found myself inspired by someone I barely know.

A friend of a friend, a sweet and kind heart, has recently left her day job to pursue writing full-time. I admire her tenacity and courage (though she has asked that people stop calling her brave!). I truly admire those who throw themselves headlong at their passion and make it happen despite obstacles, or fear of the unknown. My quest is much more humble, but I am in the process of trying to carve out a bit more 'me' time in my life, and it feels wonderful to sit here today and finally update this page. There are many things that I enjoy, and this blog is one. I shall make some time for me. A Mom who takes time for herself is, I truly believe, a more balanced person and thereby a better Mom. This new year I will find a better balance.

Ch-ch-ch-chANGES! Also, Completed: The Untold History of the Potato by John Reader

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

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

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!

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

Currently Reading: The Bedside Book of Famous French Stories

"If many old women of eighty were occasionally to tell you the history of their loves, you would perhaps find that the feminine soul contains sources of good and evil of which you have no idea." ~George Sand

The French certainly have a way with words - Honore de Balzac, Gustave Flaubert, Emile Zola, Guy de Maupassant. They are all names that were familiar, but that I had not read before. I've also never much read short stories, and so I've stepped twice outside of my known reading. And boy has it been worth it so far!

The stories are so beautifully crafted - part of the art of these short stories is in their rich language and description, which brought me to the reflection that - I wonder how much is lost or changed in translation? I've read literature in French before, and I wonder how much the language changes when it is translated. It's so beautiful translated into English - it almost makes me want to brush up my French and try to read these stories in their native tongue. Almost - not sure if I'm ready for language studies yet!

I picked the quote above because it made me think of a quote that shows up on the screens in the print office at the university where I work - it says something along the lines of "Spend some time every day with someone over the age of 70 and under the age of 7". I do not get the opportunity to do that each day, but I do love to spend time with my grandparents and inlaws (only some of whom have hit 70!), and my beautiful children and nieces. It's often amazing to think of all of the experiences that our elders have gone through. You may see a senior with their shopping bag and their plastic hair-wrap to keep off the rain. But that elderly lady was once a young woman. Maybe she modelled. Maybe she ran away with her military beau in her teens. Maybe she broke stereotypes and worked on cars, or went to university, or drove truck. You just never know to look at someone.

The quote above reminded me that inside every old person was once a young person - perhaps a bold one, perhaps a mischievous one, perhaps a helpful one, perhaps a heartbroken one. I wish I could sit down more often and talk to someone about their life. Maybe I need to volunteer at an old folks' home.