The Crimes Literary Supplement: From The Outer
Hebrides

post from Lizzy's Literary Life on 06 May 2012 08:15:20 PM. © Lizzy's Literary Life

This blog recently visited St Kilda, courtesy of Karin Altenburg’s Orange longlisted, Island of Wings. With Books 1 and 2 of Peter May’s The Lewis Trilogy, it is time to embark on a tour of Hebridean islands that remain inhabited. The journey begins as the name of the trilogy suggests, on Lewis, the island to which Edinburgh-based detective Fin [...]

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Happy Birthday Sherpa!

post from Stuck in a Book on 06 May 2012 07:37:27 PM. © Stuck in a Book

Continuing a theme of my time at home, somewhat, you can wish Sherpa a very Happy 2nd Birthday! She's marginally less silly than when she as a little kitten, and falls off things less, but it would still be a stretch to call her intelligent. She is, however, very active - being athletic and stupid, she doesn't fit in particularly with the family Thomas... but we love her to bits. I can't find her at the mo (she loves hiding) so here's an old picture.

To drag this back to books, here's a little game. Can you subtly alter (with puns, please) book titles to make them feline friendly? I'm thinking A Tail of Two Kitties, but wittier... The best one gets Sherpa's purr of approval.

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Happy 200th Robert Browning...

post from dovegreyreader scribbles on 06 May 2012 07:37:14 PM. © dovegreyreader scribbles

In amongst the big guns of Dickens and Shakespeare... and then the forthcoming JubiGlee and the Olympics, there is a double centenary waiting to be forgotten, so I thought I would make an effort to mark Robert Browning today on the 200th anniversary of his birth, because I suspect he is solely and oddly responsible for turning me onto the Victorians at a time when others might have failed.

A Level English Literature 1970-1972 and Robert Browning the set poet.

Now this being me (and I must watch the programme on horders on BBC on Tuesday) I still have, well-preserved but for a few mouse incursions, my entire course notes and essays. I have been marvelling at the hours this must all have taken given it is all handwritten, a complete translation of every stanza of Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde for example, and having looked back through I can see that it is probably a good thing that I waited another twenty years before attempting an English degree. But no amount of Bs could dampen my enthusiasm for the course reading, and nothing but nothing could dampen my enthusiasm for Robert Browning.

I am trying to fathom it now, because I loved Gerard Manley Hopkins too, and suspect this was about a rather over-earnest me suddenly realising, at eighteen, that life was about to take a very grown-up turn with paediatric nurse training on the horizon.

This week I have finally sunk gratefully into Babel Tower, A.S.Byatt's third book of the Frederica quartet, and I can't tell you how good it feels to dive into such deep and challenging literary waters, and of course this line was bound to resonate...

'...No one tells children's nurses when they go into training, you know, that this is the worst kind of nursing - the worst - you might be glad when the old - slip away - but these little ones - and those who stay here a long time - are even worse than those who die. You can't talk about it of course...'

So which poem to choose for today.

I really wanted to choose By the Fireside for its opening lines...

I.
How well I know what I mean to do
When the long dark autumn-evenings come:
And where, my soul, is thy pleasant hue?
With the music of all thy voices, dumb
In life's November too!
II.
I shall be found by the fire, suppose,
O'er a great wise book as beseemeth age,
While the shutters flap as the cross-wind blows
And I turn the page, and I turn the page,
Not verse now, only prose!

or Andrea Del Sarto for those immortal lines...

Ah, But a man's reach should exceed his grasp
Or what's a heaven for ?

Then I thought about Prospice, written after the death of Elizabeth Barret Browning according to my eighteen year-old self, the self who could have no idea what lay ahead, but the poem seemed to impress the coming of age me no end...

But eventually there emerged a clear winner because, reading the poems again now, there was one that I can only imagine, given our prediliction for all things Monty Python-esque, we would have shown no mercy. Though Monty Python and the Holy Grail was still three years hence I suspect we knew it was only a matter of time...

We must have had great fun reading this in class, and even today I am smiling at the thought of the unholy mirth unleashed as Miss Maud read out that final verse...

How they Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix

I SPRANG to the stirrup, and Joris, and he;
I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three;
?Good speed!? cried the watch, as the gate-bolts undrew;
?Speed!? echoed the wall to us galloping through;
Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest,
And into the midnight we galloped abreast.

Not a word to each other; we kept the great pace
Neck by neck, stride by stride, never changing our place;
I turned in my saddle and made its girths tight,
Then shortened each stirrup, and set the pique right,
Rebuckled the cheek-strap, chained slacker the bit,
Nor galloped less steadily Roland a whit.

?Twas moonset at starting; but while we drew near
Lokeren, the cocks crew and twilight dawned clear;
At Boom, a great yellow star came out to see;
At Düffeld, ?twas morning as plain as could be;
And from Mecheln church-steeple we heard the half-chime,
So Joris broke silence with ?Yet there is time!?

At Aerschot, up leaped of a sudden the sun,
And against him the cattle stood black every one,
To stare through the mist at us galloping past,
And I saw my stout galloper Roland at last,
With resolute shoulders, each butting away
The haze, as some bluff river headland its spray.

And his low head and crest, just one sharp ear bent back
For my voice, and the other pricked out on his track;
And one eye?s black intelligence,?ever that glance
O?er its white edge at me, his own master, askance!
And the thick heavy spume-flakes which aye and anon
His fierce lips shook upwards in galloping on.

By Hasselt, Dirck groaned; and cried Joris, ?Stay spur!
Your Roos galloped bravely, the fault?s not in her,
We?ll remember at Aix??for one heard the quick wheeze
Of her chest, saw the stretched neck and staggering knees,
And sunk tail, and horrible heave of the flank,
As down on her haunches she shuddered and sank.

So we were left galloping, Joris and I,
Past Looz and past Tongres, no cloud in the sky;
The broad sun above laughed a pitiless laugh,
?Neath our feet broke the brittle bright stubble like chaff;
Till over by Dalhem a dome-spire sprang white,
And ?Gallop,? gasped Joris, ?for Aix is in sight!?

?How they?ll greet us!??and all in a moment his roan
Rolled neck and croup over, lay dead as a stone;
And there was my Roland to bear the whole weight
Of the news which alone could save Aix from her fate,
With his nostrils like pits full of blood to the brim,
And with circles of red for his eye-sockets? rim.

Then I cast loose my buffcoat, each holster let fall,
Shook off both my jack-boots, let go belt and all,
Stood up in the stirrup, leaned, patted his ear,
Called my Roland his pet-name, my horse without peer;
Clapped my hands, laughed and sang, any noise, bad or good,
Till at length into Aix Roland galloped and stood.

And all I remember is, friends flocking round
As I sat with his head ?twixt my knees on the ground;
And no voice but was praising this Roland of mine,
As I poured down his throat our last measure of wine,
Which (the burgesses voted by common consent)
Was no more than his due who brought good news from Ghent.

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DPRK Footage

post from The Millions on 06 May 2012 06:00:09 PM. © The Millions

Skateboarder Patrik Wallner snuck some video footage of North Korea around the time of the 100th birthday celebrations for its deceased ruler Kim Il-Sung. His footage shines a vivid and personal light on what?s otherwise a very concealed and distant nation. No related posts.No related posts.

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Professional Rereading

post from So Many Books on 06 May 2012 05:48:39 PM. © So Many Books

I’m still making my way slowly through Patricia Meyer Spacks’ book, On Rereading, and just read a chapter this weekend …

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The Sunday Salon - On Impending Freedom

post from Estella's Revenge on 06 May 2012 04:38:42 PM. © Estella's Revenge

FREEDOM! That's right. I have been held in the shackles of online grading all weekend, and now I'm FREE! Yesterday was a big day all around. My mom, Greyson, and I started the day with FoxFest 2012 -- a festival here in our small town. Chuck and the Rockets joined us later in the morning for vendor booths, turtle races, good friends, and lots of food. Fried catfish for me and Fire Department BBQ for the rest. It was nothing short of delicious, but it was also super hot. I was glad to flee back to the house and the AC.

Even though I was ready to drop after half a day in the heat, mom was kind enough to keep Greyson occupied while I graded a class worth of research papers. Step 1 toward freedom.

We had a plan all along for me to spend today grading and GET IT DONE before the due date on Tuesday. I got to Starbucks this morning around 9 and I'm finished up now, taking a few minutes to blog. Just six hours worth of research papers, final exams, and gradebook tomfoolery. But I'm DONE, DONE, DONE. Did I mention I'm done? I need a couple of those cocktails now.

While I love teaching online classes, and while I'll miss the money over the summer, it's always a liberating feeling to have a break. Just one job (sorta, teaching one online class) over the summer months. What does this actually mean? MORE READING! I love caps today...sorry!

In reading news, I've just about polished off Dragonfly in Amber this week. I think it's safe to say I never have an excuse to bitch about not reading. I finished a 700-page book last week, an 800-page book this week. No more excuses. 250-400 page books should be a cake walk.

No idea what I'll read next. While I have a feeling I'm gonna want to jump straight into Voyager, I may force myself to chill a minute with another book. I have tons of goodies on my shelves. Like these...

On that note, I'm out of here and off to curl up with the rest of Dragonfly. 150 gut-wrenching pages left.

Tell me...what would you recommend I read next?

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Video: Simon Armitage: Poetry cant be Mainstream

post from NIGEL BEALE NOTA BENE BOOKS on 06 May 2012 03:27:08 PM. © NIGEL BEALE NOTA BENE BOOKS

Yorkshire, the North South divide, and the whiff of rot.

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Kurt Vonnegut in Indianapolis

Kurt Vonnegut was born in Indianapolis in 1922. Early on, his family made a fortune selling hardware in the city. His grandfather chose however to become an architect and designed Das Deutsche Haus, praised as ?the best preserved and most elaborate building associated with the German American community of Indianapolis.? It’s name was changed to [...]

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Luna

I mentioned in my previous post that I am taking an art journaling class so I wanted to share with you another of my recent pages. For this one I found inspiration from the supermoon we had this weekend and poetry, as usual. The poem is actually I Watched the Moon Around the House by [...]

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Dragon Haven and City of Dragons by Robin Hobb
(once upon a time challenge)

Dragon Haven is the second in the Rain Wild Chronicles. Only fifteen of the sea serpents that ventured up the Rain Wild river to make their cocoons have survived, and all of them are imperfect, deformed or misshapen, arrogant, and angry at their fate. Thanks to Mercor, the dragons have managed to manipulate humans into sending them on their journey to the ancient Elderling city of Kelsingra.

Humans: Captain Leftrin and Alise's relationship develops, Sedric struggles with his secret purposes for the journey; Thymara's physical changes are challenging and frightening.

Dragons: Mercor's wisdom continues to aid the dragons through their hardships on the journey; Sintara is as egoistical and vain as ever; Relpa, originally without a keeper, bonds with Sedric and becomes much more interesting, not the brightest dragon in the bunch, she has a sweetness and innocence that helps Sedric become a better person.

In City of Dragons, both dragons and keepers explore their new environment which is across the river from the fabled city of Kelsingra. Unable to dock the live ship Tarman on the Kelsingra side of the river, visiting the city to awaken its magic is difficult. Although there is more game for feeding the dragons, with one exception, the dragons are still unable to fly, so the keepers are still busy hunting to keep their dragons fed.

More story lines are being developed--hopefully, to be resolved in the next book.

-----
If I had not expected the same quality as previous trilogies by Hobb, I wouldn't be disappointed in this series. I found the books enjoyable, just not as good as her previous works in this fantasy world.

Whew! I've had the heading for this review for nearly two weeks; I'm glad to have it done.

Fiction. Fantasy. 2010 -528 pages and 2o12-352 pages.

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