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| Me, thinking |
Positive point(s) - I like books. I read many books. I review books. I was a radio DJ back in the day, late '70s - early 80's. (not saying I was a good one. I just was one) 🤷
Negative point(s) - I'm retired and lazy. I still have lots of yard work to do. I already spend probably too much time sitting at this computer in the other room from Jo. Is that true, Jo??🙍♀️🙎♀️ (that might mean yes)
Anyway, I'll think about it some more and we'll see what comes of it.
Now, let's look at books read, started and purchased since my last update.
Books Completed
3 books completed in May so far.
"The Golden Ball and Other Stories is a collection of short stories by crime master Agatha Christie. As a first comment, none of the stories include Christie's most famous creations, Miss Marple or Hercule Poirot. They are basically standalone mysteries, which makes them more (maybe) interesting for that.
In my poor old mind, the stories start off kind of fluffy.... cute. A guy is fired from his job by his uncle. He meets a pretty girl. They get involved in a mystery. They fall in love. All ends well. While quite different in their own way, the first few stories were kind of like that and they were quite enjoyable. They showed Christie's skill with the short story, her ability to get into her characters, her plot and move the story along nicely, to come up with a quick, satisfying result.
But the tone changes a bit as the stories progress, maybe with Swan Song. Swan Song features a famous opera soprano, Mme Nazoroff, who is a prima donna giving a number of performances in London. She is offered an opportunity to also perform at a private estate and agrees. But she has a darker motive, which I won't ruin, but it is not quite like the other stories. The next few stories are almost mystical in their tone. They made me think of AC Doyle, when he wrote his tales of suspense, or HG Wells with the Invisible Man. Now Christie's stories are really horror but the provide a chill and a much darker tone. The Hound of Death is about a Belgian (she does like her Belgians) who escaped from Belgium during the war where an incident occurred in her church, something haunted, a hound??
The Gypsy is a story of foretelling, once again, not scary, but quite mystical and quite entertaining. In The Lamp, a mother, her young son and her father move into an old house that's been empty for a long time. It has a history, a young boy unintentionally abandoned by his father who died within. They can hear his pitter patter footsteps, her own son sees his spirit and ultimately, there is a sad, touching tragedy.
The Strange Case of Mr. Carmichael is quite creepy with two friends trying to help a young man, Carmichael regain his memory, his senses while something strange is going on in his estate; oriental mysticism, a 'dead cat'.... The Call of Wings is another spiritual, mystical story about a rich man, happy with his life, who sees a legless man playing a haunting tune one night and it affects him greatly. It ultimately makes him change his life drastically, to stop the conflict between his soul and his affinity for wealth.
Magnolia Blossom tells the story of a woman leaving her husband to be with the man she has fallen in love with. She discovers that her husband is about to lose everything, his money, his business so she returns to stand by him, with interesting consequences. And the final story, Next to a Dog.. well, it broke my heart, even if it does have a satisfying ending. A woman struggling to find work. She's lost everything, her husband, killed in the war, her money, gambled away by her husband, everything except her dog and she won't take a job that means she'll have to leave her dog; 12 years old, aging, slightly decrepit. I won't go any further, but it was a touching, tender, sad / happy, beautiful story.
The change in tone and type of story made this move up from a very good, entertaining collection of stories to a quite excellent, engrossing collection. Christie is truly a master story teller (4.0 stars)"
"I was introduced to the stories of Joan Aiken when I read & greatly enjoyed her The Serial Garden: The Complete Armitage Family Stories, a collection of stories featuring the wonderful Armitage Family. Deciding to further explore her work, I acquired The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, the first book in her Wolves Chronicles. To be fair, while a scary addition to the story, the wolves themselves play a fairly minor role in the story itself (unless you consider being attacked by wild, ravenous packs of wolves as something major, then fair ball).
The story follows two young cousins, Sylvia, who at the start, lives with an ailing aunt Jane in London and Bonnie, a young girl living on an estate outside of London, the Willoughby Estate, with her very wealthy father and ailing mother. The story is set in a Dickensian kind of alternate England where packs of wolves roam the countryside, men wander around armed with muskets to defend themselves from the wolves and trains even are attacked when the wolves are roaming.
Sylvia is sent to Willoughby Hall by her aunt as her Jane is quite poor and also frail and wants Sylvia to benefit from the wealth and life style of her brother in the countryside. On the train ride to Willoughby Estate, she meets a Mr. Grimshaw, who she distrusts, even though Mr. Grimshaw does save her when the train is attacked by wolves. As they arrive at the station by Willoughby, Grimshaw is knocked unconscious so Sylvia's cousin decides to bring him back to the Estate where he can recover.
Willoughby Hall is in a state of unrest as Sylvia arrives as the Lord and Lady are about to depart on a cruise, for Lady Willoughby's health. A distant cousin, Miss Slighcarp is coming to run the estate while the Lord and Lady are away. (distant rolling warning drums begin to beat - that was my addition, it's not in the book)
I don't want to ruin the plot anymore but suffice it to say that Miss Slighcarp is an evil villain who had designs, along with Mr. Grimshaw, to take over the estate, remove the parents totally from the picture, get rid of the staff and Bonnie and Sylvia. It's a fascinating, at times fairly dark story, in the great tradition of Dickens (I think) and filled with wonderful, heroic characters, especially Bonnie, Sylvia, their friend Simon, Pattern (their maid) and Jamie (the young butler).
The story moves along nicely, with neat twists and turns and it provides a beautiful setting, from the dark cold winter of England to the bright spring that bursts upon them as the girls and companion travel to London to get help. Wonderful story, wonderful adventure and wonderful characters. Black Hearts in Battersea is the next book in the series and is on my bookshelf (4.0 stars)"
"The World Needs More Canada edited by Heather Reisman is a table top type book published in 2017 to celebrate Canada's 150th anniversary. At the end of last year, I read a similar sort of book, Elbows Up, which was in a similar format, just less of a table top book.
At any rate, this book contains thoughts about Canada, on its anniversary, from a multitude of Canadians; authors, poets, artists, musicians, activists, actors, etc. Just a page each, some with very small remarks, some with more detailed thoughts. They were basically asked a few questions;
- What does it mean to be Canadian?
- What makes you proud to call yourself Canadian?
- The best way to endear yourself to a Canadian is...
- When you are travelling, what do you miss most about Canada
- What is your most 'Canadian' memory?
Sometimes the answers are quite simple -
Malin Akerman (actor) - 'We are very welcoming people and known throughout the world for our kindness. If you bump into someone else, the Canadian will always be the first one to 'sorry'; or
Eric Walters (YA author) 'Being Canadian is about being tough - think Vimy Ridge, Juno Beach and hockey - But also about being kind, caring and accepting. We are tough people, but we are a caring people"
I readily recognize that Canada is not a perfect country. We have a bad historical record when it came to dealing with our indigenous peoples and we are still trying to correct and reconciliate that. During WWII we put Japanese Canadians in camps and took their property. Chinese immigrants who were crucial to building out railroads were treated badly. But I think we've been trying to improve, to show that we are welcoming, caring and willing to help other countries in the outside world. (that's me doing my bit of proselytizing about Canada. 🍁😁)
On the whole the book was empowering and made me feel stronger about my Canadian citizenship. I enjoyed everybody's thoughts on being Canadian. I read one response to my wife, that being by journalist / author Ami McKay. Her happiest memory of being Canadian was when she took her citizenship test. Her young son had helped her study and then she went out to actually write her exam. At the end, while everyone sat quietly, the proctor came to the front of the class, smiled, told them they had all passed. Joyous applause from all there. I readily admit that I had difficulty reading it, it made me proud, happy and I got quite choked up.
I've tried to answer the question myself. What does it mean to me to be Canadian? I'd have to say service. My father served in the Royal Canadian Navy during WWII, joining as a very young man. After the war, when he was married, he went to work in the gold mines in northern Ontario, then joined up with the Royal Canadian Air Force as aircraft engine mechanic. We travelled through Canada and Europe while he was in. Both of my brothers and I also joined the Canadian military. I served across Canada and worked with the American Air Force in Germany, also deployed to Dubai. Both brothers had much more hazardous tours. We all served many years and enjoyed our careers. For myself, it gave me a perspective on how good and diverse Canada is.
My most Canadian memory? Saturday nights, my brother sister out for the evening, my mother in bed reading, my dad and I in the living room watching a hockey game. My brother coming home and making a Kraft pizza for all of us, bringing up a slice for my mom to enjoy. (Now I'm choked up again... LOL) (4.0 stars)"
Currently Reading (started since May 1)
"Many thousands of readers consider Philip K. Dick the greatest science fiction mind on any planet. Since his untimely death in 1982, interest in Dick's works has continued to mount and his reputation has been further enhanced by a growing body of critical attention. The Philip K. Dick Award is now given annually to a distinguished work of science fiction, and the Philip K. Dick Society is devoted to the study and promulgation of his works.
This collection includes all of the writer's earliest short and medium-length fiction (including some previously unpublished stories) covering the years 1954-1964.
Volume 4/5 contains:
- Autofac (1955)
- Service Call (1955)
- Captive Market (1955)
- The Mold of Yancy (1955)
- The Minority Report (1956)
- Recall Mechanism (1959)
- The Unreconstructed M (1957)
- Explorers We (1959)
- War Game (1959)
- If There Were No Benny Cemoli (1963)
- Novelty Act (1964)
- Waterspider (1964)
- What the Dead Men Say (1964)
- Orpheus with Clay Feet (1987)
- The Days of Perky Pat (1963)
- Stand-By (1963)
- What'll We Do with Ragland Park? (1963)
- Oh, to Be a Blobel! (1964)"
"Mary is a communications expert, passionate and compassionate about the strange and often unnerving life forms she encounters on her travels to distant galaxies. Non-interference is the code, but her emotional and erotic entanglements cannot always be avoided, and scientific detachment is not always easy to maintain. Mary explores her own sexuality with colleagues and with friends such as the hermaphroditic Martian, Vly."
New Books (as of 1 May)
"When it was first published in 2010, The 500 Years of Resistance Comic Book was heralded as a groundbreaking illustrated history of Indigenous activism and resistance in the Americas over the previous 500 years, from contact to present day. Eleven years later, author and artist Gord Hill has revised and expanded the book, which is now available in color for the first time.
The 500 Years of Resistance Comic Book powerfully portrays flashpoints in history when Indigenous peoples have risen up and fought back against colonizers and other oppressors. Events depicted include the the Spanish conquest of the Aztec, Mayan and Inca empires; the 1680 Pueblo Revolt in New Mexico; the Battle of Wounded Knee in 1890; the resistance of the Great Plains peoples in the 19th century; and more recently, the Idle No More protests supporting Indigenous sovereignty and rights in 2012 and 2013, and the resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline in 2016.
With strong, plain language and evocative illustrations, this revised and expanded edition of The 500 Years of Resistance Comic Book reveals the tenacity and perseverance of Indigenous peoples as they endured 500-plus years of genocide, massacre, torture, rape, displacement, and assimilation: a necessary antidote to conventional histories of the Americas.
The book includes a foreword by Pamela Palmater, a Mi'kmaq lawyer, professor, and political commentator."
Thoughts by Myra Viola Wilds
The Little Governess by Katherine Mansfield
Villa Myosotis by Sorana Gurian (translated by Gabi Reigh)
The Mark on the Wall by Virginia Woolf
Miss Ogilvy Finds Herself [extract] by Radclyffe Hall
I sit and sew by Alice Dunbar Nelson
First Steps [extract] by Dorka Talmon (translated by Mira Glover)
Coming Home by Maria Messina (translated by Juliette Neil)
Vegetal Reverie by Magda Isanos (translated by Gabi Reigh)
The Iceberg by Zelda Fitzgerald
The Russian Princess by Carmen de Burgos (translated by Slava Faybysh)
Bring to Me All… by Marina Tsvetaeva (translated by Nina Kossman)
Autres Temps by Edith Wharton
Unheard by Yente Serdatsky (translated by Dalia Wolfson)
Fog by Gabriela Mistral (translated by Stuart Cooke)
Natalia [extract] by Fausta Cialente (translated by Laura Shanahan)
What makes this century worse? by Anna Akhmatova (translated by Olga Livshin)
Broken by Nataliya Kobrynska (translated by Hanna Leliv & Slava Faybysh)
Sunset by Antonia Pozzi (translated by Sonia di Placido)
Once Upon A Time by Ling Shuhua (translated by Leilei Chen)
Their Religions and our Herland [extract] by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Goodbye Lebanon by May Ziadeh (translated by Rose DeMaris)"
In the care of a fellow Culper Ring member, Yorick Brown is forced to confront his tremendous feelings of survivor guilt that lead him to constantly put his life in danger. Once on the road again, the group runs up against a literal roadblock in Arizona, where the female remains of the Sons of Arizona militia have cut the interstate to keep out any vestiges of the U.S. government."
The rise of manufacturing could not have happened without an attention to precision. At the dawn of the Industrial Revolution in eighteenth-century England, standards of measurement were established, giving way to the development of machine tools—machines that make machines. Eventually, the application of precision tools and methods resulted in the creation and mass production of items from guns and glass to mirrors, lenses, and cameras—and eventually gave way to further breakthroughs, including gene splicing, microchips, and the Hadron Collider.
Simon Winchester takes us back to origins of the Industrial Age, to England where he introduces the scientific minds that helped usher in modern production: John Wilkinson, Henry Maudslay, Joseph Bramah, Jesse Ramsden, and Joseph Whitworth. It was Thomas Jefferson who later exported their discoveries to the fledgling United States, setting the nation on its course to become a manufacturing titan. Winchester moves forward through time, to today’s cutting-edge developments occurring around the world, from America to Western Europe to Asia.
As he introduces the minds and methods that have changed the modern world, Winchester explores fundamental questions. Why is precision important? What are the different tools we use to measure it? Who has invented and perfected it? Has the pursuit of the ultra-precise in so many facets of human life blinded us to other things of equal value, such as an appreciation for the age-old traditions of craftsmanship, art, and high culture? Are we missing something that reflects the world as it is, rather than the world as we think we would wish it to be? And can the precise and the natural co-exist in society?"
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