MarysLibrary

My Old Blog

The first 10 months of Mary's Library can be found at this address: http://maryslibrary.blogspot.com/

Reading List Update

Books I've read since last update:

• The Film Club by David Gilmour (2008) (read on Kindle 5/11/08 ****)
• Escape by Carolyn Jessup and Laura Palmer (2007) 432 pages (read on Kindle 5/12/08)
• Orley Farm by Anthony Trollope (1861) chapters 51-56 (read 5/12/08)
• The Second Plane: September 11: Terror and Boredom by Martin Amis (2008) 224 pages (read 5/13/08 ***)
• Sonnets 52-54 by William Shakespeare (read 5/14/08)
• The Acceptance World by Anthony Powell (1955) 214 pages (read 5/16/08 ****)
• The Age of American Unreason by Susan Jacoby (2008) 384 pages (read on Kindle 5/17/08 ****)
• Orley Farm by Anthony Trollope (1861) chapters 57-62 (read 5/18/08)
• Sonnets 55-57 by William Shakespeare (read 5/19/08)

Books I've been reading since last update:

• Shakespeare's Sonnets (The Arden Shakespeare) edited by Katherine Duncan-Jones () 488 pages
• The Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets by Helen Vendler (1997) 672 pages
• Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-63 by Taylor Branch (1988) 1064 pages
• Master of the Senate (The Years of Lyndon Johnson, volume 3) by Robert Caro (2002) 1167 pages
• Whistling Past Dixie: How Democrats Can Win Without the South by Thomas F Schaller (2006) 336 pages
• And Only to Deceive by Tasha Alexander (2006) 336 pages, Kindle
• Careless in Red by Elizabeth George (2008) 1024 pages, Kindle
• The Mind of the South by W J Cash (1941) 444 pages
• Swann's Way (The Remembrance of Things Past #1) by Marcel Proust (1913) 462 pages, Kindle
• Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer (2003) 655 pages

Flying Reading Rooms

In a curious way, the computer emphasizes the unique virtues of the book: The book is small, lightweight and durable, and can be stuffed in a coat pocket, read in the waiting room, on the plate. What are planes but flying reading rooms? -- E Annie Proulx

From The Book Lover's Cookbook by Shaunda Kennedy Wenger and Janet Kay Jensen

The Film Club

The Film Club (2008) is the story of a very unusual education. Some years back David Gilmour, a Canadian film critic, was struggling to keep his son interested in school. He hit upon an unusual cure for the lad's boredom. He would allow his son to drop out of school but the boy had to promise to watch three movies with his dad every week for a year.

And so it began with The 400 Blows, and went on though Basic Instinct, North by Northwest, Crimes and Misdemeanors, and Citizen Kane. The Night of the Inguana, On the Waterfront, and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Plenty, The Third Man, and A Hard Day's Night.

And they talked about these films. Gilmour made a few comments to his son about what to watch for before each film, most of them perceptive and some entertaining. And on it went. Sexy Beast, Giant, and Apocalypse Now. 8 1/2, Notorious, and The Shining.

And they talked. Because they talked so much about the movies and because they were open and honest with each other Gilmour became closer to his son that most fathers tend to be with 16 year old sons. The boy asked for advice and Gilmour tried to give it to him. Sometimes he took it and sometimes he didn't. Girlfriends came and went. And so did the films: Annie Hall, Around the World in 80 Days, and Mean Streets. The French Connection, Last Tango in Paris, and Breakfast at Tiffany's.

I couldn't put this book down. In fact, I bought it Sunday morning and finished reading it before I went to bed Sunday night. And now I want badly to watch these films that Gilmour and his son enjoyed: Jungle Fever, Beetlejuice, and Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Roman Holiday, Duel, and Jaws. A Streetcar Named Desire, Some Like It Hot, and The Professional. Swimming with Sharks, The Great Gatsby, and Hannah and Her Sisters. Lolita, The Bicycle Thief, and High Noon. Casablanca, The Godfather, and Internal Affairs. Dead Zone, Bullitt, and The Big Sleep.

Fortunately, there's a filmography at the end.

A Few Favorite Films

I've been reading a book today about a man and his teenaged son who spent a couple of years watching movies together. I started it this morning and have just finished it. I'll write about it tomorrow.

Meanwhile it has inspired me to think a bit about some of the movies that I've enjoyed over the years. Here are a few of the best:

• The Duelists (1977)
• Fargo (1996)
• The Four Feathers (1939)
• Mystic River (2003)
• Shanghai Express (1932)
• They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1965)
• What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993)

Reading List Update

Books I've read since last update:

• Orley Farm by Anthony Trollope (1861) chapters 45-50 (read 5/1/08)
• Sonnets 49-51 by William Shakespeare (read 5/4/08)
• Back on Blossom Street by Debbie Macomber (2007) 393 pages (read 5/2/08 ***)
• Weekend Warriors by Fern Michaels (2004) 304 pages (read on Kindle 5/3/08 ***)
• Quietly in Their Sleep by Donna Leon (1997) (read 5/7/08 ****)
• The Hated Son by Honore de Balzac (1836) Kindle (read 5/9/08 ***)
• The Strange Career of Jim Crow by C Vann Woodward (1966, rev ed) 205 pages (read 5/10/08 ****)

Books I've been reading since last update:

• Shakespeare's Sonnets (The Arden Shakespeare) edited by Katherine Duncan-Jones) () 488 pages
• The Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets by Helen Vendler (1997) 672 pages
• Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-63 by Taylor Branch (1988) 1064 pages, Kindle
• Master of the Senate (The Years of Lyndon Johnson, volume 3) by Robert Caro (2002) 1167 pages
• Whistling Past Dixie: How Democrats Can Win Without the South by Thomas F Schaller (2006) 336 pages
• Escape by Carolyn Jessop and Laura Palmer (2007) 432 pages, Kindle
• And Only to Deceive by Tasha Alexander (2006) 336 pages, Kindle
• Careless in Red by Elizabeth George (2008) 1024 pages, Kindle
• The Mind of the South by W J Cash (1941) 444 pages

Books to read soon:

• Orley Farm by Anthony Trollope (1961) chapters 51-56
• Orley Farm by Anthony Trollope (1961) chapters 57-62
• Sonnets 52-54 by William Shakespeare
• Sonnets 55-57 by William Shakespeare
• The Acceptance World by Anthony Powell (1955) 214 pages
• The Message by Honore de Balzac (1832) Kindle
• The Darling Buds of May by H E Bates (1958) 117 pages
• Young Pattullo by J I M Stewart (1975) 317 pages
• The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C S Lewis (1950) 189 pages
• The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards (2005) 401 pages, Kindle

Careless in Red

Careless in Red, Elizabeth George's latest Inspector Lynley mystery, was released on 5 May. I bought it for my Kindle and I've almost finished reading it.

George's fans will be pleased to hear that this book is as complex and well-plotted as all the rest and that the development of the characters of Lynley and of Barbara Havers continues. The story is set in Cornwall and the author conveys the beauty and rawness of the sea and the cliffs of Southwest England with love and skill.

Steampunk

I had never heard of Steampunk until I read about it in the NY Times.

Quietly in Their Sleep

Every time I read another Donna Leon mystery I ask myself, "How much longer can she keep this up?" It seems impossible that she could go on write book after book, each as stunning as the last.

Well, she has done it again with Quietly in Their Sleep (1997), an engrossing story about a nun who leaves her order after twelve years and prepares to begin La Vita Nuova. She arrives in Commisario Brunetti's office one day to tell him her suspicions about the deaths of five elderly patients in the nursing home where she has been working.

With nothing else to do (Venice has very little crime), Brunetti and his sidekick, Sergeant Vianello, visit the families of three of the people who have died and although none of them is likable, there seems no sign of foul play.

Once again in this book Brunetti relies on the office secretary Elettra, she of the many and mysterious connections in the world of finance, crime, and it turns out, religion, to find information for him that would normally be unavailable even to the police. Among other things, she turns up some interesting information about the priest who teaches Brunetti's daughter's religion class. No wonder the child hates the man!

Leon's mysteries are not in the classic style. Sometimes it's discovered that there was no murder after all. Sometimes the murderer pops up only very late in the book. Sometimes Brunetti discovers the evildoers but the Italian justice system in its corruption and complexity can do nothing to touch the powerful criminals. Once in a while Brunetti is able to do a little something to even the score, often relying for help on his father-in-law, who is one of the most powerful nobles of La Serenissima.

Leon also tends to comment through the events in her books and the conversations of her characters on themes about which the author feels strongly. The theme of this book is religion, anti-clericalism, the power of the church in Italy, and especially the power of the secret society Opus Dei.

What is one man to do in the face of this power? He can only do his best. And so Brunetti struggles on trying to right as many wrongs as possible and to bring as many malefactors to justice as he can.

How Privileged Were You?

I picked this up over on Pages Turned. I've changed it from the present tense to the past.

The original authors of this exercise are will Barratt, Meagan Cahill, Angie Carlen, Minnette Huck, Drew Lurker, and Stacy Ploskonka at Illinois State University. If you participate, they ask that you PLEASE acknowledge their copyright.

Bold the true statements. You can explain further if you wish.

1. Father went to college
2. Father finished college
3. Mother went to college
4. Mother finished college
5. Had any relative who was an attorney, physician, or professor
6. Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers
7. Had more than 50 books in your childhood home
8. Had more than 500 books in your childhood home
9. Were read children's books by a parent
10. Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18
11. Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18
12. The people in the media who dressed and talked like you were portrayed positively
13. Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18
14. Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs
15. Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs
16. Went to a private high school
17. Went to summer camp
18. Had a private tutor before you turned 18
19. Family vacations involved staying at hotels
20. Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18
21. Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them
22. There was original art in your house when you were a child
23. You and your family lived in a single-family house
24. Your parents owned their own house or apartment before you left home
25. You had your own room as a child
26. You had a phone in your room before you turned 18
27. Participated in a SAT/ACT prep course
28. Had your own TV in your room in high school
29. Owned a mutual fund or IRA in high school or college
30. Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16
31. Went on a cruise with your family
32. Went on more than one cruise with your family
33. Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up
34. You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family

I am not of the aristocracy.

A Few of My Favorite Blogs . . .

I'm extremely happy with my new Kindle, which is living up to expectations and which - heresy I know - I find easier to read from than the printed page. It's on the whole idiot-proof, though I've had a couple of problems (problems that I would not have had if I had read the User's Guide, which is included right there on the list of books when the gadget arrives.) I read an icon incorrectly and I thought I had a problem with the light that goes on when you are charging the Kindle. It kept going off. Turns out the Kindle was fully charged and that's why it went off. (Have I mentioned that I'm technologically challenged?)

Laurel from my Trollope group encouraged me to buy it and held my hand for the month and a half I had to wait for it to arrive. She also told me about a Yahoo group of Kindle owners and wannabees called kindlecorner that has been very useful. From that group I found Jan's blog, Kindle Reader, which is a must for the new Kindle owner.

Jan alerts us to newly kindled books, magazines, and blogs; she tells us about equipment we might find useful to enhance our Kindle like a leather cover, a light to attach for night reading, an SD card to add more memory. She lists sites where we can find Kindle-formatted books, many of them free. And she reviews books that we can buy for our Kindle - lots of books.

Highly recommended for the new Kindler or for anyone who wants to see pithy reviews of lots of diverse sorts of books.

My Old Kentucky Home

As Wilhelm pointed out in his comment to yesterday's post, "My Old Kentucky Home" is always sung at Churchill Downs on the day of the Kentucky Derby.

Here are the sweetly sad words of the 1986 revision that were sung yesterday in Louisville at post time of the 134th Run for the Roses.

The sun shines bright in My Old Kentucky Home,
'Tis summer, the people are gay;
The corn-top's ripe and the meadow's in the bloom
While the birds make music all the day.

The young folks roll on the little cabin floor,
All merry, all happy and bright;
By 'n' by hard times comes a knocking at the door,
Then My Old Kentucky Home, good night!

Chorus
Weep no more my lady
Oh weep no more today;
We will sing one song
For My Old Kentucky Home
For My Old Kentucky Home, far away

Stephen Foster published "My Old Kentucky Home" in 1853. Offensive as some of the old lyrics are, they tell a heart-rending story that needs to be told. Hardship has come to the Kentucky plantation where the singer used to live. He has been separated from his family and all the people he knew in Kentucky. He has been "sold down the river."

Now he works in the cane fields of the deep south. And he cannot expect to live long in that torrid climate, forced to do that grueling job, nor can he expect any compassion from the men driving him. He is being worked to death. And so he sings of happier days back in Kentucky.

In this context, the song is no longer sad; it's tragic. Here are the original lyrics:

The sun shines bright in the old Kentucky home,
'Tis summer, the darkies are gay;
The corn-top's ripe and the meadow's in the bloom,
While the birds make music all the day.

The young folks roll on the little cabin floor,
All merry, all happy and bright;
By 'n' by Hard Times comes a-knocking at the door,
Then my old Kentucky home, goodnight.

Chorus
Weep no more my lady
Oh! weep no more today!
We will sing one song for the old Kentucky home,
For the Old Kentucky Home far away.

They hunt no more for the possum and the coon,
On meadow, the hill and the shore,
They sing no more by the glimmer of the moon,
On the bench by the old cabin door.

The day goes by like a shadow o'er the heart,
With sorrow, where all was delight,
The time has come when the darkies have to part,
Then my old Kentucky home, goodnight.

Chorus

The head must bow and the back will have to bend,
Wherever the darky may go;
A few more days, and the trouble all will end,
In the field where the sugar-canes grow;

A few more days for to tote the weary load,
No matter, 'twill never be light;
A few more days till we totter on the road,
Then my old Kentucky home, goodnight.

Chorus

Here's the link Wilhelm posted yesterday to a video of Paul Robeson singing the old version of the song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yJaz74q05M&feature=related

Back on Blossom Street

My reading program has crashed and burned. I cannot bear to read another chapter of political analysis, political biography, political satire, history of the civil rights movement, critique of the Iraq War, or background on the war in Afghanistan. Not another page.

So I picked up my favorite romance writer (my only romance writer) Debbie Macomber's latest knitting novel. These stories take place in and about a fictional yarn store on the fictional Blossom Street in Seattle. Back on Blossom Street (2007) is the third, after The Shop on Blossom Street (2004) and A Good Yarn (2005.) A fourth in the series was published three days ago called Twenty Wishes.

The major character in these novels is Lydia Goetz, the owner of A Good Yarn. Characters who appear and reappear include her gruff sister, Margaret, the young woman who is a baker in a French cafe across the street, the new owner of the flower shop next door, her mysterious assistant, and the youth pastor of the Methodist Church across the way.

The major characters in each book meet at a knitting class at A Good Yarn. They come to knitting from different places with differing needs but as with all good romance novels by the end of the book they find satisfaction and sometimes love with the help of their new knitting friends.

Macomber, who was born in Yakima and now lives in Port Orchard, and who is a knitter herself, helpfully provides the patterns that the characters in her books are using to knit baby blankets and hats and socks and prayer shawls so that the reader can knit the selfsame items herself.

A Summer of Hummingbirds

Christopher Benfey, a literature professor at Mt Holyoke, is one of my favorite writers. I should have put his name on the list of Buy Without Looking authors the other day. His 1997 biography/history, Degas in New Orleans, and his 2003 history, The Great Wave: Gilded Age Misfits, Japanese Eccentrics, and the Opening of Old Japan are superb. And now we have this.

A Summer of Hummingbirds: Love, Art, and Scandal in the Intersection Worlds of Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Martin Johnson Heade (2008.) This is the book that Susan Cheever's 2006 American Bloomsbury should have been.

Publisher's Weekly gave it a signature review, i.e., a spotlighted review by a "name." The famous reviewer is Debby Applegate, who won a 2007 Pulitzer for The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher, another fine book, by the way.

Says Applegate: "The hummingbird "is the book's MacGuffin: why did hummingbirds in particular elicit such a powerful attraction, rising at times to an obsession? Benfey's answer is that after the Civil War Americans gradually left behind a static view of existence, a trust in fixed arrangements and hierarchies, and came to embrace a new dynamism that found perfect expression in the hummingbird. By tracing their allusions to hummingbirds in poems, pictures, sermons and anecdotes, he shows how these sensitive souls registered the shock of war by seeking symbols of the evanescence of life." (Providing more evidence that Emily Dickinson really was a Civil War poet.)

Applegate and other reviewers are calling the book unconventional, "indispensable," "fascinating," and "uncanny." I haven't read it yet, but based on Benfey's earlier books I'm gonna' stick my neck out here and recommend it unconditionally.

Martin Johnson Heade was a first-rate painter of New England salt marshes, Brazilian orchids, and, yep, hummingbirds.

Reading List Update

Books I've read since my last update:

• Diamond Place by Robin Lee Hatcher (2006) 138 pages (read 4/21/08 ***)
• Bugle Boy by Len Chester (2007) 127 pages (read 4/22/08 ***)
• Briar Rose by Jane Yolen (1992) 200 pages (read 4/23/08 ****)
• Sonnets 46-48 by William Shakespeare (read 4/24/08)
• Orley Farm by Anthony Trollope (1861) chapters 39-44 (read 4/25/08)
• Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon - And the Journey of a Generation by Sheila Weller (2008) Kindle (read on Kindle 4/26/08 ***)

Books I'm reading now:

• The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton (1905) 347 pages
• Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 by Steve Coll (2004) 717 pages
• Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq by Michael R Gordon and General Bernard E Trainor (2006) 603 pages
• Shakespeare's Sonnets (The Arden Shakespeare) edited by Katherine Duncan-Jones () 488 pages
• The Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets by Helen Vendler (1997) 672 pages
• Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-63 by Taylor Branch (1988) 1064 pages, Kindle
• Master of the Senate (The Years of Lyndon Johnson, volume 3) by Robert Caro (2002) 1167 pages
• The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century by Alex Ross (2007) 624 pages
• Whistling Past Dixie: How Democrats Can Win Without the South by Thomas F Schaller (2006) 336 pages
• A History of the English People by Paul Johnson (1985) 466 pages
• Crescent by Diana Abu-Jaber (2004) pages
• What's the Matter With Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America (2004) 306 pages
• Escape by Carolyn Jessup and Laura Palmer (2007) Kindle

Books to read soon:

• The Acceptance World by Anthony Powell (1955) 214 pages
• At Lady Molly's by Anthony Powell () pages
• Casanova's Chinese Restaurant by Anthony Powell () pages
• Put Out More Flags by Evelyn Waugh (1942) 286 pages
• Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions by Dan Ariely (2008) 280 pages
• Out of This Furnace: A Novel of Immigrant Labor in America by Thomas Bell (1941) 424 pages
• The Salt Line by Elizabeth Spencer (1984) pages
• Where Does the Money Go? Your Guided Tour to the Federal Budget Crisis by Scott Bittle and Jean Johnson (2008) 320 pages
• The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris (1979) 886 pages
• The Darling Buds of May by H E Bates (1958) 117 pages
• A Breath of French Air by H E Bates (1959) 112 pages
• When the Green Woods Laugh by H E Bates (1960) 100 pages
• Fair Stood the Wind for France by H E Bates (1944) 270 pages
• Young Pattullo by J I M Stewart (1975) 317 pages
• The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C S Lewis (1950) 189 pages
• Lush Life by Richard Price (2008) 455 pages
• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (1847) pages
• Sonnets 49-51 by William Shakespeare
• Orley Farm by Anthony Trollope (1861) chapters 45-50

I'd Buy without Looking

Someone in my online Trollope group mentioned in an email the other day a list he made of authors whose books he would buy without so much as looking at the book. That strikes me as a revealing sort of list. I would include on the list authors whose books I request from the library without regard to their subject.

Here are some of my Buy (or Borrow) without Looking authors:

• Michael Chabon
• Thomas Sowell
• Barbara Brooks Wallace (children's books)
• Robert Caro
• Jess Walter
• Diana Abu-Jaber
• Nancy Pearl
• Henry Petroski
• Nicky Epstein (knitting books)
• Debbie Stoler (knitting books)
• Lalita Tademy
• Timothy Egan
• James Webb
• Edmund Morris
• Elizabeth George
• Tobias Wolff
• James Q Wilson
• Juan Williams
• Rebecca Pawel
• Julia Spencer-Flemming
• Hermione Lee
• Fran Lebowitz
• Dennis Lehane

Another Book Meme

I picked up this meme from Life Must Be Filled Up. It's a list of the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing’s users. Bold the ones you've read, underline the ones you read for school, italicize the ones you started but didn't finish. Here are my results.

Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi : a novel
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
The Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler’s Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian : a novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible : a novel
1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels
Les Misérables
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes : a memoir
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake : a novel
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers

A New Approach to the Sunday Book Reviews

For many years I've read the book reviews in the Sunday papers, especially the New York Times Book Review, and either written down the titles of books I find interesting, gone online to request them from the library, or even bought one or two of them.

But then I had to find a copy of the book somewhere, get it from the library, or wait for amazon.com to deliver it. No longer.

This morning I went through the reviews, picked out the books I was interested in and requested samples of them from amazon. Within two-minutes, sure enough, the first chapter or two of each book was awaiting me on my Kindle.

Instant gratification! So American!

Today I read samples of the new Thomas Sowell book, Economic Facts and Fallacies. I'll probably buy that book as I own most of Sowell's books. I took a look at The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz. I'll pass on that one. Too much profanity, exceedingly unappealing characters, and too much Spanish that I suspect is as profane as the English.

I read the first chapter of Fashion Babylon by Imogen Edwards-Jones. That didn't grab me. The Forgotten Man by Amity Shlaes did. I kept that along with the other books that look particularly interesting and will decide among them when I finish the book I'm reading now.

My Kindle is changing the way I read and buy books. It may even help me get control of my reading list.

A Few of My Favorite Blogs . . .

Letters from a Hill Farm is one of those blogs that you find yourself checking more than once a day because of Nan's faithfulness in posting often and the delightful glimpse she gives you into life on a Northern New England farm.

Yesterday she planted two 25-ft rows of peas and made corn muffins. A week ago she showed us some photos of intriguing sculpture at a New Hampshire museum. On April 18 she reviewed Reeve Lindburgh's new book, Forward from Here.

Letters from a Hill Farm always has a great photo at the top. Right now it's the naughty looking goat you see above. Check it out.

Briar Rose

I recently read a post by Robin at A Fondness for Reading about a Jane Yolen book, Briar Rose (1992). When I happened upon my copy a day or so later I sat down and read it.

Robin's review, which she posted on the 14th of April, and Jane Yolen's website provide lots of information about the book and why Yolen wrote it. And Robin has found a spectacular photo of a stained glass window called Briar Rose by Michael Stokes to illustrate her review.

I think of Jane Yolen as a children's book writer. Briar Rose, however, is an adult novel. It has one of the most cleverly woven plots I've seen in recent years, with the details of the modern story of a young woman searching for her grandmother's past and those of the fairy tale (also known as Sleeping Beauty) cleverly matched.

The book is short and can be read quickly. It will stay with you forever.

Pun

Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?

.