The wonderful Wyrd & Wonder reading/ blogging marathon is being hosted by Annemieke (A Dance With Books), Ariane (The Book Nook), Jorie (Jorie Loves A Story), Lisa (Dear Geek Place) and Imyril (There’s Always Room For One More).
This Sunday, the prompt is our favorite songs that we associate with the Magical. Some great food for thought – and obviously my chance to conjure up some music for magic and mayhem.
Is “tri-monthly” the right word? June, July, August — loads of books and shows that I discovered and even liked (wonder of wonders)! Interestingly, in pretty much all of these, I also found that the blurb or the trailer had been misleading. Here’s a (long post) wrap up.
A rather strange and underrated historical fantasy work set in the 1880s involving a “road trip” from New York to Scotland. The journalist heroine sets out to help her odd brother (and also escape her marriage). Then she finds herself embroiled in a blackmail plot and with her young nephew and niece in tow. This book really defies genre and age groupings. The suspense is slow to build-up, the “fantasy” part is very, very subtle. I even thought there was some LGBTQ representation in this 1976 book. Also historically accurate, as can be expected from Aiken.
A very quirky new adaptation of one of Agatha Christie’s more complex mysteries. This cryptic question changes every time: Why didn’t they ask Evans? Why didn’t they ask Evans? Why didn’t they ask Evans? Wait at least till Episode 2 for the show to really get going.
It’s been a while since I cross-linked to old favorite poems. But here are a few to keep the week going. The videos add to the beauty of the poem, so hope you watch those even if you’ve read these pieces before.
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with wornout tools;
… Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it …
Read the full piece by Kipling at Poetry Dot Com.
May 2021 was a slow reading month for me. I blogged much more than I read, which was unusual, but all thanks to the wonderful Wyrd And Wonder challenge. The link has all the posts for that challenge, most of these being SFF rec lists, but one standout read was Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi.
Aside from that, here’s a wrap-up for the month.
A very short book, with poems of varying length. These are all love/ heartbreak poems, but I think we can view them from a non-romantic lens too. I’m sure we’ve all had friends and loved ones with whom we had a parting, Lang’s poetry would ring true for those relationships as well. Rating: B–
Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow,
I am the sunlight on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain,
When you awaken in the morning’s hush,
I am the swift uplifting rush,
Of quiet birds in circled flight,
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
So do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there. I did not die.
~ Mary Elizabeth Frye (1905-2004)
Writings of light assault the darkness, more prodigous than meteors.
The tall unknowable city takes over the countryside.
Sure of my life and death, I observe the ambitious and would like to understand them.
Their day is greedy as a lariat in the air.
Their night is a rest from the rage within steel, quick to attack.
They speak of humanity.
My humanity is in feeling we are all voices of the same poverty.
They speak of homeland.
My homeland is the rhythm of a guitar, a few portraits, an old sword, the willow grove’s visible prayer as evening falls.
Time is living me.
More silent than my shadow, I pass through the loftily covetous multitude.
They are indispensible, singular, worthy of tomorrow.
My name is someone and anyone.
I walk slowly, like one who comes from so far away,
he doesn’t expect to arrive.
Jorge Luis Borges was a famous Argentine writer and poet. He became blind at the age of fifty-five due to a hereditary condition. On his blindness, Borges wrote: “When I think of what I’ve lost, I ask, ‘Who know themselves better than the blind?’ – for every thought becomes a tool.“
It’s time for #6degrees. Start with the monthly read, add six books, and see where you end up. Inspired by the 6 Degrees of Separation Meme hosted every month at Books are my Favorite and Best.
Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart is the book for April 2021. Shuggie Bain won the Booker Prize for its portrayal of alcoholism and addiction, and its impact on working-class families in 1980s United Kingdom.
Clerihew: A type of light, humorous biographical four-line poem in rhyming style AABB. The Clerihew was named after its inventor, Edmund Clerihew Bentley (also, one of G.K. Chesterton’s close friends). Clerihews start with the name of a famous person, who is then “put in an absurd light”.
A few Clerihews below:
After dinner, Erasmus
Told Colet not to be “blas’mous”
Which Colet, with some heat
Requested him to repeat.
The people of Spain think Cervantes
Equal to half-a-dozen Dantes:
An opinion resented most bitterly
By the people of Italy.
Sir Humphrey Davy
Detested gravy.
He lived in the odium
Of having discovered sodium.
Sir Christopher Wren
Said, “I’m going to dine with some men.
If anyone calls,
Say I’m designing St. Paul’s.”
This is the final month for the Japanese Literature Reading Challenge, so I really had to hurry up with this one. I had two main recommendations for this month: Once and Forever: The Tales of Kenji Miyazawa, and an anthology of Japanese Haiku poetry compiled by Yamamoto and Addiss. And although not “literature”, also the superbly mind-bending scifi anime, Paprika.