Month: April 2013

Tea Time for the Traditionally Built

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Smith. Alexander McCall. Tea Time for the Traditionally Built.

What is that saying? The more things change, the more they stay the same. When we catch up to Mma Ramotswe and the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency Mma Ramotswe is now still at the agency but she is now married to Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. Her assistant, Mma Matekutsi is still at the agency (although there is no mention of her typing school) and she is engaged to a well-to-do furniture salesman. The big drama lies with Mma Matekutsi. She has a competitor, another woman trying to steal her fiance away with immoral tactics. Meanwhile, Mma Ramotswe’s home life is doing well with the exception of her beloved tiny white van. As it becomes older it gets harder and harder to fix. She soon begins to hide the troubles from Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni for fear he will tell her to get rid of it. It seems unusual for Mma Ramotswe to love the tiny white van as much as she does but she considers it part of the family and goes to great lengths to keep it around. The one “mystery” of the book involves an always-losing football team. The manager is convinced someone is a traitor and losing games on purpose. Mma Ramotswe has been hired to find the culprit, which of course, she does.

A very good line, “Until you hear the whole story, until you dig deeper, and listen, she thought, you know only a tiny part of the goodness of the human heart” (p 60).

Reason read: This concludes my time with Mma Ramotswe and her friends. I started the series back in January with The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency in honor of Mystery month. I am sad to be ending this journey because I fell in love with the series.

Book trivia: Tea Time for the Traditionally Built isn’t the end of the series. It goes on but unfortunately I won’t be along for the ride.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Botswana” (p 42).

May Day or I Need Help

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This list started as the Mini List of books I wanted to read between November 1st, 2012 and October 31st, 2013. I compiled this list of the 95-100 books I expected to read within a twelve month span of time. I should have known such a prediction would be setting myself up for failure. Lots of things got in the way of me strictly sticking to the list. For starters, there was (and still is) the inability to predict which (if any) Early Review books I would win from LibraryThing. Then, there is my never-ending habit of “filling in” with a shorter book at the end of the month. This is the scenario: Let’s say there are eight days left in the month of January and I have nothing left to read from the mini list for the month of January… so I scan the Big January list, looking for something 175 pages or less. I read that short(er) book and voila! I have read a filler that wasn’t on the Mini List.
Now, there are two new “things.” First, the decision to bypass a book simply because I’m not in the mood for it. Ugh! For the first time ever I skipped over a book simply because I wasn’t ready to read it. The House of Morgan by Ron Chernow fell victim to my whim. I won’t get to read the book about banking until NEXT April. Second, a big mistake – I forgot to include other books in the Martin Boyd series. There are three others that didn’t make the original list. Duh!

So, having said all that, here is the list of books STILL TO GO from the mini list:

  1. Abide By Me by Elizabeth Strout
  2. Among the Missing by Dan Chaon
  3. Apollo: the epic journey to the moon by David West Reynolds
  4. At Home in the Heart of Appalachia by John O’Brien
  5. Beyond the Bogota by Gary Leech
  6. Burma Chronicles by Guy Delise
  7. Burning the Days by James Salter
  8. Cat Who Ate Danish Modern by Lillian Jackson Braun
  9. Child that Books Built by Francis Spufford
  10. Conspiracy and Other Stories by Jaan Kross
  11. Deafening by Frances Itani
  12. Death in Verona by Roy Harley Lewis
  13. Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby
  14. Fixer by Joe Sacco
  15. Going Wild by Robert Winkler
  16. Golden Spruce by John Vaillant
  17. Grand Ambition by Lisa Michaels
  18. Guardians by Geoffrey Kabaservice
  19. House on the Lagoon by Rosario Ferre
  20. Light Infantry Ball by Hamilton Basso
  21. Nobody Knows My Name by James Baldwin
  22. Ocean of Words by Ha Jin
  23. ADDED: Outbreak of Love by Martin Boyd
  24. Old Friends by Tracy Kidder
  25. Panther Soup by John Grimlette
  26. Points Unknown edited by David Roberts
  27. Return of the Dancing Master by Henning Mankell
  28. Rose Cafe by John Hanson Mitchell
  29. Scramble for Africa by Thomas Pakenham
  30. Southpaw by Mark Harris
  31. Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
  32. Time, Love, Memory by Jonathan Weiner
  33. What you Owe Me by Bebe Moore Campbell
  34. ADDED: When Blackbirds Sing by Martin Boyd
  35. Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken
  36. Working Poor by David Shipler

ON DECK FOR MAY:

  1. Dining with Al-Qaeda by Hugh Pope (audio)
  2. Fear of Flying by Erica Jong
  3. Beneath the Lion’s Gaze by Maaza Mengist (audio)
  4. Footnotes in Gaza by Joe Sacco
  5. ADDED: Mom & Me & Mom by Maya Angelou for the Early Review Program
  6. ADDED (because I am an idiot – I forgot to add the next books in the Martin Boyd series): A Difficult Young Man by Martin Boyd
  7. ADDED: The long Walk by Slavomir Rawicz

FINISHED:

  1. Adventures of Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carrol
  2. Ancient Athens on 5 Drachmas a Day by Philip Matyszak
  3. Apples Are From Kazakhstan by Christopher Robbins
  4. Arctic Grail by Pierre Berton (I started this last year. No, sorry – two years ago)
  5. Ariel by Sylvia Plath
  6. Author, Author by David Lodge (audio)
  7. Beautiful Swimmers by William Warner
  8. Before the Knife by Carolyn Slaughter
  9. Bellwether by Connie Willis
  10. Big Mouth and Ugly Girl by Joyce Carol Oates
  11. Billy by Albert French
  12. Brass Go-Between by Oliver Bleeck
  13. Breakfast with Scot by Michael Drowning
  14. Brush with Death by Elizabeth Duncan
  15. Brushed by Feathers by Frances Wood
  16. Camus, a Romance by Elizabeth Hawes
  17. Cardboard Crown by Martin Boyd
  18. Churchill, a life by Martin Gilbert
  19. City of Thieves by David Benioff
  20. Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner
  21. Descending the Dragon by Jon Bowermaster
  22. Diamond Classics by Mike Shannon
  23. Domestic Manners of the Americans by Fanny Trollope
  24. The Evolution of Jane by Catherine Schine
  25. Edward Lear in Albania by Edward Lear
  26. Fanny by Edmund White
  27. Final Solution by Michael Chabon
  28. Flamboya Tree by Clara Olink Kelly
  29. Full Cupboard of Life by Alexander McCall Smith
  30. Gabriel Garcia Marquez by Gerald Martin
  31. Galton Case by Ross MacDonald
  32. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos
  33. Girl in Landscape by Jonathan Lethem
  34. ADDED (in lieu of House of Morgan): God: a biography by Jack Miles
  35. Gold Coast Madam by Rose Laws
  36. ADDED: Good City edited by Emily Hiestand
  37. Good Thief’s Guide to Paris by Chris Ewan
  38. Good Thief’s Guide to Vegas by Chris Ewan
  39. Good-bye Chunk Rice by Craig Thompson
  40. Her by Christa Parravani
  41. Hole in the Earth by Robert Bausch
  42. Hole in the World by Richard Rhodes
  43. ADDED: Iliad by Homer
  44. Idle Days in Patagonia by William Hudson
  45. ADDED: Imperfect Harmony by Stacy Horn (for LibraryThing’s Early Review program
  46. Joy of Cooking by Irma Rombauer
  47. Kalahari Typing School for Men by Alexander McCall Smith
  48. Lives of the Painters, vol 2, 3 & 4 by Giorgio Vasari
  49. Mortality for Beautiful Girls by Alexander McCall Smith
  50. No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith
  51. Of Human Bondage by William Maugham
  52. Playing for Keeps by David Halberstam
  53. Rabbit Hill by Robert Lawson
  54. Rosalind Franklin: Dark Lady of DNA by Brenda Maddox
  55. Scar Tissue by Michael Ignatieff
  56. Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy
  57. Strong Poison by Dorothy L. Sayers
  58. Tatiana by Dorothy Jones
  59. Tattered Cloak by Nina Berberova
  60. Tea Time for the Traditionally Built by Alexander McCall Smith
  61. Tears of the Giraffe by Alexander McCall Smith
  62. Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club by Dorothy Sayers
  63. Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackery
  64. Viceroy of Ouidah by Bruce Chatwin
  65. Wholeness of a Broken Heart by Katie Singer
  66. Widow for One Year by John Irving
  67. Women of the Raj by Margaret MacMillan

POETRY COMPLETED:

  1. “Golden Angel Pancake House” by Campbell McGrath
  2. “Lepanto” by Gilbert Keith Chesterton
  3. “Listeners” by Walter De La Mare
  4. “Mandalay” by Rudard Kipling
  5. “Road and the End” by Carl Sandburg
  6. “Sea-Fever” by John Masefield
  7. “Winter” by Marie Ponsot
  8. “In My Craft or Sullen Art” by Dylan Thomas
  9. The Long Hill” by Sarah Teasdale
  10. “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost

NEXT YEAR:

  1. House of Morgan by Ron Chernow (as previously mentioned)

Ariel

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Plath, Sylvia. Ariel: the Restored Edition.New York: Harper Perennial, 2004.

Sylvia Plath wrote with such raw energy and emotion. Her essence is on every page, in every word. Nowhere is that more plain to see than in the collected poems in Ariel. As the last collection of poetry written before her death it is riddled with references to death. That is to be expected from one suffering from depression, on the wrong kind of medicine, and already an attempted suicide survivor. It’s as if death is stalking her, wooing her (case in point: the last line of “Death & Co” is “somebody is done for” (p 36) and “Dying is an art…I do it exceptionally well” (p 15). I chose to read Ariel: the Restored Edition and now that I’ve thought about it I don’t think it’s the version Pearl was referring to (see BookLust Twist). Oh well.

Favorite lines – the first being from Path’s daughter, Frieda, in the foreword, “The manuscript was digging up everything that must be shed in order to move on” (p xiv – xv).

Reason read: Although we are getting to the end of the month April is still National Poetry Month.

Author fact: Everyone knows a little something about Sylvia Plath (Smith College, Ted Hughes, suicide, etc), but what I recently learned was that she was born in Boston.

Book trivia: If you haven’t read Ariel I would suggest skipping the version Ted Hughes introduced to the world and pick up the one his daughter, Frieda Hughes, wrote the foreword for, Ariel: the Restored Edition. It is far more informative.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “You Can’t Judge a Book By Its Cover” (p 237). Oddly enough, Ariel is not a recommendation by Pearl. She merely uses it as an example of a recognizable cover when discussing Alan Powers’s book Front Cover: Great Book Jacket and Cover Design.

A Difficult Young Man

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Boyd, Martin. A Difficult Young Man. New York: Penguin, 1984.

I have to admit this story lagged for me. It wasn’t as non-directional as The Cardboard Crown but it still couldn’t hold my attention for long periods of time. Shoot, I couldn’t get through ten pages without straying from the page. A fly crawling along a windowsill could capture my attention faster and hold it longer.
So, right from the start I need to tell you the “difficult young man” of the story is Dominic Langton, grandson of Alice (writer of the journal in The Cardboard Crown). Dominic’s story is being told by his younger brother, Guy. Dominic is indeed difficult and troubled and sort of a loose cannon. He kills a horse, after all. But, it’s also the story of a family who is discontent wherever they are. Bounding between England and Australia, the grass is always greener on the other side.

Interesting lines, “It was difficult to run a house that was being looted” (p 105). good point.

Reason read: to continue the Langton Quartet (in honor of April being a good time to visit Australia).

Author fact: According to Penguin books Boyd had a preoccupation with his family and out of that preoccupation rose the mostly autobiographical Langton Quartet.

Book trivia: This is the second book in the Langton Quartet. It should be read before Outbreak of Love.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter “Australian Fiction” (p 29).

Iliad

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Homer. The Iliad. Translated by Robert Fitzgerald. New York: Everyman’s Library, 1992.

If there is one thing I cannot stand it’s writing a review for a classic, especially one that has been analyzed eight ways to Sunday. I mean, I honestly do not think I can add anything new or enlightening to what has already been said. Everyone knows the story of Achilles, right? Having said all that I wish I could pull out a quote from something I wrote in high school or even college. I’m sure I was much more profound in my narrow minded, get good grades, academic-driven youth. Probably the most meaningful element of The Iliad continues to be its grandeur. It is an epic poem of enormous scope with the dominant theme of mortality. According to most other reviewers, translation matters. Everyone has a favorite version. I honestly couldn’t say I felt one way or another about the Fitzgerald translation I read.

Reason read: April is National Poetry month.

Author fact: Homer was a speech writer. He excelled at persuasiveness.

Book trivia: The Iliad andThe Odyssey go hand in hand.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Poetry: A Novel Idea” (p 186).

Beautiful Swimmers

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Warner, William W. Beautiful Swimmers: Watermen, Crabs and the Chesapeake Bay. New York: Penguin Books, 1988.

This book is everything you have ever wanted to know about crabbing in the Chesapeake Bay. Seriously. It’s an extensive look at the watermen who make their living hauling up blue crabs. More than a science tutorial on the quick and aggressive critters, it is also a lesson in personality – the type of individual who makes a living hauling in crabs. The illustrations by Consuelo Hanks are phenomenal.

Here’s the thing. This book completely reminded me of the men and women who fish off of the coast of Monhegan Island. They love their life on the water just as much and love their way of life even more.

Funny line, “Getting up at two o’clock is unnatural for city folk” (p 151).

Reason read: William W. Warner passed away on April 18th 2008 from complications related to Alzheimer’s. I know it sounds gruesome but as soon as I learned this I thought of my uncle and wondered if Warner choked to death.

Author fact: William W. Warner won a Pulitzer for Beautiful Swimmers.

Book trivia: Beautiful Swimmers has gorgeous illustrations by Consuelo Hanks. Definitely worth checking out…as I mentioned before.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter simply called “Chesapeake Bay” (p 59).

“The Road Not Taken”

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Frost, Robert. “the Road Not Taken.” The Road Not Taken and Other Poems.New York: Dover Publications, 1993.

This is such a simple poem with such a complex meaning! But, having said that, how many people have used this poem to explain the things that they have done; the decisions they have made? My uncle read this poem at his brother’s funeral. His message was clear – my father, seven years his junior, chose a much different path than him or even the rest of the family. My father chose love over money. Happiness over family. My uncle offered this poem as an explanation for why they weren’t close as brothers but I also think he was (finally) voicing how proud he was of that courageous decision “to take the road less traveled.” It’s the last line that drives the point home. It has made all the difference. I know it did in my father’s short life.

Reason read: National Poetry Month. Need I say more?

Author fact: Robert Frost is one of the best known, best loved poets. We also associate Frost with New England but he was born in California.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Travelers’ Tales in Verse” (p 237).

Author, Author

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Lodge, David. Author, Author. Narrated by Christopher Kay. New York: Recorded Books, LLC, 2005

This was a long listen! 14 cds equaling almost 17 hours. If you want to do the math that meant 51 trips to and from work in order to finish it. While the print version is under 400 pages the audio seemed much longer. Because Lodge’s writing is rambling I found myself getting distracted and confused about what was happening when.  Author, Author is a biography that focuses mainly on Henry James’s relationships with Constance Fenimore Woolsen, the granddaughter of James Fenimore Cooper and with fellow author/friend George Du Maurier and the “horrible opening night” of his play “Guy Domville.” The best part of the story was Henry’s relationship with Constance Fenimore Woolsen (fondly known as Fenimore throughout the book). James struggles to have a relationship with her that is private yet meaningful.

Confessional – I swapped this out for another audio book as soon as the new one became available.

Reason read: Henry James was born in April and so to celebrate his birth I am listening to Author, Author.

Author fact: Lodge’s body of work is quite impressive. I have a few more of his titles on my challenge list.

Book trivia: The audio version of Author, Author is read by Christopher Kay.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “Literary Lives: the Americans” (p 144).

“In My Craft”

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Thomas, Dylan. “In My Craft or Sullen Art.” The Poems of Dylan Thomas. New York: New Directions, 1971. p 196.

The fact that Dylan Thomas needed to justify why he put pen to paper absolutely astounds me. This poem is all about the explanation behind the craft of writing. Why he writes should not need justification. I’d rather hear about what makes him write; what drives him to create.
Can I just say I love the word ‘rage’ in any context? It implies such a raw passion.

Reason read: April = National Poetry Month.

Author fact: Thomas also wrote a book called Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog, a collection of sequential autobiographical stories. Not on my list.

Poetry trivia: Dylan’s “In My Craft or Sullen Art” was turned into a knitting. Word for word. Crazy.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Poetry Pleasers” (p 187).
Just a note, because I am proud of this – I am almost finished with this chapter of More Book Lust. Just one more poem and I will be finished with “Poetry Pleasers.” Amazing.

In the Heart of the Canyon

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Hyde, Elisabeth. In the Heart of the Canyon. Westminster, MD: Books on Tape, 2009.

In the Heart of the Canyon is an accurate portrayal of a thirteen day river trip down the Grand Canyon; so much so that I felt I could have been there. Hyde effectively describes the guides, the tourists, the scenery, and of course, the Colorado River picture perfect. The character development of everyone involved in the trip builds just  as if you were in the boats with them, getting to know them as the days and miles pass by. The weather (and how to deal with the heat) and surrounding nature comes alive with Hyde’s words.  And when it comes to rafting down the river you can tell Hyde has seen rapids and even had a “maytag” experience or two. She puts you right in the action. A story about a rafting trip down the Colorado would be enough material for a book but Hyde takes it a step further by introducing a stray dog early in the story and creating characters that are not only interesting but complex. One character in particular, seventeen year old Amy keeps a journal. Her journal gives the events described by Hyde a new perspective. She introduces a different point of view and her comments serve as a reminder that everyone has an alternate truth based on their own unique personality. It’s what happens when you put twelve strangers and three guides together.

As an aside about the guides, I am around these kinds of people all the time. I can picture them perfectly. Tanned, well-built, confident and sure-footed moving in and around the boats. Congenial and comfortable. They give off an air of relaxed attitude but in the back of their minds they know everything about the trip is in their hands. Safety and fun.

Reason read: John Muir was born in April. Being a naturalist I thought it would be appropriate to read something that takes place 100% outdoors.

Author fact: According to Hyde, In the Heart of the Canyon came about when she was on a rafting trip and got “maytagged.”

Book trivia: In the Heart of the Canyon has a YouTube trailer. It makes the book out to be more of a dramatic thriller than it is.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “AZ You Like It” (p 31).

“The Long Hill”

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Teasdale, Sara. “The Long Hill.” The Collected Poems of Sara Teasdale. Cutchogue, New York: Buccaneer Books, 1996. p 152.

“The Long Hill” made me laugh and scratch my head all at once. As an avid walker I know what it’s like to anticipate the crest of a hill, to look forward to arriving at the top, only to miss it. Not sensing the highest point defies logic. Surely one would know when he or she has reached it! You expect grandeur to be at the pinnacle. Sara just shrugs and says she might as well continue down.
But there is also contradiction to her poem. She describes the beaten track and yet the hem of her gown was getting caught on brambles. No wonder she missed the top. She was too busy trying to free her gown! And why wasn’t she walking the beaten track? Wouldn’t she has noticed the top of the long hill if she had been paying attention?

Reason read: another poem for National Poetry Month…

Author fact: Sara Teasdale writes a great deal about New York. I’ll be reading more of her material at a later date.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Travelers’ Tales in Verse” (p 237). This poem marks the end of the chapter.

The Good City

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Hiestand, Emily and Ande Zellman, editors. The Good City: Writers Explore 21st Century Boston. Boston: Beacon Press, 2004.

I read this book with bias because I love Boston. It is my favorite city when compared to New York, Denver or San Diego. Hands down, bar none. I love everything about Boston and I love it for everything it isn’t. In The Good City Emily Hiestand and Ande Zellman compile essays from fifteen different writers who have or had a connection with Beantown. Some writers returned to the city with a change of heart, like Susan Orlean. Other have never left and staunchly stand by the historic city. It shouldn’t be read like travel guide although, I admit, I jotted down notes for the next time I’m there: Isabella Stewart Gardiner’s Museum, the Christian Science Center, to name two.

Boston is the destination after a long journey of self discovery. It looks back on history and looks forward with robotics.

Reason read: Reading in honor of the Boston Marathon, which took place place yesterday, on April 15th.

Author fact: Technically, I should be writing a fact about all 15 essay contributors but I’ll suffice it to say Susan Orlean and John Hanson Mitchell are two authors I am reading again for the challenge.

Book trivia: Don’t think of this as a travel guide because it’s not. Think of it as a compilation of writers expressing their feelings about a city that moved them in one way or another.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the catchy chapter called “Boston: Beans, Bird and the Red Sox” (p).

Postscript. How awful. On the day I am supposed to post this Boston is recovering from a bombing attack. There are no words to describe what I feel right now. I do know this – Boston is a tough and gritty town. We WILL get through this.

God: a biography

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Miles, Jack. God: a Biography. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995.

Jack Miles has an interesting concept. In order to write a biography on God he had to first consider him as a character in the Old Testament. He had to analyze the “character development” and bear witness to the relationships between God and the other primary “characters” of the Bible. One has to think of God and Lord as different. God takes on a variety of roles (including animal husbandry counselor). Miles’s philosophy is strong and pragmatically sound, even for an agnostic like me. It works. Somehow, it really works. Others must agree because God: a Biography won Miles a Pulitzer.

Favorite lines, “Our only identity is a lack of identity” (p 22), and “He is not just unpredictable but dangerously unpredictable” (p 46).

Confessional – I didn’t finish this. I got the gist of it after 100 pages. I think that was good enough.

Reason read: Easter has got to be one of the most religious holidays people celebrate. So, in honor of Easter and religion in general I am reading God: a Biography.

Author fact: As a former Jesuit priest Miles is no stranger to religious studies.

Book trivia: As I mentioned before Jack Miles won a Pulitzer for God: a Biography. What I didn’t mention was the date: 1996.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Dewey Deconstructed: 200s” (p 65).

Imperfect Harmony

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Horn, Stacy. Imperfect Harmony: Finding Happiness Singing with Others. Chapel Hill: Algonquin Books, 2013.

As much as I liked Horn’s writing style it took me a long time to get through this book. Each time I put it down it took longer and longer to pick it back up. I wasn’t retaining what I read and I wasn’t interested in what happened next. There wasn’t an opportunity to wonder what was going on because there was no flow to the content. Horn’s writing felt like well crafted essays with the common theme of choral singing. While I learned a great deal about singing with others from both the modern and historic perspectives I wasn’t as connected with the subject as I wanted to be. I have a feeling this will be a hit with people who know more about singing in the chorus because the writing is fantastic.

The above makes it sound like I didn’t get anything out of Horn’s book. I did get something unusual out of it – an overwhelming desire to see New York City as she describes it. I was drawn to her magical descriptions of certain streets. I felt like I had never really seen the city like she had. It made me want to open my eyes a little wider and walk a little slower the next time I am there.

Reason read: As part of the Early Review Program for LibraryThing

“Mandalay”

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Kipling, Rudyard. Mandalay. Rudyard Kipling’s Verse: Definitive Edition. New York: Doubleday and Company, 1940. p 416.

“Mandalay” is like a song with a chorus. It could easily be set to music. Even the subject matter, a soldier imagining his Burma girl pining away him, is appropriate for a ballad. He is still in lonely London. In my mind’s eye this poem is visually stunning.

Reason read: Poetry month. Need I say more?

Author fact: Kipling has long been a childhood favorite of mine. I can remember wanting to meet Mowgli just so I could hang out with the animals.

BookLust Twist: Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Travelers’ Tales in Verse” (p 237).