More on books, soon
November 25th, 2007In response to Emily’s very true remark when linking to Mandarine from Cam’s roundtable that I do not write so much about books, I hereby solemnly promise more bookish posts.
Below is a shortlist of books I have read recently and on which I have something to share:
- Le Tour du Monde en Quatre-Vingt Jours (J. Verne)
- The Water-Babies (C. Kingsley)
- Something New (P.G Wodehouse)
- Northanger Abbey (J. Austen)
- Wuthering Heights (E. Brontë)
- A Tale of Two Cities (C. Dickens)
- Various short stories by Maupassant
- American Tabloid (J. Ellroy)
- The Great Influenza (non fiction, by J. M. Barry)
- Fausse Route (non fiction, by E. Badinter, which I’ll cross-post at What We Said)
- And just because Litlove listed Vian’s works amonst her worst reading experience, I’ll be re-reading l’Ecume des Jours and tell you whether she’s right.
About the picture: I just love poppies (coquelicots ‘coke-alee-koe’). I have collected a lot of seeds this summer from various places and intend to sow them in my lawn/prairie. Looking forward to July.
Mandarine - I’m looking forward to you rehabilitating Vian for me! I’ll bet you can do it.
The poppies are beautiful; and I look forward to reading your book blogging.
litlove: I am not sure I will rehabilitate Vian. Your post made me remember that I had loved l’Ecume des Jours (which I read when I was sixteen), but could not finish l’Automne à Pékin (which I tried at age twenty-five). Maybe I am too old now to appreciate Vian again.
Becky: they are. These are not mine. I took the picture while I was on vacation. But I hope there will be more poppy pictures, from my own garden this time.
My day is immeasurably enriched by knowing the French word for poppies, and also how to pronounce it. Thank you for that, dear Mandarine. While I enjoy reading about books, I also love photos like this and your thoughts about the world in which you live.
I am sure your boys know enough French to enrich you with coquelicots. I’ll try to take more pictures of flowers with distinct vernacular names.
Uh-oh, I can imagine my TBR list growing exponentially. (Oh wait a minute, it already does that.)
As a TBR list is always infinitely long (I’d say Aleph0), it can’t grow any longer. It’s only the priorities that get shuffled. As we have a finite reading time, it means that the proportion ‘read’/'to be read’ is always zero, even for the fastest of readers.