No news . . .
is good news?No apologies for failing to post. Time flies when your computer crashes, you get sick, you have company visiting, and simply forget to take a moment out to write online.
Besides, this page is for my own amusement since very few ever read it. (Thank you loyal friends. ;-) ) Hehe. There are just times - actually most of my life - when I'd prefer to keep my thoughts and impressions in written journals than on a page that is available for public consumption.
But this beautiful Sunday afternoon I'm listening to Carmina Burana and was simply inspired to return to the world of blogging.
So here's the update!
Recommended books read in the past three months:
- Elizabeth Gaskell's North & South. No, it's not about the American Civil War, it's about England's agrarian south and industrial north. She was a contemporary of Bronte and Dickens. The story is a bit of Thomas Hardy, a dose of Dickens, and the basic love story akin to Fitzwilliam Darcy and Elizabeth Bennett (although nowhere near as good). The BBC mini-series is actually a bit better than the book, which is something I rarely say, even about the BBC!
- Venetian Affair. Can't recall the author's name, but it's a fairly well-written novel based on the true affair between a Venetian nobleman and lower-class girl. Weaves the lovers' actual letters to each other into a "best-guess" story of their romance.
- John Paul II by Peggy Noonan. The author tells you all you need to know. Excellent personal memoir weaving biography, history, and anecdote.
- The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. I re-read it in anticipation of the movie's release. I'm not going to see the film in the theatre (most likely, at least), but I wanted to be ready to engage in discussion about it. Excellent work of fiction, and I think the proper means of responding to its blasphemous parts is to engage the culture rather than denounce it. It's got people talking, so let's join the discussion!
- Laura Bush by R. Kessler. Interesting biography (the only authorized one to be published as yet). If you've read other biographies, I'm not sure that this one will add much beyond a few accounts from close friends of the First Lady's. But this was the first such book I'd read, so it was informative and a quick read.
I'm mid-way through How the Irish Saved Civilization, a book I've started and set aside a half-dozen times over the past five years. Determined to finish it!
As you may have picked up, I'm a bit of a bibliphile. It's my hobby and my passion.
Found this quote in the preface of a book I stumbled upon at the $2/box library sale this week:
"No one person ever writes a book. One individual may write the manuscript, but the concepts are hammered out through years of reading and conversation. A chance remark by a total stranger or a sentence in the morning paper sometimes strikes home and stimulates an idea. Most books evolve rather than burst forth in full regalia."
Wow! How true. As an admirer of well-crafted sentences, and an individual who keeps notebooks of everything from great quotes to good words to use, how true it is that we find thoughts and words in the most unlikely of sources and then blend them in new ways to create something "new" and "ours." Even though neither term is actually fitting.
Oh, and the book that I discovered the quote in -- it's not even for me. I picked it up for a friend's father. It's a Southern Baptist Sunday School study on Deacons written by Howard B. Foshee!
More to come. I promise. And next time it won't just be about books!
posted by shadowlands7 @ 5:16:00 PM
1 Comments:
yippeee!! a new post from my favorite writer ! :-)
My biggest beef with all the drama over "Da Vinci Code" is this: IT'S FICTION!! Since when do we need to preach sermons and hold boycotts and get our panties in a knot over a work of FICTION. Fiction!! It's not true--it's not supposed to be taken as true--it's fiction!!!
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