A civil servant in the near future is tasked with care of a time-traveler, a naval officer from 1847, Graham Gore. She is to observe him and help him cope with life in the present day. The Ministry, for whom she works, is said to be studying several time-travelers from the past to study the effects of time-travel on humans and on the timeline.
Gore and the other time-travelers are delightful in their wit, their charm, and their responses to the changes in their worlds. I enjoyed the humor and the characters very much. If everything didn't quite pull together, logically-speaking and scientifically-speaking, my response is, Oh well, and Who cares? Too much fun to miss this little gem.
James is a wonderful new take on Huckleberry Finn. Jim is enslaved, and he learns that he is to be sold. He hides on a nearby island while he can formulate a plan, and his friend, Huck, joins him.
Jim and Huck have many adventures, including a flood, trying to con two con artists, and more. This book gives readers both a new look at Jim as well as a new look at the horrors of enslavement.
David Brooks takes a close look at some of the world's most highly respected people, including a war leader, a champions of the poor, a Civil Rights leader, a writer, and more. He shows how the difficulties each person faced helped develop the person's character. Brooks makes a distinction between the two Adams in the book of Genesis in the Christian Bible. One Adam, Adam 1, becomes great by developing ambition and other worldly values. The other Adam, Adam 2, becomes great by becoming a person who respects others and develops inner values. All of the people Brooks looks at develop into people of great character, like Adam 2.
Italo Calvino tells stories about beings engaging with the universe in the early days of the universe's existence. The stories hinge on scientific knowledge of the sixties about the Earth's formation and the first development of life and atoms and molecules. The stories are fun and surprising while also being science-based (at least the science-of-the-time-based).
King Mansolain has ruled for a thousand years, and he is dying. The Wonder Doctor tells his adviser, the Hare, that the king must be kept entertained with stories while the doctor searches for a cure. Night after night, visitors arrive and share stories with the king, but the king continues to grow weaker. Will the Wonder Doctor find a cure and return in time to save the king?
A clever little story, with the individual stories coming together in the end to make a lovely whole.
Alexis Zorba guides the story's narrator into a new life after the narrator hires Zorba to lead a crew of men to open a mine. Our narrator is a man of the mind and pen; Zorba is a man of feeling and the body. Both expound regularly, to the delight of the other, on their philosophies of life. All the while, life—women, wine, work—goes on all around them.
A few quotes from the book:
“All those who actually live the mysteries of life haven't the time to write, and all those who have the time don't live them! D'you see?”
“I felt once more how simple and frugal a thing is happiness: a glass of wine, a roast chestnut, a wretched little brazier, the sound of the sea. Nothing else.”
“Look, one day I had gone to a little village. An old grandfather of ninety was busy planting an almond tree. ‘What, grandfather!' I exclaimed. ‘Planting an almond tree?' And he, bent as he was, turned around and said: ‘My son, I carry on as if I should never die.' I replied: ‘And I carry on as if I was going to die any minute.'
Which of us was right, boss?”
“In religions which have lost their creative spark, the gods eventually become no more than poetic motifs or ornaments for decorating human solitude and walls.”
Fernandez has fallen and may have a concussion. Fernandez must be kept awake, and the narrator of this book decides to do so by telling Fernandez three stories. The narrator is inspired to create the stories by objects around the two of them. One story is about a potato. One story is about two people who have identical suitcases. One story is about an artist on a naturalist excursion to Australia who cannot draw.
Willie is an eleven-year-old boy living in Nova Scotia in the early 1900s. His father and older brother both work in the coal mines. Willie knows he will have to work in the mines when he gets a little older, but he longs to work with what he loves, horses.
This book for me was an eye-opening experience into the lives of people of the past. Accidents in the mine, explosions, dust, poisonous gases, wearying work, consumption—all these were a routine part of life working in the mines.
Friedrich is the story of the teen years of a Jewish boy in Germany in the 1930s. As the years pass, persecution of Friedrich and his family become more and more pronounced.
It's an ominous story of how a group can be singled out and persecuted. It begins small and grows. Fear in onlookers that they will be similarly treated can be a powerful deterrent in taking action against the persecutors.
We must never forget this story.
I love books. I love coffee. How could I go wrong with a book about coffee? But it didn't work for me. It wandered around and went here and there and I was left with nothing. I didn't even feel like I got a good sip.
I was eagerly looking forward to reading some of these Object Lessons series books, but now I think I will skip the rest.
Booksellers and librarians are people who have discovered the life-altering powers of books, and they want to share these with others. James Patterson and Matt Eversmann tell us about the lives of some of these people, many of whom are currently fighting the hardest battles of their lives against forces that want to limit the books that others have access to.
Ah, the wise truth of paradox...
“...Just because I'm finished,
doesn't mean that
I'm done.
Just because you
got the gold,
doesn't mean that
you won.
Just because you wrote it,
doesn't mean that I read it.
Just because I did it again,
doesn't mean I don't regret it...“
After reading this book, I say...
Just because you are a famous actor
doesn't mean you can't write a good book, too...
Meg Murry's twin brothers, Sandy and Denys, the normal ones of the family, the regular ones, the ordinary ones, go on an adventure of their own. The two run across unicorns and seraphim and nephilim, but it is only after they meet Noah that they dimly recall a story told to them at church...and they realize what is soon to come.
Yes, poet Wendy Cope has collected one hundred and one poems that center on lots of different aspects of happiness—nature and love, of course, but also the joy a monk gets from observing his cat, the delight a man feels while hearing church music, Mary Lou's fun in wearing red boots.
Here's one I love:
Jenny Kissed Me
Leigh Hunt
Jenny kissed me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat in;
Time, you thief, who love to get
Sweets into your list, put that in!
Say I'm weary, say I'm sad,
Say that health and wealth have missed me,
Say I'm growing old, but add,
Jenny kissed me.
Oh, Jane Gardam, you are such a wonderful writer. Your characters are believable, completely human, and your stories speak to the mystery that is life.
God on the Rocks explores the ideas of faith and love and attraction. We meet Margaret, eight, and her nanny, Lydia, as Margaret's mother, Ellie, is recovering from childbirth. We meet Margaret's dad, a fervent fundamentalist Christian. We meet Ellie's friends from her past, intellectual brother and sister Charles and Binkie. We meet Charles and Binky's mother, and her mother's companions. And somehow this all results in a story full of ideas that resonate with us as readers and fellow partakers of this thing that is life.
Dorothy is back in Oz, this time with her Aunt Em and Uncle Henry. Dorothy is taking her aunt and uncle on a tour of the wonders of Oz when she learns that the Emerald City is about to be attacked by the Gnome King. The Gnome King is angry that he has lost his magic belt, and he wants it back.
This time in Oz we meet more oddly charming characters, and that, for me, has become the delight of the Ozathon. Baum's gift is the creation of very strange, yet completely believable characters.