My Two Blessings

  It's book week 8 in our 52 Books quest and this week is all about Storytellers and all those lovely books they have created for our pleasure: narratives, myths, memoirs, drama, poetry as well as the world of fiction. From the classics to the contemporary writers of today there is a wide variety to choose from. Growing up, my brother was the one who told the most magnificent stories, whether he was retelling a Monty Python skit, relating an event that happened, or telling us about a book he’d read. We would hang on his words, groaning or laughing as he told a tale, astonished by the details, even if he’d only read or heard something once. I was never great at oral storytelling, maybe because it was difficult to get an word in edgewise with my large talkative family.  Today, the role has been taken over by my husband and son, both who have Eidetic memories,  remembering everything that’s ever happened in their lives. Which can be great, unless it’s something stupid you wi...

  I t's book week 7 in our 52 Books Quest and this week is all about Pablo Neruda.  As I was meandering about the internet I came across  Meanderings and Muses  (Don’t you love that name) Odes to Common things. And wouldn’t you just know it, I fell down a rabbit hole.  Found The Examined Life’s article on  Pablo Neruda’s Sublime Poetic Wonder at Meaning and Utility in Everyday Things .   Then stumbled upon Interludes where his poetry inspired  The   Music of Poetry – Pablo Neruda: Odes to Common Things .   Yes, he even penned An   Ode to a Book , but I liked his Common Things better. I finished Amari and the Night Brothers which was a wonderful middle grade story in which I kept forgetting Amari was only 12 years old. She was mature for her age, continually bullied and not believed because of the type of magic she had. But she was bound and determined to find her brother who’d disappeared under mysterious circums...

  It's book week six in our 52 Books Quest and this week's subject is Sleuths, continuing with our Agatha Christie theme.  I'm currently reading three books right now.  My sleuth is a twelve year who wants to help her brother in the children’s fantasy Amari and the Night Brothers by B.B. Alston which is quite good “Amari Peters has never stopped believing her missing brother, Quinton, is alive. Not even when the police told her otherwise, or when she got in trouble for standing up to bullies who said he was gone for good. So when she finds a ticking briefcase in his closet, containing a nomination for a summer tryout at the Bureau of Supernatural Affairs, she’s certain the secretive organization holds the key to locating Quinton—if only she can wrap her head around the idea of magicians, fairies, aliens, and other supernatural creatures all being real. Now she must compete for a spot against kids who’ve known about magic their whole lives. No matter how hard she tries, ...

  January has been an interesting reading month with an interesting assortment of books from magical realism to steampunk, to romance, to urban fantasy, to historical fiction, plus two non fiction writing books for a total of 4519 pages  which on average is 150 pages a day.   1Q84 was a chunky read at 935 pages and took me most of the month to finish.  Write for Life was the shortest but was meant to be read in six weeks. However, I just kept reading because I was ready to implement her suggestions rather than wait.  I managed to clear 5 dusty physical books and 1 dusty ebook from my shelves and discovered six new to me authors.     After Dark - Haruki Murakami , (Magical Realism, Japan, 256) “Time moves in it special way in the middle of the night.” You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty -  Akwaeke Emezi,(Romance, e) “For a moment, there was the scream of tires and the mad chime of broken glass, the soft petals of white lilies, and ...