Finished reading "WILLA CATHER: Collected Stories". It contains 19 short stories by the American writer Willa Cather. She was born in 1873 and died in 1947. I am impressed with her writing and will read her novels later.

The stories in this collection were originally published between 1905 and 1948. From them I got a glimpse of that period's culture in the US. Their main characters include opera singers, actors, painters and teachers. A few Nebraska farmers too. There are references to Carnegie Hall and the Metropolitan Opera House.

Now reading "A sparrow falls" by Wilbur Smith.

Finished "a sparrow falls" not bad reading, this would make a great movie. Just imagine a sparrow with wings outstretched as it glides along oblivious to its surroundings...BADDAM... into a tree...Blop... onto the ground...story done.

Well no, nothing like that...no sparrows...just great reading about man's greed and the height that he would go even stepping on his father to get to the top.

Finished reading THIS LONG PURSUIT by British biographer Richard Holmes. For over 40 years Holmes has researched and written on the lives of British and French Romantic poets, writers and artists --- Percy Bysshe Shelley, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Shelley etc.

Published in 2016, “This Long Pursuit” is the third of a trilogy that began with “Footsteps” [1984] followed by “Sidetracks” [2000]. It is an inside account of Holmes at work and includes the experiences of other biographers that Holmes has admired --- biographers of Madam de Stael, Mary Somerville, John Keats, William Blake etc.

Showing how he investigated the lives of his subjects, Holmes says “the serious biographer must physically pursue his subject through the past. He must go to all the places where the subject had ever lived or worked, or travelled or dreamed. Not just the birthplace, or the blue-plaque place, but the temporary places, the passing places, the last places, the dream places.”

This book brought out memories of my English Literature studies in high school, particularly Coleridge’s poem “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”. Holmes has made me adjust my reading plan for this year, so I am now including English Romantic books covering the period roughly between 1770 and 1830.

Finished reading WHY POETRY MATTERS by US writer and academic Jay Parini. Published in 2008, this book provides lines from various old and contemporary poems to show how poetry could help broaden our minds and better our lives.

Finished reading UPSTREAM by Mary Oliver. This is a collection of 18 essays, published in 2016, by a woman who has been described as America's best-selling poet. Mary Oliver is a winner of the prestigious Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award, and holds four honorary doctorates.

Besides being a poet, Mary Oliver is a longstanding environmentalist. For most of her 82 years she made it her duty to be very close to nature --- woods, waterways, all kinds of flora and fauna. Reading her essays, I am amazed at her intimate knowledge of these things. I had to check Google Images for goosefish, sea robin, tautog, skate fish, black dogfish, bluefish,  spider crab, ocean sunfish, golden club plants, cattails, honey locust blossoms, merganser ducks, great horned owl, screech owl, snowy owl, etc. She pays attention to them all. "Attention is the beginning of devotion," she says. 

Just finished 47 Ronin, an action-adventure. After a warlord killed their master, 47 samurai vowed to seek vengeance and restore honour to their people.

Also a movie starring Keanu Reeves.

Gilbakka posted:

Finished reading UPSTREAM by Mary Oliver. This is a collection of 18 essays, published in 2016, by a woman who has been described as America's best-selling poet. Mary Oliver is a winner of the prestigious Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award, and holds four honorary doctorates.

Besides being a poet, Mary Oliver is a longstanding environmentalist. For most of her 82 years she made it her duty to be very close to nature --- woods, waterways, all kinds of flora and fauna. Reading her essays, I am amazed at her intimate knowledge of these things. I had to check Google Images for goosefish, sea robin, tautog, skate fish, black dogfish, bluefish,  spider crab, ocean sunfish, golden club plants, cattails, honey locust blossoms, merganser ducks, great horned owl, screech owl, snowy owl, etc. She pays attention to them all. "Attention is the beginning of devotion," she says. 

 

I'm happy to say my poem, The Tempering Fire by Vic Pandal, has been selected for publication in the Suffolk County Poetry Review 2017.

Congrats Anta DeBanta.

When I read the one about the two birds, a sadness came over me.

cain posted:

Congrats Anta DeBanta.

When I read the one about the two birds, a sadness came over me.

Thanks my idrine.

So far this year I have finished reading 54 books. But this old guy has put me to shame:

https://youtu.be/iN2E6ffQ4j8

I bought some good books from Amazon about Guyana but never find the time to read. I used to finish a novel in 2 days, devoured it until done. 

Leonora posted:

I bought some good books from Amazon about Guyana but never find the time to read. I used to finish a novel in 2 days, devoured it until done. 

I know exactly what you mean. I just finished "The Wild Coast" by Jan Carew. Surprisingly, I finished it in about a week and that was only because it was very captivating and I couldn't wait to finish it. I have other books I started years ago.

Here are some books I've read so far this year:

1. “Stalingrad” by Antony Beevor.
2. “Notes from a Dead House” by Fyodor Dostoevsky.
3. “The White Witch of Rosehall” by HG de Lisser.
4. “Robinson Crusoe” by Daniel Defoe.
5. “Indian Tales” by Rudyard Kipling.
6. “Eminent Victorians” by Lytton Strachey.
7. “Why Poetry Matters” by Jay Parini.
8. “The Persians” by Aeschylus.
9. “Albert Camus: A Life” by OlivieTodd.
10. “A Small Place” by Jamaica Kincaid.
11. “The Siege of Krishnapur” by JG Farrell.
12. “A Town Like Alice” by Nevil Shute.
13. “Walk Wid Me All Ova Guyana” by Helena Martin.

Gilbakka posted:

“Walk Wid Me All Ova Guyana” by Helena Martin.

Started reading this about 3 years ago ... got to page 14.  Could not get into reading the book completely.

IGH posted:

Gilbakka posted:

“Walk Wid Me All Ova Guyana” by Helena Martin.

Started reading this about 3 years ago ... got to page 14.  Could not get into reading the book completely.

Don't give up. It's a lovely memoir by a Portuguese-Guyanese woman who grew up poor in South Georgetown, married an employee of Royal Bank of Canada Charlestown branch, migrated and settled as a farmer in Australia. I recommend it.

Gilbakka posted:

IGH posted:

Gilbakka posted:

“Walk Wid Me All Ova Guyana” by Helena Martin.

Started reading this about 3 years ago ... got to page 14.  Could not get into reading the book completely.

Don't give up. It's a lovely memoir by a Portuguese-Guyanese woman who grew up poor in South Georgetown, married an employee of Royal Bank of Canada Charlestown branch, migrated and settled as a farmer in Australia. I recommend it.

I will try next year...

Somehow Poomeroon is stuck in my memory when I started to read the book...

IGH posted:

Gilbakka posted:

IGH posted:

Gilbakka posted:

“Walk Wid Me All Ova Guyana” by Helena Martin.

Started reading this about 3 years ago ... got to page 14.  Could not get into reading the book completely.

Don't give up. It's a lovely memoir by a Portuguese-Guyanese woman who grew up poor in South Georgetown, married an employee of Royal Bank of Canada Charlestown branch, migrated and settled as a farmer in Australia. I recommend it.

I will try next year...

Somehow Poomeroon is stuck in my memory when I started to read the book...

Her grandparents and uncles were from Pomeroon.

More books I've read this year:

(14) “Idle Days in Patagonia” by WH Hudson.

(15) “In Patagonia” by Bruce Chatwin.

(16) “The Plantation” by Di Morrissey.

(17) “Algerian Chronicles” by Albert Camus

(18) “Hiking With Nietzsche” by John Kaag.

(19) “Daisy Miller” by Henry James.

(20) “Gorbachev” by William Taubman.

(21) “God’s Little Acre” by Erskine Caldwell.

(22) “The West Indies and the Spanish Main” by Anthony Trollope.

(23) “Racing with the Rain” by Ken Puddicombe.

(24) “Jenny Gerhardt” by Theodore Dreiser.

(25) “Reading Lolita in Tehran” by Azar Nafisi.

(26) “Dr No” by Ian Fleming.

(27) “Mosquito Mansion” by Christopher Hedgehorne.

(28) “Recycling A Son of the British Raj” by Peter Ramraykha.

(29) “The Strongest Poison” by Mark Lane.

(30) “Darker Than Amber” by John D Macdonald.

Gilbakka posted:

More books I've read this year:

(14) “Idle Days in Patagonia” by WH Hudson.

(23) “Racing with the Rain” by Ken Puddicombe.

 

I read #23. 
Did not read #14.

Read these about 5 years ago by Hudson.

I read Far Away & Long ago when I was about 13 yrs old.

IGH posted:

Gilbakka posted:

More books I've read this year:

(14) “Idle Days in Patagonia” by WH Hudson.

(23) “Racing with the Rain” by Ken Puddicombe.

 

I read #23. 
Did not read #14.

Read these about 5 years ago by Hudson.

I read Far Away & Long ago when I was about 13 yrs old.

1968 was the first time I read FAR AWAY AND LONG AGO in preparation for GCE 'O' Level English Literature examination. I reread it in 2014 with a more knowledgeable brain and picked up a lot of interesting details that had flown high above my head the first time.

Gilbakka posted:

IGH posted:

Gilbakka posted:

More books I've read this year:

(14) “Idle Days in Patagonia” by WH Hudson.

(23) “Racing with the Rain” by Ken Puddicombe.

 

I read #23. 
Did not read #14.

Read these about 5 years ago by Hudson.

I read Far Away & Long ago when I was about 13 yrs old.

1968 was the first time I read FAR AWAY AND LONG AGO in preparation for GCE 'O' Level English Literature examination. I reread it in 2014 with a more knowledgeable brain and picked up a lot of interesting details that had flown high above my head the first time.

Green Mansions: A Romance of the Tropical Forest is an exotic romance by William Henry Hudson about a traveller to the Guyana jungle of southeastern Venezuela and his encounter with a forest dwelling girl named Rima.(copied from wikipedia)

I did not want to put it down...

Presently reading Faith of my Fathers- John McCain.

Just ordered - Becoming - Michelle Obama

 
Not sure if Amazon has all of Hudson's book  ...

https://www.thriftbooks.com/a/...henry-hudson/470722/

@Former Member

GREEN MANSIONS is indeed a wonderful book. Rima Guest House in Middle Street near Main Street was named after the fictional character. 

Re: the John McCain book. I read it a good while back. Inspiring. If I remember well it is edited by Mark(?) Salter. My copy: blue cover.

Gilbakka posted:

@Former Member

GREEN MANSIONS is indeed a wonderful book. Rima Guest House in Middle Street near Main Street was named after the fictional character. 

Re: the John McCain book. I read it a good while back. Inspiring. If I remember well it is edited by Mark(?) Salter. My copy: blue cover.

I just learned something about RIMA Guest House. I worked at the travel service - RORAIMA TRAVEL SERVICE, that used to be on the lower flat.

Rima Guest House was owned by KINGS( I think they are ex-pats). Their son Jonathan used to dribble a basket-ball on the seawalls.

Mark Salter indeed edited "Faith of My Fathers" I became interested in reading it along with For Whom The Bell Tolls(never read it, although my older brother had it) when I saw Sen.McCain's funeral on TV.

Finished reading “The Collected Essays of Elizabeth Hardwick”. It contains nearly 60 essays Hardwick wrote for the New York Review of Books. They focus on writers like Herman Melville, Henry James, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ernest Hemingway, Mary McCarthy, Kathleen Anne Porter, Joan Didion, Graham Greene, Dylan Thomas, Carl Sandburg etc.

Elizabeth Hardwick (1916-2007) was a US literary critic and writer.

Finished reading "BY WOMEN POSSESSED: A Life of Eugene O'Neill" by Arthur & Barbara Gelb.

O'Neill (1889-1953) was a trailblazing American playwright specializing in tragedies. He loved lovely lasses, the theme of this biography.

Just finished Waiting by Ha Jin - a detailed portrayal of life in China while exposing both the selflessness and selfishness of individuals in a captivating story.

...yes...and?????

cain posted:

...yes...and?????

and......'Waiting' won the PEN/Faulkner award.  A path well traveled. 

cain posted:

...yes...and?????

Have to read it to find out the "and."

Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, David Sedaris - an excellent, brutally frank and detailed account of the tribulations and joys of everyday life.

Finished reading THE COSSACKS by Leo Tolstoy. This novel was first published in 1863. It's set mainly in the Caucasus region in southern Russia. It's semi-autobiographical. As the narrative shows, the Russia-Chechnya conflict has been ongoing for over 200 years before Putin.

Gilbakka posted:

Finished reading THE COSSACKS by Leo Tolstoy. This novel was first published in 1863. It's set mainly in the Caucasus region in southern Russia. It's semi-autobiographical. As the narrative shows, the Russia-Chechnya conflict has been ongoing for over 200 years before Putin.

That's a good story. Another good Cossack novel is Gogol's Taras Bulba.

Here are a 1001 books you should read before you die. Merry Christmas! 

antabanta posted:

Gilbakka posted:

Finished reading THE COSSACKS by Leo Tolstoy. This novel was first published in 1863. It's set mainly in the Caucasus region in southern Russia. It's semi-autobiographical. As the narrative shows, the Russia-Chechnya conflict has been ongoing for over 200 years before Putin.

That's a good story. Another good Cossack novel is Gogol's Taras Bulba.

Never read the book but saw the movie with Yul Bryner and Tony Curtis. If the movie is any reflection, the book will be a good read.

GTAngler posted:

antabanta posted:

That's a good story. Another good Cossack novel is Gogol's Taras Bulba.

Never read the book but saw the movie with Yul Bryner and Tony Curtis. If the movie is any reflection, the book will be a good read.

The end is much different in the book than the movie.

D2 posted:

Here are a 1001 books you should read before you die. Merry Christmas! 

I took the time to run through this list. I am ashamed to declare that I have read only the following:

1. Chinua Achebe, THINGS FALL APART.
2. Margaret Atwood, THE ROBBER BRIDE.
3. Jane Austen, PRIDE AND PREJUDICE.
4. James M Cain, THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE.
5. John Le Carre, THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD.
6. Joseph Conrad, HEART OF DARKNESS.
7. Joseph Conrad, LORD JIM.
8. James Fenimore Cooper, THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS.
9. Charles Dickens, GREAT EXPECTATIONS.
10. Isak Dinesen, OUT OF AFRICA.
11. Fyodor Dostoyevsky, CRIME AND PUNISHMENT.
12. George Elliot, ADAM BEDE.
13. JG Farrell, THE SIEGE OF KRISHNAPUR.
14. F Scott Fitzgerald, THE GREAT GATSBY.
15. Gustave Flaubert, MADAME BOVARY.
16. EM Forster, A ROOM WITH A VIEW.
17. EM Forster, A PASSAGE TO INDIA.
18. Nikolai V Gogol, DEAD SOULS.
19. Maxim Gorky, MOTHER.
20. Graham Greene, THE POWER AND THE GLORY.
21. Graham Greene, THE QUIET AMERICAN.
22. Henry Rider Haggard, SHE.
23. Dashiell Hammett, THE MALTESE FALCON.
24. Ernest Hemingway, A FAREWELL TO ARMS.
25. Ernest Hemingway, FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS.
26. Ernest Hemingway, THE SUN ALSO RISES.
27. Ernest Hemingway, THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA.
28. Herman Hesse, SIDDHARTHA.
29. Thomas Kineally, SCHINDLER'S ARK.
30. Jack Kerouac, ON THE ROAD.
31. Rudyard Kipling, KIM.
32. Sinclair Lewis, BABBITT.
33. Thomas Mann, DEATH IN VENICE.
34. Gabriel Garcia Marquez, LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA.
35. Gabriel Garcia Marquez, ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE.
36. Gabriel Garcia Marquez, THE AUTUMN OF THE PATRIARCH.
37. VS Naipaul, A BEND IN THE RIVER.
38. VS Naipaul, IN A FREE STATE.
39. George Orwell, ANIMAL FARM.
40. George Orwell, 1984.
41. Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago.
42. Erich Maria Remarque, ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT.
43. Arundhati Roy, THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS.
44. Nevil Shute, A TOWN LIKE ALICE.
45. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, ONE DAY IN THE LIFE OF IVAN DENISOVICH.
46. John Steinbeck, THE GRAPES OF WRATH.
47. Leo Tolstoy, WAR AND PEACE.
48. Leo Tolstoy, ANNA KARENINA.
49. Mark Twain, THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN.
50. Kurt Vonnegut, SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE.
51. Evelyn Waugh, A HANDFUL OF DUST.
52. HG Wells, THE TIME MACHINE.

D2 posted:

Here are a 1001 books you should read before you die. Merry Christmas! 

Good list. Whose compilation is this? We all have different tastes. Quite a few of my favorites aren't on this list.

GTAngler posted:

D2 posted:

Here are a 1001 books you should read before you die. Merry Christmas! 

Good list. Whose compilation is this? We all have different tastes. Quite a few of my favorites aren't on this list.

dont know who created it. Found it and posted it for entertainment value only.

D2 posted:

GTAngler posted:

D2 posted:

Here are a 1001 books you should read before you die. Merry Christmas! 

Good list. Whose compilation is this? We all have different tastes. Quite a few of my favorites aren't on this list.

dont know who created it. Found it and posted it for entertainment value only.

Ok. I'm a bit partial to Guyanese/West Indian books I read growing up.

Finished reading AN IMPROBABLE FRIENDSHIP by Anthony David.

Ruth Dayan was the first wife of General Moshe Dayan, Israel's war hero and former Defence Minister. Raymonda Tawil was the mother-in-law of Yasser Arafat, Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization and President of the Palestinian Authority. Dayan and Arafat were mortal enemies. That couldn't prevent Ruth and Raymonda from becoming close friends who worked tirelessly together for peace and goodwill between Arabs and Jews. AN IMPROBABLE FRIENDSHIP traces their astounding journey and roadblocks they encountered.

This book is the 59th I've finished reading in 2018. The last one.

Lazarillo de Tormes, Anonymous, translated by Michael Alpert. Excellent use of the Picaresque genre with satire and irony to provide a fascinating account of life in Spain under the inquisition. Well written although the author remains anonymous.

Books the Atlantic say was good reading in 2018. I did not read any.

antabanta posted:

Lazarillo de Tormes, Anonymous, translated by Michael Alpert. Excellent use of the Picaresque genre with satire and irony to provide a fascinating account of life in Spain under the inquisition. Well written although the author remains anonymous.

I read Lazarillo de Tormes when my mother was trying to get me to read Spanish lit.  You have to read it in Spanish to get it. I Have two copies. One was given to me by  my mother. It has English on the right side of a two page spread  and Spanish on the left, The  other I bought at a foreign book store on Hillside and Kew Gardens some years ago.  I bought lots of books from them. They wholesale foreign classics in their original languages. You have to look closely to find them.