Classics Considered

This week's Top Ten Tuesday is all about titles of books that are more unique than trendy.  I may not have mentioned before that I love, love, love a good book title, so this topic particularly appeals to me.  ;) Without further ado, here are some unique ones from classic literature: 1. Moby-Dick; or, The Whale , by Herman Melville It doesn't get more signature than this. Melville chose interesting names for all the characters, not least of all the whale. 2. Perelandra , by C. S. Lewis The surest way to have a unique title is to use a word from your own fictional language! 3. Magellania , by Jules Verne Alternatively, taking a nonfictional place and making it more "literary" also works. 4. The Lighthouse at the End of the World , by Jules Verne Probably my favorite book title of all time.  He used "lighthouse" in a title before it was trendy. Rather than overrun this list with Jules Verne, I will just add that most of his titles were unique in his day.  (He...

Starting a little late here - but hey, with four hours of extra sleep, I have that much more energy for the rest of the readathon!  ;) Going to follow Cirtnecce 's example and update this post as often as possible.  Stay tuned and check back! Hour 12 . . . Mid-Event Survey : 1. What are you reading right now? Well, I just finished Hero: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia , which I've been reading since June.  His story always gets me...  I got teary near the end. 2. How many books have you read so far? Two!  But one of those involved 90 pages chock-full of history.  My brain is swimming with information. 3. What book are you most looking forward to for the second half of the Read-a-thon? I'm still looking forward to Bambi . ^_^  But The Lord of the World also intrigues me! 4. Have you had many interruptions? How did you deal with those? No, it's been a blissful day at home. 5. What surprises you most about the Read-a-thon, so far? I'm really su...

Once again, I'm gearing up for Dewey's 24 Hour Readathon , starting in five hours!  I enjoyed this event so much last time that, as soon as I heard there was a fall edition, I put it on my calendar.  It's not so much that I stay up the full 24 hours - no, indeed - but it's such a great, fun time to read a lot of different books and eat candy (oops). As before, I'll be posting updates to Instagram and Goodreads , as well as maybe some reviews here.  Let me know if you're also participating! The lineup:  Finish Hero: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia / Michael Korda Journey Through the Impossible / Jules Verne Peter Pan / J. M. Barrie Rhett & Link's Book of Mythicality / Rhett and Link Bambi (ebook) / Felix Salten Stretch goals: The Lord of the World (ebook) / Robert Hugh Benson Kidnapped (re-read) / Robert Louis Stevenson

Currently: at home, listening to the rain, trying to fend off the beginnings of a cold.  (I haven't been sick in quite some time...it was bound to happen.) What better time to talk about The Wonderful Wizard of Oz ? Most people are familiar with the film, having the somewhat abbreviated title of The Wizard of Oz .  It was one of my childhood favorites, perhaps more so even than Mary Poppins , and I still love it.  You'd have to be hardhearted not to at least sympathize with Dorothy's plight and desire to find home, after a gigantic cyclone tears her family apart and literally drops her in a strange, fantastical land.  For my part, I've never stopped wanting a pair of ruby slippers (magical or otherwise). L. Frank Baum's 1900 book predates the film by some decades and the modern reader by over a century.  It takes us a little more imagination to picture even Kansas.  Baum's sparse yet concise prose helps us in this: When Dorothy stood in the doorway and lo...

Exciting news in the literature world... today it was announced Kazuo Ishiguro won the 2017 Nobel Prize for Literature ! As you may know from following me here and on Goodreads, I have great respect for Ishiguro as a writer.  I do not agree with his outlook on all issues, and my reactions to his novels have ranged from jaw-dropping admiration and pure enjoyment to boredom and pure disgust .  Nonetheless, he is a truly talented storyteller, who is not above using plain language to reach his readers.  His genius lies in the fact that his simplicity of style never gets in the way of his subtlety or message.  As a reader I am drawn into his world, and as a writer I remain in complete awe of his style.  Kazuo Ishiguro is certainly a author of "axes" for frozen seas and, for the writing standard he sets, a worthy Nobel Prize laureate.

(Not the real cover.)  You can check out the cover art and pre-order the book here ! Little Red Riding Hood meets classic Western - what a cool idea!  I was excited to read Cloaked , because I love LRRH, and fairy tales and Westerns are two of the best storytelling genres out there.  Since LRRH already has some Western elements (woods and wolves!), I was curious how the two would merge in this retelling. The story begins with Mary Rose O'Brien boarding a stagecoach to visit her grandmother.  Mary Rose is extremely nervous because she's never met her grandma Jubilee before, yet her parents are hoping that, by making a good impression, she will mend the long rift between Mary Rose's father and Jubilee.  To make matters worse, her traveling companions are a rough-looking laborer and an over-friendly bookkeeper, and she is not sure she can trust either of them.  Mary Rose is hoping for some adventures at her grandma's Wyoming ranch, but when she arrives, she ha...

After a long, hot, dry, allergy-stricken, wildfire smoke-infused summer, we are finally getting rain again, and I love it.  Today I actually wore my thick cable-knit sweater, and my raincoat has seen a couple of outings, too. Fall means pumpkin-flavored treats, but (as importantly) it also brings cozy moments reading a book while listening to the rain or sitting by the fire.  These are the top ten books I hope to read this fall - that is, if I can make it to ten! 1.  The Wonderful Wizard of Oz - L. Frank Baum Maybe no other book screams "autumn" like this one.  It's a re-read; I haven't read it since childhood.  The movie is one of my all-time favorites! 2.  Cloaked - Rachel Kovaciny I was lucky enough to get an advanced reader copy of a new book by Hamlette, who blogs at The Edge of the Precipice .  So far I'm heartily enjoying it!   3.  Hero: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia - Michael Korda This is a long biography which I mus...