“You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might pray also in the fullness of your joy.” Kahlil Gibran
Category: Read
The Paris Wife
by Paula McLain
This author has the ability to draw us into the sweetly sad story of Hadley & Ernest from Chapter One. Elizabeth Hadley Richardson was the first love and first wife of Ernest Hemingway. She was, in truth, The Paris Wife. 
Real, not overworked dialogue between two people can’t be very easy, and Ms. McLain brings it to life with a smoothness that many historical fiction writers don’t accomplish. Schruns, Pamplona and the Riviera are a few of the stylishly chic backdrops where this couple worked and played. This account of the now famous couple’s travels and circle of artistic friends is fascinating!
By the way readers, I’m in my official “French Phase”, and so this was absolument parfait! (I wish I hadn’t had to use Google translate just there ; ) Stay tuned for “A Year in Provence”.
White Fang by Jack London
I grabbed this book as I was about to go out of town with nothing to read. My father had read Jack London and I tend to like wilderness adventure tales, so that’s all it took. If Mr. London does not have you hooked in the first 3 chapters, I’d be surprised~ I. The Trail of Meat; II. The She-Wolf; III. The Hunger Cry. Two men, and six dogs, sledding across the Arctic, transporting a corpse in a coffin, when daylight comes and goes in a brief 6 hours. Oh, and they only have 3 cartridges for the rifles. A lot can go wrong quickly~
London then gently transitions into part anthropomorphic narrator and finds a way to bring us into the world of Kiche the she-wolf whom the native Indians had once tamed. She bears White Fang, her only offspring to survive that spring’s litter, and he takes us along on first hunts, first terrors, and many encounters with humans, or “man-gods” as London calls them.
You won’t look at your own sweet pup in the same way~
Mark reviews (and lives), ‘We Wanted A Farm’ by M.G. Kains
A first hand account of a couple starting a garden in the city, then renting a home in the suburbs, and finally taking the plunge to buy their own farm. Originally published in 1941, some of the prices obviously seem quite dated.
Kaines has good recommendations for seed varieties which should be heirloom quality in the present day, as well as good tips on how to prepare your soil and how not to buy manure from a local farmer! Good tips on pruning perennial fruits and vegetables for max yield, how to mail order and store plants for the coming season.
His food was so fresh and of high quality that visitors from the city became a problem which was solved by a well placed sign on his driveway.
Intro on how to use dynamite – I’m not going there even if we could buy it today!
Funny comments on his hired help which were the cause for more work than help!
After reading this I now see that farming is a year round activity with plenty of hard work, but the bounty of fresh food brings pleasure year round.
I’m going on a trip, and in my suitcase I need to pack a book. What should I bring?
Here we are finally in full summer and that means we are all hopefully digging into some good “summer reads”. Time for a “What are you reading?” post to pull all sorts of good recommendations out of you epr followers.
So? New? or not new but a favorite? Or, just share your favorite summer reading memories! Mine might have to be reading a creepy book called The Other by Thomas Tyrone or maybe The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough.
Stories from Shakespeare – or how to follow the Bard
If you have watched a Shakespeare play and said to yourself, “What are they saying?” or “What’s going on?” or “Why don’t they speak English?”, you are not alone, and should not have high school flashbacks either. The play is the thing! Just prepare for it. I did my research back when we first subscribed to Chicago Shakespeare Theater all those years ago. The hands-down best resource to prep for the play is ‘Stories from Shakespeare’ by Marchette Chute. The title of Marchette’s work says it all in the word “Stories”. These are great stories and we want to hear the words, watch the action and learn to tell them again and again.
Most people can probably share a common High School English class experience of reading an assigned Shakespeare play. Mine was ‘The Merchant of Venice.’ I’ve since come to believe that these richly layered, intensely crafted plays were not meant to be read, and that is why the torturous memories of my first exposure to Shakespeare still linger. That said, I am thankful to have found that at 15 years old, I was able find real truth and a peak at the genius that Sir Will shared with the world in the eloquence and cunning of Portia v. Shylock.
After many years as subscribers to Chicago Shakespeare Theater, we are down to only one or two of the histories before we can say we’ve seen the entire canon. This is not like saying, “Shakespeare Bucket List – Check!” The guy’s works are enduring and wouldn’t still be staged all over the world every day and night if he was a one hit wonder. Seeing a Shakespeare play more than once is like looking at a bright object through a prism. It is every changing and beautifully fascinating. Proof of that can be found as the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth brings a celebration of Hamlet to be performed in every nation on earth within 2 years. http://www.shakespearesglobe.com/theatre/whats-on/globe-theatre/hamlet-globe-to-globe
But back to the plays, because, the play is the thing. Hamlet: “I’ll have grounds, more relative than this—the play’s the thing. Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King.”
Hamlet Act 2, scene 2, 603–605
Mark Twain is still speaking…
When I’m need of a little bit of inspiration, I can always count on Mr. Samuel L. Clemens.
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.
&
Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
but never one to remain too pious for too long,
Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company.
and so,
All generalizations are false, including this one.
Amen.
Robert Louis Stevenson State Park, Calistoga California
“I am told there are people who do not care for maps, and find it hard to believe. The names, the shapes…the courses of the roads and rivers…are an inexhaustible fund of interest for any…with eyes to see or two penceworth of imagination to understand with.”
Treasure Island, 1883
Robert Louis Stevenson and bride, Fanny Vandergrift Osbourne spent the summer of 1880 honeymooning at in a cabin at an abandoned mining camp on Mt. St. Helena. Perhaps not surprisingly, no record of Fanny’s review of this romantic setting can be found. There is a small marker 1 mile up the forested, sometimes rocky trail. Hike 4 miles beyond that spot on mostly gravel forest road, up, up, up to 4337 feet to look out from North Peak, the highest peak in Sonoma County on a mountain shared with Napa County. The dogs were barking, but Mr. Stevenson was the inspiration for this adventurer!