tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-41278432008-05-19T08:35:41.240-06:00The Little BookroomKatehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08735700811620271979noreply@blogger.comBlogger213125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4127843.post-58007691180278422612008-05-17T12:04:00.006-06:002008-05-17T12:46:39.471-06:00What is it about memes that's so irresistible? And I'm always a sucker for book lists--so fun to check off all the ones I've read... This one's from Voracious Reader.
Consider yourself tagged if you are reading this. When you post your list on your blog, please track back to mine (or leave a comment) so that I can read your lists too.
The rules:
Bold what you have read, italicize books you’ve Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08735700811620271979noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4127843.post-1017341890404676992008-04-18T13:01:00.002-06:002008-05-03T17:19:51.812-06:00Realizing the other day that it's none too soon to start thinking about and planning for homeschooling, I decided to read a book that's been on my list for a while now--The Well-Trained Mind, by Jessie Wise and Susan Wise Bauer. It's a guide to classical education at home, and is laid out chronologically, with detailed chapters for each subject. One could follow their program to the letter, as Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08735700811620271979noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4127843.post-7924891990333561082008-03-30T16:22:00.001-06:002008-03-30T16:23:07.508-06:00If Sam turns out like this boy, I will be so happy.Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08735700811620271979noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4127843.post-89048405474782731522008-03-18T12:08:00.002-06:002008-03-18T12:13:01.248-06:00Irresistible indeed, Steve. And so satisfying when the nearest book is an impressive one (AND one that I was reading, not Odious, as is more usually the case by the computer)!
Lord. The King and Queen and all are coming down.
Hamlet. In happy time.
Lord. The Queen desires you to use some gentle entertainment to Laertes before you fall to play.
--The Kittredge Shakespeares Hamlet, edited and Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08735700811620271979noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4127843.post-8475178164997327122008-02-16T16:58:00.002-07:002008-02-16T17:21:45.630-07:00
We just spent a lovely sunny week in California visiting relatives, and my dear sister took us to a charming little oldtown shopping area where we went crazy in a couple of antique stores. I found all these delicious old books--so much fun! I was hoping the titles would show up better in the picture, but I guess I'll have to list them. There are only a couple of replacements (Rose In Bloom and Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08735700811620271979noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4127843.post-79426812327804134592008-01-26T16:42:00.000-07:002008-01-26T17:18:21.449-07:00My latest phase of potato-chip reads is over, and I'm back to Victorian novels as inspired by the wonderful book Inside the Victorian Home, by Judith Flanders.
Miss Marjoribanks, Margaret Oliphant: Lucilla Marjoribanks is my hero! She's the Dolly Levi of Victorian novels--I loved her sensible, level-headed approach to life and to arranging everyone in it. So far I haven't had any luck finding Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08735700811620271979noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4127843.post-64411948053226540672008-01-20T13:34:00.000-07:002008-01-20T15:06:40.098-07:00Lots of good books the past couple of weeks--I've been reading more than getting things done...
Dragonhaven, Robin McKinley: I probably should've read some Jane Austen after this, to protect my own writing style; as with Sunshine, McKinley gives her narrator (in this case, a teenage boy) a very specific voice. It works, but is a little wearing after a while--too many likes and totallys and you Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08735700811620271979noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4127843.post-42254689417019094212008-01-14T16:01:00.002-07:002008-03-18T14:57:57.470-06:00The List of Lost Books
These are some of the books we lost in the flood. I know there are more, and we'll probably add titles as we remember them; we'll also remove titles as we reacquire them. Again, it's not a wish list--more of a eulogy, really--but anyone who wants to give us a gift in the future can refer to it. Aren't you glad we've simplified your gift giving?
Abelard & Heloise: LettersKatehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08735700811620271979noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4127843.post-6702602679322403272008-01-12T12:49:00.000-07:002008-01-14T15:58:52.729-07:00As the rains came down and the rivers of Northwestern Oregon climbed their banks last month, our little farm became an island. All around us homes and businesses were flooded; people lost pets, possessions, vehicles; families were separated without phone communication for days; towns shut down and were stranded. Up on our hill we stayed safe and dry, and, thank God, together; we watched the Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08735700811620271979noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4127843.post-50243470723540511682007-10-14T17:28:00.000-06:002007-10-14T17:35:56.218-06:00And now I feel terrible.
Curse my impecunious state! If only I'd bought more books from A Common Reader! After writing that last post, I tried to access the website and found to my horror that the company went bankrupt a year and a half ago. What a loss to the reading world, and how sad to see yet another small business go under. I wish I were not forced to buy books inexpensively, when I do buyKatehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08735700811620271979noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4127843.post-71167654410720857892007-10-14T17:16:00.000-06:002007-10-14T17:27:45.465-06:00Vexatious reality! How rarely you fulfill anticipation!
When A Common Reader recommends a book, I am all attention. After all, it was in those diminutive newsprint pages that I was first introduced to Edith Pargeter, Alice Thomas Ellis, and Patrick O'Brian, to name a noteworthy few. And to label a book a TGR--well! I don't even have to write that title on my list--it burns there in letters of Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08735700811620271979noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4127843.post-25072228250538550052007-06-13T18:52:00.000-06:002007-06-13T18:54:56.927-06:00I may at some point post about books again; in the meantime, you can read about our farming adventures here. Enjoy!Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08735700811620271979noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4127843.post-69858608396745695562007-04-17T19:01:00.000-06:002007-04-17T19:32:46.763-06:00I should be crocheting right now, in an attempt to finish an afghan for a friend's baby shower on Friday, but the child is sleeping and I'm feeling vaguely inspired. My reading addictions lately have been even more eclectic than usual--I'm hooked on Trollope, Barbara Kingsolver, Colin Dexter, and Joel Salatin. I don't know why I never got into Trollope before; I read one of his novels as a Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08735700811620271979noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4127843.post-1171484902681573962007-02-14T13:24:00.000-07:002007-02-14T13:28:22.696-07:00The Cutest Baby in the World
Sam was born January 30 after putting his poor mama through a three-day marathon; fortunately he's incredibly sweet and smiley and we love him beyond belief. Life is good!Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08735700811620271979noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4127843.post-1168632041700304492007-01-12T12:45:00.000-07:002007-01-12T13:00:41.716-07:00I started a year-in-review post on our computer at home, but since I'm now at the library I'll skip ahead and post my haphazard list of Books to Read in 2007. I'm rarely, of course, at a loss for something to read, but I found it was helpful last year to have a goal to work towards--it kept me from reading nothing but junk and introduced me to some wonderful works I might not otherwise have read.Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08735700811620271979noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4127843.post-1167161698925759232006-12-26T12:27:00.000-07:002006-12-26T12:34:58.943-07:00Merry Christmas everyone!
An email from Sherry at Semicolon reminded me that I'd dropped out of the blogging world without any explanation, so I thought I'd post quickly to let anyone who still visits know what's happening. Odious and I usually decide to make a whole bunch of life changes all at once, and this year has been no different. We finally moved out to the country a few weeks ago, justKatehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08735700811620271979noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4127843.post-1158609662373342232006-09-18T13:40:00.000-06:002006-09-18T14:01:02.466-06:00I'm coming off a long phase of reading junk. Fortunately the realization that I was getting tired of it came along with the realization that filling my brain with nothing but pot-boilers (books and TV) was taking a toll and making me feel very depressed. I need more to chew on than Ruth Rendell, Alias, and Law & Order! So I took myself in opposite directions by beginning George Eliot's Daniel Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08735700811620271979noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4127843.post-1156548156993865192006-08-25T16:52:00.000-06:002006-08-25T17:22:37.090-06:00Since I first heard about Christopher Paolini's novel Eragon, I figured I should probably read it out of homeschooler solidarity if nothing else. I picked it up a few times at bookstores, but wasn't interested enough to buy a copy, and its surprising popularity made it difficult to find at the library. Finally a couple weeks ago I saw a copy in one of the library displays and decided to check it Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08735700811620271979noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4127843.post-1154975795127509172006-08-07T12:15:00.000-06:002006-08-07T12:48:31.656-06:00Though I originally started this blog to recommend books, I've found it's so much more fun to not recommend them. If I like a book, I feel that's all I have to say--read it, you'll like it too. But if I don't like a book, well then I have to tell you exactly why!
And Odious thinks I should share my outrage (since I shared it with him) concerning a fantasy novel whose reviewer had the gall to Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08735700811620271979noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4127843.post-1150311903321421142006-06-14T12:46:00.000-06:002006-06-14T13:05:03.346-06:00"A woman of seven-and-twenty," said Marianne, after pausing a moment, "can never hope to feel or inspire affection again..." --Sense and Sensibility
I'd forgotten what extremes Elinor and Marianne are, as if Jane Austen set out to create caricatures for her title. Their temperaments are so defined that I think it would be difficult to spend any time with them, which I've never felt about any Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08735700811620271979noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4127843.post-1148584013181735072006-05-25T12:37:00.000-06:002006-05-25T13:09:05.300-06:00Paul's henhouse is better than ours.
Well, okay, maybe not better, necessarily, but it does look like he actually measured stuff and had real plans and all that. I had been inclined to think such things were overrated, but after spending two days digging into subsoil with a trowel because our site was much farther from level than we'd thought, I decided maybe we should consider having pretty Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08735700811620271979noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4127843.post-1147464640699588562006-05-12T14:02:00.000-06:002006-05-12T14:24:49.776-06:00I crossed another book off my 2006 list the other day--Theodore Dreiser's Sister Carrie. I liked it enough that I'll probably try An American Tragedy too, although I'm not sure exactly why I liked it. For one thing, there were too many similarities to The Jungle--the sort of descriptions one reads with horror, and characters that one wants to believe could never exist. But there was also the sameKatehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08735700811620271979noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4127843.post-1146857053498163192006-05-05T12:59:00.000-06:002006-05-05T13:24:13.520-06:00My mother raised me well: I get more excited about a library booksale than almost anything else in the world. Despite getting to bed later than planned last night, I bounced up this morning ready to dig through other people's trash and find my own treasures. There's something so intoxicating about a room full of cheap, random, disorganized books--I feel a little crazed sometimes, trying to see Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08735700811620271979noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4127843.post-1145481381888152542006-04-19T15:07:00.000-06:002006-04-19T15:16:21.903-06:00Books by Women Meme
Just BOLD those you’ve read, ITALICIZE the ones you’ve been meaning to read and ??? the ones you have never heard of (or wish you had never heard of? Or the ones you wonder, "why is this book on this list?")
Alcott, Louisa May–Little Women
Allende, Isabel–The House of Spirits
Angelou, Maya–I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Atwood, Margaret–Cat’s Eye
Austen, Jane–Emma
Bambara,Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08735700811620271979noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4127843.post-1145125653385884772006-04-15T12:25:00.000-06:002006-04-15T12:50:08.950-06:00I'm trying to remember why exactly I was so eager to acquire employment. Oh, right, the dwindling bank balance... If only work didn't interfere so much with my life--it's really quite vexing. And despite working in the same building--within winking distance--of my dear husband, the time we have together has shrunk to car rides and sleep. Perhaps because of this I find myself growing even more Katehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08735700811620271979noreply@blogger.com