Sunset

and a rainbow from a week ago

and the hill again this evening

     Finished reading Death In Venice. This novella should be read at one sitting. That is I should read in a secluded place where I can not be disturbed or distracted.

I am now reading a French mystery in translation published last year in France as Le Paradoxe de Vasalis. This paragraph in chapter two gave me pause:

      This didn't stop Jacob and his family finding themselves utterly alone when the SS came for them in August 1942. After a stay at the Dracy Interment Camp, they were sent to Dachau. Happily, a week earlier, an intuition had caused Jacob to send his eldest son to London, accompanying several containers full of pictures, sculptures and furniture.

 

Mid-Summer's Day

      I finally, after taking too long to get used to the altitude and dry heat after being in the moist air of England at sea level for the past five weeks or so, feel like posting a picture of the hill again. Culverts and the bridge that carries route 260 over the Little Colorado are being worked on hence the trailers and other works paraphernalia parked by the road.

       Kathy and I have planted a few more herb and vegetable plants and tidied up the yard and gardens a bit. We are fostering a dog for the local voluntary animal rescue.

      I am currently reading Paul: The mind of the Apostle by A.N. Wilson; Robin Hood by J C Holt and Walking English: A Journey in Search of Language by David Crystal.

From the bookshelves 85

Greek, and occasional Latin, on the verso pages; English on the recto. 

I opened randomly at

Whoever cannot seek the unforeseen sees nothing,
for the known way is an impasse

From the bookshelves 82

     Smuggling on Chesil Beach in the eighteenth century. Our teacher read this story to us in our last year of primary school.

From the bookshelves 81

     And to continue the theme. If you could travel back in time and meet a child called Adolph Hitler, knowing what he would become, what would you do or say to that child?

From the bookshelves 80

     Am I in a morbid mood? Another book about events which should not be erased from from the collective memory. And yet . . . Pol Pot, Dafur, Sadam, Sarajevo . . . ? Read also: The Periodic Table, If this Is a Man and The Truce.

From the bookshelves 78 and 79

     Soon there will no longer be surviving eyewitnesses to the aftermath of the dropping of the atomic bomb on the morning of 6 August 1945 at 08:15.

     Masuji Ibuse's powerful novel was also made into an equally moving film. Do NOT confuse this with the Ridley Scott movie of the same name and released in the same year.

From the bookshelves 77

What is it about Oxford academics writing for children? But this is not a book for children.  It is a dark tale concerning missing pilgrims and an abbot dissecting cadavers in an effort to find the human soul. John Fuller also published quite a few books of poetry. This is a first American edition published by George Braziller in 1984.

From the bookshelves 76

Words

     I finished reading Michael Frayn's novel Headlong which will be discussed at the next Round Valley Book Group  meeting in April and took the time to find out a little more about these words:

soteriology;  
irenic (I've already mentioned eirenic here);
tipstaff, self explanatory really;
lapsarian, the OED quotes a heading from the Dictionary of Christian Theology edited (?) by my theologian name-sake.

     And another painting term to keep chiaoscuro company: grisaille.

From the bookshelves 71

    I sat nervously unable to tell the visiting school inspector what badgers ate. Cajole as he might I was unable to answer. "Do they eat toast?", he prompted. I was sure they didn't. I was about seven years old and was going through a period when I was unable to write more than a line or two on any subject even though at that time I was a fidgety chatterbox in class. I'm no longer a chatterbox but getting more than a few lines out of me is a struggle. Look up educate. It is a leading or drawing out . . .               Up and Down in the Dales is Gervase Phinn's fourth autobiographical book

From the bookshelves 68

     With an erudite introduction part of which reads:

The reader may have noticed that, until this moment, I have avoided giving a single, comprehensive term to these collective terms. That is because there isn't any. Oddly enough, the compilers of the numerous lists of these words, though obviously enthusiastic philologists, have never felt compelled to settle on a group term for them. The explorer in this field will find these words variouusly referred to as 'nouns of multitude', 'company terms', 'nouns of assemblage', 'collective nouns'*, 'group terms', and 'terms of venery'. This last seems to me best and most appropriate, and itself warrants some explanation. 

* I hold this to be a misnomer since, obviously, it can be confused with the strictly grammatical term referring to such words as 'majority'. The same may be said of 'nouns of multitude'.

From the bookshelves 67

From the bookshelves 66

     Poems in Anglo-Saxon and suggestions of the possible routes taken by the monks escorting Byrthnoth's body from Maldon to Ely. More on Wiki for the curious

From the bookshelves 65

Six more of the twenty-four paperbacks Penguin published in the Great Ideas series.

From the bookshelves 64

One of those books I read before seeing the film.

Raiding the bookshelves again 63

Here's a neat little collection of Penguin paperbacks published with embossed covers:

Entropy

    Am I ashamed to display such disarray to the world? And such careless treatment of books? I am slowly wrestling the chaos into some semblance of tidiness, not necessarily order. Books do eventually get put on to shelves or stacked into neater and safer piles. I still have a path to the desk and computer - just. It was the same at school. Term would start with everything stacked neatly under the desk lid and by the end of term the lid would not quite lie shut . How to arrange books? Some order them on the shelves by size. Others, so I've heard, by the colour of the binding; the more conventional by subject matter; or fiction by strict alphabetical order by author. Some shelves are for books yet to be read; others for those to be re-read. On my shelves the poetry books tend to stay close to each other probably because I rarely refer to just one one poetry book at a time. the Folio books stay in their slip cases and congregate in their own book-case. I enjoy dusting the books and putting them on the shelves and here is the result:

    I make no resolutions simply because a new year rolls round. I'm not a very resolute chap at present.  I've a few more pages of the Life of Insects to read before the group gets together to discuss it later this month. I'm awaiting Tove Jansson's The True Deceiver to arrive. This was another work recently read, abridged, on BBC Radio 4.

From the bookshelves 62 ?

I will attempt to finish or rather continue to read and re-read this work . . . one day.

More reading . . .

I'm reading the stories from Notwithstanding by Louis de Bernières. BBC Radio 4 recently broadcast several of the stories.

Still awaiting The Life of Insects to arrive. This is an allegorical novel by Victor Pelevin which the reading group will be discussing next year . . . January.