Thursday, October 30, 2003
Plain Tales from the Hills
This is another collection of short stories set in India in the late 1800's. They're quick and enjoyable to read, provided that you can get past the racist attitudes that crop up. This particular copy was sitting in the storage stacks in the Seattle Public Library. I'm glad they were able to dust it off and let me check it out.
Labels: CheckItOut, RudyardKipling
Saturday, October 25, 2003
Hooray for Yiddish
Well, I finally did it. After a couple of years of browsing the better books section at the Friends of the Library sale, I finally found a book for which I was willing to shell out the extra money. I had enjoyed The Joys of Yiddish so much that I found it worth $3 to purchase its sequel. Well, actually, Hooray for Yiddish is only sort of a sequel. Like its predecessor, it contains many Yiddish words and phrases, each illustrated by a joke or two. (Which made Joys the first dictionary that's fun to read.) What makes Hooray different is that it focuses on the words or phrases that have entered into common American English usage. This leads to some pages that are entirely in English, though Mr. Rosten makes a good case for the entries' Yiddish roots. It's not as good as Joys, but it's still worth putting on my shelf.
Monday, October 20, 2003
Soldiers Three. The Story of the Gadsbys. In Black and White.
I'm thinking that this is a collection of three works by Rudyard Kipling. I mean, the title is always presented as three lines and running them together would make for one weird title. But there is no explanatory text or any sort of division to indicate where one work might start and the other end. If it is such a collection, then somebody (Doubleday, Page and Company) went to the trouble to publish two collections of short stories and a play as a single volume. Weird. But maybe that's the way they did things in 1913, when the book was published. Or maybe anyone but a total literary ignoramus would know these three great works by Kipling and have no trouble in ascertaining the correct divisions. Anyway, it was a very good read, whatever it was. The first number of stories deal with British soldiers in late 19th Century India, specifically three gents named Mulvaney, Ortheris and Learoyd. It is chock full of dialect--including words I can't decipher and names I don't know. But that didn't keep me from enjoying many of the tales. Then around page 111 is stuck this multi-act play about a certain Captain Gadsby and his relationship with a young woman. The language is less obtuse and it is a rather intriguing and touching tale. Anyway, on page 213, after a one page poem, the short stories start up again. This time, however, the common theme seems to be natives of India, which are ironically easier to understand than the British tommies. It's not a volume I would attempt to purchase, but if I was given a copy I think I would probably hang onto it. I would definitely recommend that y'all check it out.
Labels: CheckItOut, RudyardKipling
Wednesday, October 15, 2003
Blogging
Impulse buy! I mean, borrow! This book was sitting out at the library when I went in to pick up a couple of Kipling books I reserved. It was a foolish thing to do, considering the stack of books I had to read. But I have never claimed to be wise. Anyway, I've been enjoying reading weblogs, or blogs, for awhile now--from my neighbors at Slumberland to Where's Raed?, on the other side of the world in Baghdad. From time to time the thought of starting my own blog* crosses my mind, before common sense reminds me that I have many other things I could be doing. So I succumbed to the lure of this book, which is an introduction to starting your own blog. It's somewhat entertaining as far as computer books go. Biz Stone is no Robin Williams, but he's better than the guys who wrote HTML 4 for Dummies. (By the way, did I mention that I found three copies of HTML 4 for the World Wide Web at the Library sale? I was very happy.) One thing that struck me is that blogging seems to rely heavily on other people. Instead of offering code on how to do this or that task, Mr. Stone instead listed the people or companies that offered that particular service. Quite a different world from this web hack, typing his code in SimpleText and uploading it via a dial-up connection. Ah, well, it was interesting waiting room material. I may never attempt a blog of my own (though I already have a name ready), but if I do, Blogging will be a useful resource to have.
*This was originally published on my own website on a free community network. At the time, I didn't think of my reviews as a weblog, nor was I using Blogger. So that's why things that I say in this post don't jibe with reality.
Labels: WaitingRoomMaterial
Friday, October 10, 2003
The Folk Keeper
This is a fantasy "for young readers", but it was recommended by Frederic S. Durbin, so I read it anyway. (Of course, I'm not 40 yet, so maybe I qualify.) The story is set in a world where humans coexist with supernatural creatures, or "folk". In inhabited lands, the subterranean folk cause all sorts of mischief--venting their anger on human's crops and livestock and such. Certain people, known as "folk keepers", are gifted with the ability to deal with the folk and serve to draw that anger away from their community. Corinna is a young folk keeper of an orphanage who is hired away to serve at a grand estate in the Northern lands by a man who claimed to know her parents. She heads north to discover that there is much she has to learn about the folk, as well as humans, who can have their own anger to vent. She also unravels the mystery of her own heritage and discovers a power far greater than those she commands. It's really an enjoyable fantasy tale and I echo Mr. Durbin's recommendation to check it out.
Labels: CheckItOut
Sunday, October 05, 2003
Jean Laffite, Prince of Pirates
Part of the story of The Nautilus Sanction concerns itself with the historical personage of Jean Laffite. So just as I have been reading the fictional books which inspired the sundry Time Wars volumes, I figured that I should peruse a biography of Mssr. Laffite. The library didn't carry the volume Mr. Hawke recommended in his afterward, but it did have a copy of this book. It was a very enjoyable read. Jean Laffite (or Lafitte--spelling was very post-modern back then) is a man around whom many legends have sprung. Some say he was a ruthless, blood-thirsty killer. Others say he is a man of honor and independence. What is certain is that he came of age in the early 1800's in New Orleans. He established his fortune as a smuggler and privateer--professions which had a quasi-legal status in that time and place. When the British attacked New Orleans in the War of 1812, he proved to be a staunch defender of the city. But where some of his compatriots took advantage of their war service to go straight, Laffite resumed his old profession a few years later. He did move his operations to Galveston Island, off the Texas coast, where he enjoyed a few years of success. But as the United States started to crack down on piracy, he was forced to move again--first to Cuba and then to an island off the Yucatan peninsula. Laffite's story is an interesting one and throughout it all, Mr. Ramsay also shows the effect of changing politics and social mores. It's not a hard core history book--I would place it at high school reading level--but it is well documented and enjoyable to read. Well worth checking out. Though I love history, I have never read much about the southeastern U. S., the early years of the 19th Century or the pirates of the Caribbean. This book proved to be a voyage of discovery for me. I'm thinking that when I finish this Time Wars reading list I should delve into a survey of U. S. history. But that's a worry for another day.
Labels: CheckItOut
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