Book Review: "Life Unworthy" by Christopher Taylor

In the old days, when authors used agents and got publishing contracts, Christopher Taylor's books would have been published by Ace Books or Ballantine, and would have been in bookshops across the country. Today's publishing climate is both easier and harder for writers who aren't celebrities, and so Taylor is an independent author and "Life Unworthy" is a contract-worthy book available on Amazon for Kindle and in Trade Paperback. I bought the hard copy.

It's a good werewolf tale, keeping us on pins and needles all the way through, true to its genre, and a solid mystery story as well. But for those looking for more depth than monsters, "Life Unworthy" is rich historical fiction, replete with accurate detail that gives us a genuine sense of life-on-the-ground in 1943 Poland, occupied by the Nazis and terrorized by ancient curses.

Meticulous research includes many tiny details true to the era that might not be consciously appreciated by a casual reader. I love the way everyone smokes *everywhere*. Young people won't recognize that bit of "atmosphere" from a time when up to 80% of adults smoked and didn't die from it, but it is just one of the myriad ways Taylor paints us into a realistic picture. The ubiquitous cigarettes, the constant reference to "the Great War", are not essential to the story, but serve to rattle us into thinking a little deeper, immersing us into the time and place.

The psychic hold "the Great War" has on the soldiers in this novel is particularly effective, and has been seldom covered in war writing - whether fiction or fact, most WWII writing is colored by later knowledge that this was indeed "the second world war", whereas in the early years, it was still seen even by those in it as a more hopeful war: the Nazis were buoyed by recovering what they had lost in the catastrophic brutality of the Great War, Poland had not yet been betrayed, and so even the Poles and Gypsies in Life Unworthy desperately clung to belief that it would end with freedom.

Great characters are fleshed out well, and believable. It is crazy to see how almost likable some of the Nazis can be, and it jars when we realize the jobs they are doing, how much "routine" funnels them into the soul-killing deeds they do in response to orderly commands.

Almost an allegory, the werewolf's struggle to control the beast is an opposite, a mirror image of these Nazis' efforts to rationalize within themselves the evil they are promoting. This is a subtle juxtaposition all through the book that slowly dawns on the reader as we go.

Look carefully to catch the clues woven throughout the novel. They are difficult to spot, seamlessly inserted into the prose. And the whispered hints are even more difficult to unravel. I found myself stopping along the way to look up a reference, a location, to uncover more layers of the deep history. It's impossible to anticipate the ending, yet when it comes, the threads trace back to early hints, mentions, shadows, and you think, "Ah! So that is what that meant!"

A satisfying resolution that takes its own sweet time to unfold is one of the best things about Taylor's writing style. I am often annoyed by otherwise good writers who rush their endings - building to the climax then wrapping everything up in a quick couple of paragraphs, as though they suddenly realize they've reached their word limit. Taylor doesn't do that. He never leaves his readers in the lurch. He continues to follow the story for a bit to let us absorb what happened and neatly finish the final seams, so that it is complete and full.

All in all, "Life Unworthy" is a good story, a satisfying read, that doesn't waste our time. It's a book for adults, and will leave you thinking about the characters long after you've shelved the book in your permanent collection, to read again someday.

Hillary, Obama, & the Democrats Mistake Monty Python For A Real Playbook

Hillary, Democrats, Media, & Quislings started out by pretending that poor old Hillary "I fall down but someone props me up again" Clinton was a shoe-in, despite that she's crooked and looney to boot, and they kept pretending all the way up to the Electoral College vote:






Democrats and Media pretend that Hillary lost >90% of the Continental Land Mass "because Voter ID":






Democrats, People Famous-For-Being-Famous, the Weirder of the Mainstream Media, Quislings, and College Freshmen ran around yelling, to nobody in particular, "Not My President":







Democrats, Illegal Aliens, and Professional Rioters ran around committing arson, vandalism, and generally acting like they live in the Third World when they found out that Hillary made history by being one of two women nominees who couldn't get enough people to actually vote for them to win the election in 2016:








Then they tried pretending that Hillary and Jill lost because of "rigged voting", until recounts showed more votes for Trump, and ... hey why are there more votes than voters in these places Hillary won?








Having lost the Presidency, the Senate, the House of Representatives, a majority of Governorships and most State Legislatures (Dems hold Governor & Legislative majorities in only FIVE states) , some Democrats begin calling for "bipartisanship":







Next, Obama, Hillary, Democrats & Quislings pretend Russia did mean things, but President Trump & the Deplorables aren't fooled:





And finally, the ridiculousness reached levels of clinical instability, because they have to live with the knowledge that in the end, all those people the Elites and Progressives and Globalists and Democrats have been laughing at... are not so ordinary after all.

MAGA!!!!!!!!!

Author Richard Adams Has Passed Away, at a Good Age

While everyone is talking about George Michael and Carrie Fisher, who both died too young, and ZsaZsa Gabor, who nearly made it to 100,  one of the genuine great minds of the 20th century passed away too. He was 96 years old, and passed peacefully at his home according to the papers.

Richard Adams wrote Watership Down, and Shardik, The Plague Dogs, and other works. While good books for mature juveniles, they are not children's books. Shardik, in particular, seems to presage certain events of today in Africa and other parts of the world. While his stories end in deep surety of hope, they look honestly at the heart and at human failure, and at the quality of redemption.  They should have a permanent place in every home library.

Adams named his daughters after two of the most romantic women in literature: Juliet and Rosamond. He told them bedtime stories,and they asked him to write them down.  A grateful world of readers, past, present, and future, thanks them.

I don't know if people will still be singing Go-Go while watching Star Wars in 200 years, but I think it is almost certain they will still be reading Watership Down.

Our Stand Against The Dark: "That Hideous Strength"

Kristor Lawson writes, at The Orthosphere:

"Who has read and remembers That Hideous Strength –  ...[ novel by CS Lewis],.... – and who has lately followed the news in the alternative media must have noticed a horrible semblance of these last weeks to the gathering storm that novel so masterfully presents, of good and evil human, natural, and supernatural rising to a tremendous pitch of intensity and power as they drive each inexorably to a titanic, shattering battle. I do not mean here to specify all the parallels, but they are almost all there: corrupt government agencies with noble sounding names and ends that work in fact deep evil;  ......

....."....  hubris on a vast scale, pretensions to a Babelonian New World Order and a New Man; nominalist obfuscation, nihilism and relativism; sophistical academics and rotten priests; contempt for all that is good, true and holy, old and homely, right, simple, and sweet, or even simply and honestly rational (all in the name of rationality) – the whole nine yards. And arrayed against these Powers, a pitiful few doughty hapless writers and scholars, talking mostly to each other in a remote corner of the world of what is good and right, true and holy, strait and wise, solid and reliable.  ......

..... "Read the book, by the Lord Jesus, if you have not, and that soon. It is short, almost a novella really; and you shall never forget it, for it shall forever shape your perspective on current events.

"One of our Wanderers, I say, must now be actively at work. How, else, to explain the recent relentless incredulous worry of the alternative media – writers and scholars, autodidacts, enthusiasts, eccentrics, conspiracy theorists, hackers, and all their ilks – over the sickening depredations they suddenly apprehend, of the Predators of Man, against the Common Good? Some One must be stirring us up. Perhaps even it is our mascot and Patron, here at the Orthosphere – may God bless his handiwork.
"Saint Michael and all angels, pray for us.

"On then into the crisis. There is after all no alternative, for any of us. God be with us, all."

Click through to read the rest of the short article.

At Daily Pundit: Presumptive vs Presumed, and Why It Matters (UPDATED)

Wordsmith Bill Quick (who coined the term "Blogosphere") at Daily Pundit offers a vocabulary lesson:

"A fast and dirty indicator that a commentator doesn’t have much use for Donald Trump is the frequent use of the term “presumptive nominee” to describe him.

"This usage was given an official benedication when Reince Priebus made the statement that Trump must be regarded as the presumptive nominee.

"Clue:  Reince Priebus is no Trump fan, either."

Do go over and read the whole thing. There's serious history behind it, and the distinctions are worth remembering for future elections, too.

Awareness of both etymology and connotation are essential if we are ever going to start reclaiming the language from the distortions of the Marketing Class.

5/27/16 Update: Bill has added another post that further analyzes the subtle differences in connotation of these words (what I call "deep grammar") in the post titled "Presumed Versus Presumptive".

The Crossroads: A Reminder on Choices, and Freedom from C.S. Lewis

On freedom (and predestination)

"It will be too late then to choose your side. There is no use saying you choose to lie down when it has become impossible to stand up. That will not be the time for choosing: it will be the time when we discover which side we really have chosen, whether we realised it before or not. Now, today, this moment, is our chance to choose the right side. God is holding back to give us that chance. It will not last forever. We must take it or leave it. 

"Every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before. And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing either into a heavenly creature or into a hellish creature: either into a creature that is in harmony with God, and with other creatures, and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God, and with its fellow-creatures, and with itself. To be the one kind of creature is heaven: that is, it is joy and peace and knowledge and power. To be the other means madness, horror, idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness. Each of us at each moment is progressing to the one state or the other."   

                    C.S. Lewis, in "Mere Christianity",  via CS Lewis Daily on Bible Gateway

Progressive Blacklists Get Uglier: Dinesh D'Sousa's "America" (#5 Best Seller on Amazon) Removed From Costco Shelves

At least McCarthy was loyal to the United States of America. The Progressive Blacklisting of anything decent and normal and American is getting too ugly to tolerate.
On Monday, Dinesh's book "American: Imagine The World Without Her", the companion text to his latest hit movie, was #51 on Amazon overall. Today it is #5, thanks to patriotic Americans' reacting to Costco's disgusting attempt to control what the public reads.

When you finish reading, please go to your favorite blog and use their affiliate links to buy your copy through Amazon. I am not an affliliate, but that is no reason not to share the wealth with the other conservative bloggers who keep us informed and thinking for ourselves.

Here is Dinesh's statement on the matter (click here to go to the Facebook post):

Dinesh D'Souza   July 08, 2014 at 5:28 PM
"Yesterday I was stunned to learn that Costco had pulled my latest book, America: Imagine The World Without Her, from all of its stores. This was despite the fact that the book had sold very well at the chain and that my movie of the same name was releasing on over 1,000 screens the very next day. Today, I am disappointed to learn that this news has been confirmed by Costco . This action confirms the suspicions of all freedom-loving Americans and is a direct attack on my livelihood which I take very seriously. In a free society, Costco is free to ban my book, but their customers are also free to shop at other stores which don't censor books. In the book and the movie, I talk about the shaming of Americans and a culture of intimidation and censorship that has been spearheaded by the President himself. It's one thing for Costco executives to pal around with President Obama and donate almost exclusively to Democrats. But to turn their company into a tool for suppressing dissent against the government is another matter. I urge all Americans to watch our film in their nearest theater and buy the book from an establishment that honors freedom of speech. Once they do that, they will understand why the President and his allies are so afraid of this message and determined to keep it from reaching the American people."

I do not EVER want to hear any liberal try to talk about some 50 year old events of any kind again.  Not ever. Not ANY. What matters is what is happening today. They are aggressively blacklisting Christians, people who support ACTUAL EXISTING LAW, people who support sexual constancy as a virtue, people who support honesty in all things,  people who don't give a damn what YOU do but are willing to say when asked that they support the only kind of marriage any society in the history of the world has ever recognized, people who support legitimate elections, people who oppose concentration camps and support defended borders, people who expect citizenship to mean something that it has ALWAYS meant.

In general any person who loves, lives and speaks out in favor of legitimate American Culture is embattled by hateful people who are not thinking at all, but taking marching orders like zombies.

The zombie apocalypse is here, and the brain eaters call themselves "Progressives".


UPDATE 7/9/14:  Newsmax reports that Costco has retreated following the loud outcry and promises to restock the books. The company's official reasoning shows how recursive Progressives are - everything runs in a closed circle with these people:  Chief Financial Officer Richard Galanti  "said that the company's national goal is to market books that are on The New York Times' bestseller list, but that "America" has not been on the list. A company statement on the Costco Facebook page stated."

BUT of course (and Costco's people know this), The NYT has refused to place Dinesh's book on their list at all, despite strong debut sales:  the Washington Examiner reported previously that America has been "banished" from the famous list, despite far outselling one by Hillary Clinton:

"The New York Times bestseller list hasn't waited a millisecond to put Hillary Clinton's book atop its influential chart after just a week of sales, but has totally ignored another top-10 hardcover from noted conservative and critic of President Obama, Dinesh D'Souza.

"His new book, on sale for three weeks, isn’t just absent from the top 10 lists already set for the next two Sundays, but totally missing from the list of the nation’s top 25 nonfiction hardcovers despite having sales higher than 13 on the latest Times chart.

"According to sales reports provided to Secrets, D'Souza's new book America: Imagine a World Without Her, sold 4,915 in the first week and 5,592 in the second week. Had it been included on the upcoming June 22 Times hardcover nonfiction list, it would have ranked No. 8, and then No. 11 on the June 29 list that puts Clinton's sales at 85,721. The lists are widely circulated in the publishing industry before they go public.

"The Times is somewhat mysterious in how it calculates its list, but it includes several books selling well under 3,000 copies in a week. A spokeswoman said, “We let the rankings speak for themselves and are confident they are accurate.”

"America is expected to explode when the accompanying movie debuts next month. In America, D’Sousa slams Obama’s agenda and targets Clinton too — maybe one reason the Times hasn’t recognized it."

Click through to read the rest of the article by Examiner's "Washington Secrets" Columnist Paul Bedard.

Remember this every time some Progressive tries to convince you of anything. All of their arguments are self-referential and meaningless. As one would expect from zombies.

UPDATE 7/17/14:  The New York Times had to relent finally, too, or risk losing what shreds of authority the gray old thing has left, and allowed "America - Imagine A World Without Her" on the NYT Best Seller List. Result?  America will debut at #2. From Dinesh's site:

" Dinesh D’Souza’s publisher at Regnery recently sent this note about his latest book:
“I am happy to report that for the week of July 27, America will appear on the New York Times best seller list at second place for hardcover books as well as eBooks!”
This comes following the New York Times past omissions of the book from the best seller list, despite its rise to #1 on Amazon’s best seller list." 

Congratulations, Dinesh - and all red blooded Americans of all heritage. The zombies are still outside the gates, but chalk one up for reality this week!

The Other Dame Julian: The Mother of Fly Fishing was a 15th Century English Nun

I first read about Dame Juliana Berners a few weeks ago, and I am still enthralled with this quaint little fact from "A Brief History of Fly Fishing":

"The first English book on fly fishing was written by Dame Juliana Berners in 1496: Treatise of Fishing with an Angle, which contained a wealth of practical angling advice and details on equipment. As the Abbess of the Sopwell Priory, Berners cast flies and wrote between prayers. She described the rod as having two parts: a ‘staffe’ or butt, and a ‘croppe’ or top. The butt was made of hazel or rowan, cut between Michaelmas and Candlemas (that is, in the winter), and was six feet long or more."

She also contributed a middle-ages how-to book on hunting, in "The Book of Saint Albans".  For a letterpress printer, it gets better, because the second edition of her Treatise was published by none other than Wynken De Worde, and has never been out of print in 450 years! Here is a link to the full "Treatise on Fishing With An Angle".

Those crazy Medieval nuns! I have always been fond of the eminently quotable  Dame Juliana of Norwich, whose record of her Visions of Divine Love in 1373 remains a breathtaking work of faith in Jesus Christ that inspires to this day. By happenstance, or perhaps the Grace of God, it is also the earliest surviving book written by a woman in English.  I have read her in several translations, and once even started a translation of my own, working from the original Old English.

And now to read about another ordinary soul who surprises and upends our assumptions and the "expert" guesses about the lives of Religious in those so-called dark ages following the Black Death. Something tells me their lives were quite livelier - and perhaps much more like ours - than we have been taught.

Isn't it interesting how different history looks when you let the facts speak for themselves, unpainted with fictional anachronisms or modernised disclaimers.

Kon-Tiki - An Exercise in Real Anthropological Science from 1947, and an Exciting Adventure Too!

 Somehow I have a great fascination with first-person accounts of exploration - especially on the ocean or in the arctic. Why I do not know, as I am a wimp about travel and oceans and cold.  But the interest has given me a lot of great, honest history to read.  Kon Tiki, for instance.

I always find something interesting in Mostly Cajun's Today in History.  Today is especially fun: April 28, 1947 was the day Thor Heyerdahl and his companions (this word means the people who are with one in an endeavor or on an expedition - in this instance, his shipmates) set out and proved the workability of his theory that people from South America sailed to Polynesia in prehistoric times, colonizing the South Sea Islands from the West, rather than from the East.

The original Oscar-winning documentary from 1947 is a better way to spend an hour than anything on TV tonight. It is all original footage filmed by the crew themselves - no reenactments.  If you have never read the book, it is great. Copies are available via Amazon (go search from your favorite blogger's blog affiliate link - I am not an affiliate).

Enjoy!

'Calamity Jane' The Great American Desert Novel

[Note: I posted this book review on Amazon this morning, but will also put it here. I'm not an Amazon affiliate, so please go through your favorite blogger's Affiliate link to get there so they will benefit from your purchase! Christopher Taylor or Pat Austin are two that I try to patronize.]

Fans of his Jack Ross Mysteries will be excited to learn that Bernard Schopen has published a new novel: Calamity Jane, Baobab Press (November 12, 2013).  "Calamity Jane" sets us up with a tale about a movie: when Hollywood makes a movie in a small town, that is news for the next 50 years. When the subject of that movie is not only a legendary actor, but the town's most famous resident, there's a book in it just waiting to be written. Thus aging writer Winnefred Waner, best known for her textbook story about women driven insane by the desert, sits down to record a story of famous lives and inadvertently reveals her own.

Jane Harmon comes to Blue Lake, Nevada ("Nev'bad'a", not "Nev'odd'a") to make a movie and she hasn't even arrived in town before she is annoying the natives and endangering her surroundings. It is no accident she is dubbed "Calamity Jane" by the plain speaking oldtimers... much like her older and wiser counterpart was nicknamed the genteel "Miz Waner Ma'am" by her students. The narrator tells us the town is small enough that a new young woman's mere presence alters the future for more than just the man who takes her home, and sets events out of balance. Calamity Jane leaves destruction in her wake, but never looking back, she doesn't understand that she herself was the force of nature responsible for the wreckage. Her interactions with women are even more complicated; and her encounters with Ione Hardaway crackle from the beginning, as though the two women were old time gunfighters destined for a showdown at high noon. Something has to break, something harder than a heart. 

The book isn't labeled a mystery, but mysteries permeate this novel. Some brush the cheek like an errant breeze and their whisper never materializes. Others inhabit tumbleweeds and scatter across the landscape again and again, showing a new side each time and continuously dropping leaves and seed, until they finally come to their last rest, gaunt and harmless - and resolved. 

Schopen was born and raised in Deadwood, South Dakota, and spent his career teaching Literature at the University of Nevada at Reno. His wife is a friend of mine, but because our friendship was born on the internet, I've never met him. The desert landscape sprawls through every page he writes, but Schopen is no naturalist. You won't learn where to find  burrowing owls or how to predict the rain here. The phenotypes he studies and knows so intricately are people, and the work of living as human beings in the desert world. He tells us only in passing why people came to string-along towns like Blue Lake, but by the end of his books we know something more important: we understand why some of them did not leave.

I've only flown over Nevada but I lived a long time in the West Texas desert. Schopen's landscape is so familiar I can smell the dust and admire the ageless, rustless, ruination of every abandoned thing along the road decaying in its own long time,  without a drop of moisture to help.  That is the bit that marks Schopen as Desert Man: he understands the stark junk, the inevitable accumulations of broken abandonment that just stay where they happen to end up,  he understands the crazy beauty of obsolete iron and dry rotted shacks and the half-ruined but fiercely strong people that live among it all at their own free choice. 

Schopen's books are clean like the desert stays clean despite the snakes and thorns. The desert rarely allows nuance to survive, and his characters are good or evil.  His vilains can be vile, sometimes shudderingly so, but Schopen does not exult in their depravity: he describes just enough to engage the imagination without inflicting ugliness on his readers, and quickly offsets this with a turn to primary decency.  While the good & the heroic may fall into error, they are true to their desert upbringing, and they never really give up hope.  Schopen doesn't erase the past to generate happy endings, but he opens the doors and leaves them ajar, offering shelter for the feathered things.

"Calamity Jane" is billed as a clash between the old and the new. Those who understand the desert know what wins that battle. This is a stolid tale of love lost and won, of tragic youth and triumphal old age, of lives that don't need fame for meaning: a chance to peer behind the cotton curtains and through the rising dust into the real life that still abides in the desert west. It is a book that will outlive its author, and may, someday, when the "post literate" hoopla has inevitably passed and literature matters again, be hailed as Nevada's own Great American Novel.

The Author Reviews My Review

There are some good books out there in the self publishing world today. One way to find some of the better ones is to read the authors' own blogs. That is how I came across a particularly memorable story about a thief and a castle and a wizard.....   Author Christopher Taylor (Word Around The Net, linked from my sidebar), approves of my review of his fun chivalrous fantasy novel "Old Habits":

 "I expect to get indifferent, happy, and even insulting reviews, but something I never expected was a review that so completely understood what I was trying to accomplish with my story and seems to have crawled inside my head when I was writing it, which is deeply humbling and gratifying all at once. I wanted to share it with everyone so they can learn more about the book."       

See? Can this guy write or what? Click over to his blog to read the review - and buy the book!

Maybe if he sells enough of this one he will feel inspired to write a sequel! 

Computer Failure and Summer Pleasantries

My trusty Dell Inspiron lies comatose, due to hard drive failure. It is 6 years old, so unlikely that we'll have it repaired. I'm going to ask Devin to look at it, and if it is costly to fix, he can have it for parts. There go all my bookmarks, photos, blog notes. C'est la vie. We won't replace it soon, there are more important priorities. For the time being, Paul is letting me share his computer - which is also our tv source.

So blogging will be lighter, but will not disappear. This blog has done well as an outlet for me and I enjoy my readers and the friends I've made through it.  I'll simply be posting once a week instead of 2 to 3 times. Maybe the quality will improve! Ha! :-)  Anyway, thanks for reading and for continuing to follow along. In the meantime, feel free to visit our sponsors.   :-)

It's actually been pleasant to be without a laptop.  At Paul's urging, I've resumed an old hobby, making costume jewelry and stringing beads - and making beads. When we met, I sold my jewelry in a couple of shops and did shows, but had let the hobby fall to the wayside long ago. Expect to see some pieces here at some point.

I've also been working on a big project that has been sitting and waiting for a couple of years: a tiny Cardinal travel trailer, vintage late 1960s. It had been gutted and I guess used as a food cart or something so it was a real mess! We aren't "restoring" it as such, but making it liveable as a secure place to sleep. Whereever we camp will certainly have "facilities" with showers and clean toilets, thank you very much! I am a big fan of hot water and indoor plumbing even when roughing it.  Paul shored up the inside and got the tags on and will take care of the electrics. My brother in law is going to paint the outside of it for us when we get to that point. Yesterday I finished the second coat of paint on the interior and now I'm searching for curtain material. It needs to have a touch of the avocado green of the naugahyde cushions, have a little blue, either  beachy, tropical or mid-century modern pattern. I lost the "before" pics on my computer, but I'll put up some "in progress" ones soon.

Yesterday morning after I got off work, we went to Cross Plains Texas to Robert E. Howard Days (aka Barbarian Days). I've been wanting to go to that since I first heard about it but something always interfered. We toured the author's house, bought various bits of Conan the Barbarian comic art, took pictures (I'll add them in a later post), and went to the Barbarian Festival. Cross Plains has a great, oak-shaded park for this kind of event. It was cool and comfortable. Live music, great Fair food, free watermelon and neat tshotshkes. One book I bought was "Lone Scout of Letters", the collected correspondence of Herbert C. Klatt, who died at 21 on 1928. Not only for those interested in Boy Scouts history, the Lone Scout organization, or the history of amateur journalism, the book also gives a glimpse into the life of a teenaged boy in rural Texas in the early part of the last century. 


We'll pick up the grandkids today to come spend a week or two. They are older, and they come each summer to help with the community Vacation Bible School. They always have a lot of fun, and we are so happy to have them. 

Now, off to church. Dinner on the ground and baptisms this afternoon, as more people answer Jesus' call to "Come, follow me."   


God bless you this Sunday, and through your week!

A Nook eReader: Make Room for the Library of Alexandria

Where have I been all week? Wellllll.....Devin and Sandy gave me a Nook for Mother's Day. Oh my!

Here was a gift I didn't know I wanted until I got it! I had been thinking I might "have" to buy an eReader to read some of the new indie work out there, self-published by writers who offer eBooks only.

The connection I had not yet made, though, is that despite a lifetime of avid, eclectic reading, there are still so many great books I have not read.

Among my favorite genres are exploration and true adventure. Many of these books were previously available only in expensive originals, or in hard-to-find reprints. Most of my reading in the subject has been serendipitous as a result. With my Nook, suddenly hundreds of truly good books can be at my fingertips, for free!

After downloading a Bible,  I searched the Barnes and Noble Nook site for "Exploration", sorted by "Price, Lowest First" (to bring up the free books), started with "A", and the first book I downloaded was a gem previously unknown: "A Handy Guide for Beggars", published in 1918 by Vachel Lindsay.

In school, I was exposed only to Lindsay's Jazz Poetry. I did not know he had written his own version of the Great American Road Saga. Like Travels With Charley or A Walk Across America,  A Handy Guide for Beggars records his impressions of the people who sheltered and fed him as he walked around the United States in the opening decade of the 20th century, paying his way with chapbooks and spontaneous lectures.

Among my favorite stories in the book are "House of the Loom" and the beautiful "Lady Iron Heels".  Politically correct? No. Incomplete? Maybe, but far less judgmental - and far more human - than most 60s anthropologists. Naive? Only the bored think that naive is a bad thing. I'll take naive over global sophisticates every day.

Arctic exploration fascinates me, probably because I shiver at 70 degrees. Peter Fruechen's books are favorites. When my grandson did a research paper on Matthew Henson this year, I gave him some Henson memorabilia I had collected: one of the cigarette trading cards printed in 1912 to honor Henson's achievement when he accompanied Peary in the race to reach the North Pole, and a school library book from 1957 that had a whole chapter on Henson.  Now, thanks to my little Nook, it is easy to read Matthew Henson's own 1912 book "A Negro Explorer at the North Pole".
 
Still in the "A's", I've added "Australia Twice Traversed" by Ernest Giles, 1880; "A Summer in Alaska" by Frederick Schwatka, 1893;  "An explorer's adventures in Tibet" by Henry Savage Landor, 1897; "Across the Everglades: A Canoe Journey of Exploration" by Hugh Willoughby, 1898, and "A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains" by Isabella Lucy Bird, 1879.  

When going through the list to download a book, be sure to scroll or page through to get to the free version - sometimes Barnes and Noble will mix in "for sale" versions that require payment.

I am still learning to use it, and still prefer to read an actual printed book when I can, but the e-reader is lightweight, and easy to carry in my purse. Sandy said she loves hers when traveling. I can see why - when I used to fly, I often carried 4 or 5 books in one of my carry-on bags, but today's weight and volume restrictions, that is no longer practical.

Reading free volumes on the Nook is like having a lending library next door that is open 24 hours a day. This is definitely a place where technology has its perks.

Heh! While I waited for Blogger to wake up from its Sunday afternoon nap so I could post this, I saw a similar post at "Mostly Cajun, All American and Opinionated". I'm guessing the time is not far distant when even the most passionate reader will no longer argue with the interior decorator over "merchandising" the book shelves!

Heart Shaped Leaves of Spring

Spring is my favorite time of year. The whole world shows the promise of new life. It's a joy to walk outside each morning and see what has changed since the day before: the dawn breaks earlier, new birds sing, the peach tree blooms....

This vase is filled with heart-shaped wild flowers: Shepherd's Purse seed pods are heart shaped, and the budding leaves of the Redbud Tree are nature's valentines.

I know it is sappy, but everything really is beautiful, "robed in the blooming garb of Spring."

On Fact and Fallacy, and How They Can Change: "Ten Thousand Years Ago, A Lemming"

 The most awesome thing about this story: "Scientists in Russia have grown plants from fruit stored away in permafrost by squirrels over 30,000 years ago" (from the BBC, via PopSci.com , via Instapundit),  is that it is one more confirmation of how hardy living things are, how well the Life in our world is protected to assure there will ALWAYS be Life.  Life is abundant and miraculous, and we don't know the half of it.

Caution is warranted, as such finds in past have later shown by carbon dating to have been more modern seeds, buried at Pleistocene levels by modern animals  -  even in burrows that actually did date from the Pleistocene era, and that contained legitimate remains 10,000 years ago!  But we didn't know until 2009 that the oldest viable seeds of proven age are 2000 years old.


40-odd years ago, scientists planted lupine seeds recovered from the permafrost, and they grew.  30-odd years  ago, Nicolas asked a question that led me to write a poem about ancient seeds. 20-odd years ago, it was published in Thistles Magazine. Here it is, in honor of today's version of old, old, news. See if you can spot some other "facts" from when it was written 30 years ago have since been proven inaccurate.*


 Ten thousand years ago, a lemming
hid a hoard of flower seeds
against the arctic dark and rushed
headlong into the sea, or else forgot,
and left his cache of lupine seeds
buried in the permafrost
and time and time and time went by.
Someone dug them up from the cold that never thaws,
found his pantry full of flower seeds,
found the makings of a garden,
from ten thousand years ago
and planted the lemming's hoard again,
in rows like all good lemmings,
lined up against the ocean wall,
spread sunshine on the earth
and sprinkled water.

And the seeds grew.

Blossomed, and made new seeds.

Perhaps ten thousand years ago,
lemmings didn't make the leap
of faith and death into the icy sea,
or the seeking consequence of suicide
chill human consciousness.
Ten thousand years ago we had no Bomb,
no star-hung missles,
no seeping milleniaic poisons.
Little Nicolas says, about the grass,
growing through cracks in the pavement:
"Life is stronger than anything."

Tina Howard



*The truth (based on current knowledge) about a few other fallacies that were believed or theorized 30 years ago (and still to this day are taught):
(1) The "Atomic Bomb", horrific at detonation, has not been the terror we were led to believe, but instead has since been held, wisely, as a deterrent rather than a weapon. To this day, the most devastating effects of war come from sheer brutality and from more conventional weapons;
(2) Concrete bunkers do indeed offer individuals some protection against the effects of nuclear weapons;
(3) The Theory of Nuclear Winter not only did not occur when these weapons were used, but has become highly debatable (and was abandoned for an even sillier theory called Global Warming, now renamed Climate Change)
(4)  Nuclear Power accidents have proven - even as recently as this past year in Japan, as well as long term studies on Chernoble - to be far less dangerous than estimated, with outrageously shorter time periods for natural decontamination than were estimated at the time of the disasters;
(5) Lemmings may or may not dash over the cliffs by the thousands.
(6) We learn much in the course of our lives - and especially, if we are wise, we will learn how to change our minds, and think things through more carefully.
(7) The last sentence is still true, and always will be, because God created Life, and made His lively creations stronger than the inanimate elements around them.

Not Only the Icelanders: Translating Praise Music from 1500 Years Ago, and the Future of Printed Books

It's often told that in the most literate society in the world, Iceland, readers can still understand books written in Icelandic 800 years ago. It is impressive and admirable that their ancient texts, the Sagas and Eddas, remain accessible to allow the average person opportunity to read and decipher for themselves.

But perhaps literate speakers of English have the same ability, mostly yet untried.

Accidentally, today, in surfing around the web, I came across a reference to the oldest identified Anglo-Saxon poet, Caedmon.  Caedmon worked in a Monastery, tending to the animals. He could not read, and sang so badly that when everyone got together for the 8th century's version of karioke, he left the room. One night, he had a dream, in which an angel asked him to sing - and he sang a new song. Upon waking, he remembered the verses and spent the rest of his life turning scripture into Praise music.

I went looking for more info, including a different translation and came upon one that also gave the original text.

Well. You know how it is. Once a stream of thought gets going, there we go.

I noticed that the opening word "Nu" sounds like "Now", then that "hefaen___" sounds exactly like "Heaven" and one thing led to another. What I found is that by trying different pronunciations of the original words, I was able to decypher much of the Old English version.

Here's a poetic Modern English translation:

          Now let me praise the keeper of Heaven's kingdom,
          the might of the Creator, and his thought,
          the work of the Father of glory, how each of wonders
          the Eternal Lord established in the beginning.
          He first created for the sons of men
          Heaven as a roof, the holy Creator,
          then Middle-earth the keeper of mankind,
          the Eternal Lord, afterwards made,
          the earth for men, the Almighty Lord.

Here's an original language version from the year 737 Anno Domini:


              1 Nu scylun hergan hefaenricaes uard
              2 metudæs maecti end his modgidanc
              3 uerc uuldurfadur sue he uundra gihuaes
              4 eci dryctin or astelidæ
              5 he aerist scop aelda barnum
              6 heben til hrofe haleg scepen.
              7 tha middungeard moncynnæs uard
              8 eci dryctin æfter tiadæ
              9 firum foldu frea allmectig

Here's my rough, literal version:

1 Now shall hear Heaven-rich's [Heaven owner's] ward
2 Mete-er's (measurer's) might and his making-think
3 Work of the elderfather so his wonder goes
4 ever directing the onset
5 He first shaped the elder sons
6 Heaven to roofbeam holy shaper
7 then middle-earth mankind's ward
8 ever directing after today (until today)
9 the firm fields Free-Lord Almighty

Here's another good modern translation that I found.

My pronunciation may not be anything like the original, but because the language remains the same, despite spelling and dialectical changes over time, the words still mean pretty much what they did 1,500 years ago. There "original language version" is also transcribed into our modern alphabet - if one were to try to read the text as written, we'd need to also discuss the character "thorn" and a few other such, just as we have to know that the long S of colonial times is not an "F" but rather a modified character used according to certain grammar rules of the day. This follows a discovery some time ago, that I could sort-of read Greek by simply transliterating the letters in biblical texts and looking for roots to English words.

I'm not going to be winning any awards or going into business translating ancient texts, but the thing is: this is one of the wonders of the internet. To uncover new possibilities in ourselves by being exposed to history we never even knew existed, to science we never even questioned, to the stories of ordinary people who helped set the course for the future.

Like the monks copying the Bible and their countries' literature to get books into every monastery in the world, like Gutenberg's printing press churning out copies of the Bible and world literature for every book buyer in Europe, the net puts everything written before into the hands of ordinary people.

And we don't have to depend on "authorized experts" to translate for us or explain it to us.

I'm reading a book that came out a few years ago, on the history of printing, called "Paradigms Lost: The Life and Death of the Printed Word" (Tip: go through your favorite blogger's Amazon search link to buy it). It's a fascinating delve into many of the ways the printing press, and even typography, changed our societies and our world. It is in some ways an unfinished book, for, as the author himself, a retired editor who bills himself  "an independent historian" and cites reams of sources,  says "..[we] are just in the first years of an era that exists so far mostly in magazine articles, techology manufacturers' boastful extrapolations, books like this one, and confused observations..."  The book was copyrighted 2005, at the beginning of the "print apocalypse" as the failure of traditional publishing to meet customer needs was beginning to become clear. 

Despite the introduction of the Kindle in 2007 (not so much new technology as a more wide-spread distribution method),  the number of books printed in the US in 2010 grew 5% with traditional publishers. But the really exciting part is that the "non-traditional" sector, including "print on demand" and self-published books almost tripled from 1,033,065 titles in 2009 to 2,776,260 in 2010.

This does not represent new demand - the demand was always there - this represents new access, thanks to the internet, which has given any author a nearly cost-free access to markets outside their local area.

The internet lets us all share what we know, and learn more on whatever topic we wish. We can direct our own course of study, without cost. We can become self-educated people.We can think for ourselves. And we can tell others.

And like those who first benefited from the printing press, we want our own copies. Just in case the link goes dark. Or the net goes down. But mainly because free people everywhere like to have their own.

"...but the blessing of earth is toil."

"Born within a lowly stable, where the cattle 'round Me stood,
Trained a carpenter in Nazareth, I have toiled, and found it good.

"They who tread the path of labor follow where My feet have trod;
They who work without complaining do the holy will of God.

"Where the many toil together, there am I among My own;
Where the tired workman sleepeth, there am I with him alone."



More from Henry Van Dyke's "The Friendly Year". These verses are a small excerpt from "The Toiling of Felix, and Other Poems",  first published in 1900, a lyrical meditation on the spiritual value of work and labor in a happy life.

...and another Henry Ossawa Tanner painting: the oft-marketed "Young Sabot Maker", in which Tanner, in Paris, depicted a young apprentice learning to make wooden shoes, using the same kinds of woodworking tools that carpenters have used for thousands of years. Compare with the one above, which Georges DelaTour painted in the mid 17th century, of St Joseph in his cabinet shop, with the young Jesus at hand. As Tanner moved deeper and deeper into his calling to paint the biblical reality, it is easy to imagine his meditation on Jesus' childhood in a carpenter's home.

Tanner said of his work "My effort has been to not only put the Biblical incident in the original setting ... but at the same time give the human touch "which makes the whole world kin" and which ever remains the same. "

In the poet's words:
"This is the gospel of labour, ring it, ye bells of the kirk!
The Lord of Love came down from above, to live with the men who work.
This is the rose that He planted, here in the thorn-curst soil:
Heaven is blest with perfect rest, but the blessing of Earth is toil."

Adding To Our Media Library: Best British Mysteries, Clean Comedy, and Awesome Nature & Travel Documentaries

So today I have been searching for DVD bargains on Amazon. We are fleshing out our collection with clean comedy, documentaries, movies we'll watch over and over. I do not have an Amazon affiliate account, so it you are going to buy from there, be sure and use the Amazon Search Box on your favorite blog. They'll make a little on it and it won't add to your cost. :-)  Amazon has great promos lately.

Clean Comedy: The funniest comedians make us laugh without embarassing us, and comics like Jeff Allen stand right up there with Jeff Foxworthy. My husband has a new by-word: "I'm a happy, happy, man." Heh.

Two great collections to pick new favorite entertainers from are the Apostles of Comedy and Thou Shalt Laugh (several volumes available - we started with Volumes 1 & 2. Read the reviews before buying - viewers say Volume 3 contains inappropriate material).

Used Boxed Sets on Amazon can be a real bargain. Be sure you are getting the DVD version, because there are still some VHS tapes down in the "lowest price first" sort!

If you don't yet own "Planet Earth: The Complete BBC Series" with the original David Attenborough's narration, it's a great bargain right now. I got a pristine set last month for less than $15.00. That's 550 minutes - more than 9 hours - of magnificent footage. Get the regular dvd, not the HD one - the regular boxed set contains hours more programming with fascinating "behind the scenes" footage.

I ordered the "Reader's Digest Journeys of a Lifetime Boxed Set" today. It has 13 hours of armchair travel for as low as $5.00. These kinds of things are nice to unwind and settle down with right before bed time.

More than 6 hours of "TV Classics: Westerns Vol. 1 and 2 (Box Set)" for a penny - $3 once you add in shipping. Buy from Amazon for $2.98 with free shipping. Or find a "just launched" seller and buy from them - support home businesses by helping a new seller get of the ground!

The BBC did a series of "The Chronicles of Narnia (BBC)" in the 1980s that reviewers say is even better than the recent movies. One reviewer notes that the BBC version is carefully true to the story as written by C.S. Lewis, so the nuances of the books remain intact. I'm looking forward to seeing this.

Speaking of the BBC and Masterpiece Mystery, some of my favorite recent discoveries on the British Mystery front are:

New Tricks - There just aren't enough praises for this well written, perfectly cast ensemble series about an engaging trio of retired detectives dragged back into service by a cute, tough, woman inspector who's young enough to be their daughter, good (and old) enough to be their boss, and real enough to need their friendship. The age jokes are realistic - and funny - but it's the serious plots that won me over. Interesting cold-case crimes that unfold in fascinating detail, that require both deep historical research and human deduction to unravel. Warm and believable relationships between the characters (nearly all the supporting cast recur, just as they would in real life). Love the characters, love the scripts, love the theme song, love the series!

Sherlock - Another that rates pure applause. The premise sounded like a bad idea: Conan-Doyle's detective set into the 21st century world. I thought: "Yawn." I feared Romeo & Juliet in blue jeans. Then when the show started I sat up and paid attention. Wow. Simply, truly, brilliant.

Here's an idea of how good "Sherlock" is: 259 reviews on Amazon, and 247 of them are 4 star or better (224 are 5 star!)! Smart. Witty. Fast paced. Clever. Not suitable for young children, as the violence is dark, but not gratuitously so, and so far it is relatively "clean".  Martin Freeman's Dr. Watson is perhaps the best I've ever seen, and Benedict Cumberbatch pays tribute to Jeremy Brett's fearless high energy while making the role his very own.

Speaking of Sherlock, Gerard Van Der Leun of "American Digest", has a downloadable PDF of his book "The Quotable Sherlock Holmes" available free to his readers. Or, you can buy a print copy or the Kindle Edition on Amazon.  (I'll also take this opportunity to thank him for permission to keep and display the nifty "Welcome to Texas" Bilboard over on the left (my other left).

Other Greatest Hits of the BBC and PBS Mystery include Mr Palfrey of Westminster - a surprisingly clever (and believable) series about a cold war era consumate British spy catcher working within the heart of London to foil Russian efforts to undermine Western governments. Presents as a "cozy" but it is not.  The cloak and dagger deceptions extend even to his own staff, and Palfrey's counter-espionage skill will keep you guessing. It reminds me pleasantly of LeCarre's low-key approach.

I've written before about Inspector Lewis. It's still a favorite and I plan to buy the series soon. I'll watch this one for a long time. (P.S. Paul says "You forgot Lovejoy. You need to mention Lovejoy in there. It's still a favorite of your husband, who plans to buy the series soon." Hee!)

Once you get past the low budget cinematography, the BBC movies (actually mini-series - some are nearly 5 hours long) made from PD James' books that star Roy Marsden as Adam Dagliesh are very good. The two more recent, standard-length movies in which Martin Shaw is cast as Dagliesh, Death in Holy Orders and The Murder Room, are also excellent. Each man brings a different look at the complex poet-detective's personality.

I ordered a couple more neat dvds totalling less than $5 each with SuperSaver shipping, but I can't mention them here yet because I want to surprise Paul with them, and he reads Pecan Corner. Hi, Honey! Love you much! :-D

So what great media bargains have you found recently? Or have you discovered a fab British, Scots or Irish show that we all need to know about? Do tell!

What Did People Do Before Blogs? The American Amateur Press Association (AAPA) is 75 Years Old This Month!

This is
A Printing Office

Crossroads of Civilization
Refuge of All the Arts
Against the Ravages of Time
Armoury of Fearless Truth
Against Whispering Rumour
Incessant Trumpet of Trade
From this Place words May Fly Abroad
Not to Perish on Waves of Sound
Not to Vary with the Writer's Hand
But Fixed in Time, Having been Verified in Proof

Friend You Stand on Sacred Ground

This is a Printing Office

Beatrice Wade -1932
Printed in the Heritage Center Print Shop
Lancaster Pennsylvania

"Printed by AAPA members Mike Donnelly, Ken Kulakowsky, and
Rich Rtladge on an O.S. 8x12 C&P treadle driven platen press."

                                                     
                                                                     ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Interested? Check out the American Amateur Press Association,* now celebrating its 75th year of hobby journalism & printing arts. Don't let the word "Amateur" fool you - some of the finest professionals in their industries have published in these bundles  (and in eJournals)for simple pleasure since the AAPA was started by a bunch of teenagers in 1936. The AAPA welcomes writers, printers, publishers, editors, artists, illustrators, cartoonists & poets of all ages, from home schooled students to newspapermen to professional printers to true amateurs.

The great forerunners of blogs, amateur press associations have played a part in the lives and career choices and hobby pasttimes of thousands of ordinary Americans during the 20th century. In the AAPA, monthly bundles mailed to each member, annual Laureate Awards, and an annual convention bring everybody together.  Clean, friendly, and just for simple fun.

(*Please note, effective this month, dues have risen to $25 per year, to accomodate a move from bulk rate to 1st Class mailing. To receive a trial bundle, contact the secretary.)

UPDATE:  Linked by And So It Goes In Shreveport. Thanks! :-)

Texas Accent? What Texas Accent?

A few years ago, I was in California for a large meeting in the company I worked for. I'm an Okie who lived in the Permian Basin most of my adult life. So my soft Oklahoma drawl is overlaid with a layer of West Texas twang. Whenever I visited the corporate offices in Silicon Valley, it wasn't unusual for people to follow me around listening - not so much melodious as a novelty, I expect.

Among the international staff attending this day-long meeting was a woman from our South Korean office. She commented to me during one session that she was having trouble following the speakers (all from the West Coast), due to their accents. She said she had to translate from English to Korean in her head and their pronunciation made this a real challenge.

We were staying at the same hotel, and had dinner together that night. Mindful of what she had told me earlier, I tried to speak slowly and distinctly. At one point I asked her directly if she was able to understand
me ok?

She laughed and said "I went to school at UT. I learned to speak English in Texas. You sound normal to me!"

The University of Texas at Austin ranks consistently in the top 10 US schools educating international students every year. Foreign students at UT focus especially in science and engineering fields. Texas A&M has the second highest international enrollment in Texas. Texas universities have the 3rd highest population of foreign student enrollments in the country, following only California and New York. They come from all over the world, and top home countries for these students are South Korea, India, China, Mexico, and Taiwan.

I keep seeing articles where people opine that Texas accents are some kind of drawback to a successful political campaign.

They should be remindful that such an attitude toward regional dialects is not only inaccurate and based on faulty comparisons, but also is likely to seem awfully provincial on the world stage, where, to a high percentage of international graduates, this is the normal American accent.



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