A Momentary Taste of Being

Jack the Ripper, H. G. Wells, Bram Stoker, Henry James, Her Majesty the Queen with a Squirrel Monkey, and the end of the world in the year 2000.  Those are only some of the delights that await the intrepid reader willing to enter the metafictional world Mr. Palma has created for the reader in this novel. The novel consists of three interlaced stories all of which center around time travel and its possibilities and all of which involve that foremost inventor of time machines.  Because the jacket copy is so vague I hesitate to provide any additional information that might detract from the readers' enjoyment of this marvelous book. I'm not sure how I felt about the metafictional element and the occasional authorial intrusions.  They didn't particularly bother me, but I'm not certain I have enough distance to understand how they enhance or alter the work.  They were, at times, quite amusing and generally were not enough to get in the way of the determined reader....

First of a new series featuring a new hero Gideon Crew.  As such, is a guaranteed fast and amusing reading.  It is also guaranteed to be notoriously sloppy when authors want to get around certain inconvenient problems---like people revealing secret information.  Crew manages in nearly every case to draw out secrets that no sane or awake person would ever tell.  The plot and action here as usual--fast paced, the reading light.  The story--the barest traces of one, whisked away from one's memory almost upon turning the last page.  Not that that is a problem--these books are not meant to be immortal, they are meant to help one pass a few pleasant hours, and this indeed allowed for that. ***

Pound's composition tips for young writers

On the Banks of the River of Heaven is, in one word, lovely.  It is a collection of short stories, some related by time, place, and character, others unique in all three.  Each story is a gem, a small jewel of Scheherezade-like story telling--compelling, fascinating, alive. The title story "On the Banks of the River of Heaven" concerns the actions of the otter that lives in the river of heaven and how otter, upon receiving a special blessing from the cowherd/fisherman who lives on one of the banks, bestows upon this hard-working soul his own benediction.  He does this by fooling with the powers that be and showing them what really is rather than what they thought was. In the second story, "The Finer Points of Destruction," Kali Ma manifests inside our heroes television set and reports that she, along with another 10 avatars, is searching for her husband, Shiva.  She intents to manifest (and thus destroy some object) until her husband is found.  And so the ...

Pervigilium Veneris in a translation by Thomas Parnell Excerpt: She paints the purple Year with vary'd show, Tips the green gem, and makes the Blossom glow. She makes the turgid Buds receive the Breeze, Expand to Leaves, and shade the naked Trees.

The Wisdom of Ambrose Susan Prudhomme I must admit to being leery of fiction that is advertised as "Christian" because it has, in the past, mostly served as a cover for not very good fiction charged with an evangelical message.  Not all, but some.  However, this sounds genuinely charming.

When I'm back in the business of buying books: The Ancient Near East via Books Inq.

Morte D'Urban considered A marvelous, insightful, and delightful book.

This epigram of Pope's puts me in mind of a little ditty by Beethoven

Picked up an absolutely delightful volume at the library.  Richard Parks On the Banks of the River of Heaven --a collection of short stories.  In the first three stories we have a tale about how the otter in the river of heaven made things better for the lovers who needed to cross the bridge of birds; how Kali Ma incarnates in the tv of a recently divorced man--she's looking for Shiva and he's supposed to show up here; and the tale of the man who married the mermaid and his son. Haven't read enough to post a review, but this is light, airy, full of myth and fantasy.  The stories move quickly and they are utterly delightful.  This is the kind of collection that makes you feel good as you are reading it.

The Nobodies Album reviewed You may wonder why I post so many random book reviews.  Well--some are reviews of favorite books of mine; I never tire of hearing people talk about them. Some are reviews of well-known books that may or may not deserve the time and effort so many people are putting into them ( Freedom ).  Some are reviews of books I've never heard of, but the review or the reviewer has piqued my interest. And finally, some are books that I've seen, perhaps picked up, maybe even checked out of the library, but in the infinite line of the TBR, I've never gotten around to--this one for instance.

A review of the Pasternak Family Correspondence

This has to be one of the most difficult reviews I've tried to write.  Here I am on my third attempt, and not sure this will see the light of day.  What is so difficult?  Nothing I seem to say does justice to the book.  I can't describe it with respect to any other writer because the comparison quickly comes to nothing.  If I say Austen, you get the wrong impression one way; if I say Angela Thirkell, you get a wrong impression another way; if I mention Heyer, I run the risk of alienating half of the audience.  There is, in sum, nothing to be said in the way of comparison.  Pym is unique. Excellent Women tells the story of a number of excellent women, chief among them our narrator--Mildred Lathbury, who finally tells us, near the end of the book, what is meant by excellent women: from Excellent Women Barbara Pym 'Esther Clovis is certainly a very capable person,' he said doubtfully. 'An excellent woman altogether.' 'You could consider marryi...

In the realm of the short-short, one by Annie Proulx

The Fates Will Find Their Way This sounds fascinating--and I have to wonder how close Ms. Pittard gets to understanding a teenage boy.  My guess is not terribly so, at least not from other female authors I have read on the subject--but that makes the story all the more intriguing.

"On Change of Opinions"

Another sharp observation from the pen of Barbara Pym. From Excellent Women Barbara Pym I let Dora go on but did not really listen, for I knew her views on Miss Protheroe and on organized religion of any kind. We had often argued about it in the past. I wondered that she should waste so much energy fighting over a little matter like wearing hats in chapel, but then, I told myself that, after all, life was like that for most of us--the small unpleasantnesses rather than the great tragedies; the useless longings rather than the great renunciations and dramatic love affairs of history or fiction.

Now reading Barbara Pym's Excellent Women , and this passage from early on in the book both surprised and moved me. Excellent Women Barbara Pym I could very well see what she meant, for unmarried women with no ties could very well become unwanted. I should feel it even more than Winifred, for who was there really to grieve for me when I was gone. Dora, the Malorys, one or two people in my old village might be sorry, but I was not really first in anybody's life. I could so very easily be replaced.

True Grit reviewed

The previous made me contemplate the origins of this famous phrase and doing so, I stumbled upon the source, which I have stumbled upon a great many times and forgotten. To Helen Edgar Allan Poe Helen, thy beauty is to me Like those Nicean barks of yore That gently, o'er a perfumed sea, The weary, way-worn wanderer bore To his own native shore. On desperate seas long wont to roam, Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face, Thy Naiad airs have brought me home To the glory that was Greece, And the grandeur that was Rome. Lo, in yon brilliant window-niche How statue-like I see thee stand, The agate lamp within thy hand, Ah! Psyche, from the regions which Are Holy Land!