I dig these placards on the Madrid subway, promoting reading by posting fragments of text at eye level, each just long enough to scan during a short ride - with links to further info, and all works available in little library modules in about ten different stations.
I brought home only one book from Barcelona: a picture guide to the Basilica de Sagrada Familia.
But, oh, such memories ...
Bookstall in Madrid, steps away from legendary Chocolateria de San Ginés.
I‘m here for a nice long weekend with my parents. Have I shown you their home office? 😍
451 characters is not enough to explain how happy I am, so I wrote a haiku:
Tales of girls, wolves, snow
Rainbow chocolate teddy hearts
Litsy #Valentine
Thank you @Liatrek for your creativity and generosity. You really made my day!
Thanks also to @Avanders @BookBabe and @MrBook for organizing such a lovely party!
Thank you @Liatrek ❣️ I will open my gifts tonight with my family, and post again tomorrow. I get a lump in my throat just taking in all the love and care that went into this! Love love love
It‘s here!
There came a day when he forgot to wear his red MAGA hat, and as he climbed the steps to his waiting jet, a gust of wind lifted the back of his headdress, revealing at last what lay beneath the unnatural golden locks.
#BadHairDay
#HeWhoMustNotBeNamed
#cupidgoespostal package was mailed Monday morning, and is on its way to you, my secret Valentine!
#valentinesbookexchange
pickI was expecting the declines and losses, the falls from grace, the snares of piety. I was not expecting the hilarity, the subtlety, the art. It was a banquet and more: definitely a book I will, er, revisit.
I‘m listening to this great classic during my commute (it counterbalances our ongoing evening read-aloud of Gone With the Wind), and it‘s totally reframing my mental picture of Reconstruction. What a dire, dangerous time for the country — and how lucky we are to have the benefit of this man‘s solemn and charitable wisdom.
(The otherwise excellent reader loses a point because his voice drops to inaudible at the end of too many sentences.)
Among the many pleasures of this delicious new book is this word — new to me but perfect for this cultural moment — meaning
BRAGGART
pickThis is a really good Golden Age English country house murder mystery. It is intelligently and crisply written, with a wintry setting that turns ominous and then spectacular. There is a description of a thaw that I will never forget. And everything makes sense in the end. (sigh)
(Looks like Yuki is destroying the evidence!)
The old Valentine kit is out, and in two days everything will be wrapped and on its way to my Litsy Valentine. #cupidgoespostal 💝
... and good riddance!
This is our current read-aloud. We‘re actually having a hard time with it. It‘s a cultural landmark, no doubt, and we‘ll forge ahead. But this story about a society precariously founded on human enslavement feels more dystopian than romantic at the moment.
Surely, surely, Horowitz‘s detective Atticus Pünd was inspired by Cyril Hare‘s Dr. Wenceslaus Bottwink. They are both European Jewish survivors of the concentration camps living in early 1950s England, toiling away at intellectual pursuits despite fading health, and stepping in to help the police solve a country-house murder. This is homage, right? Not coincidence. Exactly what makes this book so much fun!
I liked The Meaning of Everything and The Making of the Oxford English Dictionary, so I think I might like this too. Yup.
❣️I was at Barnes & Noble shopping for my secret Valentine 🤫 and I found THESE fantastic Bible highlighters. It‘s a twist-up transparent waxy crayon; goes on smooth and doesn‘t bleed through even very thin pages. I tried every color and they work great. 👍🏽
*️⃣ (If you‘re looking for a fine-point highlighter, these are not it. They resemble crayons and don‘t keep a point for long.)
The boy‘s barista skills are coming along very nicely.
How I would love to be able to do this!! Maybe after I retire I‘ll try to get a job at a coffee shop with a great espresso machine ... 🤔...
The first time I saw Winnie the Pooh on the big screen, I was in my pajamas in the back seat of the family car at the drive-in. I was entranced by the effect of making my favorite book come alive - in color! - as when Pooh jumps from one page to the next (shown here).
Revisiting these superb short stories: scenes from the Home Front in WW II, told with heart, wit, and style.
(The title shown is “Literary Scandal at the Sewing Party.”)
This looks like fun to me!
Buddy read w/my sister. We‘re on the path together. 😇
pickAlice Vavasor has everything going for her on the marriage market, except that she is deeply ambivalent about marriage. Trying to balance Self and Society, she jilts first one man, then another — has she ruined her life, or can you forgive her? Wonderful characters, braided plot lines, charming commentary: a satisfying world to be immersed in.
But oh my word, as a woman it makes me so grateful to be living in the 21st century!!!
Just the title.
Anyone else have piles and piles of Christmas books? I‘ve already put away all the picture books, most of the cookbooks and entertaining books, and half the fiction.
Maybe I should just read nothing but Christmas books this year.
This rings true!
I know a lot of people who are both smart and emotionally stable, but they all claim to be limited or flawed in some way. Meanwhile, the man who holds the office of President argues on social media that he is a “very stable genius” and those who claim otherwise may “go down in flames.”
pickPost-holidays, we‘re all in the mood for something sharp and fresh, like ginger carrots.
I like this book: it advocates passionately for a diet that avoids processed foods and includes saturated fats, sprouted grains and seeds, bone broths, and natural fermentation.
I make no effort to evaluate the merits of the nutrition science, but the recipes are easy, unusual, and satisfying.
(Illustrations are B&W, but it‘s my book so I get to color it!)
The engraved title gives heft to this already eye-catching cover.
Though, in all honesty, I was gonna buy it and love it anyway. Cyril Hare is the real thing.
On the Tenth Day of Christmas, the mail truck brought to meeeee ...
pickThe Box of Delights is one of the best books to read during the holidays - plenty of magic, adventure, and cozy homecomings, set in an idyllic snowy England between the Wars.
pickA little comfort reading for Christmas. This new Christmas-themed anthology by John Julius Norwich is absolutely fabulous!
And Miss Read! Miss Read was hygge before hygge was a thing. Hyggelig og koselig.
What a treat to get this lovely catalog in my mailbox today!
Somehow the traffic doesn't bother me as much when I'm listening to a cozy classic mystery.
My daughter knows the way to my heart! ❤️
Filling our carts at the San Francisco Public Library Book Sale.
Hey Bay Area Bookish People! Now through Sunday at Fort Mason.
pickI have really been enjoying Mary Stewart's graceful, intelligent storytelling lately. Touch Not the Cat involves the youngest generation of an old family endowed with a crumbling estate and powers of psychic communication. I found it engrossing.
P.S. The painting is called Les Caresses Dangereuses by François Boucher, at the San Francisco Palace of the Legion of Honor. There's something very unsettling about that cat.
A vintage cozy set in Scotland sounds perfect to me right now.
I love the dedication.
(Wikipedia tells me it's a midge ... and that there's a typo here!)
It really doesn't get any better than this. ❤️
A thousand thanks to @Suelizbeth for recommending Patricia Wentworth's Miss Silver mystery series. 👵🏽
A new cooking adventure!!!
... and an excuse for a new cookbook or two ...
We made a point in Edinburgh to pay our respects to the memory of Sir Walter Scott. It's the least we could do: E has been reading The Antiquary to me every night of our trip.
Last day in Scotland: went by this nice-looking shop on Prince's Street, Edinburgh and didn't even go in ... my suitcase is too full!
A wee Scots vocabulary lesson courtesy of our lovely B&B hosts in Dornoch.
I love the book culture in the U.K.! For example, here is a books magazine that is distributed for free in bookshops and libraries. Not just a catalog, it features many short book descriptions, excerpts from new books, interviews with authors, articles about bookshops, and a few bookish puzzles and contests. I was delighted to find two different issues because it's not available by subscription.
The lovely Dornoch Cathedral has a series of windows commemorating Andrew Carnegie; this one celebrates his founding of many libraries and other institutions of learning.
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