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Lily Fairbairn
Half-elven
Feb 6 2018, 4:34pm
Post #1 of 12
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It's the post-Groundhog Day reading thread!
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I have to admit that here in Texas we pay very little attention to the predictions of a groundhog in Pennsylvania. We know we're in for six more weeks of winter, spring, winter, spring, maybe a few minutes of summer, then winter again.... 
The other question is why we Americans have devolved the old Celtic quarter day of Imbolc/old Catholic feast of St. Bridget and Candlemas, into a silly joke involving a rodent!
Ahem.
I'm almost finished listening to the audio book of The Wave, which has turned out to be much more about surfing than about science. But then, surfing is alien enough to me that I've enjoyed listening and learning---and yes, frequently dozing off.
Next up: The audio version of a Georgette Heyer book, but not, unfortunately, one of the ones read by Richard Armitage.
On paper I've just started The Kindness of Place: Twenty Years in West Cork, by Damien Enright. This promises to be a quiet, soothing book about the natural history of southwestern Ireland---as distinct from the gripping but gruesome political and social history of southwestern Ireland.
What have you been reading?
Where now the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing?
Where is the helm and the hauberk, and the bright hair flowing?
Where is the hand on the harpstring, and the red fire glowing?
Where is the spring and the harvest and the tall corn growing?
They have passed like rain on the mountain, like a wind in the meadow;
The days have gone down in the West behind the hills into shadow....
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Ataahua
Forum Admin
/ Moderator
Feb 6 2018, 5:45pm
Post #2 of 12
(685 views)
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I've been rereading the Harry Potter series.
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I've almost finished The Prisoner of Azkaban. These books really are a joy to read from time to time.
Celebrimbor: "Pretty rings..."
Dwarves: "Pretty rings..."
Men: "Pretty rings..."
Sauron: "Mine's better."
"Ah, how ironic, the addictive qualities of Sauron’s master weapon led to its own destruction. Which just goes to show, kids - if you want two small and noble souls to succeed on a mission of dire importance... send an evil-minded beggar with them too." - Gandalf's Diaries, final par, by Ufthak.
Ataahua's stories
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Annael
Immortal
Feb 6 2018, 9:07pm
Post #3 of 12
(677 views)
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the Morgaine series by C J Cherryh
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I had all these books years ago, but at some point took them to the used book store. Yesterday I was killing time in a bookstore before choir & came across an omnibus edition of all four books for $10. Well, who could resist? And it's been a long time.
I like Cherryh very much except for one issue, which I notice with a few other writers as well (Patricia McKillip for example): I don't always understand what just happened. She's sometimes so oblique, she doesn't take me with her.
I am a dreamer of words, of written words. I think I am reading; a word stops me. I leave the page. The syllables of the words begin to move around … The words take on other meanings as if they had the right to be young.
-- Gaston Bachelard
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NARF and member of Deplorable Cultus since 1967
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Eruonen
Half-elven
Feb 7 2018, 3:27am
Post #4 of 12
(668 views)
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A family member gave me Dan Brown's Origins to read
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Elberbeth
Tol Eressea
Feb 7 2018, 2:58pm
Post #5 of 12
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Three stories by Rosemary Sutcliffe
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neatly packaged into one volume. They are: Warrior Scarlet; Mark of the Horse Lord; and Knight's Fee. I only knew her from Eagle of the Ninth and Sun Horse, Moon Horse. I absolutely love her writing, it is so lyrical and beautiful. These are meant to be YA, but the writing lifts them all much higher. I even teared up a couple of times. I would have loved to have known about her earlier in my life.
"There are some things that it is better to begin than to refuse, even though the end may be dark."
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Na Vedui
Rohan
Feb 9 2018, 3:57pm
Post #7 of 12
(568 views)
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... are not as unconnected as they may appear! There's an old rhyme:
If Candlemas Day be fair and bright, Winter will have another flight;
If Candlemas Day be showers and rain, Winter is gone and will not come again.
So in one way or another there is a tradition of trying to predict the upcoming weather conditions on 2nd February.
At one time, too, it seems that in England Christmas greenery was taken down at Candlemas rather than on 6 Jan - there's a poem by Robert Herrick about it
https://www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com/...osemary_and_bays.htm
so it was seen as a turning-point in more ways than one.
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Meneldor
Valinor
Feb 10 2018, 9:52pm
Post #8 of 12
(537 views)
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by Charles Rosendahl, 1931. The author was probably the best-known American zeppelin flyer, the senior surviving officer of the wreck of the USS Shenandoah, CO of the USS Los Angeles, and invited as an observer aboard the Graf Zeppelin for Hugo Eckener's famous around-the-world flight. I thought it was a fascinating first-person perspective on the history of the airship, and the author's optimism is palpable. Knowing about the tragedies that followed this book's publication gives it a sad sense of an age of innocence lost.
They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters, these see the works of the Lord, and His wonders in the deep. -Psalm 107
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Lily Fairbairn
Half-elven
Feb 11 2018, 9:36pm
Post #9 of 12
(511 views)
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Thank you---very interesting! //
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Where now the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing?
Where is the helm and the hauberk, and the bright hair flowing?
Where is the hand on the harpstring, and the red fire glowing?
Where is the spring and the harvest and the tall corn growing?
They have passed like rain on the mountain, like a wind in the meadow;
The days have gone down in the West behind the hills into shadow....
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N.E. Brigand
Half-elven
Feb 11 2018, 9:52pm
Post #10 of 12
(521 views)
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Taken like an old badger in a trap.
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Thanks for that rhyme. We also touched on some (slight) Lord of the Rings connections to Groundhog Day and Candlemas last week in this Fiesta thread.
Treason doth neuer prosper? What's the Reason?
for if it prosper none dare call it treason.
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Discuss Tolkien's life and works in the Reading Room!
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How to find old Reading Room discussions.
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Na Vedui
Rohan
Feb 12 2018, 6:12pm
Post #11 of 12
(486 views)
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- I didn't know about the bear / badger's shadow tradition.
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Meneldor
Valinor
Feb 13 2018, 3:13pm
Post #12 of 12
(456 views)
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by David Drake. First in a series of SF space navy novels, the two main characters are obviously inspired by O'Brien's Aubrey & Maturin in Master & Commander. Drake has always done well with military perspectives, inspired by his time in Vietnam. I've always admired his world-building more than his characters and plots. Sometimes the flow of the writing is choppy, with expository paragraphs popping up in the middle of the action. This one got off to a slow start, but the rousing finale made up for it. I expect I'll read more of these, but probably not right away.
They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters, these see the works of the Lord, and His wonders in the deep. -Psalm 107
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