We Shall Soldier Through Friday the 13th and Emerge Stronger Individuals

Since I am not able to do Dewey's Readathon this spring (curse you, conflicting events!), I think I'm going to do a mini one on my own this Sunday. And oh, I am excited. There will be prizes! For me. And challenges! For me. And snacks! That I would share, but you all live so far away.

I'll probably end up reading 30 pages of The Woman in White and call it a day. ONWARD!

My church's book group, which we somewhat cultishly call People of the Book, met last night to discuss the first half of How the Irish Saved Civilization. This book kicks ass. True, I am halfway through and he only just got to the Irish and not so much to them but more St Patrick, but it's one of those books that's like "LET ME SUMMARIZE HUGE SWATHS OF HISTORY IN A COUPLE AMUSING SENTENCES." And he's so SMART but interesting and he got me to read Plato and learn more about Augustine (we all know who Augustine is?) and now I want to read the Táin. I don't know if anything else could've made me want to read that.

For those who are poor uninformed saps like I was yesterday, the Táin is kind of an early Irish epic about cattle rustling. It has kickass characters like Queen Medb (...pronounced 'Maeve') and asshole characters like Conchobar (pronounced 'Connor.' obviously.) and I don't understand Gaelic but thank GOD Thomas Kinsella did an awesome translation of it into English.

Early Irish culture seems to have been much, much kinder to women than most of its European/English contemporaries. There's a parallel to the old "you complete these tasks and you can marry the girl" story, only in the Irish version, the girl herself gives the hero the tasks. The aforementioned Queen Medb is one of the most fleshed-out characters I've read in epic literature, and it's only later it seems that women got so relatively circumscribed (damn you, Augustinian Church!).

Finally, for your Friday the 13th edification, here's Sue Perkins reading a book. Or looking cheekily at the camera, rather.

WHAT IS SHE READING I MUST KNOW

edit: Shelf Actualization (yeah, I'm naming you by your blog name) has found what book it is -- The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham. Wikipedia informs me 'John Wyndham' is his pen-name, because his REAL name is John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris. Yeah. Pen-name NEEDED, sir.

Comments

Minithon: The Mini Readathon, January 11th, 2020

The minithon is upon us once more! Minithons are for the lazy. Minithons are for the uncommitted. Minithons are for us. The minithon lasts 6 hours (10 AM to 4 PM CST), therefore making it a mini readathon, as opposed to the lovely Dewey's 24 Hour Readathon and 24in48, both of which you should participate in, but both of which are a longer commitment than this, the Busy Watching Netflix person's readathon. By 'read for six hours' what's really meant in the minithon is "read a little bit and eat a lot of snacks and post pictures of your books and your snacks, but mostly your snacks." We like to keep it a mini theme here, which mainly means justifying your books and your snacks to fit that theme. Does your book have children in it? Mini people! Does it have a dog! Mini wolf! Does it have pencils? Mini versions of graphite mines! or however you get graphite, I don't really know. I just picture toiling miners. The point is, justify it or don't

Harry Potter 2013 Readalong Signup Post of Amazingness and Jollity

Okay, people. Here it is. Where you sign up to read the entire Harry Potter series (or to reminisce fondly), starting January 2013, assuming we all survive the Mayan apocalypse. I don't think I'm even going to get to Tina and Bette's reunion on The L Word until after Christmas, so here's hopin'. You guys know how this works. Sign up if you want to. If you're new to the blog, know that we are mostly not going to take this seriously. And when we do take it seriously, it's going to be all Monty Python quotes when we disagree on something like the other person's opinion on Draco Malfoy. So be prepared for your parents being likened to hamsters. If you want to write lengthy, heartfelt essays, that is SWELL. But this is maybe not the readalong for you. It's gonna be more posts with this sort of thing: We're starting Sorceror's/Philosopher's Stone January 4th. Posts will be on Fridays. The first post will be some sort of hilar

How to Build a Girl Introductory Post, which is full of wonderful things you probably want to read

Acclaimed (in England mostly) lady Caitlin Moran has a novel coming out. A NOVEL. Where before she has primarily stuck to essays. Curious as we obviously were about this, I and a group of bloggers are having a READALONG of said novel, probably rife with spoilers (maybe they don't really matter for this book, though, so you should totally still read my posts). This is all hosted/cared for/lovingly nursed to health by Emily at As the Crowe Flies (and Reads) because she has a lovely fancy job at an actual bookshop ( Odyssey Books , where you can in fact pre-order this book and then feel delightful about yourself for helping an independent store). Emily and I have negotiated the wonders of Sri Lankan cuisine and wandered the Javits Center together. Would that I could drink with her more often than I have. I feel like we could get to this point, Emily INTRODUCTION-wise (I might've tipped back a little something this evening, thus the constant asides), I am Alice. I enjoy

Reading Rambo

Search This Blog