Book Quotes of the Week

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"Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature is dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill." Henry David Thoreau

"There's always room for a story that can transport people to another place." J.K. Rowling

"You see, one of the best things about reading is that you'll always have something to think about when you're not reading." James Patterson

"A novel is like a bow, and the violin that produced the sound is the reader's soul." Stendhal

"Any fiction should be a story. In any story there are three elements: persons, a situation, and the fact that in the end something has changed. If nothing has changed, it isn't a story." Malcolm Cowley

"One must always be careful of books and what is inside them, for words have the power to change us." Tessa Gray

Find more book quotes here.

Pope Osborne, Mary "Magic Tree House" Series

Pope Osborne, Mary "Magic Tree House" Series - 1992 ff.

Jack and Anne are two ordinary children who just have to enter their tree house and, with the help of magical books, can travel back in time. In the various books they learn everything about history but also a lot about science. A very interesting way of teaching children all sorts of important subjects.

My sons really enjoyed these books.

These are all the books that exist (UK titles in brackets, when different).
[Research Guides in brackets]

Book 1: Dinosaurs Before Dark (Valley of the Dinosaurs) [RG1: Dinosaurs]
Book 2: The Knight at Dawn (Castle of Mystery) [RG2: Knights and Castles]
Book 3: Mummies in the Morning (Secret of the Pyramid) [RG3: Mummies and Pyramids]
Book 4: Pirates Past Noon (Pirates' Treasure) [RG4: Pirates]
Book 5: Night of the Ninjas
Book 6: Afternoon on the Amazon (Adventure on the Amazon) [RG5: Rain Forests]
Book 7: Sunset of the Sabertooth (Mammoth to the Rescue) [RG12: Sabertooths and the Ice Age]
Book 8: Midnight on the Moon (Moon Mission) [RG6: Space]
Book 9: Dolphins at Daybreak (Diving with Dolphins) [RG9: Dolphins and Sharks]
Book 10: Ghost Town at Sundown (A Wild West Ride)
Book 11: Lions at Lunchtime (Lions on the Loose)
Book 12: Polar Bears Past Bedtime Icy Escape) [RG 16: Polar Bears and the Arctic]
Book 13: Vacation Under the Volcano (Racing with Gladiators) [RG14: Ancient Rome and Pompeii]
Book 14: Day of the Dragon King (Palace of the Dragon King)
Book 15: Viking Ships at Sunrise (Voyage of the Vikings)
Book 16: Hour of the Olympics (Olympic Challenge!) [RG10: Ancient Greece and the Olympics]
Book 17: Tonight on the Titanic [RG7: Titanic]
Book 18: Buffalo Before Breakfast
Book 19: Tigers at Twilight
Book 20: Dingoes at Dinnertime
Book 21: Civil War on Sunday
Book 22: Revolutionary War on Wednesday [RG11: American Revolution]
Book 23: Twister on Tuesday [RG8: Twisters and Other Terrible Storms]
Book 24: Earthquake In the Early Morning
Book 25: Stage Fright on a Summer Night
Book 26: Good Morning, Gorillas
Book 27: Thanksgiving on Thursday [RG13: Pilgrims]
Book 28: High Tide in Hawaii [RG15: Tsunamis and Other Natural Disasters]
Book 29: Christmas in Camelot
Book 30: Haunted Castle on Hallows Eve
Book 31: Summer of the Sea Serpent
Book 32: Winter of the Ice Wizard
Book 33: Carnival at Candlelight
Book 34: Season of the Sandstorms

Book 35: Night of the New Magicians
Book 36: Blizzard of the Blue Moon
Book 37: Dragon of the Red Dawn
Book 38: Monday with a Mad Genius [RG19: Leonardo da Vinci]
Book 39: Dark Day in the Deep Sea [RG17: Sea Monsters]
Book 40: Eve of the Emperor Penguin [RG18: Penguins and Antarctica]
Book 41: Moonlight on the Magic Flute
Book 42: A Good Night for Ghosts [RG20: Ghosts]
Book 43: Leprechaun in Late Winter [RG21: Leprechauns and Irish Folklore]
Book 44: A Ghost Tale for Christmas Time [RG22: Rags and Riches: Kids in the Time of Charles Dickens]
Book 45: A Crazy Day with Cobras [RG23: Snakes and Other Reptiles]
Book 46: Dogs in the Dead of Night [RG24: Dog Heroes]
Book 47: Abe Lincoln at Last! [RG25: Abraham Lincoln]
Book 48: A Perfect Time for Pandas [RG26: Pandas and Other Endangered Species]
Book 49: Stallion by Starlight [RG27: Horse Heroes]
Book 50: Hurry Up, Houdini! [RG 28: Magic Tricks from the Tree House #28]

Mahfouz, Naguib "Children of Gebelawi"

Mahfouz, Naguib "Children of Gebelawi" (aka Children of our Alley) (Arabic: اولاد حارتنا Awlād ḥāritnā) - 1959

An interesting book. First I thought it was the Bible retold. But then I realized it was all our monotheistic religions retold, the beginnings of them, at least.

It's so easy at the beginning, There is Gabalawi (God) who first throws Idris (Satan) and then Adham (Adam) out of his house, then there is Gabal (Moses), Rifa (Jesus) and Qasim (Muhammad), all three of them wanting to bring peace to their alley (the world) and creating their own religions. At the end we have Arafa who stands for the modern world or science.

Naguib Mahfouz tries to weigh theses characters up against each other. What a rich and powerful story, full of symbolism, allegories, parables, comparable to the Bible, really. And probably the Quran, as well. I am not surprised the author received the Nobel Prize for Literature and will certainly read more of him.

Apparently, not everyone in our book club agreed with me. These are some of the comments from the meeting:

"Obtaining the book had not been easy and likewise the reading of it. 

The first chapter set the stage with actions that would be repeated anew in each historical era.

In the midst of abject misery and poverty a prophet comes with a message of hope which the people eagerly embrace.

This ushers in a time of peace and harmony but before many generations human discord, discontent, greed, and hatred arise leading to another cycle of misery. In their misery people call for help which comes again in the form of a new prophet ... repeat cycle.

Basically a religious history of mankind from the Garden of Eden via Moses, Christ, and Mohammad to the rise of science.

Mahfouz survived an attempt on his life as his writing angered the Islamic world."

From the back cover:

"The tumultuous 'alley' of this rich and intricate novel (first published in Arabic in 1959) tells the story of a delightful Egyptian family, but also reveals a second, hidden, and daring narrative: the spiritual history of humankind. From the supreme feudal lord who disowns one son for diabolical pride and puts another to the test, to the savior of a succeeding generation who frees his people from bondage, we find the men and women of a modern Cairo neighborhood unwittingly reenacting the lives of their holy ancestors: the 'children of the alley' This powerful, self-contained novel confirms again the richness and variety of Mahfouz's storytelling and his status as 'the single most important writer in modern Arabic literature.'"

We discussed this in our international book club in June 2013.

Naguib Mahfouz "who, through works rich in nuance - now clear-sightedly realistic, now evocatively ambiguous - has formed an Arabian narrative art that applies to all mankind" received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1988.

I contribute to this page: Read the Nobels and you can find all my blogs about Nobel Prize winning authors and their books here.

Creative Bookshelves

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Lately, I have seen a lot of creative, funny, lovely, nice, beautiful, organized, ... bookshelves on the internet. Walls that only carry a couple of books arranged in an intricate manner. Designers that go crazy with ten or twenty books, building an idea upon them.

As much as I like to look at these shelves, I don't think they are for me. You can only have creative bookshelves if you don't have many books. If, like in my case, your house is overflowing with books already and you really don't know where to put your latest acquisitions, all you can dream of is a house with wall to wall, floor to ceiling shelves in every room. A house full of shelves. That would be my dream.

Navarre, Marguerite de "Heptameron"

Navarre, Marguerite de "Heptameron" (French: Heptaméron) - 1578

I found the title of this book in Jane Smiley's "13 Ways of Looking at the Novel". It was one of the older books on the list and since I love classics and quite like "The Decameron" (also on her list), I put it on my reading list.

Apparently, the author was Marguerite de Navarre, sister of Francis I, King of France. She seemed to have read "The Decameron", as well. It was probably one of the "best sellers" of the time and she took it as an inspiration to write her own stories like this, only she had only written seven days of this book when she died, so there are fewer stories, hence only the "Heptameron".

Contrary to "The Decameron", this was a collection of short stories I did not care much about. When I said in my previous review that the stories in the Italian collection were rather racy, they have gone completely overboard in this one. Some of the stories are believed to have been true. If that is the case, don't set the "Good Old Days" as an example for faithful people. Also, I cannot remember having read any of the stories later on in another setting, so it must not have been as much an inspiration to other writers as "The Decameron" seems to have been and still is.

They also have a discussion at the end of the day but they seem very artificial, nothing rings true and you don't really warm to any of the characters even though the author seems to have borrowed them from her real life.

I usually like to learn about different epochs by reading novels from that time but I didn't have the feeling I learned much from this one. Every story was just a couple of pages long and looked to me more like a description of a story rather than a real story.

From the back cover:

"In the early 1500s five men and five women find themselves trapped by floods and compelled to take refuge in an abbey high in the Pyrenees. When told they must wait days for a bridge to be repaired, they are inspired - by recalling Boccaccio's Decameron - to pass the time in a cultured manner by each telling a story every day. The stories, however, soon degenerate into a verbal battle between the sexes, as the characters weave tales of corrupt friars, adulterous noblemen and deceitful wives. From the cynical Saffredent to the young idealist Dagoucin or the moderate Parlamente - believed to express De Navarre's own views - The Heptameron provides a fascinating insight into the minds and passions of the nobility of sixteenth century France."

Book Quotes of the Week

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"My test of a good novel is dreading to begin the last chapter." Thomas Helm

"A well-read woman is a dangerous creature." Lisa Kleypas

"For one who reads, there is no limit to the number of lives that may be lived." Louis L'Amour

"Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing." Harper Lee

"Wherever I am, if I've got a book with me, I have a place I can go and be happy." J.K. Rowling

Find more book quotes here.

Hannah, Kristin "Winter Garden"

Hannah, Kristin "Winter Garden"  - 2010

The description of this book sounded a little too chick lit for me that I would have desperately wanted to read it but it was a book club read, so as a conscientious member, I read it.

It certainly wasn't badly written but a little too superficial for my liking. I could judge the book by the cover. True, the story of Anya, the mother of two grown up girls, is interesting and the fact that she has not talked about it for most of her life makes it a little mysterious.

The two sisters, well, they both have their own problems but I doubt that they stemmed from the fact that their mother hid her story, didn't want to talk about her past. Most kids whose parents have grown up during wartime have to live with this. And, like Anya, a lot of those people think what happened to their loved ones is their fault. No, the war is at fault, every single person tries to cope with it in their very own matter, tries to make decisions that they might regret later but they have to make a decision. Who knows what decision we would make in the same circumstances.

I didn't like the ending, it was too much viewed through rose-tinted glasses. Overall, this was not my book, too shallow.

What adds to this is that we already read a book about the Leningrad siege in November 2011, "The Siege" by Helen Dunmore.

The book club had a bit of a different opinion in the discussion, although only a slightly better one.
They mostly agreed that "Winter Garden" was a quick read, almost like a "beach read" (just another "nicer" word for chick lit). The first half of the book was a little slower-paced compared to the finish. It seemed like there were two stories to tell: one was obviously the mother-daughter relationship and the other the Siege of Leningrad as told through Anya's fairy tales. We felt that the author tried too hard to combine the stories at times, and this resulted in lots of superfluous details and a longer book than was necessary. The end of the book was disappointing. All of us thought it was a little strange how suddenly Anya, Meredith, and Nina got on a cruise ship to Alaska and started drinking vodka and becoming best friends. The unexpected reunion between Anya and her long-lost Russian daughter in Alaska was too far-fetched.

The discussion of Russia and Stalin brought up another interesting topic. One of the members talked about a documentary she recently watched ("Hitler's Children") about the children of dictators/oppressors, and how they have dealt with their parents' unfortunate pasts.

From the back cover:

"Meredith and Nina Whitson are as different as sisters can be. One stayed at home to raise her children and manage the family apple orchard; the other followed a dream and traveled the world to become a famous photojournalist. But when their beloved father falls ill, Meredith and Nina find themselves together again, standing alongside their cold, disapproving mother, Anya, who even now, offers no comfort to her daughters. As children, the only connection between them was the Russian fairy tale Anya sometimes told the girls at night. On his deathbed, their father extracts a promise from the women in his life: the fairy tale will be told one last time - and all the way to the end. Thus begins an unexpected journey into the truth of Anya’s life in war-torn Leningrad, more than five decades ago. Alternating between the past and present, Meredith and Nina will finally hear the singular, harrowing story of their mother’s life, and what they learn is a secret so terrible and terrifying that it will shake the very foundation of their family and change who they believe they are."

We discussed this in our book club in May 2013.

I have read "Angel Falls" by the same author.