Howling Frog Books

 11!  Take a look at your Spin list , find #11, and read that. This means that I'll be reading  Buchi Emecheta's   Second-Class Citizen .  It's been a while since I read one of her books, so that will be great!  Emecheta is probably my favorite Nigerian author.  Second-Class Citizen was published in 1974, her second novel and the one that brought her fame.  It's semi-autobiographical, and is a sequel to the earlier In the Ditch .  I've written about a few Emecheta novels before: The Joys of Motherhood,   The Slave Girl, and The Bride Price (which was my Spin #21 title).  They are all wonderful, so do give them a try.  PS I just got back from over a week of running around the West.  I had a great time and I'm tired!    

 Huzzah, it's time for another CC Spin, my favorite event!  You know the rules, so here's my list: The Leopard, by di Lampedusa  Phineas Finn, by Anthony Trollope The Well at the End of the World, by William Morris   The Law and the Lady, by Wilkie Collins It is Acceptable (Det Gaar An), C. J. L. Almqvist  The Duchess of Malfi and The White Devil, by John Webster   The Obedience of a Christian Man, by William Tyndale No Name, by Wilkie Collins Peter the Great's African, by Pushkin Stories of Washington Irving Second-Class Citizen, by Buchi Emecheta Life and Fate, by Vasily Grossman (this would be quite a feat!) Sybil, by Disraeli Polyhistor Solinus   The Tale of Sinhue (ancient Egyptian poetry)   Eichmann in Jerusalem, by Hannah Arendt Lives, by Plutarch (vol I)   Sagas of Icelanders (aiming for 50% by the due date) Two Years Before the Mast, by Richard Henry Dana  Amerika, by Kafka  Lucretius worked out really well last time and I...

  De Rerum Natura (The Way Things Are, or On the Nature of Things), by Titus Lucretius Carus, trans. by Rolfe Humphries I didn't really know quite what I was getting into with this book, but it worked out great.  Thanks to Tom the Amateur Reader, I got an excellent translation that I enjoyed a lot.  I won't claim to have understood it particularly well -- for that I'd need a whole deep dive and probably a class -- but for a basic first read, I'm calling it a success. So here we go... We don't know all that much about Lucretius, except that he was a Roman poet and philosopher, upper-class, and this is the only surviving of his works.  He was born around 99 BCE and died, at 44, in 55 BCE.  St. Jerome said he went mad from a love potion and killed himself, which seems to be inaccurate, but the slander stuck around for centuries, right up to the modern era.  Our poem was very nearly lost, but a single surviving copy was found in a German monastery in the early ...

 4!   That gives me  The Nature of Things , by Lucretius...a classic of Roman philosophy.  It's a poem, but I have a vague idea that the Penguin Classics hardcover at the library is in prose.  So wish me luck, and if there's a better translation out there that you know of, let me know!     

 Wow, it's the 40th Classics Club Spin !  You know the drill, or you can see it at the site.  They'll pull the number on Sunday morning, and we'll have until April 11th to finish the book.  Here are my titles:  No Name, by Wilkie Collins Peter the Great's African, by Pushkin  The Beggar's Opera, by John Gay The Nature of Things, by Lucretius Second-Class Citizen, by Buchi Emecheta Life and Fate, by Vasily Grossman (this would be quite a feat!) Sybil, by Disraeli The Leopard, by di Lampedusa  Phineas Finn, by Anthony Trollope   The Obedience of a Christian Man, by William Tyndale   Sagas of Icelanders (aiming for 50% by the due date) The Well at the End of the World, by William Morris   The Law and the Lady, by Wilkie Collins It is Acceptable (Det Gaar An), C. J. L. Almqvist  Two Years Before the Mast, by Richard Henry Dana  Amerika, by Kafka Polyhistor Solinus   The Tale of Sinhue (ancient Egyptian poetry)   Eichmann ...

 The Ring of Bright Water, by Gavin Maxwell When I opened this book and started reading, I was a little taken aback when the introduction to the trilogy edition explained that all three books had been edited down in order to become the trilogy.  I didn't sign up for that!  I wanted the whole thing!  But then it turned out that complete editions of the first book are no longer easy to get; they've long been replaced by this shortened trilogy version.  And so, resigned, I decided to read the first part of the book and then see how it was going before committing to all three books.  And I did really enjoy Ring of Bright Water , but I don't think I'm going to continue. Read on to see why. Gavin Maxwell, wanderer and general nature guy, had tried running a shark-hunting business on the Scottish island of Soay.  He'd gone back and forth to the Middle East a few times, for what exactly he does not say, but writing seems to come into it, and probably also gen...

 THREE!   This means I'll be reading Ring of Bright Water , by Gavin Maxwell , a classic of nature writing.  The copy I have is actually the trilogy, so we'll see how far I get.   See you on December 18th!     

 Hey it's that time again, my favorite time -- it's Spin time!   You know the rules, so here we go: No Name, by Wilkie Collins Second-Class Citizen, by Buchi Emecheta Ring of Bright Water, by Gavin Maxwell The Tale of Sinhue (ancient Egyptian poetry)   Eichmann in Jerusalem, by Hannah Arendt   Hunger, by Knut Hamsun Sybil, by Disraeli The Leopard, by di Lampedusa  Phineas Finn, by Anthony Trollope   The Obedience of a Christian Man, by William Tyndale   Sagas of Icelanders (aiming for 50% by the due date) The Well at the End of the World, by William Morris It is Acceptable (Det Gaar An), C. J. L. Almqvist  Two Years Before the Mast, by Richard Henry Dana  Amerika, by Kafka Peter the Great's African, by Pushkin  The Beggar's Opera, by John Gay The Nature of Things, by Lucretius Polyhistor Solinus Lives, by Plutarch (again, aiming for part, not the whole) I'm still in a mood for ancient British literature, or at least something saga-ish ...

 17! This means I have to read R. L. Stevenson's adventure story about the Wars of the Roses, The Black Arrow.  Very appropriate for somebody just back from a trip packed with UK history...

 I'm back, baby!  I missed the last Spin (which is terrible, because now Brona is the only one left who has done all of them), but I'm in for this one.  You know the drill, here's the rules , and here's my list: No Name, by Wilkie Collins Second-Class Citizen, by Buchi Emecheta The Well at the End of the World, by William Morris It is Acceptable (Det Gaar An), C. J. L. Almqvist  Two Years Before the Mast, by Richard Henry Dana  Amerika, by Kafka Peter the Great's African, by Pushkin  The Beggar's Opera, by John Gay Sybil, by Disraeli The Leopard, by di Lampedusa  Phineas Finn, by Anthony Trollope   The Obedience of a Christian Man, by William Tyndale It Can't Happen Here, by Sinclair Lewis Polyhistor Solinus Conjure Tales, by Charles Chesnutt The Duchess of Malfi, by John Webster The Black Arrow, by R. L. Stevenson Ring of Bright Water, by Gavin Maxwell The Tale of Sinhue (ancient Egyptian poetry)   Eichmann in Jerusalem, by Hannah Arendt ...

 Success!  I had a little trouble with this one, because I was trying to read it on my phone, and that was just not working very well.  I was less than halfway through and March was looming, but a nice Penguin copy came across the donation table and I took it home.  After that, it was easy to read 50 pages a day and zoom through... Rob Roy, by Sir Walter Scott When I read The Heart of Mid-Lothian , I was surprised that it wasn't about Jacobites adventuring all over the highlands, but that turns out to be Rob Roy.  Honestly I preferred Jeanie Deans, but this was quite fun.  I can see why stay-at-home English folks of the mid 1800s loved reading this! It's 1715, and our narrator is Frank Osbaldistone, whose father is a London businessman.  Young Frank prefers art and poetry to accounting (and doesn't quite see why he should work hard when his dad has plenty of money), and his exasperated dad sends him off to cousins in Northumberland, pointing out that h...

And the lucky Spin number is...   20! So I'll be reading Rob Roy , by Sir Walter Scott.  I've never planned to read all, or even most, of Scott, but I've kind of had this one in the back of my head for many years, despite knowing nothing whatsoever about it.  I gather that the protagonist is a young man who appeals to the (in)famous Rob Roy for help, and it all takes place in about 1715, just before the second Jacobite rebellion.  Rob Roy was a real person, and was also the kind of person who attracts legends, so that he ended up a sort of Highlander Robin Hood figure.  We'll see!    

 Hooray, it's the 36th Classics Club Spin!  You know the drill, so here's my list: No Name, by Wilkie Collins Second-Class Citizen, by Buchi Emecheta Sybil, by Disraeli The Leopard, by di Lampedusa  Phineas Finn, by Anthony Trollope The Black Arrow, by R. L. Stevenson Ring of Bright Water, by Gavin Maxwell The Tale of Sinhue (ancient Egyptian poetry)   Eichmann in Jerusalem, by Hannah Arendt   The Obedience of a Christian Man, by William Tyndale It Can't Happen Here, by Sinclair Lewis Conjure Tales, by Charles Chesnutt The Well at the End of the World, by William Morris It is Acceptable (Det Gaar An), C. J. L. Almqvist  Two Years Before the Mast, by Richard Henry Dana  Amerika, by Kafka Peter the Great's African, by Pushkin  The Beggar's Opera, by John Gay The Duchess of Malfi, by John Webster Rob Roy, by Sir Walter Scott  Scary list!  I wonder which one it will be??

It's Spin day!  I finished my book in good time, and it was a very interesting read.   Boswell's London Journal, 1762 - 1763, by James Boswell, ed Frederick A. Pottle James Boswell was the son of the laird of Auchinleck, and he was on the outs with his father.  Lord Auchinleck wanted his son to study law and generally act like a responsible adult, and James wanted to live an exciting life in London, maybe join the Guards -- as long as he didn't have to actually leave London and do anything military -- hang out with literary types, and write poetry.  So they made a deal: Jamie's dad gave him an allowance that was enough to live on as a gentleman, but not enough for living large, and let him spend some time in London to see how he liked it.  (This was pretty nice of Dad, considering that a couple of years before, young Jamie had announced a desire to become a Catholic monk and then ran off to London for a few months of serious debauchery.  The Laird mus...

   Number 2! This gives me Boswell's London Diary , which on the one hand -- yay, I get to read about London!  and on the other -- how many brothels do you suppose he will visit, and in how much detail?  If this turns out to be nothing but a list of exploited girls, I'm going to be disappointed.  I hope he does something else with his time.  We'll find out! What book did you get?          

 It's the 35th Classics Club Spin !  You know the rules.  The number will be announced this Sunday and we'll have until December 3rd to read the chosen book.  Here's the list: The Well at the End of the World, by William Morris Diary of London, by Boswell It is Acceptable (Det Gaar An), C. J. L. Almqvist  Two Years Before the Mast, by Richard Henry Dana  Amerika, by Kafka Peter the Great's African, by Pushkin No Name, by Wilkie Collins The Black Arrow, by R. L. Stevenson Ring of Bright Water, by Gavin Maxwell The Tale of Sinhue (ancient Egyptian poetry)   I Served the King of England, by Bohumil Hrabal   Phineas Finn, by Anthony Trollope It Can't Happen Here, by Sinclair Lewis Revelations of Divine Love, by Julian of Norwich Conjure Tales, by Charles Chesnutt The Duchess of Malfi, by John Webster Rob Roy, by Sir Walter Scott Second-Class Citizen, by Buchi Emecheta Sybil, by Disraeli The Leopard, by di Lampedusa I think I'd quite like to read The B...

 First Love and Other Stories, by Ivan Turgenev Wow, Turgenev sure could write.  Here we have short stories written over 20 years of his writing career.  Most of them illuminate a short episode and its meaning for a whole life, or a zeitgeist. "The Diary of a Superfluous Man" is the final diary of a dying man -- though he is only about 30, he has just days to live, and decides to set down the one significant thing that has ever happened to him, and in which he was utterly futile, as he believes his whole life to have been.  He got to know a local family, and fell in love with the daughter (age 17), but Liza never noticed him at all.  She fell instead for a visiting nobleman, and at the end of a romantic summer, he of course left without proposing.  Our narrator wanted to warn her, to help her, to marry her afterwards, but she never wanted any of his warnings or help and married another man. "Mumu" concerns a well-to-do widow living in St. Petersburg -- real...

 13!  That gives me First Love and Other Stories, by Turgenev.  Not bad!  

 Guess what time it is?  That's right, it's another Spin!  Huzzah!  Here's the post, and you know the rules.  The lucky number will be posted on Sunday, and we'll have until August 6th to read the book.  Only one of these is on my 20 Books of Summer list, and if I get a different one that is long I might have to do some trading.  There are some awfully long Victorian novels on here.  Wish me luck!   The Well at the End of the World, by William Morris The Story of Hong Gildong (a Korean classic) The Black Arrow, by R. L. Stevenson Revelations of Divine Love, by Julian of Norwich Conjure Tales, by Charles Chesnutt The Duchess of Malfi, by John Webster Rob Roy, by Sir Walter Scott Second-Class Citizen, by Buchi Emecheta Ring of Bright Water, by Gavin Maxwell The Tale of Sinhue (ancient Egyptian poetry)   I Served the King of England, by Bohumil Hrabal It Can't Happen Here, by Sinclair Lewis First Love and Other Stories, by Turgenev Sybil, b...

 Motl, the Cantor's Son , by Sholem Aleichem  I'm late delivering my Spin title, even though I finished it a couple of weeks ago!  I enjoyed this so much.  Various people told me that it was a lot lighter than Tevye the Dairyman , which I read a few years ago, and it definitely was. Motl is a little boy, 8 and 9 years old, telling his story of getting to America -- in installments, because it was published as a serial in a newspaper.  We start in a shtetl in the Russian empire; I'm pretty sure it would be Ukraine now.  Motl's family is poor but cultivated, because his father is Peysi the cantor and a very well-respected man.  After his death, the family is left penniless and Motl's older brother resolves to take everyone to America, 'everyone' being their mother, Elyahu the brother, his wife, his best friend (a comedic bookworm given to declaiming about Columbus), and little Motl.  It's about 1910, the pogroms are getting worse, and America promis...