Teaser Tuesday - July 28

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

He knew he had not thought sufficiently of this, that he had been carried away by enthusiasm, and had hitherto not brought home to himself the full reality of his position.
He thought most about his daughter, naturally.

From Anthony Trollope's The Warden - our BATS book of the month - a classic read category - which I've quite enjoyed his dissection of the foibles of the Victorian Church. (getting to this post in the end!)

Mutterings - July 27

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Ridiculous :: Charade
2. Fearful :: Cave
3. Data :: Card
4. Beyond :: Wide blue
5. Gossip :: Huddle
6. Guessing game :: I-Spy
7. Portal :: Internet
8. Bracket :: Hinge (and Brackett)
9. Party :: Pooper
10. Transparent :: Stratagem

Teaser Tuesday - July 20

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

"Then where has she gone?"
He began to cry and I let him act out his desperation, sobs that began fake and became real.

The beginning of Elena Ferrante's My Brilliant Friend - having read the second in this series within our book group I thought I'd try the first novel. Here's my teaser of the second novel.

Mutterings - July 19

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Breach :: Once more (unto..)
2. Cloudy :: Cumulus
3. Fish :: Flat
4. Heather :: Moor
5. Lips :: Purse
6. Click :: Mouse
7. Cap :: School
8. Suggested :: Completion
9. Infatuation :: Hopeless
10. Move :: Chess

Teaser Tuesday - July 12

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

She hears the tap, tap, tap of the women's tobacco pipes.
During the night, fleas or lice feasted on her neck, breast and midriff.

This is a re-read of David Mitchell's The Thousand Autumn's of Jacob de Zoet. I originally read it back in 2010 and had been hoping our book group would get around to it, but it is a bit long for a month and there's some bits that are tough to read! But as a historical novel of the interaction between East and West it is fascinating. Set at the end of the 18th century in Nagasaki, I am much enjoying the re-read - here's my (few) thoughts from first time (with the other entry tagged so that it can be found!).

Mutterings - July 12

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Devastated :: Area
2. Hello :: Sailor!
3. Agency :: Job
4. Guide :: Alpine
5. Air :: Londonderry
6. Expectation :: Great (a singular Dicken!)
7. Click :: Bait
8. Result :: Return
9. Member :: Honourable
10. Infertile :: Leadsom (sorry - but not very!)

Mutterings - July 5

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Argument :: No (or maybe No!)
2. Firing :: Cylinders
3. Gesture :: Rude
4. Conventional :: Staid
5. Calories :: Desserts
6. Glasses :: Wine
7. Clients :: Servers (an IT reference!)
8. Reception :: Office
9. Shaving :: Cream
10. Catastrophe :: Earthquake

Teaser Tuesday - June 29

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

It was soundly defeated while it was besieging the Danubian city of Nicopolis (Nikopol in the modern Bulgaria); thousands were massacred by the Turks. The disaster prompted the Emperor Manuel II Palaeologos to travel as far west as England appealing for renewed help; he got much sympathy and won much esteem for his dignity and courtliness; but no practical assistance.

The 1396 crusade in Diarmaid MacCulloch's A History of Christianity England opting out again... I'm nearly through this mammoth tome and I've really rather enjoyed it, I teased a few months back from this book when I was starting this epic.

Mutterings - June 28

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Reputation :: Good
2. Annoyance :: Frequent
3. Gossip :: Huddle
4. Cleaning :: Fluid
5. Bottled :: Water
6. Pet :: Tortoise (one of these was I think) my first pet
7. Irritation :: Scab
8. Hearts :: Love
9. Sighing :: Dolor (Italian and Madrigals!)
10. I am :: Yahweh (Hebrew name for God)

Teaser Tuesday - June 22

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

'We have missed you,' I said. 'We have rejoiced at your victory.'
Henry risked a kiss to my icy cheek.

from Anne O'Brien's The Queen's Choice Our book group (BATS) book of the month - historical category - Here's a review and an interview with the author. With some reservations I'm quite enjoying this tale of a piece of English history I didn't know much about.

Mutterings - June 14

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Height :: Depth
2. Cramped :: (my) Style
3. Style :: Free (I don't think I'd seen the 'Style' when I entered the word above!)
4. Butcher :: Do you think so? (shares of Jules and Sand)
5. Vague :: Nouvelle
6. Windows :: Gates
7. Scheme :: Plot
8. Tradition :: Dead hand of..
9. Stripped :: Whipped (Lord of the Dance..)
10. Gentle :: Giant

Teaser Tuesday - Jun 14

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

Dozens of small lengths of what looked like miniature wainscoting were lined up on top of it.
A little strange, Fenerman thought, but it doesn't make the man a murderer.

from Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones. I book I'd encourage you to read - if you haven't already - but it's a book you'll either love or hate! Here's part of the Guardian review

The Lovely Bones is a determined reiteration of innocence, a teeth-gritted celebration of something not dismembered or shattered at all, but continuous: the notion of the American family unit, dysfunctional, yes, but pure and good nonetheless. It's a celebration that is hard-won, often vivid, sometimes moving, comic and sweet,

- though contrary to other parts of that review I thought the book increased its grip on you as you read it.

Mutterings - June 14

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Manufacture :: PLant
2. Gum :: Boil
3. Vest :: Hi-Viz (I've just come back from a Barnaby volunteers briefing!)
4. Bearded :: Lady
5. Modeled :: Fashion
6. Stanley :: Knife
7. Arch :: Foot
8. Program :: begin (pascal programming...)
9. Sneakers :: Stealth
10. Dentures :: Tablets

Are any other users of blogger finding that the post they're writing suddenly disappears with the draft replaced with the contents of a previous (recent) post? This happened to me while I was writing this and you wonder when you try to recover if you're going to obliterate the old post too - fortunately not! This isn't the first time it has happened but I can't re-create the bug to order!

Teaser Tuesday - June 7

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

I have great respect for Brian Cox. He has a brain so big that it crosses whole time zones. and he is normally impeccable with the language, so why on earth would he say 'the bombardier beetle and me' when it is surely more natural, and clearly more respectable, to say 'the bombardier beetle and I'?

Bill Bryson - The Road to Little Dribbling. This was our book group book for last month, I seem not to have teased it yet. I wanted to like this and did enjoy bits of it but there was far too much irony in it for my taste. I caricatured it, at our meeting last night as hunks of irony separated by disasters at sea!
(Finally notices that Teaser tuesday has moved!)

Mutterings - June 7

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Daughter :: Clare
2. Intercom :: Button
3. Employee :: Paid(!)
4. Alter ego :: Dr Jekyll
5. Differences :: Integration (differences leads to differentiation)
6. Android :: Tablet
7. Leather :: Sofa
8. Angry :: Friend ('I was angry with my friend' Blake)
9. Remote :: Spot
10. Strange :: Meeting (Wilfred Owen)

A few poetic and literary connections here!

Teaser Tuesday - May 31

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

Gregorius hesitated. The Liceu, as Agostinha had found out, had not been a religious school.

Very gnomic! Pascal Mercier's Night Train to Lisbon I've just finished this and am still thinking it over - I think it's a fascinating story - or is it just confusing. The story of Portugal in the 20th century and a book within a novel. The pianist Maria João Pires hovers around the text, sometimes mentioned and then in the name of another. I might give it a slower and more connected re-read. Here's a review:

It is a last chance for Gregorius to round-off his own heretofore inert life by scouring the landscape of a man who, in spite of his own unfulfilled ambitions, lived inside the bone-marrow of life at its most intense levels. If Gregorius wasn’t able to have it in own life, he is willing to live off the scraps of recounted memories and letters of someone else.

And Gregorius is even more willing to take a last-minute risk of spontaneity by walking out of the school where he teaches, packing his clothes, and taking a train to Lisbon.

I've just noticed that my second hand copy of this book has a mysterious phone number written on the first page! (you'll need to read at least the first chapter to understand this!)

Mutterings - May 31

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Trailor :: Tinker (!)
2. Marvel :: Comic
3. Socks :: Cat (the Clintons?)
4. Clump :: Nettles
5. Pick :: Bunch
6. Yellow :: Fever
7. Punished :: Beaten
8. Brass :: Monkey
9. Splatter :: Water pistol
10. Parts :: Naming (of)

Mutterings- May 22

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Disdain :: Scorn
2. Ridiculous :: Posture
3. Staple :: Diet
4. Junk :: Food
5. Sally :: Aunt
6. Satire :: TW3 (That Was The Week That Was - satire from the 60s)
7. Calculate :: Log
8. Remove :: List
9. Swollen :: Glands
10. Helpful :: Message

List

Mutterings- May 17

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Relevant :: Contemporary
2. Fester :: Wound
3. Moving :: Pictures
4. Bubble :: Westminster
5. Skyline :: Silhouette (spelt correctly I hope, well firefox agrees with me!)
6. Purchase :: Card
7. Strange :: Scary
8. Sticky :: Bob (a plant with lots of hooks and stickyness on its seed pods, I think that's what we called it)
9. Haircut :: Bob (inevitable given the line above!)
10. Package :: Postal

Teaser Tuesday - May 10

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

While a dowry was an accepted part of a young woman's admission to holy orders, advance payment may have bordered on irregular practice. Gradually as the women started to show their worth, local support grew and the carping decreased.

from Fiona Maddocks Hildegard of Bingen The Woman of her Age lots of interesting historical detail but I'm not sure it quite gets to the person of the woman, though as a lot of the documentation is rather sketchy maybe that's not surprising? From the Observer review:

The 12th century anchorite Hildegard of Bingen possessed a clutch of talents which would make even the most eclectic of media-donnas curdle with envy. Writer, visionary, prophet, composer, artist, herbalist, politician, preacher, property owner, upbraider of emperors and favourite of Popes, she could even exorcise demons and heal the sick. She invented her own language, wrote one of the earliest surviving morality plays, established her own convent, terrorised her detractors, and, when she died, was mourned by nuns and reverently biographised by monks.

Maddocks reluctant view - in so far as she passes it on - is that Hildegard is more likely to have encouraged the music rather than written it herself.